Honoring the right to self preservation

Let's talk about honoring someone else's right to self preservation, or subtitle: why I won't be watching Nicole Arbour's "Dear Fat People" video.

A few years ago, I learned a really important lesson from Trudy of Gradient Lair: It's not cool to send someone, "have you seen ____?" messages. I think when I first heard her talking about it, it was in a series of tweets I can't locate at the moment, but the heart of her ideas about this can be found at her piece entitled, "11 Things People Need to Stop Emailing Me." She wrote: 

99% of the time I heard about the same shit you heard about. Thus, I don’t need my Tumblr Inbox filled with a bunch of links to stories that I usually read 72 hours - 1 week before you sent them. Even if I did hear about something, I am NOT required to comment on it if I do not want to. I am not a 24 hour on-demand opinion generation machine. Conversely, sometimes I purposely skip stories because they are stressful, triggering or simply not of interest to me. And for Whites especially, stop emailing me every first grade level article or term you see on race. You’re in race kindergarten.  I am Methuselah. So stop...

At the time, I was like, "Good point," filed this away in my brain, and moved on with my day...but as my own Tumblr picked up in popularity, I started to much better understand the importance of what she was saying. Of course, my white privilege has shielded me from anything near the harassment that Trudy faces on social media. But when Nicole Arbour's now infamous "Dear Fat People" video blew up, I got a taste of how much people need to remember to honor someone else's right to self preservation. And how annoying/disturbing a bulk of "have you seen ____" messages can be.

As Trudy points out, sending something like this to someone can be potentially stressful or triggering. In the case of Arbour's video, I am a fat lady who blogs frequently about fatphobia and being a fat lady and all that entails. So I popped to mind for a few people when someone with a large platform was spewing off vile fatphobic bullshit. I get that. But it seems very different to wait and see if I'm going to talk about it than to start demanding I do. Suddenly my blogging email address and my Tumblr inbox at FacebookSexism had a few dozen mentions of the video. Some were just submissions of screenshots from people talking about it on Facebook. No problem. But some were "Did you see this?" and "What do you think about Nicole Arbour's video?"

I haven't been moderating as much at FBS as I used to for a variety of reasons and the Arbour thing hit right when I was in the middle of one such NOT moderating time frame. But because my inbox had a steady trickle of content related to it, I went ahead and shared these comments, tacking onto another plus size woman's thoughts, who fielded a similar "what do you think?" question:

I have no need to watch it. I’ve heard it all my whole life which is why it’s so fucking absurd anyway (poising it as “finally someone said it” Ha!) PLUS I deserve some level of self preservation so I gotta avoid this one. 

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the mentality which leads a thin person to send a fat person a gushingly fatphobic video. Or a white person to send flagrantly white supremacist content to a black person...do y'all not see who messed up that is?

I get that these inquiries can be made in good faith...coming from an "I admire you and I want to know what your thoughts are on this" place. But because these questions are typically made to people with a very large and visible social media presence, you can just assume that they've already seen them and they don't need to be prodded to write about it. I mean, if I had it in me to watch Arbour spout off the same BS society had told me every day so I could put my reactions to it out there, I would.

I was so fed up from the whole thing that I deleted 5-6 submissions for FBS about Arbour that would have been otherwise fine content to feature there, shaming people who defended her in comment threads, etc. But I was so over it that they hit the trash bin right along side the "What do you think?"s.

Pause before you send a message like this to someone. Chances are your inquiry of this nature is unnecessary and a quick Google search would reveal 1) similar things the person you are approaching has already written or 2) other sources talking about the subject matter already that you can go read; people who are in the headspace/have the interest/time/whatever to tackle the topic. Shit, even go write about it yourself if you want. Just give someone a break before you try to introduce something into their lives which could not only unduly demand their time and attention, but also hurt them.

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

A few thoughts on Spy and being a fat lady

[Image text: Melissa McCarthy as a spy with a gun, but dressed as an older woman in a pink track suit and cat shirt]

I had a chance to see Melissa McCarthy's new flick, Spy, Wednesday night at a free advanced screening. (This will stay relatively spoiler free.)

It's not the best or funniest movie I've ever seen, but it definitely did crack me up. (I'm a sucker for McCarthy.) And in my usual fashion, I started to think about the messages in it. I got a little flummoxed. On one hand, McCarthy's character, Susan Cooper, is the butt of a lot of fat jokes and shaming...but on the other, it's kinda because everyone has underestimated her. She pulls through to prove herself an incredibly competent spy in the field--who takes things into her own hands (literally) and is successful in her mission, partly because she's able to leverage the stereotypes believed about her.

