What is your favorite accessory? A specific item, or a category (ring, scarf, etc.)—however you prefer to interpret the question.
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the Moon
How are they breathing? They're cloaked in a protective bubble of oxygenated cute, that's how.
Always Online; Always Privileged
[Content Note: Classism; regionalism.]
So, recently there have been rumors that the next generation Xbox is going to be released with an always-online requirement, meaning that even to play a single-player game, users are going to have to maintain an internet connection for the console to be usable. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, although it's almost certainly part of the increasing strategy to discourage secondhand game sales and game-sharing, because media creators still haven't learned that throwing up barricades between users doesn't actually increase sales.
They also apparently still aren't paying attention to the fact that internet companies aren't interested in helping them make money, and the wide practice of throttling will complicate this endeavor, by way of massive understatement.
Which itself is an issue that only affects those of us with access to high-speed internet.
Many people have noted that an always-online requirement presumes, wrongly, that everyone who is a gamer has access to high-speed internet. Naturally, people who are poor (and we are not going to get into a discussion here of poor people who spend money on gaming consoles, which of course can be purchased second-hand or gifted, because I'm not going to entertain debates that police how people allocate limited resources) and people who live outside of urban centers are the most likely to lack access to reliable high-speed internet.
A couple of days ago, Microsoft Studio's creative director, Adam Orth, took to Twitter to address these concerns. His tweets, which were screen-capped before he protected his account, were a disgorgement of ignorant privilege, wondering "why on earth" he would live in a rural area, telling critics to "deal with it," and sniffing: "Those people should definitely get with the times and get the internet. It's awesome."
"Those people" is certainly an interesting turn of phrase, given that there is a significant digital divide among racial lines. Which should not be a surprise to anyone with the most cursory familiarity with the intersection of class and race.
Microsoft eventually issued a terrific non-apology regarding Orth's tweets: They're "sorry if this offended anyone."
Anyway. One of my favorite gaming commentators, boogie2988, posted a video response detailing some of the issues with the always-online concept, which Microsoft will neither confirm or deny at this point (the video should start playing, and the transcript begins, at 1:58):
boogie2988, a young fat white man with short-cropped dark hair and beard, wearing glasses and a black shirt: So, when rumors begin to circulate about the fact that the next generation of Xbox is gonna require an always-online internet connection, even just to play single-player games, it's obvious that I need to start making a list of why that's not going to work.
But the bottom line is this: If you and I have perfect internet, in a perfect word, the reality of it is you shouldn't have to be connected to the internet in order to play your game. It's as simple as that. It's never going to be beneficial for you or I as consumers. It's not gonna bring down costs; it's not gonna make things free; it's not gonna make things easier or better for you—therefore, that is anti-consumerist.
But we don't live in a perfect world, do we? In fact, in the world that we do live in, 40% of Americans do not have access to high-speed internet in their homes. Forty percent! That means some of them don't even have internet access; some of them only have internet access through their phones; and some that do have landlines running into their house, it's spotty and crappy. That means 40% of Americans won't be able to use that service.
Many of us live in rural areas where we don't have consistent and good internet. Hell, some of us still use satellite. Some of us still use dial-up. And I cannot imagine that your service is gonna work very good on dial-up!
Not to mention, the time that I most want to play a single-player console game is when my internet access is out. I can't surf the internet; I can't play an online game; what else am I gonna do? It's time to play some single-player Halo campaign!
But in a perfect world where I always have internet access, what about your internet access? What if your server farm goes down? What if you have to patch? God forbid, what if you got hacked like the PlayStation network did, and you have to be offline for thirty days? My console becomes a brick for thirty days. That's [absurd].
But the one that really upsets me, that really kind of breaks my heart, is the fact that there are a lot of gamers in the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines—a lot of our servicemen and servicewomen, after a long hard day of defending our country, like to sit down and play their Xbox or play their PlayStation. But the one thing they don't have [in the war theater] is internet access. And if they don't have internet access, they're not gonna be able to use your console. And that breaks my heart, because that's something they deserve.
But the bottom line is, there's a huge list of reasons this is wrong. There are no reasons that this is right. This does not help the consumer; this does not help the gamer; this does not need to happen.
