between boxes...

i'm covered in paint splotches and taking a short break from unpacking and moving furniture in the new loft so here's an article about young women who earn more than the guy they're dating. it's a cute article but here are a couple of beefs: one, it would have been interesting to see what the guy who was intimidated by his girlfriend's higher salary had to say and, two, this isn't to say that the pay gap is a thing of the past. i betcha these women still aren't being paid the same as their male counterpart.

Putting Money on the Table - New York Times

yikes.
i just noticed a 4-inch bruise on my arm.

thanks to L-, this article in the NYTimes on the woman who was assaulted by her pastor husband: A Minister’s Public Lesson on Domestic Violence - New York Times

i'm reluctant to say that this story reveals a lot about the black community's attitude toward women, women in authority, gender roles or domestic violence but some of the attitudes described in this story (and in other stories about weeks and bynum) are familiar to me, since they were stories i'd heard from my own childhood church: the pressure for women to marry at any cost so they could enjoy sexual intimacy, the poor marital choice that follows, the accusations of homosexuality following a popular pastor, the vacillating congregation that empathizes with an alleged victim but also thinks she somehow 'deserves' her victimization.

i chatted very briefly with my dad about this story. it was brief because our conversations about gender tend to run a very short loop. sure enough, dad's attitude was a mish mash of hedging: 'well, of course the brother was wrong and the book should be thrown at him. no man should hit a woman. but you know, girl, she shoulda left that man alone. why was she running after him? she provoked him.'

roll of eyes. 'right, dad.'

when i watched the couples in my father's church this is what always got my goat: no matter what happened between a man and a woman - marital tension, infidelity, emotional distance, whatever - it was always the woman's fault. the man didn't have to take responsibility for anything, even if it was pretty clear that his contribution to the marital mess was huge.

the dr. sharon ellis davis mentioned in the article works with the Faith Trust Institute, an interfaith organization that educates about sexual and domestic violence in religious communities that was formed when it was clear that rape and domestic violence weren't being addressed adequately in various congregations. i find that stunning; a woman is raped or assaulted and can't go to her pastor, priest or rabbi because she's afraid of what her church will say. where is the failing here? with the victim of assault or with the religious leader whose beliefs about gender make him blame the victim for her own assault?

anyway. it's after 1 am and it's been a long day of unpacking, cleaning and running errands. i'm going to bed.

father, may i? pt 2

so while i was writing yesterday's post on virtuous daughters being something akin to the ideal executive assistant, i kept thinking about various moments in my sunday school training.

what kept flashing through my memory were the stories and precepts about sacrifice for the glory of God: stephen, all the apostles, ruth, abraham, etc.

this is what christian tradition teaches - you give your heart, soul and mind to God. how did that become, for these alarmingly conservative groups, 'abnegate yourself before your Patriarch'? how does devotion to God become 'don't go to college, don't leave home, don't work outside the home and whatever you do, don't think you have dreams and aspirations that go beyond your biology'?

do you get what i'm saying?
while i believe the spiritual precepts in the bible are so, i have a hard time aligning the bible's historical context with these spiritual precepts. it isn't so hard to understand a father being 'in charge' of the women in his family back in the ancient day. women were chattel and functioned in a specific way in an agrarian society - they were how weath was consolidated, how labor forces were created, how tribed moved forward. without the biological function that women served, tribes and families died.

if someone wants to overlay a message from God to women based on the status of women as historical chattel, then that message would be 'women shall be thus forever.' but that's clearly not what the message is. the eternal message is about salvation, not about women's social position, which is something that is mutable and outside of the gospel, i think.

in other words, separate from 'love God yada yada yada,' is the way a virtuous woman was before the dawn of science and literacy, the way a woman is to be forever??

i don't think so.

father, may i?

it's no secret that i have an 'issue' with authority: dads, pastors, cops, bosses, presidents, boyfriends, bus drivers. it's all one thing: Authority. seeing the world divided into sheep and masters, i guess i'd rather not be a willing sheep.

some people think differently. some people think being a sheep is really great.

amanda marcotte has a link to a post by some waay fundamentalist sisters about the dangers of sending your christian daughters to college. her fisking is sharp and funny.

then i read from those two sisters about maturity and the role of an adult daughter still living with her parents and i had to fight down bile:

The sign of maturity isn’t that we simply “obey” our parents’ commands, but that we understand deeply what our parents’ hearts and goals are, and can anticipate and even exceed what they expect of us. A mature, adult daughter who deserves her parents’ trust most certainly isn’t the one who says, “I’m not a child anymore, Dad! I’m an adult! I’m old enough to decide for myself when to get up, and it’s not something you have authority over anymore!” (Literally, “I’m mature enough to demand my own way, and throw a tantrum and threaten to run away if I don’t get it!”) But she also isn’t the one who says, “Ok, ok, Dad, I’ll get up when you tell me to.” The mature daughter is the one that takes the initiative and says, “Dad, what time would you like me to get up? I know that spending time with your family before you leave for work is important to you, and I love that about you… so how can I help make it happen?” This is one thing that makes us different from mindless automatons with no wills of our own (which some girls seem mortally afraid of becoming.)

why does this make me spew?

because this is exactly what makes a great executive assistant (which i was for a while before i came to my senses and got the hell out.) to be the ideal assistant you have to completely evacuate your own identity; your ways, needs, sensibilities and wants are completely replaced by the routines, habits, desires and enmities of your Executive. the line separating the two of you, if the relationship works out to the Executive's advantage, begins to disappear.

your day begins by asking yourself, 'what will upset Executive this morning and what can i do to make sure that it doesn't? what will make Executive happy and what can i do to facilitate more of that happiness? who is Executive going to fire today and how can i make sure that person isn't me?'

your day is filled with wondering what Executive will want for lunch, if Executive knows how to get to the airport, if Executive can find his/her way to baggage claim without step by step directions and whether Executive will have to stand in line longer than necessary once Executive gets to the hotel. you even ponder the possibility of traveling with Executive just to make sure everything gets done the way Executive wants it.

you will be consumed with wondering if Executive noticed how long your lunch break was, if Executive will buy you a birthday gift and if Executive will notice that you supported the whole team and made that presentation happen at 10 pm while the rest of the team went home and Executive went home to Executive's spouse. the idea of taking a day off scares you; what will happen to Executive if you're home or on vacation? how will Executive accomplish anything?

you will know details of the Executive's life only a partner or family member would know and you would order the world of the Executive to cater to those details: favorite foods, allergies, likes/dislikes, anniversary dates, birthdays, number of children, second home location, social security number, credit cards, taxes, personal finances. as ideal Assistant it's your job to care for these things just like they're your own.

while the Executive is proud of the fact that 'his Susan' or 'his Ali' or 'her Cathy' runs the Executive's life for them, they are also unaware of the seething resentment and anger that will slowly build in their assistant until it's bribed away. at least, if Susan, Ali or Cathy had any sense of self-preservation, they'd be filled with resentment and anger. if they know no better they will acquiesce and sink into a gray little nothing who doesn't exist unless they have an Executive to serve.

those of us who quit being an assistant did so because we hated every single frakking minute of it; being subservient was foreign to our sense of identity and purpose. whenever we interviewed with other firms we were forced to say, honestly, 'i don't do deference very well.'

the sisters have an odd way of defining 'independence.' though they say that the virtuous daughter asks her Executive - uh, Father - what his wishes would be for her, the end result is that she obeys. the virtuous daughter's will is entirely subject to that of her patriarch. in history, we'd call that kind of social organization a fiefdom.

and that's what these two sisters are advocating: deference. service. servility. servant.

who would groom another human being to glory in that kind of personal abnegation?
and why would you say that it's what God wants?

democratic party: big tent or big ol' plantation?

i love this part of the article, about democratic reaction to the sharp anti-war ad placed by MoveOn.org:

They said MoveOn had handed Republicans a fresh talking point to criticize Democrats and turn the focus from Iraq in a critical week in the war debate.
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said on MSNBC that the advertisement was “simply over the top, and I think it’s inappropriate, period.”
Ms. Pelosi said on “Good Morning America” on ABC that she “would have preferred that they not do such an ad.”
Republicans have called on Democratic Congressional leaders and presidential candidates to disavow the advertisement, but they have largely declined.

and this is what i say to the weak-ass democrats who can't seem to grasp that folks out here are angry about what's happening to this country: you're either representing us or you're just covering your own ass.