So that was kind of cool, but still something didn't sit right with me. Then I read Meredith Borders' piece at Birth. Movies. Death. and it all made sense. Borders posits that Spy is actually commentary on McCarthy's career. She writes:

Throughout the span of McCarthy's career, she's often played three types of characters: sweet, clumsy, adorable (Gilmore Girls, Mike and Molly, Samantha Who), dowdy and bumbling (Bridesmaids, Tammy) or raunchy yet surprisingly competent (The Heat). She plays each convincingly and with a certain amount of compelling charm, even when her character is meant to be profoundly uncharming. What she's rarely allowed to be - or has chosen not to be...is glamorous and composed, which just so happens to be the persona McCarthy projects with ease on the red carpet and in interviews.

What I'm Reading: A Sad Edition

[Content note: violence, racism, suicide, ableism]

Things in the news right now are not great. (Of course, they never are...) but it feels all the more sadder to learn that another unarmed young black man, this time Michael Brown, has been murdered by police. The subsequent situation in the city where it happened (Ferguson, MO) is also indicative of extreme racism. I am just trying to read and learn as much as I can about it. I have really appreciated the numerous informative pieces and updates that Colorlines is posting:

• Understanding What's Happening in Ferguson
• Ferguson Police Won’t Release Name of Officer that Killed Michael Brown
• Witness to Michael Brown’s Killing Explains What He Saw
• 10 Social Media Shares About the Horrors in Ferguson 

Kirsten West Savali also wrote a powerful piece about her reaction to this story:  My Sweet Young Sons: Cops Are Neither Here to Protect Nor Serve You. Go read it...and if you haven't already, go read all you can about this situation. Especially my fellow white people...we can't ignore this or turn our backs on these folks.

And if you can, participate in the National Moment of Silence tomorrow night.

In other sad news, everyone is all abuzz about Robin Williams' death, by suicide. I've been surprised that a majority of the reactions I've seen on social media have been dealing with the topic with an uncharacteristic level of compassion. Discussions, for the most part, have centered on raising awareness about depression, the stigma of mental illness, and getting help if you need it.

...and then someone shared this HORRIFIC piece by Matt Walsh, who, to this point, I thought was just a character actor, but I've now learned is an incredible douche. (Don't worry, I used "donotlink" here, so you can click through guilt free.) His basic premise is that Robin Williams made this "choice," this isn't something awful that just happened to him. Walsh writes,

It’s a tragic choice, truly, but it is a choice, and we have to remember that. Your suicide doesn’t happen to you; it doesn’t attack you like cancer or descend upon you like a tornado. It is a decision made by an individual. A bad decision. Always a bad decision. 

To reduce a mental illness like this down to a "bad decision" makes my skin crawl. And here we also have the othering of mental illnesses--they're not like cancer; they don't "just happen to you." I realize that Walsh is talking specifically about the suicide when he is saying this and not the depression, but can you really parse them apart like that?

It's very close to the harmful and ableist narrative that "suicide is selfish." To this, might I recommend a piece by Katie Hurley, where she debunks this perspective and provides some good tips and resources.

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

Fragile male egos and hurty feelings if you're nice to them?

Still swamped over here in chaos town. But came across this study and I HAD to quickly share it.

As found on the Huffington Post,

According to a new study, men feel less confident when helped by other men. Research out of Purdue University found that men who had the door held open for them by another man experienced lower self-esteem. 

Psychologists Megan McCarty and Janice Kelly positioned a male researcher walking towards a set of double doors at a campus building. When a student approached the doors, the researcher either stepped ahead and opened the door for them, or fell into line with them and reached for the adjacent door so that the two doors opened at the same time. Inside the building, a female researcher approached the 196 subjects with a short questionnaire measuring their self-esteem. 

Researchers found that male students who had just had the door opened for them felt less self-confident and had lower self-esteem. (Women were unaffected by the door-holding condition.)

...In a paper published in the December 2013 online issue of Social Influence, the researchers suggest that the gesture of opening a door for a man may unintentionally send the message that they are "inferior or too dependent," or feminized in some way. 

Are you kidding me? I...I just can't...WHAAAAAT?

How ridiculous that we have socialized the male ego with such fragility and extreme misogyny that they can't handle someone else opening the door for them? This is not only mindbogglingly absurd to me, but it also explains the whole dudes REFUSING to let me open a door for them phenomena that I've written about before. (Although the study doesn't technically specify if the same effect happens when a woman is the door opener, I feel like it would.)

Listen...here's the quick and dirty of this all: Be polite to other people. Accept other people's politeness. There is literally nothing implied about your manliness in a door opening interaction beyond the fact that I probably arrived at the door before you. Happily live and move on. 

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

What I'm Reading: Janet Mock's Redefining Realness

To open this blog post up with some honesty...I'm exhausted.