Here Comes (My Musing on) Honey Boo Boo
[Content Note: Classism, regionalism, misogyny, fat bias, racism.]
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo airs on TLC and is in its second season.
For the ridiculous sum I pay for cable, I watch approximately 5 channels: Food Network, Cooking Channel, Investigation Discovery, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and any random channel that might have a show that lets me get my crime TV/forensic fix. When these channels simultaneously broadcast shows that I have seen or that I don't like, my life is thrown into an uproar. I typically throw down the remote and pick up a book.
Occasionally, I go channel-surfing. During one such surfing-in-desperation episode, I stumbled upon the premiere of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." I saw people on Facebook writing about it and got the gist of the background of the Shannon/Thompson family (if you're not familiar, the show is about the now-seven-year-old Alana Thompson, who competes in children's beauty pageants and her family, including her mom and dad, three older sisters, and new born niece). I expected to be critical of the beauty pageant element, in particular, and what I thought would be the drudgery of it (I don't like reality TV), in general. I do have a lot to say about the children's pageant element, but I found that, overall, I liked the family. One of the main reasons is that, as rural southerners, they are familiar to me. I found the mother, June Shannon, funny, confident, and patient with her girls. I watched more than one episode, a true sign of my interest.
But… within a few episodes, I realized, to the producers of this show, my feelings about June and her family must seem an anomaly. In my opinion, whoever is staging this show goes out of hir way to make this family a subject of mockery, ridicule, and disgust. From the opening montage, the audience gets a clue of what to expect—the family is first gathered, all smiling, as if they are posing for a portrait. And then, someone passes gas and they dissolve into arguing amongst themselves. Why, you may wonder, are they repeatedly cast in such an unflattering light? I believe we are meant to be repulsed by them because of a number of social characteristics of the family members: they are southern, working class, and some of them are fat.
I cannot list all the tropes trotted out to play on stereotypes of people who fall in the aforementioned category, but let me try. We see June, the heaviest member of the family, eating. No shame in that right? But we see her eating in ways that we can look down upon. We see her eating with her hands. We see the show edited (for example, the Thanksgiving show) to make it seem that she eats non-stop. We see her eating large portions (as on her date with her partner, Sugar Bear). And we are encouraged to make judgments on how she cooks for and feeds her children, some of whom (including Alana) are heavy. She sprinkles sugar on their already sweetened cranberry sauce and says it's how they get their servings of fruit. She makes a dish called "sketti" that includes spaghetti, ketchup, and butter. She tells us about feeding them venison culled from deer killed in car accidents. As if that does not drive the point home enough, Alana laments the fact that they haven't had venison in a while, noting that, "It's been a while since I had road kill in my belly."
Largely ignored is June's comment that she is trying to feed a family of six on $80 a week, leaving little room for gourmet fare, and that she cooks almost everyday to control food costs.
And, oh, these uncouth southerners! The children curse. The parents curse. They argue and laugh loudly. The camera makes sure to document each time they pass gas or burp or pick their noses. They play in mud on several episodes (I mean, you know how we southerners love our dirt—food, toy, flooring—it's multi-purpose!). They go to "Redneck Games." The editing of one episode emphasizes that gnats fly around them. When Alana meets the current Ms. Georgia, Ms. Georgia notes that she is unsure of how far the little girl will go in the pageant world because of her lack of refinement. And attempts to teach Alana "proper" etiquette seem exasperating for the child and the instructor, as if the little girl is hopeless!
The presented image of Sugar Bear, too, is often unflattering. He is always shown with a pinch of chewing tobacco in his mouth, leading to comments about his breath. He speaks softly and seems shy and, quite often, scenes are edited to emphasize that June is the "boss" and the girls pay him little attention. This further contributes to the appearance of the family as disordered, given our culture's creation and castigation of "matriarch" figure and common lamentations about men losing their status in various ways.
But I don't see Sugar Bear as weak because he is quiet. In fact, in Sugar Bear, I see my own dad and my favorite uncle. My dad was a quiet man who loved pickup trucks and hunting and fishing and dealt with my sister and me gently. My uncle is much the same way and, like Sugar Bear and many southern men, he's usually chewing a pinch of tobacco and clamoring for a "spit cup." I do not find him disgusting. I have never been repulsed by his breath or his tobacco habit. A quiet disposition does not indicate a lack of engagement or importance in a family circle. Sugar Bear's love for June and those girls is obvious. He works hard for his family. And when June's oldest daughter, his step-daughter, has a baby, his sweet words about how she reminded him of Alana and seeing him cuddling the newborn reinforced the comparison I made between him and my dad.
