[Trigger warning.]
"I think these people have honestly forgotten what this is really about. Everyone needs to go back and read the grand jury testimony to remember how vicious this rape was because right now everyone thinks we're debating whether or not Polanski got a raw deal. It irritates me that people around the world think that all of Hollywood is saying that the rapist is the victim. Because I don't feel that way, and neither do most of the people I talk with."—Producer Bo Zenga, on the "Free Polanski" crowd.
Quote of the Day
From the Mailbag
[Trigger warning; there's a great video at the end you should definitely check out if nothing else, though—and it needs no trigger warning. Joyblub warning, maybe!]
Shaker Carrie sends this deeply distressing and potentially triggering article about the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refusing to "review the asylum case of a woman whose father has said he will bring her back to Senegal, circumcise her and marry her off to a much older man." The unbelievable majority opinion of the court was that it "must defer to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which found that [Francoise A. Gomis] failed to prove it was 'more likely than not' she would be circumcised," despite her testimony that her younger sister had been forcibly subjected to genital mutilation.
More violent misogyny in the Odd/Weird News Sections: Shaker Nancy Shrew found Women beaten for bad karaoke filed under "weird" news, and Shaker Carmen found this post about a serial sexual offender story being filed under "weird" news.
Shaker MorganP sends this story about the ongoing slaughter of albinos in Tanzania for the belief that their bodies contain magical healing powers. [strong trigger warning for graphic descriptions of violence]
Shaker Julia forwards this piece with the note: "This column asks, 'Should a mom be singing about threesomes?' because Britney Spears' new single '3' is apparently about threesomes. And so, apparently, that means we're all allowed to talk about what Britney 'should' and 'shouldn't' be singing about."
Shaker EastSideKate forwards this hot mess with the note: "Most fail-worthy line: 'Data revealed that more than 80% of people entering the nightclub did so without a partner and so were potentially sexually available'."
And, to end on a positive note, Shaker Megan sends this video:
My momma never told a lie, she couldn't when the truth was clear
Through stretch marks and crow's feet, the truth is what she told me
Not through words, but through the curve of her hips
The gleam in her eyes, the memories on her lips
She is so beautiful, that her skin can't even keep her concealed
She is so beautiful, that in her early days
She carried another life inside her, manifested the fire
Sending her existence higher
She has tracks on her breasts, stretched and pressed
From days where there was no time to rest
And she gave birth to my dreams, unselfishly
Because hers she could not see
She never told me how to live, she showed me
She showed me the moon, sun, and stars in her belly
She showed me the dirt on the soles of her feet
Cracked and worn into painfully beautiful designs
Marking her travels and mine
And my spirit dances in her eyes
And no matter how far I try to run, there inside I will reside
And when she flies, part of me will die
Lifeline stretched like the marks on belly and breast
And I will strive to survive with the rest
Imitating her breath
Rhythms resumed inside hardheaded womb and she whispers to me in my dreams
that things aren't always what they seem
She tells me that I am things I cannot conceive
And she tells me that my hips, could never be too big
And that those stretch marks don't mean a thing
She said - that's just your flesh trying to sing!
She says, don't ever let someone try to take what is within
And if they tell you you're too big for a woman
Tell them - you're just too big for your skin
Tell them, a body, just can't hold all this beauty
Tell them, they only wish they had hills and valleys like the Earth
They can criticize, but they will never give birth
to the love that rests in your breast
They will never see the life in your hands
And you can never, expect them to understand
Too big for your skin, she says, too big for this Earth
Too big for anyone to ever return your worth
Lips like peaches, plump nectar sweet
When your belly shakes with laughter it sends earthquakes and tremors
Keeping time with your heart, beats arms like ivy
Twisting, taking it all into your hands
Fingertips like matches, setting flame to all you touch
They may try to call you a witch
Because they cannot grasp the magic you possess
And they cannot even begin to imagine the tenderness of your caress
Your memory expands past what your eyes can see
And you can use this knowledge to set you free
You are too big for your skin
Not too skinny, too fat, too ugly, too pretty
Too white, too black, she says
You are too big for your skin
And honey, there ain't one thing bad about that.
Senator Murray Reintroduces SAFE Act
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash), who you may recall led the opposition to the HHS Rule Change with then-Senator Hillary Clinton, has marked the first day of the month by introducing legislation, with Senators Dodd and Brown, that would extend financial protections to victims of domestic abuse and end insurance company discrimination:
Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash) introduced legislation with Senators Sherrod Brown and Chris Dodd to ensure that victims of domestic violence have the financial means to escape abusive relationships. The Security and Financial Empowerment Act (SAFE Act) would make a number of changes in federal law to ensure that victims of domestic violence have the ability to leave their abusers, support themselves and their families while they seek help, and are not discriminated against or penalized simply for being abused.The act would also ensure that domestic abuse survivors can "take time off from work, without penalty from their employers, to make necessary court appearances, seek legal assistance, and get help with safety planning."
