[TW: Rape, sexual assault]
It's interesting what happens when the hunters become the hunted, isn't it?
Over the last few weeks, more and more victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape have come forward. I'm sure even more will come forward in the weeks and months to come. Something happened when Harvey Weinstein was utterly destroyed for his reprehensible crimes. Women began to think that maybe, just maybe, they would actually get justice after all. And so one woman came forward. And then another. And another. And as each woman raised her voice, the men who had silenced them for so long were suddenly forced to face the consequences of their actions. Valuable things were taken away. Careers were ended. Punishments were meted out.
Women across the country breathed a cautious and wary sigh of relief.
And men began to feel threatened, for some reason--they are so terrified that there's about to be some kind of hysterical mob
violence where men are rounded up and accused of sexual
assault for funsies. Which is weird, because the FBI consistently puts the false report rate at 8%, and this study done by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center in 2012 indicates false report rates between 2-6% in varying cities and states. It's no higher than the false report rate for any other crime.
So it's almost like, if a woman comes forward saying she's been raped, the likelihood of her lying is 2-8%. It's almost like, if a woman comes forward saying you've raped her, the likelihood that you've done it is 92-98%.
I'm starting to think that if you've
never raped or sexually assaulted anyone, you shouldn't be this
concerned that women are feeling like they can come forward and name their attackers.
It's interesting how you're so quick to demand that people trust the justice system until it's you in the handcuffs, you in the defendant's chair. If you're not guilty, you don't have anything to worry
about. Isn't that what you always say to folks who are falsely arrested while exercising their right to protest? Maybe you should just let the justice system do its job--once you've been thoroughly investigated, you'll be exonerated. Just relax and let the system work, right?
Well, time to eat your words. If you've never raped
anyone, you don't have anything to worry about. Maybe you should just let the justice system do its job. Once you've been thoroughly investigated, you'll be exonerated. Just relax and let the system work. If you're not guilty, you don't have anything to worry about.
Do you?
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Monday, November 6, 2017
Sutherland Springs
TW for gun violence, particularly against children]
By the time of this posting, you’re likely aware of what
happened on
Sunday night in Sutherland Springs, TX—26 people gone. Gunned down by a “mentally
ill lone wolf” who they will refuse to label as a terrorist because he's white—and I refuse to use his name
because I don’t want to add to his inevitable infamy—who was allowed access to an
automatic rifle despite being discharged from the military and court martialed
for assaulting his wife and child.
I don’t even know how to describe my emotional state at this
point. I’m beyond angry. Furious doesn’t cover it. Because we keep
letting this happen. Over
and over and over again. Because when it's white men committing the violence with what they believe are their Constitutionally-guaranteed guns, apparently it's perfectly okay. Because in this particular instance, half
the victims were CHILDREN. CHILDREN. One of those children was just
18 months old. One victim was eight months pregnant. Her fetus was just a month
or so away from being a newborn baby.
If you’re wondering why you don’t hear our pro-life
Republican representatives demanding sensible gun control, that’s because they’re
not. Because they’re busy offering “thoughts and prayers” instead. And that’s
because they don’t actually care about a fetus’ “right to life.” If they
actually care about fetuses, they should demand immediate action on sensible
gun control legislation. But they won't. Because even if they believe that a
fetus is essentially an already living, breathing child, we’ve already established
that it’s not about saving fetuses—it’s about controlling women’s bodies and
therefore their lives. Always has been. Their radio silence on this most recent mass shooting is
perfect evidence of that. But we also know that dead children isn’t enough to
sway them from that sweet, sweet NRA money, anyway.
Because we’ve done this before.
We lost 20 children—babies, really—at Sandy
Hook Elementary back in 2012 and not a single common-sense piece of gun
control legislation ever got passed. No one even bothered to fight for it. They
just offered thoughts and prayers, as usual, and life went on. A year passed.
Two years. Now five. More people died. More children. So much death that could
have easily been prevented had the Republicans just pried their fingers from
their guns and their NRA membership cards for one fucking second and passed
some fucking gun control. But no. Their love of the 2nd Amendment (and
those super-shiny NRA paychecks, of course) superseded those kids’ right to
life, and so they did nothing.
And they will do nothing now.
The fact that a fetus likely died with a bullet through it won’t
even make them flinch.
And life will go on. For some of us, anyway.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
And the Hits Just Keep on Coming
Reproductive rights are non-negotiable. Reproductive rights are non-negotiable. REPRODUCTIVE. RIGHTS. ARE. NON. NEGOTIABLE.
What's that? Oh no, I'm not talking to the Republican Party. I'm not even talking to the Txxxp administration. Believe it or not, I'm actually talking to the Democratic Party leadership.
Just yesterday, the Democratic campaign chief, Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) indicated that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) will continue to fund Democratic candidates who oppose abortions, stating that "There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates....As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.” In other words, they seem to think that licking the boots of the Republicans and the alt-right will help them win back the House in 2018.
I'm here to say that, if they think making reproductive rights a negotiable bargaining chip will help them gain more votes, they are delusional. They will lose more votes from women, LGBTQ people, etc. than they will gain from old, white, male Republicans, as we do not take kindly to having our rights reclassified as being non-essential when they become inconvenient to the Democrats' success rate.
It is not a coincidence that the all-male Democratic leadership does not consider reproductive rights to be essential--not just to the party platform, but to women! Apparently we can just drop the issue for the moment and we can pick it up again when the time is right, sweetie. If you need any proof that the current Democratic leadership doesn't give a fuck about women, think about this: anti-abortion politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, will vote for anti-abortion legislation. The Democratic Party leadership is not stupid--they know this. However, even with that knowledge in mind, instead of doubling down on reproductive rights and continuing to press it as a non-negotiable issue after the presidential election, they have instead decided that our right to bodily autonomy, our right to decide if and when we have children, is worth sacrificing for votes.
What's that? Oh no, I'm not talking to the Republican Party. I'm not even talking to the Txxxp administration. Believe it or not, I'm actually talking to the Democratic Party leadership.
Just yesterday, the Democratic campaign chief, Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) indicated that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) will continue to fund Democratic candidates who oppose abortions, stating that "There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates....As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.” In other words, they seem to think that licking the boots of the Republicans and the alt-right will help them win back the House in 2018.
I'm here to say that, if they think making reproductive rights a negotiable bargaining chip will help them gain more votes, they are delusional. They will lose more votes from women, LGBTQ people, etc. than they will gain from old, white, male Republicans, as we do not take kindly to having our rights reclassified as being non-essential when they become inconvenient to the Democrats' success rate.
It is not a coincidence that the all-male Democratic leadership does not consider reproductive rights to be essential--not just to the party platform, but to women! Apparently we can just drop the issue for the moment and we can pick it up again when the time is right, sweetie. If you need any proof that the current Democratic leadership doesn't give a fuck about women, think about this: anti-abortion politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, will vote for anti-abortion legislation. The Democratic Party leadership is not stupid--they know this. However, even with that knowledge in mind, instead of doubling down on reproductive rights and continuing to press it as a non-negotiable issue after the presidential election, they have instead decided that our right to bodily autonomy, our right to decide if and when we have children, is worth sacrificing for votes.
The Democratic party, as it stands right now, does not give a fuck about women.
It does not give a fuck about LGBTQ people. It does not give a fuck about
anyone who needs reproductive healthcare services, abortion or not. It does not give a fuck if they vote in anti-abortion politicians who will
continue to strip us of our reproductive rights until they disappear, as
long as they get the votes they want. We really need to think about what will happen if there comes a future when candidates from both major political parties, the parties that tend to win elections, are anti-abortion.
