This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, maker of Butch Pornstache's Action Mustache Wax, for the Hero on the Go.
Recommended Reading:
Andy: Zimbabwe President Mugabe: Homosexuality Destroys Nationhood
Echidne: The F-Word
Jill: Iceland Bans Strip Clubs
Macon: Stuff White People Do: Describe Racism as Political Incorrectness
Tami: What makes a literary classic? Is there a place in the canon for POC?
Melissa: Interview with Erin Cressida Wilson, Screenwriter of Chloe
Leave your links in comments...
by Shaker Lydia Encyclopedia
When I moved to Missoula three years ago, I was told that this town was a liberal oasis in the conservative desert that is Montana. University organizations and groups like the Student Assault Resource Center, The Curry Health Center's Transgender Therapy Group, and The UM Allies program promote this image, and do good work in the community to assist GLBQTI students and Missoulians. As a queer pansexual woman, I felt welcomed and hopeful getting in touch with a community that felt safe and welcoming.
However, when stories like bigots protesting "a city ordinance that would protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity" strike Missoula, I'm not surprised. No amount of candlelit vigils, rainbow bumper stickers, or welcoming posters can change the fact that Missoula and Montana at large remains a highly homophobic, transphobic society. Each instance is a painful prod, reminding us that we are still second-class citizens who are not considered worthy for protection under the law.
Onto the measure itself: It's familiar enough already. According to the article:
In a news release available at MissoulaRedTape.com, NotMyBathroom.com notes a lengthy list of concerns with the ordinance. The group fears the law would create "a government assigned sex," cost businesses money "to provide toilet facilities," and possibly "force ministers to perform homosexual marriages."Sound familiar? Every time a measure to protect trans and genderqueer people comes up, the bathroom fallacy is almost inevitable to follow—as though sexual predators will wait for the bureaucratic red tape to be cut and the smoke to clear before busting into the women's bathroom to assault cisgender women and children.
But NotMyBathroom.com chairman Tei Nash said the chief concern is the safety of women and children in public restrooms. He said the ordinance would give a man who "is female affirmed" the freedom to use women's restrooms.
Shakers can email Missoula Mayor John Engen condemning bigotry and supporting protective laws here and write letters to the editor of the Missoulian here.Mark Duren picks up his 10-year-old daughter from school, and in short order, Harry Weisiger, another driver, is flipping him off and honking his horn. But it doesn't stop there. His "road rage" continues to escalate:
Weisiger honked his horn at him for awhile, as Duren stopped at a stop sign.The precipitating event? Duren's car was sporting an Obama-Biden bumper sticker.
Once he started driving again, down Blair Boulevard, towards his home, he said, "I looked in the rear view mirror again, and this same SUV was speeding, flying up behind me, bumped me."
Duren said he applied his brake and the SUV smashed into the back of his car.
He then put his car in park to take care of the accident, but Weisiger started pushing the car using his SUV.
Duren said, "He pushed my car up towards the sidewalk, almost onto the sidewalk."
Police say Harry Weisiger is charged with felony reckless endangerment in the incident.
Reuters and CNN, among others, are reporting that a South Korean navy ship is sinking after an explosion, and South Korean officials are investigating whether it was hit by a North Korean missile.
A rescue operation is also currently underway.
I'll update as more information becomes available. Please also drop any new information into comments.
Listen up, you collection of tree-hugging limousine liberals, pinko Commies, dope fiends, queerbaits, ladyboys, fat chicks, feminazi castrators, and assorted freaks: Ron Swanson is the greatest character in the history of television.
On my deathbed, my final wish is to have my ex-wives rush to my side so I can use my dying breath to tell them both to go to hell one last time. Would I get married again? Oh, absolutely. If you don't believe in love, what's the point of living.That reminds me of another thing I have in common with Ron Swanson: We both have two ex-wives, both named Tammy. Except his were two different ladies. I just married my fiancée Tammy twice before. Third time's a charm!
Mississippi's Itawamba County School District has recently become notorious for canceling a high school prom rather than letting a lesbian couple attend.
Turns out this wasn't the first discriminatory, hostile act they committed with regards to a student this year. When a trans student enrolled earlier this year, he* was virtually kicked out after attending only one half-day:[T]he next time [Juin] Baize came to school, according [to] Kristy Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi, Baize was given a suspension notice and sent home. When Juin returned to school after his first suspension, he was suspended again.
