still on the soapbox: imus and sexism

a little friend was kind enough to smuggle something out from behind the NYTimes Iron Curtain.

in all the kerfuffle about the Imus Incident, one thing consistently gets lost: the blatant sexism of his comments. race is the most obvious thing to get riled up about, but what about the sexism? are women still so invisible as subjects that it never crosses our minds? selena roberts below takes a look at how women are easy targets; we become the symbol of what men don't want to be: powerless, weak, less than, debilitated, unskilled.

Sports of The Times
A First-Class Response to a Second-Class Put-Down

By SELENA ROBERTS
Published: April 11, 2007

Of grace and dignity, without a single boob joke for ratings or a raunchy sidekick for on-air laughs, the women wearing Rutgers scarlet managed to capsize society’s power differential yesterday.

The meek held the microphone — or the lifeline of the potent Don Imus — as the Rutgers players used their poised voices to hold a radio cowboy accountable for losing his 10-gallon mind during an unconscionable riff last week.

That was when Imus departed from his usual ridicule of influential equals, whether politicians or pro athletes or celebrities, to mock the vulnerable by degrading a mostly African-American basketball team of 18-, 19- and 20-year-old women.

The Rutgers team had done nothing but excel as history students and music majors, as big sisters and determined players on an improbable joyride to the national championship game.

“Nappy-headed hos,” Imus called them.

Racism, shouted prominent black male politicians and journalists. And on the crawls across the screens of cable networks, when news of the Imus rant fomented, the word “racial” bumped into “racially charged.” Right account, if only partly.

By its lonesome, “ho” has barely registered a ripple for anyone outside Gloria Steinem’s buddy list or the Rutgers team.

“It’s more than about the Rutgers women’s basketball team,” the team’s captain, Essence Carson, said during a news conference in Piscataway, N.J., adding, “As a society, we’re trying to grow and get to the point where we don’t classify women as hos and we don’t classify African-American women as nappy-headed hos.”

Ho is the new bitch. And bitch is the old sissy. But whatever the label, women are always first to be part of the gag when sexism and misogyny are publicly sanctioned and celebrated — particularly in sports.

Shaquille O’Neal, in his Lakers days, referred to the Sacramento Kings as “Queens.”

And in this sanitized version, a top Division I football coach was once overheard telling his team after a particularly big win: tonight, you guys deserve to take whatever woman you want.

In Johnny Damon’s long-haired Boston days, a punch line used to circulate: He looks like Jesus, throws like Mary.

Last fall, a television ad for DiGiorno frozen pizza was broadcast throughout the college football season with South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier and Washington Coach Tyrone Willingham in starring roles. They were shown participating in a news conference at which pizza was served. “If this isn’t delivery, we’ll play the entire game in dresses,” Spurrier tells Willingham.

Cut to the beefy players in sundresses and heels.
•
No one wants a nanny planet, but funny has to be a fair fight — even in pillow fights.

It’s not just Imus in the cross hairs for mocking the defenseless. The Toronto Blue Jays have been under scrutiny for producing a commercial promoting this baseball season.

At 6 feet 5 inches and 275 pounds, Frank Thomas is filmed whacking a small boy so hard with a pillow that the child flies off the bed and hits the floor with a thud. Thomas then breaks into a home run trot.

The Television Bureau of Canada refused to approve the spot. The Blue Jays can’t understand why. But possessing the power differential means bullying someone your own size.

With the ear of a national audience, Imus denigrated women who have revealed the courage to play a sport in its pure, fundamental form even though it is often branded inferior to the dunk style of men. The gals absorb enough put-downs as it is.

The racial twist of Imus’s derision prompted the public outrage and scared network executives out of their focus groups. Talk of race ultimately gave the Rutgers women a platform, but a dialogue on vanquishing sexism and misogyny ribboned their message as they spoke from a dais yesterday.

“It is all women athletes,” Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer said. “It is all women. Have we lost the sense of our own moral fiber? Has society decayed to the point that we forgive and forget because, you know what, it was just a slip of the tongue?”

With everyone’s attention, would Rutgers scream for justice? Instead the players eloquently described their tales of personal pain and their disillusionment with the networks. As the sophomore forward Heather Zurich said, “Our moment was taken away, our moment to celebrate our success, our moment to realize how far we’d come on and off the court as young women; we were stripped of this moment by a degrading comment made by Mr. Imus.”

With the stage, would they demand Imus be fired? They would not play shock jock, but calmly asked for time to meet with him, time to reflect.

“Right now, I can’t really say if we have come to a conclusion on whether we will accept the apology,” the junior guard Matee Ajavon said.
•
Ajavon and her teammates could have cracked Imus over his cowboy hat with the microphone in their hands. They had the outlet to mock him if they had chosen to attack him just as personally as he had them.

Rutgers wasn’t out for revenge, though. Carson said the team did not want to be looked at “as if we’re attacking a major broadcasting figure.

“We’re attacking an issue we know isn’t right,” she said.

Somewhere, Imus was listening. He, like everyone, had to hear the women out. This wasn’t his studio or his sidekicks. The Rutgers women ran the show without abusing the privilege. Very ladylike of them.

E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com

imus action

so, if you're not as cynical as i am and want to lodge a righteous complaint against the radio station, CBS and MSNBC you can go here - thanks to the women at the National YWCA, we have a handy dandy letter just itching to burn through some PR flak's inbox.

...

i talked to my dad briefly yesterday.
he sort of chuckled and said, 'i read your blog today and, man, you're really mad.'

and i guess i am. the heart of my anger seems to be our society's crass hypocrisy. we say we're a nation of 'values', but are we really? i don't think so. we already know there's a huge 'values' divide on the so-called Big issues like gay marriage and abortion; somehow, our 'values' have been defined by the position one takes on these two things. but i think our values are often defined by the smaller things - by our daily conversation and acts.

when are we, as a group of people, going to assert that at the very least, being a bigot - or talking like one - is ugly and distasteful. like, what if your kid called another kid a 'nappy headed ho'? wouldn't you, as a parent, be mortified and angered that your child lacked all social skills? so if we'd punish our child for being so mean and bullying, why don't we, as a social group, punish those who create the worst in our society?

we punish murderers, predators and thieves. why can't we punish a bigot? no, not by prison but by social isolation and derision. why can't we say we cannot tolerate that?

i keep thinking about that book, The No Assholes Rule. if a racist, misogynist, homphobic asshole threatens civility and civil behavior, get rid of them. fire them,if you will, for the good of the rest of us.

don't you think?

cry me a river, don.

i woke up this morning and turned on Good Morning America and the first story i heard, while i tried to ignore my clock, was the whole 'nappy headed ho's' thing. i sleepily watched while robin exuded hurt disapproval and her co-anchor, chris, practically set himself on fire in empathetic outrage over imus' remarks and his lame apology.

as a brown girl who is seriously tired of every single story like this, i give a great big Whatever to his apology and everyone's outrage. i mean, how outraged are we, really? we're shocked and apalled that don imus spewed asshat bigotry on the air? gasp!
and as for his apology, whatever. chalk up another Tour of Sorry as he tries to cleanse himself of his PR mistake.

i don't really give a crap about imus or his remarks (as bad as they are) because, honestly, i don't expect anything more from 'mainstream society.' (read that however you wish.) my expectations have been managed downward at such an alarming rate, things like basic bigotry no longer make my blood pressure jump; i expect the larger society to behave stupidly, crassly and ignorantly. i no longer expect people to behave like civilized, rational adults. unless i have evidence to the contrary, whenever i see people like don imus open their mouths, i wait expectantly for a foot to be inserted.

The Man (and those who love The Man) can no longer stun me with his inner pig because i expect the inner pig to make an appearance, sooner rather than later. how cynical and bad is that?

i am outraged at how paltry our language for condemnation has become. i don't want to hear imus apologize for saying 'bad,' 'insensitive,' 'racially charged' things about those girls on the college basketball team; i want to hear him apologize for being an asshole. i want to hear him apologize for shitting on civility and farting in the face of our cultural discourse. i want him to go on his radio show and say, 'I'm sorry. I'm a pig.' say something that actually matters and is true.

that what repentance and confession is - it's being bald with the truth of one's failure. you don't say, 'dear God, forgive me for saying those really mean things even though i'm really a good person.' you're supposed to say, 'dear God. i'm a shithead. please forgive me even though i don't deserve it.'

on those rare occasions i meet someone who's a bigoted, misogynist or homophobic asshat, or am confronted with an unexpected asshat bigoted, misogynist or homophobic comment during a social occasion, i drop that person. immediately. they no longer exist for me. they disappear from my universe.

when are we going to start setting some rules for all the rest? why aren't we outraged over that?!


[everything bloggy you need to know about the imus kerfuffle can be found here.]

why email is great

it leaves a record- one that's just as damning as a fingerprint. love it.

