ff

don't be that guy.

but seriously. don't be that guy.

this week i've learned that some people i know and don't hate consider themselves MRAs. which is veeerrrrry disappointing. because men's right activist is not a catch-all for people-who-think-that-there-are-issues-that-affect-men. yesssss there are issue of gender inequality which affect men. if you read/learn feminism that ISN'T written by MRAs (feminazi, gag, vomit, punch, scream, i hate that term so much, i can't even) you would know that feminism does consider those issues... the hyper-masculine-ideal-culture ain't good for many/most people. duh. fucking duh. MRAs are a hate group. is every single MRA a piece of human garbage? probs not. some are probably relatively well intended but immensely ignorant to their privilege and the realities of gender politics. but, well-intended or not, aligning yourself with them is supporting their baseline which is: anti-female, hateful, aggressive, harassing, disgusting. it is like saying that you are a white supremacist, but, like, you aren't a racist. come. the. fuck. on. i was exceedingly kind to these people-i-know-who-call-themselves-MRAs. i gave them a reeeeaaal benefit of the doubt, gentle, polite, considerate kind of conversation about why they might not wanna be linking arms with these groups. i didn't go into the absurdity of reverse-sexism and the fact that hetero white men are not exactly lacking for platforms. consider that my good deed of the month. what i wanted to do was submit them to a fear-campaign where their private information gets published and dispersed all over the internet to people who hate them just for existing and having thoughts, i wanted to drown them in hateful, violent, name-calling and threats, i wanted them to be publicly ridiculed and harassed at such a rate that they think 'fuck it, i'm too scared, to sad, too tired', except, oh wait, that's not feminism's m.o. that's some other group's... but don't just take my word for it. educate yourself, yo:

"It is a backlash group against women's rights and feminism. Other backlash groups include the KKK and "white pride" who wish to reverse the rights of blacks by arguing that white people are oppressed. Similarly, MRAs want to abolish women's rights by lying that men are oppressed. Also, groups like KKK have been known to support violence against blacks, and MRAs are known for their support of violence against women. Both groups argue that blacks and women should stop "whining" and that racism/misogyny are not real."

* urban dictionary does a good job of breakin it down, as quoted above

* the belle jar sums up nicely why MRAs are garbage

* the american prospect points out that MRAs are harmful to men too, duh

* lots of info and links and so on here

happy friday, all y'all scaaaary ladies.

ff

do y'all wanna know what the best feminist friday gift ever is? A NIECE! thanks, hoops and janice! welcome, little stella catherine. oh man i'm stoked about this tiny human. woooo!

{yes my nails coordinate very well with my book, thank you for noticing!}

meanwhile. if you've been up on my instagram or twitter lately, you'll know i'm finally enjoying the magician's book. (thanks peter! loving it.) in one chapter we learn that c.s. lewis had originally drafted the storyline for the lion, the witch and the wardrobe with a little boy as the main character. but when he got round to writing it the person who ends up leading the novel is lucy. the youngest of the pevensie kids, and (duh) a girl.

i remember hearing an interview with j.k. rowling back when harry potter was new where she talked about writing a male lead so that both female and male readers would be willing to engage with the books. and that's a sentiment i've seen/heard fairly often since - that girls are more open to associating with a boy character than the other way round. (the idea being that we are brought up believing that being 'girly' is a negative, but that being male is kinda actually just being ungendered... the starting point... the standard. or something more carefully considered and written than i'm saying here, but that isn't my point today, blah blah!) ANYWAYS! here's some of what laura miller says that i found interesting:

'...the boy characters in the Edwardian children's fiction Lewis grew up with didn't have much emotional range. {...} Writing about Narnia released something free, lyrical, and tender in Lewis, and non of those qualities fit within the limitations of what he would have viewed as an acceptable boy character.

