Of course I'm bitter. Aren't you?

You know that bumper sticker, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"?

I propose that we de-stigmatize bitterness in the same way. Being bitter is not necessarily a bad thing. But really, I can't dissect this nearly as well as someone else (namely, Heo Cwaeth) already has:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an anti-feminist jackass in possession of a public forum, must level charges of bitterness. To be fair, the charge is often correct. This does not win anti-feminists any awards for perspicacity, however. I'm afraid it doesn't take a brain surgeon, or a dental hygienist for that matter, to deduce that those who are protesting what they perceive to be the ills in society are at least momentarily disgruntled, if not thoroughly embittered. Unfortunately for anti-feminists, while declaring that one's opponent is bitter may be a valid observation, it isn't the "look at me, Ma" hands-down argument-stopper they present it as. "I've sussed you out, person with a complaint, and I've decided you're dissatisfied" really isn't that stunning a point to make. If feminists were completely happy with the status quo, we'd be off somewhere doing things other than pointing out how unhappy we are with the status quo. We're smart like that.(emphasis mine)

It's a long post, but very very worth the read.

Oh, and don't forget this invaluable gem:

And all that anger is good for her, because it tells her that she has not internalized the poor self-esteem that our society works so very hard to instill in her, and that she has a chance to bring up children (or not, as she pleases) that will also regard themselves with an eye to reality, rather than patriarchal fantasy.

Ranks right up there with Twisty's indispensible definition of the Patriarchy (and the patriarchy). And that says a lot.

what the fuck?

I admit it. I'm a bit obsessed with Law and Order: SVU. And I have a bit of a love affair with Mariska Hargitay (Detective Olivia Benson on said show).
Thankfully for me, the USA Network plays reruns pretty regularly.
But....what the shit, man.
I just saw this episode where this graduate art student, Myra, was raped by her professor, Ron something.
Olivia, of course, believes her the entire time, but Elliott (Olivia's partner) does the whole victim-blaming thing, because she went to the guy's apartment late at night, wore sexy underwear, didn't object to kissing him, drank some wine, etc. And the defense tries to mount a case against Myra because of these reasons, plus her "promiscuous" past, and the assertion that it was consensual (and consensually rough) sex. Basically saying that Myra was just upset because after her and Ron had "consensual sex," he didn't want her to spend the night. So she got pissed and accused him of rape.

The ADA (Casey Novak, in this episode) mounted a very very effective counter to this, simply:
Why would Myra put herself through this hell if she wasn't telling the truth?


And the end of the episode?
The jury foreman stating, "And we find the defendant...."

And then, the credits roll.
It's not a 2-part episode.
That's just where it ends.
What the FUCK, Dick Wolf? You can't do shit like that.


NOT cool, man. Not cool at all.



Ok, maybe it's trying to make a statement socially, about how these things are never really settled, and nobody really believes the verdicts, and blahdeblah. How they never actually end.

But, dude. It's TV. Don't do shit like that. I can barely handle it in real life. TV is supposed to be the nice place where there are happy endings.
Or, at least, where there are endings at all.


AUGH.



[EDITED TO ADD: Turns out that in the episode, originally aired Nov 23, 2004, the verdict was left up to the viewers in a poll.
The kicker?
Approximately 3/5 of viewers taking the poll believed it was consensual. Only 1/5 believed it was rape, and another 1/5 said they needed more evidence.
THREE-FIFTHS of people believed the victim-blaming bullshit.
What the FUCK, America? What THE fuck??]

alabama's not all bad, but.....

I hate to do this, since the last I-hate-Alabama's-homophobia post garnered a response from one of my relatives who has lived in Alabama, saying it was unfair to judge the entire state by some douchebags who can't deal with homosexuals, but...I can't ignore this.
And I'm not saying that this means that all Alabamans are bad, but...shit. The gay rights kids down there have a lot to work on. Homophobia - and violence motivated by it - is far too accepted down there.

Found this story via Pam Spaulding at Pandagon:
You know that "gay panic" bullshit defense that I assumed was hardly accepted as legitimiate anymore?
Turns out it still works its magic in some of our more heavily-inundated-with-overt-homophobes states. Like Alabama.

The story:

A Jefferson County jury convicted Raymond Carlisle of a reduced charge Thursday in the February shooting and robbery of a professor who had picked him up wanting gay sex.