Do you want the Handmaid's Tale? Because this is how you get the Handmaid's Tale. And it's clear that, with men in charge, we can't have basic human rights in ANY party.
Do you want the Handmaid's Tale? Because this is how you get the Handmaid's Tale. And it's clear that, with men in charge, we can't have basic human rights in ANY party.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Call to Action: Day 4 of the Resistance
The Women's March, which had representation in all seven continents, took place on Saturday, January 21st, to the tune of 3.67 million marchers on the low end and 4.6 million on the high end of estimations. More than one out of every 100 Americans took to the streets to voice their outrage at this incoming administration and voice their determination to fight and resist at every turn. Many people, Drumpf included, voiced their confusion about the necessity of this march. They argued that women already have all the rights and privileges that they could possibly need. What was the point of this march, really?
A bill was recently introduced to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, January 17th. A full four days prior to the march, and yet nobody knew about its existence until yesterday and today. Even now, most people you inform of the existence of this bill are surprised to know that it's there. This bill, titled H.R.586, posits that "human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization." This is why women marched. This is EXACTLY why. Because from the moment Drumpf set foot into the Oval Office, we knew that he and his administration would start decimating reproductive rights as we know them. This bill sets a dangerous precedent for our country, on a number of levels, and needs to be voted down.
If this bill passes into law, it will make abortion access, and very likely contraception, a thing of the past. With life defined as beginning at fertilization, abortion will be criminalized and defined as murder (even though, interestingly enough, when you ask pro-lifers what the punishment should be for women who have abortions, they usually cannot, or will not, give an answer). The "pro-lifers" who believe that contraception terminates pregnancies, some of whom are our political representatives, will look to deny women access to birth control using the language of H.R. 586 as their justification--seeing as "alternative facts" are perfectly acceptable now, the legitimate fact that contraception does not actually terminate pregnancies will not matter. Women's bodily autonomy will be a distant memory, and all the bloodshed from pre-Roe v. Wade will return to our doorsteps, back alleys, and hospital ERs in very short order. This bill will also set a dangerous precedent for women who have wanted pregnancies and are facing a miscarriage, fetal anomaly, or other medical issue that requires an abortion (early or late term). What's to stop Congress from forcing women to carry non-viable pregnancies to term, even if it kills them? What's to stop Congress from criminalizing miscarriages and imprisoning women for something along the lines of "suspected abortion?" What's to stop Congress from ultimately using The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale?
The reality is that bills like these, laws like these, do not "save babies." They kill women. Women like Savita Halappanavar, who died after being refused a life-saving abortion during a miscarriage. Women like all those who died prior to the Roe v. Wade decision--approximately 5,000 women ANNUALLY in the United States--bleeding to death in back-alley abortion clinics and dying of sepsis in hospital emergency rooms from DIY abortions gone wrong. Women who poisoned themselves with whatever they had in their medicine and/or kitchen cabinets rather than go through with an unwanted pregnancy. As I wrote in a previous post, women will have abortions, bills and laws notwithstanding, whether they are safe or not. Whether they are done by a professional or a back-alley "doctor" or the woman herself. These politicians know this. They know. They know that women who do not want to be pregnant will do whatever they have to do in order to no longer be pregnant. They know that women who do not have access to safe, legal abortions generally end up injured or dead.
But, as I also mentioned in that same previous post, it was never about protecting women's health. Our political representatives who claim to be "pro-life" are fully prepared to ignore (or even condone) the fully preventable deaths of actual living, breathing women, fully prepared to step over the corpses of women in the streets, in order to prove how "pro-life" they are. The fact of the matter is, we have laws in this country that state that we cannot be forced to donate organs, blood, or any other living tissue to another human being, EVEN AFTER WE ARE DEAD, unless our express consent has been given. And yet, somehow, it's perfectly acceptable to force women to give up their bodily autonomy for approximately 40 weeks--from the moment she becomes pregnant, her body is no longer hers. She becomes a mere vessel for the fetus. In many states where abortion access is practically nonexistent, pregnant women literally have fewer rights than corpses do. To say that this is unacceptable is the understatement of the century.
For those of you who have read up to this point, for those of you who are beyond angry, I'm issuing a call to action and I want you to do three things:
1. Contact your House representative and tell them to vote NO on H.R. 586
2. Contact your Senators and tell them to vote NO on H.R. 586
3. Read this short story titled "ILU-486". Bookmark it. Read it every day that you feel like you can't fight anymore, because this could very well be our reality if we don't fight back NOW.
A bill was recently introduced to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, January 17th. A full four days prior to the march, and yet nobody knew about its existence until yesterday and today. Even now, most people you inform of the existence of this bill are surprised to know that it's there. This bill, titled H.R.586, posits that "human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization." This is why women marched. This is EXACTLY why. Because from the moment Drumpf set foot into the Oval Office, we knew that he and his administration would start decimating reproductive rights as we know them. This bill sets a dangerous precedent for our country, on a number of levels, and needs to be voted down.
If this bill passes into law, it will make abortion access, and very likely contraception, a thing of the past. With life defined as beginning at fertilization, abortion will be criminalized and defined as murder (even though, interestingly enough, when you ask pro-lifers what the punishment should be for women who have abortions, they usually cannot, or will not, give an answer). The "pro-lifers" who believe that contraception terminates pregnancies, some of whom are our political representatives, will look to deny women access to birth control using the language of H.R. 586 as their justification--seeing as "alternative facts" are perfectly acceptable now, the legitimate fact that contraception does not actually terminate pregnancies will not matter. Women's bodily autonomy will be a distant memory, and all the bloodshed from pre-Roe v. Wade will return to our doorsteps, back alleys, and hospital ERs in very short order. This bill will also set a dangerous precedent for women who have wanted pregnancies and are facing a miscarriage, fetal anomaly, or other medical issue that requires an abortion (early or late term). What's to stop Congress from forcing women to carry non-viable pregnancies to term, even if it kills them? What's to stop Congress from criminalizing miscarriages and imprisoning women for something along the lines of "suspected abortion?" What's to stop Congress from ultimately using The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale?
The reality is that bills like these, laws like these, do not "save babies." They kill women. Women like Savita Halappanavar, who died after being refused a life-saving abortion during a miscarriage. Women like all those who died prior to the Roe v. Wade decision--approximately 5,000 women ANNUALLY in the United States--bleeding to death in back-alley abortion clinics and dying of sepsis in hospital emergency rooms from DIY abortions gone wrong. Women who poisoned themselves with whatever they had in their medicine and/or kitchen cabinets rather than go through with an unwanted pregnancy. As I wrote in a previous post, women will have abortions, bills and laws notwithstanding, whether they are safe or not. Whether they are done by a professional or a back-alley "doctor" or the woman herself. These politicians know this. They know. They know that women who do not want to be pregnant will do whatever they have to do in order to no longer be pregnant. They know that women who do not have access to safe, legal abortions generally end up injured or dead.
But, as I also mentioned in that same previous post, it was never about protecting women's health. Our political representatives who claim to be "pro-life" are fully prepared to ignore (or even condone) the fully preventable deaths of actual living, breathing women, fully prepared to step over the corpses of women in the streets, in order to prove how "pro-life" they are. The fact of the matter is, we have laws in this country that state that we cannot be forced to donate organs, blood, or any other living tissue to another human being, EVEN AFTER WE ARE DEAD, unless our express consent has been given. And yet, somehow, it's perfectly acceptable to force women to give up their bodily autonomy for approximately 40 weeks--from the moment she becomes pregnant, her body is no longer hers. She becomes a mere vessel for the fetus. In many states where abortion access is practically nonexistent, pregnant women literally have fewer rights than corpses do. To say that this is unacceptable is the understatement of the century.
