Kansas City Ladysquad

Ugh Ugh Ugh. Transphobic university journalism for the lose.

2011-03-28T13:18:00.002-05:00

This is a letter I just sent to the editors of my school newspaper, re: their coverage of the Drag Show Finals which I competed in last Friday.

Dear DO:

Jack Dailey, here, writing in to say how utterly appalled I am by Monday's coverage of the Totally Fabulous Drag Show. Attaching my good drag-name to the editorial opinions of the author is really inappropriate. DO, did you learn nothing from the Kanye West VMA debacle? Unflattering. Very unflattering. Gentle Gentleman is a great dancer, a new friend of mine, and a fabulous King. This is a friendly competition to raise money for queer-positive community programs, and I had nothing but fun during the entire event. The attempt to undermine their title and create drama to amp up your story angle is uncalled for, and fails entirely to capture the purpose of the event: raising funds for The Q Center, Sage Upstate and the Queering Educational Research Institute (QuERI)--none of which were mentioned in your article.

Moreover, and most importantly, your uncritical use of gender terminology is unacceptable. In addition to uncertain and inconsistent pronoun issues, and the phrase "hot tranny mess," which is just completely offensive, you 'neutrally' describe the performers as "transsexual"--which is not only an outdated, medicalized label, but it is also the incorrect term to describe drag and drag identity. If your staff would like to learn more about being less of a heteropatriarchal jerk, I recommend Kate Bornstein's Gender Outlaw, Leslie Feinberg's TransLiberation, the section from Judith/Jack Halberstam's Female Masculinity on Drag Kings, conversations with staff of the WGS and QSX departments, conversations with staff at the LGBT Resource Center, and perhaps conversations with the actual performers of the drag show who never speak for themselves in your article.

Many of the performers, audience and your readers identify as transgender or genderqueer; your misrepresentation is damaging to our community. Please make it your priority as a publication to educate yourselves and others, not to harm them.

Totally Disgusted,
(QDC)

-------
The article I'm responding to can be found here::
http://www.dailyorange.com/feature/alter-ego-drag-kings-and-queens-switch-gender-roles-with-dynamic-comedic-performances-1.2126414

I'm so, so frustrated. It's like a how-to of transphobic journalistic fuckup.

On the bright side, here's some great coverage by another university publication, run out of Newhouse:

http://www.thenewshouse.com/story/drag-show-provides-fabulous-evening

Guuuuh.

things you tried to kill, i found a way to grow.

2010-12-17T15:01:00.004-06:00

I'm home, and I'm ready to fuck shit up. I was ready to fuck shit up before I even got here, but then I was reading an old journal, but not old enough, in which I recounted everything I remembered about my last date with... let's call him Fuckface, for old time's sake.

I was triggered for the first time a couple of months ago, which was surprising and scary. I think it comes down to that night.
So I'm putting that entry here, because I can't keep being "home" where most people don't know, when I've been living where it's such a huge part of my open identity. I get nothing from keeping quiet, so I'm going to tell everyone, when it comes up. Because I forgot that even four years ago, I knew that what happened was wrong. I left myself clues so I could work it out later.

You should know that this is just the last incident after 4 months of the same shit. This was one of the 2 that I reacted to the most, in the moment, but I was checked out for most of the stuff I didn't react to until later.
You should know that Sady Doyle holding her ground on #MooreandMe has a lot to do with feeling like it's okay to do this.

Trigger warning and story after the jump.

Written 1/5/07 about 9/11/05:

"I'm pretty sure we went to the Spinach Festival that day.
The next thing I remember, or rather assume, happening is his 10ish minute attempt to put his dick in my ass, but that was challenging, as we were in his floating bunk bed thing. And so! I am lying next to Fuckface in his bed, we are both lying on our backs, and he is whacking himself off with his left hand, and me with his right. I am staring at the ceiling, diagonally in front of me to the left. I say "I feel worthless." He says "Yes, you're worthless." Apparently this is sarcastic, but I don't hear it. I say "I'm just a body! There is no need for me to me here! I am only the waste disposal!" He says "Don't call yourself 'waste disposal.'" He laughs. "I do need you here. You're... you're necessary. You're not worthless." I don't respond. He says "Fine, you do it," and holds up his hands (he's been going at it this whole time). I start. I try for about 2 seconds, but I'm terrified and enraged at him for making me do that when he knew I was horrible and couldn't do anything for anyone with my hands, and why would the asshole put me in such a vulnerable position? I stopped. He finished himself off. I swallowed his cum. It's safe to say I couldn't tell what movement meant I should go do it, and so I smiled that pitiful, helpless smile that provoked him to say "when you smile, it ruins everything."

Afterwards, he kept trying to cuddle, and I wouldn't speak and kept trying to get as far away from him as I could in his one person wide floating bed. He'd touch my back and I'd move away. I felt like I was going to scream, and I wanted nothing more than to be Deb and say "Don't touch me right now." He said "If you don't want me to touch you, just tell me." I think I said "Can you take me home now?" I think he was flustered and didn't know what to think. It was so very unprecedented.

I had brought The Dresden Dolls, and we listened to them on the way to my house. Good Day turned into Girl Anachronism, and I was taken aback by how perfect they were for this, so much so that I ended up blaming them entirely, and in between Grant and Foster I asked him to drop me off at [my elementary school]. He said okay. Amanda sang some. He asked why. I said "I want to walk. ...and I feel like screaming." He said okay, glanced at me, and kind of sped up. He asked me if I was okay, if I would be okay, if there was anything he could do, he loved me, he needed me. I said "thanks, bye." I hadn't really been listening. I waited for him to leave the parking lot. I paced in a small circle. I looked for him to come back and was mad he didn't. I couldn't scream, I was convinced he was hiding somewhere where he could hear me, and I couldn't let him hear me and I was hyperventilating and almost crying, I started walking home and looking behind me, looking in my driveway for him, wanting to come find me and make sure I was still okay. I thought he would check up on me. I thought he wouldn't let me get away with this much... privacy. And anger. I ripped at all kinds of plants. I wanted into my house and wrote a journal page full of "why," over and over. I called him an asshole.

It never occurred to me that we'd break up. Not even then. I impress myself."

Several things, because I'm defensive, because I feel like if I don't say them people will question me and I'll question myself:
1) Unless you're doing some scene and have already negotiated something to mean "stop," "I feel worthless" should mean stop.
2) "I do need you here. You're necessary." so you don't have to clean up your come, asshole! That is not what "necessary" looks like. Maybe you "needed" me there, but I neither needed nor wanted to be there, and that matters.
3) This is the same night he told me that if we broke up I would kill myself. Worked out a pretty good deal for yourself, eh fucker?
4) This is one example of how violence within a relationship can work. Of course he asks how I am afterward, he's already gotten what he needed, and after that comes the parts where we're supposed to care about each other.
5) So much of the trauma here comes from the struggle between knowing that I'm a human with a complex inner life and all that while being called upon only as object. I know the nonconsensual objectification thing is one of the first things feminism figured out, so understanding that is often taken as a given, but fuck, that shit is real.

Maybe this is of interest, or maybe not--

2010-10-20T00:00:00.002-05:00

I made a guest blog for Medusa Magazine, an up-and-coming feminist magazine at SU.

I was covering what is sort of a local event, but if you are interested in reading about it, check it out!

Shit has got to change. It has got. to. get. better.

2010-10-07T00:34:00.000-05:00

It has got to get better because I am starting to lose my verve, my chutzpah, my resolve.

It's scary, you guys. It's really scary right now.

I went to a Planned Parenthood conference last weekend and I was gonna blog about that because it was a really good experience, and I was impressed with the global application, intersectionality initiatives, and applicable activism--but now, right now, all I can think about all the goddamn time are these boys, these queer kids killing themselves.

And all I can think about is that a few weeks ago, some dudes screamed at me from a car, as I was waiting to cross the street. They shouted "WHAT IS THAT! IS THAT A BOY? IS THAT A GIRL? WHAT IS THAT?"

And all I can think about is that last week somebody threw a bottle off their balcony and it shattered about a foot away from me.

And all I can think is that last weekend, my co-worker said that a certain redundant protocol we follow was "so gay."

And all I can think is that today a customer at my work (a bubble-tea shop) ordered "Taro Milk Tea, with the big balls--no homo!"

And all I can think is that again and again our government upholds laws that make our rights not quite the same as everyone else's.

And all I can think is that we shouldn't be fucking surprised that gay kids get bullied, or beat up, or ostracized. We shouldn't be fucking surprised they're killing themselves when we live in a culture that rewards homophobia, heteronormativity.

I'm really upset. I'm really upset all the time now, and it is making my heart hurt.
I am tired, and I am sad, and I am angry.

It's Coming Out Month.
I am coming out as Fucking Pissed.
Let's fucking do something.

I thought you were a life-sized paper doll.

2010-10-04T23:05:00.004-05:00

[UberTrigger and Sad Warning! For my current thoughts on advocacy and sex in the rape culture, and Sexual Violence in the news]

The thing about my job as advocate and consent-extraordinaire is that it usually feels like we're playing a life-sized version of those elementary school PE games, where you have to run from one end of the gym to the other without getting tagged by the ghost, the rapist, what have you. I've made it to the far wall, so I'm showing people still in the middle how to get here too, helping them see paths as they open up. Encouraging them to run fast as hell.

But I'm not on that far wall. No one is; the threat's never gone. I have so much more life in me, and so many more risks to take, and it is likely enough that someone will rape me in my future. And I am pretty sure that, even given all the things I know, and all the myths I don't believe, it would be devastating and give me so much shit to work through (think of all the things I won't be able to do because of the effort just functioning would take).

So I practice. Just in case. When I go running when it's dark at 8pm, in the park that has lamps and is open until 11, I go through the assault in my head, yelling, "You can't keep me home! I deserve to move freely in the world! I will keep loving sex! I won't be scared of people! You can't fucking stop me!" And when I'm at the 24 hour grocery store alone in a dress at 10:30 pm, I imagine the trial, responding the the defense attorney, "The grocery store is open 24 hours to everyone. This is the most convenient time for me to go shopping. I was 'asking' to get food for dinner, not rape, actually. It doesn't matter that I enjoy sex. It doesn't matter that I talk about it all the time. My fantasies? Not relevant. You're full of shit. No one deserves this, and you can't convince anyone otherwise. I will keep loving. I will keep fucking. I will keep fighting."
I am gone, I am gone, I am gone, I am.

That's one kind of fantasy.
(one kind of disassociation.)

Lately I've been exploring my ideas about kink more, most recently as facilitated by The Pervocracy, who I heartily recommend. Yesterday was the first time I came up with my own fantasy to self-jam about, because it took that long, that much work for me to not me afraid of what I might think when left to my own devices. I'm taking Afro-Brazilian dance this quarter, and it is thrilling to move in ways that I find sexy without it being scandalous, or for someone else. It is my body, being awesome. (This is a pretty big deal. Usually when I dance in front of other people, I am very careful to make sure it is not Too Sexy, lest anyone think I am an Incorrigible Slut, or sending an invitation. Such policing! Such shite.) I am so excited and happy about this, and other related expansions of my sexual expression about which I will not be blogging.

But there's still a disconnect. There's a really shitty feeling that I shouldn't be having all this fun.

I was reading Pervocracy last night, and one post consisted of souvenirs, in the form of pictures, from a recent night of Risk Aware Consensual Kink. (I won't link to this post without context, but again, I recommend her blog.) One picture shows "whore" lightly etched into her back. I don't think this is up my alley, but there it is for her. I observed it with a "hmm," no analysis or nothin.

This morning, I check my email, and yahoo local news gives me the headline "Attacker carves 'Hoe' into woman's chest."

Goddammit.

Why do you put so much work into making sex bad?
This pejorative-carving is something at least one person likes, without harming anyone. Maybe liking it is tied up in it being something that is supposed to be pretty fucking harmful, but that is not an invitation to do it.

It's the same thing outside the realm of kink, of course. On my bus ride home tonight, I was reading an article on sexual assault at the US-Mexico border in Color of Violence, the INCITE! Anthology (which I would like everyone in the whole world to read? Get yr hands on it if you can. Email or call and I'll tell you more.). The article told the stories of women who have been raped by Border Patrol agents, and the ensuing legal process. Luis Santiago Esteves is such a relentless offender, who kept getting reassigned to do more damage, not to mention the damage he was doing to his first and second wives and daughter at home. When he assaulted one woman, after two had already brought charges against him, he said "I know what I'm doing. And I am capable of everything." I think that's what checked me back into this fucking reality.

Why do you make sex bad?
It is not a weapon. It is how I express joy, how I find all the different sounds I can make and ways I can move. And I do love moving.

I will not let you use my body as a battleground. You cannot use it against me anymore.
(I refuse your hate. I am untouchable.)
My cunt is not a vulnerability, and my vulnerability is not an invitation.
I will not stop loving.
I will not stop fucking.
I will not stop fighting.

I am.

Points for Frankness

2010-07-03T15:40:00.003-05:00

I bought myself breakfast cereal yesterday, for the first time in ages. I wanted something sweet, but all the ridiculous Cookie CrunchBerry Puffs I was denied as a child were close to $5. Fuck that. So I went for the Multi Grain Cheerios, which doesn't sound like sugary indulgence, but there's some delicious sweetener on 'em, and this was closer to $2. Much more reasonable.

This morning, when I was making myself breakfast, I read the box of the cereal I was pouring, as Regina and I love to do. The back panel listed ways to maximize the benefits of eating multiple grains, in between two smiling, skinny women, and I was feeling all healthy and active, like I was supposed to, until I got to their summary of why including multigrains in my diet is important.

"More Grains, Less You!" (click to see for yourself)

Oh.
Oh right.

That's obviously the point of every weight loss product, whether it's dressing up as "health" or not, but I was surprised at how direct they were, and how they tried to make it look glamorous, with the italics and exclamation point.

Don't worry, though! I got the message! "You're fucking feeding yourself? Who the fuck do you think you are? This 'women eating' thing is dangerous, we gotta take em down a notch. Apatogen forbid they think it's okay to quit the self-effacing."

Next time I'm getting some fucking Apple Jacks. They won't dare to tell me to take up less space when they think I'm a teenage boy. They'll just give me sweet games.

Excuse me, sir, your misogyny is showing

2010-06-19T12:09:00.000-05:00

Don't call me bitch.

Oh, I can call myself a free bitch, baby, or Bitch Queen of the Universe, or a babe in total control of herself, but these are different than 99.9% of conversational use -- they evoke power, turning the classical definition of 'bitch' on its head. Reclaiming the word, turning it into a compliment rather than a tool used to remind women of their 'place.'

So what is a bitch?

Let's check out the top definitions at Urban Dictionary, font of all things worth knowing.

(1) Word used to describe the act of whining excessively. (2) Person who rides specifically in the middle of a front-seatting only car meant for 2 passengers or less. (3) Modern-day servant; A person who performs tasks for another, usually degrading in status. (4) Term used to exclaim hardship.

A bitch is someone who whines irritatingly, someone who takes the worst seat in the vehicle, a servant who performs degrading tasks, or something awful that happens to someone ('Wow, that's a bitch.') Catching the theme, here? You don't want to be a bitch. A bitch is annoying, cowed, humiliated by others, hardly human, more of a thing.

"Don't take things so personally. Just because I say something is a bitch totally doesn't mean I'm calling you a bitch. Chill out." Nope. 'Bitch' is misogynistic language. Look around -- who's female around here? Me. Just me. Scuse me while I stand the hell up for myself. Examine: who 'rides bitch' in any sort of vehicle? The woman. When someone is another's 'bitch,' they are subservient. This phrase is almost uniquely used to describe men put in emasculating situations, because guess who's the bitch all the rest of the time? Women. You quote Pulp Fiction with your buddies:

(paraphrased):
"Does he look like a bitch?"
"No."
"Then why'd you try to fuck him like a bitch?"
I think this describes the bit where Marsellus Wallace is raped. Note: 'to fuck him like a bitch' = rape. Bitches are raped. Other people do what they like, sexually, with bitches, regardless of the fact that the bitch is actually a person. I feel threatened that you guys quote this, giggling: bitches get fucked. Fucking is something that males do to others rather than a fifty-fifty between two consenting individuals. Bitches get raped.

You following? The word bitch pertains to women. Look around. I am the only woman here. And if I weren't, you can bet your booties I'd still be hollering about it, because you'd still be talking about me, you'd just also be victimizing several other ladies, too. And even if you're definitely not talking about me, I'll still be talking about it, because calling a woman a bitch because she's strong and opinionated is not okay -- it's a way to silence her.

