August 2008 – Page 10

On a meta note

I wanted to thank all the commenters who have left me encouraging notes, and everyone who chimed in to the discussions over the past couple days. You can really tell when you struck that tuning fork just right, because everybody comes out to talk about it 🙂

There were also more than a couple people who expressed surprise/relief to find people who are facing the same issues they face every day. I wanted to encourage you all to keep talking about these things.

I started my blog mainly because our experiences are kept in the dark like this so often. It is considered inappropriate to discuss certain experiences, and pretty much anything involving disability falls into that column. It is a “private” matter. And even where it isn’t necessarily considered inappropriate, sometimes it seems out of place, talking openly about such personal things when most of the conversation focuses on the abstract, the theoretical.

Remember: the personal is political.

The more we speak up about our experiences, the more people we find who have gone through the same thing, and the more we can learn from each other, and discover exactly how common some of those experiences are — and thus, understand that those experiences are not our own personal failures, but the result of a society-wide approach to the issues we face.

And the more we speak up, the more other people, who don’t share those experiences, hear. The more information they have, straight from the people affected, rather than the (very limited) mainstream conversation that tends to exclude those people de facto. And thus the better understanding we can all form about these issues.

You are not obligated to speak. You can share exactly as much as you are comfortable sharing. But to those people who feel relief upon meeting another person who understands all of those “private” things that weren’t “relevant” to the conversation before: Speak up. I want to hear you. Start a blog. Comment on other people’s blogs. Make no secret of your day to day, minute-to-minute experiences, even when speaking with people in “real life.”

Don’t consider your condition a secret, or a severely personal matter, which doesn’t affect anyone else, and therefore interests no one else. Because a lot of us are interested. And their issues affect you. Don’t let that street stay one-way.

There are understandable circumstances where one would not want to be so open. I am trying to keep my disabilities as hidden as possible while searching and interviewing for jobs. Maybe a family member has a thing about the subject and you don’t want to rehash things over and over again. Maybe another person reacts negatively, or you sense that they would, and you don’t feel like dealing with that. That is all perfectly fine. But the oath of secrecy we are all made to take seems to extend to situations far, far beyond these. And I want to break down those barriers.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so satisfied in my life as when people step of the Google bus, or a link from another site, or whatever, to read my writing, and write to say that they have gone through the same thing and they had never heard anyone talk about it openly before. It gives me hope.

There are people out there right now who are going through the same things you face, every single day. And a lot of those people have no idea that there are other people out there going through those same things. Because we’re taught not to talk about it.

But maybe, if you talk about it, one of them will hear you. And their life will be a little bit easier, knowing that they aren’t the only ones.

Start talking.

Airing of Grievances

[BRAIN FOG ALERT] I have been writing this one bit by bit, and having trouble reworking it quite to my liking. I didn’t want to let this go unsaid, so I decided to post it as is. Things might be a little clunky and unclear. If so, please feel free to bring it up in comments. Thanks. [/BRAIN FOG ALERT]

I would like to register a complaint, and I hope that all who hear it understand it in the lighthearted context in which it is intended. It is a serious concern, but it should be understood that it is not a placing of blame nor actually a complaint about the people involved: only the script that society has given them to read from.

Today I would like to consider the cause and the community of Fat Acceptance, Size Acceptance, Body Acceptance, Body Positivity, et al. This is a cause which holds at its heart that no person should be judged or maligned based on hir physical appearance, that size and shape are not moral conditions, that fat is a matter far more complicated than Calories-In-Calories-Out, and that both individuals and society are better off when bodies are treated as a respected comrade rather than a homicidal adversary.

If you are new to these topics, try reading this first.

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Are you wearing your Feminist Lesbian uniform?

