Scanner : women's bodies

10 Sexiest Women Over 50 (Part Two)

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:56:00 GMT

We continue our two-part series with some of the screen's top stars... some of whom are still box office draws, despite what the media wants you to believe...

Helen Mirren, 63

Helen Mirren never has to worry about studly husband/director leaving her for one of his younger leading ladies, since none of them can hold a candle to her talent, classiness, sex appeal, and status as an Academy Award-winning screen legend. The above photograph of the star in her bikini last year lit up internet wires across the globe-- for example, our traffic went through the roof the day we posted it. Thank you, Helen Mirren, for being our muse.

Carly Simon, 63

It's been a long time since James Taylor spotted Carly Simon's "incredible long legs" passing by on a summer day in a small Massachusetts town. Since then, she wrote a song about him, "You're So Vain," (or was it Warren Beatty?), won several Grammy's, topped the charts a million times over, and developed a solo career that has long outpaced her (now ex-)husband's. Simon and her gloriously pretty teeth and, we're guessing, still-dynamo gams continue to record and tour... but not often enough.

Susan Sarandon, 62

Tim Robbins whined about not being able to vote as his regular polling site last November, which must've made him feel really ridiculous when he woke up the next morning and realized, "Holy balls! Forget all my troubles-- I'm still sleeping next to the babe from Bull Durham any Playboy's best boobs 1981!" Speaking of those marvelous mams, it's difficult to pull off a dress like that at any age, let alone hers, without causing a media (i.e. tabloid journalism) firestorm, but here she is in all her glory...

Meryl Streep, 59

If anyone out there worries about how their "looks" will hold up at the age of 59, just take a gander at the Before and After photos of Streep depicted above. She is one of the greatest actors of all time, rivaling Olivier and Hepburn, and draws hundreds of millions in box office every year as one of the biggest names on the planet. But more importantly, at least for our purposes here, Streep is somehow more beautiful than even in 1977, when we first saw her in Julia. Can a nude, comic romp in a "getting old and falling in love" movie with Jack Nicholson be far behind?

Pam Grier, 59

Can you believe there's an African-American actress in her fifties who made a major comeback more than ten years ago and is still a major star, albeit on television, as she approaches her 60th birthday? Well, you wouldn't know it from the media. The announcement that she was joining the cast of the Showtime series the L Word was met with little tongue-wagging. Of course, that all changed the moment we saw how drop-dead gorgeous she remains-- not to mention the collective sigh of relief when it turned out the show's writers weren't going to blaxploitate her into irrelevancy. We eagerly await her next career move now that the show is sadly off the air.

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Top 10 Feminist Icons... From A Male (Part One)

Top 10 Feminist Icons... From A Male (Part Two)

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:33:00 GMT

Continued from Part One.

Mary Pickford. Mary Pickford, one of the biggest movie stars of the Golden Age, was so powerful she was able to create her own film studio. Along with her husband, Douglas Fairbanks (full disclosure: yes, we're related, but that's beside the point) and Charlie Chaplin, she founded United Artists, an early attempt to give creative people more control of Hollywood, and began producing her own films. These two leaps made her the most powerful woman in the business. (Back in 1916, Pickford accepted a record-shattering salary and went on, via her box-office take, to prove women could be just as-- and more-- profitable than men.) She went on to cause a major scandal in the sound era by cutting off her long curls, then a "sign of female virtue," for Coquette, a real which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Bella Abzug. Did you know her husband wrote trashy dime novels whose covers are now available as fridge magnets? We know because our ex-girlfriend has one-- not because we buy those things. Anyway, Abzug was the Congressional Rep who coined the phrase "a woman's place is in the House." Seeing as how we've included her on a list of iconic feminists, you know to which house she was referring. "She was one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights, introducing the first federal gay rights bill, known as the Equality Act of 1974." Abzug narrowly missed out on becoming a Senator from New York in 1976 (one of the reason's Hillary Clinton wanted that seat) and went on to lose several other high-profile races, including one for New York City Mayor. Undeterred, she headed Jimmy Carter's commission on women and even appeared in Woody Allen's Manhattan.