Army suspends recruiter for anti-gay e-mail rants | Chicago Tribune

the article above is a little bland. the good stuff is here, in the transcript of the emails exchanged between the gay guy and the recruiter. dude. homophobic and borderline racist slurs aside, the recruiter seems to be the poster child for Unprofessional. and if the military needs more people and wants to change more than its image as a haven for assholes, they need to do something about people like this recruiter.

i just got finished reading a management book called "The No Assholes Rule" and it's basically about how organizations would thrive if they identified, isolated and eliminated assholes who make their organizations poisonous and uncivilized. (i let my CEO borrow it for her vacation.)it makes a good argument that most behaviors that expose an organization to bad press, lawsuit or poor returns would most likely be eliminated if the assholes in the organization were fired.

think of it. the military suffers from rampant accusations of sexual harassment, homophobia and sexual assault. it also suffers from poor performance, low recruitment numbers and bad PR. how much of this would disappear if they just got rid of the assholes?

it's a thought.

holy week

and so here we are; we've just left the triumphant entrance into jerusalem and are moving inexorably toward maundy thursday then good friday then onto easter.

and, to my discredit, i've been so busy i've hardly had time to reflect on any of it.

100 out of 4800: what's that percentage?

Scholarship fund to help blacks go to UCLA - Los Angeles Times

african american students numbered only 100 out of last year's entering freshman class.

100 out of 4800.

Aged, Frail and Denied Care by Their Insurers - New York Times

so what's the point, you know?
if you spend all this time paying for something you'll never get, what's the frakking point?

lately, especially with news of insurance companies denying care to pregnant women because it's not profitable (which could probably expose them to accusations of gender bias, as well), stories like these have moved insurance companies (and the actuaries who create these frakked up equations) onto my list of industries that probably deserve a flaming meteorite to hit them.

last week, my Fancy Church threw a small fashion show to showcase our social service center and basically call for volunteers. it was sweet: a makeshift stage in the fellowship hall, our pastors and administrators wearing clothes that were donated to the center, thumping disco pouring from the speakers (modified slightly to reflect our churchy environs) and the smell of barbecued meatballs, cocktail wieners and banana pudding wafting from the back of the room. and half the audience smiling in their denturesand nodding underneath their gray wigs.

i leaned over to Roomie and whispered, 'this feels very british.'
she said, 'yeah. i'm having a Vicar of Dibley moment.'
...

some interesting things in the news lately.
so sad to hear about elizabeth edwards; i think it's rather brave of her to encourage her husband to keep on with his campaign. did anyone catch the katie couric interview? i heard it was a whopper; the reaction to it is rather interesting.

and then there's this article about the black church and gay people, which i thought was noteworthy. what stood out: attitudes toward homosexuality change once contact with gays becomes personal (through family or friends); and what one man interviewed said: 'God loves you but must correct you' or something like that.

(what does God's correction have to do with having gays in church? or preaching tolerance? seems to me that the whole 'gays must be corrected like everyone else' misses the fact that not 'everyone' gets 'corrected' the same way. so, until some straight person is told to get the hell out of dodge for being a lying philanderer, then folks should shut up about other folks needing 'correction.')

then there's this piece about the coast guard academy report whose findings showed that cadets would rather not report someone for sexual assault. considering how prevalent sexual assault is in our military academies, this should give us pause about how we're inculcating particular values in our armed forces. i wonder why we don't admit that our military academies are turning into breeding grounds for violent sociopaths. i mean, that seems to be the kind of soldier we want for our unending war against terror, isn't it? forget words like 'character' 'dignity' 'honor' or 'valor.'

but all is not lost. eric keroack, the anti-contraception 'doctor' who was appointed to oversee federal family planning programs resigned last night. yay!

women in the military: a double whammy

The Women's War - Sara Corbett - Iraq - Soldiers - Women - Abuse - New York Times

one of the goals of feminism, especially feminist historiography, is to shed light on women's untold stories and now that our country has embarked on a path of endless war, the stories of women in our military are slowly beginning to leak out. women, in some capacity, have always been part of our military machine - either as support staff, medical staff and now combat staff. but knowledge of their actual lives within the walls of the military is largely unknown - except for the stuff that's so bad it finally breaks the news.

this times magazine piece is fascinating: one, it becomes connected to the earlier article about boozed up men in the military and violence and, two, it prompts me to ask whether women belong in the military at all.

it's clear the military, despite some good lip service to the contrary after every sexual assault scandal in their training camps, academies and ranks, has no capacity to deal with the needs of military women who've been assaulted or harrassed within the military. their reporting structure is broken, their punishment structure is failed and their treatment/prevention capabilities seem to be non-existent. and all this failure and inaction, as well as the sexual assault itself, seems to be built into the very fabric of the military.

from the article:

''So you have young women joining the military who have the profile of being victimized, who don't have boundaries sometimes,'' [V.A. Palo Alto Health Care
System psychiatrist, Dr. Tina] Lee went on to say. ''And then you have a male
population that fits a perpetrator profile. They are mostly under 25, often
developmentally adolescent, and you put them together. What do you think will
happen? The men do the damage, and the women get damaged.''

i'm actually surprised to be asking myself this question of women in the military. i've always thought 'anything a man can do, a woman should be allowed to do' and service in the military certainly shouldn't be withheld from women because of cultural stereotypes of 'weakness' or 'girliness.' but what if the military is too unsafe for women? oh, not because of combat. they're trained to deal with combat situations, just like their male counterparts.

but what if it's too unsafe for women because of the danger posed by their male counterparts?
and if this is so, should women want to join the military?

(notice the particular frame for that question and the implied agency - it's not about 'belonging' in the military at all, but whether women should even choose it, given what that culture is actually like?)

in the stirrups

so a couple weeks ago i went to the doctor for my bi-annual pelvic. (although i know better, i don't go to the doctor unless something is hanging out of me, bleeding.)

anyway, there i am, in the stirrups, being palpated by my doctor and missing the old cloth robes we used to wear during these kind of examinations.

then she goes, 'Hm.'
i think, Hm is never good.
i say, 'what's wrong?'
she says, 'did you know you have fibroids?'
'uh, no.'
'well, you do. do you know what they are?' palpate. palpate.
i say, 'big tumor-y things?'
she laughs while continuing to palpate. 'yes, big tumor-y things.' she snaps off the gloves and gets ready to do the pap.
'you got 'em. i'm going to recommend you get an ultrasound just so we see how big they are.'

i just nod and i can't help but think, wow, i no longer have to justify being childless. i have fibroids! huzzah!*

god works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?

*for folks out there who may be befuddled at my logic re: infertility: fibroids keep growing back so i'd either have to get them lasered out all the time, take constant medication all the time, or get a hysterectomy. it's an inevitability. goodbye uterus.*

boozed up & defending freedom

For U.S. Troops at War, Liquor Is Spur to Crime - New York Times

this is really interesting. the article draws a straight line between alcohol use and the more egregious (or, in the case of the rape of the iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family, the downright criminal) acts our 'boys' get into while fighting this ridiculous war we can't extricate ourselves from. i draw attention to this line because it's one that's rarely made: heavy alcohol use by men leads to violence in general (and against women, in particular.)

but do we hear that narrative in our popular culture?

no. instead we get cautionary tales directed at women about our drinking. (remember the AMA's Spring Break warning to college girls? or the online chatter about the girl who was abducted on a school trip to mexico?) having been in the position once or twice to have made bad decisions while under the influence (hello, ex-whatever), i'm not saying that all decisions made while tanked are healthy but let's place agency where it really belongs, you know?

(and to make it a personal thing, which is my prerogative because it's my personal blog and which proves nothing, but only provides a context for my thinking:
a friend of mine, on new year's eve, was assaulted in her sleep by the person she let crash on her couch because it was too late for him to drive home. his bullshit excuse the next day, when she confronted him? 'I get horny when I'm drunk.' frakking asshole.)

anyway, it's an interesting article that should prompt more discussion about how we acculturate our MEN but it probably won't.

hey, pitches!

a pitch call from my fave mag waay up north. i'm not twinkly or sparkly enough for this one but if there are any budding poets, artists and/or faery folk who are interested please see below:

PITCHCALL GEEZ NO. 6

The re-enchantment of the world

We need personal, social and political liberation from malaise and mediocrity.

A new way of seeing can provide the seeds of change. An eye for the sacred in each moment, the animation in the trees, the spirit in the wind, the eternal reflected in ancient scriptures and back-lane scrawl.

We want to describe the world behind that twinkle or sparkle, that gleam or glow that emanates from some stalwarts of social change.

We see this revolutionary enchantment in Buddhist teachers like Joanna Macy, poets like Mary Oliver and authors like David C. Korten as he describes the transformation from Empire to Earth Community. It's also the vision that drives youth pastors to shun exotic overseas mission trips and make greater trips closer to home. To see the love and life in what they formerly called inner-city squalor.

This is a call for seers, poets and cultural healers to guide us along this Way.

We are looking for investigative reports, arguments, poems, art and reflections documenting how an enchanted world-view is the fuel for social change. Show us how an enchanted worldview undermines consumer culture and inspires social change.

(Or, if you think this is bogus hocus-pocus, show us the error of our ways.)

