red dots

My daily perusal of the nytimes.com allowed me to come across this great little article.  It highlights Rachel Kudder Nealbuff’s new book My Little Red Book, a compilation of nearly 100 stories told by women about their first periods.  I was particularly intrigued by this article and the whole topic of menstruation after reading Inga Muscio’s cunt: a declaration of independence where she discusses the topic in depth.  It’s great that this subject, which is almost taboo to talk about publicly and is rarely even discussed among women, is brought to light to be read by women young and old.  In fact, Nealbuff even has a website where women are encouraged to post their own personal reflections.

It all goes back to the missing phallus

I’m currently reading Cora Kaplan’s “Language and Gender” essay in The Feminist Critique of Language as research for my paper on gendered language with a focus on female use of profanity.  Kaplan begins by giving the reader a background on the construction of language in culture.  To my surprise (perhaps naively?) everything comes back to Freud and the Oedipal phase:

“In order for women to identify finally with their mothers and take their place as female in culture they must accept the missing phallus as a permanant loss in themselves” (58).

I first learned about this “permanant loss” as I was researching my Vagina Dentata/Teeth paper but I guess I really should have realized that this Freudian take on construction of gender would pop up again in the process of writing these papers.

I am sure there will be plenty more to come on how my lack of penis has shaped my life and culture.

some things never change?

Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bee’s and Wannabes casts types of girls to populate the high school halls, which include the Queen Bee, the Banker (she holds all the information that could ruin another girl!), the Torn Bystander, and of course, the Wannabe.  I’ll definitely be writing more on the book later, but I just wanted to mention that maybe some things never change?  There’s a new season of the show High School Reunion, which as you can guess, reunites high school classmates 20 years later.  Although the new season hasn’t started yet, the commercial features the classmates in terms of their categorized High School selves.  This places the people in terms of “The Player,” “The Snob,” and of course, “The Wannabe.”  It’s shocking that years later people are still willing to go under the same label as they were unofficially placed in in high school and even act accordingly once they’ve been replaced in that category.

required reading

Next on my reading list is Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees & Wannabes: Helping your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends & Other Realities of Adolescence.

You all probably recognize the book since it was the basis for Tina Fey’s brilliant movie Mean Girls.  I’m bringing it to the gym with me right now, so I’ll be sure to post my initial thoughts really soon!

need some advice? we do too.

Women are hooking up casually and that’s a fact. So, for a woman who’s new to the game, don’t worry; there’s plenty of advice out there for you. I previously posted my thoughts after reading The Hook-Up Handbook:A Single Girl’s Guide to Living it Up but in my recent searches of hooking up, I have found tons more hook-up handbooks. It seems that people are aware that some women want to live it up and they are catering to these women’s needs. I feel like even ten years ago books like