*I spent the weekend in rather loathsome company and BOY DO I HAVE THINGS TO SAY.
**Calling a male a bitch is a whole 'nother post, reflecting classic heterosexual insecurity with anything that stretches the boundaries of masculinity.

PRIDE.

2010-06-12T18:47:00.006-05:00

It's Pride weekend, here in Oly, and OH GEEZ I don't know why I've spent so much time away from queer spaces*. Last night's CabarGAY! and today's festival have hosted so much talent, genderfuckery, fun, and beautiful words and sounds, that I have to share. Consider it Queer Art Weekend, as part of Pride, and share yr links in the comments!

FIRST, the pair that set the tone for my weekend at CabarGAY! last night, Cherdonna and Lou. Lou Henry Hoover, invented by Ricki Mason, does a lot of exciting shit. Check it out.

Cherdonna and Lou's 5 minute work sample from Cherdonna & Lou on Vimeo.

NEXT we have Paris Original, the boylesque performer who stole my heart. He performed this last night, as well as another number in a tutu (for a bit) that was more classically lady-ballet, but I haven't found a video. The show last night had an enforced No Pictures orVideos policy, which makes sense when the performers are getting pretty naked. Consenting to perform for the folks who paid to watch, not everyone on the internet, out of context, which is why the clips I've found have been distributed either by the performer or the folks who did the event. Hooray!

Anyway. What Paris Original does clearly takes practice and dedication, and also, he's beautiful.

Today, I saw Captain Smartypants, an 8 member part of the Seattle Men's Chorus, whose interactions with each other and the audience reminded me of the Jolly Rogers. If the Jolly Rogers were gay, rather than pirates. They had a great piece in response to a fellow in a Geo Metric who drove by them in Tacoma, yelling that they looked like fags. They sang their Top 10 responses, for the next time it happens, the number 1 of which was "Duh!"

The only clips I found of the small group are Winter Holiday-related, rather than primarily gay-related, so I have gone to the whole Seattle Men's Chorus, and give you ABBA.

Lastly, Coyote Grace! I learned about them on Monday, from a woman wearing a Girlyman shirt. They opened for Girlyman last week, and she said they do the queer folk thing even better. I don't know about that, but I do know that I loved them, and I loved sitting in the park 4 blocks away from where I live, next to so many women and men I work with at SafePlace, at the front of the crowd of queer folks and allies. That's the way to do it.

Joe is a trans man, and Ingrid is a femme from Ohio, who sang a new song about girls with brown eyes from Kansas. Who smile. I AM THE ONLY ONE, it must be about meeee. They also covered Romeo and Juliet and By Way of Sorrow. Give them money, if you have any. I will give you 3 of the songs they played today, Summertime (reminds me of Young James Dean), Guy Named Joe, and Daughterson, the song they ended on, but really, seek out as much as you can find.

Who am I to change my life?
Who am I to fuck with form?
Who am I to weather a storm?
But I go slow
I said goodbye to everyone I know
And one morning I awoke
And I was this guy named Joe

*Yes I do. Biphobia is not my pal. Would have been nice if I had said "fuck that" earlier, though.

Very specific version of love, actually

2010-06-06T16:02:00.007-05:00

So I just watched "Love Actually" for the first time. I know, it came out 7 years ago, so this is not BREAKING FEMINIST NEWS. But this movie made me so grumpy, which is of course a strong motivator to blog it out.

Not that it doesn't have good bits! Hugh Grant dancing around 10 Downing Street: always welcome, in my book. (Speaking of great scenes of dudes dancing in movies: have you guys seen In and Out? Go put that on your Netflix queue stat.) That adorable kid's adorable smiles: yes. That gorgeous Brazilian guy: yes, yes, yes. That wretched Christmas song: truly and hilariously wretched! But it was just a little bit of adorableness, wrapped in a pastry of patriarchy, wrapped in a LIE!

Since social science research is my paying job now, one thing I liked about Love Actually is that it provides a nice sample size. Let's examine our data, shall we?
(Spoilers after this, but trust me, the plots go pretty predictably.)

"Love Actually" is a movie with about 8 plotlines following various couples/love triangles/groups of people, all of whose lives intertwine one magical British Christmas. Common themes include attractive heterosexual cisgender white people, younger subservient passive women with older powerful active men, and loving people despite never having spoken to them. Because isn't that what love is all about? Let's take a look at the plotlines (list stolen from Wikipedia) and what they say about the difference between male and female agency in the world of looove. Bonus: spot the racism, fat-shaming, and sluts! (Slut is here defined as “a woman who demonstrates proof of sexual desire.” You will see this is not something I’m pulling out of whole cloth.)

Jamie and Aurelia: Jamie discovers his girlfriend cheating on him with his brother, so he goes off to a French cottage to work on his novel. His submissive Portuguese housekeeper brings him coffee, cleans up after him, and chases after his pages that blow away while he's writing outdoors. Oh no, some of the papers blew into the lake! She'd better strip to her underwear and jump in! Sadly, they must part. She confesses her love, but he doesn't speak Portuguese, so he doesn't understand her. She kisses him, then they part. He then learns Portuguese in a month, travels to her hometown, and proposes marriage in front of her whole neighborhood, and of course she accepts. She has learned English, meanwhile! "Just in case"! So why isn't this the story about a woman who fell for her employer, then learned English while dreaming he'd come for her? Oh wait, that's still iffy.

Checklist: male perspective, active man/passive woman (mostly), slut!, unspoken love, powerful man/subservient woman, older man/younger woman, bonus fat-shaming.
male agency= flying to Portugal and proposing marriage.
female agency=snoggin' dude once, waiting.

Juliet, Peter, and Mark: A familiar story here: Mark is in love with his best mate’s new wife, though she thought he hated her because he treated her coldly and never talked to her. That is how I, too, experience and express my love for a woman! I don’t have to interact with her or talk to her, I just look at her and fall right in love. Mark shows up at J&P's doorstep and creepily declares his love via flash cards while she makes admiring, wistful faces at him and her husband waits downstairs, thinking she's dealing with Christmas carolers. Then he leaves romantically, and she runs after him and kisses him, then returns to her husband. BONUS: We get this story from Mark's perspective, and it's mostly Mark and Juliet on screen. We hardly see Peter (played by the very foxy Chiwetel Ejiofor, the underuse of whom has to be illegal). So in a love triangle, you have two white people and one black person, and the black person is introduced but immediately relegated to the unimportant, uninteresting point of the triangle (we find out literally nothing about Peter, except that Mark is his friend and Juliet is his wife). Hmm, not like that's problematic in itself.

Checklist: male perspective, active man/passive woman, unspoken love, older man/younger woman (only because I looked up the actors' ages--Mark is 29, whereas Keira Knightley is friggin' 18).
male agency=elaborate demonstrations of love to woman who has expressed zero interest in him, and has in fact married his best friend.
female agency=snoggin' dude once.

Harry, Karen, and Mia: Harry is a middle-aged business dude, Karen is his loving wife and mother of his children (and the only female main character in this entire movie who looks over 30), and Mia is Harry's hot young secretary. Can you see where this is going? Mia flirts openly with the boss, dresses sexily for the company party (in a RED DRESS with DEVIL HORNS, for Pete's sake) and dances with Harry while his wife watches jealously, and offers subtle lines like "I think I made it pretty clear what I could give you for Christmas." Emma Thompson is amazing as Karen, but all we get is her snooping through husband's coat after catching him near jewelry counter and finding a wildly expensive necklace, smiling because he's always gotten her crap presents but now he's finally going to prove his love with shiny things... then receiving a CD for Christmas instead. (Cut to secretary tarting around her bedroom, which is decorated like a red-velvet brothel, wearing lingerie and the necklace.) The wife cries alone to Joni Mitchell, then semi-confronts her husband at the kids' Christmas concert, but instead of leaving him or making a decision to stay, we just cut forward and now they're together still, and she looks unhappy as hell, and ugh. Bonus: she characterizes herself as "frigid." And "fat," because why the hell not.

Checklist: slut!!!, powerful man/subservient woman (to quote a much better Hugh Grant movie: "He was shagging his secretary. It’s such a cliche!"), older man/younger woman.
male agency=buying jewelry, sneaking around.
female agency (slut)=dressing sluttily, dancing sluttily, sitting with her legs open wide sluttily, flirting sluttily, refusing to wait for a man to notice her like the big slut that she is, etc.
female agency (wife)=snooping, sad confrontations without resolution, listening to Joni Mitchell

David and Natalie: He's the prime minister. She brings him biscuits and accidentally says fuckwords in front of him, and looks about 19, and is caught in a compromising position with the president of the United States (who is, not all that inexplicably, Billy Bob Thornton). Bonus colonialism: She's a metaphor for Iraq! After Prez Thornton's discreet indiscretion, the PM gets to make a speech about how America just grabs what it wants without regard for other countries' desires! (Other countries here being Britain, not Iraq. In case that wasn't clear.) So PM Hugh Grant sends her away because she is just too sexy to work with, and it's awkward, but she sends him a Christmas card telling him not to worry about the time something happened with her and the President, because nothing happened, and she is "Yours." Note: Their entire emotional engagement so far is that he's asked her about her ex-boyfriend, who called her fat and was mean, and who he offers to have killed. Also, she's brought him lots of biscuits. Bonus fat-shaming, and not just from sucky ex-boyfriend, despite the fact that it’s Hugh Grant eating all the biscuits here. So he tracks her down on Christmas night and they snog and some madcap slapstick hijinks happen, whatever.

Checklist: male perspective, unspoken love, active man/passive woman, older man/younger woman, powerful man/subservient woman (the PM and the biscuit girl--hard to find a bigger power differential).
male agency=leading free world, searching long street for ages on Christmas Eve
female agency=sending Christmas card and waiting. And maybe flirting/kissing/consensually making eyes at the President, or maybe being coerced by him--what's the difference? The important thing is how Hugh Grant feels about the situation!

Daniel, Sam, & Joanna: Eleven-year-old Sam's mother has just died, and stepdad Daniel/Liam Neeson has no idea how to be a father to Sam, which is obvious by the fact that he talks to Sam really explicitly and unpleasantly about sex. Sam claims to have found the love of his life, the coolest girl in school. (Just once, I want to see a dorky girl falling for the coolest guy in school and getting with him, in a cute little-kid way of course. Just ONCE.) He learns to play the drums to impress her at the Christmas concert, where she's the star singer. Then he storms past airport security to confess his 11-year-old love before she leaves for America forever! Instead, he says bye and is happy she knows his name, then the TSA guys drag him back to Daniel, but she's followed him all the way back and gives him a cute 11-year-old kiss before leaving. Okay, fine, so it's pretty cute, but why are the genders never reversed? (To say nothing of same-sex anything. Don't wait up for a gay couple here.) At least we've averted older man/younger woman. Oh, and Liam Neeson literally bumps into a sexy blonde mother at the end. Love actually is heavily foreshadowed!

Checklist: male perspective, active man/passive woman, unspoken love
male agency=learning drums, busting through airport security.
female agency=following dude back and kissin' dude once. Why? I don't know, we know nothing about her except that she is cool and American. And she appears to be black--again, though, the story is from the white person's perspective.

Sarah & Karl: From the lady's perspective! Sarah has been in love with (younger!) dreamboat coworker Karl (swoon) since she met him at work, but she can't work up the courage to confess--plus, she's always on the phone with someone she calls "my darling." Sarah and Karl accidentally end up slow-dancing at the company party, and next thing we know, they're makin' out at her place, about to TOTALLY DO IT, when her phone rings. It's her darling, who turns out to be her mentally ill institutionalized brother, who "calls a lot." She hangs up; more make-outs; he calls again; she has to leave to go talk him down. Karl pouts gorgeously before leaving. There's no raincheck, no plan for a second (okay, first) date, no confession of love. They just awkwardly say bye at the office later, and that's it. She hangs out with her brother on Christmas. I got a mad case of vicarious lady blue-balls from watching this. Also, isn't it nice that when a man wants someone, he goes after her with the forces of the entire United Kingdom and/or at least some posterboards, but when a woman wants someone, she can't have him because she's busy taking care of other people? (Except for the times she can't have him because she's a big slut.) Bonus: disability weirdness. I mean, I appreciate that she clearly and deeply loves her brother and doesn’t view him as a burden. But it’s hard to interpret his depiction as anything other than “burdensome” when we go from hotfastsexytimes to drawn-looking woman sitting in generic institution with a violent, grunting man. Also, why is love depicted as a zero-sum game? Oh, but only for women: Liam Neeson is also a single caretaker, but you bet he’s gonna bone that hot mama. Or at least try, until her kid calls her and she rushes away, because being a female caretaker is a lot like being Batman: there can be no delegating, no babysitters and no aides, because if you’re not on-call 24/7, that’s NEGLECT, and you’re the goddam Batman.

Checklist: unspoken love, passive man/passive woman. Oh man, nobody wins in this one.
male agency=inviting woman to dance during fast song that abruptly changes to slow song and not sitting down, but dancing slow, which leads to etc.
female agency=going along with above.

Colin, Tony, and assorted sluts: Colin is an "ugly" dude (Hollywood homely, especially in a film full of ridiculously attractive actors); more unfortunately, he is obnoxious. His best friend Tony is unable to talk him out of a plan to journey to America, where babes in every bar in the land will bang him because he's English, and American chicks dig that. He goes to Milwaukee, asks the cab driver outside the airport to take him to "a bar," and in a scene so ridiculously farcical that even my brother (not exactly Feminist Critic #1, or even #1 million) was saying, "This HAS to be a dream sequence," he immediately stumbles in a porno plot. Four girls, each hotter than the next! All fawn over him! They invite him back to their place, but pout that they're so poor, they only have one bed, which they all share, and which they'll have to share with him. Plus, they're so poor, they don't even have pajamas, so they'll have to sleep NAKED! Who let this shit get into an actual film? Jesus Christ. He comes back and delivers one of the hot chicks for Tony, but keeps the others for himself.

Checklist: I'm not even going to bother with this one. However, bonus: main character Colin is white, best friend Tony is black. Because duh.

Billy Mack and Joe: Billy Mack is a wacky old rocker releasing a purposefully awful Christmas hit; Joe is his long-suffering manager. Billy M. heads to Elton John’s fab party on Christmas Eve, but winds up back at Joe’s because that’s who he really loves (no homo!), even if Joe is boring and fat. Which I guess is positive, though I could do without the fat-hatred and homophobia bonuses. However, color me disappointed and unsurprised that the “satisfying love comes in many and diverse forms!” message is given to two men. (Only half-credit for Sarah above, sorry.)

Part of the problem, I daresay, is that even two+ hours is not enough to delve into eight romantic plots in any kind of emotional depth. That’s not automatically bad. It is okay to create art about love that is not based in a deep examination of attraction, motivation, past experiences, and current emotions. I mean, that’s how real people fall in love, because real people have experiences, emotions, etc., but not every romance has to delve quite so deeply. I get that! So—if I may get all lit-crit for a second here—why follow eight stories, when any one could fill an entire film? What is the writer/director/filmmaking team doing here?

Based on the title, telegraphed from the opening monologue about how much love there is in the world and especially airports, the movie’s main theme is that “love actually is all around.” A theme is a thesis; a text is an argument. This film, while purporting to examine the diversity and/or universality of love, is actually presenting eight scenarios that tell eight very similar stories. So what is it really arguing?

And now that I’m thinking about it, rushing through 8 love stories does present its own problems. Especially when we’re not getting allusions to people’s pasts or inner lives, especially women’s inner lives. But even the powerful active men get a pretty short stick here, emotional-depth-wise.

I watched this movie with my family, and my mom was disgusted by it. “They’re all so shallow!” she said. I was just relieved not to be the only person resenting the movie, but thinking back: yes, yes they are. In this vision, "love" is that feeling you get when see someone attractive. Typically, for men, a “boner.” Being asked to believe that Mark loves Juliet despite having never interacted with her (because he loves her, so actually talking to her like a person would be too painful), or that Aurelia and Colin Firth love each other enough to get married despite never having communicated, or that David loves Natalie as evidence by the fact that he looked at her when she was first introduced as his biscuit-bringer and he got a boner (and of course she loves him back, passionately and truly, because he’s the foxy bachelor Prime Minister)... I mean, it’s like when this guy I knew angsted about a break-up for longer than the duration of the relationship. He and a woman his age had casually dated for a few months, then she broke it off, claiming not to have time for a relationship (classic just-not-that-into-you brush-off). Cue the angst because, damn it, she was the love of his life, and now he will never love again, because he loved her! How does he know? Well, they hung out, and she was pretty, and never mind that he didn’t seem to know much about her deeply, emotionally, empathetically, know her as a human being, in other words—she was pretty and nearby, and therefore he loved her. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

No, that’s what “Love Actually” is all about. But that’s not love. Love can certainly include immediate, painful lust (been there, ladies and gents!), but that’s only one tiny part. Love means knowing someone and accepting all the parts of them and wanting to be better for them and wanting them to be happy. Romantic love typically includes liking to see them naked and touching them and being touched by them, and so on, but that’s hardly the gist. Love is complicated! It would take many books, movies, songs, etc., to try to express what it is, in fact, all about. Fortunately, we’ve got those, and we’re making more all the time.

