April 2010
“An earlier version of the Mar. 26 post “The Most Important Meal Of The...”
– correction appended to the end of a post on The Harvard Crimson’s FlyByBlog
March 2010
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Rethinking the "Rethinking Sex" Abstinence... →
The team behind the documentary “How To Lose Your Virginity” interviewed me in early February at “Rethinking Sex,” True Love Revolution’s abstinence conference. They filmed a video of me before the event, and their group blog features a snippet, in which I discuss how queer students feel alienated by the abstinence movement, which defines virginity and sex in...
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“pfft it took you that long to come up with that argument against marriage? dude,...”
– my 17-year-old sister, on my anti-marriage post which was, um, the crux of my thesis
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WAM! It Yourself 2010: Leveraging Social Media For...
Tune in to my Twitter (@lenachen) for live coverage from tonight’s WAM! It Yourself event in Boston or refresh this page for ongoing commentary. Can’t make it? Women, Action, and Media (@womenactmedia) is hosting events nationwide in Chicago, D.C., Los Angeles, New York City, and San Antonio!
Ashley Haight, WAM! program associate, kicks off the event by with an introduction about...
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Why I'm Against Gay Marriage (And Marriage In...
We reject the idea that any relationship based on love should have to register with the state. Marriage is an institution used primarily to consolidate privilege, and we think real change will only come from getting rid of a system that continually doles out privilege to a few more … Believe it or not, we felt incredibly safe, happy, taken care of, and fulfilled with the many queer...
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“The interesting thing about my particular sexual history–the kind of narrative...”
– Nona Willis Aronowitz, “Thoughts on the hookup culture, or what I learned from my high school diary” on Feministe (via Of Vice and Men)
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Vagina slapping and the "assumptions much?" lede
“I SHOULD HAVE known something was up when he slapped my vagina during sex. Yes, slapped it. This was clearly not the work of a man who liked vaginas, who enjoyed sex with vaginas, who had uncomplicated feelings about vaginas and the women attached to them.” -Lydia Lincoln on why she dumped her bisexual boyfriend
There are so many things wrong with this article: blaming bisexuality...
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Nationwide WAM! It Yourself Events This Week →
This week, Women, Action, and the Media is presenting a series of nationwide events in Boston, Chicago, D.C., Los Angeles, New York City, and San Antonio in lieu of the annual WAM! conference, which will resume next year. From happy hours to screenings to full-blown conferences, WAM! It Yourself features incredibly eclectic programming and great opportunities to network with media professionals,...
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ddy2104 asked: What's your favorite curl-up-with-a-book-and-blanket nook in Cambridge?
Leisure Reading Recommendations?
I’m hitting Strand this afternoon to scour used books. Besides picking up a few McEwan novels I’ve yet to read, what else should I look for? Over spring break in Mexico, I finished Lady Chatterley’s Lover and reread Samantha Lan Chang’s Hunger anthology and Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying.
Any feminist-y novels/novelists that I might not know of? I’m a huge fan of...
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feminaction asked: Hola my fellow feminista :) I was curious to see how you got onto the Bitch Magazine Leadership Council?? Sounds exciting!!
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Harvard University's Feminist Coming Out Day and... →
This is old news, since it happened last week (on International Women’s Day and as part of the University-wide Women’s Week), but I wanted to post this Crimson piece covering the Feminist Portrait Project that was planned in conjunction with Feminist Coming Out Day.
I completely made up the idea for this, though much (if not ALL) of the credit for the execution goes to fabulous...
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Check Out The Bitch Magazine Leadership Council! →
Which includes yours truly ;) Yes, my bio is ridiculous, but I opted for wacky over serious-feminist. Am psyched to work with this fabulous publication and the other sure-to-be-awesome feministas that make up the Council.
Also, I am currently writing this from an Internet cafe in Tulum, Mexico and I cannot locate the apostrophe, which is irritating. Back to the States and American...
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Marriage Shouldn't Be A Mandate
In a bit of a F-U to heteronormative cultural norms, I replace most instances of the term “premarital sex” in my thesis with “non-marital sex”. Because who the hell says that the sex my friends and I are having now is pre-anything?
(Especially when some of them can’t get married.)
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Harvard's New Policy Covers Transgender Health →
In 2006, Harvard University modified its non-discrimination policy to include gender identity and expression (the latter protects EVERYONE on campus, not just those who identify as transgender). Four years later, the school is taking a must-needed step forward by covering top surgeries for transgender employees and students. Before this, trans members of the Harvard community were much like women...
