"America's federal contracts should not subsidize discrimination against the American people. I'm going to do what I can with the authority I have to act."—President Barack Obama, during remarks at the White House before he signed "an executive order banning workplace discrimination against millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees of federal contractors and the federal government. The executive order has two parts: It makes it illegal to fire or harass employees of federal contractors based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, and it explicitly bans discrimination against transgender employees of the federal government."
He did not include a provision in his executive order exempting discrimination on the basis of religious belief.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Quote of the Day
So This Happened
[Content Note: Hostility to consent.]
There is an organization called "Help a Reporter Out," known as HARO, to which reporters seeking sources can post queries.
This morning, someone who is a member of HARO (and who has given me hir consent to republish this anonymously) sent me the following listing zie found at the site:
![screen cap of email sent to listserv reading: 'Subject: HARO on social justice activism | 21) Summary: Social Justice Activism and Psychology | Category: General | Email: query-42vi@helpareporter.net | Media Outlet: Anonymous | Deadline: 7:00 AM EST - 21 July | Query: I am working on a piece about the toxicity of online (and offline) social justice figures and groups (think: Shakesville, [Hug0 $chwyz3r]). If you are familiar with some of the many abuses committed in the name of social justice and specialize in psychology, I would love to talk to you. The piece is being published on a well-known news and opinion website. | Requirements: Psychologist'](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/apix/haro.jpg)
So, basically, someone is seeking a psychologist to quote in order to do a write-up on Shakesville, in which I'll evidently be compared to Hug0 $chwyz3r and psychoanalyzed by someone who doesn't even know me, for a "well-known news and opinion site."
I don't know who the person is planning to write this piece, nor do I know what site intends to publish it.
What I do know is that I have not given my permission to be profiled, and I certainly have not consented to let a psychologist who does not even know me publicly diagnose me and/or discuss me.
One of the things that I and the other moderators of this space do not allow is armchair diagnosis of other people. We don't do it on the main page, and we don't allow it in comments. That is rank disablist garbage. There is a particular irony that someone writing a piece on "the many abuses committed in the name of social justice" would engage in an abusive behavior that is not allowed in the space I manage in order to accuse me of "toxicity" and "abuse."
As a side note, HARO includes in its "Rules" section the following: "5. Be excellent to each other. Violating any of the above rules will result in a first time warning, and upon a second violation, being banned from the service. HARO works on mutual trust and support."
I guess that doesn't apply to the people on whom their members are seeking to write hit pieces.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; death] In Israel and Gaza: "The Palestinian death toll in an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip rose above 500 on Monday as the army said it had killed 10 militants who tunnelled into Israel, while Gazan officials said an Israeli tank shelled a hospital, killing civilians. A day after he was caught by an open microphone saying sarcastically that the Israeli assault was 'a hell of a pinpoint operation,' U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Cairo to try to secure an end to the two-week conflict." Hamas killed 13 Israeli solders on Sunday, and the Israeli military killed, in addition to the militants, "28 members of a single family at the southern end" of the Gaza Strip, while, at Al-Aqsa hospital, "four people were killed and 70 wounded when an Israeli tank shell slammed into the third floor, housing operating theatres and an intensive care unit, the Health Ministry said. The Israeli military, which has accused Hamas militants of firing rockets from the grounds of Gaza hospitals and seeking refuge there, had no immediate comment." President Barack Obama has called for an "immediate ceasefire." Which doesn't look likely to happen.
[CN: War; downed plane; death] The war in Ukraine is hindering the investigation and recovery of Flight 17: "As Dutch forensic experts arrived at the scene of the Malaysia Airlines crash on Monday and promised that the train being loaded with the victims' bodies would be moved before the end of the day, heavy fighting broke out between the Ukrainian army and rebels on the outskirts of Donetsk, the main regional city and the hub of the insurgency." Fuck.
