As ever, I've just gotten a ton of 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].
[TW] Shakers Medusa Jones, Twings, and Hillevi all sent this great piece by Patrick Stewart (yes, that Patrick Stewart) on the legacy of domestic violence.
Shaker Icca forwards one for the Assvertising pile: "I saw this Excedrin Migraine commercial today that was really infuriating! I couldn't find it on YouTube, but basically it's this ad where this woman has a migraine and it says 'Don't let your migraine become someone else's pain.' Then it shows the woman swinging her daughter around as they frolic happily. Because it's not about easing your suffering, it's about fulfilling your duty as mom! That's the only reason you might want relief from a MIGRAINE. Oof."
[TW] Shaker Erica sends one to be filed under "Rape is REALLY Hilarious": The Sex Offender Shuffle. I am wordless. I am without words.
Shaker Leigh emails about more Amazon fail, this time in the racism department: "Guess Amazon didn't get the 'post-racial america' memo...not only is this lovely item in-stock, but they have a whole array of delightful mammy and pappy products."
Shaker Melanie also sends a contemptible ad: "I couldn't not alert you to this arrrgggghhhh! assvertisement/contest for Orangina (and the ad-dude's response to it). I don't even really want to call it assvertising, because ass is exactly what it's reveling in."
[TW] Shaker Claudia forwards this article about a 39-year-old female teacher in Britain who has been jailed for 32 months and placed on the sex offenders' register for statutorily raping a 15-year-old male student. Claudia notes that not only does the author essentially assert that being a woman should make one immune to statutory rape charges, but "she is buying into the idea that young boys should be pursuing sex and young girls should not." Claudia also wisely notes that if the student had been female, there would almost certainly be outraged accusations of "gay recruitment." Indeed, and yet a female teacher statutorily raping a male student is regarded as normal by virtue of its service to heterocentrism.
[TW] Shaker BlueRidge emails about a report on rape in Afghanistan: "Rape in Afghanistan is under-reported, concealed and a human rights problem of 'profound proportions,' the United Nations said on Monday." Which makes Afghanistan like most places in the world; what's exceptional is that "there is no explicit provision in the 1976 Afghan penal code that criminalises rape." Justice is not merely elusive, but has not even an illusion of attainment.
[TW] Shaker Lynsey forwards this clusterfuck of a story about "a 66-year-old church elder convicted of indecently assaulting a child [who] will not be sent to jail" because of his "lack of mobility, ulcerated legs and need for frequent dressings amounted to 'wholly exceptional circumstances'." The headline deems him "too fat for jail."
And finally, to end on an up-note, Shaker Gretchen sends this great profile of 9th Circuit Court Federal Judge Betty Fletcher. I love the caption on the photo: "Betty Fletcher, 86, is a liberal icon and the most powerful woman in Seattle you've never heard of. Sadly for conservatives, she just won't stop working." LOL!
From the Mailbag
Rest in the Peace You Couldn't Find Here
[Trigger warning for suicide and transphobia.]
Shaker TheDeviantE emailed me about the suspected suicide of LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner, aka Christine Daniels, whose (aborted) public transitioning to womanhood was chronicled in a blog titled "Woman in Progress" under the name Christine Daniels.
We discussed Penner's coming out here when it was announced in 2007; I did not realize that "by October 2008 Penner had quietly gone back to work as a man." I don't know the reasons for Penner's decision to halt transitioning, although I can imagine, especially given hir (I don't know how zie would have preferred to be identified, so I am using gender-neutral pronouns) decision to take hir own life. Zie had to face, very publicly, a metric fuckton of hatred and bigotry.
TheDeviantE writes (which I am publishing with his permission):
[The article on Yahoo was front-paged under the headline] "Transsexual Los Angeles Times sportswriter found dead" whereas the article's title itself is "LA Times sports writer Mike Penner dead at 52" so in one case it is sensationalizing it, in the other they are glossing over the fact that the writer came out as trans (with a different name) over 2 years ago. Also frustrating is their insistence in using the birth name and male pronouns, even when talking about the time of her life when she publicly identified as a woman.I don't know what else I can add, except for this: Mike/Christine is one of the many people whose names don't make it onto the list of victims published on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Zie was not murdered, but zie is almost certainly dead due to transphobia, at least in part, nonetheless.
