Hosted by Lego Hermione.
This week's Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter H.
Open Thread
Hosted by Lego Hermione.
This week's Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter H.
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!
I've got some personal stuff to do this afternoon, so we're wrapping up a little early. See you on Monday!
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley Q. McEwan: Large and in charge.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by ukeleles.
Recommended Reading:
Amy: [Content Note: Misogyny; violence; rape culture; splaining] Elliot Rodger, Louis C.K., and Why Men Need to Stop Explaining Misogyny to Me
Digby: [CN: Surveillance] RIP Fourth Amendment
Andy: [CN: Transphobia] Transgender Man Files Suit Against NYC After Being Barred from Locker Room at Public Pool
mochalisaccino: [CN: Racism; appropriation] Pharrell's War Bonnet and Anti-Black NDN Country
Golda: [CN: Discussion of body image issues] Confession: I Still Have Occasional Body Image Issues That Are Exacerbated by Fatshion Blogs
Jessica: LeVar Burton: Criticism of Reading Rainbow Is "Bullshit"
Jill: My Little Pony's Lauren Faust to Helm Medusa Comedy for Sony Pictures Animation
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Bob Dylan: "Mr. Tambourine Man"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by folk singers.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Guns; shooting; death] Another man has gone on a shooting spree in Seattle at Seattle Pacific University, leaving four people injured and one dead. "A lone gunman armed with a shotgun opened fire Thursday in a building at Seattle Pacific University, wounding multiple people before a student subdued him with pepper spray as he tried to reload, police said. The 26-year-old gunman, Aaron Ybarra, was obsessed with the Columbine High School shootings and had even traveled to the Colorado site where two student gunmen killed 15 and injured another 21 fellow students in April 1999, police sources told KIRO 7."
[CN: Guns; shooting; death] And in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, Justin Bourque, 24, has been arrested after going on a shooting spree in which three RCMP officers were killed and two others were wounded.
I don't even know what to say anymore. My condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the victims, and I hope the survivors of these incidents have the support and resources that they need.
[CN: Carcerality; armed robbery] In a case reminiscent of that of Cornealious Michael Anderson's, Colorado man Rene Lima-Marin was set free via a court error, after serving 10 years of what was erroneously marked as a 16-year sentence for armed robbery (with an unloaded gun, in which no one was hurt), and has now been returned to prison to finish a 98-year-sentence. Lima-Martin had a perfect record while serving time, and, in the intervening years, has committed no crime, has gotten married and had kids, and lived an upstanding life. His case "was aggressively prosecuted under a program call COP (chronic offender program) that's no longer in use." Get this guy outta there. For fuck's sake.
[CN: Misogyny] OMG: The Utah high school who altered female students' yearbook photos to make them "more modest" allowed male students to appear bare-chested and revealing their underpants in a section headlined: "Wasatch Stud Life: Studs doin' what studs do best!" Because of course they did.
[CN: Surveillance] Welp: Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance. Neat!
[CN: Misogyny; rape culture] It continues to be a real mystery why Republicans aren't connecting with a majority of female voters: Three Michigan state Republican lawmakers, all of whom "voted to approve a controversial provision dubbed 'rape insurance' that bars private insurers from covering almost all abortions," posed for a photo in which they're holding women's fashion magazines, captioned, "Don't say we don't understand women."
[CN: Misogyny; victim-blaming; slut-shaming; reproductive coercion; choice policing] This lady has some great advice for young women on how to find a husband. And by "great advice," I mean terrible, terrible advice. Deeply contemptuous advice. Horrendous advice.
[VIDEO] This baby goat IS NOT wimpy, and don't even try to tell hir that zie is!
Fat Fashion
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
Working yesterday afternoon. Blouse by ModCloth.
Most of the time, I work wearing jeans and a tank top and my specs, but every once in awhile, I'll put on a favorite top or skirt and dress it up a bit when I need a boost of enthusiasm.
(And I will wear contacts when I have a mean zit on the side of my nose right where my specs tend to lie, lol.)
I'm not super motivated by what I wear, but sometimes a change in routine just feels good. And necessary. One of the best things about working at home is that you don't have to care about what you wear. And one of the worst things about working at home is that you don't have to care about what you wear. Heh.
ModCloth is one of my favorite places for happy prints. They can be really hit-and-miss, fit-wise, though. If you ever order from ModCloth, I highly recommend checking the reviews to see if people are saying something runs small or large.
