Fergus Noodle

This story is for those of you out there like me that look forward to your meals and plan them meticulously. Last week, we got to preview a new concept at Devon Cafe in Surry Hills called Devon By Night. The only catch is that these nights don't start until this Thursday the 3rd of July.

Tea. Whipped cream. And Oreo crumbs. Say whaaat? It’s called plant milk tea and it’s the signature drink at TeaPlus, a Taiwanese teahouse tucked off Burwood Road. The glass beer mug lets you see all the pretty layers: three-quarters milk tea, one-quarter white creamy foam, a layer of Oreo crumb soil, and the teensiest sprig of mint leaves sprouting forth at the top. It's a drink pretty much

In response to a proposed California bill that would implement an “affirmative consent” standard on college campuses, there’s been a number of misinformed and often straight-up hysterical reactions from folks who think that requiring people to ensure they have, at every point, “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity” is absurd and/or impossible.

I think it’s fair to question how useful legislation is for creating a culture of affirmative consent–though, for the record, I agree with Amanda Hess, that as long as they include non-verbal cues, affirmative consent laws are a good idea. What’s absolutely clear is that affirmative consent is the necessary standard, socially if not legally, for a healthy sexual culture. And the fact that many people seem to feel like it marks such a radical departure from our current approach to sex reveals the depths of rape culture more than all the stats on sexual assault, in my opinion.

Over at ThinkProgress, Tara Culp-Ressler has a great rundown of on how affirmative consent actually works. 

Affirmative consent isn’t based on the idea that every sexual encounter is a rigid contract between two parties. No one is suggesting that college students need to run through a checklist before unbuttoning each other’s shirts. Instead, it’s more about broadly reorienting about how we approach sex in the first place.

The current societal script on sex assumes that passivity and silence — essentially, the “lack of a no” — means it’s okay to proceed. That’s on top of the fact that male sexuality has been socially defined as aggressive, something that can result in men feeling entitled to sex, while women have been taught that sex is something that simply happens to them rather than something they’re an active participant in. It’s not hard to imagine how couples end up in ambiguous situations where one partner is not exactly comfortable with going forward, but also not exactly comfortable saying no.

Under an affirmative consent standard, on the other hand, both partners are required to pay more attention to whether they’re feeling enthusiastic about the sexual experience they’re having. There aren’t any assumptions about where the sexual encounter is going or whether both people are already on the same page. At its very basic level, this is the opposite of killing the mood — it’s about making sure the person with whom you’re about to have sex is excited about having sex with you.

Making sure someone else is enthusiastic about what you’re doing with them requires you to consider their wants and needs, think about how to bring them pleasure, and ultimately approach sex like a partnership instead of a means to your own end.

Frankly, sometimes I think we should ditch the term “consent” altogether. It feels like a carryover from the old male-aggressor/female-gatekeeper model of (hetero) sex, and, even with the addition of adjectives like “affirmative” or “enthusiastic,” retains this contractual connotation that, I think, detracts from the shift we’re actually trying to make here. The point is that people shouldn’t be “consenting” to sex as if they’re acquiescing to a request to borrow your damn toothbrush. We are talking about sex, for fuck’s sake. Probably the single most universally beloved activity in the world. Of course “consent” should be affirmative; it should be excited, joyful, ecstatic. In a culture that really, truly recognized women as sexual agents with desire of their own, there’d be no question about that.

Because that’s all we are talking about really: mutual desire. Desire that, if you’re doing it right, should be undeniably clear. And if it isn’t, you shouldn’t be doing it. It’s really pretty simple.

“Can we have sex, please?” is Maya‘s go-to line.

While there has been significant attention to recruiting women into STEM fields, what about the converse – recruiting men to female-dominated fields?  My recent article in Gender & Society analyzes the recruitment strategies of key health care players, examining themes of masculinity in text, speech, and images.

Some recruitment items, like this early poster from the Virginia Partnership for Nursing, asked viewers “Are you man enough to be a nurse?” Aspects of hegemonic masculinity — characteristics associated with being the culturally defined “ideal man” — are common themes in the poster, including sports, military service, risk-taking, and an emotionally-reserved demeanor:

Since the “Are You Man Enough?” campaign in the early 2000’s, nurse leaders have tried to make recruitment messages less ostensibly gendered. In discussing the American Assembly for Men in Nursing’s (AAMN) new campaign, Don Anderson notes:

Nursing recruitment efforts needed to evolve from asking men if they were masculine enough to be a nurse to something less gender specific

Despite the effort to “de-genderify” nursing (Anderson’s word), masculinity is still front and center. Though the slogan is different, materials continue to emphasize culturally idealized forms of masculinity. One of the AAMN’s newest posters, “Adrenaline Rush,” avoids the “man enough” rhetoric, but maintains the theme of a stoic, emotionally-detached masculinity through visual cues.  Most of the nurse’s face is covered – limiting emotional expression—while risk-taking is emphasized.

But not all recruitment materials employ a macho form of masculinity. Johnson & Johnson’s 30-second clip “Name Game” portrays a caring and emotionally competent nurse:

Key health care players, including an international organization (Johnson & Johnson), urban hospital systems, nursing programs, and organizations like the American Assembly for Men in Nursing (AAMN) have devoted resources to recruiting men into nursing. Analyzing their recruitment strategies reveals as much about contemporary tensions within masculinity as it does about the profession’s push for gender diversity.

Check out more of the recruitment materials and a more in-depth analysis in the article, “Recruiting Men, Constructing Manhood: How Health Care Organizations Mobilize Masculinities as Nursing Recruitment Strategy.”  For a free copy, contact me at cottingham@unc.edu.

Marci Cottingham is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Akron. Her research spans issues of gender, emotion, health, and healthcare. For more on her work, visit her site.

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

There is a certain sort of diner that likes to frequent Doughbox Diner, the retro themed establishment. Often paired as a couple, she wears a cardigan, artfully enhanced cat's eye makeup and a 50's Victory hair roll. She's a vintage pin-up. And she's probably biting into an enormous crepe cone.

No, this isn’t a headline from The Onion. How does the Mormon Church respond to a woman critical of the Church’s treatment of women? By ex-communicating her. I guess they want to show and not tell.

Kate Kelly has been a Mormon all of her life. She served as a missionary in Spain when she was 21. She was married in the Salt Lake Temple. She has been a proud Mormon and, up until very recently, a regular church-goer. But on Monday, she found out that the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Latter-Day Saints, ex-communicated her for apostasy, the repeated and public advocacy of positions that oppose church teachings.

