Shakesville

Post-Feminist World

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Less than three years after she was hired as the New York Times' first ever female executive editor, Jill Abramson has been fired. At the New Yorker, Ken Auletta shares what he uncovered about her termination:

Several weeks ago, I'm told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. "She confronted the top brass," one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management's narrative that she was "pushy," a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect.

"Pushy." So she was fired for being an uppity bitch, basically.

Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson's total compensation as executive editor "was directly comparable to Bill Keller's"—though it was not actually the same. I was also told by another friend of Abramson's that the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained. But, to women at an institution that was once sued by its female employees for discriminatory practices, the question brings up ugly memories. Whether Abramson was right or wrong, both sides were left unhappy. A third associate told me, "She found out that a former deputy managing editor"—a man—"made more money than she did" while she was managing editor. "She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off."

...The reason Sulzberger originally hesitated to appoint Abramson as executive editor was a worry about her sometimes brusque manner. As I wrote in my Profile of Abramson, others in the newsroom, including some women, had the same concern.

...Even though she thought she was politely asking about the pay discrepancy and about the role of the business side, and that she had a green light from management to hire a deputy to Baquet, the decision to terminate her was made.

She thought she was being polite, but she was brusque. EVEN WOMEN THOUGHT SO! Good riddance to bitchy rubbish!

This is something that is happening at the newspaper of record in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fucking fourteen.

Chipping Away at Roe

[Content Note: War on agency.]

In Louisiana (via Kristin):

Legislation that will further limit access to abortion in Louisiana and would likely close three of the state's five abortion clinics overwhelmingly passed the state Senate with a vote of 34-3 Wednesday.

Due to the addition of technical amendments, the bill will head back the state House of Representatives for another vote before going to the governor's desk. The lower chamber voted overwhelmingly to pass the legislation -- which is more or less the same now -- the last time they saw it. So the bill is expected to face little to no opposition as it crosses the finish line in the Legislature.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has backed the proposed abortion restrictions since the beginning of this year's legislative session in Louisiana. It is expected that he will sign the measure quickly into law.

...Sponsored by Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe, the legislation would require physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where the procedures take place. It also imposes the same restrictions -- such as a requirement for a 24-hour waiting period -- on abortion-inducing medication as apply to surgical abortions.

And in Missouri:

Missouri's Republican-controlled Legislature gave final approval Wednesday to legislation requiring a woman to wait three days after first seeing a doctor before having an abortion. Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has not said whether he will sign or veto it.

The measure would triple Missouri's current 24-hour waiting period and put the state in line with Utah and South Dakota as the only states to mandate a 72-hour time frame. Missouri currently has only one clinic performing elective abortions.

...Under both current law and the new legislation, Missouri's abortion waiting period doesn't apply in instances deemed by a doctor to be a medical emergency. But women do have to wait in cases of rape and incest.

Supporters argue that women need more time to digest information received by a doctor. In addition to the waiting period, Missouri's current abortion law requires doctors to provide women with a variety of written information about the procedure, and they must be given the opportunity to hear the fetus' heartbeat on an ultrasound.

I don't even know what to say anymore. I am angry. I am sad. I am contemptuous. I am overwhelmed with a cacophony of emotion at the prospect of women and others who need abortions being denied access to this legal medical procedure, because of people with no legitimate claim to our bodies and no non-religious justification and no willingness to understand the basic truths about abortion and the people who seek them.

I am angry that our ostensibly pro-choice president will not address, firmly and routinely and without apology, this all-out assault on our autonomy and agency.

I am angry how few men are engaged in this fight.

I am angry that this campaign of violence against women and others is allowed to go unchecked. I am angry that fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them. I am angry that women are not trusted to make the best decisions for our lives and our bodies. I am angry that I am just supposed to accept as reasonable men (and women) who sit in a government building making decisions about my body without my consent, though it is a crime for a person to use physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.