Practically the first thing we learn about Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is that she is "a little afraid" of the strange-looking professor and easily creeped out by the huge old house with its empty rooms and corridors.  This is perfectly understandable in a small girl, but Peter, unless he was very little indeed, would seem a coward if he expressed the same apprehension.  Edmund can be afraid - of the White Witch, to give one example - but only when he is playing the quisling.  After his reconciliation with Aslan and his siblings, he has to reclaim our admiration; accordingly, he becomes the most valiant warrior at the Battle of Beruna.  Lucy, by comparison, can be vulnerable, can even waver at times, without ever coming across as weak; if anything, her courage, when she exhibits it, is all the more commendable because no one expects it of her.'

{from chapter six of the magician's book, pg 70-71}

and thus we have an example of where little boys get shafted in this whole feminine/masculine thang. the male pevensies are not allowed the depth or breadth of character that lucy is, because 'boys don't cry' or whatever. sadness. there's plenty more on that subject in miller's book (and on lewis' handling of women vs girls, susan's fall from grace as she grows into a 'vain, silly' thing, and so on), but i'll leave it there with that little nugget to think on. y'all will have to borrow and read this guy! hoops & janice - seeing as you have babies who'll almost certainly be read the narnia books by a grandfather i know - you will want to be fully up to date on the analysis!

okay happy friday to babies everywhere!

ff

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!! !!!! !!! !!! !! !! ! !

 

 {nico lang for thought catalog}

just one very good piece this week. on being a writer and having a gender-neutral name. i especially like that (s)he bashes on katie perry, whom i have never ever liked.

{yeeessssss exactly yesssss}

ff

oh i do love the olympics. so so much. and it gives me a million feelings of joyful joy and is like having a house full of puppies to cuddle with.

buuuut. it isn't perfect. (like. my pvr told me it was recording synchro yesterday, but there was NO SYNCHRO TO BE FOUND!!!) femenisting has done a good job on keeping up with the sexist-er side of the olympics. here's a good piece that links to lotsa other good pieces.

* what's the right way to be a female olympic athlete?

and also, remember when the olympics broke my heart yesterday when they interviewed meaghan benfito after the 10 meter final. ooooohhhhh sooooooo ssssaaaaaaaad! uuuggggggh.

okay. back to watching now. happy friday! try not to have too many feelings between now and sunday.

ff

olympics edition!!! holy cow olympics.

okay. so. there's this documentary that aired about female weightlifter zoe smith and her teammates hannah powell and helen jewel. and some people on twitter were ass-hats about it and were all about how they weren't very feminine or they were probably lesbians or that they should go back to the kitchen.

and zoe smith wrote this super great thing on her blog about it and i smiled lots.

yay i love it!!! haha! that's part of why i love the olympics so much. physical achievement, guys! what can these bodies of ours do if we work hard enough? AMAZING THINGS!!! and it isn't about looking seeexxxxyyyy (although, damn all that muscle definition sure doesn't hurt on the eyes). it is about strength and skill and overcoming mental hurdles and physical hurdles and yay yay yay!!! i love it. i love it i love it. so excited i might explode.

ff

*disclaimer. i promise, very soon, to start properly editing my posts... this one feels particularly rambly and lacking in clarity. sorry. i'm too tired, today, to really clean it up. but i do feel that i must start that. bless you for sticking with me!!*

there are a million articles these days about 'this generation' and whether or not we have it better or worse, are too entitled and so on. versus the oldendays. versus our parent's time. here in this first world of ours.

(i suspect this is probably the sort of debate that is constant. i'm sure my parents' parents dealt with the same comparisons to my parents' parents' parents. blah blah and so on. anyways.)

and i am both interested in and tired of these conversations. i'm tired of being told that we - people my age (which actually can mean anything from 20 to 37 as far as i can tell) are lazy and entitled. but then again. a lot of us - the upper or middle class types - are. but it should also be considered that we are that way for a reason, and that reason might have something to do with the way we were raised and our parents and the affluence that that generation found or had or WHATEVER. and also. a lot of us aren't spoiled or lazy and do have it hard. i'm getting completely off track. this isn't what i meant to be going on about. basically: talking about generational differences and the way that the world changes for each is interesting and good. sweeping generalizations are dumb. okay. moving on.

