My scrap of dirt

I've been accumulating links in my tabs again, so it's time to share. :) But first, since I'm going to re-post a bunch of links that zombie_process posted, I'd like to direct you to the original post first.

First up - public employees!
- A Letter to Scott Walker from a Wisconsin Teacher, which touches upon tons of really good points and issues that have been raised since Wisconsion public employees started protesting. On this topic, I have been watching this whole thing unfold mostly through the eyes of my facebook friends (someone reposted this excellent note, for example), Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, and the anti-teacher rhetoric is pissing me off. I just do not understand people who can't see the massive amount of work, dedication and energy that teaching (at ANY level) requires. More broadly, anti-public-employee rhetoric in general baffles me, but the anti-teacher stuff is particularly angering.

Always good - gender and race stuff!
- My son, the pink boy. It's both a reflection on raising a gender nonnormative boy and a rant against recent advice that Dr. Phil gave to a mom regarding her own gender nonnormative boy.

"Who's confused? My son knows exactly what he likes. When Sam was 4 and his male peers trick-or-treated as Batman and Spiderman and gorillas, Sam was a princess. At 5, he was a queen, regal and proud and full of the royal prowess that Disney offers all little girls. He liked feather boas and lip gloss and dancing. Did he think he was a girl? Nope. Was he confused about being a boy? Nope. Did he need to be taught what boys are supposed to like? Nope -- how boys are supposed to behave was abundantly clear from the trains and trucks we bought him before we realized he was a pink boy, the behavior of all the boys he knew, the messages on TV, and the judgments of all the Random Moms. He just liked what he liked, the way other kids did -- only his likes were different."

- Tomboy [article in French, video in French with English subtitle]An article and trailer/interview for what looks like is going to be a really fascinating movie about a girl taking on a boy identity for a summer. I can't wait to see it. I was a little uncomfortable about the director bringing in the notion of lying into it, but I like the way that the movie seems to approach the whole thing, from the perspective of the child's lived experience rather than trying to make a statement.

- A Bitch magazine article on race and this year's Oscars, in particular the (bland) tribute to Lena Horne. The author ends with a note that really strikes a chord:

"Lately, I’ve been reading how history has sanitized Rosa Parks by characterizing her as a sweet, apolitical lady who just happened to be too tired to give up her bus seat one day. In reality, Parks was a dedicated social activist prior to her arrest. She joined the civil rights movement, in part, to end sexual violence against black women. I’d hate to see history sanitize Lena Horne in the same way. Unfortunately, that prospect seemed likely during last night's ceremonies."

- A Salon article expressing disappointment about Natalie Portman would say on Sunday night that motherhood is 'the greatest role of her life'. Motherhood is one of those difficult topics, where it's hard to walk the line between embracing motherhood, respecting women who make the choice to be moms full-time, and still acknowledging that the concept of motherhood comes with very heavy string attached in our society. The problem (to me) is not that motherhood is necessarily problematic and oppressive, it's the way that people essentialize the experience and conflate it with 'real' womanhood. In short, when we continue to see and interpret motherhood as being the ultimate fulfillment in a woman's life that (1) tends to dismiss fatherhood, and reinforce the idea that it is less central to a man's life and (2) lessens the choices and lives of women who don't want to be mothers, or even just don't want to prioritize family above all else.

- Anyway, so I wanted to link to this other article which fronws upon the tendency in feminist-oriented circles to frown upon motherhood, and it's funny because I just don't see these two articles as fundamentally contradictory, in the end. (As a sidenote, I believe the author for this article is in a same-sex relationship, which very much can change how the dyanmics of motherhood play out.) I don't know. I want to believe there has to be a place for recognizing gendered dynamics and lamenting them, without necessarily throwing under the bus everything that's been traditionally considered feminine and womanly. In short, I want to be able to say motherhood as we understand it is problematic, without necessarily judging women who want to be mothers and want to prioritize this aspect of their life. Maybe I'm hoping for too much.