Usually the winter at work is a little slower than other times and I get a moment to breathe. Not so this go around. For a litany of reasons (which as I've mentioned before include more than just work...like my accidental over commitment to volunteering) I'm running on empty. So there's less time for me to read and stay caught up on the world and less time to write and less time to even think.

Thankfully, I have found time to fit in Janet Mock's amazing book, Redefining Realness, in which she chronicles her personal life experiences as a trans woman of color.

[Image text: Janet Mock pictured on her book cover]

Here's a brief synopsis from the book's Amazon page:

This powerful memoir follows Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experience to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself. 

In a word, it's incredible. Mock is a wonderfully relatable person with a true knack for connecting to others through the written word. I found myself, so different from her in so many ways, nodding my head vigorously in agreement at the lessons she imparts and the dissection of how her personal stories reflect wider societal trends that so many marginalized people face. She delves fearlessly and truthfully into very private facts of her life from sex work to abuse, all while educating and imparting messages of hope and possibility.

I wish that I had time to give this book the review/analysis that it deserves...but that's why this is a "what I'm reading" and not a full review. Let me just end with a strong recommendation: READ IT. You will be better for it.


Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

The Selfish White Lady Yoga Debacle

I feel like I'm saying this all the time, but things are incredibly busy for me right now, so I don't have much time to write. 

Long story short, my life is in shambles…in a good way…all things which are positive but require a ton of time and/or mental space right now. Work has mysteriously picked up massively, I made two significant volunteer commitments (that I didn’t realize would suck up so much time and overlap as much as they are) and we’re buying a house/moving. For the next few weeks (months?) I’m going to need to limit my time online. I know that I could just do this and not make a big deal out of it but I like sending my intentions out into the world. It makes me more accountable.

Plus, once I say it, I feel less guilty about blogging only here and there.

OK...all that aside, I need to talk quickly about the selfish white lady yoga debacle which has been unfolding since yesterday when xoJane published this. In it, a self described "skinny white girl" and writer, Jen Carlson, gets all weepy about observing a fat, black woman in her yoga class. It was one of the strangest, most condescending things I've read in a while. And luckily, the people I follow on Twitter took delight in tearing it apart.

BUT THEN my friend Travis passed along a response from another xoJane writer, Pia Glenn. I can't even begin to describe how good it is. READ IT. It's the entire reason I'm posting this. Here's a snippet:

You see, I don’t think either of you have anything but good intentions, and yet you are using them to pave the road to hell. Further enacting a societal ill in your efforts to call it out is the worst kind of white privilege. It is why we need messages of progress but the messenger matters. Otherwise, we’re left with something like this:
Hey, Oppressed Person, I feel bad for you but what’s most important right now is that we make it all about Me, even though it is your time of need. How do I know it is your time of need? Why, because you’re not me, of course! You’re you and that is Less Than Me. But I’m thinking of you! So let’s get back to Me and My Thoughts now…

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

Self Care and Resources for Getting Through the Holidays

[Image text, a little green robot saying, "Annual reminder: The holidays are a tough time for a lot of people. Please check on your friends." Source.]

As I've written numerous times before, I completely understand that the holiday season can be just as rough as it is wonderful. (And often times, more rough than it is wonderful.) So I've gathered some resources that I think are helpful, some written by yours truly.

• Fat shame free holiday gatherings (I wrote 10 tips related to Thanksgiving, but they're actually applicable for holiday gatherings in general.)
• Family Stress and Imperfect Holidays (In which I remind you there's nothing wrong with you if you're not having a perfect holiday season.)
• Rethinking New Year's Resolutions (My fat shame free resolution primer.)
• READ THIS IF YOUR HOLIDAY SUCKS AND YOUR FAMILY STRESSES YOU OUT (from a Tumblr user to everyone who feels this way.)
• The Femisting Guide to Surviving the Holidays (Really comprehensive guide from the Feministing crew.)
• How to deal with your relatives' holiday harassment (Jill Filipovic has some advice on the topic in a video.)
• Talking Turkey: Eight Easy Steps for Discussing Reproductive Health and Justice at the Holiday Table (which I think has some good applications for other sensitive topics too.)
• 5 Ways to Handle a Racist Relative (simple, straightforward starting place.)
• 6 Ways to Survive Food and the Holidays (food and self care at the holidays.)
• Being proactive (instead of reactive, my general life philosophy...which I think can be extra helpful during the holidays.)
• Self care is not selfish (Zerlina Maxwell's run down on self-care for RH Reality Check.)
• Surviving the Holidays as Queer People of Color: Give the Gift of Media (advice from Spectra Speaks.)
• How to Survive and Enjoy the Holidays (Very light, but positive-focused tips.)
• Avoiding Burnout with Authenticity and Boundaries (three concrete tips.)
• How to handle family stress during the holidays (two basic concepts from Stanford and health psychologist Kelly McGonigal.)
• The Radical Self Love blog has an on-going list. 
• 6 Research Backed Tricks that Will Help You Have a Happier Holiday (pretty surface level, but also important.)
• 20 Things to Let Go of Before the New Year.

