Hosted by Abe.
Open Thread
Hosted by H.E.R.O..
This week's open threads have been brought to you by Activision games for the Atari 2600.
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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!
And don't forget to tip your bartender!
FYI
[Previous FYI: Rick Astley; Eddie Murphy; The Eurythmics; Eddie Rabbit; Sinéad O'Connor; Was (Not Was); Bon Jovi; Kenny Rogers; Bobby McFerrin; Starship; Dead or Alive; Right Said Fred; Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians; Salt n Pepa; Nelson; The Cure; The Soup Dragons; Europe/BushCo; Elton John; Eddie Money; Human League; Glenn Frey; Van Halen; Alanis Morissette; Depeche Mode; The Beatles; The Proclaimers; Bruce Springsteen; Meat Loaf; Cyndi Lauper; Cole Porter. Hint: They're better if you click 'em!]
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
Liss: I found your glove. [texts picture of manky, crusty, dirty camouflage glove that I saw lying next to my car in a random parking lot]
Deeks: Thanks. I've been looking all over for that!
Liss: You're welcome! I figured you'd want your best wanking glove back!
Deeks: LOLOLOL good call.
The Cycle of Fauxgress
[Content Note: Misogyny, WWII Appropriation, Racism]
See Tony Jones blog. He is a professional Christian author, blogger, and social media consultant.
See Tony Jones ask why there aren't more women in his blog comments and social media communities.
See Tony Jones tell a woman (who says that his usual methods of interaction with others online set off her abuse triggers as his behavior reminds her uncomfortably of abusive Christian men from her past) that her suggestions effectively compare him to Hitler and that there is no possible lower insult in society for a man than to be told that his behavior touches off a woman's abuse triggers:
Karla, remember that the next time someone tells you that you remind them of an abuser. For a man in today's society, that is akin to being compared to Hitler. There is no lower blow.(I'm sure that this will be revisited again the next time someone tells Tony Jones that he has unexamined white privilege. The best thing about the No Lower Blow tactic is that no one ever holds you to the last time you said it!)
See Tony Jones invite Christian feminists to guest post on his blog, while explicitly warning them that the comment sections to their posts will not be moderated. See Tony Jones scoff at the suggestion that this could be seen as a means of using womens' work to drive pageviews over progress, and that this may be a less-than-stellar deal for any women who choose to accept.
Here is a pattern:
1. Ostensibly Progressive Blogger (often, but not limited to, white and male) notices (or has it brought to his attention) that his community is looking a little more homogenous than might be expected, were he actually fostering the community of inclusion and intersectionality that he likes to believe he embraces. Blogger publicly asks how he can Do Better and make his blog more welcoming for women, people of color, trans people, etc.
2. People in the targeted demographic who already follow (or are notified by other people who follow) the blogger tentatively point out why they are feeling unwelcome in the blogger's space. Frequently this comes down to the blogger's failure to check his privileges when writing, his failure to proactively include intersectional viewpoints in both his own writing and in guest/co-blogger posts, and/or the unsafe space of the unmoderated or poorly-moderated commenting section.
3. Ostensibly Progressive Blogger blows off the suggestions from the people in the targeted demographic. This can be done in a variety of ways: the blogger can state that the suggestions are invalid and/or would not work; the blogger can state that the suggestions are already applicable to everyone and should be more broadly applied to society at large (thereby deflecting discussion on the specific failings in his writing and in his community space); the blogger can insist that the suggestions are personal attacks.
4. Ostensibly Progressive Blogger will also attempt to silence his critics via various methods: asking or encouraging or simply silently condoning followers who pile criticism on the people responding to the solicitation with suggestions; allowing or encouraging the conversation to move away from genuine suggestions to blanket praise of the blogger; refusing to address personal attacks on the people offering suggestions or acknowledge that these attacks are part of the problem; choosing not to moderate the threads as a safe space and leaving up hateful and triggering material directed at the people giving the suggestions and/or against the whole targeted demographic.
5. Ostensibly Progressive Blogger ultimately changes not a damn thing. The blog stats receive the anticipated drama-spike, the ad money rolls, the blogger basks in the praise of the followers who were already comfortable in their space, and the people who were already in the "feeling kind of unsafe here" target audience can quietly slink away, more deeply hurt than before their suggestions and experiences were solicited, because now they've been told their suggestions for inclusion were actively harmful to others.