Murray's reintroduction of the SAFE Act comes as Congress debates health insurance reform. Murray has long insisted that we reform the insurance industry to end the practice of considering domestic abuse to be a pre-existing condition. Her efforts to reform the system in the HELP Committee were voted down by Republicans in 2006, but the health care reform bill that passed the Committee in late July does include language that would end the practice.
"For too long domestic violence victims have been victimized twice – first by their abusers and then again by financial and insurance constraints that punish them for their abusers' crimes. The SAFE Act will help domestic violence victims break the financial chains that bind them to their abusers," Senator Murray said. "As we work to reform our health care system to eliminate discriminatory practices against victims of domestic violence, we also need to look at the larger financial system and ensure that no victim ever has to choose between personal safety and economic security."
Rock. The fuck. On.
Contact your Senators and urge them to support the SAFE Act.
Breaking News: Bill Maher Is a Fauxgressive Asshole
[Not actually breaking news at all. Not even close.]
Here he is on the Joy Behar Show, complaining about how there's no progressive party in the US—then showing what a fine progressive he is by being a misogynist, transphobic, disablist wankstain:
[Full transcript below.]
Behar: What do you make of all this sort of hate speech going on? I don't wanna mention names, but Glenn Beck is watching my show right now, and it's possible that he's trying to think of new ways to, uh, to yell at Obama and, and cause people to, to be raging and angry—what do you make of all of that?
Maher: Well, you know, I, I keep saying that we don't really have a progressive party in this country. Glenn Beck is part of the Republican Party. You know, the Democrats, as a party—if you take away the few people I just mentioned before, you know, that's a, that's a center-right party; they're a great party if you wanna, a party to represent the pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance industry and big agriculture and all that kind of stuff, uh, and then you have the Republicans, which are just a bunch of religious lunatics, flat-earthers, Civil War re-enactors—
Behar: And those are their good points.
Maher: —and bimbos! [They both laugh.] I mean, I mean, I can—I can disagree ideologically with someone, and I can respect an ideological disagreement, but the Republican Party in the last twenty, thirty years has really gone toward this non-intellectual type of person—Sarah Palin, George Bush—
Behar: Right.
Maher: —Dan Quayle—and, and the commentators also. They're people—it's not an ideological difference; they just don't know anything. They're bimbos. He's a bimbo. And he's a crazy one. I'm telling you, it is not that long before we're gonna find Glenn Beck dressed as a woman or playing with his feces. [Behar laughs; there is laughter in the studio.] Or something. I'm serious.
Behar: Now that's a reality show I don't wanna miss.
Maher: He, he is extremely unhinged. And it's gonna happen on-air.
Behar: Ya think so? I hope so. That would be so much fun to watch.
Maher: I do.
The Bargain, and Its Alternative
A funny thing happened on the way across the blogosphere.
Somewhere along its way through time and space and the series of tubes, the "Terrible Bargain" started being referenced as an agreement to be silent to allow people their prejudices.
I have seen variations on, "I'm having a hard time keeping the terrible bargain," meaning "a hard time keeping my mouth shut about something that's annoying me," at other blogs, in comments here, and in two guest posts that have been submitted. Some commenters have criticized the post on the basis that they interpreted it as an exhortation to silence in exchange for peace.
I suspect the misunderstanding arises from the resonance of this line: Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon? A lot of people relate to that line, to that dreadful feeling of loneliness as one stands in the reverberating echo of a slur or some other indignity, knowing that a reasonable discussion of the offense is not possible because of the person who offended, because that person will not respond reasonably to being forced to address hir privilege; knowing no matter how cautiously or carefully or calmly or reasonably or angrily or aggressively or contemptuously one approaches the issue, only drama will ensue; knowing that the only realistic choice is swallowing shit to maintain a public serenity or ruining the entire afternoon to maintain one's principles and dignity.
Sometimes, silence—swallowing shit—is the better option (of two shitty options) because one just doesn't have the energy that day, or because a confrontation could put one's job at risk, or because one is at a breaking point and isn't yet prepared to say to a partner or parent or mentor or friend: I just can't be around you anymore.
But silence as a strategy is just a consequence of the Terrible Bargain. It is not the bargain itself.This, then, is the terrible bargain we have regretfully struck: Men are allowed the easy comfort of their unexamined privilege, but my regard will always be shot through with a steely, anxious bolt of caution.
The Terrible Bargain is this: If you make a ruined afternoon the only possible outcome of my refusal to swallow shit, I will never be able to wholly trust you.
I was not exhorting silence, and I was not confessing to it.