Besides the horrible transphobic stuff in the article itself is the tragedy of it of course. This is a woman who took decades to finally be able to be true to herself, only to (seemingly) be unable to deal with the world once she had finally been able to come out. It just reminds me of the "real life test" or "real life experience" that is STILL being forced on those of us who can't find trans friendly professionals to help us. The article though doesn't bother to mention any thing other than that she "eventually dropped the 'Woman in Transition' blog and returned to writing under the name Mike Penner." Um yeah. I wonder why trying to be a sports writer as a woman, let a lone a famously trans woman could be difficult, and why she might go back to her old name. They could have used this as an opportunity to have talked about greater societal issues, instead they used inappropriate pronouns, sensationalized it, and made it generally horrible.
I resolve again to be an uncompromising ally to my trans sisters and brothers, actively, every day.
RIP.
Eulogies from friends: Scott French and Kevin Bronson.
We Interrupt...
...your regularly scheduled installment of "Conniving & Sinister" to bring you a very special episode of the Adventures of Spudsy:
[Adventures of Spudsy: One.]
What the Hell?
Shaker SaltyKipper.
(second from left)
Wearing, as she describes it, a "totally hot as shit home-made fairy costume."
[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, Mighty Doll, IraeNicole, sevenhelz, the Shaker Halloween Special, Mistress Sparkletoes, Neilleast, NapalmNacey, Rowan_Bristol, ChelseaWantsOut, Phyllis, PlusSizedFeminist, and Carleigh.]
Hysterical Bitchez
Under the headline "Method Pulls 'Shiny Suds' Ad After Sexism Complaints," and subhead "Vocal Minority Claims Droga5 Spot 'Condones Rape'," AdAge's Jack Neff discusses Method's Shiny Suds advert (my posts are here, here, and here), writing:
Little did attendees at the ANA or most commenters on YouTube and Twitter know, however, that the Shiny Suds were really about degrading women and promoting rape, at least in the opinion of commenters on one blog, Shakesville, which posted the video in its "Today in Rape Culture" section.As has been discussed in this space many, many, many times (as recently as yesterday), intent is not at issue: This shit doesn't exist in a void—and playing into existent rape culture narratives without intending to doesn't mean those narratives aren't being reinforced all the same.
That elicited more than 100 angry comments from posters, many of whom said they would stop buying Method products and helped produce some of the hundreds of negative responses to the company's website MethodHome.com. Among the posts: "Making us fear chemical residue from cleaning products because it's tied into a rape threat is beyond sickening."
Of course, that's not the point Method was trying to make.
All of which is frankly beside the point, as it's disingenuous to suggest that Method did not intentionally equate chemical residue with sexual assault. That was, of course, the entire plot of the video. That their main "point" was generating support for the Household Product Labeling Act is irrelevant; the strategy they employed to try to make that point was by equating chemical residue with sexual assault.
One last quick note about Neff's post: It's interesting that raising a red flag about sexual assault imagery is described as "sexism complaints" and "degrading women." Sexism and rape apologia are certainly inextricably linked, but they are not synonymous. I advocate against the rape culture on behalf of all survivors, irrespective of gender—because sexual assault, by its very nature, is designed to degrade its victims, whoever they may be.
It's funny, ahem, how when I object to rape jokes/threats/imagery where the target is male, I'm never mistaken for a silly lady hysterically crying sexism.
Transparency! Accountability! Nevermind!
White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers: "The White House on Wednesday invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama's social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed a state dinner for the prime minister of India last week."
This is the same shit the Bush administration pulled during the Plame leak and the federal prosecutor purge. It pissed me off then, and it pisses me off now.
And, not for nothing, but Bush never campaigned on bringing a new era of transparency and accountability to Washington.
Talking About My Disability
Some of you have heard me refer to myself before here as "partially disabled", which is my preferred identifier for my level of physical ability. And I've been asked how that works, as it seems to some folks that being partially disabled is like being a little bit pregnant. So I thought I'd explain how one little aspect of my life works to make me disabled sometimes, but not other times.
See, I'd hesitate to call myself "disabled", or whatever other identifier might apply in a more robust way, because yah, I do play soccer twice a week still (well, not right now, as money prevented my playing this winter indoor season, but as a general rule).
My disability is that I have chronic serious pain, a result of a car accident when I was 21 (literally more than half a lifetime ago, for me). The initial injuries weren't that bad, but over the years the damaged vertebrae have continued to degenerate, along with the discs between them, and I've developed a pretty serious pain problem.
Now, I deal with that pain every day. I take a fairly heavy load of opioid medications to cope each day, and I do cope, to some extent, and manage to live a reasonably average life: I work full-time running my own business, volunteer with the local community theatre, and of course I have this minor blog habit (big lulz there; I have five Livejournals, as well as my gig writing here).