I am angry that my body is not mine, that my mind is not mine. That legislators can claim to know what is best for my body and can claim to know my mind better than I do. That is dehumanizing, infantilizing, a theft of my dignity.

I am angry that I feel so helpless to stop the onslaught.

Open Thread

image of a mama emu with a baby emu and unhatched blue emu eggs

Hosted by emus.

Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker themiddlevoice: "What is the last really cool thing you learned?"

Here We Go

[Content Note: Climate change.]

Welp:

The water use that helped produce California's agricultural bounty may be increasing the chances of earthquakes along the San Andreas fault, researchers said on Wednesday.

A new study, published in Nature on Wednesday, said groundwater depletion in California's Central Valley – the heart of its agricultural industry – is putting additional pressures on the fault, and promoting the chances of an earthquake.

...The paper is among the first to attribute a human component to earthquakes along the San Andreas fault. Other researchers have established a connection between small earthquakes in Ohio and underground disposal of waste water from fracking.

...Scientists have known for years that the floor of the valley has been dropping as the groundwater is pumped out for irrigation. An estimated 160 km3 of ground water in the Central Valley has been lost through pumping, irrigation and evaporation over the past 150 years.

The rate of that depletion is accelerating, because of expanding population, increased demands for agriculture and recurring drought – which means that the groundwater can not be readily replaced.

..."The human effect is becoming the dominant effect," said Paul Lundgren of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The more you deplete that groundwater, the more you keep promoting that fault towards failure."

And the more we have accelerated climate change, the more we have been obliged to accelerate the depletion of the groundwater.

Whoops.

Discussion Thread: Best Current TV Shows

We are definitely in another golden age of TV, and there are SO MANY good television shows right now. And not just television shows, but shows that are streaming, maybe to a TV and maybe not, via Netflix and Hulu and Amazon etc.

So I thought it might be fun to have a thread where we recommend the best current shows we're watching. So many of the shows I love right now came via recommendations, and I'm constantly getting new recs. I have been told to watch Orphan Black at least thirty-seven biebillion times by now! I need to get on that. Obviously.

Anyway! So here's a rec thread, and, if possible, try to explain why you like the show without too many spoilers for folks who might want to watch it.

And remember that we all draw our lines about what's too problematic in different places, so no judgment of what other people are watching and enjoying. Although if you want to make note of potentially triggering content which hasn't been mentioned in regard to a recommended show, that's okay. It's eminently possible to do that without embedded judgment for people who like it despite that content.

Have at it!

Nooz

Every single thing about this is making me laugh. The picture, the way it's being covered, the fact that it's considered news at all. All of it is amazing.

He Seems Nice

[Content Note: Rape culture.]

British Labour MP Austin Mitchell is unhappy about Pfizer's proposed takeover of AstraZeneca, and unhappy about Prime Minister David Cameron's refusal to intervene in the takeover, so he tweeted this shit: "Cameron dare not stop Pfizer because he dare not offend the US in any way. Roll up rapists."

Unsurprisingly, lots of people were unhappy about that, but Mitchell says the tweet was "too trivial to apologise for," dismissed the criticism as a "storm in a teacup," and then went on a tear about political correctness, because of course he did.

"There is a kind of aura of political correctness creeping over everything, and therefore anybody who uses colourful language is going to have to keep their mouth shut."

He then clamped his hand over his mouth to demonstrate the point to the BBC News Channel audience.

Well, that's pretty good, Mr. Mitchell, but don't you have anything you can tell us about the dictionary's definition of rape?

"You've got to bear in mind that one of the definitions of rape in the Oxford English Dictionary is to plunder and that I fear is what is going to happen to AstraZeneca at the hands of Pfizer," he said.

"People talk about the rape of the countryside and the rape of the rainforest, but it doesn't attract the tonne of abuse that has landed on my head."

PERFECT. Dictionary definitions PLUS the old "everyone diminishes rape by its misuse, so what's the big deal?" chestnut! You're really on a roll now, Mr. Mitchell, but does your bag of tricks include some belligerence about how you were just speaking truth to power?

