I was watching Fox News at lunch, only because that is what was on at the place we ate. It was either that or one of two hunting shows. (By the way, commercials on hunting networks: seriously gruesome.) Anyway, Fox News: that shit is hilarious. First off, there was a commercial for something, I don't recall what exactly, and the spokesperson was G. Gordon Liddy! G. Gordon Liddy! How is that even possible?
Then there was an exposé piece on earmarks attached to some bill. (The sound was off, so that is part of the reason I am being vague.) Among the questionable items: 1.5M for air conditioning FOR A MUSEUM! Oh noez! Science! Then there was money for eco projects FOR BLACK COLLEGES! Oh noez! Black people! That was followed by a piece on "government run healthcare." People really watch this station? And take it seriously? The idea kind of saddens me.
Some day I'd like to just sit and live blog Fox News for a few hours. I am not sure my brain could take it.
Stupid... Like A Fox!
And the Healthcare Reform Disaster Continues...
What?!
Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.Anyone here want their tax dollars to fund gay conversion therapy? Yeah, me neither.
The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments -- which substitute for or supplement medical treatments -- on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against "religious and spiritual healthcare."
It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill -- Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.
Drum says: "[H]oly cow does this seem like a bad idea. Just a really, stupendously bad idea. It's true that not everything that seems like a slippery slope really is one, but this really is one. If it passes, can you imagine how this would play out among the Colorado Springs set within a few years? The mind reels."
I can't even begin to imagine the clusterfuck this would create. And, frankly, I'm none too pleased knowing that insurance companies deny experimental ("unproven") treatment all the time, even when the procedures are known to be effective, on the basis they just haven't yet been done enough. (There's a snake eating its tail for you: We can't approve it because it's not been done enough yet!) But in the event this passes, they'll be compelled to pay for scientifically unsound procedures for patients, who, if their claim is denied, have a constitutional basis on which to challenge the denial: Freedom of religion.
Clearly, that privileges the religious—and only certain religions, at that—because atheists (and agnostics and Lutherans and Episcopalians, etc.) can't similarly argue: "Give me my transplant, because to deny it is to deny my right to not believe in total hogwash."
I give up.
Bread and Teaspoons Thirteen
Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*.
This is a weekly post, usually Tuesdays, providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.
Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.
This week's concept is Self-Valuation!
We already know that women are, in general, paid at some fraction of the rate at which men are paid for the same work. Some of that difference comes out of our training to see ourselves as less valuable; some of it's just the same old kyriarchy we've always seen.
So: what do you find difficult in valuing yourself properly in the work arena? How do you go about overcoming any tendency to undervalue your skills, and make sure you ask for the wages you deserve?
Here's how it works: There should be four sorts of comments here.
1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.
A work-seeking comment should include:
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).
It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.
For example, I might post a comment saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with nearly 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.
I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it. My company website is found here.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.
2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:
I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.
3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)
**NEW CATEGORY ADDED**
4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.
So, that's what we'd like to see.
What we do NOT want to see:
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!
Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.
* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Seven. Eight. Nine.Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
How Could a Feminist Even CONSIDER Not Voting Democratic?!
Well, here's one reason:
While House leaders are moving toward a vote on health-care legislation by the end of the week, enough Democrats are threatening to oppose the measure over the issue of abortion to create a question about its passage.And the government funding a legal medical procedure available to women would be bad, because ... uh ... because ... because THEY SAY SO! That's why!
House leaders were still negotiating Monday with the bloc of Democrats concerned about abortion provisions in the legislation, saying that they could lead to public funding of the procedure.
"I will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until a clean vote against public funding for abortion is allowed," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday in a statement. He said last week that 40 Democrats could vote with him to oppose the legislation -- enough to derail the bill.In the private market? Why, yes: Because of the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, there is a conflict between government subsidies available to people who cannot afford healthcare coverage themselves and the potentially subsidized insurance plans that cover abortion.
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, cast Stupak as "attempting to ban abortion coverage in the private insurance market."
The Democratic leadership has "backed a provision that would allow people to use subsidies under the bill to buy insurance plans that cover abortion, but only funds from individual or employer health-care premiums could go toward paying for an abortion." That would require the insurance companies to separate and track federal money from private money, with only the latter allowed to be used to pay for insurance-covered abortions.
But Stupak and some Democrats, along with congressional Republicans, have criticized this provision as an accounting distinction. They say the federal subsidies and the private payments are combined for a person to buy a health plan; therefore, federal dollars are helping fund insurance plans that allow abortions.And back to the OH NOES! Because there's no way the spineless Democrats are going to repeal the Hyde Amendment and actually allow taxpayers (who, last I checked, included lots of pro-choice women) to fund a legally available medical procedure when they can instead force women to give birth to children they can't afford and/or don't want, and then we can all complain about those despicable welfare queens and their assistance-drawing children who are totes making them filthy rich!
All of which brings me back to the title of the post, which was, as I'm sure many of you will recall, a cudgel used to try to beat feminists back into line if they even emitted a murmur that sounded anything like a contemplation to vote for a third party candidate. Following is a chunk of my piece Perfectly Logical Calculations, and Why They're Actually Not, which addressed this situation in the heat of the election:
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Feminism, especially for women, is not mere political advocacy, but a philosophy centered around advocating for personal equality. When feminists/womanists are inveigled to vote for/support the Democratic candidate (and refrain from questioning his commitment to women's issues lest his candidacy be undermined), because This Issue is so important, the implicit calculation is that This Issue is priority over women's equality, reproductive rights, etc.
