2010-01-28 23:57 | …

I don't usually say "that's heartbreaking", because… I don't know.  I might be cynical, or I might not be able to be heartbroken due to wherever I'm at at the time, or I might not &c because I don't have access to that part of myself right now.

This got right past that, though, and straight to tearful swearing.

So that there is your warning, about rape culture and the law and abortions and the augh-ness of it all.

These are both by Harriet Jacobs at Fugitivus.  They're long, but immensely worth reading.

* My New Job: "In my state, minors are required to notify their parents. They are not required to have parental consent, only notification. The notification has to occur before the procedure. Both parents have to be notified. There is a judicial bypass procedure, where the minor can go to court and petition a judge to allow her to bypass the requirement for notification. Before working here, that's about all I knew. Probably that's all most of you know.  Let's start with a case example to move you through every aspect of how this actually works."

*Another Post About Parental Notification: I just can't even find a good part to quote.  She posts about interacting with said girls who are seeking an abortion.

I have no ending for this post.

2010-01-25 16:55 | Whole Foods: *spit*

Weigh Less, Pay Less: Whole Foods Offers [Employee] Discount Based On BMI

Courtesy of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, star of such snafus as offering an Obamacare alternative and trolling the Wild Oats forum.

2010-01-05 15:12 | Quote of the last August.

Open discussion of disability and the like is generally wonderful. Mandatory cultural educator status for every disabled person not so much.

–Tapetum, 2008-08-05, here.

This absolutely goes for any topic.

2009-11-15 11:12 | Feminism in daily life.

I'm trying to type this out on low coffee.  A blanket "I hope you know what I mean" should be applied to this post.  Feel free to poke if you don't.

Last night, my boyfriend Josh and I were nattering about the word "slut", for whatever reason.  (I honestly can't recall how it came up.)  He was arguing that in his experience, the word is used in a gender-neutral sense.  I argued that not so much in mine.  (Reclaiming words did come up, but this post is long enough as it is.  *wry*)

I eventually found some words for it, explaining that in American culture, it's generally expected that men will have sex, whereas it's expected that women (the "good" women, anyhow) will not, so much.  Women are supposed to wait until marriage or love, and aren't generally supposed to be the pursuers.  Men are supposed to be the pursuers, to have the sexual experience, and so forth.  See also the difference in meaning between a woman being a virgin versus a man being a virgin.  So if men are expected to have sex whenever they can get it… how on earth would "slut", the pejorative term ("you have sex a lot and that's bad and you're bad for doing it"), even apply to men?  That seemed to get through.

Josh: But I'd really prefer it if it were gender-neutral.
Me: I'd prefer it if the word were meaningless.  Because seriously, why the fuck should anyone care about how much sex someone is getting?  I sure don't.
Josh: …point.

He made mention, disclaiming first that he didn't want to offend me, that you know… there are better things to get angry about than this.  (And yeah, I was getting angry.  "Sometimes it's frustrating, arguing for oppressive bullshit to be recognised.")  I didn't take offense, because I knew what he meant, and he wasn't trying to tell me not to be angry.  I responded with two things:

1) I understand that it doesn't seem to make sense on the outside to care so much about, for example, sexist terms, when there are larger things in the world that need addressing.  However, I believe that it is just as important to pay attention to fixing the small things as well as the big things.  It's like the difference between massive landscaping and pulling out some weeds.  Pulling out the occasional weed might not seem like a lot when compared to landscaping, but it's just as important, goddammit.  Teaspoons.

And in the case of sexist terminology, how can it possibly be unimportant to address language, which is not just how we express our thoughts, but how our thoughts are shaped?  (Chicken/egg, yay.)  Goodness.

1a) Not to mention, grassroots stuff helps me feel useful.  I'm one person; I cannot single-handedly stop rape from ever happening again.  I barely feel powerful enough to help change laws on even a local scale, for heaven's sake.  But I can poke at language and assumptions in those I talk to, and sometimes I'm heard, and sometimes there's change.  And that pleases me.

2) Okay really, like I can't both be concerned about sexist terms and work towards fixing the world on a larger scale?  C'mon.  Him: "Yeah, fair."

Josh: I feel like I just walked into the middle of a Livejournal conversation!
Me: *cracks up*

–

Related to point 1a:

So, Josh and I were sitting outside the bar, and one of the regulars came out to pop across the street for something.

Him: What's up, brothers?
Me: I've got tits.
Him: …what?
Me: I'm not a brother!  I'm like right here!
Him: *cracks up*  All right!

Later, he saw a couple that he was friendly with, so he went up and said "My brother, my sister, what's up?".

