Hey, Shakers. The Shaker Ignominiously Known as RedSonja is visiting today, so posting will be light from me for most of the day while we plot the Feminazi Cooter Revolution and eat cheesy bread.
See you tomorrow!
Blog Note
Today in Fat Hatin'
From the Fauxgressives' Guide to Being a Progressive, the Huffington Post, I present: Girlfriends' Guide: FAT Is The New 'N' Word.
I've got one word for you: Bingo!
And, no: Fat is not "the new 'N' word." The suggestion that any word is "the new 'N' word" is totally fucking ignorant, necessarily implying that the N-word itself is somehow the "old" N-word, but there's a new worst slur evah in town! It's an absurd bit of hyperbole, predicated on playing yet another tiresome round of the Oppression Olympics. And, apart from this bullshit being rhetorically and logically lazy as hell, the N-word is frankly never as out-of-fashion as people who never have it used against them would like to think it is.
So there's that. And there's also that fat is a value-neutral descriptor, a fact, like many other facts about a person. I am fat, I am short, I am brunette, I am blue-eyed, I am 35 years old. Sure, there are people who wield the word with vitriol, but there are people who spew the word "woman" with venom. That doesn't make "woman" a slur. There is a distinction between the word fat, and genuine slurs like "fatass" or "pig," just as there is a distinction between the word woman and slurs like "bitch" and "cunt." And the N-word.
Well. That takes care of the headline.
The article...well, fuck. That begins with the opening salvo: "People used to be afraid to be fat; now they're afraid to say 'fat.' Oh, we can talk about diets and exercise and the paucity of plus-size fashions—CONSTANTLY—but we can't really use the word 'fat' as an adjective anymore."
Except, of course, for all the people who do. Like, y'know, everyone in the fat acceptance movement. Suffice it to say, I don't think our intrepid reporter is familiar with fat acceptance, nor would she care to be, since her main complaint really seems to be that people can't comfortably shame fat people merely by calling them fat anymore.
In the middle of the piece, she comes to that delightful chestnut about how "we" don't talk to fat people about being fat: "Not talking about it is cowardly and patronizing and, ultimately cruel because behind almost every fat child is a fat parent who can't demonstrate the behavior necessary to rescue them from this life sentence."
Oh Maude's visage on a potato chip! Tell me again how fat people just don't know they're fat, and the solution is everyone just telling fat people MORE how fat they are! Because we! just! don't! know!
(And her premise is that society's silence is patronizing? LULZ.)
I'll leave you to dissect everything in between in comments and jump right to her final shot 'cross the bow: "Let's call fat by its proper name: Murderer." Ahhh. I love the smell of eliminationist rhetoric in the morning.
But I'm confused: Is my fat itself an anthropomorphic murderer in this equation, or am I the murderer because I'm fat? It's so confusing.
In any case, you'll pardon me while I finish drafting the proposal for my upcoming book: "DEATHFAT vs. MURDERFAT!!! WHICH WILL KILL U FIRST, BITCHEZ?!"
[H/T to Shaker Goober Peas.]
Open Thread
Come on in, and pull yourself up a chair...
(That's Chairry!)
Let the fun begin, it's time to let down your hair!
Pee-Wee's sure excited, 'cause all his friends have been invited,
(That's you!)
To go wacky... at Pee-Wee's Playhouse!
Chilean Earthquake News & Relief Info
On Saturday, there was a devastating earthquake in Chile, with more than 700 people confirmed dead so far. Below is the latest news, help resources, and information on relief efforts. Please drop additional links you recommend into comments.
Guardian—Death Toll Rises After Chile Earthquake:
The death toll from Saturday's devastating earthquake in Chile rose to more than 700 last night as rescue workers fanned out across a 370-mile (600km) stretch of the country searching for bodies and survivors.CNET—Google Launches Person Finder After Chile Quake: "Google has launched a tool to help people locate friends and loved ones who might have been affected by Saturday's 8.8.-magnitude earthquake in Chile. Google Person Finder allows users to search for information about people by name or leave information about people in both English and Spanish. ... A Google crisis response page also notes that Americans seeking information can call the U.S. State Department at 1-888-407-4747."
President Michelle Bachelet directed rescue operations and toured heavily hit areas as the race continued to provide basic supplies to entire cities that remained without water, electricity or communications. Bachelet said 2 million people were affected by the 8.8-magnitude quake, adding that it would take several days to evaluate the "enormous quantity of damage".
Last night, after a six-hour emergency meeting with officials, she raised the known death toll dramatically from 300 to 708. "We face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort [for Chile to recover]," she told a news conference.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will visit Chile on a previously scheduled trip unrelated to the earthquake. "Our hemisphere comes together in times of crisis, and we will stand side by side with the people of Chile in this emergency," said Clinton.