But do we really need more visions of the same shallow “love”? I submit that we do not.

An exercise, for the writers and other artmakers among us: next time you find yourself writing the same old scenario, as if guided by spirits of art past, consider flipping it. Writing a man who wants to shag his secretary but has a wife? Why not a woman who wants to shag her secretary (male or female) but has a husband or wife? Why not a female prime minister who wants to shag her sexy young butler? Why not a dorky ten-year-old girl with a crush, why not a man who loves his best friend or a woman who loves her husband’s best friend, why not a woman who expresses sexual desire without putting the “ho” in “homewrecker”? If the answer to “Why not?” is “Because... um... er...” and not “Because I have a compelling reason to write the previous scenario as it is,” then you need to do some thinking about what you're really arguing.

Quick Note

2010-06-05T01:23:00.002-05:00

I added a new site, Violence Unsilenced, to our blogroll. The website is a venue for people, particularly women bloggers, to speak out about domestic and sexual violence they've lived through. If you click on the general website link, it takes you to a trigger warning for the whole site, but if you click the link for the most recent update, it will go right to the person's story, with not additional warning at the beginning of the post.

So: TRIGGER WARNING for all Violence Unsilenced links. I think it's awesome that women have carved out that space on the internet for their stories of survival, and that it is important for everyone to check in with that reality when they feel safe, but it is a site entirely composed of violence and trauma, and inspiring or not, they still feel like a kick in the gut. To both survivors and allies. I think it's very important, but look out for yourselves as you go along, folks.

Bonus: the Resources page is excellent, with national info as well as state by state contacts, and, mais oui, more blogs!

I still wear my Weezer Muppet tee because I never bought that Planet Terror shirt

2010-05-18T19:46:00.025-05:00

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of pervasiveness of misogyny and sexual assault in film, and self-blame that comes from viewing these films.

"Pinkerton" is the Weezer album that dudes like; or, in our current discourse, “the best Weezer album.”

-- Sady Doyle, Rivers Cuomo Messes You Up Forever

This is going to be long, since I got excited about Why I am interested in watching certain films, as well as wanting to discuss aspects of the films themselves. Here we go, after the jump.

I began to seriously consider myself Badass in 10^th grade. Being badass meant wearing clever t-shirts with my tight jeans (which looked awesome primarily due to throwing up and doing pilates constantly), dark eyeliner, and having wavy hair I never had to brush. It also meant reading, listening to, and watching things I considered Good. This was a time of Family Guy, South Park, and Kevin Smith movies, of trying to pay attention to Godard, and being so fucking proud that I knew Pinkerton was The Good Album, and yeah, Falling for You was the best song, so when boys commented on my Weezer Tee I knew just what to say to show I was in the right club.

When I was spending most my time with boys who weren’t obsessed with Weezer, I’d play the album and tell them about Pinkerton, play Falling for You to let them know that I know how they feel, having a crush on me, because I know all the boys’ secrets already. And if I know this song is good before they do? There was a little smugness, a little, “Just so you know, I am performing masculinity way better than you right now.”

I enjoy that.

This Badass time, which I bounced in and out of for a few years, was also a time of lists. There were many movies I recognized as Good, that I Should be watching. Most of what I considered Taste came from morose and misanthropic music snobs, which should have been a red flag, and I have not pursued most of this world.

I am in a home with Netflix and Cable now, you see, so all these movies from My List are much more accessible than they ever were before. When something from the List is on TV, I notice that I get a little mansplainy to my Romantic Fellow (his experience of culture is more about nerdiness than what is generally renowned as Good), telling him about how I’ve been wanting to watch this for years, and I really should read the book—letting my audience know that I know what I should like, that I know this is Important.

This happened a couple of months ago when I saw American Psycho was on. When I got to the show, it was Batman in a room with two sex workers, treating them like shit. I was braced for mutilation the whole time, and simultaneously, felt so undermined. I really wanted to watch this movie! I had basically just given it a ringing endorsement, and now that I see it, it’s scene after scene (I did turn it off after about 2 scenes, so: limited experience) about how terrible women are, for having sexy parts and making dudes conform to the American Dream, and how hilarious it is to detest and want to hurt them. Apparently he attacks other sex workers in the film, too. This is what these dudes have been talking about all this time?

---

Last weekend Thelma and Louise arrived from Netflix. I knew Bad Shit happened, forgot the Bad Shit was rape, assumed it would be rape but hoped it wouldn’t be too explicit. This movie was seen as Good and applied to my Feminist Wiles! It’s a motherfucking unicorn! And then, oh, what? Ridley Scott directed this?

I was wary. Apparently women wrote and directed the film adaptation of American Psycho, so I should worry all the time, but really, why is that motherfucker directing a story about my kind of motherfuckers? (Because woman can't direct, apparently. Thanks for being so relevant today, Bret Easton Ellis!)

I’ve talked this movie up to the Romantic Fellow (RF). He saw it when he was a wee tyke, due to the older siblings.

Thelma and Louise are at a bar. There’s a man holding his beer bottle tight, as if he believes the bottle would cheat on him if he held it any other way. I say to the RF, “Is there sexual assault in this movie? … I’m pretty sure there is.”

This is my attempt to point out that, yes, by now I am aware that everything has rape in it, but I’m not okay with it. I need a warning. And please let me like the movie without letting it prove that I actually don’t mind rape, in certain contexts, and that all this feminism is just a phase.

And then Harlan and Louise are out of the bar, in the parking lot, and there it is. I look to the RF, sad. I look back, and it’s still happening. He’s still saying hateful shit, he’s still hurting her, she’s still not safe. I was hoping that this would be a movie that would imply rape, not show it. I am disappointed, and hiding behind the blanket, and feeling stupid. The victim-blaming expands, so that I am blaming myself for wanting to watch this fucking movie, and American Psycho, and Grindhouse, and Repo!, and god, I’m just going to stay away from Clockwork Orange at this point, because who knows what I’ll have to deal with there. Because if I’m seeking out a movie that has rape, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and ableism, then I feel like a fucking idiot for expecting anything else, and for not doing my research. I knew what was Good, and I was genuinely interested, and oh. Rape as a plot device. Misogyny as a way to connect with your audience. Trans folks as a punchline. I have to back up, get a little less hopeful and engaged, and remember that I guess this isn’t for me, either. But I still feel like an accomplice, and worry that my feminist foundation is more fragile than I’m willing to admit, and that someone’s going to notice.

[Also of note: I name a bunch of different things, in this post. Kevin Smith is not Godard is not Cuomo, if we're looking at what is Quality, but each one is the epitome of quality to different people I have known.

All of them dudes.]

SO.
I am picking bits and pieces out of my old Badass and Tastes to be someone I really like, and allow myself media that I sincerely enjoy, while building the tools I need to make it through pieces of culture I’m curious about.

Better yet, as Sleater-Kinney says, Culture is what you make it, yes it is! Now is the time to invent.

Transblog Update?

2010-05-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

Not sure if you folks're interested or not, but I've started keeping a BookBlog and my most recent post is a Genderqueer Reading List, which seems relevant to Ladysquad issues. Check it out, if you'd like some genderfabulous nonfiction up in your summer reads!

PANTHERA and the PATRIARCHY

2010-05-16T13:31:00.002-05:00

The maybe even real life adventures of a young lady in Kansas! Don't hate on my Crayola marker skillz.

Et tu, Broadsheet?

2010-05-04T01:11:00.003-05:00

Now I know headlines and sub-headlines are written by editors, not the original authors. But when I read Mary Elizabeth Williams’s post, I found that they were pretty close to her original point. From her actual post:

Lindsay Lohan's slow meltdown: It's all about Dad
The actress's painful public drama is a lesson in how hard it can be to grow up without a good man in your life

[...]

That's why, awful as the whole shabby spectacle is, we keep watching. We know that girl. We've been that girl. I think of my own daughters, how lucky they are to have a devoted dad who adores them, and how much harder the road was for me because I didn't.

[...]

So if you ever need a reminder of the power of a man in a girl's life, if you question whether or not fathers matter, take a good look at the girl with the gun to her head. Because she's everywhere.

Okay, so, you’ll get no argument from me that good parents are a good thing, and bad parents are a bad thing. Tautology: it’s tautological! Williams also argues that, while mothers are often blamed for their children’s screwed-up-ness, bad fathers can also do damage. Again, I’m not exactly arguing for abusive, absent, or otherwise difficult dads here.

But: “The power of a man in a girl’s life”? Seriously?

Newsflash to Mary Elizabeth Williams: there are a lot of un-screwed-up kids out there who grew up without fathers and are doing absolutely fine. Not that she discounts this possibility; she comes up with Barack Obama and Charlize Theron as examples (my two role models?). But note the shift in this typical excerpt:

But the Lohan family drama is, more than anything, a potent and painful example of what can happen to girls without good men in their lives. Michael Lohan, whose most recent stunt was to call police to Lindsay's home for a "welfare check" on her sister Ali, seems to take crappy parenting to a level others can only aspire to.

Again, the latter sentence blames “crappy parenting”—which we can surely all condemn—but the former refers only to, again, “girls without good men in their lives.”

So girls need both a mother and a father, is that right? Hmm... where have I heard this rhetoric before?

Of course, being a single parent is challenging, and children of single, divorced, separated, or otherwise non-normative families may not have perfect childhoods, just like children of heterosexual legally-married couples. But Williams seems to forget a growing group of kids who grow up without a father in the home (or without a mother) and do just fine.

The limited but consistent evidence suggests that children of same-sex parents turn out just as well as children of heterosexual parents, except a little more tolerant. From my personal experience, I feel fortunate that I had a model for a healthy, egalitarian relationship, among the other benefits of having two moms. Every single one of the disadvantages (awkward conversations and legal inconveniences, mostly) can be traced back not to my parents or their parenting, but to a homophobic culture and heterosexist society. I grew up in a state with almost zero protections for same-sex couples, nothing remotely resembling marriage equality, and some very conservative neighbors. And, since Williams is putting forth her fatherless childhood as a relevant example, I’ll do the same: I’m doing great, thanks.

I am so, so tired of this bullshit argument: that the lack of a good man, rather than the lack of good parenting (or the presence of abuse), produces hopelessly dysfunctional kids. This may just be one little post that happened to annoy me, but this very same logic is used again and again to prevent gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents or adopting children—and to deny same-sex couples marriage equality.

I get enough of this nonsense from Focus on the Family, Broadsheet. I expect better from the feminist blogosphere.

Arizona:

2010-05-02T15:32:00.002-05:00

what. the. fuck.

On Slut-Shaming

2010-04-25T11:31:00.002-05:00

Oh hey ladies! I've been speaking with my English class a wee bit lately on their use of language. Specifically, the slut-shaming: you guys, NO.

(1) Divorcing consensual sexual choices from morality: I know this is hard to take in, United Statesians, given the national climate just now: you can have sex and be a good person. You can have sex with lots of people and be a good person! You can decide sex isn't for you right now and be a good person. You can not want sex at all, ever, and be a good person. Consensual sexual choices should have no bearing on how you are perceived by others. You should certainly not have to deal with harassment because of it, because that is bullshit and plays right into the virgin/whore dichotomy we're fighting so hard to kill. Still don't get it? Go read Valenti's The Purity Myth and get back to me on that. Wait, quote time:

"For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer -- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you've never had sex, you're a 'good' (i.e., 'moral') girl and therefore worthy of praise." Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth

See that? Abstinent = good; sex = bad bad bad bad BAD!

(2) On 'sorostitutes' (yes, lady in my English class whose chosen subculture is sorority ladies, I AM LOOKING AT YOU): this term is terrible. It involves taking hundreds of ladies from diverse backgrounds and lumping them together under one insulting umbrella based on presumed sexual contact. It is slut-shaming: see (1). You can be in a sorority and have/not have sex and be an awesome person. You can be in a sorority and participate in hook-up culture and be a good person. Ok? Ok. Even (especially!) if women in sororities are agreeing to sex for some modicum of protection from predatory behavior, or because they have to in order to remain a 'valuable' member of the sorority, as Kimmel asserts in Guyland, this does not make them a 'sorostitute.' Calling them such a thing is so popular it has had its own name for many years now: blaming the victim.

(3) On a related note, no matter how many people you have sex with, you are just *not* a prostitute unless you actually work in the sex industry. Had one/two/five/twenty/fifty sexual partners? Nope, still not a prostitute.

(4) To close this argument, with some prodding from notinthestyleof.tigers: HEY NATION. You can be a prostitute and be a good person! But the issues (consent/abuse/etc.) surrounding that statement should be a post of its own.

In short: no matter how much sex you have or don't have, or what kind, or with whom, or whether it's in exchange for something, it should have no bearing on whether or not you're perceived as 'good' or 'bad.'

I feel like this is quite disorganized, but hey, I have strawberries to eat.

Flinty Kinda Ladysquad: On Music.

2010-04-19T10:43:00.006-05:00

So, remember how we all loved The Dresden Dolls, and then we grew up and became Hearty Feminists and we suddenly had this bad taste in our mouth from Amanda Palmer, her "rape is okay if it's a joke about Katy Perry" stunts and her "what is your PROBLEM feminists, ablism is totally fun AND marketable!" attitude?

Now, I'm not saying we have to give up Amanda, because when I am in a certain kind of mood, "30 Whacks" is still the only thing I want to hear BUT I did recently take a tour of my iTunes in search of LadyPositive Tunes, and it seemed like a fun blog because OHMYGOD it is also a playlist! How great. Okay.

First and foremost, do you know who will never let you down? I mean, never, ever? Dar Williams. Dar Williams is the bloody Earth Mother Rock Goddess of Western New York.

I mean, just look at her:

(more after the jump)

and did I mention this? Because, yeah, this:

She is like a one-woman Peace Train. And her music kicks it. And by It, I mean Ass and also The Patriarchy.

Recommendations:
-The Pointless Yet Poignant Crisis of A Co-Ed
-Empire
-I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono
-Teen For God

Her Message: Don't sacrifice yourself, your happiness, or your (fulfilling) work, for anyone, especially not some dude. Also, be critical of oppressive regimes and faith-based rigidity.

The Anthem:
Flinty Kind Of Woman.
(which I could not find on YouTube so you will have to settle for When I Was A Boy)

------

Okay, Part II!

Patti Mo'Fuckin' Smith. Do I even need to continue here? I am not telling you guys anything you don't already know.

Anyone who doesn't want to be Patti Smith when they grow up is a fool.

The Message: She does a lot of work with the green party, and uses rawwwk to oppose various imperialistic occupations--But her most famous song, a cover of Van Morrison's GLORIA is exceptionally great for us, Ladysquad, because, well, first because it implies lesbianism, which is Exciting And Awesome in a pushing the hetero-norm kind of way, but MOREOVER her orgasmic revving, her huge voice, her powerful shouts--could it be? Is it-- Is it A DECLARATION AND RECLAMATION OF FEMALE SEXUALITY??? Hell yes it is.

The Anthem:
GLORIA.

Patti Smith - Gloria Live

That's all I have time for, and I know it isn't really news to any of the Squad, since we have all been obsessively singing G-L-O-R-I-A for the last 4 months or so, and I've been digging Dar since I first started playing CDs (thanks, big sister Jen!) but I just thought we could use a reminder of some artists who are continuously awesome.

Feel free to extend this, though! Comment section, ahoy! And some stabs at intersectionality would be most welcome. I wanted to do Aretha Franklin and Sleater-Kinney but I reeeeally need to go to school now.

On confronting rape jokes: one approach

2010-04-18T17:40:00.006-05:00

[Trigger warning.]

In response to Panthera's post below: this was the first example that comes to mind. In a post rather than comment, because it was getting long and unwieldy.

One week, my Violence Against Women professor passed around an article from an online "humor" "magazine" written by students at my university, as a "This Week in Rape Culture" thing. I can link on request, but that would require looking at it again, which I really don't want to. The headline was something like "Female student sues school after being raped by chemistry test," and the article was just as idiotic as you can imagine. Bonus: mocking the campus rape hotline! Super bonus: not even remotely funny! Like, as far as stupid "humor" articles about rape go, it was pretty bad. I was shaking and distracted through a good portion of class just from having skimmed it.