Because FWs have increasingly resisted taking a backseat to issues like social security when their very value as human beings is up for debate, those using this rhetorical strategy have learned that nothing is quite so effective as using Roe v. Wade as This Issue, thusly reframing the argument from "Vote for the Democrat to get what you want" to "Vote for the Democrat to not lose what you've got."
It's a nasty little bit of blackmail, which fails utterly to take into consideration that the veiled threat of losing legal abortion because of one's uncompromising belief in one's own equality and autonomy is so bitterly ironic that it would be laughable if it were not so profoundly sad. Instead of demonstrations of commitment to protecting Roe as one among many commitments to the basic feminist principle of women's equality, we are meant instead to be motivated by menace and intimidation. We're supposed to gleefully hop on board with people who ominously warn that failure to do so will evoke tragedy by our own hands—and, if we succumb, we find that even asking for basic respect, for sexist words and images and behaviors to not be used, is considered too much, an impertinence.
All we are offered is the protection of what we've already got, and nothing more.
Which makes one wonder why we'd ever be given anything more, since the threat of losing one thing is most ominous when there is only one thing to lose.
The compromise of everything else to protect this one thing is particularly problematic for feminists/womanists because being a woman is not a cause. If women's issues are ignored, we cannot simply change our skin like a losing lobbyist changes strategies. Always will we be women, and when we are asked to put our "issues" on the back burner for the good of "the larger cause," we are being asked to wait longer yet to have our equality fully realized. That is not an easy burden to indefinitely bear for thin promises.
Using Roe as a cudgel to batter FWs into line is becoming increasingly futile because the Democrats have been weak on protecting choice—and, hence, women's autonomy—for years. Yes, Roe is still in place, but the GOP has successfully chipped away at abortion rights on the federal and state levels for two decades. The point is, certainly the Democrats will nominate and approve justices who will protect Roe, but if they aren't willing to protect it from being rendered an impotent and largely symbolic statute because it's been hollowed out by "partial-birth abortion bans" and "parental consent laws" and state legislatures that refuse to fund clinics offering abortions, what does it really matter if they protect Roe?
FWs who are paying attention to what's happened to practical choice in this country know that the Roe card is already functionally meaningless at this point in large swaths of the country—and that's about the national Democratic Party as a whole, not just about its nominee in this election. The Dems are falling down on the job of serving their FW constituents in general and women specifically.
And the argument about appointing pro-Roe justices is designed, in part, to mask that failure. Not all of the restrictions on abortion rights have been decided in the court; many (if not most) are proposed and passed in state legislatures—and only those challenged in court depend on judicial appointments. Federal, state, and local funding of clinics has nothing to do with whom Democrats appoint to the bench. Fights over zoning laws and gifted property to build new clinics may also find their way to court, but oftentimes never make it that far. Anyone who still thinks that every encroachment on reproductive rights is being decided in a courtroom has some catching up to do.
A lot of progressives treat legal abortion like an on-off switch, but it's not remotely that simple. Legal abortion is only worth as much as the number of women who have reasonable and affordable and unencumbered access to it. That number is dwindling; IIRC, as of the year 2000, less than a third of the incorporated counties in the US had abortion clinics. That's not just inconvenience—between travel expenses and time off work along, the cost of securing an abortion can become an undue burden.
Realistically, if you're a woman who already has to drive three hours and across state lines to get an abortion, how much is "we'll protect Roe" actually supposed to mean to you?
Those making the Roe argument seriously need to consider what it sounds like to one of those women when she's told how her right to choose is best supported by someone who treats Roe as a magical abortion access password.
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And now they should consider how much more difficult it's going to be to make that argument when there are Congressional Democrats actually holding up This Very, Very Important Issue, So Important That It Justified Using Misogyny to Get the Right People Into Office to Tackle This Issue, and So Important That Women Must Overlook Our Strategies That Demeaned Them Lest This Issue Not Get Tackled By the Right People, and holding it up with hang-wringing over the possibility that a woman's own government might accidentally help her get access to the legal medical procedure that women were supposed to vote Democrats into office to protect.
It's bad enough that the Democratic majority isn't going after the Hyde Amendment, but for a number of their members to be actively using its existence to play concern troll on abortion access is just infuriating.
And it will be remembered by this feminist next time someone asks me: "How could you even CONSIDER not voting for the Democrat?!"
My vote is mine, and I've always used it to vote Dem, but I'm getting pretty goddamn tired of giving my vote to a party whose members are reluctant to give their votes to me.
UPDATE: Also see Natasha.
What the Hell?
Shaker IraeNicole
Superstar in the making.
(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, mkp-hearts-nyc, Arvan, Norbizness, Electrasteph, SteffaB, molliecat, Aestas, catvoncat, Filthy Grandeur, Shelly, and Mighty Doll.]
Autumn Dusk
We had two night of beautiful sunsets this weekend. Friday, we had crazy flooding all day, and I was cursing having to walk though yard soup to get the mail at the end of the day, until I saw the sunset reflected in the water in our neighbor's yard. I ran back in to get the camera:
[Click to embiggen.]
And then Sunday night, I grabbed the camera when we were going out, just in case I saw anything picture-worthy. It turned out we had another glorious sunset.
I love the fall.
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, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59. 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.
Quote of the Day
"Very nice, very sweet and I have to say vulnerable guy."—Rush Limbaugh's more endearing traits, as described by Fox's Chris Wallace after interviewing him.