The Shannon/Thompson family has a strong sense of themselves as working class southerners and are even untroubled by the term "redneck"—and why should they be, given "redneck's" origin as a term to describe hard-working farmers whose necks were burned red by exposure to the sun? But given all the negative connotations that label has, it seems outside the realm of possibility to the producers of the show that one can be comfortable and even proud of a rural southern identity.
In comments of posts or articles that talk about the show, you will commonly see them called "white trash," as well. Now, I have to say, first, that while I understand the sentiments of poor white people and scholars who have tried to "reclaim" the term "white trash," it is a very problematic term, particularly in its implication that "white trash" is such an anomaly that we must include a racial marker. Most white people are not perceived to be trash, thus the label; but what does this say we think about people of color? The racialized terms by which we are referred have been constructed in ways that imply an innate subordination, impoverishment, "less-ness" in a way that the term "white" has not been constructed. In fact, so anomalous is "white trash," that scholar Matt Wray explored the idea that people given this label are often perceived as "not quite white."
For the purposes of this essay, I want to focus on another adverse meaning of the labeling of the Shannon/Thompson family as "white trash": in the words of Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz, "white trash" is often the "white Other," "the difference," indeed, the "threat" within the bounds of the privileged status of whiteness. There is no clearer evidence in "Honey Boo Boo" that the South and, in this case, white southerners are being othered, portrayed as foreign, unknown, and unknowable, than the fact that the family's speech is captioned, as if our English is any more accented than that of people from other regions of the United States! But those other accents are normative, unnoticeable, default, and, in the end, not an accent at all, but the way "real" USians talk!
I think the whole family is portrayed in a way to make each member an object of ridicule, but I believe our greatest disgust is supposed to be reserved for June. June seems, to me, to have a great attitude. She finds the humor in many situations and she is affectionate with her girls. She is confident about her relationship with Sugar Bear and her attractiveness to him. She is a bit adventurous and she likes to have fun. June is also money savvy; she endeavors to be an "extreme couponer": "You save money for your family—that's what it's all about," she said [on Jimmy Kimmel Live]. "I could be a multi-millionare and still want to get the best deal for my family." Additionally, "she's putting the show's earnings into trust funds for her children," noting that, "I want my kids to look back and say, 'Mama played it smart.'"
Funny, confident, beautiful, smart… apparently, those are all things forbidden to fat southern women. When June decides to have fun on a water slide, the camera focuses on the fact that she struggles to climb it (even then, she laughs amiably at herself and is clearly having a good time, but the joke is supposed to be on her—HaHa! She's too fat for this!). She notes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that she and Sugar Bear both appreciate her beauty (a fact that he confirms). Yet, she is shown as the opposite of all those things that are constructed as beautiful in our society, from her disdain for makeup to her refusal to obsess over her weight. And, true to common characterization of southerners, there are plenty of "d'oh!" moments when we are given the impression that the family members are not intelligent. I cannot, in one post, catalogue all the ways this woman is mocked and cast as the butt of some joke that everyone else is in on.
But, what really endears June, and indeed, all her family, to me, is the fact that, in the face of a country that derides most things about them, they STAY proud and true to who they are, something that I understand as (and I deeply, deeply hope is) a refusal to accept the mandate that they apologize for being themselves, for being working-class and southern. When I see June, I am reminded of Liss's post about having the audacity to be fat and happy and I can't help smiling myself.
For me, the othering of the South and southerners, the positioning of us as inferior to northerners, the constant stream of jokes about our stupidity and "in-breeding," our "strange" food (and even deadly, until soul food and southern food are properly gentrified by northern chefs—but that's another post!) and weird customs, means that I proclaim my southern-ness often and loudly, from the language I use on social media to referring to myself as a southern (b)elle to making a conscious effort to use my "real" voice in my classes and other settings so that my accent, which I find lovely and luscious, shines through. And while part of that has come from the process of being comfortable in my own skin, part of it is DEFINITELY a "Ha! I am progressive, smart, funny AND southern"-thumbing-of-my-nose at those who would believe such a person cannot exist. I read June's actions and attitude in the same light. I have a delightful feeling that I am right.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sand.
