Microaggressive Naming

[This is dredged up from the drafts folder, so context-dependent time references are no longer correct, but I'm too lazy to fix it.  Sorry for the lack of posting, some personal life shit has been going on and it has fucked me up but good.  Even with meds, I'm only just managing to be mostly functional; blogging is often beyond me, cause it takes too much focus, concentration, interest, and energy.  Well-wishes, good vibes, prayers, etc are welcome for Ozz's and my relationship, and for me personally if you want.  Sorry again and thanks.]

It's bid day today!  I work for a general contractor, and we have not one, but TWO jobs bidding today.  Which means that, since a major part of my job includes handling the incoming faxes and making sure everything gets to the right people, I'm pretty busy today with the dozens and dozens of bids subcontractors are faxing in.  (Not too busy to write irritated posts, though!)  Because in the last batch of faxes, there was this lovely little gem of a company:

The header of an incoming fax from a company named "Shutter-Up Window Coverings", whose logo seems to be two stylistically-drawn people, one in a skirt with hands on hips, the other in pants casually leaning against the skirted figure with an arm draped around her neck.

Now the name itself was irritating enough when I saw it that I intended to post about it already, considering that it basically boils down to a creaky old "joke" about lol women talking amirite?

But the fun part was when, after I'd printed this fax off and given it to John, our lead estimator, I heard him laugh a few minutes later and poke his head into our general manager's office.

"Hey Tracy, did you see this sub bid?  I love the name!"

And Tracy looks at the copy I left on his desk and cracks up, and I overhear them reminiscing about another misogynistically entertainingly-named subcontractor from a few bids ago, "Gutter-Done" (a play on git-r-done).

Yeah, because play-on-word names that reference silencing women and fucking them are soooo hilarious, amirite?  Not like there are any women in your office - or working for those companies, for that matter - who might end up feeling excluded and demeaned by it, by the reminder that when it's convenient, y'all are quite pleased to assert your male privilege and participate in sexism, and even find it funny.  I know I totes feel like a valued and equal person to my coworkers while they're laughing over shutting women up.

(And this is not even mentioning the latest fuckery from yesterday, which I ranted about on tumblr here.)

Dick, Pussy, Cunt, and "Die Cis Scum": Why Some Insults Are More Equal Than Others

I see this issue make the rounds occasionally, on tumblr, on twitter, on feminist blogs, and it bugs the crap out of me.  Usually because it's someone trying to discredit or deflect requests that people not use misogynist insults like "pussy" and "cunt" by saying "well if that's bad then why aren't you asking people to stop using "dick" as an insult, too?!?"  Which is manifest horseshit on several levels.

Firstly, many of the feminists/progressives I know actually *do* frown on all genitalia-related insults.  I know plenty of feminists who don't use pussy, cunt, or dick as insulting terms.  Quite often, the person at whom the "But what about dick?" (henceforth BWAD) argument is being directed falls into this category already, and the person trying to defend their use of misogynist slurs just hasn't bothered to ask before making arguments based on their assumption.  Moral of the story: ask before you base your whole argument on an assumption.

Secondly, context fucking matters.  When the use of insults based on genitalia is taking place in a culture that systematically values maleness and denigrates femaleness, using slurs based on the penis (which our culture associates exclusively with masculinity) does not have the same damaging impact that slurs based on the vulva (which our culture associates exclusively with femininity) do.  Using "dick" as an insult does not contribute to longstanding, systemic oppression of men, because such oppression simply does not exist.  For the same reason that naked dude pictures are not the same as naked lady pictures, "dick" as an insult doesn't do the same kind of cumulative cultural damage that "pussy" and "cunt" do as insults.

Thirdly, are you (where "you" = someone who has asked or is asking BWAD) seriously trying to say that "dick" as an insult is of the same level of severity and carries the same connotation as "pussy" and "cunt"?  Really?  I'm sorry, are you some kind of pandimensional being speaking to me from an alternate universe?  Because that's really the only explanation I can think of for trying to treat all three insults equally.

"Dick" as an insult ranges from mild to moderate intensity depending on the tone of the speaker, and simply means mean or rude, perhaps overly pushy or aggressive.  "Pussy" is also mild to moderate, but has a more specific connotation of cowardice and weakness, and going simply on personal observation, a man will be far more offended/upset if you call him a pussy than if you call him a dick.  Especially considering that masculinity is actually *supposed* to be aggressive and, to a point, abrasive in this culture, "dick" can be the sort of insult that signals you're doing something to be proud of, in a fucked-up sort of way.  "Dick" is still an insult, but it's the sort of insult that leaves one's all-important Masculinity Cred intact.  "Pussy", on the other hand, is deliberately calculated to cut deeper by undermining said Masculinity Cred.

And then, of course, there's "cunt".  One of the Big Bads of the insult dictionary.  Widely acknowledged as the worst thing you can call a woman - or, really, anyone.  One of the very few cuss words that is still unacceptable among most people, even people who regularly pepper their (our, cause I'm totally one of them, in case you couldn't tell) speech with "fuck".  The one you pull out when you really want to make your point that you have an epic amount of disdain and hate for someone - usually a woman.

One of these things is not like the other ones...

[TW: implied/verbal violence against trans* people]

This is actually an old draft that's been kicking around the Unfinished Thoughts black hole for awhile now, until this post on tumblr revived it the other day.  Because it basically expresses the same context-free viewpoint that makes the BWAD argument specious, and I just could not let it go without comment, especially given it dovetailed rather well with an already-mostly-written post.  Behold:

Two identical Venn diagrams stacked on top of each other, with blue and red circles and overlapping purple section.  Text used to read (it doesn't show up against this background, sorry) "If this is okay" over the first diagram, where the circles are labeled "cis" and "scum" and the overlap "cis scum", then "Then so is this" over the second, where the circles are labeled "trans" and "scum" and the overlap is "trans scum"

For those who don't know the "die cis scum" history, it's a phrase that many in the trans community on tumblr have taken to use as a rallying cry/pushback against ciscentric culture that literally kills a whole fucking lot of trans people.  I'm not going to lie, the phrase makes me mildly uncomfortable, but I absolutely understand where it's coming from and am not going to begrudge anyone their anger against a vastly more powerful group that stands a much-higher-than-is-comfortable chance of killing them, because it's not my place to police people's expressions of anger against oppression.  It was said in a moment of frustration and anger, got picked up by a lot of people, and became A Thing, with the inevitable result of a whole lot of cis people having very hurt fee-fees over it.  A backlash developed, with far too many cis people saying that Die Cis Scum makes the trans* people who use it "just as bad" as the cis people who murder and abuse trans* people.  (O rly?  Just as bad?  You have an...interesting morality scale.)  The response from many trans* people has been "It doesn't say "die cis people".  It says "die cis scum".  Are you cis, but not scum?  Then you're safe, now shut up."  Of course, backlashing cis people couldn't let it rest there.  Hence, this graphic.

Apparently, there are a whole lot of people in this world who have never heard of context before.