One of the things I love the most about ModCloth is that users posts pictures of themselves in the reviews. Whenever I see a fat lady of my size post a picture, I am overjoyed to have her help in figuring out if it's something that will work for me.
I do wish ModCloth used more fat models for that reason.
Anyway. As always, this is a general thread for fat fashion, but, if you need a topic: Do you get a boost from wearing something out of the ordinary? If so, what item(s) make you feel good when you're in a rut?
Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.
LOL
Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul wants to run for president in 2016, but also wants to run for reelection the the US Senate in case (ha ha) he doesn't win the presidency. But a Kentucky law "preventing candidates from having their names appear more than once on the ballot" would make that difficult if not impossible. So now Rand Paul suddenly cares a whole lot about federal law:
Joe Biden was re-elected to the Senate in 2008 in Delaware and resigned to assume the vice presidency he won in the same election. Former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman ran for re-election in 2000 while teaming with Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore as his running mate. U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan did the same thing while running as Republican Mitt Romney's running mate in the 2012 presidential election."Clarify" it. Ha ha.
Paul, the son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, said those examples only strengthen his position.
"Can you really have equal application of federal law if someone like Paul Ryan or Joe Lieberman can run for two offices but in Kentucky you would be disallowed?" Paul said. "It seems like it might not be equal application of the law to do that. But that means involving a court, and I don't think we've made a decision on that. I think the easier way is to clarify the law."
Kentucky lawmakers considered legislation this year that would have relieved Paul from the potential quandary. The GOP-led state Senate passed a bill that would have revised the ballot law so as not to apply to candidates running for president or vice president. The measure died in the Democratic-run House.So much for states' rights, when it comes to Rand Paul getting what the fuck he wants.
Paul's camp maintains that states don't have authority to restrict ballot access for federal elections. A Republican with considerable tea party support, Paul maintains that federal law governs federal elections.
Yeesh.
Would that he and his cohorts showed so much passion for federal governance of elections when it came to protecting voting rights.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker bekitty: "What is the first book you remember reading as a child?"
Shakers Are So Dreamy
Part five in a hilarious ongoing series.
Two nights ago, I had a dream that Amy McCarthy and I had gotten matching mohawks. Because obviously.
(I asked if there was a nonappropriative name for that hairstyle, and Amy suggested MISANDRY HELMETS. A+.)
We looked awesome. They were blue and purple.
Anyway!
Naturally, we shall use this as the jumping-off point for another thread about how frequently I and the other contributors/mods and other Shakers appear in each other's dreams. Shakes-related dreams come up in comments fairly regularly, and one of the most common subjects among reader emails is telling me that they dreamed about me and/or another contributor. (And, no, the vast majority of these are not the least bit creepy.)
So: Fess up. Have I appeared in your dream as your first-grade teacher? Has a fellow Shaker met you for drinks on the moon in your sleep? Has Deeky come to you in the night as a gummi-worm wielding organ grinder? Did I just invent the quadruple entendre with that last sentence...?
Tell the tales of your Shakesville Dreams here.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Reproductive policing; disablist language; heterocentrism; invisibilizing infertility.]
When I see married people who don't have kids, I wonder what's wrong. Really. Because something is. Of course it is. I mean, if you aren't going to have children, why bother with the rest? Why bother with the $30,000 bash and the white crinoline dress? And you can say that about everything. What do you think we are doing here, biding our time on this planet with our misspent years, justifying our days with our ridiculous schemes of leisure? Is anyone's life so meaningful? Really? Really, really, really? Is yours?—Elizabeth Wurtzel, agreeing with Pope Francis, in Time magazine.
The existential nightmare of the everyday is way more than even those of us with enormous egos who love what we do can possibly cope with. We are on this earth to keep on keeping on. We are here to reproduce. We are here to leave something behind that is more meaningful than a tech startup or a masterpiece of literature. Everybody knows this. The biggest idiot in the world who thinks he knows better—even he deep down knows this.
Everything about this is terrible. Everything.
Your life is worthless if you don't have children. There is only one reason to live at all. Everyone's work, no matter how important or valuable, is garbage compared to parenting. Marriage is pointless shit without children.
Et cetera.
Which is to say nothing of the fact that not everyone who gets married can procreate. Not everyone who gets married is allowed to parent, if parenting necessarily means adoption. Not every married couple can afford to parent. Not every married couple has a "$30,000 bash" with a "white crinoline dress."
Et cetera.
Wurtzel is, of course, talking about married straight cis people who are fertile and financially stable but choose not to procreate.