- Sort of in the same vein, but wildly more depressing, this article which responds to suggestions that Laura Logan (an American reporter who got assaulted while reporting from Egypt) should not have been sent to the field in the first place. Great great piece, both about the gendered and racialized aspects of this story.

And a miscellaneous link to finish.
- Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names. It's, obviously, not just about names and programmers, but actually highlights assumptions that people make constantly, and not just about names, when you think about it. Anyway, this whole post resonates with me because my first name (of French origin) contains two accents but my Canadian university (reminder: Canada is officially a English-French bilingual country) still can't handle it and replaces the characters with ? whenever I log in, and in my university email. Super professional, let me tell you.

A few links before the weekend!

- A Guide: How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt: I haven't really commented about the situation in Egypt because, well, I haven't really had time to comment on much, but also because I'm feeling super careful with this whole thing. I feel wildly unqualified to make any kind of statement or claim because I know so little about the situation, and I refuse to believe it's as simple as some (especially American) pundits and journalists make it seem. But anyway, at least that guide was helpful, I thought.

- "#DearJohn: On Rape Culture and a Culture of Reproductive Violence": A fantastic post over at Tiger Beatdown in response to Republican efforts to limit access to abortion and redefine rape.

But we’ve been talking about “forcible rape,” right? And how fucked-up that construction is, how all rape is based on a lack of consent and “force,” in the sense that you get beaten up, is just an additional crime? Probably everybody reading this blog knows that a lot of people don’t understand that principle. And they don’t understand it because we live in rape culture; so much sexual violence is normalized, and accepted, that it’s invisible. We can’t understand that it’s rape unless we also see physical injury, or a knife, or a gun.

- Maybe more important, head over to Daily Kos and read this post, which deals with the less visible aspects of the bill that the 'forcible rape' bullshit was part of. The core of it is here: "You're meant to recoil in horror at that redefinition. And if the bill's proponents are lucky, you'll spend all your time doing that. Because then you'll miss out on the fact that H.R. 3 is also the killing blow capping 30 years of consistent losses on abortion restrictions."

- Nothing new to most of you/us, but always interesting: Physiological impacts of homophobia. I wonder if they only ask LGB youth who have been bullied, or if they spoke to straight-identified youth who have been targets of homophobia, too.

To finish with three more light-hearted links:
- Pick-up lines for feminists, a wonderful poem. My favorite stanza is, "where have you been / all my life? / hopefully fighting / against oppressive / patriarchal systems."
- Why you should always pay your webdesigner.
- Comic creator gets back at Christian organization which used an image of his to lobby against sexual minorities.

A friend just posted a really good, thoughtful post on her blog about why the "I like it on [insert place]" Facebook phenomenon is problematic. In a nutshell:

But facebook status promotional campaigns such as this not only do little in terms of helping the cause. They actually illustrate, even as they perpetrate, at least three things that are very, very wrong with American society:

• The gendering, reifying, and branding of disease;


• The oversexualization (and consequently, the trivialization) of women's issues and bodies;


• The disinterested, low-risk, low-engagement psuedo-activism made all too easy (and commonplace) by social media.

The last point (about pseudo-activism) in particular I think is important to understand.

And since I'm talking about breast cancer, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month always bothers me, I'll link to another post that I find helpful to think through these issues: Why I boycott Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The central paragraph that summarizes why I feel uncomfortable with awareness campaigns and the way that they have been taken over by corporations.

My highly critical view of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is along the lines of Samantha King’s, who, in her book Pink Ribbons, Inc., “traces how breast cancer has been transformed from a stigmatized disease and individual tragedy to a market-driven industry of survivorship.” King maintains that corporations, under the guise of philanthropy, “turn their formidable promotion machines on the curing of the disease while dwarfing public health prevention efforts and stifling the calls for investigation into why and how breast cancer affects such a vast number of people.” I couldn’t agree more.

