My Father's Name

[originally written as a rant on my tumblr]

I swear to dog the next time I hear someone talk about a woman taking her husband's name as a contrast between "her husband's name" and "her father's name" I AM GOING TO BITE YOU. VERY VERY HARD. NOT IN THE SEXY WAY. 

 

Because this name that I have right now, the one that’s been on all my paperwork for twenty fucking seven years, THAT IS MY NAME.  Mine.  MY name.

My father shares it, yes.  As does much of his extended family.  This is true.  And it is also true that I share a last name with his family, rather than with my mother’s family.

But that
does not
make it
any
less
MY NAME.

I have not been going around in the world for twenty-seven years answering to a borrowed name.

Every time I wrote it on a piece of paper for school,
every time I answered to it in roll call,
every time I responded to it at rugby practice,
every time I have entered it on DMV forms
and medical forms
and tax forms,
I have claimed it as MINE.

If (when, gods willing) Ozz and I get married someday, if I choose to change my last name*, it will be me choosing to exchange my name for his.  Not me giving up my father’s name in order to take on my husband’s name.

I guess what I’m saying is, don’t you fucking dare act like my name doesn’t really belong to me, just because it belonged to a man before me.  He doesn’t keep ownership of the name we share because I bear it, any more than he keeps ownership of my body or life because I bear his genetics.  When you act like it’s still *his* name, you’re also acting like I’m still *his* in some way.  And I may be slightly touchier than most about this because my father and I have some truly epic Issues, but you imply that I’m somehow *his* in any way beyond what allegiance I freely choose to give him as an independent adult in my own right, and I will fucking cut you.

We clear?

*Spoiler alert: I won't.  Or at least, it won't be a straight mine-gone-take-his-instead.  I don't even like his last name and it sounds terrible with my first name.   We'd been considering hyphenating, which would probably be my preferred choice.

Who should we entrust with the care and teaching of our children?

So, let me get this straight. 

A teacher, who had performed in porn prior to her teaching career, can be fired for her past conduct because her students and colleagues are hateful whorephobic fucks who couldn't remember that a sex worker, former or current, is also a human being who deserves respect, with the district superintendent saying that her past experiences in sex work are "incompatible with her responsibilities as a role model for students"...

...but a school counselor who openly says, on the news, that gay kids have no purpose in life unless they un-gay themselves and become straight Christian kids is just "expressing her First Amendment rights," and so no disciplinary action will be taken.

What the flaming, festering fuck?

Does the school counselor not also have responsibilities as a role model for students?  Are gay students not also students for whom this counselor is responsible for being a good role model to?  How can she be a good role model for students who she has already told she believes are worthless and without purpose? 

How is one's past history, which would not have been known to the kids she taught at all, if her colleagues hadn't found her videos and downloaded them onto their phones to share around and show the principal (what a way to treat a colleague, huh?), somehow worse than a recent statement made in a very public forum advocating overt discrimination against a section of the student body for which one is responsible?

Chose at one point in the past to use your body to engage in sex on camera to make money, which you no longer choose to do and have not since becoming an educator?  FOREVER IRREDEEMABLE SHOULD NOT EVER BE PERMITTED TO EXIST IN THE PRESENCE OF DELICATE, PRECIOUS, INNOCENT CHILDREN LEST THEIR HEARTS BE TAINTED BY YOUR SLUTTINESS.

While on camera for the local news, say flat out that non-het children are worthless so long as they continue to be non-het?  HEY THAT'S HER RIGHT SHE CAN BELIEVE WHAT SHE WANTS THERE'S NO NEED TO DO ANYTHING I'M SURE SHE'LL STILL TREAT THE NON-HET KIDS IN HER CARE WITH THE SAME RESPECT AS THE STRAIGHT KIDS, AND THE NON-HET KIDS WON'T AT ALL BE HUMILIATED OR SHAMED OR OTHERWISE AFFECTED BY HER ASSERTIONS.

