The Calgary chapter of The Salvation Army, that bastion of anti-gay hatred and occasional fundamentalism, has made a bit of a stir lately over the revelation that donated Harry Potter and Twilight toys will not be distributed to children in need along with other toys they receive to distribute, nor will they be passed on to other charities who will distribute them, because they are toys revolving around "witchcraft" and "the demonic" and the rest of the utterly predictable list of objections this kind of thing always brings up.
Which is stupid, and denying children in need toys they would enjoy and play with simply because of one's personal religious beliefs is reprehensible, but nothing more than I'd expect from SA. I just have one question, though, and this is for all the anti-HP types who freak out about OMG WITCHES over it:
If your god is, as you so love to claim, a "god of love"...why do you so vehemently hate a book series in which the entire premise of the protagonist's power against the main antagonist is, quite literally, LOVE?
(For those who have not read Harry Potter, Harry survived Voldemort's original murder attempt and retains an odd, inexplicable power to resist him, despite being in all other ways a more or less average young wizard, because his mother loved him so much she sacrificed herself to protect him, leaving him with the lingering protection of love, something Voldemort cannot understand, fight, or control.) It just makes no sense. You're screaming about OMG demons and witchcraft for a book series where *love* is the basic premise of the protagonist's power, and in which the forces of light are doing battle with the forces of darkness. Not to mention, spoiler alert, in the end the protagonist sacrifices himself willingly to help his side win the battle. Jesus parallel much?
It's just dumb, and anyone with half a brain can see through the fearmongering. Please stop now, and stop letting your irrational hate interfere with children getting toys to play with.
12.13.2010
Anti-Choice Hypocrisy, Part 465,423,831,835
Exhibit A: "Informed" Consent, or "Whose information are we offering here?"
A so-called "informed consent" bill is introduced by an anti-choice legislator in Guam. Reproductive justice advocates know these bills are purely propaganda, designed to emotionalize the pregnancy and try to turn women away from abortion. Sure enough, the original form of the bill requires women be told the "gestational age, anatomical and physiological characteristics of the fetus, as well as of the medical assistance benefits for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care," plus a video describing "the unborn child" and information on agencies offering "abortion alternatives". Other legislators, however, got their hands on the bill during the amendments process, and the finished version instead requires that the woman be given information including "the name of the physician who will perform the abortion, the medical risks associated with carrying the child to term, the need for anti-Rh immune globulin therapy, and the consequences of refusing the therapy." You know. Actual, relevant information on carrying a pregnancy to term.
The legislator who originally introduced the bill is having a tantrum now, saying "...after further review of the bill in its final form, I realized this potential law may encourage abortions. ... This one-sided presentation no longer protects Guam's future children." So, acknowledging that there are physical risks associated with carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth = encouraging abortions, and we can't have that...but downplaying those risks and editorializing about the "unborn child" in a blatant, outright attempt to encourage giving birth is perfectly fine? Look, sir, your bill was clearly intended to influence women's decisions about their pregnancies in the first place. You have no leg to stand on here, just because you're upset that it might influence them in the other direction than what you wanted. If you don't want women influenced in a way you don't like, don't try to step in and influence them your way, either, because this is what you open the door to: equal-opportunity influencing. Which, let's face it: that's not what you hypocrites want.
But back to this whole idea of "informed consent". Pregnancy *has* risks. That is solid, undeniable, medically-established FACT. First-trimester abortion (which is when some 98% of all abortions take place) is, statistically speaking, safer than giving birth at full term. Anti-choicers claim to want to "inform" women, but when it comes to giving them actual information about the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, they want to cover up all the negative information and portray it as a win-win situation. How could this be said to be about information at all, at that point? It's not. It's about deception and influence and controlling women to do what they want us to do. Period the end. So they don't like *actual* informed consent requirements, because they're afraid of what women will do if they're actually given information and space to make their own decisions.
Exhibit B: Clinic Regulations, or "We are rubber, you are glue, attempts to regulate us bounce off of us and stick to you!"
Last month, a bill passed the Michigan Senate, regulating how clinics which perform abortions dispose of the products of conception. Based on an unfounded accusation that someone found fetal remains in a dumpster behind a clinic (although police investigations over a period of 8 months found no such remains, and what the hell were they doing going through the dumpster anyway?), the bill would require clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains, and would mean fetal remains are no longer classified as "products of conception" along with the placenta and other tissues.
Simultaneously, over this past year anti-choice "crisis pregnancy centers" in Baltimore and NYC have been screaming bloody murder about "violations" of their First Amendment rights, because of bills being debated/passed that would require them to display signs openly admitting that they do not provide or refer for abortion or contraceptive services, and advertising whether or not there is any medically-licensed staff on-site.
What's wrong with this picture?
Seriously. Anti-choice CPCs, generally staffed only by volunteers, which are well-documented to lie, pressure, manipulate, and threaten women into keeping their pregnancies, throw tantrums worthy of a spoiled 4-year-old being denied hir favorite toy at the idea of being subject to any kind of truth-in-advertising regulations, while the same anti-choice legislators who support those CPCs will happily regulate every possible aspect of a *real* clinic's functioning they can get their hands on, from record-keeping to scripting their counseling sessions to which kinds of ultrasounds they must offer on what kind of equipment and, now, how they dispose of medical waste. (Yes, antis, pregnancy tissue, including the fetal remains, are medical waste, same as tissue remnants from any surgical procedure. So are your tonsils. Get over it.)
Have these idiots even noticed what gigantic, flaming hypocrites they all are? Do they even care, at this point? Or are they so far gone in their war on women's autonomy that they will ignore any contradiction and go to any lengths, no matter how irrational, to further their ultimate goal of total control over women's sexuality and reproductive rights?
This, by the way? Is why common-ground approaches are doomed to fail. You can't compromise with this kind of shit. Attempts to do so will only give them more ground, and they will *never* be satisfied. I thought we would have learned this by now.
