when the status quo frustrates.

So Why Did I Have Kids, Anyway?

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Photobucket
So you really want one of these?

It’s a question I try not to examine too closely, frankly. The reason for that is, well, I have them already–I’ve had them for my entire adult life, really. The time to question my decision to have them at all has long since passed, I think.

But sometimes I’ll come across an article like this one–I try not to wince at the tone they inevitably sport, a combination of defensiveness and superiority–and I’ll find myself musing a bit on my own embedded and irrevocable parental status.

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Concerned Troll Style

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The background is thus: Just about a year ago, Lisa wrote a post, a guide to getting rid of feminism (by ending social injustice). She observed that men, as a group, are in a particularly strong position to end sexual predation, since it’s such a gendered form of oppression. Her post was linked from an MRA site, so it caught the attention of a number of trolls. Most, I presume, slunk off when the safe space comment policy led to them being silenced! Muzzled! And… Censored! But one of them really went the extra mile.

I recently discovered a hitherto unread email from one of these trolls. It was like Christmas! I’m not as into writing posts like this—you mean there’s sexism? On the Internet?!—but today, just for you, I have extracted the sweet nectar from his e-mail and shall now present my findings: a detailed description of the Concerned Troll Style art.

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Ooh The Hypocrisy, It Burns!

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Jon strikes again. :D (via)

(Jon does also take on ACORN, pretty hilariously, here.)

It’s so awesome when someone else does all the work for you, especially if you’re lazy. Like me.

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Also saving me from having to weigh in personally on a situation I found distasteful enough that every time I started to write about it, I got so cranky I had to stop. Speak on, my brother! (Hat tip Ilse.)

Polanski arrest worse than Nazi aid

Monday, September 28th, 2009

A woman named Joan Z. Shore from Belgium founded an organization called Women Overseas for Equality. Sounds like a good thing, right? I mean, I tend to be for equality whether or not you and I are separated by large bodies of water, but unless she’s straight-up old-school colonialist about it, I can endorse being concerned about the combination of Women, Equality, and Oversea-ness.

Now, last I checked, America was overseas from Belgium. And it has women in it. And sometimes those women are raped by famous movie directors who flee the country when a judge catches that person acting like an a-hole after making a plea deal that will get him off scot free.

Now, I could be completely hammer-to-the-head insane, but doesn’t it seem like “equality” is meant as a synonym for “justice,” and that justice for a woman who is raped is, at the very least, to see her attacker brought to justice? I realize Polanski’s victim just wants the case gone, but there’s also the question of the broader social implication of just letting rape go if you’re famous and rich enough to evade the law for a couple decades. That doesn’t seem like much equality to me.

Apparently Joan Z. Shore disagrees. But before we get into that, let’s be clear about something: The Swiss used to be cool.

I used to admire [The Swiss] — their clean, orderly, decorous way of life. Their stubborn independence and self-reliance. I forgave them for the years they never joined the United Nations, and even now, not joining the European Union.

I always love talking about a nation’s people like they’re identical beings popped right off the national assembly line. Who doesn’t love the Borg?

There was so much affection wafting from Shore towards the Swiss that she even waived the Wand of Dismissal o’er the Swiss collaboration with Nazi Germany:

When I learned, years ago, that they had blithely allowed German military trains to transit their country during the Second World War, while claiming Swiss “neutrality,” I was shocked, but tried to excuse them on grounds that they were protecting their country from invasion and armed warfare.

But now? This Roman Polanski extradition is, objectively, the most heinous act in the history of the multiverse.

Arresting Roman Polanski the other day in Zurich, where he was to receive an honorary award at a film festival, was disgraceful and unjustifiable. Polanski, now 76, has been living in France for over thirty years, and has been traveling and working in Europe unhindered, but the Swiss acted on an old extradition treaty with the U.S. and seized him!

So, we have understandable Nazi compliance, but “disgusting and unjustifiable” extradition of an admitted rapist escaping punishment. This seems like a clear-headed view of the situation.