[CN: Disablism; death penalty] A study by researchers Robert J. Smith, Sophie Cull, and Zoë Robinson has found that a "majority of the 100 executed inmates examined" for their research "had 'a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis.' Yet, because of an oddity in the Supreme Court’s death penalty cases, it is typically constitutional under existing precedents to execute people with these illnesses." In fact, "the overwhelming majority of executed offenders had intellectual and psychological deficits that rivaled—and sometimes outpaced—those associated with intellectual disability and juvenile status."
[CN: Misogyny] Nathan Rabin, the writer who coined the phrase "manic pixie dream girl," regrets having coined it. I dunno. I feel like it was a useful description for a misogynist trope, and it's not really his fault that people took it and used it in a misogynist way to demean female characters as opposed to the people who wrote them. (And, sometimes, real women.)
[CN: War on agency; reproductive coercion] This may be one of the worst things you read today, or ever: "Men have a right and a role in the abortion issue." Basically, this dude thinks their role is reproductive coercion, and definitely not advocating for reproductive rights and protected choice. One word: "MENistry." Yikes.
RIP James Garner. His films and TV roles played such a huge part in my childhood. His death feels so weirdly personal, the way celebrity deaths sometimes do. I feel very sad.
And finally! Smudge the Cat defended his five-year-old guardian from bullies and is a HERO. Yay Smudge! WHO'S A GOOD KITTY CAT? YOU ARE!!!
Debra Harrell Update
[Content Note: Criminalization of need; rape culture; racism; classism.]
Last week, I wrote about Debra Harrell, the mother who was arrested after allowing her nine-year-old daughter to play in a nearby park while she was working at McDonald's.
There is a fundraiser for Debra Harrell here, for those of you who were interested in donating.
Also: There is a petition here, to the Director of Public Safety of North Augusta and the Acting State Director of the South Carolina Department of Social Services, requesting charges be dropped against Harrell.
Two other things:
1. @prisonculture reported over the weekend that McDonald's has terminated Debra Harrell's employment. So, basically, McDonald's fired someone because they don't pay her enough to afford childcare.
2. I've been thinking about this incident a lot in the last week, and how the decision to criminalize a mother's decision to let her child go to a highly populated public park, with a mobile phone, is deeply rooted in narratives of the rape culture, because sexual assault is the primary thing people fear happening to an "unattended" child.
But there are children sexually abused in daycare, or by babysitters. Even when those babysitters are family members. There are children sexually abused by their own parents. It's simply not realistic, at all, to assume that Debra Harrell's daughter was in more danger because she was playing in a public park than if she'd been in the care of another adult.
And it's frankly not right to suggest that any parent is capable of making sure no harm comes to their child(ren), ever. Obviously there are parents who are truly neglectful, but this simply isn't one of those cases.
All reason gets tossed aside like rubbish in discussions of child safety, but the truth is that the best way to make kids genuinely unsafe is to make sure they can't trust adults if or when they are in actual danger.
If you teach children that other adults who think something is wrong are inclined to call the police, which results in your mom being arrested and losing her job while you're put in foster care, those kids are not going to seek help from other adults, if even they really need it.
So, you know, congratulations to the Concerned Citizens who cared so much for this child's welfare that they got her forcibly removed from her mother and undermined her ability to seek help when she actually needs it.
Class Warfare
Is Not: Dirty socialists who advocate for the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet to provide to its every citizen access to basic human necessities including a livable wage.
Is: Reprehensible shitlords of undiluted privilege who feel oppressed by our resistance to their claimed right to bask forever unbothered in the shimmering, golden glow of their gloriously gilded bootstraps.
Open Thread
Hosted by the Nintendo Family Computer.
This week's Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter N.
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!
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Men at Work: "Who Can It Be Now?"
This week's TMNS brought to you by saxophone of the 1980s.
All the Blubs
[Content Note: Animal cruelty, but with a happy ending.]
This is a video of Noisette, a Boston terrier rescued from a breeding operation in Virginia, cuddling a human for the first time:
Video Description: A small black and white dog sniffs around a thin white young man who's lying on a hardwood floor, face down, his head resting on his crossed arms. He lies as still as possible while the dog approaches him. She walks to his side, then lies down beside him with her head on the small of his back, then gives a great sigh of contentment.
