2009-02-20 22:46 | Spring cleaning, and cetera.

Tonight has been spent, among other things, managing my blog layout.  Primarily, I focused on improving linking to other folk:  I added the Recent Comments item, I moved the "blogroll" up a bit and updated the links, and I installed the CommentLuv plugin.  (I don't know if that last will work yet, but why not?)

I will never entirely know what I'm using this blog for.  I have the occasional idle idea of moving entirely over to here (from my LJ journal), but it will never fly.  I get a sense of community from LJ that I don't get from other blogs.  To torture an analogy, LJ is like a dorm, and individual blogs (e.g., any non-LJ blog in the Linkage sidebar item there) are like houses in a suburb.  The analogy is intended to highlight the casual atmosphere of LJ, versus the slightly more formal nature of non-LJ blogs.

Each have their ups and downs.  I tilt more towards casualness, so I'm more on LJ, the end.

*waves hand*  Regardless, I wanted to improve others-linkage because even though this is a teensy hole-in-the-wall as far as blogs go, I want to… include? acknowledge? others.  Some word that means "Though I'm a small corner of the web, every strand counts".

I still get nervous that I'll say the wrong thing or not do something right or whatever.  I greatly admire a bunch of these well-spoken, successful, amazing women who I've linked to on the sidebar there, and I have the doom-anx, you know.  But I figure that so long as I (a) respond well to constructive criticism and (b) continue improving, any fuck-ups I have will not involve deportation.

Anywho.

• I set the &%*$ tag cloud to not be limited in number but be uniform in size.  I cannot abide mixed-size tag clouds.
• I added a random quote generator.  I think.  I may post my Javascript workaround, since none of the plugins are pleasing me at the moment.
• I created a bingo card page.  Gosh is it ever a work in progress, but I lurv it.
• I updated a few plugins what needed it.
• I streamlined my new post page.  Turns out you can remove modules, which cuts down on page load time, yay!

I'm still inordinately pleased with myself for adding and updating that RSS footer plugin, that advises that I will receive comments through here, not through LJ.  I do not want to discourage input, and I really hope I wasn't rude, but I don't get notifications from comments made on the LJ feed, and I don't want to miss them.

And in conclusion, I've been lying to my girlfriend by saying this game is easy.  It's fun, but after a certain level, I want to break out the graph paper.

Or, uh, go to sleep.  Right.

2009-02-16 12:38 | Alas, poor rock music.

Have you ever suddenly realised a writing style of yours, and suddenly you can't un-notice it?  This has been bugging me recently.

Anyways.  One big feminist sticking point for me has been that I like a lot of things that could never be called feminist, and I don't want to give them up.  I like them.  I don't want to never see a show again due to my being a feminist.

The lovely thing is, that's not how feminism goes.  From my experience, most* feminist-folk don't say "You can't do $thing, that's not feminist enough!".  They mostly say, "Do as you like, but try to recognise when it's non-feminist."  Like shaving my legs.  I do not shave my legs just for myself.  I shave my legs because that's what's expected of women from society, and I have wicked rippin' anxiety that makes the cost of not shaving higher than I can usually pay.  It's not a feminist act, unless I feel some bizarre need to say "Taking care of my mental health is feminist"… except, where'd that anxiety come from?  Eh?

* 10% of any group is composed of assholes.  Feminism is a group.  Ergo…

I'm losing track.  Anyways.

I have, though, been turned off whole things before due to the poor treatment of women.  For example, I tried watching Star Trek: The Original Series from cover to cover, as my roommates have the whole series on DVD.  And while I do love me some Star Trek, I couldn't keep watching.  I have more experience with the books than with the show, and in the books, women have more character, more experience, more bloody usefulness as people.  I stopped watching in the middle of season 3.  The first to get me full of rage was The Empath, where the star alien was a beautiful mute emotional empath human-looking female.  I fast-forwarded over whole chunks of that episode, because argh, I could not stand it.  And then, right after, Elaan of Troyius.  A savage royal woman is being married to a member of the opposing side in order to stop a war.  She throws huge tantrums, but when Kirk wears her down, she falls apart, says she's worried she won't be liked, and then …"begins to treat him as a loving equal, obeying him when he asks her to go to sickbay (the safest part of the ship)" (source).

