Shaker Faith, of That Is So Queer, recently found herself in possession of about 100 teaspoon charms. And because she is awesome, and because she knows what to do with a teaspoon, in every sense of the phrase here at Shakesville, she turned them into the most beautiful and simple jewelry in honor of the wielders of teaspoons:
Blub.
Faith is selling the teaspoons over at her place (see the right sidebar) for $21 for a pair of earrings or a necklace, and for every pair bought, $13 will go to my charity of choice, CARE. CARE is currently soliciting donations for Myanmar relief efforts and the global food crisis, and donations will be split among their two efforts. (The other $8 covers materials and shipping.) The charms are sterling silver (no nickel); if you don't wear earrings or necklaces, Faith may be able to accommodate requests.
Availability will depend on how many pairs of earrings are ordered.
This is just an awesome project, and I want to thank Faith so profusely for sharing her time and talents, and for using her teaspoon (and teaspoons) in such a creative and moving and wonderful way. Head on over and get your teaspoons, Shakers.
Shaker Cory snapped this picture (hi, Cory!) of Svedka vodka's new advertising campaign:
Give "peace" a shot, huh? More like give this piece a shot, to have a shot at this piece.
Cory notes: "Their website is very interesting. 'Svedka_grl' even has a Facebook page of her very own." Of course she does.
You know we've reached a real nadir in misogynist advertising when the best you can say about this advert is: At least this robotic sex slave doesn't have a beer keg for a uterus.
Video of that ad can be found here, since the link in the original post is now dead.
I'm also nominated for Best Writer: "Anyone whose writings is published at any of the above websites is eligible for this one. Winners should have one or more of the following qualities: good grammar and presentation, provides original reporting, has a good sense of humor, shows creativity, has a strong personal touch, or has an affect on the real world because of their writing."
I'm up against some really good people, including Brian at Incertus, so I kind of feel like the Detroit Tigers taking on the Boston Red Sox, but it really is an honor to be recognized for my work.
Go here to vote. Polls remain open until June 1. Also, check out the other categories and nominees; there is some really good writing being done here in Florida.
Sorry I disappeared all afternoon, Shakers. I tore a muscle in my back BIG TIME moving a suitcase full of books (Why was it full of books? Because everything in our house is full of damn books!) and so I've basically been spending the entire afternoon whimper-laughing as I hobbled about like a 90-year-old woman while Iain mocked me in between demands he stop making me laugh because it made my back hurt.
The goal of this small online survey was to examine issues around gender swapping in MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). MMORPGs include such games as Everquest, World of Warcraft, and Lord Of The Rings Online. The researchers primarily recruited from forums at www.Allakhazam.com, ending up with 119 self-selecting participants. This is unlikely to be anywhere near enough to draw any statistical conclusions. Here, I'm taking a look at what I see as a disconnect between the data the authors present in the body of the paper, and their conclusion as presented in the abstract.
In the "Gender swapping" section of the results:
Significantly more females than males had gender swapped their character. This can be explained by the reasons provided by Participant 39 (Extract 22), who gender swapped in order to prevent unsolicited male approaches on her female characters. Participant 117 (see Extract 26) appeared to gender swap out of interest and found that she was treated differently by male gamers when she was playing a male character. However, for Participant 49 (Extract 23), playing a female character meant that male gamers treated him far better. This provides support for the findings of Griffiths et al. that suggests the female persona has a number of positive social attributes in a male-oriented environment.
Three of the replies to the gender-swapping question did centre around playfulness, exploration, and performativity.
