a thought regarding gender

The other day, a stranger was greeting my dog. 

"Oh, aren't you such a good -- " she gushed, pausing mid-sentence to look up at me.  "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"He's a boy"

"Ah!  Then -- good boy!" she finally finished.

In that moment, I felt rather strange.  This person was so concerned about correctly gendering and addressing a creature that (a) has no real gender expression, culturally speaking, and (b) doesn't really understand language anyway.  My dog wouldn't care if you called him a girl.  He wouldn't care if you called him a monkey, or a pineapple.  He doesn't know words.  Honestly, if he didn't actually identify as a boy dog I wouldn't know, because he can't tell me.  And I could have said anything; it's not like she demanded to inspect his genitals to make sure I wasn't "lying" to her.  She just moved on with appreciating a cute animal.

But the fact that the situation caused her enough concern that she needed to check in with me in order to not accidentally mis-gender was interesting.  Here was a culturally sanctioned interchange, designed to efficiently clear up an issue of gendered address. It was a pretty cool dynamic, really, just applied to a not terribly culturally significant situation.  It was simple, brief, and effective.

And then people freak out when they can't immediately gender another person, or when someone asks to be gendered in the way that is correct for them, which might conflict with others' perceptions or assumptions.  Somehow the mandate to simply check in on the situation, request information, and then respect that information, totally evaporates with humans. 

It would be nice if we afforded our fellow humans the same respect for gender that that lady showed to my dog.

damn it, George Takei

[Trigger warning for consent-ignoring rape apologia, slut-shaming, and racism]

I like George Takei a lot.  He leverages his fame to raise awareness of his causes such as gay rights and Japanese-American detainment.  I think he's done some work with autism too.  He's become something of an Internet icon for tolerance and awesomeness.  Good stuff.  Yay!

However, he's been having a lot of intersectionality fail of late.

So you may remember this, wherein George Takei, awesome human being and justice advocate and actor, posted a rather thoughtless meme that implied that strippers are bad people and/or the result of bad parenting.

Some of his followers pointed out how un-cool that was, and he apologized. That was cool, even if it didn't feel like he *quite* understood what was going on. But okay. Those who commented wanted him to know that we think so highly of him that we assume he'd like to know when he's hurting folks, and maybe that information will be acted upon. Learning is neat.

But... it hasn't stopped.  This tendency, though being keenly aware of the importance of the social justice issues by which he's personally affected, to thoughtlessly inflict harm on other oppressed categories of people.

Just in the last few days, we've had this:

And then this:

Not cool, Takei.  The first displays gross victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and callous disregard for the concept of consent all in one fell swoop.  The second... well.  Cute jokes about very real and terrifying people who terrorized and murdered people based on race with support of societal structures at large do not exist in a vacuum.  This really isn't all that hard.

I get it: intersectionality is hard.  Wearing blinders is easy.  Being aware of how your words serve to enforce oppression in a multi-dimensional kyriarchy takes work.  But George Takei, kick-ass gay rights activist, wants folks to do that work for his causes, while not bothering to do his own work to understand the issues that affect others.  I really wish he'd take a second and actually think about what he's saying, beyond whether it's a cute pun.  I'd hoped for better from someone I truly admire like George Takei.  A world full of institutionalized inequality and oppression is what social justice-aware folks confront on a daily basis, but this sort of drivel is somehow extra-disappointing and heartbreaking when it comes from supposed 'allies.'

Intersectionality is critically important.  We're all in this together.

In the immortal words of Flavia Dzodan, my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit. 

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Edited to add trigger warning because I should really remember to add those.

today gets THREE awesome things because apparently today is extra awesome

This is possibly the best Ted talk to date.  (Link for in case the embedding doesn't work.)

This dude cuts through the bullshit and asks all the right questions about gendered violence and gender issues.  Complete with a call to action.

<3

in which I weep for humanity ( aka AUGH part two)

(Part 1)

Apparently a third military dude in the last two weeks who just-so-happened to be tasked with sexual assault prevention is facing charges.


I'm just going to quote Fannie, here, for summarizing a core issue so succinctly:

''War is, in principle and practice, the violation of boundaries, albeit for some purported greater good and even though the people waging it might be good people in many contexts. Having legitimated the practice of violence and boundary violating, it should not be a surprise that those who are trained in it sometimes fail to distinguish who is and is not deserving of having their boundaries violated."

Yeah.  There is that. 

AUGH

[Content note for sexual assault, and rampant use of all-caps internet-yelling]

Last night on my drive home from work, NPR ran a story about sexual assault 'scandals' in the military.  Apparently in addition to the recent sexual assault prevention Air Force officer being arrested for (wait for it) sexual assault, a Fort Hood Army officer in charge of sexual assault prevention and victim counseling is now under investigation for (surprise surprise) sexual assault.

Man, that's a lot of sexual assault in one sentence. 

So.  I'm not even going to address the main story, other than to comment on how I am amazed that anyone can talk about this topic without screaming.  

THE VERY PEOPLE WE'RE TASKING WITH PREVENTING ASSAULT ARE COMMITTING THAT EXACT KIND OF ASSAULT, OFTEN AGAINST THE VICTIMS THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING.  

If there's a better exhibit of why this is a cultural problem that can't be fixed by little sound bytes and lip service, I don't know of it.  Anyway, my hat's off to Melissa Block for somehow managing to conduct this interview without exploding.  

What I want to talk about is this.  The interview addressed the sexual assault prevention training that the military is running, and ran a clip from a bystander-intervention-encouraging video.  Now, I'm all about pointing out to dudes that THEM PERSONALLY not raping anyone at the moment is not enough.  This is not an individual problem that would be fixed if only we could weed out those few 'bad apples.'  This is a systemic, cultural problem, and the predators are depending on the other dudes' silence in order to get away with (and get implicit approval for) their heinous actions.  YOUR SILENCE MATTERS.  Speak up!  Don't let people get away with this shit!  So let's see what the fancy sexual assault prevention campaign has come up with to convey that women are people and you should speak up because predators will interpret your silence as encouragement (and yes, people of all genders are victimized at times, but this piece seems to be pretty heteronormative so that's presumably the most relevant message at the moment.  One step at a time, I guess, as much as I hate that these steps are even necessary)!

Here's the transcript (emphasis mine, and I've changed the names from 'unidentified man' to something more appropriate):

Dudebro #1: Check out Chris. He's making a fool of himself. 

Dudebro #2: Dude, that girl's trying to leave and he keeps grabbing her. Man, that's all we need is to get put on lockdown again. 

Dudebro #1: Yeah.

AUGH.   

No!  That's not... I just... I hate everything.

CLEARLY the ONLY POSSIBLE reason to want to prevent BODILY ASSAULT is because it might inconvenience YOU.  Not, like, because you'd be PREVENTING A CRIME.  Because gosh darn it, those pesky people might punish the person COMMITTING A CRIME, and that might be annoying.  Consequences are so tiresome.

Or perhaps more realistically, the people making this video thought that would be the only reason that would be accessible to, and resonate with, the young military dudes at whom the training is targeted.  They're seriously saying that young men are so incredibly devoid of humanity and empathy that they're unable to see horrific victimization as horrific, and so it must be filtered through a little prism that casts it into terms their widdle bwains can comprehend.  Namely, that the fallout might be inconvenient and might get onto them a little.  Because someone somewhere DOES give a shit about the victim and the crime, presumably.  That person (whom I guess we must presume to be female) might even see the victim as an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING.  But that would be WAY too much to ask of your poor little military dudes.

What.  The.  Fuck.

To all you male and male-identified people, why are you not screaming about this?  That is some of the most fucking insulting shit I've seen in a while.  Presuming that you are literally incapable of caring about another person, so the only (or perhaps best) reason for speaking up against blatant predation is because it might be mildly inconvenient?  Now THIS is actual real-life misandry.  And this feminist, for one, is pissed as hell about it.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, patriarchy.

Bourdain: a win and a fail

So, Anthony Bourdain.  Professional irreverent jackass, travel show host, chef.  Cool guy.  I read Kitchen Confidential a few years back at the urging of a good friend (hi!), and fell in love with his prose and attitude.  He's a New Yorker through and through, so is callous at times, but also tends to not take himself too seriously.  And as I learned from his travel show No Reservations (he has more shows now, but I've only watched NR so far), he's supremely devoted to being a respectful guest when in someone else's domain.  He eats whatever the people he's visiting bring to him, no matter how disgusting it might seem to our American sensibilities about food.  He does his darndest to be a good guest.

He's touring, and we got to see him last night.  Awesome opportunity.  He mostly talked about food and travel and his show, of course, but I have a few slightly tangential observations to note.  These were smallish moments in the show, but I want to talk about them.

1) During the question-and-answer portion of the show, a lady asked something along the lines of 'what do you think the role of women should be in the restaurant industry?'

First off, it's kind of a weird question to ask, in my opinion (isn't this 2013?).  BUT!  Tony surprised the hell out of me by providing what might be the best possible answer to that question.  His response (possibly slightly paraphrased because my memory ain't perfect)?

'What women should do?  I don't think that's a question I should be answering.  Anything that comes out of my mouth is going to be, let's face it, mansplaining.' 

Holy shit.  Holy shit.  This dude is self-aware enough to know that being in the food business for decades and being a famous chef still makes him unqualified on the general topic of 'what women should do,' even in his field.  He acknowledges that and is quite ready to say so.  And he even knows (and used in a public forum!!!) the word 'mansplaining.'

I don't know that I can quite convey how happy this makes me.  

So much squee.

2) Apparently a while back there was a big brouhahaha wherein Tony was pressed to tell who he thought was the worst celebrity chef.  He's always insulting people, especially famous people, so that's no real surprise (such as the whole Kwanzaa cake thing, which I actually found to be quite funny).  See the 'irreverent jackass' thing above.  His response was to name Paula Deen, because of her being the most 'dangerous' chef to America.  Because of cooking fatty food and thereby corrupting the moral fiber of the country, I guess.  Then he got to feel all sorry for himself because he subsequently got verbally attacked online a bunch by people sticking up for her and admonishing him for picking on a nice old lady and insulting Southern food.

Okay.  I have things to say about this.

He (correctly) pointed out that her cuisine isn't actually particularly Southern or traditional.  He pointed to her 'lady brunch burger,' which consists of a burger patty, fried egg, and bacon between donuts.

Okay, fine.   He also, naturally, had scare-tactic stats of the calories and fat content of the thing.  Then he criticized her for having Type 2 diabetes (um, okay), for waiting to tell the world about her disease (which is obviously everyone's business everywhere because, um, reasons), and then for partnering with a diabetes drug company for sponsorship and being open about things (she can't win).  These are all the same things that were said a bunch of times when the whole diabetes thing first came out.

And it's all bullshit.

Paula Deen owes no one an explanation of her personal health.  Full stop.  I don't care that she's a celebrity, and I don't care what her show is about.  Her health is her own business.

She had (has?  I don't actually watch television) a show about making delicious food that happened to be really dense and made with a lot of butter.  Shows have themes.  A chef's life is not necessarily a reflection of hir show (does that sweet genuis guy subsist entirely on cupcakes?  I doubt it).  I certainly wouldn't want a lady brunch burger every day; it's a silly oddity and ought to be treated as such.  If you actually think she eats this food all the time, I have a bridge to sell you.  And Tony?  Supposing that you can lecture a person on what her personal life must be like because of your Super Objective and Truth-Telling Perspective while refusing to listen to her words about her own lived experience is, I'm sorry Tony, 'splaining.  You know, that word you used so eloquently and appropriately to the question about women in food?  Yeah, that.

For more eloquent and kick-ass words about the Paula Deen affair, read this.  Ragen says it so much better than I could, and it's well worth a read.

Tony, you're wrong.  You're so wrong.  

Then it got worse.

He proceeded to wax poetical about the declining health of America, and how intervention is necessary.  I got more nervous as it became obvious what was about to happen.  He talked about McDonald's, of course, which I have no love for for a myriad of reasons.  And sure, he's gonna insult people and institutions.  Irreverent jackass.  Comedy.  I get it.  But he wasn't being funny, here.  He was being serious.  He's concerned about the health of the nation.  As exhibited by using this topic to segue into a rant about how people's fat asses can't get up off couches and are in his way on airplanes.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.

One, stop conflating weight with health.  There are skinny people who are unhealthy and fat people who are healthy.  Some factors correlate weakly, but it's simply bad science to think you can make assumptions about health from a person's body size.  Some studies suggest that having more body fat might actually provide some protection from disease, and be a predictor of lower risks of mortality.  Health is complicated, and reducing it down to fat = unhealthy is profoundly disingenuous.

Bad food does not necessarily make you fat.  Tony, you yourself exemplify this.  You are quite open about your past, with its terrible health choices, and you seem to have always been a pretty scrawny dude.  This means there must be other factors.  It is usually not a choice to have a particular body size.  Know that friend (maybe you, Tony) who can eat anything and stay skinny?  Yeah, I guarantee there are corresponding folks who eat relatively little and healthily and stay fat.  Bodies are funny like that.  We all have weights at which we are personally healthiest, and those weights are different for different people.

A body size is not a diagnosis.  Of anything.  At all.  It is not a diagnosis of personal habits, level of activity, or any sort of disease.  Looking at a fat person tells you one piece of information.  That they're fat.  Obesity is not a disease, and even if it was, we'd be going about dealing with it in a profoundly terrible way.

If you want to talk about health, great!  Talk about actual health.  Poor nutrition and being sedentary do cause health problems, but they do that to people with all kinds of different body sizes.  Know what you're talking about and (crucially) what you're not talking about.

Two, good grief, man.  Did it never occur to you that you're talking about actual people here?  Actual people, who already endure ceaseless hatred, judgement, criticism, and bigotry because of their bodies. Just for existing.  Jumping straight (via 'common sense,' of course) from a criticism of shitty American food to being pissed off at a hypothetical fat person for being in your way when evacuating an airplane, or drawing the equivalence that fat = useless and sedentary is profoundly horrible of you.  There was a heavyset man sitting in front of me during your talk, and I could feel him kind of freeze and tense up at that.  And I absolutely 100% do not blame him for maybe feeling a little defensive when you were attacking him*.

Above, I said that fatness is not a good predictor of disease or death (science!).  Want to know what is a good predictor?  Being the victim of social stigma.  Yup.  It turns out that being preached at and judged and admonished for one's audacity to exist causes stress!  Funny, that.  So by mocking and judging a segment of society that has to put up with this shit every day of their lives (it's not like you can walk around without your body to avoid the stigma), the same people you probably think you're 'helping' or 'saving,' you are being part of that very problem.  You are contributing to the cultural pressure that tells fat people that they're worthless, that they're disgusting, that everyone except them knows what they need and what their lives are like.  That they have to exercise more (but don't actually do so in public because you'll be shamed for that), that they have to go on fad diets (as it turns out, dieting not only has never been shown to cause long-term weight loss in more than a tiny fraction of the population and is a really great predictor of weight gain but also is extremely detrimental to health --- you know, that health thing you're on about?), that being thin is more important than being fulfilled and pursuing things they think are awesome (and of course they couldn't possibly be good at things in their actual bodies), that they have to change their bodies before they can receive reasonable health care when they're injured or sick.  You are not criticizing people for their behaviors here.  You are criticizing their right to exist in their bodies, and layering even more abuse on top of a really shitty lifelong experience.  You might want to think about that.

I would have hoped that someone with the awareness and sensitivity to provide the best answer ever when questioned about women's place in his industry would have actually thought about these things or done a tiny bit of research instead of launching into a humiliation and judgement tirade that serves only to uphold a nationwide campaign to get people to hate themselves.

Stick to food, Tony.  It might be a good idea to lay off the moral preaching.



*Note: I do not presume to know what this fellow may have been thinking or feeling at the time; I am not him and do not know him.  I only have my observations of his body language and my knowledge of how I would probably feel in his place. 

Scalzi is amazing, part eleventy

Have I mentioned lately how very very super-duper much I adore John Scalzi's blog Whatever*?

I do.  It's so juicy and delicious and full of patriarchy-smashing awesomeness. 

I also read and adore a lot of blogs written by women and other people in other demographics and I don't want to look like I'm awarding disproportionate cookies to Scalzi because of being white and male and intersectionality is complicated.  

Also, one of the extra awesome things about Scalzi is that he sees and acknowledges the clusterfuck of intersectional privilege working for him, and thinks that's a load of steaming poo and says so.  

Anyway, he's great.  

For todays installment of why Scalzi is awesome, I present his treatise on women in geekdom.  

There's been a lot of hubbub lately (where lately is the past decade or so) about people of the female persuasion (gasp!) daring to be interested in geeky things and even (!!!) go to cons and participate in fandoms for the things they like.  And predictably, there's been a lot of pushback from Real (read: male) Geeks shunning and criticizing and even assaulting those damn Fake Geek Girls because they're obviously just here for attention and what the hell are ladypeople doing at my con anyway?  

Those ladypeople are tired of putting up with that shit.  As well they should be.  

Anyway, it's a mess.  Scalzi's input on the subject is insightful and on target.  You should read it.  

*Incidentally, while I've been reading and loving Scalzi's blog for a while now, I hadn't gotten around to reading any of his actual books (you know, the thing he does professionally and is kind of famous for).  Today that changed, and on my morning commute I started Old Man's War, being the only Scalzi book we happened to have in the house.  So I'm fixing that situation!  Whee. 

George Takei and allies

So, George Takei.  Actor, gay rights activist, awesome human being, really popular on Facebook.  Cool guy.  I like him a lot.  He often posts about social justice issues and puns.

But last Tuesday, this happened:

And this... is not okay.  Cringingly clicking through to the comments, to my surprise I found many people pointing out that this was not okay ally behavior, that assuming strippers/sex workers are automatically and necessarily bad or damaged people is all kinds of messed up and contributes to a culture of gendered shame, and that perpetuating such stereotypes isn't particularly classy of him.  We were all very, very disappointed that our hero chose to engage in such hateful and bigoted rhetoric.

Then the following day, this happened:

And this?  This is fabulous.  This is a dude

1. actually listening when something problematic is pointed out to him,
2. examining his own motivations and values in the context of the new knowledge,
3. acknowledging that he messed up,
4. and promising to learn from this and work on doing better. 

This is good ally work.  I do have a few issues with his apology in that I'm not quite convinced he completely got the point about slut-shaming being No Really A Real Problem when he asserts that it's somehow 'sad' that women make money by 'using their bodies rather than their minds.'  This invisibles women who choose this work, who enjoy it, who... you know what?  To tell you the truth, I am extremely unqualified to talk about sex work, as I am not in that field and have not done extensive research/empathizing regarding it.  If you're interested in such topics, I'll refer you to this excellent piece. 

Additionally, we need to teach our girls to 'value themselves' higher, without correspondingly teaching our boys to value the girls, too?  Way to drop the ball on that one, George.  

Suffice it to say that I have a few quibbles and I don't think it's completely free of problematic elements quite yet. 

But!  He listened, grokked what was wrong, and learned from it.  This is someone putting in the effort that's required to do good ally work.  

One of the critical points of this social justice thing is that 'ally' is not simply a nametag you slap on your shirt and then get to claim.  Being an ally takes work.  It means understanding and checking your privilege, genuinely listening to those in marginalized populations, and owning up when you mess up (and we all will mess up, I guarantee it).   A convenient label is far too often wielded as a deflection by those desperate to avoid acknowledging a misstep, and it presupposes that being an aware and empathetic person has an end point.  There is no final goal in this process; the process is the whole point, and it's so important to remember that.  

We know that George is an awesome, aware, inclusive guy.  We know he's on the side of social justice.  But he doesn't get a free pass because of that identity.  The difference between an end-goal ally identity and the allied behavior process is why he cannot (and did not) get a free pass when he slips up.  Being usually a decent person doesn't mean you didn't still mess up when you messed up, and it's critical to point that out.  

Melissa over at Shakesville has this to say about 'being' and ally versus doing ally work.   As always, she is incredibly erudite and wields her insight-hammer with breathtaking precision.  It's well worth a read.  

Finally, I must link to Jay Smooth's excellent video about this very topic.  He's specifically taking on racism, but it holds for any bigotry or unexamined prejudice.  The point is not who you are; it's what you say and do.   Nobody said George was a bad person for this (or if they did, that wasn't very helpful or considerate of them).  They pointed out that what he said was thoughtless and damaging.   And to his credit, he responded beautifully.

It's a great process to see in action. 

about that letter

[Content note: rampant frustrated sarcasm in the commentary]

So a lady wrote a letter to the female student population of Princeton, exhorting them to snap up husbands before they left school, because '[they] will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of [them].'  An excerpt (emphasis mine):

For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you. 

Here’s what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate. Yes, I went there. 

I am the mother of two sons who are both Princetonians. My older son had the good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate of his, but he could have married anyone. My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless. Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again — you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you. 

Of course, once you graduate, you will meet men who are your intellectual equal — just not that many of them. And, you could choose to marry a man who has other things to recommend him besides a soaring intellect. But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isn’t as smart as you. 

Here is another truth that you know, but nobody is talking about. As freshman women, you have four classes of men to choose from. Every year, you lose the men in the senior class, and you become older than the class of incoming freshman men. So, by the time you are a senior, you basically have only the men in your own class to choose from, and frankly, they now have four classes of women to choose from. Maybe you should have been a little nicer to these guys when you were freshmen? 

If I had daughters, this is what I would be telling them.

She's serious.

Okay, let's do this thing.

1. The gross heternormativity of this piece is appalling.  In this year of two thousand and bloody thirteen we're still putting together sentences like 'the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry'?  Really?  This makes too many assumptions to count.  Obviously all women (or at least all Princeton women) are straight, cis, and want to get married.  That must be it.  I'll set this point aside for now, and assume that she curated her audience to be only those straight, cis women who have professed a desire to marry a straight, cis man someday.  
2. Who the fruitcake are you, lady, to declare who is and is not 'worthy' of these young women?  Isn't that their damn call to make for their own damn selves?
3. Men can 'marry down' in intellect, but women are comprehensively incapable of doing the same?  I just don't think I have the spoons to pull that apart in entirety, and I'm sure someone else on the interwebz will do a better job than I would, anyway.  So I'll just mention a few observations.  
• See point #2.  
• Really?  REALLY?  We're going to make 'level of acceptable Princetonian training' into the new caste system where it's super important to snag a husband in a higher bracket?  WTF? 
• There are really no other characteristics that might, say, lead to long-term happiness or compatibility other than the woman in the (straight, cis) marriage being acceptably less than the man.  Okay then.
• She's willing to reduce the lived experiences of however many bajillions of people might have different educational levels than their spouses by saying that they'll ultimately just be too frustrated to cope.  The 'well, you could choose to marry someone using, say, your own criteria instead of the one imposed on you by this random piece of unsolicited advice' (paraphrasing mine) little tidbit is especially cute, because it's followed by pointing out how IF YOU DO YOU'LL BE DOOMED.  
• I.... I just don't even.  
4. Moving on.  Ooh, look!  We get a second criterion!  Apparently it's categorically impossible for a ladyperson to be involved with a guyperson who is AT ALL younger than she is.  NOT ALLOWED, Y'ALL.  I had no idea that by the time I was a junior, the freshman men were totally off limits.  Oops, apparently that boyfriend didn't exist.  I must be fabricating those memories, because here's this totally authoritative lady to inform me that my relationship defied the laws of physics or something.  And apparently my college-educated mother didn't actually marry my eleven-years-younger, high-school-dropout father.  Thanks.  
5. Ending this piece of drivel with an exhortation to be 'nicer' to men?  Really?  Clearly that's what we need!  Girls just have to be nicer to boys!  That'll magically fix everything like abuse and rape and the fucktons of little ways in which male-type-people are socialized to disregard (at best) or outright loathe all the female-type-people and their silly ladybrainz who clearly don't know how to make any choices or govern their own damn lives, while those female-type people are socialized in more fucktons of ways to put up with the shit and make themselves smaller and not impose and be nice.  This is rape culture 101.  

Look.  It's fine to point out that college is a great time for socializing because you're around a bunch of people who all share your interests and have similar levels of free time.  I get that.  I kind of miss that dynamic, and wish I'd appreciated it more when I was in school.  I miss the ability to magically summon a house party at a moment's notice, or randomly call a friend and meet them for lunch between classes.  Real life doesn't have that kind of connection or freedom. 

But it is categorically fucked up to assert that the only reason this is beneficial is for the purposes of snatching up a sufficiently-educated-and-older husband.  And that if you don't do this, you (as a Princeton-educated, straight, cis, maybe presumably white woman) have somehow failed.

This is not okay. 

about Steubenville

I am tempted to write something about the Steubenville rape conviction, but I'm not sure I have the peace of mind to accomplish that.  There is not enough rage in the universe for the rapist-sympathizing and victim-blaming going on in mainstream media right now.

So I will refer you to John Scalzi's very good piece about exactly why all of that is very very wrong.

That is all for now.

repost: gender rant

Metapost: my first attempt at the newfangled blogging thing ended when I decided I no longer identified with the name I'd chosen, and thus The Organized Geek was abandoned.  However, there was some good stuff in there, and I'll be reposting a few selected entries occasionally, so they don't get entirely lost to oblivion. 

Originally posted on 04.26.12, this post contains a rant about gender policing and the power of gendered insults.  Looking back, I still had (and still have!) a lot to learn on the topic, so some of my ideas are a little simplistic.  But here it is anyway.  A few notes and links have been added.

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...honest discussions about gender politics, as with this amazingly well-written and empowering letter and the comments upon it.  The Internet is an amazing place, and it's full of both thoughtful, insightful people who know how to be civil to one another and insecure jackasses who need to insult each other with every remark for no apparent reason.  It's so nice when the former group can get together and have a real conversation!

To be more on-topic, it's always bothered me profoundly when people use the terms 'girly' or 'gay' to be insults.  A casual 'what a pussy' or 'that's gay' is both incredibly denigrating to a huge proportion of the population and usually completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.  I've heard people call each other gay for the silliest things, like messing up in a game or being late to an event.  What on the green hills of earth does sexual orientation have to do with punctuality?  I was once called a slut for standing in the way in a hallway.  The irrelevancy just about caused my head to explode with confusion even as I was reeling from the shock of the strength of the insult.  What's the point here?

Okay, okay, I know about the male need to verbally bash the bajeezus out of each other in order to show affection.  I don't have to understand it, but I get that it's a thing.  However, there's a difference between calling someone an incompetent jerk (which might be at least subjectively true based on immediate evidence) and using an incredibly personal insult that has nothing to do with what's going on, may or may not be true, and at best denigrates an entire sector of humanity to everyone in earshot.  Associating unacceptable or 'inferior' behavior with being a 'jerk' (or insert your favorite relevant insult here) is one thing (jerk being a descriptor that is defined by such behavior), but associating that unacceptable or 'inferior' behavior with being a 'girl' or a 'fag' is quite another.  What message does that send to any girls [update: ye gods.  Girl?  Really?  I apparently wasn't bright enough to use the more appropriate non-infantilizing word 'woman' here] who might overhear you?  That they're automatically inferior, and it's a bad thing for anyone to be lowered to their level.  What message does that send to straight men in the room?  That they'd better be afraid of having any 'feminine' qualities [update: this also reminds men that women are bad and inferior and not to be taken seriously.  Hooray for reinforcement of pervasive and deeply problematic cultural narratives].  What message does that send to your friend who hasn't yet quite worked up the courage to tell his buds that he might be gay?  That he's bad, wrong, inferior, and should shut up.

Even if you make the case that the terms have become divorced from their original meanings in the head of the person using them and are generic insults completely devoid of gender-related or sexual meaning, what excuse is that?  Oh, because it's an unthinking propagation of destructive stereotypes it's okay?  Words have power, whether you're bothering to think about it or not.  

\end{rant}

Wow, that apparently touched a nerve.  I didn't intend to do quite that much ranting on the topic!  Moving on.

Taken from the comments of the above letter:

As soon as children learn that gender roles vary by culture, they can start thinking about what sort of culture they want to see when they’re adults. And that, historically, is how social revolution begins.

Hear hear!  For even more perspective, dig this take on historical gender perceptions!  From that article:

The more research we do, the more it seems like the only behavior consistently considered normal is the tendency to be way too strict about what normal behavior actually is -- and then being really shitty to the people who don't conform.

Pink used to be considered to be infinitely more manly than blue, and the danger of dressing your baby androgynously is that it might grow up to be the president of the united states.  Cultural biases are not only localized in space, but in time.  It's all remarkably arbitrary, which makes it even more ridiculous how fervently people will cling to the discrimination fads of the moment.  

And here's my favorite definition from the comments to the open letter linked above: 

Homophobia: The fear that gay men will treat you how you treat women.

...explains a lot, doesn't it? [update: this is an extremely simplistic view, is largely presented for humor, and fails to take quite a few issues into account.  This statement is not to be taken literally, and is one of those cases wherein I need to learn to grow up a little.]

Ultimately, boys are better at peeing standing up, and girls can grow new humans.  Other than that, we're pretty much people.  Aside from the Grand Unifying Theory of Gender Relations, of course.  [update: another semi-serious, semi-humorous, rather thoughtless reference.  The more I learn, the more problems I see with this 'Grand Unifying Theory' that I used to adore.  Perhaps I'll deconstruct that at a later date.]

Let's teach the next generation a little civility and acceptance, shall we?

thinking, and new directions

I've been thinking a lot lately.  This will likely get fairly rambly.

About the world, about my life, and about this little corner of the internet that I have staked out for myself.

There are many directions I could go with this space, and I've come to the definite conclusion that I am completely unsure of where this blog is going (see what I did there?).  It started off as a simple platform to get me writing, and to provide some measure of accountability for personal goals and projects.

Heh.  Yeah, about those resolutions and goals.  The ones I'm constantly thinking up and then abandoning.  It's not too encouraging.  And about that blogging schedule I haven't kept to, largely out of not feeling like I have anything pertinent to say.

However, maybe that's not the point.  Maybe the point is that I have this space, and I can say whatever the heck I want to say within it.  Even if it doesn't fit into my preconceived notion of what my topic is or should be.  So I'm going to go on an adventure.  I'm going to write about whatever is on my mind, whether it seems relevant or not.

Wow, when I write it out like that, it seems much less momentous than it did in my head.  I'm going to blog OFF TOPIC.  So brave.  But hey, small steps, right?

So,  first topic.  Feminism.

Yep, I said it.  Dropped the f-word.

You see, I'm a feminist.  I always have been, but it was in the lazy, non-introspective, inactive way.   Perhaps it's because I was so involved in my studies, but I never really bothered to poke my nose out into the world and see what was going on.  I didn't actively deconstruct problematic cultural messages, and I had never heard the words 'kyriarchy' or 'intersectionality.'  I pinned buttons with cheeky feminist phrases on my purse, but I didn't know, in a real way, that feminism had progressed past the free love movement of the sixties.

In other words, I was a complete dunce on the subject.

But in the last year or so, largely in response to unidentified feelings of ennui and quiet rage, I've really started immersing myself in the literature and connecting with some of the truly amazing folks writing about this stuff out on the big bad internet.  People like Melissa McEwan, Ana Mardoll, David Futrelle, and Libby Anne, to name just a few.

I've come across so many different perspectives, many of which make me breathe a huge sigh of relief. Finding safe spaces was a revelation.  I hadn't known that such thoughtful people were out there doing the work of identifying subtle double standards, of explaining tricky problems, of inspecting and dismantling rape culture.  People who expect more.  I got a huge awakening to what was going on in the world, and a call to examine some of the shitty messages I've internalized over the years.  Boy, can that stuff be unpleasant to unpack and really look at, especially when it comes to addressing one's unexamined privilege.  But it's also profoundly important, and I'm willing to put up with a little discomfort in order to become a better person.

I guess you could say I'm a baby feminist.  I've got a whole heck of a lot to learn and grok and incorporate into my goal of becoming a more thoughtful human being.

So let's just say that I was deeply and pleasantly surprised by what I found out there when I finally got around to looking, and immersing myself in the feminist blogosphere has rapidly become my main free-time preoccupation.  It's increasingly becoming a critical part of who I am.  This is something that I'm passionate about, and something I need to write about.  So perhaps this space will take on a whole new direction, or maybe it will just become a more representative sample of my thoughts.  There are no internet police to say I can't have privilege-deconstructing posts alongside sock-folding posts, after all.  They coexist in my head, so why not here?

My space, my rules.  Would you like to come along for the ride?