[Content note: Racism, violence, homophobia, rape culture]
Monday News And Whatnot:
President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day making him the most threatened President in history.
A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Indiana could face its final legislative hurdle this session. Way to go, Indiana!
The Texas man behind the Cadillac Ranch has been accused of being a "serial abuser" of boys and young men.
Four teenage girls in Africa have invented a generator powered by pee. Neat!
The Powerball prize has reached $425 million. If I win I plan to buy an island somewhere and move away, just FYI.
Twelve men are to be executed by Libyan militia for being gay. (Libya is free now, okay?)
A UK lawyer says Jamaica shouldn't give into UK or US pressure to review its buggery laws. Buggery laws? Okay then.
Wanna "look Asian"? There's a totally racist app for that!
This [CN: rape culture imagery] exists for some reason.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn could soon include a gay marriage option, according to makers of the popular game.
Britain's Princes, William and Harry, have been asked to be ambassadors for the country’s leading HIV charity, Terrence Higgins Trust.
In The News
I Can Barely Keep Track of All My Wars
[Content Note: Misogyny; gender essentialism; heterocentrism.]
It's tough being a feminist warrior these days. There are so many wars to fight to juggle all at once! There's the War on Christmas, on which I'm already SO BEHIND this year—I will probably leave all my warring until Christmas Eve again!—the War on Families, the War on Marriage, the War on Christians, the War on Tradition, and, of course, the War on Men.
At least, even with all that going on—I Don't Know How She Does It!—I haven't dropped the balls on the War on Men. (Multitasking! Amirite, ladies?) The War on Men has, in fact, been so successful, that Fox News contributor and feminist concern troll Suzanne Venker is sounding the alarm that marriageable women are doomed if the world is not rescued from the evil clutches of man-hating feminists!
The battle of the sexes is alive and well.Ha ha that's the actual first line of this actual article that was actually published. PERFECT.
Venker then goes on to quote some stats (SCIENCE!) about how women want to get married and men don't. Actually, she cites stats indicating that 8% more women than men "ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives," which doesn't at all axiomatically translate into "women want to get married and men don't," but that is the entire premise of her garbage article, so don't look at the numbers behind that curtain or whatever!
Believe it or not, modern women want to get married. Trouble is, men don't.Ha ha I DON'T believe it! Not at all!
As the author of three books on the American family and its intersection with pop culture, I've spent thirteen years examining social agendas as they pertain to sex, parenting, and gender roles. During this time, I've spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women. And in doing so, I've accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who've told me, in no uncertain terms, that they're never getting married. When I ask them why, the answer is always the same.First of all, I'm sure those books are great. They SOUND great. So they're probably great. Secondly, as someone who has authored zero books on the American family and its intersection with pop culture, but has definitely talked to some number of humans in my life, maybe dozens or possibly millions, I have also accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who don't want to get married. And WOMEN who don't want to get married! I call them—wait for it!—People Who Don't Want to Get Married for a Variety of Reasons. Because I'm a fucking genius.
Women aren't women anymore.
Among those people are definitely men who say things like, "I'm never getting married because women aren't women anymore," or, sometimes, "I'm never getting married to an American woman when I can buy a woman from another country where I imagine women enjoy being treated like second-class pieces of trash or, as I call it, being treated LIKE A LADY."
But those are men who are terrible, and should be given a stern lecture about not being dehumanizing misogynist fuckheads, instead of elevated as paragons of masculine virtue whose anachronistic belligerent patriarchalism is alleged evidence of feminism's failure.
Anyway, blah blah. More tiresome crapola about how feminism is the worst and the patriarchy is SO COOL, with the usual gender essentialist and heterocentrist claptrap. And then Venker presents her closing argument.
Fortunately, there is good news: women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs.CASE CLOSED, YOUR HONOR!
If they do, marriageable men will come out of the woodwork.
The most amazing thing about this article being published in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and twelve is that these are not even new ideas. Ever since a woman got an idea in her head that maybe she deserved to be treated like a full rights-bearing human being, there has been public hand-writing about how men are petulantly checking the fuck out in response.
See?