Above all, please take care of yourself and respect when others need to take care too. Self care looks like different things to each person. For example, a gathering that might sound like a ton of fun to you might be too much for a friend or loved one. It's ok if they don't go. It's not only about setting your own boundaries...it's also respecting others'.

Don't forget to check in on yourself, too. Sometimes we get so caught up in going and going and going that we don't even realize we need a moment of self care. Last week I was reading the last link from the list above in bed. I just randomly happened upon it on Facebook and found it to be pretty obvious stuff. Then I came across #9 "Let go of being the 'go-to person' for everyone, all the time..." I needed to read that. I didn't know I needed to read it until I saw it and let the words wash over me. It had been a rough few days at work and I just let myself sit on that phrase for a few minutes, soaking in the concept, took some deep breaths and felt better just by doing that. The phrase stuck with me for the next few days of work and just by setting the intention to stop being the "go-to person" I had a happier, less stressful time.

Sometimes self care can be as simple as that, but if we don't take second to check in on ourselves, we'll completely miss those needed moments of peace until it's all built up and we are drowning under stress, anxiety, sadness, etc.

We can't change our families and the other people we spend time around over the holidays...but we can set boundaries and try to create spaces and situations that feel safer and happier for us. And when/if that fails, we can love ourselves and show ourselves and others compassion. (And yes, sometimes that means no going places or seeing people, even if we are excepted to.)

As always for this time of year, blogging will be sparse and sporadic until early January. If you celebrate, I hope you have a Merry Christmas. And a safe, healthy, and Happy New Year to everyone.

Take care.

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

Beyonce's Feminism

Assuming you haven't been living under a rock, then you are aware that Beyonce is our queen on top of the world. She defied every conventional wisdom about how one is "supposed to" release an album and surprised us with her 5th release last week...truly out of nowhere.

I was delighted at the news and purchased it as soon as I could...listening to it all day Friday at work while I was processing a mailing. (Big thank you to Queen Bey for putting that album out when I had what would have been an otherwise boring day before me.)

If I were to summarize album in a few words, I'd choose catchy, beautiful, and feminist as hell.

CRICKETS

[Content notes: rape culture, patriarchy]

Ugh.

That's what the past two weeks have been making me feel.

Ugh.

Please allow some complaining: I'm tired and stressed and it's been actually COLD in Austin and overcast and I've been sick with a cough for like 12 days and I'm not sleeping well and I just want to crawl under a rock until March. But I've had to do a whole lot of holiday season merrymaking (for work) and it's draining the very life from me. On top of all that I've been doing my whole, "Come on you GOTTA write. Come on! DO IT!" unnecessary thing to myself. I'm trying to remember that I have no obligation to produce content when I'm not feeling it.

So anyway, that's why it's been pretty quiet around here and when I am writing, it's not super in depth or particularly well written.

Ugh.

But while I am here I do want to direct your attention to two things:

1) There's a petition up at WhiteHouse.gov to nationally ban rapists from being able to sue their impregnated victims for custody rights. If I need to explain the importance of that to you, please leave this blog forever immediately. Anyway, assuming you are even remotely reasonable GO SIGN IT NOW. It ends 12/24.

2) Secondly, there's an interesting piece by Soraya Chemaly at Role Reboot about how Bode Miller's very public custody battle with Sara McKenna has implications for the rights of pregnant women. Check it out. Here's an excerpt:

No one is asking this: If Miller wants to see his son more often, and is committed to what is best for him, which he agrees is to spend equal time with both parents, then why doesn’t he move to New York? Because it would hurt his career, threaten his financial security, and probably just bum him out too much? I realize that sounds snide, but that is what he has been trying to force McKenna to do. The idea that she should sacrifice her own education and ambitions were just fine with him, yet the thought that he would do the same strikes many people as laughable.

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

What I'm Reading

Just a quick tour through a few of my recent reads...

I know by now we are all probably extremely tired of the whole Miley Cyrus/twerking/VMAs/Robin Thicke nonsense, but I happened to catch a particularly good piece so I figured I'd share. I'm temporarily breaking my No Jez rule because I stumbled across this by a number of other sources sharing it and it's technically from their community section (Group Think). User Ninjacate explains how the mainstream reaction to Cyrus' performance (and on Jezebel specifically) lacks the proper examination of the race elements and all ties back to #solidarityisforwhitewomen. She said:

The problem is that they (Jez) completely sidestepped the other glaring teddy bear in the room, and that is the commodification of black female sexuality in Miley's performance. But it's not a thing that white women deal with, so it didn't warrant inclusion or discussion by the white-led mainstream feminist media. 