Making this an even more sensitive equivocation by Ms. Shore, Polanski was a Holocaust refugee. I wonder what he’d say if you put this question to Polanski himself: is it easier to forgive a country for turning over a wanted criminal or for letting the Nazis ship troops and supplies on its railways?

I won’t answer for him, but I will say this: Switzerland may be brought to their knees by Shore’s uber-classy, enlightened call to action.

I suggest, in the finest American tradition, we protest this absurd and deplorable act by smashing our cuckoo clocks, pawning our Swiss watches, and banning Swiss cheese and chocolate.

And let them yodel all they like.

Sounds like a person totally invested in equality to me.

When Your Male Privilege Stops Applying To Your Situation, It Goes Beyond Inconvenient, Doesn’t It?

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

I had seen this post by Melissa MacEwan of Shakeville before Hugo wrote about it, but I hadn’t been aware of her follow-up post til he linked to it. Basically, her emphasis in her follow-up post and Hugo’s primary message in his own were the same–in their own words:

Melissa: Feminist men who do the right thing often do it quietly, while misogynist men spew their rubbish at incredible volumes…If, my esteemed male feminist allies, you don’t want to be part of the problem, these fights have got to be your province, too. Giving yourselves the permission to not get publicly involved, or to get publicly involved only when it’s convenient and not all that risky and not all that hard, is the ultimate expression of privilege.

Hugo: I was able to assent intellectually to the principles of feminism long before I was courageous enough to espouse them in potentially hostile settings. I had to take baby steps. Identifying as a feminist in a women’s studies class came before identifying as a feminist in an all-male environment. But I felt a sense of urgency; it is male privilege that allows feminist men to pick and choose to join battles into which women are regularly drafted against their will. If we’re serious about our feminism, we can’t just be allies when it’s safe or convenient, we can’t merely offer soothing reassurance in private to the women in our lives. We’ve got to do it as publicly as possible, remembering that our primary usefulness to the egalitarian cause lies in our willingness to model publicly a different way of living as brothers, fathers, sons, husbands, lovers, bosses, students, roommates, coworkers and friends.

(emphasis on convenient mine)

Certainly this is something I’ve thought about before–even written about, rather passionately–grounded as it is in the unavoidable knowledge that women will never achieve true equality if we can’t get more than 50% of the human race on board with that as a basic societal truth. But seeing Hugo write about it made me pause for a second, because Hugo is, after all, a man…who apparently doesn’t entirely know what he’s talking about. Not when it comes to being a man representing feminism, or even anything remotely like feminism, in an all-male environment…a hostile setting.

I used to be pretty close to someone, a man, who had spent nearly 20 years in the military by the time I knew him. When he was 19 years old, he was stationed in Korea. Now, nobody in the Army brought his family over to Korea then; the Army wouldn’t pay for it and there was no real housing available there for family, schools for the kids, etc. Few Army women were sent to Korea, as nearly all the military specialties over there were either combat arms (outright banned to women) or very closely combat arms-related, in which there weren’t too many women serving to begin with. In short, it was essentially an “all-male environment”–not just for a few hours a day every few days or so, but 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And as anyone who has either been stationed there himself or has been very close to someone who has been stationed there knows, the standard operating procedure was for all the guys to go out together at night, get hammered, and patronize prostitutes.

Now, my friend was not particularly feminist–certainly not at age 19. But he didn’t want to patronize prostitutes. He’d only had sex a few times in his life period prior to being stationed in Korea; he was, he told me, frightened and repelled by the idea of doing it with a prostitute, just like that. His stint in Korea was only a month long–it was a training exercise–so, he said, he did manage to avoid having to do it–though both he and I doubted that he would have been able to continue to successfully refuse if he’d been stationed there for the standard 12-month Army rotation.

