Neutrality Is A Lie

A few days ago, I got linked to Code Pink's Stolen Beauty Campaign, a boycott against AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories. AHAVA is an Israeli company that makes bath and beauty products with Dead Sea mineral mud and is sold worldwide. However, while they advertise as an Israeli company and product, their production facilities and visitor's center are located in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank. It is illegal for them to label their products as "made in Israel", though they do. Furthermore, they use the mud and resources of the West Bank in production of their products, in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, which forbid occupying powers from profiting from the natural resources of an occupied territory. The fourth Geneva Convention explicitly forbids an occupying power from removing the captured natural resources for its own use.

I read about the boycott and actions against AHAVA, filed it away in my "read more later when there's more time" file mentally...but I left the tab open and just worked around it. (I tend to run anywhere from a half dozen to two dozen open tabs at once, so it's not that unusual for me to leave something up for a few days.)

And then today, in perusing my morning's readings from the 80+ blogs I follow, I encountered a post on Temptalia, a makeup and beauty blog I follow. Christine (owner and blogmistress of Temptalia) had posted a review of AHAVA's body wash line. I read through it, and it was a glowing review of the product. I reread it. Where was the caution about the controversy surrounding the product? Where was it mentioned that AHAVA profits from the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, by stealing their natural resoures? There was not so much as a single footnote detailing even a hint of reservation about endorsing this apparently! great! product!

So I waded in, teaspoon held high, and posted a comment:

Christine, please don't advocate, product-push, advertise, review, whatever you want to call it, for AHAVA products. They advertise as being made in Israel, but the products are actually manufactured in a factory compound located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, using resources stolen from Palestinian land, in direct contravention of international law. According to international public law, including the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, the West Bank cannot be considered to be part of the State of Israel; thus, their labeling as being "made in Israel" is false and illegal. This also means AHAVA profits by stealing, manufacturing and selling resources from Palestine: because it harvests minerals from mud pulled from the Dead Sea, from the Occupied West Bank (Palestinian) land, it is technically stealing resources. The fourth Geneva Convention explicitly forbids an occupying power from removing the captured natural resources for its own use.

You have a big following, and your words can make a difference to many people. Please use this positively, to help bring attention to the illegal actions of this company, rather than approvingly reviewing the product and recommending it to your readers.

I'll give her credit for this: she's fast on the draw. Within ten minutes of posting that comment, which got held up in moderation since I'd included a couple of links to the Stolen Beauty Campaign, I received a response by email. I won't post it here, but the gist of it was that since Temptalia is not a political blog, she didn't wish to get into a political discussion on the issue. She wanted, she said, to remain neutral. If I wanted to reword my comment as a general educational spiel to the readership instead of as a call for her to stand up and do something, I was welcome to re-post it.

She wanted to remain neutral, she said. Neutral?

The problem is, there is no such thing as neutrality. You either support the status quo, or you challenge it. By saying "I'm neutral," by standing back and refusing to speak, you support the status quo. A refusal to act is an act of refusal. To claim neutrality is a cop-out. It's the coward's way. It is saying, "This may be a bad thing, but I am not going to involve myself. I'm going to let it happen unchallenged." If you aren't a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. There is no third option. This is the very foundation of All In, the corollary to Teaspoon Theory, the two most basic laws by which I strive to live my life.

I responded to say I respected her wishes and would re-word and re-post my comment, but I also told her my views on neutrality.

When I returned to the post to retry my comment...I found it missing. She emailed me later to say she'd removed the post, pending further research. The power of teaspoons!

And I think, now, that I, like McCain who didn't believe in women's "health", will start putting air quotes around concepts I don't believe in. And "neutrality" is the first to get that treatment from me.

Because there is no Switzerland. "Neutrality" is a lie.