When it all goes pear-shaped, and the real disability comes into it, is when my also-chronic insomnia comes to visit, as it did in the last couple of days.
Monday night, I think it was (I'm still a bit foggy about the last couple of days - you should have seen how long it took me to sort out the NQDTR yesterday, when I was all pain-brain), I didn't get to sleep until 0730. And had to get up to meet a work deadline at 0930 (I work at home, one of the accommodations I make for my disability, and one of the huge privileges I have in having acquired the skills to be a brain-worker), and the phone just kept ringing all day.
Now insomnia on its own, that's a pain in the ass, but it's copable (ETA: As pocochina correctly points out, I should have been clearer that this is a statement from a personal point-of-view, rather than the bald statement of fact I initially wrote it as; insomnia can be absolutely debilitating for some, and I am sorry to have minimized it even unintentionally).
But one of the unfortunate side effects of my chronic insomnia is that it interferes very strongly with my pain tolerance. And if I have to blow my own horn here, my tolerance for pain can be staggeringly impressive; simply surviving has dictated that it must be. It's not universally applicable, though. I turn into a big mewling baby when I get headaches, which is thankfully quite rare for me.
So last night, when I finally collapsed into sleep around 2030, and woke again like clockwork six hours later, I was in a bad spot, because now I had insomnia *and* pain, because my med schedule had gotten all buggered up. Normally, I take them every eight hours, but going to sleep out of schedule had meant I missed the midnight meds, and sure enough, a couple of hours later, there I am awake again (I can never sleep more than six hours, except when I'm sick or something), and I'm in bad enough pain that I can't sleep.
Let's review briefly here: I need the combo of pain tolerance and meds to get to sleep. When I can't sleep, I have no pain tolerance. When I have no pain tolerance, I can't sleep. Lather, fume, repeat.
Now, I'm thinking of this as a bit of a teaspoon here, not asking for sympathy. My body is my body, and it's the only one I've got, so I don't really need or want pity; it has many, many advantages too, and it would be disingenuous to focus only on the one aspect in which I do experience disability. I have pretty much perfect vision, my proprioception is sufficient to have allowed me to be an expert shooter, a varsity athlete (back in the day), and so on.
What can you do to help me to get your own teaspoons up? Because I know Shakers, and I know this is on the mind of some of you. Well, for me, personally, you could do some work for marijuana legalization the next time you've got an inkling to get active. It's about the only thing that can break the insomnia/pain cycle for me, and allow me to be a productive member of society. Literally - if I had to do without for the rest of my life, I'd probably have to go on disability payments rather than running a business and paying taxes and so on.
Oh, and you can work against intoxicated driving, too. The guy who hit me was intoxicated while driving, and ran a red light to smash me to bits. This includes use of marijuana while driving, which is dangerous and stupid. I use the stuff, but I won't drive for hours after I've used last. It would be gallingly hypocritical to drive intoxicated, for me.
So there you go. That's what being "partially disabled" means to me (and of course, I speak for no one but myself in my use of the term; even someone with similar issues may well view their situation quite differently, and respond in different ways, and be completely reasonable in viewing and doing so).
Top Chef Open Thread
Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
He will also, if you're interested, celebrate the season finale with you by getting his mouth around your delicious succotash.
Question of the Day
Who's your favorite animated character?
I'd have to think long and hard about who my absolute favorite ever is, but the first two who immediately came to mind are:
Lisa Simpson
and:
Abe
—the latter of whom is the central character of my most beloved all-time video game, Oddworld.
NQDTR Discussion Thread - W091202
This is the Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report - W091202.
This is not the place to report teaspooning acts. For that, you want to go to this thread over here.
Here you may discuss the acts you see on the main thread. For ease of reference, we recommend you preface your remarks with the username and perhaps the timestamp of the comment you're posting about. For a nonsensical example, your comment to one of mine might look like this:
-=-=-
@CaitieCat 11/18/2009 01:08 PM : I wrote this post!
And we're really glad you did! I've been able to use this thread as an example to my innocent schoolkids, and I'm so glad you thought of the children!
-=-=-
For now, we'll let this thread be pretty open, so to be more explicit, yes, "that was awesome!" comments are allowed. If we find this is becoming problematic in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, we may revisit that. If you're thinking of posting to say something congratulatory only, perhaps consider reading the thread first, and judging whether there are several people before you who've already done so. This make it harder to have a good discussion, in part because of the lack of threadedness in the comments here for most of us (if you go through Disqus directly, I believe it offers some threading).