A so-called "informed consent" bill is introduced by an anti-choice legislator in Guam. Reproductive justice advocates know these bills are purely propaganda, designed to emotionalize the pregnancy and try to turn women away from abortion. Sure enough, the original form of the bill requires women be told the "gestational age, anatomical and physiological characteristics of the fetus, as well as of the medical assistance benefits for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care," plus a video describing "the unborn child" and information on agencies offering "abortion alternatives". Other legislators, however, got their hands on the bill during the amendments process, and the finished version instead requires that the woman be given information including "the name of the physician who will perform the abortion, the medical risks associated with carrying the child to term, the need for anti-Rh immune globulin therapy, and the consequences of refusing the therapy." You know. Actual, relevant information on carrying a pregnancy to term.
The legislator who originally introduced the bill is having a tantrum now, saying "...after further review of the bill in its final form, I realized this potential law may encourage abortions. ... This one-sided presentation no longer protects Guam's future children." So, acknowledging that there are physical risks associated with carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth = encouraging abortions, and we can't have that...but downplaying those risks and editorializing about the "unborn child" in a blatant, outright attempt to encourage giving birth is perfectly fine? Look, sir, your bill was clearly intended to influence women's decisions about their pregnancies in the first place. You have no leg to stand on here, just because you're upset that it might influence them in the other direction than what you wanted. If you don't want women influenced in a way you don't like, don't try to step in and influence them your way, either, because this is what you open the door to: equal-opportunity influencing. Which, let's face it: that's not what you hypocrites want.
But back to this whole idea of "informed consent". Pregnancy *has* risks. That is solid, undeniable, medically-established FACT. First-trimester abortion (which is when some 98% of all abortions take place) is, statistically speaking, safer than giving birth at full term. Anti-choicers claim to want to "inform" women, but when it comes to giving them actual information about the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, they want to cover up all the negative information and portray it as a win-win situation. How could this be said to be about information at all, at that point? It's not. It's about deception and influence and controlling women to do what they want us to do. Period the end. So they don't like *actual* informed consent requirements, because they're afraid of what women will do if they're actually given information and space to make their own decisions.
Exhibit B: Clinic Regulations, or "We are rubber, you are glue, attempts to regulate us bounce off of us and stick to you!"
Last month, a bill passed the Michigan Senate, regulating how clinics which perform abortions dispose of the products of conception. Based on an unfounded accusation that someone found fetal remains in a dumpster behind a clinic (although police investigations over a period of 8 months found no such remains, and what the hell were they doing going through the dumpster anyway?), the bill would require clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains, and would mean fetal remains are no longer classified as "products of conception" along with the placenta and other tissues.
Simultaneously, over this past year anti-choice "crisis pregnancy centers" in Baltimore and NYC have been screaming bloody murder about "violations" of their First Amendment rights, because of bills being debated/passed that would require them to display signs openly admitting that they do not provide or refer for abortion or contraceptive services, and advertising whether or not there is any medically-licensed staff on-site.
What's wrong with this picture?
Seriously. Anti-choice CPCs, generally staffed only by volunteers, which are well-documented to lie, pressure, manipulate, and threaten women into keeping their pregnancies, throw tantrums worthy of a spoiled 4-year-old being denied hir favorite toy at the idea of being subject to any kind of truth-in-advertising regulations, while the same anti-choice legislators who support those CPCs will happily regulate every possible aspect of a *real* clinic's functioning they can get their hands on, from record-keeping to scripting their counseling sessions to which kinds of ultrasounds they must offer on what kind of equipment and, now, how they dispose of medical waste. (Yes, antis, pregnancy tissue, including the fetal remains, are medical waste, same as tissue remnants from any surgical procedure. So are your tonsils. Get over it.)
Have these idiots even noticed what gigantic, flaming hypocrites they all are? Do they even care, at this point? Or are they so far gone in their war on women's autonomy that they will ignore any contradiction and go to any lengths, no matter how irrational, to further their ultimate goal of total control over women's sexuality and reproductive rights?
This, by the way? Is why common-ground approaches are doomed to fail. You can't compromise with this kind of shit. Attempts to do so will only give them more ground, and they will *never* be satisfied. I thought we would have learned this by now.
12.10.2010
Pregnant Women Are Public Property
If you don't know PostSecret, here's the quick version: an art project begun several years ago, in which people were asked to anonymously write a secret of theirs on a postcard and mail it in, blossomed and grew into a huge thing. There's the website, where a selection of a dozen or so postcards are posted every Sunday. There are, I think, four books now of collected secret postcards. There's the exhibit, which travels from gallery to gallery around the country, displaying secrets of all kinds, all anonymous. There are events, at which PostSecret founder Frank Warren talks about the beginning of PS, what it's done, what he's learned from it, and people have an opportunity to share their secrets. It's all about finding our common humanity in the things we would never admit out loud. I find it fascinating.
I also follow the @PostSecret Twitter account. Frank tweets random stuff, and also sometimes tweets secrets from postcards that don't make it into the weekly post. Then yesterday, this tweet was posted:
But this one about the decaf for pregnant women goes beyond that. It's not just "customer service employee is judging you", it's "a person feels that they are entitled to decide how a pregnant woman's body should be treated better than the pregnant woman in question." And it ties into a long, ugly history of the public feeling like pregnant women's bodies are fair game for denial of bodily sovereignty. It's a way of playing "good mother, bad mother" with a total stranger who is just trying to have a damn cup of coffee. It's a person saying, "Because you are pregnant, I am going to make decisions for you instead of letting you decide for yourself." It's sexist, it's fucked up, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the person whose secret this was fully expects to have public opinion on hir side. Because after all, the person whose decisions zie's overriding so cavalierly? It's only a pregnant woman.