hi! what i want to talk about is. one of the hardships i see for women of this time. the having it all problem. because what comes with the possibility of 'having it all' that first wave feminism gave us? the modern idea that we, therefore, should have it all. like. literally. allllll. and if we don't? well. then we're failing. here's a list of things!

you should be independent and fierce and not give a damn, and you should have a loving partner, and you should have a great job that you loooovvvvee, and you should have a family but not stay home but also not let them be raised by strangers, and you should have traveled a ton on your own before you settled down, and you should be incredibly educated, and you should be pretty and skinny (cause duh), and you should not care if you're pretty and skinny, and you should not diet and love yourself, and you should have all the best clothes, and you should not care about having the best clothes, and you should be political and active and passionate, and you should not be loud or inconveniently opinionated, and you should not be a wallflower, and you should have an amazing home and an amazing nightlife, and you should be athletic, and you should be girly, and you should be tough, and you should be a big boss because you're so tough and girly and strong...

and and and. and i am lucky enough to have pretty good access to most of those things. good ol' privilege. and i still feel, generally, completely overwhelmed and underachieving. it is amazing that more people aren't walking around with exploded heads. (men, too, by the way. the conforming and the being and having it all. but. you know. this is about me, particularly, and the 'free feminist' idea. also, i think this started way before 'my time', but that maybe we're at a point where it is coming to a head. maybe? i will always always think of mom reading 'running on empty', and how that made no sense to little-me, but how very much i came to understand that concept as i became an adult.)

QUOTES!

 

...

  {laurie penny}

and here's the full article for you to read, because as usual i went on longer than i meant to and wasn't as concise and convincing as i hoped to be:

* feminine artifice as power

and if you read all the way down here, you get a prize! SOME MUSICAL THEATRE!

ff

haha! instilling in young men a sense of respect for women and girls = don't let them engage with girls, cause eeeeeewwwwwwww, real world what?!

* 2nd base will be a cooties fest!!!

these guys are sure to be well balanced and respectful when they realize that women might maybe want to be at the same jobs as them, in the same universities as them, etc. etc. right?! hoooray! another win for the religiously small minded!!! (or to quote my brilliant roomie on facebook today, re: another woman-targeted tragedy... 'something something postfeministworld AMIRITE GUYS?')

that's all for today folks. i have a europe vacation to plan and a slutwalk to attend. happy weekend!

ff

on tuesday of this week, equal pay day was celebrated. that sad tragic holiday that says 'hey! wouldn't it be nice if we could celebrate equal pay?! it would! be SO NICE! but we can't. sorry! we still suck at paying men and women equally. ooooops!'

or.

why i still expect men to pay for the first date, even though i'm a modern, feminist woman.

when we are equally rewarded for our work, i will happily let that expectation go. you're welcome.

{quote in a quote! david futrelle and hilary m. lips}

*david looks at numbers and more.

but also:

*a good point on people who don't get to be equal, too.

sure, this is american stuff. US, that is. numbers. but. you know. like always. we're really close to that country. think about it. think if there's anything you can do about it. (hint. maybe start with un-gender-essentializing. which is a new term i just invented! because women can totes be inventors.)

ff

you might remember there being a little teaser last week?

yeah!

on learning and unlearning. or. the impossibility of the latter.

i am just a wee baby of feminism. this is true. i am so so new and all a-stumbles on my under-formed feminist-legs. like a baby deer learning to walk. (i think maybe baby deer should be the blorg mascott... but that's another issue. a cute issue.) but the thing about it is: once you know, you can't un-know. you know?

(haha!)

and so that is where i am. i may not have the best language to argue my (our) case. but. i know i need to argue it anyway. because i have started to see it. and now i can't help but see it all the time.* to see that the united states is a terror-fest for women, despite the fact that it isn't as obvious as not-being-allowed-an-education, or being-forced-to-cover-our-bodies-in-a-complete-way... to see how many women and girls i know who are so deeply damaged by years of being told certain things about what it means to be a woman. to see how many men and boys i know who are so deeply damaged by years of being told certain things about what it means to be a man.

and sometimes i wish i didn't see it. sometimes i wish i could laugh at things like 'shit girls say' and not feel sick to my stomach knowing that there is something so deeply ingrained and flawed in the way we mock eachother. sometimes i wish my heart didn't hurt so much so often.

but that would mean i was going along blissfully ignorant. and i no longer have that option. and i suspect there are those amongst you, readers, who are hesitant to open up to the knowing. i can't blame you. it's hard. and there is no going backwards. so. i get it. if you're hesitant to join me... but i hope you will anyways. because we all know that struggle and hardship are what make us stronger humans. or something. and we can only improve things if we see them in the first place.

tra la la.