Behind an Antiwar Ad, a Powerful Liberal Group - New York Times

this is offensive, tom ford

in a move that demonstrates that being an A-gay does not automatically translate into being a feminist, tom ford's latest ad for his men's cologne hammers that point home:

you know. just in case you didn't get it the first time:

[thanks, Feministing!]

Jena 6: conviction vacated!

Louisiana Appeals Court Throws Out Conviction in Racially Charged 'Jena 6' Case - washingtonpost.com

the first high school student to be found guilty in the Jena 6 trial had his conviction vacated over the weekend by the louisiana 3rd circuit court of appeal; they ruled mychal bell never should have been tried as an adult and the charges of second-degree battery were inappropriate.

this is more than excellent news. it's news that says that advocacy works. grassroots organizing works. public attention on injustice can bring change.

i feel that if those few overseas papers and then the massive email campaign launched by the folks at DemocracyNow and Color of Change hadn't mobilized such grassroots, public outrage, these young boys would have been sent quietly to prison.

but there are 5 other boys waiting trial and their ordeal is by no means over.
if people concerned with racial justice, and equal application of the law, keep up the pressure perhaps these boys can be freed.
...

what can you do about Jena 6?

1. spread the word. the more attention this case gets, the better
these boys chances have for getting their lives back. go here to read about one of
the online campaigns, send a letter to the district attorney and the governor
and find out about further actions.

2. if you have the time and inclination, join the rallies on sept
20. (or, better yet, if you have a blog write about the Jena 6 on Sept 20
as a way of participating in the action.)

several midwest ywcas are organizing buses down to louisiana.
information is here:
In the Midwest region, both Toledo, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan have busses
going down. Toledo is being hosted by a group of concerned citizens and
Detroit is going through the NAACP. For more details regarding either,
please feel free to call Delma Jackson @ 419. 508. 8968.

the naacp has information about their coordinating efforts here.

3. be aware of the increasing criminalization of minority youth in
this country. some research can be found here.

burqa, anyone?

Feministing has an angry-fying post about Southwest Airlines now taking it upon themselves to tell women how to dress and threatening to kick them off the plane because of it.

what. the. hell?
i have points with this stupid airline. but i may not any longer.

if you'd like to share a piece of your mind (politely, people!), share it with the following folks:
Jim Ruppel, Vice president, customer relationsP.O. Box 36647Dallas, TX 75235-1647(214) 792-4223 (general branch number, will have to attempt asking to be transferred to Jim by name) jim.ruppel@wnco.com

Donna Conover, Executive vice president, customer operations(214) 792-4000 (corporate location #, ask the operator to transfer you) donna.conover@wnco.com

Chief executive, Gary Kelly, Chief executive officer(214) 792-4000 (corporate location #, ask the operator to transfer you) gary.kelly@wnco.com

Black and Missing but not Forgotten

Black and Missing but not Forgotten

i saw this site on feministing and it bears more viewing.
our media, though it protests that it is 'objective', is hardly that.

women of color go missing every year yet hardly garner the same amount of media attention.
so one young woman has taken it upon herself to focus her attention on missing black women, hoping to get some little publicity for them.

visit every once in a while and see if you've seen these women. their families would appreciate it.

The Rip-off in Iraq: makes me wanna holler

The Rip-off in Iraq: You Will Not Believe How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone - The Smirking Chimp

while i was taking a break from packing boxes as slowly as i could over the holiday weekend, i read this article from my Roomie's Rolling Stone. it gave me gas.

here's a large nugget of how our government has screwed the pooch through neglect, ineptitude and plain old greed:

'[The private contractor's] job is over when their money ends. When I call
Snider to clarify this amazing statement, he declines to discuss the matter further. But if you look over the history of the Iraqi reconstruction effort, you will find versions of this excuse everywhere. When Custer Battles was caught delivering broken trucks to the Army, a military official says the company told him, "We were only told we had to deliver the trucks. The contract doesn't say they had to work."
Such excuses speak to a monstrous vacuum of patriotism; it would be hard to imagine contractors being so blithely disinterested in results during World War II, where every wasted dollar might mean another American boy dead from gangrene in the Ardennes. But the rampant waste of money and resources also suggests a widespread contempt for the ostensible "purpose" of our presence in Iraq. Asked to cast a vote for the war effort, contractors responded by swiping everything they could get their hands on -- and the administration's acquiescence in their thievery suggests that it, too, saw making a buck as the true mission of the war. Two witnesses scheduled to testify before Congress against Custer Battles ultimately declined not only because they had received death threats but because they, too, were contractors and feared that they would be shut out of future government deals. To repeat: Witnesses were afraid to testify in an effort to recover government funds because they feared reprisal from the government.
The Bush administration's lack of interest in recovering stolen funds is one of the great scandals of the war. The White House has failed to litigate a single case against a contractor under the False Claims Act and has not sued anybody for breach of contract. It even declined to join in a lawsuit filed by whistle-blowers who are accusing KBR of improper invoicing in Fallujah. "For all the Bush administration claims to do in the war against terrorism," Grayson said in congressional testimony, "it is a no-show in the war against war profiteers." In nearly five years of some of the worst graft and looting in American history, the administration has recovered less than $6 million.'

in 2004, twenty million women could have changed the course of the election but they never made it to the voting booth.

i desperately want those twenty million women to show up next year.

not just for the nfl: even pastors beat their wives

edmontonsun.com - World - Hubby charged in minister's beating

so. bishop thomas w. weeks (the 3rd) put the beat down on his wife, gospel singer/televangelist, juanita bynum in a hotel parking lot. he chokes her, 'stomps' on her, flees the scene, she ends up in the hospital, he's arrested and released on $40,000 bail, and then he goes to church.

his supporters, instead of fleeing from a so-called spiritual leader who has poor impulse control, have instead chosen to circle their wagons around him and say totally sheeplistic, insane things like:
"There are three sides to every story. Nobody has the right to judge anybody. God is in the midst of that and will work it out."
"We all make mistakes. He deserves another opportunity."
"Let's love and pray they stay together! It may be a blessing to us all!"

and then there's this love letter from a commenter on an aol board:
"He might have a short fuse. He was obviously tryna walk away from the situation and SHE followed him. A man can only take so much from a nagging ass wife."

ah, yes. the 'nagging ass wife.'
the mouthy, back-talking, sassy, 'don't know her place' emasculating jezebel that all men must beware.

according to church folk, here's the lesson for all you single church gals out there:
if your man has a 'short fuse,' it's no one's fault but your own nagging ass self for making him stomp you so hard in the face a parking lot attendant has to pull him off you.

i hate ignorance. i really really really do. and ignorance crossed with self-hatred and misogyny?
even worse.

[shudder]
sorry; i'm having a flashback to my old church where attitudes like this grew like rotten fruit on a tree.

ah, geez. and this morning, i came across a piece discussing Christian Domestic Discipline.
i really can't take church people's lame excuses for smacking a woman. (and there is a huge difference between consent and acquiescence. one implies enthusiastic participation, the other implies coercion.)

maybe that's what bishop weeks was practicing - just some good old christian domestic discipline.

Jena 6: action down in Louisiana

it's amazing what our news media buries. the events in this campaign happened one year ago, but it's just now beginning to filter to the attention of progressive bloggers and folks who keep tabs on racial justice issues.

truthout has an awesome profile of the story here.

this is the short story:

Last fall in Jena, Louisiana, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school
accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their
protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can
take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."1 A series of
white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when
a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by
charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit
murder.

the first of these students is about to be sentenced for 22 years and a campaign has begun to halt the legal process because it is so clearly uneven, biased and racist. it's like something happening out of 1952 Jim Crow south. the families of the remaining 5 students are frantically trying to stop what's happening to their kids.