The symbolism couldn’t be any better (or worse); Kelly was excommunicated in absentia by an all male panel for questioning the all male nature of the Church’s leadership. Specifically, Kelly advocated for allowing women to be ordained as priests. According to the Mormon Church, only men can become priests because all of Jesus’s apostles were men. That’s men. Not boys. Yet the Mormon Church has no problem ordaining boys as young as 12. Why do they follow Jesus’s example when it comes to gender but not age?

It’s easy for me to ask that question. I have nothing to lose. I’m not Mormon. But questioning the Church proved extremely difficult for Kelly, a human rights lawyer from Virginia who now lives in Utah. Kelly started the organization Ordain Women, which “aspires to create a space for Mormons to articulate issues of gender inequality they may be hesitant to raise alone. As a group we intend to put ourselves in the public eye and call attention to the need for the ordination of Mormon women to the priesthood.” She also organized demonstrations at the Church’s conferences at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Kelly was warned to take down the website for Ordain Women. But she refused, as she explained in a letter to the church:

I will not take down the website ordainwomen.org. I will not stop speaking out publicly on the issue of gender inequality in the church… I cannot repent of telling the truth, speaking what is in my heart and asking questions that burn in my soul.

And somehow, in my fugue state, these became the best ever cinnamon buns. The potato adds such a wonderful texture to the buns giving them a thin delicious crust and a soft, downy inside. The caramel sauce adds a delicious surprise at the bottom of the bun while the top has a drizzle of maple icing and the browned butter adds an other worldly aroma to these buns. So much so that the recently self proclaimed "gluten free" eating Mr NQN asked for two of them. I know they're a bit more trouble than your regular cinnamon bun but I promise that these are worth it if you are a cinnamon bun fan. This is one of those pushy recipes that I urge you to make.

Rising Sun Workshop (36 Lennox Street, Newtown) is a communal garage for motorcycle enthusiasts but has recently became known for the ramen bar that is pumping out pretty awesome eats. It’s just around the corner from Mary’s with street parking nearby or if you’re not so lucky, there’s a Wilson car park right next door that looks super dodgy but is $3/hr.


I first read about the ramen over here and here but it wasn’t until I saw on Instagram that if you mention the Rising Sun Workshop’s secret sentence that weekend: “someone throw me a bone here!” that you get an additional topping of roast bone marrow so I made the trek over quick smart! And this, people, is an example of how awesome social media is! Just don’t get me started on people who use ridiculous hashtags. Tch.


We mosey over to an empty table and the ever so cheeky Daniel Cesarano, (ex Single Origin Roasters) comes over to take our drinks order and explain the ramen offerings. I choose Green Tea ($4) and the Green Justice Juice ($4.50) with cucumber, apple, kale, ginger (and I think spinach?) for the boy. I’m not sure why Noods keeps ordering green juices but hey whatever floats his boat. The juice is from Joostice in Newtown, a not for profit juice shop supporting public interest journalism which is pretty tops.


Our first ramen is The Darkness ($20) with a broth made from pork tonkotsu, soy and smoked ham hocks. It is rich but thankfully we’re not left with a heavy oh-god-kill-me feeling. I did feel there was a tad too much soy in the broth but that’s because I have a soy allergy so I’m super hyper sensitive and aware of anything with soy in it. The gooey egg has me in raptures but I’m head over heels in love with the springy noodles with the perfect bite to them.


The Light ($20)- chicken, bonito and 3x salt broth is super comforting. I preferred this over The Darkness because I’m still getting over a cold thanks to my weak immune system and the flavours of the broth felt clean somehow, like it was nourishing my soul with tasty nutrients.


Close up of the roast bone marrow with crispy togarashii panko (chilli pepper and breadcrumbs)! At first I dug out globules of the marrow with the teaspoon, relishing the quivering richness in all its glory but then I mixed the rest in with the ramen which totally amped up all the flavours, bringing up a hit of salt that was missing previously.


Both bowls also had thick slabs of melt in the mouth pork belly, satisfying fat mushrooms, crisp sheets of seaweed and shallots that Chef Nick Smith (ex Single Origin Roasters) placed ever so carefully with each order. It was so calming watching him work!


But ah dessert! How can one resist? The baked goods are made in house and I may have ordered the dessert before the ramen arrived because I was worried they would’ve disappeared by the time we’d finished eating our ramen :P


Whenever I see donuts I have to get them. Donuts are my weakness bro! Especially Lemon Curd Donuts ($5)! The ridiculously fluffy donut has a very generous amount of sweet lemon curd stuffed inside and each bite took my breath away. Seriously guys, you gotta save room for this donut or take some home with you! I say some because one donut is never enough!


And I managed to score the last fat slice of the Dark Chocolate Cake with Salted Buttercream ($6.50) which was all kinds of amazing. The cake itself was super moist (oh man my fave adjective) with such a tender crumb that I would probably have been fine without the icing but hey it’s me and we all know I have the worlds sweetest tooth (or should that be teeth..) so woot look at all dem layers of fluffy icing! Prepare yourself for a mad sugar coma!


Seating. I loved the chillaxed vibe at Rising Sun Workshop but the fun police aka Marrickville Council didn’t extend the lease for their hybrid workshop/cafe so you’ve got until September to try out their ramen and baked goods! Let’s hope the Rising Sun Workshop finds new digs soon so we can get our ramen fix 24/7!

First moon parties should definitely be a thing.

Family cap laws, based on a racist stereotype of unfit black mothers, do nothing but punish the poor for being poor.

Meet Amanda Blackhorse, the Navajo Nation member who led the legal fight to revoke the Washington Redskins’ trademark.

Why women need unions.

Girls are labeled sluts if they sext, prudes if they don’t.

This Friday, 20 June, is international Take Your Dog to Work day.

There are several studies that prove the benefits of having a pet at work: they lower cortisol levels and raise productivity, and one study even found that that employees are more trusting and collaborative when a dog is present during group meetings. Plus, you'll have to take regular breaks from your computer screen (no excuses when your dog needs to go for a walk) so you'll get some extra exercise and fresh air.

To prepare for the big day:

• Ensure your dog is identified (microchipped) and up-to-date with their vaccinations.
• Dogs should be well socialised with other dogs and people and should not exhibit biting behaviour.
• Dogs should be trained using reward-based positive reinforcement.
• Check with your office to see if bringing your dog to work is appropriate and will not affect the health and welfare of your fellow co-workers. 