He defended his comments as "the truth", but he said he did apologise to his party leadership for "the trouble" he had caused.

..."I do apologise for inconveniencing Ed Miliband and our chief whip because of all the trouble and all the reaction I've caused, but what I said was essentially the truth."

BINGO! I'VE GOT BINGO! I hope I win something GOOD this time, instead of the usual sad bag of deflated clown balloons I usually get.

The cherry atop this shit sundae is Labour pretending that Mitchell's apology for inconveniencing them is a meaningful apology:

A Labour spokesperson said: "The chief whip has made clear to Austin Mitchell this tweet was unacceptable. He has now apologised for what was an obvious error of judgement."

And lo did the mirthless laughter reverberate throughout the multiverse.

The Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by morning glories.

Recommended Reading:

Prison Culture: [Content Note: Misogynoir; violence] No Selves to Defend: Marissa Alexander & A Legacy of Criminalizing Women of Color for Self-Defense

Sofia & Sharona: [CN: Christian Supremacy; dominionism; homophobia; misogyny; racism] How Fundamentalist Christians Are Infiltrating State and Federal Government

Aoife: [CN: Transphobia; self-harm] On Mothers' Day: "I am not dead. I am here, typing this."

Soya: [CN: Racism] Deeper Than Words: Donald Sterling's Racism and the Model Minority Myth

Golda: [CN: Fat hatred] Monica & Me: Fat Girls of the '90′s

Indian Homemaker: [CN: Sexual violence; rape apologia] Delhi Court Rules That "Forced Intercourse in Marriage" Is Not Rape

BYP: [CN: Violence; guns; police brutality] 377 Rounds Fired into Vehicle with Unarmed Men in Florida by Cops

Jamilah: Shonda Rhimes Will Own ABC on Thursday Nights

Andy: [CN: Homophobia] Dallas Morning Show Host Storms off the Air After Objecting to Michael Sam Kiss

Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Sophie the Torbie Cat sitting facing the window

Sophs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

Trigger Warnings, Again Again

[Content Note: Discussion of trigger warnings and censorship.]

There has been a flurry of articles the past few months on trigger warnings, in many of which the feminist authors expressed concern about the use of trigger warnings and their "chilling" effect on speech.

The latest entry is Meghan Murphy's "A slow slide into censorship," which opens by noting that trigger warnings were, "until recently...relegated to certain corners of the feminist blogosphere."

By paragraph two, we've already arrived at the dire and increasingly familiar prediction that "these warnings can veer into overuse in an attempt to protect individuals from any and every imagined offence."

There's honestly nothing I can say to this that I haven't already said before, multiple times.

I Write Letters

On Triggers, Continued

I Get Letters

Triggered

Triggered, Continued

On Trigger Warnings, Once More

Etc.

I will simply observe, again, that it is not my experience that using trigger warnings, or content notes, leads to censorship. To the absolute contrary, I feel much more able to write about and discuss difficult subjects knowing that readers who may be triggered by the content have some means by which to assess their own safety of engagement.

[H/T to Jessica Luther.]

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]

Cocteau Twins: "Lorelei"

In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Disaster; death; injury] In what is likely Turkey's worst ever industrial disaster, a fire at a coal mine in Soma has killed at least 238 workers, and 120 more are trapped or missing. "The disaster highlighted Turkey's poor record on worker safety and drew renewed opposition calls for an inquiry into a drop in safety standards at previously state-run mines. The International Labor Organization ranked the EU candidate nation third worst in the world for worker deaths in 2012." There had apparently been repeated warnings about the safety of the mine. Violent protests are now erupting in Soma, criticizing the government's inaction.

[CN: Abduction; terrorism; misogyny; abuse] In Nigeria, the government "has signalled it is ready to negotiate with the Islamist militants who are holding more than 200 schoolgirls captive... In Abuja, the special duties minister, Taminu Turaki, said the government was open to talks with Boko Haram, the Islamist group that abducted the girls a month ago from their school in Chibok, in the north-east of the country. ...The Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, said the girls could be released in exchange for jailed militants. 'I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured,' he said in the video." Fuck.