Tone and flavor
Think deeply, write lightly. Explore the deepest questions, but go easy on the earnesty. Geez does not assume a religious audience, so cut the religio-jargon, and only send a piece if your sharpest unchurched friend gives it the go-ahead.

Due date
Send pitches (your idea and how you will develop it) by March 21, 2007. If you already have a completed manuscript, poem, photo or design feel free to submit it as well. Unfortunately we are not able to respond to every pitch. If you do not hear back from us within 6 weeks, assume we were not able to use your idea or article.

Send to
editor@geezmagazine.org
or
Geez, Issue 6
264 Home St
Winnipeg MB, R3G 1X3
Canada

ok, i really like obama.

AlterNet: MediaCulture: Obama's Identity: Where Do We Start

a really great article from patricia williams about our public discourse on race in the figure of obama. (and check out the comment thread; it seems williams' piece was too beond most of everyone's ken. they talk about everything except what the article is about. and this is supposed to be a progressive thread!)

vomit vomit vomit: the pussycat dolls are feminist??

Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll - TV - New York Times

jeebus save me from totally ignorant hollywood folks who wouldn't know feminism if it bit them in the gonads:

When one reporter said his 17-year-old daughter looked at the group and their antics as a giant step backward for women, the Pussycat Dolls’ founder, Robin Antin, became defensive, invoking female role models who follow the Dolls.

“There’s a reason why people like Scarlett Johansson, Gwen Stefani, Cameron Diaz have all been so interested in what Pussycat Dolls is all about,” she said. “They feel that it is empowering to get up there and dress up like a Doll. It’s fun, and it’s something that every girl in the world — she may think one thing, but I think inside every girl in the world wants to do it.”

yeah, because scarlett, gwen and cameron are EXACTLY what feminism is about.

and in other news, how about a totally worthless discussion of 'hooking up' over at the today show? (incidentally, the women they showed for the story are all in their early 20s. so much for 'teenagers'.)

and why is the story worthless?
they don't talk about boys (what, these women are having sex by themselves??)
they don't talk about what this 'hooking up' is in reaction to
they treat an adolescent context the same as an adult context
and they link it to feminisam, which it's the farthest thing away from.

just my two cents.

they'll adjust. really.

so my sister told this story when she was visiting over the summer:

back in my undergrad days i relented, just a few times, to do some babysitting for a couple in dad's church. my sister and her boyfriend (now husband) were hanging out at our house watching movies while i 'babysat,' which entailed feeding them, then watching the clock assiduously and praying for bedtime to come. at last, bedtime. i tucked the little tykes in bed, clicked off the light and shut the door. i'd barely settled on the couch before faint wails wobbled from the bedroom down the hall.

i opened the door. 'yes?'
'it's dark!'
'it's bedtime.'
'it's dark!'
'it's bedtime.'
'leave the light on!
'your eyes will adjust!' click.

my sister and her husband laugh their asses off whenever they tell this story, always shouting the ending: 'your eyes will adjust!'

anyway. co-sleeping. excuse me while i roll my eyes.

Sleeping-Co-Sleeping-Children - New York Times

generation gap, pt 1

There really is a gulf separating those of us who live in my vague Generational X-ish sphere and Boomers like my dad, and the chasm between us seems virtually impassable. But I suspect this impassability has more to do with the comfort of familiar nostalgic narratives than anything real.

On the phone with my dad Sunday morning while he waited in Nebraska for a flight to get him back to California after a series of snow delays, our conversation turned to my sister and her husband calling my father for more babysitting duties.

Shorter Dad, the Boomer: Young folks today with families are shirking their responsibilities and have too much free time.

Shorter Ding, the Gen X-er: Young families/single people today have totally different (and in crucial ways, more demanding) responsibilities than the ones you guys had back in the 70s. Life is different now so don’t expect solutions to be the same as back in the day.

And this is where the dangerous power of nostalgia comes in. I love and esteem my dad in a huge way, but there are some crucial gaps in his memory. Gone is the fact that he and mom didn’t have an extended network of family around them – there were no cousins, aunts or uncles to take up any family slack (which isn’t usually the norm), so he and mom going it alone was a matter of necessity rather than choice; gone is the fact that mom was a secretary and he was a civil servant, so their professional obligations were very different than the ones my sister, brother in law and I have; gone is the fact that the cost of living/raising a family was considerably lower then than now; gone is the memory that my sister and I, through our elementary and junior high lives, had babysitters to watch us after school until our parents came home from work, though it’s somewhat comforting to think that mom and dad provided every moment of care themselves; also gone is the uncomfortable fact that, at the height of his pastorate, my father spent 90% of his time away from the home and family.

(Also forgotten: the bulk of their parenting advice came from our hardened, cranky, arid as Texas, Depression era Baptist pastor whose relationship with his own offspring was, shall we say, less than ideal.)

Nostalgia, however, paints a golden patina over all of these potholes of memory until the surface looks smooth and glossy. Instead of highlighting how he and mom operated in a parenting context that reflected their social and economic context, their childrearing is a simple story of two parents stalwartly facing the music and going it alone because, naturally, that’s what parents do.

But perhaps my sister and I are guilty of the same kind of nostalgia, too. Perhaps, in our mind's eye, we have a comfortable idea of what grandparents are: accessible, doting on the grandchildren, service-oriented. But that's not who my father is at all. Like others of his generation, he has a very fixed outside life from family. There's a strong feeling of "I put in my time and now it's Me time." Who can argue with that? What right do we have to impose on what little time he has left? (heh.) The grandparents now aren't the grandparents of whenever: they get depressed, restless, horny, impatient and, frankly, don't want to relive the years of raising kids.

My father teaches, goes on conferences, counsels, and preaches. (Sometimes he even goes out on a date.) And he deliberately bought a car that won't fit a child's car seat, let alone two. Deep down, the single childless woman in me respects his independence, applauding and encouraging it.

So if we are more similar than we think, why can't our generations keep nostalgia from clouding our perceptions of one another?

(next: take this job and shove it!)

back from springfield...other thoughts

i'm thinking about...

my old city. well, my old metropolitan area in southern california, anyway. it seems like some folks there don't like the way their neighborhood is changing: Some in Chino Hills nervous about ethnic shift exemplified by Asian supermarket [h/t from angry asian man]

i love how, if you study how (mostly white) communities deal with increasing numbers of non-white peoples, the discourse of protest hinges on 'community standards,' a handy code for racism and bigotry.

(it's basically the NIMBY argument: 'they can live like that around their own kind, but not in my back yard!')

it reminds me of a book i finished: There Goes the Neighborhood, a study of 4 chicago neighborhoods undergoing racial/ethnic demographic changes, how they either maintained their racial composition or changed and the strategies they used in 'fighting' the change. it's fascinating. in the study on the anonymous southside white neighborhood shows how inhabitants use the language of 'neighborhood standards' to justify keeping their community all white. it's a really interesting look at how ingrained, generational racism (not simply bigotry) affect quotidian details like, oh, where a person lives.

(it also explains why, 9 years ago, i probably stopped dating a guy who lived in one of those south side chicago ethnic neighborhoods. there were issues, the biggest being the fact i was the first brown girl to be introduced to his friends and family EVER.)
...
thoughts of the anti-asian sentiment in chino hills (no one finds it funny that 'chino' in spanish means 'chinese'?) also lead me to think of how we respond to racial or ethnic changes - but from the other direction.

for instance, when a brown neighborhood sees signs that it's getting less brown and more white it's funny that our discourse isn't about 'maintaining community standards' but a reverse narrative of imperialism. (for instance, imagine the story of 'settlement' told from the vantage point of native peoples.)

isn't that what gentrification really is - urban imperialism? a markedly capitalist, consumerist population running out of resources sees how other populations/geographies aren't exploiting capitalism as much as they can, so it moves to annex and control the population in order to benefit and spread itself.

i read the arguments in favor of manifest destiny and can't help but see similarities in chicago's language in favor of 'community renewal' on the southside and its heavy investment in development in places like hyde park, lawndale, pilsen.

of course this also puts me in a weird position since participating in this kind of urban imperialism is part of my job (but without displacing original populations, somehow.)

things i'm thinking about

i'm thinking about...

gay people...
this article in the sunday style section about gay PDA really brings home (to me, at least) how much still needs to be done on behalf of gay rights. yeah, it's easy for me, sitting on my hetero-normative ass, to be saying this, but really. there's something glaringly wrong when people are AFRAID to hold hands or kiss each other on the street because they're AFRAID of getting their asses kicked, or being told to leave a restaurant.

you think civil unions are 'going too far'? sweetie, they don't go far enough. see what laws are in play in your state here.

(just check out this professional athlete who says he 'hates' gay people and doesn't think it should exist. period. or even the outcry about the snickers campaign - which i thought was actually funny because it totally demonstrated how based in hysteria the notion, and image, of straight 'masculinity' really is.)

