This blogaround brought to you by chickens.
Recommended Reading:
On Rodney King's passing, see also: Pam and Jennifer.
Annie: Birthers Erect 'Obama Outhouse' at Montana GOP Convention [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of racist eliminationism and misogyny.]
Rita: Saudi Driving Activist Pays High Personal Price [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of misogyny, harassment, and threats.]
Esther and Kim: A Sustainable Samba: Sex, Rights, and Health at Rio+20
Jay: All These Sexist Gamer Dudes Are Some Shook Ones [Alex has a transcript here.]
Marian: Grieving Father Struggles to Pay Dead Son's Student Loans
Jamilah: 5th Grader to Give Banned Speech on Marriage Equality
Angry Asian Man: Republican Latino Website Uses Photo of Asian Kids
Andy: 'Romneymobile' with Dog on Roof to Tail Mitt's Bus Tour
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Monday Blogaround
RIP Rodney King
[Content Note: Drowning; police brutality.]
Rodney King smiles during a discussion for his memoir "The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption" at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in this April 21, 2012 file photo. [Reuters Pictures]Rodney King, whose 1991 near-death beating by LA police was caught on tape, leading to a trial of four officers whose subsequent acquittal sparked riots, was found dead in his swimming pool by his fiancee yesterday at age 47.
Foul play is not suspected, but the death is being investigated just to determine what happened. King, who has struggled with addiction for many years, was reportedly doing well with his sobriety, and his fiancee said she "came back out after hearing a splash and saw him at the bottom of the pool," so it's possible he had a stroke or heart attack and fell into the pool.
I'm so deeply sad about King's death. He survived an incomprehensible attack that made him famous. To thrive was to be known, which forced him to relive the attack over and over, every day of his life. To fail was to provide fodder to the apologists for police brutality, always hunting for "proof" he deserved what he got.
In his years of survival, he thrived and he failed. He tried to figure out a way to do something good with the notoriety he'd been given. He seemed, to me, in television appearances, always haunted and always hopeful.
The thing about Rodney King that always struck me was that he was not resigned to the way things are, nor resigned to his own flaws. He expected more. He had every reason to give up and give in and be cynical, and instead, he expected better, right to the very end. Of himself, of the people who hurt him, of everyone. He was imperfect, as are we all, but the point was at least to try.
"People, I just want to say: Can we all get along?" That was his impassioned plea, turned into a punchline by people who don't expect more, least of all of themselves.
RIP Mr. King.
[Related Reading: Rodney King, Twenty Years Later.]
Today in Mitt Romney Stands in Front of Something
Mitt Romney campaigns in Pennsylvania.
In other Mitt Romney news, here is just a perfect headline about a perfect candidate: "Romney: No need to detail how I’ll pay for massive tax cuts. Just trust me."
Good job, GOP. He is GREAT.
[Related Reading: Mitt Romney Repeatedly References Height of Trees in Michigan.]
Open Thread
Hosted by a sleepy hamster.
This week's Open Threads have been hosted by sleepy animals.
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!
Quote of the Day
"Corporations are not people. That's why we have different laws that govern corporations than govern individual citizens."—John McCain, in an interview on PBS' NewsHour with Judy Woodruff, yesterday.
Shakers, noted conservative dirtbag John McCain is now the Republicans' voice of reason. The lookingglass ain't even in the rearview anymore.
BushQuotes!
Chapter 5, page 57: "Unbeknownst to me at the time, others who would become my closest friends had also moved to Midland that year. ...Joe O'Neill also moved home in 1975 after working for five years for an oil company in California. His dad had insisted he get training in the business elsewhere, before coming home to run the family company. 'Go make mistakes and learn the oil business on someone else's nickel,' Joe's dad had told him. That's what he did, and it's what Joe recommended I do when I arrived in Midland, ready to apply my Harvard business degree to the real world. 'Go work for a company, learn the business on their dime,' Joey said. I listened to that advice and rejected it. I hadn't gone to business school to work my way up a corporate ladder. If that had been my ambition, I would have stayed back east, gone to Wall Street or a Fortune 500 company. I wanted to be my own boss; Harvard had given me the tools and the confidence to do so."
Privilege and Balls indeed.
[From George Bush's A Charge to Keep, gifted to me by Deeky, because he hates me. In the US, all people who plan to run for president write a shitty book. (Some are less shitty than others, by which I mean the Democrats' books.) A Charge to Keep was George W. Bush's shitty I-wanna-be-president book, published in 1999. I am blogging one random quote per page every day until I have either made my way through the book or lost it behind a couch.]