[CN: Transphobia] The Pentagon is considering transferring Pfc. Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so she can have access to the healthcare she needs as a trans woman. That would be a very good thing, provided the civilian prison is capable of keeping Manning safe.

LOL: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was unable to name a single source when asked on Tuesday to name the information he is reading that has led him to recently further cement himself as a denier of human-caused climate change." Whoooooooooops!

This is a very interesting review of riding in Google's driverless car. I am very pro-driverless car, even though I love driving. Safety first!

[CN: Racism; racist slurs] Here is the gross racist history of the song that, if you live in the US, you might associate with the ice cream truck. !!!

And finally! Here are three stories about dogs being awesome: Jack saves his guardian from a house fire and Maverick finds a missing boy and Cooper protects a missing toddler. GOOD DOGS!

More Louie & Fat Girls

[Content Note: Misogynist fat hatred; appropriation.]

Yesterday, after I wrote about the widely-discussed scene in the latest episode of Louie about fat (straight) women and dating, I've had a number of conversations on Twitter and elsewhere about the scene.

And one of the ideas that keeps coming up over and over is that Louis CK "started a conversation" about fat women, or is "listening" to fat women.

No. Nope. No.

And even fat women who loved the scene should be deeply concerned about this framing.

If you say with a straight face that Louis CK "started the conversation" about fat women, it just means you've never listened to fat women.

And if you place a lot of value on what Louis CK had to say about fat women, you need to ask why you didn't value it when fat women said it.

Why do these words and these ideas suddenly matter to you only now, once they have been written by a man?

If that makes you uncomfortable, it should. IT SHOULD.

And here's the thing about listening: Listening isn't co-opting fat women's lived experiences. Listening isn't appropriating conversations that fat women have been having, publicly, for years. Listening isn't simultaneously exploiting our voices and silencing them.

One of the most absurd and insulting and flatly wrong things I've read is that Louis CK is giving fat women a voice. FUCK THAT. I had a voice before Louis CK wrote some words about (some) men's feelings about fat women and put them in a fat woman's mouth on his TV show. He didn't give me a voice.

That is the reprehensible assertion of people who couldn't be bothered to listen when it was fat women speaking for ourselves.

Another One Bites the Dust

And another one gone, and another one gone, another one bites the dust:

A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that Idaho's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Magistrate Judge Candy Dale wrote in the decision that Idaho's laws banning same-sex marriage unconstitutionally deny gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry.

Dale said marriage works a fundamental change on the lives of all who experience it, and it holds immense personal and spiritual significance.

Idaho's laws wrongly stigmatize gay and lesbian couples and relegate their families to second-class status without sufficient reason, she said.

Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter already has said he intends to appeal the case.

And then he made some bullshit statement about freedom blah blah fart, which I will not be giving any time in this space, because it is bigoted rubbish.

Congratulations, Idaho believers in equality! Woot!

I really love Judge Dale's clever argument here: Marriage holds immense personal and spiritual significance and there's not sufficient reason to deny it to some people. That really leaves the bigots in a quandary, dunnit? Since their argument is that marriage holds immense personal and spiritual significance which is why it's necessary to deny it to some people.

Whoooooooooops!

Dale's basically made it so they have to concede her argument to disagree with her decision. LOL. Awesome.

Open Thread

image of an earthenware pot

Hosted by an earthenware pot.

Question of the Day

What's your favorite meal?

You can interpret this any way you like: The meal you like to eat most frequently; the meal you would like to eat most frequently; the best meal you ever had; an abstract idea of a meal, like "A meal in which everything I'm eating is the first time I've tried it"; any meal cooked by your favorite person or chef, etc.

