In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: January 2010

The Facebook Rainbow

I’ve been off Facebook today, but three people have now contacted me about this whole “women posting the color of their bra as their FB status” thing. Because I seem to be everyone’s go to social media maven, they’re all coming to me for answers or at least a reaction.

In case you don’t have Facebook or nobody you know is doing this or maybe you saw it and had no idea, women are changing their status to a color. Some of my friends have listed red, white, etc. Sometimes they say it’s their bra color, sometimes they just list a color with no explanation or anything.

I investigated and found that, indeed, some women were doing this. My friend and I further investigated and found some links stating it’s for breast cancer awareness. Here’s the text from Yahoo Answers:

this is the message all the girls are recieving on facebook:

Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men …. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha.

I found a few other links with similar supposed Facebook messages, but that’s the general idea.

I have to say, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of on earth. (Alright, that might be an exaggeration, but it’s pretty damn stupid!) For one, I don’t believe it has anything to do with breast cancer. I think it’s just some stupid prank to get people’s attention and have everyone on Facebook being all sexy and provocative and whatnot. And, of course, I’m just waiting for the “these girls are such sluts” comments that are sure to come.

Of course, I have to ask myself how stupid or smart this is if it is, in fact, for breast cancer awareness. And in that case, my answer is… the same. Still stupid. Perhaps even stupider. Because nobody is actually talking about breast cancer, or even mentioning it in their status. A lot of women probably don’t even know why their friends are doing it, they just see it as some Facebook meme and then deciding to taking part. So where on earth is all this awareness? A much better campaign would keep the whole bra color thing, but then instruct women to also leave a link to a breast cancer-related site, or a splash page or similar teaser that will eventually have breast cancer information.

In conclusion, if it’s just a prank: stupid and just having women look like idiots while trying to be all sexy and whatever. If it’s actual breast cancer awareness: a poorly constructed campaign that will have very little, if any, success.

ETA: My friend just got a message and hers says:

Write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to only gals no men…it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color on their status! LOL!

Acts of Contrition: Feminism, Privilege, and the Legacy of Mary Daly

So, Mary Daly died.

Huh.

Now, if you know about me, even a little, you will know I have a complicated relationship with the works of Mary Daly. At first, they were everything I embraced about feminism; then, they were everything I tried to reject. It seems selfish, when talking about a dead woman, to talk exclusively about what she meant to you; it’s laying a claim on the woman that you do not actually have. I wasn’t in her life; I didn’t know her. But we are selfish, about the dead – particularly when their work is all we really have of them. It’s hard to keep from injecting yourself into the conversation.

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Another reason not to eat at KFC

Besides the fact that they engage in some of the worst factory farming practices around, KFC is also in the habit of making really racist television ads. A recent one out of Australia:

[Video description: The video opens with a logo reading “KFC’s Cricket Survival Guide.” A white guy sits in what appear to be sports arena bleachers, surrounded by cricket fans, all of whom appear to be non-white. They are dancing, playing instruments and singing. He looks annoyed, rubbing his face and looking around like he’s confused. He says, “Need a tip when you’re stuck in an awkward situation?” Then he hands out a bucket of fried chicken and everyone goes silent and you can hear the game in the background. He says, “Too easy,” which is followed by the formal KFC pitch.]

KFC has pulled the ad, but a spokesperson nonetheless defends it, basically saying that it’s only causing an uproar because it was reproduced in the United States where people are racist, when it was really just intended for not-racist Australians:

It is a light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team. The ad was reproduced online in the US without KFC’s permission, where we are told a culturally-based stereotype exists, leading to the incorrect assertion of racism. We unequivocally condemn discrimination of any type and have a proud history as one of the world’s leading employers for diversity.

Perhaps it is true that the “black people just love fried chicken!” stereotype isn’t as prevalent in Australia as it is in the United States; I’ll buy that. But even if you replace the fried chicken with something else, the commercial is still… troubling. The fried chicken makes it worse, but even if it was a box of jelly beans, the message is still “Oh jeez, this white guy is surrounded by loud-ass black people but if he gives them something nice they will calm down and not be so noisy!”

I don’t doubt that Australia has a different context for this ad than the United States does, but I have a hard time believing that it would only be considered racist over in my corner of the world. Aussie readers, am I wrong?

Oh, you bad, bad women.

So read this from The Guardian: ‘Career women make bad mothers’ billboards pulled.

The Outdoor Advertising Association has ordered the withdrawal of controversial billboard ad which read “Career women make bad mothers” following an outcry from working mothers.

The ads, which were part of an OAA campaign designed to promote the effectiveness of billboard advertising, started appearing on the side of buses and on an estimated 11,000 billboard sites this week and were due to run for two weeks in total.

Just as you would expect, rather than an apology we get a “we totes didn’t mean it!” moment:

The strategy head of Beta, Sharon Johnson, said: “There has been a misunderstanding with an important mothers’ forum about this campaign which is about sparking a debate. It is not what the campaign thinks. But rather than offend people the decision has been taken to replace the posters saying ‘Working women make bad mothers’ with other slogans which work just as effectively.”

