Dear Personal Development/Life Coaching Community: We Need To Talk.

[TRIGGER WARNING: ableism]

Look, I like y'all, I really generally do.  I've found many awesome people, I've learned a lot, I've developed the tools to manage a lot of my depression and anxiety through tweaking stuff I picked up from personal development blogs and coaches.  I firmly believe that everyone deserves to live their best life, filled with passion and energy and self-actualization and creativity and everything else you teach.

But then, I run across something like this. [TW on linked article for ableism; comments actually are fairly safe to read, plenty of people calling it out]


To an extent, I understand.  Not everyone has the resources, physically, emotionally, or financially, to take on the extra struggles of raising a child with a disability - even if the only issue is trying to wrangle the system into giving your child the proper consideration, care, and accommodations they need.  It's rough.  It's different than raising a non-disabled child.  And not everyone can do that.  I do understand that, and I respect a person's knowing their limits and making decisions based on that knowledge.

However.

If your reasoning for not wanting to keep your baby if it turns out to have a disability is "I don't want to raise a child who will probably never be independent or contribute to the world/my vision of my future is of strong, healthy children, not limited in what they can do" (that's an almost-direct quote from the linked article, btw), YOU HAVE A SERIOUS ABLEISM PROBLEM TO CONFRONT.

You are making a choice about your potential future child based on a STEREOTYPE.  A nasty, ableist stereotype of disabled people as non-contributing burdens to society, forever living with their parents, needing constant caretaking.  Some people with disabilities are like that.  Many more are not.  Someone's diagnosis at birth does not tell you where on the normative-functionality spectrum they will fall.  If you want to talk about how you're "being honest with yourself" and "honestly assessing your capabilities", how about you try also being honest about what the potential challenges and difficulties might be.  Y'know.  Do some research and make a decision based on facts instead of "icky disabled people I don't want one of those in my family". 

Between guilt-based "pay what you can (oh but there's a minimum and I'm going to shame you for not being able to pay more than that)" sales, abuse of the word "gypsy" to mean "adventuresome bohemian hipster" (I'm looking at you, Gypsy Love Warrior), and now this, well...like I said, I love y'all, but I'm not sure I can keep this up.  I would like to think that a group of people ostensibly dedicated to self-improvement and self-reflection would be self-aware enough to not fuck shit up like this, but y'all are not giving me a lot of hope.

Adventures in Profitable Misogyny: A Feminist Walks Into A Spirit Halloween Store...

...pukes on their carpet, then turns right around and walks back out.

No, not really.  That would have made for a much shorter post (although I still would have found it entertaining).  No, my mood was more "horrified amusement" than "this is making me sick".  Sometimes, you laugh to keep from crying.

Come along with me on a magical adventure through WTF Is This Shit Land, aka the Spirit Halloween Store, as documented with photographic evidence!

The "his-and-hers" versions of Harry Potter knock-off costumes hanging side-by-side.  The male costume is a set of black robes (closed all up the front) with a not!Hogwarts badge on the chest and a red-and-yellow tie, while the female costume is a grey v-neck minidress with red-and-yellow trim, a tie, and a black short cape as a nod to the "robes" idea.

If you're a guy who wants to be not!Harry Potter for Halloween, you're in luck - a costume that's closeish to the movie, close enough to be easily recognizable anyway.  If you're a woman who wants to be not!Harry Potter for Halloween, you'd best be ready to SHOW THEM ASSETS in a skintight minidress with lots of cleavage.  Oh, you still want to look not!Hogwarts-ish?  Eh.  Toss on a token collar/tie/cape-thing, but make sure none of it hides the ASSETS that are meant to be the main event for a woman's Halloween costume!  *hums "One of these things is not like the other ones..."*

Apologies for the blurriness; two different she-pirate costumes, one with the "for fatties" yellow stripe and one without.  This pic was supposed to highlight the size ranges but you can't even see them, so I'll just tell you: the "regular" she-pirate costume says it's for sizes 12-14, while the "for fatties" costume says it's for sizes 22-26.