This is a truly sickening clusterfuck of misogyny, slut-shaming, whorephobia, homophobia, and Christian supremacy in action.  Look at all the messages being sent:

• Once a woman engages in sex work, she is forever worthless and should expect to be thrown aside once any non-sex-work profession she attempts to move into gets wind of her past. 
• Women's sexuality is hot and belongs on-camera, but once a woman has put her sexuality on camera, that's the only place she belongs and the only thing she should expect to do forever because she has sullied herself for anything else. 
• If you find out that someone you work with as an equal was once a sex worker, you are freed from all obligation to treat her with respect, and it's fine to share around the evidence of her prior career among other colleagues while at work.
• If her effectiveness in the classroom is compromised by the blatant and disgusting disrespect and shaming aimed at her by colleagues and students alike, the solution is not to enforce codes of conduct that require everyone to behave their damn selves, but just to throw her out on her ass instead.
• Advocating discrimination against as many as possibly one in ten of the kids you serve, telling children who are in a high-risk category for self-harm and suicide that they're worthless and their lives have no purpose, is totally fine, and you'll be protected from consequences. 
• Gay children's emotional and mental health isn't worth protecting, and they should be expected to still work with and under the "guidance" of someone who has outright told them they're worthless, so long as she said it because Jesus.

Fuck every single person involved in the handling of both of these situations.  Principals, colleagues, judges, superintendents, everyone.  Y'all can just rot in hell for being terrible, terrible examples of human beings.

Shitting on abuse survivors: totally the Christian thing to do.

The Violence Against Women Act, which provides funds and programs to help victims/survivors of domestic violence and all kinds of abuse, is the sort of thing you'd think would be a no-brainer for wide bipartisan support.  Who could be against helping women who've been abused?  Only actual abusers themselves, right?  Or abuse apologists?

Or, apparently, devout professional Christians.

The FRC seem to be shitting their pants over this mainly because the current update to VAWA would help those gross unnatural queer women, illegals who deserve whatever they get for being in this country in the first place, and Native women who haven't had the courtesy to die off and stop reminding us of our genocidal roots.

I mean, I'm trying to be hyperbolic here, but I kind of feel like it's not that far from the truth.  Those are the things they cite in their opposition - that they can't approve of a bill which has provisions to help queer women (because that's "giving them special rights"), undocumented immigrants, etc.  Their contempt is further measured by their claim that the Democrats added these oh-so-awful pieces to the bill purely in order to force Republicans to oppose it so the Dems can point to it as evidence that the GOP is anti-woman.

First of all, we didn't need additional evidence.  Y'all trumpet your misogyny to the skies each and every damn day.  You are to the point where people are trying to hold workshops to teach you fuckers to keep your goddamn mouths shut about women's issues because of the massive backlash every time you speak.  WE KNOW you're anti-woman.  It's never been up for debate.

But second of all, it's disgusting that the only reason they can apparently think of for specifically ensuring that underserved and more-vulnerable populations receive the help they need is for political maneuvering.  Not because there are people who need help.  Only because politics.

Projection complex, thy name is the GOP.

Oh, but it's not just that the bill specifically looks to help someone other than straight white American citizens.  It's that, and the money:

You can help by contacting your Senators and urging them to vote against VAWA and end the real abuse of taxpayer dollars.

Emphasis original. 

So let me get this straight: women being repeatedly assaulted, physically, emotionally, and/or sexually: not really abuse, why are we wasting our time on this?  The government spending money to help those women: ABUSE!  SHUT IT DOWN RIGHT NOW STOP ABUSING MY WALLET WAHHHH

I feel like a fucking broken record here, but Republicans, JFC your priorities are terrible.

Sen. Campfield, what the fuck did I JUST say about not wanting to write about you any more?