This is not something that happens in a vacuum.
Nor is it limited to a specific subset of religious bloggers.
Nor is it necessarily limited to male bloggers.
Part of being an actual progressive means actually listening to marginalized people. Checking one's privilege doesn't begin and end at an abstract recognition that you have it, and then doing whatever the hell you felt like in the first place but this time with a satisfied sense of Allyship Achieved! for merely saying that privilege is something you have.
Really allyship, the kind that takes place daily, means continual reflection and self-examination. It means understanding why your priorities are what they are, and changing them to whatever they should be. It means listening to marginalized people when they have been hurt, and not asking them to feel bad for making you aware of your privilege. It means being able to take criticism on board without filtering their feelings through a validity prism, and without insisting loudly and longly that no really, I'm not like that.
And being an ally means that a solicitation for suggestions on how to improve shouldn't be a trap designed to harm the marginalized communities you claim to wish to reach.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by wood.
Recommended Reading:
Trudy: Things I No Longer Want to Have to Do as an Atheist [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of many different manifestations of religious supremacy.]
Flavia: I Wish I Was Making This Up [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of hostility for intersectional feminism.]
Brentin: Good News in Mississippi: School-to-Prison Pipeline Closes [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of racism.]
Andrea: Transgender Studies Quarterly Plans to Kick Ass with the Help of Kickstarter–and You
Ana: Connecting the Dots of Reproductive Coercion
Brett: Patrick Stewart Gives Passionate, Must-See Q & A Answer on Domestic Violence
Renee: Star Trek Into Darkness and Khan [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of whitewashing and other problematic casting decisions in STID.]
Helen: Seattle's 1st Trans Pride
Frederick: RIP Alton Lemon
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Forging Justice
by Cristy Cardinal. Cristy has over 15 years of experience in the field of ending gender-based violence, and she is currently the Director of Prevention Education at HAVEN, serving Oakland County, Michigan. Cristy came to this field through grassroots efforts, and her educational background is in English and Public Administration. She has worked in community as an organizer and educator, and she is passionate about leaving this world better than she found it. In addition to her work as a program director, she is also a writer for the blog UpRoot, a social media project of the HAVEN Prevention Education team. She shares her home and life with her wife, three children, an elderly dachshund, and a badass cat named Eartha Kitty. She's masculine_lady on Shakesville.
[Content Note: Violence.]
I am a prevention educator working to end gender-based violence. I often get asked why I do this work, as if this work isn't worthy of someone smart and capable, and there must be something wrong with me to choose it.
Here's my answer: I choose this work because feminism is the toolbox I use to practice the spirituality of social justice. I choose this work because this is one of the ways I can use my privilege as a white, educated, cisgender, middle class woman with integrity and compassion, but without condescension. I choose this work because I can, and I recognize my privilege in being able to do so.
In the last few years, I have championed engaging men as a means to prevent and end gender-based violence. I am not the first person to do this, but I brought these ideas into my community. We started a program working just with young men on their role in ending gender-based violence, and we started a community discussion group for men (though all are welcome) to address sexism and to further understanding of feminist principles of power and possibility. As part of these projects, we (by "we" I mean the prevention education team at HAVEN, a group of four people including me as the program director) developed a relationship with NOMAS, the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.
It was through that relationship that the idea for Forging Justice was created. NOMAS holds an annual conference, and every other year partners with a local group or organization to co-host the event and offer technical assistance to the represented communities to address gender-based violence. NOMAS is a group of feminists and pro-feminist men who have deep roots in the field of gender-based violence and prioritize working with women, including activists and feminist scholars.
Forging Justice: Creating Safe, Equal and Accountable Communities will be a three day (August 8, 9 and 10) conference in Detroit exploring gender-based violence through a social justice lens.
There will be a keynote address from Lauren Chief Elk (Chief Elk), of the Save Wįyąbi Project, who recently took world famous Feminist™ Eve Ensler to task publicly for furthering the marginalization of women of color, specifically North American Indigenous Women. Chief Elk will be sharing her experience, and offering insight into how we can center the lives of women of color in social justice work.