Confronting My Privilege, Accidentally: Part 2 (Pretty)

Sometimes there are forms of privilege that you academically knew you benefited from, but you don't really *feel* them despite all the research and reading. Until something smacks you and says OH HAI, YOU HAS PRIVILEGE! Particularly situations in which you are temporarily unable to access that particular privilege, for whatever reason. I blogged about my revelations around hetero privilege recently, but right around the same time, I've been confronted by the temporary loss of another privilege I hadn't thought much about.

Pretty privilege.

It's not exactly a secret that cultures privilege varying forms of attractiveness, and that compliance with that standard ensures one access to what I refer to as pretty privilege (particularly for women, hello sexism, when did you come to play?). It comes up from time to time when studies are done that show that more "conventionally attractive" people get paid higher salaries, or are more likely to receive help when they're struggling with something in public, etc. It's a scientifically-proven form of privilege, and yet it gets little airtime in general.

I ran head-first into my pretty privilege last week, when a mini-rash developed on my left eyelid. I had a couple of odd, swollen, red, itchy bumps on the eyelid and browbone above it. As a result, I couldn't quite open that eye all the way; the lid was dragged down on the outer corner and the skin over the browbone pressed out and down over my eyelashes.

Now, I'm also uninsured. And yet my first thought, beyond "What the fuck is that...?" wasn't anything to do with doctors or clinics or how I could pay for treatment if this was something that required medication. It was: "Oh my god, I'm ugly."

Ugly. That's what worried me! I no longer fit the patriarchally-defined Beauty Standard for my culture, and that bothered me more than the potential health ramifications of a mysterious rash near my eye.

Now, even at my best* I don't entirely fit the Beauty Standard. I'm a bit fat (though I'm more of an inbetweenie than truly fat or thin), my nose is kind of long and pointy, my breasts are ginormous but not perfectly round and perky, I don't tweeze my eyebrows, I have a little bit of hair on my toes...I'm sure most women could go on and on about the things they know about themselves that fail to meet the Standard, and I'm no exception. But I fit it closely enough that I am considered pretty, in my cultural context. And until this happened, I had no idea just how much the bulk of my confidence stemmed not from genuine self-love, but from the fact that I knew damn well that I was close enough to beautiful to get away with it on a day-to-day basis. I could go about my business safe in the knowledge that my appearance would, 9 times out of 10, fall somewhere on a positive scale of approval for the people I encountered, and would thus garner me no negative reaction, no disapproval.

But with my droopy eye, when I went out that day to class and to run errands, I was terribly self-conscious. I felt like I was intruding, like I didn't have the right to be go out and be ugly at people. DAMN, had my vanity (and the accident of genetics that preceded it) left me with a humongous blind spot.

Why would I, an avowed feminist, be so invested in compliance with the patriarchal Beauty Standard? What place does that kind of vanity have in someone who seeks the downfall of the entire kyriarchy construct? Surely, I can find something truer in myself to have pride in and be confident about.

I've heard it said recently, "It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your own head." Truer words were never spoken. Harsh as it is, I'm glad I've marked the location of another set of outposts to be taken down.

*I say "best" not in reference to my objective best health, but to the times when I most closely coincide with the Standard.

Wednesday WTF: CNN's Definition of "Activism"

So Scott Roeder, the alleged murderer of Kansas' only abortion provider, Dr. Tiller, is set to stand trial in September. CNN chose to report this with the following headline:

Trial set for anti-abortion activist in Kansas doctor's death

W. T. F??? No. Not even fucking close. Activism means things like protesting, organizing, donating, speaking out, calling legislators, blogging, all sorts of things. One thing that is not included under activities described in the term "activism"? MURDER, you spineless whitewashing fuckwits! Also, for the record, Dr. Tiller didn't just drop dead. He was fucking MURDERED. Remember that part?

Activists don't kill people. Murderers kill people. Learn the fucking difference, CNN.