Iain and I have had house-shaking rows that began with his expressing internalized sexism, followed in quick succession by my pointing it out, his getting defensive, my getting frustrated, his getting more defensive, my getting aggravated, his getting exasperated, my getting angry, and the whole thing escalating into an enormous shitstorm of invective and recriminations.
[Note: Because I want to be totally fair to Iain (who, btw, gave his enthusiastic consent to be included in this piece), I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not claiming the only arguments we've ever had are because he's been defensive about expressing internalized sexism. It's just that those are the only arguments relevant to this post. I fuck up, too. I've hurt him, and I've had cause to apologize. We are almost always good to one another—and very occasionally shitty to each other.]
Now, the truth is, that particular trajectory toward enormous shitstorm is largely because we are Liss and Iain, not woman and man: Liss, who comes from a home of Not Speaking About Unpleasant Things, is fiercely averse to under-rugging, insistent on just getting shit out in the open, like, now, and Iain, who comes from a home of OMFG WE'RE FIGHTING!!!, is mulishly conflict-avoidant. We are a poor match in terms of natural communication styles about contentious subjects, and we've worked hard at sorting that shit out—I can back the fuck off, he can step the fuck up, and, when all else fails, we scream absurdities at each other to diffuse: "ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK! ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK!" (It works. But I digress.)
There is also, however, a part of it that's about Liss being a feminist woman and Iain being a straight, white, cisgender, educated, middle-class man whose many privileges are rarely challenged. Even though, intellectually, he knows I'm not accusing him of deliberate maliciousness, and knows I understand he doesn't intend to hurt me, and knows I'm telling him because I want to be able to trust him, and because I already do, and knows down to his very bones that I wouldn't even bother if I didn't already believe and know him to be decent and good and capable of even more, despite all that, being challenged on his male privilege, when it's such a rare occurrence, makes him viscerally defensive.
And it's taken a good long time for him to wrap his head around the fact that another part of that privilege is having control over which direction we go when he says/does something sexist and I point it out to him.
There are infinite possibilities of how to react: He could be defensive. He could refuse to hear me. He could try to insist I judge him on his intent, rather than the actual effect of his words/actions. He could accuse me of imagining things. He could imply that I'm crazy. He could turn it around on me. He could behave belligerently, childishly, furiously. He could storm out. He could stand in one place and stomp his feet. He could shout. He could demand a divorce. He could buy a one-way ticket to Rio. He could throw spaghetti. He could challenge me to a duel.
Or he can listen. Take on board what I'm saying and acknowledge how I feel. And then we can get on with the day.
It is a privilege that he gets to decide. And it is a privilege I recognize, because it is also operative for me, when my privilege is challenged—my white privilege, my straight privilege, my cis privilege. I have the same privilege, just in different situations.
Listen, or ruin the entire afternoon?
My speaking up, even before we learned how to better manage those conversations, is a challenge to the privilege of being in receipt of criticism—a privilege which Iain now recognizes he has, and understands that to wield it irresponsibly is a silencing mechanism.
Ruin enough afternoons for someone, and zie'll never bother challenging your privilege again.
The imperceptible slamming of an door to close off access to part of one's self is masked by the quickening footfalls of walking away, or by the gnashing of gritted teeth which accompanies a self-imposed silence; either way, the door closes with a heave of resignation, after one too many ruined afternoons, when the balance of trust has shifted from hopefulness to despair: I've got no traction here; I mustn't bother, and instead endeavor to protect myself.
That is the Terrible Bargain, and it is struck in either the silence obliged by or the loud conveyance of an obdurate refusal to examine one's privilege, and the sloppy buckshot of its careless expression.
Iain's taken a long look at the Terrible Bargain from its other side, and doesn't want the easy comfort of unexamined privilege at the cost of my trust. And so he does his best to quell that reflexive defensiveness and listen.
And in those moments of listening, we forge a new bargain, lovingly struck: He looks inside himself for the hardened bits of internalized misogyny that yet linger, unexamined; I hand him in exchange the crumbling bricks of a protective wall built long before we met.
The rubble collects at our feet, and we kick it away.
Boobiefest
We've a local advertising circular here in town called The Add Sheet! (and no, that is not a typo, and like "huckleberry friend," no, I don't know what it means) and there are always stacks of it around the building where I work. Today, as I was strolling the hall (probably on my way to get ice, because if I drink something I want it to be real damn cold, unless it is coffee, in which case make it somewhere between tepid and lukewarm, not that it matters since the coffee here is shit and I wouldn't drink it anyway) I noticed this on the back cover of the most recent issue of The Add Sheet!:
Hey, boobies! Yay for boobies! Save the boobies! We love boobies! The women they're attached to? Not so much. And what is with putting headstones on an advertisement for a fucking cancer fundraiser? Jebus-dressed-up-as-Chuck-Norris, that's dumb.