There will also be a plenary panel on recognizing how intersecting identities impact gender-based violence our response to it. The panel will be Jessica Luther, Emi Koyama, and two speakers to be named later. The third plenary panel will be on feminism and new media, and how we create the world we want through technology and media. Speakers on this panel will be Alexandria Goddard, crime blogger who made Steubenville more than a small town in Ohio; Ashon Crawley of the Crunk Feminist Collective, Heather Corinna, doyenne of the amazing sex ed site for teens Scarleteen, and the inimitable tour de force Melissa McEwan, founder and editor-in-chief of Shakesville.
There will be other great things as well, like the 38th Annual Men's Studies Association Meeting, spoken word performances, a workshop sponsored by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence on the connections between intimate partner violence and HIV infection and much more. We're also really excited to offer a dedicated space for Healing Justice, with yoga, meditation, art and other self-care workshops. We are committed to creating a space that is accessible, trans* inclusive, and strongly rooted in consent-based interaction.
This conference matters because for 40 years, we've focused a lot of energy in the movement to end gender-based violence on fortifying the criminal justice response to intimate partner violence and sexual assault. While that has worked in some regard, calling the police should not be our only option. We need to address toxic masculinity, institutionalized and systemic violence, and center the lived experiences of marginalized folks, especially women. Until we do that, all we're doing is putting on bandages. I choose, every day, to work to end gender-based violence. All in, for all women.
If you want to join us in Detroit, or just find out more information, you can do that here. You can also donate to the Forging Justice Scholarship Fund (making the conference financially accessible) by contacting me at prevention (at) haven-oakland (dot) org.
Daily Dose of Cute
SNUGGLE BUGGLE!
Shakers, this dog is so cute I feel like my eyeballs might explode from joy when I look at her!
Behind her backside, you may notice, is a piece of folded mail. Generally, Iain and I don't keep our mail scattered on the couch. (Shocking, I know.) But one of Matilda's favorite things is grabbing a random piece of mail (always mail—never, say, a piece of scrap paper on which I've jotted notes and left on my desk) and walking around the house with it hanging out of her mouth. And as she drags it around, she makes this plaintive, whining mew that she never does any other time, like she's totally lost. "Mewwww?!" Over and over while she traipses about with the mail. And then eventually she'll get bored, or accomplish whatever her inscrutable mission was, and drop the mail wherever. LOL.
I've tried to record this on several occasions, but anytime she sees me watching her do it, she immediately drops the mail and hurtles herself toward me to head-butt me for attention. Call it the Tils Duality Theory.
So you just get a pic of the evidence, left behind Zelda's roundy bum.
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In The News
[Content note: Racism, homophobia]
Friday:
I downloaded this new app to cure my homosexuality. It's on my home screen right next to Manhunt.
Hanson has a new beer. It's called Mmmhops. Obviously.
Today in post-racial America. Also, I love Cheerios.
Want to see David Bowie perform "Fame" on Soul Train? Of course you do.
Dear Santa, please bring me an entire set of Crestwood House monster books, in mint condition, thank you.
I Write Letters
[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; violence.]
Dear President Obama:
Today marks four years since Dr. George Tiller, a reproductive rights advocate and one of the precious few physicians in the country who performed lifesaving late-term abortions, was murdered at his church.
The day after his murder, I wrote you a letter, begging you to "stop relying on dangerously dishonest rhetoric about abortion, its supporters, and its opponents," and to stop drawing an equivalency between the pro-choice and "pro-life" positions, as if both sides have an equally valid point, and as if activists who defend reproductive rights and activists who seek to subvert them are somehow two sides of the same coin.
Since that time, the Republican Party has, on both the state and federal levels, endeavored to undermine access to abortion, to contraception, and even to woman-centered healthcare providers. A record number of anti-abortion restrictions are being enacted across the nation, at least one in every single state legislature over the past two years. More than half of the state legislatures have considered restrictions on private health insurance plans to disallow them from paying for abortions. At least one state legislator has suggested that women should have to bear the cost of a separate insurance policy in case of needing an abortion in the event of being raped.
All of this has been done under the auspices of "valuing life," despite the fact that forcing a person to carry to term an unwanted or unviable pregnancy against hir will is the opposite of a respect for life, if the definition of "life" is to have any meaning at all.