Following the same logic, and for the same reason, as the argument against comparing "dick" to "pussy" or "cunt" as insults, "die cis scum" and "die trans scum" are not insults that carry the same social weight.  One is an oppressed group basically shouting "fuck you" up at their oppressors, while both groups know full well they don't have the power to do much harm.  The other is the group in power, shouting "fuck you" back down the ladder as they continue to kick the people below them in the face.  They are not equivalent.  They are not equal.  Just because they use the same syntactic structure does not mean they are expressing the same kind of sentiment, because the power differential changes things.

Or, to quote an acquaintance of mine on tumblr: When we say "die cis scum", you have your feelings hurt.  When you say "die trans scum", we literally end up dead.

Not.
The.
Same.

What Rush Has *Not* Apologized For - And It's Not What You Think

It's all over the everywhere, this Rush controversy, sweeping up even those people who hadn't ever paid much attention to his outrageous racism and sexism before.*  And in an unusual twist for these sorts of situations, Rush's "apology" to Ms. Fluke has actually been seen and shown for the total non-apology that it is.  Which is pretty cool.

But most of the criticism I'm seeing about his nonpology is that he apologized "for the words" but not the sentiment, and/or that he called them "poorly chosen" even though he repeated the statement several times over the course of a few days, which rather gives the lie to any protestation that they were chosen in haste and he just hadn't thought it through, oops.  Which are absolutely valid criticisms of his piss-poor half-assed attempt to shut his critics up "apology", by all means.

What I haven't seen much of, on the other hand, are the aspects of the whole controversy and subsequent nonpology that I actually found to be far more insulting, infuriating, and offensive than the slut/prostitute/poor word choice bit.

Firstly, everyone is talking about the fact that he apologized very specifically for those two words.  Nobody seems to have mentioned his complete lack of an apology for the demand for a sex tape, as if having a hand in subsidizing someone's birth control (no matter how far removed - it's not like you pay your taxes by handing over $50 to the pharmacist and then hand the bag of contraceptives to the person taking them) entitles one to turn them into a porn star against their will.  Honestly, of the two parts of his horrible spew of misogyny, I found Rush's demand for a sex tape posted on the internet to be far more offensive, far cruder and far more vitriolic than calling Ms. Fluke a slut and a prostitute, because of the way it framed and highlighted the "women's sexuality as public property" trope that is foundational to rape culture.  Where is the apology for that?  Where is the outrage that he hasn't apologized for it?

Secondly, I have seen surprisingly little commentary** that repudiates his assertion that he, as a taxpayer, was paying for Ms. Fluke's contraceptive medication in the first place, the premise on which his testerical little rant was based.  Because it's flat out bullshit - bullshit that he actually reiterates in his nonpology, no less!  "I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability?"  Except that Fluke's testimony was not even remotely about being on taxpayer-subsidized insurance like Medicaid or any such assistance program that would mean taxpayer funds buying her contraceptives.  It was about private insurance that she and other students were paying into through their fees to the university.  That's their money, and the organization's money, not taxpayer money!  So his whole premise for demanding she produce porn for his enjoyment, as punishment for the audacity to want to protect herself from pregnancy***, was fallacious from the first word onward.

I'm glad Rush is finally getting the backlash he has so richly deserved for so long.  I'm frustrated that it took this long, that it only finally happened when he called a white woman a prostitute and not, say, when he called the First Lady of the United States "uppity", and that even in this backlash many people are allowing a goodly chunk of his true fuckery to go unacknowledged and unexamined.  So please, I am asking everyone who reads this: the next time you get into a conversation with someone - or an argument, or a screaming match, whatever, I'm not picky - about this, please, don't just argue that it was wrong to call Fluke a slut and a prostitute.  Remember that those words are only about a third of the real problem here, and bring these other issues to light for other people as well.

*Which says a lot about our priorities, as a country and in particular the media's priorities in never really covering his more outrageous racist attacks, often against women of color, up to and including the First Lady (calling her "uppity", speculating on her "authentic slave blood", etc), enough to ever provoke this kind of backlash.


**Lol.  So pretty much as soon as I finish writing this and hit queue to publish it tomorrow, I come across this on my tumblr dashboard.  Okay, so not everyone is letting him get away with the lie within the lie, which is good - but I've been following this since it broke, and this is literally the first I've seen of someone calling it out, so.  I still stand by my assertion that there's very little commentary calling out that aspect of it.


***Her testimony wasn't even about using birth control for contraceptive purposes, anyway - nor was it even specifically about her own experiences needing contraception.  It was a compilation of stories of other women she'd spoken to, about using it to control PCOS and other medical conditions that have nothing to do with having sex and not getting pregnant.  Moar fallacies!  Moar lies!  Bullshit for everyone!

I Love The Liberal Media

Where by "love" I mean "roll my eyes at so hard I am in danger of spraining something", and by "liberal media" I mean CNN, who happily continues to employ this jackass as a contributor.

You know, when an NPR executive made a comment about the rampant and virulent racism evident in the Teabagger movement, there was immediately such a hue and cry that he resigned.  Wanna take bets Erick Erickson takes no such hit to his career, despite saying shit like this [TW for sexist stereotyping of women and disablism]:

It's, apparently, the women in the Obama administration who have decided we needed to go to war in Libya. … This is typical. This is so typ-- i'm mean, I'm going to bring my inner sexist out I'm afraid tonight, some of you are going to be very upset with me. But this is like women drivers. We're going to war in Libya, we have no plan, we have no map, even if we have a map of war, um, it wasn't going to get read, they were going to pull over and ask the French apparently for help, or at least make the guy pull over and ask the French for help. This is crazy.

So when a guy at NPR points out actual but unpleasant facts about the Teabaggers, he has to resign amid scandal, but a "political analyst" highly-placed enough to be included in CNN's coverage of the State of the Union address can blame "the women" - which is a sexist dogwhistle against Secretary of State Clinton's urging Obama to do something about Gaddafi, fruit of a seed Obama himself planted as a "joke" - and make sexist jokes about "women drivers", necessarily implying that he believes women should not be making major political decisions, and thus far the response has been...?  Anyone?  Bueller?

...Yawning, cavernous, echoing silence.  Yep.  That's our liberal media for you.

Halloween, or Teaching Girls Their True Value To Society Day

As an adult, I've become painfully aware that Halloween is not "dress up as something cool" day anymore.  It's "dress up as a pornified version of something cool to titillate your male friends" day.  Sexy cop, nurse, pirate, those are standard.  This year, I've seen some incredibly fucking weird "sexy ___" costumes.  Sexy Nemo.  Sexy crayon.  I'm not even fucking kidding.  Sexy Big Bird.  Also not kidding, dear gods I wish I was (and does it look to you like a tiny Big Bird is eating her brain? Or is that just me?).  This lead to an afternoon of my Twiends and I tossing around random "sexy ___" suggestions.  We had "sexy fluorescent bulb" and "sexy coffee cup" and "sexy stapler". 
This morning, though, I saw a whole new twist on the usual "sexy ___" costume thing.  Here: 

A simple enough "sexy cop" costume, right?  (I'm not even going to start on the disrespect a costume like this shows for ACTUAL female police officers, who DO exist and do NOT dress like that.)  But.  It's on a child.  And the costume is a "child size medium 8-10".  It's carried on the fucking Toys R Us website.  The "recommended age" is 7-9.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Let the horror and rage percolate through your system for a minute or two.  Now consider:

They are recommending that you dress your 7-year-old daughter up in a "sexy cop" costume.  Oh, it's not called that.  On the Toys R Us website, it's just billed as "Cop Halloween Costume".  Which almost makes it worse.  The adult version at least acknowledges, hey, this is a perversion of something that actually exists, it's only make-believe, this is a "special" version.  You're dressing up as a "sexy cop" not a "cop".  But this is presented as just a "cop costume".  As if this is how female cops dress.  As if this is normal, not something special.  You want to be a police officer when you grow up, honey?  That's wonderful!  Let's dress you in this minidress and heels, because that's how you pretend to be a cop!  (Also, who the hell dresses a 7-yr-old girl in 3-inch heels like those?  Aside from pageant moms.  That's got to be detrimental to her physical development.) 