Please remember to be polite and thoughtful in your comments, to respect the safe space provided here, and that no one is required to read this thread - so even if you've got something burningly important to say to a specific commenter, they may not see it here.
Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report - W091202
Here's the scoop: we're looking for comments in this thread regarding acts of teaspooning you've seen or committed in the last few days.
This thread is only for those comments. Reports of acts. This explicitly means no "that's awesome!" comments in this thread; the focus is tightly on teaspooning.
If you wish to discuss something you've seen here, we will have a discussion thread for the NQDTR over here. Discussion threads will have the same code on them as the NQDTR itself (W091202 above: Wed., Dec. 2, 2009). This is to make it easier for me to post and monitor them (consistent naming makes links easier). They'll also, to the best of my ability, be posted immediately after the NQDTR itself.
Remember that there is no requirement to read the Discussion Thread associated with a given NQDTR. You can just post your teaspoon and move on, if that's your thing.
Shit
New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill: "The State Senate defeated a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights, family and history. The vote means that the bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson, is effectively dead for the year and dashes the optimism of gay rights advocates, who have had setbacks recently in several key states."
Shaker BoldMatter emails: "12,000 people watched the debate online which included some amazingly heartfelt and stirring personal accounts from various senators on the need for Marriage Equality. It was voted defeated 24 to 38."
I can't even muster a good thought about time being on our side at the moment. This is just bullshit, and I'm pissed and disappointed.
Fuck I'm tired of bigots.
Lipton PSAs Are Failful
[Trigger warnings for both suicide and sexual assault-related content.]
Everyone already knows I'm the most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington, so I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I'm not keen on the new series of LG PSAs/adverts admonishing teens to think before they text, featuring Inside the Actors' Studio host James Lipton:
[A teenage girl sits on her bed in her very pink and feminine bedroom, looking her cell phone. Lipton sits across from her; she is unaware of his presence, which seems to be spectral despite his appearance of corporeality.]While I quite genuinely appreciate the humor of James Lipton referring to a unicorn collectible by the name "Clippy-Clippy Clipclop," my delight was somewhat diminished by: 1. Finding the implied absurdity of a girl in a beard to be transphobic; 2. Feeling vaguely creeped out by the idea of a man in a teenage girl's bedroom, of whom she's unaware even as he touches her face; 3. Objecting strongly to using a beard, culturally associated with masculinity and maleness, to represent thoughtfulness—note that the girl isn't thoughtful until she's marked with a symbol of masculinity. Fail.
Lipton: Tracey has received a particularly cruel text rumor. She was about to forward this juicy gossip to her friends—[Lipton removes his signature beard from his face and puts it on the girl's face]—but Tracey got to thinking. [The girl strokes the beard contemplatively.] If she forwarded this rumor, what kind of example would she be setting for Clippy-Clippy Clipclop and Princess Pussywillow? And the Honeysuckle Twins? [Camera cut back and forth between ceramic unicorns, and Lipton and the girl; the girl then closes her phone, having resolved not to forward the text.] A bad one, that's what! Before you text, give it a ponder.
[A teenage boy sits on a bench in a locker room, texting on his cell phone. Lipton stands beside him; the boy is again unaware of his presence.]If Zoe tweets pix of Stefan's junk, it's not just "the last thing he needs," but a possibly criminal violation of his trust and privacy. And even that possibility is not the primary reason Stefan shouldn't be sending her unsolicited pix of his junk. That would be because doing so, without explicit consent, even to one's girlfriend, is sexual harassment. Fail.
Lipton: Stefan was having a steamy back-and-forth text with his girlfriend Zoe, and was about to text her a pic of his junk. [Stefan looks all hot and bothered; Lipton removes his beard and puts it on the boy's face.] Suddenly, a thought came to Stefan. [The boy strokes the beard contemplatively.] Zoe is a Twitter addict. And the last thing he needs is Tweets about his feats (?). [The boy quickly closes his phone, having resolved not to forward the text.] Before you text, give it a ponder.
[A teenage girl leans against the kitchen counter, looking her cell phone. Lipton stands across from her; she is also unaware of his presence.]Wow. Just…wow. Fail.
Lipton: Vicky has always wanted Jessica's boyfriend, Luke. He's hot. Oven mitt hot. Vicky thinks maybe sending a mean text rumor to all of her friends could pry them apart. [Girl makes scheming look; Lipton removes his beard and puts it on the girl's face; she strokes the beard contemplatively.] Vicky got to thinking: If Jessica found out she started the rumor, there would be an all-out catfight. It would be all: Rrrow! Rrr-oww! [Lipton makes cat faces and turns his hands into claws.] Rrrraaawww! Rrrow! Hiss! Hiss! [Girl looks scared and closes her phone, having resolved not to forward the text.] Hiss! No one wants that. Before you text, give it a ponder.
