"I think Americans are deeply frustrated that Washington is broken."—Republican Senator Ted Cruz, on The Tonight Show Friday night.
LOLOLOL FOREVER. Yes, Senator Cruz, a lot of Americans ARE deeply frustrated that Washington is broken—and many of us are even VERY AWARE of the personal interest you have taken in BREAKING IT.
[Content Note: Hostility to agency; reproductive coercion; loss of wanted pregnancies; anti-choice harassment; disablism.]
Via Syreeta, New York Magazine's current cover story features 26 women telling their stories about having abortions. It is a powerful read, making quite plain that there is no one abortion story, no one type of woman who chooses abortion. The collection of their stories also lays bare the incredible roadblocks that state legislatures have imposed to limit access to abortion—and underlines that such disincentives do not work. They do not deter abortion-seeking people; they merely cause unnecessary harm.
[Content Note: Sexism; heterocentrism.]
Actual Headline: More men tackling turkey at Thanksgiving.
Actual Lede: "Brining, deep-frying, slow cooking: This Thanksgiving, a growing number of men will be doing more than gobbling turkey — they'll be cooking it, and they're not afraid to experiment. And if the results skew more mad-scientist than Martha Stewart, the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line will be there to help them."
Here's some more of this delightful article about how women should immediately start baking ALL THE COOKIES for men in time for Thanksgiving:
An increase in sharing cooking responsibilities within families and a trend toward culinary experimentation, along with the logistics of getting a bevy of side dishes cooked, has prompted more families to boot the bird out of the oven and into grills or deep-fryers, which are traditionally male-dominated cooking methods.
"A lot of guys will roast or grill the Thanksgiving turkey," said Mike Kempster, chief marketing officer of Weber-Stephen Products. ..."When we hear this in focus groups, guys say, 'Well, it's kind of a way to give back to my family or take some of the workload off my spouse at Thanksgiving,'" Kempster said.
"If you look at what's going on in our society, traditional gender boundaries are becoming really blurry," said [David Obelcz, a marketing manager in Washington state], 45. "I think this is just a logical evolution of what's going on in our society."
Carlos Faxas, [a] 31-year-old e-commerce manager for United Airlines in Illinois, brines and roasts his family's Thanksgiving turkey, and one year he experimented with deep-frying.There is a lot to say about this garbage, and I will let you say ALL OF THE THINGS in comments. I shall simply observe that an article about women who cook (boring old traditional) turkeys for their families would not be likely to include the women's professions as key identifiers. It would be more like, "Sally Smith, a working mother of 2," or "Melissa McEwan, whose unused uterus makes us wonder why she would even bother cooking a turkey."
"I think it's more socially acceptable now and it's sort of impressive," he said of men tackling the turkey.
[Content Note: Violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]
This blogaround brought to you by rain.
Recommended Reading:
Michelle [Content Note: Discussion of eating; food policing] Real Food
Trudy: [CN: Racism; misogyny; violence; abuse] A Black Woman's Life Is Also a Valuable Life to Save
Jennifer: [CN: Bullying; victim-blaming] If Only You Loved Yourself, You Wouldn't Mind Our Bigotry
Fannie: [CN: Homophobia] NOM Makes Another Prediction: Illinois Marriage Edition
Von: NAACP Comes Out in Support of Bipartisan Marijuana Legislation
Sarah: Young Activists Challenge European Governments to Stand Up for Sexual Rights
Robert: Industry Groups Fund Studies to Prove Cheese Doesn't Cause Nightmares
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
1. A couple of people using IE have reported having issues with comments loading. Disqus recommended clearing out your browser's cache and cookies, and the people who were having problems now say comments are loading again. So, if you've been having problems, give that a try.
2. I've heard that some users are being served pop-up ads. I have no idea why that would be the case, as I am not signed up with any service to serve ads. I'm not participating in Google ads nor Disqus ads, nor have I given consent to any company to serve ads at the site. First, I want to apologize to anyone who's been served an ad. Secondly, since I'm not seeing these ads, I'd like to request that anyone who does see one and is able to determine their source to let me know. I'm really struggling to figure out where they are coming from since I'm not seeing them.
Thanks to the Shakers who have been in communication with me about these issues.
by Shaker Esme, Esq. Esme is a recently licensed attorney who currently works as a legal assistant. At night she makes tiny dragons out of clay. She is both fat and an occasional wearer of clothes.
[Content Note: Fat shaming; body policing. There is also thinshaming at the link.]
I personally am no big fan of mannequins. In addition to being disproportionately white in appearance, often being headless, and always, always cis and non-disabled, they're also incredibly impractical for me. The slender form of a mannequin does little to reflect what a garment will look like on my voluptuous body, particularly problematic when one has to shop online to find clothes in one's size, and you're left shouting at the screen because, goddammit Old Navy, you need to at least give me a hint whether that dress can stretch over wide hips or a full bust or large belly if you're going to refuse to carry plus sizes in your brick and mortar stores.
So the idea of larger mannequins does seem like a step in the right direction, in terms of making them more functional for me personally, but it does not even begin to fix their other problems. So I appreciated, at first, this piece in the Guardian about how British retailer Debenhams' new size-16 mannequins aren't really all that great. The author recognizes that, though technically a size 16, the mannequins are not representative of most fat women:
Yes, they have hips and breasts that bear some resemblance to the sort that could once have given birth to and nurtured children. But they're still weirdly super-human. For all their supposedly democratic proportion, they're still flat of stomach and toned of thigh…There's celebrating the full and natural form of a woman's body, and there's fetishing "curvy" in an un-flabby, cellulite-less vacuum.Lovely writing. (Aside from the implication that women's bodies are designed to and universally can bear children, or that there's only one female body type post-birth.) I'm on board. And then...