Maybe I'm just old, and I've reached the point of mourning for Teh Childrenz already at the ripe old age of 25.  But I do NOT remember it being this bad when I was a kid.  When I went as Princess Leia for Halloween one year, it was in the long white dress from Empire Strikes Back, not the gold bikini from Return of the Jedi.  If it's just that my parents were exceptionally good at sheltering me, then Mom, thank you.  But I am absolutely sickened to see evidence that at a mere 7 years old, we're supposed to be teaching her that while the boys her age can dress up as police officers, her only option is "sexy cop". 

What About Teh MENZZZ, Part Eleventybillion

I was linked, on Monday morning, to this PSA about conflict minerals and the situation in the Congo, sponsored by Raise Hope for Congo, an organization that focuses on the horrible rape epidemic in that region.  

 (It's a video in the style of the Mac vs PC commercials.  The Mac guy [young, white hipster-type dude] asks the PC guy [older white man in a business suit] what he's got in his pockets, and he pulls out some rocks, listing them off as tungsten and other minerals that have fueled the conflict in the Congo, and the Mac guy says "Oh, I use those too.  I guess we have more in common than we thought."  A title card at the end is the logo of the agency that made the PSA, Raise Hope for Congo, in which the "O" in "Hope" is replaced by the Venus symbol.)


It's a good PSA, I think.  A cute spoofing of the well-known Mac vs PC commercials, easily understood, etc.  And oh, I should really know better than to read the comments on ANY YouTube video...but there you go.  When I clicked over the first time, the top-rated (and thus promoted to the top of the comments thread) comment was:

I think it would be more universally appealing if your logo didn't make it seem like it only helps women.

Ahem.  To quote from RHfC's website:

The RAISE Hope for Congo campaign aims to build a permanent and diverse constituency of activists who will advocate for the protection and empowerment of Congolese women and girls.

So, some fuckwit on YouTube couldn't be arsed to take TWO FUCKING SECONDS to go to RHfC's website and see that, in fact, it *is* an organization focused on supporting and helping women, before he got his pants in a bunch about "Why are you so focused on women, what about teh menz, huh?"  Because 
helping women is totally not universally appealing, amirite?  Who wants to help women, ew?


Listen, random douchbro: that sting of being left-out you are feeling right now?  That twinge of unwantedness that is making you all pouty, because you are not obviously the Person This Is Meant For?  That is a feeling that positively fucking HAUNTS women.  And also PoC, and queer people, and trans people, and disabled people, etc. etc.  So before you lose your shit over one goddamn PSA, kindly remember that you get 90% of the rest of society's messages that explicity make you feel wanted and targeted and paid attention to, and back the fuck up off of insisting that you get all 100% of it, ok?

Lacy-Drawered, Limp-Wristed, Will Still Kick Your Ass.

Arizona, I'm sorry.  I've tried to be patient.  But in the last two years, you gave us McCain, two separate towns have had freakouts over showing PoC on murals, you've started constructing a tent city in the desert in anticipation of all the "illegals" you're going to round up under your new Show Me Your Papers law, and now Yuma's mayor let a heaping bucket of fail fall out of his mouth during Memorial Day Weekend, on DADT.  I may have to start making "let 'em secede, no really, please!" jokes about you the way I used to about Texas.*

So what did Mayor Al Krieger say, about allowing LGBs to serve openly in the military?

“I cannot believe a bunch of lacey-drawered, limp-wristed people could do what those men have done in the past...We need solid, strong men to fight those battles.  Not pacifists.”

...Yeeeeah.  This is so stultifyingly full of fail, I hardly know where to begin.  With the erasure of women in the military ("We need solid, strong men")?  With the refusal to acknowledge that there are already LGBs serving, there have been LGBs serving throughout our military's history, that they were some of the "solid, strong men" fighting our nation's battles, they just couldn't do it openly?  With the assumption, founded on absolutely, utterly nothing, that gay=pacifist?  With the "lacy-drawered, limp-wristed" shit, drawing on ridiculous and offensive stereotypes a few decades old which have never, ever been true across the board?  With the erasure of lesbians - because going by the stereotypes this jackhole seems to be working from, gay men aren't capable of fighting, but lesbians are supposed to be as solid and strong as any man, and twice as scary?


Oh, and for a megafail bonus round, Mayor Krieger defended his statement by invoking the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, claiming that they would have backed him up so it's ok to be an offensive shithead who's wrong about everything.


Can we please stop acting like DADT is somehow going to "let gays into" the military?  LGB servicemembers are already serving in the military.  There are "lacy-drawered, limp-wristed" gay men already fighting these battles, so that a fuckwit like Mayor Krieger can run his mouth and denigrate the very people who have given, are giving, will give their lives for this country we share.  


You can let Mayor Dipshit know what you think of his asshattery by emailing him at Alan.Krieger@YumaAz.gov

*I know not all Arizonans are on board with their state's terrible policies of late; this doesn't change the fact that AZ is earning a metric shit-ton of horrid publicity lately, and yeah, I'm going to joke about it from time to time.

Just Call Her Uppity And Be Done With It

Remember last year, when during a Congressional hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer got a bit annoyed at an Army brigadier general calling her "ma'am" and directed him to refer to her as "Senator" the same way he was referring to her (male) colleagues?  Much like Hillary Clinton's "outburst" at being asked about her husband's opinion during an appearance as the US Secretary of State, most people flipped out about those angry women and their habit of demanding respect rather than meekly requesting it, while feminists defended the women in question and their stances as totally reasonable.  Listen, if I had gotten as high and powerful as those two women, I, too, would be pissed at some guy referring to me differently than my male equals or asking me for my husband's opinion.


Now, Boxer's seat is facing challenge from Tom Campbell, a Republican.  And he has just released an attack ad against Boxer, featuring the clip from the hearing.  (Sadly, I couldn't find it on YouTube; if someone knows where it's posted online, please let me know in comments and I'll add it.)  The fun part, though...is how he frames her request.

"There's an arrogance that I see right now in the federal government," Campbell says, before the ad cuts to the Boxer footage.