I Get Discussed in Forums
[Trigger warning.]
So, this is what happens:
1. Some dude, somewhere on the internetz, finds Shakesville.
2. He reads enough to discern that it's a feminist space run by a fat woman who fairly regularly and unapologetically engages in the transgressive acts of being anti-rape and posting pictures of her fat self online, flipping the bird or wearing a hat or whatever.
3. He posts a link and my picture, with some explanatory text like, "This fat bitch is an ugly feminist who runs the stupidist blog ever."
4. The forum commences to post Photoshopped variations of my picture, with "dick into my mouth" and "my face on Jabba the Hutt's body" being popular motifs. They also make lots of rape jokes and call me a dyke.
From a currently ongoing discussion, the link to which one of its participants was kind enough to email me under the auspices that he was just some random guy who happened to stumble across the forum and is TOTES UPSET that it's going on (lol!):lol this cunt is full of herself (literally too since she is a tubbo)
Et cetera.
shakespeares sister is cool blog title tho. shes also ugly.
If she cleaned up her diet and hit a treadmill, all of a sudden a guy might ask her out, and all of her rage would melt away.
If you can look at her without wanting to punch her in the face, you're not looking hard enough
funny how everyone that writes about shit like the stuff in this blog is always an obese uggo. you never see any hot chicks complaining about rape (even though they would most likely be in the prime rapey demographic). No one wants to rape this chick. I guess she is just hoping someone will get pissed enough at all her feminist shit and revenge rape her. damn i bet she fantasizes about that everyday.
that that bitch is anti boner spray personified. id have to rape her with 3 Popsicle sticks taped to my flaccid wang
This stuff is designed to dehumanize me, to scare me, to upset me, to deter me, to silence me. It does not work.
I've been reading it now for five years. I process it by putting it through a meat grinder, turning it into a juicy sausage, and eating it NOM NOM NOM. I process it by letting it be my sustenance. My belly is filled with this fuel, reminder after reminder after tired-ass reminder about why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Maybe that's why I'm so damn fat.
Oh, the irony!
I share this mess for this reason: Every day, feminist women—some of them fat, some of them survivors of sexual assault—start blogs. This is what they will face. Because of that, every day, feminist women close blogs.
I will never, ever, argue that women (or men) should tolerate abuse to keep blogging. All of us must do what we need to keep ourselves safe, first and foremost. Always do what is best for you, and if that means locking the door on an internet space and throwing away the key, do it and don't regret it and don't feel weak. Taking care of yourself is evidence of strength, and no one should tell you otherwise.
This, then, is for the people who frequently email me and ask how: How do you do it? How can I do it? I want to find a way to withstand it. What should I do? How can I survive? How can I process?
And the answer is: I don't know. I don't know what you should do. But here is what I do: I put it through a meat grinder, I turn it into a juicy sausage, and I eat it NOM NOM NOM!
Sometimes it gives me some serious heartburn, that.
But there is always, eventually, relief.
Burp.
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My eternal and profound thanks to the people who help me process, especially Iain, Spudsy, and Deeks.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, whose CEO needs a drink.
Recommended Reading:
Marcella: Carnival Against Sexual Violence 81
Andy: Thousands Cram Liverpool Street for Vigil Against Anti-Gay Hate
C.L.: Monster Rat: A Gallery of the Rape Culture
Gwen: Brutalized Women as Entertainment
Melissa: Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Lauren Tracy
Sady: Everything You Loved Was Always Horrible, featuring: Short Circuit
Leave your links in comments...
From the Mailbag
I've just gotten so much good stuff lately, and I regret not being able to write a unique post about every one of them. Items that are potentially triggering are prefaced with [TW].
Shaker AEHelephant sends the link to this piece about a new study which found that "magazine photos of models, be they magically emaciated or plus-size, make overweight women feel worse about their bodies and, conversely, 'underweight' women feel better about themselves... Overweight women's self-esteem always decreases, regardless of the model they look at." I haven't seen the study, but if it used actual spreads from fashion magazines, I'm guessing those findings are significantly rooted in the fact that what passes for "plus size" in modeling makes most "real world fat women" feel horrible by comparison. Of course it's worse to see "plus size" women included and think nothing but, "And I'm still twice their size."
Shaker Phyllis offers some Gender Bias Bingo!
[TW] Shaker Lena forwards another infuriating example of domestic violence being called an "act of passion."
[TW] Shaker Crissy recommends this expansive New York Times piece about the upcoming and much-discussed film Precious, a film about "fat teenage girl who is sexually and physically abused at home, and 'has a deep need to open up and thrive, which she begins to do with the help of a teacher and an all-girl crew of peers at an alternative school'."
Shaker Kohlrabi nominates the amazing Jessica Markowitz for a You Go, Grrl: "Markowitz runs a charity that sends 22 poor girls in Rwanda to school. She has raised nearly $40,000, taken several trips to rural villages there, formed a partnership with a local girls school and worked this past summer teaching Rwandan kids to read in English. The amazing part is that Markowitz is only 14."
Shaker ASDKids2 sends along this hilarious bit of Can't Win: Twin study reveals that the secret to looking young (for women) is be thin under 40, less thin over 40, use birth control but not antidepressants, don't get divorced, but do try to be a widow; you'll look two years younger! Sigh.
Shaker Eleanore forwards this heap of megafail care of PUMA Bodywear: "The PUMA Index is a real stock market ticker, but with an added bonus. When the market goes down, the models' clothes come off." Criminy.