Recommended Reading:
A follow-up to a piece I linked back in October: Kao Kalia Yang at 18MR: Through the Long Winter: A Look Back at Radiolab's Yellow Rain Controversy. [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of miscarriage, racism, and war.]
And another entry in the naming series: Natalie.
Jess: Practical Feminism with Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler
Mannion: "Disability" [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of hostility to people with disabilities and classism.]
Spectra: What Kind of African Doesn't Speak Any African Languages? Me. [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism, language policing, white supremacy, and colonialism.]
Peter: A Reader's Guide to Anti-Hillary Themes
Libby Anne: Lost and Found: A Friendship, a Shunning, and an Apology [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of conservative religious traditions that includes shunning.]
Trudy: Black Couples in Television/Film—Casting and Colourism [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of body policing, racism, colorism, and white supremacy.]
wundergeek: Convention Harassment Is Bad. This Isn't Rocket Science. [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of misogyny and harassment, and includes violent imagery.]
John: Misogyny, Sexism, and Why RPS Isn't Shutting Up [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion and imagery of misogyny, homophobia, sexual objectification, and rape culture.]
Adrian: TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington's History of Abuse Allegations [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of specific acts of sexual violence. The article also has some problematic narratives, like abuse allegations being "complicated" by one's relationship to one's abuser.]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Daily Dose of Cute
BFFs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Liss and Ana Talk About Elementary
[Spoilers are deducting the fuck outta shit herein. CN: Discussion of transphobic narratives.]
Liss: Okay, the VERY FIRST thing we need to talk about is Ms. Hudson! Ms. Hudson is a trans woman! And OMFG she is being played by an actual trans actress (Candis Cayne), and not by a cis woman who is "playing trans." I literally nearly burst into tears with joy that Elementary has introduced another canon character and gave a big old finger to the idea that canon is sacrosanct, and instead used the introduction of Ms. Hudson to be one of only major network shows ever to feature a (presumably) recurring trans character played by a trans person. THIS SHOW.
And not only was being trans not central to her character—just another thing about her—but there was no judgment about it. None. I also enjoyed her winking quip about having learned how to make a fire as a Boy Scout ("merit badge").
I said to Iain after the episode, "I love that arguably the most progressive show on television right now is a story about characters 120 years old."
Ana: I really loved that she was unapologetically gorgeous AND intelligent AND capable, despite the whole "kept woman" thing, which is usually used as a shorthand for uneducated and/or ditzy. She had just this tremendous amount of togetherness and strength. She just seemed so real and tangible and wonderful; I wanted to hug her and admire her all at the same time.
I wasn't 100% thrilled with the way they introduced her as trans: Joan's "assessment" felt like showing off that Joan is A Detective, and implied that Ms. Hudson does/should hide her trans status from her lovers. That seemed a little...eh. I understand they were trying to identify her as trans without putting a flashing arrow on the screen, but I wasn't super thrilled with it.
Liss: I know what you mean. My read was that Joan asked Sherlock if her lovers know out of concern for her safety, especially since Ms. Hudson had just shown up after ditching a fucked-up relationship, since "trans panic" to justify violence is A Thing in the World, but I absolutely see how there was plenty of room to play into deceit narratives, especially to someone looking at it through a different lens than I am.
Ana: I did love that her ex wanted her back and was clearly attracted to her. They didn't go the "dumped her because trans*" route, thereby reaffirming that there's nothing wrong with (a) being trans* or (b) dating a trans* person. It was all 100% about him being already married, which happens regardless of the genders of the people involved.
Liss: They also avoided the "trans* chaser" narrative. There was no suggestion that only men who fetishize trans* women are attracted to her.
