Just because one might say something about a man, or men, does not axiomatically mean it is not sexist to make a similar observation about a woman, or women.
If you acknowledge that there is institutional inequality in our culture, that should not be a difficult concept to understand.
There are narratives, stereotypes, concepts, even individual words that have entirely different meanings, and evoke entirely different reactions, when applied to men and when applied to women.
We don't say things like "zie trades on hir appearance" in a void. We say them in a culture steeped in gender inequalities, one of the most basic being that women are judged on their appearance in ways that men are not.
Context matters.
That doesn't mean it's not allowed, or impossible, to speak about female public figures who simultaneously benefit from lingering anti-feminist tropes and the feminist activism that has afforded them the public platform from which express their privileged disdain.
It just means that discussion has to have some nuance, has to be more thoughtful than "bitch trades on her looks." And it is not defensible with some offhand fauxquivalence like, "I'd say the same about Mitt Romney," when we all know that no one does say the same about Mitt Romney.
And even on the rare occasions male politicians are accused of trading on their appearance, guess what? It's done under the auspices of calling them girly.
Yeah, it's a pain in the ass to constantly be aware of marginalizing tropes, but, in moments when you may be inclined to feel a harrumph of unfairness, consider that I would happily give up 80 biebillion fucktons of institutional misogyny in exchange for your right to say whatever the fuck you wanted without having to take two seconds to think about it first.
Feminism 101: A Refresher on "Double-Standards"
Open Thread: Weiner Presser
Rep. Anthony Weiner's press conference, at which he is expected to announce his resignation, is scheduled to begin in a few minutes.
CNN will be streaming it live. You can choose your viewing preference at the top of the lefthand sidebar.
Richard Adams is live-blogging it here.
Discussion in comments.
Quote of the Day
"I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed."—Mitt Romney, at a campaign stop at a coffee shop in Tampa today, after "listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work."
Ho ho ho.
Hearing about an extremely privileged multimillionaire joke about being "unemployed" is almost as funny as it was watching him joke about being groped.
News from Shakes Manor
Iain is routinely exasperated by my indifference to "adult beverages," because I don't like coffee, most tea, beer, and most wine and hard liquor.
"They're acquired tastes!" he argues. I have heard many stories about how he acquired a taste for beer. Did you know in Scotland you have to walk uphill both ways to the pub?
He laughs when I try his beloved Cabernet Sauvignon for the ten millionth time and make a face. He gives me a look of mock scorn and abiding fondness. "It's an acquired taste," he tells me, again, as I rid my mouth of the taste with a swig of ice water.
I say if it doesn't taste good in the first place, I ain't gonna work at it.
Let the Sexism Begin!
So, the first emergent misogynist narrative of the 2012 election is not really a narrative as much as it is a habit: The inability of journalists to talk about candidate Michele Bachmann without comparing her to Sarah Palin.
To wit: Time's Mark Halperin, answering "Why Bachmann?"
With her impressive New Hampshire debate performance, Bachmann has gone from a conservative Sarah Palin—lite curiosity to a potential game changer. For two hours onstage with her GOP rivals, Bachmann appeared polished, serene and in command. Her smooth performance was partly the work of a top-shelf team of veteran advisers (manager Ed Rollins, pollster Ed Goeas, forensic coach Brett O’Donnell). They sanded down some of her rough edges but let Bachmann be Bachmann, complete with zinging anti-Obama applause lines and sunny-side-up conservatism.Emphasis mine.
Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are both straight white Republican women with brown hair.
Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty are both straight white Republican Minnesotans with brown hair.
It's actually pretty interesting that a former governor and sitting congressmember from the same state and the same party are running against each other in the same election, but that rarely even gets a mention.
And, weirdly, what does get mentioned (if implicitly) over and over—that Bachmann and Palin are both women—really isn't interesting at all.
At least not to anyone who considers "women are individual human beings" to be settled fact.
Weiner Update
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment; rape culture.]
So, yesterday, one of the women with whom Rep. Anthony Weiner had exchanged emails, Ginger Lee, held a press conference during which she said that Weiner "repeatedly tried to turn the conversation into sexual banter."
Lee, from La Vergne, Tenn., said the pair exchanged about 100 emails between March and June, but said she never received photos from Weiner and never sent him any. She said she followed him on Twitter because she liked his stance on Planned Parenthood funding and health care, and that he repeatedly tried to turn the conversation into sexual banter.Please note that we are supposed to assume that Lee is an opportunistic liar because she is a former porn star and a stripper, and we're definitely not supposed to consider the possibility that Weiner figured she'd be axiomatically receptive to his sexual overtures because of her vocation—because, in a culture in which all women are assumed to exist in a perpetual state of consent unless they say no, women in sex work are assumed to not even have the right to say no.