This school district seems to be in the business of teaching heteronormativity, homophobia, transphobia, the "appropriateness" of gendered clothing** and the need to maintain narrowly-defined gender expressions.
“Juin’s case was a situation where a transgender student wanted to attend school dressed in feminine clothing," said Bennett, "and the school district would not even let him attend school."
And yet, they accuse Constance McMillen and Juin Baize of distracting from the educational process.
The hostile environment that the school district is fostering is disheartening. McMillen speaks of it here and the article about Baize includes this description:Baize's appearance and the fact that he, unlike Constance McMillen, was perceived as a trouble-making outsider made living in Fulton increasingly impossible. Beverly [Bertsinger] couldn't find work because, she believes, Fulton is a small town and people disapproved of her son. Juin was harassed when he left the house, according to Beverly [Bertsinger], so she stopped letting him go out alone and then stopped letting him go out at all.
The result is the continued isolation [and endangerment] of LGBTQ students, expressed so poignantly here:
“I’m so afraid for him,” Bertsinger told me last week. “I support him. I buy him the clothing to wear as a female. I just want him to be safe.”Whether she intended to or not, McMillen has inspired others -- not just nationally but in her home state, said Izzy Pellegrine, 19, a student at Mississippi State University.
The ACLU is not pursuing Baize's case, in part because he has had to move:
"I thought for a long time I was the only gay person in the state of Mississippi," said Pellegrine. (emphasis mine)“Juin not being in Fulton makes it difficult for us to pursue any kind of legal action here,” says Bennett. "And personally, I feel it may be a better decision for Juin to relocate and move on with his life.”
That last line leaves me particularly upset; people always suggest that we, who exist simultaneously as southerners and members of marginalized groups, should just leave and move on.
Sometimes, we can't. Sometimes, we have no desire to do so.
In any case, we shouldn't have to.
___________________________
*The article indicates that Baize prefers male pronouns for now.
**Remember, one of the issues in the McMillen case was the fact that she wanted to wear a tuxedo.
Sometimes it really is difficult to see a difference between the two parties, like when you're searching for sunlight between members of Congress and corporate lobbyists.
And sometimes, as Paul Krugman notes, it's not difficult at all:
What has been really striking [about the Republicans' response to the passage of healthcare legislation] has been the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from the party's leaders. John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health reform was "Armageddon." The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee's chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on "the firing line." And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.And it is, of course, not merely Republican Party members. After three decades of fear-mongering, scapegoating, and wedge issue politicking, they've conjured a voting base that is, at its core, a seething conglomeration of intolerant bullies whose stubborn refusal to evolve ideologically is matched in astonishing obduracy only by their unjustifiable hatred. And for three decades, the Republican Party deliberately, cynically, and unapologetically fanned the flames of that hatred, which served as the fuel for the base's single-minded crusade to protect their privilege and thus the rationale for voting Republican.
All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you'll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials.
No, to find anything like what we're seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president. ... President Clinton, declared Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, "better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard." (Helms later expressed regrets over the remark — but only after a media firestorm.)
...[The GOP is] a party that fundamentally doesn't accept anyone else's right to govern.
In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it's a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don't.
In my inbox this morning:
From: Internal Revenue Service <security@onlineupdate.com>It's the IRS logo that really seals the deal.
To: deeky@gashlycrumb.net
Subject: You are eligible for $182,50 refund.
Date: Mar 26, 2010 2:53 AM
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $182,50. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-9 days in order to process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
To access your tax refund, please click here
Best Regards,
Tax Refund Deparment
Internal Revenue Service
by Shaker Maud
When I first encountered at Shakesville the idea that using "female" as a noun was insulting and depersonalizing I was kind of puzzled. I thought of it as a perhaps inelegant but serviceable usage which was in the process of developing into an alternate meaning. I thought people used the words "woman" and "female" interchangeably without thinking about it and that, while it does technically remove the designation of "human being" from the description, that that was not what was meant. There are a lot of shorthands in daily language use where some important element is not actually stated, but is taken for granted as included, rather than excluded. And I do think that unthinking interchangeability of these two words has become somewhat common.
But language is a force which shapes us all, whether we're thinking about it or not, so I've found that when people are thinking about some usage you never saw the need to give thought to, it's a good idea to start doing so.
