Not long ago, I mentioned to someone in passing that Iain and I do our own laundry, and I was surprised that they were surprised we each take responsibility for our own clothes. I shouldn't have been surprised by now: It's not the first time that our "you wear it; you wash it" policy has been met with shock. Usually shock that Iain does his own laundry, of course.
We have a pretty equal, time-wise, division of labor at Shakes Manor. Iain does the chores that require any kind of physical activity I can't do (at least not without aggravating my chondritis), like vacuuming or taking out the trash, and I do the chores that are tedious but not taxing, like cleaning the fridge or grooming the cats and dogs. We have found a good balance on pretty much everything along these lines: I scoop the litter; he changes the litter. We go grocery shopping together (because we both enjoy it), then Iain carries in the groceries and I put them away. I do all the cooking; he cleans the kitchen. When we're working on some kind of home improvement project, I generally plan it and source it and figure out how to do it, and then he does the hard labor, with my assistance as requested. We play to our strengths, and we complement each other.
So: What's the division of labor in your household? And please note, I'm not assuming that every household is a two-person home. "I live alone, so I do everything" is an answer I absolutely expect. I also imagine there will be people with kids who help out with chores, and people who have hired help as a necessity or luxury, and people who live in apartments or housing communities with on-site services, etc. Go!
Discussion Thread: Household Division of Labor
Daily Dose of Cute
For the fans of interspecies cuddling: Dudley and Matilda each leaning on opposite sides of a pillow during lazytimes last night.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
"Blurred Lines"
[Content Note: Rape culture; objectification.]
A bunch of folks have emailed or tweeted me to ask what I think of Robin Thicke's new song "Blurred Lines," which is all about how a girl at the club totally wants to have sex with him, even though she hasn't said so, and the video for the song, which includes topless supermodels dancing around Thicke and the song's featured artists, Pharrell and T.I.
Well, I think Robin Thicke is gross, his song is harmful, and his video is objectifying garbage.
In the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and thirteen, there is no fucking excuse for writing a song that essentially just sets to a catchy tune the ancient rape apologia that is "your mouth says no, but your body says yes."
When there are actual rapists using this very line of bullshit to defend having raped an unconscious young woman at a party, it is the worst kind of shameless, contemptible indecency to turn "Talk about getting blasted / I hate these blurred lines / I know you want it, but you're a good girl / The way you grab me, must want to get nasty" into a summer anthem that might have been played at that party.
Thicke defended the execrable video thus:
Thicke told VH1 that it was [director Diane Martel]'s idea to do a "Terry Richardson kind of video." At first he might have been skeptical, but he said, "'Hey, you know, let's go for it.' 'Cause for me, nudity is the least offensive thing in the whole world. Guns, violence, war? That's offensive. A woman's body has been painted and sculpted and talked about since the beginning of man. What I enjoy about the video is that we're not ogling and degrading them, we're laughing and being silly with them."Rules like: Only have sex with someone who has given enthusiastic and explicit consent.
...Thicke has insisted, a bit guilelessly, that by having the women naked, he was pushing the boundaries. "We pretty much wanted to take all the taboos of what you're not supposed to do—bestiality, you know, injecting a girl in her bum with a five-foot syringe—I just wanted to break every rule of things you're not supposed to do and make people realize how silly some of these rules are."
In The News
[Content Note: Rape, rape culture, homophobia, racism]
It's Thursday, Which Is Burger Day:
Exodus International announced it will cease operations. Those involved plan to start a new ministry. I'm not sure that means exactly.
Prior to the above announcement, Exodus International's Alan Chambers issued an apology for the harm the organization caused. I can only describe Chambers' letter as ... strange.
Are you feeling a little drunk? You might be feeling a little drunk.
Yahoo has announced a really terrible idea that basically allows strangers to take someone's old email address.
James Gandolfini suffered a massive heart attack and died while on a trip to Italy. He was 51.
Three midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy have been charged in connection with the serial sexual assault of a female midshipman last year.
Why don't cops believe rape victims? Neurobiology helps explain the problem — and solve it.
Kid Rock has endorsed "the black guy." Obviously. He seems a great guy to have campaigning for you!
Is Shia LaBeouf a traitor or a hero? You decide!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Homophobia; heterocentrism.]
"Who wants to go talking about sexual orientation when they're working? Good grief."—Republican Representative from Texas and well-known asshole Louie Gohmert, in response to being asked by ThinkProgress if he supports ENDA.