…what?  What?  WHAT??

I stopped watching ST:TOS entirely.  I'd been having problems before, but those two episodes, back-to-back, turned me off the show.  I still appreciate it for the forward-thinkingness it had for its time, but I just got goddamn sick and tired of watching women be thorough stereotypes nearly all the damn time.  As I said to my roommate, "I have better things to do than watch women be treated like crap some more."

Music has a way bigger hold on me.  I love to sing.  I sing in the shower, I sing at my computer, I sing when I'm in the middle of a conversation but hold on this part is really good… yeah.  I love it a leetl beet.  And so when I run into songs that are terrible from a feminist standpoint, often I'll let it slide, because that song is familiar and fun to sing to and… I don't want to give it up.  It's part of my nostalgia-things, and I don't want to have to give it up.

On the other hand, if I never ever hear a song that uses the phrase "like a child" to describe the (male) singer's (female) love interest, it will be too goddamn soon.  Minor examples:

* Steppin' Out – Joe Jackson
* Wild World – Cat Stevens
* She's Always A Woman – Billy Joel
* Wicked Garden – STP
* Walks Like A Lady – Steve Miller Band

The song that actually got me considering all this is I Can't Quit Her by Blood, Sweat & Tears.  I otherwise loved the song, but it kept making me itch.  After the third time it randomly came up and I skipped it, it occurred to me that I can give up things I love if they bother me enough.  I am not required to give things up, but it seems I will anyways, because argle bargle, aggravating.

Dear $item:

I… think we shouldn't see each other any more.  I'm really sorry.  It's not you, it's me – I've changed, as a person, and I don't think we have as much in common any more.  We're seeking different things from life.  I'll always love you, but it's time for me to move on.

Be well,

-X

I'm not going to root through my music collection and get rid of everything that's feministically terrible… but apparently, neither am I going to sit back and listen to it forever. Good to know.

2009-01-28 16:59 | Female-only folk.

I remember a bit from the book Cunt by Inga Muscio, where she encourages the reader to spend a year only reading female authors, only going to female-owned businesses, and so forth.  It's a good idea, but I couldn't do it.  I know me well enough to know that there are things I want to do that would insanely benefit me that I don't get around to, so conceptual things like this?  Ha ha ha, ha.

Not to mention, I have comfort books, books I've reread a zillion times because I like the story and I'm comfortable with it.  I understand that the point of these sorts of things is to push one out of one's comfort zone, but… I dunno, maybe I'm bad at activism.  *shrugs*

Anyhow but, I do listen to Pandora Radio all day.  I have two stations on it – one for classical music (!!), and one for everything I like forever (in order to confound PR).  So, I made a new station, that'll just have female artists on it.  That means blended-gender bands (like Prozac For Lovers, I think) don't get in, either – female-only or bust.  (It doesn't mean female-only artists automatically get a thumbs-up.  See also certain Alanis Morissette songs.)  I seeded it with Poe, Garbage, and Aimee Mann, as those are three female-only artists I could remember off-hand.

I make no resolutions, because I am bad with follow-through.  But I am going to leave this station on here at work, and when I'm at home, and I'll continue to restrict it to female-only artists, and we'll see.

So far, holy crap there's a lot of stuff I forgot I loved.  Like "Ready To Go" by Republica, and "Cannonball" by The Breeders.  And there are a couple of songs that are already dead awesome, like a cover of "Spooky" by Imogen Heap, and "All The Things She Said" by t.A.T.u.

*hums*

2009-01-20 09:16 | "Don't bring me down, no no no no no"

I've seen here/there the sentiment "Don't let us down, Mr. New President".  Don't fuck up, don't disappoint me, don't suck, please.

I can understand that.  This is the first time I've liked and respected a current president.  I am all kinds of hopeful that he will do awesomely, and that hope carries within it the fret that he will let us all down.

