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Category: Feminism

Politics With a Big Ol’ “P”

These nightly reads are about the kinds of politics the penisphere generally loathes discussing.

Via the hellcat, I found this post. Being Black and Female = Being Passed Over:

Black women have been speaking about racism in the work place, institutions of education, the health service etc – in team meetings every damm week, at local authority meetings, parents and teachers associations, at police stations when their sons are arrested and criminalised, in Black women’s group, living rooms and so it goes on. Now all of a sudden some “named” organisation comes up with a report and its published and discussed all over the place. The Fawcett Society has been around since 1953. How many reports on Black women have they brought out since then? They have got the PC thing going with nice pictures of Black women on the website, probably some Black women workers too. . But ahh, this is what happens when you are “powerless, poor and passed-over” and 29% out of a population of 8% of you are in prison.

And Bitch Ph. D. is fairly certain that Scalia = Stupid when he dissented on the recent juvenile execution ruling by comparing teen abortion rulings to teen murder cases. I agree. The man is not only a flaming idiot, but he is also misconstruing a rather conservative ruling.

there is a pretty big difference between the state deciding to impose death on someone, and a person making decisions about their own medical care. It behooves the state, I think, to hold a high standard when it comes to killing people. Let me explain why the context is different for Scalia, who is apparently kinda stupid: the issue at hand is not the moral agency of children; it is on the power of the state. Not whether children can or cannot make moral decisions, but whether or not the state should kill people who may not be capable of making informed moral decisions. Hence, as Kennedy writes, “When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the state can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the state cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.” Hence, the decision is a conservative one: before the state can kill someone, it needs to be certain that the person is a mature moral agent. Since mature moral agency is hard to measure, let us err on the side of caution.

The way Scalia frames his argument suggests that anyone who has had an abortion should herself be executed. Brilliant, dude.

In other news, I have been named the Minister of Education because I “will corrupt the minds of our youth with liberalism and compassion, damn her.”

Left, Right, Whatever

Still no computer monitor. Typing on this laptop is hurting my wrists.

Nonetheless, I was startled to read this article on a study that shows many Americans don’t know their left from their right:

The Harris polling agency last week released the results of an interesting study. In a survey of 2,209 adults, they discovered that most Americans only have the vaguest idea of the meaning of two important pairs of words that play crucial roles in the national political discourse: conservative and liberal, and left and right.

Some of the numbers are surprising. According to the survey, 37 percent of Americans think liberals oppose gun control, or else they are not sure if liberals oppose gun control. Likewise, 27 percent of respondents thought a right-winger was someone who supported affirmative action. Furthermore, the survey showed that respondents generally viewed the paired concepts liberals and left-wingers and conservatives and right-wingers as possessing, respectively, generally similar political beliefs – with one caveat. In both cases, respondents were roughly 10 percent more clueless about left-wingers and right-wingers than they were about liberals and conservatives.

But this segment is far more telling of the spin machine:

Respondents were asked to define the labels according to what their positions were on seven “political issues”: abortion rights, gun control, cutting taxes, gay rights, same-sex marriage, affirmative action and moral values. This list of issues is preposterous in itself as a symbolic reflection of the political landscape, but that’s a discussion for another time. To me the most instructive category was “moral values.” According to the survey, 78 percent of respondents believe conservatives support moral values, while only 40 percent said the same about left-wingers. In fact, 29 percent said they believed left-wingers actually opposed moral values.

Our mission to change the social meanings of these political terms is necessary unless we want “moral values” to by synonymous with “torture” and “war.”

Onward leftist soldiers.

Drive-By Mothering and Parent As Outsider

Chez Miscarriage has a wonderful series of posts on “drive-by mothering,” when other parents uninvitedly correct your parenting. Excellent related threads are here and here and especially here.

Reading through the 300+ hilarious and mind-bending comments readers have given in response to these posts unfortunately reminds me of a different sort of commentary I get daily: silence.

I’ve written before about my experiences with the other parents in Ethan’s school and during our daily jaunts, and I think none are more hurtful than the feeling that I personally am unwanted or don’t exist. Ethan is a delightful child (if you ask me) and no one I am aware of have ever penalized him for being the son of incredibly young, unmarried parents (yet), but I and E’s dad have experienced social isolation and distancing for our family situation. As of yet, the only parent friends I have made (but for one who recently moved away) are of strikingly different economic situations (which usually means we have different schedules and little common time and funds to spend together, making the friendships short but pleasurable) or are parents I read on parenting blogs. This does not make for a tangible parenting culture for me to draw from, something I rely on for my parental skills.

