Source: Lionsgate

Warning: This is not another (eyeroll) Tyler Perry review so please if you came here to say that TP is ‘getting money’ so therefore ‘stop hating,’ save that for the next TP production. I’m sure there will be a Madea in Africa or something like that coming this Christmas we can trade TP jabs over. Also there are spoilers all up in this bish so if you haven’t seen “Temptation,” and don’t want it ruined for you, you know what to do…”

So I saw the new Tyler Perry flick.

There is lots to say about this film however there is one scene in the film, which has perked my interest: It’s the kitchen scene with Judith (played by my girl Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Brice (played by Lance Gross). Sexual excited from the tales of wild, animal-like sex in strange places from a client (later identified as the devil) at her job, Judith grabs her husband, who is obliviously munching down on a sandwich, and tries to jump up on it. Her husband, who looks confused as to why his wife has her6 legs wrapped around him, pleading with him to give it to her Ol’ Dirty Bastard-style on the kitchen counter, is basically like, ‘Nawh, Judith stop! What has gotten into you woman. Can’t you see I’m eating a sandwich. A SANDWICH! So this is what’s going to happen: let me eat this sandwich first and we can go in the bedroom and do this the RIGHT way.’ Then he leaves her there on the kitchen counter, looking shell-shocked and rejected as he goes back to his delicious sandwich.

The fact that he wanted to finish his meal prior to sex means of little consequence to me. Sometimes you are just that hungry or the meal is just that good. Plus men are not animals therefore can, should and do exercise their rights to say ‘no’ to sex as well. But here is an instance where a woman is trying to assert herself sexually and is rejected, not because of a hunger or because he doesn’t feel like it but because her approach to sex was deemed not-right. The implication here was that there is something unnatural and perverse about her desire to want to get freaky with her husband outside the bedroom.

As I am watching the film, I notice that it is not just her sexual appetite, which is being neglected. Judith tells her husband about how she feels about her job and how she feels she is ready to start a business of her own. Most people nowadays wants to applaud women for taking ownership of their professional lives. Instead, Brice again dismisses her feelings and tells Judith to wait for like 10-15 years. Because nothing says “ambitious in life” like waiting for it to happen. This sort of neglect isn’t just with her husband; Sarah, her own mother (played by Elle Joyce), too had a problem with Judith asserting some independence. Going as far as to smack her in the face for “sassin” her. Clearly, this Judith character was disenchanted from jump of this film (and for good reason, if you ask me) and she made several attempts to express as much to the people in her life. Yet they just kind of ignored her concerns or were blatantly dismissive of ways in which she sought to make herself happy. After a while, I kind of felt sad for Judith because it totally felt like she was in a no win situation here.

Via “Binders Full of Women” on Facebook

Pushing the “binders full of women” meme into completely different territory, reviewers have gone on Amazon.com and used the review section of actual binders that are for sale to leave snappy comments.

If you recall (and we know you do), Mitt Romney, when answering a question during Tuesday’s debate about equal pay, made mention of all these “binders full of women” that he used to find female staffers. Please note: He ultimately made no mention of whether he actually supports equal pay policies for women.

Anyways, the absurd turn of phrase has turned into the LOL Internet meme of the past few days, with people searching for the term online, turning it into a Facebook page, visiting a very robust Tumblr page full of bindered women, and even playing a fun computer game that will help you waste precious time at the office. Now, people have turned their attention to the online retailer. A review of the Avery Durable View Binder written by Moose Grooves from Texas reads:

This seems like a pretty good Bind Her, but is it better than the Trap Her Keep Her? Will it keep all my women in line, especially when they have to rush home to make dinner? Is it a good product to use with the BIC Cristal For Her Ball Pen? Does size matter? This is only a couple of inches.

BTW, the reference to the “Bic Cristal For Her Pen” is an actual thing.

With help from other memesters, these comments are getting bumped up to the top of the list of helpful reviews.

Ultimately, the question is whether this is really going to negatively impact Romney’s campaign. Possibly. It is focusing attention on Romney’s stance on women’s issues and deflecting from the point he was trying to make — that he has a history of hiring lots o’ ladies. And, even in that, his record is kind of not so good.

“But,” writes The Washington Post, “all of this reeks of momentary distraction — the kind of story that one side pushes for a short time in hopes of gaining traction and then backs off of, with little lasting impact.” It could, however, become a sticking point for some voters who think the quip actually reveals something true about Mitt Romney’s feelings.

I have to say, I really have some very keen friends within my Facebook network. For instance, Modupe Liston, a Milwaukee activist, posted a very poignant thought on her wall, “How come there is not an organized women’s movement against the absurdity of high prices for feminine hygiene products such as tampons and pads?”

Excellent observation.

Always Ultra Thin Overnights with Flexi-wings has been my staple product since they were invented. I’ve never been a tampon girl as I have developed an abnormal fear of Toxic Shock Syndrome, thanks in part to my reading of the insert from a pack of tampons as a child (long story). Yet over the last couple of years, I too have noticed that my beloved sanitary napkins has begun to slowly creep up in price.  It’s not like an item that I can go without – unless I plan on taking up residency inside a menstruating hut, like the Dogon women of West Mali, for one week out of a month. Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad idea if the hut came with cable television and dark chocolate chip cookies. But alas, I don’t own a hut but I do have bills, which means that my hemorrhaging A$$ has to get up and go to work.

Anyway, the average cost for my necessity ranges between $7 to $9, depending upon the size of the package I get. Since I tend to flow on the heavy side, I go through about four to five of those suckers a day, which means that I use about a pack of around 36 in a month’s span.  Based upon my rough estimations, my Aunt Flow costs me about $84 dollars a year, which means that I have paid thus far around $1260 since I was 15. And by the time I’m relieved of my womanly duty (i.e. menopause), I will have spent over $3000, just on sanitary napkins. Of course, this cost does not include inflation. Nor does it include the cost of party-liners, PMS relief, chocolate chip cookies and Victoria’s Secret panties that my aunt ruined.  If we factor in these additional expenditures, we are probably looking at an additional $5000 over a lifetime. That is almost $10,000 of my hard earned money, which I have no say-son in.

The fact is that owning a vagina is pretty costly; from the pap smears, to infections, to the birth control, to actually giving birth, to menopause, woman must absorb certain costs that are exclusively spent on maintaining our natural, biological function. And who get’s rich off of this? Well since it is the elite that runs things and majority of the 1 percent are not women, let’s just say it’s men.  And in a lot of ways, they have us by the…ahem…lady parts.

(New York Times) — Since 1996, Anne R. Elliott has been executive director of Greenhope Services for Women in East Harlem, which serves former inmates who have abused drugs or been battered, and provides an alternative to incarceration. This month, Greenhope opened Kandake House, a residence that has education, therapy and cultural programs. Dr. Elliott, a North Carolina native, is 49 and lives in Mount Vernon, N.Y.

Career path: I went to Davidson for my B.A. in English literature, spent a couple of years teaching in Kenya, came to New York as a Coro fellow in 1986, then went to Union Theological Seminary for a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in systematic theology. I was an associate minister at Bridge Street Church, an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, where I ran a group called Kiamsha, which means “enlightened.” Women talked about what was going on in their lives. It felt to me what church should be about: talking about something that needs healing. I had done a spirituality workshop with women at Greenhope and I decided I would like to do that kind of work.

Read More…

Are you in everybody’s business and are they all up in yours? Can you name three friends who you’re no longer on speaking terms with because of some perceived diss? Do you have to wear waterproof mascara all year long because you just never know when you’re going to burst into tears? Madame, you sound like a drama queen.

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