Sunday Shuffle
How about you?
Open Thread
Hosted by a baby zebra.
This week's open threads have been hosted by adorbz baby animals.
"I'm going to miss her."
As I mentioned yesterday, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are doing a joint interview on 60 Minutes this weekend. Care of CBS, an excerpt from the interview:
Steve Kroft: Why did you want to do this together, a joint interview?All the blubs.
President Obama: Well, the main thing is I just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you, because I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretaries of state we've had. It has been a great collaboration over the last four years. I'm going to miss her, wish she was sticking around but she has logged in so many miles I can't begrudge her wanting to take it easy for a little bit. But I want the country to appreciate what an extraordinary role she's played during the course of my administration. A lot of the successes we've had internationally have been because of her hard work.
Secretary Clinton: A few years ago it would have been seen as improbable because we had that very long, hard primary campaign. But, you know, I've gone around the world on behalf of the president and our country, and one of the things that I say to people, because I think it helps them understand, I say look, in politics and in democracy, sometimes you win elections and sometimes you lose elections. And I worked very hard but I lost. And then President Obama asked me to be secretary of state and I said yes. And why did he ask me and why did I say yes? Because we both love our country.
[H/T to Jordan.]
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
"We must stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican party that talks like adults. It's time for us to articulate our plans and visions for America in real terms. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. We've had enough of that. We must stop insulting the intelligence of voters. We need to trust the smarts of the American people. We have to stop dumbing down our ideas and stop reducing everything to mindless slogans and tag lines for 30-second ads. We must be willing to provide details in describing our views."—Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R), in a speech to the Republican National Committee last night.
Sure. The only problem I see with that is how when Republicans start providing details about their policies, voters hate those policies.
Anyway. Good luck with all that!
At the Intersection of Survivor and Fat
[Content Note: Sexual violence; fat hatred.]
There are two things frequently said to or about me, because I am a fat woman who writes about the rape culture:
1. You're so fat/ugly that no one wants to rape you.
2. You're fat because you were molested.
Both of these things are supremely ignorant things to say. Rape is not a compliment, and one's conformance to or divergence from the kyriarchal beauty standard is not an indicator of one's likelihood of being victimized by sexual violence. And although there is some correlation between childhood sexual trauma and childhood and/or adult obesity, especially in girls and women, not every person who is fat is fat because of (or exclusively because of) sexual violence.
Every time I have been sexually assaulted—raped; sexually harassed; groped, frotted, or masturbated in front of on the subway—I was already fat.
These narratives are not merely ignorant; they are flatly false. And they disappear survivors like me.
The Parks and Rec Open Thread
"And I got a Lite-Brite that I got from Andy."
(Spoilers are dumpster diving herein.)
Oh, Parks and Recreation. How I love you when you give me an episode like this one! Let's start with the title of the episode: "Women in Garbage." WOMEN IN GARBAGE! Did you write this episode just for me? Thank you!
Ron and Diane love each other! Jerry's giggle! Chris is LITERALLY so confused! Everyone is such a great dunker! Ann is the best! And ALL THE FEMINISM!
There were a lot of great moments for just about everyone this week, but I was especially happy with all the neat moments for and about the ladies. I loved that Diane was the super-chill mom who reacted to her daughters' cutting their hair in a way that didn't make Ron and Ann feel shitty, and also didn't make her daughters feel shitty. I loved that Ann found a new rapport with kids via her professional expertise. I love that Leslie and April won the day, in a truly feminist triumph.
If you watched this episode and thought "I bet Liss is blubbing her stupid face off at this amazing scene of the women from the shelter moving the refrigerator with Leslie and April," YOU WERE CORRECT!
Other things!
"Leslie, you'll never land a beau with that domineering tone." "No need—my only plan today was to buy Skittles." "What? I love garbage." "I've been a baller since birth. Now I'm an athlete." "Google Earth—always taking pics." "We are not leaving until this symbolic feminist obstacle is loaded onto that truck of women's advancement."All the swoons. Discuss!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by cat trees.
Recommended Reading:
Lyle: President's Appointment Power Curbed
Aviva: CNN Anchor Tricks Opponent of Women in Combat to Endorse Racial Segregation [Content Note for misogyny and racism.]
Erica: Victory
Paul: Obama's Second Chance: The Reelected President Has Gun Law and Even Climate Change in His Sights [Note: If you read all the way to the very end, you will see a familiar name waxing repetitive about Obama being a stronger ally on reproductive rights. GEE WHO COULD IT BE?!]
Happy Place: If Downton Abbey Took Place Entirely on Facebook: Season 3, Episode 3 [Content Note for the same biases found in the episode.]
And from Flyover Feminism's Roe Week [content note for war on agency for all the below posts]:
Nicole Clark: Keeping the Faith in the Pro Choice Movement
Robin Marty and Jessica Mason Pieklo: Kansas: "Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide"
Lily Bolourian: Roe v. Wade Anniversary: Why I Am Not Satisfied After 40 Years
Alicia Walters: Policing African American Motherhood from Every Angle
ARROW: A Snapshot of the State of Abortion Across the Asian Region
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Today in Fat Hatred
[Content Note: Fat hatred; misogyny; heterocentrism.]
Erica Barnett emails, which I am sharing with permission:
A real gem from the WSJ: "Mixed-Weight Couples Report More Conflict." [Currently titled: "Put a Stop to 'Do I Look Fat?'"]The article is full of awesome stuff, like: "Even people who aren't overweight can obsess about their appearance (sadly, these mostly tend to be women)."
Accurate translation: Douchebag dudes who say things like, "I guess you're one of those people who looks better in clothes" justifiably piss off female partners.
But don't worry, there's a happy ending: If women just count calories and lose weight, their partners will find them attractive again!