Misogyny Update
[Content Note: misogynist language, actions, & apologia]
Who could forget yesterday's news about the silencing of women by men because the women dared to question, to disagree very publicly, with them? Well, we have a couple updates.
1. In Michigan, the republicans are saying no, no it's not because of vagina Rep. Brown was silenced, it's because she used the phrase "no means no". AS IF THAT MAKES IT ANY BETTER (hint: it does not).
Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, R-Midland, made the decision to prevent Brown and Byrum from speaking on any of the slew of bills the House was racing to pass before adjourning for the summer.Rep. Brown, in her remarks, first introduced the fact that in the Jewish faith, Jewish law that places the life of the mother over that of a fetus. No matter how where in gestation the pregnancy is. Then went onto say:
[...]
"My concern was the decorum of the House, not of anything she said," Stamas told The Detroit News.
"I ask all members to maintain a decorum of the House, and I felt it went too far yesterday," he said.
Speaker Pro Tem John Walsh, R-Livonia, gaveled Brown out of order for saying "no means no" — because it suggested Brown was comparing the abortion legislation to rape, House GOP spokesman Ari Adler said.
"It has nothing to do with the word vagina," Adler said.
”I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours? And finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”To which she was censored and her colleagues, such as Rep. Mike Callton (R-Nashville), had this sort of response:
"What she said was offensive. It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.".
2. Arizona's Republican Party Communications Director Shane Wikfors definitely does not have anything to fear about his job, no matter what he says about two women engaging in a discussion over dissatisfaction with the republican party. His boss thinks he's awesome:
PHOENIX -- The chairman of the Arizona Republican Party said he's "very happy" with his top spokesman who bashed a pair of female critics this week for having a, "bitch session."That's right. They make "mistakes" and then, naturally, take to twitter to tweet things like:
Tom Morrissey said he'd never use the phrase personally, but backed his spokesman, Shane Wikfors, who used it to criticize a columnist for the Arizona Republic and another woman.
"He didn't call anyone a bitch," Morrissey said this afternoon in a telephone interview. "He used the term bitch session."
Morrissey, who took over the party last year, says his spokesman didn't intend to demean women and that, “sometimes people make mistakes."
The very model of professional & charming all-around, that one.
So, to recap:
"Vagina", "No Means No" = "inappropriate", "offensive", "against decorum"
"Bitch session" = Totally ok and not remotely unprofessional
Today in Misogyny: Geek Culture Edition
[Content Note: This post contain transmisogyny, transphobia, the disappearance of female programmers, sexual objectification of women, rape, sexual assault, and rape culture, as well as links to images of objectified female bodies.]
Living as a nerdy woman with a deep love of geek culture, it sometimes amazes me how much I can bear to participate in a culture which has so many people yearning to remind me that I don't belong. Let's take just three examples from this week, shall we?
Writer Caleb Garland takes us on a HIGH-LARIOUS tour of the development of some programming languages, checks out some pictures of the programmers, and offers up the conclusion that what is really necessary to writing a good, long-lived program is having a long beard. There's even a cartoon chart of beard length matched with programming languages.
Shakers, I give you Grace Hopper, one of the key players in the development of COBOL:
[Image by James Davis via Wikimedia Commons]
I get that this post is a JOKE HA HA CANT YOU FEMINISTS TAKE A JOKE? But the fact is that jokes like this serve as a perfect example of microaggressions: the "small" shit that constantly reminds women, trans*men, and insufficiently masculine others that we don't belong in the geek domain. And even if women, trans*men, or others who don't or can't grow beards should happen to develop one of the most important languages in the history of computing, we will be erased or explain away as an "exception that proves the rule" (Garland's actual words for Hopper). Good to know!
2. DC's Catwoman cover reaches new heights of sexual objectification.
Margot Magowan has a great takedown of this ludicrous new cover that manages to simultaneously give a view of Catwoman's enormous cleavage and her sharply defined buttocks, possible only if her spine were replaced with adamantium rubber.
I get that it's too much to ask that one of the relatively small number of female characters who headline their own comic could be treated with a modicum of respect. I get that DC doesn't give a rat's ass about the readers who have stuck with its titles because when their female headliners are well-written, they serve as genuinely empowering, intriguing figures who offer a break from aggressively enforced gender binaries.