Carlisle, 20, was charged with capital murder in the Feb. 17 shooting death of Sammie Speigner III, an adjunct professor of sociology at Birmingham Southern College.

Ok, the charge seems fair enough, the murder was obviously in cold blood -- where's the problem here?
Oh, right, the victim was gay.

Defense attorneys Amber Ladner and Cynthia Umstead contended the defendant, 19 at the time, reacted in the heat of passion when the 37-year-old victim tried to homosexually assault him.

First, why is "homosexually assult" different from "sexual assault"? Sexual assault is sexual assault.
If that's even what happened in this case. Which I'm not sure I believe. Which brings me to my second point:
Carlisle did not go to the police with his accusation of sexual assault. He did not simply run away, or escape. He: a) shot the victim as he was running away, b) took the victim's car, wallet, and checkbook c) used the victim's credit cards to party with friends, and d) let his buddy use the car for a couple days.
And as much as I loathe blaming the victim in sexual assault cases, these actions speak a hell of a lot more to gay-hatin' cold-blooded murder and robbery than to the reaction of a man who had just been sexually assaulted.

"He was not road kill," Roberts [the prosecuting attorney] told jurors. "Despite what he did in his private life, Sammie Speigner's life had value. He was shot, robbed and dumped into the street bleeding to death like an animal."

The jury refused to find him guilty of the capital murder charge, which would have gotten Carlisle either life in prison or a death sentence. Instead, they found him guilty of the lesser charge of felony murder, "saying after the verdict they believed the shooting was incidental to the robbery, and not intentional."
"Not intentional," my ass.

Oh, and it gets better. The homophobia's just oozing in this one:

In her closing argument, Ladner compared Speigner's actions to that of a molester using a puppy to lure a young child.

alito hearings day 4

I haven't watched the hearings enough today to really comment on the issues raised, but a few wardrobe notes:

1) It seems as though Arlen Specter has lent Chuck Schumer his tie from yesterday. That thing is green, man.

2) Something I heard on the Daily Show: While Mrs Alito looked mighty fine today sporting her crisp white pants suit and a spicy red blouse, part of the reason she was so upset yesterday that she left the hearings in tears?
Because, due to an unfortunate laundry incident yesterday (Wednesday), she was forced to show up wearing her grandmother's couch:

woo queer bloggers

The Second Carnival of Bent Attractions is up over at Desperate Kingdoms.

We've got some identity, homophobia, gender, religion, and more.

Good stuff.

I'll probably react more to the specific articles in a bit.


Oh, and the first Carnival of Bent Attractions is here, at daily dose of queer.


And the main page for this Carnival? Right here.

how far would you go for a laugh?

Just found the Best Blond Joke Ever.

:)

the rape culture hits home

This isn't so much a well-thought-out post as a link-pimpage and rant.


The Happy Feminist recently posted a very, very good post on "how rape victims themselves often fail to grasp that they have the right to be free of forced sex".
She takes from real-life experience as a prosecutor, and gives examples of cases where the women were obviously raped, but none of them really saw it as rape because they "went along with it" or didn't have "the right" to say no.

As frightening as it seems to hear these girls with stories that seem obvious to be rape stories deny that they were, in fact, raped, it's a pretty accurate depiction of real life.



Example to illustrate this point:
This summer, a friend of mine got wasted at a party she was throwing at the apartment she shares with a few other people. She had a boyfriend of about 2 years, but there was this kid there who would not stop hitting on her. Eventually, she was intoxicated to the point that she just went along with it, and I was wasted enough to go along with her. Next thing I knew, the three of us were in her room, and the guy had spent the last five minutes telling her she should go down on him, occasionally "jokingly" pushing her head toward his crotch, and after five minutes of coercion, she agreed. As did I. The only reason he didn't get us to have intercourse with him was because one of her boyfriend's friends walked in on us, and she freaked out.
When we woke up the next morning, we talked to some other people at the party. Turns out, he'd had a total of one beer and one shot, and the last drink he had - the beer - was a good 2 hours before he convinced us to go upstairs with him.
We felt like shit, but we saw it as us being stupid, not anything more.

She then joined the rape prevention group on campus, and learned that what happened really could be classified as rape, because he was obviously sober and we were obviously intoxicated. Her therapist told her the same thing. Her therapist even suggested we press charges.
We didn't. She was just pretty blown away by the whole idea that what happened fell under the category of rape.
I still don't see it as rape. For me, at least. For her, yes. For me, absolutely not.




