The way The House I Live In (a documentary critical of the war on drugs) was great at class and race but totally avoided addressing gender issues hacked me off. Also: People are the same as each other! Also, people are different to each other! Theory is hard.
I started the week out with a light-hearted post on some stories of bizarre customer interactions when I was a cashier. Then the week got decidedly less light-hearted and I wrote about the problem of how to handle parenting a child in a country obsessed with guns. That post prompted many of the people I grew up (in a rural, Midwestern, gun-happy town) with to get really angry at me, so I wrote a follow-up sharing a story about how gun culture is so pervasive that it blinds us to alternatives and how the solution to just arm everyone completely ignores the fact that many people (including me) don’t want to be armed.
This week I wrote about Private Sector Unions and the claim that they were once useful, but are now obsolete. I also wrote about a picture my republican family members have been sending around Facebook. In particular the claim that you can’t “legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity” and the claim that “you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.” I explain why I think these claims are mistaken. I wrote about the “Idle No More” uprising of First Nations in Canada. And I wrote about a Republican woman who moved to Canada and changed her mind about Universal Health Care once She experienced it.
Today, I got very irked by some utterly awful advice in an advice columnist to a domestic abuse survivor. So I wrote what she should have said http://stavvers.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/in-which-i-provide-better-advice-than-mariella-frostrup/
Holy eff, re: the original advice column. It was probably the first time I read comments and was happy I did so, though, so there’s that. Your advice was beautiful. I hope she reads it and it gives her the strength to move forward.
It is a great response to a very scary post, people tend to think advice columnists are a bit of fun, but this shows how dangerous giving media prominence to someone who knows nothing about their subject really is.
Stuff I’ve written this week: Consider the source– a PSA: On when and why the source of a quote matters TMT: On Terror Management Theory, and what it says about how we think and behave in the wake of tragedy
I wrote about how, and why, the church rejoices on Gaudete Sunday even in the context of recent tragedy. And I posted the final exam I mentioned last week, complete with its diagrams, in Christology: From Cradle to Chalcedon.
The Newtown School Shooting – Why We Mustn’t Ignore Gender In the wake of Friday’s tragedy, I write about the gendered dimension of mass murder, and why it needs to be a key focus when looking for solutions.
New this week – “Let’s Please Politicize Tragedy.” Because if now is not the time to do gun control – when? http://www.twice-cooked.com/2012/12/15/lets-please-politicize-tragedy/
This week at Sheroes Central we had a long discussion about abortion that also turned into a long discussion about miscarriages.
When violence so extreme and senseless invites despair, I take hope from the example of a man who walked through a battlefield armed with lovingkindness.In the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Hi-def, 3D dick picks (are not contained in this post) – As a fundraiser for my gender reassignment surgery, I’m selling self-cast dildos and candles. To do so, I got my penis scanned by lasers, and lived to tell the tale. Making the private public – turning the tables on transitioning as a public experience – Thoughts on why, exactly, I want to sell my penis. Spending money to make money – life as an artist – That phrase, “you have to spend money to make money,” recently started making sense to me And, of course, here’s the fundraiser page if you want to support my gender reassignment surgery (and get a penis candle!)
The latest Everyday Yoga photo post is up. I’m also looking for feedback on how to tweak the project to make it more do-able for potential contributors. #stopbiggestloser — Why I’m supporting Golda Poretsky’s campaign to get The Biggest Loser not to include teens on their next season of the show. Finally, for fun, Why I Hate Christmas Music on the Radio. Because I used to be a penguin, that’s why.
No new Fromage this week. Too busy trying to write a song a day (more on that later) and setting up a Tumblr for the band. I shall read your posts!
I responded to a really bad article at Policymic. The article was titled, “Was Rush Limbaugh Right When He Said Feminism ‘Ruined Women’? Partially.” Yeah, I know. My response is here.
This week I write about the controversy sparked by a parenting blog over a mother’s decision to let her son wear pink shoes to school, and I started working on a set of Pridefest photos I’ve taken over the past decade.
