today i read

what with all the fashioning and horror-filming, there's been less of the reading. sorry about that. but i finally got myself through a piece i've been wanting to read for a while. on kanye west. and also on maybe not being a very good feminist. well worth the time.

{kiese laymon for gawker}

*kanye west is better at his job than i am at mine (but i’m way better at being a fake-ass feminist) - kiese laymon

ff

**a bit of a rant this week. if you don't have time to read it all, go right to the bottom and watch the kristen schaal video because it is perfect. but. also. you should read the post! but. definitely don't miss the video.**

last week mike pesca made an epic mistake in a throw-away intro to the gist podcast which, more or less, said:
hey ladies. don't be offended by the wedding dress ad. you're over-reacting and silly.

i. was. furious.
because pesca is a favourite of mine, who up till that moment, i had thought of as one hell of a feminist voice in the slate world which can be a little soft-sided and old-fashioned in its feminism. he has changed my mind about things a few times. i often disagree with him, but have never been upset by something he's said. i respect the way he comes to his opinions, how he constructs his arguments, the vigour with which he researches any given perspective. not so on this. i was. offended. angry. very much.

i wrote pesca an email* in which i pointed out all the ways that the BRIDE trope is limiting and diminishing to women, all the ways that women are hurt by the sickly weird world that has been constructed around bride-dom. how it is beyond BEYOND beyond loaded, and pointedly tone deaf when trying to engage an entire massive demographic in your politics. so so so patronizing. i said how appalled and saddened i was that such a thoughtful man could be so dismissive of obvious sexism, and so unkind to the women who were speaking against it. 'punch up!' i said. telling women to stop being so emotional, angry, over-reactive is outright hurtful, and i expected better.

(worth noting, sarah-the-roommate, who is worlds less emotional in her feminism, and worlds more experienced, read, considered, educated, was as angry. i learned that later when we were catching up on each other's weeks. but also: i'm tired as fuck of being deferential in my own feminist opinions, as if they're somehow less valid because i'm emotional. you know. cuz laaaadies be weepin. and i was way too kind, in hindsight, in my email. way too gentle and apologetic. i'm tired and tired and tired of holding out my hands, warmly saying 'let me help you understand this sexism you are perpetrating' with the big eyes of a kindergarten teacher. 'i'm so sorry i have to be hard on you, i'm so sorry i'm asking you to confront the utter shitty-ness and hypocrisy of your behaviour.' so, bonus for you - this awesome piece on feminism NOT needing to make men feel all cozy. and double-bonus - the womansplainer.)

sarah and i were both fairly certain there would be an apology on the podcast this week. as it was such an out of character stance for him to have taken, and surely he would think 'oh fuck, that was stupid, glib and irresponsible of me.'

but that didn't happen. he did write me back, and responded to a tweet from sarah, as well as he and i had a twitter back-and-forth for a bit. and basically he stood by it all, saying that what he simply didn't see sexism in the advertisement, or in his reaction to it, and that everybody gets pandered to. (in his email he pointed out that there are ads targeting the men-who-love-guns set too. so. NOT SEXISM, SEE! sure, those ads are targeting specific individuals and not AN ENTIRE GENDER, and oh, white men really have a problem with being misunderstood and tokenized in politics, oh wait...)

ANYWAY! the point is. i'm bummed as fuck. i've tried to listen to the gist since, because it really was my favourite podcast before this, and i just can't. if we're gonna talk like the republican ads, so other ladies can understand, it is like i was, like, totally in love with this man and now i'm like, totally disappointed and heartbroken cause, like, he doesn't get me at all. so, like, time to have some bitch-time with my galpal kristen schaal:



happy friday, boyfriends, fiancés, husbands! xoxo

* i thought about putting the full email and twitter exchange up, but i've already written a lot today. so. let me know. if you wanna see it. i'll put it up if you want.

ff

before we get to the not-as-nice-feminist-friday-postings, let us just take a second for the golden women of canada...

 {photo credit clockwise from top left:}
{olympics.ca, jonathan hayward/the canadian press, global news, john lehman/the globe & mail, adrian wyld/the canadian press, the national post}

PRETTY GREAT!!! okaygoodwork! back to our scheduled programing.

* trigger warning - sexual violence

and then...
* for the men who still don't get it 

"What if

you had to explain what's wrong with your car

to big sweaty women with greasy hands

who stared at your crotch

in a garage where you are surrounded

by posters of naked men with hard-ons"

{and}

"What if
the doctor who examined your prostate
was a woman
and called you “Honey”"

carol diehl wrote and performed this poem 21 years ago. 21 years. that is almost my entire lifetime ago. definitely more than my entire adult lifetime. it is an argument i have constantly. here today in 2014. hi. howdy. if you have the stomach to look at the comments at all, you'll notice that diehl's post has been targeted by mras cuz misandry. fun times, 2014. super fun fantastic times.

happy friday or whatever.

ff

in honour of me finally getting around to getting the rookie yearbook two, rookie rookie rookie day! holy damn, i love this mag so hard it is dumb. so good, always, that it just explodes my insides with hope and joy and gladness.

and it is not hard, this week especially, to proclaim the greatness of rookie thanks to a brilliant little piece by hazel cills in which she mic drops and then gives you the best stare down of all time and everyone everywhere goes bananas cuz HAZEL RULEZ!!! check it.