And when Friday comes:

• Bring your pet’s favourite blanket, bed, food and water bowl and some toys with them so they feel comfortable in the new environment. 
• Dogs should stay at your desk, or the desk of another designated responsible person. Don't let them wander off unattended (the kitchen may be especially tempting to some dogs). 
• When you arrive in the morning, let your dog have some free time to meet any other dogs and say hello to your co-workers.
• Set aside time for toilet breaks and to take your dog for a good walk or walks throughout the day. Reward your dog when it toilets in the right spot.
• Clean up after your dog! Don't get upset if your dog does toilet in the office - simply clean the area thoroughly with a non-ammonia based cleaning product (found at your local vet clinic or pet supplies store) to take away the scent and reduce the likelihood of the dog using the same spot again. 
• Ensure your dog and their belongings do not become trip hazards in the office.
• Reward your dog’s calm behaviour in the office. Rewarding calm behaviour reinforces calmness and makes the dog more likely to behave in this way again in the future.
• Have fun! Remember: it's all about being happier in the workplace.

Dear Reader, have you ever harboured a secret desire to eat course after course of dessert? I'd hazard that a guess that it's not just a wish of children. But have you ever given into temptation and the devil on your shoulder? If anything is worth ditching that diet for, it's a dessert collaboration between the Shangri-la Hotel and Gelato Messina.

Three Times a Permit

by KARA VANDERBIJL

I have two party tricks: the first is that after two glasses of wine I fall asleep in the middle of the floor or on the couch during a conversation. The second is that I admit to not having a driver’s license at the ripe old age of twenty-six.

While the first trick paints me as an endearing lightweight, the second makes me look pathetic, something I did not realize until I became the butt of others’ jokes instead of the punchline in my own. It was winter, the worst in anyone’s memory. I couldn’t imagine executing the tire-squealing left turns that are necessary in Chicago on streets slick with black ice and pockmarked with potholes. By March 5th, winter hadn’t subsided, but I had been twenty-six for a full twenty-four hours. I had already missed a full decade of road trips, so I took two buses and tramped a mile through the snow to the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles, certain that this meant I wouldn’t live to see twenty-seven.

At the counter in front of me, a Middle Eastern gentleman and his wife smiled at a blonde who looked like she had turned away more hopefuls than the immigration officers at Ellis Island. She thumbed through their three pieces of mail and yawned, “Does your wife speak English?” The gentleman shook his head. I wondered how his wife — a small, veiled woman — planned to take the test since translators, like cell phones, were certainly prohibited, but the blonde handed them a number and they took a seat in the waiting area, where at least half of Chicago’s population sat scratching their chins or swiping screens or screaming at toddlers. A lone teenager, white male, flipped through the driver’s handbook with a nonchalant look. He was wearing board shorts and didn’t seem appropriately nervous at the prospect that he was about to be handed the keys to a compact bomb with great gas mileage.

It has never made sense to me why you’re allowed to learn how to drive before you’re allowed to go to war or to start drinking. There you are, sixteen years old, and you are legally permitted to strap yourself to an explosive from which only your underdeveloped motor skills and questionable common sense can protect you. One wrong turn and it could be the end of you. It occurred to me, as Board Shorts pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and let the driver’s handbook drop to the floor, that youth is the only reason anybody would ever start driving in the first place. You believe yourself to be physically invincible, something that a few fender-benders and later, tequila, take away from you all too quickly. A belief that I’d never had in the first place. I slumped further into my seat and tried to determine which of the desk attendants was least likely to laugh in my face.

“Hi Kara, how can I help you today?” they’d say. “Or should I call you ‘Grandma’?”

I ended up with a young man who, with his long black ponytail and wispy mustache, looked like he was barely legal to drive himself. He smiled — dawn breaking over braced teeth.

“So, Miss VanderBijl,” he said slowly, looking at my forms, “this will be your third time taking the written test?”

“Yes,” I mumbled, ducking my head.

“And you’re sure you don’t have a driver’s license?” He stamped a form. He smelled like the sidewalk just outside a suburban Abercrombie & Fitch.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that on my first try, I didn’t even make it to the learner’s permit. It was Valentine’s Day, freshman year of college, the sort of warm February day that makes you glad to live in Southern California. Cole, the boy I liked, had offered to take me to the DMV. He was from Texas and drove an old Buick, and we had met in the haphazard way you do when you go to a small liberal-arts school and you’re both English majors: over a chance three-hour discussion about books. One night, early on in our friendship, I was walking back to the dorm from the science building at dusk when he drove up. Pavarotti spilled out of his window as he rolled it down. The streetlights glinted off his glasses.

“I like your trench coat,” he said. “Want a ride?”

He’d been drinking Dr. Pepper (there was a half-empty can in the cupholder) and I had to move a dog-eared copy of Kerouac’s On the Road before I could slide into the passenger seat. He grinned when I held onto it for a moment before throwing it in the backseat.

“I haven’t finished it yet,” he said, “but I already know it’s going to be one of my favorites. There’s this part that reminds me of you.”

This was long before I knew I was supposed to hate Kerouac. I was hooked. Over the next week, I waited impatiently for him to finish the book, wondering if he’d reread the lines about me until the page was soft and creased. He found me shelving books during one of my shifts in the campus library, and held Kerouac in front of him at 10 and 2 with a grin.

“I can’t wait,” I whispered.

“No return date on this one,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”

I thought it was pretty lucky of Kerouac that endless roads unspooled before him as he chased meaning or women or whatever it was that he wanted across the amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties. I also thought it was pretty lucky of me to have found a cute Texan who found me enchanting, even though my idea of fun was sitting on his kitchen floor reading French poetry out loud and drinking tea. Those were my college party tricks.

Cole could have had his pick of any girl, that was certain; he was charming, and his eyes had a way of crinkling behind his glasses while he smiled that made you feel like you’d just performed serious magic. I considered myself magical only to the extent that I no longer wore braces, and had lived in France. These were good hooks, but I had no idea what I was going to do with him once I reeled him in. Surely this was something we could figure out as the carpool lane unspooled before us on the 405.

I snuck a few glances at him as we waited in the tiny Santa Clarita Department of Motor Vehicles. He’d brought a book, and was quietly reading while I thought about what I weighed (it had been several months since I’d even seen a scale) and the color of my eyes. I wondered what he thought of me, and for the first time I allowed myself to believe that he liked me back. I was about to start driving, after all, and the only thing more perilous than seatbelting yourself to a bomb is tying yourself to another person. It was a day for embracing danger.

“Have you ever committed a felony in California or any other state?” asked the woman behind the desk. Her glasses hung from a gold chain around her neck. “Step up to the line for your eye exam, please, and read the third line.”

The lights flickered momentarily, and then with an electronic sigh, all the computers in the DMV went blank.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Our computer system is down,” she said. “It’s too bad. You can wait, but it might be better to come back and finish the process another time.”