"If you don't send your boyfriend naked pictures, I feel bad for him."
- Rihanna, in this interview.

I would add that if you don't send your girlfriend naked pictures, I feel bad for her, too. (Actually it's not true because it depends on what you're into and what they're into and all that, and that's really really important, but point is - there is nothing wrong with this practice as a whole.)

I have ranted enough, I think, about why I am ten levels of frustrated by the backlash that V Hudgens has gotten for engaging in what is commonly known as sexting. I get riled up very easily at the sexual double-standards that befalls women and men (especially in adolescence), but more generally about the kind of moral panic that so many people (especially in the U.S.) generate when it comes to talking about teens and sex. So I was really happy to listen to Dan Savage (in his Savage Love Podcast, episode 160) tear a new one to a male high school principal who suspended two girls from extracurricular activities for taking photos of themselves pretending to lick a penis-shaped lollipop during the summer, outside of school. The school was then sued by the ACLU on the behalf of the girl because this is, basically, bullshit. You should listen to Dan but here is his rant.

Who's bringing disrespect to the school? Who's creating a bad reputation for the school? Austin Couch, principal. Douchebag. [...] The most outrageous part of the story is - the girls were told that they could reduce their punishment by 25% (I don't know what that means) is they went to three counseling sessions and then appeared before aaaall the athletic coaches at the school who are aaaall men to apologize for their action. What this is really about, this whole story, this whole obsession on the part of principal Couch is the fear of female sexuality, particularly teen female sexuality, and the desire to punish and control and humiliate these girls for having any sort of sexual agency at all, for having any sort of desire at all, any sense of humor or play or - most appalling of all, this idea that they were in charge of or in the possession of any control of their own bodies, [...] that their bodies were their own and they could take pictures of them and post them on their own Myspace pages where only their friends could see them... this is really just another bit of evidence that the country and a lot of people in it have a problem with teen sexuality and in particular female teen sexuality and freedom and we have to fight these people, on behalf of these girls.

A+, DAN, A+.

Again I think there are some things to unpack there, it's not as easy and simple as Dan makes it sound. There are power dynamics between girls and boys in teen heterosexual couples that we should pay attention to, and different types of pressures that teens might be under to be more sexual than they feel comfortable being, etc. But I think the only effective way we can address these issues is if we acknowledge that most teens are sexual in one way or another, and THAT'S OKAY. By embracing this fact, we can take it seriously - we can educate and reflect and tackle problems in a much more meaningful and significant way than by pretending teens can be controlled and their sexuality restrained. By acknowledging teen sexuality we can talk about masturbation and deconstruct the fucking virginity myth and explore sex as a multiplicity of practices of pleasure rather than a single act of penetration and we can learn to embrace our bodies instead of being terrified and ashamed of them.

On that note, I have been so unproductive this weekend, but writing about things that matter makes me feel good, so whatever.

From Making Meaning of Relationships: Young Women's Experiences and Understandings of Dating Violence by Donna Chung (2007, Violence Against Women 13:12):

The findings suggest there are two related and noteworthy differences between the current generation of young women and the previous generations. First, young women now expect and feel pressure to be in an equal relationship that can lead them to present their relationship in ways that mask inequality and abuse. Second, because they see themselves as having equality with men, there is no reason why they should stay with violent or abusive partners; therefore, if they are living with male violence it can be viewed as an individual failing.
[...]
Female victims of male violence are constructed in two ways through young women's explanations. On one hand, they are responsible for the violence because they have not made good decisions about the men they date and "choose" to stay with them. On the other hand, they are vulnerable to being victims because they have low self-esteem or another personal inadequacy, which is why they continue to stay in the relationship.
Both explanations place responsibility on the woman and do not question the man's use of violence or consider his capacity for change. The study shows the continuing dominance of individualistic explanations that conceal male power and a woman's vulnerability to male violence, and focus on her responsibility to stop the violence. [...] This leaves gendered power relations relatively intact because they are invisible within these individualized explanations.