'[on]...The Atlantic’s website, Jake Flanagin took a look at a work of over-the-top campy fiction [Ja’mie: Private School Girl] and posed, in all apparent sincerity, this question (about real people!): “Why are young women turning into monsters?” I repeat: monsters. Ooh, scary! I’m sure we’re a big threat to straight white men who write for magazines like The Atlantic, what with all our dangerous selfies and Snapchats and sexts. The article went on to wonder whether the average viewer was smart enough to tell that the show is satire: “Presumably, Lilley poses this array of amusing insecurities and prejudices as a critical device, not face-value comedy,” Flanagin sniffed. “But it’s difficult to say whether the audience can discern the difference.”

As a member of that audience and a teenage girl (aka future monster), I’d like to ease his fears, at least on that last point: Teenage girls know that Ja’mie: Private School Girl is satire; it’s by Chris Lilley, for god’s sake. Have you ever met a teenage girl, Jake? We don’t act like Ja’mie. Just like how you, a guy in his 20s, don’t act like Van Wilder. 

Or so I assume (insert a thousand winks here).'

* kids won't listen - in which hazel tells middle-aged men to please stop trying to explain (mansplain) being a teenage girl, thanks

yes. seriously. yes yes, thank you. the rookie writers are consistently witty, smart, funny, bold, cool, and a zillion other great things. if i were a middle-aged man who worked in the journalism world i'd be scared shitless of rookie. they are the future, folks. and the future looks hella good.

i'm gonna go dance in my apartment after filling it with black balloons. peace out, internets! 

and happy friday, teenagers.

ff

oh canada politics. you're really workin hard at being as dumb as our southern neighbours, aren't ya?

{this is an actual for real thing that the liberal party put out}

for fuck's sake liberals. know what ladies love?! cursive script! handsome men! chatting! photobooth selfies! it all sounds so intimate! maybe if we can cozy up to him real nice like we can get ourselves a DIAMOND?! oooooooooooo blush, shrug, giggle! here's my monies!! come the fuck on. way to completely alienate the 'fairer sex'. i cannot roll my eyes hard enough. you wanna know what the biggest issue facing women is? this patronizing, condescending bullshit that pats us on the head and bats its eyes at us while telling us that we're super important. thanks.

ff

this week! good faith conversation! it has been a pretty decent week on the internets. wha?! i know, weird. at least on my end, i was part of and/or witness to some good debate on various subjects where people were reasonably kind and respectful and humour-ful and that is so nice! we don't always have to agree, yo! we can still be friends.

after last week's double x podcast exploded my brain, i am pleased to be directing you to a slade podcast that i expected to explode my brain... and instead was pretty great to listen to!

* the gentleman scholar chats with anna holmes (founding editor of jezebel)

jezebel can be real hit and miss for me, and i often find them to be aggressively inflammatory without being helpful. not always, certainly. but. a flawed site. (omg, a site that isn't perfect?!) and i didn't know the gentleman scholar (troy patterson) going in, but i was suspicious as i so often am about men giving advice on the internets.

but they did good! they struggle sometimes with getting their ideas formed or clearly stated, but they approach each other with good faith. and oh man, is that nice to hear! give it a listen. tell me what you think. where did they hit and where did they miss?

happy friday, friendlies.

ff

"That's when people started calling me a 'whore.'

I'm going to be honest about what it feels like to be called that as a 14-year-old girl who has never had sex and who doesn't plan to have sex anytime soon.

I feel disappointed.

It's hard for me to understand why adults would be calling me this. It's hard for me to understand why anyone would use this term for a 14-year-old girl."

{tuesday cain for xojane}

i. love. this. girl.
let's go back a little, so you know what is the what.

{tuesday and her dad billy cain}

* tuesday cain and her friend made a (witty/funny/smart/biting) sign

and the internet was all 'you a HOE!'
she was standing up for her beliefs in texas as the terror-fest-anti-abortion-bullshit was going down.

i love her. and i love her friend. and i love her dad. i love that of all the emotions she probably has in reaction to the awfulness that the internets can be, she highlights disappointment. not anger or sadness or fear or disgust or DID I SAY ANGER?! it's like when you lied to your mom that one time in elementary school, and she wasn't mad, she was disappointed. and it was so much worse. because that disappointment said 'i believe in your capacity to be better than this - i know it is in you. so you sure did let me down, here. by falling short. by not being a better you.'

now the kind of morons who would lash out at a fourteen year old like this probably aren't the kind to feel great remorse when they realize what a bag-o-dicks they've been. but they sure have been shown up, in my humble opinion. by her considered words. by the fact that they drew out a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD who felt she had better have a chat with them, the big dumbs, and clear things up.