Sure

Pope Francis says he'd totes baptize aliens if they landed on Earth:

Pope Francis would absolutely baptize an alien from Mars, if one showed up at the Vatican and asked for it. During his weekly homily on Monday, Franics said that aliens — which he imagines could be "Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them" — should be baptized just like anyone else who asks for it, because it's not up to any human to decide who should receive the Holy Spirit. In other words: if God prompts some Martians to come to Earth, find the Pope, and say "we want in on this Catholicism thing," the pope would probably say "OK. cool." But probably in Latin.

So, just for the record, the pope can totes imagine baptizing beings from another world, of whose existence there is no evidence, but cannot imagine why it might be a good idea to marry two people of the same sex or give women control over our reproduction. Neat!

This Is 40 (Take That, Judd Apatow!)

[Content Note: Illustration of a beetle.]

I've had some requests to share pictures of my birthday celebration, and that is not something I'm really inclined to do, because some things are just too precious to me to share. But I will say this: I had a brilliant weekend, with so many amazing people, and I honestly couldn't have asked for a better welcome into a new decade. I am, to quote Ben Folds, the luckiest.

And I will happily (and with Deeky's permission) share some pics of Deeks and me fucking around over the weekend!

Deeks arrived on Thursday morning, and, after we ate the fuck out of some tacos and two metric tons of guacamole, it was off to the tattoo parlor where Lui gave Deeks his first ever tattoo!

image of Deeky getting tattooed on his upper right arm by Lui

Piece of cake!
His piece—a satyr playing a pan flute, based on an existing drawing but customized and perfected by Lui—took about an hour and a half.

image of Deeky showing off his new tattoo

image of Deeky showing off his new tattoo

In solidarity, I decided to get a small piece on my foot by Jake, Lui's former apprentice and current business partner as well as Kenny Blogginz's best friend:

Oh, Indiana

[Content Note: Unemployment; homophobia.]

On her way to visit Shakes Manor this weekend, Eastsidekate snapped this picture (which I am sharing with her permission) of a billboard, one of many along the Indiana-Illinois border, which is part of a campaign to try to bring business to Indiana:

image of a billboard reading: 'STILLINNOYED? No wonder. Indiana: A state that works.'

I have written many times about the way the Indiana state government, which is seated in the central part of the state, is hostile to and exploitative of Northwest Indiana, where I live, known throughout the rest of the state as "The Region." Like, using us as an ATM and privatizing the roads we use to get to Illinois, where the jobs are.

This latest campaign is a perfect example of the fuckery wrought by our state government. Because, first of all:

The latest marketing campaign to try to persuade Illinois businesses to jump across the Indiana line contrasts the business climates of the neighboring states. A major focus will be that Illinois' corporate income tax rate is 9.5 percent, while a newly signed law will lower Indiana's corporate tax to 4.9 percent in 2021.

...A promise of lower tax bills has helped persuade a string of businesses, including AM Manufacturing Co., Tec Air and Carl Buddig, to move operations to Northwest Indiana from south Cook County in recent years.

Still, Illinois has far outpaced Indiana in economic development, pulling in more than three times as many significant business investments last year, according to Site Selection Magazine data.

Last year, Illinois ranked third nationally by attracting 383 projects that involved more than $1 million in investment, at least 50 jobs, or 20,000 square feet, according to the trade publication. Indiana had 103 such projects, which was at least 60 fewer than all of its neighboring states and second-to-last per capita in the Midwest.

Which is partly because businesses are reluctant to do business in states that are actively seeking to codify discrimination against potential employees, and, instead of making their state friendly for workplace diversity, the state legislature continues to lower corporate taxes while continually cutting education funding. Because nothing attracts business like a poorly educated workforce!

So, the campaign is garbage because Indiana politics are garbage. But it's also garbage because many of the residents of Northwest Indiana travel to Illinois every day for work because that's where the jobs are!

It would be laughable for the irony, except for the fact that our state government, who refuses to invest in The Region in a way that will revitalize the economy after the collapse of the steel industry, is posting belligerent signs that stand to piss off Illinois employers and coworkers.

Which doesn't affect anyone in Indianapolis.