DOMA and domestic violence...
so you know about all the Defense of Marriage Acts being enacted in states across the country. on the surface it seems a silly, yet totally anti-gay issue. (meaning, you assume it's only really important to gay folks.) but now we see some unintended consequences of state legislated homophobia: it provides protection for domestic violence abusers. ohio's supreme courst has heard a case that argues domestic violence laws don't apply to the abuser because he and the women he 'allegedly' abused were unmarried and, under ohio's DOMA, their relationship has no legal standing.

and you know what happened? the ohio supreme court agreed with him. (and once i find the source for this, i'll post the link; it came up on a conference call i was on last week at work. and if i heard the update wrong, i'll post that, too. but the point remains the same: though there are those who support these 'defense of marriage' bills as protecting, the result of them is decidedly immoral.)

sometimes it seems like the interests of gay and straight people are far afield of one another but they're really not. like it or not, what affects one of us truly affects all of us.

valentine's day. is it over yet?

things have been sort of light here and that's because things have been so heavy at work; since i can't really write in detail about work without jeopardizing that work, then it means that i don't have a lot to write about.

but that doesn't mean that a lot isn't going on.

for instance, the very excellent people at Alas have been on a really great streak (must read them more regularly), writing about race, free speech, the kerfuffle involving the Catholic League and the blogger Amanda and there's one particular post i'd like to draw attention to: the one about rape and men 'getting it.' it links to an excerpt from tim beneke's book Men On Rape and it's so worthwhile reading i heartily encourage folks to go there.

(april is sexual assault awareness month, so be prepared. i'm gonna write about it.)

after reading the excerpt, i was struck by a disconnect beneke's subjects showed. there's an academic acknowledgment that rape is bad but there's also the very real emotional/psychological urge to act on that desire to rape, though they guys may not define what they want to do as rape.

it's interesting, this gap in logic. or, perhaps, this isn't a gap at all. to them, it makes complete sense.

which just reinforces a growing suspicion in my mind that straight men and women are utterly foreign to one another and perhaps men should live on an island somewhere to dress in skins and spear fish.

[jeebus. i just read about this asinine thing - Take Back the Date - over at feministing.

when are these people just going to face it? the 50's are dead. they're gone. done.
seriously, i can't wait until all these people who 'remember' what things were like back then and keep wanting things to 'return' to them to just shuffle off this mortal coil.]

approaching cliche

Bloog.

It's like I'm a manitee. I'm so incredibly bloated right now I actually look pregnant. (And the empire-waisted blouse I'm wearing ain't helping.)

It feels good, though, to let the belly out. Just stand there and let it all go. ahhh...
Who cares that Valentine's Day is tomorrow and I'm sitting here with my belly pooching out? Feels good. Watch the snow fall and let your belly hang out.

Hm.
I'm so signing up for Weight Watchers Online...

um, why can't i see my blog?

grr.
good thing i'm gonna be in springfield tomorrow or this'd upset me.

yuck.
Posing as a Family, Sex Offenders Stun a Town - New York Times

proving that more sexual assault education and training needs to happen in law enforcement, here's a stunner quote from an investigator:

“With boys it is a really tough deal,” said Lt. Van Gillock of the Police Department in El Reno, Okla., where Mr. Rodreick is believed to have posed as a 12-year-old to ingratiate himself with boys at church. “If they did it voluntarily, they have the stigma of homosexuality, and if it is forced, well, boys are supposed to be tough and the things the boys have on them gives them an embarrassment factor.”

riight. because getting raped is so much easier for girls.

a really good discussion: what are the risks of being anti-racist?

i really have to point out, again, the discussion over here, at Alas, a blog.

in the comment thread there is a fascinating sub-topic of what one risks when they decide to be anti-racist. i'd like to pose that here, in the face of the somewhat deafening silence from a larger white society when things like the Clemson ghetto party happens. (while also acknowledging the equally deafening silence from black folks when jesse jackson says totally problematic things like Hymietown.)

as a white person, what risk do you run when you decide to take an anti-racist stance - whether in the office when a coworker wants to know how many blacks it takes to screw in a lightbulb or in your family when someone complains about all the black people moving into the neighborhood?
as a person of color, what risk do you run when you decide to call someone out on their racism or bigotry? what risk do you run when it's another person of color you're calling out?

as nice progressives, what actual risks have we taken to be the nice progressives we think we are?

cuz if we aren't taking any risks, we aren't doing shit.

aw, damn: Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

who cares if you're a racist? you're stupid.

here is a post from Alas, A Blog commenting about a really ill-thought racially themed party at Clemson on Martin Luther King Day.

not only does the general ignorance of college kids stun me, their whole misunderstanding of satire (which just re-emphasizes they weren't paying that much attention in their english classes in the first place) frustrates me.

we've seen this excuse before. michael richards had his defenders who said his n-word laden rant was perhaps a misfired attempt to satirize ... something (it's unclear what exactly he would be satirizing); chuck knipp's drag character, Shirly Q. Liquor, is supposed to be (in his words) a satirical look at racism; the hipsters in brooklyn with their Kill Whitey club nights think they're satirizing 'ghetto culture'; and now, every frat boy/sorority girl, college or law school student who wants to wear a sombrero, put on blackface, speak in ebonics or 'run for the border' thinks they're engaging in satire.

but what they forget, or perhaps never knew or understood, is that satire is a punch in the eye of Power. satire's anger, it's needle, is directed upward - never downward. if it does, then it ceases to be satire and it's just another way for those in power to bully the powerless or to scream to the public that you're just another tool of the status quo.

so, for all you dumbass college kids and misinformed adults out there, this is satire:

it is a precise literary term (which means you have to have some measure of intellectual weight to pull it off)
it has a very specific target (i.e., a person or group of people, an idea or attitude, an institution or a social practice)
in satire, your target is held up to merciless ridicule that is often very angry, ideally in the hope of shaming your target into reform (again, critical faculties are necessary as well as a recognition of power and how it operates in society)
it has a strong vein of irony or sarcasm (parody, burlesque, exaggeration and double entendre are all devices frequently used in satirical speech and writing - again, pointing to intellectual rigor in the person who calls herself a satirist)
finally, it is strictly a misuse of the word to describe as "satire" works without an ironic (or sarcastic) undercurrent of mock-approval, criticism and an element at least of anger.

how does a privileged white boy in blackface poke fun or criticize or throw into instability the codes of racism or our racist history? how does a white girl in a do' rag holding a forty problematize the ways that race, sexuality and racial images are reproduced and disseminted in this country?

it doesn't. because all you have is a white girl in a do' rag holding a forty.

here endeth the lesson.

[and photo credit goes to The Smoking Gun]

the wonder years: remember sassy?

instead of the standard piece about the best way to give oral (for that, you have to check out Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man) nerve has an excellent love letter to the magazine that made me the hopelessly feminist, bitchy woman that i am today: Nerve.com - Cute Band Alert by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer.

it was sad when Sassy went away. perhaps i was outside its demographic (when it ended, i was just beginning grad school) but i'd like to think my extended virginity lent me an adolescent glow for a realllly long time.

(um, i'm killing time waiting for my gay dinner date. clearly, i have nothing important to say.)

they shoot horses, don't they? well, duh!

i was at the planned parenthood gala/fundraiser tonight. i worked a little late so i missed half the cocktail hour and i've resolved that, next year, i am not going alone. it was totally boring without someone to dish with and get secretly smashed.

however, todd stroger, our new county board president, was there. he's really short. (i will ignore the fact that he looks like a guy i dated in my dad's church.) and his handwritten nametag gave him a forlorn, paddington bear kind of air. poor thing. (everyone called him Urkel behind his back.) but, hey, why should i feel sorry for him? there he is, in a feminist organization's annual gala, rubbing elbows with other politicos (like gov. rod blagojevich, jan schakowsky and carol ronen). he's made in the shade. but he's also the guy who's proposing to get rid of the women's justice services dept in the sherrif's dept (meanwhile, men's services stay intact.) i wonder if he felt the irony. i know i did. i wonder if anyone approached him to ask him about it. probably not.

then i hung out in the bar to drink a glass of jameson's and overheard some staffers complain that the big donors got tables while the frontline staff didn't; she railed on about the hyprocrisy and i hid a smile. i've heard this complaint before, from folks in my own organization, and i have to admit to a certain lack of patience with the complaint. it's petty and painfully childish.

in a perfect world, organizations that provide crucial social and human services would be fueled by all the good feelings it produces in the world. butterflies would bring me coffee and birds would read my email; then, a blue fairy would hit me with her wand and i'd suddenly become a real boy.

but, alas, we live in the world of cold, hard cash. the money that staffer is so quick to scoff at actually means something to the organization. it's a fucking line item in the budget - a line item that needs to exist if the organization is going to keep functioning.

fundraisers aren't about recognizing the hard work of front line staff; unfortunate, but true. they're about the story we tell donors so we can get our hands on their money. they're marginally about the work we do. what they're really about is telling a great story of our organization to the donor so the donor can feel good about parting with hefty sums of cash. it's an intricate dance of seduction - and, if you've done the job well, you will celebrate and feel a little icky that you've just spent one night whoring yourself out for nearly $1 million. (hence all the folks who shook hands with todd stroger with gritted teeth.)

yes. $1 million dollars. what would you do for $1 million, knowing that it pays for programs, overhead, education, advocacy capacity, and direct service? can those of us in the nonprofit arena afford to be so frakking naive about how our organizations operate and what our money is used for? with the increasing strictures of govt funding and private sources of funding becoming even more important, i think not.