There's more in there, about how intrinsic heterosexual dating is to the performance of femininity for teenage girls, but to me the crucial point that keeps coming up over and over again is the way in which discourses that individualize actions at the price of almost all other narratives unwittingly perpetuate broader, structural patterns of inequalities. There's obviously something profoundly discouraging about the way that new discourses around gender equality have actually work to create extra pressure for girls (and presumably boys, too) rather than modify the foundations of how heterosexual couples are socially expected to relate to each other. (Which of course does not mean all straight couples strictly conform to the scripts, that would be far too simplistic.)

As a sidenote, I would be curious to use Chun's interview guide to have similar conversations with teenage boys, and see how they frame their dating practices and relationships with girls, and their own experiences of "casual" dating violence.

Most of you probably haven't heard that Vanessa Hudgens (of High School Musical fame) had more nude photos leaked online last week. She had a first nude scandal a couple of years ago, and these new photos were taken before that first scandal, although the pictures themselves are older than the ones first leaked. Either way, she's underage in both batches.

As you can guess, she's getting slammed and called a slut by a number of people. Although she probably won't be making a statement this time around, she did last time: "I want to apologize to my fans, whose support and trust means the world to me. I am embarrassed over this situation and regret having ever taken these photos."

( Several things about this whole scandal bother me:  )

That's it! Done ranting. Woah. Sorry if I'm a little intense and all over the place, but this has been bouncing around in my head for a few days now with all the reactions I've read really bothering me for the most part, so. It's been building up. ;)

We watched one of Stuart Hall's lectures tonight in class. Nothing ground-breaking, but beautifully articulate on issues of meaning-making and representation.

I also learned, not without surprise, that Stuart Hall is black.

It was funny - to realize I'd unconsciously been making that assumption we all tend to make, especially if we're white, because I've been reading stuff on LJ about cultural appropriation in writing and more generally white privilege and stuff, and it's frustrating, in a way, that I continue to make these assumptions. It makes me want to pay closer attention. Anyway, I wanted to share a few of the things I've been reading:

I Didn't Dream of Dragons and the continuation, more specifically addressed to white folks. A few selected passages that really spoke to me:

Do not tell me, or the people like me who have grown up hearing Arabic around them, or singing in Swahili, or dreaming in Bengali—but reading only (or even mostly) in English (or French, or Dutch)—that this colonial rape of our language has not infected our ability to narrate, has not crippled our imagination.

[...] Asking an author to write the Other with respect and assuming it to be sufficient, is like telling a person that being polite to everyone is sufficient in their goal of being an anti-racist ally. This is crap. Your definition of individuality, just like your definition of politeness is culture-specific.

[...] I distrust universalising statements proclaiming our inherent mutual humanity because they are uni-directional—they do not make everyone more like me, they make everyone more like you. And I do not want that.

[...] We are not used to throwing our abusers in jail after three strikes--we negotiate with our abusers being our bosses and television hosts and school teachers and peacekeeping forces and our clergy. When someone tells us we are wrong, we can't run away or banish them, we learn to live with them, and with ourselves.

[...] Decide whether you want to understand the critical lenses we use to deconstruct dominant narratives, and learn how to use them. This will probably be painful because it reveals feet of clay in dearly beloved books and authors. Is the cost worth the result for you? No one is saying there isn't still value in something offensive and flawed, but your line of tolerance may be different from someone else's. I found that, having once turned my critical reader on, I could not turn her off, and I am happy, on the whole, that this means that there are now books that I find unpalatable which previously I would have been able to enjoy.

(Also, frustrated because there was one good link that I can't find again. Will edit if I do.)


I also never got around saying on Tuesday just how fantastic it was to see so many African-Americans involved in the inauguration process, both in the proceedings and in the audience. I'm sure Obama will disappoint in some ways, but no matter what, he changed something big, and I can't help but smile at his image. Looking at this little girl's eyes, I feel like I won't ever be able to grasp the full extent of just how amazing it is that this biracial man is going to be everywhere for the next four years. (Not just him. All of them.)

