Happy 2012! We’re back after a long winter break. Here’s a little of what has been going on in feminisms around the web.

• Vanity Fair has done it again–as per their tradition, they have relegated actresses of color to the hidden fold on their “Fresh Young Stars” of Hollywood cover. Jezebel spells out their egregious trend.

• This piece is a few weeks old, but it is an excellent analysis of the parallels between female genital mutilation (FGM) and breast augmentation surgery. via RH Reality Check

• The Globe and Mail explores the politics of the b-word, imagining Jay-Z’s lyrics without it after his statement that having daughter means he will no longer use the word. Samhita Mukhopadhyay from feministing.com is quoted:

“There’s an idea that being politically correct ruins art. You don’t want something raw like the lyrical mastery of Jay-Z to be diluted by these PC notions – that women are humans too. … But if we think of the basic reality that women are humans as ‘politically correct,’ we’ve got a major problem.”

• Colorlines investigates Microsoft’s new app that provides pedestrians with the “safest” route through neighborhoods–unofficially known as the “Avoid Ghetto App.” It has raised a major controversy over the source of its (racialized) stats on violent crime. As Jamilah King puts it, this app “begs the larger question of how and why technology perpetuates systemic racism, and why consumers should care.”

• Mother Jones reports that the founder of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is a major Republican donor, lobbyist, and member–she even served as an ambassador under George W. Bush. Surprise, surprise–she and her organization are staunchly anti-choice.

• Jeffrey Goldberg tells us how to spot racism in the Republican campaigns. According to him, “This presidential election will be one of the most race-soaked in recent history.” Here’s a little sample of the kinds of assessments of the black community we can expect from the GOP [trigger warning]:

“[T]he pathologies afflicting black Americans are caused partly by the Democratic Party, which has created in them a dependency on government not dissimilar to the forced dependency of slaves on their owners.”

• And here’s why Caitlin Flanagan’s  should make you shudder. Her new book, Girl Land, proposes 19th-century notions of gender roles as a way to save girls. Bitch magazine makes quotes from the book mildly tolerable with cat photos. Here Flanagan is on the Colbert Report in 2006. via Feminist Ryan Gosling.

Keep your eyes out for the February Issue of re/visionist, coming very soon!