It is becoming more and more clear that Stacey Campfield is the sort of man who should not be in a position of authority over an amoeba, much less any more complex life-forms.  Check out this breathtakingly condescending and ableist response to a constituent of his, who emailed to criticize his recent legislative grandstanding:

Telisha Cobb:  Senator Campfield, I am writing to you today as a mother, active citizen, and born and raised Tennessean.  You are an embarrassment to our great state.  Folks all over the country and here in Tennessee are looking at the bills you are proposing in shock.  They are the most ignorant and morally lacking legislation that could be proposed this year.  It is clear that you are targeting homosexuals and low-income families with hogwash legislation.  You need to search your heart, your values and your Christianity to find a better way to represent us as a whole.  We will do everything in our power to make sure you are not here in 2014.  There are numerous grass roots parties that are making their voices heard.

Stacey Campfield:  You seem to have some serious, deep anger issues.  Have you ever thought about therapy?  I hear they are doing some wonderful things with medications these days.

What.  The.  Unholy.  Fuck.

Her email was simple, direct, dignified, and professional, a simple statement of "This stuff you're doing is Very Not Okay.  Stop it."  And to this, he thought it was acceptable to, in essence, tell her that she's crazy for disagreeing with him and should be medicated until she agrees?

Which is reprehensible in and of itself, but then you get into all the ways that a powerful white man telling a woman (of color?  I would guess so from the pictures I found but I don't know if she identifies as such) that she's "angry" and needs therapy or medications draws on a whole history of pathologizing women's anger and dissent as a major avenue of structural misogyny, and it gets about 100000x uglier.

Kitten, you seem to have forgotten how this whole elected-representative-thing works.  You are not the lord of your own little fiefdom by virtue of having been elected.  You are a representative - that is, you are there to represent the people who elected you.  And if they feel you are doing a poor job of representing them, they have every right in the world to tell you so and demand that you shape the fuck up, because while elected official/voter doesn't quite analogize with an employer/employee situation, it's close enough, and YOU ARE NOT THE EMPLOYER.  You are the worker.  And your bosses are hauling your ass in for a performance review and/or write-up for failure to adequately perform your job duties.  Which makes it absurdly inappropriate to sass them and display this kind of condescendingly rude attitude.  When the people who gave you your job call you on the carpet for wasting company time and resources on being an asshole, you listen up and change your ways, or your ass is out on the curb.

For someone who is an official in a democratic system of government, you have an awful lot of contempt for citizen input, which is one of the core mechanisms by which any sort of democracy operates.  Somehow I'm thinking you'd do better playing God on your own little private island somewhere.  Why don't you go try that instead of trying to play God here the U.S.?

And by the way, Stacey?  Yeah, they are doing some pretty amazing things with medications.  I'm on some of them and they've fucking changed my life.

But I still think you're a reprehensible shitbag with the morals of a bloodsucking insect, and my opinion and anger are in no way invalidated by the medication I take.

Fuck off back to the cesspit you crawled out of, you suppurating anal sore.

That angry enough for you?

I Was Horribly, Horribly Wrong

Last year I wrote a post about a truly awful eyesore of a "breast cancer awareness" (take a shot) vendor with shirts like "I [heart] motorboating" and "Nice Jugs!" and "Boobies Rock!", about how shitty it is to peddle a movement about CANCER as being about the sexayness of the potentially-cancerous body part in a way that completely dehumanizes and erases the PERSON suffering from the deadly disease.

I thought, after that kiosk and those shirts, that the "LOL BOOBIEZ" model of breast cancer "awareness" (take a shot) could sink no lower.

A screencap of PornHub, a site that does what it says on the tin,  titled "Help Pornhub support breast cancer research simply by watching videos!" and going on to explain that because "We all love boobs" they'll donate 1 cent for every 30 videos viewed from their "big-tit" and "small-tit" categories to an unspecified breast cancer research charity.  So that "While you're enjoying the boobs, you'll also be helping to Save the Boobs!"

I have never been so wrong in my life.

Dear Self: You know better. DON'T. READ. THE FUCKING COMMENTS.