However, I can't get fully behind the sentiment of "don't let us down".  Primarily because he is going to.  He is a politician.  (As a side note, every single one of our presidents have been politicians, so this hope that he won't be one confuses me.  It's most likely a parsing error on my part.)  He is also human, and he is going to fuck up sometimes.  He's also a centrist (by American standards, anyhow), and will probably disappoint the left and the right at times.  It's going to happen.

My wholly un-asked-for opinion (being that this is the internet and all): my hope is that we don't let him off the hook.  I hope we don't get so lost in this hope that he'll be better than Bush that we lose that hope the first time he fucks up.  I hope we hold him accountable.

That's what I am hoping for today.  I do want my newfound belief in the presidency to not be damaged, because I'm all protective like that, but I think it's my job as a citizen here to provide feedback, and I hope that we all do that.  That when he fucks up, we let him know that he's fucked up.

–

Some days, I wish I could write like I see.  I'm all jumbled up today.

2008-11-16 02:19 | *sniff*

Contains possible spoilers for Shawshank Redemption and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

You know actually, and I don't know if the part of me getting older is me relaxing or my emotions being more accessible… I'm a big softie.  I tear up at movies, for heaven's sake.  And not just movies that deserve it, whatever that means.  I'm rewatching Shawshank Redemption, and I damn near cried at the part where Brooks got out.  I definitely teared up when Dufresne got out.

I am a big pot of mush, honestly.  I just don't trust people, is all, plus the whole anxiety thing, so I don't let it out as often.

In other news, sometimes I like movies that aren't about spoilers.  Like… this one, I suppose, but also other movies, like Silence Of The Lambs or The Godfather.  They have spoileriffic elements that I won't get into, but the interesting things to me are the interactions between the people.  Like watching Hannibal interacting with Clarice – the way he expresses himself (physically and verbally), the way Clarice reacts (physically and decision-making-wise)…

These are not spoilers in the usual sense of the word, but they are a huge part of what I enjoy in a movie.

(Which is not to say I don't like action movies.  See also Die Hard.)

In conclusion, I like what I like and I don't like what I don't like, and I find the concept of a movie "deserving" an emotional reaction to be kind of weird and not for me.  I mean, for serious, I teared up at the end of both Iron Giant (deemed good by the masses) and Enchanted (I have no earthly clue).  I watch Finding Nemo and I feel bad for the father; I watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith and I get heartbroken when she's yelling at John, "C'mon!  C'mon!"

(The scene is when they are supposed to be really angry with each other, and they end up pointing guns at each other — they in fact have hits out on each other, issued by their respective companies — and John breaks first – "You want it? It's yours."  And it's clear he just… can't.  Her response indicates, to me, that she needs this to be clean, she needs to do this without feeling, and him showing an emotional response breaks the… necessarily superficial view she has of him.  And it's heartbreaking.)

I am rambling.  I blame the hour.

2008-11-05 10:50 | Yaaay rollercoasters!

I can't get my thoughts together – I'm still a little hungover, and I'm usually scattered anyhow so this is hardly news.  So have a bullet list of responses instead.

• CNN has a page up that displays certain ballot measures from each state.  I am pleased beyond measure that the abortion ban in South Dakota didn't pass.  I am pissed that Prop. 8 passed in California.  I'm hopeful that the last 5% of the precincts are all nos, but I'm not delusional.
  
  (For the record, the remaining counties are Imperial, Kings, Monterey, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Tulare.)

  I think part of it was due to not stressing enough the resemblance between banning gay marriage and banning interracial marriage, for example.  I am hopeful that this will be rescinded in the future, even though it means more back-and-forthing for same-sex couples in California.

• I read here and there that we should not cheer too much, that this is just a chance for change and not the change itself, and so forth.  I have two things to say to that.  First, Obama himself said that.  We are not flamingly stupid, thank you.  Second, could you give us a day to feel relieved and gleeful and things?  Thanks.
  