Yeah, those Internet people have the wrong end of the stick. (And there’s a nice touch at the end of the article with gratuitous ha ha look at those silly hysterical Internet wimminz, in case you missed it.) Gee, ladies, did you have to get all offended? Couldn’t you rather appreciate our super clever campaign? We’re, uh, playing devil’s advocate, or, um, sparking a debate, yeah, that’s it! This was, what’s that phrase, designed to further public discourse!

No no, Ms Johnson. We understand perfectly. Some people thought it perfectly okay to take something for which women are time and again shamed and use it in their charming demonstration of the power of advertising.

What debate is this meant to be sparking, anyway; whether women ought to be allowed to work? Whether women who choose to do so are bad mothers? You know what? We’ve had this debate, such as it is. It’s been done. It’s silly, and it’s offensive. The thing is, the people who feel comfortable plastering this sentiment all over the public spaces of the United Kingdom haven’t given a great deal of consideration to the actual lives of the real live women they’re talking about.

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Goodbye, Mary Daly

Mary Daly, an influential feminist theologian, passed away on January 3 at the age of 81. She was a controversial figure, penning incredible works on feminism and religion and refusing to allow male students into her class; she also fell out of favor with many feminists (myself included) who read and enjoyed her early works but were appalled when we discovered her transphobia in later writings, and when we learned that she refused to publicly engage the criticisms of women of color, including Audre Lorde’s generous Open Letter.

Mary Daly’s life, in a lot of ways, is a microcosm of the public face of late 20th century second-wave feminism — a woman-centered radical movement that had (refreshingly, for some) little place for men, but that later found itself tripping over its narrowly-imposed definition of “woman.” She was a foremother, but one who eventually revealed herself unprepared (or unwilling) to embrace all of her children — especially the ones who failed to look or think like her. Her writings on religion were powerful and original and her thoughts and academic contributions certainly shaped the face of feminism today (in good ways and bad), but her particular brand of feminism has been, for good reason, rejected by many women, myself included. May her family and loved ones be at peace, and may the rest of us learn from her good works and leave her bad ones to dust.

Amanda Simpson Receives Presidential Appointment to the Department of Commerce

amanda simpsonI’m a little late on this, but for those who haven’t yet heard, I thought I’d post the good news that a woman named Amanda Simpson has been appointed by the Obama Administration to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (Note: the comments at the HuffPo article are a cesspool of offensiveness):

Defense industry veteran Amanda Simpson of Tuscon, Arizona, who really is a rocket scientist, was just appointed by President Obama to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security as a senior technical advisor. Her job will include managing exports of dual use technology as well as conducting press and media liaison work for the agency.

Simpson is highly qualified for the position. She has worked in the aerospace and defense industry for 30 years, most recently serving as Deputy Director in Advanced Technology Development at Raytheon Missile Systems. She holds degrees in physics, engineering and business administration, and is a certified flight instructor and test pilot with 20 years of experience.

What has been making Simpson’s appointment newsworthy, though, is the fact that she is a transgender woman. And while very far from being the only trans government worker, it seems that she is the first openly trans person woman to receive a presidential appointment (ETA: The first trans person to receive a presidential appointment was Dylan Orr, who is a trans man. That makes Simpson not the first trans person in general, but still the first trans woman). Further, she’s actually an activist within the trans community who, among other things, served on the Board of Directors at the National Center For Transgender Equality (NCTE). NCTE had this to say on their blog:

“What is noteworthy about this appointment is not that a transgender person is serving this administration—many transgender people work for the federal government—the real story is that Amanda Simpson was selected based on her exemplary credentials and not because she is transgender,” commented Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Countless transgender people are overlooked every day for jobs they can do very well. When an employer does not discriminate based on gender identity, they have access to more highly qualified people. That’s what happened here.”

In a different article (Note: the article in general is not recommended, and contains some transphobic elements), Simpson herself said the following:

“I think to some extent it shouldn’t mean much at all, but on the other hand it does,” Simpson said during a telephone interview Monday from Washington, D.C. Simpson moved recently after living in Tucson for 15 years.

“So many employers and people in this country are not willing to look past that, and that’s why this is important.”

…

Simpson said that while advancements have been made toward equality, she hopes to see more people hired and promoted strictly based on their ability to do the job.

“So many people get caught up in the noise of, ‘Gee, you don’t look like me and you don’t have the same background or experience as me,’ ” she said. “They don’t realize that’s what makes this country great.”

A huge congratulations to her! She’s certainly qualified for the position, and I imagine will do it well.

So basically we’re all going to die

Because our airports are run by dingbats.

Here’s what happened at Newark airport yesterday (thank Zeus I flew into LaGuardia):

1. Man walks through “Do Not Enter” doors, into a secure part of the airport terminal without going through security.
2. The security guard manning the doors apparently ignores him
3. A passenger sees the man walk through the “Do Not Enter” doors and alerts security
4. TSA tracks down the surveillance tapes of the terminal and sees that a man did indeed breeze into a secure zone without being checked.
5. TSA is unable to find the man in question.
6. Two and a half hours later, TSA shuts down the terminal and everyone is stranded.