(The "study," such as it was, included just 43 hetero couples and only found "increased conflict" when the woman was fat and the man was critical.)
Sadly, that is incorrect. Literally, I cannot think of a single man I know well who hasn't, on multiple occasions, said something to me denigrating and/or worrying about his appearance. It is more socially acceptable, to the degree that it is expected, for women to publicly "obsess" about their appearances, but it is flatly untrue that men do not share this eminently human reaction to living in a vicious culture of judgment that encourages shameless body policing.
The difference is not that men don't have body issues, but that:
1. We are all socialized to view women's bodies as public property, and thus women are disproportionately subjected to criticism on any failure to conform to a kyriarchal beauty standard.
2. Men (especially men who partner with women) are encouraged to police their partners' bodies for beauty, while women (especially women who partner with men) are encouraged to police their partners' bodies for health. A man is supposed to be responsible for making sure his wife doesn't "let herself go," while a woman is supposed to be responsible for making sure her husband eats his vegetables.
3. Men who are partnered with women are judged by their partners' appearance more than women who are partnered with men. A man with a fat/unattractive wife is judged in all sorts of ways that a woman with a fat/unattractive husband isn't. He, with the fat/unattractive wife, must have something wrong with him. He, with the more attractive wife, must be a pretty great guy and isn't she lucky!
These are not absolutes. But there is a whole world at play here that explains why, exactly, it is only the couples with the fat wives and critical husbands who experience "increased conflict." And what underwrites that criticism in the first place.
A Thing about Disablist Language
[Content Note: This post talks about disablist language and includes examples of disablist slurs.]
There are a handful of left-leaning political blogs I read regularly, because the content is generally great, ideas-wise, but to which I never or rarely link, and never or infrequently recommend, because of their constant employment of disablist language.
I get it: Words and phrases with disablist etymologies are deeply embedded in contemporary US English—lame, dumb, crazy, insane, maniac, lunatic, idiot, moron, imbecile, cretin, freak, spaz, -tard, -nut, madness, sickness, myopic, blind and deaf used as synonymous with ignorant, etc.—and there is an obstinate tradition in political discourse of dismissing one's ideological opponents as "crazy."
I used to do it, too: The rhetorical flourish of "those people are nuts" is deeply entrenched in partisan punditry, and I had to be called out by people more sensitive than I was to the destructive nature of disablist language.
Working through one's privilege publicly can be difficult, but given the choice between showing my ass and learning from it, or being an asshole in private, I'll take showing my ass every time. I just regret that it means I've hurt or alienated people in the process.
Anyway. The point is that it was enough for me to stop using disablist slurs because they undermine the safe space. (And they're rather self-defeating and self-loathing, to boot. So there's that.) But the more distance I get from relying on disablist language—and the more I am forced to say what I really mean, that Mitt Romney (for example) is not crazy, but indecent and cruel and privileged—the more I realize how progressive pundits' reliance on disablist language is not merely hurtful or alienating, but counterproductive.
I said in comments recently:
It really gives me the shivers to think about how much of the US' lurch rightward has been enabled by the left condescendingly dismissing rightwing extremist operatives—and the people to whom their ideas appeal—as "crazy."We need to do better than "those people are nuts." Not just because it's more ethical, but because relying on contemptuously dismissing ideological opponents as "nuts" is lazy—and I don't mean merely uncreative (although that, too) but a way of absolving ourselves of having to deconstruct, over and over, the way in which dishonest, immoral, selfish, and in other ways terrible positions held by conservatives are dishonest, immoral, selfish, and variously terrible.
The US left has used that flippant bit of ableist rhetoric to give ourselves permission to ignore all manner of indecency. And then feign shock when it turns out the "crazy" ideas presented without counter were embraced by a population of whom we were too contemptuous to even bother trying to communicate.
It occurs to me that the rightwing must love our casually dismissing them as "nuts," as unworthy of intensive examination. Yeah, sure, we're nuts, they agree, as they pass more "crazy" anti-choice legislation in seventeen state legislatures, nationally unscrutinized behind a wall of disablism.
[See Also: I Write Letters.]
In The News
[Content note: Violent misogyny, homophobia, disablism]
Pátek Novinky:
A statue of a woman's bloodied bikini-clad torso to be included as a bonus in a new video game package. What the fuck and good lord!
Today In Whoops: In the year since the National Organization For Marriage initiated its boycott of Starbucks over the company's support of equality, the chain's profits have risen 13%.
A waiter for a Houston restaurant refused to serve a group of customers after he heard them making rude comments about a 5-year-old boy with Down syndrome sitting at another table.
Sorry, Instagrammers! No more flash photography of your mozzarella sticks.
Judge Dredd might be gay!
Buh-Bye
Via Taegan Goddard: "Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) 'will announce this morning that he's dropping plans to run for a third term in 2014, a decision certain to set off an avalanche of Republican candidates who will seek to replace him,' the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports."
Oh no. Don't go.
HA HA just kidding. Good riddance, Chambliss.
Ladies
Which is not to say we'll never see Hillary Clinton working in some other capacity with First Lady Michelle Obama (or even President Barack Obama), but, you know, I'm just feeling sentimental as we prepare to say goodbye to Clinton as Secretary of State.
Obama and Clinton to Appear on 60 Minutes Together
This is making me all verklempt:
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will appear together in their first joint interview this weekend.Have I mentioned I'm going to miss seeing these two together? Once or twice? A million times? I'm going to miss them together.
The president and Clinton, who is expected to leave the State Department within days, will tape the interview Friday at the White House with "60 Minutes" anchor Steve Kroft. It will be the president's first dual interview with anyone other than first lady Michelle Obama.