For those of you who have read up to this point, for those of you who are beyond angry, I'm issuing a call to action and I want you to do three things:
1. Contact your House representative and tell them to vote NO on H.R. 586
2. Contact your Senators and tell them to vote NO on H.R. 586
3. Read this short story titled "ILU-486". Bookmark it. Read it every day that you feel like you can't fight anymore, because this could very well be our reality if we don't fight back NOW.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Women, and Witches, Get Shit Done
I participated in the Women's March on NYC today--sort of. I went with my best friend of 20 years, her parents, and their friends. The crowd was so
huge that we never actually got to march in the actual march itself--the
streets were so crowded that they were basically a parking lot, which
makes me so. Fucking. Happy. As of this writing, the estimated total number of marchers in NYC is 400,000, much higher than they anticipated. Approximately 3 million people, obviously a majority women, marched across all seven continents, with our marchers outnumbering the Trump inauguration attendance by a staggering amount.
If you want to get an idea of the scope of the NYC march, take a peek at this video footage of the march from the Daily News.
Since we couldn't get into the march itself, we walked around the perimeter instead and
cheered from the sidelines. And the streets. Were.
Packed. The sidewalks were packed. And not one fight broke out. Not one.
Not one confrontation between fellow marchers or with the police (thank
the gods). In a city whose inhabitants are known for flipping their
shit on slow tourists, there was a surprising amount of patience for the
molasses-pace of the march and an overwhelming amount of acceptance of each other as allies in this fight. I never thought I'd see something so beautiful come out of this nightmare.
One of my best friends, Althea, aptly compared it to the scene towards the end of "Practical Magic" when the women join hands and exorcise Jimmy from Gillian Owens. We identified a problem and gathered our sisters and allies around us to support us as we said "Enough is enough." We raised energy as a collective with the target of creating positive change in our country, preserving the rights we fought so hard to protect, empowering and emboldening each other in solidarity. If that's not a spell, I don't know what is. So many women woke up to their wild woman nature today because of these marches, and it's sending chills down my spine. The Divine Feminine woke up in us today, not with a stretch and a yawn, but with a heart-stopping roar.
 |
| Mentally prepping to be part of what would turn out to be a 3 million person march across all seven continents |
 |
| Shitty cell phone pictures, because I forgot to charge my camera |
One of my best friends, Althea, aptly compared it to the scene towards the end of "Practical Magic" when the women join hands and exorcise Jimmy from Gillian Owens. We identified a problem and gathered our sisters and allies around us to support us as we said "Enough is enough." We raised energy as a collective with the target of creating positive change in our country, preserving the rights we fought so hard to protect, empowering and emboldening each other in solidarity. If that's not a spell, I don't know what is. So many women woke up to their wild woman nature today because of these marches, and it's sending chills down my spine. The Divine Feminine woke up in us today, not with a stretch and a yawn, but with a heart-stopping roar.
Friday, January 20, 2017
To Trump, With (No) Love
Dear Trump,
President Obama talked recently about the tradition of the outgoing President leaving a handwritten note for his successor. I’m sure he wrote you some very diplomatic things, because he is a diplomatic person with class and distinction.
I, on the other hand, am not. So I’m writing you this letter instead.
President Obama talked recently about the tradition of the outgoing President leaving a handwritten note for his successor. I’m sure he wrote you some very diplomatic things, because he is a diplomatic person with class and distinction.
I, on the other hand, am not. So I’m writing you this letter instead.
On this day of your inauguration, I wish to let you know a few things.
First of all, your tiny, tiny feet have some very big shoes to fill. You
are walking into this office with a 40% approval rating, the lowest in
American history. Unless you make drastic changes to the core of your
being, it is almost inevitable that that number will drop with every
passing day.
You have showed this country and its inhabitants nothing but absolute disdain from the very first day you started running. Your campaign and your soon-to-be-presidency are drowning in racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and all your other isms and phobias. Your cabinet choices are, for lack of a better word, deplorable. None of you know how to do your jobs—the only thing you know is money, power, bigotry, and climbing to the top on the backs of other people.
It is clear to us that you had no intentions of actually becoming President—you just wanted the attention. You just wanted to feed your already gigantic ego. But unfortunately, for you and for us, you tapped into a deep-seated hatred in this country, and it responded to you in kind. You have validated racists, sexists, homophobes, and rapists (much like yourself), condoning their beliefs and their behavior, refusing to denounce the violence and bigotry being enacted in your name. The rise in hate crimes in this country is in direct correlation to the garbage that continues to come out of your mouth. Ultimately, you allowed a neo-Nazi group to “Sieg Heil” you in the nation’s capital—I have yet to see you make a statement condemning that. This silence speaks volumes.
Mr. Trump, you are not my President. You will NEVER be my President. You will go down in history as a national mistake, as the worst error that we have ever made as a country. Just because I know this eats at you day in and day out, I will remind you that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,844,954 (48.2%) to 62,979,879 (46.1%). You are not the President this country wants. You are a monster, a fascist, a totalitarian, a child. You are ill-prepared for the office of the Presidency, and while you may think us weak and easily destroyed, you are ill-prepared for the amount of resistance you are about to face. Millions of us are watching you, ready to fight—know that our numbers will swallow you whole.
You have showed this country and its inhabitants nothing but absolute disdain from the very first day you started running. Your campaign and your soon-to-be-presidency are drowning in racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and all your other isms and phobias. Your cabinet choices are, for lack of a better word, deplorable. None of you know how to do your jobs—the only thing you know is money, power, bigotry, and climbing to the top on the backs of other people.
It is clear to us that you had no intentions of actually becoming President—you just wanted the attention. You just wanted to feed your already gigantic ego. But unfortunately, for you and for us, you tapped into a deep-seated hatred in this country, and it responded to you in kind. You have validated racists, sexists, homophobes, and rapists (much like yourself), condoning their beliefs and their behavior, refusing to denounce the violence and bigotry being enacted in your name. The rise in hate crimes in this country is in direct correlation to the garbage that continues to come out of your mouth. Ultimately, you allowed a neo-Nazi group to “Sieg Heil” you in the nation’s capital—I have yet to see you make a statement condemning that. This silence speaks volumes.
Mr. Trump, you are not my President. You will NEVER be my President. You will go down in history as a national mistake, as the worst error that we have ever made as a country. Just because I know this eats at you day in and day out, I will remind you that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote—65,844,954 (48.2%) to 62,979,879 (46.1%). You are not the President this country wants. You are a monster, a fascist, a totalitarian, a child. You are ill-prepared for the office of the Presidency, and while you may think us weak and easily destroyed, you are ill-prepared for the amount of resistance you are about to face. Millions of us are watching you, ready to fight—know that our numbers will swallow you whole.
Monday, June 27, 2016
5-3
[CN: abortion, misogyny, etc.]
5-3
That was the Supreme Court vote striking down the TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws. (For an awesome summary of what these laws are, the Center for Reproductive Rights has a link here.)
5-3.