I’m no expert in airport security, but could TSA not have pulled up other surveillance videos and perhaps looked at where the man went? I don’t love the idea of video surveillance in public places, but an airport is not a purely public place (especially in the post-security terminals). It would make a lot of sense for the terminals to be videotaped, and for those vides to be easily accessible. Then TSA could see where the heck the dude went instead of, say, jogging around the terminal looking for the dude in the gray shirt. Do these fools not watch CSI?

I don’t oppose closing the terminal if that’s what you have to do. But as others have pointed out:

Robert W. Mann Jr., an airline industry consultant in Port Washington, N.Y., said that evacuating the terminal was “consistent with what they’ve done in the past.” But he said he was concerned by the two and a half hours between when the man went through the do-not-enter door and when the terminal was shut down.

“Presumably,” he said, “if you’re going to do this, the time is immediately, not some lengthy period afterwards.”

Presumably.

Because of the terminal closure, passengers were stranded for hours and even overnight. Which is especially genius, since they can’t access their luggage, and that luggage contains all of their liquids and often medication, since our fairly arbitrary carry-on rules changed a few years ago:

She spent the next five hours in a customer service line, only to be told to return around noon Monday to be booked on a flight leaving around 4 p.m. She said she tried to explain that her mother needed pills in luggage that had been checked for their original flight. She said the Continental employee she was talking to told her, “Look at the long line I have to deal with.”

So people can’t get their medication, but look at the long line I have to deal with!

Not that I fault the poor Continental employee — she probably did have an enormous line to deal with! And she probably spent her entire day dealing with yelling, crying, threatening and generally unpleasant passengers. The point is that the airports need to do serious thinking on what the goal of airport security actually is, and then develop comprehensive security measures are actually necessary, instead of these stop-gap reactions to stupid shit that happened yesterday. Could TSA really not have predicted that someone would put explosives in their underpants? Have a solid few decades of a War on Drugs taught us nothing about how people smuggle contraband?

But, hey, we can’t pee on the last hour of international flights, so I feel safe.

A bit of good news

The only legal organization that provided any colorable, intellectual support of the death penalty has abandoned its own cause, because the capital punishment system in the United States is so thoroughly broken that it is beyond salvaging.

The institute’s recent decision to abandon the field was a compromise. Some members had asked the institute to take a stand against the death penalty as such. That effort failed.

Instead, the institute voted in October to disavow the structure it had created “in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”

That last sentence contains some pretty dense lawyer talk, but it can be untangled. What the institute was saying is that the capital justice system in the United States is irretrievably broken.

A study commissioned by the institute said that decades of experience have proved that the system cannot reconcile the twin goals of individualized decisions about who should be executed and systemic fairness. It added that capital punishment is plagued by racial disparities; is enormously expensive even as many defense lawyers are underpaid and some are incompetent; risks executing innocent people; and is undermined by the politics that come with judicial elections.

When the one group who tried to make an intellectual argument for the dealth penalty admits defeat, we are headed in the right direction. Of course, a lot of death penalty supporters don’t premise their arguments on anything rational or analytical, and don’t care to; the United States is very culturally invested in the death penalty, and we see it as a cornerstone of a retributive criminal justice system. I sadly don’t see it going away any time soon, even if we are one of the only countries in the world that still kills convicted criminals. But at least now we’ve removed any veneer of intellectualism from the pro-death-penalty side.

Acts and Consequences

American Evangelicals are apparently shocked that their anti-gay activism in Uganda — which mostly involves telling Ugandans that gay men sodomize boys and that homosexuals have a nefarious plot to destroy society as we know it — has actually been taken seriously by Ugandans, who, in order to stop purported child rape and total social annihilation, have bandied about the idea of executing gay people.

Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

Now how in the world would anti-gay propaganda focusing on how gay people are going to rape your children and destroy your society ever result in severe criminal penalties for being gay? It’s a mystery!

Except, of course, that the Evangelicals who are now crying foul actually helped to draft the bill:

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.

…because less harsh criminalization of homosexuality would be ok? (Don’t answer that).

This is a tried-and-true pattern among religious radicals. They set a fire, fan the flames and then feign shock when something burns down. They do the same thing when it comes to the murder of abortion providers: They select their targets, accuse them of cold-blooded baby-killing and perpetuating a Holocaust, compare them to Hitler, put them on “Wanted Dead or Alive” lists, hand out their home and business addresses, post their pictures online, and then act just shocked when someone shoots them.

I’m not buying it. Do I think that all (or even most) Evangelical Christians want gay people executed? Of course not. But the movement leaders know exactly what they are doing. And if their intent wasn’t to have gay people executed by the state, it certainly was at least to have them socially marginalized, hated or perhaps jailed — all of which, we well know, does end up with gay people on the receiving end of violence and vigilantism that too often ends lives.

So perhaps the goal wasn’t for the state to kill or harm gay people. But the goal was certainly for someone to do it.