I also follow the @PostSecret Twitter account. Frank tweets random stuff, and also sometimes tweets secrets from postcards that don't make it into the weekly post. Then yesterday, this tweet was posted:
Today's Secret: "I work at Starbucks. I judge pregnant mothers and decaffeinate their drinks, even though they ask for caffeinated."I'm sorry, what??? Now, I've seen secrets like this pop up before. A few months ago, there was one about a civil servant who always marked down servicemembers as blood/tissue donors in case of death, whether they had said they wanted to or not, which a lot of people were angry about, myself included. There are a half-dozen secrets I can think of that involve someone in some kind of service-based position admitting to the ways in which they judge, help, or sneakily undermine customers, from a grocery store checker who "forgets" to scan every tenth item for people paying with food stamps or using WIC coupons, to a call center rep admitting zie puts angry customers on hold to let them cool down instead of dealing with them. As a retail shift manager who does, in fact, decide whether or not we'll take your return based on how argumentative or pissy you are with me about it, I can relate.
But this one about the decaf for pregnant women goes beyond that. It's not just "customer service employee is judging you", it's "a person feels that they are entitled to decide how a pregnant woman's body should be treated better than the pregnant woman in question." And it ties into a long, ugly history of the public feeling like pregnant women's bodies are fair game for denial of bodily sovereignty. It's a way of playing "good mother, bad mother" with a total stranger who is just trying to have a damn cup of coffee. It's a person saying, "Because you are pregnant, I am going to make decisions for you instead of letting you decide for yourself." It's sexist, it's fucked up, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the person whose secret this was fully expects to have public opinion on hir side. Because after all, the person whose decisions zie's overriding so cavalierly? It's only a pregnant woman.
11.20.2010
A Roomful Of Women With Men's Eyes
[TMI warning for family: I talk about a pole dance class and enjoying/experiencing my sexuality through dance. You may or may not want to hear about this.]
I love the art of pole dance. Vertical dance. Vertical gymnastics. Whatever you want to call it. I love the flexibility of the dancers, the incredible way they can hold their entire bodies off the ground by wrapping one arm or a leg around a pole and look like they're flying. My ex, not too long after we broke up, got into pole dance, and performed at a few clubs for awhile. She had a pole installed in her house, and once we started being friendly again, she had me over and taught me some basic spins and showed me some videos of competition-level dancers. Ever since then, I've wanted to try it myself.
But I couldn't. First it was a problem of money, then of finding a place nearby, then a problem of time, and always an undercurrent of body-issues. Last night, a blog I read linked to a video of a woman of size performing some very cool pole tricks, and it started the longing up all over again. So I did some research, found a studio that offered introductory one-off classes, checked the schedule, saw that there was one tonight, and this morning I called and reserved my spot. So tonight, less than 24 hours after deciding I'd like to try, I walked into a brand-new just-opened pole/erotic dance studio in Walnut Creek along with a trio of women (sisters or friends or something) for an Introduction to Sensual/Pole Dance class.
I was, as I had fully expected, the largest woman there. The other three students and the teacher were all at least four inches shorter than me, and I had easily 50-100 lbs on them all. It was a heavy-duty test of FA's effect on me and my own self-esteem. Thankfully, I passed with flying colors. ^_^ In a pair of borrowed stripper stilettos (the studio loans shoes to students for the intro class), I strutted across in front of the mirror, and even to my own usually-critical eyes, I looked fucking hot. Neither hotter for my curves, nor less hot for being fat, than the other women, I just looked *good*. It helped that the instructor asked, as we were setting up mats for some warm-ups, if I had danced before, because "You just have that posture and way of moving of someone who's done dance before." It was a nice little ego-boost. I explained that I've taken belly dance, ballroom dance, and modern dance before. I also explained that my ex was an exotic dancer and had taught me some simple moves, although it was a long time ago. She blinked a little at the clear connotation that I'd dated a woman before, but to her credit, didn't treat me any differently.
We did warmups, and some floor moves, and when it came time to try a basic spin on the pole, she said to me something like "I guess you already know how to do this, you said your roommate taught you, right?" Um, no. No, I never mentioned a roommate. It was as if she had mentally edited my previous comments into a framework she was more comfortable with, where two women would only live together as roommates (although my ex and I never lived together, but what the hey). So I corrected her. "No, my ex did." The blink again, and a slight stutter to her cheery small-talk, and she said "Oh, that's right" and moved on to a different subject. Do not disappear my relationship just because it makes you uncomfortable, dammit. Do not turn lovers and a beautiful relationship into "roommates" because you don't want to acknowledge that not every woman coming into your class is going to take the dance you teach her home to a boyfriend or husband. (The irony, of course, is that insomuch as I take *anything* home to perform intimately [since that wasn't my intent in taking the class, I don't really "take it home" at all], at the moment, I would be taking it home to show my male partner.)
The class moved on, I enjoyed playing on the pole, and then the instructor was working us through putting everything together into a mini-routine. She gestured to one end of the studio: "Pretend there's an audience over there. Your boyfriend or husband or whoever. Now, face this way..." and gave us this mini-routine, enlivening it by encouraging us to play to our imaginary male audience. "Swing your hips at him...look back over your shoulder at him..."
The studio is emphasized as a women-only space. I kept wondering, what is the point of a women-only space, if you deliberately invoke the male gaze anyway? So it's a group of women, yay. But we're supposed to pretend men are watching anyway. We couldn't possibly be dancing for the enjoyment of a female partner. We couldn't possibly be dancing simply for our own enjoyment, to feel the glory of our own body moving in sensual, beautiful ways. We couldn't possibly just want to dance, express whatever emotions we have, learn this dance form because it's just fucking cool. No, we are now and always performing for a male audience, displaying ourselves sexually for his enjoyment.
I realize that pole dance originates from a performance dedicated to titillating men. I get that. But if you're going to go to the effort of having a women-only space to learn and enjoy this dance form in, why would you still insist on making it about performing for men?