"My package and I are not going to beg," Weiner emailed at one point, according to [Lee's attorney, Gloria Allred]. Another email said "I have wardrobe demands too -- I need to highlight my package."
"I did not reciprocate," Lee said Wednesday.
Anyway. This is, at minimum, more smoke around the Weiner didn't give a fuck about consent fire.
Reportedly, Weiner has started telling friends and colleagues that he plans to resign. And among the several regrets I had upon reading that news, despite my agreement with the decision, is this: That his resignation will go down as a man badgered out of Congress by enemies and prudes, and not as the fair consequences for a person who abused his position and ignored consent to harass women who believed in him.
UPDATE: Weiner has scheduled a press conference in New York for 2pm ET. He has reportedly informed House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of his decision to resign.
Question of the Day
What is your least favorite vegetable?
I vote for the beet.
For the record, Iain tells me I am wrong, and votes for Brussels sprouts.
Oscar Nooz
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has changed the rules for its "Best Picture" category, and it is very confusing/boring:
[The Academy] has added what it called "a new twist" to its best picture category. At the upcoming 84th Academy Awards, there may not be 10 movies nominated for best picture. Instead, new voting rules could result in a anywhere from five to 10 nominees in the category.Blah blah yawn. The totally wrong picture is still going to win every year, though, right...? Okay then.
Although the best picture Oscar race was expanded from five to 10 pictures just two years ago, the Academy board of governors voted Tuesday night to introduce a new procedure, which it said would add "a new element of surprise," since the number of movies that make the cut won't be revealed until the best picture nominees are revealed at the nominations announcement Jan. 24.
In order to ensure a nomination, a picture will have to collect enough first-place votes on the nomination ballots to amount to five percent of the ballots cast.
Film Corner!
[Trigger warning for self-harm.]
Clearly, I have been remiss, Shakers. The Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 trailer has been out for almost two weeks, and I have failed to feature this masterpiece of magnificent filmmaking at Film Corner! until now. I apologize for this grave oversight.
When last we left our inexplicably important heroine Bella, a brooding white teenage girl played by Rod Stewart, she had made her choice between Edward Sparklecorpse and Jacob Dogbreath. SPOILER ALERT! She chose Edward Sparklecorpse, because he was totes going to kill himself if she didn't choose him, and no doy all healthy relationships start with emotional blackmail and threatened self-harm.
Also! Because it's very obvious that a 200-year-old man would have tons in common with a teenage girl, and because a 200-year-old man would definitely be certain that a teenage girl who had a crush on him should give up everything, including her very mortality, to be with him, and that she absolutely has FOR SURE the perspective and life experience to make that sort of permanent and irreversible decision, Edward Sparklecorpse has agreed to change Bella Broodypouts into a vampire, too—but only if she marries him.
I know what you're thinking, but, listen, ultimatums are just the way this undead cat rolls. It's ROMANTIC. Especially when you remember that this is all a super-creepy abstinence metaphor.
Which brings us to the next installment in our saga:
A lady in a dress and high heels walks through a stone corridor, holding a silver tray on which rests an envelope. She gives it to Tony Blair. He opens it and smiles in a way that suggests he has just received news that his fantasy baseball team is totally winning this week and absolutely CRUSHING that dude in accounting who thinks he's so smart. Cut to Bella Broodypouts' dad, sitting at his kitchen table, looking miserable while looking at whatever was in the same envelope he got. Cut to Bella Broodypouts' mom at home in her tropical paradise of absentee motherhood, looking happy about whatever was in that envelope.
Cut to Jacob Dogbreath storming out of his house into the rain. "Jake!" yells his dad (?) as Jacob Dogbreath tosses the envelope onto the ground, takes off his shirt, and runs, which is his magical turn-into-a-CGI-dog maneuver. He growls angrily. His dad (?) picks up the envelope and we are FINALLY made privy to its mysterious contents. OMG IT'S A WEDDING INVITATION!
What—did you think it was going to be an invite to the opening of James Franco's Museum of Non-Visible Art or something? You're so weird.
Swelling dramatic music. Montage of weddingy scenes: A floral-drenched arbor. A veil. An eager 200-year-old undead man trapped in an emo prince body standing at the altar waiting for his teenage bride. (Seriously: Gross.) More montagery. Edward Sparklecorpse says, in voiceover, "No measure of time with you would be long enough." How about eternity? Is eternity long enough? Good lord. I love Iain to pieces, but the thought of spending, like, thousands of years together makes me want to throw up. Twilight: Barfing Dawn. That would be the name of our movie.