“What if this is some sort of sign?” I asked Cole as we left the building. Relief washed over me in waves. “Maybe I’m not supposed to drive.”

He laughed and slid his arm through mine. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

That night, he took me on a walk down a deserted road and asked me to be his girlfriend. Maybe I wasn’t ready to drive, but this, whatever this was, I could figure out. Cole took me back to the DMV two weeks later and, when I passed with flying colors, we left the city limits for brushy back hills, where the roads curved around old cattle ranches and classic Western movie sets. On the shoulder, we switched places. The car felt soft under me — all rubber and leather, wide. It was a car for the elderly. I took my foot off the brake. We rolled forward, slowly, then gaining momentum. Cole touched my arm.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

“I’m not thinking about anything important,” I said, hands gripping onto the steering wheel like a lifeline.

It felt unnatural to be driving, after sitting in the backseat for so long. I hadn’t chosen a passive life (it had been given to me) and I was just starting to understand the ways in which I was allowed to take control. But this frightened me, watching the speedometer creep up past 20, then past 30, to hover at a limit that someone had once decided was safe for such a road. Sitting here with Cole felt strange, wanting to be with him felt strange, when I knew better than anyone else that it is never long before life takes you down different roads. I had wanted to be ready for this, and would readily pretend to be ready, if it meant finding some sort of meaning, even a meaning to work off of, like a wrong turn that brings you back within the confines of a map.

“What are you doing?” Cole cried.

I’d turned sharply into the brush on the side of the road, and braked. The front of the Buick crushed desert-dry shrubs and I said, “I think you need to drive now.”

As it turns out, I’d driven over a big rusty nail, and his car went to the shop. After they replaced his tire, they told him that gasoline had been leaking into his engine, effectively transforming his car into a bomb. One wrong turn could have caused it to explode.

After that, we didn’t do much driving. We moved at different rhythms when we weren’t on the road. Even after he’d kindly and firmly broken up with me, I found it hard to move forward at the required speed. By the time I’d gotten over him, Cole had already moved back to Texas and my learner’s permit had expired. I found myself sitting in the backseat of my friend Paula’s little car, singing along to moody playlists at the top of my lungs.

Paula drove with her left foot propped up by the window, a silver ring on each bare toe. She liked to drive, so it never took much convincing for her to take Hailey and I on late-night jaunts to Denny’s (the only thing that stayed open past 9 p.m.) and into the hills behind Santa Clarita. I stretched out in the back, head against one door and feet against the other and looked back at where we had come from, at the distant glow of Los Angeles.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. We all have a fantasy self, an image we conjure when we’re feeling insufficient. Mine is a witty girl who brings down the house at any party and never gets a ride from anyone. She’s in charge of her own destination and isn’t willingly relegated to the backseat. Paula and Hailey were the sort of friends who gave me license to believe these things, just as I gave them license to believe in their own fantasies. Within the next couple of years Hailey would be dead, Paula would move back to Arizona and I’d be in Chicago. But during those long drives our futures, and our beliefs about ourselves, were suspended. Nothing mattered but the next line of a song or the neon sign of an approaching fast food restaurant. We had come to college to make something of ourselves, but we did the real work in that car. On the road, we made our peace with what was possible.

Within weeks of moving to Chicago, I applied for a driver’s license. My aunt and uncle let me drive their red PT Cruiser to the grocery store for ice cream after their kids had gone to bed. The hills of Los Angeles couldn’t compare to the six-cornered intersection at Fullerton/Elston/Damen, where I regularly drove over the curb trying to make sharp, timely right turns with a legion of cars honking behind me. Soon I found a full-time job and moved out of my aunt and uncle’s place. My first Chicago winter was beginning. Even though both of my new roommates had cars, I let my permit expire once again.

As far as cities go, Chicago is relatively friendly to both drivers and non-drivers. It became second nature to me to add ridiculous cushions of time to the front and back end of events, calculating how much time and how many trains it would take me to get somewhere. I’ve been commuting long distances my whole life, so nothing made more sense than the steady rhythm of the train rocking down the elevated tracks toward my job downtown. I made friends with fellow non-drivers, and we laughed at the people we knew whose lives revolved around their cars, and where they were going to park them, and how much traffic they’d get caught in at rush hour. I felt like a true Chicagoan blundering around outside in subzero temperatures, instead of complaining about the weather from the heated interior of a car. The city was good to me, giving me trains that came on time and buses that stopped for me and friends who rode their bikes with me to Montrose Beach in the summer. Each time, it felt like a friendly nudge in the shoulder telling me I’d made the right choice.

In Illinois you’re allowed to get seven answers wrong on the written driver’s test. I’ve always had trouble identifying signs — last time I didn’t even recognize the universal sign for railroad crossings — so I spent a lot of time thinking about each one, their color and shape. It’s easy to get comfortable with a thought, until it comes time to put it into practice. I have never been nervous about the written test, just what it means — that the road is open to me, now, and I have to take it. On March 5th, I got five answers wrong, four of them signs. My new party trick is that I can’t identify upcoming railroads.

I’ve been driving outside the city in my boyfriend Jens’s Mazda, making too-wide turns and nearly crashing into other cars in the Home Depot parking lot. I am always terribly nervous when Jens turns to me and asks, “Do you want to drive?”, but he has a wonderful way of making me want to be brave. We stop at a gas station. He goes inside to buy a cup of coffee and I slip behind the wheel.

I move the seat up and adjust my mirrors. I put on my glasses so that I can read the signs. I am good at braking — sometimes I think stopping is the only thing I know how to do well — but I am getting better at moving forward, too. Sometimes I’m sure that I am following closely on the wheels of that fantasy girl who’s been my chauffeur for so long. Maybe this time I’ll overtake her.

“There’s no reason for you to drive so closely behind that car.” I catch Jens smiling as I turn to look at him for a split second before gluing my eyes to the road ahead.

Next time, then.

Kara VanderBijl is the managing editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Chicago. She last wrote in these pages about FX's Fargo. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing for This Recording here.

"Would You Fight For My Love?" -Jack White (mp3)

"Alone In My Home" - Jack White (mp3)

Nothing to add.

(h/t kristine-claire via RH Reality Check)

matthewsagan:

This is a lion making a kill in the wild. I know it’s very graphic but I think it’s important to show just how brutal nature can be.

If I had a million dollars
I would give it all to you
To help the little Daisys
of this world to make it through

If I had a thousand acres
I'd donate all that too
A shelter there for love and care
Till forever homes come true

If I had a hundred people
Who were young and strong and free
I would send them to your shelter
And charge all costs to me

Most of all I wish I had
A way I could defend
The little Daisys of the world
And all of man's best friends.