Five justices ruled that the width of the hallway, doorway, and ventilation system has nothing to do with whether or not a woman can get appropriate, safe healthcare at an abortion clinic. Five justices ruled that requiring abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a hospital was unnecessary for a procedure that is statistically safer than a colonoscopy and childbirth (and unnecessary by virtue of the fact that any patient with a life-threatening medical emergency will be admitted to a hospital, whether the clinic has admitting privileges or not). Five justices ruled that when the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said that these TRAP laws did nothing to protect women's health and instead actually caused a detriment to women's health because they restricted access to abortion care, they were right. (Imagine that, actual doctors knowing more about providing medical care than politicians do.)
But the thing is, it was never about protecting women's health.
Women will have abortions whether they are safe or not. Whether they are done by a professional or a back-alley "doctor" or the woman herself. These politicians know this. They know.
Women will have abortions whether they are safe or not. Whether they are done by a professional or a back-alley "doctor" or the woman herself. These politicians know this. They know.
They know that women who do not want to be pregnant will do whatever they have to do in order to no longer be pregnant. They know that women who do not have access to safe, legal abortions generally end up injured or dead.
For those who claim to be "pro-life," this is acceptable collateral damage, if they even choose to acknowledge it at all in any meaningful way. It's mind-boggling how easy it is for them to ignore (or even condone) the fully preventable deaths of actual living, breathing women. It's almost like these TRAP laws have nothing to do with protecting women's health and everything to do with controlling women or something.
A perfect example of this is when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg confronted Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller during oral arguments back in March (you can read a great recap of that here). The Notorious RBG asked him how many women would have an undue burden placed on them in the form of living 100 miles or more from the clinic if the TRAP laws were to go into effect. He responded that about 25 percent of women would be affected by the TRAP laws--however, there was another clinic in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, just over the border from El Paso. He argued that the law did not impose an undue burden on abortion-seeking women in El Paso because they could just go across the state line. Justice Ginsburg wasted no time in ripping that argument apart--the New Mexico clinic would not face the same restrictions as the clinic in Texas, restrictions which Keller was in the middle of arguing were for the purpose of protecting women. So, Ginsburg argued, New Mexico's clinic was not a viable option for women seeking abortions since those clinics did not have the same standards that Texas was arguing their clinics should have in order to protect women's health--if it was truly about protecting women, then why suggest women go to a clinic with "lower" standards to prove that no undue burden would exist as a result of the TRAP laws going into effect? If the clinics in New Mexico were good enough for the women of Texas, why weren't the clinics in Texas OK exactly the way they already were?
The answer: it was never about protecting women's health. It was about punishing women who dared have sex without the express purpose of reproducing. It was about punishing women who dared say no to forced gestation and birth. It was about making the right to an abortion as inaccessible and unaffordable as possible so that the right itself might as well not exist.
The Supreme Court, thankfully, saw through the hypocrisy and misogyny and hatred. By 5-3, in fact.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
How is This Not Terrorism? The Oxy-Moron of "Pro-Life" Violence.
[TW for gun violence]
When I first read about the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, my stomach sank. It fucking terrifies and enrages me that women (and men) run the risk of having their lives ended by a "pro-life" gun, simply for working at, going to, or merely being in the vicinity of a Planned Parenthood clinic. It fucking enrages me that women have to fear for their lives because some people believe that, somehow, shooting and killing women is better than allowing women to have freedom of choice when it comes to their own reproductive organs.
As I read further, I became even more enraged. I read how the police asked people not to make assumptions about the shooter's motives, even though the only place he attacked was the Planned Parenthood clinic. I read how there was a five-hour standoff while three bodies lay lifeless somewhere in the vicinity of the AK-47 he used to take their lives. I read how the attack was labeled as a "shootout" and a "standoff," as if this were a spaghetti Western and not a real life-or-death situation.
What I didn't read was the word "terrorism" anywhere in the news coverage, even though this was clearly a situation in which someone was using deadly force and grievous bodily harm, and the threat of such, in order to scare people into not using their legal right to reproductive health care. What I didn't read was how the police shot the gunman on sight, even though he, as noted in this article, "previously had been firing at police who entered the facility." What I didn't read was an instant condemnation of the inherent violence of white men, because the person who committed this act of terrorism (referred to in the media as a "shooting") was, indeed, a white man.
Part of the reason for this is because he committed an act of violence against women. The majority of patients of Planned Parenthood are women, and it's not a coincidence that Planned Parenthood clinics are the target of this much violence. The people who are arguing that Planned Parenthood should be defunded/shut down/what-have-you are arguing so not because they want to "save babies," but because they want to punish women for having sex that they deem unacceptable. The only proof you need of that is any argument featuring a "pro-lifer." Read far enough down the thread, and you'll find the truth--"save the babies" almost instantaneously becomes a self-righteous "if you don't want to get pregnant, keep your legs closed" the second they find themselves backed into a corner. They want to punish women for having sex of which they don't approve, namely sex purely for the purposes of recreation rather than procreation, and we're pretty much OK with that.
The other reason this act of terrorism will not be labeled as such is because the person who committed the act is a white man. If this person had been a black man, he would have been dead the moment he opened fire on the clinic (especially on the police) and the media would be condemning the inherent violence of black men before his body had even had the chance to go cold. If this person had been of Middle-Eastern descent, this act of terrorism would have been called such and then, of course, the conversation would go back to how we can't accept Syrian refugees in this country because LOOK AT ALL THE TERRORISTS. But because this person was a white man, we will instantly give him the benefit of the doubt. We will give him the benefit of a five-hour standoff, even though he's already killed three people and fired his gun at police. We will refuse to label this shooting as an act of terrorism, because terrorism is a word we reserve for acts of violence committed by those who "appear" Muslim, whether or not they actually are. We will blame the mental health system, we will call him a "lone wolf." We will do anything and everything BUT call him what he is--a motherfucking terrorist. And all because he is a white man who committed an act of violence against women.
White men are committing act after act of horrific mass violence, over and over and over and over and over and over and nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it, or even to call it what it is. For the "pro-life" man who pulled the trigger, I'm sure he felt that what he did was simply an act of retaliation, a way to punish the women who didn't listen to him when he told them what to do with their bodies. And that's really what it boils down to--he, and every other man who's attacked Planned Parenthood clinics, is punishing women who dared exercise their right to bodily autonomy, even though he expressly told them not to. When we women find ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun as punishment for exercising our right to freedom of reproductive choice, we have to ask ourselves--how is this not terrorism?
When I first read about the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, my stomach sank. It fucking terrifies and enrages me that women (and men) run the risk of having their lives ended by a "pro-life" gun, simply for working at, going to, or merely being in the vicinity of a Planned Parenthood clinic. It fucking enrages me that women have to fear for their lives because some people believe that, somehow, shooting and killing women is better than allowing women to have freedom of choice when it comes to their own reproductive organs.
As I read further, I became even more enraged. I read how the police asked people not to make assumptions about the shooter's motives, even though the only place he attacked was the Planned Parenthood clinic. I read how there was a five-hour standoff while three bodies lay lifeless somewhere in the vicinity of the AK-47 he used to take their lives. I read how the attack was labeled as a "shootout" and a "standoff," as if this were a spaghetti Western and not a real life-or-death situation.
What I didn't read was the word "terrorism" anywhere in the news coverage, even though this was clearly a situation in which someone was using deadly force and grievous bodily harm, and the threat of such, in order to scare people into not using their legal right to reproductive health care. What I didn't read was how the police shot the gunman on sight, even though he, as noted in this article, "previously had been firing at police who entered the facility." What I didn't read was an instant condemnation of the inherent violence of white men, because the person who committed this act of terrorism (referred to in the media as a "shooting") was, indeed, a white man.