ColorOfChange.org has the full story and a petition to be sent to the louisiana governor.

dogs v. women: not even dogs safe

Vick Apologizes, Vows to Redeem Himself - The Huffington Post

but when will he apologize to the dogs??

i think i like this quote best. it sums up why nothing will change in pro sports re: criminal behavior, least of all the invisible crime of violence against women by professional athletes:

"We cannot tell you today that Michael is cut from the team," [Atlanta Falcons owner] Blank said. "Cutting him today may feel better emotionally for us and many of our fans. But it's not in the long-term best interests of our franchise."

ahh. of course.

on the move

i think i wrenched something.

my back is all stiff from bending at awkward angles and lifting boxes.
i stink.
i'm covered in dust and grime.
i really stink.
my hair looks like i've been pulled through the underbrush.
the apartment is totally jacked up.

got a text message asking if i was free to go out tonight from a boy.
there is NO way i'll be in any shape to be girly and sexy in under 48 hours.

moving sucks.

more on women and dogs: the clueless need to get a clue

Sara Whitman: Michael Vick: You Should Have Been Beating Women Instead - Living Now on The Huffington Post

her column is, granted, a little loose and baggy. the sports writers i've read on the same issue had a much sharper way of making their point. i also think her comment about race distracted her readers - clearly, they didn't get what she was saying at all. (it's not about the action itself, it's about the reaction in the media! two separate things!) once you imply there's a racial double standard, folks are either going to agree with you (rare) or they're going to reel back in denial that such a thing, and their participation in it, could ever exist.

anyway, her commenters are interesting. they remind me of the creepy guys who work really hard to define exactly what rape is so they'll know what to do the next time some girl gets drunk at a party. ("is it rape if she's totally drunk but we were flirting earlier and i know she would have wanted to do it even though i never actually heard her say the words? what about if she's ... blah blah blah rape apologist rape apologist")

i did a few hours research yesterday at work (because i think i'm going to write about it in our next newsletter) and it was stunning what i found; in most cases charges had been dropped, dismissed or, in the rare case a conviction was ever made, the athlete usually got a slap on the wrist. a fine, a paid suspension, a few hours community service. if ever someone was actually fired or dropped from a team it was because he was on his way to prison, or the assault was so bad it was undeniable and was going to be a PR nightmare. in other words, the franchise couldn't ignore it anymore.

(or their attempt to smear the victim failed.)

here are notes on a sampling of what i found (and the more you dig, the more of a chain of out of control male behavior you uncover. totally reprehensible.) questions in brackets are details i didn't have time to confirm, yet:

Carolina wide receiver Rae Carruth conspired to murder his pregnant girlfriend. Nonetheless, a jury found him guilty in 2001, and he's serving a 19- to 23-year prison term.
February 2007 - Pacman Jones - Tennessee Titans was involved in an incident at a Las Vegas strip club that led to the shooting of three people, including a guard who is now paralyzed from the waist down. [suspended for 2007 season; must reapply for reinstatement]
mid-1990s - Lawrence Phillips - Nebraska college football star pleaded no contest to trespassing and assault after allegedly beating his girlfriend, who said he dragged her by her hair down three flights of stairs. 2005 - wanted in connection with two alleged domestic abuse incidents in san diego and one other domestic abuse incident in los angeles; [suspended from nebraska college team; went on to play for rams, dolphins, 49ers, european and canadian football teams until 2003; guilty in 2006 of assault with deadly weapon ]
2003 - Kobe Bryant - (nba) LA Lakers - accused and arrested for sexual assault; charges dropped when accuser refused to testify; matter settled out of court
1999 - Bobby Chouinard - (mlb) Arizona Diamondbacks - hit his wife and held a loaded gun to her head and served a one-year sentence — but in three-month increments during off-seasons. [now with Colorado Rockies]
2006 - Brett Myers - (mlb) Phillies allegedly dragged his wife around by the hair on a Boston street in front of witnesses. He still pitched the next day at Fenway Park, and was later granted a paid leave of absence. [wife dropped charges]
2004 - Michael Pittman - Bucs - was indicted three years ago on two counts of aggravated assault for intentionally ramming his Hummer into a car carrying his wife and 2-year-old son. It was the fourth time Pittman had been arrested on domestic-abuse charges, but his wife, Melissa, told police there were 30 or 40 others that she never reported. Pittman got a three-game suspension.
mid-90s, Christian Peter - Nebraska, then an All-Big Eight defensive tackle, arrested eight times at Nebraska, where he was twice accused of brutal rape — charges resulting in one out-of-court settlement and another conviction for sexual assault. Patriots gave up draft rights to Peter, but he would eventually play for three NFL teams.
Summer 2007 - Former Seahawk Chad Eaton was arrested for investigation of domestic violence.

2007 - Lionel Gates - Tampa Bay - placed in a pre-trial intervention program and ordered to take anger-mgmt courses after being arrested for an altercation with a pregnant woman in March
1996 - Lamar Thomas - Tampa Bay - rammed pregnant fiancee's head through a window; later released from team
May 2007 - AJ Nicholson - Bengals - arrested on domestic violence charges; suspended from FSU while accused of sexual assault
2005 - Brad Hopkins - Tennessee Titans - arrested and charged with domestic assault for allegedly choking his wife
2005 - Samari Rolle - Tennessee Titans - wife needed stitches above her eye; released from Titans, re-signed with Ravens
2001 - Jason Kidd - (NBA) NJ Nets - guilty of spousal abuse; no punishment
2007 - Ron Artest - (nba) Sacramento Kings - fighting in the stands and arrested for domestic assault in March; received a 2-game suspension and $600 fine
2006 - Bretty Myers - (mlb) Phillies - assaulted wife on street and charged with assault and battery; 'off-field' incident not punished by MLB
2005 - Reuben Droughns - Cleveland Browns - arrested for domestic violence (3rd degree assault and harassment); [charges dropped; currently playing for NY Giants]
2006 - Santonio Holmes - Steelers - arrested for domestic violence and assault; judge dismissed charges
2006 - Markus Curry - Chargers - domestic assault [dropped by team]; 2002 - while at UM, pleaded guilty of assault on girlfriend
2006? - Rob Reynolds - Titans - domestic violence, charges reduced and pled guilty to misdemeanor; suspended for one game?
2006 - Randy Starks - Titans - domestic violence [punishment by league?]
2006 - Sean Locklear - Seattle Seahawks - alleged assault on girlfriend (grabbed around her neck); [result?; punishment by league?]
2007 - Brandon Marshall - Broncos - arrested for false imprisonment and domestic violence
2000 - Patrick Roy - (nhl) Colorado Avalanche - domestic violence [result?; punishment by league?]
2007 - Elijah Dukes - (mlb) Tampa Bay Devils - violating domestic violence injunction
1986 - Darryl Strawberry - (mlb) NY Mets - domestic assault and battery; eventually suspended for drug abuse, not violence against women
2007 - Julio Matteo - mlb/Seattle Mariners - beat, kicked and bit wife's lip; knocked down to Triple-A and suspended for 10 days without pay; traded to Phillies and Double-A

this is just through 3 hours of research, tracking names mentioned in columns written by sports writers who are disgusted that pro athletes are basically being told it's OK to assault a woman. when there is no consequence for hitting a woman, they'll keep on assaulting us; when fans twist themselves into knots to excuse behavior that would otherwise land their best buddy in jail (for at least a night), they're telling pro athletes that it's ok; when advertisers turn a blind eye to these charges and incidents, they're saying it's ok.

so fuck vick and his dogs. i don't care if a guy's found with a funeral pyre in his backyard full of dead animals.

these guys, these batterers, should have been in jail and shame on all their fans and supporters who collaborate with them.

women v. dogs: dogs win

ChicagoSports.com: The greater outrage
kudos for rick morrissey for writing something that more men need to say. and not just sports writers.

last night Roomie and i were watching the daily show where stewart (love!) ripped on the nfl for their reaction to the vick/dogfighting thing.

Roomie looked over at me and said, ' you know, dogfighting is bad but i don't get all the fuss.'
'i think it has something to do with his role in the dogfighting. he wasn't just a participant but he was, like, crucially involved. the ringleader or something.'

'oh. but i still don't get it. i mean, they're dogs. awful but they're dogs.'
'i know. i think about every pro athlete that's been arrested for beating the shit out of their girlfriends or wives or raping some woman and no one gets all twisted like this.'

