All of these other links seemed more important before Canada won the gold medal in women’s hockey in overtime. Huzzah! Marie-Philip Poulin! Huzzah. Watch Canadians lose their MINDS. I also like seeing men celebrate women winning shit, incidentally.
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If there is any chance you missed our interview with Maria Bamford, FIX THAT NONSENSE.
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And then, oh, God, read this WHOLE THING by Mary Beard on “The Public Voice of Women”:
My aim here – and I acknowledge the irony of my being given the space to address the subject – is to take a long view, a very long view, on the culturally awkward relationship between the voice of women and the public sphere of speech-making, debate and comment: politics in its widest sense, from office committees to the floor of the House. I’m hoping that the long view will help us get beyond the simple diagnosis of ‘misogyny’ that we tend a bit lazily to fall back on. To be sure, ‘misogyny’ is one way of describing of what’s going on. (If you go on a television discussion programme and then receive a load of tweets comparing your genitalia to a variety of unpleasantly rotting vegetables, it’s hard to find a more apt word.) But if we want to understand – and do something about – the fact that women, even when they are not silenced, still have to pay a very high price for being heard, we have to recognise that it is a bit more complicated and that there’s a long back-story.
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Let’s take it down-market for a minute. Showgirls is on HBO Go, did you know that? How many of your friends are sharing the same HBO Go password?
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White transmen and Audre Lorde.
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Before and after pictures of animals growing UP.
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The Archdiocese of Newark should hire that PR woman the Bluths used.
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Mallory sent me this gifset two minutes before I had to leave the house and I was mad at her for hours.
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WHERE IS YOUR DEMAND FOR BIBLICAL ACCURACY NOW, people? Mallory’s sister is gonna straighten you out.
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The failure of child protection in Los Angeles. This one is last so you can take your time with it.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
oohhhhh that gifset yes y’all
SO GOOD.
I am CACKLING at the face the girl makes with the diet coke hahaha. BEST EVER.
(Mine was more like that last one, sadly)
Trying to laugh silently at my desk and I just sound like I’m dying. WORTH IT THO
Ahahahahaha the cat reacting to the banana…yessss
I could stare at that girl and the door stopper all damn day. MESMERIZING.
I enjoyed it when I first looked at it, but then I scrolled back up and noticed the title for the first time and died.
[It’s all accurate, btw. All it’s missing is a gif of a cop.]
Loving the GIFs as well!
also for those of y’all who don’t Twitter, I copied C.B. Blanchard & got my hurr cut Natalie Dormer style – https://twitter.com/IceBergMama/status/4368677596…
I said it on Twitter but I will say it again because HOT DAMN LOOK AT YOU
<3 thanks Photoshop 😉
That is fabulous hair!
Thank you!
IT LOOKS AMAZING
thanks luv 🙂
Whoa! That looks great on you – and those earrings are perfection.
thank you! I made them 🙂
DAMN YO, LOOK AT YOU
😀
My kingdom for the ability to wolf-whistle.
😉 haaay
You guys, Poulin is so badass she scored the game-winner in the LAST OLYMPIC GAMES TOO. She has the Midas touch. (Get it? Everything she touches turns to GOLD MEDAL IN THE FACE, THAT’S WHO’S THERE.)
ORDER OF CANADA FOR POULIN
I cried actual tears
Oh my god I watched Showgirls after seeing a local production of a Showgirls musical, and both are so incredible. DIFFERENT PLACES.
I heart Mary Beard. This bit in particular really spoke to me: “More interesting is another cultural connection this reveals: that unpopular, controversial or just plain different views when voiced by a woman are taken as indications of her stupidity. It’s not that you disagree, it’s that she’s stupid. ‘Sorry, love, you just don’t understand.’”
So many times I have to say slowly and loudly ‘I understand, I just disagree’…
“I understand, I just disagree” is so difficult a message for some people to hear. And yet it’s essence is so simple! If only I had an “I understand, I just disagree” stick with which to beat people.