(this is also what i think about my church's huge annual fundraiser; it's glitzy, obscenely rich and raises scads of cash for our social service center. a center that doesn't bring in PROFIT but needs to spend money in order to operate. while some folks get skeeved out about a church raising this amount of cash in this manner, i think, what else is it going to do? wait for the Budget Fairy to stop by?)

so i say this to all the true believer non-profiters out there who think the taint of cash pollutes their mission and work:
leave graduate school behind and frakking grow up a little.

uneasy ambition

while the bears trounced the saints on sunday, i received a voicemail from my church's nominating com'tee. i'd been unanimously recommended to join the board of directors for our community outreach services entity.

i'm a little stunned. i had no idea they were considering me.

but underneath the stunned-ness is also a little bit of glee. yay! (that's a humble yay because there's a lot of work attached to this position, but it's still a yay!)

so, after thinking about how my deacon commitments would have to change or shelved outright for my third year, i accepted.

oh, ick: when the money shot is a little too...money

In Raw World of Sex Movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real - New York Times

gick.
there are so many things wrong with this article, i can't even begin to list them. but the biggest is that it assumes we should care that the porn industry (enough with the antiseptic 'adult industry' moniker) is wringing its hands because we can see all the razor burn and augmentation during the money shots. um, no.

what's fascinating and appalling about this piece is the way it accepts at face value the female sexbot ideology of the industry and turns it into a matter of business practice. while sony shies away from the porn industry and distribution the pornographers tsk and say "it is shortsighted of Sony to snub them, given how pornography helps technologies spread." well, pornography helps other things spread, as well.

remember the guy who created Girls Gone Wild? the men who, over the summer, killed those girls in two school shooting sprees (remember the amish school shooting)? i don't think it's too extreme of me to say that the female sexbot ideology that porn transmits created these men and influenced their acts. i don't think it's too far afield of me to say that porn, more than just exploiting women's bodies (and that's too simplistic an argument to make against porn because of the participation of women in the industry, i think), makes it possible for our culture to see women merely as receptacles, objects, holes and mouths and wet pink things. it dehumanizes us. it desensitizes us.

(if you've seen any porn for any length of time, you know what i mean. and, yes, i've seen porn.)

and so here's this article, taking dehumanization one step further and making it part of an industry's strategic business plan, deflecting our gaze from what porn actually IS to see it as just another circus of smoke and mirrors (like Hollywood, the article implies.)

so, thanks, new york times.
you've just given the cleanest patriarchy blow job ever.

why twisty is my hero: movie crit, 101

awesome.
though i loves me some mgm musicals, i cannot help but agree with everything twisty says here about TCM. her post here is a fine example of feminist cultural criticism.

(though the awful patriarchy-loving films of TCM are a constant source of hilarity in my household. at least once a week, Roomie and i record movies about lovelorn 1950s secretaries and their alcoholic bosses.)

why people are single: two views

so there's this analysis of why the numbers of unmarried people seem to be edging upward: Why Are There So Many Single Americans? - New York Times and then there's this one, coauthored by glenn sacks.

(who's glenn sacks? well, he's no disinterested party in the cultural gender wars. you can read his work right here.)

why bring up the two?
i think the emphasis in these pieces are rather interesting: one looks at the single/married disparity as an issue of class and economics and the other sort of begins from a false conclusion (men don't measure up, and are no longer needed nor often even wanted) and then takes off from there. it's an interesting contrast, also since the Times piece also looks at the marriage rates of men (so it's not just a woman issue - this declining marriage rate also affects our gonadinal counterparts.)

from a personal point of view, it's gratifying to see that i'm not the only one in my mid-late 30s still single. (more on this later. you'll have noticed that the Boy who came back on the scene during the holidays is no longer around. it's a good story and one that could be used as a personal way to enter these two stories.)

the secret to every successful woman: silky panties

Speaking Chic to Power - New York Times

in addition to my brown silky bikini panties, i'm also wearing a matching lacy brown bra underneath a sheer silk blouse, which is underneath a black nipped in blazer on top of a crisp pair of black boot cut trousers. on my feet, a pair of black/white plaid, kitten heel flats with a scarlet rhinestone buckle. (it seems gaudy, but you have to see these shoes - they're cute as hell.)

and what did i have to do today (nay, this week)?
plan/organize a board meeting for this morning, take minutes, manage the board members and CEO, set up/break down; juggle various presentations, senior managers, consultants, vendors, logistics, agendas, materials for a staff retreat; remain cheerful, supportive and efficient; take my knocks and step up when things didn't go as planned, much to my CEO's displeasure, and basically make sure that everything, by hell or high water, got frakking done for 150 people tomorrow (for whom i will be up at the crack of dawn again, onsite, helping the facilitation team, getting our bill paid and smoothing over whatever gaps/cracks appear over the course of one very long, arduous day.)

now.
what do my panties have to do with that?

the moral budget

Let the budget games begin | Chicago Tribune

our new county board president has proposed several slashing cuts to the county budget. i happen to believe budgets are moral documents, prioritizing what a municipalities obligations to its citizens. while on the surface stroger's sweeping cuts make him look like a budget bulldog (and there is something to be said about the Trib's mention of ending the corrupt patronage cycle) there is also something to be said about the affect cutting public defenders, sheriffs, health services and women's services (or services to the poor) will have on this county.

is he shortsighted, too eager to put aside that whole nepotism thing that got him the office in the first place? or are these hard to make cuts that need to be made anyway?

why does this make me laugh so hard?

Colleen Saidman and Rodney Yee - New York Times

do you read the wedding announcements in the times?
i do. (why i torture myself, i don't know. maybe i'm waiting for the one wedding announcement that won't make me barf.) anyway, this announcement struck me as particularly ridiculous - and it doesn't help that the bride looks like she's in drag.

and i know i vaguely promised a post on men's pain...i'm working on it! this has been a tough week: i dumped the boy, once and for all (that lasted all of a month) and work has been wretched, to say the least. plus, i have two writing deadlines coming up (one is next week for a reading i'm doing) and as a result i'm sort of frazzled.

complain complain complain. my life is good. i should relax, be thankful, and enjoy it.

but as a kind of preview of the thing i'm thinking about posting later, here's a piece from norah vincent's 'self-made man' (about her year plus spent dressed as a man, in order to access exclusively male circles and observe male behavior) which i just finished reading sunday:

"Being a guy was like that much of the time, a series of unrealistic,
limiting, infuriating and depressing expectations constantly coming over the
wire, and you just dummy trying to act on the instructions. White manhood
in America isn't the standard anymore by which women and all other minorities
are being measured and found wanting, or at least it doesn't feel that way from
the inside. It's just another set of marching orders, another stereotype
to inhabit."

there are trenchant observations throughout this book (especially the chapter on her time dating as a man). so, look for a post on this and some other thoughts i have about the MRM and the model of manhood i grew up with sometime over the weekend.

i love a man who's strategic

MPR: Ellison to be sworn in using Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson

so remember that whole flap last month about the first muslim congressman using a koran for his swearing in photo op? (he was also the guy glen beck, aka assface, asked to prove he wasn't working against america?) you have to hand it to ellison; using thomas jefferson's copy was genius.

i'll be posting more later about a fascinating book i just finished and my thoughts on men's pain. (and i'll try to do it without any snark. i promise.)

my uterus ate my funny!

Adam Ash: Christopher Hitchens explains why women aren't funny

have you read the hitchens piece about why women aren't funny (faithfully reproduced on adam ash's space)? it's a doozy.
shorter hitchens: women aren't funny because mommies are never funny.

that's right; for hitchens, every woman is a nagging, churchy, fecund, humorless, authority-loving, disciplinarian mommy just dying to kill the funny. in other words, vagina dentata. that toothy vijayjay inhibits everything that makes men funny - irreverence, irreligion, rebellion, and defiance. unlike men, we're too soft, too emotional, too serious, too dreamy, and too damn biological to be funny.