"Adults are not acting like adults.

Normally, I prefer to look up to adults as role models. But what is happening in Texas right now it's hard to find adults who I want to look up to.

I don't look up to an adult who is taking away a woman's right to choose.

I don't look up to an adult who is calling a 14-year-old girl a whore.

I don't look up to an adult who is screaming in my face and saying I am ugly."

she said that while watching wendy davis fillibuster, she was proud to be a texan. well texas has something to be proud of in her, too. so there.

happy friday, teenage dreams.

ff

more abortion talk?! don't mind if i do!


following last week's superwendy and texas talk, there was an unfortunate budget bill signed in ohio that has some very bleeeh provisions restricting abortion. american dudes! why you gotta be like that?

but! let's focus on a good thing. such as this:

"I support a woman's right to safe, legal abortion because centuries of history shows us that women are going to get abortions whether they're safe and legal or not. And when they're not safe and legal, these women will often die terribly or be damaged irreparably. In my fantasy utopia, there would be no abortion. There'd be contraception readily available and there'd be education geared toward preventing unwanted pregnancies. Adoption would be easier.

We don't live in a utopia, however. We live in a country where scoundrels are certain and nuance is vilified. I opened up my own thought process above to demonstrate that it isn't neat. But it's all taking place unified in one man's skull. And I'm not unique in having a complex thought relationship with abortion. I'm like a lot of people. Most people."

 {rob delaney for the guardian}

* a straight father of two who loves the hell outta his children but totes believes in safe and legal abortion

 "My wife, at her resting state, is heroic, and I am, in essence, just some guy.

If I wanted to, I could split and suffer limited consequences. In the worst-case scenario, I'd give up half my income, or some such paltry nonsense, which wouldn't even nip at the heels of my wife's gift of her body and soul to our children. Not that a father who raises his children isn't a wonderful thing; he is. He just better enter the game with a suitcase of humility and gratitude toward the woman who birthed his child."

i like this. i find it terrifying and sad that there are people out there who can't just automatically understand the complicated nature of abortion. like, i'm not running around being all WEEEEE I WANNA HAVE ALL THE ABORTIONS! cause i think that actually would be really awful and the saddest and oh man, ow my heart and soul. but i still empathize with those who have had to make such a choice before or will have to one day. i can imagine a lot a lot a lot of greyspace circumstances where that would be the best choice. truly. (and some totally clear-cut cases, too. anyway.) but it remains true that a lot of people just can't seem to think of abortion in any terms other than the black and white murder terms. so i appreciate the position from which delaney is writing and i appreciate that he is not raging against his readers. he's pointed but not angry. or angry but not aggressive. anger is definitely a fair reaction to the restrictions being imposed. i think that the individuals at the top who are putting restrictions in place are doing so with shitty misogynist intentions. they deserve just heaps and heaps of anger. but i don't think everyone who is pro-life is in that same space. i think a lot of pro-lifers are well meaning but short-sited or ignorant and misguided. and screaming at them won't help. maybe trying to have a conversation won't change many minds. but if it changes just a few, that's still something, right? i don't know. maybe i'm just feeling chipper-cheerful and optimistic today? earlier this week i was absolutely certain there was no hope at all for the country below mine. so. day by day.

AND TOTALLY OFF TOPIC here's a wee comic that will fill you with gladness. thanks, twitterverse.

happy friday, kittins.

ff

lady-readers! i have a cool thing for you to do! if you wanna.... there are some writers working on a book about women and clothes, and they're looking for folks to be a part of it.

* fill out their survey on clothes

i think you lot are pretty awesome and unique and stylish, so give it a look!

and in other feministfriday news this week, henry morgentaler passed away this week at 90 years old.

* i'm pretty happy he did what he did in canada

hearts and butterflies, dr. morgentaler. thanks.

happy friday, feminists!

ff

seeing as i'm all back in the social media game this week (with some of the best vine-work you'll ever see of my dog over and over) the conversation happening about sexist/violent-hate-speech towards women on facebook is right on time.