Because I don’t think Hugo and Melissa really know what a hostile all-male setting really consists of, sometimes, especially to a five-foot-nine inch, 140 pound, 19 year old boy. Like this*:

A Youth Radio investigation has found that between 2004 and 2006, sailors in the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain Military Working Dogs Division, or “The Kennel,” were subjected to an atmosphere of sexual harassment, psychological humiliation, and physical assaults.

It was inside that Bahrain kennel in July 2005 that Petty Officer Joseph Christopher Rocha, then 19 years old, says he was being terrorized by other members of his own division. “I was hog-tied to a chair, rolled around the base, left in a dog kennel that had feces spread in it.”

Rocha says that beginning six weeks into his deployment, he was singled out for abuse by his chief master-at-arms, Michael Toussaint, and others on the base, once Rocha made it clear he was not interested in prostitutes. “I was in a very small testosterone-driven unit of men,” Rocha says. “I think that’s what began the questioning-you know-‘Why don’t you want to have sex with her? Are you a faggot?’”

Youth Radio has conducted interviews and obtained documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) showing that the hog-tying episode was not the first or only case of harassment and abuse during Rocha’s deployment. In another incident cited in the documents, Rocha was forced to appear in a twisted “training video.” A member of the Working Dogs Division, Petty Officer Shaun Hogan, recalls the scene.

“Petty Officer Rocha and another junior sailor…were instructed to go into a classroom by Chief Michael Toussaint, who orchestrated the entire training. And Chief Toussaint asked them to simulate homosexual sex on a couch,” Hogan says.

Next in the simulation, Hogan says a handler and his dog barged onto the scene, and that’s when “one person…would sit up, kind of wipe off their mouth, the other would get up, and they would be fixing their fly.”

Rocha says Toussaint bullied him, “telling me I needed to be more believable, act more queer, have a higher pitched voice, make the sounds and gestures more realistic…I didn’t think I had a choice…It made me feel that I wasn’t a human being, that I was an animal, rather.”

Youth Radio has obtained a copy of both Braden’s investigation and the Navy’s Findings of Fact, which detail what happened to Rocha, in addition to incidents involving other service members. The FOIA documents have been redacted, so names are blocked out, but the actions listed include: throwing hard balls at the groin, spraying down uniformed personnel with multiple hoses, and a dog attacking a sex worker on base to the point of hospitalization.

Youth Radio’s investigation includes interviewing four members of the Bahrain Working Dogs Division who served between 2004 and 2006. All say the tone was set by Chief Toussaint. Some sailors participated in the culture of hazing as victims, others as perpetrators, or in some cases both.

When discussing his own Korea experience with my friend, I suggested that it might have been different if he’d been sent there as a sergeant in his 30′s rather than as a scared private of 19–he laughed and agreed: “Oh my God yeah…I wish I could go back there now…and this time they’d be like, ‘What’s wrong with you, man? Are you gay?’ and I’d be like, ‘That’s right, not only am I gay…I am THE gay**!’” But that’s now…as a mature adult man who has been to war and seen terrible things, who has the full growth and strength of a male in his physical prime, who has had enough sex of his own choosing to feel comfortable and confident in his own sexuality–and also, as a man with the authority of a senior noncommissioned officer’s rank.

I was in the Army myself, at age 18, in a heavily male environment–I know exactly what that’s like. There is no way in hell you could reasonably expect any of those boys to buck the system, and no, not just because they would be called names, or ostracized–they would be at serious risk of physical and sexual assault…just like I would have been if I’d ever made waves myself. And no feminist alive would have expected me to open my mouth and speak out under those circumstances. Male privilege doesn’t exist anymore when everyone in the group is already male, does it..?

So Hugo’s and Melissa’s messages are important…but they are lacking context. Which would be the privilege of never having served in our glorious Armed Forces, I would imagine. If you really want to advance the cause of feminism, first you’re going to push to make those spaces safe for the young men inhabiting them. That must come first, or you will never accomplish anything real and lasting in terms of encouraging young men to speak up for gender equality. And for God’s sake don’t trivialize a situation you can’t or won’t understand by calling it inconvenient…haven’t we had enough of that from the anti-choicers?