(however, if we're fat, dykey or jewish, we've apparently got funny to spare.)

never in my life have i laughed as hard, snorted or accidentally farted than when i'm with my girlfriends telling them the latest B- disaster or listening to what happened at so-and-so's birthday party/wedding, or reading the sharply worded, hilarious emails sent from various scattered family domiciles while we're trapped in hometowns for the holidays. (i remember one string of christmas emails from roomie, A- and J- that had me snorting and blowing wine all over my dad's laptop. 'the baby jesus blows!')

women don't like dirty or crude? hitchens, we could make you guzzle a whole bottle of Hendricks with tales of monstrous blood clots, menstrual disasters, catastrophic sexual encounters, embarassing visits to the doctor, the unfortunate thing that happened at grandma's funeral and the reason why sometimes my friends call me Puddles. there's nothing dirtier or cruder than a bunch of women hopped up on tequila, my friend. nothing. (just ask what a bridal party did to the cowboy troubadour they hired then drunkenly held captive until they finally released him, shaking and traumatized, the following day.)

women can't be funny in the face of death? too bad hitchens wasn't at my roomie's mother's funeral this past summer. the tears were expected; the guffaws halfway through my roomie's speech were a welcome surprise. it takes guts, strength and a finely tuned sensibility to get a whole church full of mourning midwesterners to give up the funny.

his tone wavers between 'admiration' of our inherent biological/moral authority over men and a smarmy castigation of it but what's most clear is that hitchens (and other men who always seem to ask these dumbass questions) has never really known cool women. or maybe it's because he only knows neurotic white women. (expose yourself to a little diversity and suddenly you have a lot of funny.) or maybe the women he knows are just too forbearing of his crotchety booziness to be very funny in the first place.

some women aren't funny. in my experience, neurotic women aren't funny - they never know how to tell a story. however, confident, self-aware women are funny. women willing to look ridiculous are funny. women willing to point out the ridiculous and the neurotic in others are funny. women who tell the truth are funny. women in touch with their anger are funny. (bitter, but funny.) oh, we're funny, alright. just depends on who's listening to us.

popping the cork

happy new year, people!

i'm back, relaxed, i even have a slight tan from LA and so frakking relieved that 2007 is here. (wasn't 2006 a little boring yet also stressful?)

i have to get ready for the sharon jones show at the park west tonight; after my freak out with B- last week, G- wanted to come out to chicago and help me ring in the new year but his father burned down his kitchen this morning so now i'm going with E-, an old nerve pal from milwaukee.

(i'm a firm believer in recycling. there's no need for past internet dates to die on the vine, you know?)

be safe, be happy and have a great new year! -ding

merry merry

i'm off to visit the family on the west coast so i'll be posting sporadically, desperately behind my writing schedule.

have a wonderful holiday to all five of my readers!
love the ones you're with and be thankful you're with the ones you love.

see you soon, dad!

ding

caving to the princess

What’s Wrong With Cinderella? - New York Times

when i was a kid, i owned the disney cinderella storybook, the record, the cassette tape and desperately wanted a glass slipper. my favorite parts of the story were the makeover, the hot carriage and her ballgown - loved the ballgown! the prince? feh. what's a prince compared to glass slippers and a hot dress? (and i didn't like his hair. he looked like a JCPenney dummy.)

of course, nancy drew soon replaced cinderella and then i even discovered the french version of cinderella that was totally crazy and bloody and that one became my favorite. by this time, i was sneaking my mom's books into the bathroom and who cares about cinderella when you're reading the pubis shaving scene from ken follet's Key to Rebecca?

thanks to my mother's trashy books (oh, kathleen woodiwiss! the rose in winter!) i was saved from the Princess and went straight to the Feisty Yet Passionate Virgin-Heroine. until college, my feminine tropes were set.

but now here i am, a public and loud feminist in her mid 30's, confronted with caving to the Princess crap when buying gifts for her niece. last weekend, i was in target and saw this huge, gorgeous book that was basically a guide to princess behavior. it had great illustrations, secret pockets, a princess code, some pop up action. it was pink. it was pretty. it looked like a princess bible. so i called my brother in law.

'is alex still into princess stuff?'
'is she! she loves it,' he said.
'so you guys are ok with it?'
'sure! it's ok.'

it's ok to them, but i have seriously fundamental issues with it. why can't she be into pirates? the Pirateology book looks so much cooler. or even the ones about sharks. anything but princesses. (princesses lead to beauty pageants and look at the hypocritial bullshit with donald trump and Miss USA - acting like a sorority girl is only good if you do it for the male-owned franchise, not for your own gratification.)

but did i get the pretty princess book? you bet i did. i even wrapped it in pink butcher paper. but then i took a trip to the chicago cultural center and bought her this lunch box and a mint case with a sultry mexican film star on it (i was going to get the frida kahlo pill box, but i thought the film star one was funnier), along with tough chicago tatoos that can wash off.

so here's my advice to all you feminist aunts and stuff: get the princess stuff but flatten the power of the iconography by hiding it among all your favorite feminist stuff. they may not get it now, but at some point they're going to have to pay attention.

for the teen in your life: Cycle Savvy

over here at This Woman's Work, she talks about a new book for teen girls teaching them how to read their own body's fertility signals. the full title is Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body and if my niece was 12 instead of 7, i'd give her this for christmas and watch my sister totally freak out.

but for now, my niece will have to be happy with Manners are Good.

my lacanian lack: ambition

my writing deadlines are totally piling up. there's the thing due at the end of the month for the anthology project and now i've agreed to read at a local venue in january - which i have to frakking write. (uh, the theme is The Erotic. if you know me and are interested, email me and i'll let you know where to catch me.) between writing projects, work, end of year deacon duties, the last of the holiday shopping and B- (the boy), i'm feeling a little bit thin on the ground.

but i really wanted to write about ambition.

tonight, before roomie and i went to our separate bedrooms, we had a quick chat in the hallway about my very west coast way of relating to my family (which is rather laissez faire):

roomie: you're so mean. your poor family is so far down your list.
me: not true! they know i love them. i'm just not good at the details. they're at least #2 or #3.
roomie: what's #1?
me: work. then friends. and family. friends and family usually jockey for the same position.
roomie: where's B-? poor B- is probably #5.
me: no, he's uh, maybe #3. shit. maybe he should be #2, with family and friends.
roomie: so there are sub-folders?
me: no, things just shift.
roomie: but work stays the same. that's sad. no one will care about your work or what you do. when you die, no one will say a word about your profession. you make crap money and it's not personally fulfilling.
me: it is crap money but i am personally fulfilled by it. it's very important to me.
roomie: but no one will care.
me: shut up. i can't help it that i'm a product of my childhood. it was pretty clear that work came before family. i got trained.
roomie: sad.
me: shut up.
(and so on.)

but it made me think. (not so much about my family's position on my priority list. they know i love them but we're just not one of those families that are always checking in with one another. we've never been like that.) it made me realize that work IS very important to me; i mean, i do have ambitions, here. most of my friends have jobs that they don't really care about. they work because they need to pay rent and that's it. as soon as the day ends, it's out of mind. but not me.

(i am firmly ensconced in the bourgeoisie, dude. middle class striving is important.)

the way i feel about my job is the way i feel about my writing. it is necessary to me and part of my identity. i am fed by it. most of the time, i love the feeling i have knowing that i'm contributing, that i'm an important part of something. is this wrong to feel?

work excites me. it challenges me. i'm stimulated by it. when i'm in the zone, i'm focused, i'm productive, i feel like the prickly point of a pencil slashing across a page.

but work feeds a particular need in me - something that can't be fed by friends, family or lovers. or it seems to.

i feel pleasure when i'm with my friends (who are sharp cookies and also challenge me). i am happy with my family and when i'm with them; what i feel is a happiness that makes me feel expansive and good again. it is a sweet amnesia of my world here when i'm there, in the sunlight, with them.

and when i'm with B-, as on/off as we've been over the past 5 years, there's really no sense trying to compare being with him with working. B- will never be satisfying. i mean that being with him will always feel like drinking from the sea - it's a frustrating, unslaked thirst.

and isn't that what ambition is - an unsatisfied appetite for something just beyond your grasp? it's desire. in an oversimplification of something from my undergrad theory courses, i remember jacques lacan defining desire as lack - its nature is defined by what is absent. i guess for me, ambition is desire and work feeds that ambition; it enables the desire, the absence. all the rest - family, friends - these are fulfillment, satisfaction. they are presence, not absence.

so what does it mean that i put desire/absence before fulfillment/presence?

hm. i don't know.

quickie

1. boy is back. it's interesting.
2. am dealing with some faint work envy. i'm sure i'll get over it. but for now, i'd like to just acknowledge that i'm feeling some work envy. i must be the Golden Girl! i must! not you-me! (ok, that should do it.)
3. am thinking about putting my name forward to be co-moderator of the deacon board next year. i honestly think i'd be great at it - like, totally great. is it bad to be that ambitious - at church??
4. have i said already that the boy is back? it's sort of nice. if only i can get over my total relationship phobia...but it's still nice. even though i'm totally waiting for me to screw it up. but, really! it's nice.
5. bob marley's 'buffalo soldier' is the perfect way to get ready for bed.

sigh.

what's going on with y'all?

a common thread: being gay in a moslem country

Prisoners of Sex - New York Times

it's a long magazine article but it's a rather good one, outlining what it's like to be gay in egypt. (and michel foucault makes a brief appearance!)
and what it's like is bad: entrapment, torture, beatings, jail, public humiliation, death.