As aftershocks measuring up to 7.5 continued to batter the already ravaged country, rescue workers yesterday arrived at coastal cities to find entire fishing villages washed away. There were reports last night that 350 people had died in one town, Constitución, which was hit first by the earthquake and then by a tsunami.
Text Your Support:
1. Text the word "CHILE" to 25383 to donate $10 on behalf of the Habitat for Humanity.
2. Text the word "CHILE" to 20222 to donate $10 on behalf of World Vision.
3. Text the word "CHILE" to 52000 to donate $10 on behalf of the Salvation Army.
4. Text the word "REBUILD" to 50555 to donate $10 to Operation USA's Chile relief fund.
Direct Donations:
Doctors Without Borders
Water.org
Habitat for Humanity
Operation USA
Oxfam America
Direct Relief International
American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
AmeriCares
World Vision
[Additional relief info via Mashable and the Missourian.
Johnny Weir Responds to Gender-Conformity Police
After scorching the ice in the greatest outfit in the history of the Olympics (an outfit of his own design, no less), American figure skater Johnny Weir was ridiculed and criticized for being "feminine" and a "bad example" to boys. Entertainment Weekly's Pop Watch covers the story:
According to The Canadian Press, Claude Mailhot of the French-language RDS network began by saying, “This may not be politically correct, but do you think he lost points due to his costume and his body language?” Alain Goldberg responded saying Weir’s femininity may reflect poorly on other male figure skaters.”They’ll think all the boys who skate will end up like him. It sets a bad example.” Goldberg is also quoted as saying, “We should make him [Weir] pass a gender test at this point,” and Mailhot then joking that Weir should compete in the women’s competition. The two broadcasters later issued an on-air apology.Mr. Weir responded with strength and grace:
“I would challenge anyone to question my upbringing and question my parents’ ideals and feelings about bringing up me and my brother, who’s completely different from me but taught very much the same way that I was,” [...] “Even my gender has been questioned. I want that to be public because I don’t want 50 years from now more young boys and girls to have to go through this sort of thing and to have their whole life basically questioned for no reason other than to make a joke and to make people watch their television program"[.]
Weir had more to say in this video from the Associated Press, also embedded in the EW post:
"I think, as a person you know what your values are and what you believe in and I think that’s the most important thing."
Transcript below the fold.
The comments at the Entertainment Weekly Pop Watch post are not as bad as most blog comments (faint praise, naturally). Although the thread was immediately derailed by a troll who thinks it's OK to attack Weir on gender grounds because he "asked for trouble" by wearing fur (he's switched to faux, by the way), most commenters disagreed. A man named Jefferson, who seems to be Butch Pornstache's more enlightened brother, even showed up to own his shit:
Johnny Weir should be every bit as flaming or macho or anything in between as he wants.And in answer to the commenter who calls Johnny a "flame" for wearing a crown of red roses after competition, "me" writes,
I’m a straight man who likes football and big trucks and naked chicks. Does Johnny’s demeanor make me uncomfortable? Yes. But I understand 100% that that is my own problem, and my own issue to overcome. Johnny Weir (or anyone else) should not change for me, or for anyone. He should only ever be true to himself (as should we all). Anyone who can’t deal with that is the one who needs to change, by opening their mind and heart.
By the way, the crown of roses he sported is an inside joke from his russian trainers since in eastern european countries at the end of the school year the student with the highest marks from each class gets “first price with a crown”. I’ve been crowned 4 times in my life (before highschool when cutting class became more appealing) and never saw ppl be embarassed by having their picture taken with a crown of roses, daisies or any other flower they liked. I teared up a bit actually bc the crown means to his team and trainers that he is a winner despite not getting a medal.Yes, Johnny, you are definitely a winner.
The H/T goes to Pixelfish in today's Open Thread.
I’m not somebody to cry over something or to feel weak about something, I felt very defiant when I saw these comments. I felt that it wasn’t these two men criticizing my skating, it wasn’t them criticizing my anything-- it was them criticizing me as a person. And that was something that really frankly pissed me off. So more than anything I felt like I had to make a comment and a statement saying that I hope more kids can grow up the same way that I did, and that more kids can feel the freedom that I feel, the freedom to be themselves and to express themselves, that’s the most important thing. That’s the message I want to come out of all of this. Because out of ugly—I think the most important thing to do in life is to make something beautiful.
