Feminism 201

Flea says it, short and sweet.

I may not always appreciate their rhetoric, I may object to their tone, I may not agree with statements they make, but I absolutely know one thing - if I desperately needed help, these women would help me, no strings attached. I can't say the same for very many other groups of people.

I also wonder what fucking course it is that's asking students to write essays about how "Radical Feminism" (note caps!) "has hurt feminism as a whole." I've taught some writing courses in my time, and asking students to write an essay with a predetermined conclusion is pretty fucking lame.

A sincere question

Has *any* previous presidential candidate bothered to go talk to a Native group? Or to say things like this?

The bond that I would like to create between an Obama administration and the nations all across this country, the government-to-government relationship that is so critical, is something that is going to be a top priority under my administration, and I want all of you to know how important it is to me.

I often talk about how the needs of the American people are going unmet by Washington. Well, few have been ignored by Washington for as long as the Native Americans; the first Americans. Too often, Washington has paid lip service to working with tribes while taking a one-size fits all approach to tribal communities all across the nation. That will change when I am president of the United States.

That said, my token Indian blogger friend is not a big Obama fan. But he also thinks Obama is kind of deracinated, which I think is wrong. So.

In any case, lacking any better knowledge, I'm going to be impressed that the Obama campaign thought that it was important enough to say something about, and to, Indians that they arranged for this visit and photo op.

who gets to be american? a jeremiad.

Well, according to Kathleen Parker, it's all about the blood.

From her column:

It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots. Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Fry’s political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.

It's the blood that somehow conveys heritage, values, national identity and civic belonging. If you don't have the right kind of 'blood' then you're not a 'real' American. You're a wannabe, a poser, a fake. You have no claim on this American birthright because you aren't 'pure-blooded' American. You're a mutt, impure, Other.

Is any of this ringing anyone's bells? Even without graduate degrees in history?

Because we should know about bloodlines and blood spilt for sacrifice. Sweet holy jesus, this Parker woman dares to tell anyone in this country (who isn't white) that the sacrifices their families were forced to make because they were Other in this great country of 'opportunity' and 'plenty' don't count.

Who hasn't sacrificed to be an American? Who?
Have black people not sacrificed?
Have the Chinese not sacrificed?
Have the Japanese not sacrificed?
Have the Native Americans, for god's sake, not sacrificed?
Have the Mexicans and the South Asians not sacrificed?

All our histories in the past two hundred years have been litanies of the sacrifice and 'blood' of Others. Why does our 'blood' not count and other 'blood' does?

This column so infuriated me, the only thing that could make me feel good about my anger was this Lincoln quote:

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."

Oh, Abe. If you only knew.

I knew this election season would bring out people's subterranean ugliness, the thoughts that whisper around their heads they would never dare bring out into the light, but I thought folks would treat this historical moment with a little bit more class. How naive of me. Once again, the white supremacist underpinnings of this country have jumped the leash.

You are killing me, America!

I keep giving you chances; I keep thinking, this isn't everyone. It's the media; it's some snaggle-toothed nutter living in the woods; it's just some run of the mill white person who doesn't know any people of color so they're just sort of stupid; or it's Fox News (see nutter). But this came out in a nationally syndicated column. This piece of xenophobic, nativist trash (which reads no different from the xenophobic, nativist trash from the 19th and early 20th centuries) was approved by someone. Someone's lizard brain read this and thought, 'Eh, what's the big deal? It's just an op-ed.'

Gah! America, if you were a person standing in front of me I'd slap you!

Pat Buchanan wants me to 'be grateful.' He wants me to shut up and be grateful I live in a place that suffers from the worst case of degenerate racism, a place that makes no significant movement toward recognition of or reconciliation for its white supremacist past. But here's our chance! Here's a moment - a gorgeous, breathtaking moment! And what do we do with this moment? We say he is not (and by extension, we are not - I am not) a 'full-blooded American'!

Oh, America, you make we wanna holler!

I can't be grateful when I keep waiting for this country to grow. the fuck. up. I keep waiting for it to do some frakking introspection. Look back at our history and make some little effort to change. But this country, rather than look backward with a critical and regretful eye, looks behind like Lot's wife and can't feel its limbs turning to salt.