Then there are these:
Extract 22: I just felt like it, really. Mostly my characters are female, but I think I made my male character because I was tired of creepy guys hitting on my female characters. It's utterly ridiculous, very annoying, and not the reason why I play the game. (P39, female, age 32)
Extract 25: If you play a chick and know what the usual nerd wants to read, you will get free items … which in turn I pass them to my other male characters … very simple. NerdBoobLoot. (P65, male, age 20)
Extract 23: Because if you make your character a woman, men tend to treat you FAR better. (P49, male, age 23)
What made it into the abstract? This:
"Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are one of the most interesting innovations in the area of online computer gaming. Given the relative lack of research in the area, the main aims of the study were to examine (a) the impact of online gaming (e.g., typical playing behavior) in the lives of online gamers, (b) the effect of online socializing in the lives of gamers, and (c) why people engage in gender swapping. […] It was also found that 57% of gamers had engaged in gender swapping, and it is suggested that the online female persona has a number of positive social attributes in a male-oriented environment."
The study results showed that participants had varied experiences of gender in MMPORGs, and a variety of motivations when it came to gender-swapping. Both sexes tried gender swapping out of interest, as a window into an "unknown universe." Some women gender-swap to escape harassment—not a surprising result in the least, and one replicated in all kinds of online research. Yet the authors glossed over this, preferring instead to highlight the male experience of virtual "femaleness"; and only a very specific type of "femaleness" at that.
There can be a lot of reading between the lines involved in such a superficial study, but I think P65's contribution is telling. Women aren't "treated better" in online games, as P49 asserts; the acceptance is conditional, and it's conditional on performing a certain kind of sexual availability. The man performing femaleness says you only need to "know what the usual nerd wants to read," and you get loot. He labels this "NerdBoobLoot," which suggests to me that there's more than textual interaction going on. Payment for virtual sexual displays is being interpreted by men as "women being treated better than men." Does that not boggle your mind as much as it does mine?
This brief, almost voyeuristic gender-swapping by virtual tourists seems to be hooking in to badly erroneous ideas of what it is like to be female online. What it is like to be constantly reminded of your status as a member of the sex class, to be evaluated, to be constantly subjected to covert and overt threats of sexual violence. I wonder how long the "better treatment" assessment would last if subjected to it all. the. time, in every aspect of life?
I'm going to make an educated guess that the men who were awarded the prime place in this study subscribe to a set of dangerous ideas about sexual harassment in face-to-face life also. "Women must enjoy it really," "It's a compliment," and "Wouldn't you be worried if you didn't get cat-called?" spring to mind.
So why are men being given the final say in what it's like to be female online? What is it about their faked, momentary experience that it gets to eclipse women's actual, ongoing experience? Why is the male experience of virtual womanhood being privileged over the female experience of actual womanhood?
What happens to women online who don't make themselves sexually available, who don't conform to the patriarchal script? And to some who do, come to that; these experiences aren't constrained to only certain situations, and they aren't caused by women's behaviour. Women get shouted at—"Tits or GTFO!", they get mercilessly harassed, they get stalked, they receive rape and death threats. Harassment and simulated sexual assault has saturated electronic gaming from before Dibbell's MUD times, right through to Second Life and World of Warcraft.
This dynamic is certainly not exclusive to the gaming world, either. Large numbers of women who have had significant amounts of online experience in IRC, chat rooms, Usenet, web forums, blogging, or anywhere else can tell you stories of sexist "jokes," objectification, harassment, and threats; and a general, often extreme, hostility to women who raise objections.
One almost universal response to complaints about online harassment, threats, and simulated assaults? A simplistic, victim-blaming "I don't see the problem—just switch it off and get over it." Reactions to face-to-face harassment complaints and online complaints bear striking similarities. Are they different transgressions? Of course. Should women be forced to make a choice between withdrawing themselves from the online world or tolerating sexual harassment? That's just another way of saying "Tits or GTFO," and I strenuously disagree.
[1] Zaheer Hussain, Mark D. Griffiths. "Gender Swapping and Socializing in Cyberspace: An Exploratory Study." CyberPsychology & Behavior. February 1, 2008, 11(1): 47-53. Available here.