Speaking of Obama and politics, much much win for his swift decision on Guantanamo (dude, he's left-handed, too? heee), and his support of Roe v. Wade today.

On that topic:
"I think what everyone ought to be interested in doing, whether they are or not, is reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies," Gandy told CNN. "Because if we reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, it will by definition reduce the number of abortions and reduce a lot of the pain and despair that has befallen women in these economic times, who cannot afford to enlarge their families when they don't have a job and they don't have a way to put food on the table for the kids that they have now."
THAT, yes.

To go back to Obama, how gorgeous is this B&W photo?

On this note, I will leave you with a beautiful photo and great moment. Not seeing / hearing about Bush anymore is going to be quite glorious, too.

A couple of serious links for tonight:

Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly 3 about images of women in advertising - it's worth watching even if there are no groundbreaking points that are being made in there, and there's some funny. :)

The one quote I really liked was one when Jean was talking about the fact there's been a rise recently in images that objectify men, as well. And how sometimes that's used to say, look, men are treated just as badly as women.

The problem? Apart from the fact it doesn't happen with as much frequency, it is that the structure doesn't work the same for men and women. "There are no consequences to men for being objectified." The images that we circulate that perpetuate an image of masculinity as necessarily violent and unemotional have much more power, and are much more dangerous.

--

An interesting post, An exegesis on same-sex marriage, in particularly because it goes over the history of marriage as an institution.

--

And I'll throw a lighter link in there, Nathan Fillion and Joss Whedon being adorable together. RL bromance FTW. :D

Reading about heterosex and feeling a little down at how male hegemony is just so closely intertwined with the way we see sex - it's like even when we think we're in an egalitarian relationship where the woman is treated the same as the man, our accounts of sex reveal systemic inequalities. :/ I find myself wondering if it's possible to have non-hegemonic heterosex and the thought that maybe it's not is incredibly depressing.

"The way these activities were described, as in these two extracts, often represented her orgasm as something that she had as a result of what he did or gave her. In contrast, his orgasm, achieved through intercourse, was not typically framed as her giving – instead, it was something ‘we’ did together, or about where his orgasm took place. In these accounts, the man is represented as more active in the production of orgasm – both hers and his own – than is the woman. In this way, it is a subtle account of the relative passivity traditionally expected of women in heterosex (e.g. see Gavey and McPhillips, 1999; Gilfoyle et al., 1992)."

[...] "Numerous studies have pointed to the links between male sexuality and performance/competence (e.g. Gilfoyle et al., 1992; Kilmartin, 1999). It also points to how ‘saturated’ heterosexual reciprocity is with unequal status. If a woman’s orgasm is ‘given’ by a man, as it is in the discourse of reciprocity, men stand to gain positive identity positions (sensitive and unselfish) through this discourse. Furthermore, the caring, sensitive man partaking in reciprocal heterosex is also imbued with ‘sexpertise’ (Potts, 1998, 2002) – the competence to know how to meet the complex challenge of producing orgasm in the female body, as well as the more straightforward task of his own orgasm. Women’s ‘gift’, on the other hand, is recognized less as an active gift than as a taken-for-granted expectation. As such, the positive identities to be gained by women through the discourse are less clear (although the negative implications of not participating are clear)."

[...] "It is ironic . . . that the ‘enlightened’ male discourse, in which men take some responsibility for their partner’s pleasure, is yet another example of men abrogating power to themselves, as they take away women’s ability to be an independent sexual agent. (Gilfoyle et al., 1992: 224)"

(Extracted from Virginia Braun, Nicola Gavey and Katrhyn McPhilips, “The ‘Fair Deal’? Unpacking Accounts of Reciprocity in Heterosex,’ Sexualities 6:2 (2003): 237-261.)