Shaker Hajen sends the link to this Frontline story "about how Brooksley Born of the CFTC back in the Clinton administration tried to regulate the OTC derivatives market and was shut down by Greenspan/Summers/Rubin. They stress the gender angle - Levitt even says 'she was presented to me as irascible, stubborn...' when he was explaining why he discounted her opinion... It's called The Warning."
[TW] Shaker nrgkat forwards this heart-wrenching story about "Canada's hidden trade in people," a sex trade that targets Aboriginal women and girls: "The average age of Aboriginal girls who are human trafficked is between seven and 12 years old."
Shaker Jake forwards posts from the blog of online dating site OKCupid which discuss race and response rates among their members. Opposite sex matching is here; same-sex matching is here.
Shaker Ira sends the links to this item and related article about an event in which people take to the stage to talk about mental illness. I like the idea of people talking candidly about their own mental illnesses; feel pretty icky about this, though: "Maxine Cunningham, 61, recalled the frantic, last-minute trip she'd made to Atlanta earlier that week. 'Three days ago, my daughter's best friend called,' she says. 'She was shouting that I had to come down and assume guardianship of my daughter and force her into a hospital right away.' As Cunningham read what she had written, tears rolled down her cheeks."
Shaker MorganP forwards this mess from the Times, in which, Morgan explains, "The author rightly denounces the glut of misleading quantitative data about women's success (being 'less affected by the recession', etc.) as demonstrations of 'proof' that attitudes toward women have significantly changed in recent years" but also "1. Asserts that the news media had no problem deriding Hillary Clinton for having 'cankles', but 'was on their best behavior to avoid racial stereotypes' during the presidential primaries; 2. Assures the reader that an overhaul of pernicious attitudes toward women will not require 'embracing feminism, which remains a toxic term for some women'; 3. Places the responsibility of changing these attitudes on women. And other such gems." Sigh.
[TW] Shaker Julia sends this article in which is found yet another example of rapists "having sex" with children.
[TW] Shaker Michelle emails the link to this story "about an operation that was performed on pregnant women in Ireland without their consent, causing life-long pain and health problems. Just another face of the so-called pro life movement."
Shaker Esme emails about a review of the abysmal-looking film Couples Retreat which opens: "Three of the four principal guys in this comedy are well over 15 stone - making them clinically obese by their body mass indexes. They need to lose weight not lessons in 'couples skills building'." Says Esme: "There could be a great review written which critiques the (very noticeable) difference in size between the men in this movie and the women. ... The idea that men in Hollywood are allowed to age, while women are not, that men can 'let themselves go' and [women can't]. But that is not the point this review makes. Instead, his idiotic focus is on the fact that these imaginary characters 'should' be spending their time starving themselves, as the wives have already dutifully done to cater to the fat-hating patriarchal beauty standards necessary to be met by women who'd like to ever have a career."
Shaker Ezekiel sends the link to this UK petition asking for "a new compulsory hour per year in the PSHE curriculum that will deal with the problems teenagers face when it comes to their appearance. The lesson will attempt to tackle confidence issues early so they don't have a chance to develop, so young people in the UK will not be held back by their lack of self esteem and self belief."
Shaker Hillevi sends this piece about a bit of fat-hating nonsense care of Safeway CEO Steven A. Burd with the note: "I think I loathe Steve Burd even more than John Mackey." lolsob.
And last but not least: Shaker EastSideKate forwards this story about "a privately-operated, for-profit prison in Manhattan where men are detained on immigration charges, kept in the damp and cold, paid $1 a day to clean, and of course, not given access to legal representation. Not that our government has a problem with certain people coming to the US or anything."
It's a Man's World
So, last night, I'm watching the Amazing Race, and, recapping the previous episode, Phil describes something as "bigger than 20 football fields." I don't remember the exact number of football fields. It could have been 50, or 100. Roughly, a fuckload of football fields.
Naturally, he meant American football, not soccer. Which makes measuring things in "football fields" an American-centric term for a start, even though America is not the only place the Amazing Race airs.
But I imagine it's also rather alienating for most women, who, even if they're football fans, have most likely never played the game. It's almost totally an exclusively male sport: There's no organized football league for American girls (like there is for boys); though there is the occasional story about a solitary girl who plays for a high school football team, there aren't girls' high school football teams; there aren't girls' college football teams; and there's no equivalent to the NFL for professional female football players.
I know that a football field is 100 yards, or 300 feet, but that doesn't mean a hell of a lot to me (especially since I don't even know its width off the top of my head)—almost certainly not as much as it means to my dad, who played football and spent years coaching high school football, who's spent a lot of time actually on a football field getting some internalized sense of its perspective, rather than just regarding it, as I do, as an effectively useless synonym for "big."
Clearly, there are plenty of men who have never played football, either, for whom the term is just as inadequate. And that would be true of any sports reference—it's 50 soccer pitches, 200 basketball courts, 450 Olympic-sized swimming pools, 1,000 tennis courts!—but it's interesting that the only one typically used is, by far, the least female-friendly possible, thus making it perhaps the most inaccessible for the general population.
Although admittedly perfect for this guy:
Let's Get a Few Things Straight, Shall We?
by Shaker KiriAmaya, an autistic trans woman who adores cats and plays way too many videogames.