Thinking about it caused me to remember an incident which happened more than 25 years ago, which stuck with me despite my not fully understanding the import of what I was hearing at the time. In response to a comment from me about a newspaper story, my mother told me that "two large females" (said in a tone of contempt, which was striking enough for me to still remember it, but which was common enough from her for me to take it for granted at the time) had brought into the newspaper office where she worked a press release about the theatre company they had moved into the area.
As it happened, I ended up going to work with and becoming friends with them. One of them became my best friend at the time, and I sometimes brought her to my mother's house. As I was grown by then, and my mother was fully capable of controlling her behavior when it was in her best interest to do so, she never said anything negative about this woman or behaved in any way rudely to her (which she would not likely have done to a guest in her house in any case). But I could always tell that Mother didn't like her, which was interesting because my friend was quite a charming woman whom most people took to very quickly. (My friend knew this about herself, and used to kid about how she was charming my mother. She wasn't.)
I hadn't worked out then my mother's unspoken relationship with fatness.
I subsequently realized that when my mother made the grand announcement to my sister and me that, thenceforth, I would be permitted to drink only skim milk, which she would have to buy specially for me and which I was always to choose at school for lunch because I was (ugh) fat, while she and my sister continued to drink the Whole Milk of the Virtuous, that I was not actually fat—yet.
It was only later in adulthood, when I saw photos of myself at that age that I realized that I had only begun growing fat after that. Of course, since I was seven then, and the only food I ate was given me either by her or by the school at lunch, the whole "Maud is condemned to drink skim milk ever after, as punishment for her immoral, disgusting fatness" was perhaps not an adequate plan to correct whatever gluttonous, self-indulgent behavior had made it necessary if, you know, that was actually the goal.
I did, as it happens, subsequently develop disordered eating and become quite fat. (I know, you totes didn't see that coming, did you?) What I realized, as an adult, after working out the timeline on all this, was that Mother's condemnation of my disgusting fatness at a time when, though I had chubby cheeks and a slightly round belly like a lot of 7-year-olds, I hadn't actually started getting fat yet, also came at the time when she, in her mid-forties, had begun to gain weight. I was the designated family sin-eater (uh-huh), so…
I don't recall hearing my mother overtly fat-shame anyone but me, even privately; I think she would have considered that vulgar. And she did have a couple of social friends (not close) who were obese. So it sort of didn't dawn on me that she extended that particular form of contempt to others.
To me, it was just part of the totality of what was wrong with me, specifically.
So I had to unpack the connection with her feelings about her own aging and weight gain, plus the still later realization that she probably suspected these two women of being lezzzzbeans, based on the known fact that lezzzbeans are women too fat or otherwise unattractive to get a man and why else would they be living and working together, before I finally realized what-all I'd heard in those words "two large females" and the tone in which they had been uttered.
I also realized that one of the reasons it had stuck in my head was that using the word "females" to refer to women was absolutely not something my mother would normally have done. It was a deliberate choice; and yes, it was intended to dehumanize, and specifically to "dewomanize". In my mother's view, these two people did not deserve the appellation "woman" . They failed to qualify for it by being "large", i.e. fat and disgusting.
All of which just brings home to me again that the stuff which is hardest to see is the stuff that gets carefully packed into your own self-image from the outset.
I was probably well into my forties before I first referred to myself, specifically and personally, as a woman. I always felt that I didn't qualify, somehow, because a woman is someone who has physical attributes which I didn't have. This wasn't just about being fat; I felt that way even when I wasn't fat. My breasts, for instance, did not qualify, because we all know what a woman's breasts are supposed to look like, right? And mine utterly failed to meet the standard.
My physical flaws were specifically sexual, in my mind, so clearly I did not qualify as a woman. But this way of viewing my body certainly began with growing up fat. I would never have applied that standard to any other woman, and I'd been calling myself a feminist for several decades before I finally began, rather timidly, to claim the personal identity of woman.
It's probably not coincidental that I was by then at the age at which women's sexuality is strongly devalued in general.
I felt entitled to self-define as a feminist, a designation which is held in low esteem, if not contempt, by those who don't so identify. But 'woman' was a designation that my feminist self did not feel entitled to claim, as an individual, as opposed to as a member of a larger group, because I understood that I failed to meet the "approved" version of what a woman was.