* maaany groups are stepping forward to demand change in this open letter to fb

(if you have the stomach for it, take a look at the examples page. warning. super triggering.)
it is tough and sad. because i read the letter and was all 'tell me somethin new, whateves.' because i feel like i'm on a feedback loop of woman-as-victim-is-hilarious-haha that just won't end, and ugh i'm just tiiiired of hearing about it. but then again it is only through this constant constant pointing it out that we can make progress. obviously. the peeps who are all 'raping is SO FUNNY!' aren't going to just up and stop feeling that way. we have to keep on talking and talking and talking about it. and hope we're being heard. hope we are breaking through. even though it all feels a bit (a lot) hopeless. like this week when a friend of mine who IS A GOOD GUY and means so well posted a series of rape-joke-memes to his instagram... and this guy has at least TWICE sat with me while i wept and yelled at him over rape jokes... he has seen what they do to me and he knows that it is a deeply hurtful thing, or he SHOULD because holy shit how many times do you need to break a person down before you realize that you're doing something wrong?! hopeless. but no, i will keep on trying, we have to keep trying because if it is so hard to create a change in someone i know so well who loves and cares for me, then obviously it will be a million harder to get to those who are just people-out-there-in-the-world. and also it is so very necessary and worth it, ugh heavy sighs, this is my thing.

any. way. saying it always again:

"Although Facebook claims, in a narrowly-defined defense of free speech, not to be involved in challenging norms or censoring people’s speech, you have in place procedures, terms and community guidelines that you interpret and enforce.Facebook prohibits hate speech and your moderators deal with content that is violently racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic every day. Your refusal to similarly address gender-based hate speech marginalizes girls and women, sidelines our experiences and concerns, and contributes to violence against them.  Facebook is an enormous social network with more than a billion users around the world, making your site extremely influential in shaping social and cultural norms and behaviors. 

...

In a world in which hundreds of thousands of women are assaulted daily and where intimate partner violence  remains one of the leading causes of death for women around the world, it is not possible to sit on the fence.  We call on Facebook to make the only responsible decision and take swift, clear action on this issue, to bring your policy on rape and domestic violence into line with your own moderation goals and guidelines."

{excerpts from the open letter on WAM!}

speak up and speak out, my little feminists. thank you to all the people in my life who are in this fight. who break themselves open in an attempt to change hearts and minds. or those who wrap themselves round those who have broken and help with the repair and the renewal and the going out there again.

happy friday teamgang.

ff

this week has heralded a few great conversations about rape and rape culture. (some not so great, too, but let's not focus on those right now.)

people outside of the feminist blogisphere have been engaging in rape culture discussions triggered by the horrible so sad awful rage-tears-inducing gang rape in india. and. while i do agree with the following...

{@pushinghoops}

i am still grateful that soooomething is happening and people are thinking and speaking and learning.

jill over at feministe links to two really thoughtful pieces that discuss purity and virtue. read them both. they're worth spending some time with.  

{from e.j. graff's piece for the american prospect}

and then, too, mom sent me this little dude which is very yes and i like it very much. (because, say it with me friends, feminism is not about women wiiinnnnnning, its about gender equality and a world that is accepting of masculinity and feminity that fall outside of the rigid little set of descriptors we're all supposed to adhere to.)

and also, this video which a dear old friend (hi jess!!) sent me.

somedays my heart hurts so bad for the state of the world, and somedays i have slivers of hopefulness and somedays... and everydays i am thankful and thankful and thankful for my own personal world, where, jokes aside about 'erin's silly feminist posts', i am loved and respected by my friends and family and given autonomy. if only everyone was so lucky. (if only that, then... universe fixed...)

**and as always seems to be the case when i write an ff post that isn't 100% angry-sad a little in advance of friday, i came across this piece last night about two young men raping their jiu-jitsu teammate in a parking lot instead of driving her home safely like they said they would do. and oh, fuck it. ow. oh. my heart. my angry-sad heart.**

ff

you're in for a real treat this week! surprise! i'm in a real real good mood today. chipper cheerful. SO! that means a good-news positive-attitude feminist friday! you're all welcome.

this week is about saying 'hooooray! thanks!' to the men and boys who are NOT small minded, misogynistic, hateful, repressive. or:

*men who trust women

the above link is to a great little tumblr that chloe over at feministing started. it is men talking about why they believe that women's right to control their own bodies is a thing. and it is awesome. (also they're working on a documentary and you can give them money if you want...) it is easy - when you are all enraged by the things that are happening - to not give credit to the men and boys who are NOT awful.

as strongly as i feel about all this stuff, and as opinionated as i am, i hate to think that the gooood men in my life might think they are bad or that i think that they are bad. i am very blessed to have a lot of fantastically thoughtful, kind, progressive, considerate, articulate, passionate people around me who allow me to speak bravely and develop my ideas about the world. a lot of those people are men. and i think they're aces. and i'm grateful to them for using their voices. and for being a part of the movement. i'm glad that we can learn from and with each other. like i said. hoooray! thanks! good work.

so that's it for today! run free and pet a puppy or something. i have a million fashion shows to look at!!!