Confronting My Privilege, Accidentally: Part 1 (Het'ro)

This past week I signed my name onto the National Marriage Boycott: "We won't, until we all can." I spent $10 to support the cause by buying a Marriage Boycott ring, a black band with silver lettering reading "EQUALITY" around it, to be worn on the left ring finger in place of (or if you're already married, in addition to) a wedding band. The idea is that, by signing on and wearing the ring, we pledge to not take advantage of the privilege of marriage until it is truly a right accessible to all Americans.

Anyone who knows me well, knows I'm not the marrying sort anyway. I laugh when people ask when TNBF and I (together for five years now) are getting married, and if they persist, I start to lay out all my issues with the institution of marriage - patriarchal tradition of property rights and inheritance, none of which is really relevant to me - until they back off. When Lieutenant would introduce me to his friends as "My buddy's wife", I would always stop the conversation and correct him. (And isn't it fun, how a vehemently anti-marriage stance goes over in military company...) So it's not like I was planning to get married, now or ever.

But I *could*. If I chose to marry one of my male Others, that is. As a bisexual cis woman, dating two hetero cis men and one bisexual cis woman, I could marry either of my boyfriends but not my girlfriend (considerations of polyamory and who's already engaged to who aside). I *could* benefit from an extension of hetero privilege. It's never occurred to me to do so, but the possibility exists. Until I signed the boycott, that is.

And when I did...I was startled by how much that affected me. I hadn't realized how deeply the option of marriage was ingrained into my psyche, as a woman who dates men, until I voluntarily removed myself from that option. Until now, I didn't want to wed, but if I changed my mind the option was always there. But there have been several times over the past few days that I would be letting my mind wander, think something about "If I got married..." and suddenly stop myself, mentally noting that until marriage equality is achieved that isn't an option for me anymore.

I hadn't realized how much I still relied on hetero privilege until then. I self-identify as queer, as more-or-less bisexual, and have my entire adult life. But the way my life has worked out, there has been no point in my dating that I have not been dating a man. I have dated women as well, but not exclusively. So I have, at all times, had access to hetero privilege. I have always had the option of drawing on that, if I wanted to, and that has shaped my entire way of approaching the world.

Confronting privilege is never easy, never fun, but I'm glad I backed myself into this corner and made myself acknowledge that particular privilege, no matter how accidentally.

If A Feminist Falls In The Woods...Is Falling A Feminist Act?

Recently I’ve gotten into a few heated exchanges on Feministing.com over my habit of critically discussing other people’s choices – particularly, other feminist-identified people’s choices. And in doing so, I’ve run up against an odd kind of group-think that I haven’t encountered much before. It goes like this: If a feminist chooses to do something, that thing is automatically a feminist act. To question the choices of a fellow feminist is to question her dedication to feminism itself, which is utterly out of bounds for a discussion between self-identified feminists. Or something like that.

I first noticed this on a thread about makeup and choosing to wear it or not. The original post was on Feministing Community, wherein the feminist in question said that she didn’t see why she had to give up wearing makeup in order to be a feminist, and that she liked wearing makeup. I posted something to the effect of, “You don’t have to give up wearing makeup to be feminist. There are a lot of feminists who wear makeup. In general, I view the wearing of makeup as adhering to the patriarchally-defined Beauty Standard, and thus an unfeminist act. However, I understand that 1: there are multiple ways to use makeup, and not all of them are for the purposes of meeting the Beauty Standard; 2: It is often advantageous to live in compliance with the Beauty Standard (after all, if there were no social reinforcement for the behavior there’d be no reason to do it) so it can make sense to choose to do so despite one’s principles, and 3: I myself wear makeup often, usually as a compliance measure, so I’m not saying you can’t or that I judge you for doing it. However, I would say that if you choose to wear makeup in a way that seeks compliance with the Beauty Standard, you should think critically about why you’re doing it and the implications of your decision.”

…and a shitstorm ensued. You’d think I had suggested that all feminists must get breast implants in order to attract more men to feminism, or something equally outrageous! I was piled-on by commenters chastising me for “judging” the OP. My comment was misrepresented repeatedly and I was attacked for saying things I had never, in fact, said. I replied by clarifying my comments, emphasizing that I wasn’t judging the OP for her choice, and again saying that I just felt we should think about what patriarchal structures our decisions may play into, without ever saying we MUST decide one way or another based on that assessment. All I was arguing was that we should think critically about the issue and make informed decisions. Is that such a sin?