Ana: I loved—and totally identified with—that Joan was upset with having a houseguest sprung on her, but that she didn't take it out on Ms. Hudson and actually came to like her very much. The whole line about "yesterday, she was a stranger you'd sprung on me without warning; today, she's a person I like very much" was AWESOME. And I wanted to shriek for joy when Sherlock tried to psychoanalyze why she liked Ms. Hudson and Joan said she rejected that analogy. #FeministTermsInElementary
Liss: I also loved that conversation, and how Joan explains the distinction between being upset with the lack of notice about a houseguest and her feelings about Ms. Hudson. That was BRILLIANT. It felt so much like the distinctions women (especially) are constantly obliged to make, particularly around being upset about a situation and not as a result of personal animus.
Ana: And I loved Pam. I loved Pam SO much. I loved that she told Sherlock to get out, but that she would give Joan a ride home. I loved that Joan answered her questions. I love that this show passes Bechdel by making REAL women characters, and letting them talk to each other like REAL women so often do. I loved that Pam felt the allure of their work. I loved that Pam gave Ms. Hudson a ride at the end.
Liss: Pam is THE BEST. I was also thrilled to see Becky Ann Baker in a non-mom role, since she is probably best known from her roles as central characters' moms on Freaks & Geeks and Girls. Nothing wrong with mom roles—she is a great TV mom!—but it's also cool to see her in a role where she's a blue collar working woman, too.
Ana: CLYDE CAME BACK! I just want to cuddle him so badly.
Liss: CLYDE! I almost forgot about Clyde's reappearance, until you mentioned it. CLYDE!
Ana: I love that Detective Bell is allowed to be so awesome. In the pilot I was really worried that he was being set up as The Skeptic who always argues and never learns, but nope! I loved him finding the hair, and testing it, and his scenes taking fingerprints, and being an awesome actor, and I loved ALL THESE THINGS. I love that he went around looking for abdominal wounds when gunshot victims didn't pan out. He is proactive and capable and very, very cool. I love Detective Bell.
Liss: Detective Bell rocks out loud. Looooooooved the scene where he tests the hair—that whole scene was such a perfect game of cat-and-mouse. I was also worried he was going to serve as Requisite Contrarian, and I'm super relieved that's not the case. I really love how every case is solved via teamwork, even though Sherlock has mad deducting skillz. It makes for a more interesting show than the usual Idiosyncratic Genius formula, where everyone else stands around marveling at the Very Special White Man. It's also more realistic!
Ana: I wanted to cry happy tears when Joan said that the driver and his accomplices met at basketball camp and Sherlock looked SO befuddled and she said "do you see how it feels?" I love Joan so much, and I really think it's wonderful how they've balanced his genius with her learning, and I totally identify with how frustrated she must feel sometimes (since she has so much catching up to do on things like tire tracks). I'm proud of her for persistently asking him to explain, and not just thinking that she'll ask later because they're busy now. And for showing him how she feels. I love the way Joan communicates.
Liss: Me too! I constantly comment on how brilliant Joan's dialogue is. And I love the way she actually looks fucking irritated when Sherlock does something irritating, instead of begrudgingly finding his self-centeredness charming—another staple of the Idiosyncratic Genius genre. She gets legit pissed off, AS MOST PEOPLE WOULD, and lets other things go, or laughs at them, because they're friends now, and the complexity of her responses to Sherlock humanizes her. It's also cool to see how often her criticisms about his social skills come back in later episodes, as he tries to be more sensitive.
Ana: Everything about the "riot" scene pleased me to the toes. I'm just so relieved to see the police force treated like I would WANT a police force to behave: They don't harass prisoners, they work together as a unit, they deal respectfully with their consultants, and so forth. I feel that Portrayal is a valuable part of Expecting More, of holding real people to a better fictional example, and it's SO nice to depart from the "good guys stamp all over civil liberties" awfulness that you get in so many other police shows.
Liss: Indeed. The riot scene was great. And I also really loved that even the FEMA employee, whom the "riot" was designed to catch out as an accomplice, was given a backstory that invites us to consider her motives beyond callous greed. She makes shit money for a consuming and stressful job. The show doesn't justify criminality, but it continually challenges viewers to consider that there's more to crime than "evildoers doing evil." It draws a connective line between "motive" and "circumstance" in a way few other police procedurals have.
Ana: Last but not least: Sherlock gave the homeless man money and pricing tips. I love him. That is all.