So...it's "arrogant" for a woman in political office to request that she be referred to by the title of that office, just like her male colleagues are?   That's quite the misogyny dogwhistle.  Damn uppity woman, thinking she has the right to be called by her title.  You don't want to be represented by a woman who thinks she's entitled to respect, now do you? 

If you've got some cash burning a hole in your pocket, or some funds earmarked for political donations yet unassigned to a political candidate, might I suggest donating to help Boxer keep her seat against this douchenozzle?

Who Wants To Consider Women's Voices on Women's Lives? Not Bart Stupak!

So you're making a big decision that will affect millions of lives.  Two groups are offering you conflicting advice, ostensibly working under the same belief structure.  One group, a small group of old men who spend their time pushing papers and playing politics, advises you to decide one way.  The other group, a thousands-strong group of women who are in frequent and close contact with the people who will be most affected by your decision, advises you to decide the other way.  To whom do you listen?


If you're an anti-choice Blue Dog fake-Dem like Bart Stupak, you listen to the old men pontificating, and dismiss the women's views in disdainful, contemptuous terms ("When I'm drafting right-to-life language, I don't call up the nuns.").  Because after all, they're just women who actually work with the affected populations.  What the hell could they possibly know that the Important Men At The Top don't?


Thanks, Stupak, for making it abundantly clear yet again what the anti-choice, pro-forced birth assholes really think of women's lived experiences and the value of our voices.  Fuck you very much.

Rated "W", for WTF?

I present this review/rant in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  If you are a fan of the second Boondock Saints movie, TURN BACK NOW.  This is your last warning.

I want to start by saying, I really liked the original Boondock Saints movie.  I only watched it for the first time this past year, and that because my ex made me - it's his favorite movie and he wanted to share.  But I really, really enjoyed it.  Enough that I introduced Ozzmodious to it this past month or so, and he loved it too.  So when we found a copy of Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day on Blu-Ray at Target over the weekend, we had to get it RIGHTNOWOMG.  So I'm not someone who's hated both of them, or who hates gun-porn movies, or whatever, just looking for excuses to tear this movie down.  I went into this with high hopes, I really did.


I. Want. Those. Two. Hours. Of. My. Life. BACK.  Now, please.  Someone give me a time machine so I can go back in time to yesterday afternoon and spend my evening doing something more productive.  Like reading MRA blogs.  Or watching YouTube of Palin rallies.  You know.  Something that would enrich my life more and piss me off less than this movie did.


The entire thing might as well be replaced by scenes of men screaming at the top of their lungs, "OUR PENISES ARE ENORMOUS AND ENGORGED AND ALSO WE HAVE BALLLLLLZ THE SIZE OF CANTELOUPES, DO YOU NOT SEE HOW MANLY WE ARE YET?  DO YOU NOT?  WE ARE MEN, DAMMIT!  MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN!" interspersed with scenes of random gunfights in slow motion, and the occasional shot of a stripper doing the "sexy businesswoman" look in towering stilettos while making sexyface and/or grinning seductively at the camera while her hair blows around her in slow motion a la Victoria's Secret commercials.  Seriously.  I have just described the movie, so if you haven't seen it, you can now spare yourselves the trouble and headache.  Toss a buck in the tip jar on your way out.  ;-)


For example.  When the ONLY female character in the entire fucking movie is introduced, it's with a getting-out-of-car stilettos-and-stockings slow-motion strut to sexy music, which lasts for an egregiously and unnecessarily long 30 seconds before you even get to see that hey, she is not just a pair of perfectly-stockinged legs with black stripper heels on, walking around without a body!  The first crime scene she does, she puts one of the (male) detectives on his knees in front of her, after taking down her hair and shaking it out all sexy-girl-like for no discernable reason, to "illustrate" a point.  There are several his-face-her-crotch shots to make sure we get, HEY HE'S ON HIS KNEES IN FRONT OF SEXAY-LADY!!  Her cleavage and legs are emphasized at EVERY. POSSIBLE. MOMENT.  She is absolutely the Token Badass Sexy Lady.  Yes, she is quite competent.  But that takes a backseat to her being sexy.  UGH.


But I think the worst part, the most ridiculous 3 or 4 minutes of film I have ever witnessed IN MY ENTIRE LIFE THUS FAR, was the Anxious Masculinity Montage, about 3/4 of the way through.  In it, the two brothers are in a dream sequence with their dead friend Rocco, from the first movie.  And they go on a rant about "real men" that is just...fucking.......there are no words.  Seriously.  Words fail me to describe that monstrosity.  Just read it for yourself.  

Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus: Sláinte
Murphy MacManus: You know, he was sort of a badass though, wasn't he?
Connor MacManus: Shades of Eastwood. Charlie Bronson.
Rocco: Duke Fucking Wayne!
Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus: Duke Fucking WAYNE!
Rocco: Men build things, then we die. It's in our fucking DNA! THAT'S WHAT WE DO!
Murphy MacManus: And when it all falls down?
Rocco: We build it right back up again.
Connor MacManus: But this time bigger. BETTER!
Rocco: Look! Look what we can do. Look how fuckin' beautiful we are. You think the men that built all this had it easy?
Murphy MacManus: Hard men!
Connor MacManus: Doing hard shit!
Rocco: and that gives me a hard on... But not in a gay way or anything like that.
Murphy MacManus: No, 'course not
Connor MacManus: Yeah it goes without sayin'
Rocco: I am so sick of all of this self help, twelve step, leftover hippie generation bullshit!
Connor MacManus: Now they don't want you to do anything, right? Just sit there. Don't drink.
Murphy MacManus: Don't smoke. Don't drive fast.
Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus, Rocco: Kiss my ass!
Rocco: Fuck it! Do it all I say! Do you think Duke Wayne spent all of his time talking about his feelings with a fuckin' therapist?
Connor MacManus: There's no fucking way he did!
Rocco: John Wayne died with five pounds of undigested red meat in his ass. Now that's a man! Real men hide their feelings. Why?
Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus, Rocco: Because it's none of your fuckin' business!
Rocco: Men do not cry. Men do not pout. Men jack you in the fuckin' jaw and say...
Detective Greenly: Thanks for comin' out.

And then they wake up and go kill more people.   That chunk right there advanced the plot not a bit, contributed nothing to the pacing, seriously had NO purpose whatsoever except to make sure, in case you hadn't absorbed it well enough yet, that every single viewer understood that THIS IS A MEN'S MOVIE.  And that by MEN they mean ONLY ADHERENTS TO TRADITIONAL VIOLENT-TOWER-OF-STOICISM MASCULINITY NEED APPLY. 

If you wanted to be able to name a movie that perfectly encapsulated the Cult of Anxious Masculinity and the anti-feminist backlash, and Judd Apatow's body of work wasn't doing enough for you, this should be at the top of your list.  I doubt we'll ever watch it again.

Spinning Straw Into Nickels

Somewhere between putting a quarter into a jar every time you swear to break yourself of the habit, and LGBT groups taking pledges from the community to raise donations per minute they are protested by hate groups like Westboro Baptist Church, is the new, single-campus campaign, Nickels For Change. 