We’ve had some discussion lately about what kind of attire and personal adornment is appropriate for today’s discerning and responsible progressive feminist. These topics are a perennial favorite: should feminists shave our legs? Wear lipstick? High heels? Personally, I’ve always felt that we should trust feminists to think about the issues involved and make their own decisions, within the context of their own lives and a shared culture that wants us to do all sorts of ridiculous things. That is, as long as you all make sure to wear your feminist and lesbian uniform at least two or three times a week.

Seriously, this is the best anti-feminist rant I’ve ever read. (Hat tip to sabotabby and pandagon.) The author seems like he’s also working to expose the Rockefellers, international Zionist conspiracies, the New World Order, and probably the Bilderbergers, Freemasons, and our reptoid overlords as well.

Clearly, there are many big problems in the world that need to be addressed on his site, but I’m glad he took time to call out the Rise of Blue Jeans and the evil conspiracy it entails. More quotes after the jump, and I’ll help you understand the depths of this plot against humanity.

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Vancouver Pride Recap

So this weekend, as I previously mentioned, was Pride Weekend in Vancouver—a little bit late, compared to many other places, but carefully scheduled to coincide with B.C. Day so lots of people got a three-day weekend! The night before, the Celebration of Light, an annual international fireworks competition attracted huge crowds to the beaches to watch the grand finale. (Only complaint: music selection. China, of all countries, played a Céline Dion song, and the United States played U2 and the credits song from CSI. What??)

Pride was terrific as well, as usual, but there were two things I noticed that deserve special attention: (1) the commercialism and (2) the politics. Commercialism, of course, is going to be rampant at Pride celebrations most anywhere, and it’s easy to understand where much corporate presence comes from. Corporations know, for the most part, which side their bread is buttered on, and know that there’s lots of money to be made by self-promotion and advertising in the gay community. To that end, you get lots of things like banks handing out promotional literature and coffee companies offering samples of new concoctions. (This also reinforces my suspicion that the only thing you need to do—indeed, the only thing usually done—to advertise to the gay community is to put the word “gay” in front of anything, as in “gay credit card” or “gay holiday to Europe”. Also, sometimes there’s a shirtless man in the advertising.)

As for the fact that this was one of the most political Pride celebrations I’ve seen in a long time, I’m referring specifically to domestic politics. What with a possibly looming federal election come this fall, all three left-wing parties are trying to brand themselves as the “gay party”, with varying degrees of success. This is especially evident in Vancouver, where there was a recent by-election which the Liberals won by an extremely slim majority. The Greens and NDP are threatening to make a strong stand again in the riding of Vancouver Quadra, as well as in Vancouver Centre, and to this end all the potential candidates showed up to Pride to promote their political parties. It’s also interesting to note that in the United States, you often see the Republican Party or Log Cabin Republicans at Pride celebrations—another example of knowing which side your bread is buttered on—but the Conservatives were nowhere to be seen in Vancouver, at least this time. A similar effect was evident with the two organizations running candidates for mayor of Vancouver, Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association. At any rate, it was interesting to see this phenomenon at work, and it’ll be interesting to see which of these parties emerges as the “gay party”, if any, or at least the best on gay issues.

(Two brief side notes. First, if the Single Transferable Vote system were implemented—as there was certainly very strong support for doing in evidence at Pride—the fact that there are three major left-wing parties in Canada (four, if you count the Bloc Québécois) might not have such a negative impact on actual left-wing representation at the provincial—and hopefully, one day, the federal—level. Second, I was chatting briefly with Hedy Fry, the Liberal MP for Vancouver Centre, when one of the 9/11 Truthers, who had a strong presence as well at Pride, loudly interrupted and started making a scene at her. I felt kind of bad for her, but she is the MP…)

At any rate, you can check out all my photos from Vancouver Pride at the Xyre Gallery. Enjoy!

Also, I now have a new computer after Apple very graciously decided simply to replace my old, broken MacBook after having replaced both the hard drive and the logic board several times each. So I apologize for my absence for the last few days—but I’m connected once again, and back to writing all those essays I had promised to post. Whee!