Julie Bindel is a feminist who has written some neat feminist stuff. Julie Bindel is also a transphobe. Sadly, the two are not mutually exclusive. My first exposure to her writing was this lovely bit of trans hatred, which ended with, "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s does not make you a man."
...yeah. I love how anti-trans people will say stuff like this, and then turn around and say that we're the "essentialists" who "reify gender".
Anyway, she wrote and said a lot more things along those lines over the years, but it didn't stop her from being nominated for a Journalist of the Year award by the UK organization Stonewall (yet more evidence that the "T" in GLBT is for decorative purposes only). Trans people and allies protested that nomination, and she's been whining ever since that trans folks—who mostly just want to be themselves, go to the bathroom, not get murdered, etc.—are *gasp* being mean to her! Won't somebody please think of the poor, poor transphobes?
And recently, a friend of mine made me aware that Bindel has, once again, let slip the dogs of fail. This particular screed cheesed me off so much that I had to ask Liss if I could fisk it on here, and she graciously agreed. So, here I go.
To understand where Bindel and other anti-trans feminists are coming from, let's skip ahead to the last paragraph for a moment, where she makes this statement:
In a world where equality between men and women was reality, transsexualism would not exist.This is what she believes, and it informs all her understanding of trans issues. The problem, of course, is that it's flatly untrue.
Let's start with the faultiness of the premise that "equality" equals "sameness." (See the discussion in this thread.) Women and men can be equal without being the same, so the hypothetical equality of which Bindel speaks is ultimately irrelevant to the position of being something you're not—except insomuch as one can imagine that in such a truly gender-equal society, no one would think less of someone who identified as male, or female, or genderqueer, or even some completely new concept that made sense only to hir. There would be no reason to define these roles as rigidly as Bindel does, because everyone would get to define hir gender for hirself, and nobody would think less of hir for it. At least, that's the world I want.
Transition is only partly about social gender. When we who transition talk about our bodies, hormones, etc. feeling wrong for us, we're not just making shit up; it really is how we think and feel. Different transitioning people feel differently about their bodies, of course—some are perfectly fine with the genitals they were born with, for example—but a perfectly gender-equal society, while it would certainly make things a lot easier for us, wouldn't magically make our dysphoria go away. I've done a few informal polls of my transitioning friends over the years, asking if they would still want to transition if society didn't have any gender hangups, and the answer has always been unanimous: yes, of course they would, because they still wouldn't feel comfortable in their own skin.
You want science? Okay, here, have some science. While I don't care for some of the word choices in that study, and I agree that it's problematic to assign genders to brains, it's still pretty clear here that there's more going on than just people deluding themselves.
Really, I could end this post with that, because Bindel's bogus idea of transness is the cornerstone of everything she says and writes about us, and so smashing it brings the entire edifice crumbling down.
I'm gonna fisk this thing in some detail anyway, though. It helps to understand the arguments people make against us, and how to refute them. It's also kinda cathartic, you know?
So, on the first page is a photo showing a small teenage girl on the left, and a taller, broader-shouldered woman on the right. The caption reads, "A photographic exhibition at the Hammer Museum, University of California Los Angeles, shows a comparative study between teenage girls and adult male-to-female transsexuals". 'Cause, y'know, comparing women based on their looks is totes feminist. Also 'cause cis women can't possibly be tall or broad-shouldered. Also 'cause only small, thin teenagers can actually be women. Argh, so much fail, and we haven't even started the article yet!
Last year, I was nominated for the Stonewall Journalist of the Year award. This seemed fair enough since I write prolifically about sexuality and sexual identity. But I guessed that Stonewall would not dare give me the prize, because a powerful lobby affiliated with the lesbian and gay communities had been hounding me for five years. Six weeks later I, along with a police escort, walked past a huge demonstration of transsexuals and their supporters, shouting "Bindel the Bigot". Despite campaigning against gender discrimination, rape, child abuse and domestic violence for 30 years, I have been labelled a bigot because of a column I wrote in 2004 that questioned whether a sex change would make someone a woman or simply a man without a penis.Didn't we already do this with Joe the Plumber? Look, Ms. Bindel, it's like this: If you talk like a bigot and act like a bigot, people will call you a bigot. And going, "Oh, but look at all the good stuff I did!" isn't going to absolve you of that, any more than Joe doing, uhh, whatever it is he did will absolve him of his own bigotry.
Transsexualism, by its nature, promotes the idea that it is "natural" for boys to play with guns and girls to play with Barbie dolls.Gwuh? So my strong desire to have a more feminine body and be recognized as female means I want to play with Barbie dolls? This is news to me! I mean, I have some old Star Trek action figures; do they count? What about my trans woman friend who plays sports and wants to join the military? What about that trans man I knew who loved dressing in pink from head to toe? What about those trans people who mix and match gendered behaviors according to their whims, thus actively defying the binary?
I wrote: "Those who ‘transition' seem to become stereotypical in their appearance — f**k-me shoes and birds' nest hair for the boys; beards, muscles and tattoos for the girls. Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease."Uhh, you're getting your boys and girls switched 'round, there, Ms. Bindel. But anyway…
I know tons of trans people, and not a single one looks anything like what she's describing here (y’know, not that there’d be anything wrong with it if they did). Sure, lots of trans folks experiment with exaggerated stereotypes when they first accept that they're trans, in much the same way that cis people do when they're little kids—except, in a lot of trans people's cases, they do it because they never got the chance to before. After that, though, most trans folks seek to find a look that works for them, which can be absolutely anything, not necessarily the looks Bindel's describing here. And even if they did go for such looks, why would it matter? Seriously, what's wrong with people choosing the looks they want?