THINKPROGRESS: Where do you stand on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act?Um, basically everyone who feels safe doing so? Every single person ever who talks about their husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancée, partner, kids, pregnancy, wedding, anniversary, divorce, date last night, one-night stand, the Christian Mingle dating profile they just set up, the birth control they're currently using, the STD they got from that douchebag, the ex who just friended them on Facebook, why they don't talk to their homophobic parents anymore, the cost of their fertility treatments, the crush they have on Alexander Skarsgard, how excited they are their state legislature just legalized same-sex marriage because now they can marry the person they've been with for 12 years, how they are tired of The Gays shoving their lifestyles in their children's faces, when they first came out, whether the company insurance covers same-sex partners, how it costs so much to cover their spouse and kids on the company insurance; every single person who puts a family photo, or a photo of their partner(s), on their desk; every single person who answers the question "got any plans for the weekend?" or "did you do anything fun this weekend?" with "So-and-so and I are..." because your coworkers know that So-and-so is your partner and you do things together; all of those people are obliquely "talking about sexual orientation when they're working."
GOHMERT: I'm not aware of exactly which one you're talking about
THINKPROGRESS: It would protect LGBT workers from being fired due to their sexual orientation.
GOHMERT: Who wants to go talking about sexual orientation when they're working? Good grief.
(Or are assumed to be, even if, say, bisexuality or asexuality might get elided in casual conversations about partners.)
The reason it's possible to think of that otherwise is because straight privilege is so pervasive that anything about (presumably) heterosexual relationships is construed to be about "life," whereas anything about (presumably) homosexual relationships is construed to be be about "lifestyle."
And because dipshits like Louie Gohmert think that sexual orientation is just about sex.
Star Wars Episode 7: No Fatties!
[Content Note: Thin privilege.]
These are the verified casting details for seven lead characters, for which open casting calls have begun in the UK, for Episode 7 of the Star Wars franchise:
Late-teen female, independent, good sense of humour, fit.Well, apparently, maybe one or two of the dudes don't have to be fit! But hopefully they're fit, just to be safe! We wouldn't want anyone to get any fatties confused with Jabba!
Young twenty-something male, witty and smart, fit but not traditionally good looking.
A late twentysomething male, fit, handsome and confident.
Seventy-something male, with strong opinions and tough demeanour. Also doesn't need to be particularly fit.
A second young female, also late teens, tough, smart and fit.
Forty something male, fit, military type.
Thirtysomething male, intellectual. Apparently doesn't need to be fit.
It's just hilarious to me that they had to specify "fit" over and over, like some casting agent might accidentally fill all the roles with fat people otherwise.
I also love how there is a series of dudes listed with various individualizing features, but when it comes to the second female character, it's "a second young female." TWO YOUNG WOMEN?! How will we recognize this as a Star Wars film with a SECOND woman in it?!
"Also fit." Noted.
One-Third
[Content Note: Violent misogyny.]
A World Health Organization report has found that "more than a third of all women worldwide are victims of physical or sexual violence, posing a global health problem of epidemic proportions. ... The report, co-authored by [Charlotte Watts, a health policy expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine] and Claudia Garcia-Moreno of the WHO, found that almost two-fifths (38 percent) of all women murder victims were murdered by intimate partners, and 42 percent of women who have been victims of physical or sexual violence by a partner have injuries as a result."
These numbers reflect only the violence done to women's bodies. They don't include incidents of emotional abuse, rape and death threats, reproductive coercion, street harassment, sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, intersectional misogyny, or microaggressions.
This is not the work of a "small but vocal group" of aggressive misogynists. This is a pervasive culture of abuse.
Merely not being a perpetrator isn't enough. There's no neutral in a world where more than a third of women are victimized by gendered abuse.
All the fuck in.
America 2.0: NYPD's Muslim Surveillance Program
[Content Note: Islamophobia; harassment; police malfeasance.]
The New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project of Main Street Legal Services, Inc. at CUNY School of Law have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Muslims living in New York City whose civil rights are being routinely violated by "an unconstitutional religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance program."
