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Feminist Friday: Funny is Funny, Finke

This Week in Argh

Sort-of-always-angry Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke posted a rant in her Emmy blog about how hot women can’t be funny.

No. No no no no no. No. Did I mention no? Also no. NO.

Way to “defend” women in comedy by missing all the points while contributing to dumb sexist stereotypes at the same time.

The problem is not that Hollywood only hires hot women, who cannot possibly be funny. The problem is that Hollywood tends to hire only the funny women who are also hot.

And that problem is perpetuated when people — including other women — slice women up into categories based on hotness instead of, say, judging skilled and talented women purely on their skill and talent. Suggesting that the many funny women who are also attractive must not really be one of those things is stupid and frustrating and objectively wrong and really, really, really beside the point.

I want the most funny in general, and I want the most funny women in particular to be getting work. As long as they’re funny, how about we fret less about the packaging?

As if that weren’t enough, science proved that even scientists (and even female scientists) tend to be sexist when evaluating job applicants. I’m tempted to just put on some appropriately aggro music and wait out the next few decades in the car.

This Week in Politics

Hey, after the whole world righteously hooted and jeered at Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s breathtakingly stupid “legitimate rape” theories, did you think you might be done hearing him open his caketrench about ladies and ladyness and what a good lady should do?

Alas, you were wrong. Mr. Akin would like you to know that his opponent, Senator Claire McCaskill, was not ladylike enough when debating him. I trust that next time she’ll be sure to throw some doilies around.

MoveOn.org passed around a hell of a clip from This is My Body. Check the end: you can add your thoughts to the mix.

And my friend Mary tipped me off to the fact that the Nuns on the Bus did not take kindly to Mitt Romney’s 47% comments. Keep not shutting up, nuns!

And Politics365 explained why most of that 47% are women.

Hey, Oregon (and everyone)! Make sure you vote all the way down the ballot. Out lesbian Nena Cook is a state Supreme Court candidate.

This Week in Things I’m Sorry You’re about to Picture

Rush Limbaugh started everyone’s weekend off with a retch and a shudder by announcing that feminists are making his weenis smaller. Oh, Rush. The fact that you’ve never in your life given a woman pleasure has nothing to do with the size of your manbits. It’s because you’re a horrible person who fears women and exhibits a near-total lack of ability to empathize with other human beings.

I’m glad we could clear that up for you.

This Week in Thinky

Feministing reported that New York City’s Department of Education is testing a program to make Plan B available to girls in public high schools.

…And Slate expanded on that with a look at the very different ways New York State and Mississippi approach sex ed.

Meanwhile Jill Filipovic laid out the moral case for premarital sex in The Guardian. (Yes, I know this is a lot of heterocentric sex talk. Let’s agree to augment the above concepts into a general thesis that happy, safe banging at the right time with the right person is a good goal for anyone. Except for asexuals. Damn, I really thought I had something going there.)

Geena Davis made some trenchant points about gender stereotyping in popular entertainment and noted that movies still have four or five male characters for every female character — just like they did in 1946. (Via Jezebel)

This Week in Awesome

This one has a happy ending: A Reddit user decided that a Sikh woman with facial hair didn’t look normal enough for him, so he posted it to Reddit’s “funny” section in order that others might join in the mocking.

Here’s where it gets amazing. The woman herself, Balpreet Kaur, saw the picture and posted such a thoughtful and graceful response that the original poster apologized. Reading Kaur’s post is well worth your time, and might even put a little lift in your step.

The Daily Beast ran an absorbing feature on female CIA analysts. (Hat tip to Feministing for the link.)

Oh, heavens to Betsy, Gina Carano is going to be the lead in an all-female action movie inspired by The Expendables. This is going to break my perfect streak of not seeing any Expendables movies (How many have there been? Two? Eight?), but maybe since it’s just inspired by them it won’t count. Either way, it will be worth it to see Ms. Carano slamming people into walls again.

Personal note: Bridget McManus and I are in an ongoing action-style-but-quieter fight over whether Carano’s last film, Haywire, was boring (Bridget) or really freaking awesome (me, all people who are good and righteous and like awesome things). Get your hands taped up and join Team Ali in the comments.

This Week in Frivolity and Delight

SNL brought us the natural extension of the GOP’s sudden interest in everything about ladybits except for understanding them.

A woman in New Zealand really wanted to make a clean break after her divorce. So she launched her wedding ring into space.

FemPop chronicled Amy Poehler’s cheerful insistence on taking the piss out of the Emmys. In case you missed it, here’s this year’s mischief.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Glenn Close? I freaking love Glenn Close. Here’s only a tiny portion of why.

Oh, my goodness, I love Madeline Albright too. And now so do you. (Thanks to The Maddow Blog) for the link.

Have a great weekend. Get out there and find your own beat.

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