I’m quite glad I haven’t got such a stick because I’d be in prison for GBH from using it so much.
This phrase was one that would invariably send my mother into rage-spirals, and that is why we don’t talk any more.
There is nothing more frustrating than a person who continues to argue with you by saying, “No, you can’t possibly be understanding me, because you’re not agreeing with me yet.”
GOD YES. I’m considering printing it out on a little card and just handing it over to save time. I know one repeat offender – he’s tall and good looking and charming and thinks he’s an expert on things cause he likes Malcolm Gladwell* and he’s very used to people just agreeing with his opinions. And no matter what we’re talking about, he’ll just KEEP explaining it in different ways, increasingly befuddled, while I stare at him slowly shaking my head. I have literally said out loud “It doesn’t matter how many different ways you make the same point – I will still continue to disagree with it. This is not a comprehension issue.” And yet he does it again and again.
*While I’m not a Gladwell fan, I’m not slamming him or people who like him – just this peculiar class of people who think reading his books automatically makes them incredibly knowledgeable on every subject on earth while doing no other outside research or reading whatsoever.
Are you talking about my ex?? Although he’s not that tall – he did always think he knew everything about everything, and could never quite get the hang of the idea that someone could have all the same information as he did and still come to a different conclusion. He is (was, not seen him for years) very hot, very charming and a big Gladwell fan…
Ha, maybe! This guy’s been married several times, so. Can’t imagine why! Either that, or there are just that fucking many of them. An army of Gladwellian knowitalls, roving the countryside, butting in on conversations about various topics with a loud and smug “ACTUALLY…”
Not him then, unless he’s been really busy with the weddings since we split up!!
When I disagreed with something he said, my ex would always start a repetition of the same point with “no, you have to understand…” Understanding was definitely not the problem. Eventually, in my great maturity, I just started responding with “I don’t have to and you can’t make me!”
That bit hit me right in the Feeling Parts. Now I want to get on my feminist soapbox but there’s no one around to listen. And it’s Friday. I generally lack the capacity for intense feelings on Fridays. But I just want to…talk!
Slightly related: a colleague and I recently figured out that we both have slightly lower woman-voices that are physically difficult for people [generally men] to hear. Does anyone else have this problem? No matter how loudly, slowly, and clearly I think I’m talking, there’s about 5 percent of the population that absolutely cannot understand me. Thoughts?
Oh my god. Enough people have asked me to speak up that I have to acknowledge (or do I) that I have a legitimately hard-to-hear voice, but at the same time I believe in almost every instance (at least, when people ask me to speak up when I’m talking to a group) that it’s just a power play. I’m pretty sure it’s in some CEO handbook about how to destabilize your opponent. Plus, no, I can’t speak up, so don’t even bother asking. There is no way for me to talk louder without sounding like that Will Ferrel character who can’t modulate the volume of his voice. Sorry. (And it it’s not a power play, it’s because they’re slightly deaf [and mean old lady patrons at the library] but they’re blaming me for it in the bitchiest way possible.)
That first reaction video is of Tim and Sid on the Fan590, which I’m almost certain is the biggest sports radio station in Canada. (They are always like that and kind of annoying if a little lovable, so I don’t listen to them.) The next show after that, which starts at 4pm ET, is WAY more serious and hosted by one of the most successful radio hosts in history. His show is broadcast across the country on tv and radio. He is getting ready to retire and talked about how he really isn’t much of a sports fan anymore and how he doesn’t get excited about much of anything, but he was jumping up and down off his couch and screaming his head off. He turned his show over to the callers and in between talked with guests about how it was maybe the most exciting sports victory of any kind in any sport, men or women, by a Canadian team since the ’72 Soviet-Canada series. He also basically stopped all the meathead callers from trying to switch over to talk about the men and insisted they just enjoy the women’s victory. (For geopolitical reasons, there’s really no way to match that series; the hockey wasn’t really all that great and there are all kinds of problems with the way things went down, but the Cold War was what made that series significant.)