Roomie said, 'exactly. bizarre.'
i snorted, 'typical.'

it's typical of an all male bastion of privilege and money protecting itself. oh sure, the big bad men might get a pass for knocking a few teeth out or blacking some woman's eye. he might pay a fine and serve some community service hours but nothing really happens to him. however, kill a pooch and then he loses his fancy contract and serves jail time.

just goes to show you where women are on the big manly patriarchal chain of being, huh?

other stuff:
this is also a pretty good article about pro athletes and the pass our culture gives them when it comes to domestic or sexual assault. this is a better article from the village voice.

in fact, if you want to see some good stuff, just google 'NFL domestic assault' and see what comes up.

and these are some recent news articles that have noticed the deafening silence when women are on the receiving end of some pro athletic pulchritudinous punching.

this is a non-profit formed to educate the public and support women who have been assaulted or raped by college or pro-athletes.

between american princess and bratz, there's jesus toys!

wasp jerky: Toy Story

down in comments, the ever-reliable WaspJerky has brought to my attention the existence of faith-based toys. barbie makes me gag, bratz make me want to hide in a cave and american girl place just makes me tired. i have NOTHING against wholesome toys. i, myself, had a very modest Holly Hobby that i loved until my german shepherd ripped off her head and it had to be repaired. she wore the cutest bloomers!

but wasn't leah the Ugly Sister jacob picked??
so why is the Ugly Sister dark skinned? huh? huh?
i mean, come on - elizabeth is a shiny blonde! when do OT women get to be blonde and fair-skinned??

(how embarrassing it would be if some bible savvy reader discovered a verse in the OT that said something like '...and Leah, who was black as pitch, went to the well and drew water...blah blah blah.')

but that's not what i want to bring to your attention. direct your eyes to Wasp Jerky's mention of the sex shoppe for christian married couples!

tee hee!

dear jesus, teach me to fry it up in a pan

from Feminary we get this nifty post about Southern Baptist Seminary offering a new set of courses for women (i.e, the wives of seminary students.)

gender studies? sorta.
hermeneutics of gender? a little.
historical context of women's lives in the bible? uh...
how to whip up a casserole, sew a dress, keep that quiver full AND help your husband with his greek?

exactly!

read on (bold and italics are mine because i just can't believe it):

Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation's largest Southern Baptist seminaries,
is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to
establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.
It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in
homemaking. The program is only open to women.

lordy. lordy lordy lordy.
it's christian home ec. i can't take it. i really can't. there is nothing more nightmarish for me than hours of Home Ec specifically designed to bolster frakked up traditional gender roles. maybe if my mom had taken some of these courses she wouldn't have been so angry...she would have sipped the kool-aid and learned to play some hymns on the organ, like a proper pastor's wife.

OMG! you have to look at their brochure: the sanitary napkin font, the soft focus photo, the uplifted (white) face. it's a christian romance novel cover! and it has the ubiquitous lavender rose!!

some of their course offerings:
Embracing Femininity

i think i'll just stop there. my brain just broke.

a sobering reminder we're at war

anyone catch The Daily Show last night?

there was a really sobering moment when jon stewart confronted the author of dick cheney's new biography and it was a thing of beauty.

earlier, he'd played the clip of Cheney being eerily prescient, but then he said that the difference between the liberals and the conservatives on the iraq war was that the right lied and used their lies (even when they admitted they knew the truth) to brand those who didn't believe their lies as traitors and un-American. then he wondered why we should believe anything this administration, especially cheney, has to say about their accomplishments when they've been wrong about everything.

when the author tried to mitigate all this and say that the right never really did any of those things, they just have a different way of viewing solutions, he was booed by the audiience and Jon Stewart got super serious:

Stewart: Let me say this: I think there's a real feeling in this country that your patriotism has been questioned, by people in very high-level positions, not fringe people. You know, I myself had some idiot from Fox [News Channel] playing the tape of me after September 11th, very upset, and them calling me a phony, because,
apparently, my grief didn't mean acquiescence. So, I think that it's a fair point to say—
Hayes: I think we can agree that we shouldn't be questioning other people's patriotism; on the other hand, I think it's totally legitimate to talk about different ways of handling the war on terror and for them to make their case.
Stewart: If they were to make their case on that, I'm saying to you, I think we'd have a fair argument and agreement on how to move forward. They haven't done that, and the evidence that they haven't done that is, he made that case in 1994, he knew those were the problems, and they never brought it up in the run-up to the war. (snip)

the segment was very sobering. no laughing. no jokes. just really disappointed resignation that our administration just screwed the pooch for the past 6 years and turned against its own citizenry to do so.

you can find a transcript here.

what did we expect? competency?

Air Force turns tables on rape accuser - Los Angeles Times

i've said it once and i'll say it again: our military has NO capacity to deal with sexual assault. whether it's tailhook, academy assaults, rapes overseas or sexual harassment that leads to assault, our military does not know how to address either a rape victim's needs or a perpetrator's crime.

this unfolding story has a way of ginning up the bile in a way that most stories of sexual assault in the military have not. perhaps it's the way that the military apparatus that is supposed to investigate a crime has suddenly turned its eye on the woman who reported it. perhaps it's the obvious way that the men involved are wholly protected while she's left to twist in the wind. perhaps it's the unease with which i can imagine that this could totally happen outside the closed world of the military.

the question needs to be asked: do we believe women? do we believe women when they've said they've been raped? or do we look for any excuse to absolve a man of that crime?

'well, i've heard that women make up charges. so how do we know she's telling the truth?'

is that our job, to make sure someone is telling the truth? or is our duty to believe someone who says she's been raped? wouldn't we believe any other victim of crime?

another church gal!

Christian Feminist is a blog found through a commenter and i think i like it!
(and, no, it's not just because she links to me, too...)

Illinois General Assembly : overtime in hell

you can listen to the IL general assembly argue about the operational budget here:

Illinois General Assembly - House of Representatives Audio/Video

fascinating.
it's like a twilight zone version of mr. smith goes to washington.

[via capitol fax blog]

men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses...

Feministing has a great post about some bullshit article that whines about a 40-year old woman who can't find a man.

are you kidding me??
WHY are people still writing these lameass articles?
why are we still listening to fools who say things like 'smart girls will never be married because they're too smart?'
conversely, why can't i find the article that says 'smart women tell little man-boys to take a flying fuck'?

i mean, please. PLEASE!

aargh. the inherent sexism of our popular culture is almost enough to make me wanna send a stink bomb to some magazines.

Paid Family Leave: Take Action

if you go here, you can send a letter urging dick durbin and barack obama to support paid family leave legislation (or whoever your federal legislator is).

what's the issue? (from the Women Employed action page):

The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007, introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Ted Stevens (R-AK), would provide eight weeks of paid benefits to people who must take time off for a family or medical leave. The Act builds on the foundation set by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows workers to take unpaid time off for reasons that include the birth or adoption of a child, to care for a child, spouse, or parent with a serious illness, or to care for their own serious illness.

The Family Leave Insurance Act provides eight weeks of paid leave over a 12-month period. Benefits are based on salary, with the lowest wage earners receiving 100 percent of their wages. The program will be funded through small, shared employee/employer premiums. Businesses with more than 50 employees would be required to comply with the Act, though smaller businesses may choose to opt in.

The Family Leave Insurance Act is an important step in ensuring that Americans can balance work responsibilities and family needs. It is especially important to the millions of low-wage workers who cannot afford to take the unpaid leave provided by the FMLA.
Contact your federal legislators today to ask them to support the Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007. Americans should not have to choose between the job they need and the family they love.

Women Employed : Take Action

hello, Kitty: threat to global masculinity

horror of horrors!
who will save us from the egregious crimes of bad policemen?
Hello, Kitty!!

one one hand we have the 'isn't it funny?' factor of modern thai crimebusting; on the other hand we are presented the same old tired thinking that anything 'girly' is kryptonite for 'real' manly men. what is more shaming than an official reprimand? this from a police officer:

“This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,” he said. “Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It’s not something macho police officers want covering their biceps.”

cute. pink. girlish. childish. feminine. danger to masculinity everywhere. elicits shame and guilt.
who knew Hello, Kitty had so much power?

hey, let's make a bunch of these armbands and drop them on iraq.