Me, to Josh: Hey, it worked!
Josh: He tends to pick up on things.

Poking at language stuff isn't always "Let us stop the conversation and consider the terms you chose to use".  Sometimes, joking does work.

–

And completely random:

Me: I use Spike TV as an example of how feminists couldn't possibly hate men more than men do.
Josh: *snorts*
Me: Sometimes I think that men get all shirty about feminists hating men because we're horning in on their market.

It was some commercial for a show on there, about some stunt guy that basically gets shot, rides his motorcycle at full speed into a wall, and so and so and so forth, before it went back to that one sport where two barefoot guys beat the shit out of each other.  Uhhh-huh.

2009-10-11 18:38 | "Out."

Apparently, it's National Coming Out Day in the US.  (Additional link.)

I'm bisexual, in that that's the easiest way to describe to others how I feel even though the implied gender binary is irritating to me.  I've been thus for more or less over a decade now, at least in a noticed-by-me sense.  So there you go.

[eta] Also genderqueer.  Shows how much I care about it (for myself) that I forgot until someone else posted about it.

If someone could direct me to a good place to order activism-type buttons, that'd be fab.  I recall ages ago that I wanted to get one or three for my (wonderfully durable) bag, primarily due to why not.  (I will of course be looking around when I have brain-space free, but if you have a good link immediately available, hey, might as well ask.)

In conclusion:

2009-10-01 10:22 | Your links for the hour.

I have a backlog.

*) Alternet: 40 Books About Sexuality That You Have to Read

Some are articles, instead of books, but hey.  Nice to print out and save somewhere.

*) Rebel Raising: Is that child crazy?

If you lived in a world where you were constantly confronted by new things, which you were expected to assimilate and understand quickly and without showing concern? If you pretty much never got to choose your own activities? If you were regularly touched, lifted and restrained without your permission? If you lived at the mercy of, however loving, people who were in total charge of your comings and goings, your access to food and drink, your access to activities you enjoy?

I'm not trying to say that we all traumatise our children horribly for no reason. This is not mother-blaming central. But too often we don't see children as people; we don't think, hey, if I were taken from something I was absorbed in, strapped into a pushchair and hurried down the road without anyone checking I understood what was going on, would I scream and struggle? Probably.

*) Raising My Boychick: What is appropriate parenting advice?

I don't think there is no place for parenting advice; that is, to unwind that double negative, I do think parenting advice has its place. The point of the previous post was that while it's sometimes tempting to dismiss parenting advice from someone solely because of their child-less/free status, that's not actually a good enough (or good at all) reason.

So what is appropriate parenting advice? It certainly is not "unsolicited… not-so-masked criticism of [one's] parenting." That's inappropriate at any time, from any source, yet is one of the most common — and most infuriating — types of "advice" parents get, and why we get so defensive on the topic in general.

Advice on parenting is least likely to be received as an attack — or to phrase positively, is most likely to be listened to and reflected on, whether adopted or not — when it is: solicited; humble; experiential; and in line with the receiver's own basic parenting philosophy.

*) Fugitivus: Not a real post

I'm a pretty big believer that wherever you are, that's where you need to be. I don't want to say that's where you "deserve" to be, because that drags in ideas of entitlement and punishment that are really arrogant and cruel. But I do believe that individuals only stay in a place as long as that place is meeting their needs. Not all their needs, and maybe not always the good ones, but people don't stick around for free; there's got to be some return investment, even if that return investment is only "staying here helps me avoid something I perceive to be worse."

*) Fugitivus: Stuff What Boys Can Do

[...] asking men to be allies isn't really a cut and dry case. Privilege is its own kind of oppression; to maintain privilege, one must maintain a very specific and strict mode of behavior. Stepping out of that behavior strips you of your privilege, and leaves you vulnerable for a pretty significant degree of attack. There are times when an ally can pull an Afterschool Special, and there are times where even deigning to disagree could get a guy beat to within an inch of his life. I'd like to see, and hear, more ways that men can be allies in all the different contexts they find themselves in.

2009-09-11 20:24 | …

I've never quite sussed out the etiquette of having a "blog crush", but if it is meet to have one in this sort of situation, I would totally have one on Fugitivus.

(Wait, would I have one on the blog, or on the author?)

Anyways, the post: Personal Life Update

I can't even quote it, because it is all "aiee, yes, this!".  With the main exception of I'm not where she is yet.  I'm still a hermit.  But this gives me… not hope.  It gives me paths for how to get from where I am to where I could be, I suppose is the phrasing.