Two college women, fed up with the casual -isms they hear every day at their male-dominated science and engineering college, have decided to turn the prejudice into profit for a charity they will choose by year's end.  The idea is, every time they hear a rape joke, misogyny, racism, or other -ism coming from the people around them, they will donate a nickel to the Jar.  While they do this, they'll be raising awareness with letter-writing campaigns, and at the end of the year, they plan to total it up and donate the sum to an anti-violence organization.  They'll publicize the total to those they contacted, in the hopes that the sheer weight of evidence - "You raised HOW MUCH at a nickel per incident?" - might shame people into better behavior. 

I think this is a great idea.  Particularly taking place on a college campus as it is.  Colleges like to look good to parents of prospective students, and who knows how motivated they might be to make their campus a friendlier atmosphere for the diverse groups whose money they would undoubtedly be happy to take, by the public knowledge of how far they currently fall short of the mark?  It's hard to claim your college as a great place to go, when you've got a couple of activists holding out a total and saying "This is what your atmosphere *actually* is." 

I wish them luck.  Am I old enough to say how I wish more young people were like these two?  ;-)

Glossary of Mansplaining

So discussions of the mansplaining phenomenon were all over the feminist blogosphere a couple weeks back, and the comment threads were rich with examples of all kinds of mansplaining. So varied were the types of mansplaining discussed, in fact, that I decided I wanted to create a glossary of mansplaining and mansplainers, as a handy reference guide. So here it is: the Glossary of Mainsplaining!

To begin, a quick explanation of what mansplaining is. It is what happens when a person with privilege (I refer to it as mansplaining and reliant on male privilege, but the idea may be equally applied to white people 'splaining to PoC, or currently-abled people 'splaining to disabled people, or cis people 'splaining to trans people, etc. Anywhere there is an imbalance of privilege between participants in a conversation.) takes it upon themselves to condescendingly explain something to a non-privileged person, regardless of whether or not they know what the hell they're talking about, regardless of whether or not the non-privileged person may in fact know quite a bit more about the subject than they do, and they rely on their privilege to back them up and support their right to hold forth.

The subtypes of mansplaining identified so far are as follows. If you have an entry for the Glossary of Mansplaining I haven't covered, please drop it in comments or email me, so I can add it!

• Task-Incompetence Mansplaining: Where a man takes it upon himself to perform repairs to a vehicle, or make household modifications, that he knows nothing about, over the protests of the woman with which he co-resides who actually knows how to fix the item in question, simply because he is The Man and therefore more qualified to fix things.

• Task-Incompetence Mansplaining Corollary: Where a man assumes that a woman with whom he is speaking cannot possibly know how to fix her own car/house/computer, because she is a woman, and must explain to her exactly how to do it. Bonus points if he combines it with Task-Incompetence Mansplaining by mansplaining how to fix something you know how to fix, with a method for fixing it that will not fix it at all.
  

• You-Do-Not-Know-How-This-Works-Because-It-Is-Man-Business Mansplaining: Related to Task-Incompetence-Mansplaining. Where a man repeatedly disregards a woman's advice for fixing a problem that he feels can only be understood by another man. For example, a man who will not take computer advice from a woman, but who will take the exact same advice from the man standing next to her. Bonus points if he then turns around and mansplains to her the advice he listened to from the man but not from her!

• I-Know-More-About-Being-A-Woman-Than-Women-Do Mansplaining: Where a man will mansplain to women that really, women *like* to be catcalled at, or that cramps really aren't that bad and women need to just suck it up and quit whining, or holds forth on any other woman-specific experiences as if he knows what the hell he's talking about. May also take the form of "Women like to do X because they think Y!", without a shred of evidence that actual women either like X or think Y.
  

• IKMABAWTWD Corollary: What-Women-Need-To-Do-Is Mansplaining: Where the mansplainer will be happy to tell women what they need to do in order to fix what he perceives their flaws to be. For example, the NY Bar Association's panel featuring a bunch of male lawyers telling female lawyers how to fix themselves to be more successful.

• IKMABAWTWD Corollary 2: My-Girlfriend-Says Mansplaining: Where the mansplainer says that his girlfriend/sister/mother/other female friend does X or thinks Y, therefore all women must do/think the same.
  

• My-Manliness-Knows-Everything Mansplaining: Where a subject comes up that the man knows little to nothing about, but he holds forth on the subject anyway, bullshitting like he's some kind of specialist, and expecting that nobody will call him on it because duh, he's The Man in the conversation.

• Emotions-Invalidate-Your-Argument Mansplaining: Where in the course of a heated discussion, the woman to whom the mansplainer is speaking gets visibly upset, perhaps even to the point of being teary-eyed or actually crying, and the mansplainer takes that opportunity to mansplain that her visible emotional state means that she automatically loses the argument and he wins, because he is able to remain perfectly cool and rational.

• It-Does-Not-Mean-What-You-Think-It-Means Mansplaining (aka gaslighting): Where a mansplainer will, upon hearing a woman describe some act of harassment or sexism, immediately jump in to tell her it wasn't sexist, or that she was imagining the creepy feeling she got from that guy, or what have you, based on the premise that, as a man, his interpretation of events (for which he may or may not have even been present) is more accurate and reliable than hers.

• It-Only-Exists-If-I've-Personally-Seen-It Mansplaining: Where a mansplainer will only acknowledge the existence of, for example, sexual harassment in the workplace, if he has actually been a witness to the harassment. Often takes the form of "Oh, that doesn't really happen. I've never seen it happen." as if the two are equivalent statements.

• Telepathy Mansplaining: Where a mansplainer, upon listening to you say "I think X/I feel X" on a given subject, will then argue with you that you don't really think/feel that way, despite repeated protestations that no, really, you *do* know how you feel about it without being told, thanks.

So there it is, the Glossary of Mansplaining. As I said, if you have suggestions for new entries, feel free to post them in comments or email me!

Black Children an "Endangered Species"

So this is all kinds of full of facepalm. Or facepaw, as the case may be. (Yes, I'm totally going to abuse this graphic. Get used to it.)

An antiabortion group has begun putting up billboards in and around Atlanta that declare "Black children are an endangered species". Via Renee at Womanist Musings, it seems the organization is basing this on the fact that while black women make up 30% of the demographic, they account for 56% of the abortions performed.

The first epic FAIL of this billboard campaign is in their phrasing. Black children are an "endangered species"? Really? Because gods know, it's not like there's a history, stretching back centuries, of African-Americans being framed as animalistic and therefore subhuman to justify white peoples' abuses of them. And it's not like that shit is the distant past, either. When even as recently as 2008 conservatives felt free to make monkey-caricatures of Obama, referring to black children the same way you would refer to some Amazonian tree frog is incredibly problematic. Black children are not some other species. They are not animals. Please do not refer to them as such.

