Ok, I know I’m all about the panels today, but here’s another one — save the date! I’m moderating 🙂

The Tenement Museum presents…
Feminist New York
Thursday, October 11
6-8 PM

Lower East Side Tenement Museum Shop
108 Orchard Street at Delancey

Join us for a panel discussion with Pamela Thompson & Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, authors of the recently published Every Past Thing and Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Our panel will discuss the private and public acts of New York women during the late 19th and early 20th century. As the moderator, I’ll put the issues in a contemporary feminist context, too. Free and open to the public – but RSVPs requested (Bookclub@tenement.org).

Dying to read it. Here’s Faludi in the Times today, sounding off on “an exaltation of American masculinity in an intergalactic crisis.” Cowboy president, anyone? (Actually, the book sounds like much more than Backlash sequel, but I loved me that book so much….)

Sometimes there is just too much panel goodness going on in this town. I am SO going to this one. Join me?!

Tuesday, October 16, 7:00 p.m.
Wollman Hall
65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor
Admission: $8

Are increasing numbers of elite women voluntarily opting out of serious careers thereby betraying feminism, stalling their own development, and gambling with their own and their children’s economic futures? Moderated by E.J. Graff, senior researcher at Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University. Panelists include Joan Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, University California at Hastings; Heather Boushey, senior economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research; Ellen Bravo, author of Taking On The Big Boys: Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business and the Nation and Linda Hirshman, lawyer, professor emeritus Brandeis University. Sponsored by the Wolfson Center for National Affairs.

(Thanks to Anthony Deen for the heads up.)

I’m back in NYC – whew – and wanted to send a shout out and a warm welcome to Marco (see post below)! And thank you so much to everyone who channeled good thoughts and sent the sweetest emails asking about my dad. His surgery went swimmingly, and he’s back at work already. I repeat: whew.

And also just a quickie reminder. Come one, come all, to the Woodhull Writers Well tomorrow!

Ok, I’m hitting the hay now. It’s been a LONG couple a days.

This is guest blogger Marco with the first in a series of posts here on Girl With Pen where I aim to examine cultural and media-enabled myths and expectations regarding men — our desires, peeves, habits and obsessions, such as they are. But first, a few words to explain my feature title, lest I be confused with those oily, sarcastic, Coors-and-testosterone-addled shlubs who haunt the comment threads over at Broadsheet.

No sarcasm is intended. I’ve adopted the “good sport” moniker as a kind of badge of honor ever since it was bestowed on me by Nona Willis-Aronowitz at dinner. To explain further: after Dee’s reading at New York’s KGB Bar recently, we went out for a chocolate dinner reward at the Bald Man (aka Max Brenner) with Lauren Sandler and Nona Willis-Aronowitz (but you knew that already if you read this post). I’m a big fan of Broadsheet (and of course Girl w/Pen) because I happen to enjoy listening to smart, funny, sassy women, whether the subject is “the patriarchy” or relationships— and there was a whole lot of talk on the latter at this particular venue. To be fair, we also touched on Nona’s upcoming road trip and Dee’s traveling WomenGirlsLadies panel; it all coalesced around talking up, rediscovering and re-mapping the American Woman between the coasts, between cities and between easy polarities.

There’s something cozily mesmerizing about following the Moebius loop of women talking about women talking; something also about the instant camaraderie of firing marshmallows over the table brazier and sharing dark chocolate fondue — probably the closest I’ve yet come to summer camp (not a typical option back in my ‘hood, back in the day). Anyhow, when Lauren’s husband and a buddy showed up it was suddenly three boys to three girls, and there was a palpable thump, like ballast shifting in the hold of a ship when it changes course. Nona sort of shook her head as if to clear it and smiled at me. “You’ve been a good sport for putting up with all the Sex-and-the-City stuff,” she said. I smiled back and shrugged. “Not at all. It was fun.” And it was. Now it was time for the men to high-five and reel out the batting averages… not. The new subject was Lauren and Justin’s cool digs in Williamsburg— midcentury modern or New York eclectic?

Domicile trumps locker room. Almost always OK by me.

My next post: lock and load—— Halo 3 hits the streets and guy-outlets like Spike TV go into frenzy mode. Meanwhile that study on guys, gals and first-person shooter games surfaces in The Economist, and makes Jezebel go “Hmmm…”

I’m quoted in a Reuters article posted today by Helen Chernikoff, “Burlesque revival: more nerdy than sexy?” I think Chernikoff did an excellent job portraying the nuance of new burlesque. And while I’m on it, the Spring/Summer 2007 issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly puts the new burlesque in context. A quick summary of the issue, which is titled “The Sexual Body”:

The mid-1970s feminist critique of the female body, sex, and pornography ignited a debate that has continued to this day. Through critical essays, fiction, poetry, and images, this provocative issue of WSQ probes this territory in the light of emerging areas of study. Engaging the fields of critical race studies, film studies, history, literary criticism, performance studies, and political theory, The Sexual Body energizes the debates on the status of sex, pleasure, power, and desire. Ranging from soul food to dance hall music to new discussions of female-and transgender-directed pornography, this issue mobilizes cutting-edge feminist, race, and queer scholarship to push critical theories of the body to their limits and anticipates where race and sex will inform the next generation.