Go read the whole thing. Seriously. Now.

I guess this next part technically falls under "what I'm listening to" but you can both listen to it or read it. As a part of their commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington, Michele Martin at Tell Me More hosted a discussion of the current state and future of civil rights. One of the quotes shared by Rinku Sen of Colorlines struck me particularly:

I think a major problem that we have as Americans today is that people define racism in a very narrow way. They define it as always being individual and intentional and overt. And so if there isn't a noose hanging somewhere, then they can't recognize that there is actually racial discrimination present in that situation. But as a Taylor Branch, Dr. King's biographer, has said, Dr. King saw that race was a part of everything, but not all of anything. To me, that means that every issue that we are dealing with has a very serious racial component, and our challenge is to get Americans to deal with that racial dimension without dismissing race talk as, quote-unquote, race bating, simply because they can't identify the individual with the intention to commit an overt act of racial discrimination.

So we need to redefine racism as being systemic and often hidden and often unconscious. And recognize that people with very good intentions can still make individual and collective decisions that lead to terrible racist impact in jobs, in the criminal justice system, in schools, in housing, in every issue that affects our lives as Americans.

I see Sen's observation play out in many ways, namely in how my white cohorts have compartmentalized racism as those overt acts she mentions and fail to actually examine their own racist beliefs or the ways that they benefit from racist systems.

And in a last, heart warming piece, I really loved what Melissa McEwan at Shakesville had to say about her relationship with her rescue dog:

I spent long hours lying on the floor beside his crate, where he felt safe, synchronizing my breathing to his, quiet and still. Not looking at him, just being there, to reassure him I would never hurt him.

...The things my dog has taught me. He has taught me how to run at someone's side; he has taught me how to be there, still and patient, to make a safe space.

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

#SolidarityisForWhiteWomen

If you can, go check out the trending hashtag on Twitter, #SolidarityisForWhiteWomen right now. So many important things being shared and white feminism (myself included) needs to LISTEN UP.

This Tweet in particular reminded me of something I saw on Tumblr the other day:

[Tweet from Ayesha A. Siddiqi, "#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen when mass school closings don't upset you as much as Beyonce calling it the Mrs. Carter Show."]

I saw this post questioning Nicki Minaj's feminist cred and I nearly screamed from how incredibly common it is for feminism to question and diminish black women celebrities, while blatantly racist white women are welcomed in the movement with open arms (I'm looking at you, Caitlin Moran and Lena Dunham.)

Solidarity is for white women, indeed. And it's not ok.



Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

A Few Thoughts and Links on Orange is the New Black

[Image text: the Orange is the New Black cast]

Ok, I'll be honest...my favorite new show of the year is by far Orange is the New Black and I feel remiss not mentioning that at all. Like so many other people this summer, I consumed the series in two days and was left wanting more. Here's something that nicely summarizes all my recent interactions with donors and board members at work:

[Image description comic of two people talking. Person 1 "How's your summer been?" Person 2 "Great! I've been traveling Europe all month and now I'm back to work. You?" Person 1 "Have..have you seen Orange is the New Black?"]

I haven't written about the show yet because while it deals with so many feminist relevant topics, I feel under qualified to speak about many of them at length (race, queerness, and the prison system, specifically). All I know is that I was so thoroughly pulled in by the show because of the ensemble--the sheer diversity of women (many you never see on TV,) the experiences displayed, and the relationships explored. And it's so damn delightfully woman-centric, created, written, and starring.

Honestly--I could take or leave Piper (the main character.)  I can see how she pushes the story line forward and serves as the character we're supposed to relate to (because she so unexpectedly found herself in prison and I guess we're all supposed to feel like that could be us...?) but it's much more the women around her who have pulled me in and kept me chain watching it all. It has that beautifully perfect mixture of comedy and drama that basically intoxicated me into a delightful trance.

Is it clear that I love it?

Overall, I know the show is not perfect. But it certainly is doing things that are rare and wonderful and at the very least starts some good, feminist discussions. So in that way, I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants an enjoyable and though provoking new series to dig into. I wanted to do some reading about what others are saying about the show and here are some pieces that I find interesting (although I don't co-sign everything written:)

Why ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Is So Addictive 

An In-Depth Look at How "Orange Is the New Black" Compares to Real Life

Prison Bitch is the New Black

New Netflix Show "Orange is the New Black" is a Complex Look at Sex, Gender, and Prison

“Orange Is The New Black”: Taking Privilege to Task

Q&A: Jenji Kohan on nudity, racism and homosexuality in Orange is the New Black



Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

No Justice. None.