The second epic FAIL is their statistics. Or rather, the fact that they're using those statistics without ever considering some of the potential reasons behind them. Ok, so black women are aborting at a higher rate than their white sistren. Ever wonder why that is? These people think it's a eugenics conspiracy. But consider that the poverty rate for blacks is three times higher than it is for whites (in 2008, 24.7% vs 8.6%, according to the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan). Combine that with the fact that, according to the Guttmacher Institute, approximately 3/4 of women obtaining abortions cite inability to afford a child as one of their reasons for aborting, and it might occur to you that black women abort more often because they're much likelier to be unable to afford a kid, hmm? I'll also point out that a third of black children live in poverty, and 60% of women who have abortions are already mothers of at least one child, and again, you might think that these factors point toward socioeconomic reasons for the higher rate of abortions among black women, rather than some evil eugenics conspiracy.

Black women deserve the right to choose when and how they will bear children. Attempting to bully them into having children they can't afford or don't want is a shitty way to deal with the real problem here. The real problem is that our society makes it damn difficult for black women to be successful mothers. There are a whole lot of well-off white people who sniff about "welfare queens" when a black woman chooses to reproduce. Bristol Palin was commended for "doing the right thing", but think about the shaming and censure a 17-year-old black girl would face in the same situation. That's a social disincentive to parenting. Of course there's the economic aspect, with poverty rates being as disproportionately high as they are among black communities in general and for black children in particular. On the day when black women face no greater difficulties in having and raising and supporting children than do white women, yet are still aborting at much higher rates, THEN you can look for evidence of a eugenics conspiracy. Until then, consider working on the REAL issues here by actually supporting black women and their children, and keep the fearmongering and bullying tactics to yourselves.

My Consent Means Nothing

(For my family who stops by, a TMI warning. I talk frankly about my sexual exploits in this post. If you don't want to know, don't read it.)

Here is some Grade-AAA, pure uncut slut-shaming: A woman meets a man she's talked to online, and with whom she had intended to have sex. At his house are four friends of his. She alleges that they proceeded to gang-rape her. At the trial, the lawers FOR THE PROSECUTION - not the defense, not the ones trying to defend a group of gang-raping rapists, the lawyers who are supposed to be on HER side, convincing the judge and jury that the men did in fact rape her - HER LAWYERS brought forth "evidence" in the form of a transcript from an MSN chat in which the woman mentioned having fantasized about group sex.

The judge's response? He ordered the jury to return a not-guilty verdict with no further evidence or trial, saying her "credibility was shot to hell". Yes, that is a direct quote. No, I am not making this shit up. I couldn't if I tried.

So be warned, women of the world: If you have ever in your life fantasized about a sex act, you have automatically consented to it forever and for always, with any and all partners. ESPECIALLY if it was a dirty, naughty, good-girls-don't kind of sex act. Because if it really was ANY sex act, we'd see this kind of defense all the time in rape cases, right alongside the usual short-skirt-means-she-wanted-it, she-let-me-kiss-her, why-was-she-drinking-then? bullshit. We'd see defense lawyers (or, hell, prosecution ones apparently) entering rape victims' porn collections or erotic novels or old AIM sex chats with ex-boyfriends as "evidence" that what happened couldn't have been rape. So why don't we? And why did it count in this case?

Because she fantasized about the wrong thing. She didn't fantasize about nice, missionary, one-man-one-woman-one-penis-one-vagina sex. She fantasized about something forbidden, something terribly dirty and slutty. She dared to have desires that defy our cultural standard of appropriate female sexuality. And for that sin, she has no credibility left, no ability to not consent. Her mind is dirtied, therefore her body is dirtied with it. She is unrapeable, because she is no longer one of the Good Girls. She is one of Those Girls, the ones you can fuck but not marry, the ones it's ok to never call again. The sluts. And everyone knows sluts can't be raped.

And here's where it gets personal, for me. If she has lost her credibility and her right to withhold consent, by merely having a fantasy...then my consent means even less. I've had polyamorous relationships. Those have, multiple times over the past year or two of my life, involved more-than-two-player situations. I have not only fantasized about group sex. I've actually had it. Does my having had a threesome now mean that, if I am ever raped by two men at once, I will be told that my consent or lack thereof meant nothing, because my credibility is shot to hell for the sin of having not only fantasized about, but actually had the Wrong Kind Of Sex?

Fantasy is not consent. Not even the Wrong Kind Of Fantasy. End of story.

Wednesday WTF/Words Mean Things: Rape, again

Or, rape: it does not mean what you think it means.

I’m sure we’re all unfortunately well-conversant with the habit entirely too many (male) people have of using “rape” as a metaphor for any unpleasant experience. “I got totally raped by that test!” “Wow, [insert team here] really raped [insert other team here]!” “Shit, the zombie horde totally just raped you.” But “humor” columnist Matt Labash takes abuse of the word rape to a whole new breathtaking level of WTF in his inaugural column “Ask Matt" for just-launched site The Daily Caller. Observe the asshattery (via):

(when asked what three government programs he’d stop if he could)
Legalized rape. What’s that you say? Rape isn’t sanctioned in this country? Then you must not live in a city with red-light or speed cameras, where it happens every day. Forget for a second that in one-fourth of all automated ticket cases, the ticketed car owner wasn’t the one actually driving the vehicle at the time of the infraction (what other crime-fighting technology do we consider reliable that nabs the wrong person 25 percent of the time?) Just as heinous is that every year, more and more municipal governments pretend that they plant these all-seeing menaces in the interest of “safety.” Yet every year, their revenues tend to increase from the very same technology. Meaning that the only deterrent effect the technology has is deterring your government from being honest about raping its own citizenry. If you’re going to slide me a roofie, Government, at least take me to dinner and a movie first.

There are just buckets and buckets of WTF to be parsed here. Leaving aside the question of whether or not speed/red light cameras are an invasion of privacy or a revenue-gathering tool entirely, the man just likened getting caught running a red light to being drugged and raped.

You know the really sad part? I thought, for a brief, sparkling nanosecond, when I read those first couple of sentences (quoted out of the context of the article), that there might be a discussion of rape culture and the ways in which rape is subtly condoned about to begin. Legalized is a bit strong a term for it, I thought, but hey…wait. What? The government is forcibly violating peoples’ bodily autonomy and sexual agency by…posting red-light cams? Really? Oh, and it’s no big to be drugged and raped while you’re unconscious, so long as your rapist gets you dinner and a movie first. Cause we all know that’s how the evening ends, amirite? You buy her dinner and go to a movie and then you fuck! And if she doesn’t wanna, you drug her and fuck her anyway!

Memo to all you conservative douchefucks out there who keep. on. fucking. doing this. RAPE IS NOT A METAPHOR FOR YOUR UNFORTUNATE EXPERIENCES!! I get that you don’t like red-light cams, and that you feel your privacy has been violated by them. But your poor widdle fee-fees being hurt does NOT compare in ANY fucking way to the actual experience of being raped. Was your body used without your consent and against your will for the sexual gratification of another who, for whatever reason, felt entitled to use you in such a way? No? Then shut the FUCK up and quit. calling. it. rape.

Before anyone feels the need to start in on me for being a Humorless Feminist™, I get the “joke”. Haha, he’s calling it rape because rape is a Serious Thing so that juxtaposition, something relatively harmless being talked about like it’s something Serious, isn’t that high-larious? Except no. Some things are just Not Funny. Ever. Minimizing rape by making it a punchline to a bad joke is not funny, and it never will be.

