Midweek link roundup

When I was in school I always used to get in trouble for talking or passing notes with my friends instead of doing my work. Little did I know it would prefigure my blogging habits. Sure, we haven’t turned in a lot of essays, but here’s a peek at what we’ve been passing notes about [...]

Wait, you mean there are supposed to be WOMEN inside these clothes?

You might have noticed that there hasn’t been a lot of content lately, because things happen — most notably, Kate and I have to go be professional writers sometimes, not to mention the fact that we’re both pretty strenuously ADD, and SM and A Sarah have the equally if not more time-consuming demands of academia. [...]

Retro fat: Open thread

BoingBoing pointed me to this amazing blog, The Hope Chest, that features scans of very old newspaper articles. I highly recommend that you check it out, both for the stories and the purple prose that used to be the stuff of our newspapers. FJ and I ran across this post about a very fat woman [...]

On a lighter note

Some comics you might enjoy.
1. T-Rex learns about calorie counting.
2. From Indexed (thanks to Shapeling Amy for sending this one along):

Quick hit: Beauty by the dollar

I’ve been reading, thinking, and writing about feminist issues long enough that I usually think nothing beauty-related can floor me anymore. But holy cats, two recent posts on the economics of beauty Sociological Images made my jaw drop, especially given the current economic doldrums.
First, check out this photo essay by Lauren Greenfield (of THIN and [...]

Quote of the day

Self-loathing is not a fucking character-builder. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you better. It’s just an ever-deepening, creepy-ass trap; a trap that is a huge moneymaker for corporations that do not have and never will have good intentions. You’re not disgusting. You’re not freakish. You’re not ugly. And you’re never going to [...]

In case you haven’t seen it yet

The Onion has a hilarious article this week: Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor Wins Nobel Prize For Medical Advancements Down There. It includes this priceless graphic:

I should probably write something smart about femininity, purity, maleness as default, and science, but I’m too busy still giggling.
(Like FJ, I haven’t been posting much lately, but my excuse was a [...]

How do you like THESE apples?

Why haven’t I been blogging lately? Because I am ashamed that I can’t write anything as funny, sharp, and all-around perfect as this Jezebel piece on the offensive notion of “dressing for your shape.” It even name-checks Moomins! I’m in love.
(P.S. no, that article didn’t actually give me a complex, but yes, having a complex [...]

Hurley is kind of hot

So when you guys get Kate’s book (you preordered it, right?), you will see in it a brief anecdote about a friend who married someone who she originally didn’t think was “her type” physically, because the longer she knew him the more her type turned out to be “someone just like him.” And that friend [...]

Fat humor that’s actually funny

I was concerned when I read the first line of this week’s Shouts and Murmurs column in the New Yorker: “People say that obesity is an epidemic in America, but I’m determined not to become part of the problem.” Sure, it’s a humor feature, so I wasn’t expecting a serious account of personal weight obsession, [...]