I was part of something good.

I sent a rather nasty letter to Picasa, expressing my disappointment with them that this woman’s post-breast-cancer-surgery pics were pulled yesterday, but I managed to find pornographic images still on the site.

Late yesterday, the pictures were restored. Apparently, the outpouring from friends and internet acquaintances and coverage in The Consumerist were enough to get Google to look at the photos more closely, or simply put them back up, complete with comments.

I am really very glad that I did something. It wasn’t much, but I was so angry that, yet again, images of women in scanty-if-existant clothing arching their backs or, in the case of the example photo I linked in my message, bound and gagged in a pose more like torture than anything else, that these were “acceptable” (they aren’t) and this woman’s scars weren’t.

For now, I’m keeping my Gmail account. For now. This was one instance, but it would be naive of me to think that it’s the only one there has been, or ever will be.

Courage

Declaration: I am a feminist.

I. Am. A. Feminist.

I am a radical feminist. I believe with all my being that all women are human beings, inherently worthy of all the rights and dignities that other human beings (men) enjoy.

I have been hesitant to ‘out’ myself to certain people I know; mostly conservative men, all of whom have no actual authority over me, some of whom are relatives, all of whom I consider to be friends. I have been afraid of losing their friendships and love because of my beliefs.

No more.

If I can remain friends with them, despite having serious objections to some of their beliefs, then they can remain my friends, if they don’t agree with me. If they can’t they were never friends to begin with. If they can’t love me and know I believe these things, they cannot really love me.

We women are asked, every day, to be silent about disagreeing with others so that we don’t upset them, so we don’t ‘rock the boat’, so we ‘aren’t a bother’.

No more.

Listen up: I am a radical feminist.

I don’t believe in limiting a woman’s control over her own body; I don’t believe any man has any right to exercise any control over a woman’s body, mind, speech or actions; I don’t believe any woman has any right to control other women either, whether of her own choosing or in the name of a man.

I believe anyone who attempts to control women’s bodies, minds, speech or actions are misogynist: including rape apologists, rape celebrants, Men’s Rights Activists, promoters or supporters of pornography, promoters or supporters of prostitution, people who seek to limit or obstruct women’s access to health care, contraception, safe and legal abortion, STD prevention, higher education, a living wage, food for her children, her choice of partner(s), her choice of clothing, her choice of sexuality and sexual expression, her bodily autonomy.

If any of these terms or concepts are confusing to you, or if you aren’t sure what I mean by any of them, you may read for yourself at any of the sources listed below. I will be happy to have a civil conversation with any of you about any of these things, where ‘civil conversation’ means you listen to what I have to say, and I listen to what you have to say, and we respond to each others’ concerns. Basically, all the caveats of this blog apply.

If you cannot understand, that is fine. If you will not try to understand, or will not read those things which I suggest that might help you understand, I will have neither sympathy nor time for you. If you cannot treat me like a human being, I will not stay around for the abuse.

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Places to Learn:
Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog
Official Shrub dot com Blog (right hand menu)
Andrea Dworkin, I Want Twenty-Four-Hour Truce In Which There Is No Rape

Feminist Reader: Pseudoscience and Heteronormativity

It’s not usual that a quote from a (conservative/religious-biased) clinical psychologist [San Diego-based licensed clinical psychologist Trayce Hansen] makes me belly-laugh. Pam originally posted Hansen’s press release on The Blend which included the gut-busting line:

[S]ame-sex marriage will increase sexual confusion and sexual experimentation by implying all choices are equally acceptable and desirable.

After reading the three previous more depressing points, I needed the laugh, and I got one. What this person considers to be a danger, I perceive to be one of the larger goals of, if not feminism as a whole, at least this feminist.

Let’s work backwards, shall we?

implying all choices are equally acceptable and desirable.

Because telling people “you’re okay only if you’re heterosexual” is a good thing?

Oh, wait, I forgot: we have to support the natural order of things; women are nurturers, and men are leaders. The first point Hansen raises, on the ‘inherent’ ‘differences’ between “mother-love and father-love”, supports this separate-but-equal attitude. There has to be balance, Hansen notes, between the ‘unconditional-leaning’ love of a woman, and the ‘conditional-leaning’ love of a man.*

According to Hansen, it appears that there must be heterosexuality heterosexuality must be the enforced standard because there must be a woman and a man in each set of parents. Since there is something of a biological precendent for this, I can understand the confusion. Obviously, Hansen equates biological sex with the social construct, gender. Women are always ‘mothers’, men always ‘fathers’. “There must be balance between mother-love and father-love” hints at a typical sexist stereotype: women aren’t complete without men.

same-sex marriage will increase… sexual experimentation

This is possibly true; however, I don’t consider it to be the End Of The World ™ for people to experiment with their sexuality. That is in essence what happens anyway: people find out whether they enjoy PIV intercourse or other forms; what positions work for them and which ones don’t; whether they enjoy dominant or submissive or both or neither; whether they enjoy sex better with themselves, with a partner, with multiple partners, or not at all.

Of course, if someone were coming from an attitude of PIV-missionary-for-procreation-only*, all of these options could be terrifying. Choices tend to worry strict rule-followers.

same-sex marriage will increase sexual confusion

This is the kicker for me. As if being allowed to be who they are without shaming/denial from their parents will somehow add to a person’s confusion regarding their sexuality and sexual preferences. Being told “you have to like boys because you are a girl/have girl parts” or “you have to like girls because you are a boy/have boy parts” is a lot more likely to bewilder the unfortunate soul whose tastes lean contrary to those diametrical opposites, or, worse yet, if they’re concept of themself doesn’t match the artificial gender construct forced on them for no other reason than what their dangly bits look like.