So remember, conservadouches: if the unpleasant experience you’re all testerical about did not actually involve forcible sexual use of your body against your will, YOU. WERE. NOT. RAPED. End of story. Find some other way to express the tantrum you want to throw over it.

[Author's note: originally the last sentence read "...express how butthurt you are over it." It was brought to my attention in comments that, although I didn't intend it that way, such an expression might be seen as itself euphemistic for rape, so I've changed it for now and will be considering whether or not to continue using the phrase in the future. My apologies to anyone who saw it and was upset by it.]

Adventures in Holiday Shopping

All I wanted to do was pick up some cheap holiday lights in peace, but no, Sexism and Racism weren't going to let me alone for that long, especially not in a retail environment.

Exhibit A: White-as-Default, Yet Again

So white people holding a baby is just a "holiday ornament". But a black angel holding a black baby is a "cultural accent"? This is like "I have a black friend" for your holiday decorations; pick up an ornament with PoC on it to accent your collection! >.<

Exhibit B: Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Will Be Girls AND THEY WILL NEVER OVERLAP.

Because gods forbid a boy and a girl might actually like the same toys. Oh noes! If boys and girls play with the same toys, gender roles will not be sufficiently enforced upon their delicate little child-minds, and society as we know it will collapse! Quelle horreur! What do you do if you know a girl-child who likes playing with matchbox cars and toy soldiers (probably what are in this grab bag), or a boy-child who prefers dolls and ponies? Do you get them the bag that matches their gender, or the bag that matches their interest and field objections of "but this says it's for a boy/girl!"? Enforcement of arbitrary gender roles FTL.

(And to think at the advent of camera phones, I scorned them. "What could people ever need that for?" I used to ask. Lol.)

Wednesday WTF: Lessons in Gaming While Female

Over the past few days, I've introduced Fiance (a gamer, like most of my friends and Others) to the hilarity that is Zero Punctuation. ZP is a video game review series, in videos where the narrator - Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - talks reallyreallyfastasiftheresnopunctuation ("punctuation" apparently including spaces between words), illustrated by cartoons and little black monsters. ZP is known for heavy snark, sarcasm, ridicule, and general misanthropy. We watched reviews on Tomb Raider (good gods, the boob jokes!), Mirror's Edge, Sonic Unleashed, the GTA series, Prototype, and a few more. Now, ZP isn't perfect for a progressive to watch by any means. "Lame" gets used a fair bit, and Yahtzee is fond of gay jokes. But today we decided to look up his review of Sims 3...and wow, did all misogynistic hell break loose.



Transcript (punctuation added back for readability and irrelevant bits omitted in ...s):

Well, fuck. I really didn't want to end up in this position. The only reason I bought The Sims 3 - after dark and while no one was watching, obviously - was as an emergency fallback for when the summer games drought kicked in. I was hoping to have Ghostbusters by now, but I guess time makes fools of us all. Australian release times, to be precise.

...

I have to admit, I'm surprised that The Sims 3 even exists, considering that EA's usual policy of releasing a new fraction of a game every time the cocaine bucket runs dry seemed to be serving them perfectly well. [black monster with a bow on its head, denoting "female", sits in front of a computer with a bottle in hand] But I guess even Sims fans occasionally demand something more every now and again, when they're not drinking Bacardi Breezers and having periods. [blood shoots out from beneath the desk]

I know what you're thinking: "Yahtzee, you inappropriate menstruation joke, why the reluctance? The Sims is more popular than a chocolate cunnilingus machine [a row of monsters-with-bows carrying a lump of chocolate with a tongue marches by], and afterwards doesn't make you feel fat and ashamed! [one bloated-looking monster-with-bow lays next to the tongue, chocolate smeared around, seeming to cry] It's introduced millions of people to gaming and has made enough money to buy a lapdance for every depressive in the Western world!" [monster-with-bow wags its "ass" toward a cartoon emo dude] But this exercise assumed that you are the president of The Sims Fan Club.

Well, I could say that the majority of its audience are casual gamers, [a monster-with-bow standing next to a Bejeweled game screen pops up] pronouncing "casual gamers" the same way I pronounce the word "tapeworms", [a picture of a tapeworm pops up next to the m-w-b and Bejeweled screen] but that argument's a bit "no true Scotsman." Truly, my objection comes because what I am is a critic of games, not a critic of computer programs that you just fuck around in.

Ok, let's try to be professional about this. [in a mocking, girlish voice] "Oh, boy, The Sims 3! It's like The Sims 2 but plus another 1!"

...

I couldn't find any snooker tables or jacuzzis for my planned entertainment lounge, and there's very little variety of hairdos! Yes, my new vagina is growing quite nicely, thank you for asking.

...

But the most evil thing is the player. [arrow points to a monster-with-bow sitting in front of a computer, then shows a monster-with-bow dropping a cage over two tiny Sims] Trapping Sims, Truman-Show-style, to toy with their lives, not even for fun, but to indulge a twisted power fantasy [m-w-b starts boinking the Sims together in a manner to simulate sex] without having to go through all the trouble of birthing children of their own to abuse. [m-w-b runs toward a trio of miniature monsters pushing a lawnmower] So I guess what I'm saying is that all women are evil. Bewitching innocents with their insidious emotions and absorbing our manhoods into their rank, blood-streaked spam sandwiches. Who needs 'em? Incidentally, I'm still not gay.

So from this, we can learn:

1. The Sims is a game one should be ashamed of playing. Okay, fine, a lot of people feel that way. Whatever. Just personal opinion.

2. The Sims is only played by women. Also, the defining characteristics of women are drinking of girly drinks and bleeding! Or, no. Fiance plays Sims, so did my brother for awhile. And I happen to like rum-&-cokes and will do tequila shots with my friends; Ex-Boyfriend liked the "girly" drinks and the only alcohol I've ever seen Fiance drink was Smirnoff Ice (which is more or less the same as a Bacardi Breezer). So this means my ex and my fiance are women, and I'm a man. Right. Extra misogyny points for the contempt positively dripping from Yahtzee's voice as he refers to these Bacardi-Breezer-drinking-crotch-bleeding people.

3. Women love chocolate and cunnilingus, but it makes them fat and ashamed, as they well should be! Many women do like chocolate. Many women also like cunnilingus. However, chocolate doesn't make one fat, and there's no shame in eating it or in receiving oral sex. Besides, plenty of men like chocolate and oral sex, and you don't hear "fat and ashamed" jokes being made about that.

4. "Casual gamer" is code for "woman who thinks she's a gamer", and also those "casual gamers" are equivalent to tapeworms. If A=B and B=C, then women gamers are about as worthy of respect as tapeworms! Wow...just...fuck a whole bunch of that shit. I guess all I do as a woman gamer is play Bejeweled and The Sims, and that makes me as deserving of contempt as a tapeworm.

5. The Sims is not a game. It is just something to fuck around with. Therefore playing it is not a Gamer Activity. 'Scuse me, Mr. High Horse, can you come down and talk? Cause I'm reasonably certain that all your precious video games are also "just" programs to fuck around with. What makes The Sims less worthwhile than your fucking-around-programs? Oh, that's right. Because it's played by WOMEN. Who, remember, are like tapeworms. Of course you don't have to respect it.