I'm curious.  What exactly are those of us between a size 14 and a size 22 supposed to do?  That's actually a *really* common size range, judging by which sizes we got most of/sold out of quickest when I worked at LB.  Is there a "semi-fatties" version I can't find?  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's at least one costume available for someone over a 20, which is where XL/XXL sizes seem to stop in these things, but the gap there struck me as really weird.

Avast!  It be the Pirate Wall!  Four columns of four hanging costume bags each, separated by a bunch of pirate accessories (eyepatches, plastic swords, etc) in the center.

I realize you can't see the specifics very well (click through for fullsize if you want to see details) but for those who don't want to bother with that, there are on this wall at least six different variations on she-pirate costumes in the "regular" size, along with a couple he-pirate costumes.  (As an aside, I had no idea there could be that many versions of miniskirt-blousy sleeves-corsety thing-scimitar.  Was it really necessary to have half a dozen different "types"?)  There is precisely *one* plus-size she-pirate costume.  Hope you fat ladies all have the same taste in color and detailing!  Similarly, though I didn't get a pic of it, in the "vampire/witch/generic gothic-ish dress" section, there were a half dozen different dresses in crushed velvet with drapey sleeves and laced-up fronts labeled "vampire" or "witch", including one that was a truly gorgeous shade of cobalt blue which I might have been tempted to buy...except there was only ONE "plus-size" costume in the section and it was the generic black with red lining type.  Thanks for saving me money by refusing to acknowledge diverse tastes among fat people, Spirit! 

Two costumes side-by-side, "Sexy Venus" (a pink and white minidress with empire waist and drapey toga-ish fabric hanging from the shoulders), and "Venus Goddess of Love" (the plus-size version with "for fatties" yellow stripe; costume is similarly styled but has a full-length skirt and is cream and red instead of white and pink, with an actual wrap-shawl-thing instead of attached capelet)

 If this doesn't perfectly encapsulate the attitude mainstream Halloween costumes take toward "plus-size" costumes, I don't know what does.  The "regular" costume is the "Sexy X" and bears little resemblance to whatever it's supposed to be, inevitably consisting of a minidress embellished in some costume-specific way, while the plus-size costume is full-length (gods forbid anyone should have to see FAT LEGS on Halloween, amirite?) and drops any pretense of being "Sexy" anything (because duh, fat people can't be and wouldn't want to be sexy). 

The military costumes section.  A bunch of military-styled hats/helmets/caps, hanging beside two costumes, "Camo Pants" (which are apparently for men, pictured with a guy in the aforementioned pants and white t-shirt with dog tags), and below that "Camo Cutie" (the women's version, a olive-green camo print minidress with either over-the-knee black boots or black thigh-high stockings, I can't tell which)

Oh dear.  For the record, there was a "camo jacket" hanging above the pants, also shown with a young man wearing it.  So if you're a guy who wants to go as a soldier (and doesn't that seem vaguely disrespectful to actual servicemembers?  Or is it just me?) you get a pair of pants and jacket.  If you're a woman, you either buy the men's costume, or you buy the "cutie" costume that's, again, the standard template of minidress embellished for the specific costume.  And of course, don't forget your dominatrix boots/sexy thigh-highs.  That's totally practical for a soldier, and that's how all lady soldiers dress, duh.

The other side of the military section: Two men's costumes showing what seem to be Navy dress whites and, I think, Navy everyday officer's uniform (khaki suit-looking thing), hanging next to two women's costumes: "Naval [something] Doll" (glare covered the second word, sorry), and "Desert Dolly".  "Naval whatever Doll" is a navy-blue minidress with red-and-white trim, a gold embroidered anchor on the flared skirt, and a white bustier-top, shown worn with white thigh-highs and a sailor's cap; "Desert Dolly" is a skintight digiprint-camo-print minidress and soldier's cap, shown worn with black fishnet tights and knee-high black boots and holding a black assault rifle.

