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

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

Jill

Post a short description of something you’ve written this week, along with a link. Make it specific — don’t just post to your whole blog.

And just a short PSA: I have contracted some sort of bubonic plague and haven’t left my bed in four days (today I finally ventured into the shower, which was great). I also have the headache from Hell, so I’m not spending a whole ton of time looking at my computer. That means comment moderation might be slow, especially for comments that include a lot of links. Please be patient. One of us will get to the mod queue eventually.

Happy New Year, and self-promote away.

61 thoughts on Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

  16. This week I wrote about the CIA strategy of giving Viagra to Afghan warlords and what it means for Afghan women, as well as how it continues the Armed Force’s disrespect and abuse of women.

  18. I wrote a short post on the assumptions built into our nameing system.

    http://directionlessbones.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/naming-system/

    And a series of long posts on where our idea of property and ownership come from, arguing, mainly in part 2, that the idea of owning only physical objects, and not people (especially women) is quite a recent innovation:

    Part 2 of 4: http://directionlessbones.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/what-is-the-origin-of-property-part-2-of-4/

    Finally there’s a post on genetic engineering:

    http://directionlessbones.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/human-genetic-enhancement/

  21. Ol Cranky @ 9:

    I wrote about Air Tran’s mishandling of the events surrounding flight 175 and lame-assed apology

    That’s ablist. Not cool.

  27. This week on MMW, we examine whether Iranian poetry prizes are male-dominated, the media’s sexist interest in Libyan bodyguards, discuss the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference, Sahar Daftary’s death, complain about the BBC’s coverage of Kariman Hamza’s Qur’an translation, look at an interview with Joumana El Matrah about the condition of Australian Muslim women and the coverage of Palestinian women in the present Gaza crisis. And don’t forget The Links.

  28. Typically, I have lots to self-promote, on the week when posts with many links are likely to take longer to get through.

    Get well soon, Jill – positive thoughts heading your way!

    ***

    Summing up on 2008, I had My year in music, picking twelve songs to describe the story-arc of last year.

    There was also the “Big Astrology Experiment” that I conducted throughout 2008 – the results are in, and… astrology doesn’t work (gosh, what a surprise!)

    A couple of posts regarding political correctness, or its lack – first, an incomplete history of ‘no sex please’.

    Then, a poem entitled ‘Political INcorrectness gone mad’; link has both the words, and my performance of the poem to my webcam.

    Finally, I scratched the surface of my relationship wit

  30. That’s ablist. Not cool.

    GallingGalla @ 21 I’m guessing you didn’t bother reading my post prior to making that comment. If I am wrong, please explain what in my post was “ablist” and uncool, I’d love to read an explanation as to how that “apology” was sufficient.

  32. This week I read about an appeal of a conviction in the murder of a gay man based on the defendant being found guilty of “depraved indifference”. Articles that day illustrating depraved indifference both in the commission of violent crime and societal depraved indifference just leaped out at me.

    I first posted the legal definition of “Depraved Indifference” Please read this one first.
    http://womanrebel.blogspot.com/2009/01/depraved-indifference-law-legal.html

    Then my thoughts on depraved indifference.
    http://womanrebel.blogspot.com/2009/01/depraved-indifference.html

    Happy New Year, hopefully better than the last 8 years.

  34. @ ol cranky:

    The “ablist and uncool” part was using the description “lame-ass”. That would be to paraplegics and others who have difficulty walking, the equivalent of using “gay” as an insult.

  36. No Space for Apostates: Arguing that the mainstream Jewish community must ex-communicate the radical religious fanatics in the Settler movement. They won’t listen, of course, but neither do Jews for Jesus when we say that they aren’t Jewish, and the symbolism matters.

  39. this week, more self-portraits, some inspiration, and solidairty with palestine

    StitchingTentacles.wordpress.com

    self-portraits-a-day project/ cross sections of art and identity

  45. There was a sex party or two going on somewhere during NYE here in Malaysia, and one or two got busted, and it got on the news. And of course, the moralists had to write in to the newspaper about how society is going down the drain and bla bla bla notimportantstuff. Anyways. Here’s my response.

  47. The 2008 Weblog Awards are upon us, and this year, Australia’s top ten blogs are competing for the coveted “Best Australian or New Zealand Blog of the Year” title.

    Well, that’s the official story… personally I’m sceptical. These happened to be ten blogs that got a lot of independant nominations, and were judged by an international panel to be worthy of merit. Ten Best? Hardly. Ten Good ones? – yes, I think that’s a fair assessment. They should be, half the finalists are blogs published at great expense by mainstream media organisations, and written by the professional punditocracy and commentariat. .