Apparently, it is. Just try to say, particularly to the crowd at Feministing, that you think a feminist *shouldn’t* do something, and watch what happens. Any attempt to critically discuss a feminist’s choices – even if you carefully say that you’re not trying to actually stop her from doing what she wants – is automatically viewed as an attack on her person and her feminism.

So what constitutes a feminist act, then? Is the only criteria that it is something done by a feminist? Can non-feminists undertake feminist acts? Can a feminist undertake an anti-feminist or un-feminist act?

A feminist act, to me, is simply an act that promotes gender equality and seeks to undermine, overthrow, or otherwise disobey the dictates of the patriarchy we struggle against. An un-feminist act is one that upholds the patriarchal status quo, and an anti-feminist act is one that actively promotes patriarchy or denigrates feminism.

My father would never call himself a feminist in a million years, but if he called out a rape joke someone made in his presence and told the person making it why that wasn’t cool, I would count that a feminist act. I am a feminist and have identified as so for years, and yet I am conscious of the fact that, when I shave my legs and put on makeup to enhance my features and dress fashionably and do my hair and show off my cleavage to advantage because it makes my life easier, I am undertaking un-feminist (though not anti-feminist) acts that indicate my acceptance of patriarchal dictates on the subject of personal appearance for women. I accept that, and own that choice.

Everyone has to make their own choices. I won’t judge a feminist for choosing to undertake un-feminist acts, or try to stop her. After all, realpolitik is the rule of the world. Purists and idealists don’t usually get very far. However, it is a dangerous kind of group-think to be unwilling to ever criticize the actions of a group member. We must take responsibility for the choices we make, and sheltering ourselves from critical analysis is no way to do that.

Today in White-As-Default: Bumper Sticker Edition

So Papa Mio, always a source of conservatism in my inbox courtesy of horrid articles forwarded from the likes of the Patriot Post (Disclaimer: blogger offers no guarantee of continued good health after reading that link. Be aware of potential blood pressure spikes and spat coffee on your monitor.), sent along an email consisting of a list of pithy bumper-sticker-length slogans and phrases about Obama. It's an odd mix of the recycled-from-the-Bush-era - America: Take from the poor and give to the rich.* and If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. - and your standard-issue whinging about taxes and such structured around Obama's campaign slogans: The audacity of hype. and Yes, we can ... destroy America!

But there's one in particular that was jarring enough to stop me as I read through, rolling my eyes the whole way. It was this:

Didn't our ancestors leave Europe to get away from this crap?

Well, sure they did.** If you're assuming that you're only speaking to the descendants of the original colonists, from Europe, who chose to emigrate to the Americas. Not so much, though, if you're taking into account the descendants of the thousands upon thousands of Africans shipped across as chattel, who make up a rather significant portion of modern society. I'm pretty sure their ancestors didn't CHOOSE to leave, nor were they coming from Europe, and sure as shit taxes didn't have fuck all to do with it.

Yet another example of privileging white history as default and relegating black history to the shadows. Sigh. Not that I expect better from a middle-aged, affluent, able-bodied, white, cisgender man - much as I love him, he's got pretty much every kind of privilege possible - who is avowedly a conservative and no ally to marginalized groups...but I can still hope. And send a snarky reply-all. ;-)



*Um...isn't this kind of a liberal's complaint about conservative policies, not the other way around? I don't get how this makes the list of conservative slogans.

**No, they didn't, actually. But that's a discussion of the historical merits of that claim, which would take more time than I have for it right now. Feel free to have at in comments, if you like.

Wednesday WTF: The Sex Gym

Sorry I'm a bit late with the Wednesday WTF this week, it's been a busy day. Also for the dry week this past; got a bunch of new stuff to put up starting tomorrow, be patient!