Part of the reason for this is because he committed an act of violence against women. The majority of patients of Planned Parenthood are women, and it's not a coincidence that Planned Parenthood clinics are the target of this much violence. The people who are arguing that Planned Parenthood should be defunded/shut down/what-have-you are arguing so not because they want to "save babies," but because they want to punish women for having sex that they deem unacceptable. The only proof you need of that is any argument featuring a "pro-lifer." Read far enough down the thread, and you'll find the truth--"save the babies" almost instantaneously becomes a self-righteous "if you don't want to get pregnant, keep your legs closed" the second they find themselves backed into a corner. They want to punish women for having sex of which they don't approve, namely sex purely for the purposes of recreation rather than procreation, and we're pretty much OK with that.
The other reason this act of terrorism will not be labeled as such is because the person who committed the act is a white man. If this person had been a black man, he would have been dead the moment he opened fire on the clinic (especially on the police) and the media would be condemning the inherent violence of black men before his body had even had the chance to go cold. If this person had been of Middle-Eastern descent, this act of terrorism would have been called such and then, of course, the conversation would go back to how we can't accept Syrian refugees in this country because LOOK AT ALL THE TERRORISTS. But because this person was a white man, we will instantly give him the benefit of the doubt. We will give him the benefit of a five-hour standoff, even though he's already killed three people and fired his gun at police. We will refuse to label this shooting as an act of terrorism, because terrorism is a word we reserve for acts of violence committed by those who "appear" Muslim, whether or not they actually are. We will blame the mental health system, we will call him a "lone wolf." We will do anything and everything BUT call him what he is--a motherfucking terrorist. And all because he is a white man who committed an act of violence against women.
White men are committing act after act of horrific mass violence, over and over and over and over and over and over and nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it, or even to call it what it is. For the "pro-life" man who pulled the trigger, I'm sure he felt that what he did was simply an act of retaliation, a way to punish the women who didn't listen to him when he told them what to do with their bodies. And that's really what it boils down to--he, and every other man who's attacked Planned Parenthood clinics, is punishing women who dared exercise their right to bodily autonomy, even though he expressly told them not to. When we women find ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun as punishment for exercising our right to freedom of reproductive choice, we have to ask ourselves--how is this not terrorism?
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Why I Cannot (and Will Not) Accept Eldership from a Transphobic Person
[TW for transphobia]
In the last few days, I have been made aware that there are a handful of so-called elders in the Pagan community who have said and done some really nasty, hurtful, and bigoted things towards trans* women. Some of these things include, but are not limited to, referring to Caitlyn Jenner by the wrong name and violently misgendering her by referring to her as "an old drag queen" and referring to her biologically male anatomy as alleged proof that she is not a "real" woman (implying that all trans* women are not "real" women), and refusing trans* women access to women's-only circles on the basis that trans* women are "women with penises" and that only "women-born-women" should be allowed access to that sacred space. Put simply, they have gone out of their way to deny trans* women access to circle and other forms of ritual space dedicated to women because they do not believe that trans* women are "real" women, and they have gone out of their way to let trans* women know that they are not welcome in the Pagan community.
There are many in the Pagan community who have had enough and are taking a stand against this bigotry and hatred. There are also many in the Pagan community who are defending their words and actions on the premise that everyone is entitled to their beliefs. They defend their words and actions because they are elders of the community and those words and actions, no matter how harmful, should be left alone. It seems that, by calling them out on their bigotry and hatred, we are stepping on their contributions to the community at large, and apparently it's more important to preserve their legacy than taint it by holding them accountable.
I have no other way to respond to this other than to say (and I promise this is the only time I will curse), "That's fucking bullshit."
When your beliefs cause you to intentionally, violently, and virulently misgender people and deny them their humanity and basic respect, they are not worth defending.
What we have is multiple Pagan elders repeating the message that trans* individuals (trans* women in particular) aren't "really" their gender. What we have is multiple Pagan elders using old, tired rhetoric of biological anatomy as "proof" of gender authenticity (or inauthenticity), and using that "proof" as an excuse to deny trans* people access to sacred space. What we have is trans* women being told by multiple Pagan "elders" that they don't belong in "women-only" circles because they're not "real" women. That is the textbook definition of bigotry.
Pagan elders are supposed to be a pillar of support and are supposed to help guide people along their chosen path. They are supposed to provide a safe space for individuals to explore the greater mysteries. They are not supposed to pick and choose who gets access to these mysteries and who doesn't based on their gender and then go out of their way to make sure that those who are not of the chosen group understand that they are not welcome. That is bullying. That is bigotry. And that is not how an elder of ANY community is supposed to act.
It's high time we started calling these elders out on their transphobia. There are some who argue that calling them out and denying them support from the community will do nothing to help them learn. I disagree. Losing a large chunk of their community's presence, respect, and support as a direct result of their transphobic words and actions is a great lesson. It's a lesson that there are consequences to saying discriminatory, hurtful things about members of their community because of their gender--it's a lesson that you don't get to violently misgender trans* individuals and deny them basic respect, that you don't get to deny trans* women access to ritual space because they are trans* women, and still hold a position of power.
Many in the community are arguing that this is an attack on their free speech--certainly, they're free to speak as they wish. They're even free to continue to deny trans* women access to women's-only space if they feel they must. However, they have to learn that there are consequences to their bigotry--in this case, the consequence is that no one will want to follow them.
Long story short, I refuse to accept an "Elder" who picks and chooses who they will support and who they will allow access to the greater mysteries of magick. Last I checked, the deities (many of whom are of one, two, or many genders) love and accept all, regardless of gender.
It's high time these "elders" remembered that.
To quote someone who I consider an actual Pagan elder, "I don’t want to go where my kin can’t follow."
In the last few days, I have been made aware that there are a handful of so-called elders in the Pagan community who have said and done some really nasty, hurtful, and bigoted things towards trans* women. Some of these things include, but are not limited to, referring to Caitlyn Jenner by the wrong name and violently misgendering her by referring to her as "an old drag queen" and referring to her biologically male anatomy as alleged proof that she is not a "real" woman (implying that all trans* women are not "real" women), and refusing trans* women access to women's-only circles on the basis that trans* women are "women with penises" and that only "women-born-women" should be allowed access to that sacred space. Put simply, they have gone out of their way to deny trans* women access to circle and other forms of ritual space dedicated to women because they do not believe that trans* women are "real" women, and they have gone out of their way to let trans* women know that they are not welcome in the Pagan community.
There are many in the Pagan community who have had enough and are taking a stand against this bigotry and hatred. There are also many in the Pagan community who are defending their words and actions on the premise that everyone is entitled to their beliefs. They defend their words and actions because they are elders of the community and those words and actions, no matter how harmful, should be left alone. It seems that, by calling them out on their bigotry and hatred, we are stepping on their contributions to the community at large, and apparently it's more important to preserve their legacy than taint it by holding them accountable.
I have no other way to respond to this other than to say (and I promise this is the only time I will curse), "That's fucking bullshit."
When your beliefs cause you to intentionally, violently, and virulently misgender people and deny them their humanity and basic respect, they are not worth defending.
What we have is multiple Pagan elders repeating the message that trans* individuals (trans* women in particular) aren't "really" their gender. What we have is multiple Pagan elders using old, tired rhetoric of biological anatomy as "proof" of gender authenticity (or inauthenticity), and using that "proof" as an excuse to deny trans* people access to sacred space. What we have is trans* women being told by multiple Pagan "elders" that they don't belong in "women-only" circles because they're not "real" women. That is the textbook definition of bigotry.
