Posts Tagged women
Femivores
More lefty liberals writing about their friends from the New York Times.
Fascinating – read it here.
Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?
Add comment March 18, 2010
Modern Marriage
Modern American marriage was the subject of this article in the Christian Science Monitor this week. Some interesting stats contained within:
Only 50 or 60 percent of Americans say that adultery would be an automatic deal breaker for their marriage, says Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington who has written many books on sex, love, and relationships; a decade ago that number was closer to 90 percent.
“Every study I know shows 85 percent of people or more saying that nonmonogamy is wrong in every instance,” Ms. Schwartz says. “But people also feel that you should eat three nutritious meals a day low in sugar and high in calcium.”
To this day, marriage is still intertwined with the country’s mores and laws. Everything from tax law to health insurance is affected by one’s marital status. Unlike in many European countries, where unmarried couples live and raise children together, marriage in the US is considered a more serious, valued, and adult relationship than other sorts of partnerships. Unlike in most developed countries, too, the US government has spent more than $100 million on promoting marriage.
Add comment March 14, 2010
Magazine Attempts to Please Advertisers
Vocab word for the day: quasquicentennial
Another example of magazine attempts to more deeply connect readers with advertisers.
Good Housekeeping magazine will pay tribute to the achievements of women who have inspired, informed, educated, captivated and sometimes infuriated Americans during the last 125 years.
The show, called “Shine On,” is scheduled for one performance, on April 12. The subtitle is “Celebrating 125 Years of Women Making Their Mark.”
“Shine On” is to be composed of performances, including musical numbers, and video tributes. The women to be saluted will include Susan B. Anthony, Madonna, Dorothy Parker, Sally Ride, Martha Stewart and Diane von Furstenberg.
It is being staged to raise money to build the first permanent location in Washington for the National Women’s History Museum.
“It seems superficial in a recessionary time to celebrate for celebration’s sake,” Ms. Haegele said, adding that Good Housekeeping will donate about 600 tickets to organizations that benefit women and girls. Maybelline will also make what she described as “a sizable contribution” to the museum.
Add comment March 10, 2010
Workforce Changes = Societal Changes
What will our families’ economic structure look like in 5 years, 20 years, when I’m old and gray? All Americans (citizens of most of the world?) think about these things more frequently than we ever thought possible, I’m sure.
As planners/strategists/what-are-we-calling-ourselves-these-days, it’s our job to do it a bit more thoughtfully, perhaps with a bit of detachment even.
Before the Great Recession whirled into our lives, girls were already attending and graduating from university at higher rates. In something like 30% of dual income households, the ladies were already bringing home the larger paycheck.
With this in mind, one of the more interesting threads to ponder (to my potted mind) is what, if any, changes will occur within male-female relations as a result of mens diminished earning capacity. Will we all finally GET BEYOND money as equaling power in a relationship? Will “the gold-digger” varietal of our species veer towards extinction? (fingers crossed, small prayer, nod and done!)
A bit of fodder for the mental hamster wheel, my pretties:
Read this phenomenal Atlantic piece on how today’s economic situation will change the future of manhood.
Last Friday, the Labor Department released payroll information and yep, it’s official, more women are working in the US than men. This blog post in the NYT digs into the data.
And then head over to a University of Chicago professor’s article that pulls apart some of the data surrounding government entitlement payments by generation. It’s sure to make the senior set uncomfortable. There aren’t any comments up as of my posting here, but I imagine there will be in short order.
Add comment February 24, 2010
College Application Videos
Application videos are no longer just for Elle Woods!
And further documentation that teen girls are a super-engine of content creation on the web.
This year Tufts University, for the first time, officially accepted short YouTube videos that students could post to supplement their application.
About 1,000 of the 15,000 applicants submitted videos. Some have gotten thousands of hits on YouTube.For a number of colleges, this is the year of the video, what with Yale’s 16-minute YouTube offering, “That’s Why I Chose Yale,” a spoof of “High School Musical,” and “Reading Season,” a musical by admissions counselors at the University of Delaware.
Even without prompting, admissions officials say, a growing number of students submit videos. Maria Laskaris, the dean of admissions at Dartmouth, noticed the trend last year, and said this year had brought even more videos, mostly showcasing music, theater or dance talents.
For Tufts, the videos have been a delightful way to get to know the applicants.
“At heart, this is all about a conversation between a kid and an admissions officer,” Mr. Coffin said. “You see their floppy hair and their messy bedrooms and you get a sense of who they are. We have a lot of information about applicants, but the videos let them share their voice.”
Videos are genuinely optional, he said, so not having one does not count against a student — and a bad video would not hurt their admission chances “unless there was something really disgusting.”
To his surprise, about 60 percent of the videos are from women, and two-thirds are from financial-aid applicants, easing concern that the video option might help the already-advantaged affluent applicants.