Well, I happen to know the guy, T., who founded and edited the magazine--we're in a writing workshop together--so I ambushed him at our next meeting and Confronted. T is a Nice Guy (sort of), and I did have the advantage of having a nearby ally, who helped me out. T was defensive at first, but later talked to our mutual (ally!) friend R. about it, and concluded the article was "in bad taste," said he understood why I was upset, and felt bad. (I only know this secondhand, through R; T has never talked to me about it again.) So... there.

Anyway! A few points that worked, in this one context:

1) Joking about rape contributes to rape culture (insert brief definition, such as "a culture that condones and encourages sexism, objectification, and sexual violence, through jokes, attitudes, etc., so that rape is not an abnormality, but the logical extension of a misogynist society").

(Predictable response: What, so you're saying that my joke about my exam makes people commit rape? That's ridiculous.)

2) No, saying, "My test raped me!" doesn't mean that someone is literally going to hear that and immediately go out and rape someone. However, it does minimize rape, implying that it's no worse than struggling on an exam, which certainly doesn't discourage perpetrators, and definitely minimizes real survivors' real experiences. It can be extremely upsetting for a survivor or friend of a survivor to hear someone talking about rape in a such a minimizing way. In the long list of things that Aren't Helping...

(Well, yeah, but it's not like I would joke about it in front of someone who had actually been raped.)

3) There are more survivors than you think. "1 in 4 women" is a real statistic, repeated in study after study. Odds are, you know a survivor.*

(No, I don't! I would know if one of my friends had been raped!)

4) Look, you're the kind of person who says "My test raped me," who believes that an extreme form of personal violation is the same as getting a C on a chemistry exam, and who, when confronted about this very upsetting belief, prefers to rationalize their douchebaggery rather than listen to someone else's thoughts and feelings. Do you think your friends who are survivors of rape and sexual assault are going to tell YOU?

---

*Note that the responses are phrased so that one can remain cagey about whether or not one is a survivor oneself. Naturally, just by confronting this kind of shit, there's a possibility of being asked flat-out, like Panthera mentioned in her post. If you're comfortable doing so, you can bring up "friends" or "people I've talked to," which seems to pre-empt and therefore discourage the "How would YOU know?" question (in my experience--I confront this stuff on a semi-regular basis, and no one has ever directly asked me if I've been raped). Sometimes I say, for example, "Many of the people I've talked to who are rape survivors have mentioned feeling upset when..." or "Some people who are rape survivors report..." That way, you're appealing to real people's experiences without outing yourself or friends.

On the other hand, I'm very open to comments and revisions to make this a more viable confrontation strategy for all people, survivors and allies alike, because (again, in my limited experience) it CAN work. Thoughts?

The thing about rape jokes.

2010-04-17T17:55:00.002-05:00

Trigger warning: graphic description of sexual violence*after the jump.

Overheard: "What, that test today? Oh, it totally mind-raped me."

"Yeah, no, this paper is going to rape me."

"It was like being raped in the head, like I could feel it hitting the back of my skull!"

These from your typical Nice Folks -- ladies and gents -- who are totally not homophobic/ableist/racist/sexist, what are you talking about, they're Nice Folks! They just say 'retarded' and 'gay' because they sound so great! It's not that they're, like, prejudiced! Jeez man, take a chill pill!

What I always say in my head:

"[X] totally raped me!"

"No. No it did not. It did nothing of the kind. Maybe it was difficult, maybe your calculator broke, maybe your hands shook, maybe you even cried, but it was Nothing. Like. Rape." This is *the* comeback that comes to mind. I have never actually said this because of the retort that is sure to follow:

"Oh, right, like you've been raped." As if it could only affect** me were I a survivor. What you have to admire, though -- and when I say admire, I mean loathe -- is the pure unexamined privilege that allows someone to say that. Like it's so spectacularly un-fucking-possible that anyone in their circle is a survivor that they haven't even considered that there are TWO possible answers to their question. Heads up, world: one in four.

So I want to know: what do you say to a rape 'joke?' I am going to try to stuff my head with your answers so I don't have to jump the above hoops. I know we've been going over and over this stuff (retorts and making people see why they should care) lately, so hopefully you're not sick of it. Oh, and in this entirely unhypothetical future environment, you're the only feminist in town/surrounded by a pack of Nice Folks.

*I know we're too small to really worry about this sort of thing, but I'm not cool with posting these quotes without one.

**H, referencing your comment on my LJ back over winter break: "Circuitous thoughts on saying "gay" (etc.) as a slur: either you think it's not a big deal to anyone ever, or you acknowledge that words are actually upsetting to people sometimes. Forget "offensive," I mean viscerally, personally upsetting. (More than once, I've almost cried when someone I thought was an ally called something "gay" or said something flippant about rape. I have lower expectations for humanity at large, so from a stranger or acquaintance, it just pisses me off but doesn't send me into convulsions or anything.) If you acknowledge the latter, assuming you're not a total asshole, you want to minimize that happening, right?"
I'm not certain I will be saying 'offensive' anymore. You're right, it blows way past that.

Oppression: Let's fucking get this straight, motherfuckers.

2010-04-16T20:45:00.002-05:00

IN WHICH I GO ON AND ON but there’s a poem in here somewhere, and also I think it’s important. This is who I am! This is how I write! I’m vaguely academic, you guys! Deal with it! What I lack in frequency of posts, I make up for in being Totally Goddamn Didactic. Also in swearing a lot. But you love me!

And maybe I am preaching to the choir here, but, lately, I find that I am having the same conversation again and again, and unsettlingly enough, it’s usually with people I actually like and actually have a small amount of trust and feminist faith in, which is why I’m surprised when we hit a point in the conversation when they say something like

“BUT, SAVANNA, MEN ARE ALSO OPPRESSED—THEY AREN’T ALLOWED TO BE SENSITIVE”

“BUT I MAKE FUN OF EVERYONE EQUALLY, SO I’M NOT A RACIST/SEXIST/HETEROSEXISTHOMOPHOBE/ABLIST”

“EVERYONE IS OPPRESSED—QUEERS, REDHEADS—IT’S ALL THE SAME!”

That last one happened in class and prompted me to Flip My Fucking Shit, and, luckily, also prompted our Professor to Flip Her Fucking Shit, and we did everything but throw desks. It was raw, y’all.

HERE IS THE THING. Here is the goddamn thing that you have to understand. Racism/Sexism/Ablism/Heterosexism are not the same as prejudice, and they are not the same as discrimination. They are SYSTEMS that function off of PRIVILEGE.

(more, so much more, after the jump)

I have been citing Marilyn Frye’s article “Oppression” like it is my job these days. If you haven’t read it, you should—in fact, here: http://tinyurl.com/y2pfd43 There you go.

Now. Frye makes a lot of good points, but basically what she says that’s important is that systems of oppression benefit privileged groups. Men cannot be oppressed by sexism because they benefit from a system of privilege. Though it may be an inconvenience that they, for instance, are expected not to cry, that inconvenience actually reinforces their privilege and strengthens patriarchy.

Beverly Tatum has an article called “Defining Racism—Can We Talk?” (I can give you that one too, if you want. Let me know) which expands this to make an intersectional argument. In sort of the convex situation, she says, people of color cannot be racist because they do not benefit from a system of racism. Prejudice between groups of color actually divides them and strengthens white supremacy—and “reverse racism” is basically impossible since people of color are not in a position of privilege. They can, theoretically, be prejudiced against whites, but since they do not benefit systematically, this really exists on the individual level.

So, “making fun of everyone” is not “equal,” depending on which positions of privilege you inhabit. Perpetuating the stereotypes, jokes, and attitude which belittles a group you do not belong plays into very real systems of oppression. Period.

You’re with me? Groovy. Now I’d like to go back to Frye again.

The other awesome part of Frye’s article is her Birdcage analogy. I’m obsessed with this damn metaphor. She says if you look at one wire of a birdcage, it doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. You could scrutinize it all goddamn day and still not understand why the bird just doesn’t fly around that wire. In fact, if you looked at each individual wire of the cage separately, you would still not understand why it inhibited freedom and flight. But! If you step back, look at the woven and repeating pattern of the wires, the cage is revealed.

We are expected to look at the wires individually. We are expected to look at lines of pop songs as individual events, we are supposed to see men holding doors open for women as a polite thing to do—and individually, yeah, a line in a pop song isn’t a big deal. Individually, that dude is probably just trying to be nice. It is only when you look at the big picture, the repeated pattern of events, that you can see the system of oppression that exists.

Which is why although some people might say that this blog and other feminist blogs are making mountains of molehills, that we “read too much into things,” it is, in fact, imperative that we critique these incidences in politics and pop culture.

MOVING ON.

I wanted to go back to the redhead comment from above. Because I did get really angry in class that day—you know, as a lesbian who sometimes dyes her hair red, I had a particular problem with that assertion. As a lesbian in general, I had a problem with that assertion. As a feminist, I had a problem with that—and I know our queer feminist professor had a problem with it, and I know my peers of color had a problem with it. When someone in a position of privilege makes remarks like this, it is a problem. It needs to be critiqued.

And, to be honest, having spent the semester in class with this person, I do believe that she has/had good intentions. I believe that she really does want to be a strong ally, but when we critiqued her, she got highly defensive. The thing at stake here is that when talking about feminist issues, one must be highly aware of your own position of privilege.

It’s like, when I speak about racism, it is my job, it is my duty as a humanist, as a feminist, to not forget for even one second that I am white. I am trying as hard as I can to be a really strong race ally, and so I am constantly in a learning status. And if I were to make a remark that reflected my ignorance and my entitled privileged position, I hope and expect that my peer students of color would call me on it. Which, actually, is what I have really loved about this class, is the strong bond I’ve made with fellow feminists, and how we’ve been able to learn from each other intersectionally. It has been really powerful.

So, after that illuminating remark, Student R (we’ll call her, for Redhead) also made another problematic statement. In a discussion about LGBT rights, she chastised us for being “too negative” and said that we “really needed to look how far we’ve come.”

Now, this looks like a nice sentiment. I think she meant it to be.

Who can tell me why it’s a problem?

You, in the back? You, waving the copy of Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider?’

Righto. Position of privilege. As a heterosexual, R, it is not your place to talk about how far the movement has come. This is especially insensitive since there are, oh, at least 2 queers, one lesbian, and two bisexuals in the class, and you have never had to give up heterosexual privilege for a day of your life.

This is, you know, also a problem because rocking back on one’s laurels, congratulating ourselves on minimal progress and then pretending that problems don’t exist is not at all productive, is, in fact, counter-productive, and is destructive to the people whose rights are yet to be addressed. Not to mention—ignoring problems and expecting them to go away? Yeah, that works really well for Racism—oh hey ColorBlind Methodologies, what’s up? Yeah. Yeeeeah. Yeah.

So, to wrap up, I got really really angry with this girl. I got so angry that I came to a place where I ran out of theory—a place where it was just me and I could no longer Not take it personally. I wanted to shout at her. It felt like a personal attack on me, because for me it was personal. This was my life.

I left class livid, sweating, shaking. I met with my professor later that day, and we talked about what had happened. A few days went by. I was still angry. I was still livid, sweating, shaking.

To channel this rage into something productive, I wrote a poem. I showed my prof, who was abundantly, astoundingly supportive. She encouraged me to read it to the class. So, the next week, I did. I performed my poem, and the whole class (well, minus R) cheered. It was affirming in a personal sense, but more than that, it was really nice to be able to express exactly what I needed to say, to be informative and explicative. To illustrate privilege to someone and to (hopefully) make them see that privilege. To (hopefully) enlist their empathy.

I’m posting my poem here for you lot. [Z., you may recognize a sentiment recycled from my beatnik poem in HS, but shhh I swear it’s appropriate.]

-----

We’ve come

Fucking

Far

We’ve come so far that if I go on a date,

I probably won’t get the shit beaten out of me

As long as we stick to the right part of town

As long as neither of us looks too butch

As long as we don’t hold hands

Even when you really want to

Because you definitely don’t want to offend that old lady

And you definitely don’t want to get heckled by those guys

And you definitely don’t want to get that look from that man

So, even though holding hands is nice: you don’t.

We’ve come

Far

That one gay kiss

In a movie or a TV show raises the rating

My kisses are For Mature Audiences Only

Why? My kisses are awesome!

We’ve come so far

That two male penguins raising an egg

Can’t be called a family

In an illustrated children’s book

Without someone calling the school board

Telling them it’s

filthy.

We’ve come so far

That you NEVER see an ad on TV with two moms

Even though they also have hilarious run-ins with their teenagers over cell-phone bills

Or struggle trying to get their picky toddler to eat a certain food

Or battle grease stains or clean windows or buy groceries

Just like anybody else’s parents

My gay uncles are the only people I know with a bread-maker,

Why can’t they be on the big banner at William Sonoma?

Last time I checked the stereotypes,

Lesbians were the chief consumer of cats and Subaru Outbacks

Why aren’t we in the damn commercial?

We have come so far

That every time I have a stupid schoolgirl crush,

I have to go “Oh. Wait. Is she gay? Am I creepy? Should I talk to her? Ever again?”

Even though straight guys have no problem hitting on me

Even if and sometimes because they know I’m gay.

And I’m supposed to accept that with good humor

Although if I tried this with a straight girl, it would be harassment.

We have come so far

That you never have to ask where The Straight Bar is.

And we have come so far

That as I am deciding which grad schools to apply to

I can rule out

Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Duke,

I can rule out

Anything in Alabama, Georgia, Florida,

Arkansas

Oklahoma

Kansas

Nebraska

Indiana

I can rule out entire states,

Entire sections of the country,

Because it isn’t worth the hassle of the daily shit.

We have come so far,

That I have a gay uncle who has been with his partner for almost 30 years

I have a gay brother who has been with his partner for 15 years

And my mother still put me under house arrest and therapy when she Found Out

We have come

Far

That last year Sexuality Based Hate Crimes were up

They were

The fashion.

We have come so far that last year

A gay couple on Oregon Beach was clubbed to death.

We have come so far that last year

A lesbian in San Francisco was gang raped

We have come so far that LAST YEAR

An openly gay boy in Puerto Rico was decapitated

They cut off his head, his arms and his legs

And they lit him on fucking fire.

So when you tell me that we need to look how far we’ve come,

I can only see that your vision’s a little myopic.

And when you tell me to look how far we’ve come,

I’m having trouble seeing just what you mean.

Maybe you mean

We’ve come so far that gay sex is no longer punishable by law?

A ruling delivered less than a decade ago, in 2003.

Maybe you mean

We’ve come so far that somewhere out there,

There’s a piece of paper that says I can’t be fired for being gay,

Though I certainly am not going to test it with My uptight bosses.

Or maybe you mean

We’ve come so far that they finally added us onto the hate crime bill.

We’ve come so far

that we have so many killings

that they had to.

So when you tell me that I have a listening problem

Because I don’t want to listen

to you tell me how great the gays are doing

and I don’t want to listen

to you tell me how I need to focus on the positive

and I don’t want to listen

to you tell me to look at how far we’ve come

Let me assure you that there is nothing wrong

with my hearing

Or my vision.

Ladysquad Circle: how should one deal with street harassment?

2010-04-12T18:44:00.002-05:00

Spring has sprung here in St. Louis, and along with the spunktastic blossoms of the Bradford pear, an even grosser set of local buds has bloomed: STREET HARASSERS!

Thus, I have decided to implement a New Post-Tag: LSC! Hopefully to be renamed, by someone else, to something even cleverer! In which, I envision, one of us brings up a problem, and we share wisdom and experiences and ideas, because that is the Ladysquad way. I mean, not unlike most posts? I dunno, please tell me if this is a dumb idea, but basically, I want all y'all's advice. With FEMINISM.

So: what SHOULD one do about street harassment? By which I mean, what should I do? I mean, I suspect the answer is, like, "Do what feels right and safe for you." But I haven't found that something yet, so I thought I would ask the wider world of ladies.

Three examples from my recent personal life (SHARING TIME!). These happened in the last weekend/week, in broad daylight, within a block or two of my apartment while I was walking alone.

#1: ENGAGE.

