The Goldilocks Dilemma

A week or so ago, I saw a slide show of “strange plastic surgeries” on MSNBC’s web site.  While I’m pleased that the site listed these procedures as extreme (even “oddball”), I was struck by one thing in particular.  Two of the surgeries were meant to remedy complaints about women’s calves.  If a woman had [...]

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“Tough yet feminine”

The new movie Whip It, about female roller derby, is set to release, and I’ve noticed that the phrase “tough yet feminine” tends to turn up a lot. Not as often, thankfully, as “Juno joins the derby” but still often enough that it made me wonder about the phrase. In case you haven’t heard about [...]

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Lady Picture Show

I should begin by saying I’m fairly sure this is not a hoax.  Several credible sources (the U.K. Telegraph, Discover, and Yahoo! Sports among them) are reporting that Caster Semenya has had a makeover and is on the cover of South Africa’s You magazine this week.  Here is the photo: This photo, apparently, is meant [...]

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Little Miss Feminine

Since it was Labor Day, every channel was running marathons of the show they most want to hook people into, and TLC decided the show to pimp was Toddlers and Tiaras. The show is about as horrifying as the title suggests and as the promo demonstrates, TLC is selling it as a guilty pleasure that [...]

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The Running of the Genders

The issues involving Caster Semenya, the gold medal runner who has been asked to undergo genetic testing, are complicated and multi-layered, and lay bare many of the assumptions we hold about gender. First there is the simple question of why she is suspected of being a man at all, which is apparently simply that she [...]

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Ambush!

Like all good liberals, I get most of my news from MSNBC.  Every Thursday, the MSNBC web site features the Today Show‘s newest “Ambush Makeover” participant.  There are a few things about this “news” feature that I find problematic.

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Less to Love

I could write about how refreshing it is to see plus-sized women on Fox’s reality dating show More to Love.  Of course, it would be refreshing if plus-sized women (and men, for that matter) were regularly included on dating shows of all stripes.  One problem with More to Love is that it does not actually [...]

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The Pursuit of Happiness?

This is the first post I’ve written that is not tied to one specific popular culture anchor, so forgive me if I’ve already broken our nascent blog’s rules.  Perhaps my heightened awareness of gender issues in pop culture–thanks in large part to Professor Moss’s and my decision finally to start sharing our thoughts with the [...]

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The Cliched, the Bad, and the Ugly: Take Two

Yesterday, Professor Moss vented her ire at the atrocious new film, The Ugly Truth.  Since I barely endured the entire 90 minute movie without reenacting the final scene of Oedipus Rex, I’d like to add a bit more insult to injury here:

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Speaking in Code

Last night ABC gave us the “Men Tell All” episode of The Bachelorette. While the teasers promised myriad secrets would be revealed, no one could have predicted the biggest revelation of all. There, on national t.v., America was introduced to the secret, illuminati-like world of the “man code.”

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