Wow.  I didn't think the military section could get worse, but here it is.  The feminine versions of the military costumes are literally reduced to DOLLS.  It's right there in the name.  "Doll" and "Dolly".  Fuck, how blatant can you get?  "You are not a person in costume, you are a doll that looks cute in stylized versions of real uniforms."  A doll.  Wow.

I can't even imagine being a female servicemember going into a costume store and seeing this.  I'd be ready to strangle people and burn the whole place down.  Is this really all we see female soldiers, sailors, as?  Dolls?  Fuck that.

And in all of this, I didn't even touch on the rampant racism.  The "Mexican Man" costume that consisted of a poncho-blanket-thing, sombrero, and fake moustache, with the guy on the package holding a beer and looking drunk; the "Pocahottie" (I wish I were kidding about the name, but I'm not; you can find the exact one here online) that followed the usual minidress-customized, in this case with fringe and beads and a feathered headdress. 

Just as well I'm pagan and celebrate Samhain instead of Halloween.  It gives me leeway to redefine Halloween as "That one night at the end of October when skinny white girls are encouraged required to show as much skin as possible while delighting in racist stereotypes and sexism in the name of "dressing up" and "fun"." 

I think that's much more accurate.  What do you think?

#TooMuchDoubt - RIP Troy Davis. I'm sorry we failed you.

I have been glued to the DemocracyNow.org live feed from outside the Georgia prison all day, from before the original execution time, through the eleventh-hour delay while SCOTUS reviewed, when the denial of the emergency appeal came down, and now they are saying the execution has begun.

I keep tabbing between tumblr and my Seesmic page, where my Twitter and Facebook feeds are displayed side-by-side.  And as I'm listening to the live feed and looking at the Seesmic page, I see a horrible, awful contrast:

[A screenshot of a browser page showing three columns of content, from left to right: Twitter feed, Twitter @ replies, and Facebook news feed]

I erased the name on my Facebook section because I use my legal name there and I have no desire to link my pseudonym and my legalnym, and blurred the @ replies because they're irrelevant.  I want to draw your attention to the difference between the FB feed and the Twitter feed.

Twitter is completely full of tweets about Troy Davis, many using the #TroyDavis or #TooMuchDoubt hashtags. 

Facebook is full of inanity about plans for the weekend and going out to dinner.

I want to take every single FB friend and acquaintance of mine by the shoulders and shake them.  How can you not care?  How is this not even a blip on your radar? 

I need to post something to my Facebook feed.  I don't know what.  But I can't just let that silence, that awful, banal silence, continue like that.

Troy Davis was pronounced dead at 11:08 PM, EDT.  May his God welcome his spirit home.  May his family be comforted, as much as comfort is possible in such a situation.  And may the family members of the murdered officer who called for this, encouraged this, "found solace" in this, find their grief unabated and closure escaping them for the rest of their natural fucking lives.  If you will condone the murder of a man whose guilt is far from certain, in order to get your "solace", you don't deserve it.  May your bloodlust haunt you.

Did you know, that on the coroner's certificate of death for a person executed by the injustice system, the cause of death is listed as "homicide"?

It seems fitting.

Meditations on a Word: Flattering

Wherein I ruminate and ramble and share a brief moment of "ding!"...

I had this thought the other night.  I've gained weight, you see, from my high school size of a 10/12ish (US) up to around a 16/18 these days.  And I'll be honest, I'm kind of struggling with my self-image and how to feel beautiful in a body my culture emphatically and repeatedly tells me is UGLY and DISGUSTING and THE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL IN THE VERSE. (The irony, of course, is that were it not for such messages that made me feel unacceptably big even at my smallest adult size, I wouldn't have dieted my metabolism into the ground and gained 100lbs over the past 7 years.  Diet culture is what *made* me fat.)

Anyway, I was talking to myself about fashion, and clothes, and fit, and how to look good and more importantly, feel like I look good in my clothes at this size.  And I tried on for size (pun fully intended) the cop-out line of "it doesn't have to make me look skinny, so long as it's flattering."