From all the cruelty in the world
From shock and fear and pain
From being left out in the summer sun
Or in the pouring rain
From being neglected, underfed
From sickness, cold and need

Until every single gorgeous one
Is loved and hugged and freed.

For Daisy - By Suzanne

Suzanne, one of our supporters, recently watched Daisy's story and was so moved that she penned this poem for her and made a donation to help other animals in need.

Watch Daisy's story now: http://rspcansw.org/DaisysLegacy

What do you do when you’re accused of fighting a “War on Women” because you, for instance, force them to purchase abortion insurance in case they get raped? If you’re the Michigan GOP, you turn it into a hilarious joke.

Republican Congressmen Peter Pettalia, Roger Victory, and Ben Glardon totally shattered the idea that they’re anti-woman by posing for a photo while reading Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar.  Michigan Public Radio Network reporter Jake Neher tweeted the photo along with this zinger which Pettalia uttered ”a couple of times” because it is that funny: “Don’t say we don’t understand women.”

In response, four women members of Michigan’s Democratic House delegation, tweeted their own photo of themselves reading proposed bills, with the caption “Real Women read bills not fashion mags.”

Whether they read fashion mags or bills or both, I’m sure Michigan women will see through this pathetic attempt to distract from the GOP’s consistently anti-women positions and policies.

Related: 
GOP candidate claims she can’t be fighting a war on women because she’s…a woman

Katie Halper is a writer, comedian and filmmaker, who has always maintained that conservatives are not as funny as liberals.

So yay our third day in Japan and it was time to visit the famed Tsukiji Fish Markets! But woe is me, the alternation between walking outside in mega coldness to overheating in the department stores led to me coming down with a cold. Luckily my taste buds were still intact at this stage so first up, brunch!

The train to Tsukiji from Shinjuku (Toei Subway Oedo Line) took about 30mins and somehow we managed to immediately enter the restaurant area near the wholesale fruit and vegetable market, just inside the main gate off Shin-ohashi Street. I refused to wait hours for the famous Sushi Dai and chose to join the shorter queue (still a 45mins wait!) at Sushi Ichiba instead.


Slide your way into the teensy tiny restaurant and let the chef know what you want or in our case we pointed at the picture menu and said onegaishimasu. I was craving rice for some reason so we ordered the Set X donburi (3000 yen/$31.30) which is a bowl of sushi rice topped with assorted sashimi (tuna, fatty tuna, kingfish, squid, hamachi, prawn, eel, aji (horse mackerel) arc shell (red clam) and salmon) and also came with fluffy tamago (egg omelette) and a little tub on the side filled with ikura (salmon roe) and uni (sea urchin).


While we were eating the donburi, Set A (3800yen/$39.70) aka the 15 piece Omakase, was assembled on the banana leaf in front of us, one sushi at a time (yes this pic only shows 10pieces but he put the other 5 in front of Noods and I totally forgot about taking a pic). The proportion of fish to rice on each sushi was pretty awesome with only a teensy pat of rice to mega slice of fish. Each piece is perfect and I hear angels singing in the distance. The marbling on the fatty tuna is ridiculous so you know it’s going to be silky soft and fatty ermahgerd

Aaand because we are greedy guts we also ordered Set D (3750yen/$39.15) because hey, when would we next get the chance to eat such amazingly fresh sushi? The tuna in Japan kicks any tuna I’ve ever tried in my life to the kerb, the taste is just fricken unbelievable! We’re also given complimentary miso soup and green tea which helped bring feeling back into my frozen limbs. Unwilling to leave the warm comfort of the restaurant we slowly (and carefully!) make our way out to see the rest of the markets.


It was a pretty crummy day, freezing cold and drizzling rain and with me being sick and grumpy I took a pathetically small amount of photos which I totally regret now. Bah. We wandered the market gawking at all the fresh produce and street food for sale.


I wanted to buy this entire shop filled top to bottom with the prettiest cups, bowls and plates!


Fresh produce


I’ve never seen fresh wasabi root before!


Ooh shiny


Seafood


Tamago!


Aaaand soft creams (soft serve ice creams) galore! I tried the Hokkaido milk, cheesecake, biscuit and my fave, TOFU! It tasted like tofu-fa! Sweet, smooth and creamy.


We went back to the hotel for a nap since it was still early morning, then armed with multiple layers of clothing we walked back to Isetan to Miyagawa Honten Unagi Restaurant on the 7th floor. I chose the bento box (2855yen/$29.80) because it’s like ooh, variety! And ooh, food segregated in compartments! The eel is rich and buttery soft and I immediately regret not ordering a larger portion of eel. There was also teriyaki chicken, sashimi, tofu, salad, pickled veg, eel dashi soup and rice. But nothing as amazing as that eel!


Noods had ordered Unagi Don (2775yen/$29) and I was immediately jealous of the massive portion of eel and stole not so sneaky bites to supplement my bento.


Peered into the kitchen to watch the unagi being cooked over smoking hot coals.

IT’S A GIANT GUNDAM! We trained over to Yurikamome (Daiba) Station to DiverCity Tokyo Plaza (〒135-0064 Tokyo, Koto, Aomi, 1−1−10) to see the 18m high Gundam statue. It’s pretty epic! We didn’t stay for the show which I think is only at night.


I’d seen the Hello Kitty store at Harajuku but hadn’t wanted to queue but luckily there was one at DiverCity! Of course where there’s soft serve that’s where I’ll be so one matcha and vanilla soft cream with a Hello Kitty Kongariyaki pastry (280yen/$2.90) for me!


Noods was only a little bit hungry so ordered a kids size tonkotsu ramen which was pretty decent with a rich soup and springy noodles.


A bit of shopping and a quick gawk at the 7-11 stocking so many delicious and perfect looking foods. Like seriously! The foods at 7-11 in aus ain’t that spectacular you know? Squishy, mishappen lumps! But here? Everythiiiiing is aweeesooooomeee! Yes I must be the last person on earth to watch the lego movie.


Sushi! Onigiri! Musubi!


Sandwiches filled with random fillings! Custard cream buns!


The drinks in Japan are ridiculously cheap and lol Noods fangirled at all the cheap whiskeys.


Whereas I couldn’t tear myself away from the ice cream section. Look at those perfect swirls!


The texture of the ice cream did have a bit of a gummy texture to hold its shape I’m guessing but squee look at that packaging so my hands don’t get messy from any drips!


Headed back into the city after several more hours of shopping and somehow stumbled onto this brightly coloured ramen restaurant. It was only when we walked down the steps that we realised we had somehow found Ichiran, a famous tonkotsu ramen restaurant chain.