    Amongst them is… my own blog. http://aebrain.blogspot.com

    Actually considering the calibre of the competition, I’m pretty chuffed to have made the finals. Didn’t even know I’d been nominated, not in that category anyway.

    Readers from around the world are invited to vote for the blog of their choice, via http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-australia-or-new-zealand-blog/

    In my blog, I deal with feminist issues from an unusual perspective. Whether I’m more properly described as Transsexual or Intersexed is a matter for medical debate. I lived most of my life in a male role, hating every minute of it because it all felt so wrong, but benefiting from male-privilege all the while. It was only when that privilege was suddenly revoked by a weird endocrine system that I was fully aware of just how far it extended. I’d always been a Feminist – or Ally – but now it’s personal. And my own case proves just how far we have to go.

    I will say this – being myself at last, having a body that looks and feels right, is worth all the losses in wealth and respect.

    I’m a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist, and to the right of the Australian centre. Which probably puts me in the middle of the US Democrats on most issues. Still, you may want to consider the other excellent feminist blogs on the ANZ category, and vote for them instead – or as well as.

    Polls close Monday January 12, 2009 at 10:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT),

    You may vote once every 24 hours in each poll.

    So if you like multiple blogs, by all means allocate one or more votes to each, in order of preference, one vote per day.

  48. Once again, my co-contributors at Yes Means Yes Blog kick ass. Eroticundulation has up two recent posts: one a story about slut-shaming and her job as a sex worker; and after some rather vigorous discussion in comments, a longer post about her road through life, sex work and feminism.

    As always I have been busy there: I did posts on Dennis Prager’s argument in favor of marital rape, mechanical sex and misery, parts I and <a href=”http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/prager-adds-general-dementia-to-the-specific/II. (No, really, that’s his position.) I discussed comprehensive sex ed and my own long-ago High School health class, which I appreciate much more with long, long hindsight. Finally, in light of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s excellent essay in Yes Means Yes about the Antioch Sexual Assault Prevention Program, I discuss that policy as a burden-shifting mechanism and a work of genius that was before its time.

  53. The “ablist and uncool” part was using the description “lame-ass”. That would be to paraplegics and others who have difficulty walking, the equivalent of using “gay” as an insult.

    You are sh1tting me! I’ve heard lots of rude comments and nicknames but I have never heard the term “lame-assed” used as slang reference to someone with decreased use of lower extremities. Where the hell did this come from and where is it said (I’ve never heard it in the hospital or other clinical settings in which I’ve worked). Sorry to be politically incorrect but, dear lord, we give some words way too much power these days.

  55. I understand that the way I (and the general public) use the word lame, like the word gross, is slang and in no way related to the original meaning of the word (lame used in the clinical context is also not considered a derogatory term for differently abled persons like, for example, the word “gimp” is). I was not saying that I think the general usage was the original and the clinical context an odd new thing, I was saying that the consideration of “lame-assed” as a derogatory epithet for paraplegics was something I have never heard of (and doesn’t show up as a slang usage of the word).

    Lame used in this context was very obviously not derogatory slamming of “differently abled” persons nor is the term lame-assed (or even lame, alone) a generally known negative epithet a la those commonly used derogatory terms to slam gays, blacks, hispanics, arabs, etc. Had I referred to the apology as “retarded”, which is commonly used in a derogatory fashion to the point that even using it in the appropriate clinical context gets some people frothing at the mouth, I would have understood why someone would take unction but this is a prime example of political correctness gone awry. I reiterate, we have given words waaaay too much power that pretty much anyone can find a way to turn anything into something that should be considered offensive.

  56. I hope nobody would take unction. Sticks and stones, and so on.

    It’s not that “lame” is or was used as a slur toward paraplegic or other PWDs; it’s that it implies that lameness–like gayness or darkness–is simply bad. It might be that most people simply don’t make the connection between “lame” and people who did use to be referred to as lame; it’s true that calling people lame because they have difficulty walking is a generation or two archaic. Then again, I never heard “spaz” or “gimp” when I was a kid around kids, and I had no idea that they referred to disability. And your average first-grader might not even consider that “gay” is also used to refer to men who have sex with men.

    It’s normal to see people with physical disabilities as less-able and lesser in a global sense; this is why “lame” as in lame-assed is even more durable than “lame” as in survived polio. You did use the term to imply that the apology was weak, worthless, so I think you’re using it in an original sense. They probably entered the lexicon together.

    It’s my understanding that irritation over expressions like “lame-ass performance” and “crippled police force” is pretty widespread amongst people who live with the understanding that they are their legs. Terms like “retard,” “gimp,” “spaz,” and “thlid,” are not archaic despite strenuous complaining, so I dunno if the community has entered obnoxious PC territory yet.

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