Last month, a man in my state was arrested after extensively vandalizing a Planned Parenthood facility because, in his words, "they 'kill' and 'murder' babies." This is only one recent example of the multiple anti-choice terrorist acts that have happened in this nation over the last year, and they didn't happen in a void. They happened in a political climate in which it is considered an acceptable position to value fetuses more highly than the people who carry them.
They happened in a country in which every state legislature, and the national Congress, are trying to find ways to limit access to abortion—and in which our ostensibly pro-choice president remains virtually silent on that matter. Except, of course, when you're bragging about ceding ground to anti-choicers to pass legislation, while insisting it's "not an abortion bill."
They happened in a country in which we are expected to trade everything away, including our civil liberties, in exchange for protection from the existential threat of nebulous foreign terrorists, but in which one of the most brazen, unapologetic terrorist campaigns in America, its co-ordination and orchestration frequently done right out in the open—at meetings, on websites, in email alerts—and potentially affecting the lives of more than half the population, is ignored by one party and mainstreamed as a central plank of its party platform by the other.
Mr. President, the vicious murder of Dr. Tiller was an act of terrorism committed by a terrorist. It should have been a wake-up call to this nation, and to you, to acknowledge the ugly reality that the anti-choice movement is a serious domestic threat.
Instead, the anti-choice movement has gained momentum with the unilateral support of the Republican Party, turning what was once a radical fringe movement into nothing less than state-sponsored terrorism, in defense of an inherently violent ideology.
And the terrorist who murdered Dr. Tiller continues his terrorism from prison.
In response to this onslaught of violently misogynist activity by people who seek to rob people with uteri of their agency, their bodily autonomy, their right of self-determination, their access to a legal medical procedure, their ability to do that most basic of life management in the modern world—control their reproduction—your party has been all but silent.
Mr. President, you have failed to call out anti-choice terrorism, failed to give an address centering reproductive rights even as record numbers of anti-choice legislation are being passed in state legislatures, failed to even say the word "abortion" during an address to Planned Parenthood, failed to give even a passing mention to reproductive rights in your "Women's Equality Day" proclamations, failed to give even a passing mention to reproductive rights in your "Women's History Month" proclamation, failed to acknowledge this war on agency in your State of the Union addresses, failed to prioritize science over religion, failed to prioritize healthcare over religion, and failed to be generally clueful on the issue of reproductive rights.
You are failing us.
Four years ago, I told you I was crying because I was sad and scared and angry. Today, sir, I cry because you have allowed Dr. Tiller's murder to happen in vain.
With colossal contempt,
Melissa McEwan
P.S. I will keep writing this letter every year, as long as I have to.
Fatsronauts 101: Permission, Continued
[Content Note: Fat bias; body policing; privilege.]
Any time I write a new entry in the Fatsronauts series, the responses on Twitter and via email are interesting. Mostly, it's nice and complimentary stuff. Then there's the stuff like this:
Okay, player.
At which, you know, all one can do is laugh because wowee wow the amount of omglolwhut in so few words!
And then there's the stuff that is ostensibly encouraging, but is really the worst sort of condescending, policing bullshit. The stuff that goes like this: "Don't let anybody tell you that you can't love your body!" or "You love your body and no one can take that away from you!" or "If you feel good about yourself, that's all that matters!"
Now, coming from another fat person, that's solidarity. But, generally, this stuff comes from self-identified thin people who support fat advocacy. And so it's not solidarity. It's a pat on the head from a member of a privileged class.
I recognize, totally, that the people who say these things are absolutely trying to be supportive. But that doesn't feel supportive. What that feels like is an awkward expression of encouragement from someone who knows intellectually that I have every right to live fully and contentedly in this body but still has a visceral resistance to genuine fat acceptance.
What it feels like is a privileged person giving me permission to accept myself, even as they don't truly accept me.
I don't need permission from thin people to accept myself. And I sure as shit don't need sorta-allies expressing faux-enthusiasm for my self-acceptance because their lingering revulsion at fat bodies or secret suspicions I really am a lying pig or unshakable concern that they might be encouraging unhealthy habits prevents them from engaging with me in a way that doesn't position them as the benevolent arbiters of my right to love my body.