Politically I was a woman, as I was treated as one for political, employment, health care, etc. purposes, but sexually I was not a woman, as I would not be considered by much of the surrounding culture as adequate to that role, although unfortunately that did not disqualify me as a target of sexual harassment (the but-I'd-still-hit-that syndrome, the operative words being 'hit' and 'that'). I also recognized this way of seeing myself as "unfeminist" (Bad woman! Bad feminist! Can't you do anything right?).
But this wasn't a way of thinking, it was a way of feeling, and I knew that changing that wasn't a matter of some internal process of aligning how I thought with how I felt, but of changing the way I saw myself in relation to other people, both men and women, which I could only do by how I chose to live in the world. And I think I was doing a pretty good job of that, until other difficulties made it less and less possible to live actively among others.
The process I embarked on, as a young woman, was one of merging these two disparate versions of what a woman was—woman as female human being, which includes political being, which I felt entitled to define for myself, and woman as sexual being—the larger culture's, and my mother's (unspoken, but clearly communicated), definition of which I was still struggling to emerge from into self-definition.
I realize now that I had a very limited understanding of how broad a political issue this is. Though I identified as feminist, my only exposure to feminist thought was itself quite limited, mostly via Ms. magazine. I was a high-school dropout and, while I read a lot, my reading was limited to what I happened to discover. I knew no one else who identified as feminist. I had certainly never encountered the word "heteronormative." I had a number of gay relatives and some gay friends, a few of whom were even out. I had friends who identified themselves (privately) as bi, one of whom did so at least in part out of fear of the dread woman-failure of lezzzbean-inism. I took for granted that I'd never known a trans man or woman, a person who I assumed only came into being post-surgically and was extremely rare.
So the difficulty in reconciling these two ideas of myself, politically as a woman, sexually as merely female, lay both in unpacking and learning to live outside of my early programming, both at home and in the larger culture, and in a lack of a great deal of information about gender and the spectrum of sexual possibilities which are part of one's self-definition.
One thing my days in theatre taught me, though, is that there's no such thing as "just a word." Speech and writing are actions one takes in the world. They are meant to have impact, and they do, whether we've thought through that impact before taking action or not.
And the language which distinguishes holders of privilege from the less privileged is always rooted in who gets to define the identity of the less privileged. Referring to women as "females" defines them solely in terms of gender, denying them any other attributes of personhood, and specifically denies them womanhood, marking that as a condition which is the speaker's to confer or withhold based on their list of qualifications, whether those be physical attributes at the moment, physical attributes at birth, or whether the female human being is behaving in a manner approved of for women.
So now I get it. I am not a female. Nobody is "a female." I am a woman. Thanks for making that clear.
What epithet or stereotype used against a demographic group of which you're a member most sets your teeth to grinding?
Intersectional slurs or caricatures are also welcome (for lack of a better word). For instance, I frequently find "fat cunt" in my inbox, which is a succinct (if totally ineffective, unless causing me to laugh was the intent) double-jab.
...And to answer the question myself, pretty much any gender-determinative stereotype that treats as self-evident women's inherent inferiority to men drives me right up one wall and down the other.
"Women aren't funny." "Women are weak." "Women aren't rational." "Women are hypersensitive." All it takes is three words to send me from zero to SMASH.
[Trigger warning.]
Anyone who's been reading Shakesville for more than about five seconds is well aware of my disdain for cruel humor under the guise of "edginess" or "irony."
My teeth are grinding so hard after reading this [TW] I feel like I may spontaneously generate a new universe between my molars.
The trigger warning on the external link is for graphic images of violence, and although I will note that sparkymonster is not using the images in an exploitative way, the images are nonetheless profoundly upsetting.
So if you are reluctant to click through, given the nature of the post, here are the basics, care of sparkymonster:
Amanda Palmer of the "Dresden Dolls" and "Evelyn/Evelyn" fame decided to talk about her dislike of Lady Gaga last night on twitter. Among other things, Gaga is a sell out, is just like Justin Bieber, and Palmer really dislikes the product placement in "Telephone".That pretty much says it all, right there.
Then Amanda Palmer shared this:
ironic product placement is only ok if you take no money & beyond that give all the income to something ironic. like the Klan.Let me just repeat. Something ironic. like the Klan.
...For an example of irony in racism that is not rage inducing, remember that the Southern Poverty Law Center successfully sued the crap out of the KKK and basically bankrupted them. So now the Southern Poverty Law Center does their anti-racist work with the KKK's money.
