Links Round Up: Week Ending 2 August 2014

[frolicnaked.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the latest edition of our Links Round Up!

For folks who don't know, the LRU is a compilation of items from the past week that may be of interest to VPers and is intended to broaden the kinds of conversations we have here.

To submit articles for next week's round-up, e-mail vpteam@vaginapagina.com. If you have additional articles you'd like folks to know about this week, feel free to comment directly to this post.

As a reminder, in lieu of trigger warnings, I use keywords describing the themes of the piece. Please skim these before deciding to read the excerpt or click through for the full article. Outside sources are not safe spaces, and mainstream sources' comments should almost always be avoided. The links I highlight don't necessarily reflect VP's views, or even my own, for that matter.

This week's round-up includes: the trouble with "Lady Parts," lying to women during negotiations, and questioning body positive music videos.

1. The Trouble With “Lady Parts” by Parker Marie Molloy at Slate (Keywords: gender, language, trans, genderqueer, reproductive health care access)
   

   I understand that Winstead and her colleagues are using the term “Lady Parts” as a playful euphemism for much more clinical-sounding terms like “uterus,” “vagina,” and so on. The problem with this name—and with use of terms like “lady parts” or “lady bits” more generally to refer to reproductive organs that have been typically associated with women—is that it reinforces biological essentialism, tying gender to genitals.

   
   


2. One Reason Women Fare Worse in Negotiations? People Lie to Them. by Jane C. Hu at Slate (Keywords: gender, business, misogyny)
   

   After the negotiation, students were asked to disclose whether they lied. Both men and women reported lying to women more often. Twenty-four percent of men said they lied to a female partner, while only 3 percent of men said they lied to a male partner. Women also lied to other women (17 percent), but they lied to men as well (11 percent). Perhaps even more telling: People were more likely to let men in on secrets. “Men were more likely to be given preferential treatment,” says Kray.

   
   


3. Are 'Body Positive' Music Videos All That Positive? by Julie Zeilinger at Billboard (Keywords: body image, beauty standards, weight loss, disordered eating)
   

   Women may feel palpable relief watching these new videos, but in doing so we may fail to notice how such "body positive" presentations are far from revolutionary and may actually reinforce existing paradigms. Caillat and Legend's lyrics and imagery suggest a beauty revolution that involves little more than eschewing makeup. Another music video recently embraced for its body positivity -- Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" -- equates being thin to being like a "silicone Barbie doll." She doesn't embrace a spectrum of body diversity so much as reinforce a paradox in which women only exist as thin/ideal/unrealistic or full/natural/acceptable.

   
   

As always, feel free to share your thoughts on any of these articles, along with whatever you've been reading or writing recently!