I'm walking home from the Metro stop, having just come back from Passover weekend in New Jersey. It's hot out and I'm lurching asymmetrically with my heavy bag over one shoulder banging into my leg and wanting to switch sides but mostly just wanting to get home as fast as possible and I've been on trains and planes and buses for about 12 hours and ugh TIRED. Important: there is NO ONE else on the street. NO ONE. And then Street Harasser #1 comes along! Out of nowhere, dressed all in purple (what) and muttering to himself (what), so that it takes a minute for me to figure out that he's muttering about me. He comes right up to me, close enough so I can smell him, walking so close that he edges me off the sidewalk and suddenly I'm walking next to him on the grass. He sticks his hand out and tells me to shake his hand. I shake it.*

His speech is slurred and he's talking pretty crazily; this, in addition to the all-purple ensemble, cues me in to the fact that this is not, you know, a dude who I want to invite up for coffee. Samples of intelligible speech: "Yo, girl, legs like a [something]... [something something] that walk... you walking that way just for me... walk like a death wish..." Which at this point, I'm like: WHAT? Aaaaaah, my apartment suddenly seems so far away, wish I could walk closer, stupid heavy bag, aaaaaah. Then he invites me to join his gang! They wear all purple, they [something something], they smoke fat blunts, they don't start trouble they just [something] trouble. And he'll be around! His mom lives around here! To this, I'm sort of mildly active-listening--"Mmm. Mm. Mm." Which, I don't know, seemed somehow better than saying, "Mm-hm"?

At this point, I'm maybe a little scared and trying to think of a safety plan (Walk like a death wish?? What does that even mean?). Does the fact that this guy's almost definitely high and maybe mentally off mean that he's harmless, or dangerous? My apartment is close; he's still following me. What if he follows me inside? There's no way I can block him or slam the door fast enough if he tries to follow me into the building. I can't go to [male partner]'s apartment; he's still in New Jersey. I don't know anyone else in the building. Right when I've decided to just keep walking past my apartment (but I'm tired) until I see another human being who can maybe distract him or maybe do something if this guy does something (which I'm being silly, of course he's harmless, but ugggh)... but fortunately, the dude says something about his mom's house again and veers off the sidewalk, and I keep walking and I duck into the gated parking because someone's driving out the gate so he can't see what building I go into, and when I finally turn around he's gone.

In my apartment, I wash my hands like 80 times and post about it on Facebook. Um, consider yourself holla-back'd, SH#1.

*Post facto, this is the part that I feel stupid about. Justification: in the past, with more garden-variety semi-harasser dudes, if they see me and say, "Hey baby, how you doing," and I ignore them, they don't leave me alone. "Hey, what's wrong?" they say. "You're not gonna say hi?" And then it goes on until I smile or say hi or whatever. Still, afterwards, it felt gross, like I'd given him permission, encouraged him, "led him on" (I KNOW, RIGHT, I would NEVER say this to another lady! But that's the funny thing about self-blame). I resolved not to do it again!

#2: CONFRONT (ish).

I'm walking home alone from a barbecue. It is the loveliest spring day and I am having the loveliest time and I'm wearing the cutest little outfit including a cute little skirt and cute heeled sandals and today is the best! I'm on the phone with my mom as I pass a parking lot. On the other side of a chainlink fence, some older men are working on a car. As I pass, one looks up.

As I pass, I see movement and glance over. One of the men, SH#2, is giving me the uber-creepy sloooooow ogle, the kind where you can feel him inventorying you body-part by disembodied body-part, where you feel that you are tits and ass and thighs and calves (and nothing else). I hate the slow ogle! But who doesn't.

Of course, maybe I'm misinterpreting. Maybe I've been reading too many blogs! So I look at his face, and he makes eye contact, and he leers and nods: Yeah, I'm ogling you.

Oh, and here I was thinking I had the right to enjoy a nice day and the sun on my legs and the wind in my hair, as a person! When all along I was a thing to be looked at and consumed and put in my place. WHOOPS!

So--homgz!--I glare at him and keep walking. I don't think he even notices my glare, given that I'm wearing big sunglasses. But considering that this is the closest I've come to confronting a street-harasser, um... yay?

#3: IGNORE.

Walking home alone from same barbecue. Minutes later, still on phone, suddenly feeling like an idiot for wearing what is clearly the world's shortest sluttiest skirt. I'm waiting at a crosswalk for the light to turn so I can cross the street and get home and change. Enter SH#3, shuffling behind me. Sample patter: "Hey girl, nice legs, you wear that skirt just for me, come home with me, look at that ass," etc. I freeze, deer-in-headlights. Or, like, really pissed-off deer that wants to yell, "No, I didn't wear this skirt for you or for anyone else, and you suck! HERE, READ SOME BLOG POSTS ABOUT WHY." In headlights. When actually I am just thinking, Please, please, SH#3, keep walking, don't follow me, don't touch me, pleeeeease. I ignore him, and indeed he walks onward, and I don't look at him, and ten years later the light changes, and I cross the street.

Now, I could talk about why these incidents are symptomatic of broader patriarchy and men's entitlement and blah blah. But I feel like that's choir-preaching. So, in summary, street-harassment: it's annoying! And sometimes sad! And sometimes scary! And also, in the scheme of things, for me, on these occasions, not a big deal. But still, it's another of those daily symptoms of oppression that is annoying and gross. And I want a better way to respond.

My experience so far: ignoring sometimes just ramps up the harassment; responding feels horrible and surely encourages the behavior; so far, "confronting" does not feel safe unless the guy is literally behind a chainlink fence. I know there is a whole blog devoted to this stuff, but: "If you can't slap 'em, snap 'em"? Feels a bit advanced for me, at this point, since making a frowny-face is the extent of my feminist confrontation.

I guess what I'm idealistically looking for is a quick reaction that will 1) end the guy's behavior towards me, right now, and 2) discourage him from harassing other women in the future. To be deployed only in circumstances when I feel safe doing so, of course.

What have other women done? What have YOU done? Ideas?

It's a guest post!

2010-04-09T14:56:00.002-05:00

Hi guys! I've been invited to share a guest post...and I'm beyond honored to do so! I love reading this blog (and I so dig the Buffy references) and I hope you don't mind that I'm such a lurker around these parts. Okay! I don't know what else to say...

I found this ...thing...on FB under a friend's notes and here are my thoughts on....

50 Things She Wishes You Knew
Universal truths that all men should--but don't—understand

1. Saying "I love you" immediately before, during, or following sex doesn't count.
Hmmmmm. I would probably prefer that the first time you say the 3 oh-jeezy-this-is-serious words during a time unrelated to sex, I guess. But, if the mood seems right, and your motives are true, sure, whatever.

2. Real men drive stick shift.
Really? Is this...what? Is this really something? Aren't most cars...NOT stick shift? I DON'T GET THIS ONE.

3. I will leave if you lie.
I mean. Everyone lies. It really depends on the lie...

4. You are cute in raglan-sleeved T-shirts (two-toned baseball undershirts).
I can't think of anyone who wears those....I know my SimLady wore one and she looked bangin of course, so...maybe.

5. I'm convinced I'm pregnant and obsess about it for a minimum of 24 to 48 hours before my period, even when I have no rational reason to think so.
Actually, yes. Ugh. I obsessed about this one before I ever got my period, before I ever had sex.

6. I love it when you hug me from behind and whisper in my ear.
Sometimes? I guess I like hugs in general. BUT SOMETIMES WHISPERS TICKLE AND I WILL SQUIRM. capslock!

7. "Fine" is never an appropriate response when I ask you how I look.
But but what if it's said like, "How do I look?" "Damnnnnn fiiiiiinnnnneee" or "Foooooiiinne". In any case, I appreciate being told I look fine.

8. Most of the time when I fantasize, it's about you.
Nope, Nope and Nope. i mostly fantasize about figuring out the perfect perfect way of telling someone off. My fantasies are usually rage-fueled. Also, what...am I supposed to be dreaming about TheBoy in the literally 8 hours out of 24 I don't see him? I'm okay actually!

9. I'm terrified of becoming my mother, even though I admire her.
Not really. I quite like her. And even the parts I don't like, i can avoid i think.

10. I get turned on simply seeing that I have an e-mail from you.
Nope. My lady parts remain dry. Also I don't get love e-mails a lot? But even if we consider this a text instead of an email...Nope, nope, nope. Still not turned on.

11. I expect you to call me.
Nah...I mean, if you SAY you're going to, yes. But otherwise...I'll hit you up or you'll hit me up, we'll meet somewhere in the middle.

12. Only rock stars are allowed to wear leather pants.
Mmm, Slash (guitarist of Guns n Roses....I have a love for him that cannot be denied.)
That is my only response. Slash and i can escape to an island! in my dreams! (see I fantasize about Slash, still!)
Oh, I guess, I don't think leathuuuuhhh pants are that great. And aren't they easy to ruin? OH GOD I WOULD RUIN YOUR EXPENSIVE PANTS!!! DON'T GET THEM!
But, ya know, if you wanna rock it, go for it?
...I will try not to think of you as Slash. mmmm.

13. I'm scared of losing my independence.
Nope, cuz i have no intention of doing that.

14. I'm more forgiving of you than I really should be.
Eh...It's hard to be a good judge of that?

15. Oral sex is your get-out-of-the-doghouse-free card. Manolo Blahnik shoes also do the trick.

Maybe! Depends on the sitch! Also, I don't need shoes...But, a good joke would make my frown turn UPSIDE DOWN. But again, if you're a sexist asshole or if you annoy me to the moon and back, please don't try to buy me shoes, take off my pants, joke-a-thon. Let's talk instead?

16. You did something bad. I seem cool with it. I'm not. (See directly above.)
I know the answer to this! I should be more assertive when I'm angry! And so should you

17. If I'm not having sex with you, I'm... a.) ...having a fat day. b.) ...not feeling "connected" to you. c.) ...blackmailing you to get something I want.
I don't blackmail! And not with sex if I did!
And a "fat day"? Jeeze.
This one is full of fail.

18. Shoes determine whether you're fashionable or not.
I AM SO UNFASHIONABLE.

19. I like to be touched.
yes! True! Touches! Well. Sometimes not! But mostly, touching is okay and thanks! Though, please stop if I say, "I AM TOO TICKLISH RIGHT NOW!" or "I am not feeling well!" or "No touches TODAY, goodsir!"

20. When I compare my flabby tummy to a kangaroo pouch, say nothing.
OR: Please laugh because...what?!? I wishhhhh I had a kangaroo pouch...

21. A man I love plans the occasional fancy-schmancy dress-up date and impromptu weekend getaways, and he buys my favorite candy in advance when we're just going to the movies.
Argh, I hate when people buy things for me sometimes...I mean, I guess that's cute though...And I do like impromptu getaways and dates...as long as I am consulted about them?

22. You look hot in hooded clothing items.
Sure? I mean...yes? I guess? Sometimes? Actually i prefer hooded shirts but then the hood is never put on. YYyyyyyeah.

23. You should never tell me what to do.
AGREED. I will most definitely DO THE OPPOSITE. Also, tell you to CUTTHATSHITOUT.

24. If I slept over, you owe me breakfast.
Nope, but thanks if you do make it!

25. jealousy can be sexy, and a huge turn-on.
NOPE. Not at all. I cannot stress this enough.

26. If you ask me out directly, I will say yes.
Unless I don't like you? And then I won't. So...keep that in mind?

27. I'm very impressed when you ask for my advice.
No, because my advice is banging. Therefore I think it's normal. Jesus.

28. I'm unimpressed with a man who doesn't take the lead.
UGH. Failure.

29. When in doubt, go with the shirt that matches your eye color.
I guess. Again, I AM UNFASHIONABLE.

30. I want to be Madonna.
...Sometimes! But sometimes, not so much! can I just hug her?

31. yes, we think about sex, just not 24 hours a day.
Not that guys do. Because that is ridiculous. HOW WOULD ANYONE GET ANYTHING DONE?!!? But yes, it's true, and imagine that, how crazy is that! not at all crazy.

32. I'm in heaven when you hold my hand.
Turns out, I have not died and then my soul did not soar to heaven. But, it's nice? I GUESS.

33. You're sexy when you're shaving, fixing things, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, driving, eating a peach, holding a baby.
a. Nope, I am worried when people put sharp things up to their faces
b. Eh, I wouldn't say sexy? You're probably cursing and I'm probably bored.
3. Sure? I mean...depends?
4. No....why...would that be?
5. Ha! Is that sexual? Ha! I will never look at a peach-eating man in the same way again! I will ask TheBoy to eat peaches tonight! And then laugh! unless it's not sexual...

6. Not sexy....but it is nice when you're good with kids. I guess? I mean, don't be an ass to kids!

34. I need to hear how you feel about me. Often. Tell me now.
or whenever YOU feel like it. Please don't feel pressured.

35. Surprises, not necessarily presents = more loving.
I do like to be surprised! But sometimes surprises are terrible! and then they do not = more loving. Also, I cannot be pressured into giving more loving by more surprises!

36. I want to be the best thing that ever happened to you--and for you to recognize this.
I should WORK on being the best thing that ever happened to you. Also, I AM NOT A THING. Also, whatever. This is tripe.

37. If I'm not feeling loved, I will start looking....
Or I'll tell you .

38. Discussion of ex-gf's and ex-bf's should be avoided at all times.
If it's relevant, talk about it? Whatever.

39. I like it when you tell me what you're thinking, even if you don't know yourself.
Sure, minus the last part bc it's stupid.

40. Celebrating our anniversary, even if it's only been a few months, earns major bonus points.
I have never celebrated an anniversary! que lastima

41. I love it when you're sweaty.
I am ambivalent or wishing you were less sweaty.

42. It's best to consult your gal pals for gift ideas.
Or, your brain!

43. A lady should always be greeted with kisses.
But a woman should be ignored?
And what if I don't want kisses!

44. I like porn.
I used to watch it for amusement value? But then I decided it made me sad...And now...I don't know. I kind of want to watch the Big Lebowski themed porn. Whatever.
But cool points for saying that ladies like the sex stuff...

45. I love it when you hold me tightly, but like I’m fragile.
HOLD ME AS TIGHT AS POSSIBLE. Because then I will be competitive and try to beat you! in hugs! Yeah!

46. Even nice girls like hushed dirty talk in public.
Edit: Some girls like hushed dirty talk in public. Other girls don't. You should respect that decision?

47. It's cheating as soon as you're doing something that you wouldn't want me to see, hear, read...
If you are taking a shit, IT IS CHEATING.

48. For the record: I'd rather you break up with me than cheat.
But, if I don't feel loved and i start looking, different story, eh eh?

49. I remember everything about our relationship.
FOR I AM A ROBOT. beep.

50. I like to be picked up, even though I tell I don’t.
NO NO NO NO NO NO. I HATE IT. SO FUCKING MUCH. LISTEN TO THE WORDS THAT COME OUT OF MY MOUTH. NO.

Okay! Thanks for the opportunity! Many returns of the day.

I have big plans for another entry, but for now, please Enjoy:

2010-03-29T12:46:00.003-05:00

From the xkcd webcomic.

Scuse me while I laugh for 20 minutes straight.

2010-03-25T16:49:00.001-05:00

So I was reading this article today on Shakesville and went to the website to check it out. I got bored pretty quickly, despite the repeated use of phrases like "the black gaping gap" and...no, wait, I just lost interest again. This is 'Esquire;' I can't remember whether or not it involves actual porn or just porny shots, so I click on 'Women,' and then "13 Sex Secrets Men Don't Know About Women."

Ha. Oh, ha ha. I'll just deconstruct, shall I?

1.) Women don't like explosions, in art or in life.

Excuse me? I love a good explosion! Killer Klowns From Outer Space wouldn't have been the same without that ice cream truck blowing up in a fiery fireball. Of course, the best kind of explosion is the sort you walk away from slowly without a backward glance. Anyway, the take-home lesson here is EXPLOSIONS ARE GREAT.

Women aren't as funny as men. We're often cleverer, frequently wittier, but to be really funny demands a certain clownishness that our grace just does not allow. It's fine, really it is.

Excuse me? What? What planet did you grow up on? What? What? Teh sexisms! They're great for everyone. Ladies are graceful and unfunny! Men are oafish louts! But it's ok!

We grow pathetic goatees and look awful in cargo shorts anyway.

Is this in the wrong article? I've tried to grow a pathetic goatee at least twelve times and have come up hairless twelve for twelve. Naturally, this saddens me. Also, can't I wear cargo shorts without goatees? Mostly WHAT IS GOING ON HERE.

Women are aware of about 10 percent of the things men actually think and say about us. Best to keep it under five.

According to whom? The author? Who is a woman, who is magically telepathic with all men and therefore knows everything women miss? 'Best to keep it under five?' Is that encouraging guys to not communicate?

Women love to be taken out to eat. It makes our day.