My wife watched the game in the kitchen at her workplace here in Chicago. Everyone was harassing the crap out of her as Canada went down 2-0. She’s basically the worst person ever as far as sportsmanship is concerned– she acknowledges that she’ll not be able to take our kid(s) to their sporting events because she would get kicked out– she had a wonderful time. I watched the third period onward at home by myself. When she arrived home, I gave her a Team Canada hockey jersey that I had stowed away as a surprise gift for just such an occasion.
Laura is so kind to people who are jerks to her in the comments. Can we simultaneously applaud her intelligence and kindness while bemoaning the state of the comments section of nearly every other corner of the internet?
This is going to be getting all personal, but I’m a former liberal-theologically-but-fundamentally-orthodox Christian who still has deep affection for many aspects of Christianity. It makes me really, really happy to see smart, thoughtful, funny Christian ladies talking about their faith in smart, thoughtful, funny ways. YAY EVERYONE IN THE ORTBERG FAMILY, is the summary of this and every comment. And thanks for linking, Nicole!
What I find really great about Laura’s work, generally, is that Laura is fundamentally a good person who is trying to be an even better one ALL THE TIME, and it colours all of her writing, and also how she deals with other people.
If more Christians were as thoughtful and considerate as Laura, I might still be part of the church.
I agree – she is so great, and I am very happy to see her links here on the toast. I will admit, though, I was hoping her article would be a severe callout of racial whitewashing of the bible.
Me too (though she makes some excellent points in her post). Can we get a followup?
Exhibit A: Moses movie, starring Russell Crowe.
Exhibit B: Exodus movie, starring Christian Fucking Bale as Moses.
Exhibit (J)C: Mel Gibson as Jesus Fucking Christ?!
Wait, what what? Gibson played/is playing Christ? Did Caviezel not do it white enough for him?
oh man, I am dumb, and mortified, and stand corrected. Did not see film, and assumed he cast himself, because it seemed like something he would do.
I had always thought that too, if it makes you feel any better.
Third-ed. I’m looking at it as: that’s how much attention I thought that movie deserved.
it does, thank you!
Oh man yeah I totally thought that too.
Me, too! That whole cast is super white, which is just befuddling. Prince of Egypt was more accurate in this respect, and that was a CARTOON.
I have the same problem with the Pompeii movie– from the trailers, it seems that this port town on a major trading route, lying only 200-odd miles from the coast of Tunisia, only had one person of color in it??
I was impressed by that too! She patiently and politely engaged with commenters who were either deranged or trolling or both when it would’ve been just as easy to quote Wodehouse to them 😉
I really appreciate this too! I am sort of indifferent to religion personally, but my mom went back to school and got a Master’s degree in theology when I was a kid and now holds an important leadership position in her church. Laura’s writing reminds me a lot of listening to my mom talk about this stuff — both of them are expressing ideas about religion that are complex and compassionate and really really smart.
I have a couple of self-consciously liberal friends who pride themselves on their intelligence and political awareness and whatever, and they very strongly believe that you can’t possibly be religious without also being fundamentally stupid and gullible. It’s the kind of black-and-white thinking that makes me want to tear my hair out, and I’m so glad to see the Toast (as always) taking the nuanced road.
you can’t possibly be religious without also being fundamentally stupid and gullible My boyfriend’s mom feels that way and it bothers me so much, as someone who really hates about 80% of the Catholic Church but really hopes that they have Vatican III in my lifetime and I can go back. I know if I ever do I can never breathe a word of it to her.
I have a friend who’s like this, and I have privately determined to never ever ever talk religion (or probably even politics) with him again. Because I know so many brilliant religious people who aren’t stupid, who aren’t gullible, and who do so much good for the world and also, incidentally, believe in the power of science to do good for the world as well as the separation of church and state. And I won’t ever be okay with someone just dismissing them out of hand.
…Actually, if it ever comes up again, I should publicly assert that I refuse to talk about religion with him, because he can be really awful about it, and I don’t want my silence to be taken as being okay with that.