It's taking a little while, but Noisette is "gradually adjusting" to life outside of a filthy cage, says Anne Wuhrer, who recently took in this tiny creature, one of 132 dogs and four exotic birds removed from a Northern Virginia breeder's facilities in early July.This is especially moving to me, because a lot of lying very still to convey that I could be trusted was something I had to do when we first adopted Dudley.
..."Often survivors of puppy mills are scared, a little feral in the sense that they hadn't been socialized," says Wuhrer, who helps run Dogs XL Rescue, a Baltimore-based big dogs group that helped with the bust.
Petite Noisette is an "honorary XL," Wuhrer explains -- one who until last week had "never been in a house, not housebroken. But Noisette is silly and wants to be loved. We are just working towards her trusting us and letting us touch her."
It's happening. [T]his video, taken about a week [after her rescue], shows what it's believed is Noisette's first ever snuggle with a person -- Wuhrer's husband Chris, who lay as still as he could for 20 minutes, until the pup was brave enough [to snuggle with him].
(I didn't know the first thing about rehabilitating a scared dog. I just did the only thing I could think of that might communicate to my dog that I was never going to hurt him.)
Good luck in your new life, Noisette. I wish you an infinitude of comforting snuggles.
The Headless Fatty Trope, in One Image
by Shaker sweetbyrd
[Content Note: Fat hatred; dehumanization.]
"Headless Fatty" is a term coined by Dr. Charlotte Cooper in a piece entitled Headless Fatties. In that piece, she comments on what is communicated to society by the media's depiction of fat people (especially women) without heads. Cooper writes:
As Headless Fatties, the body becomes symbolic: we are there but we have no voice, not even a mouth in a head, no brain, no thoughts or opinions. Instead we are reduced and dehumanised as symbols of cultural fear: the body, the belly, the arse, food. There's a symbolism, too, in the way that the people in these photographs have been beheaded. It's as though we have been punished for existing, our right to speak has been removed by a prurient gaze, our headless images accompany articles that assume a world without people like us would be a better world altogether...Emphasis my own.
Headless Fatties are a version of fat people, a never-ending parade of us, taken from us and then sold back to us, hatefully and with ignorance. They reek of a surveillance culture with which fat people – whose bodies are policed by glares, and disapproving looks – are all too familiar.
One needn't conduct a vast search to find an image of the Headless Fatty. Just look at just about any news article dealing with "the obesity epidemic," or any news article at all, really, that deals with fat people in any sense—and you'll see an image of the Headless Fatty. Stigmatizing images of fat people are virtually the only images of fat people available in the media. (pdf)
I have known all of this for a long time. But what has gotten me all riled up today is the below image:
What makes this image particularly special is the contrast in depiction between the thin woman and the fat woman. You see, the thin woman is depicted neutrally. Most importantly, she has a head. Symbolically, that makes her a whole person. She has agency. The fat woman, though she takes up more space in the photograph, does not have agency. She is dehumanized and lacking capacity—without brains or even a head to carry them in. She certainly has no voice. She is an effigy of hatred.
The contrast between the fat woman and the thin woman could not possibly be clearer, and neither could the message—that one body is more worthy, more human, and generally worth more than the other.
And as a fat person, this presents a whole bundle of issues for me to navigate. Among them is the impulse to act like being policed, judged, othered, and dehumanized in this manner doesn't hurt. But you know what? Fuck that shit. This hurts.
Every time I see a headless fatty, I get another burst of awareness about what society really thinks of me. It doesn't matter how strong, accomplished, happy, or successful I am. Society thinks it would be better off if I—all 300-ish pounds of me—weren't a part of it. That is some kind of eliminationist crap right there. And who wouldn't be hurt by hearing something like that? But more than hurt, I'm angry. People of every size deserve better than this rhetorical bullshit nightmare—and we aren't getting it.
