Hat tip to Quill & Quire for this one.

According to Glenn Beck, time travel, Nazis, and spies are everything a boy is supposed to like:

Glenn Beck, a conservative political commentator who appears regularly on CNN Headline News, recently welcomed U.S. children’s book author Ted Bell to his show, in order to sing the praises of Bell’s new adventure title, Nick of Time. However, it seems clear from the lack of interest Beck shows in Bell that the whole point of the interview is simply to expound on the need for more manly books for boys. (emphasis mine)

I was annoyed with this interview within the first thirty seconds. It’s really just a thinly veiled diatribe on how he believes books for boys are too femininized now, and that he’s sick of seeing the girls save the day. I spat up my drink when Glenn Beck said this:

When was the last time the heroine did not save the brother, but the brother stood up and saved the girl? It doesn’t happen anymore.

The whole thing reeks of a need to return to outdated stereotypes simply because of Beck’s discomfort with progressive values. He calls for a return to a time where “the boy is the boy.” Gag.

…and then gives us special permission to break them so we feel like their product is the most liberating thing ever.

I was watching TV the other night when I happened across an ad for Shick Quattro, a razor for women (you can tell it apart from Shick’s razors for men because it’s pink, obviously). It’s a fairly unremarkable ad until you get to the tagline at the end:

“Such long-lasting smooth skin, you could skip a day or two.”

I can? Gee, thanks Shick Quattro!

I’ll admit it, it’s shorts season - I shave my legs if they’re going to be out in public. But I have never ever shaved more frequently than every three days, not for vacations or second dates or any of those things we’re not supposed to do without flawlessly smooth legs.

Now, everyone’s hair grows at different speeds, and if there are women out there shaving every day then who am I to find fault with that? But the assumption that all of us are just doing this every morning as part of our regular shower routine blows my mind.

This is racist food for thought from the Vancouver Courier:

“Mass immigration, mainly from the Third World, threatens to irrevocably alter the culture of western nations. In his article, Steyn compares shrinking western populations with exploding birthrates in Muslim countries. “Islam has youth and will,” he writes, “Europe has age and welfare.”

So, if changing demographics sweep Canada’s dominant Euro-centric culture into history’s dustpan, why should we care?

Here’s why. European culture spawned the now-universal tenets of democratic rule, personal freedom and Christian-based virtue—not to mention many of civilization’s greatest scientific and technological achievements. Immigrants flock to Canada not because it resembles the land from which they flee, but because of our liberating Euro-centric society.

Quebecers understand. Last year’s “reasonable accommodation hearings” officially acknowledged widespread anxiety in la belle province. Quebecers lined up to voice their concern about foreign influence on Quebec culture, thus demonstrating that the altering affects of immigration should be discussed openly—for the benefit of immigrants and residents alike.”

As the full article will tell you, the author is referring to immigration rates in Canada and actually talks about the lawsuit against the oh-so-right-wing Maclean’s from the Canadian Islamic Congress. In 2006 Maclean’s published an article by Mark Steyn entitled “Why the Future Belongs to Islam”, which they correctly allege discriminated against Muslims on religious and racial grounds contrary to Section 7 (1) of the B.C. Human Rights Code.

(For the record, that whole situation in Quebec I personally think unfairly represented what is also true in the rest of the provinces and territories)

Last time I checked, EVERYONE IS AN IMMIGRANT, and unless you are Aboriginal, the differences lie a few generations away from each other. And even then our First Peoples have varying stories of where we came from.

The Save Our Net coalition and Campaign for Democratic Media are hosting an event this weekend to discuss net neutrality and to strategize ways to prevent the internet from being tightly controlled by telecommunications corps, which are trying to limit what information we can access online.

Steve Anderson, national co-ordinator of the Campaign For Democratic Media, will speak about the issues, including: how these companies have already been caught throttling or slowing internet traffic to businesses and consumers, blocking access to websites that criticized them for doing so, and crippling consumer devices and applications.

Details:
Sunday, June 22
5:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Windward Co-op, 34 Little Norway Crescent Lake-view room (one block west of Queen’s Quay)
BYOB, vegetarian refreshments provided
RSVP: saveournetcanada at gmail.com

I had to post this take on the “women’s vote,” given how accurate Sarah Haskins has been about yogurt and weddings.

There is something truly absurd about watching US presidential candidates talk about how we’re all waiting to see what happens on season two of Army Wives…

If I wasn’t chained to the Toronto ‘burbs for the next month pet-sitting, I would be at the Allied Media Conference in Detriot from June 20-22. And, of course, I would offer to take all of you with me!

