Filtering by Tag: WOMEN
The Girl in the Sky
A couple billboards on Sunset Boulevard. Follow me on Instagram for more photographs from my life in L.A.
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The Jezebels
The Death of Jezebel by Gustav Doré | Wikipedia
Anna Holmes has an interesting piece at The New Yorker: “Jezebel and the Question of Women’s Anger.” Holmes was the founding editor of Jezebel in its heyday, and she explores how the website was groundbreaking in its articulations of the things women are not supposed to discuss and the ways in which they are not supposed to discuss them. I am briefly mentioned in the essay, as someone who complained Jezebel’s writers were doing little more than “‘caterwauling about the patriarchy.’” In any case, the story is a good read and a thoughtful consideration of whether or not the feminist blogosphere laid the groundwork for today’s online fracturosphere. I do wish, though, that she had talked more about the current state of Jezebel and what she thinks of it now. Was Jezebel subsumed … or a feminist-rage machine not built to last?
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The Lonely Mannequin
She May Destroy You
I love this cover portrait of Michaela Coel by Tim Walker for W Magazine. If you haven’t seen HBO’s “I May Destroy You,” which is terrific, you should.
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All Her Dying Lovers
Loved this short from The New York Times Op-Docs: “All Her Dying Lovers.” It combines animation and assemblage audio to recount the enigmatic tale of a woman who sought revenge. A fascinating parsing of truth, memory, and myth.
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The Canary in the Data Mine
Image via Sensity
I’ve launched a privacy newsletter that spies on the people who are spying on you: The Canary in the Data Mine. It’s about privacy, surveillance, and cybersecurity. The first installment considers, among other things, why Jeffrey Toobin was jerking off during a work meeting. Read it here. Subscribe here.
An excerpt:
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention The New Yorker scribe Jeffrey Toobin’s Zoom incident, in which the journalist was caught jerking his meat during a virtual work meeting. Generally, I follow the Bible on such matters—see John 8:7: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone’—but Toobin’s tubin’ merits a closer look.”
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From the Archives
From left to right:
A woman at an adult convention in Rosemead, IL
Attendees at the AVN Awards in Las Vegas, NV
A porn star at an adult convention in Las Vegas, NV
(All photos by me.)
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Scream
A recent shot from my Instagram featuring a mannequin and the mountains.
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The Latest Newsletter
Image by me
Check out my latest newsletter. Subscribe here. It touches on the rise of the SuperCunt, the future of Furiosa, and my latest adventures in online dating.
An excerpt:
“This week, my role model is Christine on ‘Selling Sunset.’ She’s the SuperC*nt Los Angeles real estate agent that the feminist movement wrought. She looks like Barbie, but she operates like a Blackwater mercenary.”
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WAP
“WAP” featuring Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Kylie Jenner. The video is lit.
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The Gender Role Test
I took this online gender role test today, after seeing it on a friend’s Facebook page. I’m sure it’s very unscientific, but, that said, it was no surprise to me that I scored very high on the masculine traits and very low on the feminine traits. I suppose the most problematic aspect of the test is what traits it identifies as masculine and what traits it identifies as feminine. Competitive? You’re masculine. Empathetic? You’re feminine. Surely, who we are is more complicated than that.
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Lessons from the C-suite
Image via She Negotiates
I shared some of what I’ve learned as a consultant to male C-suite executives in Victoria Pynchon’s newsletter. You can read the whole thing here, and you can sign up for her newsletter here.
An excerpt:
“When women get locked into imposter syndrome, men dive into the unknown of presuming they’ll figure it out along the way. Take a page from the guy who landed the corner office by faking it until he made it. He isn’t any more capable than you. He’s just more capable at pretending that he’s more capable than you.”
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Second Act
Next week, I have a remote audition for an upcoming reality television series. They’re looking for women of a certain age who are ready to pursue their second act. Here’s to hoping they pick me to join the second act-ers.