*via Pam

**He’s heterosexual, I should mention–you get his point, though.

Why Am I Not Surprised

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

…yep, everybody’s got an opinion about the feminism or lack thereof of the facial cum shot. 346 comments since noon today, for reals. I’m just sayin’, you don’t see this kinda action on a blog post about tort reform, for instance.

Monogamy what?

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

I was chatting on the phone with the kids’ dad this evening and he was complaining that said kids don’t open up emotionally and/or about their personal lives outside the home to him as much as they do to me. (Lemme make this clear, though–they hardly treat me like “Dear Abby!” What he meant was, they occasionally cough up a detail in my direction of their own accord as opposed to never coughing any up in his.) I pointed out to him (as delicately as possible) that my demeanor was perhaps more open-minded and nonjudgmental than his was, which he grudgingly admitted was likely true. However, he stated mulishly, you can’t give them advice on how to be a MAN, you know!

Well, no, I agreed–I give them advice on how to be a human being, as best I can–it’s true that I never try to advise them on how-to-be-a-MAN. The conversation then shifted to giving them relationship advice, especially our seventeen-year-old, and I found us unfortunately returning to the how-to-be-a-MAN meme in the form of “–and then I told him, you know, that we’re not naturally monogamous–that it’s all religion that’s forced that on us.”

“Um,” I said, “I’m actually pretty monogamous. By nature. I mean, that’s how I’m happy. And certainly I don’t feel that way based on religion–”

“Oh, well,” said the kids’ dad. “I meant MEN. Women, you know, are programmed for serial monogamy, and men are programmed to–”

“–spread the seed, right!” we chorused together. This disconcerted him long enough for me to invent a hasty excuse to get off the phone before I either burst out laughing right in his ear or started yelling at him for attempting to imprint my precious offspring with some evo-psych bullshit that he doesn’t even understand the feeble biological underpinnings of in an attempt to justify to himself why he probably wants to screw around on his wife–! (pant, pant!) But no, they’re also his precious offspring, you know–I don’t get to interfere with whatever ideological crap he wants to feed ‘em. All I get to do is present my opposing viewpoint to them, which I made a huge mental note to do ASAP.

…but it brought back to mind a recent post on Feministe about monogamy–well, about nonmonogamy really and the consensual practice thereof. (Nonconsensual nonmonogamy is otherwise known as cheating, and I think we all already know how I feel about that, right?) I am totally on board with consensual nonmonogamy, just like I am totally on board with pretty much anything and everything emotional and/or sexual that consenting adults want to practice amongst themselves.

However, I don’t agree that nonmonogamy is somehow more feminist than monogamy, which the blogger in question was more or less contending, though I understand why someone might take that stance. As I said in comments:

I would say traditionally that relationships (between men and women) were structured specifically so that the women were monogamous and the men were nonmonogamous–the main cultural variant was whether or not the men were openly nonmonogamous or applied a thin veneer of pretend monogamy to their nonmonogamy. This relationship was clearly structured to go against feminist views, but it wasn’t the monogamy that was the problematic structure, it was that only one gender was expected/forced to practice it (and on the other end, there was often a great deal of social pressure for men to practice nonmonogamy even if it went against their personal inclinations as well).

It does lead me to try to understand better my own definite preference for a monogamous relationship, though. Firstly, do I feel the same degree of need or desire for monogamy on both an emotional and a sexual level? or am I more definitely monogamous in one of those than the other? Secondly, what is the basis for both preferences? Is it something I can really, logically define, or is it an irrational conviction that I’m unable to defend logically but am still passionately attached to? (An example of the latter would be a belief in Creationism.)