Jamie Nared, a 12-year-old girl who is six feet tall and an extremely talented basketball player, has been playing on a mixed-sex team since the second grade—but has suddenly been banned from playing with boys after parents complained. Her coach, Michael Abraham, and her parents (and, frankly, video of her game) suggest that the complaints arose because Jamie is so good and makes the boys on opposing teams look bad.
Jaime's mom, Reiko Williams, said the issue boiled over after a particular game. "She scored 30 points," Williams said. "I remember one play. She stole the ball, dribbled up court and made a behind-the-back pass to a teammate. He missed the lay-in, and she grabbed the rebound and put it in. I think it was just too much for some of those parents."
Abraham put Jaime on the boys team to match her skills and keep her with peers. He has had her play on high-school girls teams, but many travel and "her parents want her to be around kids her own age," Abraham said.
And when she played on same-age girls teams?
"We beat one team 90-7," Abraham said. "At her level, it's like having Shaq on a high-school team."
He said the boys on his team enjoyed playing with Jaime — among a handful of girls to play on his boys teams over the years — because she helped them improve.
"If she were 4-feet-9 and no good, we wouldn't be having this discussion," Abraham said.
"I can't think of one boy that we've played against that's had a problem with her," he added. "Maybe their dads do."
Oh, snap! But of course the parents, opposing coaches, and league who enforced the rule deny that her talent has anything to do with the decision.
Neal Franzer, The Hoop's director of operations, said Thursday that parents were "adamant" that their complaints have nothing to do with Jaime's skills.
"They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl," he said. "They'd been taught to not push a girl, so they weren't fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them."
You'll note there are two little bits of victim-blaming there: 1. Jamie is a girl—so the boys can't help but be too easy on her; and 2. Jamie is a girl—so the boys can't help but be distracted by her. Either way: It's her fault.
So now Jamie is being denied the opportunity to play with kids her own age at the appropriate skill level. She can either play with girls much older where she's challenged (about which her parents quite understandably aren't thrilled; there's a big difference between what 12-year-olds talk about and do when they hang out together and what 17-year-olds talk about and do when they hang out together), or play with girls her own age where she won't be as challenged—and, let's face it, will ruin the games for the other girls. A 90-7 blow-out can't be fun for any of the other players, even those on her own team.
There's a solution to this problem, naturally: Let Jamie play with the boys her own age, as she's been doing. But it's better to make her, and all the rest of the girls in her age group, suffer than risk emasculating boys who her team may beat. And forget about the boys on her team who are challenged and inspired by Jamie, like her teammate Joey Alfieri, who adorably says, "Her greatness, like, it, like, sprinkles off and goes onto us, and it kinda makes us better as a player, too."
Instead, it's the same old shit: Protect the boys most indoctrinated into the patriarchy (and/or their parents) and fiercely defend their privilege. Maude forbid they actually have to face the possibility that there might be a girl on the planet who's better at something than they are, or learn how to treat girls as their equals.
Meanwhile, the girls are taught one of the most important lessons of the patriarchy: The promise that if you work hard and do as well as the boys you'll be treated equally is a lie. If you do as well or—gasp!—better than the boys, you'll just be barred from competing, or segregated, or stopped however the rules allow, or demeaned until you quit.
The saddest part of this story for me is that Jamie says she wants to join the NBA when she grows up. Not the stinky old WNBA, but the NBA. The men's league. Because of course she's already learned that aspiring to the best women have got is still second-best.
Shaker Darrow forwards me the heartbreaking Soul Searching.
Shaker Char sends this article in the New Statesman about the American media's shameful embrace of sexism to help defeat Clinton, to which the very first comment is an accusation that its author is in the bag for her, because, of course, no one defends women from sexism on principle.
I've added a new tab at the top of the page called "Feminism 101," as I've had a few requests for an easily accessible compilation. It includes a short summary of each post, with a link to the full post. Some of the posts pre-date the start of the series, but meet the criteria by way of a discussion of some basic feminist concept or other.
