Dioceses No Longer “Men Only” Causing Bishops To Feel “Ashamed”

Should we be at least thankful that the Church of England is opening up the debate of consecration of women bishops in the Church or should we be booing and hissing at the traditionalist antiquated views and objections?

A recent General Synod of 468 Church of England members met in York this week to debate and draft up legislation which will bring in women bishops to the Church by 2014. The first woman clergy was annointed by the Church of England in 1994 but the Anglican’s have debated the inclusion of women as bishops or archbishops as unrepresentative of the teachings of the Bible, i.e. Bishops are representatives of God and therefore should appear in his likeness aka male.

Your “OMG Lesbians!” Coverage Continues: Lindsay Lohan Edition

I make no secret of my distaste for the tabloid media’s ‘lesbians = hot chicks kissing’ tendencies, but I have to admit I was rather surprised by the relative subtlety with which The Daily Telegraph/News.com.au handled Lindsay Lohan’s “confirmation” of her relationship with Samantha Ronson.

Lohan and English-born DJ and musician Samantha Ronson have been virtually inseparable since the start of 2008 and despite leaks that the pair were lovers they kept it secret.

That is until Lohan’s 22nd birthday party when she came out loud and proud.

“I just wanna live a happy healthy year, continue on the path that I’ve been on and be with the person I care about. And my family.

Whether or not that choice of words constitutes a “revelation” in the world of celebrity gossip remains to be seen, and naturally the Tele then undid their “good” work by quoting trash rag The Daily Mail in turn quoting “a source” waxing idiotic about which “roles” Ronson and Lohan were playing at home (because, you know, someone has to be the femme and someone has to be the butch, because that’s how all lesbian relationships work).

But it is rather sweet that after all this evasiveness (and really, why wouldn’t you be evasive if you had meat-headed paparazzi following your every move) and all the frankly hideous attention from the gossip bloggers (Perez Hilton, I am looking squarely at you), Ronson has simply posted a photo of Lohan and herself on her MySpace as ‘confirmation’, just like any other couple in love in the “MySpace generation” would do:

Is it possible that even the News Ltd stable can see that love is love, no matter what gender, sex or sexual preference you are? Signs probably point to “I don’t think so!” but for now I’m content to bask in the glow of young love.

“Revenge Of The Nerdettes”: Being A Female Geek Is Okay, So Long As You’re Sexy

There are times when I think if I read one more article about the “sexing up” of tech – or academia, or intelligence… – I’ll punch a hole in the wall. Today is one of those days: witness Newsweek’s ‘Geek Girls: Revenge Of The Nerdettes‘.

The piece, by Jessica Bennett and Jennie Yabroff, seems to be torn between wanting to assert that, yes, girls can also be nerds (which is commendable) and wanting to let us know that, like, you can be smart and sexy (which is not so good). The problem I have with the latter is that the definition of “sexy” is always so narrow and geared towards the ‘men’s magazine’ gaze. To wit:

These girl geeks aren’t social misfits; their identities don’t hinge on outsider status. They may love all things sci-tech, but first and foremost they are girls—and they’ve made that part of their appeal. They’ve modeled themselves after icons such as Tina Fey, whose character on “30 Rock” is a “Star Wars”-loving, tech-obsessed, glasses-wearing geek, but who’s garnered mainstream appeal and a few fashion-magazine covers.

So far, so good (so sort of; I don’t know that I would really call Tina Fey either a nerd or a geek, but that’s a whole ‘nother minefield of semantics). But then it all goes off the rails:

Or on actress Danica McKellar, who coauthored a math theorem, wrote a book for girls called “Math Doesn’t Suck” and posed in a bikini for Stuff magazine. Or even Ellen Spertus, a Mills College professor and research scientist at Google—and the 2001 winner of the Silicon Valley “Sexiest Geek Alive” pageant.

Oh a pageant! A bikini shoot in a lad’s mag! How right on!

Everybody’s Free… To Judge Other Women

It always troubles me when I feel something another woman does is repugnant or demeaning. As a feminist, shouldn’t I avoid calling other women’s choices ‘right’ or ‘wrong’? But then I wonder: isn’t it more of a feminist act to treat the choices of both genders equally? What’s more, I’ve always believed that feminism, like any other ethic, shouldn’t be dogmatic: it should respond to the problems you encounter in life, and if a scenario should arise that troubles your ideas of feminism, this calls for argument and debate.

The trouble is that our culture treats the criticism of men’s choices as legitimate debate, however when one woman criticises another, she’s understood to be expressing a weakness or failure in herself. How many times has your criticism earned you responses (or doubtful thoughts) along the lines of, “You’re just jealous/bitter/humourless/unsuccessful/unattractive/afraid of your vagina*”?

Pop culture tends to present this in animalistic terms – being a ‘bitch’ or being ‘catty’ – and the media adore narrating or refereeing girl-on-girl ’spats’ or ‘catfights’. Worse, some doofus commentators like to suggest that competition or criticism between women means that feminism has ‘failed’. In their fantasy worlds, ’successful’ feminism is about complete consensus. However, when not applied to women, that tends to be called ‘totalitarianism’.

Dissent is healthy, and dissent among women even more so. But has anyone else ever kept quiet about something that troubled them because they couldn’t be arsed unleashing a patronising tirade upon themselves?

* Seriously. Last year, some anonymous crusading member of the Vagina Luv Brigade suggested in a comment on my blog that the reason I had criticised women who circulate sexually explicit mobile phone pictures of themselves was that I was ashamed of my own genitalia.