I try to relate to other parents with whom we have contact every day. Ethan is always invited to his peers’ birthdays. I tag along, as parents are usually expected to stick around and help supervise. Though I try to start up conversations with other parents, they tend to be short. I find myself wandering about alone or playing with the children, which sometimes seems to amplify my youth. The only time a considerable conversation was raised was when I prepared for a lonely afternoon at a birthday party by bringing my knitting along and several of the mothers commented on my hobby. They then wandered off dicussing crafts amongst themselves and I was left literally mid-sentence to myself. It was a lonely and disappointing day. At least E had fun.

In talking to others, I have had several reasons posed as to why this might be. It might be the high socio-economic class culture of the school. It might be plain prejudice. It might be fear that premarital compulsions are contagious. It might be the lingering discomfort after being asked by several at the school whether or not I was Ethan’s nanny and my rather irritated responses. Relations have improved since these first painful months, but I am always aware of my difference.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me and some sort of over-sensitized self-flagellation, but that doesn’t erase the silence.

The most reasonable explanation I have been given so far is that the other parents simply assume that because of my youth we will have nothing in common. My first response to this is that we have one binding thing in common: our kids spend 5-8 hours a day together every single day. Surely there is some talking point.

The most painful afternoon took place last summer. We live right around the corner from a great BBQ joint and walked over one afternoon for some lemonade and sweet potato pie. A little girl from Ethan’s school was sitting at the outdoor cafe with her parents after their lunch, chatting away while they enjoyed the sun. She has always been friendly with the two of us, but her parents never seemed quite comfortable with my presence. When Ethan ran over to say hello, he was greeted warmly. I walked to the table with a smile and a greeting, and held out my hand to formally introduce myself. Her parents just looked at me and didn’t say much of anything. I retracted my empty hand after several excruciating seconds and we said good-bye, leaving with our lemonade and pie.

I don’t anticipate as much of this kind of silence when Ethan begins public school next year. I don’t expect it to cease either. I don’t expect the assumptions about our lifestyle or values or efficency to taper off until I become a less visible presence in Ethan’s public life. It isn’t hard to pick me out of a crowd when my parental peers look old enough to be their children’s grandparents. Over time I’ve learned to care a bit less and focus on making sure Ethan is getting the education that he deserves, but I wonder if his educational experience could be brightened if I felt comfortable enough to participate in the school’s culture to my capacity, if I felt like our family, warts and all, was valued in the school community.

Do me a favor. If there is another parent in your child’s school who appears markedly different, strain your comfort zone and say hello. Think of me.

via Alas and Stone Court

Linking Etiquette and Discovery Credit

If you get a story from another blogger, do you cite that blogger?

On “Link Propagation and ‘Discovery Credit’“:

I agree with Blaze that this is an instance of a general problem, and this connects to recent discussions of fairness in weblogs. For instance, as he points out, within the “political economy of linking” there can be incentives not to point to one’s sources. While there’s a general norm of bloggers linking to sources, the practice is not universal and few chains of credit go all the way, with the unfortunate consequence that promising sources can remain obscure for longer than they would otherwise.

Not crediting your peers takes the “we” out of weblogging, doesn’t it?

Estrogen Week, Continued

• Distorted Dreams suggests an equal opportunity action for lesbian escorts. Factesque posted a related political cartoon.

• Cinnamon writes on gentrification and racism.

Hey, anyone remember when identity politics were regarded as actual politics?

• See Democratic Wings for coverage of stories on women’s rights, foreign policy, civil liberties, and more.

• Ellen Goodman takes on Larry Summers’ teachable moments:

When MIT scientist Nancy Hopkins dropped the dime on Summers, there was a firestorm of criticism. But that was followed by a second round in which he was defended as a victim of political correctness, a poor defenseless seeker of wisdom in the Ivy League madrassas.

George Will tagged professor Hopkins as hysterical, a word which, he failed to note, comes from the Greek root for uterus, thus proving that only women can be hysterical. Other pundits either compared Summers’s opponents to “religious fundamentalists,” accused Harvard of “neo-Stalinist intolerance,” or praised poor Larry for facing down “the gods of political correctness.”

Even The Washington Post editorial page said that if Summers was punished for the “crime of positing a politically incorrect hypothesis” the “chilling effect on free inquiry will harm everyone.” After all, the editorial said, he was “provoking fresh thought on big issues.”

Why didn’t I think of that? The suggestion that women were innately less able to do math and science wasn’t the same old tired stereotype with a sell-by date of 1636, when Harvard was established. It was a cutting-edge fresh thought!

• DED Space takes on the notion that Million Dollar Baby is “an insufferable, manipulative right-to-die movie.” Right.

• Cruella looks at a study that discerns the difference between young women’s and young men’s idea of what makes up a good sense of humor: “for a woman, a Good Sense Of Humor means someone who makes her laugh. For a man, it means someone who laughs at his jokes.”