It's a work in progress; if there are any old posts you think should be included, mine or anyone else's, please don't hesitate to make recommendations. I won't promise to include everything that's requested, but I do promise to consider everything that is.
Enjoy!
UPDATE: I deleted comments on the Feminism 101 page and locked the thread, because I want that page to load as quickly as possible. Sorry to those whose comments were lost; I should have done that in the first place, but didn't think of it. To those who left kind words, thank you. To those who left complaints about individual posts, please feel free to leave them in the threads on the original posts. That wasn't the appropriate place for a discussion about any one post, anyway.
This is the first chance I've had to get online today, and I'm about to run off again, so I haven't had the opportunity to do a post on the whole Clinton/RFK dust-up. I saw, however, that there's a discussion taking over the Virtual Pub, which is so not the place for it, so I just wanted to quickly open an appropriate place for discussion with my apologies that I don't have more time to spend on it today.
Briefly, my opinion is that it was an ill-considered statement that warranted an apology, irrespective of intent. FWIW, I don't think she intended to suggest anything nefarious, but it was not a particularly sensitive example to use to make her point, and careless in its disregard of the history of violence against black leaders. It was inevitable, and of course not unreasonable, that people would consider her competitor Obama within the frame she built, to upsetting results, even if she didn't specifically mention him.
As I've said before, an apology after erring is not about the original intent; it's about the result. It's about making amends. When I step on someone's foot unintentionally, I still say "I'm sorry."
UPDATE: Also, I want to quickly note, when I step on someone's foot unintentionally and say I'm sorry, that doesn't give them license to premeditatedly punch me in the nose and claim I deserved it. Clearly, the usual suspects are seeking to deliberately misconstrue Clinton's statement for maximum outrage-ginning, and I don't guess I need to give you my opinion on that.
Great pic of Karen Allen I just found while looking for one for the pub, which I had to share because it is just so fantastically, infectiously joyful:
Cast member Karen Allen attends a news conference for the film 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' by U.S. director Steven Spielberg at the 61st Cannes Film Festival May 18, 2008. (Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)
The entire movie in 4 minutes 14 seconds, set to what sounds like Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen singing "All I Have to do is Dream," lol. Weird, but sort of wonderful.
Oh, you didn't think it was over, did you? Of course it isn't! The Wall Street Journal has fake concession speeches to write, and the wanktastic wankstains of the New York Post have covers to produce like this wankgasmic piece of wankery:
If you need explained to you why that qualifies as sexism, you're at the wrong blog. I will, however, take a moment to congratulate the Post on their embrace of the old-skool "Man and Wife" construction, which has long since been replaced among most enlightened people with "Husband and Wife." Anyone who suggests they did it purely for practical reasons re: page layout (while naturally ignoring that design convenience is not a justifiable rationale for sexism) is gonna get clocked with a teaspoon. Fair warning.
I'm getting grumpy about being the go-to grrl for this shit. I'd like to write about something else, but I fear if I don't keep going, it won't get written about at all. Sigh.
(H/T to Shaker Anna Overseas for the WSJ article and Zuzu and Shaker Andy for the NYP cover.)
I'm really glad to see I'm not the only person who's excited to see the new Indiana Jones movie for the indisputably awesome Karen Allen. I love her like whoa.
When I was a kid, two of the films I totally watched the fuck out of were Raiders of the Lost Ark and Starman, because I was convinced Karen Allen was pretty much the coolest woman on the planet—and probably in the entire multiverse.
I haven't changed my mind.
I could give a fook about Harrison Ford (even though I love all of the Indy films); it's Karen Allen I can't. bloody. wait. to see!