Amelia Jenks Bloomer. You know why they call 'em "bloomers" now? Amelia Jenks was a publisher, distributing The Lily, a pre-Bust periodical covering her views on social issues and other topics of the day-- that day being the late 1800s. "In her publication, Bloomer promoted a change in dress standards for women that would be less restrictive in regular activities." She suggested women wear a specific costume, which she described in print, to help make their leisure activities more, well, leisurely. "Articles on the clothing trend were picked up in The New York Tribune. More women wore the fashion which was promptly dubbed The Bloomer Costume or 'Bloomers'. However, the Bloomers were subjected to ceaseless ridicule in the press and harassment on the street."

Alan Alda. We're not kidding. Not kidding about including a male feminist on this list or about it being Alan Alda. According to his biography, Alda used his TV fame, in part, to champion the cause of equal rights: "His 'sensitive male' persona, derived in large part from his characterization on M*A*S*H, has lingered into the 1990s and continues to be sustained by public awareness of his efforts on behalf of women's rights. An ardent feminist, Alda campaigned extensively for ten years for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and in 1976, was appointed by President Ford to serve on the National Commission for the Observance of International Women's Year. Alda's status as a feminist led a writer in The Boston Globe to dub him "the quintessential Honorary Woman: a feminist icon."

Sojourner Truth. Born into slavery, taken from her family and sold at age 9, and beaten with rods for much of her childhood, Sojourner Truth went on to become what I consider feminism's greatest icon. She was certainly the earliest one on our list and all others must acknowledge she helped start the wave. Her first major move was to become the first African-American woman to go to court against a white man and win-- in this instance, for the custody of her son, who had been sold illegally. But it was her speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851 that made her an historical figure. "Ain't I A Woman?" is part of many a high school curriculum for its eloquence, passion, impeccable craft, and lasting power. No other speech made on behalf of women's rights has ever been as effective in waking up the populace. You can read more about it here.

All quotes via Wikipedia entries for these great figures.

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Top 10 Feminist Icons... From A Male (Part One)

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:10:00 GMT

This is Scanner Brian-- and Scanner Brian alone-- with a list that needed to be done. Males have something against admitting they are feminists, perhaps because they mistakenly believe the term applies only to women.

Today, I decided to set out to right that wrong-- much as these women (and one man) did over the course of their very interesting lives. The result is pure history-filled entertainment and not meant to be definitive by any means. For one thing, Gloria Steinem, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath should be on a list of the great feminists, to be sure, but I found that so much has been written about them already and decided it was best to spare you my half-assed attempts to say something original about them. (By the way, we excluded Susan B. Anthony from this list because of her staunch anti-abortion stance-- these ten, in no particular order, were the ones we personally appreciate the most...)

Karen Silkwood. In her lifetime, nuclear plant whistleblower Karen Silkwood was not known as a feminist, but that doesn't matter to us. She stood up to those (men) who tried to put her in her place, who told her she couldn't have a romantic relationship with another woman. They told her she should keep quiet about being contaminated by plutonium at the plant where she worked, even though incompetent management had caused the exposures. But she didn't listen, even when there were numerous threats on her life. As you may already know, Silkwood was killed in one of the great unsolved murder cases in American history. Of course, everyone knows she was run off the road by agents of Kerr-McGee and/or the US Government-- although she crashed into a guardrail en route to deliver documents to a New York Times reporter, documents that were missing from the wreckage, damage was also found to her rear bumper, suggesting she was actually hit from behind. Nora Ephron scripted and Mike Nichols film of Silkwood, which was nominated for several Academy Awards in 1984.