The thing is, though, I know that it's exactly that line of thinking that perpetuates and contributes to the rape culture, and the lack of education around the "What's Rape?" question.
But me knowing that does not negate the indoctrination of the rape culture and the internalization of the self-blame.

Not to mention the fact that what happened to us is totally ok by most people's perspectives. We got drunk, we made a mistake. That is how the story is spun. It was our fault for getting drunk in the first place. We should've been more careful about who we were drinking with. We should've had sober, or at least less intoxicated, people watching us to make sure we didn't do anything especially stupid. We should've done a lot of things, and didn't.
But since when is it our responsibility to ensure that no douchebag takes advantage of us when we're intoxicated? Since when is it our job to control the actions of others?
Yes, there's something to be said for taking certain steps to safeguard oneself.
But for christ's sake. She was in her own house. I've known this girl since preschool. We thought we were safe.
But even if we didn't, it doesn't matter. It doesn't take the blame away from the people who commit these acts. It doesn't make it our fault.

ok, fuck the schoolwork...

I just found this site, whose purpose is to publicise the "sickest joke."

And yes, this includes rape jokes. And domestic violence jokes. And such.
It even has in its explanation of the thread: "Extra points for any anecdotes about using this off-colour material and causing huge offence."

How is this ok???

A sample of the sick, sick shit:

Q: What's black and blue, and hates sex?
A: rape victim

The rest below the flip.



Q: What are three things a black person can't get?
A: black eye, a fat lip and a job.

Q: What do you say to a girl with two black eyes?
A:Nothing, you've told her twice already

Q: Whats the best thing about shagging twenty five year olds?
A: There's twenty of them.

--A paedophile and a kid are walking into the woods at night.
the kid turns to the paedophile and says "it's dark! I'm scared!".
the paedophile says "YOU'RE scared? I've got to walk back out on my own!"

Q: What do you do when the dishwasher stops working?
A: Smack her across the face.

Q: How does a hillbilly know his little sister's periods have started?
A: His dad's dick tastes funny!

Q: Why do black women wear high heels?
A: To keep their knuckles from dragging

-- Woman stumbles into the Police Station.
"Help, I've just been raped by two council workers!"
The policemen look bemused and ask "How do you know they were with the council?"
She shouts "I had to do all the fucking work!"

Q: how do you make a baby cry twice?
A: use its teddy to clean the blood off your cock

Q: What's the difference between a black man and a bike?
A: A bike doesn't sing "Old Man River" when you put the chain on it.

UGH.

day three of the alito hearings

Ok, I've been watching this since 8pm (CSPAN re-airs the entire day of hearings each night at 8pm), and still, I've got a) far too much anger to coherently put together a sentence (Senator Coburn, for example, is making me want to shoot myself in the toe with his supposed-to-be-medical opinions on abortion. He even did the stupid breast-cancer/abortion link, which has been medically disproved.), and b) far too much reading to do on the rest of our government's asshattery for my Legal Implications of the War on Terror class.

So I'm just going to point you all to the Planned Parenthood blog, Now What?! via saveroe.com, which has very very efficiently liveblogged the hearings today, and also to Bush v Choice, via NARAL, blogged by feministing's Jessica.



---------------------------------------------------
Items thrown at the TV in unbridled anger thus far:
-2 pillows
-my moose stuffed animal (and again after she was retrieved from the floor)
-my build-a-bear bear, Lily
-book (ironically, Silencing Political Dissent by Nancy Chang)
-book (again with the irony, Enemy Alien by David Cole)
-1 shoe

mini-commentary on the alito hearings

Just now tuning in to the Alito hearings, which it looks like are ending soonish...

Wow. Specter's tie...shit, man. That is green.

And Colburn is making me want to claw my eyes out. Seriously.


Is it not creepy that when Specter commented on Alito's "stamina," his wife got a huge huge smile on her face.
Ew.
At least she's not wearing the green puffy thing today. Not that this plaid-esque suit is much better, but it's slightly less distracting.


Biden, Feinstein, and Durbin get to have 10-minute thingers tomorrow. Yay Feinstein!

some (late) liveblogging the alito hearings

I realize that they've been going on all day, but I just tuned in b/c I had class all day...


-------------
5:50, Schumer!

