What’s Current: Women edited out of photo at Paris Rally, vaginas are exclusionary, and Japan tries to erase ‘comfort women’ from history

What’s the difference between Sherlock Holmes and Hermione Granger? One is brilliant by nature and the other has to work her butt off. These literary figures represent the gender bias of our time that women can’t be geniuses.

Women’s college cancels its annual performance of Vagina Monologues because it is exclusionary to people without vaginas. Thank goodness they put a stop to that awful exclusionary practice. (Side note: the thing I remember most about Vagina Monologues is reading it as a teenager and thinking, “I really need to start masturbating if I want to be a good feminist!”)

What’s with Sci-Fi’s obsession with sexy female robots? From The Guardian:

Being literally objectified women, female robots have traditionally been vehicles for the worst male tendencies. Invariably, inventors’ ideas of the ‘perfect’ woman translate into one who is unquestioningly subservient and/or sexually obliging.

An Israeli newspaper edits out the women in picture of Paris Rally, because it is disgraceful in Orthodox Judaism to gaze upon another man’s property (a woman that is not your wife).

Japan urges US publisher to remove comfort women from textbooks.

Comedian Liz Miele nails it by pointing out how misogynistic crazy sex positions are: “You come in her eye and it’s called the pirate!” Comes up with three feminist sex positions in retaliation.

Okay, try something now. Google “feminist.” Look at the Google Direct Answer. The second sentence is: “She strongly opposed the modern feminist movement, despite supporting some of its goals.” And the image is a hashtag that says: “#womenagainstfeminism” WTF, Google!? Is that seriously the best representation you could come up with??

 

An American expatriate who fled to the wonderland of Canada, Susan Cox spends most of her time writing, reading, and cooking.

Got a great article you think should be included in What’s Current? Send it to Susan Cox: cox[dot]j[dot]susan[at]gmail[dot]com

Susan Cox

Susan Cox is a feminist writer and academic living in the United States. She teaches in Philosophy.