It's been a rough past few days. Friday night, I watched the anti abortion omnibus bill pass the Texas State Senate. Saturday night we learned that George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

My heart is so heavy. Earlier today, I was listening to the rebroadcast of Friday's Tell Me More and their weekly barbershop segment. Everyone was making their predictions about the verdict. The consensus was that Zimmerman would at the very least be found guilty of manslaughter. Knowing how things actually went down, it was almost too painful to listen to.

From the very beginning, I have felt that George Zimmerman acted on racist impulse and that this whole thing is mired in racism. As I wrote in March of 2012, Zimmerman knew nothing about Trayvon Martin other than what he SAW in that moment. We know that Martin was unarmed and doing literally nothing wrong. We know that Zimmerman shot him point blank in the heart. But even if you can't see the racism in these facts, you should at least be able to see them in this verdict. We apparently value the life of a black teenage boy so lowly, that the man who admits he killed him... will do no time.

Even teens who text and drive and kill someone in a resulting car accident have done SOME time.

Some people have postulated, how would this have gone if Zimmerman was black and Martin was white? It's a valid question and I just don't think you can make the case that the results would be the same. In fact, what stands in greatest contrast to the Zimmerman trial outcome is the case of a black Florida woman, Marissa Alexander, who got 20 years for firing warning shots into the air at her abusive ex.

Read that again. Warning shots at her abusive ex...20 years. I want to puke when I think about it. How can we pretend that we have a "justice" system when this is what's happening?

A quote from bell hooks' "All About Love" has been floating around in the wake of this decision. It is an important quote in general, but especially poignant right now:

White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged to feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake. The fact that this mistake led to the violent death of an innocent young man does not register; the narrative is worded in a manner that encourages viewers to identify with the one who made the mistake by doing what we are led to feel we might all do to “protect our property at all costs from any sense of perceived threat." This is what the worship of death looks like.

Trudy at Gradient Lair has an amazing piece up called "The Verdict Of 'Not Valuable' Was Delivered On Black Life. Again." I agree completely that this is what the verdict is saying. And it's what both this case and the anti abortion omnibus bill have in common. (Again, that bill will close the clinics in rural areas that serve almost exclusively women of color and present an undue burden to obtaining abortions for those people specifically. If/when it goes into effect, people WILL die from back alley procedures.)

Everywhere we turn, the measure of a life that matters is whiteness.

I have nothing else to say.


Related reading:
Alex Fraser's Facebook message for Zimmerman
Racialicious' compilation on the subject
Melissa McEwan on the verdict
The Public Shaming blog has a piece up showing the depths of our racist society (content note: racist slurs)
100 Black activists respond to Zimmerman's acquittal 




Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.

Here's To Beach Bodies and Not Waiting!

[Content note: body talk, fatphobia]

Ah yes, it is the time of year when we hear messages around us like, "Is your body beach ready?" and "It's almost bikini season! Get into shape now!"

Our culture is deeply fatphobic and one of the many ways this plays out is by insinuating and outright stating that the leisure activities of swimming or hanging out on the beach are reserved for people with a certain body. Or if you are a fatty and you dare go to the beach anyway, you sure better not wear a bikini because bikinis are reserved for those elite who have this certain body that they often worked really hard to get. But don't worry...if you don't have this certain body there's a billion people with products, diet plans, and medicines to help you get that "beach body."

A Little Dose of Feminist Happiness

I think we can all agree that the past week has been a pretty tough one here in the states. So I thought it might be a nice moment to highlight some of the feminist victories and inspiring stories that have also been taking place:

First, Zimbabweans have approved a constitution that includes gender equality as a principal of the nation. From UN Women:

The draft Constitution approved by referendum opens with provisions stating that respect for gender equality is one of the country’s Founding Values. The Declaration of Rights includes a section on women’s rights, has been expanded to include socioeconomic and cultural rights, and it could be used in legal or judicial proceedings. This means new opportunities for women in jobs, education, finance and credit must be ensured by the government and in national funding.

TIME Magazine has released its list of the 100 most influential people and 15 year old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai is on the cover. As they said at TIME:

The Taliban almost made Malala a martyr; they succeeded in making her a symbol. The memoir she is writing to raise awareness about the 61 million children around the world who are not in school indicates she accepts that unasked-for responsibility as a synonym for courage and a champion for girls everywhere. However Malala concludes her book, her story so far is only just beginning. 

And finally, from West Virginia, we have Katelyn Campbell who protested her schools slut-shamey abstinence focused assembly. As reported at Think Progress,

George Washington High School recently hosted a conservative speaker, Pam Stenzel, who travels around the country to advocate an abstinence-only approach to teen sexuality. Stenzel has a long history of using inflammatory rhetoric to convince young people that they will face dire consequences for becoming sexually active. At GW’s assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” She also asserted that condoms aren’t safe, and every instance of sexual contact will lead to a sexually transmitted infection.

