There is new content up at Betty's Daughter Speaks Out, including a post featuring a story shared by our own lovely chevy49girl

Clever readers will infer from the subject line which magazine just bought a story of mine.

I'm working on my last article for the reproductive health encyclopedia I'm contributing to. This one's on the cultural impact of the Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique. I'm blanking. I can't believe it. This book is the book that launched the Second Wave of American feminism. Without it, there would arguably be no NOW, no ERA, no Roe v. Wade. No Title IX, no Take Your Daugher to Work Day, no Ms. Magazine. No Bikini Kill, no Buffy the Vampire Slayer, no safe and legal abortion, no safe and legal birth control for women. There would have been no Gloria Steinem, no Andrea Dworkin, no Lavender Menace. No Toys in Babeland or Good Vibrations. No equal pay for equal work (well, we're still working on that one.) No Women's Studies departments, no rape legislation reform, no Vagina Monologues.

And I can't come up with 850 words on the mother text of the movement I fight so hard for.

WTF?

I need to do some writing today. Having a hard time getting started. I was supposed to have jury duty today, but was able to get another postponement. I've been sick off and on for the last week, and needed a bit of downtime to recover. Bun's got the same crud today, so there's been a lot of sleeping, eating soup, and general lounging today. But now I need to get to work. I have so much to do in the next few weeks and I know that if I don't get a jump on it, I'm going to be in a serious world of hurt.

The job search is in wait mode at the moment. I'm going to put some more applications in, but I know that several of the searches I'm really interested in will be putting out their shortlists in the next week or so. So there's a bit of waiting game going on now. Nothing else from the place I interviewed with on Friday, but they are on spring break so I don't expect to hear anything for a week or so after they return, to give the committee time to meet. I'm feeling fairly calm about the whole thing at the moment. I expect that will change several times over the next weeks, but as for now I'm feeling Ok. It will all somehow work out. I'll be glad when I get my employment settled so that I can put my energy into something else.

I have some time away coming soon, which will be welcome. I really need to get out of my regular life for a few days, just to recharge and get some perspective.

But now I have to get motivated to write about the cultural importance of The Feminine Mystique. In 850 words.

Seriously.

Eep. I'm going to send out my first article for consideration by a peer-reviewed journal this week. I should have been doing this for at least a year now, but there you go. I'm revising a conference paper that I was pretty proud of, so I feel pretty good that someone will take it. Now I just have to stop fiddling with it once I get the new information and data integrated and get it proofed, and just get the damn thing in the mail. I hate that I can't email it in, but I guess is this part of the process, eh?

It's all part of the bigger process of trying to get my career back on track.

( In which our heroine navel gazes )

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.