Especially when failing to pass can be dangerous. There is perhaps no more vicious expression of cis privilege than complaining about trans people conforming their appearances to gender-based stereotypes when nonconformity could mean risking their very lives.
Gender dysphoria (GD) was invented in the 1950s by reactionary male psychiatrists in an era when men were men and women were doormats.You know, this would be a perfect opening to explore some of the narratives behind transmisogyny, but of course she doesn't do this, as it would interfere with her "trannies are bad" narrative.
GD has no proven genetic or physiological basis.Of course there's no proof, because science doesn't work that way. As I mentioned before, however, there is ample evidence that we trans people and our allies aren't just talking out of our collective ass.
A review for the Guardian in 2005 of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham's Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery was clinically effective.The only Guardian article I can find on this was actually from 2004, so I'm assuming that Bindel either made a typo or misremembered the year. And yeah, the article's pretty silly. It says that some trans people are still depressed and suicidal even after their surgery, which indicates that GRS is not some magical procedure that will solve every problem a trans person could have.
To which I reply: "Well, yeah." The post-transition women I've talked to about it have said that, in the end, transition didn't exactly make them feel happy; it just made them feel relieved. They felt that this thing that had bugged them all their life was now gone, and they could (finally!) get on with being themselves. It didn't mean that their lives were suddenly full of rainbows and kittens—far from it, actually, as they'd had to go through hell in many different ways to get where they were, and still carried their scars with them. And, of course, still face enormous amounts of prejudice, of which this article is emblematic, which can make life way rougher than it needs to be. This just seems like common sense to me, but I guess it isn't.
This, by the way, is one of the things that bugs me about the pathologization of transness: It gives people the idea that being trans is a "disease" that transition is supposed to "cure", and so, when transition doesn't result in the person being happy and healthy and "normal", people like Julie Bindel can conclude that it "doesn't work". Tell you what, Ms. Bindel and the various medical establishments of the world: why don't you leave it up to trans people themselves to decide whether it "works" or not? They're the ones who would actually know, after all!
All right, back to the fisking:
Apart from Thailand, the country with the highest number of sex-change operations is Iran where, homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death.Yes, Iran's homophobia is terrible and deeply, deeply fucked up, and I'm sure that some people feel pressured to transition when they otherwise wouldn't (more on that in a bit). What does that have to do with trans people who enthusiastically decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives and bodies?
When sex-change surgery is performed on gay men, they become, in the eyes of the gender defenders, heterosexual women. Transsexual surgery becomes modern-day aversion therapy for gays and lesbians.Um, wow. Aside from her referring to trans women as "gay men" (I'm having Blanchard & Bailey flashbacks here), what exasperates me about this part is the idea that GRS somehow leads to social acceptance for trans women. That ain't how it works. If a trans woman doesn't "pass", then not only will she most likely never be fully socially accepted as a woman, but she'll be forever seen as a weirdo, a freak, an evil deviant, etc. As much as things currently suck for lots of marginalized people of all stripes, in Western countries most of them at least don't face the extraordinarily high rate of violence, rape, and murder on the basis of their identities that trans people do. So yeah, I don't really think that it would even occur to most cis gay people to transition in order to gain social acceptance (though, as we'll see, it's not impossible).
Indeed, transsexuals, along with those seeking IVF and cosmetic surgery, are using the NHS for the pursuit of happiness not health.So, what, you don't think that removing a major cause of mental distress is a health issue? Oh, right, you think that it "doesn't work" because it's not a magical silver bullet that Fixes Everything.
Treatment is brutal and the results far from perfect.I like how she chooses the word "brutal" to make it sound like abuse or something. I won't lie, I'm not looking forward to the pain that will go with hair removal (yeah, I'm pre-everything) and surgery, but even the "far from perfect" results will be totally worth the pain as far as I'm concerned. Which is what really matters, seeing as how it's, y'know, my body and all. Bindel's just concern trolling here.
Recent legislation (the Gender Recognition Act, which allows people to change sex and be issued with a new birth certificate) will have a profoundly negative effect on the human rights of women and children.Which rights? How so? I certainly see how it may have a profoundly negative effect on Bindel's right to be a bigot, but I'm not sure how the human rights of women and children will be diminished by expanding rights for trans people (who, btw, count among their numbers women and children).
Since 2004, it has been possible for those diagnosed with GD to be assigned the sex of their choice, providing that the person has lived as the opposite sex for two years, has no plans to change back again and can provide evidence of the above. It is not necessary to have undergone hormone treatment or surgery. In other words, a pre-operative man could apply for a job in a women — only rape counselling service and, if refused on grounds of his sex, could take the employer to court on the grounds that "he" is legally a "she".OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
I am so sick of this godsdamn frakking argument that I want to punch a hole in the universe. How many times has this exact same bullshit come up in regards to bathrooms and festivals and stuff? I lost count years ago.
Look: If a rapist wants to rape, he'll just do it. He won't go to the trouble of changing his full-time gender presentation, staying that way for two years, promising he'll never go back, and then jumping through all the legal hoops necessary to get his gender legally changed.
Rapists don't care about following the law. If they did, they wouldn't be rapists. What will it take to get this through people's skulls?
Ugh.
Okay, moving on.
She quotes a widely-used definition of the umbrella term "transgender", then makes the following claim:
According to this definition, a girl who plays football is trans-sexual....Head, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Desk. Desk, this is Head.