To Punish Thai Police, a Hello Kitty Armband - New York Times

i rock.

no, no. it's true! they told me.

today, at a regional conference, i totally rocked my panel presentation (How Advocacy can be a Tactic in Your Overall Internal/External Strategic Communications Strategy.) barely looked at my hastily cobbled notes, delivered my message, kept the energy level up, elicited some laughs and made my office look really really good.

i. rock.
...
of course, i'm also horribly cash poor right now (thanks to bad budgeting math) so my head won't get too big anytime soon.

thank goodness my Roomie lent me cab fare, or i'd be in northbrook, selling my blood to get back to the city.

justice for iraqi girl

G.I. Gets 110 Years for Rape and Killing in Iraq - New York Times

the prosecution of the rape and murder of the 14 year old iraqi girl, abeer qassim al-janabi, and 4 members of her family seems to be drawing to a close, with 3 soldiers convicted and sentenced; the ringleader, steven d. green, is scheduled to be prosecuted in federal court. his cohort is going to testify against him and i can only hope he gets the death penalty.

vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
but sometimes justice gets served here on earth.

wow. prayer really DOES work

OMG.

my doctor's office just called and told me my surgery (which i was totally freaking out about below) has been cancelled!

why?

because, apparently, i'm so freaking anemic (6.8 out of 11 scale) it scared them and now i have to spend the next 4 months raising my blood levels.

mysterious ways, folks.

the meta-narrative of my fibroid: or, fibroids as God's feminist punishment

it is 4 days until Agatha-extraction. (i named my fibroid Agatha; it brings to mind a pink, lumpy old lady huddled in a warm snug place who's about to get evicted. a miss marple of uterine invaders.)

against my will and despite my best 'think positive-ness' my imagination is full of those awful NBC Dateline-esque news stories: Stone Philips fills the tv screen with his big impassive face and says, 'It was an ordinary procedure. One performed millions of times before on millions of ordinary women just like her. But, sadly, the family and friends of Ding would soon realize that sometimes tragedy strikes despite the ordinary."

or something lame like that.

i can't help but think that if the next 4 days was a plot point in a novel bought in the checkout lane at the supermarket, i'd be worried about Me about now. reading about the protagonist who has made some questionable decisions over the past year and blatantly flaunted a 'whatever' face to the world at large, i would be worried that the Author would take this opportunity in the narrative to 'teach Me a lesson'. (sort of like the annoying holly hunter show Saving Grace.)

in such a mass market novel, this would be the moment in the story where the hard drinking/smoking/sexing wench (Me) would be given the opportunity to Learn Something Valuable about strength in perseverance as she recovers from the stroke she's had because the anathesia was wrong and she struggles to form basic words;
or i learn the love of a good man as the doctor, who accidentally removed all my reproductive organs because he's a drunk, falls in love with me when i sue him in a malpractice case that will change the shape of litigation forEVER;
or maybe i learn the identity of the 5 people i'd talk to in heaven after i bleed out on the operating table because i forgot to tell my doctors i've been taking an aspirin a day to stop a toothache.

these are the mental stories that fill my days when i'm not paying attention. needless to say, i'm a little stressed out.
...
the other day, when i was with Roomie and some friends celebrating Roomie's birthday, i was asked how i was holding up.

i said, 'uh, ok. i'm just slightly anxious about, you know, dying.'
Roomie said, 'you have to go into it thinking you're going to die. it's liberating.'
'you know, that's SO not soothing,' i said. (although there was a little voice asking me, If you're so cool with your faith, how come you're anxious? then i told the little voice to shut the frak up - i'm a weak human, that's why!)

she shrugged. 'it's soothing to me. i don't know why you're worried. you have no issue with dying. you talk to jesus and stuff.'

i said, 'it's not dying. it's the southern baptist superstition that i could still be wrong. i mean, yeah, i've done and believed almost all of the right things - almost - but what if i could still go to hell? presbyterians have that 'sealed' thing. baptists? not so much. God has a crazy sense of humor and right when you think you're all right, BAM! He could let hell could getcha.'

Roomie said, 'you are crazy.'

another friend, who also grew up fundamentalist, laughed and said, 'no. punishment or the devil's always there. ready to get you.'

i said, 'see? you can take the girl out of the baptist, but blah blah blah. still there. and i was with B- last week? yeah. could totally be punished for being a tart and God will kill me and i'll go to hell.'

my laughing friend said, 'but that's not the worst case scenario. worst case scenario is you end up a vegetable.'
i said, 'SEE?? she gets it! that's it! i could end up a vegetable because i had sex last week and i'm really supposed to be a repressed baptist virgin my whole life until i get married!'

'totally. nutbag. the two of you,' my Roomie said. but she doesn't get it.

she made artsy-craftsy dioramas in sunday school while i memorized scripture, learned about the rapture and was told how everyone was going to hell to burn in eternal hell fire if they knew gay people or had sex.

(and, yeah. any comment resembling this will get deleted: 'well, if you were a REAL christian woman you wouldn't be so worried. i hope God sends you a blood clot and you end up like terry shiaivo. then you'll learn.')

i don't read Hugo Schwyzer enough and i should. he's thoughtful, smart and takes care of something called a chinchilla. (yeeks.) but he's also one of the rare churchy guys around who writes about women, feminism and modern masculinity in a way that doesn't make me want to get in a black van, roofie a few guys and take a hammer to someone's penis.

(hey. sometimes i get angry. i'm bad. i know that.)

check out his post about male posturing and also his link to this blog that talks about grace and faith and choice. it's not about reproductive choice but whether faith is a choice. it's all very somber and honest and real writing about faith.

ok. now i'm going to leave my office and meet Roomie for a birthday drink.

Soldier Testifies in Rape - Slaying Case - New York Times

although this story has dropped into the memory hole the trials against the american soldiers who raped and killed an iraqi girl (also killing other members of her family) continues.

i'd think that this trial alone should give us pause about our 'mission' over there and call us home.
but i guess not.

what's a little rape and murder when we're defending freedom?

kick to the SCOTUS: house votes to reverse Ledbetter decision!

Feminist Wire Daily Newsbriefs: U.S. and Global News Coverage

holy crap.
how fantastic is this??

there are 2 new pieces of legislation that need as much support as possible in order to fight wage discrimination:

The Court ruled that discrimination charges must be filed within 180 days of the original discriminatory action. If signed into law, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (HB 2831) would make it so that each paycheck could be considered a discriminatory action. The Act essentially restores Title VII, which covers wage discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, and religion, to its original status as previously interpreted by the courts.

Companion legislation in the Senate was introduced last week. Called the Fair Pay Restoration Act (S 1843), the bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Education, Labor, and Pensions.

awesome, awesome, awesome.
"each paycheck could be considered a discriminatory action."

have i said awesome enough?

bad mommy monday: celebs have moms, too

more on the way our culture judges and scrutinizes mothers - even celebs' mommies:

But the amount of derision directed at mothers seems out of proportion.
“We still have a virgin-whore binary in American pop culture, and this governs motherhood as well,” Professor Douglas said. The same way in which girls are labeled either good or bad, so are mothers. The same level of censure does not seem to apply to sons, whose risky behavior is often seen as merely a rite of passage.
Professor Douglas thinks the reproach directed at some celebrities’ mothers speaks to the particular kinds of lessons that mothers are supposed to teach their daughters — lessons Lindsay, Britney and Paris seem not to have learned. “It’s supposed to be a mother’s job to train her daughter into how to domesticate her various desires,” she said. “If we see a young woman who hasn’t done that, the mother has failed her tutorial.”

i love that phrase: 'domesticate her various desires.' good mothers are supposed to teach us how to tame desire, make them homey, safe, appropriate. make them 'feminine.' i also like the connection the piece makes to bourgeois values and idealizations of womanhood. so victorian.

and if you go to these different gossip sites (where female judgment runs rampant), you'll read that these lessons about appropriate motherly/daughterly behavior are well-ingrained. (though, apparently, easily discarded, as well.)

but, as the article notes, scrutiny of the father and of sons is not often done - and this perhaps is an oversight. where is the surveillance of fatherly behavior? where is the constant preying on the behavior of sons gone bad?

(where is the chastising of joe francis' mother, for instance? why has his home training gone unnoticed, while the parenting skills of the girls he preys on becomes fodder for vicious speculation?)

how would our popular discourse change if we, for instance, began a hyper-close look at sports figures and their daddy issues? (or their absent daddy issues?) would we say that doping and cheating and violence and dog-fighting and assault could be laid at the feet of these athletes' fathers? (even if the fathers aren't present, their absence IS a presence, one could argue.)

but no. that's not as much fun as looking at a woman self-destruct and then blaming her mother. so much better to kick a woman than scrutinize a man.