So make your selection and pay at the machine, sit down at your individual booth, circle your preferences (ramen hardness, amount of shallots etc), push a button and a waitress appears and your ticket is taken away. I included the toilet paper shot from their bathroom cos lol, can you ever have enough toilet paper?


Aaaand eating like a nigel! Haha well you can fold the dividers away so you’re not isolated from your friends. Love that each booth has it’s own tap to provide filtered water and that they drop the bamboo curtain down for privacy!


Hellooo precious…


The egg was just a tad overcooked but other than that it was a pretty tasty bowl of ramen! I’d selected firm noodles which was perfect because I like a bit of a bite and the slices of pork had an awesome melty fat to tender meat ratio. The broth had a good balance of richness and thickness that satisfied but didn’t overwhelm and push me into oh god my heart is gonna kill me territory. So yeah based upon my meagre ramen eats I’d totally rate Ichiran as my fave! (Yes, yes, Muteppou holds a special place in my cholesterol laden heart).


Ok I really need to talk about vending machines. They are EVERYWHERE. It’s so freaking convenient how many there are. On the streets there will be groups of them sitting all in a row, selling different brands but similar types of drinks from soft drinks to water and all the randoms in between. Caffeinated beverages come in all colours, shapes and sizes, with coffee by far being the most popular.


At only $1 each, Noods wanted to try all the weird looking ones that I couldn’t decipher which resulted in some hit and misses. I was on the hunt for corn potage aka corn soup which miraculously is kept hot in the vending machine. It’s pretty amazing and even had corn kernels on the bottom! Onion soup was another warm can that tasted eerily like french onion soup. I liked it but kept burping onion later… the green tea was refreshing but the banana drink blew our mind even though we normally hate banana flavoured things cos it tasted exactly like a banana paddlepop ice cream! The vending machine in our hotel even had alcohol beverages!


And then there was this machine in our hotel that sold meals… Considering a lot of places are open till the wee hours of the night I’m not sure who would buy the meals in this machine. Except us because, curious. Heats up in 7mins the box proclaimed! Just pull the string! Well with instructions like that, how could we resist? Out of the 5 choices in the machine there were 4 different curry meals and 1 weird looking vegetable soup. So Noods of course picks the soup. The picture of the soup didn’t look too promising but hey maybe appearances are deceiving?


We pulled the string and immediately the sound of bubbling began and we cautiously backed away a couple of metres in case it exploded. Several mins later the bubbling ceased and we carefully tore open the packaging to be greeted with this. There was a giant tentacle submerged in there that freaked me the hell out, a fat slice of lotus root, some miscellaneous vegetables, seafood and tofu skin all bathing in a herbal tasting soup. Oh and an egg which looked a little too perfect that I had to question the amount of preservatives used…


The capsule toy machines were sneaky little buggers, we’d save all our change at the end of the day and pick random machines to get toys and ended up spending quite a bit in the search for the perfect keychain! Side note, I love how recycling is super important in Japan! Next to each vending machine there were specific bins for cans, bottles and even bottle lids! One more post for Japan and it’s gonna be a doozy about cat cafes, giant bowls of udon, yakiniku and mos burgers so stay tuned :D

Click here for Japan Part 4
Click here for Japan Part 1
Click here for Japan Part 2

That’s the tl;dr version of this amazingly hilarious tale about a lady who was groped while leaving a movie theater in Boston and put her monster voice hobby to good use. ManichestBreastiny tells her story on Reddit:

A man that looked to be at least fifteen years older than myself who was walking near me in the same direction took an extra step to catch up to me and put his arm around my shoulder and grabbed my breast, and said “Hey”.

I’m small. I’m blonde. I wear t-shirts, jeans and old sneakers. I practice monstrous voices as a hobby. One of these things came out to my advantage.

I pushed him off me, and in my most threatening bellow yelled, “HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME?” Please see the Vocaroo link for a low-quality replicated voice clip that I only wish could be as good as my fear-inspired ourburst: Link to Clip

The guy froze, his mouth open and face in total shock. I knew I caught him by surprise. It took me a few seconds, between him standing funny and the smell to realize that he crapped in his pants.

I looked around, and saw a few other people staring, probably because I had just yelled at someone in a park, and made an awkward walk away from the guy. I was shaken from being grabbed, and got to the Park Street station as fast as I could walk.

This was not the first time I was groped, and it will likely not be the last. I can only hope that this one man will have felt some sort of primal fear, and will never touch a person without their permission again.

Bravo.

(h/t Jezebel)

Maya will be over here practicing her monster voice all day.

The media is quick to mock and dismiss Scout Willis’s topless protest against Instagram and her campaign to “Free The Nipple.” But if more celebrities used their social media, high profiles and boobs the way Scout Willis did, the world would be a better place. Because as Willis herself knows, the issue is bigger than her own nipples. Scout Willis, the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, had her Instagram account deleted for “instances of abuse.”  The abuse was posting a photo of herself in a sheer top and another photo of a jacket with the image of her two friends bare-breasted.

So, last week, to protest Instagram’s censorship, Willis decided to walk around New York City topless and document it on Twitter.

Of course, and predictably, Willis has been mocked by the mainstream and the right wing media. But she’s also been criticized, of course, and predictably, by people who support challenging the patriarchy. In The Guardian, Jamie Peck writes, “But can this type of protest – one that mainly involves showing off a body the male gaze is likely to enjoy – ever be terribly subversive on this (or any other) front?” In an article called “Scout Willis needs better women’s studies classes,” Anissa Ford criticizes Willis for failing to understand that “the liberation of the female body will not begin until women are financially capable of making incredibly comfortable livings without having to sell their bodies either by profession or in outdated, uncongenial marriages that keep women financially afloat.” OK. So, Willis has not been able to disrupt patriarchy or abolish capitalism. But is she doing anything of value? I would dare to say yes.

First of all, Willis is not oblivious to her privilege. As she explained in XOJane on Monday,

I understand that people don’t want to take me seriously. Or would rather just write me off as an attention-seeking, over-privileged, ignorant, white girl. I am white and I was born to a high profile and financially privileged family.

It is her very privilege, she realizes, that enables her to attract attention to the issue:

I didn’t choose my public life, but it did give me this platform. A platform that helps make body politics newsworthy.

Willis is very clear that she’s not a persecuted minority or victim: “My situation was in no way unique; women are regularly kicked off Instagram for posting photos with any portion of the areola exposed, while photos sans nipple — degrading as they might be — remain unchallenged.” Nor does Willis portray herself as a revolutionary, trailblazing savior: “I am certainly not doing anything novel. A group here in New York called Topless Pulp gathers in parks to read topless regularly, and the Free The Nipple campaign has been protesting for the same rights for the last four years. If my coming from a high-profile family could help spread their message, so be it.”