On Abortion:

Schumer: Do you still agree with your 1985 statement on abortion?
Alito: blah blah blah stare decisis blah blah blah
Schumer: That is not what we're talking about. We're talking about this, the Constitution. You said in 1985 that the Constitution does not protect a woman's right to abortion.
Do you believe that now?
Alito: I would address that issue in accordance with the process that I would be required to use. blah blah bullshit.

They go back and forth like this for a while, Schumer saying Alito can answer it because it's a question of Constitutional interpretatin, Alito running around the question like whoa.
A fun part, and why I love my Senator:

Schumer: I'm asking you about your view of the Constitution. It's important to know what your view of the Constitution contains.
(ooh burn: blahblahblah Which taught me something - I didn't know there was a word such as "inapt.")
Alito: You're asking me about a question- -
Schumer: I'm not asking you about a question! I'm asking about the Constitution!
Does the Constitution protect the right of free speech?
Alito: Yes, yes it does.
Schumer: Then why can't you answer the queston of whether the Const protects the right to an abortion as well?
Alito: Asking about the issue of abortion has to do with the interpretation of certain aspects of the Constitution.
Schumer: I take it that you're not going to answer the qustion, which I didn't really expect.
Your refusal to answer, I find troubling.

HAHAHAHA. Schumer TOTALLY just laid the smack down.
:)
Said that he could infer from Alito's refusal to answer the question that he would not uphold Roe.


On Stare Decisis:
Schumer: Stare Decisis doesn't mean that cases can't be overruled.
...
What do you think of Thomas' doctrine of stare decisis (who wants to overrule frickin' everything)?
Alito: I don't want to comment on all those cases.
blahdeblah
Basically, Alito gave nothing up on whether or not he thinks precedent is uber-important. Surprise surprise.

And Schumer's Big Finale:

First, greatly disturbing would be that you won't distance yourself from your 1985 view that the Const does not protect a right to a woman's right to choose...
Second, you told us you respect precedent & stare decisis, but we've seen that the stated respect for stare decisis hardly determines whether a Supreme Court justice will actually uphold precedent.
Finally, to top it off, we have seen that your third circuit record can hardly provide a great deal of comfort in this area either.
Taken together, these pieces are very disturbing to me.
We can only conclude that if the question came before you, it is very likely that you would vote to overrule Roe v Wade.

And Alito's condemning statement:

If I had an agenda to uphold abortion law, I would not have voted the way I did in the decisions I came across.

6:31pm Senator Cornyn of Texas is kissing his ass like crazy, and basically calling Schumer an idiot. Ugh. I'm going to claw my ears out.
And just essentially called Roe a mistake.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh.


6:59pm Oh, Jesus. Cornyn just called Alito "SCalito." The nickname us crazy liberals gave him. Oy.



7:01 Oh, good god. They just made light of domestic abuse. I think I might vomit.

7:03 And the parting shot: Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) blowing his nose. Attractive.

seriously, virginia. come on now.

Call me naive, but I didn't think that state legislatures could really still get away with being so vehemently and unashamedly homophobic.

But that's exactly what the Virginia legislature is doing, with this new bill they want to pass that would prevent the use of artificial insemination by unmarried women.

It's no secret that this bill is targeted at same-sex couples (both gay and lesbian, but especially lesbian) who want to start a family.

The measure would forbid medical professionals from providing to unmarried women “certain intervening medical technology” that “completely or partially replaces sexual intercourse as the means of conception.” The bill provides a list of medical procedures, including “artificial insemination by donor” and invitro fertilization.

Can the old white men's fear of their penises being replaced by technology be any clearer???




This bill was sponsored by Robert Marshall(R-Manassas), who also sponsored the (unsuccessful) bill last term to ban gay adoptions, and is a sponsor of bans on same-sex marriage and some severe anti-choice legislation, the latter two which will be before the VA legislature this term.


Ugh.


But EqualityVirginia is on it. They've got a ton of work to do with people like Marshall in their legislature though, so if you're a Virginia resident, click here to send a message to Bob Marshall, or click here to give a donation or become a member.

2 days into class, and already I'm procrastinating...

But this is important. So it justifies the procrastination.



Ok, back near the end of 2005, Bush was trying to push through the appointment of Ellen Sauerbrey to Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. The Congress, though, finally grew some balls/eggs and opposed this appointment, because, well, Sauerbrey is not at all qualified for this position. She has no experience in almost any of the areas that this new job would call for.

