Dispatches from Ladyblogland

This week finds the elusive perfect feminist, a joke about yeast infections, and the perfect caftan-body diet plan. And of course, an extensive collection of writings about Elliot Rodger and #YesAllWomen.

The ladyblogosphere has provided extensive coverage of and commentary on Elliot Rodger’s killing spree based on the fact that women wouldn’t sleep with him. Coco wrote about it for PMag, but here are some other perspectives on what happened, why, and how maybe we can learn something from this and move forward.

• Suspect in California Shooting Posted Video Vowing Revenge for Rejection From Girls and California Gunman Details Slights From Women in Manifesto, Says Police Almost Caught Him, via The Slatest blog on Slate.
• Elliot Rodger, Gunman in California Mass Shooting, was influenced by the “Men’s Rights Movement,” via The Daily Kos.
• “Alpha Male” Elliot Rodgers’ Retribution, via Skepchick.
• Elliot Rodger’s fatal menace: How toxic male entitlement devalues women’s and men’s lives, via Salon.
• Why Elliot Rodger is being linked to the men’s rights movement, via The Daily Dot.
• Elliot Rodger, UCSB Shooter: Internet History Reveals Men’s Rights Movement Beliefs In Wake Of Mass Murder, via International Business Times.
• The Pick-Up Artist Community’s Predictable, Horrible Response to a Mass Murder, via The XX Factor blog on Slate.
• Misogyny Is Poison, And You’re Drinking It: Elliot Rodger doesn’t need to have been a madman. It’s enough that he was a man. Via Medium
• Elliot Rodger’s California shooting spree: further proof that misogyny kills, via Jessica Valenti for The Guardian.
• Elliot Rodger And Men Who Hate Women, via The Belle Jar.
• Let’s call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism, via New Statesman.
• Feminists’ Inspiring Online Response To A Misogynist Mass Murderer, via Think Progress.
• #YesAllWomen responds to violence against women and the Isla Vista tragedy, via Salon.
• The Most Powerful #YesAllWomen Tweets, via TIME.
• Women React to a Murder Spree at UCSB With an Airing of Grievances, via The Atlantic.
• And if you aren’t utterly exhausted yet, you can go directly to #YesAllWomen on Twitter.

And now, because we all need it, some lighter reading.

We’ve found her! The world’s best feminist! The Toast

I know. I suffer so much. Your hearts must be bursting from my suffering. Feel free to send me expensive tributes to my greatness. Baked goods are also acceptable.

In which a feminist calls the shoes for the new Cinderella movie “stripper shoes.” Hello Giggles

Have you heard Emma Thompson’s joke about yeast infections? The Frisky

The data say that female-centered movies are profitable. Will Hollywood listen? Indiewire

The numbers are astonishing and shocking. You are more likely to be a woman nuclear engineer than you are a woman film director. You are also more likely to be a woman running a Fortune 500 company. It’s shameful.

What’s wrong with Justin Timberlake co-opting the phrase “Take Back the Night?” Pitchfork

When I hear the phrase “take back the night,” it’s connected via a series of invisible marionette strings to this moment, and a lot of subsequent moments in my life: Every time I’ve changed my course when walking home late at night to prove to myself that the man walking behind wasn’t following me; every gross come-on someone has hollered at me on the street; and some other things I probably won’t ever tell you.

The myth of the strong black woman. Bitch Magazine

But there is a dirty side to the perceived uncommon strength of black women. Ultimately, the “strong black woman” stereotype is an albatross, at odds with African American women’s very survival.

How to get your body caftan ready for summer. New York Magazine

Here’s a very smart piece on Jimmy Carter and the tradition of white, Western men writing as saviors of women everywhere. Feminist Wire

Despite Carter’s critique of all religious traditions for their treatment of girls and women, focusing extensively on patriarchal manipulation of Christian doctrine, it is inevitable that his book’s linking of ‘women, religion, and violence’ will speak to the deep-seeded Islamophobia that has been sown, grown, and harvested in this country in the years since 9-11.

What did you read this week?