  I realise the crushing irony of me, a cynic, saying "Stop being such a buzzkill", but it's there.  It's more that I get irritable when people assume that someone not explicitly stating $x means they have not even considered $x.  (Plus I tend to rankle at admonishing tones.)  In this case, apparently being full of teary relief means people think Obama is the messiah who will change everything and will never disappoint us ever.  Pah.
• This is the first time I have ever been this excited about an election.  And this is the first time I've ever felt motivated to help – like there is hope for change.

More links to more results.

2008-10-26 10:59 | A thing I wonder, and a description for myself.

This is jumbled, as I just woke up.

Intersectionality, as far as I understand it, is kind of a Venn diagram of activist things – feminism, anti-racism, fat activism, disability stuff, and so forth.  It's an attempt to remember that feminism and anti-racism, for example, are not always two separate things.

That's my note to myself.

Sometimes, a commenter in a feminist blog (I primarily read feminist blogs, so) will come to the conclusion that a certain issue is clearly not important to feminists because there's no outrage about it in the feminist blogosphere.

I want, I want right now, a list of the feminist blogs listed in this feminist blogosphere.

I am not going the route of "You have to make sure that you have checked every single one, or you have no right to complain!".  Because ew.  Rather, I am reacting to the outrage on the part of said commenter.  Because honestly, and it's possible I am totally missing something, it comes off as a sort of advanced form of concern trolling.

It's also possible I am cranky in the morning.

2008-10-25 21:58 | I have sexist things in my head.

Full disclosure: I am female, for the most part.

I was talking with Rose about men, for reasons that escape me.  I said that I think I'm sexist towards men, oddly enough.  "Oddly" because while I know better than to think being a feminist means I'm exempt from some things, you'd think I'd've considered this before.

Honestly, I don't think that men…matter as much as women do.  (In general, naturally.)  I think they matter in the sense that they have more power in this culture, and so I have to pay more attention when I'm around them, but I don't think they're real, as often.  I don't think they have to be.

It's hard to articulate, and I worry that I will misquote my girlfriend or my boyfriend (I talked with them both on this), and feh.  I will muddle on, and if either of them have an issue, I will totally correctify things.  And if things I say are offensive… well, they might be.  I am writing out my thoughts and feelings on this, because I find it easier to correct my head when the contents are on paper, as it were.

Basically: "With great power comes great lack of accountability."  Men aren't as often real because they don't have to be.  Why would they ever stop being velveteen?  They are unlikely to be tossed aside, so it doesn't seem to occur to them to seek real love.  To clunkily metaphorise.

Rose: Well I mean, look at the Greek gods, for example.
Xtina: Oh, yes! Like Zeus!
Rose: Exactly!
Xtina: All that power, and still so… childish.

They don't become real people because they don't have to.

Women, on the other hand, matter, and I am still finding it hard to properly define that term.  They're more likely to be real, to have substance.

This all came about because of a friend-of-a-friend who is trans, FTM.  I was looking at his photos spanning from before he transitioned to after.  I noticed that I was interested – as in, rather, I felt that there was a person there to be interested in – when I saw his earlier photos (when he was more female-bodied), and that the interest went sharply down the more the person appeared male.

(I have likely mangled that all to hell.  It's perplexing, trying to be not-an-ass while also not knowing enough to know what words to use.  Correction is welcome.)

That's what clued me in to the fact that maybe it's me, not the world.  Maybe men can be real, and maybe my perception is influencing things way more than I thought.  I noted that I do this a lot, actually, mostly with blogs.  I can love the hell out of someone's words, but when I find out they're male, my interest wanes.  I still love the words, but I'm less attached to the person delivering the words, and instead I focus on the words only.

"Interest", I got it right up above.  I mean it as "I feel there's a person to be interested in".  I feel that there is potential to connect to that person, as a person.

…

This is a little unsettling.  I'm not entirely certain where to go from here, to be honest with you.  But I figured I would at least post it – get it out of my head, so that I can better work on it.

2008-08-02 03:22 | This applies to any other separative thing.

