Happy Birthday Mrs. Woolf.Virginia Woolf was a genius who created some of literature's most beautifully written novels, pioneered the stream-of-consciousness writing style, paved the way for mental health advocacy, and championed the importance of self-actualization, especially for women. Since her death in 1941, she has become an all-out icon, a monolith of women's literature, despite her many provocative choices both on and off the page. In honor of her 131st birthday, here are some reasons to love Virginia Woolf that you might not know about.
She had awesome friends
Virginia Woolf's social circle was cool enough to have its own name, The Bloomsbury Group. The pack included poet T.S. Eliot, economist John Maynard Keynes, novelist E.M. Forester, painter Duncan Grant, and many more.
Those friends were adventurous in the bedroom
The Bloomsbury Group didn't just sit around the parlor drinking tea and discussing literature. They also had torrid love affairs—extramarital, polyamorous, and homosexual—with each
Blog Posts by Jessica Ferri
Pregnant Kristen Bell Plans to Give Birth Sipping on a Glass of Whiskey
By Jessica Ferri | Parenting – Thu, Jan 24, 2013 4:18 PM EST
Read More »from Pregnant Kristen Bell Plans to Give Birth Sipping on a Glass of Whiskey
Kristen Bell at the Golden Globes, on the lookout for sloths.I don't know about you, but I've missed Kristen Bell since Veronica Mars went off the air in 2007. Sure, she's had some memorable parts in movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but I missed that scrappy super sleuth.
Luckily Bell is back in the public eye and even better, she's knocked up with fiancé Dax Shepherd's kid. I wasn't so sure about him until I started watching Parenthood, and now purely by association I kind of like the guy. That stupid show makes me cry just about every single time I watch it.
Anyway, Bell was on Ellen yesterday gabbing about being pregnant, like all celebrities do—what is it with that? Celebrities get pregnant and everyone wants to know what being pregnant is like for them. I imagine it's the same as it is for every other expectant mother, probably pretty uncomfortable and annoying.
When asked about whether or not she was worried about giving birth, Veronica Mars responded that she was not going the natural route of other celeb moms like Gisele.
"I'veRevenge Videos by Female Artists: Good or Bad for Women?
By Jessica Ferri | Love + Sex – Thu, Jan 24, 2013 3:23 PM EST
Don't mess with Carrie Underwood.The revenge anthem is undoubtedly one of pop music's best genres. There's no better satisfaction than screaming Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know" at the top of your lungs after a bad breakup, or pounding Kelis's "Caught Out There" with its refrain "I Hate You So Much Right Now," in your car to blow off steam. These songs are certainly more satisfying than weeping into a pint of Ben & Jerry's. (Full disclosure: Okay, so sometimes I listen to Kelis and eat ice cream at the same time.)
In the past few years, however, the videos for revenge anthems by female artists have upped the ante, introducing violent fantasies about murdering the men who have done them wrong.
9 Best Breakup Songs of All Time
Country star and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood released a video today for her new single, "Two Black Cadillacs." In the grand tradition of country music, the song tells of two women who discover they are sleeping with the same man and plan to exact revenge.
The title refers to the Read More »from Revenge Videos by Female Artists: Good or Bad for Women?Your Teen Dreams Have Been Realized: Boyz II Men, New Kids, and 98 Degrees to Tour Together
By Jessica Ferri | Love + Sex – Wed, Jan 23, 2013 3:05 PM EST
They clean up nice.Ladies, get ready to relive the sweet decade that was the 90s. On Tuesday New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees announced they are planning a boy-band revival tour called "The Package Tour."The tour will kick off on May 31 and continue, step-by-step, to 28 U.S. cities. We hope your pipes are primed for screaming. Tickets go on sale February 2 and more details can be found at the tour's official website.
Hangin' Tough: New Kids on the Block's Number One Fan for 21 YearsWith this news comes an overpowering gust of nostalgia. Here at Shine, the boy-band revival tour got us thinking about our favorite boy-band memories, when we strutted off to wait in line for New Kids tickets in our purple jellies or cry-screamed the lyrics to Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You," at the school dance.