Please note that the article this image accompanies is an article in the LA Times entitled: "When food's the reward, obese women's judgment fails them." [donotlink] I'm not going to comment on the article, as that is a different (though related) ball of wax. But please feel free, as Liss would say, to have at it in the comments!
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by onions.
Recommended Reading:
Tressie: [Content Note: Racism; colorism; misogyny] Light Skin, Labor, and "Straight Out of Compton"
Adrienne: [CN: Racism; slurs; exploitation; classism; self-harm] Kwatsan Tribe Refuses Dan Snyder's "Blood Money"
Andreana: A Letter for My Grandmother, on What Would've Been Her 100th Birthday
BYP: [CN: Racism; misogyny; abuse] White Man Slaps, Spits on 79-Year-Old Notable Black Female Judge for Smoking
Jim: [CN: Homophobia; illness] Connecticut Ruling Could Lead to Retroactive Marriage Rights for Same-Sex Couples
Julianne: [CN: Racism; police brutality; image of abuse at link] Marlene Pinnock Files Lawsuit over Freeway Beating
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
Wee Sophs.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Charges Dropped, Conditionally, Against Shanesha Taylor
[Content Note: Misogynoir; criminalization of need.]
Shanesha Taylor, the woman who was arrested and forcibly separated from her children after leaving them in the car out of necessity while she went to a job interview, "will have her case dismissed if she successfully completes a diversion program, according to a statement from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office."
The agreement requires Taylor to complete parenting and substance-abuse classes and to establish an education and child-care account for her children, according to Montgomery's office. Taylor has to submit documentation of the accounts to prosecutors to ensure the conditions are met, according to Montgomery's office.This is terrific news, aside from the fact that she's being required to complete a diversion program that has fuck-all to do with the reasons she left her children in the car.
If Taylor fails to live up to the terms of the agreement, Montgomery said the criminal charges against Taylor would be reinstated.
I don't believe that a diversion program should be a condition of Taylor's release, but, let's just say for shits and giggles that it's a great idea. Why wasn't it a great idea to privately coordinate with her the need to complete a diversion program to avoid criminal charges before arresting her and publishing her mugshot and taking her kids away and obliging the public to raise hell in opposition to her arrest?
That is, of course, a rhetorical question.
I sincerely doubt that Shanesha Taylor will ever read this, but, just in case she does: Your story falling out of the news may well be both a blessing and a curse. If you ever need help without accompanying infamy, please know you will be remembered here. I will offer whatever I can.
[H/T to @prisonculture, who has been an absolute champion for Shanesha, and on whose invaluable work at Justice for Shanesha I relied to keep informed about the status of her case.]
Falling Dominoes: Oklahoma Edition
Court Rules for Same-Sex Marriage in Oklahoma Case:
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Oklahoma must allow gay couples to wed, marking the second time it has found the U.S. Constitution protects same-sex marriage.
The decision from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a ruling that struck down Oklahoma's gay marriage ban. But the court immediately put its decision on hold pending an appeal, meaning same-sex couple won't be allowed to marry in the state for now.
... In its 46-page ruling Friday, the judges dealt less with the constitutionality of same-sex marriages and instead focused more on arcane legal matters of whether the Oklahoma couples sued the correct government officials.
However, Justice Carlos Lucero reiterated that the court has already found that same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry that cannot be breached by the state's concern with keeping the focus of marriage on the procreative potential of man-woman unions. He wrote that Oklahoma's ban, "denies a fundamental right to all same-sex couples who seek to marry or to have their marriages recognized regardless of their child-rearing ambitions."
...More than 20 courts have issued rulings siding with gay marriage advocates since the Supreme Court's DOMA ruling in June 2013. The rulings have come in 17 states, with Florida being the latest.
Again I will note that I would be perfectly happy to post that picture every single day until same-sex marriage is legal in every single corner of the US.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note for next three paragraphs: War; death] There is still no official report on whence came the missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine yesterday, although US ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers has said "that surface-to-air missiles fired from a pro-Russia separatist area in eastern Ukraine was likely responsible... Power said the US can't rule out help from Russian personnel in downing the plane."