Willis could have made her fight a parochial one that focused solely on her spat with Instagram. Instead, as her statement and Twitter feed demonstrate, Willis is connecting the dots between nipple policing and larger issues of gender, sexuality, slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and body politics:

Why can’t a mother proudly breastfeed her child in public without feeling sexualized? Why is a 17-year-old girl being asked to leave her own prom because a group of fathers find her too provocative? Why should I feel overly exposed because I choose not to wear a bra? Why would it be okay with Instagram and Facebook to allow photos of a cancer survivor who has had a double mastectomy and is without areolas [sic] but “photos with fully exposed breasts, particularly if they’re unaffected by surgery, don’t follow Instagram’s Community Guidelines.”

(Interestingly, this is the inverse of the Facebook problem with breast cancer photos. In the case of Facebook, images of mastectomies were banned as inappropriate. They were hyper-sexualized. In the case of Instagram, the breasts of women who have had cancer and have had their aureolas removed are de-sexualized. Obviously, both trends are problematic and inappropriate. )

Sadly, the facts are on Willis’s side, as institutions continue to police and control the way people dress and present their bodies. Just over the course of the past week, we learned about a Utah high school that photo-shopped the year book photos of certain female students so their necklines would be higher and their sleeves would be longer.

In a page straight out of the “you can’t make this shit up” book, the school did indeed apologize– for not being more aggressive and vigilant in their puritanical digital altering.

And between 20 and 30 female students in Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador province were sent home from school for daring to wear tank tops that revealed their–wait for it–bra straps! Though some male students were also made to leave the school over their lack of sleeves, they were not slut-shamed or reprimanded for inviting lust or sexual attention. One female students said she was told to go home “because of our bra straps, and that it was inappropriate because some of the male teachers, and male students, found it distracting for them.” Another female student recalled being told bare shoulders could “invite unneeded attention” from male students and that “boys will be boys.”

The good news is people are fighting back. Fourteen-year-old Tallie Doyle called out her school’s sexism after she was reprimanded for wearing a spaghetti-strap tank. And after 15-year-old Lindsey Stocker was berated and humiliated by the vice-principals over the length of her shorts, she responded by printing and posting these posters around her school:

We should commend Willis just as much (no more and no less) as we commend these students and everyone who challenges a system which tries to moralize, legislate, criminalize and pathologize people’s bodies. Hollywood is widely and justly characterized as insulated and out of touch with the real world. When stars  take up movements or causes, they tend to be on behalf of others with whom they have little in common culturally or geographically. Willis’s awareness of her self, her role, and her connection to the lives of other people and larger struggles is rare, especially for a celebrity.

 Katie Halper is giving Scout Willis a virtual fist chest bump.

Last year I did a story where I interviewed six people with interesting jobs to find out what they ate for a living. Call it a typical question for the food obsessed. It was such a hit and I enjoyed researching it so much that I decided to do it again!

OH HAI! So like, if you follow me on Instagram you’d have seen the epic eats from over the weekend to celebrate my day of birth :P It started with amazing eats from Bentley Restaurant at their new digs in Radisson Blu Hotel and a crazy meat fest at Papi Chulos in Manly. And sandwiched in between these 2 incredible meals there was dinner with Helen and Richard at Hartsyard (33 Enmore Rd, Newtown) which just about blew my mind.


But first! A beverage to kick off the night! The Smoked Caesar ($18) is pretty full on with a shot of Finlandia vodka, clamato juice, smoked tomato and just the right amount of HY hot sauce to set my mouth a tingling but not on fire.


The Crispy Pig Tails ($21) are generous sized croquettes where each bite is mostly a blast of porcine fat which basically equals happiness in my mind. There was also a river of creamy buttermilk dressing that had me scraping the plate for more and wishing I could just drink it with a straw…


The Fried Chicken ($29) is a must order. There was a drumstick, thigh and a mega sized piece of breast meat with shatteringly crisp, golden batter encasing super juicy innards. I loved the sausage gravy which reminded me of good ol Texas but the buttermilk biscuit was a tad dense and I wished it was fluffier. There’s a bottle of house made hot sauce on each table which was pretty darn tasty and not overly spicy and we ended up swiping bits of food with the hot sauce all night.


When the Short Rib ($35) arrived we all cooed at the sight of the puffed beef tendon covered in an addictive Pyengana cheddar powder, cos I mean, hey, puff! The puff was so light and airy but it did have a bit of resilience in it so when I pulled off a piece of the puff, the cheese powder flew everywhere because it’s me and I’m special like that. The short rib was meltingly tender and conveniently pre sliced! Oh and the side of cauliflower helped delude me into thinking I wasn’t eating something terribly unhealthy.


Our lovely waitress suggested we order the Roast Carrots ($18) or Broccoli ($23) but the mention of vegetables made our eyes glaze over and instead we ordered the Lamb Ribs ($29) because of the promise of cornbread which luckily tasted like buttery awesomeness. There was a fairly large amount of meat on them bones and a thin creamy layer of delectable fat, all covered in a lip smackingly tasty bbq sauce.


The Poutine ($29) pushed us over the edge into food coma territory with batons of golden fried potatoes, a mountain of braised beef shin and the whole shebang covered in a decadently rich beer and cheese sauce.


And then it was onto the famed Hartsyard desserts! I stalk pastry chef genius Andy Bowdy on Instagram and lust over his creations each week. The Peanut Butter + Banana Sundae ($18) tasted like the power of a thousand rainbow unicorns! It was truly glorious and set my heart aflutter with each spoonful of peanut butter ice cream, banana donut, fresh slices of banana and lashings of salted fudge.


Behold, the Hartsyard Soft Serve of the day ($14)! Cookie dough soft serve, raw cookie dough chunks, milk chocolate dip, crushed M&Ms, salty chocolate fudge and whipped cream. How can your soul not smile at this childhood flashback?!


While our booking came with a 2 hour window we didn’t feel rushed at all and I really appreciated the staff taking the time to explain all our dishes to us. I really love Hartsyard and want to go back and eat everything on their menu!

Nine-year-old skateboarder Sabre Norris finally nails it.

What does Black masculinity look like?

EOAGH: A Journal of the Arts is accepting submissions for a special issue dedicated to creative writing by trans women.

Moms are pushing the EPA to recall the herbicide Roundup so it doesn’t end up in breast milk.

Glenn Beck’s show airs a skit straight-up mocking the problem of campus rape. In addition to being shameful, it’s totally misleading.

Two trans women were attacked by a group of men in the Atlanta subway in a horrible transphobic assault.