As for this writer, Jordan Knight, tall, dark, and handsome, was undoubtedly my favorite New Kid on the Block. I would think fondly of Jordan every night when I brushed my teeth with my
Read More »from Your Teen Dreams Have Been Realized: Boyz II Men, New Kids, and 98 Degrees to Tour TogetherThe Only Four Doctors in the U.S. Who Perform Third-trimester Abortions Go Public with Documentary
By Jessica Ferri | healthy-living – Tue, Jan 22, 2013 4:20 PM EST
Read More »from The Only Four Doctors in the U.S. Who Perform Third-trimester Abortions Go Public with Documentary
Doctors LeRoy Carhart, Warren Hern, Susan Robinson and Shelley Sella at the film's premiere. On the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a new documentary about the only four doctors in the U.S. who perform third-trimester abortions has premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film is titled 'After Tiller' in acknowledgment of the murder of George Tiller, a doctor who continued to perform third-trimester abortions in Kansas in spite of the many threats made against his life. Tiller's clinic was bombed in 1989. In 1993, Tiller survived an attack outside his clinic, only to be gunned down as he was leaving church in 2009 by an anti-abortion extremist.
Protests mark anniversary of landmark abortion ruling
There are only three states in the U.S. that allow abortion into the third-trimester of pregnancy. The definition of "third-trimester" is itself controversial. According to the Mayo Clinic, the third trimester doesn't begin until the 28th week of pregnancy. The physicians featured in this documentary define it as the 25th week of pregnancy or later. As "late-term" abortion isFriends Are More Influential Than Family or Partners, New Book Claims
By Jessica Ferri | healthy-living – Tue, Jan 22, 2013 2:48 PM EST
Read More »from Friends Are More Influential Than Family or Partners, New Book Claims
Friendships: highly influential.It's been a bad day. Your bank account is overdrawn, you're stressed at work, you had a fight with your significant other, and it seems like nothing is going your way. Sometimes the only thing that will make it better is talking it out over a bottle of wine with your best friend.
And perhaps many of us would acknowledge there have been times when a friend (along with a bottle of wine) offered more support than a boyfriend or a family member. But now there's actual science behind the importance of friendship. Recent studies have shown that women who have close friendships are more likely to survive breast cancer than those who don't. And a new book claims that our friendships can be a bigger influence on who we are than our relationships with our partners, or even our family.
8 Ways to Rekindle a Friendship
In Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are, Carlin Flora, a former writer for Psychology Today, argues that our friendships may be the most importantHappy 200th Birthday, Mr. Darcy – We Still Love You
By Jessica Ferri | Love + Sex – Tue, Jan 22, 2013 11:26 AM EST
Read More »from Happy 200th Birthday, Mr. Darcy – We Still Love You
Happy 200 Darcy. You don't look at day over 35.Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice turns 200 this year, and with it, its hero, Mr. Darcy. Why does he continue to intrigue us, 200 years on?
Oh Mr. Darcy, let us count the ways that we love you. We loved you played by Colin Firth, climbing out of the pond with your wet shirt clinging to you, we loved it when you grouchily told Elizabeth Bennet you didn't like to talk to people, we love your enormous mansion, we love your botched declaration of love in the Gardeners' drawing room, we even love your stupid Christmas sweater in the modernization Bridget Jones' Diary. Did we mention the pond? Because let's be serious, who hasn't watched that scene 10,000 times?
A new theory on the death of Jane Austen
January 28th is your 200th birthday, or rather the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It makes a girl wonder: How is it that English-literature-loving women across the years have all loved the same man? Why this man?
First, there's theThis Portrait of Channing Tatum is Giving Us a Toothache
By Jessica Ferri | Love + Sex – Fri, Jan 18, 2013 5:19 PM EST
Read More »from This Portrait of Channing Tatum is Giving Us a Toothache
Channing Tatum, a portrait in Mike and Ikes.Who knew that Mike and Ike candies are the best medium to capture the beauty that is Channing Tatum's rippling abs?
San Francisco based artist Jason Meicer specializes in mosaic portraits and has created one of beefcake actor Channing Tatum, complete in his bow-tie stripper collar from the film Magic Mike, made completely of Mike and Ike candies.
Does Magic Mike really define women's sexual liberation?
"Channing Tatum was really peaking this year," Meicer told Yahoo! Shine. "I loved Magic Mike. I loved the reverse-objectification; it was like the reverse Showgirls, which is one of my favorite movies. And you know Tatum was voted the sexiest man alive by People magazine. I've been hoping to use Mike and Ikes in my art. With the name of the film I thought it was a perfect combination."
We are blown away by Meicer's attention to detail. The piece took over 5,000 Mike and Ike candies and 50 hours of hard labor to make. "I have never spent so much time on six-pack abs," Meicer told the