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I Get Email
Hello Ms. Breslin,
I just finished reading your blog (I know I’m three years late), and I too thought I was the only one who didn’t enjoy the new Wonder Woman movie. I wholeheartedly agree that her character is extremely lacking in dimension, and I find the plot tiresome and predictable. However, I disagree with something you said in the post, though I may be misinterpreting your meaning. To quote you directly, you wrote “I get it. I'm not supposed to expect that from a superhero movie. Wonder Woman is a cartoon. She is a caricature. She is by her very nature not complex. Literally, she is flat, two-dimensional, nothing more than a symbol.” but I think this may be too harsh a judgement of the superhero genre. Despite the fact that women in early comics were incredibly one dimensional, I think the superhero genre has grown in leaps and bounds over the decades, but continues to be overlooked and discredited by most serious critics, and honestly most adults in general. Wonder Woman and other early woman heroines may have begun as, like you say, caricatures of women and as heroes, but I believe that this is no longer the case, and it is only the result of poor writing that casts them in this light. The writers of this screenplay chose to tell a bland, dimensionless story, when they could have followed the lead of modern comic writers and created a strong and inspiring narrative based around a well rounded character. Please don’t discredit her character completely, as she has much potential that is being wasted on cheap, make-a-buck writing tactics.
Sincerely, [redacted]
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The Pink Ghetto
Joseph Pulitzer via Wikipedia
As I mentioned here previously, I was interviewed for an essay that appears in Sex and Journalism: Critical, Global Perspectives. Titled “‘In a Pink Ghetto’: How Female News Workers Define Sex Journalism” and written by Belinda Middleweek, the chapter seeks to define sex journalism and identify its practitioners. They are predominantly female and mostly freelancers. I was one of those interviewed for the piece, and it was interesting to read her insights. In her conclusion, she writes, quoting me (Interviewee 4): “‘When does the first sex journalist win a Pulitzer?’ (Interviewee 4). My answer? Never in this pink ghetto.” Middleweek isn’t launching a criticism here or looking down her nose at sex journalism and those who do it. She’s merely observing that between the gender of sex journalists and the ghettoization of sex journalism in the news landscape, it may be unlikely that one of its own could be given one of journalism’s highest honors. I, for one, disagree with Middleweek. Or, at least, I hold out hope that sex journalism will one day rise out of the pink ghetto in which it exists, and someday one of us will win a Pulitzer. The unknown is when.
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Slasher
I wrote an appreciation of Charles Forsman’s Slasher for the Seriocomic series on HILOBROW. I highly recommend the Slasher series. It’s wild and outrageous and like no other comic I’ve ever read.
“Narratively, bad things happen, oftentimes at Christine’s hand: people die, people are brutalized, people are terribly lonely. But for Christine, murder is self-affirming. ‘I’ve never felt so relaxed,’ Christine texts Joshua after a fresh kill. ‘Like I’ve been holding my piss for 25 years. I know who I am now.’”
Read the rest here.
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Ms. Shiv
The most interesting woman character on TV right now is Siobhan Roy on “Succession.” Aptly nicknamed Shiv, she is an uber-predator among a family of predators, quick to slice any challenger who presents himself before her. She has a 3AM face — hooded eyes and puffy cheeks — that reveals little in the way of emotion. Her core desire is to climb the ladder, regardless of whose face she has to step on to do it. Her husband, Tom Wambsgans, is pathetically Midwestern and knows it, his best hope riding his wife’s coattails to some upper-echelon that will transform him into something other than her pee-on. What will Shiv do next? Let’s hope she doesn’t have a crisis of conscience. It’s good to see a woman be so quick with her shiv.
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WTF, Women?
As seen on a Barnes & Noble bookstore shelf today: a copy of Melissa Orr’s Lean Out: The Truth About Women, Power, and the Workplace, and a copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Needless to say, I didn’t buy either. Instead, I bought a copy of Ray Dalio’s Principles: Life and Work.
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Girls Write Now
Over on Facebook, I’m raising money for Girls Write Now, which helps “underserved young women to find their voices through the power of writing and community.” So far, I’ve raised $255 of my $1,00 goal. Donate! It’s a great organization.
According to GWN:
“We are a community of women writers—educators, editors, poets, novelists, playwrights, journalists, literary agents, publishers, and more—on a mission. Since 1998 we’ve provided guidance, support, and opportunities for New York City's high school girls to develop their creative, independent voices, explore careers in professional writing, and learn how to make healthy choices in school, career, and life.”
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