6. Only women care about things like furnishing a house or hairstyles. Having a vagina is a prerequisite for this. A man loses Manliness Points if he cares about Woman Shit. Ah, gender stereotyping/reinforcement of prescribed gender roles. Always good to see you. Again.

7. Women. Are. Evil. I'm sorry, that last paragraph is just...words fail me. Sims are a substitute for giving birth to children purely to abuse them??? What in the..."blood-streaked spam sandwiches"? This is just the most egregiously gratuitous display of "EW GIRL COOTIES" I've seen in a damn long time.

Fuck you, Yahtzee and ZP. I really did love ZP reviews. Now all I can hear is "I'm a raging misogynist!" over and over again when you talk.

Caster Semenya's Chromosomes: None Of Our Business

Everyone and their sister in the progressive blogosphere has posted about the fucked-up way the International Association of Athletics Federation is treating Caster Semenya. Short recap, if you haven't heard: Caster Semenya is an 18-yr-old runner from South Africa, who just took the gold in the 800m at this year's World Championships in Athletics. Her time was so impressive, and she herself so lacking in our normative ideas of "appropriate" femininity, that the IAAF decided to force her to undergo gender testing on the suspicion that she isn't "really" a woman. For a more thorough explanation of just why this is fucked-up, try here, here, or here (read the comments, that's where the gold is).

Now, there is a petition going about taking IAAF to task for their shameful treatment of Semenya. Tell the IAAF to stay out of Caster Semenya's pants!

Remember Tranny-Alert, and how fast they scuttled away before the righteous blaze of our progressive fury? Let's do that again, shall we? Add your name. Tell the IAAF it's not ok to demand gender-testing of Caster Semenya.

Wednesday WTF: Snapshots in WTF from a weekend at the cabin

I'm going to do something a little different for this week's Wednesday WTF.

This weekend past, I was invited to join a group of friends and family in going up to their cabin in the mountains. It's very isolated, requiring about 20 miles on a dirt logging road to even get to the nearest town, and then another mile or two on what amounts to a trail better suited for horses and pack-mules than cars. I, my mother, and my younger brother joined our friends Don and Cindra to drive up. At the cabin we met Don's father, Earl, who had built the cabin back in the 60's, his best friend Dwayne, and Earl's girlfriend Cathy.

Mamana had warned me ahead of time about Earl and Cathy and Dwayne. They are very traditional in their thinking, she'd said. The men do Important Outdoor Things and the women sit around playing dice and cooking for the men. The older group are sexist, racist, and homophobic, she told me, and I needed to be prepared to deal with that.

She wasn't wrong. So I present: Snapshots in WTF from my weekend at the cabin!

Afternoon, Day 1: Cathy, sloshed on two Bloody Marys and three vodka/waters, leans close to me during a political discussion and says, "I voted for Obama. But I have to tell you, I just don't like n-----s." When I look at her, stunned, she says, "Oh, it's just my generation." I'm too startled at the outright admission of racism to say anything, and the conversation moves on without me.

Evening, Day 1: Earl and Don are teasing my brother about getting into physical fights with a woman (in the hypothetical). Earl says, "If you win, you haven't proved anything, cause all you did was beat a girl. But if she beats you, you're humiliated for life!" I shake my head, close my book, get up and walk toward the cabin to go hang out with the women in the kitchen. Don thinks this is funny, and calls toward my retreating back, "Right, J?" I pause and shoot him a dirty look, then go inside. I can't think of anything to say that won't get me in trouble. In the kitchen, Mamana takes one look at my face and says "How bad are they being?" I say, "Bad enough." I am no help in the kitchen, and we both know it, but I'd rather stay in with the women where the explicit sexism won't be so rife.

After dinner, Day 1: The women start clearing the table while the men sit and talk. Earl starts telling some hi-fucking-larious story about having dinner with a woman who asked his help with the dishes: "I told her, I'll throw them out the window and buy you a new set first!" He finishes by giving a Very Serious Pronouncement that, "I'll do my own dishes if it's just me. But if there's a woman around at all, I don't touch them." Because all women = self-motile dishwashing appliances. I hiss between my teeth and shoot a dark look at Mamana; she shakes her head. It's Earl's cabin, and he's the patriarch here. I can't challenge him.

Night, Day 2: After a particularly lucrative game of dice, Cathy folds her increasing stack of dollar bills into a thick wad. She waves it over her head and exclaims, "Look, I've got a n----- bankroll!" I look incredulously at her. She says, "What, haven't you ever heard the term before?" I reply coldly, "No. I don't normally hang out with the kind of person who uses that word, you see." My patience is wearing thin, but I am still a guest here and don't have the standing to be any more outspoken about it.

Dinner, Day 3: During a discussion of older actors, Rock Hudson, closeted gay actor who died of AIDS in the 80's, comes up. Earl decides to share another hi-fucking-larious piece of wit:

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
If he had liked girls
He'd still be with us!

Thankfully, I didn't actually hear most of that at the time, just the last couple words. I asked my brother about it after the fact and got the rest. If I'd heard it at the time, I don't think I could have managed to keep myself from flipping the fuck out at him. As I wrote in my notebook that evening: "Hah, hah, fucking hah. Cause AIDS is totez about being gay, and people dying of an incurable disease is comedy gold!!!" Who the fuck makes a goddamn JOKE about that shit? *incoherent noises of rage*

If that isn't enough for a Wednesday WTF, I don't know what is. Next week will resume the usual WTFery of the world, I just had to vent my personal WTFery this time around. Ah, it's good to be home, with access to the feminist blogosphere and reality-based discourse once more.

Words Mean Things

Words Mean Things.

This is a phrase that comes to mind with increasing regularity these days. It seems to me that certain unscrupulous people like to play games with words, to make them mean things they do not actually mean. I am going, therefore, to start tracking these incidents, in order to remind people that words do, in fact, mean things. And that perhaps they should be more careful in how they use those words to mean things.

Let's start with feminism. In the comments at Liss' reprint of The Terrible Bargain (which, by the way, is the most stunningly brilliant bit of writing I have ever read. Read it now.) at CiFA, some idiot said:

For example, if a woman driver cuts me up, I might think, 'Stupid bitch!' in anger. This is clearly a gendered insult -- but I don't think it's misogynistic. I consider myself a feminist and still use these terms.

Um. Really? Dear commenter, let me introduce you to feminism, wherein it is not acceptable to use gendered insults, even in anger. You acknowledge that "bitch" is a gendered insult, but you see nothing wrong with using it and still calling yourself a feminist? Feminism: you do not haz it.

In case your enlightened feminist brain cannot think of a single alternative to shout at a woman who's upset you on the road, let me supply some ideas: Stupid fucker! Fucking asshole! Shithead! Idiot meatwad! Mindless fuckwit!

Now that you have these alternatives, I invite you to continue upon your merry way, and either mend your gendered-insult habits or stop calling yourself a feminist. Because Words Mean Things, and for so long as you're willing to use gendered insults, you are not a feminist.