The landmark lawsuit charges that the NYPD's Muslim Surveillance Program has imposed an unjustified badge of suspicion and stigma on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers. It was filed on behalf of religious and community leaders, mosques and a charitable organization that were all swept up in the NYPD's dragnet surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers. These individuals and organizations seek systemic reforms that will end the NYPD's spying program in which entire communities of New Yorkers have been singled out simply because of their religious beliefs.Emphasis mine. There is no magic number of leads and/or investigations would justify an unconstitutional violation of Muslims' civil rights anyway, but the fact is that the number is ZERO. Even the usual suspects who make the usual indecent arguments about exchanging freedom of one class for the safety of another can't say shit about this pervasive matrix of harassment. There isn't even an argument to be had about the program's effectiveness which neatly obfuscates that efficacy shouldn't trump liberty. There is no foundation, no matter how mendacious, on which justification of this program can stand.
"When a police department turns law-abiding people into suspects because they go to a mosque and not a church or a synagogue, it violates our Constitution's guarantees of equality and religious freedom," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project. "No one questions that the NYPD has a job to do, but spying on innocent New Yorkers because of their religion is a wrong and ineffective way to do it. We are asking the court to end the NYPD's unconstitutional religious discrimination."
...As documented extensively by the NYPD's own records, its Intelligence Division has built a program dedicated to the total suspicionless surveillance of Muslims in the greater New York City area. Officers and informants routinely monitor restaurants, bookstores and mosques and create records of innocent conversations. The Department also sends paid infiltrators into mosques, student associations and beyond to take photos, write down license plate numbers and keep notes on people for no reason other than because they are Muslim. An NYPD official admitted that the mapping activities have not generated a single lead or resulted in even one terrorism investigation.
(Which hasn't stopped Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD from defending it.)
But the fact that it is not effective in preventing terrorism (who could have predicted?) does not mean the program has no effect. It has, of course, greatly impacted the Muslim community who have been targeted by the harassment.
Plaintiff Asad Dandia, a 20 year-old Brooklyn resident and sophomore at Kingsborough Community College, helped found a charitable organization as an expression of his faith. Muslims Giving Back provides food to New York families in need. The small student group was infiltrated by an NYPD informant, who accompanied Dandia to his home for dinner and met his parents, and once even spent the night.Once upon a time, President George W. Bush, to justify military intervention in a predominantly Muslim country, told the nation that radical extremist Muslims "hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. ... These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. ... [B]y abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."
After the NYPD informant revealed himself, Dandia and his group lost their meeting location at a local mosque, donations to the organization have declined, it has had a difficult time attracting new members, and current members worry that another informant may be in their midst. Dandia says he has changed how he speaks and acts for fear that anything he says or does can be taken out of context.
"I am constantly frightened. What if I say the wrong thing?" Dandia asked. "Islam requires giving back to the community that which you have been given by God. I've done nothing wrong and yet I am unable to practice Islam fully because of what the Police Department did to me."
Imam Hamid Hassan Raza, spiritual leader of Brooklyn's Masjid Al-Ansar mosque, has been taping his sermons for years because he is afraid an undercover officer or NYPD spy will misquote him or take a portion of a sermon out of context, subjecting him and his mosque to even more law enforcement scrutiny. After plainclothes officers visited him repeatedly for no reason, he has also stopped mentioning topics that the NYPD might consider controversial, and urges congregants to do the same. Raza has seen a steep decline in mosque attendance as a result of the Muslim Surveillance Program.
"I don't talk to my congregants about current affairs or religious subjects the NYPD may find objectionable because I'm afraid of further police attention. The surveillance program has prevented me from fulfilling my duty as an imam," Raza said. "I cannot believe this has happened in the country that I know and love."
..."NYPD surveillance has affected every facet of American Muslim life in our city," said Ramzi Kassem, supervising attorney at CLEAR and associate professor of law at CUNY. "The program has stifled speech, disrupted communal life and chilled religious practice and it has criminalized a broad segment of American Muslims."
Well. I do have to agree with our former president (mark ALL the calendars!) that being contemptuous of people's freedoms—their freedom of religion, their freedom of speech, their freedom to assemble—that disrupting lives and interfering with people's way of life, that valuing power for the sake of power over pluralism and truth, all sound pretty terrible! Terrorism is definitely the worst!
That's only hyperbole if you've the privilege of not living in terror of the people meant to protect you.
Question of the Day
Originally suggested by Shaker aproustian and re-inspired by Aphra's earlier post: If you could live the life of a fictional character, which would it be?
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; Tina Turner; The Jets; Starland Vocal Band; Kenny Loggins. Hint: They're better if you click 'em!]