Sometimes Mothers Can Do No Right - New York Times

family leave and litigation

Jobs - Labor - Discrimination - Family and Child Care - Courts and Decisions - Lawsuits - New York Times

this is a pretty good article outlining several legal fronts on the war against working families.
(notice i didn't just frame this as a mommy issue - it's a family issue.)

what i notice is how enduring our culture's stereotypes and assumptions are about who should be caregiver, who must be breadwinner and how faithful our workplaces are in upholding really simplistic gender roles. (again, patriarchy.)

an example from the article:

Knussman is a churchgoing Christian and a conservative Republican. In 1999, he
also became the first person to prevail in a sex-discrimination lawsuit filed
under the Family and Medical Leave Act. A jury awarded him $375,000 in damages,
although a judge subsequently reduced the amount to $40,000. The suit was filed
shortly after his wife, Kimberly, became pregnant and began to suffer from an
array of medical complications, including pre-eclampsia, a potentially
life-threatening condition. Wishing to be there to support her, Knussman wrote
to his boss at the Maryland State Police to request four to eight weeks of
leave, to which he was entitled under the F.M.L.A. He was told there was “no
way” he could take more than two weeks. Later, after his wife gave birth to a
baby girl, he asked for 30 days off, as is available to primary caregivers under
Maryland law. A personnel manager for the state police, where he had worked for
17 years, denied the request, telling him, “Unless your wife is in a coma or
dead, you can’t be primary care provider.” The same person also told him that
God made women to have babies. [emphasis mine]

incredible, isn't it? although the leave was available to him by law, his gender was the factor that made his employer deny his claim. 'there's no way fathers can by primary caregivers.' that's called a gender stereotype.

the lawsuits filed by working mothers and fathers, however, are showing how more families are resisting the untenable position of having to choose between their families and their paychecks. they also show how our workplaces and our society at large has failed in adjusting to the needs of the american worker. the office and the home no longer exist as separate islands, linked only by our travel to and from work; the office and the home are now connected to one another and are affected by one another.

what's even more disturbing is how workplaces are becoming even more hostile toward the working mother. i'll say what i will about having babies (ick) but in the workplace, this kind of discrimination is illegal:

Correll and other researchers asked volunteers to evaluate a pool of equally qualified male and female job applicants. On some résumés, a clue signaled that the applicant was a parent. Correll also sent 1,276 résumés for entry-level and midlevel marketing jobs to 638 real employers.
The results, as reported in the May 2007 issue of The American Journal of Sociology, are
striking. Among the volunteers, mothers were consistently viewed as less competent and less committed and were held to higher performance and punctuality standards. They were 79 percent less likely to be hired and, if hired, would be offered a starting salary $11,000 lower than nonmothers. Fathers, by contrast, were offered the highest salaries of all. Meanwhile, in the test run with real-world employers, the hypothetical female applicants without children were more than twice as likely as equally qualified mothers to be called back for interviews. Correll’s findings echo a discovery made by the psychologist Amy Cuddy. Cuddy asked volunteers to evaluate four imaginary professionals: a childless female, a childless male, a mother and a father. All these professionals had identical experience and educational backgrounds. Yet the mothers were given the lowest competency ratings, by both male and female evaluators, and were least likely to be recommended for hiring and promotions.

the message is clear: mothers are bad and fathers are good - except when fathers want to do the mothering. single women? we're given the possibility of economic reward but only until we become mothers. sucks, doesn't it? the game seems to be fixed.

in fact, the game seems to be sexist.

(the Center for WorkLife Law can be found here.)
...
this is my last week at the office, incidentally. next month is my surgery/recovery period and i'm anxious about how this long a leave will affect my work life. thankfully, since i work for a feminist organization, there is some comfort in knowing my leave has been approved; but others aren't so lucky.

i hear that parenting is a 'choice.' really? or is parenting something that's coerced from us (then punished, if you're a mother)? our tax structure certainly rewards childbearing; it makes it attractive and rewards it. seems rather coercive to me (and i've yet to see any tax breaks come my way for not having kids.) but at the same time our economy seems to privilege those with kids, there's this other aspect of punishing those with families; it's like our society is totally schizophrenic. we love families and we can't wait to punish them for existing.

the 'choices' some of us take for granted are determined by class and fortune. they're also determined by stereotype and deeply held 'traditions' that serve to, once again, keep a particular power structure in place. (fathers are inherently worth more than mothers? what's that math??)

give me a break: gen y in the office

When Whippersnappers and Geezers Collide - New York Times

as much of an anti-authoritarian i am, i have a rocking work ethic and this article made me laugh but also roll my eyes. i mean, are things so bad that we need to have 'translating' services to communicate with Gen Y now? i mean, really? are they so functionally backward and entitled that they actually need to have things like 'business appropriate attire' explained to them? where were these kids raised? aren't their parents wildly successful and corporate parents?

i've had a couple of Gen Y interns working for me over the past year and they were great. of course, they have no office skills whatsoever, but that's what classes are for.

but what i especially like about this article is the glaring silence from Generation X, the folks standing between Boomer and Y. i imagine my generation looking at the others with this look of bored contempt, while thinking, 'you're both asses.'

on hillary

Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary

this was actually a really good piece. it takes a look at the different archetypes we've forced hillary clinton to inhabit in our cultural imaginations (and then taken her to task for them) and the article is a good, old-fashioned piece of textual analysis i haven't seen since grad school.

take a gander; it made me rethink my own discomfort with hillary clinton.
imagine! i rethought something!

vote for romney, vote for moroni

the conversation went something like this:

harry potter weekender #1: so who do you think will get the GOP nomination?
harry potter weekender #2: not giuliani.
harry potter weekender #3: ugh. please not giuliani.
hpw #2: it'll be romney.
harry potter weekendr#4: really?
ding: no way. not if they want and need the evangelical vote. say what you will about the fundamentalist, but they know their bible. there is no way in hell they'd vote for a mormon.

hpw #2: i don't know. at one point they seemed to like giuliani.
ding: yeah, because he's catholic. everyone knows catholic. but mormon? no way. let me put it this way. they'd rather vote for someone jewish than a mormon. jews are familiar. jews are the Chosen!
hpw#3: exactly. judaism is an incomplete part of christianity. and, eventually, they get saved, too.
ding: exactly. after the rapture and the tribulation, of course, but they get saved. it's the whole point.

(silence)

hpw #4: i am constantly surprised at the two of you and your fundamentalist, whacko childhoods.

(laughter)

hpw #1: but mormons and christians worship the same God.
ding: nope. fundamentalists and evangelicals know there is a huuuge difference between mormonism and christianity. they wouldn't vote for a jehovah's witness, either.
hpw #4: for me, the issue is romney used to be pro-choice! and now he's not?
ding: exactly, where are the flip flops for him?

hpw #2: then what'll they do? vote for hillary? i think not.
ding: they'll sit it out. they won't vote.
hpw #3: they won't vote.
hpw #2: i think that unlikely.
ding: not as unlikely as it is to expect a true evangelical, fundamentalist, southern baptist christian to compromise on their doctrine. again, say what you will about the fundies, but they know doctrine and they know that being a mormon isn't the same as being a christian or even a muslim. they think it's a cult. whacky.

hpw #2: what if romney had a running mate who was normal?
ding: well, that's different. but romney's still a whacko mormon. to, uh, the average evangelical, that is.

hear that, democrats??
all you have to do is present folks with this choice: an adulterous, pro-choice catholic or an untested, flip-flopping mormon.
we win!

God - Religion - Presidential Election of 2008 - Elections - Polls - Voter Preferences - Mitt Romney - New York Times

is ward connerly on really good drugs, or what?

Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons - Independent Online Edition > Americas

i tried reading the whole thing, at the behest of Bitch PhD, but failed somewhere around the second section. the vignettes were making me inordinately angry. so i took a break and started reading again. oho, i found my favorite part.

it's a conversation with ward connerly, anti-affirmative action apologist and favorite black man of the neo-cons, and in it he waxes sympathetically for the Klan (i'm going to highlight the most awesome parts for you):

He tells me plainly about his childhood – his mother died when he was four, and he was raised by his grandparents – but he never really becomes animated until I ask him if it is true he once said, "If the KKK supports equal rights,then God bless them." He leans forward, his palms open. There are, he says, "those who condemn the Klan based on their past without seeing the human side of it, because they don't want to be in the wrong, politically correct camp, you know... Members of the Ku Klux Klan are human beings, American citizens – they go to a place to eat, nobody asks them 'Are you a Klansmember?', before we serve you here. They go to buy groceries, nobody asks, 'Are you a Klansmember?' They go to vote for Governor, nobody asks 'Do you know that that person is a Klansmember?' Only in the context of race do they ask that. And I'm supposed to instantly say, 'Oh my God, they are Klansmen? Geez, I don't want their support.'"