But lots of people are pointing out how extremely laughable all of this shit really is. So, if you don't mind your motto being "DC Comics: We Are Ridiculous Ass-Clowns And We Don't Care!" by all means, carry on!
However, let's get it straight: this is yet another aggression, a reminder to every single reader that no matter how daring and brilliant a woman is, no matter how compelling her story, she's really only the sum of her pornified ass and tits.
3. Lara Croft fends off rapists "like a cornered animal." Or, maybe not.
Here's the deal: David Rosenberg, executive producer of Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider enthused recently to Kotaku that Lara would encounter "island scavengers" who made rape threats. And this would somehow be a great point of character development because “She is literally turned into a cornered animal. It’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s forced to either fight back or die.” So, uh, survivors of rape and sexual assault are animals? GOOD TO KNOW. And in other helpful stereotypes, all a person needs to do is fight really hard and they can stop rapes. ALSO GOOD TO KNOW! Wait, actually not good to know at all--just another dangerous myth of the rape culture, one which ignores the reality wherein those who "fight back" are likely to be framed as aggressors, and where those who choose not to resist as a survival strategy (or for whom physical resistance just isn't feasible for whatever reason) are liars who really wanted it.
As Alyssa Rosenberg notes:The fantasy of being powerful enough to repulse any attack is a compelling one, but it stops short of placing responsibility where it actually belongs: with rapists. And it’s much more compelling—and less exhausting— to dream of living in a world where you are never threatened than it is to dream of constantly fending off attackers.
Apparently there was enough pushback regarding these statement that the head of Crystal dynamics studio issues a clarification claiming it was a a "misunderstanding." As Kellie Foxx-Gonzalez points out, it's pretty hard to believe that when an executive producer explicitly and clearly talks about rape, it's a "misunderstanding." But okay, player.
Further, the use of rape (or threatened rape, or other sexual assault) as an experience that turns one into a superhero is so incredibly insulting to the millions of people who have experienced it, it's hard for me to even fathom the callousness, the cruelty, of making it a trope in a videogame. No, fending off an attacker didn't turn me into a badass fighter, sirs. It turned me into a fucking mess who blamed myself for getting into the situation. Putting it in a game as a plot device, as a problem to be solved, as points to be gained, is yet another microaggression. Rape isn't some weird, exotic threat. It's an everyday threat that affects women disproportionately, whether because we have experienced it, or whether because we live in a culture that is saturated with it.Here's Foxx-Gonzales:
The odds of women being trapped on a remote island and forced to fight their way off and hunt animals and murder people in order to survive are probably pretty slim. But 1 in 5 women will be raped in their lifetime in the United States. With those odds, sexual violence is not a theme to take lightly, and certainly not one to tack on to an origin story in order to force Lara Croft to become a fighter. Crystal Dynamic developers, rape is not a plot device– rape is a reality.Yes, it remains a real fucking mystery why geeky women and girls, trans*men, and/or rape survivors would feel excluded by any of this. I guess we are just looking for something to complain about.
[Hat tip to Shaker Mod Scott Madin and my friend JBH for links.]
Film Corner!
Below, the trailer for Lola Versus, the IMDb description of which is: "Dumped by her boyfriend just three weeks before their wedding, Lola enlists her close friends for a series of adventures she hopes will help her come to terms with approaching 30 as a single woman." Oof.
The tagline for this movie is not: "Can one woman discover how to be HER OWN Manic Pixie Dream Girl (at least until she finds a new dude)?" But it should be!
The poster for this film informs us it's "from the studio that brought you 500 Days of Summer," and I definitely hated that movie, so I will probably hate this one, too! Even though, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, I LOVE movies (etc.) about quirky white New Yorkers who don't know any people of color and have no time to meet new people because GROWING PAINS!
Hey, did I ever tell you how half my family is from New York City, and so I used to spend part of my summers in Queens? IT'S TRUE! And my grandfather would give me dimes to run down to the corner store on Myrtle Avenue (holla, Glendale!) to buy sweets, and I rode the subway when it was still covered in graffiti, and I splashed around in cement reservoirs at the public park on hot summer days, and I visited the high school at which my grandmother was a secretary and where my dad taught summer school some summers, and I attended Vacation Bible School at my grandmother's church, and I went for long walks with my granddad all around the neighborhood, and, sometimes, when my older cousin would visit, we'd say we were going to Forest Park to ride the carousel, but we'd really go to an arcade and talk to boys, which is where I saw a boombox, and break-dancing, and rappers, all for the first time.