But then it occurred to me: what else is "flattering" code for, in this context, but "skinny"?  We say clothes flatter us when they smooth our lumps and rolls, when they create visual illusions of height and a curve from waist-to-hip and fuller, higher, rounder breasts.  Hmm.  Smooth lines, height, hourglass figure.  What does that sound like? 

Why, our culture's oppressively narrow standard for female beauty, of course!  What we really mean when we say clothing "flatters" us, is "it helps us to inch closer to The Beautiful Body by camouflaging the body that is actually ours, veiling our real flesh in illusion."

Wow.  That's...not an improvement at all, is it?  "It doesn't have to make me look skinny, so long as it flatters me hides my body and makes me seem closer to the idealized standard."

As they say, it's hard to fight the enemy when the enemy has outposts in your own head.

I still don't know, after years of jeans-and-tshirts, what I want my fashion and style to look like.  But I do know, now, that flattering is not a concept I want anywhere near it.

Pretty Sure There's a Simple Answer to This...

Frederick County, Maryland.  Lancaster City, California.  Chesterfield County, Virginia.  Lodi, California.  Houston, Texas. 

All of the above-mentioned municipalities have something in common:  they have all struggled with the issue of prayer at formal government meetings (City Council, County Board of Supervisors, etc).  There have been lawsuits and nonbinding resolutions and voter initiatives in support, and above all, much semantic tap-dancing around the core issue of "We want to establish overtly-Christian prayer as the norm but we don't want to be noticed as doing so outright."  Chesterfield came up with the so-called "Wiccan-proof invocation policy", which specifies that prayers must be nonsectarian, but those who offer prayers at meetings "must be ordained and affiliated with a monotheistic religion with an established congregation in Frederick County."  There have been attempts at compromise, at "allowing" those of non-Christian faith to offer the opening prayers occasionally. 

I have to wonder how much time, money, and energy is being spent on this issue in municipalities across the country, between litigation, drafting new policies, debating the policies, putting voter initiatives on the ballot, etc. 

And having wondered that, I have to ask, am I the only person to have hit upon the obvious solution in my mental meanderings?  Cause here's what I'd recommend...wait for it...

STOP FUCKING HAVING INVOCATIONS AND PRAYERS AT OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS.

There.  Was that so damn hard?  Take a moment of silence in your office before the meeting, or at your seat in the meeting room, and pray for yourself if you so choose.  No one can or will stop you in such a personal matter.  But why, for the love of all that is, why is it so vital that it be done out loud in a group in front of everyone?  For that matter, I'm pretty sure Jesus would have been less than pleased about this whole public-group-prayer-in-government phenomenon - Matthew 6:5-7, anyone*? 

If you feel the need to be brought together and dedicated to your task together - for I can actually see the value in redeclaring one's dedication and purpose, to focus the group as a whole before undertaking serious communal tasks - then have a statement of purpose read or spoken before each meeting.  Something that reminds the members of the ruling body why they are there, for whom they do their work, etc.  Like, "As we begin this meeting, let us all be reminded of what we stand for and why we are here: to do the best we can for those people who have placed their trust in us.  To work for the greatest good for the greatest number of our people.  Let us keep this in mind as we go about our business."  Simple, secular, nothing for anyone to be excluded by or harmed by.

I genuinely don't understand why the whole idea of pre-meeting prayer is so important.  Why people cling to it so desperately.  Why it's absolutely scandalous to suggest just NOT DOING IT ANYMORE, why people instead prefer to twist the rules into pretzels to try to allow it to continue without being open to lawsuits about it.  Pre-meeting prayers serve no purpose that I can see, offer no concrete benefit that would make them worth fighting for like this.

Just LET IT GO already, and go about the business of governing, without wasting taxpayer time or money defending a practice that is both superfluous and oppressive.

*⁵“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. ⁶“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

"Just"...Stop.

"Just have it and give it up for adoption."  Because pregnancy and childbirth are totally safe and easy and free of cost, and don't totally change your body and life forever no matter what happens to the child after you give birth, right?