(Actually, the whole back cover of The Add Sheet! was a hot mess. Click here to see the whole thing.)
Celebs Against Freeing Polanski
A compilation here. Not on the list yet: Eve Ensler. Eugene Robinson.
UPDATE: Susan Estrich.
Seen anyone else WTF-ing the support for Polanski? Drop it in comments.
[H/T to Shaker WordAddict.]
What the Hell?
Shaker Arvan
Yes, that is a macramé headband.
(If you've a ridiculous and/or embarrassing photo of yourself from your youth, please send it to shakerwhatthehell_at_yahoo_dot_com. I'll post them up as part of our series called What The Hell? so everyone can laugh
[See also: Deeky, Liss, evilsciencechick, katecontinued, ClumsyKisses, Mistress Sparkletoes, Liiiz, Reedme, Mama Shakes, Mustang Bobby, RedSonja, MomTFH, Portly Dyke, SteffaB, Icca, Christina, Orangelion03, Car, Siobhan, InfamousQBert, Maud, Rikibeth, MishaRN, CLD, Cheezwiz, MamaCarrie, Temeraire, somebodyoranother, goldengirl, Liss (again), summerwing, yeomanpip, Susan811, bbl, Deeky (Part II), A Daily Shakesville Fan, Sami_J, liberalandproud Temeraire: Redux, Mama Shakes II, Bonus Deeky, OuyangDan, J.Goff, Iain, Talonas, The Great Indoors, gogo, kiwi_a, em_and_ink, Tik_bev, phdintraining, Deeky Freakhands, busydani, Jenny Anne, rowmyboat, DesertRose, Steve/Pido, Anne Onymous, phredrika, The Last of the Famous International Deekys, Iain, Another Mustang Bobby, and mkp-hearts-nyc.]
Top Chef Open Thread
Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
He will also show you fun and interesting new things you can do with peppercorns and capers. Special things.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker WordAddict, in comments: How would your life be different if you'd taken the Red Pill* earlier?
* Here, and also here (whence today's post title was taken, after it was nicked from The Matrix)—although the Red Pill does not necessarily mean womanism/feminism or only womanism/feminism; it can mean whatever form(s) of progressive awakening has changed your life the most.
John Derbyshire Wows the Ladies
In an interview with Alan Colmes, John Derbyshire of the National Review makes the case for repealing the right of women to vote:
The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left. They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.He later said that he's in favor of repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act because we “shouldn’t try to force people to be good.”
[...]
Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.
Hey, conservatives; how's that outreach to women and/or people of color going for you?
Crossposted.
More Free Roman Signatories
Making complete asses out of themselves: Harrison Ford, Jeremy Irons, Natalie Portman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Penelope Cruz, Ethan Coen (but not Joel?), Guillermo del Toro, Buck Henry, Brett Ratner, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mike Nichols.
The list keeps getting updated with more and more rape apologists...
[H/T to Shaker Mathilde.]
Winner: Stupid Things Said About Polanski Today Contest
Actor Peter Fonda said he thought "celebrating the arrest of Osama bin Laden and not the arrest of Polanski" was far more important.What I hate most about that comment, and there are many loathsome things about it, is the implicit idea that focusing on Polanski is, somewhere, taking someone's eyes off the ball. Osama bin Laden might slip through our fingers while we're all looking at Polanski!
It's called multitasking. And, luckily, justice is not a finite resource. There's no chance of using it up on the wrong guy.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
Strips One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, officially against sexual abuse since sentient thought provided the option.
Recommended Reading:
Chally: The Fifth Carnival of Feminists
Tami: Marginalized Folks Shouldn't Always Have to Be "The Bigger Persons"
Resistance: "From shadows to spotlight"
Melissa: Whip-It Rocks (Also see: IQB)
G.D.: More Supermarkets, Please
Matttbastard: Snap Back to Reality
Skud: A Follow-Up on the Shuttleworth Incident
Andy: NAACP Chair Julian Bond, Judy Shepard, Lt. Dan Choi Among Speakers Announced for National Equality March
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of the Day
"I guess the things that used to thrill me don't thrill me so much anymore. Intimacy is more important to me than sleeping with hot chicks. I don't even know if I really savored every ménage à trois I had."—Sean 'Diddy' Combs.
I don't even know if I really savored every ménage à trois I had. Classic.
I also love the construction that frames "intimacy" and "sleeping with hot chicks" as mutually exclusive things. Diddy is certainly not the first, nor will he be the last, famous man to divide his life into parts marked by consumption of women followed by intimacy with women, but few express it quite as clearly and shamelessly as he has.
There's a lot to unpack in those 40 words.