Check out the program, which is all that the Women, Action and the Media conference that I attended in March (sadly) couldn’t be. They’ve got sessions like Transporting Silenced Voices Through Interviews For Film/Video, Revolutionary Parenting, Women Of Color With Disabilities Organizing And Building Community, and yes, a session on the media coverage/grassroots organizing lessons of the Jena Six and the Jersey Four (also mentioned in Issue 11 of Shameless). I’m in awe!

What I love about the way they have organized the conference is that sessions for/about people of colour are integrated within the overall conference design, and aren’t designed as a “space apart.” (Can you guess who must have organized this thing? You got it - a pretty diverse group of people - it sure helps.) Of course there are important times in the agenda for people of colour to get together in a safe space and talk shop. But what sometimes happens is that when sessions that deal with issues that directly affect people of colour ARE open to all, white folks never show up! This creates the ol’ conference colour divide (seen countless times in feminist conferences, circa 1971 all the way to the present). And everyone gets righteously angry because folks who are already multiply marginalized get remarginalized at conferences because of this low attendance and low awareness. And that makes me angry, too.

So, in conclusion, hooray for conferences that don’t divide and conquer, and boo to pet-sitting.

I know we’re all bored to death of hearing about Sex and the City, but I had to mention this article in yesterday’s Star about the sexism that’s been cropping up in some of the film’s negative reviews (thanks to one of our readers for the link).

Peter Howell draws our attention to reviewers who accuse the women turning out to see Sex and the City of blindly following the herd, or of being so dumb and impressionable that a few designer labels is enough to get them going.

One blogger, he points out, even called it a “Taliban recruitment film” because it encourages greed and egoism. Because obviously the Taliban are the only available alternative to materialism.

Why isn’t anybody calling out movie producers for their assumption that all it takes to get male movie-goers to the box office is car chases, explosions and breasts? If thousands of men flock to see the latest action flick, why isn’t that film’s very success suddenly a mark against it and proof that all men are shallow and vapid?

The Star article sums it up nicely:

“I can actually think of a rough male equivalent for SATC. It’s a film franchise about a man with a huge ego and unfettered sense of entitlement, who cavorts with people who have spectacular budgets for clothes, cars and travel. Our hero consumes vast quantities of liquor and caviar and thinks nothing of trashing his high-priced toys.

His name is James Bond. His 22nd movie, Quantum of Solace, is currently being filmed. And when it is released this fall, you won’t find anybody seriously suggesting that the enjoyment of it is a chance to get men out of the house, a degrading of the national IQ or a recruitment opportunity for the Taliban.”

KY’s new “couples” lubricant Yours+Mine makes some pretty sweeping assumptions about how people have sex and with whom. Two lubricants: “Mine” for her and “Yours” for him. Electric blue for boys and pink—well, okay, purple—for girls.

I’m all for fun sex products, but I’m not so into how branded hetero this product is without a vague awareness that it is. Maybe it’s because it’s the first couples lubricant I’ve ever seen, but I’m really struck by how “sex is for a boy and a girl” it seems while most other products are “personal.” (I also don’t like that the woman’s lube is “mine” because she’s the one buying it in the birth control aisle of her local Shopper’s Drug Mart. While you could argue it’s cool that they’re implying that a woman can be involved in her own pleasure, I’m inclined to think it’s connected to a “women are responsible for birth control” stereotype I’m not a fan of.)

Regardless of what you think of the product, I think it’s really important for us to recognize and critique how often heteronormativity creeps into our daily media.

Harmless on it’s own? Maybe. Part of a larger problem? Sure. Pissing me off? Yup.

Shameless writer Zahra Rasul just sent me a link to this article about Dunkin Donuts pulling a TV ad with Rachael Ray. The celebrity donut-hawker is wearing a scarf that looks “too Palestinian.”

Rachael Ray lectures us on the evils of American imperialism. Solution to this problem? Buy Dunkin Donuts!

And here I was worried that once Mary Kate Olsen wore one, the keffiyeh became a depoliticized and empty symbol of vapid celebrity! I guess it still has symbolic power when it is draped around the neck of someone whose doesn’t look quite as white as the Olsen twins.

Of course it all started with the conservative Michelle Malkin calling it “the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.”

But the question remains: is it, or isn’t it a keffiyeh? And what the heck does a keffiyeh really symbolize, America?

Stay tuned for the next print issue of Shameless to find out, where Zahra will take a look at the keffiyeh’s history. And of course, check out Thea’s blog post on keffiyeh too.