Parents displaying an attitude of acceptance of any and all options regarding an individual’s sexuality, and, (OMGWTFBBQ!) considering them equal to each other would more likely foster a healthy attitude about sex and sexuality, and relatively little shame** in the child.

If I’d had such a supportive environment (including the one at large) I think I’d still be interested in boys***. That being said, I’m all for removing stigma from the lives and sexuality of all persons, no matter who they prefer or disprefer.

[Pam on Pandagon presents this gem of pseudoscience not alone, but with a rebuttal from another clinical psychologist -- this time, not 'science-free'.]

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* Hansen uses the terms “mother” and “father” here, but it is clear this is a biological distinction, one that determines social role.

* I make no assumptions about the author at all. His/her position is, however, remarkably similar to more conservative religious types with whom I have been personally acquainted, whose idea of sex was generally “man-on-top-of-woman, man-having-all-the-fun, woman-gets-pregnant-and-is-happy-homemaker”.

** Getting to know a changing body is inherently embarrassing, at least in my experience, without someone else telling you you’re doing it wrong.

Seventeen children later…

Yep, my feminist education is serving me well.

I recently read that Joe Bob and Michelle (http://www.duggarfamily.com/) have had their seventeenth child, and, although a painful thought, I’m not really surprised. I tried to find the blog entry I’d read again (was it on Feministing? Pandagon? Broadsheet?) so I could send it to Da Spouse: one of the guests at a cookout we held last weekend mentioned it, and I wanted to share.

So I searched “Vagina Clown Car” on Google.

Of course, the famous line gracing the photograph of this family (which is old, I think: I only counted fourteen children) became the title to several posts around teh internets. When investigated they yielded some seriously misogynistic lines, all in the name of criticizing Republicans, conservative Christians, or whatever.

This Arkansas couple has seventeen children and still wants more. They’re all home-schooled. All the kids’ names start with the letter J. Is it just me, or does someone need a swift kick to the ovaries?

How many minutes out of the past thirty years has she spent on her feet?

Sure. Blame her. Call her an idiot. No, better yet, call her a slut. Say not one damn word about him. Or the religious background telling her about her Rightful Place.

This is the main point to this feminist:

Among the “fun facts” listed on Discovery Health’s Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the Duggars have gone through an estimated 90,000 diapers, and Michelle, 40, has been pregnant for 126 months — or 10.5 years — of her life.

That is. So. Fucking. Scary.

EDIT: Women are now being educated into their Rightful Place… at Seminary. Specifically Southwestern, a Southern Baptist seminary in Nashville.

I knew it came from somewhere.

In relation to my next-to-most-recent post that happened to mention the madonna-whore dichotomy, a poster, puckrockhockeymom, made mention of it while she waxed eloquent on a Feministe post that was itself inspired by a PostSecret postcard which read “My greatest fear is that I’m good enough to f*ck but not good enough to love”.

Porntastic spam analysis, due to biblical reference. No really.

Since I’ve started blogging about more serious topics including rape and pornography, I’ve gotten more spam comments with that triple-x combination in the websites they link to. I’m not every really surprised by this. Akismet does such a good job that I occasionally check Ye Comments in case some un-spam was mistakenly classified as actual spam.

It must be the anti-communist rhetoric.

Incidentally, according to The Great Firewall of China, this URL is blocked in The People’s Republic.

Feminists in public

I’ve been back to reading the occasional feminist blog, as well as Salon.com’s Broadsheet. Usually I just read the articles, without even realizing, I guess, that there was a comments section too.

Perhaps, though, my subconscious was protecting me from what I was certain would be there.

What is intriguing (well, discouraging, really) to me is that the first (or early) response to each post there is some sort of personal attack, or statement meant to belittle, demean, or trivialize the topic — and usually by an anonymous poster.

Creepy Proselytizer (Part One, probably)

So I’m sitting at home with da spouse, minding my own business when a middle aged man shows up at our door. The screen door was the only one closed, so we saw him before he had a chance to knock.

Da Spouse gets up to see what he wants. “Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ?” the man says. “We’re not interested,” Da Spouse says, and the man went away.

This being a fairly common experience in the not-terribly-urban Midwest, I didn’t think much about it.

Then I spoke with my neighbor, a slightly younger woman than me who lives in the studio apartment (convered garage) that my now-spouse lived in when I met him. Apparently, the wannabe preacher went to see her after trying to talk to us.

This is where the creepy comes in.

Excuse me, but is that your privilege?

So I was having a conversation with two (female) co-workers. It was actually a moderately serious one, at that; J had seen “The Future of Food” and we were discussing the state of American agriculture (did I mention I’m working in the produce dept. of a co-op? It was even relevant.)

And this other guy, from another department, comes in, hears J and the subject matter, and interrupts her to playfully mock her with “Ooh, J has an opinion!!!”

How demeaning is it to just interrupt a conversation that’s not yours with something that not only doesn’t contribute to the conversation, but makes fun of the participants for having an opinion in the first place.

Privilege is being able to automatically assume that whatever conversation was going on 1) isn’t as important as your contribution, however inappropriate and 2) has earned your mockery if it is even remotely controversial.