And here is a True Fact: There were people of color in all of those places, and they were not background.
So when people tell stories (SO MANY STORIES) about New York City, and those stories are just full to fuck of white people (SO MANY WHITE PEOPLE), that story is lie. Or it is a story of privilege. Usually both.
ANYWAY!
Music that sounds vaguely Motown-y, but is actually by a white NYC indie band, obviously. Scenes of New York, by which I mean buildings. Cut to Lola, a young thin white blonde woman, trying on wedding dresses with her best female friend, a young thin white brunette woman, and her best male friend, a young thin white dark-haired man, who may or may not be gay and sassy? (TBD.) "Dude!" Male Friend says to the blushing bride. "You look incredible!" Female Friend asks, "Are you trying to take maid of honor from me?" He responds, "I feel like Rupert Everett." Yiiiiikes. "Don't we all?" says Female Friend. Whut. "It's a wedding dress! It's a wedding dress!" Lola exclaims, pumping her fists.
Cut to Lola coming home to her lovely flat, carrying wedding flowers, where her fiancee, Holder from The Killing, is sitting stony-faced on their leather sofa. "Honey, you're gonna die when you see these flowers!" she exclaims. He looks at her with I'mma-barf face. "Honey, what's up—did you have a stroke?" she asks. "I don't think I can do this," Holder tells her. No doi he can't. He needs to find Rosie Lawson's murderer already. Lola looks stricken. Happy music ENDS!
Cut to Lola looking sad and confused, while working out, while wandering the streets, and while lying in bed, stroking the empty pillow beside her where Holder's head used to be. "I feel like everyone saw it coming but me," she says. Male Friend tells her, "Nobody saw it. It was like lightning." Is that a good analogy? Because lightning is usually preceded by thunder. Or is it succeeded? Either way, it's part of a goddamn storm. I'm just saying.
Lola is "shattered." And so she's "power-eating." Scenes of Lola eating junk food. Now we have evidence of what a tragedy this really is. I didn't feel that terrible until I was reminded of the possibility that SHE COULD GAIN WEIGHT HOLY SHIT!
Female Friend urges her to get out there and date and let men put their dicks in her. Ha ha just kidding. She doesn't say that. She actually says "let them ride your pony." Which is even worse.
Lola eats chips. Lola has dinner with some dude. He designs prisons and has a big dick because he was "an incubator baby." Is that a thing? Having a big dick because you were in an incubator? Lola looks dubious. I consider that this is the material they decided to put in the trailer.
Cut to Lola saying goodbye to Incubator Dick on the sidewalk the next morning. He is on rollerblades. Male Friend is there. She says, in voiceover: "I think men are always looking for someone better, and women are just looking for whatever works." (Yuck, that sounds horrible. Also false.) She uncomfortably kisses Incubator Dick before he rollerblades away, saying, "Have a blessed day!" Male Friend asks her, "Did you just have sex with that rollerblader?"
Cut to Female Friend telling Lola that "being single builds character." Cut to Female Friend falling on her face. Cut to Lola on a laptop asking Female Friend: "Is your Match.com log-in still LetMeBeYourHole?" Female Friend replies, "LetMeBeYourHole1. It was taken." Ooooooooof.
Cut to Lola on a psychologist's couch, saying, "I'm constantly obsessing about everything—food, boys." That's pretty much everything! Lola drinks. Lola clings to a stripper pole at a club and has to be dragged off by a large black man. Lola tells her mother (Debra Winger no!) that being obsessed with Cinderella messes all little girls up because "we get obsessed with shoes." Cut to Lola breaking a heel and falling.
Cut to Lola doing some treatment where an older white man hits her with branches while telling her to release her emotions, then pours a bucket of water on her head. She screams. The end.
Via MaryAnn, who says: "Oh, wow. It's a movie about a woman who does nothing but obsess over food and romance and shoes. I've never seen anything like this before. I cannot wait to see what astonishing insights into the female psyche I will discover here." LOL!
Whooooooopsing to a theater near you soon.
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie
Olivia
Queen Matilda
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.
It is also an important fundraiser to keep Shakesville going.
Running this strictly-moderated and independent space on donations rather than corporate advertising means that my ability to keep it going depends on your support.