Pagan elders are supposed to be a pillar of support and are supposed to help guide people along their chosen path. They are supposed to provide a safe space for individuals to explore the greater mysteries. They are not supposed to pick and choose who gets access to these mysteries and who doesn't based on their gender and then go out of their way to make sure that those who are not of the chosen group understand that they are not welcome. That is bullying. That is bigotry. And that is not how an elder of ANY community is supposed to act.
It's high time we started calling these elders out on their transphobia. There are some who argue that calling them out and denying them support from the community will do nothing to help them learn. I disagree. Losing a large chunk of their community's presence, respect, and support as a direct result of their transphobic words and actions is a great lesson. It's a lesson that there are consequences to saying discriminatory, hurtful things about members of their community because of their gender--it's a lesson that you don't get to violently misgender trans* individuals and deny them basic respect, that you don't get to deny trans* women access to ritual space because they are trans* women, and still hold a position of power.
Many in the community are arguing that this is an attack on their free speech--certainly, they're free to speak as they wish. They're even free to continue to deny trans* women access to women's-only space if they feel they must. However, they have to learn that there are consequences to their bigotry--in this case, the consequence is that no one will want to follow them.
Long story short, I refuse to accept an "Elder" who picks and chooses who they will support and who they will allow access to the greater mysteries of magick. Last I checked, the deities (many of whom are of one, two, or many genders) love and accept all, regardless of gender.
It's high time these "elders" remembered that.
To quote someone who I consider an actual Pagan elder, "I don’t want to go where my kin can’t follow."
Thursday, June 18, 2015
A Feminist Review/Critique of “Jurassic World” (SPOILER ALERT (obviously))
[CN: violence] [MAJOR SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT]
I went to see Jurassic World with my boyfriend yesterday for my birthday, and I enjoyed the movie immensely, or at least all the action sequences with the dinosaurs (which is really the main focus of the movie if you’re watching it right). However, while it did make a valiant effort, Jurassic World was nowhere near perfect when it came to how they used the female characters throughout the film.
I want to start off by listing
what I did like. I was happy to see four main female characters in the movie (Claire,
the mom of the two boys (Claire's sister), the woman in the control room, and Claire’s assistant). In a
movie franchise that has historically had only one token female character, that
was pretty cool. I was also happy to see a woman FINALLY be a fucking bad-ass
heroine in a Jurassic Park movie instead of just a screaming damsel in
distress. Seriously, when Claire released the T-Rex to go fight the Indominus Rex?
I could barely stay in my seat. The last thing I liked, and this is going to
sound weird, is that they finally had the ovaries to kill off a female
character (Claire’s assistant). This was the first movie where they included a
woman in the dinosaur kill count, and I thought that was pretty
awesome.
That’s pretty much where my
pom-pom pumping ends.
The next thing that really
bugged me was how they portrayed Claire’s character. Anyone who’s watched any
TV shows or movies (or even read any mainstream books) that depict career-oriented women know that these “career-driven”
women are portrayed as selfish and cold-hearted (and I’m putting this mildly),
and it’s either heavily implied or outright stated that they are the way they
are because they don’t have and/or want a (specifically male) partner and/or kids. In other words,
their lack of desire for a man in their life and/or lack of maternal instinct and
desire for kids is what makes them bad people. This movie was no different. For
example, Claire is portrayed as being so entrenched in her work that she doesn’t
know how old her nephews are (which is brought up at least twice as a “seriously,
you’re a woman and you don’t know how old your nephews are?” moment). When she
meets up with the hero, it’s almost instantaneously brought up that they dated
at one point and that she was the reason they stopped dating (of course) because
of her “overly controlling nature,” even though Owen (the hero) is equally
controlling, if not more so, when it comes to the dinosaurs and how to interact with them, yet nobody bats an
eyelash at that, nor does anyone bring up the hypocrisy of Owen criticizing Claire for being so controlling when he's absolutely no better. At another point in the movie, when Claire is talking to her
sister on the phone and it’s revealed that she’s decided to work instead of
hang out with her nephews, having hoisted them onto her assistant, her sister
says that she’ll understand when she has kids. Claire responds with an emphatic
“if,” to which the sister replies with an even more emphatic “when.” By the end
of the movie, after the chaos has finally been quelled, we find her staring
longingly at a mother reuniting with her daughter before she walks off into the
sunset with the hunky hero, further perpetuating the stereotype that women who
don’t want a (male) partner or kids will always change their minds eventually.
OK, so there’s nothing wrong
with portraying a woman with a career as selfish and cold-hearted, per se.
There are plenty of women out there who are exactly that way. However, when it’s
the ONLY DEPICTION of career-driven women we get in the mass media, that’s a huge
problem. It’s also a problem when it’s only women who get this treatment.
As I mentioned in the last paragraph, Owen the Hero's controlling nature when it comes to the velociraptors is accepted without question, and Vincent D’Onofrio’s character, Hoskins, was equally obsessed with his work, but
the movie doesn’t ever question him, either (apart from wondering how good an idea it is to create
an army of trained velociraptors). Nobody asks either male character if he knows how old his
nephews are, nobody tells them “You’ll understand when you have kids,” and the
film never asks them to reconcile their work lives with their personal lives (or give
up the former for the latter). It really wouldn’t have been that hard to
portray Claire as having changed her mind about her relationship with her
nephews without implying that she suddenly wanted to be with the hero and have kids
of her own. It also wouldn’t have been that hard to portray Claire as having
realized that she can be a workaholic but still want to be around her family,
even if that family didn’t pop out from her own body.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie.
The action sequences were intense and there were amazing twists, and there were
some pretty bad-ass feminist moments, but I think that the movie could have done
more to upend the common stereotypes that are tacked onto women in the media—if
they can create a world where dinosaurs exist, they can also create a world
where women can have a career and no partner or kids and not be total assholes.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Not All Men? Shut the Fuck Up.
[TW for misogyny, gun violence, rape culture, rape apologia, victim-blaming, slut-shaming, suicide]
I've been feeling many things since the UCSB attack this past week--sadness and hopelessness definitely come to mind. However, today I'm angry. I'm angry because, instead of talking about the ways that violent misogyny is killing women and what we can do to stop it, we're fighting yet another onslaught of men who are desperate for attention.
"NOT ALL MEN!" they cry. Except we know what they really mean. What they really mean to say is "NOT ME!"
I'm sure most of the people reading my blog know this, but 1 in 6 women will be raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Many believe that this statistic is highly under-representative of the actual number. As I mentioned in a previous post, every rapist commits an average of ten rapes, so the logical conclusion is that 1 out of 60 men is a rapist. There are 7 billion people on the planet, give or take, at the moment--assuming that the population is about 50/50 among men and women, out of 3.5 million men, about 58,333 men in this world are rapists. They will rape an average of 10 women each--that's 583,330 rape victims. And that's a modest estimate.
What the men of this world forget is that women are taught all our lives that we are sexual objects and potential victims. We are a commodity to be bought and sold, and if we are ever the victim of an attack, including murder, we must have done something to cause the attack. According to RAINN, there are 237,868 rapes each year in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of women will be attacked this year, and it will almost always be blamed on the victims. Almost no one will think to blame the rapists. There are articles and blogs and comments ALL OVER THE INTERNET blaming the women that Elliot Rodger mentions in his manifesto for the murders that occurred at UCSB, arguing that they should have put out so that this wouldn't have happened.