I think it's because, in this culture, women are not taught to enjoy our sexuality for and by and with ourselves. We are taught to see ourselves sexually, and even just sensually, through the lens of a man enjoying us. It's as if, without the mirror of a man, or at the very least *a partner* to reflect our sexuality back to us, it doesn't really exist.
Well, fuck that. I can sashay around the pole, swing my hips and admire their sway, without anyone but me seeing it. I don't have to pretend my man is watching in order to love the sensual way my body can move. I can twirl around the pole, off the ground, hair flying out behind me, and take gleeful pleasure in the simple sensation of it, without an audience to witness. I am a beautiful, sexual, and sensual being, and I don't need to have a man's eyes to appreciate it.
I love the art of pole dance. Vertical dance. Vertical gymnastics. Whatever you want to call it. I love the flexibility of the dancers, the incredible way they can hold their entire bodies off the ground by wrapping one arm or a leg around a pole and look like they're flying. My ex, not too long after we broke up, got into pole dance, and performed at a few clubs for awhile. She had a pole installed in her house, and once we started being friendly again, she had me over and taught me some basic spins and showed me some videos of competition-level dancers. Ever since then, I've wanted to try it myself.
But I couldn't. First it was a problem of money, then of finding a place nearby, then a problem of time, and always an undercurrent of body-issues. Last night, a blog I read linked to a video of a woman of size performing some very cool pole tricks, and it started the longing up all over again. So I did some research, found a studio that offered introductory one-off classes, checked the schedule, saw that there was one tonight, and this morning I called and reserved my spot. So tonight, less than 24 hours after deciding I'd like to try, I walked into a brand-new just-opened pole/erotic dance studio in Walnut Creek along with a trio of women (sisters or friends or something) for an Introduction to Sensual/Pole Dance class.
I was, as I had fully expected, the largest woman there. The other three students and the teacher were all at least four inches shorter than me, and I had easily 50-100 lbs on them all. It was a heavy-duty test of FA's effect on me and my own self-esteem. Thankfully, I passed with flying colors. ^_^ In a pair of borrowed stripper stilettos (the studio loans shoes to students for the intro class), I strutted across in front of the mirror, and even to my own usually-critical eyes, I looked fucking hot. Neither hotter for my curves, nor less hot for being fat, than the other women, I just looked *good*. It helped that the instructor asked, as we were setting up mats for some warm-ups, if I had danced before, because "You just have that posture and way of moving of someone who's done dance before." It was a nice little ego-boost. I explained that I've taken belly dance, ballroom dance, and modern dance before. I also explained that my ex was an exotic dancer and had taught me some simple moves, although it was a long time ago. She blinked a little at the clear connotation that I'd dated a woman before, but to her credit, didn't treat me any differently.
We did warmups, and some floor moves, and when it came time to try a basic spin on the pole, she said to me something like "I guess you already know how to do this, you said your roommate taught you, right?" Um, no. No, I never mentioned a roommate. It was as if she had mentally edited my previous comments into a framework she was more comfortable with, where two women would only live together as roommates (although my ex and I never lived together, but what the hey). So I corrected her. "No, my ex did." The blink again, and a slight stutter to her cheery small-talk, and she said "Oh, that's right" and moved on to a different subject. Do not disappear my relationship just because it makes you uncomfortable, dammit. Do not turn lovers and a beautiful relationship into "roommates" because you don't want to acknowledge that not every woman coming into your class is going to take the dance you teach her home to a boyfriend or husband. (The irony, of course, is that insomuch as I take *anything* home to perform intimately [since that wasn't my intent in taking the class, I don't really "take it home" at all], at the moment, I would be taking it home to show my male partner.)
The class moved on, I enjoyed playing on the pole, and then the instructor was working us through putting everything together into a mini-routine. She gestured to one end of the studio: "Pretend there's an audience over there. Your boyfriend or husband or whoever. Now, face this way..." and gave us this mini-routine, enlivening it by encouraging us to play to our imaginary male audience. "Swing your hips at him...look back over your shoulder at him..."
The studio is emphasized as a women-only space. I kept wondering, what is the point of a women-only space, if you deliberately invoke the male gaze anyway? So it's a group of women, yay. But we're supposed to pretend men are watching anyway. We couldn't possibly be dancing for the enjoyment of a female partner. We couldn't possibly be dancing simply for our own enjoyment, to feel the glory of our own body moving in sensual, beautiful ways. We couldn't possibly just want to dance, express whatever emotions we have, learn this dance form because it's just fucking cool. No, we are now and always performing for a male audience, displaying ourselves sexually for his enjoyment.
I realize that pole dance originates from a performance dedicated to titillating men. I get that. But if you're going to go to the effort of having a women-only space to learn and enjoy this dance form in, why would you still insist on making it about performing for men?
I think it's because, in this culture, women are not taught to enjoy our sexuality for and by and with ourselves. We are taught to see ourselves sexually, and even just sensually, through the lens of a man enjoying us. It's as if, without the mirror of a man, or at the very least *a partner* to reflect our sexuality back to us, it doesn't really exist.
Well, fuck that. I can sashay around the pole, swing my hips and admire their sway, without anyone but me seeing it. I don't have to pretend my man is watching in order to love the sensual way my body can move. I can twirl around the pole, off the ground, hair flying out behind me, and take gleeful pleasure in the simple sensation of it, without an audience to witness. I am a beautiful, sexual, and sensual being, and I don't need to have a man's eyes to appreciate it.
11.16.2010
This Is How We Are Trained
In the discussions of the sick, fucked-up methods security theatre is using these days (pornoscanners and "enhanced" pat-downs that, if done by anyone but a TSA agent, would be grounds for a sexual assault charge), I was linked to a video that disturbed me greatly. Trigger warnings for disrespecting a child's bodily autonomy apply.