several things ocurred to me as i was reading it:
how is our treatment of homosexuality in this country different?
what common threads are there between our Family Values activism against gay marriage, gay adoption, domestic partnership (which also benefits straight people), gay participation in military life, civic life and egypt's anti-gay activities?
is thinking about gay rights a 'luxury' of western civilization?
does reading about how bad it is 'over there' make us feel better about how 'good' it is over here?

and what about the women?

still sick. but still thinking about stuff - like, how john stossel secretly hates families

my bovine-like immune system ain't what it used to be. this is my second day home from work because of a little germ!

but all is not lost. my nasal congestion has made me think about things like why i'm lucky to be able to tell my boss "I'mb sick. I hab to go homb" and she nods and says, "Yeah, you sound like crap" and i can come home and check email from home and also know this is a paid sick day. and other folks aren't so lucky when the situation is certainly more important than a head cold.

fulminating in my brain since before thanksgiving is a little rant about an article john stossel posted on that conservative site, townhall.com, about his co-worker's (elizabeth vargas) return to work and her subsequent report on the mommy wars and how hard it is to be a working mother. (why won't i link to his article? because i hate that website and if you wanna look for it, be my guest. i've given you all the pertinent information you need to google.)

first - no shit, elizabeth. welcome to the world of almost 60% of the workforce - who also don't make your whopping salary.

second - john stossel, as much as he says he respects his coworker, basically says to working families 'sucks to be you!'

he can't see why it should be the responsibility of an employer or government to (this is a rough paraphrase) to make balancing work and home life easier when it was that woman's choice to have a family anyway. so all those things like paid family leave, day care, flex time, increased EITC? forget it. you never shoulda had that family.

it's the old manichean divide, so black and white and unyielding:
your family vs. your job

i read this article before i got on the plane to canada and it stuck like a bad meal in my gut. all i kept thinking was, does john stossel only know really well-off working like women like elizabeth vargas? in all his righteous muckraking, hasn't he come across women who make, say, in the low thirties? because personal choice or not, the consequence of making working people (not just women) choose between being their company's bitch and having some kind of personal life are dire.

i mean, don't we give our companies enough? the average american worker works more than anyone in the world. we work longer hours (1877 hrs vs. an avg. french 1562 hrs) with one american in three working a 50+ work week, take less paid vacation (the avg. american takes 4-10 days vs. the avg. swiss 30+), and we work for less and less benefits (ever wonder where your vision plan went? or do you have to make a choice between your eyes or your teeth?) and the benefits we do have don't seem to trickle down as far as they used to (1 in five american adults are in poverty and almost 45 million are without health insurance.)

the naysayers among you may have a point - our productivity seems to be slacking off but maybe that's because we're too scared we'll get fired to take some fracking time off to rest up!

meanwhile, our corporate entities seem to be doing rather well.

but for john stossel and all the other MarketNinjas, who cares that the average american worker needs more to just hold their head above water? that's the market! in order to survive, the corporation chooses to exploit you and you choose to be exploited by it by participating in it, family be damned.

(and it's funny that these are the townhall guys who are also always beating their manly stoical breasts about family values and tradition. if it was all up to them we'd still have child labor in place - 'they CHOOSE to be stuck in that chimney at six years old!'

rather smugly, norway's christian democratic minister for children & families says: "Americans like to talk about family values. We have decided to do more than talk; we use our tax revenues to pay for family values." yeah, i know. they're taxed at an exorbitant rate. but the point is no one is rushing to copy our way of working because it's nuts and bad for society!)

so, if we're given the manichean choice of work or family, who do we choose? we can't quit work or we won't be able to feed our families; we can't abandon our families because that's just shitty.

by not taking seriously the personal needs of the workforce, it seems that's what folks like john stossel and his corporate friends seem to want.


...
(of course there is a third option. it's a 5-letter word that begins with U and ends with N but that's for dusty blue collar people - not clean white collar people like us with masters degrees and shit, huh?

ooh, here's another word: 8 letters and begins with O and ends with IZE. but you're right; if we do that then our company might not like us anymore. because they, you know, aren't really that bad and we have to look at things from their point of view! and they truly have our best interests at heart. cuz that's what corporations do. take care of their workers.)

blearg: home sick

like a kid in elementary school, i'm home sick today. i never get sick. maybe a head cold or a tonsil thing but not the kind of sick where i have to leave the office early (ok, i left at five but i didn't feel good about it!) and then go straight to bed.

(where i promptly dreamed all night that the canadian prime minister was fake and no one knew but me and my roommate and no one would believe us and the canadian secret police were after us.)

so after asking my roomie what one does when they're sick (it entails bundling up and watching tv surrounded by vitamins and tea and romance novels) i think i'm all set for a wonderful, rainy, gray day on the couch under a comforter.

let's all call in sick, ok?

more than a test

this is a pull quote about the No Child Left Behind program from the times article below:

But the evidence is becoming difficult to ignore: when educators do succeed at educating poor minority students up to national standards of proficiency, they invariably use methods that are radically different and more intensive than those employed in most American public schools. So as the No Child Left Behind law comes up for reauthorization next year, Americans are facing an increasingly stark choice: is the nation really committed to guaranteeing that all of the country’s students will succeed to the same high level? And if so, how hard are we willing to work, and what resources are we willing to commit, to achieve that goal?

i was talking about this very thing with my roomie while drinking a whole bottle of wine wednesday night, which may explain my loose grip on reality. i said, 'no one is really serious about education reform. we know what works - we've seen all those programs about education innovations, the best performing charter schools, the curricula that works and leads to college enrollment. if people were serious, they'd scrap everything and take those best practices and make. it. work. if mayor daley is so broken up about chicago's schools, then why isn't he telling CPS to create a Montessori model in every classroom?'

roomie said, 'it costs too much. no one will do it. it's too expensive.'

so we've acknowledged that our public school system is not living up to its standards, and we've honestly tried all the dinky little stop-gaps to solve it (salaries, testing standards, private management, etc.) and nothing has changed.

are the folks in charge of our educational system really that lazy?

What It Takes to Make a Student - New York Times

how do you say 'turkey' in french?

all the goings on lately have been exhausting so roomie and i are going to montreal for the thanksgiving holiday.

pray for safe travels and have a great thanksgiving, everyone!

(feel free to post any ventings and rantings about going home for the holidays here. i won't mind and it'll give me something to read when i get back.)

to whoever doesn't 'get it.'

a list, in light of the Michael Richards/Kramer and UCLA student taser thing:

1. when talking about the use of the N-word, let's have a basic understanding that no one should be using it.

2. yes, some black folk use it. not all of us like that but that doesn't mean everyone gets to.

3. (similarly, yes, some gay folk also use the f-word when they speak with/about one another, but that's not going to make it ok for me to say it. it's bad manners.)

4. (just the way it's bad manners to whine about why certain people get to do certain things that seem naughty and you can't. you just can't. deal with it. if you're burning with a desire to say a naughty word and you're mad that people will think you're a racist if you do, then you have a problem.)

4.5. (and if you ask if that's fair - what are you, five?)

5. and besides, that's not the point. whether or not you are a racist is not the point. who cares if you're a racist? i don't - i'm not friends with racists and i personally prefer not to have anything to do with one.

6. the point is, Richards used it in a really really problematic way. you get a few racial demerits for saying the N-word but you flunk the whole test when you start referencing lynching.

7. and that's what's ugly. when we use the word racism *properly* we are to understand that there's a whole history and cultural tradition supporting it and giving it life; we understand that history isn't in the past - it's now, it's flowing forward, everything we do make us part of it and we inform it just as we're informed by it. history and cultural/social practice make racism real and Richards basically sickened himself and his audience when he vomited that history all over the stage that night.

8. this history claim - does this mean that we don't recognize other histories? i.e., the history of the english oppression of the irish, the spanish decimation of the native american and the indigenous? no way. but that's not the context of this particular conversation. it would be great if the folks that don't 'get it' also wanted to talk about other imperialisms and colonialisms and how they inform our contemporary culture and make our current race relations so frakking complicated.

9. but we all know that's not what you want to talk about, do you? it's funny how some you rhetorically grab onto the history thing and get all upset - 'what about this oppression or that oppression? are you saying that only black people have suffered, only black people have suffered oppression??' no, brother. let's talk about other people's suffering and oppression. i'd love to; if we did then we'd see that us black folk aren't just whining 'victim' every time someone uses the N-word. but be honest. history ain't on your side. you don't really want to go there.

10. but if you do, maybe we can talk about this guy from UCLA (my alma mater!) who totally got tasered for refusing to show school ID and told some campus police to frak off. let's talk about that.

awesome: another man who doesn't know his ovary from his scrotal sac

salon's Broadsheet has an awesome heads up about the guy who's about to be in charge of contraception access and family planning education/policy. sort of like the vet (i.e., dr. dolittle) who was slated to become the head of Women's Issues at the FDA, this new guy is a treat.

he's a pal of leslie unruh, the author of the South Dakota universal abortion ban legislation. (which was defeated.)
he's a schill for the notoriously 'light on scientific accuracy' abstinence-only crowd for the christian right. (which doesn't work.)
(want his bio? check out talk2action's research here.)
he runs a string of those so-called crisis pregnancy centers in massachusets.

and his biggest claim to fame?
he thinks:

sex causes people to go through oxytocin withdrawal which in turn prevents people from bonding in relationships. Seriously.