PSA

Some commenters touched on the subject in my previous post and I wanted to open up a thread to talk about that particular bent in the conversation.

Often, when someone learns that another person lives with some sort of medical condition, slight or severe, their first reaction is to suggest to that person some way they could make their condition better.

On behalf of all those persons, let me say: Stop.

Think.

That person has had that condition for months, years, or even their entire lifetime. You, on the other hand, have possibly heard of that condition — and possibly not! — and certainly have no experience living with it. Maybe you know someone else who has it, and maybe that’s a person you actually know fairly well (but that is a very small minority out of those who make these comments).

Which of these two people, do you think, knows a broader range of treatment options for said condition?

Don’t you think that person has already tried more treatment options than you even know exist?

And don’t you think, therefore, that such a suggestion is a bit of an insult to this person, who has, more than likely, struggled and fought with their condition for years already?

How do you think this person feels when sie has to tell you — especially if you are someone who is dear to hir, like a friend or family member — that sie has already tried that and it didn’t work, or sie has done the research on that treatment and it’s total bunk? Or that hir condition doesn’t work the way you think it does, and it’s actually caused hir a great amount of harm to try to think of it that way?

Maybe one time in fifty, you are bringing to light a treatment that this person was not previously aware of. Those other forty-nine times, you are putting this person in a bad spot, having to refuse a well-intentioned suggestion without insulting you in the process.

Certainly, you were only trying to be helpful. Sie knows that.

But maybe, if you thought about it a bit more, you would realize that if you really want to help this person, you can start by not insulting hir intelligence.

I have encountered these well-meaning people many, many times. They suggest this diet, or that exercise program, or this doctor, or that web site. But what they are doing in actuality is acting on the assumption that I have not put effort into learning about my condition, what causes it and how it works, and spent a significant amount of time looking into all of the treatment options, and continually trying new ones in an attempt to find something that works in my life.

And I know, I know you are trying to be nice. But having to confront people over and over again, especially people who are only trying to be nice!, with the facts about my condition and how it has affected my life, gets tiring after awhile, and makes me feel like a rotten jerk.

And I can tell you from experience, having talked with other folks with a variety of conditions, that I’m not the only one who feels that way.

So, again: Stop. And Think. Disability in particular, but illness in general, are subjects that are never really examined on a deeper level in mainstream society. This means that you have most likely been taught mechanisms to deal with the subjects that are very broad and superficial. But if you are serious about facing up to your own privilege and being a friend to those people without it, you will put a little more thought into the assumptions you rely upon when approaching these issues. Trust me, it will be appreciated.

Lessons from the Magic Carpet

Is sex work a feminist act? Not in itself, no, IMO. Any job is feminist in the limited sense that women working and supporting ourselves is feminist. But unless a type of work actively promotes women’s equality, I don’t think it’s affirmatively feminist. It’s not antifeminist either, though, unless it involves coercion of unwilling participants or marketing a typically very temporary career to those who otherwise might choose options offering longer-term security.

But hey – there are still plenty of feminist lessons to be learned.

The club I worked at in Vegas in ’99-2000 is called the Magic Carpet. Or, that’s what I call it in the various “stripper stories” I have at my blog. If you’re a Vegas aficionado, you can probably figure out which one I mean. Hint – we had male strippers on the second floor.

So without further ado, here are the Lessons:

Lesson #1:the Madison Ave/Vogue body ideal is not even the patriarchal culture ideal.

While pretty much every stripper had shaved legs, shaved armpits, makeup and stripper heels, and most appeared fit, there was substantially more variance in weight, height, race, and breast size than in mainstream magazines. While a strip club is not a mecca for body acceptance, women who are 30 pounds heavier than models of the same height do just fine. I’d have to put confidence and appearance equally tied as top indicators of success as a stripper, even in the most hoity toity of clubs.

Lesson #2: Many men with privilege or a high-level position enjoy being told what to do, and being in a thong while you’re doing it is only a small part of why.