You can get a free Kindle eBook version of my book Why Atheists Love Breasts here. Sample topics: * Gen Y Believes in the Future * Exercise, Estrogen, and Energy * What to Do If You’re Drugged * I Want to Be a Bitch Like Hillary * Are Men Smarter Than Women? (No) If you buy the eBook (on Amazon.com) or the printed book (anywhere), all my author royalties are donated to Mount Holyoke College. So you can get a good book and support MHC at the same time.
The Holiday season can be so challenging for atheists. We face a constant barrage of accusations that we’re trying to ruin everyone’s day. Well, I am tired of it. And I’m tired of fakery in general. Fake it and I’ll call you out. Faking Persecution Faking Hate
Not likely that anyone here missed it, but I wrote about the Good Men Project rape self-destruct, and then Jaclyn noted Royse’s Facebook comments which reveal a great deal.
How can you fail a calc exam when you got the method and answers right? Why, with subjective grading and bad communication! http://onefemalegaze.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/mathochism-partial-credit/
To get with the holiday season, if you spend Christmas on a desert island and could only take 10-15 Christmas songs with you, which ones would you take? Mine are…. A post about vaccination and the irony of anti-vaxxers.
So this Friday a bunch of little kids got shot down while they were going to school. And then everybody with an agenda rushed to pontificate about it. I can’t imagine what the victims’ loved ones are going through right now, and I’m not going to try. But I did write an article that debunks some of the BS which inevitably turns up in the media after these murders, and tries to offer some more solid research in its place: Mass Murder
This week over at Nursing Clio: http://nursingclio.org -“My, What Healthy Breasts You Have!” (said no one, ever) -Adolescents, ACOG, and LARCs: Coercion or Choice? -Dear Santa “Like” us on Facebook, too!
People blaming the Sandy Hook shooting on irreligion prompted me to share my reflections on my own secular moral upbringing.
I’ve got a new recipe posted for Brown Butter Shortbread Cookies with Fig Jam and Pine Nuts. It’s super tasty.
I wrote a piece this week called, “Do women avoid salary negotiations? 2 new ways to reduce the gender pay gap.” It’s based on a very cool study that looks at the behavior of applicants in actual job searches, and it actually finds that there are pretty easy ways to counter the gender bias in tendencies to negotiate. One point I make, for example, is that “when the job announcement itself explicitly raised the possibility of negotiation, then the women were actually more likely than the men to ask for an increase in the advertised wage. More likely! To those of us who have read about this topic before, that is a surprising result.” I hope you’ll check it out. Over at my blog, you can also pick up a free pdf of my new eBook, “6 steps to gender equality.”
I reviewed the one-of-a-kin ‘Holy Motors:’ http://film-nut.tumblr.com/post/38087273891/holy-motors-2012 and chose 5 links of the week: http://film-nut.tumblr.com/post/38058096468/the-weekend-5
Pictures Of Crimes – TW: Discussion of Childhood Sexual Assault. A Case For Anonymity Online – Even though some people use and abuse it for ill, there are still so many of us that require that anonymity in order to feel comfortable online. This can range from trying to avoid unwanted attention, to being able to express opinions that we otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t. Leaving Unionized Work – I left a unionized position for a large, international corporation.
This week I wrote about why “feminism” and “feminist” should still be cool words to describe the movement/yourself, instead of “equalist” or something less, apparently, “divisive” (has anyone else come across that argument?? Ugh). http://canbebitter.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/bitterness-by-request-the-f-word/
There is a girls’ shoe line called “Daddy’s Money” and they are totally the worst. “I’ve got swag! Daddy’s money!” Barf doesn’t even begin to cover it. http://4thwavefeminism.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-daddys-girl.html
This week I wrote a piece in response to the posts here on the ambition gap, and why I think the whole question is being approached the wrong way. And I shared my love for Martha Jones from Doctor Who, and wrote about why she’s an amazing feminist role model.