2009-09-11 10:20 | "Well, what about them?"

Here's Your Big Chance to Ask: What About the Men?, by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville.  She wrote about a New York Times Magazine article, entitled Saving The World's Women.

Interesting. From whom are the world's women being saved? From themselves? From just the women and girls in the developing world? Or are those the only women and girls who need saving? Everything's peachy in the developed world, is it? And then there is this: Can the lives of women and girls, anywhere, be changed if the lives and men and boys aren't changed, too?

[...]

It's just the most amazing thing that the jack-booted enforcers of the patriarchy can't stop demanding, "What about the men?" in every feminist thread on the planet, but when there's actually a place in which it is not only appropriate and useful, but necessary to ask and answer the question, "What about the men?" there's a yawning cavern of silence.

M. LeBlanc at Ph.D. wrote a jumping-off post, Systems, Not People:

The problem with the WuDunn/Kristof piece is not that they painted third-world men as misogynist oppressors each and every one. It's that they left out of the conversation any discussion of the systems that endeavor to keep women oppressed and poor, leaving the racist, xenophobic and triumphalist Western reader free to assume that it is the fault of the dark and violent nature of the men of the developing world. It's a familiar and comfortable reflex, to paint non-Westerners as other. It creates a cocoon of fake security. [...]

Contrary to Okong'o, what WuDunn and Kristof needed to do was not qualify their statements by reminding us that not all men are evil patriarchs bent on oppression, but put their narrative in an analytical context, of why and how these things happen, and why and how they go unpunished in silence.

2009-09-09 08:35 | *spit*

Via Amanda Marcotte:

Women's love-hate work issues studied

American women don't love their jobs – but they sure don't want to lose them, a new poll shows.

A survey of nearly 4,000 women, conducted by Woman's Day and AOL Living, found that 67% of American women would change what they do "in a heartbeat."

Another 79% said "no way" would they want their kids to follow in their footsteps.

But at the same time, nearly two of three women are worried about getting laid off – and just as many would work longer hours just to keep their paychecks.

I, for one, am stunned — stunned! — that women think and feel this way.  It's like they're stuck in this shitty economy the same as everyone else, where by "everyone else" I mean "men"!  I am so glad I read the news; how else would I have learned this?  By talking to women as though they're real people?  That's crazy talk.  A survey was the only way to acquire this information.

I am expecting the next article to be about how a survey of nearly four! thousand! American women shows that 63% of them like to sleep in.  The mysterious inner lives of women, revealed!

2009-09-08 16:04 | Your posts for the day.

* On parenting advice and the idiocy thereof, at Raising My Boychick:

But then I spent years in a parenting and natural living community before getting pregnant (before even deciding to try), so I also know the sting of being dismissed simply for not having had kids yet. I know how much it hurts — and how wrong it is — to tell someone they can't possibly know anything about children just for not having their own yet. And after I spent a couple years spending much of my time around other parents, reading parenting books, studying midwifery and everything baby-related (you should see my book collection!), and my parenting ideas gelled? They didn't change when I had the Boychick. People told me "you'll get a stroller, you'll learn to love disposable diapers, you'll let him cry — just wait, and you'll sing a different tune." And they were, simply, wrong.

And more on the topic of "You don't have kids, so your input is invalid".

* Dream, at Fugitivus, wherein she writes about this dream she had, and how it represents her leaving her abusive relationship… and leaving a friend in one.  Trigger warning for abusive-relationship content in full effect.

Two awesome posts.

2009-09-06 21:18 | Today's kickass quote, via karnythia@LJ.

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

– Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr.

2009-09-01 11:04 | Egalitarianism.

It would probably be rude to repost an entire comment here, so instead I will do my usual excerpt-and-link.

reclusiveparadox says:

In response to the concept of feminism fighting all forms of oppression (ableism, cissexism in general not just transmisogyny, racism, etc etc), I don't think it really works.

We already have a term for a movement that seeks to fight every inch of oppression everywhere it raises its head. Egalitarianism. And anyone can be Egalitarian because it includes everyone. It is the overarching rights for all movement.

Feminism (like disabled activism, womanism, racial activism, trans activism, and etc) is more of a specialization of Egalitarianism.

This comment gets what I've been thinking for months and months now, but have not been able to verbalise.

2009-08-25 09:55 | Linkdump ahoy.

These have been in my Google Reader for approx. forever, so I linkdump them for you.

• Conscience in a bottle:
  

  …Nowhere in Fiji Water's glossy marketing materials will you find reference to the typhoid outbreaks that plague Fijians because of the island's faulty water supplies; the corporate entities that Fiji Water has — despite the owners' talk of financial transparency — set up in tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg; or the fact that its signature bottle is made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled plant and hauled thousands of miles to its ecoconscious consumers. And, of course, you won't find mention of the military junta for which Fiji Water is a major source of global recognition and legitimacy. (Gilmour has described the square bottles as "little ambassadors" for the poverty-stricken nation.)…

  [h/t Hoyden About Town]

• Unsolicited career advice:

The approach to What To Do After School is based on social expectations and some vague nod to the subjects kids like at school. Oh, and a goodly helping of What The Parents Do, or possibly Not What The Parents Do. None of this is particularly useful – except conceivably Not What The Parents Do.

So this is my advice to teens considering what next.

The very first thing to consider is that what you choose now is highly unlikely to determine the rest of your life, despite what the Powers That Be would have you believe. I know you've been told this before, but seriously, I hardly know anyone who didn't have some change of tack post-school and I know lots who have had several (like me, for instance).

This post is also useful for those who, like me, have never really or seriously considered the questions this blogger puts forth.

[h/t Hoyden About Town]

• At Raising My Boychick, Arwyn compares childbirth to athletics, in a wonderful fashion:
  

  I am not here trying to say that all natural birth advocacy = feminist = good, nor all medicalized birth advocacy = misogynist = bad, which would be as ridiculous as it would be fallacious. Rather, I am saying that kyriarchy's construction of labor and birth as unbearably painful, as unworthy (as opposed to war games or athletics), and women as either too weak or too "advanced" to tolerate it, is inherently misogynistic. Whether an individual woman follows the biological default and has (or pursues) unhindered birth, or elects to make use of the medical interventions available to most of us in developed nations, does not reflect on her moral standing, any more than participating in, or not participating in, athletic events does. But the current cultural construction of birth must change: not by moving backward to a time when women had no options in childbirth, and were expected — even encouraged — to suffer, and in which there were no medical interventions for when they were truly needed; but forward, to a time when our bodies are valued, our spirits are supported, and the work of birth is seen as hard, yes, and even sometimes painful, but within reach of most of us, and oh so worth it: just like athletics.

• M. LeBlanc writes at Bitch Ph.D. on the concept of "the best revenge is living well":
  

  Last night, I was relaying all this to The Bear, and he said something I've heard many times before, that beating them, being better than them, is the best revenge. And I must confess that I've taken great pleasure in winning cases over counsel who have slighted me in the past. But I don't want "revenge." [...] I hate the burden of feeling that any mistake I make, any omission or error, any time when I don't perform not only well, but stunningly, I am confirming their racist, sexist, and ageist opinion of me as incompetent. I do not want to "prove" myself to them, because they will never reconsider their initial opinion of me just because I happen to beat them. My stellar performance will never mean, to them, that they were wrong to disregard me because I'm a young brown-looking woman. It will only mean that I am an exception, that I am an oddity, that I am "special." Or perhaps it will mean that there was some other reason I bested them, that it was that I had a better case, or the jury was biased, or the laws were unfair or the judge was against them. It will never vindicate me.

  I don't want revenge. I want respect.

I do believe that is enough for one post.

2009-08-17 19:32 | Interactions.

It sometimes seems like all I do here is share links.  But you know, if that means others get to read good things, then that's fine, as well.

Today's is h/t Deeply Problematic – In This Body: So are you losing weight?

Friend: "So you're training for a triathlon! That sounds like a lot of work."
Me: "I love it! I'm working out twice a day right now — it's great!"
Pal: "Wow! So are you losing weight?"
Me: [Stares blankly until my friend is uncomfortable and stammers something.]

[...]

It is a Russian Roulette question! With my answer, I can be putting a bullet in my relationship with that person — because I don't know what assumptions are believed about me, about fat, about motivation, and about training, for the person to have asked it in the first place!

Figured I'd share.

2009-08-17 08:29 | A brief snippet.

Josh (local partner) and I were walking from my place to his friend's place, a 27-block walk.  (1.4 miles, according to Google Maps.)

X: I'm glad for this.  I've been wanting to go on a walk for ages.  Sucks that I'm more likely to do it with you around.
J: *sighs*  Yeah…
X: On the one hand, it makes things easier.  On the other, infinite kitty-rage about having to have you along just to go on a walk without being accosted.
J: I knew what you meant!
X: Oh yeah, I know, I just wanted to say "infinite kitty-rage".
J: *snort*

What's pleasant today is, I totally know he knew what I meant.  He's good like that.  I just really wanted to say "infinite kitty-rage" just then.

—

In random other news, it occurs to me all of a sudden that between original tags in LJ, all new tags in DW, and completely different tags in WP, crossposting will become a bit of a pain.  For people who don't like to organise.  Luckily, I do not know these people.

2009-08-16 17:31 | So then this means…

I am testing three things:

1. Will this post to both DW and LJ?
2. Will all tags be used?  Including ones with a colon in it?
3. Can I use the "more" tag as a cut tag in each?

Sooo:

(more…)

2009-08-16 17:21 | MUL TI POST

Leelu Dallas multipost.

By which I mean to say, I now have it set to where this will xpost from WP to both DW and LJ, go me!

2009-08-15 13:50 | Onwards to the feminist stuff.

Two posts have been stuck in my tabs for the past week or so.

1) The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck, at Shakesville, by Melissa McEwan.  It's hard to find one good quote out of that essay, as I would end up quoting the entire thing.  I suppose one that would kind of summarise the post:

These things, they are not the habits of deliberately, connivingly cruel men. They are, in fact, the habits of the men in this world I love quite a lot.

All of whom have given me reason to mistrust them, to use my distrust as a self-protection mechanism, as an essential tool to get through every day, because I never know when I might next get knocked off-kilter with something that puts me in the position, once again, of choosing between my dignity and the serenity of our relationship.

Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon?

This is entirely exactly it.

2a) Harriet Jacobs wrote at Fugitivus about making rape jokes, and it is a good post, but one thing stuck out as something that hadn't occurred to me:

Whenever you hear about the epidemic number of women who are raped, bear in mind that there is an equally epidemic number of rapists.

So telling rape jokes isn't just bad because statistically speaking you might be telling this around a rape victim.  It's bad because statistically speaking, you might also be telling this around a rapist, or potential rapist.  And so you're contributing to the notion that rape jokes are just fine.

I have already nattered about how one can contribute to such things simply by being quiet.  I already know that rape jokes are perfectly awful for a myriad of reasons.  Just for some reason, that phrasing brought home to me, again, that the only reason why rape happens is that rapists exist, and also that I can't, just by looking, tell who they are.

Right, back under the covers for me.

2b) In that same post, she also wrote about jokes being a way to relieve tension.  Quote:

Jewelbeard is extremely liberal. He wants to help people regain their civil rights. He is pro-choice, he is pro-gay, he professes a unremarkable and unverified affinity to anti-racism. But he cannot stop calling his cats filthy sluts, or acting like a fucking asshole in D&D.

[...]

The bear confronted Jewelbeard with his zany douchebag antics, and Jewelbeard offered the excuse he always does: “It’s to relieve tension.” He went on to explain that he totally isn’t sexist — I mean, he’s pro-choice and everything! — and he completely respects women and sexism is wrong like definitely totally, but gaming is his place to cut loose and so that’s why he acts that way when he games.

There is nothing wrong with having a place and a time to relieve built-up tension. But by shifting the argument thataways, Jewelbeard neatly sidestepped the question of why there is a tension build-up in the first place. He is basically admitting that not getting to call women bitches and whores and treat them like he hates them on a daily basis creates an intolerable tension within him, and it must be let out somehow.

More for my "Gah, yes, this!" file. Absolutely.

2009-08-15 11:09 | Last try.

I am going to try this one last time.  I'm testing this Wordpress LJ-XP plugin, wherein I can crosspost my WP entries over to Dreamwidth.  So, good morning.

(Whoop, afternoon, actually.)

2009-07-16 12:16 | DHS PDF.

FOUND IT:

Child Welfare Practices For Cases With Domestic Violence

On the one hand, I can entirely understand the assumption of mother being the abused and father being the abuser.  Statistically speaking, &c &c.  On the other hand, I really don't like that the idea of men being abused or women being abusers is dismissed entirely.

"Domestic violence is more than the physical assault. The controlling tactics perpetrators use are reinforced by societal and cultural stereotypes and institutions that overall give more status and power to men. Cultural norms stress the importance of women staying in the relationship, regardless of the consequences."  ("Definitions", page 12.)

The thing is, cultural norms also stress the importance of men not being seen as weak, because women could never possibly be the abusers.  ("How could you let a woman do that to you?")  So I entirely agree with their paragraph about cultural norms, I just think they don't take it far enough.  I don't think that making the document gender-irrelevant, and inserting another paragraph in the Definitions section to explain cultural norms wrt men as abused/women as abusers, would take away from women.  I think it would expand the concept of domestic abuse to include many more manifestations, and that can only be good.

I may write a letter.