And yet somehow humans continue to get married. Indeed, in many parts of the world, the institution of marriage is being opened up to people to whom it has previously been denied, in no small part because of men who want to get married very much. To each other.
There has always been a certain percentage of retrofuck straight men who grump and harrumph about straight women who want marriages that are not defined exclusively on men's terms. But the majority of men in the US have gotten over not getting a fucking dowry with their blushing brides, and I'm sure the majority of men will get over women who want possession of their full humanity, even inside a marriage, too.
That is something of which I believe men to be capable, because I am a feminist and thus believe men to be capable of change.
Unlike the defenders of Patriarchy, who are the most intractable man-haters on the planet.
[H/T to everyone in the multiverse, and thanks to each and every one of you.]
Top Five
Here is your topic: Top Five Favorite Movies about Being a Teenager. Go!
Please feel welcome to share stories about why your Top Five picks are what they are, though a straight-up list is fine, too. Please refrain from negatively auditing other people's lists, because judgment discourages participation.
Open Thread
Hosted by Chef Anne Burrell.
This week's Open Threads have been hosted by some of my favorite female chefs.
Happy Birthday, Deeky!
Enjoy it you must!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuu!
You're forty-two and that maaaaaaaakes meeeeeeeee
Four years younger than you!
I love you, my precious friend.
Happy Birthday, Elle!
[Click to embiggen.]
Happy birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuu!
You look like a radical kyriarchy-smashing feminiiiiiiiist!
And you smell like one toooooooo!
(Mmmmm...sage!)
Happy Birthday, Elle. I love you, girl!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
As tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, many of our contributors and mods will be indisposed for part or all of the next few days, so we're all going to take a long weekend. We'll be back full-time next Monday, and there will continue to be moderated daily Open Threads in the interim, as well as a few other things here and there.
To everyone who will be marking Thanksgiving in any way...Happy Thanksgiving!
To everyone who won't be...have a nice weekend!
And in acknowledgement of the part of this holiday which is worth celebrating—that is, taking a moment to give thanks for that for which we are grateful—I would like to say that I am thankful for you, Shakers.
Gross
House GOP is angling to repeal health care. Of course they are.
As Steve says, "So much for Mr. Reasonable."
In good news, so far the administration is telling Boehner and Co. to get to fuck.
That's a paraphrase. But a fair one.
Big Birdz
Paleontologists Find 6.5-Foot Tall Penguin Fossils in Antarctica:
Argentine experts have discovered the fossils of a two-meter (6.5 foot) tall penguin that lived in Antarctica 34 million years ago.Mitt Romney has proposed defunding of the giant penguins immediately.
Paleontologists with the Natural Sciences Museum of La Plata province, where the capital Buenos Aires is located, said the remains were found on the icy southern continent.
"This is the largest penguin known to date in terms of height and body mass," said researcher Carolina Acosta, who noted that the record had been held by emperor penguins, which reach heights of 1.2 meters (4 feet) tall.
Daily Dose of Cute
Mistress Elinor Gwynn would like a closer look at that delicious bit of sweetmeat you are holding, you dear human you!
Discussion Thread: Thanksgiving Food/Eating/Body Anxiety
[Content Note: Please be aware that participation in this thread will involve navigating discussion of eating, disordered eating, food and body policing, dysfunctional and/or family dynamics, and anxiety. Proceed accordingly.]
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, which is an intrinsically problematic (colossal understatement) holiday for many reasons: Its racist history; its implicit enforcement of kyriarchal norms around "family"; its preoccupation with gratitude for consumption that disappears need and entrenches class privilege.
Because it is a day centered around a feast, a day in which we are meant to stuff ourselves until we pass out on the couch in a food stupor, it is also a day that creates lots of anxiety for people with disordered eating and/or people who are obliged to spend the day with family members who food/body police.
Thanksgiving can be a particularly vulnerable day for fat people and for binge eaters in recovery.
Here is a thread to discuss any food/eating/body anxiety you may have leading into Thanksgiving. Please feel free to solicit advice on how to respond to expected food/body policing. Please be sure not to offer advice to anyone unless it has been explicitly solicited.
