Excerpt From S.E.X. On Trans-Friendliness

So I just stumbled upon Heather Corinna's book S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College through Scarleteen's Genderpalooza: A Sex & Gender Primer and I think I already like it. This part in particular pleased me:

How to Be Trans-friendly and Subvert Crummy Gender Roles at the Same Time, in Five Easy Steps!

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Note to Self: Never Move to Mississippi

Just weeks after the horrible hullabulloo in Mississippi over Constance McMillen--an out  lesbian teen--being banned from her prom and then sent to a fake prom instead comes this news story of another lesbian teen from Mississippi being denied a spot in her school's yearbook. Why, you ask? Take a look at the photo in question.

Pretty cute photo, right?

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Incarcerated Girls & The HPV Vaccine

A report released today by the Miriam Hospital and Brown University has revealed that most states now offer HPV vaccinations to girls within the juvenile justice system. Setting aside the issue of drug safety for now, this is exciting news since some have argued that HPV vaccines such as Gardasil and Cervarix have been marketed to the wrong groups of women in the first place. As Liz Szabo, Sheila Rothman and Charlotte Haug argue in this USA Today article,

Some doctors now question whether the vaccine has been overpromoted to affluent women who need it least instead of patients most at risk of dying from the disease...Women who die from [cervical] cancer tend to be poor women without access to routine medical care that allows doctors to find and remove growths before they turn malignant.... Many of those deaths are among poor white women in Appalachia, blacks in the South and Latinas along the Texas-Mexico border... Vaccinating women who already get annual exams does little to reduce the number of deaths.

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Greetings, feminists!

Hello, everyone! My name is (despite what my blogger handle may say) and I am excited to be part of this new blog on youth feminism. Although FemineUS is technically a project for the amazing Melanie Klein's Women and Popular Culture class at Santa Monica College, it is also a project I've always personally wanted to undertake. All too often young women are made to be the topic of feminist discourse and not equal participants in those very discussions. All too often young women's activism is overlooked or ignored. And all too often today's young feminists are criticized for only being interested in "pole dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about [our] sex lives." We here at FemineUS would like to change all that.

We hope that through this blog we can build a community of young feminists who are interested in discussing issues relevant to our own young lives -- be it body image, teen sexuality, sexual harassment, violence against young women,sexism in youth culture, or the influence of the media on the youth of today.

We invite any and all feedback you may have. If you know any young feminists (or people you wish would own up to being feminist), please direct them our way! Pass the blog's address on to your friends, post about it on Facebook, tweet about posts you like on Twitter, whatever you feel like doing. We want to start a conversation and we want you to be part of it.

Introduction

Hi everyone, I'm part of this blog because as a group we wanted a chance to have our voices heard and allow others to have their voices heard as well. Before taking a Women Studies Class I only knew some things about feminism, feminist, etc. Lets just put it this way, I wasn't well informed about this subject. Now that I'm taking this class my eyes have become open to things, I now see certain things in a whole new light. For example I always I always knew that the media played a role in the way that women (and men) feel about themselves, the way they sell the idea of "true" beauty. I also knew that women and girls are treated differently from men and boys, but I never knew there were certain things out there that proved this. I feel as if my voice has become stronger, there are things out there I would have never questioned, but now I think about it and ask why? Hopefully out of this blog our voices will become even STRONGER, and hopefully this blog will allow us to give people out there a place to have their voices be HEARD, without being afraid of speaking up.

Self Introduction

We started this blog because of our course in Women in Pop Culture. We want to spread ideas, knowledge, and demographics on feminism. I am very excited to see what we come up with and learn together. I wasn't as fond or educated on feminism until I took this course. Becoming educated on feminism has changed the way I perceive things, from the media and women to the way men treat me. It has really helped me to know my worth and demand respect. It doesn't make me a "bitch" or a "lesbian" it makes me a strong and intelligent woman. Like many women I used to think that a man won't want me if i express my feminist thoughts but now I see that it has made me MUCH more desirable. It attracts the right attention because the men see that I respect myself and know my worth so they believe the same thoughts about me too. I get so mad at myself when I think of the way I was before because I think that I was a weak, submissive, and naive girl. But then I realize that I was young and ignorant. Once I was opened up to the knowledge I have now I changed. Everyone makes mistakes and learns from them. Now I would like to help spread feminism through this blog and help young (and all) women like myself know their worth and rights as women. Looking forward to it! :)