"But we'll start with forever," Edward Sparklecorpse says. Really? Is that supposed to be romantic? Maybe when I was 17 and might as well have had teddy bear stuffing and candy hearts where my emotional center should be, I would have thought that was romantic. But now I am 37, and I know that promising forever is kind of facile and sad and indicative of not understanding how difficult even the best relationships really are. I would expect a 200-year-old man to know that he is making a terrible and stupid promise!
They do it. It's so intense he breaks the wall, or something. Jacob Dogbreath looks mad. There is fighting between Edward Sparklecorpse and someone else. Could be Dogbreath. I can't really tell. Who cares.
Uh-oh! Bella Broodypouts-Sparklecorpse is looking at her belly in the mirror. You know what that means! "That's impossible," she whispers. She and Edward Sparklecorpse look very surprised! And kind of scared! Whooooooooooops! I'm sure it'll be fine.
ROMANCE!
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by your donations!
Recommended Reading:
Richard: 'Sexual Charisma' and 2012 Presidential Politics: TNR Edition
Fannie: Two Marriage-Related Victories
Susie: How Bad Is the Economy? Even Cable Companies Are Feeling It
Atrios: Maybe Somebody Should Do Something
Monica: The African Flava In The 2011 Women's World Cup
Andy: Lunar Eclipse!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
While You Were Living Elsewhere (Or Not)
In case you missed it (and even if you didn't), yesterday Wisconsin's Supreme Court overturned Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi's decision to void the state's new law curtailing public employees' rights.
The law charges government employees for their pensions, doubles workers' contributions to their health insurance premiums, limits collective bargaining to an annual discussion about what fraction of a cost-of-living increase workers might see in their wages, makes unions hold annual recertification elections, and prohibits them from deducting dues from members' paychecks. It will go into effect on June 29, although more litigation is inevitable.
After an excruciating close election this April, conservatives held a four-to-three majority of Wisconsin's state court. Thanks, Citizens United!
Personally, I thought that the one slim chance of getting this law overturned was Judge Sumi's decision. She did not rule on the basis of whether it was constitution to destroy public workers' unions, something I wager most conservatives favor.
Rather, Sumi ruled that the Wisconsin legislature passed the law illegally, given that um, [video opens at link] holy shit [transcript here] did they ever break the open meetings law. Indeed, the Republicans were so brazen, Democrats didn't even have a chance to read, much less debate, the legislation under consideration.
But, whatever. Four State Supreme Court justices ruled that this sort of behavior was totally legal. I'm not clear what their rationale was. Justice Prosser appeared to argue that because at least one of the lawmakers was a lawyer, the process was therefore legal. Alrighty, then. I never really liked representative democracy anyway.
Via someone on the Internet pretending to be Bob LaFollette.
ETA: Speaking of end times, there's a column at Forbes.com that does a much better job of making my point. H/t TiernaFeminista is the comments.
Bi-Monthly Reminder & Thank-You
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder* to donate to Shakesville and/or to make sure to renew subscriptions that have lapsed.
Managing Shakesville as a safe space requires, in addition to the time of our volunteer mods, my full-time commitment, and my salary is drawn exclusively from donations.** I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value.
Over the past couple of months, when widely-linked discussions of contentious subjects have bought in droves of new and frequently disruptive commenters, the fierceness of our vigilance and the value of what it provides has been even more evident than usual. People commented how very much like magic it is to enjoy threads free of apologia, bigotry, and hateful/triggering material.
But it is not magic. It is hard and unrelenting work.
And, as we move into yet another presidential election season (can it really be that time already?!), I hope you will consider the value of a space that guarantees all candidates will be discussed on the basis of their policies and not their sex, race, sexuality, or appearance.
I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's political news, Film Corner!, the community in Open Threads, video transcripts, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.
So. Here is your reminder to support this space if you appreciate what happens here.
You can donate once by clicking the button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription here. We first made the Subscribe to Shakesville page available in March, which means many of the subscriptions are running out and have to be renewed if you want to keep your subscription active.
Let me reiterate, once again, that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.
I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
My thanks as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways, whether as a regular contributor, a guest contributor, a moderator, a transcriber, or as someone who takes the time to send me the occasional note of support and encouragement. This community couldn't exist without you, either.
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* I know there are people who resent these reminders, but there are also people who appreciate them, so I've now taken to doing them every other month, in the hopes that will make a good compromise.
** I do not raise funds by required subscription, i.e. locking content behind a pay wall, as I want Shakesville to be accessible as possible irrespective of one's financial situation. And I do not raise funds via ads, for reasons explained here. This morning, for example, because of my post criticizing body policing and fat hatred, I was served [TW for body policing and fat hatred] these content-generated ads on my Blogger dashboard.
[Please Note: I am not seeking suggestions on how to raise revenue; I am asking for donations in exchange for the work of providing valued content in as safe and accessible a space as possible.]