For those who cannot view it, the video is a clip of a news segment about security procedures and the ordeal of the three-year-old daughter of one of the news program's employees. A blurry clip taken on the man's cell phone shows his wife and daughter at airport security, when his daughter was required to undergo a pat-down. The little girl is crying hysterically, screaming over and over again, "Stop touching me!" while her mother holds her for the TSA agent to examine.
And as I watched it, my heart hurt for that little girl, and all I could think was, This is how we are trained. This is how the message sinks in, reinforced in so many ways by so many people: Your body is not your own. You do not have the right to not be touched. You do not have the right to say no. Saying no, saying stop, does not work. We tell children that if an adult touches them in a way they don't like, they should do something, say stop, tell their parents, etc. And then in a situation like this...this three-year-old child is trying to say stop, and yet the adult carries right on touching her, with her own mother's assistance. Tell me exactly how this doesn't completely undermine every time she's been told to say no and fight back?
Furthermore and specifically, this is not only how we are trained to the knowledge that our bodies are not our own property despite claims to the contrary, but this is how we are trained to accept the intimate control of those in power. When you are forced to accept touch you don't want by your own parents, because *this time* it's different, because *this person* is a Person In Authority, you learn additionally that you might be able to say no to other people, but you can never say no to Authority. The government has the right to put its hands on you, whether you want them to or not, and all you can do is submit to it. This is how you train a populace to just accept government overreach*, to not agitate, to not question. Inculcate a fear of authority and a knowledge of one's own helplessness in the face of that authority, starting at a young age, and you'll end up with a society in which this shit goes unquestioned. In which criticism of the government may safely be labeled "un-American", and it's considered legitimate discourse to tell dissenters to just shut up and support the President no matter what he does. (Weren't the Bush years just *so* much fun?)
I hope this child is all right. I hope this didn't scar her too badly. And I hope that we can move away from this kind of violating security theatre, fast. How, I don't know...but I hope we can.
*And before anyone - yes, Dad, I'm looking at you - jumps in with "Welcome to the Republican side!" or makes a crack about Dems that involves the phrase "nanny state", I'll remind you that the biggest expansion of executive power *specifically pertaining to* issues of "security" came from a hyper-conservative Republican, that conservative ideals of "small government" have only ever been meant for the privileged (white, male, cis, able-bodied, wealthy, etc) and that conservatives have always been quite happy to have government intruding on and regulating the lives and bodies of those with less privilege.
For those who cannot view it, the video is a clip of a news segment about security procedures and the ordeal of the three-year-old daughter of one of the news program's employees. A blurry clip taken on the man's cell phone shows his wife and daughter at airport security, when his daughter was required to undergo a pat-down. The little girl is crying hysterically, screaming over and over again, "Stop touching me!" while her mother holds her for the TSA agent to examine.
And as I watched it, my heart hurt for that little girl, and all I could think was, This is how we are trained. This is how the message sinks in, reinforced in so many ways by so many people: Your body is not your own. You do not have the right to not be touched. You do not have the right to say no. Saying no, saying stop, does not work. We tell children that if an adult touches them in a way they don't like, they should do something, say stop, tell their parents, etc. And then in a situation like this...this three-year-old child is trying to say stop, and yet the adult carries right on touching her, with her own mother's assistance. Tell me exactly how this doesn't completely undermine every time she's been told to say no and fight back?
Furthermore and specifically, this is not only how we are trained to the knowledge that our bodies are not our own property despite claims to the contrary, but this is how we are trained to accept the intimate control of those in power. When you are forced to accept touch you don't want by your own parents, because *this time* it's different, because *this person* is a Person In Authority, you learn additionally that you might be able to say no to other people, but you can never say no to Authority. The government has the right to put its hands on you, whether you want them to or not, and all you can do is submit to it. This is how you train a populace to just accept government overreach*, to not agitate, to not question. Inculcate a fear of authority and a knowledge of one's own helplessness in the face of that authority, starting at a young age, and you'll end up with a society in which this shit goes unquestioned. In which criticism of the government may safely be labeled "un-American", and it's considered legitimate discourse to tell dissenters to just shut up and support the President no matter what he does. (Weren't the Bush years just *so* much fun?)
I hope this child is all right. I hope this didn't scar her too badly. And I hope that we can move away from this kind of violating security theatre, fast. How, I don't know...but I hope we can.
*And before anyone - yes, Dad, I'm looking at you - jumps in with "Welcome to the Republican side!" or makes a crack about Dems that involves the phrase "nanny state", I'll remind you that the biggest expansion of executive power *specifically pertaining to* issues of "security" came from a hyper-conservative Republican, that conservative ideals of "small government" have only ever been meant for the privileged (white, male, cis, able-bodied, wealthy, etc) and that conservatives have always been quite happy to have government intruding on and regulating the lives and bodies of those with less privilege.
11.11.2010
Onward, Christian Soldiers ...Everyone Else Can Fuck Right Off.
Or, Happy Veteran's Day! We support the (Christian only, please) troops!
In the town of King, North Carolina, there has been a bit of an issue over their local veteran's memorial. Specifically, that it was flying a Christian flag as part of the memorial. A local veteran complained about the sectarian bias, the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State got involved, and the city took the flag down while they worked out a "compromise" with the help of conservative Christian law group Alliance Defense Fund. Which, frankly, if you're trying to get a genuine "compromise", I can think of about a bazillion better organizations to work with than ADF, but whatever. Point being, they were trying.
They've announced a rough idea of compromise. The city council will allow a religious flag to be flown, but it will be a rotation of flags chosen from the VA's list of approved religious symbols (the list of ones which may be chosen as grave markers in military cemeteries, and which Pagans fought for *years* to have the pentacle added to, culminating in victory not too long ago). This means there may be a Christian flag flying at the memorial, but it might also be a Muslim star-and-crescent, or a pentacle, or a Star of David, or one of several other flags of varying faiths. Reasonable enough, right?