• Dove’s Eye View points us to Lebanese Politics for Beginners. Also, Leila is a breast cancer survivor. In this post she shows off her beautiful bald head, inspired by Melissa Ethridge’s recent public appearances with no hair. I thought Ethridge looked lovely. Leila does, too.

• At Whirled View, Patricia looks at America, Europe, and the Iranian Question.

• Rowan asks whether rape in the military is a woman’s issue or a man’s issue. I’d posit it a human rights issue.

• Noli Irritare Leones has moved to a new site with WordPress. Welcome Lynn to her new domain.

All this hard politics! I don’t know how the little ladies do it with all the doilies to iron.

UPDATE:
Breaking my goal to only list female bloggers this week (again), this story absolutely cannot be passed up. Lest Blood Be Shed points to a post in which grotesque militarism is showed off in church:

“A guy was asked by his father to attend a ‘father-son’ event and he brought a camera and was really disturbed to see a place of Christian worship being used to promote militarism and warfare. Even though this guy is a Republican and supporter of the war, he was shocked at the visual propagandistic ritual, which reminded him of movies he had seen about Nazi pageantry. Anyway, his account is not the best but check out the photos – you have to see this to believe it.”

Estrogen Week

All this testosterone gives me the vapors!

I’m taking a cue from Ilyka Damen and hereby declaring this week Estrogen Week in favor of disproving the silly notion that “fundamental viciousness and self aggrandizement inherent in opinion writing turns off a lot of women” (says the self aggrandizing blogger) whilst we shit-sling and wrestle like the best of uppity men.

Sorry, guys. You won’t be mentioned at least until Friday.
___________________

• Fellow Indiana blogger Steph writes a righteously embittered letter to the Indy Star on the recent anti-gay marriage bill that passed the first gate on its way to becoming a part of the Indiana state constitution.

Holy shit, I jumped right in with the politics. Pass the smelling salts.

• Alt Hippo takes Michelle Malkin to task for spreading disinformation.

• Susan lauds the British partnership to recruit and maintain gays in the navy. Now gays and women can die for their country too. Yeehah.

• The Appalachia Alumni Association is on a roll this week. Liz writes on corporate parenting initiatives (politics, no?) and corporate accountability, and Hope looks at Rep. Maloney’s denial of opportunity to speak or submit written testimony on a rape and sexual assault bill that doesn’t address emergency contraception whatsoever.

• An Old Soul is consistently one of my favorite blogs for coverage of No Child Left Behind and other educational issues. A must-read for any edu-political junkie.

• Chris Nolan hilariously skews Kevin Drum’s most recent WAATFPB?: “You’re right about one thing. I don’t like food fights. I normally carry a stiletto. It’s very sharp.”

• Lynda of Available Light chalks Drum up to being another example of embarassing progressive politics.

• If I can’t come there, I’m not going. Feministing writes on the Alabama ban on the sale of sex toys.

In the meantime, see the blogroll to the right consisting of almost completely progressive bloggers. Not only are there many examples of feminist-minded bloggers, but a great many have been added to the blogroll.

For an easier read, see Feminist Blogs, a one-page aggregate of twenty or so feminist bloggers.

WAATFPB?

I woke up ready to do some serious blogging and story writing on my day off, but the Flu Fairy visited my house overnight. To make my day even worse, well-meaning, sincere, clueless Kevin drums up the question again: Why the dearth of female political bloggers in the Ecosystem Top 100?

  1. Why, Kevin, you say that like you care!
  2. “Female political bloggers” assumes that the default blogger, or the default politico, is male. If women are add-ons in your eyes, you probably don’t take us too seriously. No? Your blogroll tells me so.
  3. The Ecosystem is highly flawed and based on whether or not a blogger and her comrades can all agree to link to one another. If the sisters link to the brothers and the brothers don’t link to the sisters, what kind of family is Liberalism? A one-sided, dysfunctional family, the kind where Dad burps and farts on the couch and asks for another beer while Mom gets frenzied over the applique details on a Spongebob costume the night before Halloween.

    Judging from the frequency of conservative bloggers in the top 100, it appears that conservative bloggers have the “blogger family values” thing down pat.

The way Kevin repeatedly asks this question suggests distress over something or other, and I think the hint is in the question itself. He appears to be asking: Where are all the good female political bloggers (because I don’t see any)? Oh my, that is distressing.

In the meantime Kevin ponders the importance of political blogs, the answer to which lies directly in his navel right beyond the bellybutton lint.

Clancy, your work is cut out for you. Roxanne, Trish Wilson, Brutal Women, Flea, Echidne, and Avedon Carol take Kevin to task, while I retreat to the couch with a flask of NyQuil.