The thing is? How I feel about myself isn't actually all that matters. It also matters that how I feel about myself is worthy of comment by virtue of an entire culture built around the exhortation and expectation that I should hate myself.
I don't need gold stars and infantilizing cheers for my radical rejection of a cultural imperative that tells me and everyone else to hate my body. I need people with privilege to be as angry about the fact they're asked to hate my body as I am.
I need people with privilege to stop giving me permission to accept myself, and start giving themselves permission to accept me. Really accept me.
[Related Reading: Proposed.]
And Now This
[Content Note: Sexual assault.]
So far this month: An Air Force sexual assault prevention chief was charged with a sexual assault; an Air Force brochure on sexual assault was found to engage in victim-blaming and advise potential victims to submit to attackers; the Air Force's top commander blamed "the hookup mentality" for the US military's pervasive rape problem; Fort Hood's sexual assault prevention chief was relieved of his duties pending an investigation for "abusive sexual contact, pandering, assault and maltreatment of subordinates"; the head of Fort Campbell's sexual assault response program was arrested after violating an order of protection; and a staff adviser "responsible for the health, welfare and discipline" of a company of 125 cadets at West Point allegedly videotaped female cadets in the shower without their consent.
And now there is a report that an investigation has been launched at the Naval Academy after allegations that three football players sexually assaulted a female student.
The players were not named, nor was it revealed when the investigation started.Ha ha of course. We definitely wouldn't want to compromise the excellent military justice process that's been so terrific at addressing the military's endemic sexual assault problem!
"Naval Academy leadership is monitoring the progress of this investigation and evaluating the appropriate options for adjudication," Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. John Schofield said. "It is completely inappropriate to make any other public comment on this investigation or any ongoing investigation as we risk compromising the military justice process."
Speaking of which: Yesterday, the AP published the story of former Marine Stacey Thompson, who was a 19-year-old lance corporal when "her sergeant laced her drinks with drugs, raped her in his barracks, and then dumped her onto a street outside a nightclub at 4 a.m." When Stacy reported the incident:
She said she discovered her perpetrator was allowed to leave the Marine Corps and she found herself, instead, at the center of a separate investigation for drug use stemming from that night. Six months later, she was kicked out with an other-than-honorable discharge — one step below honorable discharge — which means she lost her benefits.Contrary to the Naval Academy's contention, silence around sexual assault is not actually conducive to rape prevention. Silence abets rapists. And leaving the military in its institutional silence to handle sexual assault cases has resulted in an estimated 26,000 sexual assaults of servicemembers last year, only 3,374 of which were reported, and only 238 of which resulted in convictions.
...The investigator called her a liar, and military authorities checked her hands for needle pricks after accusing her of using drugs. She said she never used drugs. She was reassigned to another unit, removed from her job and told to report to an office, where she had nothing to do for months.
Then she was kicked out. She continues to suffer from her other-than-honorable discharge, which stripped her of her benefits and she believes has led to her missing out on Defense Department jobs.
"I felt the Marine Corps re-victimized me again after getting raped," said [Stacy].
More silence is not the answer.
In other news, the Pentagon has launched an online chat room for survivors of sexual assault.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Doctor_Tinycat: "What is the latest hobby/interest you've picked up?"
FYI
[Previous FYI: Rick Astley; Eddie Murphy; The Eurythmics; Eddie Rabbit; Sinéad O'Connor; Was (Not Was); Bon Jovi; Kenny Rogers; Bobby McFerrin; Starship; Dead or Alive; Right Said Fred; Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians; Salt n Pepa; Nelson; The Cure; The Soup Dragons; Europe/BushCo; Elton John; Eddie Money; Human League; Glenn Frey; Van Halen; Alanis Morissette; Depeche Mode; The Beatles; The Proclaimers; Bruce Springsteen; Meat Loaf; Cyndi Lauper. Hint: They're better if you click 'em!]
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Gender essentialism.]
"I'm so used to liberals telling conservatives that they're anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology—when you look at the natural world—the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it's not antithesis, or it's not competing, it's a complementary role."—Fox News Contributor and Tenured Professor of Gender Geniusology at Soundslegit University Erick Erickson, on the Pew Research report which found that women are the sole breadwinners in 40% of US households with children.
[See also.]