Oh, except for all those ones who get pissed off unless we're splitting the bill, or those ladeez who don't like to or can't eat in public, or those ladeez who don't like to be 'taken' anywhere but will go where we damn well please.

A clean apartment will get you more tail than you'd think.

That's right! The only thing women appreciate about men is...neatness? Whut?

Given the chance, women will smell and re-smell the scented-candle display at the store. We really can do this for ages.

Except the ones who hate scented candles, or the ones who get migraines from smelling scented candles, or the ones who can't smell at all, or the ones who smell one candle and say 'Now, really, that's quite enough!' or the ones who are unfortunate enough to smell That Red One first and subsequently can't smell anything less odorous than a skunk for an hour, or the ones who avoid the malodorous candle display at all costs at all times....

Our clothes are complicated, our shoes unforgiving, and our constitutions delicate, so please, valet park.

I'm fragile, Mister, just like any girl would be / And so misunderstood! So treat me de-li-cate-ly!
Oh, my delicate constitution! Excuse me while I swoon over here! It's probably the shoes! And maybe this corset! The important thing is that if you don't pay somebody to park your car for you I'll probably just DIE. Of pain.

Every living woman likes wedding crap. Even lesbians.

'Even lesbians?' Because, what, lesbians are only borderline women? Because 'even lesbians' sometimes marry? Also, bad news you guys, I think I'm a vampire or something -- I'm apparently some kind of undead.

"Girls night out" is usually some other woman's idea.

Yeah, I swear, I hate spending nights with all my bffs! It's just the worst. Really.

Oftentimes, women simply want to lie back and get laid.

'Lie back and get laid?' Ur doin it rong!

One orgasm is usually enough.

Again, a massive ur doin it rong to this one. One? Really? ONE? Please, for the love of Lady Gaga, check out Toys in Babeland asap.

Women would rather be with you. We like you. Honestly, we talk about you all the time.

Rather be with you, as opposed to...volunteering in China? Having a bubble bath? Playing with cats? Oh, I can think of examples. Don't make me pull out my examples!

Most importantly, I think the question we're all asking ourselves is What the fuck does this have to do with sex? Advertised: 13 Sex Secrets? How is 'Women aren't funny like men are lololol!' in any way connected to sex? Or cargo shorts? Or valet parking? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE. Also, heterosexism for teh win! I protest! Loudly! Now tell me what I missed.

On the question of violence: in which Buffy is applicable to every post ever

2010-03-06T22:15:00.004-06:00

“She got all red-faced, which in Jas’s case is very red indeed. It made me feel much better. Violence may be the answer to the world’s problems. I may write to the Dalai Lama and suggest he tries my new approach.”
—the estimably wise Georgia Nicolson

In response to Z's v. good post (read it first!):

[Trigger warning; probably implicit.]

I’m all for getting rapists out of safe spaces, and, hell, most spaces in general. The benefits are too obvious to elucidate. Take the example of rape on a college campus where both survivor and rapist are students: for the survivor’s (and other students’) safety, one of them has to leave, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be the survivor. Because these are our goals, yes? Safety and prevention.

I have some thoughts on logistics and specific suggestions (because really, do I ever not have thoughts on a subject?), but I'd rather talk about strategy and philosophy more broadly. With oru primary goals--safety and prevention--in mind, I'd like to talk about violence.

Some of the violent measures Z described may appear purely punitive, but punitive measures are also preventive, or at least they’re supposed to be. We put rapists in jail because 1) while they’re there, they can’t rape anyone else, and 2) the fact that we put rapists in jail deters other men (and these men after their release) from committing rape. A memorable statistic from Michael Kimmel’s Guyland suggests that this works: depending on how you ask the question, about 15-45% of college men admit that they’d commit rape if they knew they wouldn’t be caught. And most of them don’t, apparently due to fear of punishment.

But we can’t discount the third, Old Testament-y reason we put rapists, and murderers, and thieves in prison. Imagine that we could sentence rapists to receive an injection that prevents them from ever committing rape again. (And don’t say, “Yeah, it’s called a lethal injection.” That’s a whole different post.) Would we be satisfied with just giving them the shot and letting them free, go and sin no more? My instinct tells me no. Because we have this instinct as a culture, perhaps as humans: Rapists/criminals/bad people should be punished for their crimes. (Other thing I will not be getting into: the gross cultural trope that celebrates prison rape as a rapist or other criminal’s just deserts, which falls under either Codex Hammurabi or Codex Sublime.) One term for this belief is “accountability.” Another is “revenge.”

(By the way, I’m sure S knows a lot more about the prison stuff than I do, and hopefully she will weigh in.)

And you know, I love all that Gandhi shit about nonviolence and peaceful solutions and “makes the whole world blind.” But sometimes you get sick of sit-ins and tertiary prevention and consciousness raising. Sometimes you want to get medieval on somebody’s ass.

Believe me: I get that. And it’s tempting, oh so tempting, to think that beating up rapists will fix the problem.

This brings me, improbably but inevitably, to Buffy.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is widely lauded as a feminist show, for many good reasons, partially because it’s grrl-power wish-fulfillment fantasy. Buffy is a petite blonde teenage girl who happens to possess superhuman fighting abilities. And it is so, so damn satisfying every time a few creeps corner her in an alley, leering and threatening her, and she ends up kicking the shit out of them. Get it? They thought she was a defenseless girl, they’re ready to victimize her like they’ve victimized so many before her—and this time, they’re getting what they deserve.

In general, Buffy (the slayer and the show) is firmly in the “Violence is, in fact, often the answer” school of thought. The show lampshades this constantly. Whether confronted with the season’s Big Bad or just another monster of the week, Buffy often cuts off librarian Giles’s lengthy explanation of the new creature’s habits and mythology with a blunt question: “How do we kill it?”

And in Buffy, this is literally the solution: the demons are slain, and that’s the end of it. Heck, when she stakes a vampire, it turns to dust—no clean-up required. At most, the school might have to be rebuilt, the furniture repaired, Willow sent to England for a few months. But the problem is not a culture that encourages, condones, and perpetuates violence, which is committed by individual humans. The problem is the such-and-such demon, the so-and-so vampire, the Master, Adam, Glory, the First—each an indisputably evil being. Once the creature is destroyed, the problem is solved, and Sunnydale is safe (until next episode).

The real fantasy in Buffy isn’t that the good guys are powerful. It’s that the bad guys are monsters.

Rapists, however, are not monsters. Rapists are men, women, boys, girls, human beings. It is our responsibility as fellow human beings to remember this.

I cannot accept that the solution to dehumanization is more dehumanization. I cannot accept that the solution to violence is more violence. We may as well be fucking for chastity, as a previous generation of idealists pointed out.

Should rapists be held accountable? Absolutely. Are they fully responsible for their crimes? Absolutely. Do we have the right and responsibility as a community to prevent them from raping again? Absofuckinglutely.

But our response to rape—our interventions, our preventive measures, and even, yes, our punishments—has to be grounded in the recognition that rapists are human. And if we’re fighting to end all violence against all people everywhere (and aren’t we?): well, you can follow the logic.

I have exactly zero sympathy for perpetrators of sexual violence, but I’m trying, really trying, to have empathy. Because I know we have to understand violence in order to prevent it. Because I am a human being, an anthropologist, a feminist. And because a nice, clean staking is not an option.

It was real, and it was great.

2010-03-06T03:44:00.005-06:00

I might still right a huge and meaningful piece about AFP&Ableism, but in the meantime, you should know that I just watched this video, and it felt just like a break up. This performance helped me believe in so many possibilities, and reinforced my belief that these Dresden Dolls are the revolution of our fucking lives. I did not expect to feel bitter and foolish upon revisiting it. I trusted her with so much.

Community Accountability and the Question of Violence (Part 1)

2010-03-04T15:46:00.004-06:00

[Trigger warning]

[This is my post for asking questions, but, whatever direction our comments and thoughts take, there will be 1 or more posts for answers.]

Oh hey ladies!

I've been talking with other ladies lately (great ladies! smart ladies! radical ladies.), about the feminism and the activism and the rape culture, and it's been pretty nice. Don't worry, we're not friends yet or anything. We do talk about community accountability, however! Here are some methods, from zines, personal experience, and tales, that Oly/Seattle folks have used to keep rapists and rape apologists out of their space:

-Dude shows up at a party. Friends of the survivor see him and tell him, "You make people uncomfortable. You have to leave."

-Problem with a performer or performance? Bring many people and Boo the fuck out of it. Be able to explain why. (Anyone know more about direct action and the Lesbian Avengers than I do? Have only just learned of them.)

-Hunting the dude down and beating the shit out of him. Favored by one of the finest Oly musicians (I would tell you she's on yr Smashin' It! cd, but that wouldn't narrow it down), and suggested (and dismissed) for actors who perform rape, as a joke, in a show.

-Smear campaign. Tell the dude he has to meet the survivor's demands (such as learning about consent and sleazing in different social circles!) or we will put posters of his face, labled as rapist, all the fuck over Seattle. This happened to a dj who was huge on this coast (and assaulted folks all up and down it), and the posters ran him out of town. Can't get business here anymore.

-Spread the word around, local business refused to serve him, and he couldn't book a show at any venue in Oly anymore, so he left. (This is someone else, more low-key than the DJ)

-From Boy&Girl zine: break into his house at night with your friends, pour your menstrual blood on him to wake him up, and read to him whatever you've been dying to say. Friends will share, too. He left. (This is also an oly incident from the 90's.)

So. I love every single one of these, though some are more legal than others. The reality is typically that the rapist gets to keep his business (Hello, Issac Brock) or keep attending college, the survivor is the one who has to lose her friends, move, or drop out of school to avoid seeing the agressor and to stay safe (emotionally, physically, what have you), which is why these example of community are Fucking Exciting. But what about when the survivor is outside of a community to begin with, or if the agressor is a very charming and trusted member of the community? How can we create structure for accountability, and do you, dear ladysquadron, condone the violent aspects?

Last week, one person mentioned the importance of having a space to relish the visceral experience of all the varying degrees of shit, and that resonated with me. After all, the Oppressive Powers That Be use violence to enforce their stance all the time. I would like to fight back on the same level, because that is what my body and mind are aching to do, and hey, it would get some attention.

----
Over winter break, we used a lot of energy trying to figure out how to make Certain People into feminists. It is clear that most of those people are content to remain Disgusting. I am thinking about how it would feel for one or more of us to say, "You make people uncomfortable. You have to leave."

I would never be untrue to the Ladysquad Blog, but--

2010-03-01T22:35:00.000-06:00

but here is a link to a blog I wrote for Currrrrrve Magazine! I am a little bit proud about it.

SMEYER HAS SOMETHING TO TELL YOU

2010-02-24T19:46:00.003-06:00

I know, RobPatt! My hair feels similarly about this turn of events!

Anyway, Smeyer would just like to let you know that if you don't have babies immortality will just suck. Seriously, apparently all the female vamps have to do with their endless lives is totally freak the fuck out about pregnancies, because their eternal, stony uteri will never ever give them the one thing they need for satisfaction:

That's right. Babies. Screaming, wailing babies everywhere.

Because while vampladies' gametes are frozen into tiny icy pebbles of death and decay which, interestingly, could be sold to chill people's martinis,

vampmenz sperm are still very much alive and happily impregnating people. Anyhoo, ladies, so be sure to jump on it and get freaky with your husboyfriend before he turns you all immortal and such, because otherwise you'll lament it for the rest of your very, very long lives. And it's totally worth it. I mean, there's that teensy hitch wherein your unholy child chews its way out of your body --

but I'm pretty sure it looks like that guy up there, so no fear -- and then there's the part where yr husboyfriend gives you a C-section with his teeth and then stabs a giant needle full of his drool into yr heart, but given that the interior of your heart looks like this,

I wouldn't worry about it too much. And then there's that bit where your burbling bouncing babylass breaks yr spine and maybe most of yr organs on her way out, but hey! Nothing immortality can't fix! In short: babies solve everything, so be a vampire AND a mother. They go together like rats n' plague!

-End Social Security Discrimination-

2010-02-13T10:49:00.000-06:00

Hey guys, this is just a quickie, but if you could take a few minutes to go here:

Rock For Equality

and sign the petition, it would be super cool. They're trying to get a petition in, while the budget is still being decided, to end discrimination against sexual identity in social security. You can read all about it on the page.

Oh, and you have to confirm your signature by clicking a link from your email, but it really only takes like 2 seconds, I promise.

Cheers!
S.

Buffy's Sex Life: Discuss!

2010-02-10T13:56:00.001-06:00

So it was a toss-up whether to post this here or on LJ, but I'm putting it here because I'm betting a certain someone and I get into a gigantic Buffy/feminism tussle. Yeah!

Anyway, Friday in my English class* we discussed an article** about Buffy. The bit I had a problem with was where Rutkowsky, who portrays herself as a sex-positive feminist, described vampire foreheads as "swollen," "bumpy," "grotesque" stand-ins for sexual organs. Ok, swollen, check, bumpy, depends who you talk to...but grotesque? Did someone have a few too many abstinence-only sex ed classes? In any case, wound up in a spirited discussion of how the state of people's sexual organs is, actually, my business, and everyone's business, in fact. Oh, and about how Twilight sucks.

*Buffy spoiler alert*

The interesting bit was where the prof and I got into a wee argument on how sex is treated in Buffy. There I was thinking how cool it was that Buffy and her buddies are allowed to have sex and be protagonists, but I guess the truth is I hadn't thought about it that much. When you do think about it, Buffy is punished for having sex...kind of a lot. There's the whole Angel deal, which I kind of put aside because Joss Whedon wishes he'd never done it, but then moving on from there: Buffy gets with Parker and is wounded and brooding for like five episodes because hook-ups will damage you emotionally. She only recovers when she's allowed*** to smack him over the head a few times. Then there's Riley...remember when their sex fed a whole house o' evil? And how about him shagging Faith in Buffy's body? Or how it ended, in a vampire whorehouse? Conclusion: Joss Whedon, what happened to the horror-movie victim girl kicking ass AND having sex?****

*Which is totally fabulous in that I get to shout things like "Unpack your invisible knapsack!" and "Gender is between your ears, not between your legs!" the entire class period. The rest of the class says things like "But where is the white male in television?"
**"Why Chicks Dig Vampires: Sex, Blood, and Buffy" by Alice Rutkowsky, apparently not available in its entirety online
***Buffy turns into a cavewoman. It's complicated and involves beer and warlocks.
****Joss Whedon always hated how in horror films, it's always the interesting woman who dies first. She's fun, exciting, and has sex...and is usually killed seconds after the act. Buffy was him taking back that girl.

The Super Bowl Ad Diaries.

2010-02-08T11:59:00.000-06:00

Alright, now, I watched the Super Bowl yesterday because I'm A Big Dyke, and also because I really love New Orleans and I've been pretty excited all season to see the Saints doing so well, and I love Drew Brees because he helps out community organizations and does all kinds of shit to help Katrina recovery, even though he is a newbie to the big easy. I also love Fujita, because he is not afraid to take stances on issues that I care about. And everyone loves Reggie Bush, because he's an excellent footballer. So that's all pretty cool, and the Saints owned, and Peyton Manning looked like an ugly baby, as usual.

Now, onto the important part: ADVERTISING! Advertising is important because it tells us Who We Are! What We Think! and, of course--What to Buy! Now. I was all revved up and Angry because I'd been reading the hype about the Tim Tebow anti-abortion commercial. I was ready to be angry. I was ready to get Up In Arms. Who does he think he is, this Tebow! You're not even playing in the game, Tebow, get offa my screen!

But, actually, I have to say I was a little disappointed with the hype. I was pretty sure when it started that it was going to be a soup ad--just some mom, looking at a picture of a kid, saying she sometimes still worries about his health--and then dopey-looking Tebow bursts in, they pal around, and then they say "hey, for our story, go to FocusOnTheFamily.com"

I mean, I'm still gonna FocusOnNotHavingAFamilyUntilI'mDamnGood&Ready.com, but overall, it wasn't pushy and they didn't advocate any legal measures outright. To be honest, I was annoyed, but not enraged. It didn't seem threatening.

BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT DID SEEM THREATENING?
The unending stream of commercials about how marriage and relationships break down a guy's Will To Be Free Spirits, and how the constant nagging of wifeykidtimes makes them less Manly, day by day, and how women heap a never-ending stream of abuse on their husbands. Coining such brilliant terms as "the wife swoop" and telling guys how taking care of their kids denies them their identity, these ads are waaaay more detrimental to women than that goober Tebow.

Guess what? Guess who has a history of actual violence and abuse against them? Oh wait, it's the other goddamn gender.