Not to the local Christianists, who are protesting mightily and loudly, threatening to lodge a complaint with the city council, and if the policy takes effect anyway, organize amongst themselves to take every single "my flag, please" spot for the next few years and all fly the Christian flag in order to maintain their hegemonic domination of the memorial. According to the leader of the citizen's group which is protesting the idea of acknowledging religious plurality:
So by kicking and screaming and making a big fuss about oh noes Wiccan and Muslim flags!, you are dishonoring the sacrifices made by actual Wiccan and Muslim servicemembers. If you are going to support the fucking troops, support ALL the fucking troops, goddamnit. My baby brother is a Buddhist and a soldier. Don't you fucking dare erase his existence, and the many like him, simply because they had the temerity to be in the military while non-Christian. They made the same choices, they spend the same time far from family, they are in the same danger during combat deployments as their Christian comrades. That deserves respect, not erasure*.
The only thing the people protesting the flag compromise are actually accomplishing is a clear demonstration of what they are *really* about: not supporting the troops, not honoring veterans, but further grinding their collective bootheel into the neck of everyone who isn't exactly like them as a demonstration of their own supposed moral superiority.
*I am deeply conflicted about honoring Veteran's Day and "supporting the troops", despite having a family member in the armed forces. Not because I don't care about servicemembers, but because I am vehemently not okay with the "giving their lives to defend our freedom" rhetoric that usually is tied to such protestations of support, seeing as the wars we are involved with right now are wars of choice in which dead Iraqi/Afghani civilians outnumber wounded or dead American soldiers by approximately 100-to-1 or more. That's not an honorable ultimate-sacrifice-defending-our-freedom kind of situation, to me. That's a war we didn't have to begin, for aims which are poorly defined at best and completely fabricated at worst, in which the civilian populace in the country we've invaded are bearing the brunt of the losses. That's not something to be proud of. Further, such rhetoric fuels the proces of, and is utterly necessary to normalizing war and contributing to a thoroughly militarized society in which this kind of conflict is okay, and I do not want to be part of that. So please take my phrasings of such things with a grain of salt. It's not as pat and unconflicted as it sounds. I am trying to acknowledge the difficulties and dangers of enlisting in military service for what they are, without glorifying war and the military with a veneer of defending! our! freedom!
In the town of King, North Carolina, there has been a bit of an issue over their local veteran's memorial. Specifically, that it was flying a Christian flag as part of the memorial. A local veteran complained about the sectarian bias, the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State got involved, and the city took the flag down while they worked out a "compromise" with the help of conservative Christian law group Alliance Defense Fund. Which, frankly, if you're trying to get a genuine "compromise", I can think of about a bazillion better organizations to work with than ADF, but whatever. Point being, they were trying.
They've announced a rough idea of compromise. The city council will allow a religious flag to be flown, but it will be a rotation of flags chosen from the VA's list of approved religious symbols (the list of ones which may be chosen as grave markers in military cemeteries, and which Pagans fought for *years* to have the pentacle added to, culminating in victory not too long ago). This means there may be a Christian flag flying at the memorial, but it might also be a Muslim star-and-crescent, or a pentacle, or a Star of David, or one of several other flags of varying faiths. Reasonable enough, right?
Not to the local Christianists, who are protesting mightily and loudly, threatening to lodge a complaint with the city council, and if the policy takes effect anyway, organize amongst themselves to take every single "my flag, please" spot for the next few years and all fly the Christian flag in order to maintain their hegemonic domination of the memorial. According to the leader of the citizen's group which is protesting the idea of acknowledging religious plurality:
Many of the foundation’s members are concerned that the city may allow religious flags such as the Muslim Crescent and Star flag, the satanic flag and Wiccan flag, all of which are recognized by the U.S. military, to be flown at the memorial.Look, dude, I hate to burst your happy little Christian-superiority bubble. Actually, I take gleeful pleasure in doing so. But anyway. You do realize that there are, in fact, soldiers of a persuasion other than Christian? That Muslims and Buddhists and Pagans and Sikhs and Jews and atheists and humanists have all been, in smaller numbers than Christians for sheer demographic reasons, but nonetheless have been part of the U.S. Military and have fought and sacrificed and died for this country? It is true. You cannot argue this. The facts are not on your side.
So by kicking and screaming and making a big fuss about oh noes Wiccan and Muslim flags!, you are dishonoring the sacrifices made by actual Wiccan and Muslim servicemembers. If you are going to support the fucking troops, support ALL the fucking troops, goddamnit. My baby brother is a Buddhist and a soldier. Don't you fucking dare erase his existence, and the many like him, simply because they had the temerity to be in the military while non-Christian. They made the same choices, they spend the same time far from family, they are in the same danger during combat deployments as their Christian comrades. That deserves respect, not erasure*.
The only thing the people protesting the flag compromise are actually accomplishing is a clear demonstration of what they are *really* about: not supporting the troops, not honoring veterans, but further grinding their collective bootheel into the neck of everyone who isn't exactly like them as a demonstration of their own supposed moral superiority.
*I am deeply conflicted about honoring Veteran's Day and "supporting the troops", despite having a family member in the armed forces. Not because I don't care about servicemembers, but because I am vehemently not okay with the "giving their lives to defend our freedom" rhetoric that usually is tied to such protestations of support, seeing as the wars we are involved with right now are wars of choice in which dead Iraqi/Afghani civilians outnumber wounded or dead American soldiers by approximately 100-to-1 or more. That's not an honorable ultimate-sacrifice-defending-our-freedom kind of situation, to me. That's a war we didn't have to begin, for aims which are poorly defined at best and completely fabricated at worst, in which the civilian populace in the country we've invaded are bearing the brunt of the losses. That's not something to be proud of. Further, such rhetoric fuels the proces of, and is utterly necessary to normalizing war and contributing to a thoroughly militarized society in which this kind of conflict is okay, and I do not want to be part of that. So please take my phrasings of such things with a grain of salt. It's not as pat and unconflicted as it sounds. I am trying to acknowledge the difficulties and dangers of enlisting in military service for what they are, without glorifying war and the military with a veneer of defending! our! freedom!