This empathy for Klansmen first bubbled into the public domain this year when Connerly was leading an anti-affirmative action campaign in Michigan. The KKK came out in support of him – and he didn't decline it. I ask if he really thinks it is possible the KKK made this move because they have become converted to the cause of racial equality. "I think that the reasoning that a Klan member goes through is – blacks are getting benefits that I'm not getting. It's reverse discrimination. To me it's all discrimination. But the Klansmen is going through the reasoning that this is benefiting blacks, they are getting things that I don't get... A white man doesn't have a chance in this country."

He becomes incredibly impassioned imagining how they feel, ventriloquising them with a shaking fist – "The Mexicans are getting these benefits, the coloureds or niggers, whatever they are saying, are getting these benefits, and I as a white man am losing my country."

connerly's crazy ass minstrelsy has completely broken my brain.

pr0n preachers and dirty old men on buses

just think of the special homily he could give on pr0n sunday in october!

Man of the Flesh to Man of the Cloth - New York Times
...
i had to report a CTA bus driver today. after waiting for a bus that would take me back to my office i got on the #10, which had been slow coming up State street because of all the traffic and construction nonsense. between my stop on State/Randolph and my office, the bus driver had engaged in behavior so completely inappropriate i had to call the CTA: talking on his cell phone for the whole ride, being sexually lewd and suggestive to two african american girls on the bus and being so incredibly rude to the tourist passengers the rest of us took pity on them and tried to help them out.

was this some new CTA record? he was rude to 6 different people in under 10 minutes over the course of 3 bus stops.

but what really got me was the way he talked to the two young women. when they asked him if he stopped by water tower, not only did he ignore their question, he gave them that long, dirty look that older black guys so love to give a black girl and said very loudly to her, 'Unh, girl, just stand there! Come here and stand by me so I can look at you!' he said it twice: "Come here! Just stand here! Stand here!" then, when the tall girl turned away in disgust after not getting her question answered, he yelled down the aisle that she knew she was fine and she needed to come stand next to him.

yeah, dude, because that's what cute young 20-something girls are made for - to stand next to your nasty ass while you don't do your job.

i mentally made a note of the bus and route number so that when i got back to the office i could call CTA customer service immediately. after being on hold for 10 minutes i calmly described the incident, described the driver and gave the dispatcher my name and phone number. then i said to her: 'you know, he was unprofessional all over the place but as an african american women i was especially offended. no one should talk to black women like that. do you know what i mean?'

she said, 'ma'am, i'm african american, too, and you're right. i know exactly what you mean.'

here's to hoping some nasty old man gets fired today.

talk about unintended consequences

apparently, this is what happens when we export our mini-series: we play into the hands of genocidal insurgents!

Refugees fear sharing same fate as Kunta Kinte Chicago Tribune

best headline EVER

oh, the tears from my laughing.
the tears.

snort.

AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Republican Rep. Exposed Himself to Female Employee, Chased Her Screaming, "Suck It"

on judgment and 'sisterhood'

i was thinking yesterday about the ways that groups of women look and talk about each other. particularly, though we say we support and respect one another, we can't help but make some really hardcore value judgments about our so-called 'sisters' or friends. i've found that they usually revolve around how we raise our children (or have decided not to have children) or who we have sex with. (funny how we don't spend quite as much energy when it comes to how we make professional decisions - just about reproduction and sex.)

let me know if any of the following sound familiar:

' how can a mother stand to leave her child in day care?'
'why go out with him if he's not, you know, The One?'
'i can't stand these women who can't control their kids.'
'if i had to be a stay at home mother i'd commit suicide.'
'why can't these women use birth control?'
'i just couldn't have a one night stand. it's not for me. i think i'm worth more than that, you know? but, hey, i'm not judging you!' (my favorite)
'how can you sleep with someone and not feel anything? it just seems so...cold.' (a variation on the above and also a favorite)
'why have kids if you're not going to raise them?'
'i would never have an abortion but i'd never tell another woman she couldn't have one. but i really think they shouldn't be allowed to have one after the first trimester.'

'i could never be one of those women who stayed with a guy after he hit me.'
'she's born again. whatever.'
'slap me if i ever tell you i'm moving out to downer's grove.'
'choices, people, choices! if you're drunk, you have no business being at a bar!' (strange logic but you know what i mean.)

the way we live; where we live; who we sleep with; how we act. our feminine censorious eyes leave nothing untouched.

i'll own up to mine. i've said at least half the things up there; if you do a thorough search of this blog you'll probably come across them. i've even felt superior while saying them, comforted by how 'together' my life is compared to some other woman's life. but that's what it is: comparison. by comparison my life is pretty good. i've made pretty good decisions in comparison to ... what? and if that woman's situation didn't exist for comparison, what then? would i still think i was hot shit?

that's a cheap sort of comfort.
i have a friend who would say 'it is what it is' when there was someone or something she didn't 'get.' she'd shrug and just say, 'ok. it is what it is.' and she'd move on. why can't we move on? why are we compelled to watch other women for perceived shortcomings and then prey on them? it's like we're baptist or something. (or HappyMom. remember her?)

but i'm not saying that we should suddenly become silent female switzerlands, neutral on everything. i don't think we have the capacity for that kind of forbearance. in my opinion, being judgmental comes with being human. we can't help it. our judgments make it easier for us to determine who's in the 'tribe' and who's out. but let's be honest about them, for honesty's sake, if nothing else.

and let's be honest about the limits of sisterhood. i was having dinner with a coworker tonight and we were venting about the office and one of us (cough) said: 'just because you're feminist doesn't mean you can act unprofessional and not get called out on it.' i guess i'm sort of conflicted about the 'all for one/one for all' model of sisterhood we get presented with alot.

eh, i'm blathering.
...
i made a list of my value judgments over lunch the other day. it was a list of binaries that accurately summed up the so-called 'neutral' values that inform my judgments on. (the privileged term is first):

urban/suburban
educated/non-educated
literate/illiterate
middle-class/working-class AND middle-class/wealthy
single/married
childless/parenting
sexual/celibate
woman/man
me/you
individual/collective

whether or not i acknowledge them, these values color my world (and i suspect that it's not even a complete list.) they taint every conversation, every interaction and i'm not aware of them half the time.

it was a useful exercise; feel free to share some of your own, if you like.

...
posts i've come across this week about judgments we make:
The Park Slope Parent Trap - New York Times
Trusting Women Who are not You - Feministing
Broke, part 1
Broke, part 2

when religious dudes go nuts

is it the heat? the storms? the humidity?
because there's an inordinate amount of bad news and weirdness all over the place.
moving slightly away from gender politics, let's turn our eye to godliness which, if you listened to these guys, includes knowing how to make bombs to blow up other churches.

Star-Telegram.com 07/07/2007 Three men in jail over bomb at church

what the frak is going on??
from the article:

Cmdr. Chris Havens, the Police Department spokesman, said the suspects boasted about belonging to a leaderless group of 10 or 15 who share a belief that society has become too focused on self-improvement and self-gratification and has lost focus on the glorification of God.
"They admit to being Christian and being brought up Christian, but they believe there should be one denomination and one church, not multiple denominations," Havens said. "They did not say they had a name for their group, other than they were a radical Christian activist group. That was the way they explained their group," he said. The suspects said the group has three levels of involvement: Bible study, consensual fighting and destructive acts. Because one of their beliefs is free thought, however, participation in all three levels is not mandatory, they told police.

'consensual fighting and destructive acts.'
i love the escalation of the 3 levels: first you learn about the TULIP, then you beat your brother in christ, THEN you build a bomb.
good lordy.

here's an idea: let's build a big, fake, walled-in city and dump our crazy religious psychos with their crazy religious psychos, let them totally suicide bomb each other and then, when it's all over, we women will rule the world at last. it's not a perfect solution but at least we'd be frak-tard-free.

maybe they should have been more 'womanly'

i'd read a couple of alerts about this and i didn't believe it, at first.
i mean, a dude is choking a girl on the ground and HE gets off while the girl and her friends who are defending her get sent to jail, despite some forensic doubt that they did this.

i guess this is what it means to be a woman (let alone a lesbian woman): folks can attack you with impunity and when you step up you get sent to jail.

what a man that dwayne buckle is. what a man.