[Katelyn] Campbell refused to attend the assembly, which was funded by a conservative religious organization called “Believe in West Virginia” and advertised with fliers that proclaimed “God’s plan for sexual purity.” Instead, she filed a complaint with the ACLU and began to speak out about her objections to this type of school-sponsored event. Campbell called Stenzel’s presentation “slut shaming” and said that it made many students uncomfortable.

When the news is flooded with images of violence, racism, and oppression, as it often is, it can be hard to see the small victories taking place each day, all over the world. But the truth is that there is always much to be happy for--it's just that when profit and ratings are your motivation, the happy stories take a back seat to fear. It's important to be informed but it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the major news networks are not able to present information in a way which is not also disgustingly sensationalized. (I know that this is not a revolutionary realization.) I'm finding that news consumption is much more manageable for me when I choose how, when, and from whom I receive updates. That way I can also get the good with the bad and feel much less burned out.

Anyway, here's hoping for a less "eventful" week ahead of us.

This blog has strict comment moderation intended to preserve a safe space. Moderation is managed solely by the blog author. As such, even comments made in good faith will be on a short delay, so please do not attempt to resubmit your comment if it does not immediately appear. Discussion and thoughtful participation are encouraged, but abusive comments of any type will never be published. The blog author reserves the right to publish/delete any comments for any reason, at her sole discretion. 

What I'm Reading

[Content note: rape, sexual harassment, body policing]

Time for another round of what I'm reading lately!

1. I caught this post on Tumblr which perfectly highlights how horrendous and mainstream rape apologism can get. The rape apologist in question is Professor Steven Landsburg and what he said is jaw droppingly bad. It has NOT received enough backlash and shame, in my opinion. 
2. In that vein, Shakesville has a great piece up about Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, which takes us beyond the statistics and into the human side of this month.
3. The Feminist Wire has a great piece up by Monica Torres about her experiences a writer, English major, and Latina...and what it means to study the language which is one of conquest.
4. So this happened...

   

   [Image text, as quoted in the linked article, "Second-placed cyclist Peter Sagan thought it would be completely hilarious if, while Tour Of Flanders winner Fabian Cancellara was being congratulated by two ‘podium girls’, he went for the grope."]

   
   
5. Ragen Chastain, as always, has up an amazing post about the experiences of being a fat positive person at the gym, specifically in Zumba classes, and how your instructor and fellow exercisers can REALLY bring you down. I related to this so much, except unlike Chastain, I've never had the guts to actually say something. 

This blog has strict comment moderation intended to preserve a safe space. Moderation is managed solely by the blog author. As such, even comments made in good faith will be on a short delay, so please do not attempt to resubmit your comment if it does not immediately appear. Discussion and thoughtful participation are encouraged, but abusive comments of any type will never be published. The blog author reserves the right to publish/delete any comments for any reason, at her sole discretion. 

Rape Culture Watch: YEP, Still Alive and Well

[Content note: discussions of rape culture, rape apologism, victim blaming, etc.]

Whelp...I'm back. SXSW was a ton of fun and I was so happy to have a much needed break. Sometimes I don't know how much I needed a break until I take one.

Unfortunately, in my time away, it turns out that our rape culture didn't just disappear. Not that I had any expectation it would...but a girl can dream, can't she?

I'm talking about the Steubenville case, verdict, and media coverage specifically. While I tried to be relatively unplugged the past week, it's impossible not to catch news about this, and rightfully so. Most of all, the discussion I've seen from various feminist sources is centered on the way the media is covering it and how their reporting has hit new levels of horrendousness.

Concern Trolls, Ahoy!

[Content note: discussions of weight]

Ya know, I was just thinking how nice it was to see many women who were not extremely thin at the Grammy's Sunday night (Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Mavis Staples, Brittany Howard, Miranda Lambert.) Oh course, as soon as my brain formed that thought, Fox News came along to crush it. Now, before you fear I was actually watching Fox News, don't worry--I only know this because Feministing reported it. As Samhita wrote:

What I'm Reading and a Note on Roe v. Wade

It is certainly a historic week, isn't it! So much happening, so much great writing to dig into. Brittney Cooper has an amazing piece up at The Crunk Feminist Collective entitled We Have Dreams: Thoughts on Intentional Dreaming on this MLK-Inauguration Day. She writes,

But today, I dream for a world with less war, less guns, less violence. I dream for a world where parents don’t lose children and where children don’t lose parents too soon. I dream for a world where our national and collective contempt for inequality supersedes our national contempt for the unequal. I dream for a world where justice is not a pledge but a practice. I dream for a world that “loves mercy” even as it seeks to “do justice.” Even as President Obama lays his hand on MLK’s Bible today, I dream for a world where the Bible, esteemed alongside every other holy book, is a personally chosen guide for living not a culturally imposed guide for governance. I dream for a world in which every person has loving and sustaining community and every person has all sufficiency in food, resources, and work.