I KEEP TELLING HER NOT TO READ THE COMMENTS
I grew up in a moderately-liberal United Methodist church in the Pacific Northwest, and I am still friends with some of them. They were kind, loving, and thoughtful, and trying to do their best. I don’t believe in god or any of it anymore, but I still believe in being as kind, loving, and thoughtful as I can be, and trying to do my best (and picking myself back up when I mess up and apologizing when I do wrong.) Anyway, hooray for good people, no matter their theology or lack thereof!
That GAAAAAME! It was incredible. Poulin is an utter star. “Play like a girl”, INDEED.
Also, I don’t watch hockey generally, and how the fuck do people do it on a regular basis? Such stress.
Re: men celebrating women’s hockey, one of my favorite things this winter is how the satirical newspaper at my Big Ten school completely gave up on the floundering men’s basketball team and have wholeheartedly thrown their support behind the women’s hockey team. They retweet all the player’s cute tweets and advertise their games.
Edit: Just found one of the first tweets from their grand love affair with women’s hockey: “TFL Asks You: Why Aren’t You At The Women’s Hockey Game? Don’t You Like Watching Women Move Swiftly And Also Punch?” Indeed, don’t you?
At one point between the end of the 3rd period and the beginning of OT, I just grabbed my face and said to my coworkers, “I JUST LOVE CANADA SO MUCH.”
We’re setting up a TV for the men’s game today, but I honestly think that if we go down to the States in men’s, I will care way less than if women had lost. Seriously, our women’s team is fucking FOR REAL. This is not the first time they’ve come back like that. Mother fucking heartwarming.
We had a TV installed in our office yesterday, and we were rushing the guy doing it so we could catch the game. We ended up just live streaming the whole thing.
IT IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.
He was too busy following the game on his phone to get it done!
We’ve all seen this, though, right?
THE STAKES ARE HIGH.
U S A! U S A! U S A!
Anyone want to cry about women and women’s hockey and women’s sports in general? Here, I got you this about why the Olympics are so important for women’s sports because there’s NOTHING ELSE. http://thepinkpuck.com/2014/02/11/olympic-womens-…
(Also, how outraged am I (eternally) that male hockey players get gross amounts of money while women get nothing at all? SO OUTRAGED. Will it stop me from watching the USA-Canada men’s game today? Duh no.)
I’m so conflicted over the Olympics. They’re such a clusterfuck geopolitically but they’re the ONLY opportunity so many athletes have.
YES. So conflicted, but I love to watch them and support/see some athletes for the only time.
I am going to keep those cheering Canadians on file so that every time I hear of some amazing woman achieving something I will look at them and imagine all men reveling in womankind’s greatness.
Watching people celebrate things is one of my favorites!!! These were great.
What is happening in that crazy foam gif and how do I get my hands on those magical liquids?
I also want to know this.
Elephant toothpaste!
//this information comes courtesy Summer Science and Math Camp circa 1995. Thanks for raising a nerd, Mom and Dad!
There will be a post on Monday for people who have watched ALL of “House of Cards” to participate in. I am only three episodes into the new season, and I am losing my fucking MIND and I’m really into it.
Okay I’m possibly going to a Season 2 binge-watching party tonight and I haven’t watched any of Season 1 yet so can anyone tell me what I need to know??
Quit your job, go home, watch s1, go to the party.
Honestly, I hadn’t watched Season 1 and it was still crazy addictive and I was rarely lost. I am spoiled for last season, I suppose, but apparently spoilers don’t ruin the viewing experience after all: http://io9.com/5829720/new-study-shows-that-knowi…
OMG those animals growing up. I love the look on the tortoise’s face in the second picture. “I’M FLYIIIIIIING!!”
This whole link is magical but I lost it looking at the “young girl in overalls with black puppy to senior dog and lovely young lady” pic. I just get the impression of her loving the hell out of that dog.
Okay so I haven’t read links yet but serious hockey question: why are the rules different for women? In rugby they’re the same and I sort of assumed they were for hockey, but apparently they’re not?