Louise Brooks. Brooks was a dancer and movie actress who told the studios to stuff it when they wanted to force her to perform in lame "sound pictures." She ignored the "You'll never work in this town again" threats and decided she didn't need those control freak men in Hollywood. Instead, she moved to Germany and starred in the first film to ever feature a lesbian character, Pandora's Box, now regarded as a classic. Her sexually-charged performances in German cinema were all censored or remained unreleased for years. "By her own admission, she was a sexually liberated woman, not afraid to experiment, even posing fully nude for "art" photography, and her liaisons with many film people were legendary, although much of it is speculation."

Crystal Lee Sutton. A sadly overlooked feminist icon if there ever was one, Sutton is known as "the real Norma Rae." In the early 1970s, Sutton worked at a textile plant in South Carolina, making $2.65 folding towels. She soon got union fever and stood up to harassment and sexism to become the spiritual leader of the entire labor movement in this country. Of course, a few years later, Sally Field starred as a character based on Sutton's early work with the ACTWU.

Kate Chopin. Missouri native Chopin wrote the Awakening at the turn of the 20th century, and it couldn't have been better timed-- from the perspective of history. In 1899, it couldn't have been met with more of an out-of-touch backlash. Chopin's novel about a woman's struggle with societal standards, motherhood vs. self, and "the woman as property" norm took America by storm, with the outcry so great that her publisher delete the book before most members of the public were able to purchase it. Nonetheless, its "unwholesome" attitude toward sex was one of the key factors in sparking the century's feminist movement.

Shirley Chisholm. What didn't this feminist superhero accomplish in her life? (We didn't want you to actually answer that, but if you're looking for a torch-bearer, see Bella Abzug, below.) Chisholm, who would be my Congresswoman were she still alive to represent my district, was the first African-American woman of Congress, the first on a major-party ballot for President and the first woman on the Democratic ticket. Chisholm went on to receive more than 150 votes for President at the 1972 DNC. (The best anecdote about her is one unrelated to her feminism. When racist Governor George Wallace was shot and very nearly assassinated during that same Presidential campaign, Chisholm caused a huge uproar for visiting him in the hospital.)

Continue reading in Part Two.

Hey Ladies: That Pesky Period May Help Prevent Parkinson's

Emily Farris — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:38:00 GMT

I am scared to death of developing Parkinson's Disease. And the reason is pretty ridiculous, I admit. I resemble no one in my family but my paternal grandmother Ruth, whose middle name I also share. We ~~have~~ had the same hands, the same feet and recently my aunt gave me a picture of Grandma Ruth in her 20's. She could be my twin. In her 50's she developed the degenerative neurological disease and by the time I was old enough to communicate, it was full blown. She was shaky, her tongue was always hanging out of her mouth, her speech was slurred and slow. For a while, I was actually sort-of afraid of her. So, regretfully, I never really got to know one of my grandmothers. It was only last year that I learned she was an English teacher (I knew she taught history, but not that she also taught English; this explains why my dad had me quoting Shakespeare at the age of three). And as much as my dad tells me he thinks the factors leading to her Parkinson's were environmental, and no genetic link has been proven, I still worry that someday, I will be shaky Grandma Emily, unable to communicate with my grandchildren.

A new study at least makes me feel a little better about all of this.

Research out of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York found that longer exposure to the body's own hormones, including estrogen, may help protect the brain cells that affected by Parkinson's.

The disease occurs almost twice as often in men, and the study reports that women who menstruate for 39 years or longer are 25% less likely to develop Parksinson's, compared to women who were fertile less than 33 years. (For once, I am sort of glad I got my period at 11, now if I can just keep it going until I'm 50, I'll be golden.)

The study also found that women who have four or more children (like my Grandma Ruth) are at a higher risk for Parkinson's, possibly because "the post-partum period, which is typically one with lower levels of estrogen, subtracts from a woman's total fertile lifespan," according to the study's co-author Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and population health and the principal investigator of the WHI study at Einstein.

Of course, this is one study in probably a million and a study tomorrow could say exactly the opposite, but, hey, it makes me feel a little better.

[Science Daily: Naturally Produced Estrogen May Protect Women From Parkinson's Disease]

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