UPDATE: (And possible spoiler...?) So, it just occurred to me that I had written something once about how I hoped Karen Allen would be in the new Indy film. And lo and behold, exactly one year ago today (!!!) I wrote:
Okay, so Mr. Shakes and I are both massiveIndiana Jones fans. Each of us watched those films like nine gazillion times when we were kids—and we still watch them with embarrassing regularity. So we met the news that Indy 4 was finally really truly no we're serious this time we mean it we swear going into production with both trepidation and the drooling anticipation of the profound geekdom that informs basically every aspect of our lives.
…So, one day, we're having a chat about it in the car while we're driving somewhere or other, and he tells me he hears that Shia LaBeouf (adorable!) has been cast in the film. I tell him that the best. plot. evah. would be if it turns out that Shia is his son—and they bring back the hellacool superawesome Karen Allen as Shia's mom, because Karen Allen was never surpassed as Indy's match, and Indy knows it, and we know it, dammit!
Mr. Shakes, like, honestly gasped. "Babe. That is the fooking greatest idea oof all time."
"I fucking know!" I said. "And now that I've thought of it, they'd better do it, or I'm gonna be pissed!"
He goes, real solemn-like, "Me too, babe.
This proves not only that I am a genius, but that Steven Spielberg reads Shakesville.
Kathy: "The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Karl Rove to testify about alleged politicization of the Bush Justice Department. He's supposed to show up on July 9 to answer questions about the firing of nine US Attorneys and the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman."
Rove will refuse to comply; there will be some more legal wrangling, but ultimately, this, like a whole lot of other shit that's gone down these last (almost) eight years, will just be eventually swept under the carpet and forgotten. Why? Because our Congress wants it that way. The Republicans want to forget their complicity in the administration's criminal enterprises, and the Democrats want to forget their silence.
Sure, they'll bring Gitmo detainees in and listen to their tragic tales, and they'll bang gavels and say that Rove needs to testify, and make other gestures that look like they give a fat shit about the coup by a thousand cuts committed by the Bush Gang. But the closer we get to end of the Bush administration, the more obvious it becomes that D.C. wants to forget the whole thing ever happened. Do over! Erase erase erase! Ha ha—oh that giant mess? That was just a bad dream!
Tell it to the Iraqis. Tell it to the dead in NOLA.
That I so detest this idea of "starting from scratch" with a new president is why I am so averse to Obama's hope and change and transcendence rhetoric—which should not be mistaken for a commentary on him, or his competence, or his abilities, or his fitness to lead; I just don't like that particular theme, because it evokes too readily for me this idea that we can just "move on" from a bad presidency and terrible politics and damaging policies and begin anew, despite the reality that we manifestly can't. (Something I am quite certain Obama knows and doesn't intend to convey otherwise; it just plucks one of my strings.) Bush is done, but the reverberations of his disastrous leadership are not.
Maybe it's something particular to the series of presidencies I've experienced in my lifetime—I was born three months before Nixon resigned; don't remember Ford; barely remember Carter; spent my childhood scared shitless of Reagan and WWIII; put names to my feminism and progressivism during Bush the Elder; and cast my first vote for Bill Clinton at age 18; and then came Bush the Lesser—but it seems like we're just repeating the same shitastic cycle over and over. Corrupt Republican douche; self-defeating Democrat; corrupt Republican douches; self-defeating Democrat; corrupt Republican douche…
And every time a new president sweeps in, it's "Happy Days are here again!" only to be followed by SNAFU and FAIL.
Why are we so eager for the Bright New Day? Why are we so inclined to ignore the past, before it's even begun to haunt us? It's like someone who says "I'm sorry" just to get someone to stop yelling at them, rather than "I'm sorry" because they own the fuck-up and actually mean it.
America just wants the yelling to stop.
I want us to stare our fuck-ups in the face and own them. And remember them. And learn.
Reason #8,459,162 why I'll never have a job in the Beltway.
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
From a CyberPsychology & Behavior issue earlier this year: "
Jamie Nared, a 12-year-old girl who is six feet tall and an extremely talented basketball player, has been playing on a mixed-sex team since the second grade—but has 