"Just stop taking everything so personally/expecting perfection from yourself/thinking about things so much."  I wish I could, but see, I have this brain that kinda doesn't let me stop doing those things.  What, you think I *like* being obsessively miserable and hating myself for every tiny failure in my entire lifetime?  Does that sound like fun to you or something?

"Just eat healthier and exercise more."  I've never thought of that before!  How incredibly simple!  Except that I can't afford much produce, don't like or know how to cook more than the couple meals I eat all the time, can't force myself to enjoy vegetables despite trying and trying, and dislike the taste of water.  Oh, also I have chronic back problems and low energy and am cripplingly self-conscious about exercising in front of other people, so any exercise I have to do has to be low-to-no-impact, easy, and something I can do in my house while my partner is at work, without boring the crap out of me.

JUST: (adv.) merely, simply.

I hate this word.  It minimizes.  It trivializes.  "Just" do this, or that.  It tells me the person speaking thinks the action should be easy.  It ignores circumstances and individual capabilities in favor of a normative narrative of what "everyone" should be able to do.  It also implies a moral judgment - the speaker obviously believes the course of action is not only easy, by their own arbitrary standards (usually heavily influenced by society's standards, of course), but the *right* thing to do.  It erases conflicting emotions and tells you the choice should be easy, and therefore being conflicted about it is wrong.  It invalidates peoples' feelings and experiences. 

From a stranger or ideological opponent, it's sneering, condescending.  From a loved one, it's even more damaging, a slap in the face.  It is the worst word, a metric fuckton of condescension, patronization, minimization, trivialization, all wrapped up in four innocent letters.

So please.  If you are ever tempted to 'splain someone's situation and the course of action you think they should take by saying "just do X", DON'T.  No matter how obvious the solution seems to you.  Just don't.  Step back, think about why they might not have done that yet, and find a way to offer advice - IF they asked for it in the first place, which in my experience the object of this unfortunate phrase usually didn't - that doesn't imply that the person is stupid for how they've handled themselves and their situation so far.  Respect their decisionmaking process.  Try giving them the benefit of the doubt - try assuming that they *do* know what they're doing, and that they *do* have reasons for handling things the way they have. 

But for the love of all that was, is, and ever will be..."Just" stop.

Feel free to add and vent about other "just" experiences you've had to deal with in comments.

Hiatus

Alright, loves.  I've been trying to avoid doing this, but I think it's gotten to that point anyway.  Life has been kind of kicking my ass; depression's been a sneaky bastard who chose, this round, to just sap away my motivation and ability to do things, but without the usual accompanying mood shifts so I didn't recognize it right away.  (Well played, you destructive fucker, you.)  And though my usual impulse is to force myself to keep up "normal" output and soldier through, I'm learning that it's seriously detrimental to my *actual* recovery for me to do so. 

So for the time being, Witch.Words will be on official semi-hiatus.  I'll probably throw together a post about Dan Savage's epic bi-fail this week, and I plan on participating in the Shakesville/What Tami Said Planned Parenthood Blog Carnival, and I'm toying with the idea of setting up a reader survey to get clarity on some questions I've had about my readers and my blog's direction, but other than that, posting will be light-to-nonexistent for at least a week or two, maybe longer.  I'll post if I feel the urge, but I'm not going to be forcing myself to anything. 

It's time for me to rest and heal.  I apologize for the interruption but, honestly, it's what needs to happen for me right now.  I hope to be back to "normal" (where normal = my baseline condition, not some normative idea of mental health and productivity) in a few weeks, maybe a month at most.  If you need me before then, my email is in my bio on the sidebar.  

Love and light,
Jade

PS:  To those readers who are so inclined, healing energy/prayers/thoughts/vibes/spells/whatever you do would be most welcome.  Thank you.

Oh Look! Another Reason!

Specifically, another reason to STOP FUNDING RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS to perform government functions.  Cause they're allowed to use religious criteria in hiring despite the fact that they're paying those salaries with the dreaded taxpayer money.