10.13.2010
Explain *This*
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| Me flipping off many, many people |
One of the favored lines of the self-appointed Conservative Christian Morality Police when it comes to censoring public behavior they disapprove of is "I don't want to have to explain this to my child." They don't want same-sex partners showing affection in public - even a chaste kiss or holding hands, like any hetero couple could do without eliciting so much as a frown - because "I don't want to have to explain to my child why two men are kissing." They don't want women breastfeeding in public, because "I don't want to have to explain to my child what that woman is doing with her baby." The general public is not allowed to engage in any behavior the CCMP does not approve of, because the right of the CCMP to not have to explain the ways of other people to hir child is paramount, taking precedence over the right of other adults to conduct their affairs in any place other than their own home.
 |
| Anti-abortion billboard, with a cartoon of a scared-looking pregnant girl. Her thought bubble reads "My mom's going to kill me." The thought-bubble coming from her uterus reads "My mom REALLY is going to KILL ME." |
LOLno.
Some have expressed concern about explaining the billboard to children. LifeCore's president says if a child is old enough to understand reproduction, the child is also old enough to understand the issue.
They think breastfeeding mothers ought to hide in the bathroom or never leave the house, and that same-gender couples should pretend to just be friends anytime they walk out their door, to avoid offending the CCMP's sensibilities by forcing them to explain these mundane activities to their kids. But a billboard with a cartoon fetus saying its mother is "REALLY going to KILL ME"? Tough shit, everyone else. Have fun explaining the nuances of the abortion debate to your young child.
Fucking hypocrites.
10.11.2010
National Coming Out Day: Because I Can
I have a hard time believing that someone could be reading this blog and not have yet noticed that I am Very Queer (And Talk About It A Lot). But for those who haven't heard the formal announcement yet:
I am queer. I am bisexual (mostly), although I've mostly dated men and mostly prefer women, which is kind of a weird combination. I am polyamorous; although I am in a monogamous relationship right now, I still hope that someday we might find a third to join our relationship. And I am very, very out about it.
Why?
Because I can be. Because I live in a state that offers robust employment protections for LGBTs - I can't be fired for being openly queer, and if I suffer retaliations at work because of my outness, I have legal recourse. Because I am the kind of person who is willing and able to handle intrusive questions and the curiosity of strangers, in service of normalizing non-hetero-monogamous sexuality to the wider public. Because I believe that only with openness and talking about it will the wider culture ever come to be truly accepting of non-hetero-monogamous sexuality, to the point where we won't assume a married woman has a husband and not a wife, to the point where we ask people if they have a significant other, not a boyfriend (for women) or a girlfriend (for men). I want nobody to bat an eyelash when a woman talks about her female ex, or when a man says he and his husband and their girlfriend are going away this weekend. I have the kinds of privilege (stable employment in a state with good protections, supportive family to back me up, etc) that make it possible for me to be visible like that, and I'm damn well going to put that to good use.
So at work, I talk very matter-of-factly about my exes, male and female, as if there's nothing strange about that (because there isn't, and there shouldn't be). So in my very personally-sharing psychology class last spring, I fielded questions from curious classmates about the difference between dating men and women, and how does that poly thing you talk about work, and where do you go to pick up women? (It's hard to explain, it's *really* hard to explain briefly but here are some links, and I don't, respectively.)
This is something I can do for the community. I can't donate much, and social anxiety makes it difficult to be part of meetings and organizations and direct actions...but I can be one more queer on the ground, so to speak, making a statement simply by openly and honestly being myself to other people.
So I am out. Because I can.
I am queer. I am bisexual (mostly), although I've mostly dated men and mostly prefer women, which is kind of a weird combination. I am polyamorous; although I am in a monogamous relationship right now, I still hope that someday we might find a third to join our relationship. And I am very, very out about it.
Why?
Because I can be. Because I live in a state that offers robust employment protections for LGBTs - I can't be fired for being openly queer, and if I suffer retaliations at work because of my outness, I have legal recourse. Because I am the kind of person who is willing and able to handle intrusive questions and the curiosity of strangers, in service of normalizing non-hetero-monogamous sexuality to the wider public. Because I believe that only with openness and talking about it will the wider culture ever come to be truly accepting of non-hetero-monogamous sexuality, to the point where we won't assume a married woman has a husband and not a wife, to the point where we ask people if they have a significant other, not a boyfriend (for women) or a girlfriend (for men). I want nobody to bat an eyelash when a woman talks about her female ex, or when a man says he and his husband and their girlfriend are going away this weekend. I have the kinds of privilege (stable employment in a state with good protections, supportive family to back me up, etc) that make it possible for me to be visible like that, and I'm damn well going to put that to good use.
So at work, I talk very matter-of-factly about my exes, male and female, as if there's nothing strange about that (because there isn't, and there shouldn't be). So in my very personally-sharing psychology class last spring, I fielded questions from curious classmates about the difference between dating men and women, and how does that poly thing you talk about work, and where do you go to pick up women? (It's hard to explain, it's *really* hard to explain briefly but here are some links, and I don't, respectively.)
This is something I can do for the community. I can't donate much, and social anxiety makes it difficult to be part of meetings and organizations and direct actions...but I can be one more queer on the ground, so to speak, making a statement simply by openly and honestly being myself to other people.
So I am out. Because I can.
10.07.2010
A Public Service Announcement
Service workers are still people.
And the world would be a much nicer, happier, friendlier place if everyone remembered that.