I SHOUT LOVE » Blog Archive » Help the Newark Women

however, that bill o'reilly 'maurauding lesbian gangs' story is still bullshit.

here's an alert i received from planned parenthood:

TV Networks need condom sense

Two television networks have decided to reject a new condom commercial. The ad is intended to cause a stir — turning the “men are pigs” maxim on its head by suggesting that a guy willing to take responsibility for safer sex by using a condom isn’t so bad. But the real controversy is coming from FOX and CBS, which have
declined to run the ad, even in the late-night hours typically reserved for
adult-oriented products like Viagra.
According to The New York Times, FOX’s explanation reads, “Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.” Yet, half of pregnancies in this country are unintended, and teen pregnancy is a public health epidemic. The truth is, condoms prevent sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy - making them a commonsense public health solution.

Learn more: View the ad on YouTube.
Take Action: Send a letter to FOX and CBS

ok. we can't talk about how condoms can prevent pregnancy?? since when? we're so squeamish about sex we can't even talk about preventing pregnancy?

the mind boggles. what utter stupidity.

horror, torture and misogyny! all mixed in together.

like a disgusting stew.

Jill Soloway: Remove the Rating for Captivity - Living Now on The Huffington Post

goodness knows i'm a fan of a certain kind of horror film.
self-referential horror that makes fun of itself while it scares me? check.
well-written old school ghost stories, vampires, haunted houses, monster flicks, scary cemetaries? i'm all for. (like, The Haunting, The Changeling, Ghost Story, Scream, and even The Exorcist because it was creepy as all hell.)

but there's a certain kind of film i can't stomach anymore: the Saws, the Hostels, the Turistas. all of them. can't. take it. the torture, the eroticized killing, the elaborate fetishistic murder just skeeves me out and makes me hurt the way looking at porn now makes me hurt.

just lately, i've been watching the quick tv ads for Captivity and it turns my stomach: stalker capturing a woman and some guy and torturing the hell out of her. this is entertainment? this is what we need to see to get our rocks off now? woman-hating death porn.

gross.

and, if you read solloway's column, you'll see the grossness isn't an accident. it's done on purpose; it's a thoughtful kind of 'accident'; the misogyny is how the film will succeed. it's built into the marketing and business plan. sick, really. and if you read here, you'll see that the disgusting dude who created it is counting on our shock and repulsion to drive more people to the film.

well, i don't want to drive folks to see the film. i want the film to disappear. so we're thinking about that at the office - how exactly to make it disappear.

i mean, if the fundamentalists can make a regular old movie about evolution disappear, can't we make a piece of woman-hating crap just fizzle out of existence?

[read about it at feministing and it's been bothering me all day.]

obama on the SCOTUS decision: school desegregation

from the archpundit:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama today released the following
statement on the Supreme Court’s diversity ruling.

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling has placed a serious obstacle in the way of achieving the vision of America first outlined in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, where we see racially integrated education as the best way to reflect our great diversity, unite our nation, and make real our promise of equal opportunity for all.

“Though we have come a long way in those fifty years since Brown, our schools remain segregated by race, as well as resources and opportunities. Three-quarters of black and Latino school children attend predominantly minority schools and white children are even more likely to attend racially isolated schools. And yet, hundreds of school districts across the country have taken noble, yet modest, steps to address this problem, while still accommodating parental and student choice. They have done so because they too believe that our nation’s prosperity depends on our children learning to understand each other better, work together, and solve problems together.

“This wrong-headed ruling underscores the critical importance of a President’s appointments to the Supreme Court and a Justice Department’s commitment to civil rights enforcement. It is the but the latest in a string of decisions by this conservative bloc of Justices that turn back the clock on decades of advancement and progress in the struggle for equality. Chief Justice Robert’s opinion reflects a disturbing view of the Constitution that equates voluntary integration with Jim Crow segregation – a view that is both legally and morally wrong. The policies that led to racially diverse schools in Seattle and Louisville are a far cry from the policies of racial subordination that led to blacks-only and whites-only schools in the pre-Brown era. To equate the two is to turn a blind eye to our nation’s history.


“I filed a brief in these cases, along with several of my colleagues in the Senate, which explained to the Court that a racially diverse learning environment has a profoundly positive educational impact on all students, and I remain devoted to working toward this goal. The Congress has the constitutional power and responsibility to address the resegregation of our schools, and I am committed to using that authority. I will immediately call for hearings to determine the most effective steps that Congress can take to move forward. And as President, I will appoint Supreme Court justices who understand the constitutional importance of
Brown. Those Justices will ultimately vindicate Brown’s promise, as Justice Breyer and today’s dissenters put it, of “one law, one Nation, one people, not simply as a matter of legal principle but in terms of how we actually live."

i highlighted that section because it reminded me that the supreme court is not necessarily the last resort - the Congress has the ability to void a ruling. i think it's time we all start writing some letters to our congressfolks.

lovely day

roomie was out of town all weekend and i took the opportunity to catch up on sleep, read, attempt to buy a bed, got rejected because of weird credit, got depressed, bought a pair of shoes and comic books and then felt all better.

today was the kind of day i seldom take: slow, meandering. there was no point to this day. no meetings. no urgent appointments. no real schedule to keep. no one to answer to. that kind of untethered freedom is rare for me.

i showered and dressed slowly, pulling on a floaty sundress, and watched as my neighborhood came to halting life, pairs of neighbors shuffling down to the coffeehouse, jogging or walking their dogs. i listened to the cta bus rumble up to my corner and blow past. i caught my bus just as i made it across the street to the corner. everything going my way.

downtown, on the red line, i was stuffed in a train with cubs and brewers fans and even this did nothing to sour my mood. and the relief when the train emptied at addison - ah! heaven. is it cliche to say how good it felt to sit on the train in a window seat and feel the hot sun on your shoulders while the train rocked back and forth like a hand on a cradle? sometimes, the red line can be too gritty, filled with grizzled men who stare a little too long or wrigleyvillians who are too drunk and too loud to tolerate for very long. but this afternoon, the red line was perfectly empty (past addison) and i was able to fall in love with this city again.

in los angeles, the city passes in a blur of bland. it's the same stucco, palm trees or mock spanish villas. every corner has the same strip mall and they all seem to have an el pollo loco in it. but chicago on the el gives me the backside of the city - the porches, rooftops, soccer fields and the rare glimpses into city gardens tucked behind fences or at the end of streets with no exit. to see chicago's backyards and alleys is like waking up with someone and not minding their morning breath.

on bryn mawr, i walked west to clark and the walk made me wonder why i had moved from the northside. everything was so pretty, so feminine - the winking shadows, the warm red brick, the houses with their demure porches and shaded windows. (but then i thought about how long the train had been to get me up here and i remembered why i moved.)

i met my friend W- at m. henry and we had a long, slow gossip over brunch and a cold bottle of wine he'd brought. the silent crunchy couple sitting next to us sent us disapproving stares at some of our topics (i really don't think she liked W-'s story about being saran wrapped to a pole while his dom cattle prodded him) but that didn't stop me from enjoying his company. when the bottle was empty and there was nothing to do but settle our check, we strolled back down to GirlsTown and ate an ill-advised scoop of ice cream (we're both growing more lactose intolerant, the older we get) while sitting behind a tree (W- freckles) and watching the people parade.

after a couple of hours, i looked at my phone, caught the time and we hugged goodbye just as the clark bus appeared in the distance. passing wrigleyville after a game from the height and distance of a bus makes me think of wartime montages, like a scene from Saving Private Ryan: the soldiers are on a truck rumbling slowly through some bombed out town, staring silently at the carnage.

by the time i got home i was relaxed, tired, smelled of sun and diesel and sweat, with enough dairy and sugar coursing through me to fell an asian diabetic. i settled in to read my last comic book when my mobile buzzed. a text: 'we'll be at fresco in 10 min. come join us!'

i went into my bedroom to change into jeans. the sun had dipped lower and it was chilly out.

[edited because previous post sucked. this one is much better.]