[h/t: Too Sense: Oh, Hell No.
And here's that excellent post back in March on the Buchanan 'black gratitude' mess at Obsidian Wings.]

If your name is Sybil Vane, do not read this

But for everyone else, Sedaris's recent essay about smoking is marvelous.

Sunday is a day of rest

Peggy Orenstein's very thoughtful short piece about the Clinton candidacy, I think, gets it exactly right. (And fwiw, I think the exact same piece could be written about Obama and the monkey tshirts, the West Virginia vote, and yes, obviously, the Clinton campaign's own race baiting. Maybe such a piece has already been written; if so, please link.)

Orenstein pins down the thing that's been frustrating me so much about the Clinton/misogyny stuff: it's very simple, and yet it seems so difficult to say or see it clearly. It isn't that the misogyny is the only reason people oppose Clinton, or that it's inherently misogynist to oppose her, or that people pointing out the misogyny of most opposition to her are saying that opposing her is inevitably misogynist--nor is it that that misogyny is a good reason to vote for her (it's not, although it's very understandable why people would have that reaction).

It's that people seem by and large unable to express opposition to her without resorting to misogyny. And that this is terribly, terribly depressing--and offensive, if you happen to be a woman. (Or if you are one of those very rare men who is offended by this sort of thing. I have to admit that I don't think I've spoken to a single man like that this election season, I'm sorry to say.)

And maybe it's true that, given the astonishing amount of misogynist crap that's been mixed in with opposing Clinton, that some of us women have indeed gotten to the point where iffy things, like Powers's "monster" remark, read to us as unarguably sexist when, if we weren't so sensitized, they wouldn't. Maybe. But the fact is, that pile of misogynist bullshit *is* there, and having "well-meaning" people force you to trot patiently through explanations that "no, it's not a Big deal, and mmmmmmaybe this one instance could be said not to be sexist, but" every single time is *itself* part of the problem with sexism: that you have to prove that you're not just being all knee-jerky, that you're not "irrational" or "oversensitive," and by the way, "irrational" and "oversensitive" are sexist dismissals too, you realize, etc. etc.

It's just a huge, huge burden, seeing and hearing this crap. It sucks when people you love and respect don't notice that you're carrying it around. It sucks more when you say something about it and get told that it's not there, or that it is there but you're wrong about *this* being part of it, or that it's not *their* fault. Always, always, some version of "that's not what's important right now." Which is itself, of course, part of the burden.

That kind of thing is hard to explain to daughters *and* sons. I've been futzing with a conclusion to this post for about half an hour now, and it seems sort of pat, but I think it boils down to teaching kids--and ourselves--how to express, and accept, expressions of empathy and regret. How to say "I'm sorry" when it's not your fault, and how to hear "I'm sorry" when you're hurt or angry. Strangely, kids do usually seem to be pretty good at this: "Mama, I'm sorry you're so tired." I think we tend to blow them off when they do that--"thanks, honey, but it's not your fault." And when they're upset, we tend to run right past "I'm sorry" into "let me fix it" (or tell them how to fix it). When they make a mistake, we tend to demand that they apologize, immediately: "I'm sorry" becomes basically a public acknowledgment of being shamed. No wonder it becomes so hard to say. No wonder having your feelings hurt tends to become hard to separate from anger.

I feel like I should be able to sum up what this means, or what to do about it. Or that I should go back and edit to more carefully draw out the stuff I see hanging around in the subtext.

But I think instead I'm going to shut up and letting you draw your own conclusions.

Help

I heard a devastating statistic on NPR yesterday. 10 days after the 2004 Asia Tsunami, internet donations totaled $7 million. 10 days after the Myanmar cyclone, $620,000.

I think there are a few reasons for this. One is timing: the 2004 tsunami happened the day after Christmas, when people are more likely to be in a generous spirit than at the onset of summer. Another is racism: the tsunami impacted areas that westerners frequent on vacation, and the news footage often showed American and Europeans running from water (I was one of them).
But I think the biggest reason might be the extent to which media coverage of the cyclone has emphasized the military government's disallowal of aid workers in and aid shipments. People don't give because they think it is futile.