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How The Future Gets Discussed
Patrick: Did you see the email someone forwarded me about a job you might want to apply to?
Me: Um, this job would require moving to New York. You don't want to move to New York, right?
Patrick: No.
Me: Didn't think so.
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48 Hours
Currently thesising from bed. I have to turn this in 48 hours from … now. Oh. My. God.
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Feminism Goes on Display in Adams →
The Crimson writes up a rundown of Harvard’s first-ever Feminist Coming Out Day, which kicked off Women’s Week 2010. It was awesome, and I’m sure someone has photos of me running around wildly and being super frazzled. (I have done far more articulate interviews when my brain wasn’t thesis-fried.)
Happy Women’s Week!
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Peace, Boston.
On my list of travel-related things to look forward to post-thesis:
A much delayed New York visit to drop off Hamlet before spring break! Naturally, I will be making the pilgrimage to Beacon’s Closet, my personal Mecca.
Spring break, which will entail no electricity or wifi. For serious. I’m going to Tulum, Mexico, where I will scale the Mayan pyramids and take lots of bikini photos...
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You know you want to read this.
The first empirical chapter of my thesis is entitled “From Veiled Virgins To ‘Zipless Fucks’: The Historical Evolution of Sexual Norms.”
I kind of want to make this the title of my actual thesis, but I’m not really sure how that’ll go over.
P.S. I totally just checked to see if Erica Jong is on Twitter. Alas, she is not.
Oxytocin: The Pseudoscience of the Hook-Up... →
In which I explain how abstinence proponents turn completely legit scientific studies into junk science. Their conclusions? Don’t have sex.
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Birth of a Harvard Feminist
This article is amazing and going in my thesis.
alishalisha:
In light of Women’s Week at Harvard, I wanted to share this fascinating article, titled “Birth of a Feminist”, from the Harvard Gazette written in 2005 by Ann Shapiro, Radcliffe Class of 1958. I think we rarely hear about Harvard’s rich history — nevertheless the history of Radcliffe (what is now the Quad) — so reading this article...
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What should I include in my thesis? (Now taking...
I started off with “hodge-podge”. At Alex’s request, I’m now attempting to work in “willy-nilly”. Any other amusing words that I can sneak into this stuffy academic paper?
8:50 p.m. You guys are awesome. Please keep this stuff coming. This is going to be the best thesis in Harvard history. Or at least the most uniquely worded one.
9:08 p.m. I’ve decided...
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“Good night, my little crab rangoon.”
– Jason, who comes up with the best politically incorrect terms of affection
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In Which I Extol The Virtues Of Living Off-Campus →
Judging from the comments, no one agrees, but like my article says, tradition dies hard at Harvard.
UPDATE: … and the comments to this story have only reaffirmed my desire to stay far, far away from campus. Look, I tried House life, kids. I also tried to like Harvard. Really, I did. Then I realized it sucked (at least for me), and now that I don’t live in a House, I can finally see...
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Everyone Else's Hell Week Is My Hell Month
Can we please discuss the fact that I just wrote an eight-page paper and now I have to immediately work on my eighty-page thesis?
NOT COOL.
All you people with multiple midterms and papers due? Don’t even. I’m knee-deep in Biblical passages, radical feminist theory, and etiquette manuals galore. I know that March 11th is nearly within sight, but I seriously do not know how I am going...
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“A tried and tested cunt marries late.”
– Middle Welsh proverb (via the book Medieval Virginities) In an attempt to make the last days of thesis hell a little more bearable, I am copying and pasting random snippets of my masterpiece onto my blog until my March 11th deadline. This will all be completely out of context, of course. (Trust me,...
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“You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman.”
– Jane Galvin Lewis (via feminaction)
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Sociology Humor (Or Why My Thesis About Sex Is Not...
Me: We're having a debate about whether there's an ethical way to conduct ethnographic research on sexuality.
Jason: Hahaha, you can fuck your way around and say, "But sweetie, it's just for my research!"
Me: Participant observation, baby!
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Today In "Sex Questions Without Answers"
If a woman cums in her bedroom and no one is around to hear it, is she a slut?
(To clarify: This is a totally facetious question.)
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To The Owner Of Harvard's Only Copy of "Making...
Apologies! I just recalled it from right under you in a fit of last-minute thesis research.
Since the due date was for next September, I suspect you’re a graduate student. Godspeed.