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OK, folks, it’s time for a privilege check.

(There isn’t a “brain fog” category here. Consider this your warning.)

We spent Sunday at the in-laws for dadw’s birthday. Spending time with his family is refreshingly easy — shooting the breeze, playing a couple of silly party games (highly recommended!). Still, when everyone settled in front of the tv I grabbed the copy of Consumer Reports on the table to page through.

One of the feature stories detailed the problems Americans have with sleep. We all know that adults in this country are having problems getting enough sleep every night (to say nothing of teenagers). The angle CR chose to take for this article was medication: what sort of meds are out there to help you sleep, and how they totally don’t work. According to CR, one in five Americans takes some sort of medication to get to sleep at night!*

Oh, how awful. People taking medicine.

… wait, what?

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The women still in the race

Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente

For all the talk about the historic nature of the Clinton (woman!) and Obama (Black!) campaigns that’s gone on in the mainstream media for the past year, you might not have any idea that a third, equally unprecedented ticket was being run: Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of the Green Party. This is the first all women of color presidential ticket in the history of the United States. Now, I understand that a nomination’s historical importance and newsworthiness tends to be defined by the likelihood of its success – or, as is often the case, by the degree to which people decide to blame the Democratic party’s failures on the Greens. Yet one would hope that in between all of the celebrity gossip and other tripe that makes it onto the news regularly, the mainstream media would find a little more time to devote to a presidential ticket that is unique not only for its makeup but also for the platform it’s running on, a platform that offers a radically different choice from the rightly-named corporate parties that dominate the politics of this nation.

But predictably, the mainstream media has almost completely ignored the McKinney/Clemente ticket. When they won the Green nomination, there were a few articles here, a few news reports here, most of them focusing more on the candidates’ chances of being “spoilers” in the upcoming election rather than focusing on, you know, their positions or platform or qualifications, all of which the MSM apparently deems irrelevant. Most of what I’ve heard about McKinney and Clemente has come from the blogosphere, and even here, coverage is slim. The majority of the mentions I’ve seen have been about McKinney being a possible alternative vote for Clinton supporters who don’t want to vote for Obama, and even there, McKinney is discussed less often than John McCain as the alternate vote. Even right here on Feministe (if my memory and our search tool are working properly), McKinney’s candidacy hasn’t been mentioned in an actual post, only in the comments.

Now I get that this lack of coverage is to be expected, especially if you’re measuring a candidate’s importance or significance by their likelihood to win come November. McKinney and Clemente won’t be in the White House come January, and I’m sure they both understand that. However, the actual presidency is not the only thing at stake here, especially for the Greens and more generally for the future of third parties in this country. In an interview with Newsweek (subtitled “Will a third-party candidate be a ‘spoiler’?”), McKinney discusses another important and far more feasible goal (emphasis mine):

There are currently about 200 members of the Green Party who are elected officials. These are mostly local elections. The Green Party does not yet have representation on the federal level, but it’s quite a successful “minor” party. With 5 percent of the electorate, it can move from minor party status to major party status [and qualify the Green Party for federal funds]. So our goal is to get onto as many ballots as we can, since then achieving a 5 percent goal becomes possible. When I got to Washington D.C., I realized that public policy was made around the table. The 5 percent puts another seat at the table.

As Obama continues to hedge, flip-flop, and trend right on a variety of issues, and as McCain continues to be his usually sucky self, it becomes clearer and clearer that another seat at the table, a true alternative to corporate politics as usual, is desperately needed. And while even 5 percent of the vote is an uphill battle for McKinney, Clemente, and the rest of the Greens, it isn’t impossible. Such a victory would be huge, a major step in breaking this country away from the two-party system that time and time again shows itself to be severely lacking for people who believe in true peace and true justice.

But who’s gonna vote for them?

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Linky linky

’cause I’ve been collecting these stories for a couple days.

Fellow guestblogger Renee hits one out of the park: No More Penis Envy. I think I scared my cats laughing so freakin hard.