Among the 295 passengers and crew who were killed were about 100 people "heading to Melbourne for a major AIDS conference," including several top AIDS researchers.
And at least one family lost people in both Malaysian Airlines disasters: "Kaylene Mann's brother Rod Burrows and sister-in-law Mary Burrows were on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 when it vanished in March. On Friday, Mann found out that her stepdaughter, Maree Rizk, was killed on Flight 17." Heartbreaking.
[CN: War; death] The Obama administration, via State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, made a tepid statement about Israel for failing to do more to protect Palestinian civilians: "'The tragic event [of four children being killed on a Gaza beach by an Israeli strike] makes clear that Israel must take every possible step to meet its standards for protecting civilians from being killed,' Psaki said. 'We will continue to underscore that point to Israel.' Asked whether the U.S. believes Israel has not done enough to prevent civilian casualties, Psaki said: 'We believe that certainly there's more that can be done.'"
[CN: Police brutality; racism; death] Eric Garner, a black man who lived in Staten Island, died after a violent encounter with the NYPD yesterday. Garner, who had broken up a fight according to witnesses, was stopped and accused by police of selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. When Garner verbally protested, officers moved in to arrest him, throwing him to the ground and handcuffing him, while multiple officers piled on top of him and smashed his head into the pavement, all of which is viewable in video of the incident taken by a witness who protests Garner's innocence. Garner, who has asthma, repeatedly shouts that he cannot breathe. The police ignore him, and, upon realizing something has gone terribly wrong, start shooing people away from the scene. Nothing can justify this use of force. Nothing. Even if Garner had been illegally selling cigarettes, there is no fucking reason half a dozen cops needed to pile on top of him. My sincerest condolences to his family and friends. I am so sorry, and I am so angry.
[CN: Rape culture] The University of Connecticut has "settled a federal lawsuit filed by five women who claimed the school responded to their sexual assault complaints with indifference." UConn will pay settlements to the women ranging from $25,000 to $900,000, but "did not admit any wrongdoing." Fuck them.
[CN: Misogyny; coercion] Slate is the latest publication to feature a piece [donotlink] urging Senator Elizabeth Warren to run for president. Under the headline "Run, Elizabeth, Run!" (since I guess they're on a first-name basis with the Senator), author John Dickerson writes: "If Warren joined the race, she would not win, but she would till the ground, putting grit and the smell of earth in the contest. She would energize the Democratic Party's liberal base, which would then stir up other Democrats who seek to moderate or contain that group. Warren would challenge the Democratic Party on issues like corporate power, income inequality, and entitlements. She would be a long shot and she would have nothing to lose... Whether you agree with Warren's ideas or whether she would even make a good president is immaterial to the benefits of her candidacy. She would keep the campaign lively and focused on ideas." Can you even fucking imagine being in a position to claim that a woman running for the US presidency has "nothing to lose"? Can you even fucking imagine thinking it's okay to tell any human being that they should run for president, just to "keep the campaign lively"? Jesus Jones.
RIP Elaine Stritch.
Good news! "For the first time in 50 years, a nesting bald eagle pair was spotted on San Clemente Island, one of the islands in the Channel Islands chain off the coast of California. The sighting means that bald eagles have now returned to five out of the eight islands, a forward progress that has conservationists cheering after decades of recovery efforts." Yayayayayay!
An Observation
[Content Note: Homophobia; heterocentrism; privilege.]
A friend of mine posted this picture on social media last night. It's a picture I've seen before, and it's a damn fine question.
Whenever I see it, I think: You know, lots of straight people have had people try to "vote" on their marriages. A parent or in-law or friend who made egregious attempts to intervene in destructive ways because they didn't agree with one's choice of partner. And if it didn't happen to you, you probably know someone to whom it happened.