Corporations are soulless, blood-sucking, evil entities worthy of every ounce of scorn, contempt, and outright hatred you choose to heap upon them. This is undeniable fact. However, the minimum-wage-earning drudge you are screaming at is not the corporation. Zie is a person, who is working a job zie probably doesn't much care for, who has to put up with your bullshit or lose hir job. Zie is a person who will go home at the end of hir shift, probably tired (because my gods, not even full-day rugby tourneys compare to regular 8-hr retail shifts), and go about hir life. Zie may be a person of delicate emotional temperament, or with mental illnesses that result in emotional instability. Your temper tantrum at the register, because you find the corporation who employs that individual's policies not to your liking, may result in the clerk needing to take a "mental health moment" and quietly freak out in the bathroom. It may send hir plummeting into a downward mood spiral, affecting hir job performance the rest of the shift, and earning hir a reprimand, because despite hir best efforts, zie could barely muster the energy to cope with people after expending all hir mental/emotional spoons dealing with you.
These are things I have personally experienced, including the consequences I mentioned.* Listen, people. I am genuinely sorry that the company which is currently paying me to serve as their representative to the public has a policy that will not allow you to do what you want. I wish I could shit rainbows and make your world a better place. But no, getting angry at me will not do anything to change the return policy. It will, however, make me feel like shit, start my mental chains that end with me thinking that I'm a horrible person not fit to live, and force me to use all my emotional energy to stop the horrible depression spiral, leaving me feeling like I just want to curl up in a corner of the stockroom and cry until my shift is over, but I can't. So I drag together every last emotional spoon I have, plaster a fake smile on my face, go do the bare minimum of interacting with customers because that's all I can handle without completely breaking down, get a talking-to from my fellow managers for not being 100% "on" and being perky and bubbly with customers, and end up so demoralized and emotionally exhausted that I go home and spend my evening crying and hiding from everyone, with my very patient fiance making sure I also eat and go to bed at a reasonable hour.
TL;DR version: The temper tantrum you feel entitled to throw in the face of a service employee because you're not happy with their employer, may very well be the pebble that starts the avalanche that buries their entire day in a haze of misery and trashed mental health. You wouldn't feel entitled to abuse your average person on the street that way (and if you would/do, I suggest you seek psychiatric help and stay in your house until that changes). You are not relieved of your good-manners obligation to treat your fellow human beings with respect and dignity and fairness, just because we're on the clock at the time. We may be corporate employees, but we are first and foremost PEOPLE. Please remember that and act accordingly.
This public service announcement brought to you by some first-class assholes at work, and also this post.
*For new readers: I have depression and social anxiety. This means that my mental and emotional coping resources are often severely limited, and become taxed much easier and more rapidly than a person without my mental illnesses would experience. Yes, one nasty customer *can* throw me into a very bad spiral that ends with "Oh god I'm just going to run my car into an overpass on the drive home tonight, I can't take this anymore." This is a result of my malfunctioning brain. No, not all service employees struggle with my particular issues. But you can't tell I have these problems just by looking at me, so it's not safe to assume they don't, either.
And the world would be a much nicer, happier, friendlier place if everyone remembered that.
Corporations are soulless, blood-sucking, evil entities worthy of every ounce of scorn, contempt, and outright hatred you choose to heap upon them. This is undeniable fact. However, the minimum-wage-earning drudge you are screaming at is not the corporation. Zie is a person, who is working a job zie probably doesn't much care for, who has to put up with your bullshit or lose hir job. Zie is a person who will go home at the end of hir shift, probably tired (because my gods, not even full-day rugby tourneys compare to regular 8-hr retail shifts), and go about hir life. Zie may be a person of delicate emotional temperament, or with mental illnesses that result in emotional instability. Your temper tantrum at the register, because you find the corporation who employs that individual's policies not to your liking, may result in the clerk needing to take a "mental health moment" and quietly freak out in the bathroom. It may send hir plummeting into a downward mood spiral, affecting hir job performance the rest of the shift, and earning hir a reprimand, because despite hir best efforts, zie could barely muster the energy to cope with people after expending all hir mental/emotional spoons dealing with you.
These are things I have personally experienced, including the consequences I mentioned.* Listen, people. I am genuinely sorry that the company which is currently paying me to serve as their representative to the public has a policy that will not allow you to do what you want. I wish I could shit rainbows and make your world a better place. But no, getting angry at me will not do anything to change the return policy. It will, however, make me feel like shit, start my mental chains that end with me thinking that I'm a horrible person not fit to live, and force me to use all my emotional energy to stop the horrible depression spiral, leaving me feeling like I just want to curl up in a corner of the stockroom and cry until my shift is over, but I can't. So I drag together every last emotional spoon I have, plaster a fake smile on my face, go do the bare minimum of interacting with customers because that's all I can handle without completely breaking down, get a talking-to from my fellow managers for not being 100% "on" and being perky and bubbly with customers, and end up so demoralized and emotionally exhausted that I go home and spend my evening crying and hiding from everyone, with my very patient fiance making sure I also eat and go to bed at a reasonable hour.
TL;DR version: The temper tantrum you feel entitled to throw in the face of a service employee because you're not happy with their employer, may very well be the pebble that starts the avalanche that buries their entire day in a haze of misery and trashed mental health. You wouldn't feel entitled to abuse your average person on the street that way (and if you would/do, I suggest you seek psychiatric help and stay in your house until that changes). You are not relieved of your good-manners obligation to treat your fellow human beings with respect and dignity and fairness, just because we're on the clock at the time. We may be corporate employees, but we are first and foremost PEOPLE. Please remember that and act accordingly.
This public service announcement brought to you by some first-class assholes at work, and also this post.
*For new readers: I have depression and social anxiety. This means that my mental and emotional coping resources are often severely limited, and become taxed much easier and more rapidly than a person without my mental illnesses would experience. Yes, one nasty customer *can* throw me into a very bad spiral that ends with "Oh god I'm just going to run my car into an overpass on the drive home tonight, I can't take this anymore." This is a result of my malfunctioning brain. No, not all service employees struggle with my particular issues. But you can't tell I have these problems just by looking at me, so it's not safe to assume they don't, either.
10.04.2010
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".
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".
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