She's talking about someone like me. Or mostly like me—since I was required by my government to get married in order to live with the person I love, and I got hitched at a courthouse wearing some crap I very likely pulled off the floor of my closet. Where I keep all of my clothes like AN ADULT.
I could spend the next six years of my life writing about what I think I'm doing here on this planet, married and not having kids like I'm supposed to, why I "bother" to have a marriage that is not for the express purposes of childbearing, what the meaning of my life is to me, but I'm not going to, because I don't have to justify my choices to Elizabeth Wurtzel or Pope Francis or anyone else.
And even if I tried, they wouldn't be convinced. People who think they know my life better than I do never are.
Fat and Happy
[Content Note: Fat bias.]
"Fat and happy" is an interesting phrase. It's interesting because it's an idiom that means, in its common usage, lazy and content with indecency, or incompetency, or some other sort of insufficiency. It's interesting because it's an idiom deployed with sarcasm, indicating that fat and happy isn't ever a good state in which to find oneself.
If you're "fat and happy," something's wrong with you.
And if you're literally fat and happy, well, you must be lying. So goes the common narrative that any fat person, especially a fat woman, who claims to be happy is projecting a false contentment.
There's no way, assert the people who routinely challenge fat people's claims of happiness in our lives, that any fat person can really be happy.
And, truth be told, it's hard. It's really hard.
Sometimes it's impossible. And no fat person owes anyone else their happiness, any more than they owe anyone else their thinness. This is certainly not a piece suggesting that fat people have to be happy; it's a piece arguing that it's foolish and cruel to suggest that we can't be.
Happiness is hard for many people. Maybe everyone. It's not a fixed state. There are very few people, if any, who can say they are happy all the time.
But what fat people are told, loudly and often, is that it's inconceivable that we can be happy—or achieve any semblance of whatever variation thereof is under debate: contentment, satisfaction, joy, self-esteem—because no one can truly be fat and happy.
Bullshit.
The thing is, it's virtually impossible to persuade someone who insists that a fat person can't be happy. People who try to convince others of their own happiness rarely come off sounding happy in the end, anyway—even if they are.
So I won't insist that I'm happy. I will, however, note that I'm lucky. A very, very fortunate girl—blessed by chance, touched warmly by the fingertips of providence. The fates shine on me.
You see, when people tell me that no one who's fat can be happy, luckily, I don't give a shit.
Luckily, I don't give a shit whether anyone believes I'm happy or not. I don't give a shit whether anyone believes I am happy, I don't give a shit whether anyone thinks I should be happy, and I really don't give a shit whether anyone thinks I would be happier if I looked different than I do.
Luckily, I'm all smiling, contented apathy in response to their furrowed brows, their firm insistence that I couldn't possibly be happy, given my big fat arse and my double chin and my stretch marks and my wobbly upper arms.
Luckily, I'm nothing but a chuckle personified at their sad desperation to prove that I'm secretly unhappy.
Funny thing, though—one of the main reasons I am happy is because I don't give a shit about what they think. That freedom from the oppressive shame they want to impose on people who look like me is itself a happiness.
And—spoiler alert!—it wasn't really just luck at all that I ended up with that freedom, although I am indeed lucky to have found supportive fat community; it was hard work and the will, the undiscouragable determination, to love myself and my body—my big, imperfect, transgressive body—for exactly what it is, whatever that may be.
It shouldn't require hard work and will, but it does—because everything around us is designed to subvert the profoundly rewarding and nourishing act of self-satisfaction. Of happiness.
The psychological freedom of caring about oneself, instead of caring about the happiness auditing of exhausting old shame-mavens, is pure joy.
The arbiters of my emotional life can believe whatever they need to believe to make them happy. Me—I'll be over here, blissfully indifferent and happy-go-lucky. Because that's what I've chosen to be, and I won't be denied the splendor of this freedom by anyone.
Especially not people who seek who dehumanize me by insisting that I do not have access to the full spectrum of human emotions, because of my deviant body.
As I've said many times before: It remains a radical act to be fat and happy. If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.
I choose to be brave. That makes me happy.
Daily Dose of Cute
Queen Matilda, the ruler of all she surveys. Even upside-down.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
B-b-but Calories In Calories Out!
[Content Note: Fat bias; "headless fatty" imagery at link.]
Here is yet another article confirming that "it's nearly impossible to permanently lose weight."
There are a lot of problems with this article, starting with the headless fatty imagery right at its top, but it's effective at highlighting the value of a Health at Every Size paradigm and noting that the belief about people's ability to maintain permanent weight less is really rooted in anecdotal evidence about outliers.
