A colleague brought this in to work for me, knowing how much I’d go crazy for it. And she was right – I’m nuts about this stuff.

The Successful Wife’s Pocketbook is a handy little pamphlet by Woman’s Journal from 1962 that offers kind, sisterly guidance on how to satisfy your husband – and to do it all with a sweet, pleasing smile. You wouldn’t want to annoy him by not having dinner ready on time, or not having your hair styled properly when he gets home, or by accidentally letting slip that you experience feelings like boredom and tiredness and frustration and sadness every once in a while. So take notes! (more…)

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One of the oddest things I find about “being a feminist” is the amount of difficulty and debate such a label tends to conjure up. There are thousands of variations, but three key problems seem to always rear their spiky heads:

1. Many women are reluctant to identify as feminists, even though if you ask them their thoughts on specific issues they’ll respond with feminist ideas. There’s a certain ugliness associated with the label that a lot of us grow up learning to be wary of. Take this Maxim “cure a feminist” feature as exhibit A. This article from Mama Mia a few days ago also captures some of the frustrations of this situation.

2.Some feminists believe there should be a core set of bullet-points that a person must subscribe to in order to call themselves feminists. A lot of us do this even subconsciously, because it’s hard to understand how someone who agrees with us on one point could offend us so much on another. We question whether Cosmopolitan should be allowed to call itself feminist, whether Melinda Tankard Reist should be allowed to call herself a feminist.

3. The flipside of the point above is that many women feel like they’re not allowed to be part of the discussion, because they don’t meet the criteria they believe has been set out.

My thoughts keep going back to something Julia Kristeva wrote about in Women’s Time. Okay, I know it might be a bit naff or maybe just pretentious to reference Kristeva, but listen for a minute: in Women’s Time, she makes a case for a new generation of feminism (where ‘generation’ refers not necessarily to a period in linear time, but rather a signifying mental, emotional and intellectual space) that focuses on the multiplicity of individual experience. That means not only accepting that everyone will have different views and ideas, but that within each person exist myriad possible identifications, some of which might seem contradictory.

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How to be nice. It’s not so hard. Rookie mag gives a pretty great outline of different kinds of being nice, and the pros and cons of each.

New Yorkers have all the fun, and now they’re getting cupcake ATMs. Like actual ATMs that dispense cupcakes! 24/7!

How do we feel about Holden Caulfield? A list of the most divisive characters in literary history.

This guy lived in a pretend space capsule for almost 18 months. For serious!

If you love awesome people you probably love Andy Warhol. And you should probably read this awesome interview from 1977.

If you didn’t already think Andrej Pejic was incredible, this swimwear shoot for Nathan Paul will convince you.

Also, I don’t even care if he can act or not – this movie would be very cool if it happens. (more…)

Image from lostateminor.com

All the single ladies: a fascinating reflection on marriage in the modern world. Long, but worth it!

A pretty convincing argument for why Miley Cyrus is hipper and more liberal than you.

“There was always something a little weird about uncle Joey to me.”A nostalgic look back at the crazy world of Full House.

Remember girls! “A man expects you to keep your dignity all evening.” Tips for single women from 1938.

How to market “girly” products to men.

New obsession: I’m CAPTIVATED by the beautiful fashion photography of Krzysztof Wyzynski.

A super cute baby polar bear. Is there anything else to say really? (more…)

Thinking about “Sexing up animal rights: is it wrong?” By Katrina Fox and Stephanie Honor Convery in Overland

What exactly is the link between sex and animal rights? It’s weird to even be asking that question, but inspired by the debate in Overland between Katrina Fox and Stephanie Honor Convery, I’ve been thinking about whether it’s okay to use sexualised imagery to raise awareness about animal cruelty. Sex sells, so where do we draw the line over what it should be used to sell? This is such a complex issue, and seeing as Katrina Fox and Stephanie Honor Convery are far more qualified than I am to comment on the issue and they express their thoughts so eloquently, you should probably read what they have to say on Overland for a more considered analysis – but for now, here’s my two cents.