Whether or not the given definition of "transgender" is problematic is beside the point, because one can be a transgender person without being a transsexual person! Hello! This is like hearing someone say that motor vehicles have wheels, and then going, "Well, by that definition, my scooter is an SUV!" Is she even trying with this?
A number of transsexuals are beginning to admit that opting for surgery ruined their lives.Of course, she provides no hint as to what this number could actually be. Just "a number".
"I was a messed-up young gay man," says Claudia McClean, a male-to-female transsexual who opted for surgery 20 years ago. "If I had been offered an alternative to a sex change, I would have jumped at the chance, but as soon as I told the psychiatrist I felt trapped in the wrong body, or some such cliché, he was writing out a referral to the surgeon."Okay, yeah, this is what I was talking about before—sometimes, some people do feel pressured into transition for reasons not their own. Of course that's wrong, and I'm not saying otherwise; nor, I'm certain, would anyone on Shakesville. And my heart breaks for those people; it really does.
But what Bindel is doing here is extrapolating from a few cases a conclusion meant to apply to all people who transition, anywhere, ever. And thus she concludes that "Transition made some people who didn't want it unhappy" is a good reason to deny rights to people who do want to transition, without regard for the evident reality any (isolated) case of a doctor recklessly encouraging surgery is an issue of medical malpractice.
Don't get me wrong: I do not, for a second, want to deny or downplay Claudia McClean's experience here. It shows just how fucked up this heteronormative binary bullshit is. But it's a problem with the heteronormative binary bullshit, to which some doctors can and do subscribe, too, not a problem with the fact that trans people exist! There's a difference! And trans people are more aware of said bullshit, and what it means to transgress it, than cis people could ever be!
Blergh. Onward:
Transsexualism is becoming so normalisedLMAO!!
Ahaha! I'd snark about this phrase, but I don't think I could make it look any more ridiculous than it already is! LOL!!
Ahem. Anyway:
Transsexualism is becoming so normalised that increasing numbers of children are being referred to clinics by their parents. Recently, an 18-month-old baby in Denmark was diagnosed as suffering from GD. Last summer, a primary school headteacher held an assembly to explain that a nine-year-old boy would return as a girl.Really? Awesome. Okay, I do wonder on what basis they arrived at the 18-month-old diagnosis, but dang would I have loved to have this kind of acceptance and support available when I was a kid.
Although the minimum age for sex-change surgery is 18, puberty-blocking hormones can be prescribed to those as young as 16, and transsexual rights lobbyists want that age to be reduced to 13.Damn straight we do. If I could have skipped male puberty, I'd have a much better chance of getting the body I want now. I want trans kids to have that chance!
James Bellringer is a surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, which has the largest gender identity clinic in the UK. He believes that children should be allowed to self-diagnose as GD. "It is not the doctors saying, ‘You are a transsexual, let's get you on hormones,' it is the children saying, ‘I don't like my breasts, I feel like a girl'."(Dr?) Bellringer has it right. It's not about what doctors (or Julie Bindel) want for trans people; it's about what trans people want for themselves.
There is, however, a dispute within the medical profession about whether puberty-blockers should be prescribed. Some doctors say that children need to experience puberty to know whether they are misplaced in their bodies.Oh, horse-puckey. I mean, I'm not going to suggest that that can't be true for some trans people, but, frankly, the entire "you've got to have [some baseline experience] to know for sure" argument smacks strongly of the now-unfashionable but once-ubiquitous assertion that gay people couldn't be certain of their orientation unless they'd had sex with someone of the opposite sex. To insist that it's an across-the-board requirement for all trans children to have their bodies ravaged by the wrong hormones is, honestly, pretty cruel.
Which makes Bindel's next statement just gob-smacking:
I would describe preventing puberty as a modern form of child abuse.In a transphobe's world, it's child abuse to prevent children from developing in ways they don't want to, and it's not child abuse to force them to, because the most important thing—far more important than, say, children being happy—is that everybody lives exactly according to the body they're born with. Whatever happened to that neat little phrase about biology not determining destiny? Hasn't that been, like, a major rallying cry for feminists for as long as it has existed? Why doesn't Julie Bindel believe in it?
Two-thirds of those claiming to be, or diagnosed as, transsexual during childhood become lesbian or gay in later life.Uhh... you do know it's possible to be both, right? Right?
A male-to-female transsexual serving a prison sentence for manslaughter and rape won the right to be relocated to a women's jail. Her lawyers argued that her rights were being violated by being unable to live in her role as a woman in a men's jail. Large numbers of female prisoners have experienced childhood abuse and rape and will fail to appreciate the reasons behind a biological man living among them, particularly one who still has the penis with which he raped a woman.Oh look, it's the "trans woman as stealth rapist" meme again. This time it's different, because this woman got put in jail partly because she did rape someone, and so I can absolutely see how it would be a scary thing for rape survivors to be around her. But then, why don't they put cis women who are sex criminals in men's jails? Answer that, and you'll have your answer to why this woman got moved to a women's jail. (Related reading.)