In honor of today's 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a lot of great writing about choice and abortion is out there. Shakesville has a piece up about the case of Bei Bei Shau, whose story highlights just how important the reproductive rights movement continues to be. (The fight ain't over!) Over at Feministe guest writer Taja Lindley, a full spectrum doula, shares a look her experience with her patients and the politics of abortion:

Some patients talk in circles:

I’m not one of those women who get an abortion.

I’m different than the other patients—I never planned to be here.

I’m not a statistic.

These examples show how women talk their way out of (or into) their internalization of public shaming and blaming, as if a certain kind of woman gets an abortion and other women do not. This circular thinking is another byproduct of the oversimplified binary of mainstream abortion politics, represented in policy and the media. But what gets lost in the respectability politics of abortion is how common an abortion procedure is: nearly 1 in 3 women have one in their lifetime.*

Because today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I can't help but take a moment to really think about how important that legislation is. First of all, 40 years is nothing...it's a flash in the pan. I mean, one of my friend's mom had to seek an illegal abortion when she was a teen. So really, abortion rights have been available for just over a generation. And yet, it has been just enough time for it to become a right which is all too often taken for granted.

Many young people I know are happy that abortion is an option, should they ever need it. But they don't necessary speak in support of it. They buy into the stigma. They talk about how they're pro-choice, but they would "never get an abortion myself!" They don't rally in support of choice and they would never speak openly about having accessed abortion services. They see things like marches on the capital as a thing of the past or something reserved for feminist extremists.

The truth is that abortion rights are constantly under attack. (Check out my "anti-choice" tag...and that's just what I have time to cover.) Especially as a resident of Texas, I find it very possible that I will see serious steps to repeal abortion rights completely in my lifetime. As someone who follows this situation closely, I see that the far right is chipping away at things and their views are gaining momentum. Fetal pain laws, sonogram requirements, and 20 week limits are all attempts to limit choice which are proposed by many states each year, and often gain a lot of support and traction. If you're not really thinking about it, you might continue to assume that abortion rights are a given. And this complacency, as well as buying into the stigma, are dangerous.

I remember when I used to think that one could be both "pro life" and a feminist. But I have come to realize that it is critical that feminist philosophy invest in the idea that bodily autonomy is sacred. As such, abortion rights have become more and more important for me to defend. So today I celebrate that landmark supreme court decision and thank the people who worked tirelessly to secure this right. Please know that there are people who will carry the torch from here.

If you are interested in helping to defend choice, please consider donating to the Planned Parenthood Federation or giving to/volunteering at your Planned Parenthood affiliate. I also recommend organizations like NARAL, Lilith Fund, and Emily's List.



*It is not just people who identify as women who access abortions.

What If Stretch Marks Were Badges of Honor?

A couple of things I encountered recently got my wheels turning.

First, I've been reading Cunt and one of the things that Inga Muscio discusses is how western cis women have been socialized to find their menstrual cycles disgusting, shameful, and unwanted. She learns about a different society that celebrates menstruation through menarche parties. She postulates about the change that could be made in how we feel about our cycles if we embraced such an outlook.

Secondly, I saw this post on stretch marks, particularly the part about "are they common." It says:

Yes, so many people have them. Fat people have them. Thin people have them. Models have them. Athletes have them. VS Angels have them. Men, women, and those who don’t fit the gender binary. Young, old, and anywhere in between. Anyone can get them, and many do. They appear when skin stretches due to various types of growth, and everybody grows, so they’re more common than you might think. 

And it's true. I don't think I know many people who don't have at least a few stretch marks. So I couldn't help but take Muscio's line of thinking and wonder, what if stretch marks were revered? What if they were badges of honor? After all, for many bodies, they symbolize growing up, the passing of time, maturing, and/or creating new life.

Unfortunately, our culture didn't take that path. We are deeply misogynistic, fatphobic, and youth obsessed, so stretch marks are seen as "imperfections." But when you really, really think about it--why should the natural way that the body reacts to change be seen as imperfect? In reality, it's a perfect adaptation to allow growth and change.

So, seriously...what if we all decided that things like wrinkles and stretch marks shouldn't be dreaded, fussed over, and covered? What if we decided they were awesome?

Can you even get your mind in that place? It's hard, I know. But I imagine that in that world, teen girls would say stuff like, "Oh my gosh, Beth, your skin is so beautifully striped!" instead of "I hate my nasty stretch marks!" The entire anti-aging and stretch mark lotion industries would collapse. Many more people would feel comfortable in their bodies. We'd be proud of the changes that time takes on us, instead of deeply ashamed. And I suspect we'd probably stop thinking about our bodies in terms of minimizing imperfections.