So it's been all over the progressive blogosphere how Faux News had some anal-chapeau on, wearing a "no chubbies" t-shirt no less, to talk shit about Dr. Regina Benjamin, Obama's pick for Surgeon General, cause OMGZ SHE'S FATZ! And gods know fat people are all stupid and lazy and do nothing but eat cupcakes all day long. There's no way an overweight person could also be a qualified doctor, amirite?

Anyway. So this rectal-haberdasher, named Michael Karolchyk, owns a gym, called "The Anti-Gym" (NSFW), originally in Denver but now in Southern California because the IRS raided his Denver gym after he welshed on six figures worth of back-taxes so he ran off to a new state. Anywho! This charming Anti-Gym is all! about! sex! Tagline: Have Sex With The Lights On. Which, naturally, is only for skinny people. We all know fat people don't have sex, and gods know they don't have sex with the lights on. The only way they can get any is by keeping in the dark so as not to offend their partners' delicate sensibilities.

The website is full of graphically suggestive, NSFW images of Very Thin And Beautiful people gettin' it on as a reward for their thinness. Like, for example, the two hot chicks lapping at one lollipop - seriously? That's just not even trying for creativity. Might as well add a flashing sign that says "Substitute Your Penis Here!"- or the guy with his tongue in one woman's mouth while another bites his neck, or the guy with a woman's panties in his teeth. Apparently, gods forbid you be gay, or at least gay and male. Gay and female is okay, as the image of two women with orgasmic expressions gasping at each other shows, so long as you're doing it for the viewing pleasure of teh menz.

Motivational tactics at the Anti-Gym include throwing baked goods at members on the treadmill, and if you don't measure up at their weekly assessments, you're kicked out of the gym. For atmosphere, you've got a live DJ, cage dancers, and the "Ravish Room", a sauna reserved for those members below a certain BMI.

Are you fucking kidding me? This thing is like the bastard love-child of a shady nightclub, a 70's swingers club, and one of those weight-loss boot camps. Who the fuck goes to something like this?

I think I'll just look at this gym-cum-sex-club like I look at swastika t-shirts: it's a warning label. If you're a member, I know to steer well clear of you.

Also, a tip o' the fedora to wondrous wordsmith CaitieCat for all the asshat euphemisms!

Quick Hit: 15-yr-old WoC pilots cross-country flight

You may have noticed that aviation is a subject near to my roots and dear to my heart, though I no longer fly myself. So this story...is definitely sniffle-worthy.

Kimberly Anyadike, age 15, has just become the youngest known WoC to fly across the country, in a single-engine Cessna from Compton, CA to Newport News, VA. She learned to fly through an after-school program with Tomorrow's Aeronautical Museum in Compton that offers lessons to at-risk and economically disadvantaged youth. Among her reasons for doing this, she says, was to honor the Tuskegee Airmen, the segregated unit of black airmen during WWII. Levi Thornhill, an 87-yr-old veteran of the Tuskegee Airmen, made the flight with her, and along the way they stopped and met 50 other veterans, who autographed the plane.

"That way, they can fly with us forever."

Sniffle. Kimberly, I salute you, and your determination to stand forth as an example of what can be done, while honoring those who came before. You are awesome. Thank you.

Wednesday WTF (Part II): Just slap some boobs on there and call it a day.