Obama Sued Over Libya Mission
When what was promised to be a limited intervention has instead turned out to be a protracted mission costing $750 million and counting, blowback was inevitable. That Obama informed Congress after joining the mission, rather than seeking authorization, made it even more so—and now lawmakers of both parties are suing the executive over the US' involvement in Libya.
A bipartisan group of House members will file a lawsuit Wednesday challenging U.S. participation in the Libya military mission.Yes, Boehner et. al. are enormous hypocrites for having not had similar concerns during Bush's flagrant disregard of compliance with the War Powers Resolution, but that makes them wrong then, not now.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is set to defend U.S. military involvement in Libya to Congress, according to the White House.
The administration will provide a report to address a June 3 House resolution that raised questions about the president's goal in Libya, how he hopes to achieve that goal, why he has not sought congressional authorization for involving U.S. troops abroad and how much the conflict will ultimately cost, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a letter to Obama on Tuesday that the administration could be in violation of the War Powers Resolution if it fails to get congressional authorization by Sunday, which he notes will be the 90th day since the mission began.
The lawsuit, which will be formally announced at a Washington news conference, will cite the War Powers Resolution as well as the role of Congress in protecting taxpayers' money, said Rep. Walter Jones, R-North Carolina, one of the 10 legislators filing it.
A statement by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, an anti-war liberal who is leading the litigation effort with Jones, said the lawsuit will "challenge the executive branch's circumvention of Congress and its use of international organizations such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to authorize the use of military force abroad, in violation of the Constitution."
"With regard to the war in Libya, we believe that the law was violated. We have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies," Kucinich said in his statement.
...The White House has said it was complying with the War Powers Resolution through frequent briefings on the Libya mission.
Boehner's letter contested that assertion.
"Since the mission began, the administration has provided tactical operational briefings to the House of Representatives, but the White House has systematically avoided requesting a formal authorization for its action," Boehner's letter said. "It has simultaneously sought, however, to portray that its actions are consistent with the War Powers Resolution. The combination of these actions has left many members of Congress, as well as the American people, frustrated by the lack of clarity over the administration's strategic policies, by a refusal to acknowledge and respect the role of the Congress, and by a refusal to comply with the basic tenets of the War Powers Resolution."
I despised contempt shown for a long-established system of checks and balances over war activities during the Bush administration, and I despite it now.
Formal authorization, rigorous oversight, and as much transparency as possible should be requisite elements of any defense mission in a representative democracy.
Huh? Mitt Romney Pretends to Get His Ass Grabbed
At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was posting for a photo-op with several female waitresses at a diner, and decided to "tease" them by pretending one of them had grabbed his ass:
Romney says, "Let's see if I can get my arms around everybody," as he lines up with several female waitresses for a photo-op. "Aw, come on—much closer, much closer," he says, squeezing them toward him. Then he exclaims, "Oh!" and jumps forward, as if he's been goosed. He looks at one of the waitresses, who points to another and says, "That was her!"I guess it's funny to pretend that a woman in a job with a high rate of sexual harassment has grabbed your ass, if you're a privileged dipfuck.
The video cuts to Romney walking down the street later. A reporter asks him if one of them really grabbed him. He grins and chuckles. "No, no, no. That was just teasing 'em." He laughs and then says it really did happen at some other place during his campaign four years ago. Whut?
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for misogyny, gender essentialism, violent imagery.]
The trends toward non-marriage and toward same-sex marriage are a direct attack on fathers. The bond between a child and his mother is an obvious fact of nature, but marriage is the relationship that establishes the link between a child and his father.—Phyllis Schlafly, in the World Net Daily, singing the same tune for 40 years and counting: "Feminists, Gays, and Jews—oh my!"
There are many causes for the dramatic reduction in marriage, starting with unilateral divorce, which spread across the United States in the 1960s and '70s, putting government on the side of marriage breakup. Then came the legalizing of abortion, diminishing the custom of shotgun marriages, which in earlier years was often the response to surprise pregnancies.
The feminist notion that women should be independent of men, followed by affirmative-action/female quotas in employment, tended to carry out the goal stated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the concept of husband-breadwinner and wife-homemaker "must be eliminated." These feminist ideas and practices demean marriage by discriminating against men and also against fulltime homemakers.
I always love a good Phyllis Schlafly column, because Phyllis Schlafly is my constant, but rarely am I treated to such a delightful surprise as an argument for shotgun weddings in the year two thousand and fucking eleven.
Overheard
As the high school cross-country team (or track team, whichever one continues to train during the summer) ran by outside our house: "Everyone's butt stinks sometimes, dude!"
I would love to know if that was an expression of reassurance, or an exclamation of self-defense.