Plus, she fucking opposed CEDAW. (CEDAW = a UN convention: the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.) Seriously. Who does that? Who is against the elimination of discrimination? Especially when the discrimination is directed at you. She also wanted to undermine the Beijing Platform for Action, which would safeguard women's rights, and was signed by 189 countries.


Anyway, since BushCo couldn't bully the Congress into agreeing with them on this one, they just waited until Congress was in recess for the holidays and appointed her without Congressional oversight.


Separation of powers? What's that?

quick question

Why is it that when I did a google search for "vagina dentata," this picture of Martha Stewart came up?

(Really, a more accurate portrayal of a vagina dentata is as follows)

Frightening, I tell you. Frightening.

lesbian athletes!

(Best kinda lesbian, best kinda athlete...but I may just be interjecting my own personal opinions there...)

Evidently, I haven't blogged at all on any of the lesbian (gasp!) athlete stories that came out (aw, I made a pun) this past fall.

But first, the most recent one:


Rennae Stubbs, Australian tennis star, has (finally) officially come out. I guess it's been pretty obvious to her fans and colleagues for quite a while now, but now it's on paper and official.
And, evidently, she's dating some former US softball player now, though the article doesn't name who. Gee, I can't imagine -- softball players, gay??? No way!!!
While I'm ecstatic that she's coming out of the closet, I can't help but wonder about this one aspect of her life...she dated her former doubles partner, Lisa Raymond (who, by the way, is gay gay gay gay gay..just look at that picture!). I refused to even date among my soccer team of 22 people...dating the sole person you rely on as the rest of your team just seems...ill-advised? Needless to say, she has a new doubles partner now that her and Raymond are broken up. The article says they have a friendly relationship, but really. I can't see how dating your doubles partner is smart. At all.
But that's beside the point.
The point is: yay! she's out!


Other Lesbian Athlete stories of the fall of 2005 that I missed:


Sheryl Swoopes, WNBA star, came out in October. The reception she got? Surprisingly warm. There were very few homophobic patriarchians that I found among those responding to her outness. A very, very happy surprise for this cynic, I must say. And her story, in her own words, is here.




And Rene Portland, Penn State women's basketball coach, has been accused of anti-lesbian bias. A former player, Jennifer Harris (pictured above), filed the complaint with the NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights) after she had transferred from Penn, partly because of the coach's racial slights and homophobia. (Jennifer Harris, however, is straight. Allies rock.) After Harris filed her complaint, two other former players also came forward to testify to Portland's blatant homophobia. Portland threatened to kick players off her team if they came out, and told players not to associate with anyone she believed to be gay.
Really, NOT ok behaviour for a coach. Especially a women's basketball coach. I mean, come on. Gayness and women's basketball pretty much go hand in hand. Obviously, straightness does too, but this bothers me a lot because basketball is one of those few athletic fields that queerness is almost accepted. Unless, I guess, you play for Rene Portland.



Have I mentioned how much I *heart* sports dykes?
Because I do. Like whoa.

my own reaction...

(And yes, I'm overdoing the blogging today out of guilt for not having blogged barely at all over the last month.)

Yesterday, Jill at Feministe blogged about an NYU discussion board thread based on her appearance - namely, as a 200-lb fat pig.

This spurred an interesting phenomenon among the Feministe readers. A lot of the 83 comments she received were the admittedly normal knee-jerk reaction of "Oh, you're not ugly! You're gorgeous!" Which she is. But why does that matter? This, thankfully, led Zuzu to expose the problematic nature of these reactions: "These guys are obviously assholes, but it bothers me that being called fat and/or hideous provokes such a strong, “But you’re not fat! You’re not ugly!” response. I could just be feeling marginalized by the idea that being fat is the worst thing a woman could be called."

Jill wrote a follow-up post today, expanding on Zuzu's comment, explaining that her posting about the ridiculousness of the message board was not her fishing for responses like "Oh, but you're so pretty!"

Some excerpts from Jill's post:

What insults like that do is they attack all women everywhere. They let us know that if we don’t fit a certain standard, we don’t deserve to have our ideas addressed on their merits.
...
If it’s agreed that Lauren and I are pretty, then we run the risk of being labeled bimbos, or Ginger and Maryanne. If we’re ugly, then we’re only feminists because we can’t get men. I do think that the fact that neither Lauren nor I would be considered ugly by most people (message boards aside), and that we’ve both been in long-term relationships with men does give us a bit of a privilege in the feminist blogging world, because it takes those arguments away from our opponents.