I'm sure this is true of a lot of organizations, but AmeriCares is on the ground distributing aid in Myanmar. It's just one example, you can find your own or leave it in the comments if you'd prefer to give to another organization. Please do give, though. Maybe you have leftover stimulus money? I gave all the money I received for graduation, because I cannot think of a more honorable product of higher education than a heightened sense of one's global responsibility.

Kidding Oneself

On an effectiveness scale, 10 being iron-clad, 1 being a sinking ship, what do we think about the only-on-the-weekends (and some special occasions) lead-in approach to quitting smoking?

I like it here

CA Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban.

Here's the LA Times story, which points out that yes, there'll be still another (yawn) petition drive to try to change the state constitution (motto: what, the constitution requires us to be fair to homos? No way!), and that Schwarzenegger, among his other sins, has already vetoed attempts to legalize gay marriage by hiding behind the "will of the people." (OTOH, he also said today that he supports the court's decision and won't support a constitutional amendment. So, the Governator's a coward, but not evil.) So no, all is not sunshine and roses in the Golden State, my front yard notwithstanding.

But it's a victory nonetheless.

ledbetter, round 2

The other day, Arianna Huffington spoke at a luncheon here in Chicago and said, when it comes to giving women equal rights, there is no 'other side.' We believe women should be paid fairly for the labor we provide, or we believe women should be shafted in perpetuity because we have lady parts.

According to a notice I just received from the National Women's Law Center, 57 Senators are voting in favor of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which has made it past the first vote. They are 3 votes away from moving this bill forward.

The National Women's Law Center is targeting senators who voted against the bill the first time around. If you are from any of these states, at least one of your senators voted No:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia.

You can email your elected official here. If you know anyone in those states, tell them to get on the horn.

3 votes. That's it.
...
Updated to add that the Ask A Working Woman Survey for 2008 is calling for participants.

You're a woman? You work? They want to hear from you.

The AFL-CIO and Working America has launched the survey and you can check it out on the ALF-CIO news blog here or take the survey directly here.

Please make it stop.

Obama, sweetie, you're hot and all, but you're not hot enough to get away with that. No one is. The only man who could ever get away with that--and it was because he was adorable, not because he was hot--was my grandfather. And he's dead now.

h/t LGM.

Also, while I agree by and large with this editorial, I'd like to add that I also won't miss hearing people compare racism and sexism.

Oh wait, that's probably not going to go away, is it? Fuck.

Oh, they know

Let's put aside for the moment the ridiculous headline on this CNN story: "Catcalling: creepy or a compliment?" Because it's not even worth my explaining how stupid that is.

I want to get to the part of the article where they're not being absurd and are actually reporting about a study some grad student did on street harassment.

According to existing studies and her own findings, Kearl says, some men are simply ignorant about how their behavior is perceived. Kearl, who completed her thesis, "Direct Action, Education, Consciousness-Raising, Activism and the Internet: Methods for Combating Street Harassment," last year, thinks posting on Web sites like HollaBackNYC is preferable to resorting to anger and violence.

"A lot of men have no idea that women don't like being talked to in this way," she said. "It never crosses their mind, and yelling doesn't educate them. If you yell, they often don't understand why you are upset and so they take it personally."

Often, Kearl says, an assertive, clear response can illicit a kinder reaction than one expects.

"A lot of the time, I find guys will just say, 'Oh, OK, I didn't realize it made you feel that way. Thanks.' "

This is absurd, and frankly, gives men way too little credit. Men are not stupid, even the assholes. Have they failed to notice that virtually every woman who is yelled at on the street just walks on by without even acknowledging the person who is catcalling her? Do they think that the woman just doesn't hear them shouting at her and if she did, she'd say, "oh, why hello, I think I'd like to suck your cock, darling!" Have they not noticed the steely gaze these women wear when they walk down the street, or the very uncomfortable half-smiles they give when men are overly friendly to them. No. They know it makes women uncomfortable. The problem is that they either 1) don't give a shit, or 2) think that this is part of the way the "game" is played: man approaches woman, woman is uncomfortable and recalcitrant, man persists, woman relents.

As I have mentioned before, I am for some reason subjected to quite a bit of street harassment, for reasons I don't quite understand and don't feel like getting into. But suffice it to say I have tried everything, from ignoring them to politely acknowledging to polite requests to yelling angrily. And you know what? None of it makes any goddamn difference except that yelling is the only one that makes me feel any better. And the people I've yelled at (which number quite a few) are always taken aback, but not because they don't know that what they're doing bothers women. It's that no one's ever yelled at them before.