You can donate once by clicking the "Make a Donation" button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription using the "Subscribe" button just below it, which has a dropdown menu of subscription options—or visit the Subscribe to Shakesville page, for even more options.
If you value the content and/or community in this space, can afford it, and want to see Shakesville continue to be managed** as a safe space, please consider setting up a subscription or making a one-time contribution.
If you have recently appreciated getting distilled news about the election, reproductive rights, and other news items; the Fatsronauts 101 series; being able to discuss aspects of the rape culture in a space interested in dismantling that culture; finding out where to direct your teaspoon in support of social justice or in opposition to inequality; getting election news about candidates who are discussed on the basis on their policies alone, I hope you will, if you are able, contribute to support this space and make sure it continues to flourish.
I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, video transcripts, Film Corner, the community in Open Threads, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.
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 boundless appreciation as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways: Thank you to our regular contributors, our moderators, our guest contributors, to anyone who has provided a transcription, to those who have linked to, quoted, Tweeted about, and otherwise supportively recommended this blog, and/or to the people who have taken 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.
** 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 do not raise funds by corporate or content-generated advertising, as past attempts have resulted in ads served that violated the safe space, and 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.
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.
[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.]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by mac and cheese.
Recommended Reading:
Jos: The Olympic Games Are Obsessed with Policing Femininity [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of transmisogyny, gender policing, and racism.]
Lauren: Actor Giancarlo Esposito Stopped + Frisked [Content Note: The post at this link includes descriptions of racism and police harassment/threats.]
Renee: Melissa Harris-Perry Gives the 101 on Black Hair [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism and hostility to consent.]
Jamelle: The Democrats' Demographic Dreams
Risa: Opening Historic Trails: Accidental Heroes Stomp Sports Inequity
Andy: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Praises Gay Troops, LGBT Civilians in Historic Pride Video
Adrienne: Thawing the Frozen Indian: Brown University's New Anthro Exhibit
Melissa: Meryl Streep: "Why? Why? Why? Don't they want the money?"
Atrios: Helicopter Drop
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Executive Order Authorizes Parts of DREAM Act
I'm not a huge fan of executive orders, but as long as the Office of the President has that power, it might as well be used on stuff like this:
The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.This is not a perfect plan. One major objection I have is the blanket disqualification for criminal history, irrespective of whether the arrest was for, say, assault vs. getting caught with some weed. When young people of color are disproportionately targeted by "war on drug" policies, there will be a lot of pointless disqualifications for what effectively amounts to rank racism.
The policy change, described to The Associated Press by two senior administration officials, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act [Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act], a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.
...Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed. The officials who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it in advance of the official announcement.
The policy will not lead toward citizenship but will remove the threat of deportation and grant the ability to work legally, leaving eligible immigrants able to remain in the United States for extended periods.
I'm also not happy it lacks a roadmap to citizenship.
That said, this policy is an improvement over our current immigration policies. It's opportunistic politicking, but it's a step in the right direction all the same.
There is much more yet to do.
Related Reading: Why Obama's Decision to Stop Deporting DREAM-Eligible Youth Is Good for the Economy.
Photos of the Day
U.S. President Barack Obama talks to a girl during a visit to the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland, Broadway section, in Cleveland, Ohio June 14, 2012. [Reuters Pictures]Check out the caption on this similar photo of President Obama with the same young woman:
US President Barack Obama talks to a girl at the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 14, 2012. Obama's campaign savagely mocked Mitt Romney as 'out of touch' with ordinary Americans Wednesday with a web video featuring a highlight reel of the Republican's gaffes. The move came as Romney, a multi-millionaire former venture capitalist, argues that it is Obama that has lost touch with the economic pain [hurting] the US heartland, and as each candidate tries to outdo the other in professing deep empathy with the middle-class. [Getty Images]That's an interesting caption. I'm not sure Mitt Romney would ever be described as having "savagely mocked" the President. Republicans "criticize." President Obama "savagely mocks."
It's also interesting in its suggestion that Obama is feigning empathy for a photo-op. There are a lot of legitimate criticisms to be made about President Obama. Interacting insincerely with children is categorically not one of them. He is, without question, the president with the most natural rapport with children in my lifetime, and probably long before. He clearly respects children and young adults, and that is no small thing.
Here are some of my other favorite photos from the President's visit to the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland yesterday:
