Because Sometimes Feminists Aren't Nice

Stunning

2007-08-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Quoth some douchebag, in the midst of an argument in which said douchebag actually argues that women are "immature" for preferring gynecological care from a female. Let's not even go into the absolute ridiculousness of any man telling women absolutely anything about their gynecological choices. Check this shit out, bolding of sheer insanity mine:

"What really gets me is the idea of 'male privilege.' Prior to industrialization, most men were farmers, fishermen, and at best shop-workers. I do not see how privilege fits into that in any way. THOSE MEN HAD NO POWER . . . I am not saying that large numbers of women were not oppressed in the private sphere, but that those forms of oppression were, in some way, equivalent to those of men. No one had power. And frankly, thank God (?) that MEN created the bicycle, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and so on that reduced the economic value of "women's work", allowing women to pursue other activities . . . What I am saying contradicts a standard feminist narrative -- that men were also oppressed, if less oppressed than women; that men worked very hard and risked their lives to provide for their wives and families; and that it was men's hard work and science that provided the economic conditions for women's liberation. . . What gets me is that I AM a feminist! First-wave feminism -- no question (LOL!). Second-wave (right to work, culturally equal treatment) -- sure. Third-wave (respecting distinctively feminine characteristics) -- I couldn't imagine a world without women, without their charms, without their caring and emotional approach to things (forgive the stereotype)."

WOW.

Ladies, I think we should take a moment to thank this fellow, and all men really, for creating the vacuum cleaner. Because without a vacuum cleaner, how would we have ever had the time to hobble together a liberation movement? I mean there would have been WAY too much cleaning to get done for us to pencil it in. And like, you know, even though sometimes it seems like men hate you, really they're feminists! Why, they couldn't imagine living without your "charms!" Sisters, let's go ahead and give some credit where it's due.

The Mean Feminists LIVE!!!

2007-08-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

So Vicky and I haven't posted in a looooong time, but we are STILL around. Unequivocally, this absence has been my fault. Some weirdness in Blogger didn't let Vicky post, and I've been too lazy to fix it -- I'm pretty sure it works now.

It's not that I didn't have anything to contribute here. It's more like I had so much, I didn't know where to begin.

Some changes will probably be implemented here. We might move, possibly. We obviously need to clean up our links and all of that, so it might be a good idea to reintroduce ourselves on a brand-new site. Obviously, a link will be provided!

For those of you that still check here periodically, my sincerest apologies. Many of you have moved on, I don't doubt. Many feminist blogs have died in the past year or so, which follows, since most of our blogs started around the same time. The natural cycle, and such.

Since we have not been active, I've been somewhat surprised about the fact that our posts still generate a good deal of comments. However, not many of our comments lately have been positive and are clearly coming from non-feminist sources. Since we allow anyone to comment, there have been a lot of pretty awful comments. This, in turn, hasn't motivated me to return here.

Although I originally instituted to open comment policy because I was trying to differentiate our blog from typical "safe space" feminist blogs, I may reconsider this.

So, hello! I'm glad to be back, and hopefully we can get this place running again.

why do nuns shave?

2007-01-28T00:19:00.000-08:00

Last night, hanging out with my fellow Jews for Shabbat, I met a woman is Jewish and has a (religious, practicing) Catholic father. Since I go to a Catholic university, I pretty much pounced on her and asked her a half dozen questions about Catholicism I've always wanted to know, but can't really ask the Catholics at my college because contrary to what some might think, I may be mean, but I'm not an asshole.

One of my big questions concerned nuns, specifically the nuns at my university. I asked this woman, "Why do nuns shave?"

The response? "WELL! Just because they're nuns doesn't mean they aren't HYGIENIC! I mean, they don't do things that are UNHEALTHY!"

I think something inside my brain broke. Then again, there's no logic in the patriarchy, or its religions.

Gettin' Myself a J-O-B

2007-01-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

Since I was little I have always dreamed of becoming some kind of feminist action hero, part Susan B. Anthony, part Hothead Paisan. This should be a simple enough dream for a girl to have. I'm young, idealistic, and passionate as hell! Here, I am, ready to dedicate my entire life to feminism!

However, as our regular readers may already know, I live in Salt Lake City and there are a lot of things I love about it. The traffic is very manageable, housing and food is affordable, the weather is great, the mountains are beautiful, and there is plenty of culture downtown to keep me busy and involved when I have the energy. Unfortunately, we have a somewhat less than healthy non-profit community, especially when it comes to organizations dedicated to helping women. Currently I am working as an AmeriCorps volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters, but my gig will end at the beginning of May and I am contemplating moving to San Francisco or New York City in the hopes of finding a job completely focused on serving and empowering women.

I do know a few people in both of these cities and in my internet searches the amount of feminist-based non-profits are overwhelming. Still, I'm a little nervous about being able to find the perfect badass feminist job (JOB not internship) that I dream of. I am hopeful that my work with AmeriCorps and two internships that I've done with Planned Parenthood Action Council and Feminist Majority will make me stand out a little from the rest of the entry-level crowd, but if you, dear sweet reader, have any wise words to drop before me like the tiniest of crumbs before ravenous birds, I will bathe you in the eternal nuclear orange glow that is my affection. In other words, if you have tips about the non-profit industry, living in either of the above mentioned cities, certain feminist organizations I should or should not look into, feedback on different types of entry-level positions, or if you know someone who knows someone who will give me a freakin' job/advice, the feminist Goddess shall bless thee. Cheers!

Tips for Well-Intentioned White Liberals "Concerned" About Racism

2007-01-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

So, since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was yesterday the topic of race has been coming up a lot in daily conversation with the middle class white liberals which make up the majority of people I interact with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, talking to white liberals about race is just about as fun as trying to juggle in a bee suit by the side of a busy street while wearing a giant yellow sign that says "SALE!" Silly and idealistic as I am, when I am talking to well-meaning people I usually try to give them the benefit of the doubt. You would think that I would stop doing this after a while, but no, the fire of my personal dream that people are not actually as ig'nant as they seem continues to soldier on. Anyway, this has been done before in other quarters, but I figured another little guide can't hurt.

1) Don't act as though racism is something Other BAAAAD people do. Guess what? YOU do it too! YES YOU! You've won the glamrous prize known as racist socialization, an all expense paid trip to a land where ignoring white privilege isn't just once in a while, it's a way of life! And what's more, all your friends get to come too! Why, it's as though racism is an all-pervasive part of our culture that we ALL have internalized and we ALL deal with on a daily basis although some of us are racist enough as to not even realize it! WOOOOOOO!!!!!!

2) Don't get defensive. As noted in the above tip, YOU are racist. The first step to healing is acknowledging that you've got a problem. Repeat after me, "Hi my name is __________ and I am a racist." Don't you feel better now? If you really want to get advanced, start listening to people who call you out on racist actions and thought patterns. Listening means, you stop. Your mouth ceases to move. You pause, like the gentle crane before the refreshing oasis, waiting to drink in the delicious icy cold beverage we call insight. THEN respond to what the other person has said.

3) You are not Mr. T. It is not your job to "save" or "protect" people of color from the vicious scourge that is racism and believe me, nobody is expecting you to do that. Most people of color have been dealing with that particular villain for their entire lives. Chances are, they've probably learned a thing or two about how to handle themselves when racism rears its ugly head. Start with changing your own attitudes and behaviors. Then progress to confronting others when you recognize attitudes and behaviors and doing anti-racist activism. Don't take on the mantle of savior because it is both patronizing to people of color and naive about the real character of racism and its multitudinous manifestations.

4) Avoid making assumptions about people of color and what they need as much as humanly possible. For one thing, people of color are not a gelatinous human blob of different flavored pudding all mixed together. Different groups have different struggles. Different individuals within groups have different struggles. Understanding the interplay of all of those differences is extraordinarily challenging to the point of straight up impossibility. People spend years studying a single group in ethnic studies departments and they STILL don't fully understand that ONE group they've been studying. Complexity like woooooaaaaahhhh!!! On the other hand, if you are wondering what people of color want and what they face there are tons of books and movies out there that can help you get a sense of what it means for some. If you are working on a specific community project, maybe it's a good idea to ask some people of color in your community.

5) Exoticising other cultures is not the same as understanding them or being anti-racist. You might notice that some of your ancestors also praised and enjoyed the cultures of non-white peoples. We now refer to those people as colonists. Please do not make references to Zen Buddhism or Native American legends or all the Salsa dancing lessons you have taken as though your knowledge of these things has made you one with the struggle. Chances are it hasn't done that anymore than Irish Step Dancing has made you REALLY understand the political situation in Ireland or what it means to be Irish American.

6) Guilt is a useless emotion unless it motivates you to act. And in my experience, guilt is usually not a very powerful motivator. Instead it often has a chilling effect that paralyzes people with doubt and self-pity. When I bring up my own experiences with racism in a conversation it is not because I am fishing for victim pity or that I want you to feel guilty. On the contrary, I want you to be angered by what I've experienced and what continues to happen in this country. I want you to be upset that the Martin Luther King Dream America that you were raised to believe i, does not yet exist. I want to build your drive to make this country a better place not just for me, or for people of color, but for all of us.

7) Be honest, especially with yourself. I remain undecided about when safe space is an important, valuable thing for disempowered groups and when it allows people to avoid the realities of our culture and their own opinions in a way that slows down progress. Within certain general playground guidelines such as don't call anyone a name and don't pull anyone's pig tails, I would always rather someone be honest with me if they disagree with what I'm saying or even if they just don't understand. Censoring yourself through the politically correct machine is sometimes about simple politeness, but it can also be about ignoring your real thought patterns and cultural practices. Michael Richards and Mel Gibson are not the only ones with racist thoughts, they're just dumb enough to have been caught saying them. Which brings me to another tip:

8) No you are not colorblind. Stop pretending like you are. Acting as though you don't see race is a slippery slope that often leads people to conclude that race does not exist. News flash, race still carries a heap of meaning and baggage in America. To act as though it doesn't is to ignore the daily realities that many people of color must face and to, again, obscure your own racist thoughts and actions.

If any of you guys have other suggestions that you can think of, go ahead and post them in the comments.

Eat, Skinny Girls, says NYC Subway Personnel. Skinny Girls say, How Dare You!

2007-01-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

Just thought I would put my two cents in on this article making the rounds online in the usual places. But before I do that, why don't I go ahead and put up the articles that MSNBC seems to think goes very well with any of us interested in fainting women? And let's add some astute commentary, as well, shall we?

• Having a kid in the house makes you fatter (Next time, leave her on the subway.)
• FTC fines 4 diet pill makers for false claims (Claims to make you lose weight in ass, not brain.)
• Reading diet articles can be bad for girls (So don't read this one.)
• Fainting dieters delay NY subways (If you must diet, drive.)
• 9 healthy foods that may surprise you (I doubt it.)
• Bring on the wine, hold the trans fat (Drinking may impair scientific reasoning.)
• 1 in 3 low-income preschoolers obese (This is their biggest problem.)
• Universal Studios parks ban trans fats (Amusement park without churro = excellent place to avoid.)
• Hot broccoli: Thief gets $50,000 worth (This is for real. "Health" food sure is "hot" these days.)
• Is that holiday cookie 'splurge worthy'? (Hint: yes.)

Although I'm sure we're all a bit surprised that there are no links to Henry James stories or something, apparently we're all supposed to be up in arms about this article because it dares tell women how to eat and is super patronizing and all that. To which, you know, I say, just check out the other articles. One article in seventy hundred that tells women to eat enough food so that they don't PASS OUT ON THE SUBWAY (as opposed to the others, which are of the usual, "Lose weight, fattie!" variety) doesn't give me such a bad feeling in the long run. Sorry.

Here's a tip: if this story pissed you off more than other articles that are of the more "usual" variety, like, "Being Fat Causes Terrorism" and so forth, then maybe you should think about where your sympathies lie. Do you think it's unfair to tell thin women that they are "unhealthy" just as it is unfair to tell that to the "obese"? Or are you merely bristling from having the tables turned?

Breaking News: Having Sex is Normal

2006-12-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

This news was released yesterday, a study about how commonly Americans engage in premarital sex:

"According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of respondents have had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.

The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44."

I am loving this study. What evidence could be more clear that this country's bizarre attitude toward sexuality and sex education is completely out of whack? Premarital sex is RIDICULOUSLY COMMON. And yet a huge amount of people are terrified of addressing the issue and admitting that, horror of horrors, maybe having sex outside of the holy bonds of matrimony is TOTALLY normal and has been totally normal for DECADES.

I grew up in Utah where I both did not learn about evolution because my science teachers just didn't want to deal with the hysterical parents who were sure to call if they talked about it, and was given absitenence-only sex education. According to popular myth, she could not even utter the word condom without getting fired. And let me tell you, for all the hype I've heard recently with liberals getting livid over teaching kids creationism in public schools, I think one of these conservative teaching strategies had a much more detrimental impact on the student body. Can you guess which it was?

When they took our class picture at the end of Senior year, one of my classmates brought her tiny newborn baby to the picture with her. There was a giant parental uproar over that baby being in the picture and the school actually photoshopped the infant out of it for those who were upset enough to want a Senior photo with the truth removed. When I look at the picture now, the one that wasn't photoshopped, I think about the whole situation as an interesting microcosm of the schizoid relationship America has with sex. I mean, here is this girl who was brave enough to confront everyone by bringing her baby to the picture. I didn't know her, but I often think about the kind of guts it would have taken to do that, especially at my obnoxiously conservative, suburban school. Row upon row of the picture, with so many of my peers looking pretty, smiley, white-washed, inoffensive. Everyone was ready to project a certain image encapsulating what their high school experience was supposed to mean, but here was this girl who yes, had sex and yes, got pregnant, a situation which was probably not made any better by our terrible sex education. There's a quote from My So-Called Life where Angela is talking about how terrible the yearbook is, "Because if you made a book of what really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book." Which is a good summary of the difference between what actually happens in this country, what people actually do, and what people prefer to pretend goes on, especially when it comes to teenagers.

I am also loving the findings that women are just as likely to engage in premarital sex as men, although that fact has been curiously absent from a lot of the coverage I've seen. Looks like a whole lot of the people out there are liars and hypocrites! What's tragic is that since the 50's, women in this country have grown up feeling extremely isolated while grappling with what their sexuality means and how their choice to have sex supposedly reflects on their character, their womanhood, and their worth. We've been forced to find the information we need to make good choices on our own from a whole host of independent sources, ranging in quality from Our Bodies, Ourselves to gossip in the girl's bathroom. I like to think that with the internet becoming steadily more accessible it will be easier for women to find accurate information through Planned Parenthood and other feminist organizations, but it's hard to say.

And when I talk about good sex education, I don't mean just educating people about contraceptives, but educating them about a whole host of other issues that are crucial to having positive sexual experiences. We should be encouraging teenagers to think about what they want and learn how to communicate that. We should give them information about the diversity of sexual preferences and pleasure, and mainly just stop making people feel ashamed all the time about everything they do.

And as a radical feminist, it's not just about the fact that it's probably a good idea for any human being to learn about this stuff before they become sexually active. In my mind, it's also a crucial step in combatting sexism and the thriving sex industry. Call me naive, but I believe if people were given better opportunity to express their sexuality in healthy, positive ways, instead of constantly being told that their innate sexual impulses are dirty and forbidden, pornography and prostitution would lose much of its appeal. Over the course of her research for Love for Sale, the historical book I mentioned in an earlier post, Elizabeth Clement found that before dating became acceptable prostitution was hugely popular in America. But once women entered the workforce during the industrial revolution and were finally allowed to have more independence through dating, the popularity of prostitution plummeted. I believe we would see similar patterns today, if we could remove the stigma sexuality carries with it, especially women's sexuality, and admit how absolutely, bone-shakingly normal it is.

I'm in the Market for Shoes Made Out of Soapbox

2006-12-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

So, due to a lot of stupid reasons I would summarize as old-car-smash-and-go-boom, I've spent the last week trying to buy a car. Early on in this whole process my mom made a comment about not liking one of the car dealers we went to because she knew him in high school and he traded his wife in for a "newer model" a few years ago. It struck me how in our capitalist world, I can draw some weird parallels between buying a car and choosing a significant other. There are a lot of factors to consider about the car/person you want. Some people have snazzier features than others, some people are more high maintenance and less reliable, some are more attractive while others have more substance, some will fuck you up more than others if you get in an accident. But then I felt kind of gross. If people are like consumable products, no wonder divorce rates are so high.

It makes me wonder if maybe anti-capitalist activism is a more important component of the radical feminist agenda than I usually want to admit. It seems to me that if women are seen as consumable, if porn, prostitution, sex clubs, and plain human trafficking is big business, maybe that is all part of the larger fall-out of a system where people build their identities based on the objects they buy and perceive the people in their life as defined by the objects they buy. At what point do people stop being people and become things? When does the character of what we own, characterize us altogether? In a certain light, it's a good example of identity politics at its worst. And I think that its a large part of what fuels the modern boycotting tactics that I see used with so much frequency among my peers.

To me, boycotting something is not an effective or particularly impressive form of activism because it rarely, if ever, is successful unless it is organized on a massive scale. And even if it does manage to accomplish some of it's goals, I'm still unconvinced that the best way of acting out politically is by abstaining from an action. It seems to me that you'll do more for sweatshop workers by organizing a campaign to send them aid or to lobby congress than by refusing to buy ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING from insert-outrage-of-the-week-here, only shopping at thrift stores, or dumpster diving all the time. But thinking about boycotts in the context of our consumer-identified culture, I realize that often it's not about helping workers or changing the system at all; it's about identity. By NOT owning or consuming product X, you and your identity can somehow stay untainted of the blood that is on this entire country's hands. The logical fallacy in question? If you are what you buy, what you do NOT buy is what you are not.

To be fair, I realize that it's really difficult to deal with the guilt, frustration, and powerlessness of being an American with a conscience. There are definitely times when I feel totally demoralized about my ability to do anything about where this country is going. Sometimes I wish that I could drop out of it entirely, stop buying, stop eating, stop existing, stop stop stop. I want to shut my eyes and lock my door and pretend that if I don't do anything, well at least I won't be hurting anyone. The truth is though, other people, the planet, animals, fucking FUNGI suffer because of things I do on a daily basis. I can only boycott so much and the general population isn't willing to give up hardly any of the comforts they enjoy. I don't blame them. We are raised feeling entitled to them. We can no longer really conceptualize our lives without them. And knowing these things, I feel like the only way to push out of the rut we're in is to be pro-active, to DO, to give time and effort and money and not just withold those things when we come across something we don't like.

Appendix to Edith's Last Post

2006-11-29T01:14:00.000-08:00

In college I wrote a paper specifically about the biological vs. non-bioligical debate surrounding homosexuality right now. One of the fascinating things I learned in my research is that a big reason that the argument favoring homosexuality as biologically determined has gained ground so quickly lately, is that various legal scholars and lawyers are trying to model their arguments in favor of gay rights on earlier civil rights movements. One of the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause in the Thirteenth Amendment is that the trait that triggers discrimination against a group of people be "immutable." This term has been falsely interpreted to mean biological, a clear blunder if you look at the classic group which the clause was originally written for: people of color. What do you know, race is not actually a biological trait. In my essay I examine all the reasons biological determinism is a weak argument for winning gay rights on the legal level, as well as how the gay civil rights movement can learn from the successes and failures of the feminist and anti-racist movements. In the process of writing it, I came to understand the issues Edith talks about in her most recent post much more clearly and if you're interested in reading my essay for yourself you can find it at: docs.google.com/View?docid=dhtcv2dw_0ckzvrn

Being Gay is Not Like Being Left-Handed

2006-11-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I wrote this around eight months ago. I realize that I need to update my post about bisexuality and my own personal angst regarding it (as well as respond to the comments from that post). I also have a lot of new stuff I want to talk about. But I wrote this a while back ago, and, considering certain discussions going on in the femisblogosphere right now, I thought it would be a good idea to post it here. Enjoy!

Andrea Dworkin has said that, "Biological superiority is the world's most dangerous idea." I've been thinking a lot about that and, specifically, what happens when we use the idea of biological superiority to feel guilty about and pity those of us we see as inferior based on biological status.

First off -- I am a lesbian. I have been out my entire adult life. As a lesbian, I feel sexually, emotionally, romantically, and whatever else-ly attracted to women primarily over men. There is nothing contrived whatsoever about my lesbian identity -- in fact, as far as I feel personally about things, it's the identity I probably mention least about myself (online or otherwise) because it's the identity I am LEAST conflicted about.

That said: I believe sexual orientation is at least 75% socially constructed. I do NOT think sexual orientation is psychologically ingrained in you before you're five. I do think that the childhood, and infant, phases are important for overall sexuality development (and personality and intelligence, among other things), but I do not believe that orientation is totally formed, either through psychological or biological means, by the time you start grammar school. In short: yes, I believe that sexual orientation is "a choice."

There are several reasons why this is unpopular:

1) Everything is biologically determined these days. If it doesn't have a "scientific" basis, it's not considered "true." Watch "Dr." Phil and how he tells people that CAT and PEP scans can PROVE if a person has a mood disorder -- sorry Phil, but no dice.

2) So if homosexuality has no "biological" basis, what causes it? Something psychosocial?! Does that make it a disorder?

3) And if homosexuality has no biological basis, then what are we doing trying to give gays "special rights" when they can just "choose" to be straight?

4) And if it's really hard for some of them to "choose" to be straight, since there's no biological evidence, well, we should treat homosexuality like a psychological disorder, and "cure" them, right? For this line of thinking, GLBT activists have jumped all over the biological determinism angle. Which has created the current, "Don't hate gays, they can't help it, that's just who they are," liberal mainstream line. Not only is this thinking really harmful because it centers all its hopes upon the ability to use (or manipulate, whatever) science to FIND A GAY GENE or something (and if we never find it, eventually, people will start to doubt the biological-gay idea), it centers all its strength on the argument that yes, PERHAPS being gay is abhorrent, but they can't help it! They can't! Pity the sinner, the pervert, their physical brain makes them act the way they do!

The solution to this problem, for some people, have been to say, "It doesn't matter if it's biological or sociological, the point is they're gay now, and let's be humane." That works until the current generation of gays and lesbians get older and a new generation comes in. The let's-just-deal-with-what-we-have-now method doesn't work once "now" isn't "now" anymore, but rather, the past, when instead of dealing with a problem, we ignored it and schlepped it off onto future generations.

Here's what I believe we have to do: acknowledge that homosexuality is socially constructed. Acknowledge that heterosexuality, for that matter, is socially constructed too. We must further acknowledge that socialization is a process that NEVER STOPS until you die. It is INCREDIBLY complicated and interacts with your own psychology -- and yes, biology, specifically aging -- to create Who You Are. Forcing a gay man to be straight is not pleasant. However, it's not like forcing a left-handed person to be right-handed. Forcing a left-handed person to be right-handed is more like forcing a colorblind person to be suddenly not.

The interaction between psychology, biology, and sociology -- often referred to as "bio-psycho-social" -- is an important one. But we must take care not to rank them in that order, and let sociology just get thrown into discourse for show. Sometimes, sociology explains things better than your psychological or biological theories ever will.

Matriarchy: Home Ec for Feminists

2006-11-27T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've been participating in a women's support group the last few months for women of a variety of ages with a variety of concerns. So far it's been an incredibly enriching experience for me, but it's also brought up some old questions about femininity, gender roles, and where I fit as a not-that-womanly woman. One topic that came up last week, for example, was how do we more equitably divide the labor at Thanksgiving so women don't do all the work. Which I think is an awesome, extremely important question for the women who asked it during group, but it's not something that I'm particularly concerned about. My father does all the cooking in my household and Thanksgiving is no exception. The food my dad cooked was delicious to the point that my grandfather, full of awe, awfully declared, "It looks like you're good for something other than gardening after all!" For those who didn't catch it, that's a reference to Asian American gardeners! Wooooo! Happy Thanksgiving!

But back on point, lately I've been wrestling with a sense that maybe I'm not a very feminine woman and also with the sense that none of the women who played a major role in my life when I was growing up, were what I would think of as particularly feminine either. My mom is an assertive, opinionated lawyer who pretty much rules our household with an iron fist. My grandmother and great aunts on my father's side are some of the mouthiest, most assertive women I've ever met who also ruled their households and families with iron fists. Sandra Oh once commented in an interview with Bust that she has never met a passive Asian American woman in her entire life, which I completely identify with. The women I modelled myself after when I was growing up were forces to be reckoned with in comparison to many of the more mellow men in my family who tend to do all the cooking, in addition to being more emotionally available. It's difficult for me to disentangle how race played a part in shaping the gender roles in my family, but I feel like the Japanese American culture certainly must have played some kind of role.

And as I reflect on the women in my family, it hardly seems surprising to me that taking the role of the passive, compassionate caregiver does not come naturally to me. And when I think of those aspects in my personality, I almost always trace them to the men in my life and not the women. I think a large reason feminism appealed to me at such an early age is that from my perspective as a child, it was so obvious that women were already the ones in control. The world of business, politics, economics was meaningless to me in comparison to the crushing dominance of women within the more human, interpersonal world of my own family. What confuses me about this experience, however, is that I'm not sure it is unique or actually outside the old patriarchal norms of womanhood to begin with.

Going all the way back to the 19th century, it's easy to trace the importance of Republican Motherhood which stressed that women did indeed dominate the household and that they made their influence through their families, by educating their children and advising their husbands. And even though this might be simplifying things somewhat, one of the most crucial victories for First Wave feminism was it's assertion that women could and should contribute to society on a direct political level. Suffrage meant pushing out into the public sphere and emphasizing the importance of women's participation and leadership on a broader level than what home and family could contain. And naturally, I wouldn't second guess what a crucial step that was for women. But it does lead me back to one of the slippery debates that Third Wave feminism raises: "Is choosing to be a housewife, a feminist choice?"

Personally, my answer to that quesion is easily no. Growing up in a culture where there is still a tremendous amount of pressure put on young women to automatically become housewives and dedicate their lives to their families it is difficult for me to look at my already married and pregnant peers and feel they have not been at least somewhat influenced by patriarchy. Even with my card-carrying feminist beliefs, I think I've been influenced by that pressure and when I see intelligent, charismatic, college-educated women putting their lives on hold, it's very disappointing to me. While I am willing to believe that within the context of their lives and their options they certainly might be making the best choice, I still think the choice they're forced to make is un-feminist from the get go. If they had more options, if their context was different, a lot of women would choose differently. Not all, but a lot.

On the other hand though, I still see the power women have within their families and within their relationships as very important. I think it would be stupid not to use that power, stupid to understimate what it's worth. It might not be feminist to be a housewife, but when I see a woman leading her family and marshalling her household I do see real feminist power and real feminist potential. Which raises an even more interesting point: maybe feminism is not so much about the path we take in an embattled and constricting world, but about how we live that path as women, how we face our oppression with courage and honor, and how we learn to live with those limited choices.

Troubled Waters

2006-11-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone. I have a lot of things I want to talk about here -- such as an update to my bisexuality post, and a celebration of the recently departed Redstockings feminist and ex-New Yorker music reviewer Ellen Willis and discuss some of her more controversial stances, and what I think about the Veteran Feminists of the USA and Borat debacle, and so forth, but actually friends, I am really not doing very well at all. Like quite a few of you, I have spent some time in the psychiatric gaze. I have my reasons for being compliant in some instances and not-so-compliant in others, but overall, I trust the legitimacy of my diagnosis and treatment. For those of you who are explicitly anti-psychiatry, I respect your opinions, but please, don't treat me or any other (willing) psychiatric patient like we're fucking morons who just don't know any better to leave the big bad psychiatric daddy-rapist, and we need to go through CR in order to learn to kick the psychiatry habit along with the heels and the marriage licenses and the razors. Please. I suggest you build yourself a bridge, and get over it.

But back to me! So I am heavily depressed, and trying to build my own bridge of sorts, but it's been slow going. I don't know how active I'll be -- I honestly thought the worst of it was over, but now I'm thinking, perhaps not. In any event, you know the Vickster will be around. Maybe if we all treat her really nicely, she'll be doubly mean to make up for my slack.

A Rant Against Roller Derby

2006-11-01T09:56:00.000-08:00

So I know that people have already kind of debated the whole Roller Derby thing in feminist Blogland, but I just got in a fight with some people about it on a different blog of mine and thought I might as well post my rant here as well in case people are interested.

I went to my first Roller Derby match a few weeks ago and had pretty mixed feelings about the whole experience. So far I'm seeing a two-pronged argument in favor of Roller Derby in some feminist circles:

Point 1: The athleticism and showmanship of the girls on the team and the fact that they're pierced, tattoed, dyed, or alternative looking in some other way makes the sexy part of Roller Derby ok. There's an idea that well, these girls are tough enough and outside the mainstream enough that we shouldn't read their sexuality as falling into the traditional dynamics where women are exploited and used by patriarchy.

Point 2: It's ok for these Roller Derby players to play with their sexuality because sexuality is fun! It's fun to skate around in a mini skirt kicking people's asses! The sexuality is empowering for these girls because they no longer have to be masculine to be athletic, they can also show off their feminine side a.k.a. their tits.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is some validity to these points. Why should you have to look like a man to be perceived as tough and powerful? And surely these women should not be ashamed of their sexuality and their bodies, like the patriarchy has been telling them their whole lives. Roller Derby comes to symbolize a kind of punk-like, self-liberation strategy. I'm taking the roles you've placed on me, twisting them ironically, and shoving them back in your face!

But maybe we should pause for a moment and think of a couple things that most people WOULD consider patently sexist: Cheerleading for one. A lot of the advocates who I see talking about how badass Roller Derby is, think of something like cheerleading as the most terrible sexist thing imaginable. And yet, cheerleading requires a tremendous amount of athleticism and involves a huge amount of danger and physical risk. Further, the costumes cheerleaders wear bear an uncanny resemblence to the Roller Derby costumes that I've seen. Are you going to tell them what they're doing is any less empowering than what Roller Derby women do? Ok so cheerleading is ok. I sense the third wavers nodding.

Well let's push it further: what about Mud Wrestling? You know, the game where a couple of women get semi-nude and roll in the mud duking it out at strip clubs to cheers and yells. I would argue that you can make similar types of arguments in favor of women's Mud Wrestling as you could for Cheerleading or Roller Derby.

Now, I totally get there are huge important differences with these examples. The female bonding that takes place within Roller Derby teams is awesome. The audience at Roller Derby shows is usually pretty evenly gender-distributed, suggesting that it isn't as blatantly sexual as Mud Wrestling is. In a lot of cities the matches are women owned, women operated, and women may or may not be the ones reaping the profits from games. And sure, Cheerleading was naturally founded on women playing a secondary role to the "real" male athletes on the field (Newsflash: Roller Derby didn't have the greatest start in the world either). But I also think the idea of an audience cheering as women in skimpy outfits wearing roller skates try to make each other fall down isn't exactly the most feminist thing I can imagine. I think it's the sort of display you would never see at a men's atheltic event, not just because of the way masculinity is constructed by patriarchy, but because it's degrading and undermines how serious and competitive the players are.

If Roller Derby is really about how awesome the girls are at their sport, then it should REALLY be about that. It should really be about how empowering it is to see women being competitive and athletic and downright bad ass regardless of what they're wearing. Why does "embracing your femininity" in this context turn into wearing sexy clothing? Are there no other ways for women to assert their femininity? And if not, maybe we should reconsider what's so great about femininity in the first place. And if it's primarily about playing with sexual norms and doing some kind of Suicide Girls type performance with a little bit of violence added in for spice, well then I think we should stop pretending it's feminist and empowering.

To take things a bit further, here's the deal: a stripper doing a pole dance very well might be having fun or feeling powerful. Sure. I completely believe that. But what I don't buy is that her taking off her clothes for money is somehow resisting patriarchy because on a broader level the commodification of her sexuality just feeds back into the commodification of women's sexuality in general, whether we collectively volunteer for that or not. I think it trivializes what sexual repression and domination actually means for women on a psychological and sociological level and how sexual violence against women gets excused in the minds of men as business as usual. I continue to see violence against women as a problem with men first and I am not going to go around blaming women in the sex industry or Roller Derby ladies for violence against women. No no no. BUT let's not kid ourselves and pretend that all the ways women "play" with their sexuality are feminist or that when we make an "individual" choice about our own bodies, we aren't effecting other women or reacting to standards set by men.

Trick or Treating

2006-10-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I attended the Great Salt Lake Book Festival and heard Elizabeth Clement speak, a history professor at the University of Utah and author of a new book titled, Love for Sale: Courting, Treating, and Prostitution in New York City, 1900-1945. In this book she explores how courtship first developed and left a lot of questions in my own mind about what that might mean for my politics. Early in the twentieth century prostitution was incredibly widespread in urban American culture. Most men were consumers of prostitution on a regular basis, as in once or twice a month. Yet, as different cheap entertainments started to become available such as the movies and burlesques, and as working class girls started getting out into the world a little more, a new trend began to develop called "treating." With treating, girls would pick up a guy they met at a dance hall or just on the street, they would go to dinner and a movie for which the man would pay, and then, at the end of the night, the girl might fool around with him in return.

"Treating" girls were very keen on distinguishing themselves from prostitutes of course, never accepting money for sex outright and believing they remained morally above prostitutes because they could still grow up and settle down with a husband some day. However, as this activity rose in popularity, prostitution experienced a dramatic decline and became a much less prevalent part of American culture. Further, by the 1950's at least 50% of women were engaging in premarital sex, even if these women rarely talked to each other about it and even if at least some of this premarital sex was happening with only one man who the woman at least intended to marry. The practice of "treating" layed some important groundwork for this shift and opened up a gray area between prostitution and chaste virginity. Further, as you may have already noticed, "treating" sounds an awful lot like that peculiar custom of our own day, "dating." Embedded underneath the squeaky clean, mainstream practice of dating are at least some distinct echoes of prostitution.

Which raises the question in my own mind, as a sometimes-heterosexual radical feminist who opposes prostitution and sees it as a replication of many of the worst aspects of patriarchy, how do I think about something like dating? A.K.A. am I just a total fucking hypocrite after all? Good question Reader. Now, I do understand there are some differences between dating and prostitution. Presumably with dating you go out with the same fellow several times, presumably you sort of kind of like this fellow, presumably there might be something you could term an "emotional bond" there.

And I also realize that since the sexual revolution did such a grand old job of liberating us women, our sexuality is no longer just a commodity for exchange. It's about our own pleasure, our own choices, our own needs damnit! Or at least we sure like to think so. And maybe I'm being a little old-fashioned in the first place bandying about a word like "dating" which is like sooooo outdated. I'm informed that those of my generation prefer "hanging out" and "hooking up" and that we're all liberated enough nowadays that we can even have sex without dating or love or anything with NO PROBLEMO WHATSOEVER. But I also think that sexual obligation remains a big part of whatever the hell you want to call dating. Many women still use sex to get men to like them and many still use sex to achieve economic or financial gain. And many men still feel that if they pay for your dinner, they oughta get sex in return. Indeed, many men seem to feel that they should get sex in return for, you know, existing.

But back to the point, is this kind of sexual exchange ever anything but anti-feminist or at least non-feminist? Is it ever anything but a betrayal of ourselves as women, a survival tactic that we employ to deal with the ever present burden of patriarchy? Where do us holier than thou heterosexual feminists get off thinking that the kinds of sexual exchange we engage in are any different from those that prostitutes or porn stars or strippers engage in out of economic necessity? How do we Other these women to make ourselves feel better and how do we lie to ourselves about what sex means to us and how we use it? In the end, I'm against women being forced into situations where they must trade their bodies to live whatever the circumstances may be, whether you're a prostitute trying to pay the rent or you're Mollie Sue trying to be nice so your man will like you. The spectrum may not be as wide here as we would like to believe and I think it's important that we're honest with ourselves and we stop pulling any punches when it comes to recognizing and revolting against patriarchy in all it's forms.

Can a radical feminist be bisexual?

2006-10-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Can she? Because if not, I am totally fucked.

Let me back the hell up.

So, for the past five or so years of my life, I have identified myself as a lesbian. My first semester of college, when I met Ms. Vicky Vengeance, and fell madly in love with her (because really, who wouldn't?) I finally came to terms with my own simmering Sapphistry (nice, right? I know) and came out to myself, my friends, and eventually, my family. So by the time I was 19, I was a DYKE, damn it, and PROUD. OH YEAH.

Oh, yeah.

But lo, I was never really considered to be so incredibly butch or anything. A friend of mine once helpfully said my look was, "Like nerdy-tomboy, except that you hate sports and such." In other words, I wear clothing that is comfortable and enjoy ponytails -- with scrunchies, no less. Clears things up, right? Basically, coming out for me meant not-at-all altering my fashion, my gender presentation, my general attitude towards men which has always been, you know, functional, female, and boredom, respectively.

But being a young lesbi-thing, I certainly tried on different hats. I tried on INDIE ROCK ANDROGYNOUS hat, which worked swimmingly well with my alarmingly large breasts, hips, and thighs. I tried on I AM FEMME AND YOU ARE BUTCH hat, until I realized that, ultimately, that required more work than any hetero relationship I had ever been in. I tried on, I AM SOME WEIRD COMBINATION OF CASUAL FEMININE AND STONE TOP but that just really came about because I hate bad hand jobs and am Hitachi-spoiled, so it is like, why bother.

My latest incarnation has been I AM CELIBATE BECAUSE I AM SO ABOVE THIS SHIT. Which honestly, has been working out just fine ... or so I thought.

Because now my new therapist has broken the hard news to me that I am probably not as against the idea of making out with a XY-human as I thought.

Of course, my first reaction was to laugh, consider getting a new therapist, and laugh about it with Vicky (who's first reaction was to IM me, "you told her you are a LESBIAN, right? [emphasis on the LESBIAN]"). But really it didn't bother me all that much, because it's not like the lesbian thing is a really big part of my identity? Right?

Well, apparently, it did. Because now I am in the middle of a 100% freak-out, courtesy of my friend bipolar disorder by way of my new pal, identity crisis.

I fell in love with a boy once when I was institutionalized and once when I was in high school, which is pretty similar to institutionalization, so I chalked up both incidents as Crazy Shit From the Past. Oh, well, guess not.

The point of this post though wasn't just to keep you all updated on my post-adolescent angst but to mention a real problem I'm having -- if I am going to accept the bisexual label, how can I possibly educate myself what with all the stupid fucking genderqueer lovin', sex-positive, fuck-all-labels CRAP that apparently every single bisexual on the planet is in love with? Also, another thing, who do I ally myself with, when so many bisexual women activists seem to be really coming from a place of, LOVE THE PERSON NOT THE GENDER, when I'm like, fuck no, I love the FEMALE gender, I am a WOMAN-identified woman, I just happen NOT TO BE A LESBIAN APPARENTLY.

For the record, I DO believe that I may (gulp) NOT be a lesbian, but I am very hesistant to find a new label for myself. And if you say labels don't matter, fuck off, seriously. The day labels don't matter will be in the post-patriarchal, post-racist, post-awful society that might exist right around the time the sun fucking crashes into the Earth, which I think is supposed to happen at the earliest next June.

Get Your Gore On! Literally!

2006-10-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

So I got my period yesterday and as an accidental experiment that occurred to me today, I am planning on wearing a red item of clothing every day until it's over. Yesterday I just so happened to pick a red button-down shirt (that I absolutely adore! It has four pockets! Maximum pocketage!) and today I decided I would wear my red shoes. It got me wondering, what would it be like, if during the time women menstruated we all wore something red? Sure not everyone would do it, and sure people could still wear red on non-special non-menstruation occasions, but it could be like the LGBTQ rainbow. The minute you see those adorable shoelaces, you're in the know. What would it be like to suddenly be aware of this oh so womanly, biological fact of daily life? To look at the women you know and realize their vagina is bleeding AS WE SPEAK. I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

Today at my KRCL training we listened to a clip from Kathryn Stockton, big wig at the Gender Studies department at the University of Utah and feminist author. Part of what she talked about was the gendered significance of what we wear, that we wear our genitals on the outside through the clothing, hair cut, and accessories we choose. What if we took the point a bit further and in a dramatic flash of pride, we all started wearing red, or wearing t-shirts with witty slogans about our periods? For example, I like "Blood Power!!!" (written in a drippy, oozy font) or "Got Blood?" on the front, and on the back: "In YOUR PANTS?!" I'm picturing the simple, heroic image of a tampon, bright red, replacing the S in the Superman logo. How fucking awesome would that be people?! You could look and see when you and a friend of yours are on the rag simultaneously, thus graduating to that unholiest of bonds: BLOODY BUDDIES. OH. YEEEEEEAH.

Are Women Human?

2006-10-11T23:43:00.001-07:00

The next time someone tells you that we don't need feminism anymore, that sexism no longer exists, that your concerns as a woman are whiny, without basis, stupid, or WHATEVER, send them this passage from Catharine MacKinnon's new book and cross that someone off your goddamn list of people worth talking to:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines what a human being is. In 1948, it told the world what a person, as a person, is entitled to. It has been fifty years. Are women human yet?

If women were human, would we be a cash crop shipped from Thailand in containers into New York's brothels? Would we be sexual and reproductive slaves? Would we be bred, worked without pay our whole lives, burned when our dowry money wasn't enough or when men tired of us, starved as widows when our husbands died (if we survived his funeral pyre), sold for sex because we are not valued for anything else? Would we be sold into marriage to priests to atone for our family's sins or to improve our family's earthly prospects? Would we, when allowed to work for pay, be made to work at the most menial jobs and exploited at barely starvation level? Would our genitals be sliced out to "cleanse" us (our body parts are dirt?), to control us, to mark us and define our cultures? Would we be trafficked as things for sexual use and entertainment worldwide in whatever form current technology makes possible? Would we be kept from learning to read and write?

If women were human would we have so little voice in public deliberations and in government in the countries where we live? Would we be hidden behind veils and imprisoned in houses and stoned and shot for refusing? Would we be beaten nearly to death, and to death, by men with whom we are close? Would we be sexually molested in our families? Would we be raped in genocide to terrorize and eject and destroy our ethnic communities, and raped again in that undeclared war that goes on every day in every country in the world in what is called peacetime? If women were human, would our violation be enjoyed by our violators? And, if we were human, when these things happened, would virtually nothing be done about it?

The ringing language in Article 1 encourages us to "act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Must we be men before its spirit includes us? Lest this be seen as too literal, if we were all enjoined to "act towards one another in a spirit of sisterhood," would men know it means them, too? Article 23 encouragingly provides for just pay to "everyone who works." It goes on to say that this ensures a life of human dignity for "himself and his family." Are women nowhere paid for the work we do in our own families because we are not "everyone," or because what we do there is not "work," or just because we are not "him"? Don't women have families, or is what women have not a family without a "himself"? If the someone who is not paid at all, far less the "just and favorable remuneration" guaranteed, is also the same someone who in real life is often responsible for her family's sustenance, when she is deprived of providing for her family "an existence worth human dignity," is she not human? And now that "everyone" has had a right "to take part in the government of his country" since the Universal Declaration was promulgated, why are most governments still run mostly by men? Are women silent in the halls of state because we do not have a human voice?

A document that could provide specifically for the formation of trade unions and "periodic holiday with pay" might have mustered the specificity to mention women sometime, other than through "motherhood," which is more bowed to than provided for. If women were human in this document, would domestic violence, sexual violation from birth to death, including in prostitution and pornography, and systematic sexual objectification and denigration of women and girls simply be left out of the explicit language?

Granted, sex discrimination is prohibited. But how can it have been prohibited for all this time, even aspirationally, and the end of all these condtiions still not be concretely imagined as part of what a human being, as human, is entitled to? Why is women's entitlement to an end of these conditions still openly debated based on cultural rights, speech rights, religious rights, sexual freedom, free markets--as if women are social signifiers, pimps' speech, sacred or sexual fetishes, natural resources, chattel, everything but human beings?

The omissions in the Universal Declaration are not merely semantic. Being a woman is "not yet a name for a way of being human," not even in this most visionary of human rights documents. If we measure the reality of women's situation in all its variety against the guarantees of the Universal Declaration, not only do women not have the rights it guarantees--most of the world's men don't either--but it is hard to see, in its vision of humanity, a woman's face.

Women need full human status in social reality. For this, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must see the ways women distinctively are deprived of human rights as a deprivation of humanity. For the glorious dream of the Universal Declaration to come true, for human rights to be universal, both the reality it challenges and the standard it sets need to change.

When will women be human? When?

Testing 1 - 2 - 3

2006-10-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

So, here's the pitch for my radio gig. For the next few months I will have my own radio spot for two to three minutes every week, which different KRCL DJs can then play on their shows. The format and content of these mini commentaries will be entirely up to me. I have complete creative control over the spots. I'll be the writer, reader, and producer. If you've ever heard the little commentary bits done by Jim Hightower, that's a good example of the kind of thing I will be doing. Right now my concept for it is providing little facts and jabs about feminist issues of the moment and also giving some recommendations and reviews of different movies, books, or cds which I find interesting. But I definitely need some suggestions on what to talk about. My not-so-hypothetical question to all the people who read this blog is: if you had three minutes to talk about any feminist thing you wanted to, what would you want to say? What has the mainstream media and even mainstream feminism been missing lately? What facts are out there that you think everyone should know? What issues get you the most upset lately? Oh and if these radio spots go well, in a few months I may get my own full radio show. Wish me luck ladies!

Victory for Vicky?

2006-10-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

So there's good news on the radio station front today. After sending my second response letter to KRCL, I received an email from the Program Director asking me to call him so we could talk about it more. I was pretty busy the last few days and didn't get a chance to do so, but then he sent me the following email on Monday:

Hello Vicky,

I was hoping to be able to speak with you. In lew of a phone conversation, I will pitch my idea to you via email.

I spent last Thursday evening reading your blog, Sometimes Feminists Aren't Nice. I was very impressed. I'd like to speak with you about Vicky Vengeance participating with KRCL.

Last year my producer Troy Williams and I brain stormed an idea for a new anti-assimilationist queer program. We felt that the contemporary Queer Liberation Movement needed a radical counter balance. We felt that the modern incarnation of queer rights was a Trojan horse for conservative values: marriage, army and children. Thus, Now Queer This was born. I want to use Now Queer This as a model for other public affairs programs. I want a stronger feminist presence at KRCL. I want this presence to be younger and more radical than the traditional discussions currently held in the media. I'd like to speak with you about helping to bring these discussions to the broader public. If you have any interest, please contact me.

Thank you for your time.

Ryan Tronier
Program Director
KRCL 90.9FM
(801) 363-1818

That's right people. KRCL has now offered me a job doing radical feminism on the radio because of my letter and because of this blog. WOAH. Now you see why they're my favorite radio station? Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about this. Who could have guessed that being my usual uppity, bitchy self would lead to this? Certainly not me!!! Anyway, we're going to meet this week so I can find out more of the details. Right now I'm totally picturing myself as one of the badass Lady DJs in the awesome feminist movie Born In Flames (which came out on DVD just this summer and sells for the low low price of 22 dollars!). If this does indeed turn into an actual radio program, I will of course keep you updated about it. Thank you for all the support you've given Edith and me over the past few months on this blog. I hope this cheers you all up about whatever feminist battle you're currently fighting and keeps you blogging up a storm.

Masturbation is a Gateway to Feminism; Or, What Pro-Porn Feminists Got Right

2006-10-01T05:49:00.000-07:00

Over at Twisty's there is, as always, some discussion about some stuff. She took some silly potshots at girly-femme-inist mag BUST, and some discussion ensued about, among other things, vibrators.

First of all, Vicky and I have this to say about making fun of BUST: it's too easy. That's why here at Mean Feminism, I am working on an overdue post making fun of Bitch, and another one making fun of off our backs -- because yes, here at Mean Feminism, we go for the jugular.

This is not to say that we are more hardcore than Twisty. (That would be impossible.) I'm just pointing out that, obviously, this BUST post was fluffy filler fun (F^3) and really, all ready too many people have taken it as super serious (S^2).

But I do take a little bit of an issue with the whole hating on vibrators. Understand, I am not a fan of the sex industry. Understand, that I am not immune to the creepy, unfeminist, or even misogynistic factor to many a "sex toy" and I am fully able to critique the so-called "feminism" of many large feminist sex toy emporiums and stores that have vibrators sitting right next to corsets sitting right next to porn DVDs.

But hating on the Hitachi Magic Wand is pretty much hating on everything that I'm about, and that's this: being able to orgasm quicky, efficiently, whenever you want by yourself and NOT having to rely on another human being to "give you" your orgasm is a vastly preferable situation.

Also, understand this, Hitachi-haters: not all of us are gifted with the powers of being able to masturbate efficiently enough with our own hands. I know a woman who can orgasm by thinking her way through it alone, and while I applaud her fully, I'm going to make a random guess and say that 99.9999% of women can't do that.

In fact, there's this Buddhist principle that talks about masturbation in the kind of terms I like: if you can make yourself orgasm manually or with a vibrator and you DON'T do any kind of fantasizing or "use" any kind of materials to "help" you, but are able to simply orgasm on the strength of your body alone, then you're pretty awesome. Or that's the basic gist of it, anyway.

I mean, seriously, what is better: having sex with another human, a human you are using in part for sexual purposes, a human you may very well be exploiting or may be exploiting you, or having sex with yourself? What is the problem? Do you think if you're a lesbian, like me, that we're immune to this problem of sexual exploitation? Have you considered your last few dozen masturbatory sex experiences compared to your last few dozen "partnersex" (to use the Betty Dodson term -- I know, I know) experiences? Well, please, do.

I think that for feminists to condemn masturbation, or say that it's okay but only in moderation, or say that it's okay but as long as we don't use vibrators, or say that it's okay but it shouldn't be our ultimate "expression" in sexuality and it's really way better to have sex with another person and choosing masturbation as, like, a LIFESTYLE option is just WEIRD ... well, I think I die a little inside every time I hear that kind of talk.

We talk a lot, us anti-porn folk, about a day in which sexuality can be brought back into the discourse and discussed happily in the post-porn utopia we will all likely never live to see. I think that this is way too apocalyptic, because first of all, our sexuality is still there REGARDLESS of how corrupted and abused its been by the pornographica nation, and second of all, if we condemn sexuality ITSELF as a form of pornography then quite frankly, pornography has won.

If we want to critique vibrators for anything, let's critique them for being so expensive, for being made overseas, for being phallic, etc. But let's not throw up our hands and call fucking with a vibrator "fucking the patriarchy." Fucking WITH the patriarchy, I say. Dildos over dicks, any day.

Edith is Still Sorta Alive

2006-09-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Vicky's latest activism has made me break my current yet sort of accidental silence here. For some reason, whenever I move to a new place, it takes me a while to get back to normal contact with people, and that goes for this blog too.

Yesterday, I went to an on-campus lecture given by the director of the Emma Goldman Papers in Berkeley. I don't really know how a person dedicates herself to researching the life of one individual for thirty years, but that's exactly what this woman has done.

I'm going to say right now that mostly, I approve of such historical research and cataloging and so forth. I know that people do this with even more current folk, such as Nikki Craft's incredibly valuable and worthy collection of writings and speeches of Andrea Dworkin. I have such love for Kate Millett that it's fun to imagine doing my own project where I explore all her writings and art, and it really wasn't so long ago that I was an adolescent would-be punk rocker, except for my incredibly geeky habit of stockpiling information about my favorite bands instead of, like, going to their shows.

The big problem though is that, to me, how in hell do these women separate THEIR identity from the identity of their subject? Quite frankly, I don't feel like this Emma Goldman researcher really has. Every question asked about Emma Goldman that focused on things about her that weren't so favorable and therefore harder to understand (such as the fact that she almost totally ignored the rising tide of the Holocaust [only to mention the sad destruction of Jewish ART] although she critiqued Hitler in other matters, and spent the later years of her life focusing on Spain, which you know, no offense to Spain, but hardly the country to give a shit about during 1938-1940), the director tried to spin it in a way that made Emma look good. She was clearly being protective and I think that stance has invaded her research, her biographies, and the world's knowledge of Emma Goldman.

It was interesting though to find out stuff I never knew about Goldman -- such as that her English writings were all very fluffy and wholesome and lovey-dovey compared to her non-English work, where instead of talking about anarchism as "freedom" she talked about killing all the people in power. And the fact that her arrest for helping with the plot of the presidential assassination here in the US might, actually, have had some merit, considering she helped in the assassination of OTHER political figures and, in fact, much of her speeches about education and family and love are in part just coded messages for "Meet me with your guns at this place, and we'll be sending them to Russia."

This director also found a bunch of letters sent from Goldman to her lover/manager that are very revealing and in stark contrast to the free love message she's known for, because basically, she totally fell for this dude and couldn't abide him being with others and didn't like sleeping with other people because this dude is the only person who could make her orgasm. Like, these letters are way personal and hard to read or, in the case of this lecture, even hear because they're just so heartbreaking and feminine -- she talks about how she hates her lectures and her writings and feels like the biggest hypocrite and if anyone ever found these letters, her reputation would be ruined.

It made me think a lot about activism, how women, how we are under extreme pressure to be strong and courageous and confident. It really doesn't seem like much has changed since Goldman's day in that we are allowed to reveal weakness but only so much, and it should be expressed well and well-written, it should be "deep" or whatever. I mean, there's a big difference between elegant language expressing doubt and fear and something like, "Ohhhhh my gooooooddd, like I am so pissed at myself! :*(" Which is what these Goldman letters are like, the latter. It was funny when the director said, "Yeah, she was a bit of a drama queen," but even that I have to address -- does that make you disappointed? Disappointed to know she was so histrionic and female?

It seems the director was actually more disappointed to discover the extent of Emma's violence, the "masculine." It does seem that, in general, people don't talk about the hypermasculine OR hyperfeminine of Goldman but again, that's probably due in large part that nobody really knows about that stuff. But I guess I would encourage you to ask yourself -- what makes you cringe more, the masculine or the feminine, and what does that say about you and about your expectations of powerful women? Are they expected to play the kickass take-no-prisoners role in the "man's" world or be ideal women giving the alternative to the activist/powerful men? Like, how do you see women in power, honestly, what are your thoughts, and how has society helped form your thoughts? I think depending on your perspective, that's the focus you'll take in thinking about women and power and about specific powerful women.

Open Up the Dog House, My Favorite Radio Station Is Coming In

2006-09-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

I sent the following email to my local, community radio station last week. I should first explain that this radio station is almost entirely listener-supported. They play Democracy Now! every day and they advertise themselves as one of the only progressive voices we have in this repressive state. Most of their programs are absolutely fantastic, a few of them even having a major feminist bent to them, but one of them has really started to piss me off.

Dear KRCL,

You are by far my favorite radio station. One of the major highlights of every day for me is listening to your programming on my way to and from work and often on the weekends also. I absolutely adore most of your Drive Time programs, but I have decided to stop listening to KRCL during Monday Drive Time because the DJ, Dr. Gianni Fever, repeatedly plays a certain song which he refers to yesterday as his "theme song." The song, "Open Up the Dog House (Two Cats Are Coming In)" by Dean Martin and Nat King Cole features these ever-so-charming lyrics (done call and response style):

"There's just one way to handle a woman
Dean we just got to treat 'em rough
Got to slap 'em
That's right
We got to show 'em who wears the pants
Cut out that sissy, sissy stuff
Now it ain't no use to take abuse
Whenever they are cranky or cross
Let's put the women in their place and we'll show them who's the boss."

Over the years I've come to see KRCL as one of our most important community resources. It is a gloriously progressive voice that is about being inclusive and supportive of all your listeners from a huge, diverse array of backgrounds. I cannot tell you how beautiful and important it is for us to have that here. The lyrics to this song are the most blatantly misogynistic nonsense I've heard in a long time though. They explicitly encourage men to engage in violence against the women in their lives to keep them in their place and "show them who's the boss." When I hear this song being played on a radio station that does such an amazing job the rest of the time at representing the disempowered minority voice in this state, I feel incredibly disappointed, not to mention pretty angry. These lyrics preach hatred, they reinforce the sexist status quo here, and they make me and other women in this community feel isolated, ignored, threatened, and ridiculed. At the very least I would like this song to be stricken from the KRCL airwaves and I would appreciate an on-air apology from Gianni Fever for the thousands of women in this state who know firsthand what it's like to experience violence and to be "put in your place" by a man who's supposed to love you.

Sincerely,
Vicky Vengeance

Here is the response I just got from KRCL:

First I'd like to apologize for the length of time it has taken for my response to your issue. Thank you for sharing your concerns. Feedback is important to both KRCL as well as individual programmers.

The song at the center of this exchange, Dean Martin's Open Up the Dog House, is mysognistic. I agree with you. However, one of the things that is important for me as Program Director is ensuring a broadcaster's First Amendment Rights. Concepts like free speech, community and democracy are more than words, they are concepts as well as practices. These practices are often ugly and messy, but none-the-less essential to the premise of a free and unfettered marketplace of ideas. KRCL and the community radio movement need to provide for this concept.

I have spoken to Gianni about this matter and he has expressed his regret, but we both agree that illegal language was not used and banning this song would be censorship. It is a jump to assert Open Up the Dog House is the cause of domestic violence, patriarchy and hatred against women. I think the song illustrates attitudes and norms present when the song was published. A time in our history when it was appropriate to hold these values. KRCL certainly does not promote violence against women, nor do we value violence against women. I think our track record is clear on this. Gianni, KRCL, and myself have no intention of offending our community.

You have my sincerest apologies for any duress caused by the airing of any material. I only ask that you consider not letting Gianni's program sully your KRCL experience. I am sure that you will find programmers and shows that provide music and news that you will connect with. Thanks for being out there.

Ryan Tronier
Program Director
Ryan.Tronier@krcl.org
KRCL 90.9FM
(801) 363-1818

Indeed. The song certainly "illustrates" something and it's not just "attitudes and norms present when the song was published" or "a time in our history when it was appropriate to hold these values." If you'll notice, thousands of women experience sexual assault and domestic violence every single day. Thousands! If you'll notice, women continue to be completely disadvantaged and oppressed. If you'll notice, this song CONTINUES to be played on the radio as though, GASP! it IS totally appropriate now! I don't care how "appropriate" roughing up your woman was when the song was published. The point is it's NOT appropriate NOW being played on a public, community radio station unless DJ Fever is explicitly critiquing these attitudes when he plays this song. Which I presume he's not when calling it his "theme song" immediately after playing it. Just guessing.

Further, if you'll look at my original letter to KRCL, I never said this song causes domestic violence. I said it encourages it. WHICH IT DOES. I said it reinforces sexist attitudes. WHICH IT DOES. I said it makes me and other women feel like we don't matter, we don't count as an important part of this community. WHICH IT DOES. I'm not just extrapolating, it literally does these things and that is NOT OK. I understand that it is not the Program Director's job to censor what his DJs play. I've worked as a DJ, I've worked as a Music Director, I know how these things work. I'm not trying to take somebody's First Amendment rights away. What I was hoping in sending my original email is that they wouldn't WANT to play a song that causes their female listeners to feel alienated, angry, and afraid. I was hoping they would have more respect for women, for the diversity of their audience, and for how the blatant misogyny demonstrated in the song hurts our entire community. Guess I was wrong.

The most depressing thing about this is that it really does make me feel isolated and unimportant. I can feel a giant ball of fear rise up in me that I am being petty, bitchy, uppity, unreasonable. I'm haunted by the all too familiar refrain, "Oh you feminists just have no sense of humor." But it IS a betrayal for a radio station that calls itself progressive, that claims it is all about the community, to play a song like this. My anger is justified. I have a right to feel upset about this. I wonder how long it will take for me to be able to really believe that without having to wrestle with what the patriarchy tells me.

Ally Ally Oxen Free

2006-09-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a Rakim/Brother Ali concert. I wasn't really familiar with Rakim before a friend told me about the show and invited me along. Lately, I've been listening to more hip hop and I really like a lot of what I've heard so I went. I had a lot of fun at the show, but it got me thinking a little bit about politics and music and how they correspond in my own head.

So, admittedly I know next to nothing about hip hop as a genre and sometimes I feel weirdly guilty about that because I wonder if my ignorance of it comes from my socio-economic and racial privilege. Is it racist for me to pretty much ignore hip hop considering how many other genres of music I listen to and considering hip hop's connection to black identity? Is it racist for me to ignore world music too? Not the in-your-face kind of racism, but the subtle kind where you just happen not to notice the existence of whole groups of people who are Other to yourself. Then again, I don't come from an urban environment, I come from a decidedly suburban one. I am not street, I have not dealt with poverty, I have not grown up surrounded by the race war that some of the harder rappers reference. Is it racist to assume that is what hip hop is about in the first place? What does it mean that the key market for hip hop is young suburban white males? That the key market for world music is aging new age yuppies?

I hate the way the Beat Generation appropriated the language of jazz and the image of the hip black male for themselves and turned it into "literature." I hate the way the early Rock 'n Rollers stole from traditionally black music like blues and gospel to create a much more popular sound. And watching a hip hop culture that rose out of struggle and community be appropriated by rich kids playing at disempowerment, I get really uncomfortable. There's a part of me that feels like I have absolutely no business whatsoever nodding my head along to lyrics that describe a reality I have been sheltered from my whole life. It's embarrassing. I am ashamed.

Which leads into a whole lot of other big questions like, what does it mean to be an ally? What does a good ally do? How do we exchange culture without allowing power dynamics to turn exchange into colonization? When I appreciate music, what about it am I appreciating? Is there a hierarchy of what it is and is not ok to like? When is music just music?

I think a large part of the confusion revolves around an ambiguity that's built the whole purpose of music. On one hand, music is about bringing people together. It's about building an emotional truth that goes beyond yourself and grabs someone who might be completely different than you, but who by some miracle can suddenly understand how you feel. Nikki Giovanni says the very most important part of poetry is empathy because without it we could never get beyond ourselves to really see other people for who they are and what they're going for. On the other hand, a huge accompanying part of every single musical genre I can think of is a style, an image, and an identity. Punk, country, indie, metal, bubblegum, classical, jazz, rockabilly . . . they all have their stereotypical listener/performer. And sometimes music isn't so much about connecting with people who are different from you, as it is with people who are exactly the same. It's about asserting an individual identity in opposition to all the others and for a person to intrude on that identity, to pretend that it is theirs when it is not, seems wrong. Particularly when that identity contains a component of oppression that you do not actually contend with.

And this leads me to the question, is it possible to develop a respectful empathy in our daily lives that can navigate both sides? Because I think music is in fact both of the things I've laid out. I think that LIFE is both. When a white woman tells a black man she understands how his oppression feels or vice versa, I think that probably is and is not true. Sometimes I need someone who will tell me they can relate to what I'm going through and sometimes I need them to admit they have no idea what that's like, but they're glad I told them and they're going to think about what I said. Neither one of those responses may be the full truth, but that tends to be what I end up needing.

The fact is, for as much as I get frustrated with male feminist allies or white allies, it's just really fucking hard to be an ally sometimes. It's hard to admit when you don't know something. It's hard to admit your complicity in a system that hurts your friends. It's hard to push past feelings of guilt that are so big you're terrified and paralyzed. But to be a good ally, no scratch that, a good PERSON you've gotta be able to put yourself on the line and show some fucking backbone.

What does this mean for me and hip hop? Ultimately, I'm going to keep learning about and listening to the hip hop that connects with me. I'm going to keep researching the history of it so I'm aware of where it's coming from, who is making it, and what it's trying to say. And you know, do my best not to be a total asshole.

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF THEM ALL.

2006-09-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but something about the intense, serious look on that man's face is just about the funniest thing I have ever seen. Now scroll down and read the actually intelligent post Edith put up today.

I Like Bottles

2006-09-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

(Disclaimer: There have been many posts lately that have far surpassed this blog in general meanity, so clearly, I have to step up. Do remember why you're reading this blog in the first place, if this offends you too much.)

Over at Twisty's place, there's a great post where she exhales some carbon dioxide on the whole "breastfeeding women should only breastfeed in public toilets, lest someone see a booby in a NON-SEXUAL context." High fives from Edith, as this couldn't be more annoying to her.

But what do you know, the utterly typical happens: it becomes a thread about how much better breastfeeding is for infants and how mothers who bottle-feed are putting their babies at a serious disadvantage. And one poster even says, more or less, forget the woman's "choice," WE HAVE TO THINK OF THE BABY!!!!!

So, here's a hearty FUCK THAT.

Bottle-feeding your infant is, guess what? FINE. It's FINE. When did it become oh-so-feminist anyway to, you know, turn your back on the segment of the population that has to bottle-feed (i.e., the working class, the disabled, the women who have shit to do and/or don't feel like being guilt-tripped into doing something that is perhaps painful and difficult for them when there is a PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE alternative) their infant?

This reminds me of another similar breeder-specific hysteria, the "don't have kids when you're old" genre. Because there are studies!!! You know, that say that's bad!!! Your kid could have autism!!! Or like, more earaches!! OMG!! You're 29-years-old?! You better have a kid now or not at all, because it's just not fair to your future child!!! THINK ABOUT IT!!

I have expressed displeasure at the strain of feminism that embraces the typical feminine virtues of "being at one with nature" and generally the typical patriarchal judgment on those people who choose the "unnatural" in the forms of: taking pills to minimize the number of periods a woman has, taking psychiatric medication instead of merely relying on meditation, giving birth in a hospital instead of with a midwife because they fear complications, etc. But let's be real: I will criticize the bio-medical model all day long. But seriously, I wonder why we are all for it when it backs up our dubious prejudices towards breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding, but all against it when it backs up psychiatric medication for children? You know what I call that? I call that selectively using science to justify your bigotry. And I call that pathetic, and disappointing, as well as being unfeminist.

On a lighter note, check out some info on male breastfeeding, which is totally biologically possible, in the form of this obnoxious Guardian article. This may be the best news you've heard all day, if you didn't know about this before. I know it was for me.

More Good News

2006-08-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Found this on Yahoo news today and I'm going to post the whole thing for those who haven't heard. I'm going to go ahead and say this is probably a great, great thing even though I know very little about the state of sexual politics in Britain and how this law is actually going to function. It would be interesting to know more about how they are defining "extreme sexual violence." If anyone has more information about this law and the feminist response to it that's happening now I'd be interested to hear about it. For the most part though, it sounds like our British sisters are way ahead of us.

"LONDON (AFP) - Watching and possessing images of rape and sexual torture is to be made a criminal offence, punishable with a jail term of up to three years.

The plan follows a campaign by two MPs and the mother of a schoolteacher who was killed in 2003.

Violent Internet pornography was implicated in the trial of the man convicted of her murder.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said there was an urgent need to tackle the problem because such images were becoming more easily available on the Internet and control of their distribution more difficult.

The new laws -- which will cover pornography online and offline -- will ban possession of images depicting "scenes of extreme sexual violence", plus other obscene material like bestiality or necrophilia.

For example, it would cover violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in "serious and disabling injury".

Britain's Obscene Publications Act 1959 currently bans the publication and distribution of such material, but not its possession.

Under the proposals, the maximum penalty for publication, distribution and possession for gain of obscene pornography would also be increased from three to five years' imprisonment.

The Home Office said they did not intend to target people who accidentally access obscene pornography nor those working within the mainstream adult entertainment industry, which works within existing obscenity laws.

The project is in response to a consultation launched last year and comes after a 50,000-signature petition against extreme Internet sites promoting violence against women for sexual gratification was presented to parliament."

Grunts and Postures

2006-08-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

So, since I have nothing to do at work right now until school gets back in session, I've spent most of today reading some of the archives of Holla Back NYC and mulling over the whole issue of street harassment. Like every other woman on the planet, I've experienced my fair share of it. Guys whistling and shouting something that sounded sort of like "banana taco head" out of their car windows, the scary homeless guy who follows you around muttering obscenities, the 40 year old shopkeeper who kept asking how old you are (15) and if you'd like to go clubbing with him (fuck no), the bad feelings you get in your stomach when you get "that look" on the bus or just around certain guys anywhere. Over time I've learned to give the finger and a witty remark with the best of them which does make me feel better, but I still end up chewing on a nice, gristly chunk of anger and fear with a garnish of shame. Yum yum.

One of the things that a couple of the women mention in the blog is that when you're harassed on the street it's hard to tell if a guy is dangerous or just dangerously clueless. Some men think this attention is flattering and it can be easy to feel like you should be flattered. I mean, someone in possession of a cock has actually noticed you! Hark! He hath deigned to proposition thee! I forget which bad ass feminist said this particular quote, but it's stuck with me for a while: Women fear being physically attacked by men and men fear being laughed at. Street harassment is a perfect snapshot of how those fears play out. The moment a man catcalls me I feel that fear of being assaulted bristle to the front of my brain, but handily enough, it seems like the best defense IS often to laugh at them or make fun of them, which the girls at Holla do such a good job at. But it remains an annoying juxtaposition; to think that while I'm left to worry about my basic physical safety, there's a lot of men more concerned about their egos getting bruised.

Getting back to the dangerously clueless end of the street harasser spectrum of awful though, it brings to mind a particular problem I've come across often in my travels. I have a lot of geek pride (Re: comic book entry of a few weeks ago), so I happen to be friends with a lot of geeky boys that can be real sexists simply because they don't actually KNOW any women besides their mom or their sister. One of these geeky boys once mentioned to me that when a major American science foundation was first getting started, they talked about whether or not they should let women in and they decided not to. They came to this decision not because they didn't think women were fit to join, but because they were afraid of them. They were literally just afraid to interact with women. Whether this story is true or not, it serves as a good example of what I see going on with some street harassment. While most of the guys out there who do it seem like the drunken frat boy type, at least some of these guys just can't actually communicate with women and to make up for that they heckle. 'Cause, you know, yelling an obscenity at someone is JUST LIKE talking to them. And if the woman feels intimidated all the better because they certainly feel intimidated by women ALL THE TIME. This is the type who, when you actually turn around and confront them, will get this look of sheer terror on their face that screams, "Oh my God she's talking to me! Eeeeeeeeeee!"

The thing that really makes me sad about geeky boys is that often the whole reason they are so insecure, is that they aren't the paragons of masculinity patriarchy tells them they're supposed to be and that a lot of women expect them to be. Which isn't to say their behavior is justified or excusable, but I see where it comes from and it's too damn bad that we live in a culture where I see smart men doing such stupid stupid things.

Token Pride

2006-08-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

First of all I want to say, I am so insanely happy about emergency contraception FINALLY being approved without a prescription although, obviously the whole age requirement for it is a bunch of silly nonsense. This is the biggest victory we've had for reproductive rights for a long ass time! Especially considering it wasn't the sort of victory that happens when we prevent chauvinist bastards from taking back rights we already fucking won, which isn't so much a victory as a relief. Now women whose insurance won't cover the doctor's appointment to get a prescription can walk right into a pharmacy and buy it. Now if you're raped you can get it easily without having to wait as long as there's a 24 hour pharmacy near you, who carries it, and your state doesn't allow bullshit conscience clauses. Now tons of women will be able to buy it in advance so they'll have it on hand just in case. This is big news people! Cheers to everyone who has fought for this to come through. I'm so proud of us.

Getting down to business, I am back from Hawaii and I sure am tan, but I'm always "tan" I guess considering that I am "of color." For those of you who don't know, I'm a mixed race person with a blonde, blue-eyed, WASPy as all get out mother and a Japanese American father. To further explain, I am a fourth generation American, meaning that my grandparents were born in America and did not speak Japanese. They did end up in internment camps during World War II when they were supposedly a gigantic threat to national security, what with being 9 years old and all though. Admittedly, children may be the single most frightening thing to me on the entire planet, but I think that might be more of a personal problem.

Anyway, as a result of being mixed and being fourth generation (a.k.a. further removed from my ancestral roots than most kids I know of European descent), and being Asian American (we're such a problem minority, aren't we?), my racial identity is what you might call complicated. Further complicating things, I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah for the most part, which according to Wikipedia is 80% white, and went to school in Iowa, estimated at a whopping 95% white! That's not just white, it's practically fucking see-through people! Token anyone?

Over the years I've become, not comfortable, but extremely used to being the only person of color in the room, in a class, in a club, in a 50 mile radius. It's a difficult position to be in considering I don't feel a very strong connection to my Japanese cultural background and I have had plenty of conversations with white anime nerds (and at least skin color wise, who's whiter than an anime nerd?) which plainly revealed that they knew an assload more about it than I do. For a long time I felt guilty about this lack of knowledge, frantically taking Japanese classes, watching Kurosawa movies, buying everything ever made by Sanrio, but you know what? Do most white people that you know have complete, comprehensive knowledge of "ye olde country'? Eh? And whether or not I know very much about being Japanese (since I'm, you know, AMERICAN) I know what it's like to live here and experience racism. That's enough to be an important part of my identity, enough to give me a different perspective on things, enough to inspire me to go on long ranting diatribes all the fucking time. Woooo.

Being in Hawaii was the first time in my entire life when I actually felt like I BLENDED IN. Like, REALLY blended in. People kept assuming that I was from Hawaii and shit. At one point while we were eating at a big restaurant my mom realized she was the only white person in the entire room, which was quite the role reversal. I found myself day dreaming a little bit about moving there and how my life might change. It is fucking HAWAII after all. I pictured myself with a huge group of multi-ethnic friends who I could bitch with about our crazy schizoid identities. I imagined dating another hapa (slang for half Japanese) like I always fantasized about when I was a little kid. I imagined never again having to give my perspective as a "woman of color" since apparently I am the only one on the planet. Never again would I be referred to as "the Asian" girl. And maybe, just maybe, no one would ever ask me the dreaded question, the bane of mixed race people, "Where are you from?" Oh yeah, and I could always buy my alcohol poured into a coconut shell with a teeny tiny pretty umbrella and go to the beach all day. That is an essential component of my happy fun racism free dream land.

But on the other hand, when I think about those times when I was the only one speaking out to a room full of white people, I'm glad I was there. For all the bitterness and frustration that has come out of being vocal in such a homogeneous environment, I would like to believe that I made some people think about their white privilege in a way they didn't before. I like to think maybe it will be a little easier for the next person who comes along with token stamped on their forehead. And the TRUTH is, being a mean feminist, I'm never the kind who avoids a good long ranting brawl. I like provoking people, I like challenging their beliefs and their ignorance, and I just so happen to be pretty damn good at it.

mean feminism is for EVERYBODY!

2006-08-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

I have been busily preparing for my move to San Francisco from the great, fantastic, nothing-bad-could-be-said-about-it-ever Los Angeles. I leave tomorrow. Vicky has spent the past thousand years in Hawaii, where she went to without even telling me personally and allowing me to freak all out on her about my move. Obviously, she is in the superior place, so I forgive her ... sort of. Anyway, this should explain the lack of meanity on this site. But worry not! I am anticipating the new rants that I will be inspired to post due to my change in locale. Or, if that doesn't work, I got the new Bitch, and maybe I could just make fun of that.
Or maybe Vicky will tell us all about like, how TAN she is, and how AWESOME the beach is and stuff. And we won't mock her, will we? Because that would be just wrong. Because we would only be mocking her because we're jealous, and there is no place for jealousy here. Just ------- here. Heh heh heh.

Book Survey

2006-08-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ms. V has done tagged us to fill out the book survey that's been going around. So lo! Here it is.

1. One book that changed your life?
Edith sez: Sexual Politics by Kate Millett.
Vicky sez: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

2. One book you have read more than once?
Edith sez: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
Vicky sez: Otherwise by Jane Kenyon

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
Edith sez: My old sea scout manual, since it would keep me alive. Look at me, being all practical.
Vicky sez: A Massive Ridiculous Norton Anthology that would take me a thousand hours to read

4. One book that made you laugh?
Edith sez: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. And yes, in a good way.
Vicky sez: The Portable Dorothy Parker

5. One book that made you cry?
Edith sez: Sita by Kate Millett. It inspired self-pity.
Vicky sez: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg.

6. One book you wish had been written?
Edith sez: A feminist anthology without a single mention of being straight, pretty, sexy, nice, or guilty. I dare to dream.
Vicky sez: Oh man, there are sooooo many it's ridiculous. How about this: How to Organize a Proactive, Successful Feminist Revolution on a Massive Scale Right Now

7. One book you wish had never been written?
Edith sez: The Bible. Or The Iliad. One or the other.
Vicky sez: Everything Freud writes about women.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Edith sez: A collection of short stories by women writers called This Is Not Chick Lit, which is really great, despite it's totally mean title and random "Chick lit sux!" quote from Gloria Steinem on the back. I loved the Curtis Sittenfeld story about a volunteer for a children's program at a domestic violence shelter, probably for obvious reasons. Now I am rethinking my aversion to reading her novel Prep that everyone has praised so damn much. What say y'all?
Vicky sez: Carnivore Diet by Julia Slavin, Sexual Politics by Kate Millett, Love Poems by Anne Sexton, and a graphic novel adaptation of H.G. Wells. Oh my God I am a nerd.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Edith sez: Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is overdue, and about Dr. Paul Farmer.
Vicky sez: From Housewife to Heretic, on loan from a friend. Also, The Waves by Virginia Woolf.

10. Now tag five people.
Well, okay!
The Happy Feminist,
Ms. Jared,
Yawning Lion,
soopermouse,
Heart

Why I'm Anti-Porn, Briefly

2006-08-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

I posted this on some forum somewhere, and I've been told that I should share it with a few more people. So here it is, my anti-porn rationalization, albeit in a very loose sketch.

Also, yes, I realize that some of you are under the impression that that bitch Ms. Stereotypical hasn't gotten her due. Oh, but she will! Mark my words! With a big orange highlighter! Hopefully, she will be a running theme in this blog. Now, on with the show.

There are many different reasons for being anti-porn. Some of them, in my view, are valid and good. Some of them are questionable. And SOME of them are downright scary and misogynist. In my anti-porn opinion, here are some of the best reasons for being anti-porn:

Because most women in porn would prefer to leave porn if they could.
Because it is very difficult, if not impossible, to tell if the women in porn are acting under coercion or being raped on camera.
Because porn desensitizes our culture to violence against women.
Because supporting the small percentage of women who CHOOSE and are VERY HAPPY about being in porn OVER the much larger percentage of women who are treated like human condoms is very sheltered and bourgeois and privileged and, frankly, naive.

Now HERE are some of the merely "okay" reasons, "second tier" if you will, for being anti-porn:

Because porn helps create and enforce a limiting sexual script that people engaging in sexual activity try to emulate -- in other words, the false sexuality of pornography becomes the kind of sexuality that people having "real" sex idealize.
Because people, particularly women in porn, orgasm easily and are always pleased with whatever goes down, which can lead to people not having a damn clue about how real sex works or functions as well as getting frustrated or angry if real sex doesn't work exactly like porn sex.
Because people can get addicted to pornography and voyeurism in general, making "real sex" with another person less to not at all desirable.
Because women in porn come readily available in different sizes and hair colors and so forth, so a person can easily find the woman of his desire right then and there -- in other words, women are a commodity, and finding the perfect woman through porn is easy, leaving real life women with the impossible task of trying to measure up.

Now here are the SHIT reasons, reasons I WOULD NEVER USE, and if someone is anti-porn because of these reasons, I don't give a damn if they do agree with me about the "ends," the "means" so aren't justifiable:

Because sex is holy and should be between only two people.
Because women should be protected and not leered at.
Because sex should be for baby-making only.
Because porn makes a man lose his "energy" through spilled semen which makes him less of a man and less likely to take on the world with manly strength.
Because women in porn are stupid fucking whores, and whores are bad.
Because if you start masturbating to porn all the time, then you won't want to have sex with your wife and will look for someone else. (Note: this is different from the more general "reasons" listed above, namely, the using porn INSTEAD of sleeping with your partner, not using porn as some kind of catalyst to finding ANOTHER real life woman to screw. Unfortunately, a lot of spurned partners are anti-porn for this more specific reason, because they blame porn for their husband's infidelity. However, I would say that 98% of the time, the porn just made a bad situation worse.)

I think "second tier" stuff is a lot easier to attack than the "first tier" anti-porn reasoning because first tier focuses more on women as a community and the second tier stuff is more specifically personal. My focus on anti-porn ideology came largely through my working with the domestic violence and sexual violence community. Therefore, I happen to think that the violence against women angle is the strongest. I don't think it's possible to get rid of the violence against women perpetuated WITHIN porn and encouraged OUTSIDE of porn, therefore, I am anti-porn.

And yes, I think it's pretty important for us to be clear WHY we are anti-pornography. It isn't just the Christian fundamentals who get lumped in with us, it's a whole mess of other people who dislike porn for reasons that are a lot harder to take seriously. I would like to see the anti-porn community down-playing second tier reasoning for first tier.

Non-Motherhood and Feminism. Party on.

2006-07-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

Let me first express my deepest love for all of you. Now let me express my deepest hate for my modem, which might be the oldest modem in current use in all of Los Angeles. It has caused me to lose not one, not two, but THREE posts in process here at blogger. I am very dumb, see, and it takes me that long to go, oh wait, let’s type this shit up offline and THEN transfer it to the blog.

Oh, I am slick.

So let’s get right into it. No disclaimers here, because here at Mean Feminism, we don’t need no stinkin’ disclaimers:

I don’t want to talk about motherhood and feminism anymore.

That’s it for me. I’m done. I’m off. I have set sail into the non-mother sunset, and I have not child-proofed a damn thing on this boat.

There are two general ways you can look at this, if you want. You can go, being anti-mother is being anti-feminist, because all mothers are women. Or you can go, being anti-mother is a little fucked up, Edith, but it’s not anti-feminist because all women aren’t mothers. So, like, as Mr. Hassanali, my ninth grade geometry teacher would say, QED. Or except, not so much, since all I’ve proven is that I have two distinct sides of my brain arguing with themselves again. Oy.

In any event, I am not anti-mother. But what I AM “anti,” if you will, is the idea that feminism should be all about mothers all the time because other than getting our periods, the only other universal thing that nearly all women in all cultures do is have children. And we need to use motherhood as an issue to platform on, because we can reach more women with that appeal.

I get that. I do. But first, I’m tired of this “feminism is universal” thing because it seems to me, that, well, it isn’t. No matter how hard we try to position feminism as helping out all women all over, it isn’t. This is something that has to be done, to make feminism global, not something that can be discussed (and somehow, that makes it so, since we talked about it). And second, we can’t go around trying to break bread with all the family rights’ activists over motherhood because, let’s face it, a lot of them couldn’t give less of a damn about feminism. Motherhood issues are feminist issues are motherhood issues but they’re not ALL THE SAME THING. We all know that, we all believe that, so let’s stop pretending that we don’t.

If I’m losing you, let me bring you back home with some personal interjection and rumination. Do any of you remember when you first became feminists? If you’re like me, you don’t, because “feminist” was probably one of your first words and you may or may not have dressed up like Gloria Steinem for your fourth grade “Career Day” where you said you wanted to grow up to be an activist and a writer. (And you may or may not have been encouraged to dress up like her when you lamented to your mother that there were no cool Jewish girls with glasses to dress up as and your mom said but a-ha, indeed, there are. Another example of the greatness of mothers.)

But let’s say you do remember. When you first became a feminist, maybe someone made some comment about all feminists being lesbians. And maybe you shot something like this back: “No! Not all feminists are lesbians! They’re totally two different things! God! That is such a myth!” And then a few years later, when you were drunkenly coming out as a lesbian during your first semester at Grinnell College to a girl you had such a bad crush on you basically couldn’t think anymore, a girl that later became your best friend, Platonic life partner, and blogging buddy, it occurred to you in your drunken stupor that perhaps that kind of a reply made it seem like straight feminists wanted nothing to do with lesbian feminists, indeed, RESENTED lesbian feminists for going and GAYING UP feminism, resulting in said stereotype.

Kind of like those feminists that don’t do their makeup or their hair right or even AT ALL!!! They really fuck shit up for pretty feminists, or feminists that CARE about their physical appearance and don’t going around looking like such a, such a, such a DYKE.

Anyhoo. Back to motherhood. (Yes, I totally remembered that’s what I was purporting to be talking about. Totally.) If being stereotyped as gay and ugly wasn’t bad enough, feminists are stereotyped also as being anti-family, for some reason. Maybe it’s all the lobbying for childcare services, maternity leave, family planning, domestic violence shelters, etc. You know, all those “anti-family” things like that. So one of those things you do when you’re a feminist newbie is that you make a plea for “choice” and talk about how pro-family feminism is, and how it’s every woman’s choice to be a mother or not.

All well and good. Here’s where it gets tricky: because we are so fearful of that stereotype, because we are so adamantly clinging to “choice,” feminists are often very involved in motherhood issues and not involved at all, or even downright opposed to, issues facing childless women.

It’s gotten to the point, finally, where feminists feel comfortable supporting one woman’s right to abort and another woman’s right to give birth without blinking. We are all very comfortable debating fertility issues and abortion issues and breeding issues of all stripes. But single women, and women without children … well, what’s the issue, you might be thinking? Why bother with them? Isn’t it easier for them, anyway, not to have children?

It’s not easier. It’s different. It’s not easier to be a lesbian in a feminist community than a straight woman in a feminist community, either, gang. I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, and I’m sick of it. It must be easier to be a Black woman in a feminist community too, right? Because everyone wants to be friends with you and no one wants to exclude you!
When you have children, when you are straight, when you are pretty, you are definitely NOT immune to a ton of issues. You do, however, pretty much always have society’s thumb up in your direction. I want to talk about, for ten minutes or so, the people who don’t have society’s support, or even most feminists’. I want to talk about Ms. Stereotypical for just ten minutes, and how we can start bringing her back into the fray.

The Shark In My Brain

2006-07-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I hate to make a sad update after gushing over awesome comic books, but Edith and I have been feeling kinda down lately about the state of the world. Recently in Salt Lake City a 5 year old girl who lived a few doors down from one of my friends was taken out of her own backyard and killed by her 20 year old next door neighbor. My friend and I went for a walk the night before they found her and looked at the shrine people have made for her in front of her house. Candles fill the walkway, stuffed animals and pink ribbons have been hung from the trees. I spend a lot of time in her neighborhood walking around and riding bikes and I won't stop because of this, but it's one more thing to add to the haunted corner of my mind where I keep all the cruelties toward women and girls that have struck close to home and that make me feel like I am never truly safe no matter where I am.

I went to school in a tiny, tiny town with a little over 9,000 people and even there a girl I knew was raped and brutally beaten by a gang of men when she was walking home one night. I walked by the place where it happened every day. I watched how hard it was for her to move afterwards in a huge cast and brace. Another girl I know passed out at a party only to wake up with her entire body completely covered in magic marker epithets of "slut," "whore," "cunt." None of her friends at the party did anything to help her. I think about one of the strongest, smartest, most capable women I know standing at the front of the room during a Take Back the Night rally quietly crying as she read us a poem about sexual assault. I think about the long list in my head that never stops growing.

And worse than the stories I've heard first hand are the whispers, the rumors, the gossip where all the details are shadowy. I find myself paying close attention to the people around me at every party, watching the other women to make sure they are ok, watching the men to make sure they keep their distance. I find myself doing everything I can to calm down when I am walking around alone and it is dark. If I sit on the steps of this church for a little while, maybe I won't get raped. If I dress a certain way, maybe I won't get raped. Yet, I realize that it is much easier, much more comfortable to imagine deranged villains who lurk behind dark corners and down alley ways. It is better to let my heart race and my muscles get all tense when I am walking to my car at night, than to let anxiety overtake me every time I go on a date, every time I am alone with a man I'm supposed to trust, every time I'm supposedly among "friends." But I know it can happen anywhere and that each person I meet has the potential to be tremendously cruel.

The heart of my fear rests with the knowledge of that universal potential and every time I hear a new story to add to my list I remember how much men hate women. It's not just a matter of misunderstanding us, ignoring us, mistreating us accidentally. There is a shining, bubbling kernel of real hatred for women underneath all the seemingly benign, everyday sexism that it's so easy to shrug off or explain away. We live in a system where women are not considered human and treated as such. I wonder about the men I am friends with. I wonder if they have a haunted corner in their minds as well. I wonder if there is a place where despite what they think on an intellectual level, despite whatever they say and do, there is a mounting pile of evidence telling them that women are worthless, disgusting, alien. How does a 20 year old boy kill a 5 year old girl? How does a "nice guy" rape someone he's supposed to love? How do we allow ourselves to give into the impulse to do cruelty on another? How do we resist?

Wimmen's Comix

2006-07-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

Since I was a teenager I've been a big dorky comic book fan. It started the way it usually does I suppose, with superhero comics. I loved to see the women in them taking names and kicking ass. My favorite was Rogue, the southern firecracker from X-Men (whose character the movies completely destroyed, for those of you not familiar with the comic).

She had the ability to steal anyone else's superpower from them just by touching them, with the unfortunate side effect that she could also never touch anyone with love or affection. But really what better feminist role model for a young girl than a woman that all the men could go crazy lusting after, but if they touched her they would FUCKING DIE? Sure, there's Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Gloria Steinem, but wouldn't you rather be Rogue on those nights when you're walking somewhere spooked out of your mind trying not to think about the girl that got raped a couple blocks away? Don't you too want to chill out in a skintight jumpsuit on a day-to-day basis without fear? Wouldn't it be fun to zap a guy all to hell when he tries to grope you on the bus?

As I've gotten older my love for comics has only grown, but I've slowly, steadily moved away from the tits and ass of superhero comics and into graphic novels, trying to get my hands on as much alternative, underground stuff as I can. The beautiful thing about comic books is that since they're for weirdos, nerds, and acne-riddled teenagers practically by their very definition, there's no need to puff your stories up into grand pretentiousness, be overly politically correct, or get worried about some insane backlash for saying something controversial. Because who cares? It's just a comic book. And in the meantime, that freedom opens the door for a lot of meaningful ideas and honesty to come through that we usually don't see on magazine stands and book shelves.

Naturally, it was a little difficult for me to find comics produced by women, especially in a store where a girl entering was akin to a giant red flashing alarm being set off. "Girl alert! Girl alert! Everybody be COOL Goddamnit!" Still, over the years I've managed to track down a whole slew of excellent women artists, many of whom are unabashedly feminist. For today's blog entry I thought I'd take a few moments and give you some recommendations because some of the best feminist literature I've ever read has been in comic book format. And since they're comic books, they don't get nearly the same level of press and buzz as regular feminist books.

First off, I want to suggest you pick up Trina Robbins' book, From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women Comics from Teens to Zines if you're interested in reading the whole history of women in the comics industry.

Trina Robbins is the foremost expert on women within the comics and cartooning fields and this book is the most comprehensive history and guide to all the major women artists and writers out there. She was also highly involved in the original collaboration between feminism and comics during the Second Wave movement, editing the anthology called Wimmen's Comix that a huge number of women comic artists got their start with and in recently editing another all women anthology called Action Girl comics. Here's an adorable picture of the original Wimmen's Comix crew:

I would also like to recommend that you all go out right now and pick up a copy of Persepolis 1, Persepolis 2, or Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi, an artist who grew up in Iran, but who was eventually sent to France to attend school and escape the mounting unrest there.

Embroideries is an especially good feminist read because it's about a group of women in her family having a conversation about gender roles, sexuality, and their lives. The beauty of Satrapi's work is that she uses a very simple drawing and writing style to expose sexism, racism, and imperialism in a way that shows why those things are harmful, while also demonstrating how they function as normal in daily life. It's a powerful mixture that's taught me a lot not just about her country and feminism, but also about the best way to get an important, delicate subject like the one she deals with across.

A collection of Roberta Gregory's edgy feminist comic books was recently released in a trade paperback titled Life's a Bitch.

Gregory is an artist who has also been around since the Wimmen's Comix days and she was most active with her art and feminism in the 70's, although she's still kicking around producing new stuff. Her main character is named Bitchy Bitch and she's meant to be a super concentrated manifestation of all the negative emotions that being a woman in a patriarchal society can produce. She can be hilarious, she can be annoying, and best of all, she can be very challenging. Bitchy Bitch is certainly a mean feminist if there ever was one. As a disclaimer, Bitchy Bitch is also a racist character. Gregory wrote her this way on purpose to expose some of the built in racist ideas that we all have, even feminists and to address how women can be turned against each other through that force. It's good to be aware that it's in there before you read it though.

And of course, it wouldn't be right not to mention the mean feminist queen and Edith's favorite, Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist by Diane DiMassa.

As the title suggests, DiMassa's work is certainly controversial and if castrating violence offends you in some way, you'd better steer clear of this one. We, however, just so happen to love it to death. If you've had a bad day, there's nothing like reading some Hothead Paisan to make you feel like you're not alone and somewhere out there, there is a lesbian avenger with a baseball bat just waiting to fuck shit up on your behalf.

Jessica Abel is a fantastic, younger artist who's major works are Art Babe, a soap opera for the arty hip set or La Perdida, her brand new book that was just released about the period of time she spent living in Mexico and the interesting characters she encountered there.

Abel's work isn't as explicitly feminist as the other women I've mentioned so far, but she is one in real life and I think that sensibility comes through.

A Child's Life by Phoebe Gloeckner is also definitely worth checking out, although it is also the most disturbing comic book I've ever read without a doubt.

I'm a little hesitant to recommend her to be honest, but I feel like it's important that I do. I'm not sure if Gloeckner thinks of herself as a feminist or not, but her subject matter is something I think all women are effected by and wrestle with. Her work is a mostly autobiographical account of the sexual abuse she dealt with growing up and how that effected her in devastating ways. She isn't shy about exploring the full psychological complexity of that experience even when it blurs our ideas of what a victim is and how they should feel about what they've been through.

It's so difficult for me to choose a favorite, but if I'm honest, Lynda Barry is mine.

She's written a whole heaping slew of books, some are semi-autobiographical and some center on a a particular group of characters, but almost all of them are about being a kid. She draws in a style that is very similar to how kids draw, but when Barry is talking about kids she certainly doesn't mean the Disney kind. The kids in Barry's books are just as mean, deranged, misguided, imaginative, weird, and hopeful as real kids are.

There's Alison Bechdel who wrote the marvelous series Dykes to Watch Out For about life among a group of lesbians.

She approaches her characters with a great sense of humor and a lot of honesty and warmth. Bechdel is one of those authors who clearly loves every one of her characters and would miss them if they ever went away.

Phew! Well, that's all for right now. There are lots more women to check out, but these are just some highlights. For anyone who wants to know how they can get involved in promoting comics by and for women and female comic readership, I recommend you check out the Friends of Lulu, devoted just to that very purpose. Happy reading, drawing, and ranting!

Some Thoughts on Beastiality and Relevance

2006-07-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

So. BB's been talking about beastiality, with mixed responses, and I thought that I was going to weigh in with something insightful eventually, but I guess I don't have anything terribly insightful to say.

Of course, that has never stopped me in the past. And yes, I have something really mean to say. In fact, if you want to keep liking me, I suggest you stop reading this post right now.

I'll give you some space to think about it.

I don't care about animal rights.

There, I said it. Yes, I feel better getting that off my chest. Please don't misunderstand -- I think cruelty to animals is bad. But my care for animal rights falls, in the list of the top 100 of things I care about, somewhere around 99.

So it really bugs me when Biting Beaver makes an excellent, insightful post about beastiality being used primarily as a pornographic or sadistic weapon to hurt women and everyone spends time either talking about how such a practice is cruel to the ANIMAL or whether or not such-and-such radical feminist gave a shit about how animals were treated when the bigger issue, of course, is how human women are treated.

It also makes me sad to hear people dismiss my personal favorite of Andrea Dworkin's work, the great Woman Hating. Maybe I'm just biased, as it was the first work of hers that I read and I have a soft spot for "first works" of authors, but I really dug her arguments in favor of androgyny in the idea of the "ideal" androgynous society. I get much amusement at how such arguments and language has been co-opted by people who tend to call radical feminism "essentialist" and gender "performative" as though gender performativity was somehow related to anything other than very essentialist ideas about gender.

I mean, I do not buy whatsoever any reasoning that positions women "closer" to nature as men or any Paganistic-styled concepts about women being of the earth and the water and the sky. That said, I do not see human women as being separate from animals and I do not think we should ignore our responsibility to try not to fuck up the planet for the rest of the species out there as much as we already have. But, seriously, don't try telling me that women somehow have a keener sense of this responsibility, a "maternal instinct" if you will, about helping the Earth. Somehow, I think this is almost as presumptuous as a childfree woman telling a mother how to raise her child, or a man coming into a woman's group with brand-new ideas for the group's focus. I think Mother Earth really wants us to leave her the fuck alone, is what I think. But since we do have to clean up our messes, at least we can do so in a guilty and apologetic, "Sorry, dudette," way, instead of a santimonious, "I sing with Gaia!" kind of way.

But back to beastiality, and cruelty to animals in the larger sense. You know what? Honestly, isn't domestication sort of cruel? A whole ton of animals who aren't able to take care of themselves and have to rely on humans -- a WHOLE OTHER SPECIES -- to take care of them? I'm not talking about our efforts to bring up the panda population or some other species that we whoops, our bad, brought to near extinction. I'm talking about house pets. Nevermind what we're doing to farm animals for half a second -- what have we done to dogs and cats and horses*?

You see this problem of "animal cruelty"? And you see this problem of the response, "but they like it"? Fellow anti-pornsters, have we not heard this argument in other contexts?

I think my biggest beef (pun unintended) with animal cruelty issues is basically this: if this is your number one issue in life, then you are either really isolated or really lucky. It reminds me of yeshiva kids arguing about the specifics of whether or not this thing is truly kosher or not. However relevant that might be, it's probably not as relevant as at least 98 other topics for a Jew with his/her nose out of the Talmud.

Everything pretty much always comes back to the Jews for me. I should probably insert an "oy" here. Remind me to talk about why I think Godwin's so-called law is anti-Semitic.

*Yes, I realize that these animals are also sometimes "farm" animals. I mean to make a differentiation between animals used for labor and animals as pets. Sometimes "farm" animals are pets, and sometimes they're labor. You know what I mean. The point is, we do mention from time to time the idea as animal-as-labor as "cruel" but rarely do we mention this about pets. This makes me think that the idea of "cruelty" can be almost as subjective in respect to animals as it is to humans, in our minds.

In Which I Rant About Periods, Inga Muscio, and Shulamith Firestone for What Won't Be the Last Time

2006-07-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

No, I have not fallen off the face of the planet. I have been out of town and working and slowly preparing for my great big move from LA to San Francisco. This "preparation" includes such things as learning to appreciate such verbal modifiers as "hella" and pretending to hate Starbucks and love public transportation. I also have considered rethinking my wardrobe -- more hoodies and tennis shoes, less flip-flops and sunglasses. Yes, it's a process. I'm working on it.

Anyway, so unlike some of you, I have a period. It's a period that comes monthly, like periods often do, and lasts six to eight days on average. It is not a period that comes once every three months for two days. It is not a period that is heavy one month and "spotty" for three months after. My period is so goddamned regular, I figure if I ever miss one, I'm either pregnant or dying. Considering my sexual habits, I would probably be dying. So in that way, my period is a very real reminder that I am healthy enough not to be dying. Therefore, despite having a very regular, heavy period, I don't mind it so much.

That makes sense in my head, so since I'm brilliant, it should make sense in yours.

I know a lot of women hate women who compulsively say negative things about their (or others') periods. These "period police" (I know, I'm sad to be using such lazy phrasing too) spend a lot of energy talking about how woman-empowering and groovy periods are. I think that's a great thing, and honestly, women really SHOULD be taught to think of their periods as something other than automatically awful. But you know what I hate? I hate people who tell women how to feel about their periods, period (nyuk). (Of course, by "people" I mean women, because it goes without question that men should not be commenting on periods, ever.) I don't want to dwell on this really, but if some woman hates her period, instead of condescendingly telling her to "change" her mind, why not consider giving her some medical information that might be useful for her? Like, fuck heat pads. Fuck even birth control pills. Why not give information about endometrium ablations? Huh? Can anyone explain to me why puberty/sex education often includes mention that, oh yeah, birth control pills can totally help you with heavy/painful periods, but no one bothers mentioning the best methods ever? God forbid we fuck with a woman's fertility. Pain, whatever! You might not be able to give birth! THE HORROR!

I know that when I see those birth control commercials for the pill that gives you only four periods (that's its selling point, I believe), I get uncomfortable because, first off, if you're taking a pill in order NOT to get pregnant, wouldn't it be smart to keep your period so you, like, know you're not pregnant? That said, that's where people also add, "Yeah, and it's so NOT NATURAL for a woman to stop her periods!" To which I say, who says? Why not use the medical establishment for what few perks it actually has?

Let's dwell on this some more, actually. I remember when I read Cunt by Inga Muscio, I was conflicted about her arguments against birth control and medical abortions -- basically, she believes that women should not put their own natural selves in the hands of (generally) male doctors and should learn to control their bodies themselves. But does anyone, I wonder, tell MEN that THEY should learn to control their bodies themselves, naturally, and ignore doctors? And exactly why is the medical establishment so de facto bad? Whatever happened to the arguments that Shulamith Firestone puts forth in The Dialectic of Sex, that women basically need to use technology to medicalize their reproduction so that they can disassociate from giving birth as much as men can? Why, in this day and age, should women feel like they have to become their own medical expert when we are privileged not to have to shoulder that burden anymore, and can spend our time doing something else, like learning about things OUTSIDE of our bodies?

I'm not saying, lest you think I am, that we should be ignorant of our own bodies. I'm just saying that it's not a crime if we are not total experts on them to the point where we are able to induce our own abortions. It shouldn't be, like, wow, that poor ignorant fool, she has to go to a DOCTOR for HER abortion. Wow, she goes the unnatural route of getting an ABLATION instead of using meditation to make her pain go away. Let's not get comfortable with that line of thought, okay?

Vicky Vengeance v. Victoria's Secret

2006-06-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite bands of all time, Sleater-Kinney, announced they are breaking up a couple days ago and officially broke my heart a little. If you aren't familiar with their uncompromising feminist attitude and unbelievably kick ass music, I strongly recommend you find a CD of theirs and give it a listen.

First off I want to give you some context for this post and then we'll get going on some healthy ranting. The first major protest that second wave feminists put on was of the Miss America pageant in 1968. It was the first time second wave feminists stepped into the media spotlight crowning a sheep Miss America and throwing bras, makeup, high heels etc. into a "freedom trash can" to show that the pageant was demeaning to women and celebrated a vision of womanhood the ladies in attendance were sick and tired of. While some people thought the tactics they used were a little too rough around the edges and spur of the moment, it made many women realize they weren't alone out there in their frustration.

Flash forward thirty years and the Miss America pageant is out of business and off network TV, although there are still a lot of rumors about it's future. Many people have sited that feminist protest as a major reason for it's steady decline in popularity, but I think the cause is much bigger than that and it illustrates very well the general cultural shift that's taken place since second wave's heyday.

You may notice that the same network that carried Miss America now televises a yearly Victoria's Secret Fashion Show special that plays to millions upon millions of viewers. You'll see no competition for educational scholarships or questions testing the women's intelligence or talent during the Victoria's Secret show. Instead of the evening gown frills, the crown and scepter, we've been handed million dollar diamond encrusted bras (I don't know about you, but OUCH keep the sharp things away from my breasts please), angel wings, and oodles of flesh. This progression serves as an interesting mirror of how America has digested and distorted the messages of feminism through the years. Instead of being shackled to your husband and children, dressed up in a notion of femininity dependent on being, well, dependent, passive, pleasant, and dutiful, you've now earned a thong and stilletos and an encouragement to use your sexuality to get what you want, be aggressive, be emotionally estranged and uncommitted. After all, it's worked for the boys for such a long time.

But wait, my massive metaphor (about to collapse under its own weight any minute now!) goes further! You might be pleased to find out that there are in fact people protesting the Victoria's Secret fashion shows and their stores all over America. Huzzah! But it's not a feminist group who is running these protests my friends, it's an environmentalist one.

Before I go a bit further with my critique I'm going to go ahead and slap a big disclaimer up right the hell now. If you're skimming this, STOP! READ THIS before you comment:
I am aware of the existence and awesomeness of eco-feminism. I think environmentalism is an extremely important, necessary, bad ass movement on many levels. I also understand how environmentalism often impacts third world women and just women in general in a big, big way. There is plenty of room for overlap and coalition-building between movements here and I understand that protests have to set their sights on practical, achievable goals. The End.

Continuing on, a group called ForestEthics is the one who has been picketing Victoria's Secret under the oh so scandalous campaign name, "Victoria's Dirty Secret." Apparently VS is the number one catalog distributor of non-recycled paper sending out millions of catalogs a day. As far as I can tell from their website, which I encourage you to check out for yourself, the main goal of this campaign is to get VS to switch to recycled paper. To be fair, they do list reducing paper use altogether along with their other demands, all of which focus on using more sustainable, less damaging types of paper.

Call me a bad sport, but calling for VS to change the paper they use seems a little ridiculous to me. Given the close analogy I see between Miss America and VS, I find it extremely disheartening to know they aren't being protested because their catalogs totally objectify women and turn, not only trees, but WOMEN, into easily consumable products in the capitalist machine. While I understand that environmentalism is the primary focus of this group, that doesn't mean the feminist dimension of this campaign couldn't or shouldn't be taken into account.

If a racist organization who featured broad racist images and stereotypes in their material was the number one catalog distributor in the country, people would be extremely pissed off if the main demand of ForestEthics was for them to switch to recycled paper because that demand trivializes the larger weight of what that corporation is promoting. It's less about which cause you choose to prioritize, environmentalist or feminist, and more about the fact that this should clearly be a feminist issue on many levels and this organization is not only ignoring that, but implying that it doesn't matter to begin with. Replacing the paper VS uses isn't going to change anything about the sexism they promote with their millions of catalogs and further, although I would be happy about the trees being saved, if this campaign is successful I can't stand to think about the news stories and press releases congratulating them on what a great company they are for being green friendly.

I also like how this activist group has chosen to use the images of women and men wearing lingerie (because what's more ugly and absurd than a man in a woman's clothing?) to promote their campaign. It reminds me of those infamous PETA ads, "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" featuring a host of naked supermodels to promote animal rights. It's not as extreme as those ads were and I understand that these ads are meant to be amusing parodies of Victoria's Secret ads, but it seems to me that using a very thin, scantily clad woman in your advertisements is still using patriarchal tactics to draw attention to and support for the campaign. In using men in lingerie to be funny and provocative, I also see hints of both sexism and transphobia.

Here's my idea for reducing the amount of paper AND sexist waste products that are out there right now. According to Wikipedia, Playboy has a distribution of at least 3 million. That's 3 million magazines being sent out every month with a higher page count than the Victoria's Secret catalogs and that is only one pornographic magazine of hundreds. How about we protest Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, and every other porn mag that is not only destroying natural resources, but hurting both men and women on a daily basis by eroding our capacity for positive sexual connections?

To Bitch, Or Not to Bitch

2006-06-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

It has been raised by one of our incredibly savvy readers, Mr. DG, that it's a little confusing that Vicky and I go 'round using the word "bitch" like we do, limited mostly to the verb form.

Regardless of part of speech, it's certainly something that I've agonized over. Should I really use a phrase like, "I totally bitched her out," since it's A) sexist and B) like, omg, SOOO Valley?

Speaking of the Valley, as a Southern Californian, I would like to point out that the phrasing and dialect you hear on certain WB and Fox shows is more or less exactly what I sound like when I speak out loud. A common conversation with Vicky about pornography, say, goes a little something like this:

Me: "Dude, porn totally fucking sucks."
V: "Totally."
Me: "Like, you know, why are guys such loser dumbshits anyway? Like, can't they just, like, totally stop being dumb?"
V: "Yeah, like, seriously. They're such fucking losers. Fuck 'em."
Me: "DUUUUDE! Ohmigod, yeah, like I am SOO with you."

Obviously, we are scholars. Like, I am totally wowing you right now, I just know.

Here's an example of what I, in my native tongue, might call a "bitchfest." Today I had to go to a meeting with a bunch of other people from my new job. I was put in the position of having to make nice with my co-workers, most of whom have worked together for several years. So what did I engage in? The complete and total bitching out of our superiors. Thus a quick and easy bond was formed.

The problem I have with giving up the word "bitch," other than the obvious fact that "bitch" is used as a slur against women, is simply that I can't think of any better word for a replacement. "Bitching" is more than mere complaining or kvetching or airing of grievances. Bitching is always petty, often exaggerated, and mostly without merit. I think it isn't fair to falsely call "higher-minded" complaining "bitching" when it is not. Some arguments and complaints and criticism aren't coming from a petty place, and whenever people call all of women's complaints "bitching" they are clearly fuckers. And if I complained about such fuckers, that wouldn't be bitching, that would just be righteous, dude.

Using this definition still leaves me with a problem, because if the behavior is so shallow, shouldn't I stop engaging in it? There's obviously nothing feminist about it. For instance, today, after joining in with the "bitching" about our superiors, I felt shitty. So it's not only something that is harmful to others, but it's clearly harmful to me (and I don't like harming me). Talking shit can get some appreciate laughs, but it can also give you a gossipy, mean -- nay, bitchy -- reputation.

As a mean feminist, sometimes I argue things from a high-minded position. But other times, I just bitch. I don't want the two things to be confused, though. I don't want my criticisms to be dismissed as just "bitching" on my part. Since hey, who says even mean bitching can't offer up some sound points, right? Telling the truth bluntly, being straight-forward: these things have gotten me called "bitch" more times than I can count.

I'm not asking for us to "reclaim" the word bitch. I'm just asking for sympathy in regards to the limits of the English language and a nod of tolerance towards our personal colloquialisms. If anyone has a better suggestion for the "bitching" that I'm talking about, please let me know.

Yes, I Admit It, I'm An Edithist

2006-06-25T00:21:00.000-07:00

Alright, I can't take it. In solidarity with Edith, here's my take on some of the crazy shit E has been saying.

First of all, let me respond to this bit of loveliness: "The young & very naive Edith is actually bringing women down." Hmmm. I like how being young is a really relevant point of criticism of someone's opinion. Yep. Edith sure is the bigot on this one.

I also like this jab: "Now if some impressionable little girl has the misfortune of reading your blog, she may just come to the conclusion that unless she partners up with a woman later in life, there is no way for her be a feminist in any shape or form." Yep. I know that when I was an impressionable little girl the worst thing for me was reading feminist essays and debates. How dare someone tell a little girl that giving blow jobs is anything BUT empowering and feminist!

Second of all, our blog is certainly an open space for dialogue and just plain old bitching. Feel free to critique what we say. We encourage you to argue with us and disagree with our thoughts. But for crying out loud, would you fucking read our posts before you launch into a tirade about how "She is saying that the only way you can want the world to be better for women is if you sleep with other women" or just go ahead and assume we are just like some other woman you know who's been a real bitch to you. Pretty please?

Last I checked, and I do check often, I'm mostly straight. And also last I checked, I was a co-author on this blog. Yes. Edith the "Heterophobic" One (nice turn of phrase there), as I so often like to refer to her, has partnered with me on this blog just to throw you all off of her terrible, terrible homosexist (look I can play this game too!) trail.

Also note how Edith's precise words in her post are, "Heterosexuality is NOT implicitly feminist." Allow me to define the word implicit since E was so kind as to define feminism for us. It means "the implied content of something, contained in the nature of something though not readily apparent." Seems to me there are both sexist and feminist straight people out there. And it also seems to me that nothing about someone's sexual orientation or their choice to actively participate in the giving of blow jobs implies anything about whether or not they believe in the need for equality between men and women. Note how Edith was responding to people who did in fact claim that blow jobs, the act itself, were specifically feminist.

Further, it seems to me that lesbian separatist feminists aren't exactly the people in power in the feminist community or, you know, in ANY community. As far as I know, there aren't any steadily growing armies of lesbians who are about to convert you to their ways at gun point. I'm not a lesbian, but I completely respect how essential lesbianism might be to some women's concept of what a feminist is. You know why? Because I believe that every woman has a right, and should be encouraged whenever possible, to create their own definition of feminism even if that is "mean" at times, even if that definition can be exclusionary. We ALL have our own criteria, as E so kindly demonstrated for us by noting that, according to her definitions, Edith is a sexist bitch. If that's how you feel about it, great. I'm just glad you're a feminist in the first place.

We ARE allowed to decide what feminism means to us on our own blog. And by all means, we love hearing your responses to us, explaining how your feminism differs and why. That is how the feminist community grows and changes. There are all different kinds of sects within feminism, there are all different kinds of people who are feminists. We may write things in an inflammatory way, but I assure you we are aware of that diversity and we love it.

Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, Guess I'll Go Put On Some Cherry-Flavored Lip Gloss and Suck Dick

2006-06-24T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've been having a busy few days. In no particular order, here's some things that have been bugging me lately in my small-minded, petty way:

1) The fact that more people like to spin their focus on how "dumb" Britney Spears is as opposed to how big of an asshole Matt Lauer is;
2) Why "size 36" men's shorts are considered to be "small" and yet are apparently bigger than the "large" version of that shorts for women, which is the very large size 14 at my local outlet department store;
3) And why is it that those shorts for men cost $25 and the women's cost $35;
4) And why the women's shorts don't have cargo pockets, when they are clearly needed;
5) The unfairness of having to spend my tip money buying khaki shorts for my new job;
6) And why I can't be on the blogosphere for more than thirty seconds before I'm accused of converting the young, impressionable minds who read this blog (all three of you) into becoming lesbians. I am also responsible for the downfall of feminism, and apparently don't want men (straight, I assume) to call themselves feminists or fight for feminist rights. No kidding, I thought that would take at least a month. I am totally flattered that my meanity has already been discussed and digested into such sweeping provocation. Be still, my heart.

If I were mean* or at least a masochist, I would point out some things I find perplexing or, at least, inconsistent, in this blogger's diatribe. But really, far be it for me to pass judgment on someone's rant in response to something I didn't actually say, which from what I gather, is something like, "Don't call yourself a feminist if you suck dick and like it." This might encourage more discussion on the topic of this sexual practice that I, for one, would like to avoid. It's becoming daunting entering certain comments' threads. Here's a tip: if you wouldn't tell your best friends the kind of details you tell to relative strangers on the internet, OMG, don't. My best friend and blogging partner, the mostly heterosexual Vicky Vengeance, doesn't even provide me with as much detail as I've read in this latest drama-fest. That's because we respect each other's gag reflexes, so to speak. Oh damn, look at me, talking about what I said I wasn't going to, making bad puns. Guess I AM a hypocrite.

But to answer one question: yes, celibates are uber-feminists. Particularly the uber-feminist ones. Next week, I'll tell you about how joining a convent is the most under-rated feminist choice of all time. I might link you some choice options.

*Meaner than I already am, anyway. Some people appear to be busily trying to one-up me in the mean department, which personally offends me, but politically makes me glad and feel like I may be on to something with this "mean feminism" movement, if it were something that I felt like I should make into a movement, which I don't.

Who Is That Handsome Stranger?

2006-06-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

So I was talking to my girl Edith and she was poking me with her internet poke-y machine, being all up in my grill. "Pull your blogging weight bitch," says Edith. Which made me think about how cool it would be if "a blog" was a unit of measurement, since it's obviously a much cooler word than "gram" or "pound." How much does a bunny weigh? Why 2.4 blogs children! How much patriarchy can Vicky take before her head 'splodes? Why .00001 blogs! Clearly I am a scientist and you should all worship me as such.

Anywho, after much deliberation I come to you today to address the topic of female facial hair my fine, furry friends.

I happen to have a moustache. Not a big one. Just, you know, a wispy one that's big enough to give my upper lip a humble dose of 'tude. For many years I've taken a pair of tweezers to my face on a semi-regular basis like some might stroll through their garden, delicately plucking at the weeds. Of all the many, many things that I was self-conscious about through junior high and high school, my moustache hits the top of the list with a fucking bullet. Indeed, for a period of a couple years one of my most characteristic mannerisms was to put my hand over my upper lip whenever I thought someone was looking at me too closely. Then I realized, oh adolescent curse, that just drew more attention to it.

Still, I used to be very reluctant to just get rid of my facial hair. Indeed, my mom used to literally chase me around the house with an electric facial hair remover. These episodes would usually culminate with her holding me down with one hand and using THE DEVICE on my face with the other while I howled in pain and distress. Yeah. She still regularly tries to bribe me with cold hard cash so I will get my "jungle-like" eyebrows waxed. Whether my resistance came from an early, just budding feminism or an instinctive impulse to keep all objects with spinning circular blades away from my fucking face the world may never know.

I also remember overhearing my mom talking to a friend from church who we'll call Joy (insert gossipy, super image-conscious stereotype here). Joy was telling a story about how she was at the supermarket once and saw this woman with a fully developed beard. With lurid and vicious detail, Joy described a brief moment when she looked into the eyes of the bearded lady (a.k.a. beast) and registered what she called, "a look of utter defeat." Joy gave a tragic shake of the head and both women made that wooshing, clicking noise of pity and shame you may or may not be familiar with. That image of the bearded lady in the supermarket is still a very vivid one for me today because it was one of the most blatant messages I received that to display your masculinity, instead of hiding it and pretending it wasn't there, was to fail as a woman.

According to an old Bitch article, "Growing Pains- Female Facial Hair Gets Plucky" from Spring Aught Five, "41 million American women between the ages of 15 and 74 have removed unwanted facial hair within the past six months, and approximately 22 million American women remove facial hair at least once a week." Which is a pretty crazy statistic if you ask me. Think of what a huge amount of women that is! But there's hardly anything more taboo and ugly by our cultural standards than facial hair on a woman. Because, corollary, there are few things more taboo than a woman who isn't all woman or, taking things a bit further, a man who isn't all man:

It's easy to look at Frida Kahlo self-portraits and gush about how feminist and ahead of her time she must have been to include her monobrow and facial hair in the portrait. But let's think about that for a minute. Is it true that one of the boldest feminist acts of all might be the simple choice to proudly display a moustache? What's so captivating about the Kahlo self-portraits isn't just that she had the ovaries to resist being ashamed of her facial hair, but that she had a moustache and was still SEXY AS HELL in a big poofy dress because, let's face it, Frida Kahlo was hot. She captured the awesome potential of both the feminine and the masculine.

Now, not all of us are graced with Frida's bone structure and I thought I might google the topic a little more to get some fun facts about other regular and not so regular women with facial hair. Wikipedia has an entry about bearded ladies with this charming tidbit: "The bearded woman has been a phenomenon of legend, curiosity, ridicule, and more recently, political statement and fashion statement. A small number of women are able to grow what may appear to be a beard. This is usually not truly beard growth, but simply dark facial hair." Huh. Simply dark facial hair. Since that's not what a beard is? I'm confused.

With a little more digging I came across this fascinating website about historical bearded ladies who performed in various circus sideshows all around the country. Don't these women sound completely, ridiculously awesome?

You may have also happened to notice some pretty hot pictures of feminist celebrity JD Samson of the band Le Tigre, sporting her signature mustache that has turned her into a lesbian pin-up of sorts (note above picture of Prince for freaky resemblance):

I also happened to find this delightful website of famous actresses who sported some facial hair falsies for various roles. I particularly like the photos of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos with a full beard. Sure, she looks hot cartwheeling around in a full-length blue body suit in X-Men 3. But surely, SURELY, it cannot hold a candle to the extreme hotness of Rebecca with a full set of honey blonde whiskers.

Frankly, the world wide web has inspired me to do away with my regular moustache plucking regimen. And yet, I too, want more than a moustache now. If you, like me, are ready to take the next step I strongly encourage you to buy some of these fine wares or, if you're feeling particularly advanced, please partake of what has simply been labeled The Neptune Wig.

Hopefully this post has tickled your feminist whiskers for the day. My parting advice to all my feminist friends (and enemies too I suppose), "Go with glory, oh bearded ones!"

You All Can Blow Me. Or Not.

2006-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

Much ado about Twisty's latest drama-fest at I Blame the Patriarchy. Basically, Twisty says that blowjobs are gross, and that women don't like them. People have maintained that Twisty was just having fun and expected her readership to laugh politely and go, "Oh, Twisty." But maybe Twisty hasn't noticed that she is apparently the most read feminist blog online, or something.

Everyone who has been criticizing Twisty, in their varying ways, thinks they're being controversial or whatever, but, uh, they're not. Wow, challenging a minority opinion! You're a big kid now!

At first, I admit, I wasn't too keen on this new argument. Not because I disagreed, but because I really kind of thought this was just done to stir up some shit. And then I remembered, wait, I'm a mean feminist, I should be supporting this! Identity re-realized, I decided to rededicate myself to meanity anew. (But whew! That was a close call! The nice feminists almost has me, there!)

Mostly, people don't like Twisty's (totally right-on, in my book) opinion because it insinuates that there's nothing feminist about being a heterosexual. To which I counter with, "duh." Isn't that obviously true, gang? Heterosexuality is NOT implicitly feminist. In fact, you could argue that heterosexuality is implicity sexist, but I'm not. I think heterosexuality, while never having the ability to be feminist, can certainly be non-sexist.

Yeah, it's "easier" for us lesbians, in this one tiny bit of feminist discourse (as opposed to how it's easier for heterosexuals, everywhere else, in all contexts). I'm sex-critical, gang. So you know what, I'm not going to conclude that all sex practices are okay and non-sexist. I'm not going to conclude that any way you get off is super fine. I'm not going to call orgasms feminist liberation this morning. So yeah, there are ways of having sex which are not feminist, and there are ways of having sex which are feminist.

As always, as with anything I have ever said on the webz about pornography, prostitution, BDSM, stripping, makeup, shaving, bra-wearing, and so forth: no one can do everything perfectly feminist (or even non-sexist) in their life all the time. We are human, and we are victimized 24/7 by a horrific patriarchy that does not allow us to make any pro-feminist decision without scads of backlash. It is not right to tell a woman that she must choose to make only pro-feminist decisions at the expense of her sanity and health.

In my book, there's nothing hypocritical about being a feminist and making sexist choices (if you are female) because I don't blame the victim (women) for not being able to live an ideal, sexism-free life because for most (if not all) of us, that is just impossible. You do the best you can do.

What I DO object to is pretending sexist practices are feminist. Maybe blowjobs are a sexist practice all the time, though I think it's possible that they differ on context. They're certainly not pro-feminist, however, so let's stop pretending that they are. Let's stop pretending that everything a feminist does for pleasure is somehow feminist.

And most of all, please people, stop pretending as though Twisty or ANY sex-critical individual has the power in feminism, not you. Whoever defends the practices/ideals of the mainstream is always the one with the power. And whoever defends the idea that sexual liberation means doing whatever you want sexually, is defending the ideals of the mainstream. And what's the mainstream ruled by? I'll give you a hint: it starts with a "p." Vicky has pointed out to me that most of the bad things in the world start with a "p" so really, if we were really radical, we should get rid of "p"-words all together. But I'm not a letter blamer, so we'll hold off on that for now.

Atheists Don't Respect You

2006-06-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

I was halfway through my fucking post on atheism and my fucking computer decided to just pass out on me, like a guy who’s had a hard day boozing and beating his bitch and can’t even stay awake to rape her that night. My fucking computer is such a fucking typical sexist male. Fuck. If I make less sense this time around, it’s not my fault, it’s my asshole misogynist computer’s.

You all want me to write about sexism and(in) atheism, and I didn’t understand what the appeal was at first but now I think I get it. It’s a common argument, after all, about how religion is sexist. It’s a somewhat less common argument about how religion can be feminist. But atheism pretty much gets a pass on any feminist interpretation because if we argue, for instance, that atheism isn’t feminist or is sexist, then what are we saying? Are we saying that the only way to be feminist is to be religious? But what about all that documented religious sexism? None of this seems to make any sense at all!

Indeed it doesn’t, because we’re playing that same zero sum game that makes some feminists a bit peevish about my saying that makeup isn’t feminist. If makeup isn’t feminist, and I like makeup, that must mean I am not feminist? Well fuck you, Edith!

Man, I would be mad at me too if that were my conclusion! But I’ve simply maintained that we don’t live in an either/or universe and we don’t live in a world where our actions never contradict our beliefs and vice versa. I’m not as concerned with how feminist and anti-feminist choices reflect on your personal identity; I’m concerned with how feminist and anti-feminist choices reflect on women and men in a society as a whole.

Having said that, let’s talk about the personal identity of the avowed atheist. First of all, most people are not avowed atheists, and that includes most atheists. If you don’t believe in a higher power, you’re an atheist. There are an awful lot of default atheists out there that probably wouldn’t call themselves “atheists.” Lapsed Catholics, secular Jews, cultural Muslims, and general “celebrate Christmas and Easter because they’re fun traditions but chuck all that religious stuff other than a few pretty songs” might all be called default atheists, but I don’t know if they would claim that term as their own. In any event, people sometimes willingly engage in religious practice and don’t consider themselves apart of that religion and many people don’t engage in any religious practice yet do consider themselves part of that religion. Kind of like some people are involved in pro-choice or domestic violence activism but don’t call themselves feminists, while others don’t do anything explicitly feminist yet happily call themselves feminists based on their beliefs.

By the way, this probably won’t be the last time I compare feminism to religion. I get that that pisses people off. I’ve heard some of the arguments – feminism isn’t a religion because it is not about worshipping some infallible being or code; feminism isn’t a religion because we aren’t offering up explanations of how the world came to be or what will happen in the world’s future; feminism doesn’t employ the mystic or the supernatural or use allegories; feminism doesn’t expect itself to be a higher purpose and does not consider its followers “chosen” or “saved” or “enlightened” in the spiritual sense; feminism does not deny other forms of beliefs as unmitigated heresy.

I could go on, but you should be getting the picture: it’s not so hard to argue that feminism is a religion if you know a bit about either feminism or religion. So why does this comparison bother some of us so much?

I believe the reason this bothers us is because we are greatly uneasy with religion. Most of us will say that we are tolerant of other religions besides our own but really, we’re just lying. Atheists that have no special allegiance to another religion (usually the non-default atheists in this case, as most default atheists tend to still defend the religion they grew up with) are generally the most intolerant of religion of all. Why? Because a person who considers herself an atheist as an essential part of her identity (in the classic psychology exercise, where you’re asked “Who are you?” over and over, each time expected to reveal another part of your identity [i.e., “Who are you?” “A woman.” “Who are you?” “A sister.” “Who are you?” “A feminist.”], an identity-defining atheist would say “an atheist” within the first dozen) also considers as an essential part of her identity as someone who is against religion, or anti-religion. This may seem like, DUH, to you, but it’s very un-PC to point out that anyone is anti-religion in progressive climates where everyone is generally (falsely) tolerant of religion. People will get all worked up and resentful, like the little hypocrites we all are.

If you disagree with me, you just might be an atheist, default or otherwise, because most religious people who deal happily with the secular world will get this. Here’s a common scenario: feminist woman tells religious Muslim woman that she totally respects her religion. Muslim woman looks at her and smiles, but might be thinking something like, “If she respects my religion so much, then why doesn’t she practice it? Does she think I really appreciate being condescended to like this, being told my beliefs that she so obviously does not share are being ‘respected’ by her? Like I somehow need her respect?” If the religious woman says anything, the secular woman will likely be really confused and try, earnestly, to explain how she really does respect her beliefs. And the religious woman might keep getting mad, because obviously she can see through this. Fellow feminist congregants, how many of us “respect” someone who is anti-feminist? How many of would take seriously an anti-feminist who says that she really “respects” our beliefs? How many of us might feel a wee bit uncomfortable and wonder, perhaps openly, that if she respects feminism and feminists so much, WHY. ISN’T. SHE. ONE?

So back to moral codes – atheism does not have one. Religious people argue that moral codes are what keep societies from not totally going to shit. Atheism, like anarchy, is a totally free-for-all philosophy. A person can have whatever morals a person wants, which you know, is both the appeal and the problem. Though the same could be said about religious people, because really, how many times has hell really been any kind of deterrent? The fear is more if a person has nothing to believe in or live for, then why bother developing morality at all? We could get rid of guilt! But of course, most people, without a religion, develop a different kind of belief system. But what if you didn’t? What if we really did get rid of right and wrong? What if ethics were totally left up to every individual?

Now I don’t know about you, but as a member of the religions Judaism and Feminism, that scares the shit out of me. Let me tell you how much I trust my fellow person: not a damn bit.

Other things about atheism could be argued to be sexist, like, oh, say, the classic positioning of atheism as “logical and rational” and religion as “irrational and emotional.” Guess which one is male, by the way. Does that make you feel loved there? I always love it when a feminist woman, an atheist, goes on and on and on about how patriarchal and bad and wrong a religion is because gee, I guess that’s really easy to say when A) you can’t say much anything definitive about atheists because they ALL BELIEVE WHATEVER THEY WANT, so uh, yeah, that’s bound to include a fair share of sexists, B) you get to get off on denouncing religious folk as having all these stereotypical feminist traits (without calling them that, of course) yet somehow religious folks are the sexists not you, and C) congratulations, you just alienated over 90% of women on the planet. Because, guess what? Most people have a religion! Guess what else?! More women are religious than men! Isn’t that something!

Makes me wonder if this whole slamming religious people thing is really just a veiled attempt at having a little fun with woman bashing. Makes it all the weirder when a person bashes religious folk in the name of feminism, doesn’t it.
The powers that be (pun intended) would like me to remind you that, of course, just like atheists are sometimes sexists, sometimes not, religious folk are sometimes sexists, sometimes not. And as mentioned earlier, some people are religious in belief, others in action. Religion has always had a big woman scene in it, regardless of the level of fundamentalism. But just remember: if atheists say that all religion is unreasonable, and most women are religious, then atheists are saying that most women are unreasonable. Or at least, most women have unreasonable beliefs and are involved with unreasonable organizations. But don’t worry, hun. They still totally “respect” you.

Gimme Gimme Castration

2006-06-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

Hello, world of super professional radical feminist blogging! SO nice to make your acquaintance. The pleasure, it is all mine, I assure you.

So for my debut post I thought I would write a little bit about sexism in the music scene and how a ton of supposedly liberal hipster kids are total sexist assholes who would put your garden variety Republican dude to shame. Allow me to set the scene a little. You have cheerfully decided to buy tickets to whiny indie emo boy band Y who we will refer to here as The Erections because you like that one song they do, "Nobody's Jeans are Tighter Than Mine." The list that follows contains just a few of the choice things you might encounter while you're there:

* An obnoxious as hell mosh pit. Now I've had this fight with many different people, but the truth is, YES mosh pits are sexist. They aren't a reflection of how into the show you are. They aren't about rebelling against mainstream culture. They take place completely at the expense of women in the audience and they're often an explicit demonstration of just how privileged and silly indie/punk boys are. Most of the time at a show, once a mosh pit starts somewhere you will see an immediate exodus of the women in the area to avoid having some asshole boy's bony white flesh shoved straight into your boobs. And, funny enough, most mosh pits start at the front of the crowd. What does that mean for women? It means you get shoved to the back (that might ring some bells for any of you fans of first wave feminists) or you yourself have to get involved in the melee and fight for your place if you want to stay there. I don't know about you girls, but when I'm in the mood for some good old-fashioned violence, why I just turn to my abusive partner or my friendly neighborhood rapist! Why bother with a mosh pit when you can go straight to the source of patriarchal violence on a daily basis? All expenses paid folks!

* A series of couples glued together around the crotch region or positioned so that the MALE behind the FE-MALE can drape his massive hairy arms around the woman's neck and shoulders. "I love you just so much I can't bear to let you out of my loving stranglehold Baby." Worse, you may also see a pair of straight girls making out/flashing their tits for the benefit of their cheering drunken boyfriends. Oh, and the rest of us of course. Gee, aren't we lucky?

* A lot of hair spray, high heels, and those "d.i.y." shirts that people cut to hang off their shoulders and display their artful clavicles. I realize this blogosphere topic is like, soooooo last week, but here's my angle on the hipster beauty standards specifically. As Edith, my charming co-conspirator, partner in crime, etc. etc. has previously noted in other forums, fashion is fashion people. Strange how wearing thick black eyeliner still entails actually WEARING eyeliner! What an odd coincidence that all the most beloved, oh-so-indie girls you usually see are stick thin. Just like the most beloved, oh-so-mainstream girls! "Sure, I model at Suicide Girls because I am so empowered in claiming those alternative beauty standards where I continue to shave every follicle of hair off my body," says indie girl. And naturally, we all have our rituals and we all have our certain image we are projecting out to the world and we all have to struggle with what our friends and our family and our culture blah blah tell us is pretty. Of course we do. But you've gotta recognize that being a dirty hippie IS an image, being an indie kid IS an image, being a girly girl IS an image, and whatever image you so choose, own that without having to pretend so hard that you're above it all because, news flash, you're not. Not all these looks are created equal in my mind, but they're still all about appearance and brand of attractiveness as identity, as statement. Kinda uncomfy when you think about it like that huh?

Joanna Russ wins

2006-06-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

I know I know, I still need to talk about what sexist jerk-offs some neutral, non-biased, Mr. Logical atheists are (but that should give you a clue where I'm headed), but for right now, please read this insanely awesome post over at Feminist-Reprise, okay? Just do it for me, and for Joanna Russ who, if I already weren't totally committed to Kate Millett, I might just be tempted to take on as my FFF.

Shiny Happy People Flippin' The Bird - More on Being Meanies

2006-06-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

I've been rereading Kate Millett's Sexual Politics for the third time because, um, that's how I roll. Anyway, I'll be doing a series of posts on Kate Millett soon, because I just can't help it. I hope it's not too boring. I also hope I convert you, if you're not already a big Kate Millett fan.

It's come to my attention that my FAQs had neither any questions or answers in any degree of frequency. In fact, one might argue that having any sort of FAQs in a blog that has been around for two weeks might be a bit optimistic. Let's be really honest: FAQs in a first post? Wha-at?! What kind of bullshit is that, you fucking poseur?!

As a mean feminist, I am mean even to myself.

But basically, I didn't really explain the purpose of this blog because I thought it was obvious. Like, it's to be feministy! And mean! But I guess "feminist" and "mean" mean different things to different folks, so I'm posting this as a bit of a clarification.

"Mean" feminism is not so much a description of this blog and its future contents as a warning. This is not a safe space. I realize that safe spaces are very, very important. Happily, there are many safe spaces for feminists out there online, some of which I have listed in a disorganized way among the links over there on the right (check 'em out). Personally, I question the ability for the internet to provide any kind of literal safe space for anyone, period. That said, some spaces are still arguably "safer" than others, and I respect that.

What do I mean about this blog not being a safe space? Well, part of it is based on who I will let comment: anyone. Another part is that all posts are open to everyone to read. But more specifically is that this particular blog, unlike many others, is open to unfettered debate and discourse. I hope never to have to use my authority to shut anyone up or down. If you want to tell me off, you can. If you want to tell someone else in my comments off, you can. If you want to suggest a rant on something you don't have the guts to totally take on yourself, I will laugh at you, and point, but go right ahead.

Really though, I'm hoping it doesn't come to a whole lot of nastiness (and don't think I don't realize that I'm being WAY naive in thinking that anymore than five people will ever read this itty bitty blog). Mostly I'm just hoping people will allow themselves to be critical and not engage in a lot of false flattery. And I really need this.

I know, I know: in-fighting is bad for feminism. Lots of feminists say this. But I think in-fighting is ONLY bad if it becomes so taboo that we repress our resentments, quietly seethe, and then explode in total violence. Call me crazy, but I think if we actually SAY what's on our mind, regardless of how reluctant we are to say it, we're all far better off in the long run.

But like I said: mean feminism is a warning, not a law. Not everything here will be mean or controversial or even remotely interesting to anyone other than me (like my Kate Millett posts, I bet). 'Cause like, dudettes, it's a blog. And blogs are often not very interesting to anyone other than the blogger (whoa! Now THAT is controversial).

Now a total 180! I am pleased to report that this blog is now totally, like, a team! My aforementioned life partner Vicky Vengeance has joined this blog! She and I have had many dual projects together, like being co-DJs at our college radio station for about a minute before I got kicked out of school for going crazy again, handing out Rock Her Vote pins at a zine conference full of suspicious cool kids who looked at our shiny happy faces like we were The Man, and calling each other on the phone when we're supposed to be on a date with someone else. Let's hope this one is less short-lived and less altogether depressing than those other collaborations!

Mean Feminism 101

2006-06-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

I was talking to my best friend, Platonic life partner, and smartest person in the universe a few minutes ago, Vicky Vengeance (this communication happened online, while she was "working" at her "job" [which is what she's been doing since she "graduated" from "college" in "December"]). I was asking her what she thought I should blog about for my non-introduction first post, otherwise known as the "second post." (God, I love quotation marks. And parentheses. And fragments, and starting "sentences" with conjunctions.) With her help, I've come up with a list of topics I will have to address really soon before I forget what I wanted to say, and these topics include:

Kate Millett, my all-time favorite famous feminist, and why she rocks more than YOUR all-time favorite famous feminist (or FFF);
The general ickiness of Gay Pride;
Why I'm a racist (and you are, too);
The crazy California trinity of Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer, and where they're going wrong;
Sexism in environmentalism;
How much I hate boycotting as an activist (non)action;
How much I hate Day of Silence as an activist (non)action;
Lesbian chauvinism, as introduced in Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs;
Sexism in atheism;
Various specific criticisms of current anti-porn radical feminism (criticisms which I won't yet reveal -- let's make it a mystery!);

And tons more! So, stay tuned! If anyone is reading this, let me know which topic you'd like me to rant on next.
As Vicky said, "Oh, so many ways to be offensive, so little time." And I say, welcome to mean feminism.

Now on with the show.

Vicky herself has provided me with my first rant o' meanness. Vicky lives in that bastion of feminist thought called Salt Lake City. I live in another bastion of feminist thought, Los Angeles, so we live veritable misogyny-free lives. Her friend, who I'll call Claire (because I like the name), took a big fat dump on Vicky yesterday, calling her "self-centered." According to Claire, Vicky is "self-centered" because she makes all of her relationships focus on Vicky, and not on the penis -- er, man -- she is currently dating. Furthermore, Claire claims that this stems from the fact that Vicky is an only child so she doesn't, like, know how to focus on anyone other than herself.

Woe be to Vicky.

Now let's talk a bit about Claire. Actually, scratch that: let's talk a bit about Claire, and Claire's relationships. Claire is a young 20-something who has grown up, like Vicky, in that venerable Salt Lake City. Claire majored in women's studies and calls herself a feminist, proudly. Claire is fat, and is, like most of us fatties, not 100% comfortable with that. Claire likes to date penises -- men -- who are much older because Claire believes that older men = "more mature." (Y'see, men in their thirties who date women in their twenties are, clearly, "mature.") Claire meets these suave dudes at bars. These dudes like to have sex with her but don't take her out anywhere or introduce her to their friends because, um ... well, it may have something to do with the aforementioned fat.

Winners, clearly. But these are smart dudes, Claire retorts! They are grad students! They "know who Foucault is"!

Vicky has more patience than I do. When I have friends being so ridiculously used by assholes like that, I willingly risk fucking up a friendship to say things like, "THEY ARE TOTALLY USING YOU! THESE GUYS ARE ASSHOLES!" So I don't have a whole lot of friends.

What really amazes me isn't so much that Claire has found herself in such a typical female-gettin'-shat-on-by-misogynists position. It's interesting to me that, once again, I see things in terms of the nice feminist / mean feminist dichotomy. What Would A Nice Feminist Do? A nice feminist would not yell or otherwise freakout towards this woman. A nice feminist, when being berated by a woman who is obviously so low about her own life, would not throw that shit in the other woman's face. Vicky, being told she is "self-centered" by a woman who clearly never thinks about her own self, might want to hold back on offering that kind of judgment if she's to be a nice feminist. Vicky should definitely stand up for herself, of course! But she shouldn't flip things back on Claire and tell her things like, "The only reason you're so angry at me is because you're upset that you can't have the same kind of relationships with the egomaniac jerks that YOU date." A nice feminist knows that the best kind of truths are the ones that women uncover for themselves. A nice feminist knows that lecturing a woman like that tends to go nowhere.

But I'm not a nice feminist. Neither, really, for that matter, is Vicky. When someone comes at me, flying around with their shit, I point out their shit. Because really, why does Vicky have to take that kind of abuse? Why does Vicky have to get flogged by this woman just because this woman is clearly being used by some seriously shitty assholes? And is Vicky supposed to just go, "Yeah, these guys are assholes," without adding, "but you really need to stop seeking these kinds of assholes out. Date some guys your own age, and really, who gives a fuck if some dude has heard of Foucault? Shit, if all that guy talks about is Foucault anyway, that should be a warning sign, should it not?" I think that addition there is necessary. Yeah, it's judgmental. Yeah, it's unwanted. And yeah, it'll piss off Claire. But god knows she needs to hear it. And that is what mean feminists do: we tell the shit to women that the nice feminists won't tell because they don't want to further hurt women. Admittedly, we don't want to further hurt women, either. But we count ourselves among women, and damn, nothing hurts a feminist woman more than hearing another woman in pain and being told that a nice feminist can't really can't say anything about it.

Introduction. Welcome to my blog!

2006-06-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

For a while now, there has been an intense, crazy explosion of radical feminist blogs on teh intrewebs. So I thought, you know what the internet REALLY needs? It needs another blog full of ill-formed, half-baked, contradictory opinions of a young, white, middle-class female college student.

I have tried and tried to resist this lingering, nagging feeling within me that says, "Edith! Marking your territory with the occasional comment on the feminist blogosphere is not enough! You need to step up and get with the program!" My lingering, nagging feeling likes to speak in mixed metaphors like that. That's only part of the reason why I have been resisting it, however. It's also because:

1) I am really lazy. I never finish what I start. Like, will I even finish this post? (Or this list?! I'm only on number one!!)

2) I tend to make things controversial because I really, really like controversy. This makes me, not only a bad feminist, but a sick person.

3) I'm mean. I have absolutely no ability to make long-term friendships because I usually feel some kind of need to tear people a new one, even if that means tearing a new one on the person who just baked me some brownies. See, I told you, I'm sick. So uh, don't bother baking me brownies (I conclude, lamely).

4) I change my opinions a lot. I'm sort of like that really jerky guy who's INSISTENT that the capital of California is Fresno until you get out a map and explain to him sweetly, that it's Sacramento, clearly. And then he's like, oh, well, whatever. No apology, nothin.'

And all right, I'm already bored with the list. And furthermore, I'm getting off the subject, which should be something like WELCOME! And MEET EDITH!

So here are some FAQs involving my blogger identity that I'm going to go ahead and answer. Keep in mind that I'm making this up as I go:

Q) What's your deal?
A) Good question. I'm a radical feminist which means, if you're so inclined, you can go ahead and put me in that section in your blog rolls (I say, shamelessly). I'm anti-pornstitution and I tend to look unfavorably upon anything I see tainted with the taint of the patriarchy.

Q) So what makes you so mean anyway?
A) From what I've been told, the reason I'm mean is because I yell and have verbal temper tantrums. These are sometimes directed at other women and other feminists.

Q) But how can you call yourself a feminist, much less a radical feminist, if you're willing to be verbally violent towards women?
A) Another excellent question, collective subconscious. I believe that anger is healthy -- like, really healthy. But that's not answering your question.

Q) No, it's really not.
A) Okay, here's how I see it. Like, you can believe that women are essentially good people, and that all women are victimized by the patriarchy -- OR you can see that women are essentially bupkis (neither good nor bad), but they're still victimized by the patriarchy.

Q) Uh, not following.
A) Wait, wait, okay?! If a woman is producing porn, she's victimizing other women, right?

Q) Right.
A) But she's still a woman herself, right? So is it okay to yell at her?

Q) Well, maybe. But there are better and more mature ways to go about that because you're obviously not going to change her mind just by yelling. You're going to put her on the defensive.
A) That's probably true. But is yelling okay? Even if it's not helpful?

Q) ...
A) Let me try an even shittier example. If a woman, who calls herself a feminist, enjoys taking cardio-striptease classes, is it okay to butt in with my unwanted opinions regarding how she's letting herself be taken advantage of by some fucked up porn culture and she's involving herself in something that fetishizes a horrific kind of job that fucks over -- literally -- women?

Q) I thought I was supposed to be asking the questions.
A) Yeah, we kind of broke that format a while ago.

Q) Yeah, I wondered. Well, for starters, I don't know if it's really all that cool to just butt in with your unwanted opinions like that. I mean, maybe if she were talking to you about how awesome her class was, then maybe you could say something. But isn't that really condescending?
A) Which part?

Q) The part where you judge her entire lifestyle and insinuate that she's somehow a crappy feminist.
A) Oh, that part. Yes, I think I probably AM being condescending. But what of it? You still haven't really answered my question.

Q) Which was, again?
A) Is it okay for me to yell at her?

Q) Sigh. Yeah, I just don't know, Edith. Why do you want to yell at people anyway? Do you really want to alienate women from feminism like that?
A) Hey, I'm not trying to convert anyone. I don't think we should go around and picket people and trick them into somehow admitting they're a feminist so we can give them a cool T-shirt.

Q) So I guess the whole "you can catch flies better with honey than with vinegar" saying doesn't really have any effect on you?
A) None whatsoever. Bah.

Q) Except apparently it does, since I'm still you, and I'm bringing it up, right?
A) Now you're giving me a headache.

Q) At least I'm back to being the one asking the questions again.
A) That's what you think.