I think the main difference is “no bodychecking” and I think they come down harder on fighting, which I’m sure started for bullshit “protecting women” reasons, but there has been a lot of calls for men’s hockey to become less violent, too, so there’s probably more chance of men’s hockey rules changing than women’s. Olympic hockey also has different rules and a different arena set-up than NHL hockey.
Thanks! This was helpful.
Wait, Olympic hockey is different than NHL hockey? what how why o_o Are the rules a lot different?
My understanding is super limited, but I think they’re baaaaasically the same (or, essentially the same for the enthusiastic but semi-unaware viewers, e.g. yours truly). Not very helpful :-/
I know the ice surface is different: the Olympic hockey ice is bigger and the goal lines and bluelines are moved around so the proportions aren’t the same, the penalties are a lot harsher (especially for fighting or improper hits), and I think there’s a bunch of little changes that I don’t know hockey well enough to understand but which do make differences to the players I’d imagine.
I asked my hockey friend about this! He told me that another difference is the shootout rules. In the NHL, you have to keep using different skaters. In the international rules, after the first three skaters, you can use whatever skater you want!
The only rule difference I know of between men’s and women’s hockey is that women’s hockey doesn’t allow body checking. The differences other commentors have noted between women’s hockey and NHL hockey are actually differences between NHL hockey and *all* Olympic hockey.
As far as I’m aware the reason is pure sexist bullshit, but viewers will note that the Canadian and American women’s teams blur the line between out-and-out “bodychecking” and what is considered perfectly legal “physical contact.” Fighting in both the men’s and the women’s Olympic tournaments is penalized with a 5-minute major and automatic game expulsion, so there’s no difference there.
Olympic hockey for both men and women is played on a larger ice sheet with slightly different proportions than NHL ice rinks, which lends itself to different strategies than the NHL ice does. This info graphic summarizes the differences between NHL and Olympic hockey rules and setup: http://www.cbc.ca/sochi2014/infographics/site/how…
The physical differences between the male and female hockey players also contribute to stylistic differences in play and general strategy. The most noticeable difference in play is that those big booming snapshots from the point generate a lot of offensive chances in men’s hockey, so strategy often revolves around getting the puck to the point and taking shot after shot after shot, hoping for a tip-in or rebound in front of the net. Because female players are on average not as tall or as heavy as male players, we don’t have the same physical leverage to generate those hard slapshots and thus typically are more careful to maintain possession in the offensive zone and shoot [thereby giving up puck possession] only when more assured of a scoring chance.
Difference between average male and female hockey players on Canada’s national teams: http://www.cbc.ca/sochi2014/infographics/site/wha…
Thanks for the Young piece on Audre Lorde! Lots to think about there.
Does the Noah film also deal with the incest and other fun aspects of the story? Also Laura is a saint and so patient and kind in her responses.
So yesterday, I was in my office building food court and they had a TV playing the game. I was watching from afar and approximately 50 men watching intently and then GO BANANAS when they scored that second goal to tie it up and it was great!
I wanted the USA to win so badly I actually teared up after the game. I don’t even like hockey. Good game, neighbor.
Good game.
<Hand shake>
Okay, so I didn’t actually like the Young piece. I felt it wasn’t really saying anything.
Love the Mary Beard piece! Especially, “Ironically the well-meaning solution often recommended when women are on the receiving end of this stuff turns out to bring about the very result the abusers want: namely, their silence. ‘Don’t call the abusers out. Don’t give them any attention; that’s what they want. Just keep mum,’ you’re told, which amounts to leaving the bullies in unchallenged occupation of the playground.”
OHMYGOODNESS YES.
Also, this gives me a bigger and better framework for an annoyance I noticed a little while back — whenever there’s a female captain or commander in sci fi? (And, I would presume, a female leader in practically any movie or show, it was just easier for me to notice and confirm in sci fi.) She always, ALWAYS has a deep voice. I mean, sometimes extremely noticeably deep, and other times… closer to average, arguably just not high. But still.