Everyone generally agrees (even the people who do it, if someone tries to do it to them) that's a shitty way to behave. Everyone generally understands it's annoying at best, and profoundly hurtful at worst.
And yet there are a lot of straight people who can't, or won't, consider what it feels like to have millions, MILLIONS, of strangers assert the right to do the same thing.
Well, virtually the same thing, except for how they get to cowardly hide inside a voting booth, instead of doing it right to the faces of the human beings whose rights they want to deny en masse.
On principle, I object to the idea of mob rule and empowering the tyranny of the majority by giving people the opportunity to vote on other people's rights. But also? I just straight-up call bullshit on straight people who claim a right to meddle in other people's relationships in a way most of us agree is abusive, when it's not done under the auspices of "democracy."
[Related Reading: Tweet of the Day; Quote of the Day; More on Maine.]
Dear HBO: No. Love, Liss
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
So, I'm reading rumors about Season Two of True Detective, a show the first season of which I liked a lot, even though it wasn't perfect. And, if these are accurate, this is not promising:
I can tell you now that these [two male characters] would make up two corners of the series' central triangle of investigators, two men and a woman from different Californian cities and their own distinct branches of the State's law enforcement bodies, coming together to uncover a whole mess of corruption [involving a corrupt scheme to link North and South California with a high speed train, all in pursuit of profitable land ownership and lucrative federal grants].Um. One of these things is not like the others. Addiction, anger, rape.
The third corner will be a woman, a character in her 30s. She's a Monterey Sherrif with – as you might well expect – trouble in her past and problems in her day-to-day.
Her issues are with alcohol and gambling. [Colin] Farrell's character has terrible problems with cocaine and anger management. The young guy, a member of the California Highway Patrol, has been suspended for sexually exploiting a young woman he pulled over. Nobody is clean.
One of the central pieces of True Detective is its exploration of complex characters who are flawed, who are capable of both harm and help, sometimes in successive breaths. And I like that about the show.
But the writers and network have to understand that asking viewers to find empathy with a cop who sexually assaults vulnerable people under his control is fundamentally different than asking viewers to find empathy with a cop who has an addiction, or even a cop who cheats on hir partner.
Humanizing people with addiction is a laudable enterprise, as there is an ocean of pop culture detritus that seeks to dehumanize people with addiction.
Humanizing people who trade on state power in order to sexually assault someone is not a laudable enterprise. It isn't rapists who need humanizing in this culture; it's their victims.
I realize that these details may not be accurate, but, given even the possibility that they are, I want to say plainly that this is a bad fucking idea, while I know creator and showrunner Nic Pizzolatto is still drawing the outlines of the second season.
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny; reproductive policing; choice policing; disablist language; heterocentrism.]
Sheila Kihne is a very conservative Republican candidate running to unseat Minnesota Republican state Rep. Jenifer Loon, who Kihne believes is insufficiently conservative. And she's got some neat ideas about women!
On a blog she discontinued in 2009, she wrote that President Barack Obama was leading the one-world-order communists and demanded that single mothers be denied formal wedding ceremonies.She sounds terrific!
"Don't you think that if you're having a baby — and you're not married — that you should forego the shower?" she asked. "I also think that if you get married — and are knocked up — you should get married quietly. At a courthouse, at a private home."
Kihne specifically said that there should be no dancing or dinner for prospective brides who are pregnant. She acknowledge that "I'm seen as very cold-hearted with this issue and it's caused a couple of big arguments in my family," but insisted on standing her ground against "the idiots in Hollywood who make it look 'cool' to tote a baby around sans daddy."
...Kihne bills herself as a "small-government conservative," but is unafraid to insert herself into every aspect of a person's life.
She wrote a book with her sister about convincing men that the woman who purchased it is "the one." According to the "About the Author" section of The List — which promises to teach women how to convince their prospective husbands to "take 7 swift actions to secure [their] love forever" — Kihne is one of a pair of "fiery sisters who share a passion for telling other people what to do."
This is basically the exact opposite of being pro-choice in all things.