So what, in Bindel's mind, makes a trans woman more of a threat? Well, the penis, of course. Y'know, I'm glad she came right out and said that, because that's really what a lot of this comes down to. It's why a lot of people who argue that trans women could be rapists in disguise are actually pretty okay with the idea of trans men in women's bathrooms, and it's why a "women-only" festival that explicitly excludes trans women welcomes pre-op or non-op trans men: It's literally penises that they're afraid of. And I mean, I can kind of understand: As a rape survivor myself, I know that, yeah, penises can be pretty scary. I get it. I do. But what Bindel is suggesting here is that trans women should be subjected to near-certain rape and violence in men's jails solely because they have penises. Which is not only kind of monstrous but also rape culture perpetuating.
There is a handful of radicals in the world today who have dared to challenge the diagnosis of transsexualism.LMAO again! So anti-trans people are just "a handful of radicals"? If this wasn't a Julie Bindel article, I'd start wondering if it was some kind of clever parody! (That is, unless she's talking about the folks who challenge the pathologization of transness. I doubt that very much, though.)
Oh yeah, and they've dared to challenge it! Because it's totes a minority position! Because it's not like Western civ hasn't, with vanishingly few exceptions, hated trans and gender-variant people for its entire fucking history!
Those who do are called "transphobic"Hey, if the shoe fits...
There is a form of cultural relativism at play here. Defenders of female genital mutilation or forced marriage often use the argument that such practices can be justified within certain communities (i.e. non-Western cultures), despite the fact that they serve to dehumanise women, because it is the "truth" of that particular community.And that is horrible, but what's it got to do with trans people? Seriously, it's like she's just throwing things against the wall and seeing if they stick now.
A police officer who, during the course of his duty, was unfairly accused by transsexuals of "transphobia" was driven to a breakdown by their vicious campaign. An eminent medical ethicist who had dared to defend a fellow professional who had questioned the diagnosis of GD from a scientific point of view almost lost his career and reputation. And several women from feminist organisations have been bullied and vilified for challenging the "right" of male-to-female transsexuals to work in women-only organisations.Meanwhile, trans women continue to be beaten, raped, murdered, fired from their jobs, kicked out of their houses, prevented from using public bathrooms, and systematically denied whatever resources are otherwise available to women for abuse recovery and the like, all just because they're trans—but never mind that! We're hurting the poor cis bigots' feelings! And their reputations! How dare we threaten their reputations by exposing them for the bigots they are?
With the normalisation of transsexual surgery comes an acceptance of other forms of surgery to correct a mental disorder. In 2000, Russell Reid, a psychiatrist who has diagnosed hundreds of people with GD, was involved in controversy over the condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), where sufferers can experience a desperate urge to rid themselves of a limb. Reid referred two BDD patients to a surgeon for leg amputations.So what's wrong with that, if it's what they want? Y'know, if I didn't know better, I'd think Julie Bindel was new to this whole feminism thing. Don't we all agree that people have the right to do what they want with their own bodies?
We live in a society that, on the whole, respects the human rights of others.LMAO—okay, that one's more of a sob, really, but still.
Accepting a situation where the surgeon's knife and lifelong hormonal treatment are replacing the acceptance of difference is a scandal.Except that’s not what’s actually happening. Also, I happen to think that misusing feminist theory to try to prevent women from getting help they need is kind of a scandal, itself.
Sex-change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.See, it's mutilation! Mutilation is bad! And trans people mutilate themselves; ergo, trans people are bad! And not only that—it's unnecessary, meaning our tax money (in countries with socialized healthcare, anyway) is getting spent on unnecessary things, like helping a bunch of freaky freak freaks!
Using human rights laws to normalise trans-sexualism has resulted in a backward step in the feminist campaign for gender equality.Because, y'know, the feminist campaign for gender equality is totes about forcing people to be something they're not based on their biology.
I could end this by saying something about the dangers of treating theory as dogma, but I've read enough bigotry, and analysis of such, to know that that's not all that's going on here. As we can all see, there simply is no logical connection between the few valid points Bindel makes and her rejection of transness as a whole, and that's because it's not really about the theory at all. It's about Julie Bindel. It's about the fact that trans people weird her out and scare her, and challenge her worldview in ways she's not prepared to face, and so she wants to just make us all go away.
Well, we're not going away. We're going to continue fighting for the rights we need, and the treatment we need. Julie Bindel and her ilk are just gonna have to deal.
In News You Already Knew
White Men Are Not Very Progressive.
And I'll venture the guess that among white men who are progressive, you'll find an awful lot of GBTQIA men and atheist men, which I note as a preface to the reiteration of my oft-cited suggestion that progressive leadership treating reproductive rights and LGBTQIA rights as bargaining chips, and remaining hostile to non-religious constituents, is probably a bad idea.
Matt notes: "Progressive politics is badly disadvantaged by a situation in which the overwhelming majorities of political leaders and prominent media figures are white men. There are plenty of white men with progressive views, but in general the majority of white men are not progressive and the majority of progressives are not white men. Drawing from the relatively small pool of white male progressives means drawing from a shallow talent pool."
Mostly, I agree with that. Although I'll be a pedant, in my usual way, and note there are, in fact, not plenty of white men with progressive views, but plenty of white men with some progressive views, and vanishingly few who regard, with the same fervor they do healthcare reform or protecting social security, the importance of social justice, and the attendant need to challenge institutional marginalization.
Which might not seem like a key tenet of progressivism to a straight white cis man, but is sure as hell does to the rest of us.
What the Hell?
Shaker Mighty Doll
Appearing none too pleased about something.
(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, mkp-hearts-nyc, Arvan, Norbizness, Electrasteph, SteffaB, molliecat, Aestas, catvoncat, Filthy Grandeur and Shelly.]