I will figure that out and post a “Part Two,” but in the meantime I’d love to hear from any of you out there: Are you by preference monogamous or non, and why? What do you think about the intersection of monogamy and feminism? Harking back to the phone conversation I had with the kids’ dad, do you believe there are any genuine, inborn differences between the genders in terms of tendencies towards or away from monogamy? Shout it out!

Don’t do it, don’t look, don’t do it, don’t look–!

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

…well, I couldn’t help myself. I heard about this on the radio today:

George Sodini finally got the attention he wanted. After years of hoping women would take notice of him, Sodini allegedly entered a Pennsylvania health club Tuesday night and murdered three women in cold blood before turning a gun on himself.

Investigators need not puzzle over the motives for Sodini’s rampage; the 48-year-old suspected killer spelled them out in blood-chilling detail in an online diary.

“These are the rambling messages of a likely psychotic” and display characteristics of a man who has been “severely depressed for a long time,” forensic psychologist Naftali Berrill said of Sodini’s writing.

The image that emerges from his blog is that of a loner — a psychopath, routinely rejected by women who spent a year casing the gym and plotting his revenge on the “the young girls here [that] look so beautiful as to not be human, very edible.”

–and I really couldn’t help it–I thought to myself, I wonder what the good old Men’s Rights Activists think about that, hmm? I bet I can guess! But No, surely not!–not even those guys would excuse someone like this. So, after some internal squabbling, I gritted my teeth and nipped over to the foremost of MRAs, whose site I have not visited in a good seven months at least–Mr. Sacks.

Happily, neither Glenn nor the other dude who has apparently taken over much of his blogging activities seems to want to touch this one with a ten-foot pole. That was a genuine relief, and inclined me to think I was perhaps being overly hasty and judgmental in my assumptions regarding any general MRA opinion on the matter. With a somewhat lighter heart I typed in “George Sodini MRA” into Google and hit Search!–

Yeah, that wide-eyed optimism didn’t last too long. Very first hit?

George Sodini is an MRA hero!

Amanda already talked about the blog this was culled from, so I won’t reinvent her wheel. I did scroll down the comments, though, and plucked out the following gems for your indigestion:

George Sodini is an MRA hero as much a reason to learn game. Finally a mass murderer writes a relatively coherent manifesto. Could be better, but at least it is implied that feminism is to blame and he is taking a last stand. I had been waiting for this (almost thinking I had to do it myself) and I am impressed. Kudos.

Arpagus, whose own blog links to the Men’s Activism News Network, among other things

One thing that might help prevent future incidents of this sort is repealing IMBRA, the federal law that essentially put the mail order bride industry out of business.

–Peter, who is probably too stupid to have a blog

I think every man DOES deserve to get laid.

For every nerdy, smelly, fat, or otherwise socially undesirable man out there, there is an equally unattractive woman walking around. (more than one actually because there are more women than men on the planet)

The problem is, our feminized society has given every woman the power to hold out for higher quality men than they deserve.

This creates an imbalance that leads to tragedies like the one in PA.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Newton’s 3rd Law)

If empowered women keep applying pressure, they will create an explosion.

A.J. Travis, whose entire blog consists of (a) how to finely tune a woman’s 1-10 hotness rating to suit your personal life goals before you decide which one to like, devour or whatever and (b) a detailed dwelling on the flaws of the “9″ woman versus the flaws of the “6″ woman

Every man knows they have to EARN respect.

They DESERVE to get laid.

A decent looking man who earns a good living and does not abuse women DESERVES to get laid. Period.

The fact that so many do not, is a crime.

And in a just society, all crimes are eventually punished.

–More A.J. Travis, who I’m starting to really hope lives nowhere near me, especially since there is one non-woman post on his blog and it’s about guns

Have you guys noticed a trend in fat women? Some of the ones I have spoken to actually believe they can get alpha cock. They don’t want to hook up with beta men either. This is a troubling development.

–Game in BK, and nope, no clue what this has to remotely do with the thread, but I just had to reproduce his comment here ’cause can you believe that someone’s really that moronic..? LOL!