[Keroack] explained that oxytocin is released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, “trust” encounters, and sexual intercourse. “It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression,” he said.

But apparently if you’ve had sex with too many people you use up all that oxytocin: "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual.” Hear that? Too many sexual partners and you’ll never love again!

(basic science: while it's true that oxytocin plays a major role during labor, breastfeeding and is released into the bloodstream during orgasm - as vasopressin is released in males - and that it does seem to enable trust and ease social anxiety, his basic premise that sexual promiscuity will use up 'too much' and your ability to form bonds with another person will diminish is bullshit - at least not for biological reasons. the number of partners shouldn't matter. if oxytocin levels were subject to fluctuation because of orgasm/sexual intercourse then it would be instance that mattered, not the number of partners.

and what a wonderful, discerning little chemical it would be! if all this was true, then it would also follow that oxytocin is able to distinguish between sex with a marital partner and sex with an extra-marital partner, would it not? genius little chemical!

anyway, oxytocin doesn't 'run out'. if that was the case, every time a woman gave birth she'd be capable of less bonding with each successive child - not to mention that with each instance of sex with her partner, over time, she'd be less able to maintain that bond. see? illogical bullshit.

and doesn't he know that oxytocin now comes in pill or nasal spray? no one has to suffer low bonding!)

this total ignoramus is going to be in charge of a government program for women's sexual health. monday is his first day. nice.

does george w. bush know ANY qualified people??

gasp! a woman's in charge!

i'd like to start collecting all the punditry around pelosi and her gender. i'd really like to start looking at the public discourse surrounding our first female speaker of the house because i'm curious to see how the public constructs a woman who wields real political power now.

will she be 'shrill'?
will she 'intimidate men' and 'will men be unable to relate to her'?
will she be 'emotional'?
'ball busting'?
'a barn burner'?
'man hating'?
'almost masculine in her abilities'?
'a fishwife'?
a 'bitch'?

or will she be...good at her job?

to read:
Pelosi ready for House helm, battle over issues - CNN.com
as well as this over at BlogHer
i'll post more feminist posts on pelosi when i find them. it's gonna a fascinating two years.

who is my neighbor? ted haggard.

although the haggard story broke late last week, i've avoided writing about it for a few reasons. one, it's way too easy to go for the easy ironic joke; two, i wasn't quite sure if i even believed the story (and, believe me, i'm not exactly a haggard fan); three, the whole situation sort of seemed cheap.

the downfall of a preacher is a sad thing. i've seen my own father go through two church splits (we were Baptists, after all) and it was difficult to watch a ministry dissolve right before my eyes, along with the trust that once existed between a man and his congregation. i don't think any kind of ministry really recovers from something like that. because of the intense and intimate nature of a pastor's call, the sudden divestment seems like betrayal and a waste of all those previous years. in my father's case, the ground shifted due to an overly ambitious assistant pastor (such a cliche, isn't it?) with a secret of his own to hide and my father stepped down rather than be embroiled in an long, undignified fight with a once close friend who seemed to think he deserved something he didn't earn. though my father looked ahead with something like optimism, the whole ordeal was hard on him, the family and the folks who left with us. for me and my sister, we saw an ugly picture of church politics and greed. we saw the ugly underbelly of our church laid wide open and we turned away from it as fast as we could.

for haggard, it wasn't his own congregation that betrayed him but what he called his own 'dark nature.' perhaps. i wonder which is the greater sin - haggard's still shadowy liaison with jones or his lying about what led to that liaison for all this time? or is it all of a piece? i was going to ask if it's possible to run from our 'natures' but that's what christianity teaches, doesn't it? we put off the old nature and, behold, we are all made new creatures. i guess there's happy, shiny NEW and then there's the rest of us - let's welcome Haggard among us - who are Newish. we're relatively shiny but with a few spots of tarnishing here and there.

what should a progressive christian do in this case? when a combatant in the culture wars has fallen, a great big arrow sticking out of his back, what should the progressive church person do? most of the commentary around has focused on the 'hypocrisy' of ted haggard. it's more than hypocrisy; if he's actually gay, lobbying for legislation that will outlaw the lives of other americans simply because of who they love, then that's internalized homophobia, that's self-loathing. and that's so much sadder than hypocrisy.

there are clever posts to be written about the limitations of christian celebrity, the futility of living with secrets, the double edged sword of judgment, the end of privacy, the muted pleas for forgiveness from the evangelicals when it's one of their own who fall but its absence when it's anyone else, but i won't write those. (though i could!) instead i just think about how sad it is. sad that a guy was brought low simply because the idea of being christian and gay was inconceivable.

to read:
The Revealer: Haggard's Downfall as well as the nerve article he mentions (the roll up of christian men's self-help books has a pretty good analysis of the imagery and language defining christian masculinity. personally, braveheart does nothing for me.)

update:
haggard's restoration team lost dobson. guess all that tarnished christianity was just too much.

calling all writers: anthology submissions

a grad student from Indiana University approached me about submitting a piece of creative nonfiction to her proposed anthology. i've decided to do it and thought i'd pass on the news to the other women out there who write about their religious upbringing. the call is below. (please pay attention to the guidelines - she's looking for women writers!)
...

call for submissions
I'm currently soliciting creative nonfiction for an anthology; its working title is Growing Up Churched: Young Women Writers on Life, Faith, and Being Raised Evangelical. I'm looking for personal essays in the 3000-5000 word range, narratives centered around this theme. Please pass this call for submissions on to any writers you may know who might be interested in contributing to this project.

I'm looking for essays about growing up evangelical that break the mold. Most of the memoirs out there about growing up evangelical either end up fitting the formulas "wasn't life awful and, boy, I'm glad I escaped the church" or "wasn't life awful and, boy, I'm glad Jesus saved me." I want essays that don't fit these formulas, that tell surprising, fresh, unique stories. My hope is these essays will be both narrative and reflective in some way, whether they're funny or disturbing or grateful or angry. Also, a lot of writing about evangelicals focuses on men, hence the gender bias for this project.

A note – I'm working with a loose definition of "evangelical" here. If a writer grew up Mennonite or Reformed or Methodist or encountered evangelicalism later than childhood, her work might still fit this anthology. The more diverse the stories, the better!

Writers: If you're interested in the anthology and have an essay that you think might work, send it to me ASAP by e-mail at growingupchurched@gmail.com. I'd love to look at your piece and see whether it might fit into this project. If you're interested in contributing the project, but don't have anything on paper, drop me a line to let me know. Then send me a draft of your essay by December 31, 2006 (New Year's Eve). This date is going to be the preliminary deadline for submissions.

And please, please do pass this message on to any writers you think might be interested.

In sum, here are the basic guidelines:

Personal essays in the 3000-5000 word range about growing up female and evangelical.
Contributors should be in their 20's or 30's.
Deadline: December 31, 2006.
Send the essays to me by e-mail at growingupchurched@gmail.com

More information and updates will be online at http://growingupchurched.blogspot.com.

an indecent proposal: if not sex, then how about this...?

have you heard?

as the human sexuality timeline shortens between When We Used to Have Sex and When Sex is Bad in All Forms, apparently the federal gov has decided to be papa to teens AND adults: they want to spend federal dollars on telling adults to not have sex.

the moral reach of our government has now reached a complete, infantilizing low.

is spending federal dollars to tell already sexually active adults to stop being sexually active really the BEST use of our government's budget? what else would they like to spend dollars on - telling us to brush our teeth, eat our veggies, and look both ways before we cross the street?

figleaf has an excellent idea. since uncle sam hates the idea of us gettin' busy, maybe he'll be cool with us touching our private places in pleasurable ways, instead. i'm pretty sure that masturbation counts as abstinence so perhaps the gals at tulip will be able to apply for some of that federal money to promote an 'abstinent' yet pleasurable lifestyle. you think?

(unless killing pleasure is the point. gasp!)

it's a thought...a Green candidate for gov!

Green Party vs. the goliaths | Chicago Tribune

the blagojevich/topinka ads are turning my stomach. can't a girl watch 'dancing with the stars' in peace? apparently not. (

and while we're at it, why doesn't the GOP just come out and call poor tammy duckworth a 'legless satan worshipper'? it'd cut through all the crap and make their ads so much more interesting.)

so my gaze turns toward a candidate who's been running so far under the radar, when i mentioned him at a work meeting, my very politically astute coworkers went, 'Err?' ralph nader pissed me off but i think i could probably go for a Green governor. and if you check out his profile, rich whitney doesn't sound totally crazy. ok, his gun policy is weird, but i can overlook that. i'm from los angeles.

(my rubric for political candidates is quite simple - don't sound like a nutbag.)

change has to start somewhere, right?