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Homophobia; gender essentialism; gender binary.]
"You know, maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, you know, this is what's important. This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call marriage."—Republican Representative from Georgia Phil Gingrey, on the House floor, expressing his continued support for the Defense of Marriage Act.
Everything about this quote is genius, obviously, but I especially like the part where only dad does something "a little bit better" than mom.
Someone please send Rep. Gingrey a memo that not all marriages/families have a mom and a dad. Some of them have one or the other. Some have two moms. Some have two dads. Some have three moms or four dads, and some have parents that are neither moms nor dads. And some have zero, because not all marriages are for babymaking.
This fucking guy.
And his entire fucking party.
FBI Confirms Drones Used for Surveillance in US
But don't worry! It's only a few of them and their use is totes limited! Nothing to see here! MOVE ALONG.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told senators the agency uses drones infrequently for surveillance in the U.S., and only in regards to specific investigations.Ha ha it's cool how they're in "the initial stages" of developing privacy guidelines, but in "the totally already fucking doing it stages" of using drones to spy on USians.
"Our footprint is very small," Mueller said in testimony. "We have very few and have limited use."
Mueller said the FBI was in "the initial stages" of developing privacy guidelines for how the agency balances civil liberty concerns with security threats.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Mueller that she believes drones are the most dangerous threat to the privacy of Americans, particularly the use of drones by private companies.Well, this program just sounds TERRIFIC. No transparency in the development of parameters for drone use, no oversight from Congress, and no accountability because TRUST US. What could possibly go wrong? [Spoiler alert: Everything.]
Mueller sought to assure Feinstein that the FBI's use of drones was "very seldom" and only used in isolated instances.
"It's very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident where you need the capability," said Mueller. "It is very narrowly focused on particularized needs in particularized cases, and that is the principle of privacy limitations we have."
Mueller said he wasn't certain whether the FBI had any official agreements with other agencies — such as the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security — to receive assistance in the agency's use of drones.
"To the extent that it relates to the air space there would be some communication back and forth [between agencies]," Mueller said.
I don't even know what I can possibly say anymore that I haven't already said in this space a thousand times, through the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We are tumbling ass-over-teakettle into a police state, and we're meant not to care; instead, we're meant to trust that the government institutions who weren't willing to have an open debate about these encroachments into our privacy won't abuse their power as they continue to operate in secret. Sure. Sounds legit.
And even if you're the most partisanny partisan who ever partisanned, and can excuse this gross breach of public trust on the basis that you believe this administration wouldn't abuse the immense power afforded a government allowed to use, in accordance with guidelines it self-defines, drones for surveillance of its population, this administration won't be in power forever. Someday, we're again going to have an administration that calls the citizens who disagree with their policies "traitors," and that administration is not going to voluntarily give up the power of using drones to spy on US citizens.
That administration? Is going to double-down.
Hey Nerds! Wanna Write The Dark Crystal Prequel?
If you know who these two puppets creatures are, then you might be kind of excited about this:
From October 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2013, The Jim Henson Company and Grosset & Dunlap of the Penguin Young Readers Group will be accepting writing submissions to find the author for a new novel set in the world of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. This author search is open to all professional and aspiring professional writers.
Tell me I'm not the only one who loved that movie beyond reason as a kid. (Even if I noticed a few flaws when I got older, okay, OKAY.)
So if the sequel isn't happening-- again! -- officially licensed novels sound pretty good to me. Good luck, writer-fans (especially feminist writer-fans)! I can't wait to see the results.
(Hat-tip to my cuz ACB.)
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by vines.
Recommended Reading:
Jess: Serena Blames the Steubenville Rape Victim and Breaks My Heart [Content Note: Rape culture; victim-blaming.]
Note: Serena has apologized, sort of.
Trudy: It's Not Just "Mean" People Who Proliferate Rape Culture [Content Note: Rape culture; racist narratives.]
Transgender Law Center: American Medical Association Supports Accurate Birth Certificats for Transgender People
Sikivu: Race, American Atheists, and "The Movement" [Content Note: Racism.]
BYP: Hadiya Pendleton's Parents Discuss Chicago Gun Violence Crisis [Content Note: Guns.]
Adrienne: The Paul Frank x Native Designers Collaboration is Here! Also: Genesis Amnesia [Content Note: Racism; appropriation.]