So when Kearl says that the men "take it personally," well, how the hell else should they take it? It is personal. This person is bothering me, interfering with me walking down the street in peace without thinking of myself as a piece of meat fit for everyone's fucking commentary, and this person has made me angry. So yeah, it's personal.

Of course, the yelling strategy gets pretty tiring after a while. Just yesterday I couldn't muster a response to a guy who assaulted me with "well hello there, gorgeous!" followed by "why don't you smile, honey?" right outside my office. By the time the "smile" comment came, he was already behind me, so I just walked on. But the rest of the time I employ my standard pointed glare or a hearty "fuck you!" depending on the severity of the violation.

I'd like to know Kearl's methodology. Was it men saying that they'd be more responsive to a woman saying nicely that she doesn't like being catcalled, than yelling angrily? Because, well, fucking duh. As I have learned quite thoroughly, men do not like it when you get angry at them.

But hey, some of them deserve it big time.

Hey, John Kass? I don't give a shit whether you see this movie

Via Chicagoist, an asinine, assholish, sexist column in the Trib about how poor, poor men are being dragged by their EVIL SHOE-LOVING GIRLFRIENDS to see the Sex and the City movie.

A sample of this stereotype-replete drivel:

Sadly, that's just another example of the painful truth: Women Just Don't Get It. Because when it comes to "Sex and the City," women don't care about our needs, our desires, our deepest hidden longings—and our phobias about $700 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. I've never seen such shoes. But if I saw the bill, I'd begin to cry.

So today, and today only, I'm offering absolution to every manjack on the planet. It's your Get out of "Sex and the City" Absolution Card.

The other fun part is where he refers to the SATC cast as "terrifying, rich, aging, elitist women who whine about sex and men and purchase $700 pairs of shoes to feel better about themselves." I'm not sure what it is about the SATC characters that is "terrifying" (except for the fact that they have, you know, some agency) or why exactly it's so awful that they're aging. No, John Kass only wants to see movies with young women who never age. Duh. And yeah, god forbid women whine about sex. Not like every other goddamn movie, not to mention coffeeshop, bar, and dorm room, on the planet isn't filled with men whining about sex, namely that they don't get enough. Poor dears.

You know what? I think Sex and the City actually has a few redeeming qualities. Cinematically it's awful, especially with the whole "Carrie-typing-and-wondering-aloud-punny-questions" theme that appears in every single episode. Several of the characters (esp. Samantha) are pretty flat. It's an odd show, because at times it's clear that some of the characters aren't at all realistic (again, see Samantha), but then it tries to present problems of love, sex, relationship, fertility, illness, careers in a nuanced way. The show's a bit schizophrenicconfused in that way, like it's not sure whether it's a comedy or a drama, realism or high-exaggeration kabuki.

On the other hand, it was and is ground-breaking in the frank and forward-thinking way it deals with women's lives. True, the characters' lives do revolve around sex and men, at least from the slice of their lives that are presented in the show. But as a show about relationships and sex, it gives its women characters an agency, a level of autonomy and chances to break out of character that few other story arcs do.

Of course, John Kass doesn't want to talk about the merits and drawbacks of the show or the franchise. Basically his article amounts to "Ew. Girls." and the issuance of a rallying cry for men to join him in the refrain.

But really, who are we kidding? The main problem that John Kass has with this movie is that it's wholly, completely, and unabashedly about women. And we all know that there's nothing a red-blooded dude would hate more than having to watch a film where fuckdolls aren't fuckdolls, but 45-year-old women with money in the bank and friends who take priority over boyfriends.

As a final note, I have a funny story that I hope my friend won't mind my telling: about two years ago, my friend's house was robbed. The robber stole her computer, her dvd player, and almost all of her DVDs. The lone DVD that survived? Her bound-in-a-pink-book collector's edition complete set of Sex and the City.

I guess he was worried he might get girl cooties if he even touched the thing.

UPDATE: More misogyny directed at the SATC cast (the cover, not Jezebel).

Congratulations Dr. Sybil!

Sybil Officially Graduated yesterday, hood and all.