So, the issue is this. In September, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced plans for a porn site, peta.xxx, to draw attention to their cause – provoking, of course, a lot of debate about the questionable ethics of using images that objectify women for political advocacy. It’s not the first time PETA has caused this kind of controversy – they’re known for using sexualised images to get attention. From the (comparatively more innocuous) “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” ad campaign to this ridiculous “vegetarians have better sex” ad, which is so gross it was banned from the Superbowl, they have a long track record of this sort of thing. (more…)

Sometimes I think I can kind of trick people into thinking I’m cool. I try to impress people with my ability to sing along to Rage Against the Machine and my love for Fight Club, and sometimes I even convince myself that I’m a little bit rock and roll. But other times, I just come right out with it: I wish Taylor Swift was my best friend.

Listen for a minute. It’s easy to dismiss her and think she’s all sugary sweet and stupid. I mean, a) she’s a young female pop singer, b) she hangs around with that whole Disney Channel crowd, c) she sings about boys and high school, and d) she’s so pretty, with her long blonde curls and a wardrobe full of sweetly romantic dresses. But seriously? She’s just about the coolest girl in the world. She’s smart, she’s hilarious, she has class, and she has guts. And yeah, she’s so nice – but she also has just the right amount of bitchiness that I think we’d get along just perfectly. (more…)

Books by women I read this year

Given all the fascinating debate that has been going on this year about gender in the literary world (if you’re not up to speed, Sophie Cunningham’s essay in Kill Your Darlings issue 6 is pretty great), I thought I’d do a little tally of how many of the books I read this year were by women.

It’s not necessarily an accurate reflection of my entire reading life – I was consciously trying to read more female writing, both because of all the debate and for a now-aborted Masters thesis about female coming of age and female experiences of love and madness – and admittedly most of what I read in the newspaper, The New Yorker etc would have been by men – but still, here’s the verdict: of the 51 books I read this year, 35 were by women. That comes to 69%, which I think is pretty healthy!

Books by Australian women I read this year

But when I look at books by Australian women… it suddenly goes down to 8 books. And that’s only because I’m claiming MJ Hyland as an Australian writer, which I’m not even sure she identifies herself as. Look, I’m not the most patriotic of sorts and we all know how much I long to be in New York, but I do think it’s important that I try to support and engage with the Australian literary scene a bit more, and especially the female presence within it. So, inspired by Ms Angela Meyer of Literary Minded, I’m committing myself to the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012. (more…)

I just haven’t been able to stop watching this video. It’s completely brilliant and beautiful – a young girl called Riley paces angrily around a sickly pinkified toy aisle and rants to her father about the toy industry’s narrow view of gender roles. She seems so exasperated: “Some girls like superheroes, some girls like princesses! Some boys like superheroes, some boys like princesses! So why do all the girls have to buy pink stuff and all the boys have to buy different color stuff?”

She also shows a pretty astute awareness of marketing. She knows that the stores are “trying to trick girls into buying the pink stuff instead of stuff that boys want to buy,” but she seems so baffled as to why. My favourite part is probably her dad’s resigned sigh at the end: “That’s a good question, Riley.” Sometimes the way children see the world is the most logical, and this is a great example of how sometimes we need to take a step back to see how absurd something really is. (more…)

If I did decide to be a bride, a black wedding dress would so be the way to do it

I’ve never been the sort of girl to daydream about my wedding. For me, the idea of a wedding carries the excitement of being able to dress up in a cute cocktail dress and swill free champagne, but I’ve never really thought about me being the bride. I know a lot of girls my age are already halfway down the aisle, and just take it as a given that that’s how life is supposed to work out at some point in the next ten years – but I’m not so fussed about it all. Maybe that bridal gene will kick in one day, but for now, the idea of bridesmaids and bonbonniere and bouquets and all of that is just so utterly boring I feel sick even thinking about it now.

And yet, a few months back when I saw Vera Wang’s black wedding dresses for her Fall 2012 collection, my heart just leapt, and I immediately printed them all out and blutacked them to my wall. Finally, there it was, the perfect antidote to all this Kate Middleton-style primness: if I did decide to be a bride, this would so be the way to do it. (more…)