This exception to federal anti-discrimination rules for government contracts was instituted under Bush (executive orders, how we love thee) but, surprise surprise, Obama has yet to take his thumbs out of his ass and do anything about it.  So a coalition of 52 "religious, civil rights, labor, health, women's, and other organizations" sent a polite letter asking him to fulfill yet another apparently-forgotten campaign promise, quoted in the letter:

Restoring Executive Order 11246 for all government contractors would be an important first step toward fulfilling the campaign promise you made on July 1, 2008, in Zanesville, Ohio. In that speech you stated that you would reform the Faith-Based Initiative so that “if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion.”

 Hell, who knows.  It's campaign season again; maybe we'll actually see some response other than the cavernous absence of genuine progressive principles that has been the hallmark of this administration? 

I kind of doubt it though.

I'm Curious...

Presidential candidate Herman Cain (R-ampant Islamobigot) has said he will not allow any Muslims in his administration didn't say that at all would have to be extra-cautious about hiring Muslims wants Muslims to take a special loyalty test before being hired in his administration if he were to be elected President.

The No Religious Test Clause of the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 3) states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So I'm curious.  If it's not specifically a religious test, but it is a special test selectively applied on the basis of religious belief...does that cross that line into unconstitutionality?

I'm neither a lawyer nor a Constitutional scholar, so I can't say with any certainty.  But I can certainly say it looks suspiciously like.

What do you think?

Suspiciously "Convenient"

You hear a lot of shit about how women who get abortions* are getting them "for convenience".  (Most recently brought to mind for me by this thread on tumblr.  Yes, tumblr rules my life now.)

I've been pretty open around here about how I am childfree by choice and have no interest in ever having children.  But here's the thing: even if I did want children someday, when I got pregnant five years ago, I would still have gotten an abortion.  Because...

• I couldn't afford prenatal care or other health-care costs associated w/pregnancy;
• I was on antidepressants which are not compatible with pregnancy, which were keeping me alive and which I'd have had to discontinue taking for the fetus' safety, which would have had the effect of seriously destabilizing my already fragile hold on life and sanity, and which could have ended with suicide;
• I was in college and already struggling, and any further detriment to my school efforts could have been the final straw that got me kicked out;
• The man who donated the other half of the genetic material (he wasn't a "father" anymore than I was a "mother" simply by virtue of accidentally getting pregnant, so I refuse to use that terminology) lived across the country; it was a long-distance relationship and we had no plans to move closer together in the near future, so either A: I'd have been on my own without a partner, or B: we'd have had to have rearranged some very large life circumstances to be close enough together (and no, adoption wouldn't have been an option because of the above items and also I can't imagine giving a child of mine away, so no).

Do any of these sound like "convenience" to you?  Because my definition of convenience includes things like the grocery store being only a few blocks away from my house, or a parking space close to the doors of the mall when I'm not feeling like walking much, or my local Starbucks having a drive-thru for when I'm in a hurry.  Note that major financial concerns, life circumstances (the long-distance relationship), goals/plans (finishing college), and medical issues (depression) do not appear on the list of "conveniences".  Wanna know why?

BECAUSE THEY HAVE FUCK ALL TO DO WITH CONVENIENCE.

Prioritizing one's plans for life and one's ability to provide for one's self and possible or potential family over a biological "oops" moment is not about fucking CONVENIENCE.  Ask anyone who's had a child; having a baby, even if you don't parent, is a life-changing event.  Often also a body-changing event, in ways both permanent and impermanent.  It is a Big. Goddamn. Deal.


So if the fucknuggets who churn out anti-choice propaganda would please stop handwaving-away women's goals, dreams, plans, and life circumstances by dismissively referring to it as "convenience", I'd very much appreciate it and maybe not lose my shit so fucking often.  Kthx.

*Women are not the only people for whom abortions are sometimes needed medical care; all people with uteruses may fall into this category at some point.  However, the rhetoric of anti-choice groups centers on women, so I'm reflecting that in this response.