Add comment February 22, 2010
Guess what else is better than sex*
I once absolutely horrified my C. by admitting that sometimes cleaning my ears with q-tips gave me a pleasurable sensation that was, well, probably beyond what most people experience. I want to make clear I did not say, nor did I mean to imply that I meant sex.
More than a quarter of British women believe fitting into an old pair of jeans again would feel better than sex, according to research.
More than a third of those surveyed admitted owning a pair of ”trophy” jeans they used to fit into and kept in the hope they would slim down enough to wear.
Asked how managing to put them back on would feel, 29.1 per cent said it would be better than sex, 28.9 per cent thought it would beat a promotion, 20.6 per cent believed it would top a best friend’s wedding, 20.3 per cent said it would feel better than a lottery win and 11.1 per cent thought it would beat a marriage proposal.
Now here’s where the brand people who wrote the questionnaire reveal their own wacky selves, in full flaming glory.
The poll by cereal brand Special K also revealed that 30 per cent of women fantasized more about slimming back into their ”trophy” jeans than about Hollywood heartthrobs such as George Clooney or Brad Pitt.
The survey showed that on average women own five pairs of jeans, with 10 per cent of women claiming their jeans have outlasted their longest relationship.
Laura Bryant, from Special K, said: ”Women hold a deep attachment to that one pair of jeans which they know they look and feel great in.
”They use them as a benchmark and a great motivational tool when slimming and it doesn’t matter how old the pair is.
1 comment January 7, 2010
Microloans in New York
Click on the photo above to see a great little slide show of some businesses in New York that have received financing from the Grameen Bank.
Inspiration and ideas can often flow in unexpected directions.
Add comment November 18, 2009
Alimony and Spouse Support Payments
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal looked into the changing landscape of spousal-support expectations in the US. The law and implementation of it varies widely from state to state, but there are some good overall numbers that I thought I’d share with you. In the comments section of the original article, people are sharing their divorce horror stories and shocker, there are a bunch of depressing ones, to say the least. Maybe you can scan through and be heartened that your life is not so?
Happy thoughts, people, happy thoughts!
Many states put formal alimony laws into place in the 1960s and 1970s, amid rising divorce rates and concerns that women earned less than men. States such as California and Massachusetts passed laws that included provisions for indefinite alimony. More-conservative Texas, by comparison, generally limited payments to three years.
Many divorce agreements provide for alimony or spouse-support payments, which is separate from child-support payments. Americans gave $9.4 billion to former spouses in 2007, up from $5.6 billion a decade earlier, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Men accounted for 97% of alimony-payers last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, although the share of women supporting ex-husbands is on the rise.
Critics argue that in the decades since alimony guidelines were set, the U.S. has changed much: Women made up 46.7% of the work force last year, up from 41.2% in 1978, according to the Department of Labor. Others counter that America hasn’t changed enough: Women in the 45-to-54-year-old age group earn 75% as much as men the same age.
Add comment November 10, 2009
The Guild: Future of Original Content?
My girlcrush of the year!
Wired magazine interviewed Felicia Day here. I think her “isolated” success is very telling about how media industry folks do NOT understand how the game is changing right beneath their feet. Perhaps the huge swell of interest that the new season of The Guild is generating will FINALLY translate into interest from the trad folks. Felicia Day is the talented, 2.0 version of Steven Spielberg people. Pay attention to the numbers! She has MILLIONS of fans but can’t get cast as anything other than the cat lady, still, to this day???
Felicia Day’s stardom wasn’t handed down to her from on high by Hollywood. She’s guest-starred on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and House, but most of her legions of fans still know her because of a show she wrote and produced herself that doesn’t air on any network.
Now in its third season, The Guild — Day’s microbudget comedic web series about a group of online gamers — enjoys financing from Microsoft as well as cushy placement on the Xbox 360 dashboard. But fans are still discovering Day and her nerdy ways online.
Wired.com: Did the impetus for creating The Guild stem from being a struggling actress and writer in Hollywood?
Day: I’d been in Hollywood for five years before I started writing The Guild. I worked enough to pay all my bills. So I was very lucky in that respect. Most people don’t make a living acting. But being the kind of girl who is stereotyped as the secretary — or I’ve played a crazy cat lady five times, which is fine because I do that very well — but at a certain point you’re like, “I am more than this.” That’s why I wrote Codex (her character in The Guild). I sat down and was like, “What role would I have the most fun playing and would never be offered to me.” I think Codex, in a mainstream world, would have a perfect nose and great highlights, but that’s not reality. And I wanted to, somehow, infuse reality into what I was doing.
Wired.com: People respond fairly enthusiastically.
Day: When our music video hit the top 10 on iTunes over all the label stuff, I have to admit that I was definitely heartened. I do like breaking the common patterns of behavior. When we have a victory like that, it’s very fulfilling. We’re going to be in stores with the DVD right next to major TV shows. We shoot in my shed. So, I don’t know, that’s just a cool message. And when I have people come up and say, “Because of you I started composing again. Or, “I’m making my own website without waiting for funding.” That’s awesome.
Add comment October 20, 2009