Liss: Yes, the scene with that guy was great. And I also loved the way Sherlock gave him the money, without any embedded pity but as an earned (but unanticipated) reward for having given them useful info. Very cool.
I don't even know what to do with how much I love this show, lol. I am SO GLAD it's been picked up for a second season. RIGHT ON!
Discuss.
In The News
[Content note: War, homophobia]
Monday:
Diana Gabaldon answers questions about the next Outlander novel.
Rand Paul: Still a douche.
They hate us because of our freedom.
Reporters covering the oil spill from ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline have been blocked from the site and threatened with arrest.
An unknown number of culprits have made off with five metric tons of Nutella.
All the Hillary Nooz
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Here are a few fun things I've read this morning:
Toby Harnden in The Sunday Times—Hunger Grows for President Hillary. It's a pretty typical story about wealthy Clinton backers getting their gold-plated ducks in a row in case Hillary Clinton decides to run again. I just love the headline—not only that she's "President Hillary," but that hunger is growing for her. We can't wait to devour her! A place my mind might not go, had I not seen her devoured already so many times.
Alexandra Jaffe at The Hill—Huffington: Hillary Clinton 'Obviously Running' in 2016:
Arianna Huffington, the editor-in-chief of the liberal-leaning Huffington Post, said on Sunday it's "obvious" that Hillary Clinton is running for president in 2016.Ha ha PERFECT. I love a little mind-reading and disablism mixed in with my fauxminist shaming of ambitious women!
"She's obviously running," Huffington said on ABC's "This Week."
She added, however, that Clinton is "sending a bad message to women" in emerging back on the public stage so soon after her retirement.
"What I was hoping is that she would have been taken more time to become what she called, herself, 'untired,'" Huffington said.
"She hasn't given herself that time and I think that's sending a bad message to women, that the only way to succeed...is to drive yourself [into the] ground. After all, she collapsed. She had a concussion," she added.
As usual, however, Maureen Dowd takes the shit-cake: Can We Get Hillary Without the Foolery?
Please don't ask me this anymore.I'm not even going to waste my time parsing everything that's wrong with that pile of garbage. I will just observe that in the neverending game of Can't Fucking Win that women are forced to play, Hillary Clinton has to be the ultimate contender: If she doesn't run for president—LOSE! If she does run for president—LOSE! If she runs and loses—LOSE! And even if she runs and fucking wins—LOSE! Because, geez, slow down, lady. Your reprehensible ambition is setting a bad example for women.
It's such a silly question. Of course Hillary is running. I've never met a man who was told he could be president who didn't want to be president. So naturally, a woman who's told she can be the first commandress in chief wants to be.
"Running for president is like sex," James Carville told me. "No one ever did it once and forgot about it."
...As long as there are no more health scares — the thick glasses are gone — Hillary's age won't stop her. The Clinton scandals and dysfunction are in the rearview mirror at the moment, and the sluggish economy casts a halcyon glow on the Clinton era. Hillary is a symbol and a survivor, running on sainthood. Ronald Reagan, elected at 69, was seen as an "ancient king" gliding through life, as an aide put it. Hillary, who would be elected at 69, would be seen as an ancient queen striding through life.
...Hillary jokes that people regard her hair as totemic, and just so, her new haircut sends a signal of shimmering intention: she has ditched the skinned-back bun that gave her the air of a K.G.B. villainess in a Bond movie and has a sleek new layered cut that looks modern and glamorous.
In a hot pink jacket and black slacks, she leaned in for a 2016 manifesto, telling the blissed-out crowd of women that America cannot truly lead in the world until women here at home are full partners with equal pay and benefits, careers in math and science, and "no limit" on how big girls can dream.
"This truly is the unfinished business of the 21st century," she said. But everyone knew the truly "unfinished business" Hillary was referring to: herself.
I can't even.
RIP Margaret Thatcher
[Content Note: Misogyny; violence.]
Former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher, the first—and still only—female Prime Minister, who served from 1979 to 1990, has died at age 87.