Came across this via Sociological Images, which you should be reading if you aren't already. Following is the chronological progression of online ads for a game called Evony:


Pretty innocuous, right? Dude with sword and armor. Standard for the genre. But it goes on:


Sadly, also pretty standard. Pretty maiden enticing assumed-to-be-male player. Bleh, yeah, reinforces idea of gamer=man, woman as prop, etc. But still not bad, as far as these things go. Until it continued:


Still playing the "my Lord" game, and you notice that though it uses "lover" singular, there are two fainting decolletage-y women waiting for you? Don't worry, we're not done yet:


Um, ok. Off of real-ish women and onto plainly cartoonish ones, but this one is kneeling and gazing at you piteously, begging you to save her! Also there's a suspiciously phallic phantom half-a-sword dangling over her cleavage. Seriously, are they even trying anymore? Why not just put a big red arrow and say "Look! Boobies! Right here! And the sword stands for a penis!" Sadly, however, we have not yet reached rock bottom. With increasing desperation:


So now we have a woman with an expression that could pretty easily be read as the transports of post-coital bliss, with the kind of cleavage that makes even me sit and wonder "Is that a hint of areola I see?" And the text, which no longer makes any pretense of talking about the game, but rather borrows phrasing and tone from the late-night "singles chat" ads: "Talk discreetly with other singles in your area, NOW!" See, this woman here, she stands for a hot and available real-life woman. And our game stands for you having sex with her. Don't you want to play? NOW? But we have STILL not reached the end in this race-for-the-bottom! Perceive:


Are. You. Fucking. Kidding me? Having given up even the pretense of anything to do with the game, in terms of background, font, lighting, costuming, anything at all, Evony goes for the slap-you-with-a-brick style of marketing: LOOK BOOBIES, NOW PLAY OUR GAME. BECAUSE YOU LIKE BOOBIES. EVERYONE LIKES BOOBIES. EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC AT HAND.

And after all that boob-heavy marketing? There are no queens and no women characters in the game. At all. In fact, it's apparently come up so often that Evony's FAQ had to address this:

How do I get my queen?
There is no queen in this game, the ad you saw is for marketing purposes and seems to be highly effective by the number of times this question has come up.

That sound you just heard? Was my forehead and my keyboard meeting in a glorious dance of WTF. That is all.

Wednesday WTF (Part I): There's an app for that!

Today's Wednesday WTF will be in two parts. I just couldn't narrow my wtf-ery down to one topic. Look for the second part later today.

Today's Wednesday WTF comes to you courtesy of the iPhone apps store. (via & via) There is, apparently, really an app for everything these days. New to the iPhone apps store, a purity pledge app, complete with a purity ring graphic you can display on your phone after agreeing to the app's purity pledge. WTF?

There are two ways to look at this: either it's intended for people who wouldn't have taken a purity pledge otherwise, only now it's delivered to them in this new and convenient format! or it's intended as an extension on the physical purity pledge/ring for the type of person who is already into the whole abstinence thing. Either way, it makes no sense.

If you're the type who has already chosen to remain abstinent until marriage, and you've already perhaps taken a "purity" pledge (and that's not even touching the plethora of issues surrounding the notion of "purity" as the absence of sexuality, but I digress) and would wear or already do wear a purity ring...why bother with the app? So you get an image of a purity ring to display on your phone. Whooo, how exciting. Also, isn't part of the point of the purity ring to A: "warn off" strangers or acquaintances that they won't be getting any with you, and B: remind yourself in the heat of the moment, when you see your ring, what you've pledged? How does this app do either of those things? Unless you walk around flashing your iPhone at everyone you talk to, or have a habit of constantly picking up and looking at your phone during potentially sexual situations. And if that's the case, you have a problem that goes deeper than meaningless apps and you should probably seek help for your iPhone dependency.

So what about those who have never been exposed to the opportunity to take an abstinence pledge? Do you really think that some random person, probably with fairly healthy sexual appetites as most adults have, is going to see a purity ring app and suddenly decide, "Hey, this sounds meaningful! I'm going to sign my name on the virtual dotted line and get a nifty ring graphic to show for it!" And if they do...how long do you think that'll last? Given that purity pledges fail to be effective even when promised by fervent believers¹, do you really think Random Person is going to be swayed to celibacy by a freaking iPhone app?

And if you really do believe that...there's an app for that, too.


1. "Among those youngsters, 61 percent of the consistent pledgers and 79 percent of the inconsistent pledgers reported having intercourse before marrying", from linked article.