{our beloved hillary clinton drinks to the feminist of the week! photo from international business times.}

feminist of the week for this extra-special my-birthday-week has been a long time coming. sarah rankin!!! roommate extraordinaire. and feminist educator to the masses. she introduced me to feministe and shakesville, and she taught me to argue and fight when i feel i need to. she also explained this sad-truth of not being able to go back once you're in. and we had a cool talk about consent and knowledge, which maybe i'll have her guest-write about one day when she's done with school for the term... yeah?!

*it is, of course, important not to get toooo carried away, and let it ruin your life completely. and so. kittens.

ff

time to take a break from fashion!

remember, it is important to keep a thoughtful head on those well-dressed shoulders.

and so back to life, back to reality, back to feminist friday and readings for all!!! and this week... we have teasers! snapshots from each article. check this out:

and then...

{links are, of course, below. but i don't want to go and NOT give any credits here,

so i'll say right away that the top quote is by agustin fuentes, and the bottom is by dov linzer}

i am quite excited about today's articles. first up. SCIENCE! this article is for dad. hey dad! you LOVE scientific american, right?

i, too, am a fan of science. (like bill nighy says, the great thing about science is that it is true!)

and so, this is also for all the morons (sorry friends) who say to me "but what about (blah blah blah) in 'men are from mars, women are from venus'?!" as a relevant counterpoint to anything i have to say (or link to) on gender-essentialism and its lame-o lameness! a) that's possibly the worst book ever in the history of time (maybe) and is anti-partnership, anti-cooperation, and encourages the out-witting of one's romantic partners, which is boooo... and b)

* BLAMO! SCIENCE, MOTHA-SWEARWORD!

sorry. sorry. i just get so excited about science.

and then. something about (shock!) sexism in other worlds than my own! because focusing on change in my little part of the world is super important to me, but there is so much more to this feminist movement than that. oh yes. of course. so.

* woe to the girl...

and there you have it. thanks for reading! (you better be...)

back to pre-fall posts!

happy friday!

ff

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

stereotyping is hilarious!

(okay. sometimes. a little stereotyping is hilarious. sometimes. and. actually, generally, i do have a sense of humour. i swear! sarah can tell you! this week i laughed at my own 'gary sinise' 'bless you' joke so hard i cried. twice. on different days. even though NO ONE ELSE found it even a LITTLE funny. it was. mega funny...)

but, sigh. i'm a bit put off by the trendy new viral video sh*t girls say. ugh. i kinda really hate linking to it at all... but. ugh. anyways.

i've seen a few friends on facebook post things like 'OMG! i DO say that! HAHAHAHAHA! best!!!'
but, um, dudes. almost every one of those lines can be said by ANYONE EVER! okay. anyone middle-class-y and western at very least...
and it's not that this video is the WORST THING and i'm SUPER MAD and it's MEGA SEXIST! it's just that i'm tired of the whole gendering of everything all the time to the maximum. i'm tired of the 'you are over there and we are over here, we're SO DIFFERENT HAHA!'.

gender-essentialism boooooo!

and on that note. here are this week's pieces for to think on:

* the brits are starting to get it?

* parents being jerks. **

*thanking bowie for his gender-bending rocking ways.

i do love bowie so.

read read read my lovelies. (because boys and girls can both be lovely... and feminist!)

** oh man. so many things about these videos that make me crazy. like. dude. your kids sure are horrid ungrateful little things. i wonder how that happened?! and. um. language, children! but. that's totes off-topic. so. shhhhhhhhh. nothing!