Margaret Thatcher was a radical conservative, and I don't have anything kind to say about her politics. She would not have had anything kind to say about mine. She was the ultimate Exceptional Woman, and, irrespective of one's opinion about her choice to play that role, it was central to her attainment of the prime ministership. She was not the first, nor would she be the last, woman to understand that many glass ceilings, especially in politics and business, are broken by conservative women who make much about being just one of the guys, but also being a traditional wife and mother—just not like those other simpering, foolish, womanly wives and mothers.
And, like all the other powerful female leaders before and after her, Thatcher weathered mountainous amounts of misogyny.
There were a plethora of incidents that had the distinct whiff of misogyny while Thatcher was in office, things that were dismissed as attributable to her divisive politics, but should leave any decent person sincerely questioning if the same would have been done to a Lord Thatcher. Perhaps the most notable of these extreme protests was the decapitation of a stone statue of Lady Thatcher, attacked and beheaded while on public exhibition. The violence of it is jarring. Less obvious are examples like a challenge to her leadership mounted from within her own party receiving 60 votes—a relatively small percentage of nearly 400 Conservative MPs, but a shockingly large number of votes against a sitting Prime Minister. That she was the first female Prime Minister is meant to be incidental; isn't it always?
She was routinely subjected to sexist rhetoric: She was well-known as "the Iron Lady," a moniker she wore proudly, but which was deployed, both favorably and unfavorably, to describe her unwavering will and hardline defense policy. It was Soviet Russia's Defense Ministry newspaper which first christened her the Iron Lady, after she gave a typically belligerent speech about how the USSR were "bent on world dominance" and "put guns before butter."
Her other oft-used nickname, which she did not wear proudly, was "Attila the Hen." Thatcher was so dubbed by a male peer, and it stuck. (No wonder she embraced Iron Lady, given the choices.) The moniker was frequently invoked beside the usual parade of "woman-only" (or emasculating) indicators—strident, shrill, hectoring, shrewish, etc. The British Members of Parliament often launched the nastiest, substance-less sexist attacks, as MP Austin Mitchell: "It's been a touching spectacle: the brave little woman getting on with the woman's work of trying to dominate the world." Yowza.
One of the ugliest displays was during Thatcher's fall from grace, beginning in '89, when her political vulnerability opened her up to a shocking level of misogynist vitriol—including from members of her own party, angling to be her replacement. This 1989 Guardian article, republished as part of a special edition marking the 50-year anniversary of the Guardian's women's page, captures the tone at the time:
Tory MP Emma Nicholson is convinced that a bitter, anti-woman undercurrent is flaring up in Parliament and not just on the Labour benches. 'They will use anything to attack the Prime Minister and I think they are sacrificing their acceptance of women as equals to get at her.' Inside and outside Westminster, there's talk of political challengers being 'hand-bagged', of curtains being bought for the retirement home in Dulwich, of babyminding the new grandson, while Downing Street is countering with propaganda about a 'caring' ethos and teamwork.As the article makes clear ("She has tremendous appeal as a role model for modern women, while paradoxically emphasising their traditional roles as homemakers and mothers, and remaining indifferent, if not downright hostile, to the needs of working women."), Thatcher was herself hostile to women in many ways, especially women who pursued untraditional paths, separating herself from such women by affecting a "beyond womanhood" pose as it suited her. She vacillated between being "the only real man in the cabinet" for the purposes of warring and being "governess and grandmother" for the purposes of imposing conservative ideals of traditional womanhood. The Exceptional Woman, at every turn.
The Prime Minister is suddenly a woman again as the men in her party circle for the succession and the men on the opposite benches get their first whiff of power for over a decade. Her personality and leadership style are making a lot of the political running. It's almost inevitable that her gender will be implicated - it has always been a political challenge for both her allies and her opponents.
During Thatcher's tenure, even compliments of Thatcher were deeply sexist. Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's famous assessment of Margaret Thatcher was: "In her presence you pretty quickly forget that she's a woman." In November, Peggy Noonan wrote a piece waxing nostalgic for the Iron Lady, in which she rhapsodized:
Margaret Thatcher would no more have identified herself as a woman, or claimed special pleading that she was a mere frail girl, or asked you to sympathize with her because of her sex, than she would have called up the Kremlin and asked how quickly she could surrender.The cognitive dissonance in praising someone as not "so much a woman as a lady" just after claiming Thatcher would have not have "identified herself as a woman" and just after anointing her "tough" for managing to withstand an entire plane journey in heels is enough to give a feminist whiplash. And it is spectacularly wrong: Thatcher indeed did identify herself as a woman, when it suited her—as when admonishing women who had less lofty employment goals than heading a movement, like silly old self-fulfillment.