And there's more to it than just that, of course: The media loves to feature stories about people who lost lots of weight "through old-fashioned diet and exercise," but does not love to feature stories about people who find that even "old fashioned diet and exercise," even when those "lifestyle changes" are maintained, are generally not effectively in preventing weight regain.
The article also addresses the role that "obesity researchers" are playing in maintaining the facade that permanent weight loss is possible for most people:
So if most scientists know that we can't eat ourselves thin, that the lost weight will ultimately bounce back, why don't they say so?They're worried about "the stigmatizing nature" of the message of natural body diversity, but not worried about the stigmatizing nature of the message that fat people are just lazy pieces of shit whose bodies are evidence of our moral failure. Neat!
Tim Caulfield says his fellow obesity academics tend to tiptoe around the truth. "You go to these meetings and you talk to researchers, you get a sense there is almost a political correctness around it, that we don't want this message to get out there," he said.
"You'll be in a room with very knowledgeable individuals, and everyone in the room will know what the data says and still the message doesn't seem to get out."
In part, that's because it's such a harsh message. "You have to be careful about the stigmatizing nature of that kind of image," Caulfield says. "That's one of the reasons why this myth of weight loss lives on."
Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet — behaviour that is important for health and longevity — even if it doesn't result in much weight loss.Perhaps that's because fat people are routinely told by "health experts" that we can't be healthy if we're fat.
If there was as much emphasis on the message that, in fact, fat bodies can indeed be healthy bodies, fat people might be inclined to believe that there was a worthy health objective for which to strive. But we're not given that message at all. We're given the exact opposite message—that we can only be healthy if we lose weight.
"Health experts" aren't actually centering fat people's health. They're telling us that our bodies aren't worth taking care of unless they're thin, and then behaving like it's a fucking mystery that lots of fat people don't feel an incentive to care for our fat bodies unless we lose weight.
I say once more: I do fat advocacy because I care about fat people's health.
And anyone who purports to be concerned about fat people's health will stop trying to demonize our bodies and shame us for having them, and instead get on board with the idea that there is little incentive to take care of a body you hate, that fat hatred is a barrier to seeking care, that fat hatred kills.
[H/T to Shakesville Contributor and Moderator Aphra_Behn.]
Allies, In Theory
[Content note: fat hatred; anti-survivor speech and behavior; misogynistic names, jokes, and labels; rape; rape culture; tone policing.]
Over the last month or so, I’ve seen a lot of men proclaim their hatred for sexism and misogyny. And that’s nice.
It should make for a lot of allies. In theory.
In practice, some allegedly anti-sexist men seem to be having some trouble with this.
In theory, body shaming is wrong. And yet, when this young woman or that young woman report their experiences being publicly shamed by misogynist dress codes, they do not deserve our support. Because, in this case, it wasn’t sexism! It was just about the rules. And it’s totally not shaming when teen girls to have to publicly pose in order for officials to make a determination about the length of their shorts. Or skirt. Or wev.
(In theory, too, it’s wrong to assume that women are prone to lying. Yet, in this case, the girls are definitely not justified in their protests because … well, there just has to be “more to it than that.” There just has to.)
In theory, everyone is against fat shaming. But in the case of this celebrity or that celebrity, it’s okay, because she is totally “putting herself out there,” and anyway, people just like what they like and what are you trying to do, force them to have sex with fat women? But it’s really ALL ABOUT health and think about the children! We can’t have kids thinking you can be happy, successful, AND fat, can we?
In theory, women deserve an equal voice in politics. But don’t they have that already? Just because Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin are routinely called some variation on bitch or bimbo, that’s not sexism because they’re conservatives and they deserve it, and anyway, it definitely won’t discourage any other women from running for office, and, oh my god how can anyone defend THEM?
(And in theory, nobody opposes Hillary Clinton for president because she’s a woman! It’s just that she’s old, and her voice is annoying, and everyone’s tired of her pantsuits, and she can be both over-emotional and totally frigid, and also she’s responsible for her husband’s bad behaviors. None of that is sexist, is it?)
In theory, it’s really terrible that women are barred from driving in Saudia Arabia. But it’s definitely okay to make jokes about how bad women are at driving, hardee harr har, while having that discussion, because of course misogynistic jokes don’t reinforce stereotypes that make it harder for women to drive, and geez, why are feminists so humorless?