Usually our “New Favorite Tumblr” feature highlights cats or sandwiches, but “When Women Refuse” is proof of online community media’s ability to bear far more weight than we give it credit. The new site, started by Deanna Zandt, catalogs “stories of violence inflicted on women who reject sexual advances.” The posts contextualize the Isla Vista shooting as a particularly gruesome instance of a widespread pattern rather than an inexplicable aberration.

A trigger warning feels redundant given the Tumblr’s mission, but take care of yourself if you read: both the stories and images are graphic. You can find a few more posts after the jump.

Alexandra Brodsky is a Feministing editor, student at Yale Law School, and founding co-director of Know Your IX.

Folks at The Vagenda had the idea of asking readers to rewrite stupid/sexist headlines. Like this:

The results were fantastic. Here’s a sampling.

From @bexatrex:

From @ledavies:

From @RubyJLL:

From @kimmibobs:

From @ce_corp: Via Buzzfeed.

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

“The jacket is my own Hanna Sarén design. It's made of a recycled and dyed tablecloth. The bag is vintage and the shoes from Urban Outfitters in Stockholm.

I like several prints in one outfit, colourful accessories and funny socks. And hints of neon colour, gold or silver.”

21 May 2014, Nervanderinkatu

Where do I begin? Usually I struggle a little for words to write… I am currently struggling with which order I want to tell you a million and one things about this AMAZING wedding.

The perfect Autumn country wedding, complete with bonfires, hay bales, and apple pies. The craziest fun couple, up for anything, in love and enjoying every moment of their day. Alex and Jason’s wedding is not one I will be forgetting any time soon.

It isn’t often I get to photograph a wedding with sheep, alpaca, games of leap frog, a vintage Scotch bar, ruby slippers, suspenders, bow ties and a head butting couple. By “not often” I mean never!

Absolutely blessed with amazing family and friends, their entire wedding was pulled together by them while Alex and Jason resided interstate. The details are amazing! Nothing was overlooked… oh besides running out of alcohol haha, yes including the Scotch.

I cannot wait to photograph another wedding in stunning Orange.

 

Recently, a customer at the Atomic Grill in Morgantown, West Virginia complained on UrbanSpoon that the restaurant’s servers should “show more skin.” Because, obviously, as everyone knows, when you go out to eat, you are paying not just for the meal but also the chance to ogle the women whose job it is to serve it to you. 

The restaurant’s owner Daniel McCawley was pissed. He explained, “The way that women are treated is pretty personal as far as I’m concerned.” In response, he posted a photo of potato skins on the restaurant’s Facebook page and offered a special on them. All the profits from the skins will go to the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information Services.

Well played.

Maya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

These are not fancy glasses:

They’re celery vases and they’re exactly what they sound like: vases for celery.   In the late 1800s, people used these vases to ostentatiously present celery to their guests. Celery, you see, was a status food: a rare delicacy that only wealthy families could afford and, therefore, a way to demonstrate your importance to guests.

As celery began to decline in importance — cheaper varieties became available and its role for the elite declined — celery vases were replaced by celery dishes.   “Less conspicuous on the dining table,” writes decorative arts consultant Walter Richie, “the celery dish reflected the diminishing importance of celery.”

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

*Trigger warning*

Well, this is fucking awful.

Over the course of three years, an Indiana man named David Wise regularly drugged his wife, raped her, and filmed the assaults on his phone. When confronted, he admitted to her in writing that “I was taking advantage of you in your sleep and you kept coming to me and telling me it was NOT ok.” He was convicted of six felony charges, but won’t spent a single day in prison because the county judge suspended 12 years of his 20-year sentence and decided that eight years of home confinement was plenty. 

To quote Wise’s ex-wife Mandy Boardman: unfathomable. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, she spoke out against the sentence:

“To have my rapist, my attacker, convicted on all six counts, only to be let go – only for him to walk out that door the same time I could — was just unfathomable. I never thought that he would be at home, being able to have the same rights and privileges as I do.

Somebody who premeditates what he’s doing to me, over and over again, for three-plus years, in my own home, in my own bed, by somebody I trusted fully, 100%, deserves to spend a great deal of their life in prison to pay for it. What he did was wrong, and it was proven that it was wrong, and there was no consequence.”

Boardman also called out the judge, Kurt Eisgruber, for urging her to forgive her rapist-piece-of-shit-husband.

“While the judge was giving his opinion on the sentence, he first turned to me and told me I needed to forgive my attacker, which is unfathomable. He told me I needed to forgive my attacker and I needed to let my attacker walk. It was a punch to the gut from the justice system — or from one judge.”

Eisgruber claimed he was just trying to say that he hoped she could eventually forgive him “because he’s obviously struggled with this.” I have a hard time imagining a judge would consider it his place to dispense such advice if this were a case of stranger rape. While marital rape has been illegal in all of the US since 1993 (yep, that recently), not everyone agrees that martial rape is rape, and there’s still a tendency to see an assault by a spouse as something more akin to a relationship issue to be worked through than a criminal violation.

Meanwhile, there’s no indication Wise understands what a terrible thing he did, and the light sentence just seems to confirm the idea that “there will be no consequences for your crime” – to Wise and the rest of us. I’ll give Boardman the last word, since that is the very least that she deserves:

“He never once apologized, never once expressed any type of remorse, and his explanation for admittedly drugging me was because I was snippy. Women, don’t get snippy out there; you might get drugged and raped.”

Maya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

Mother Jones has an important and disturbing piece about how gun extremists are harassing women speaking out for gun reforms.

Ever since the Sandy Hook massacre, a small but vocal faction of the gun rights movement has been targeting women who speak up on the issue—whether to propose tighter regulations, educate about the dangers to children, or simply to sell guns with innovative security features. The vicious and often sexually degrading attacks have evolved far beyond online trolling, culminating in severe bullying, harassment, invasion of privacy, and physical aggression. Though vitriol flows from both sides in the gun debate, these menacing tactics have begun to alarm even some entrenched pro-gun conservatives.

The women featured in the piece — who’ve not only been harassed online but had their home addresses publicized; who’ve received rape and death threats followed up by actual physical assaults — all demonstrate unbelievable stoicism, dismissing their harassers as cowards and bullies. As one teacher who was inundated by threatening phone calls said, ”I think they are very weak men. They use their guns because that’s all they have.”

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots group that began after Sandy Hook, explains, “For me, the question is always, ‘Why does this person want to kill or rape or silence me?’ I think the answer is that this issue touches a cultural nerve based on gender, geography, and other politics. There are pundits who make a good deal of money encouraging this type of anger.”

Read the rest here.

Maya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.