When scientists discovered HIV in the early 1980s, they slowly started to unravel the secrets of this enigmatic virus. We learned that, while the virus owes its success to its uncanny ability to hijack our immune systems, we could fight aga…inst it with drugs that thwart its progress. Read our blog and you, too, can learn the secrets of HIV — how does it target our immune system, and how does an HIV infection cause AIDS?
I finally updated my blog in response to the rhetoric on mental illness that always seems to emerge in the wake of a mass shooting. We’re not America’s scapegoats. http://anthonybsusan.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/on-scapegoats/
Content note for racial slurs: Racism and misogyny in gaming: World of Warcraft and “team nignig.” Addressing the concerns of fearful men. The difference between the tales of “I had a wild night of drinking and dancing and good times” and “I had a wild night of drinking and dancing and then someone raped me” doesn’t hinge on the number of drinks, it hinges on the number of rapists.
I didn’t write anything substantive this week, but I posted some adorable kitten pictures, Lisa Frank school supplies from the 90s that I uncovered, a fun outfit involving a tutu, and a roundup of interesting links.
We both wrote over at hobby on the tragedy in Newtown, perhaps our reactions, from such a distance. (we are in the UK) are best summed up by a conversation. I used to be a kindergarten teacher, i could not help thinking of the children I taught. Carter had to drop his daughter off at pizza hut, whilst wishing to stand guard over her every moment. http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/someones-crying-lord/ http://itsjustahobby.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/america-my-america/ On a very different note I got reblogged on Queers for Jesus, those trying to understand the same sex marriage debate in the UK may find it useful. http://queersforjesus.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/we-need-a-locksmith/
Why Homosexuality Is Not Analogous to Murder (a response to Justice Scalia) Who Is To Blame For A Suicide? (on Jacintha Saldanha) How you know they’ve run out of arguments against homosexuality If Not Now, When? On Politicizing Tragedy
Move To Amend presentation (David Cobb) http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/12/move-to-amend.html Asylum Gallery (local artist Syprian Harvey) http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/12/asylum-gallery_12.html Our Lady of Guadalupe/links about the upcoming end of the world on 12-21-12 http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/12/12-12-12.html The “Good Men Project” debacle http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/12/your-latest-progressive-blogdonia-brawl.html
Yuletide Youtube continues at Chez Mudd. This week Songs: Fairy tale of New York, Where the River Meets The Sea, Riu Chiu, Merry Christmas from the Family, What do you get a wookiee for Christmas, when he already owns a comb, Gaudete, Crafts/recipes Witch balls, peanut butter/Nutella roll-ups, my great-grandmother’s sugar cookies, rummy bears, cinnamon dough ornaments, Guinness Reinbeers I guest-blogged at Speak Its Name, a gay historical novel review site. http://speakitsname.com/2012/12/10/christmas-at-chez-mudd/ OTOH, since I’ve been tangled up in Space Bounty Hunters, I have written nothing of content.
Ever wondered what it’s like to talk about pro-choice in public in Ireland? This week I review the wonderful speakers and somewhat, er, heated discussion at the Cork for Choice open meeting. And over at Gaelick, a look at Carla Bruni’s ideas on feminism. That’s it for this week! It’s been a slow week because I’ve been distracted by pre-Christmas running about and also becoming older.
I decided this year to read only books by women. And then I blogged about it. In thinking about my year of reading women, I came up with this idea of the Feminist Compromise: the daily experience of seeing dehumanizing depictions/discussions of women everywhere while wanting to participate in and enjoy popular culture. Here’s part one: http://freudenthal.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/a-year-in-reading-women/ Part two: http://freudenthal.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/a-year-in-reading-women-continued/ Part three to come later this week about how I was a young academic David Foster Wallace scholar and now I’m avoiding all this year’s books about and by him.
I wrote about how abortion law works in the UK, and why it might not be as liberal as you think: Moving beyond abortion law