In theory, rape survivors are experts on their own experiences, and also everybody knows rape is terrible. But, there’s just got to more to this case or that case or ad infinitum cases because…. well, what was a teenager doing out so late anyway? And she was drinking. And it wasn’t forcible, was it? And he was lonely and sad. And she was flirtatious. And sometimes you have to lock up survivors, but it’s for their own good. And those boys have their whole lives ahead of them! Why ruin it? I mean, can’t feminists have a little sympathy for the team?
And in theory, of course survivors' safety is a top priority! It’s not like you’re doing any harm by pointing all this out, it’s just being fair, because what about the menz reputation? Because it will definitely be ruined forever and ever and ever by a rape accusation!(And when survivors point out the larger rape culture that facilitates this bullshit, it needs explaining that, no this joke or that joke was actually anti-rape, don’t ya GET IT? And those guys are liberal, how could they be perpetuating rape culture? Stop being so emotional! Survivors are just so sensitive!)
In theory, you are on board with feminism! But why can’t feminists be nicer about all this? No-one is going to learn anything unless women suppress emotion, speak in a neutral voice using “clean” language, and dispense education on demand like a Feminist101 Robot Model #22B, amirite? That's not tone policing , but if women keep talking so mean, men aren’t going to want to help.
My point is this:
If you find yourself frequently arguing that women are wrong about the specific examples of systemic oppression they experience, then you are not doing ally work. If you claim to be against sexism, but the only real examples of it you can think of are all from the past, or maybe in other countries, then you are not actually against sexism.
In fact, you are 100% okay with oppression. And you, yes you, are actively increasing women's oppression by insisting we’re crazy, paranoid, or oversensitive. (And no, it does not matter if you did not use those precise words.) You can claim that OF COURSE you're against sexism all day, as if women are stupid to question your credentials, but that doesn't make it true.
If you want to be anti-sexist, stop talking and start listening, really listening, to women. It’s an act so simple, yet it’s a powerful way to practice the ongoing process of ally work. There are men out there who do this. Follow their example.
If you can’t listen, then stop claiming to be anti-sexism. Because if you’re only against misogyny in theory, but you never manage to see it in practice, then you’re fooling yourself. Make no mistake, though: you're not fooling me.
[My thanks to Shaker SonomaLass, who helped me tease this out in conversation.]
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Terrorism; death] On Monday, Boko Haram militants dressed as soldiers "killed at least 200 civilians in three communities in north-eastern Nigeria and the military failed to intervene even though it was warned that an attack was imminent, witnesses said on Thursday. A community leader who witnessed the killings on Monday said residents of the Gwoza local government district in Borno state had pleaded for the military to send soldiers to protect the area after they heard that militants were about to attack, but help did not arrive." This group is the definition of terrorism. Rage. Seethe. Boil.
[CN: Terrorism; white supremacy; guns] Speaking of terrorism: "A massive investigation in Oregon shows evidence of a criminal web—involving guns, drugs, stolen property, identity theft, and violence—linking white supremacists and outlaw motorcycle gangs. 'Operation White Christmas,' as the year-old investigation is code-named, so far has resulted in the arrests of 54 individuals, mostly in the Portland area, leading to 11 criminal cases in state court and another 43 in federal court. ...The Oregon suspects variously are affiliated with at least five known street and prison white supremacist gangs—European Kindred (EK); Rude Crude Brood; All Ona Bitch (AOB); Fat Bitch Killers (FBK); and Insane Peckerwood Syndicate (IPS), authorities say."
[CN: Racism; exploitation] RIP Chester Nez, the last surviving original Navajo Code Talker. "Nez was one of 29 members of the Navajo Nation who helped create the code used by the American military in World War II—a code that Japanese soldiers were never able to break during the conflict. ...Chester Nez spoke to Stars and Stripes in November, telling the newspaper, 'I was very proud to say that the Japanese did everything in their power to break that code but they never did.' Nez also said that he grew up during a time of difficult relations between the U.S. government and the Navajo Nation. He told Stars and Stripes that children were often removed from reservations, put into boarding schools, and prohibited from even speaking the Navajo language. Like so many others, Nez was recruited from one of those schools. The unmistakable irony, of course, is that it was the very prohibited language that proved to be an invaluable tool for the Pentagon in World War II's Pacific theater."
[CN: Rape apology; sexual violence] Babulal Gaur, the home minister responsible for law and order in India's Bharatiya Janata party-run central state of Madhya Pradesh, says that rape "is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong." Nope.