I am not sure if Nezua is guestblogging this summer but I am sure some of you remember him from last year. He wrote a piece this weekend on age, power, culture, authority and respect that takes a little longer to chew on, but the flavor is rich and the savor lingers long.

A bunch of parents in Fairfax County, Virginia, raised $125,000 to sue the school district for reworking the boundaries so as to integrate the local schools (on an economic basis). The kids were assigned to South Lakes High School, but the parents wanted them to go to the richer Oakton High. It will surprise precisely none of you, of course, that OHS is also whiter. (SLHS: 46% white, 20% black, 16% latin@ and 11 asian. OHS: 67% white, 11% black and latin@.) They argue on the basis of SAT scores for the schools overall, but here’s the thing: when you run the results for white kids in both schools, the SAT outputs are, respectively, 1730 and 1734. This is true on a general basis; in schools that are socioeconomically diverse, minority and poor kids do much better, and white kids do about the same. But, well, what do you really think those parents were suing over? Were they fighting for the right kind of education? Or were they fighting for the right kind of people?

Sir Charles taps into his righteous anger:

So much of the general public, including most of us in the blogosphere, are completely removed from the danger and physical difficulty of this kind of work. That’s why you hear people talking about raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 — they have no idea what it’s like to hump it on a construction site for 30 or 40 years, no idea what it is like to pick up and lay down cinder block, one after the other for eight hours a day in 90 degree heat or 30 degree cold, no sense of what it takes to walk the iron or hoist re-bar or climb ladders and scaffolding when you’re 58 years old and your back is bad and your knees are screaming and your body is just broken down. It’s easy for some asshole editorial writer or some glibertarian blogger to talk about working until you are 70 — but my feeling on this is that if the heaviest thing you lift every day is a cup of coffee or a bulky file — just shut the fuck up on this subject.

Preach it, brother.

And let’s wish Cara a happy belated birthday! She thought she was going to get away without mentioning it here, but ha-ha! I will catch up several days later and use my guest-blogging privileges to bring it to light! Take THAT, Cara! (Happy birthday, too. ;))

I have a post coming up that’s riffing off of the complaints in that post. In the meantime, let’s break out the little tooty toys and party hats, and I’ll go get the trick candles…

Killing a Woman Because She’s Trans “Not a Classic Hate Crime”

Angie Zapata was murdered in July. (See Sam’s post.) Allen Ray Andrade, who has admitted to beating Zapata to death, supposedly became uncontrollably “enraged” upon learning that she was transgender after a sexual encounter. This is, of course, a common defense in such murders (known as “trans panic”), and one that apparently plays into bigoted public sensibilities that transgender individuals are unethically “fooling” people and of course no one would ever knowingly have consensual sex with them. It’s also worth noting that Andrade claims to have only learned Zapata was transgender by sexually assaulting her, grabbing her genitals without her consent. He then saw it as an excuse to kill her. (trigger warning)

Later on July 16, Andrade said he asked Zapata outright whether she was a man or woman. “I am all woman,” Zapata allegedly told him, according to the affidavit. He asked for proof and when she refused, Andrade told investigators, he “grabbed Zapata’s genital area and felt a penis.”

“Andrade indicated he became angered by his discovery and struck victim Zapata with his fists,” according to the affidavit. He then grabbed a fire extinguisher, he said, and struck her twice.

He told investigators he thought he “killed it,” referring to Zapata. As he prepared to flee, Andrade said, he heard Zapata “gurgling” and saw her start to sit up, then he hit her in the head again with the fire extinguisher, according to the affidavit.

The suspect admitted to taking Zapata’s PT Cruiser, which was missing from the murder scene. On July 28, a credit card in Zapata’s name was used at multiple gas stations in the greater Denver area, according to police. Andrade also admitted to taking Zapata’s purse and cell phone, which have not been recovered.

Yes, he did call the woman he murdered “it.”

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