It's a thought I can't well articulate, but it's been in my head for ages now.  It's this absurd idea that we're all human, under the gender veneer.  I'm not even being sarcastic about this– well, not at this point, at any rate.

It's really absurd, because aren't we all essentially our genders?  We're Male and Female and That Freakish Other, right?  And then we're people.  So I have this vague notion that we're people first, and our genders second.  Gender being a social construct, and all.

I sometimes think this, when I want to feel like a real human being – maybe I already am, and the gender comes later.

And then I am full of despair, because for serious, how many other people think this?

2007-08-29 10:06 | Another "Oh!" moment.

"the other good way i've seen it stated is that it pretty much doesn't matter what you are doing or wearing or drinking, only whether the people you're with are rapists or not."
- roula

This is an "Oh!" moment because once it's phrased like that, the question that immediately springs to my mind is, "How can I tell whether [men in any particular area] are rapists?"  And there's no good answer to that.  Since most rapes are in fact performed by intimates (friends, family, partners, &c), there's almost entirely no answer to that.  And it shortcuts many attempts at victim-blaming, or at least I'd hope so.

(Note: these are my "two two-hours-of-sleep sessions" thoughts.  It's possible I should be way more cynical.)

2007-05-02 08:56 | Hot cuppa awesome.

Amanda at Pandagon takes on a Reason article in "How the existence of sexism disproves sexism".  I am too tired to come up with commentary, apart from that the essay and the comments are the awesome.

Quasi-relatedly, one of these days we'll stop equating "People have a reason for doing things" with "People have a good reason for doing things".  Just a random annoyance.

2006-11-02 09:12 | Toss-off thought.

In the olden days, I used to wonder whether there could be an honorific for men that indicates their married status.  The only reason I wondered was because there was a linguistic imbalance – there are three honorifics for women, and only one for men* – and I wanted to redress it, because I am a dork when it comes to linguistics.

(Although, asidely, I must say I'm happy with my dorkdom.  I could be embarrassed that I derive pleasure from reading the dictionary, frex, but I choose to instead wonder why a lot of people regard this as strange.)

It seriously just occurred to me recently that this imbalance is ugly in more ways than just being linguistically asymmetrical.  Because I ask you, why is it necessary to know the ownership marriage status of the woman, but not of the man?  And now it's become mandatory that I look up the variously used honorifics.  Curse my brain, anyhow.

- ma'am (from 'madam'): Polite term of address for a woman.  Originally ma dame, "my lady".  And here I was all ready to like this one (since saying "Sir or Ms." sounds atrocious).  Eh, I suppose it'd be safe to assume that few people know the etymology of this…

- mrs.: Polite term of address for a married woman.  Originally from "mistress".

- miss: La la unmarried woman.  (Not single, unmarried.)  Short version of "mistress".

- mister: La la man, marriage status unnecessary.  Originally from "master".

- -ess, -enne, : Suffices that indicate feminine nouns ("goddess", "tragedienne", "aviatrix").  Apparently, usage of these suffices are in decline.  Good.

I find it interesting that "mistress", the female version of "master", went from indicating a female in power to indicating a woman who is having an affair with a married man.  I also find it interesting that it went from power down to two ways of indicating married status.  But just for the womens, you know.

I'm not sure what I mean by "interesting", but there you go.

I wish I could find a different word for… I don't know the grammar term off-hand.  "Sir or [miss|ma'am] or other…"  A replacement for the words in brackets.  I said already that few know where "ma'am" comes from (incidentally, "lady" apparently comes from "loaf-kneader"), in the same way that few know that "hysteria" originally meant "suffering in the womb", or that "vagina" originally meant "sheath".  Words about women can be really creepy, sometimes.

Since I already know most don't know the original terms, I doubt people use them with malice aforethought.  Once I find out the history of certain things, though, it's hard for me to use the words in the future, knowing what they originally meant.

* Assuming nowadays-day English-speaking USA, as I often do, being smack in the center of all three of those.  Dunno from earlier times or other languages/countries.