[CN: Racism] A new Fox News poll finds that "a majority of voters say the Obama administration is less competent than Bill Clinton's and a plurality say it is less competent than George W. Bush's." Huh. I wonder what it is about President Obama that would make respondents to a Fox News poll say that he is less competent than Presidents Clinton and Bush. I CAN'T IMAGINE.
Dutch forensics experts have discovered how to accurately date fingerprints: "'It's not quite the Holy Grail of fingerprinting, but it's a very important discovery,' Marcel de Puit, fingerprint researcher at the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI), told the AFP news agency on Wednesday, hailing what he said was a world's first. 'Police regularly ask us if we can date crime scene fingerprints,' he said, for instance a neighbor's prints found at the scene of a burglary. Were they left the last time the neighbor came round for coffee or from the night of the crime?"
Melissa McCarthy on explaining fame to her oldest daughter: "She asked me, 'Are you famous?' And I said to her, 'Famous doesn't mean anything. Just because people know my face doesn't mean they know us or that it makes us any more interesting or better.'"
And finally: Here is some GOOD NEWS for people who love awesome ladies! Star Wars: Episode VII Casts Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie. More like Brienne of DARTH, amirite?
Today in Misogyny
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Recently, Google disclosed that only 30% of its employees are women, with the numbers getting even worse higher up: Only 17% their engineers and 21% of their executives are women.
And Google is not alone: Ingram Micro and eBay have workforces that are only 40% female; Dell's workforce is only 31% female; Cisco and Intel have workforces that are only 25% female.
It's a big problem in tech. A problem that is more deeply entrenched by repeated instances of rank misogyny at tech conferences.
And here we go again:
Jonathan Doklovic, a developer at a software company called Atlassian that's currently holding a two-day developers conference in Berlin...was making a presentation called, "A P2 Plugin and a SaaS Platform Walk into a Bar…" In the presentation, he threw up a slide about Maven, a plugin execution framework supported by Atlassian that developers can use to add software components to their existing applications.
In the slide, Doklovic compared Maven to his girlfriend, saying that although she looks beautiful she "complains a lot, demands my attention, interrupts me when I'm working" and "doesn't play well with my other friends."
Atlassian's co-founders moved quickly to cover their asses:
Today one of our engineers delivered a presentation that contained inappropriate content at our AtlasCamp developer conference in Berlin, Germany.Well, that's a nice way of putting it. By which I mean: A way of putting it that does not actually acknowledge harm. "We didn't make it any better." No, indeed not. You made "it" worse.
We are sorry for having allowed this offensive slide into an AtlasCamp presentation. The content does not reflect our company values – nor our personal values as co-founders and individuals. Quite simply, it's not OK.
Sexism is a difficult issue for the tech industry, and today we didn't make it any better.
And referring to misogynist, objectifying, sexualized content as "inappropriate," rather than any word that means harmful, they're continuing to make it worse. Sure, it's "inappropriate," and, yes, some people might find it "offensive," too, but those are not real accountability words. Women aren't marginalized because of bad manners. They're marginalized via harm.
Harm that's never going to go away as long as men in charge refuse to own it.
We are going through all the events that allowed this slide to reach the public.Passive voice. Not owning it.
We've already started immediate action. Where our organisation and process were lacking, we will add oversight. Where our culture is at fault, we will change that culture.Is there an app that just churns out this shit for these guys every time this happens? There might as well be, for all the sincerity and meaningful reflection that happens in these totally original "apologies."
It's times like this when your culture and values as a company must guide your decision making. If they are true, they will shine through. We take our values seriously. We apply them to everything we do. We endeavour to ensure all Atlassians live and represent our values.
I know the engineer responsible well. I hired him. I know the slide does not reflect his values any more than it reflects Atlassian's, and he is as deeply sorry as we are. It was an error in judgment, but one the company shares responsibility for making.
I know this guy. He's a good guy. He had a lapse in judgment. He's no misogynist! We're no misogynists. Our values our values our values blah blah fart.
Which means: Stop yelling at us. We're saying words that are supposed to make you stop yelling at us!
And now comes the inevitable discrediting as oversensitive, bitter, hysterical, looking for things to get mad about, never happy etc. any woman who dares to call out this bullshit word salad for what it really is.
As Atlassian, we don't stand behind the slide – but we stand as a team. When we do good, and when we do bad. Today, we failed as a team. We will help him learn from this, as we all must. Our engineer, our event, our issue, our learning, our growing – as a team.They promise to "learn" that women are human beings. Give them their fucking cookies.