[A teenage boy stands at the mirror in his bathroom, brushing his teeth. His phone buzzes, and he picks it up to read the incoming text; Lipton is revealed in the mirror standing beside him, though the boy is unaware of his presence.]Minus one billion points for fiery Latin lover with bruised machismo stereotype. Minus one billion more for the idea that women deserve to be "punished" for breaking up with men. Fail.
Lipton: Carlos is angry. He just got dumped by Claire. He wants to send a nasty text rumor about her to his buddies. [Lipton removes his beard and puts it on the boy's face.] Then, Carlos had a thought. [The boy strokes the beard contemplatively.] He remembered that Claire is allergic to nuts. She will never know the delicious perfection of a pecan or walnut. No! He will not send this text. Claire has been punished enough. Quite enough. [The boy closes his cell phone, having resolved not to forward the text.] Before you text, give it a ponder.
Wait, wait—don't tell me…they're edgy!
*clunk*
A big part of the reason I'm so disgusted with the megafail in this campaign is that the idea behind it is a good one—and a necessary one: Today, Cara's got a heartbreaking post [repeated trigger warnings for both suicide and sexual assault-related content] about "a 13-year-old girl named Hope Witsell, who committed suicide after a photograph of her breasts, which she sent to a boy's cell phone, was forwarded all over the school." Cara makes the excellent point:
The set of circumstances here are increasingly common ones — and by "set of circumstances" I do not mean "teenage girls sending sexual photographs of themselves to others" but "the non-consensual spreading of said photographs."As well as the girls who non-consensually forward sexual content, too (as one of the participants in the Hope Witsell case).A poll conducted by her organization, WiredSafety, found that 44 percent of boys in co-ed high schools had seen at least one naked picture of a female classmate. Overwhelmingly, they shared the images with others.And while everyone sure as hell seems to be worried about What! We're! Teaching! Our! Girls! that they send the photographs, no one seems to be saying a goddamn peep about what we're teaching our boys when they think that non-consensual sexual conduct is okay.
Addressing why it's wrong to participate in the sexual harassment, slut-shaming, victimization, rumor-mongering, gossiping, and/or any other kind of bullying against peers is an important message. And LG had a chance to responsibly communicate that message, but instead buried anything resembling an ethical exhortation to not hurt other people underneath ten metric fucktons of failful stereotypes, bigotry, misfired anti-harassment advocacy, and other rubbish.
A real missed opportunity here. Too bad.
Discussion Thread: Explicit Lessons About Rape
[Trigger warning.]
Note: I would really like to hear from Shaker men in this thread, too.
We frequently talk about the many oblique lessons we are taught by the rape culture, but today I'd like to discuss the explicit lessons we're taught, if any.
What were you formally taught about rape, and where did you learn it? Who have you spoken to about rape? Did your parents ever talk to you about rape? Was the topic part of any formal sex education you got in school? Have you ever attended or instructed a seminar on rape? Was it compulsory or voluntary?
Shaker Men: Have you ever participated in a spontaneous conversation among men about rape? Do you know male survivors? Do you know men who have admitted to sexual assault and/or harassment?
Deep Thoughts
LeMew, wryly: "I am absolutely shocked that, despite a near-total lack of precedent, a wealthy professional athlete has engaged in sexual relations with persons to whom he is not married, and I hope that cable news will devote more time to these remarkably surprising and important revelations."
Liss, not so wryly: I wouldn't mind more time if there were even an infinitesimally fleeting possibility that any of it would be dedicated to a serious discussion of why it might be that so many wealthy professional male athletes evidently regard women as one of the entitlements and privileges of their success. You know, like VIP seating and Hummers.
[Screen-grabbed from Wolf Blitzer's Jeopardy! fail.]
Welcome to the Family
Meredith Baxter, probably best known for playing ex-hippie mother-of-four on Family Ties, came out today. She made the announcement this morning on Today, telling Matt Lauer "I am a lesbian and it was a later-in-life recognition."
Good for her! I am truly pleased she's found herself and is happy.
Both Baxter's former on-screen family and her real family have known about her sexuality, though she was initially nervous about telling her five children.Awesome. Totally awesome.
"I said, I think I'm gay, and my oldest boy said, I knew," Baxter laughed. "The support from my family and anyone close to me has been so immediate and unqualified. I’ve really been blessed."
[Cross-posted.]