And here, I insert a little bit of Ani, because she always says it best:
"And god help you if you are an ugly girl,
'course too pretty is also your doom
'cause everyone harbours a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room."


But Jill never really addresses the fact that there were rape threats made on this message board. That people were threatening to "hate-fuck" her, and making other more graphic and unnecessary threats. Amanda at Pandagon does, though, slightly:

...[people were] making jokes about raping her, which puts this incident into a different stratosphere from your run-of-the-mill running around and saying that feminists are bitter because we are ugly and/or can't get a man. The rape jokes are of a different degree of awful, but I think it's safe to say that those comments come from the same impulse that causes people threatened by feminism to make assertions that feminists are ugly/bitter/lonely--it's a desire to retaliate against people who speak out against the injustice of male dominance by telling them, in so many words, that as far as you're concerned women exist only as sex toys for men.

I know that the main problems that arise from this post are based around the (over)valuing of women's looks, and how that does or doesn't detract or add to her credibility. (This is true in some ways for men, too, but way, way more for women.) But Amanda dealt with those nicely, as did Jill. So I'm going to tackle the problems of the rape jokes, because it hits close to home for me, and, let's be honest, that's one of the main themes of this here blog.


A bit of background: Last year, when Lauren (not of Feministe, my own Lauren) and I were co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Wells College, trying to keep it a single-sex institution, I got a lot of the same thing. Yahoo! News ran the story, including our full names and hometowns, but luckily, no pictures (although they were available elsewhere, on other news sites). Yahoo! News also has a feature that enables comments on the news stories, which is where things became problematic.

There were a few comments that actually pertained to the story - some agreeing with us in our lawsuit, some pulling the line about separate-but-equal (which does not apply to single-sex institutions, but that's another rant). The majority of the comments, though, were surrounding our looks. They (mostly men, I presume, but there could've been some women in there too, I don't know) called us fat, ugly dykes, they said we only wanted Wells to stay single-sex because we couldn't get a man, or because we were afraid of men, or other ridiculous assumptions.
My first reaction then, too, was to say, "Well, if they saw pictures of us, especially of Lauren, who has DD boobs, they wouldn't say we were fat or ugly. At least WE know we're not fat or ugly." And then I realized the problems with that as well, with defending myself based on my appearance. But these things didn't really bother me, because they weren't basing this on a picture. They based this solely on assumptions based on our ideals and desire to attend a women's college. Which, really, is no basis at all.

What bothered me were the rape threats.
The "Oh, she just needs to be f***ed really hard." The "They just need to be raped so that they shut up." The "Mmm, I bet she's a good lay, since she'd fight it all the way."
I realize now that Amanda's right, that these threats really do come from the same impulse that made them call us fat and ugly and dykes.
But then, when I read them, I felt very, very unsafe. This Yahoo! news story not only gave my full name and my hometown, but Wells College had a total of about 400 people. If they really wanted to find me and rape me, they very well could have. It wasn't - and still isn't - exactly the safest place.
I absolutely freaked out. I immediately emailed Lauren, and directed her to the site, and told her to read some of the comments, which by then were numbering over 300. I didn't really take these threats seriously - as in, I don't think I seriously expected some guy to drive all the way out to the middle of nowhere in Central New York just to "teach me a lesson," but it was still incredibly frightening.

And this is a problem, and one that neither Amanda or Jill really address. The fact that these (presumably) men think it's ok to threaten rape, think it's funny to threaten rape, is absolutely terrifying. Yes, it's just another product of our rape culture, but that doesn't excuse it. It begins to explain it, though.

It was simply used to, as Amanda said, "assert male dominance." But just because we, the readers of Feministe and Pandagon, who are mostly feminists, see this as nothing more than ridiculous chest-pounding, does not mean that will be how the rest of the world will see it. Because, let's face it, a good portion of the world is pretty misogynistic. A good portion of the world would see this as a "boys will be boys" thing.
And that's not what it is.
Boys will be boys only if you teach them to be boys in that manner.
Boys will be boys only if the rape culture persists.
The fact that this is a product of the rape culture does not mean that it's unchangeable. The rape culture itself is not a permanent fixture. It's an intricate aspect of the patriarchy, yes, but even the patriarchy can be overthrown.

It's just a matter of doing it.



I may be wrong, and maybe Jill and Amanda are just not addressing this because they don't want to delve into it, or don't want to take the focus away from the concentration on female beauty or lack thereof, but I see it as a huge problem that even Jill and Amanda, my two favourite feminist bloggers, are avoiding the implications of these rape threats.