It must be really fucking difficult to be a white hetero male.
Dick.

To soothe your rage, please enjoy this ad,
featuring Betty Goddamn White who can do anything she wants:

By my count, that's 14 other people who give a damn

2010-01-28T19:37:00.005-06:00

I am going to burst!

You guys.
I am so moved.

Coalition against Sexual Violence (CASV) just registered as an official student group!

I co-coordinated the group last year, but we did not make a budget for fall, so we had to get back on our feet. Last year, there were 2 of us. We did a lot from the sidelines, but people didn't really know we existed, and there was so much work! As Nick Hornby's wonderful Marcus said, "Two people isn't enough. You need backup. If you're only two people, and someone drops off the edge, then you're on your own. Two isn't a large enough number. You need three at least!"

Marcus says this in the wake of his mother's suicide attempt. He's talking about people who care about each other while navigating life; I'm talking about people who work together to dismantle rape culture. I trust this doesn't suck out the meaning of his sentiment.

So this year, CASV held a preliminary meeting to see if there was greater student interest, and there was! Two new people came. We need four members to register, so that is just fine. But we need 4 people present at two workshops, and that kept getting put off. Sometimes three would show up, just to have to push the final workshop back a week.

But today! Six people came to the workshop! Six! It was important enough for two people to skip class, me to skip work, another to wedge it into her schedule... In the month since we've been active, somewhat illegally, people have found CASV and committed to it, been so happy to find that it's real! One member came from Antioch College, with their great consent policy, another member wants to start up the campus survivor support group again, another is a banner-painting flyer-making star, and we've met with Vagina Monologues, Theatre of the Oppressed, SafePlace, and the Women's Resource Center already! We have people from other groups and organizations coming to our meetings and trainings already!

This support thrills me. I've been on campus every day this week to meet with people about CASV, and I'll be there again for it tomorrow. There are already so many people and groups who want to work to end rape culture and help people heal, and we are already learning so much from each other every step of the way.

Six people came today! Five of whom were at our meeting yesterday!

Student Activities has been supportive in letting us meet on campus before registering, and in telling us how excited they are to have CASV back. The Folk Dance Alliance coordinator allowed me to table under their name to initially get the word out about our resurgence, saying to the woman at the front desk who did not quite approve, "I only do this for groups I really care about."

It's so easy to get bogged down in despair as Feminists, as people who see all the bullshit and the cruelty, so I wanted to share the good stuff.

This feels so much better than just being two.
This feels so great.

(Also: If Theatre of the Oppressed is in yr area, check it out. The fellow we're working with primarily works at Planned Parenthood, and the first thing he said at CASV's meeting yesterday was that his ultimate vision is a world in which all sex is enthusiastically consensual, and when that happens, it will have such an impact. The world will look much different. And we're working together to help give each other the tools to get closer to that reality.)

Oh, College.

2010-01-26T21:22:00.001-06:00

So.
This is a post about a college classroom.
Not just any classroom--
A women's & gender studies classroom.
Not just any women's and gender studies class!
An upper-level WGS class!

Yes! By 301, Feminist Theory, you would assume, wouldn't you, that essentialist arguments were pretty much abandoned, and that people were using an intersectional approach, and that they'd bloody well figured out that ECONOMIC STATUS is NOT NEGLIGIBLE.

I mean, wouldn't you?

Yes, Sneering Girl Who Defends Her Elitist Patriarchal Arguments To The Death, I am talking to you.

I am not going to rehash an argument from class, because I am way too much of a Lady, but after Sneering Girl said something Essentialist and the whole class jumped on her with valid arguments and corrections, then Ditzy Girl (who I am actually willing to give the benefit of the doubt) said she didn't believe economics was a real factor, and then the whole class jumped to give alternative examples to the contrary AND THEN we spent the rest of class with Ditzy Girl and Sneering Girl talking about how their feelings were hurt and the class needed to be more respectful of their opinions.

HERE IS THE THING YOU GUYS:
[which is a conglomeration of Excellent Points made by my professor and my own thinking on the subject]
It is true that in a class like this, discussion is important. Personal examples are important. Everyone needs to feel safe enough to express themselves.

BUT Women's Studies is about understanding systems of privilege. Talking about privilege is Not Comfortable for the privileged. If we accept all opinions as valid, without subjecting them to the scrutiny of a feminist lens, then we are not challenging those systems of oppression. By getting defensive about privilege, we don't get anywhere.

Or, as I like to say, we should be comfortable in expressing ourselves, but not so comfortable that we continue to think hegemonically, patriarchally.

This is exactly why we should have WGS in high school.
And why it should be a required class.
Maybe I am a radical.
Mostly I am just angry that over half of the time in my class today was about Somebody's Feelings instead of the texts on Black Feminism that we should have been discussing.

Blog for Choice II: boy have I got some opinions

2010-01-24T16:52:00.005-06:00

Sometimes, when I’m in the mood for choir-preaching or having mental arguments with imaginary opponents, I like to think about some serious logical gaps in how we, as a culture, think about abortion. More rarely, I like to blog about it.

I’ve been “pro-choice,” as they say, since I found out that abortion existed. First, it was a vague idea that came with the knowledge that my parents voted for Bill Clinton, and therefore I was a Democrat, too, and Democrats, I understood, were pro-choice. By high school, I’d begun to form my own political views, and I thought the standard “it’s a woman’s choice” rhetoric made sense. I mean, who else’s choice was it gonna be? Later, the “A fetus is not a person” justification seemed most salient. At some point, when the idea of actual sperm making contact with my own personal ova became more than abstract, my pro-choice feelings intensified rather alarmingly. But at the bottom of it all was that same bumper-sticker conviction: It’s a woman’s choice.

Along the way, I developed my own logical reasons why abortion was not immoral and absolutely had to remain legal. Much of this happened in conversation with a non-imaginary opponent a few years ago, one of my closest friends, who I’ll call June. June is a very intelligent, well-spoken, argumentative woman, and at the time, she was the only woman I knew who was anti-abortion and willing to talk—and, even more amazingly, listen—to me about it.

(More common—outside my feminist circles—are the people like roommate M, who once commented, over two MSNBC talking heads blathering about Stupak, “I’m so tired of people talking about abortion. I mean, can’t we just agree to disagree and move on?” He apologized, five minutes later, after I’d finished shouting [my contention, in brief: “NO!”]. In retrospect, that’s probably the sort of behavior that leads to people being tired of people talking about abortion.)

June is a logical person, so I appealed to logic. First, theology: June (who was not actively religious and, though spiritually curious, definitely not Christian) said she was convinced that life, including ensoulment, began at conception. Fresh from a genetics class, I argued that thirty percent of pregnancies ended in miscarriage. So, what, God (or the Force, or whatever) snuffed out thirty percent of souls before they’d even had a chance to peek outside the uterus? That wasn’t any kind of God whose world I was willing to live in. Therefore, abortion is okay.

Second: fetal personhood. I argued that there had to be a bright line. Any developmental markers like “heartbeat” or “fingerprints” were inadmissibly subjective. Viability was a moving target and varied with individuals and historical periods. A hundred years ago, babies born three months premature would die; today, they sometimes live: so was a six-months-along fetus not a person in 1900? It was either conception or birth (this was my most dubiously-supported contention, I think), and either God was really mean or conception was out. Therefore, life begins at birth. Therefore, abortion is okay.

Third: legal. I was reading Susan Bordo’s excellent (excellent! I cannot emphasize this enough: excellent) Unbearable Weight and was halfway through the chapter on legal precedent and bodily integrity, so I felt qualified to preach. In this country, we cannot legally force a man to give blood or a kidney or marrow to save his dying brother’s inarguably real life—or his dying child’s: it’s a violation of his bodily integrity. So how could we legally force a woman to do anything with her body, such as, you know, carry a pregnancy to term with it, to preserve something that may or may not be life? Therefore, abortion is okay.

We talked for a long time. June agreed that I’d gone a long way toward convincing her, and that she would think about what I’d said. We haven’t talked about abortion in a while, but maybe logic changed her mind. That’s how it should work, right? Argument A, Argument B, Argument C: therefore, abortion is okay. Did I mention that June and I met in high school debate?

But lately, I’ve been thinking about logic in even plainer terms. Like, seriously: if abortion were illegal in this country, what would that look like?

Most people I’ve ever talked to about abortion are ambivalently pro-choice. Like: “I wouldn’t ever have one, and I think it’s very sad, but, um, I do think it should be legal?” At the very least, even most anti-choice people will make an exception for medical emergencies, rape, and incest.

So imagine this: it’s a five-minutes-into-the-future dystopia, and abortion is illegal except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape and incest. We know very well that whether abortion is legal or illegal has very little bearing on the number of abortions taking place. So aside from women traveling to Mexico and Canada and Mandy’s (hey, she goes to med school!), we would surely have women obtaining abortions in the usual medical settings. It’s allowed for cases of rape and incest, right? Like the sympathetic back-alley doctors in days of yore, like modern heroes like the late Dr. George Tiller, we’d surely have dedicated physicians willing to operate on or prescribe RU-486 for women who needed it (and had the resources to pay out of pocket):

Doctor: “Rape or incest, right?”

Patient: “Right.”

Of course, in our sucky dystopia, this would be an abuse of the system, and lawmakers would surely try to eliminate it. Proof would be required to obtain a safe, legal abortion in the twenty-first-century United States.

Oh yeah, proof of rape, days or weeks or months after the fact. Not like, you know, that’s gonna be difficult. Or causes any trouble for anyone now.

And this is just the inconsistency on my mind this week. It also reminded me of an old Anna Quindlen column on what, in Anti-Choice Dystopia, would actually be done with women who had abortions anyway. Hint: anti-abortion protesters have not, apparently, ever thought about this.

Then there’s the “men’s rights” argument that men should have an equal say in what happens to the fetus they helped make. In a non-patriarchal world where everyone is equal and no one coerces anyone else and everyone has access to safe, legal, and affordable birth control and, oh yeah, men bear an equal share of the pregnancy burden (maybe they get joint custody and carry the fetus every other day?), then sure, men can have an equal say. Until that day, when the non-pregnant partner disagrees with the pregnant partner, the tie’s gotta go to somebody.

Because at the bottom of this whole issue, when an unwanted pregnancy happens, someone has to decide what to do about it. Should it be the U.S. Senate? The Supreme Court? The church? The state? The patriarchy? The Man? The man?

Or... the woman?

Trust women. It’s just plain logic.

Blog For Choice Day

2010-01-22T20:40:00.001-06:00

It's Roe v. Wade's birthday!

Fancy!

So, I think I'd be pretty much preaching to the choir (blogging to the bloggers?) if I went off about how groovy trusting women is, and how no one is more qualified to make a choice about a woman's body than that actual individual woman. Obvi, non?

BUT I am echoing the general sentiment which I've seen batted around today, which is that simply making (and keeping) abortions legal really isn't enough for either side of the debate. We need better, more complete, more prevalent sex education. We need better access to gynecological care and birth control for women in all areas of the social strata--or, hey, how about a less divisive social strata en generale? We need abortions to be not only legal but socially viable and accepted--say, for instance, performing them in fucking hospitals where they belong instead of in physically isolated and ostracized clinics.

It should go without saying, but we need abortions to be a nationally recognized part of healthcare. We need politicians to grow a spine and recognize that they have nothing to do with our insides, other than protecting our right to Handle It.

I know. It's a lot to ask. But we've got this, I know it.
Trust me.

Another candidate: Dr. Quinn?

2010-01-17T03:01:00.004-06:00

Quick, let's brainstorm: who is the most important man in medical history?

My partner A. and I came up with several possibilities in a few seconds: Louis Pasteur (helped develop the germ theory of disease), Joseph Lister (applied germ theory and advocated antiseptic techniques), Anton van Leeuwenhoek (used microscope to look at animalcules), Edward Jenner (invented smallpox vaccine), etc. etc. If I had to pick one, I'd go with Lister, since "germs=disease" is pretty fundamental to everything about medicine today, and "Hey, maybe wash your hands before you stick them inside somebody's body" is just darn good advice.

If we include basic science advances that affect medicine, then guys like Watson & Crick (discovered the double-helix structure of DNA) are eligible, and ancient guys like Galen (second-century anatomist), Vesalius (sixteenth-century anatomist; actually dissected humans and thus got better results), and Avicenna (fascinating Persian physician from the turn of the millennium who laid out some ground rules for pharmacology and clinical trials in freakin' 1025) deserve at least honorable mention.

Also learned in this conversation: as a child, A. owned a book called Great Microbiologists. Truly, we are a match made in Heaven, or like a test tube or something.

Now, here's a harder question: who is the most important woman in medical history?

We know this is a harder question for many reasons. Although an even half of medical degrees now go to women, this is a very recent development. Back when Avicenna was writing The Canon of Medicine and Galen was carving up monkeys, opportunities for women in medicine were pretty much zippo (although "medicine" in those days was less a scientific profession and more a stylized way of killing sick people with sharp things and leeches). The first openly female physician in America, Elizabeth Blackwell, didn't graduate from medical school until 1849. Throughout the twentieth century (and even today), women who do go into medicine and biomedical research have been hampered by a number of factors. Most notably, although 60% of undergraduate degrees in biology go to women, the percentage drops to 37% of biology PhDs. Steadily lower percentages of women become tenured biology professors, department heads, Nobel Prize winners, etc.

But progress is happening, slowly but surely. Ten women have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine & Physiology since the award's inception, including two in 2009, and all of their contributions to medical science are incredibly important. Due to the relatively small sample size, it's hard to isolate an individual candidate for most important woman, but there are many worthy candidates. Again, we can open it up to basic science: Rosalind Franklin (X-ray crystallography) and Marie Curie (radiation) come up a lot in lists of important female scientists.

Also, let's not forget that many women have made useful contributions despite the barriers that kept them out of the medical profession. Nursing is a devalued pink collar occupation even today, but ladies like Florence Nightingale (advocated for sanitation) and Clara Barton (founded the Red Cross) certainly deserve to be counted among important figures in medical history. What about activists like Margaret Sanger (birth control advocate), who saved countless lives? Not to mention thousands of midwives and other female healers throughout history, who surely didn't do any more harm than wacky old-timey physicians, and probably did more good. Women have been contributing to medicine for centuries, so of course it would be difficult to name a single individual as the most important woman in medical history--

Oh? What's that, Popular Science? You have a suggestion?

The February 2010 issue has a short article (page 81; couldn't find it online, so you'll have to take my word for it) with the headline "5 Reasons Henrietta Lacks is the most important woman in medical history." The name sounded familiar--was she an early physician? A Nobel laureate? An inventor? None of the above:

"In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a poor woman with a middle-school education, made one of the greatest medical contributions ever. Her cells, taken from a cervical-cancer biopsy, become the first immortal human cell line..."

Yep. The most important woman in medical history was not a researcher or a doctor, but a test subject.

I could elaborate for several paragraphs on how messed up this is, but I would be belaboring the point. To wit: men are actors; women are acted upon. Men use; women are used. Men are minds; women are bodies. Not just bodies, but cells. Not just cells, but cancerous cells that were removed and used (without Henrietta Lacks's consent) for medical research.

Of course, we should still acknowledge Lacks's unwitting but amazing contribution. (And it's pretty amazing: Dinosaur Comics, as usual, says it better than I can.) The Popular Science article mentions contributor Rebecca Skloot's new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which looks like it takes a far more measured and interesting perspective--it's not out yet, but the Amazon reviews say it discusses the "hidden costs of scientific progress" and "how easily science can do wrong, especially to the poor." These are important and valuable questions. Too bad "5 reasons the case of Henrietta Lacks exemplifies the long-standing scientific tradition of exploiting poor people of color" doesn't make quite as catchy a headline.

in which I trade in Lengthy Researched Style for PURE BLIND RAGE!

2010-01-17T02:41:00.010-06:00

Okay, this is going to be quick and dirty but I cannot let this topic go--I just can't. I had the misfortune to flip through my roommate's teenygirlyfashionmag and I! Can! Not! LetItGo!

ANTI-AGING CREAM IS THE WORST PRODUCT IN THE WORLD.
THE WORST.
IN THE WORLD.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

What are you trying to pull! Who do you think you are fooling! This shit has been pissing me off since I was about nine.

Do you know why?

BECAUSE AGING IS A NORMAL PROCESS.
YES!
PEOPLE GET OLDER.
THAT IS HOW TIME ACTUALLY WORKS.
I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING THAT IS GOING TO MAKE ME STOP AGING, BECAUSE TO ME THAT MEANS "DEATH CREAM! GET YOUR DEATH CREAM!"

I am tired of this bullshit medicalized cosmetic theme.
Retinol-ACellMetabolismMYASS.
QUIT telling me how to "treat" aging signs. Quit acting like aging is a condition or a disease. QUIT IT. Just stop! I especially don't appreciate that most anti-aging creams are marketed to women. "Don't get older, ladies! It's bad for you! It'll make you ugly. Better to anti-age!"

No! What does that even mean! --No!

AS FOR ME, I intend to age for as long as I can.
I should hope we would encourage everyone to strive toward that same, meagre, goal.

The fuck.

Fuckwords and Other Swears

2010-01-16T14:30:00.001-06:00

It is a common exercise, or so the works of Jessica Valenti tell me, to spend a few minutes of one's introductory Women's Studies course discussing the nature of obscenities and insults. The classical questions:

What are the most insulting names you can call a male?
What are the most insulting names you can call a female?

Valenti has the answers to your pop quiz in Full Frontal Feminism. Off the top of my head (I left my copy in Manhattan, sigh):

Sissy; fag; bitch; girly-man
Slut; whore; cunt; bitch

The point of the exercise, of course, is to note that the most damning trait for any gender is to be feminine. I am rehashing her argument because I am this curious to know your thoughts on this matter:

Why is it that sex is so closely tied to insults? Perhaps it is because making very intimate matters public is inherently shaming. Certainly it has to do with the Puritanical wave that dominates the country. These theories help explain catcalling but fall flat when facing the Great Pumpkin of all insults:

Fuck you. Why is this not a compliment? "Oh, thank you for that, you know, it's been quite awhile since anyone has wished sexual fulfillment upon me! You're a gem!" At least this is how things in my imaginary universe go. Damn you, on the other hand, is easily explained: the insulter wishes the insulted party damned for all eternity. But fuck you? Please, someone alleviate my confusion!

*YES. Watch me resort to lolcats! This will not be the last time! Ha!**
**Ok, it was gonna be a lion batting a porcupine, but that's comparing your ideas to quills. Also this cat has counselor paws, so there.

Part SoapBox, Part Book Review, All Ladysquad!

2010-01-15T18:20:00.006-06:00

A Note on the Text:

Once again: Long. Does it make up for it if it's extremely informative? Hm.

Ladies and jellyspoons! I just finished reading Wally Lamb's Couldn't Keep It To Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters, and OH MAN do I recommend it. It's a few years old now, published in 2003, but it certainly packs All Kinds Of Punch. Parts of it are funny, parts of it are gut-wrenchingly, sad, and it makes you feel--well, complicated. As you may have gathered from the title, it's a collection of stories from incarcerated women at the York Correctional Institution, compiled and edited by Wally Lamb during the Writing Class he (volunteer) teaches there.

It is an excellent introduction for people who aren't quite ready to dive into the Prison Reform movement the way I did, rather naively, when I jumped unprepared into that "Radical Theories of Punishment" class with Angela Davis. It's a deeply fraught issue, especially when I think of it in context of my sister--a lawyer in New Orleans. Last year, she worked for the DA's office in a parish just across the lake from the city, where she assisted with criminal court cases. She would frequently call me up to report her success-- "We just won our case! This rapist who beats his wife was found guilty! Next week we're going to push for either life in prison or the death penalty!" On the one hand, hella Hooray, Rapists & Beaters are definitely BadBadBad.

On the other hand, fuck! Destroying this man, either by taking away his civil body or his actual body, doesn't actually fix the patriarchal system which encourages this behaviour. It won't make the rape victim un-raped, or the wife un-beaten. It fixes the immediate, personal issue, but it doesn't change the social constructs at play. It might, arguably, even make it worse, because it tells the Individuals In Power that they have the right to judge who gets to die, who gets to be undead, and who gets to actually live.

(continued after the jump)

Set aside the rapist example for a minute. We'll come back to it, but right now we have to think about a criminal that will make you less squeamish. Drug possession or trafficking, theft, assault, let's think that type of crime. Badass movie-style crime, you can get behind that, right? Okay, so they're still wrong. But! Who is more likely to need to steal? Who is more likely to live in certain neighborhoods with high crime rates? Which groups are more likely to lead lives that drive them to heavy drinking and rage? Oh, what? What's that? You think that this might be an issue of class and poverty? And that certain social groups are more ostracized based on certain factors, on social bias and institutionalized -isms*?

Well, I think you're hella fucking right. I know that I quote this all over the place, but in class one day Angela Davis explained the system like this:

It is illegal to sleep under the bridge. It is equally illegal for all persons to sleep under the bridge, and anyone who sleeps under the bridge faces the same punishment. However, only certain kinds of people are forced to sleep under the bridge based on their circumstances.

She was, I believe, paraphrasing Anatole France (The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. The Red Lily, 1894) but I like her explanation the most, especially because it lends itself to the continuation--all those convicted of sleeping under the bridge are (theoretically) subject to equal punishment, but not all those serving that punishment are equally punished.

Which brings me back to Wally Lamb! I'm going to use just one story from the book, because I don't want to ruin all the stories for anyone who does want to read it, from the section "Faith, Power, and Pants" by Bonnie Foreshaw.

Okay, I'll admit that part of me picked this one because it fits with Georgia Nicholson-style imposition of "Pants!" to make things funny (Couldn't Keep It To My Pants, by Wally Lamb--see? Instant funny) but mostly because she is the perfect example of how an equal punishment can be unequal.

Bonnie is Jamaican, and after what she describes as a "wild" youth, she found solace in a very devout Rastafarian faith. This included, among other things, not cutting her hair, covering her head and Not Wearing Pants. No pants! Only skirts. This was fine at first, but the facility decided to impose greater and greater restrictions (ostensibly, just to assert power, because someone higher up decided so). They took away a lot of privileges and then--they imposed a very strict dress-code, including pants.

Bonnie asked her supervisors weeks in advance about her concerns--her concerns being: according to my religion, God will forsake me if I put on those pants--and she was ignored. She asked multiple officers multiple times, began to have anxiety attacks, nightmares, depression and general trauma. On the day when the pants arrived, she refused, telling them that another inmate, a jew, was never forced to eat pork, and she should be given equal consideration. As punishment for her continued refusal, they sent her to Solitary Confinement (please do not get me started on Solitary Confinement. What a fucking nightmare--Angela Davis has made me relentless about this issue. It is inhuman to stick people in dark boxes! I do not care if they are killers or rapists! It will only make them worse! Do not put people in dark boxes! Don't do it! Don't!). Eventually they compromised--well, sorta. The Deputy Warden offered to put the pants on her, that way God could only get mad at him.

What. The. Fuck, y'all.

They eventually reversed their decision, but not before she'd worn pants for a good ten years or so, which had led to therapy and lots of prayers for forgiveness. [Unrelated, but still infuriating: she's serving a 45 year sentence for First Degree Murder, though Lamb notes that she should have been charged with manslaughter, because it was an accident. Genderclassracebiaswhaaaat!]

So, hell, if the system is grounded in a Judeo-Christian bias, it alienates non-Judeo Christians. If the institution is founded on a masculine system, it alienates women. If it is founded on a gender-normative system, it alienates queer and trans-folks. Do you see? Do you see how a 10 year sentence for a white, hetero, male-identified male is different than a 10 year sentence for a white, queer, MTF transman? Do you see how the "no visitors!" rule differently affects a woman with children?

It's an incredibly flawed system. The idea of the American prison (which, btdubs, totally revolutionized the punitive system the world over) is founded on the idea that the Civilian has rights, and that to punish the Naughty Civilian, you take those rights away. It doesn't take into consideration that different groups have different access to those "inalienable rights." It also fails to recognize real and tangible differences in identity that affect the way that that person encounters and experiences prison.

[[ALSO, something to chew on after I've finished: Think about slavery. Those slaves weren't people, right? They couldn't vote, they didn't have rights, they were just farm tools! Except... They could be tried and sent to jail for committing crimes? Wait a minute--you can't try a plow for murder! "So what you're saying, Savanna, is that they could only become legally recognized human beings if they committed a crime? That the government, in a way, encouraged them to commit crimes so that they could be equal?" Yes, kiddies, that is what I am saying. It is unrelated to my current rant, other than the fact that it is Also Fucked Up.]]

Right on. So, I think that Wally Lamb's book does a good job of giving you varied inside peeks at that aspect of inequality, as well as other interesting and provocative ideas. I recommend it, and then I recommend (1) Golden Gulag, (2) Inventing the Savage, and (3) Global Lockdown, for anyone interested in more prison theory. I also recommend Angela Davis. In general.

Obviously I don't think that we should just set everyone free and let them do their thing. Obviously, there are some stone-cold crazies who need a different kind of help, (and don't ask me how to reform That Particular Institution, because I Got Nothin') but I'd say generally that we could go a long way by changing the way we react to crime--what we do now reinforces a hegemonic system; it only encourages violence and hierarchies. There is a great difference between revenge and restitution, and much more between revenge and reform.

*Oh come on, you know the -isms. Racism, Sexism, Heterosexism, Classism, Ablism.

Addendum:

Z: I'd be interested to hear about that Yoga-For-Prisoners project you were doing freshman year in this context. It seems like it would go hand in hand with Lamb's Writing-For-Prisoners scheme--you know, treating the convict like a person, a person who reacts to the stresses and catalysts of their actual life, using the means and the tools that are available to them, and making poor decisions because of it.

Have you ever seen Lady Gaga in jeans?

2010-01-15T01:02:00.000-06:00

She knows pants're sexist.

I don't intend to tackle Gaga in any thorough fashion; it's far too early in our awareness of her presence for that. There's a line, though, that I have a particular relationship with.

I was happy when I thought you were saying, "I'm a freak bitch, baby." You are a freak, but don't say "freak," say "monster," darling, and do as your mother tells you. I started to listen a little closer as I began to consider how fucking cool it would be if you were saying "free" instead of "freak." I couldn't hear the "k" on the end, and thought you were playing with freak/free, but intending freak in the long run.
But that was just my head (and many other heads, it turns out).
It's free, all the way.

My Romantic Fellow, sweet consumer whore that he is, got me The Fame Monster for Christmas. The liner notes confirmed my Free Bitch vision, but when I listened to the CD's Bad Romance?

"I'm a free bit, baby."

Since when do they censor bitch? They don't censor any variation on ho.

Bitch was never the problem, with this line. I trust you with Bitch. You were trafficked and The Man with the Golden Jaw paid for you (that's two counts of less-than-free, for those of you following along at home), so you set him on fire. That's a bitch move I can get behind, and your Baby frames Bitch so deliciously; I hear you relishing putting the world into place as you announce just what kind of Bitch you are.

But now it's Bit.

Bit.

Better to lie and indicate that she's merely half of a mini-hamburger, skewered on a toothpick and ready for anyone's consumption, waiting on the sample cart in one of Costco's frozen food aisles.
Better to remind Gaga of her place, were The Patriarchy to have its druthers.
Better to keep women in line.
This is less offensive?

Fuck that.

Pee Standing Up? Your Pants Are Sexist.

2010-01-14T17:28:00.001-06:00

I invite you, dear reader, to take a moment to become reacquainted with your trousers. Really examine them. They're pretty cool-looking, right? Maybe they have awesome glitter or swirly embroidery and you're really quite satisfied with the fit, thankyouverymuch. I have bad news for you, however: your pants were not designed with you in mind.

Oh, I'm not going on about the restriction of movement and the tightness of fit. That's a rant I'm sure we've all had. Or not. The point I had in mind is that your pants were taken directly from the male model without a whole lot of consideration for your anatomy...namely, consideration for your lack of penis.

Think about it. The fly is designed for male ease of pissing. What about your ease of pissing? Make that fly a few inches longer, vanish a few cultural standards, and, with a little practice, we'd all be peeing high and mighty.

Why, you ask, would anybody want to bother with stand-up urination? As a lady who spends a reasonable amount of her time out in Teh Wilds, allow me to present a few reasons why having to pull your pants down sucks hardcore:

Your arse is exposed to the elements, which is really quite annoying when:

          (a) 50 mosquitoes instantly alight on it
          (b) you're in sub-zero temperatures
          (c) there's army ants, or a sandstorm, or WHATEVER.

It takes a lot fucking longer to find a sheltered spot and wrestle with your pants and underwear than to simply step off the trail and piss standing up. Holding your group up sucks. Not to mention that cover is sometimes simply not to be found...Texas springs to mind.*
When it's pitch-black out you can't tell where you're pissing, which can leave you peeing, oh, I don't know, on your own pant leg?
With your pants around your knees you've got a lot less mobility if, for example, an enraged water buffalo or drug lord spies you.

Even if you don't like hanging out on mountains and that, there are advantages to peeing manstyle. It takes less time to do than the traditional version, and if someone walks in on you, you're saved from a bit of suddenly-public nudity.

Certainly there are devices to assist female urination...the Shenis, the Go Girl, and the P-Mate spring to mind. Although this may be practical for hanging out in the wilderness, I just can't really get into carting around a giant piss-smelling plastic thingy for everyday use. So I will continue blaming the root of the problem: pants designed for a phantom penis.

* We're going to pretend that Blogspot is actually reasonable about handling numbering and bullet systems.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Heterosexism Update

2010-01-13T19:53:00.000-06:00

Maybe this is the longest blog in the world.
Maybe you were wondering how heterosexism was going.
Maybe I feel like telling you—you scamp, you.

Well, my two big points are Totally Current News Blurbs, but to put it into context can we recognize that sexuality-related hate crimes are on the up and up? They are totally in right now. At first, I thought I was just more aware this year, or that the media was paying them more attention, but no, we are actually experiencing a surge in hate crimes, especially those relating to transphobia. And, maybe I am too sensitive, but the one that I have not been able to shake from the "PANIC!" section of my brain since it first made the media (roughly two months ago) is this one, you know, the gay Puerto Rican teen who was killed, dismembered, decapitated and SET ON FUCKING FIRE. If this is motivated by their deep religious convictions, I think we need to have a talk.

In more recent news, today Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni decided that his bill punishing homosexuality "repeat offenders or HIV Positive Offenders" with life imprisonment or death was going to make him lose Facebook Friends, so he released a statement that said he would "lessen the punishment, or something, gees you guys, come on." Okay, so maybe that isn't a direct quote. But this is:

"The prime minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays, Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays. Mrs Clinton rang me. What was she talking about? Gays."

BBC News

So, on the one hand: Fucking hooray for not genociding all your gays! Congratulations, dude. On the other: Wait. Did he just totally announce that he was only doing this because it would interfere with his foreign policy and his ability get other countries to do things for him? Yes. Yes he did. Well, shit. I guess that is how the world works. End result, eh? I'm curious to see what the new, lesser punishment is, since Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda.

WELL. Thank god we live over here in the Civilized World, where people are free to love and marry and-- oh. Oh wait.

Right—

PART TWO: THE PROPOSITION 8 TRIAL IS AWESOME AND HERE IS WHY.

No matter who wins this trial, the loser is almost certain to appeal to the higher court...which would be the Circuit Court of Appeals, which would be the Overture to the grand opera Gay Marriage is Totally All Up Ons the Supreme Court. You know that one, right? This possibility also scares me a little bit, because the Supreme Court is, um, pretty conservative right now. Discounting possible social conservatism, they are also pretty Anti-Federalist, and a nationwide marriage amendment would probably rankle them, and they'd have to repeal DOMA, and that sounds just messy enough to make me afraid that they'll vote it down and then a precedent will be set and I will NEVER GET MARRIED. See, the personal is political!

The lawyer (lolyer) team fighting against Prop 8 is comprised of: The lawyer who represented Bush in the 2000 Election Mess + The lawyer who represented Gore in the 2000 Election Mess. I don't know how I feel about that other than (1) clearly these dudes are high profile, and have clearly Got Their Shit Together. (2) Bonding in the face of obvious institutionalized oppression?! For me! Oh boys, you shouldn't have!

Beyond their general significance, the past two days have shown that those dudes totally Kick It. The first day they called in social scientists who very specifically showed the importance of marriage in mental, social and physical health. I am not going to go get you a link right now, because I heard about it on NPR, but it was awesome. And then, they called in gay couples, who talked about how not being able to get married was causing them mental, social, and physical distress.

Today, they called in Historians. Lots of them, but specifically, they called Dr. Yale, who sat that jury down and gave them a lecture on 100 YEARS OF HOMOPHOBIA. Owned.

The Court Case is called... Perry vs Schwartzenegger! What! Okay, come on, that is awesome.

What I am telling you is that all I do these days is google "Prop 8 Trial."