"It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain."—Republican Representative Eric Cantor, champion dipshit, admonishing the Democrats not to speak publicly about threats and violence directed at members of Congress, because talking about them "can very easily fan the flames."
Good point. That's why the Republicans have been totes hush-hush about 9/11.
Suffice it to say, I disagree strongly that silence about terrorism and/or hate crimes is the best way to ensure such acts don't happen anymore. And I also disagree strongly that any mention of such acts, irrespective of context or purpose, is de facto opportunistic.
But I'm not surprised to find that a Republican can't make such distinctions.
Never really was, as I recall.
In today's news:
Authorities are investigating a package with white powder and an angry letter that referenced the health care legislation that was sent to Congressman ]Anthony] Weiner's ... office today.And:
The letter said the Congressman should "drop dead" and complained about the historic health care legislation passed by Congress this week.
At least four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas were struck and at least 10 members of Congress have reported some sort of threats, including obscenity-laced phone messages, congressional leaders have said. No arrests have been reported.And:
The House's No. 3 Republican, Eric Cantor of Virginia, said at a brief news conference Thursday that someone fired a bullet through a window of his campaign office in Richmond this week and he has received threatening e-mails.I fear someone will be hurt or killed before this is all over.
by Shaker The White Lady
Hello, Shakers! I'm here to ask for your help.
Ever since I was a little girl, I've been going to the same dentist. The premises are on the first floor of a tenement row…and the only way up to them is down a narrow hall, and up an equally narrow spiral staircase. Even if there were a lift up to the dentist, or maybe one of those electric chair lifts that go up the stairs, the hall would be too narrow to allow a person using a wheelchair to navigate it.
I even remember a time when they were redoing the reception of the surgery, and so to get in and out of the building, patients had to make use of a fire escape which was even more narrow and twisty than the usual stair. (I should probably point out that all this is from my own perspective as someone who has extreme difficulty in navigating spiral staircases – other patients may have experienced things differently.)
The surgery is an accessibility nightmare on so many levels, from the ones I just mentioned (no access for wheelchair users/crutch users/people who are too unsteady on their feet to attempt a spiral staircase), to the complete lack of Braille information, to the fact that, once a patient manages to reach the reception area, there are more steps (steep ones, I might add) leading to different facilities within the surgery. The staff realise this, and are vocal in their complaints about it, which is why I am asking for your help now.
After about five years (or more, don't quote me on that), the surgery has finally managed to purchase the property immediately below it. Patients are being encouraged to hand in their views on what they want, whether it be new treatments rooms, more space for cosmetic/dental surgery, etc. When I saw the news about the new premises, it occurred to me that this could be a brilliant opportunity to lift my teaspoon, and at least try to get some (of the unfortunately many) accessibility issues solved.
I know that the surgery is planning to have a new, bigger reception area downstairs, and I am under the impression that they plan to install a lift, but other than that, I have no information. So I'm turning the floor over to you, Shakers. Tell me what you would like to see in this new, hopefully improved dentist surgery.
Here you will find information about the basic access required under the UK's Disability Discrimination Act, but it is only basic access. In the comments, please leave everything you can think of, from wheelchair ramps to flashing fire alarms that suit both people who are deaf, and people who have epilepsy.
Thank you in advance! I'll let you know how it goes.
CC: When I wake up yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the one who's driving westerly
SKM: When I go out yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the one goan more northwest than she
CC: When I get there yes I know I'm gonna be
I'll be stayin’ with some friends in Illinois*
SKM: And when I get there yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the one who’s makin’ all the noise*
CC: Well I will drive 500 miles
SKM: And I will drive 500 more
Both: And we’ll be the twain who drove 1000 miles
To come through that pub door
As it turns out, both our beloved mod and contributor SKM and Your Humble Narrator will be making it to Chicago for this weekend's meetup after all. I'll be attending with my dear friend the_pixie_mouse, and staying with a Shaker not far from the fabled pub. I'm not sure of SKM's particular plans in that area, but I know she's coming in from her city, which is about the same distance from Chicago as mine - just short of 500 miles.
And if you're thinking you're going to hear us sing a duet, you need to cut back on your hallucinogen intake. :)
* Shh, it's okay. *shows poetic licence*
[Background.]