Just because these rape threats were not serious, just because the chances of them becoming a real danger for Jill are slim to none, does not make the implications of the threats any less real, any less serious.

And until feminists - and everybody, but especially feminists - start acknowledging the fact that even rape "jokes" and "fake" threats are perpetuating rape, and therefore perpetuating the patriarchy, I don't see how this system can be overthrown.

carnival of feminists part 6 (and 5...)

Since I somehow missed announcing the Fifth Carnival of Feminists (what do you want from me? It was totally during finals week, when I was awake for 99 hours straight. Oh, the tribulations of being a student and blogger during finals...), this is also a plug for that one.
Numero Five is at scribblingwomen is all about everything, with a pretty little holiday image. From sex to theory to organizing to motherhood to technological stuff, it's got a little bit of everything.
Good stuff.


And now, the Sixth Carnival of Feminists is up at reappropriate. (Which, I might add, is a very aesthetically pleasing blog.) It's got some good, amazing posts on The Intersection of Race & Gender, some media criticism, and some other random stuff.
Also, amazing stuff.

Have I mentioned how much I love feminist bloggers? Because I do. Like whoa.


Seventh Carnival of Feminists will be at my personal favourite blog, Feministe. Due up on Jan 18th. I'll link to it then.


Happy reading!

ohhh the longing...

Oh, how I so wish that I wasn't taking this class over j-term so that I could go down to DC and be awesome with the Freedom Winter '06 kids.

It looks like it's going to be an amaaaaaazing time. I mean, really: a bunch of pro-choicers all in one place, pushing Senators to not screw up like they did with Roberts? Policy decisions + pro-choice activism, all in one place? How can you go wrong?

The gist of it:
Feminist Majority (FMF), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the National Congress of Black Women are teaming up to organize this Freedom Winter '06, modeled after Freedom Summer 1964, where students travelled all over below the Mason-Dixon line, registering black voters. But this is a different kind of civil rights (though, of course, linked, because everything intersects everything). This is about reproductive rights, but more, it's about reproductive justice.
The organizations are gathering a bunch of students to go down to DC for a week or more from January 3rd to January 20th. They'll help y'all find somewhere to live, and provide guidance for you to go forth and lobby your Senators to Do The Right Thing (i.e. NOT approve Alito's nomination).

Oh, it looks so amazing. And pretty much what I want to do with the rest of my life.
But no.
I'm stuck here in western Massachusetts.
*sigh*


Which just means that I expect everyone who can to go to DC to GO.
Because, as corny and cliche as it sounds...
Your country needs you.

My New Year's Resolution-that's-not-really-a-resolution

Oh, and it's not really New Year's (at least, by the Baha'i calendar).

But a resolution-esque statement nonetheless:

I will blog (or at least attempt to blog) without using excessive profanity.
Mainly because one of the internships I'm applying for this summer (that would be absolutely PERFECT and I'm pretty sure it would make my life if I got it) includes the responsibility to update a Younger Women's Task Force blog(!), and due to the professionalism and whatnot, I feel like profanity wouldn't exactly be appropriate.

So, in case I need to showcase my blogging skills (or whatever they are), I will henceforth use no profanity, and somehow become Rebecca Traister and be rageful without dropping the f-bomb.
Good luck to me.

I also may or may not edit out the profanity in the 94 previous posts. I haven't decided yet.

Barbie ushers in the gender revolution?

Oh, good lord.



So, evidently, Barbie now "promotes gender confusion" on its website.
Turns out, the Mattel toy's website, http://www.barbie.com (which, by the way, sort of makes me want to vomit with the overwhelming stereotypically "girly" setup), recently had a poll up for kids age 4-8, and after asking the child's age, it asked the child's sex.
And...
*gasp*
It gave THREE OPTIONS. ("girl," "boy," and "I don't know")


Martha Cleter, policy analyst for Concerned Women for America (the most infuriating organization ever), interviews Bob Knight, director of CWA's Culture & Family Institute, on a radio show type thing:
Click here to listen to their crazy babble.


All about the "homosexual agenda" and how Barbie is "taking plays right out of the Homosexual Agenda's playbook," and the targeting of little kiddies through the inclusion of "Questioning" in the ever-increasing Acronym Of Queerness.


Hilarious.
Infuriating, but Hi-fucking-larious.