I've been spending some spare time lately fucking around on Experience Project, a social networking site designed around connecting people not by geographical location, or demographics, but by shared experiences.  You join groups that are all titled "I have [$EXPERIENCE]" - "gotten divorced" or "gone skydiving" or something like that - and you always know that within the group you're talking about something you all know.  It's interesting.

Well, EP has a "questions" section, where people post random questions and other people answer them, vote for their favorite answers, reply to other answers, etc.  It's slightly above the level of YouTube comments.  Most of the time.  I'm developing a reputation as a feminist killjoy* because I slap down bullshit with glee and don't let people get away with shit when they're arguing with me.  This pleases me greatly.  ^_^

Today, I was browsing around, and came across the question "How do you define a 'real lady'?"

Oh, shit.  So I waded right in.

My initial reply: "Do you identify as a woman?" "Yes" "Are you okay with being called a lady?" "Yes" - there you go, that's how you define a real lady.  I'm not a lady, because I fcking HATE that term (considering its history of being used to judge and restrict "appropriate" standards of female behavior) and will vehemently correct anyone who tries to call me a lady, real or otherwise.  Tautology it may be, but a "real lady" is simply a person who identifies as a lady. 

Another reply: "A female with self-control, who is quick to hold her tongue.  She delights in everything lovely and feminine and she isn't afraid to speak her mind when needed.  Compassion and passion are two of her best qualities, along with nurturing, serving others, unselfishness and poise.  She is passionate about her beliefs and she accomplishes anything she puts her mind to.  Her peers respect her for being truly female." with my next comment nested underneath as a response: "...ew.  Thank you for reinforcing that I am NOT, and do not EVER want to be, a "lady".  Notice how it basically requires you to STFU, put yourself last, and treat yourself as if you matter less than other people?  Yeah no.  If it means hewing to ancient, restrictive, patriarchal stereotypes of "appropriate" womanhood...all aboard the Nope Train to Fuck-that-ville."  and another response saying "Well said", although since EP only nests to a single level, it's unclear whether they're commending the OP or my response to it.

There is not enough EW in the world for that OP.  I notice that "speak her mind" is qualified with "when needed", which is in the passive voice, raising the question, who decides when it's needed?  (Hint: it's never the woman doing the speaking.)  We then get three different synonyms for "Put other people's needs ahead of your own at all times, you come last," and end with gender policing.  I think I need a shower.

Another comment: "Treats others and expects to be treated with respect, compassion, has strength and dignity, humor."

See, this is not a bad definition.  I'm still never going to back it myself, because it still involves an arbitrary definition against which a person can be measured and "disqualified", but it's at least closer to just a measure of a good person than archaic gender roles.

Another comment: "Feminine, charming, romantic, sentimental, motherly, refrains from gossip, independent when the need arises, smart and willing to please her man in bed."

Oh, gross, another one.  "Feminine" - how are we defining that?  It's one of those arbitrary things that, like "when needed", is never judged by the person performing the action, but always judged by the male opinions around her.  "Motherly" - oh goody, here we go with the biological essentialism and reducing women to their uteruses (whether they have them or not, etc).  "Refrains from gossip" - so uh, men get to gossip without restriction or something?  Ooh look, "when needed" rears its head again!  And then the kicker, "willing to please her man in bed."  Heteronormative, assumes active sexuality and dating, places female sexuality subordinated in service to male sexual desires, and I notice there's nothing about eager to receive reciprocal pleasure...Guess men don't need to please their ladies in bed.  Gods, I'm glad I not a lady!  More orgasms for me!

Like I said - slightly above the level of YouTube comments sections.  Between this one and the "ZOMG OBESITYZZZ" and "TEH GAYZZ IN MILITARY" questions I've also been playing whack-a-dumbfuck with, I'm about tapped out for the day.

Feminist killjoy, out.

*I actually just ordered this necklace today.  I'm so excited for it!  I also ordered a literal flying fuck.