At this point in time, we need men to stand up with us and fight violent misogyny. We need men to combat the patriarchal culture that bred the Elliot Rodgers of the world, that made it OK for men to kill women (or drive them to suicide) when they don't give them what they want (and sometimes even when they do).
But instead, they're choosing, yet again, to make the conversation all about men.
Before you start screaming NOT ALL MEN, take some time to think about why you're assuming that the women who are speaking think all men are misogynists, rapists, and murderers.
Read the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter. Really digest their stories. Realize that there are thousands upon thousands of stories. Realize that EVERY SINGLE WOMAN YOU KNOW has dealt with harassment, assault, or rape in one way or another at some point in her life. Read through MRA websites that promote the assault, rape, and murder of women. Read the news stories detailing murder after murder, rape after rape, and then go read the misogynist comments applauding the murderers and rapists.
Then think about why women might think that way.
Then think about how you're contributing to that.
Realize that, instead of using your privilege and your voice to speak up for women, you're choosing to use it to make the conversation about you.
I've been feeling many things since the UCSB attack this past week--sadness and hopelessness definitely come to mind. However, today I'm angry. I'm angry because, instead of talking about the ways that violent misogyny is killing women and what we can do to stop it, we're fighting yet another onslaught of men who are desperate for attention.
I'm sure most of the people reading my blog know this, but 1 in 6 women will be raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Many believe that this statistic is highly under-representative of the actual number. As I mentioned in a previous post, every rapist commits an average of ten rapes, so the logical conclusion is that 1 out of 60 men is a rapist. There are 7 billion people on the planet, give or take, at the moment--assuming that the population is about 50/50 among men and women, out of 3.5 million men, about 58,333 men in this world are rapists. They will rape an average of 10 women each--that's 583,330 rape victims. And that's a modest estimate.
What the men of this world forget is that women are taught all our lives that we are sexual objects and potential victims. We are a commodity to be bought and sold, and if we are ever the victim of an attack, including murder, we must have done something to cause the attack. According to RAINN, there are 237,868 rapes each year in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of women will be attacked this year, and it will almost always be blamed on the victims. Almost no one will think to blame the rapists. There are articles and blogs and comments ALL OVER THE INTERNET blaming the women that Elliot Rodger mentions in his manifesto for the murders that occurred at UCSB, arguing that they should have put out so that this wouldn't have happened.
At this point in time, we need men to stand up with us and fight violent misogyny. We need men to combat the patriarchal culture that bred the Elliot Rodgers of the world, that made it OK for men to kill women (or drive them to suicide) when they don't give them what they want (and sometimes even when they do).
But instead, they're choosing, yet again, to make the conversation all about men.
Before you start screaming NOT ALL MEN, take some time to think about why you're assuming that the women who are speaking think all men are misogynists, rapists, and murderers.
Read the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter. Really digest their stories. Realize that there are thousands upon thousands of stories. Realize that EVERY SINGLE WOMAN YOU KNOW has dealt with harassment, assault, or rape in one way or another at some point in her life. Read through MRA websites that promote the assault, rape, and murder of women. Read the news stories detailing murder after murder, rape after rape, and then go read the misogynist comments applauding the murderers and rapists.
Then think about why women might think that way.
Then think about how you're contributing to that.
Realize that, instead of using your privilege and your voice to speak up for women, you're choosing to use it to make the conversation about you.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Food Shaming and Why This Shit Needs to Stop
[TW for disordered eating, food shaming]
For those of you who don't know what food shaming is, my definition is it's when someone judges you for the food you are eating and comments on it in an attempt to make you feel ashamed of your choices. When faced with the subject of food, a lot of people do something we feminists call "concern trolling," which is when you shame someone for something under the guise of actual, genuine concern for their well-being. This happens with food all. The. Time. People decide that it's OK to tell others (particularly women) what not to eat because it will make them unhealthy, when what they're really trying to say is that they shouldn't eat that because it might (GASP!) make them fat (which, if you know anything about anything, fat =/= unhealthy). Bottom line, what someone eats, how much they eat, when they eat it, how often, etc., is nobody's fucking business except the person whose mouth the food is going into.
Food shaming ties directly into the dieting industry, which targets women specifically and relies on women feeling bad about themselves, their bodies, and their food choices in order to survive; it's more than obvious from the advertisements that we see on a regular basis. For example, there is the recent pushing of the Special K Challenge that challenges women to replace two meals a day with Special K products, asks women to think about what they will gain when they lose (weight, obviously), and whose incredibly problematic and dangerously unhealthy nature Jezebel covered in a fantastic article. There is the onslaught of ads for Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, etc., that actively shame women both for their food choices and for (possibly) being fat. There are phone apps that encourage people to count calories and essentially take stock of everything they eat, which is a documented symptom of certain eating disorders. This is not to say that all people who count calories have an eating disorder, but promoting counting calories as an everyday activity can very easily lead people to develop one, especially when you consider the continuous assault of messages that are telling us to stay thin, no matter what the cost.
This is an issue that is particularly upsetting for me because I have dealt with disordered eating as a direct result of food shaming. (This is actually the first time I'm talking about this so candidly.)
When I was a kid, I absorbed the messages that the media was telling me. I was supposed to be small, delicate, proper. I was supposed to count calories and watch my weight, lest I take up too much space. If I had the choice between a steak and a salad, I was always to choose the salad, no matter how much I wanted the steak. Despite the fact that the average human being needs to consume 2000 calories to survive, calories were the enemy and the goal was to consume as few of them as possible. This was "for my own good" and "for my health." I also absorbed the indirect messages that my mother was sending me through her constant dieting and self-shaming. I listened to my dad tell me stories of when she used to diet until she was nearly a skeleton. I watched her weight fluctuate between the holidays and the summertime. I watched her mentally punish herself for eating things she liked. I watched her deny herself foods that I knew she loved and sacrifice simple treats all for the sake of a thinner figure. Right this very moment, she is on yet another diet and she's already talking about her weight loss plan for when she puts on a few "extra" pounds during the holiday season. I want to be clear: I don't blame her for doing these things, because this is the result of those same media messages as well as the messages she learned from her mother, who likely learned those messages from the same places.
As a result of these messages, I learned that eating was not something you did to survive. It was not a necessity to continue living. Eating was something you succumbed to when you were at your weakest. As a result of these messages, I developed a fear of eating in front of other people because I was afraid of what they might think of me. I don't know that what I had was an eating disorder, but it was definitely disordered eating (if that makes sense). To put this in perspective, right now I weigh 125 pounds, give or take. In high school, at the same height, I weighed only 98 pounds because I was so afraid of people thinking I was a slob for eating that I simply stopped eating in public and restricted my food in private. I skipped lunch nearly every day and ate very minimally at home. It took me many years to become comfortable with just the idea of eating to survive, and many years after that before I became comfortable with the idea of eating what I wanted without judging myself or caring what other people thought.
Then, just tonight, at a point in my life where I'm finally comfortable with my body (and its arbitrary, socially constructed "flaws") and no longer shame myself simply for eating or for having a snack when I feel like it--where a simple bag of potato chips no longer sends me into a spiral of guilt and panic--my dad made a comment about a snack that I decided I wanted, and for a split second I went right back to that "I must never eat again" mindset.
It's awful. And it's exactly why this shit needs to stop. Because my story is not the only story out there.
Not even close.