Bonnie Erbe recently hosted a roundtable on feminism and Gen Y on PBS’s To the Contrary. Over at feministing.com, Gen Y feminist Ann Friedman responds to the charge that Gen Y is not a movement generation, noting that the online feminist community is where it’s at:

I think if the online feminist community has proved anything, it’s that we are a movement generation. I participated in feminist actions on my college campus, but that felt more like a club than a movement. I worked for a women’s rights nonprofit, but that felt more like a day job than a movement. I went to rallies and marches, but they felt more like one-off events than a movement. It took blogging here, and being part of a community of feminist bloggers, for me to really feel like part of a feminist movement. To feel I was part of a group of people, committed to a set of ideals, who are working day in and day out to advance those ideals.

So my question then is: When does a virtual movement become “real” in the eyes of those who have, in the past, done activism differently? Because it’s not just about getting young women involved in feminism. It’s about getting feminist organizations involved in online.

Scroll down here to see the video or just listen to the audio.

(I hear that a To the Contrary episode with clips from me and Jessica Valenti aired recently, but I can’t seem to find the link! If anyone has seen it, please let me know? And shoot me the link? Many thanks.)

If you’re in NYC and write (or want to) about parenting, I strongly recommend this panel on October 3, sponsored by the Newswomen’s Club. My friend Helaine Olen is moderating. Both she and Rachel are terrific — and I’m sure the others are too. And if those newswomen don’t have the damndest logo! Here are deets:

Join the Newswomen’s Club of New York at 6:30 pm on October 3rd, when we discuss the world of writing for parenting magazines. Our five guests — all editors at nationally known parenting magazines — will offer an overview of how to pitch, research and structure articles ranging from service pieces to personal essays. They’ll also discuss what kinds of ideas do and don’t work for their publications as well as answer questions from those in the audience.

Panelists:
Ada Calhoun, Editor-in-Chief, Babble.com and AOL News Blogger
Judy Goldberg, Senior Editor, Parents
Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, Executive Editor, Plum
Jenny Rosenstrach, Senior Editor, Cookie
Joy Press, Culture Editor, Salon

Cost: $20 members/$25 non-members to be paid at door

Location: Playwright Act II restaurant at 732 8th Avenue bet 45th and 46th in the party room. 212-354-8404. Attendees can get food and drinks before and after the event. RSVP: olenroshkow@yahoo.com

And while I’m on the subject, don’t forget to check out The Motherhood and Work It, Mom! — the latest in online mommy networking.

In response to Sunday’s New York Times article featuring women in their 20s who outearn their dates and feel awkward about it, the Wall Street Journal’s “Juggle” now asks:

Have other professionals out there faced awkwardness when one person earns far more than other? Or can love trump those kind of differences?

The comments are sooo very interesting.

Meanwhile, according to a new Accenture study, an overwhelming majority of working mothers say that if there were no obstacles, they would continue working. Here’s the deal:

In an online survey of more than 700 working mothers in mid- to senior-level management positions, nearly 90 percent of the respondents reported that, if there were no obstacles, they would work either full-time, part-time or under a flex-time arrangement (reported by 31 percent, 26 percent and 33 percent of respondents, respectively). Just 11 percent said they would not work at all.

Take that ye opt-out-disaster headlines! Read more more here.

(Thanks to the Amazing Laura Sabatinni for the links. Photo cred.)

Well, at least it’s not a “catfight” (hehe). Turns out the American Association of University Professors just shut down their listserv because folks couldn’t play nicely with each other. (Read about it here, in Inside Higher Ed)

Over at MediaCommons, Clancy Ratliff offers a montage of visual representations of “The Internet Regression” (which is the cleverish name of an essay describing internet users’ tendencies to exhibit extreme rudeness and/or kindness.) Says Clancy,

I believe many scholars hear “online publishing” and think of [images of obstinate blowhard conversation — like the one pictured above]. It may take a lot of counterexamples to dislodge those prejudices, especially since the behavior that prompts the prejudices still occurs all over the net every day.

Ok ok. Full disclosure: This post began as an excuse to post the picture, which looks remarkably like, but is not, my cat. (But for the record, I am NOT cat blogging. Um, yet.