The way to redress the balance of fashion imagery is not to fight it with an equally unachievable extreme. And it isn't to revel in being average. Because 5ft 3in and 11 stone is not healthy. Any body mass calculator will tell you that it is overweight, with risk of heart trouble. It shouldn't be controversial to point that out.Because GOD FOR-FRIGGING-BID anyone go a whole article about fat women without shaming.
So for Jo Swinson to suggest that these mannequins are a healthy step for women is not only incredibly patronising, it's also wrong. As wrong as it would be for her to come out in favour of size zero.6. Yeah. How dare she, HOW DARE SHE represent larger women and call it a step in the right direction. Doesn't she know she's just patronizing the fatties? She should just tell all fat women who come into the stores that they're not meant to have clothes that fit. If those fat women want to feel good, they should come back when they're whatever size HARRIET WALKER thinks they should be. Not a zero, apparently. Nor 16. Tell me, Harriet Walker, what size do YOU think I should be? Because YOU are the arbiter of what makes me healthy.
[Content Note: Slut-shaming; hostility to consent. Spoilers for the most recent episode of Elementary.]
Here is some stuff in the news today!
[Content Note: Guns; terrorism] Of course: "On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting." And lest anyone thing that calling this terrorism is hyperbole: "[A spokeswoman for MDA] said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of 'inciting a riot' and waited for the gun advocates to leave." When you make someone so fearful they are scared to call police, you are officially a fucking terrorist.
[CN: Guns; disablism] Speaking of Sandy Hook, a police officer suffering PTSD has been threatened with termination: "I'm hoping that the town's going to keep a promise that they made to us. They promised us—all of us, all the police officers—that if we do our job, and something happens, they're going to take care of us. And they're not holding up their word and that's all we want them to do."
Wow: A baby girl was born at the Tacloban airport after her mother swam for her life and clung to a post to survive. It's neat how women are still called "the weaker sex," huh?
Former President Jimmy Carter calls for a moratorium on the death penalty in the US: "My preference would be for the court to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the US constitution." Yes, please.
60 Minutes apologized last night for its Benghazi report. Sort of. "[Lara Logan] said that Dylan Davies, one of the main sources for a two-week-old piece about the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, had misled the program's staff... The apology lasted only 90 seconds and revealed nothing new about why CBS had trusted Mr. Davies, who appeared on the program under the pseudonym Morgan Jones."
[CN: Medical malfeasance] ProPublica has an interesting and infuriating report on "Why Doctors Stay Mum About Mistakes Their Colleagues Make."
[CN: Violence] A new study has found that today's PG-13 movies contain more violence than 1980s' R-rated movies. "In particular, gun violence in PG-13 films has tripled since 1985, the year the PG-13 rating was first introduced. And overall, violence in movies has nearly quadrupled since the 1950s."
LOL: "Conservative U.S. Catholics Feel Left Out of the Pope's Embrace." And I love the caption on the photo even more: "Some American Catholics in the church's conservative wing say Pope Francis has left them feeling abandoned and deeply unsettled." Awwwwww. Welp, welcome to how lots of progressive Catholics have felt forever! The thing I find the most amazing about this is that it's based on little more than a fairly mendacious PR blitz: The new pope hasn't changed any doctrine or made meaningful changes to its application. He just asked people to be a wee bit quieter about some of the more hateful shit. If that alienates you: Whoooooooooops your life.
Zambian First Lady Dr. Christine Kaseba-Sata Back spoke out in favor of LGBT rights, which is genuinely momentous.
And finally: Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill Is Being Turned into a Broadway Musical. Sure—why not?!
Marines stand at attention at Camp Delaram in Afghanistan in 2010. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has removed the military's ban on women serving in combat. [Paula Bronstein/Getty Images. Photo via.]Today is Veterans Day in the United States, in which we honor people who have served in the military. I want to say thank you to the women and men who have honorably served this country, and again observe that, when I write about social justice issues every day, I'm advocating for veterans.
[Content Note: Death; destruction.]
Three days after Super Typhoon Haiyan, or Typhoon Yolanda as it is known in the Philippines, tore across the central Philippines, there are estimates that as many as 10,000 people may have been killed and much of the coastal towns have been completely devastated. Right now, there are a lot of people very desperate for shelter, food, and water.
Here is an image-free open thread for information-sharing and suggestions for teaspooning opportunities. As always, I will recommend donating, if you are able, to Care.org and Doctors Without Borders.
Care.org is already working to deliver emergency aid in the Philippines and will provide "food, water, shelter and other essentials to the survivors of typhoon Haiyan." Go here to donate.
Doctors Without Borders is working to assess all the medical needs in the affected areas and is "sending 200 tons of medical and relief items, which will arrive in Cebu within the next three days." Go here to donate.
Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave news (sans images) and suggestions on how to help in comments.
[Content Note: Class warfare; food insecurity.]
This morning, I noted that there is currently a federal proposal being considered to raise the federal minimum wage to $10/hour. I just read the following in a New York Times article about the cut to food stamps that went into effect at the first of the month:
To poor families trying to stretch a couple hundred dollars into a month's worth of groceries, all the talk about stimulus packages, farm subsidies and congressional politics means little. It is all about daily survival at the grocery store.Emphasis mine.
"We'll be on our last $3 at the end of the month," said Rafaela Rivera, 34, a home health aide who earns $10 an hour.
Ms. Rivera's family of four saw their food stamps reduced by $36, to $420 a month. They pay rent and other expenses using her income and her husband's disability check, and they supplement food stamps with bags of fresh vegetables, chicken and other groceries from a food pantry.
"It's going to be hard," she said. "Our last week is going to be tight tight."