Fannie: Reporter Shocked That Women Can Be Vulgar [Content Note: Misogyny.]
Veronica: Review: Nine for IX—espnW's Documentary Series on Women's Sports
Brooke: Katee Sackhoff on Riddick, Getting out of Bed, and Why She's Not Leaving Sci-Fi Flicks Any Time Soon
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
The AMA Declares Obesity a Disease
[Content Note: Fat hatred; eliminationism.]
Yesterday, the American Medical Associated voted to declare obesity a disease, "a move that effectively defines 78 million American adults and 12 million children as having a medical condition requiring treatment."
The nation's leading physicians organization took the vote after debating whether the action would do more to help affected patients get useful treatment or would further stigmatize a condition with many causes and few easy fixes.Emphasis mine.
In the end, members of the AMA's House of Delegates rejected cautionary advice from their own experts and extended the new status to a condition that affects more than one-third of adults and 17% of children in the United States.
This reprehensible decision will make fat people's visits with doctors, which are already frequently fraught with fat-shaming, sizest refusal of treatment, and attributing to fat all manner of life-threatening conditions not solved by weight loss, even more contentious. This reprehensible decision will not improve fat people's healthcare. This reprehensible decision will only entrench fat hatred in the medical community and serve as another disincentive to fat people seeking/needing medical care.
There are not sufficient words to express my rage, my sadness, my fear, my contempt.
I am not a problem to be solved. My body is not a disease to be cured. I cannot overcome my very physiology and make my body do something that it is simply unable to do. The only "cure" for my "disease" is to be a person I am not and cannot be.
This is eliminationist garbage. Being perpetrated by the American Medical Association.
* * *
Marilyn Wann has started a petition asking the AMA to reverse their decision. Go here to sign it.See also:
Living ~400lbs: Why I Think Declaring Obesity a Disease Is Harmful.
Kath: I Am Not a Disease.
Ragen: AMA Says Obesity Is a Disease.
Daily Dose of Cute
Normally when I open the door in the morning to let the dogs back in for breakfast after their morning constitutional, they are waiting at the door. This morning, there was Important Squirrel Business:
The camera looks out at the backyard from where I'm standing in the doorway of the garage. First Zelly is seen running through the garden toward a big tree, then Dudley quickly follows behind her. Zelly looks up at the tree's branches, which are like 15 feet off the ground. "Puppies, c'mere!" I say. Dudley comes galloping toward me along the path. He's usually the one who never listens, and Zelly's usually the one who is, so I know there's something afoot, lol. Dudley realizes Zelly isn't behind him and turns around, looking for her. Once she comes trotting toward us, he runs in the house. But Zelly stops and turns and looks back at the tree. "What are you doin'?" I ask her. She takes a step back toward the tree and stands at attention. "You're never gonna get that squirrel," I tell her. She takes another step forward and lifts a paw. "Never," I say. She turns and walks toward me, but can't resist turning back around at the door for one last look. I make kissy noises. "Come on." She ignores me. "Zelly." She turns and comes into the house, thwarted!Pix from the garden this morning:
Zelda
Dudley
Cooper. Susan Cooper.
Paul Feig, the creator of Freaks & Geeks, director of Bridesmaids (as well as the upcoming Melissa McCarthy-Sandra Bullock vehicle The Heat, and author of the hilarious memoir Kick Me, is reportedly developing "a female spy movie titled "Susan Cooper" that he hopes will become a franchise for 20th Century Fox."
"Bridesmaids" director Feig is currently searching for a leading lady to star in "Susan Cooper," which will be a realistic comedy about a female James Bond, rather than a parody along the lines of "Get Smart" or "Johnny English." ...Feig wrote the script and will produce the movie through his Feigco Entertainment banner,Well, that sounds vaguely promising.
..."Susan Cooper" was inspired by the reintroduction of James Bond in 2006's "Casino Royale," which Feig recently told Variety ranks among his favorite movies.
Feig has publicly lamented the lack of female-driven projects in Hollywood, particularly after the surprise success of Universal's hit comedy "Bridesmaids," which grossed $288 million worldwide.
The vast majority of female characters in Feig's projects are white, with Maya Rudolph in Bridesmaids being a notable exception, so I hope Feig will consider women of color for the role of Susan Cooper. I may have to start a campaign for Rosario Dawson right now.
Who would you like to see play Susan Cooper? FANTASY CASTING GO!