I—I can’t say anything mean, I mean I’m totally for freedom of speech and voicing your own opinions, so I can’t, I can’t, like, have them fired, because they voiced their opinion, and just the fact that they’re on television, I mean, I’ve heard worse in bathrooms and whatnot about me, so [laughs]. So it’s not a big issue for me that they said it, it’s just that I didn’t want other kids to have the same issue, and other people in the public eye to have the same issue. If I had a chance to sit down with them over a putzin ( ETA: poutine?), I think, uh, I think we’d all be, like, lovely people together, I think they’d see who I really am, because, being an athlete and being a figure skater, I rarely have the opportunity to voice my opinion without it being misquoted. I am always thought of as the sparkly, flamboyant character that wore a crown of roses, I mean, that’s what people see of me and they come up with a notion of what I must be like. And uh, aside from my circle of very close friends and people, nobody knows me—nobody knows what makes me tick, nobody knows what’s inside here and here [points to head and heart].
Uh, I think masculinity is what you believe it to be. To me, masculinity is all my perception. And I think that masculinity and femininity is something that’s very old-fashioned. There’s a whole new generation of people that aren’t defined by their sex or their race or by who they like to sleep with. I think, as a person you know what your values are and what you believe in and I think that’s the most important thing.
Sunday Archaeological Photo of the Day
Amenhotep III, found in the ruins of the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor.
Open Thread
Hosted by Electrawoman and Dynagirl.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by The World of Sid and Marty Krofft.
Happy Birthday, Misty!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuu!
You're such a shrinking violet,
And a prim princess, too!
I lurrrves ya, girlie. (And, for the record, that Barbie is just waving hi to people entering your virtual party, not heiling any fascist dictators.)
And Another Thing...
...about Homomentum.
It occurred to me just now that one of the little ways in which my life as a queer woman living in a mid-sized urban region has changed (I live in a cluster of small cities growing into one another, with a population of around 500k), is that my friends and I used to keep tabs on places we could go as out queer people - so-called "gay bars/coffee houses/whatever"; places where a small PDA with one's same-sex partner wouldn't be grounds for rudeness (at the least) - our tacit version of "separate but equal", which of course never was.
Now, though, we keep tabs on where we can't go.
Because that list is a lot shorter than the other one now. It's easier to track homophobic places than homophilic: they're much fewer in number.
As I said before, we have many leagues to go, but that doesn't mean we can't occasionally look back and feel good about the part of the journey we've already accomplished, and look around at how much closer to the end of that journey we have gotten. Better doesn't have to equal good to be appreciated for being better.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Harry Potter Star Speaks Out On Behalf Of Trevor Project
Daniel Radcliffe has filmed a PSA for the Trevor Project scheduled to air this spring. The Trevor Project operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth.
The actor states "I grew up knowing a lot of gay men and it was never something that I even thought twice about — that some men were gay and some weren't. And then I went to school and (for) the first time ... I came across homophobia. ... I had never encountered it before. It shocked me."
Radcliffe adds, "I think it's important for somebody from a big, commercial movie series like Harry Potter and particularly because I am not gay or bisexual or transgendered. ... The fact that I am straight makes not a difference, but it shows that straight people are incredibly interested and care a lot about this as well."
You may also recall, Radcliffe made a major contribution to the Trevor Project last fall, and has a serious case of gay face.
[Cross-posted.]
Quote of the Day
Grab your barf-bags, Shakers...
"Sometimes I got carried away rallying the country. I think the swagger criticism was fair. A lot of others weren't. I hope I conveyed a sense that I was a lowly sinner who found redemption. I'm not better than anyone else. What makes me different from others is that I realized I needed help. I'm religious—I confess. One of the challenges in life is: Maintaining religious piety is harder when the pressure is off than when it is on. But now there is still a dependency in a greater grace."—Former President George Bush, at "a reunion breakfast that was the inaugural event for the Bush-Cheney Alumni Association." What a fun shindig that must have been.
"Hey—'member the time we outed a CIA operative?"
"Yeah! How 'bout that time we started a war of choice in Iraq?!"
"Good times."
"Them was the days, boys! Them was the days!"
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[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.]
This is a real thing in the world.
Vajazzling.
Vajazzling, about which Jennifer Love Hewitt evidently dedicates an entire chapter in her forthcoming book, entails "bedazzling your lady parts with stick-on Swarovski crystals." One intrepid blogger got vajazzled (for SCIENCE!) and the (NSFW-ish) results are here.
The portmanteau, if you haven't already discerned its sparkly etymology, comes from the mash-up of "vagina" (or her hipper cousin, "vajayjay") and "bedazzling." You remember the Bedazzler, don't you? "Don't be dull—be dazzling!"
Come on, ladies—you don't want dull ladybits, do you?!
As nearly everything else related to the typical female anatomy between the legs, the reference to the vagina is a misnomer—and thank Maude for that, because, apart from being the orificular equivalent of Willy Wonka's Tunnel, a jewel-encrusted vagina doesn't sound particular comfy or safe for anyone involved.
It's actually the pubic area that gets vajazzled, which is, let's face is, only a dubious improvement. "Scraping! Loose crystals! In your teeth! Stuck to a condom! Even…Maude help me…getting shoved up into your vulva and vagina!" exclaims BeckySharper. "What a phenomenally bad idea!"
Indeed so. But what a delightful treat for the gynecologist who treats your ensuing infection when zie peers beyond your labia and finds a glimmering geode.
[H/T to Shaker Kevin Baker, via email.]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the bestselling biography of Melissa McEwan, "Fat in the Hat."
Recommended Reading:
stephiepenguin: Asian Women Blog Carnival #5
Thea: Stories That Ally vs Stories That Appropriate: A Yardstick
Tami: I'm Not Your Girlfriend
Maureen: More Adventures in Olympic Racial Drag
Angry Asian Man: Queen Yu-Na
Andy: CA Law Still Requires Health Officials to Seek Cure for 'The Gay'
Bri: Fatty Defies Fat Health Stereotypes!
Leave your links in comments...
Today in Fat Hatin'
Its effects, as inevitable as they are depressing and frightening:
Half the six-year-old girls [in a British study] asked to pick their ideal body shape from a range of digitally altered images of themselves chose one that was three sizes smaller than the real image – the slimmest option they could choose.These are the girls who turn into the 54% of women who would rather be hit by a truck than be fat.
Many of the girls questioned in the study, by Cambridge University, said they thought being skinnier would make them more popular.
...[The mother of six-year-old Saffron Davis, who opted for the thinnest image] told The Sun: "Saffron looks through my magazines and says her legs are fat. There is a worrying culture of girls thinking they're overweight from a very young age."
Last week it was reported that five-year-old Lucy Davis, 3st 9lbs, had been classed as "unhealthily fat" by NHS doctors in Poole, Dorset because she was one per cent over her ideal Body Mass Index.
I am reminded, once again, that one of the most devastating consequences of not including a spectrum of fat women in our media, of showing instead their headless bodies as grim warnings and using tragic tales of (some) fat women's sad lives as cautionary tales, is that little girls don't grow up in a culture where there exist stories of happy (and happy-go-lucky) fat women.
Yesterday, I saw this picture of Gabby Sidibe in USA Today:
And I grinned. And tears sprung to my eyes to see such a beautiful, sexy, happy, fat woman, in a place where we are never seen. Her body looks like mine, or mine like hers: The belly rolls, the oversized upper arms, the double chin. And I never, ever, get to see a body that looks like mine attached to a happy face, in the mainstream media.
But we exist, we happy fat women. We live good lives, we work and eat and fuck and maybe have kids or maybe not; we fall in love, we get zits, we go to costume parties, we hang out with Deeky, we hang out with Spudsy (who occasionally masquerades as the Hoff when he doesn't want his picture posted), we flip off Jay Leno, we go on holiday, we get new specs, we give Mona Lisa smiles. And we wear hats.
We exist. And goddamn the world for pretending we don't, so that little girls think the worst thing they could ever be is like us.
Being me ain't so bad.
And it's not like I care whether anyone actively wants to be like me when she grows up; I do, however, care a lot that there are little girls whose greatest fear is being like me because they see it as a fate worse than death. And the reason I care about that is because some of them are going to look like me, whether they want to or not—and some of them are going to die trying to avoid that fate.
A fate with which I'm content.
[H/T to Shaker lelumarie.]
In Things Dr. Seuss Would Rather You Didn't Remember
Little known fact: During WWII, Dr. Seuss did his patriotic duty cartooning propaganda for the War Dept. and pencilling political cartoons for the tabloid PM. Really. Seuss's trademark whimsy runs headlong into racist demonization of the enemy. It's as unsettling as it is fascinating.
Just check out this drawing imploring citizens to buy savings bonds: A caged Seussian rhino, replete with Hitlerstache and totally swastikafied, is held captive by a smiling bald eagle in Uncle Sam garb.
Or this little number: A cutesy Josef Stalin (maybe a first) holds up a platter of stuffed, Nazi pig, captioned "They're serving roast Adolf at Joe's house tonight!"
And for added irony: A pile of wood labeled "War Work To Be Done" is emblazoned with a sign "No Colored Labor Needed," as two African American men look on, appearing somewhat gobsmacked. Racism is a bad thing, Seuss says here (see also The Sneetches). Except when Othering the enemy (see image above).
Like I said, unsettling, fascinating. More here.
[Cross-posted. And thanks to my pal Will for passing this along.]