…and it goes on, and on, and on…there are a few dissenting voices in there, but mostly they’re drowned out by the angry horde.

Note to anyone who feels e-n-t-i-t-l-e-d to any type of use of my body for any reason whatsoever: No, You Aren’t. Get Over It. And if violence committed against my person of any description based upon this feeling of entitlement seems even remotely justifiable to you, you had probably better commit it like George Sodini did, with a distance weapon and without warning and resulting in me getting killed dead. ‘Cause otherwise, you’ll find out that I have an equally enthusiastic belief in and comfort level with extreme violence in cases of self-defense, and I do tend to hold a grudge.

‘Nuff said.

Sometimes, I Thinks Guys Really Hate Us

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

I’m a big fan of reading Cracked.com (the articles, not the comments…dear sweet Jebus, the comments). Normally, it’s pretty funny, and a little off the wall, and very occasionally, I get the idea that the writers might have a progressive bent to them (the article about racist Disney cartoons definitely suggested it). Sometimes, they totally miss the boat entirely, and then I do like I do with most of my media- complain to Hubby, and shrug it off as “that’s the world”. Cracked does a photo-shop contest once a week, the grand prize being 50 dollars normally, and most of the time the pictures can be quite clever. This week, the thread was “If Everyone Had An Unlimited Advertising Budget“.

And this is the point that I felt like I had to say something to the interwebs.

My reactions looking this over were thus:
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I Just Have To Repost This

Thursday, July 16th, 2009


A condom angel.

From Feministing:

Abstinence-only education advocates are not too pleased that their federal funding is pretty much kaput…

Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse…had this to say about losing federal funding:

“We’ve got news for the condom worshipers, abstinence education is not going away any time soon. Taxpayers will not tolerate their money being used for ideological latex-only programs and the molestation of their children’s minds and future.”

Yeah, hear that, condom worshipers?! oh, my…

A little bit of slavery

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Red Queen points out a crucial missing element from the argument going on over here:

The question of when life starts may be fun to debate in a purely philosophical exercise, but it has nothing to do with the actual problem of women who are pregnant and don’t want to be. The real debate is who controls your body? You, your nearest patriarchal overseer, the assholes in navy blue suits who vote for our laws? If you believe that you are the only person capable of making decisions about your own body, then you believe that everyone is capable of making decisions about their own body. If you believe that there is ever a time when someone else gets to make decisions about a body not their own (which is slavery), then you better be prepared to line up for mandatory blood donations. If you’re okay with a little bit of slavery, it’s best not to assume that you’re going to be the slave owner.

The epithet “forced birther” may not win any friends with folks on the anti-legal-abortion side of the fence, but if you actually take their arguments at face value, that is exactly what they are. While usually making an exception for conditions which threaten the life of a pregnant mother (though mind you, they are the ones setting the risk level over which this threat is unacceptable), they are suggesting that our government ought to proudly step in and force women to give birth to children.

Now, forced birthers would choose to frame it differently, probably in terms of murder. This is why I, reproductive rights noob that I am, have only been tackling the ludicrous claims that zygotes have equal rights to adult human beings. Because this issue is cut and dried. There is no murder possible if there was never any sentience. But it’s been useful with me to engage folks like Neil and Theo, who believe this nutty view, if only to expose where their real priorities lay. They would sacrifice the rights of adult women on the altar of the (yes, human) zygote.

Why do they persist in valuing the “rights” of even a non-sentient one-celled organism to exist over the rights of a woman to have control over her own body, and thus the course of her own life? Perhaps it’s:

  • A religious belief that the zygote (but not the sperm) has a soul.
  • A desire to get off on controlling the bodies of other people.
  • Both of the above.
  • A fourth option which I am too close-minded and/or dense to comprehend.

Obviously different individuals may have different answers here. Forced birther zygote worshippers, I invite you to tell me your own answer. I’d really like to understand how one can even come to hold your perspective.