She represented a movement. She was its head. She was great figure, a person in history, and she was a woman. She was in it for serious reasons, not to advance the claims of a gender but to reclaim for England its economic freedom, and return its political culture to common sense. Her rise wasn't symbolic but actual.
In fact, she wasn't so much a woman as a lady. I remember a gentleman who worked with her speaking of her allure, how she'd relax after a late-night meeting and you'd walk by and catch just the faintest whiff of perfume, smoke and scotch. She worked hard and was tough. One always imagined her lightly smacking some incompetent on the head with her purse, for she carried a purse, as a lady would. She is still tough. A Reagan aide told me that after she was incapacitated by a stroke she flew to Reagan's funeral in Washington, went through the ceremony, flew with Mrs. Reagan to California for the burial, and never once on the plane removed her heels. That is tough.
Like modern incarnations of the professional political woman who disdains women's equality movements in spite of having benefited from (see: Palin, Sarah), Thatcher presented a challenge to feminists—and some of them were naturally more than willing to take the bait.
Pauline Melville, a feminist comic at the time, said, 'She was a reactionary old cow, so fair game absolutely.'Even long after she'd left office, Thatcher couldn't escape the misogyny that reverberated throughout her public career. In aNew Statesman review of a book on Thatcher, titled "The Mummy Returns" (as in a British mum, not an interred Egyptian), reviewer Suzanne Moore notes, "She is the unhinged, vengeful madwoman in the attic, the unlaid ghost."
…For Melville, it was entirely the politics that motivated her; she had no intention of making a career out of being a comedian.
Racist and sexist jokes were outlawed, though clearly they made an exception for Margaret Thatcher, about whom anything could be said. Clearly, some women didn't count.
The truth is that misogynist hatred of Thatcher has also driven even men who are normally outspoken about women's equality to shocking lengths. The closing track on Morrissey's first solo album, Viva Hate, is called "Margaret on the Guillotine."
The kind people / Have a wonderful dream / Margaret on the guillotineIt ends with the sound of a falling guillotine.
Cause people like you / Make me feel so tired / When will you die ?
…And people like you / Make me feel so old inside / Please die
Do not shelter this dream / Make it real / Make the dream real
And when I saw Eddie Izzard, typically a resolute and outspoken feminist ally, live at the Royal George several years ago, he had a long, uncharacteristically vicious bit that essentially consisted of his literally calling Margaret Thatcher "a cunt" for five minutes.
There was truly an endless well of legitimate objections to Margaret Thatcher's policies and character, but always, always, the first line of offense was straight at her womanhood.
So, yeah. I don't have anything kind to say about her politics, and we had very different views indeed about womanhood and our relationship thereto. But I feel a kinship with her nonetheless, because of the world in which we live, which judges us both by the same measure despite our vast differences.
And I admire the fuck out of her personal strength, and her inimitable capacity to make her misogynist critics look like fools, simply by enduring.
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!
Blog Note
I've got friends visiting from out of town this weekend, who are due to arrive shortly, so we'll be wrapping it up early today. I'll put up the pub in a bit, and I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. See you Monday!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by turtles.
Recommended Reading:
Jamilah: Three Things Kamala Harris Should Be Known for That Don't Involve Her Looks
Juan: Congress Obsessed with American Muslims, Neglects Real Threat of White Supremacists [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of violence, terrorism, and racism.]
UN Women: Momentum Towards Meeting the MDGs: 1,000 Days of Action Remain [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of various manifestations of misogyny, including violence.]
Erica: The TNT Blames the Victim [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of the sexual assault and murder of a child, as well as discussion of victim-blaming and gender essentialism.]
crunktastic: Five Ways Talib Kweli Can Become a Better Ally to Women in Hip Hop [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of misogyny, rape culture, and homophobia.]
Juliana: What Happens When Women Are "Illegal"? [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of various manifestations of misogyny, including violence.]
And another post in the Naming Series! Let's Talk About Names: Gaayathri.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