For those of you who don't know what food shaming is, my definition is it's when someone judges you for the food you are eating and comments on it in an attempt to make you feel ashamed of your choices. When faced with the subject of food, a lot of people do something we feminists call "concern trolling," which is when you shame someone for something under the guise of actual, genuine concern for their well-being. This happens with food all. The. Time. People decide that it's OK to tell others (particularly women) what not to eat because it will make them unhealthy, when what they're really trying to say is that they shouldn't eat that because it might (GASP!) make them fat (which, if you know anything about anything, fat =/= unhealthy). Bottom line, what someone eats, how much they eat, when they eat it, how often, etc., is nobody's fucking business except the person whose mouth the food is going into.
Food shaming ties directly into the dieting industry, which targets women specifically and relies on women feeling bad about themselves, their bodies, and their food choices in order to survive; it's more than obvious from the advertisements that we see on a regular basis. For example, there is the recent pushing of the Special K Challenge that challenges women to replace two meals a day with Special K products, asks women to think about what they will gain when they lose (weight, obviously), and whose incredibly problematic and dangerously unhealthy nature Jezebel covered in a fantastic article. There is the onslaught of ads for Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, etc., that actively shame women both for their food choices and for (possibly) being fat. There are phone apps that encourage people to count calories and essentially take stock of everything they eat, which is a documented symptom of certain eating disorders. This is not to say that all people who count calories have an eating disorder, but promoting counting calories as an everyday activity can very easily lead people to develop one, especially when you consider the continuous assault of messages that are telling us to stay thin, no matter what the cost.
This is an issue that is particularly upsetting for me because I have dealt with disordered eating as a direct result of food shaming. (This is actually the first time I'm talking about this so candidly.)
When I was a kid, I absorbed the messages that the media was telling me. I was supposed to be small, delicate, proper. I was supposed to count calories and watch my weight, lest I take up too much space. If I had the choice between a steak and a salad, I was always to choose the salad, no matter how much I wanted the steak. Despite the fact that the average human being needs to consume 2000 calories to survive, calories were the enemy and the goal was to consume as few of them as possible. This was "for my own good" and "for my health." I also absorbed the indirect messages that my mother was sending me through her constant dieting and self-shaming. I listened to my dad tell me stories of when she used to diet until she was nearly a skeleton. I watched her weight fluctuate between the holidays and the summertime. I watched her mentally punish herself for eating things she liked. I watched her deny herself foods that I knew she loved and sacrifice simple treats all for the sake of a thinner figure. Right this very moment, she is on yet another diet and she's already talking about her weight loss plan for when she puts on a few "extra" pounds during the holiday season. I want to be clear: I don't blame her for doing these things, because this is the result of those same media messages as well as the messages she learned from her mother, who likely learned those messages from the same places.
As a result of these messages, I learned that eating was not something you did to survive. It was not a necessity to continue living. Eating was something you succumbed to when you were at your weakest. As a result of these messages, I developed a fear of eating in front of other people because I was afraid of what they might think of me. I don't know that what I had was an eating disorder, but it was definitely disordered eating (if that makes sense). To put this in perspective, right now I weigh 125 pounds, give or take. In high school, at the same height, I weighed only 98 pounds because I was so afraid of people thinking I was a slob for eating that I simply stopped eating in public and restricted my food in private. I skipped lunch nearly every day and ate very minimally at home. It took me many years to become comfortable with just the idea of eating to survive, and many years after that before I became comfortable with the idea of eating what I wanted without judging myself or caring what other people thought.
Then, just tonight, at a point in my life where I'm finally comfortable with my body (and its arbitrary, socially constructed "flaws") and no longer shame myself simply for eating or for having a snack when I feel like it--where a simple bag of potato chips no longer sends me into a spiral of guilt and panic--my dad made a comment about a snack that I decided I wanted, and for a split second I went right back to that "I must never eat again" mindset.
It's awful. And it's exactly why this shit needs to stop. Because my story is not the only story out there.
Not even close.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Schrödinger's Rapist and What He Has to do With That Guy at the Bar Hitting on Me
[TW: rape, rape culture, misogyny, sexual violence, denial of autonomy, privileged bullshit]
I posted the above graphic on Facebook a few days ago. Social networks being what they are, I wound up receiving comments from an ex-boyfriend that went a little something like this (my ex was responding to a comment from my aunt stating "Sadly, what they're respecting is the other man's PROPERTY!"):
"I've said I have a girlfriend before, am I her property? Cause I thought it was a polite way of saying, "Nothing personal, maybe some signals were misread. I actually am in a happy relationship and not looking elsewhere."...but that's just me. It's true that traditionally men make the advances, but my point is most will accept a "no" when they see one and it doesn't have to be a matter of possession."
This is a perfect example of male privilege: being able to reject an unwanted advance (or perhaps even multiple unwanted advances) without any kind of negative backlash or retaliatory action taken against him, and then being able to proclaim widely that "most men will accept a no when they see one" (read: a "no" by itself, without any sort of buffers such as "I have a boyfriend/husband" involved) when that is simply not the case. I'm glad that he has never had to go through the truly terrifying experience of someone refusing to take no for an answer in the context of an unwanted romantic and/or sexual advance, but the fact of the matter is that I, and most women on this planet, have.
There's a very big difference between a man saying he has a girlfriend and a woman saying she has a boyfriend in order to get out of a situation where there's an interested party and the other person is not interested. There is a power dynamic involved where women, unfortunately, have the shit end of the stick. If we say "no" by itself, we're labeled frigid bitches, and there have been many cases when women have been attacked (verbally and/or physically) for doing so. We say "no, because I have a boyfriend" because many men only respect other men, not women's autonomy and our right to say no to unwanted advances, and because we know we are less likely to be attacked if we use the excuse that there's a man in our lives (the implication, of course, being that the man in our lives will defend us physically, if necessary). We also don't know which men will respond nicely and which men will respond with violence to a simple "No thank you, I'm not interested."
This is where the concept of Schrödinger's Rapist comes into play (which you can read more about in this blog post on Shapely Prose). The fact of the matter is, women have been consciously and subconsciously trained through our social interactions with others, the way we are portrayed in the media, etc., to categorize any unwanted advances as potentially dangerous. We have to be afraid for our safety because the truth is that we don't know which men will not accept a no when they see one. Statistics state that 1 out of 6 women will be raped in her lifetime (and that's only including the ones that are reported: so many more aren't). I found out in the aforementioned blog post that when looking specifically at rapes where the man is the perpetrator and the woman is the victim (which accounts for most rapes), if you take into account that every rapist commits an average of ten rapes, that means that at least one out of every sixty men is a rapist. To put this into perspective, I graduated from Curtis High School in a class of about 700 people (give or take). Assuming the class was 50/50 men and women, that means there were about 350 men in my graduating class. Statistically speaking, 6 of them were rapists. And I have no way of knowing which ones they were.
Over the course of their lives, between the six of them, they will rape at least sixty women.
These statistics are fucking scary by themselves. Combine that with the fact that women are told that we shouldn't have the right to say no, that a no can eventually turn into a yes if the guy tries hard enough, that a no is just a woman playing "hard to get" and she really means yes, etc., it becomes fucking terrifying. My ex may not believe this is true, but there is an element of possession in all of those examples, a belief that women "belong" to men and don't get the option of just saying "no thank you" and leaving the scene without a struggle. This is evidenced by the high number of rapes in this country - clearly a woman's no isn't really taken seriously.
When women are approached on the street by a male stranger, there's a 1.67% chance that he will be a rapist. We have no way of knowing whether or not he is that 1.67%. We have no way of knowing whether or not tonight will be the night we become one of the 1 out of 6 women who will be raped in her lifetime.
There's a reason women instinctively use the "I have a boyfriend/husband" excuse.
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