Snowed In

My friend Katt sent me a message on Facebook about something awesome Teresa Valdez Klein did.  Fed up with ads like this:

.. which pray on our fears to try and squeeze money out of us, she started posting ads like this:

Teresa points out that you can pay as little as $5/day and reach thousands of people. If you want to buy some ad space, go here.  Teresa pointed her ads at the web site for Love Your Body Day.  If you post one yourself, I’d love it if you leave a message in the comments or link to this entry from your blog so we can all hear about it!

Thank you to Teresa for being awesome, and thank you to Katt for passing along the love!

Warning: This blog post deals with sexual assault.

John F. Berger wanted to “have sex” with 100 women. Unable to find any women who would “have sex” with him, he began drugging and raping women. He was apparently close to his goal of raping 100 women when he drugged and raped Tressa Gross.

Unlike the previous dozens of women, the dose of GHB he gave Gross was fatal. It’s not clear if she was clinically dead before or after he raped her, and he wouldn’t really have noticed, but the drugs he gave her killed her.

On Friday, Berger was sentenced to five years in prison, with the option of parole after four.

For drugging, raping, and mudering a woman. Nearly the hundredth he raped.

…

On August 18th, 2006, a group of black lesbians were approached by a man named Dwayne Buckle, who threatened to one of them he would “fuck [her] straight,” spat on the women, and threw a lit cigarette at them. The women also allegedly spat at him, and verbally threatened him. A fight ensued, which was joined by two other male bystanders, and Buckle was allegedly stabbed by Patreese Johnson, one of the women, who testified she was trying to get him off one of her friends whom he was choking. Buckle was hospitalized for stomach and liver wounds. He was in a position to make jokes about the situation as of the 19th.

To my knowledge, Buckle was not charged. But four of the women involved were convicted of and sentenced to prison terms of three and a half years, five years, eight years, and for Patreese Johnson eleven years in prison.

For stabbing someone non-fatally in arguably self defense.

…

Rape and muder, part of a pattern of serial rape = 5 years

Stabbing someone in a two-way skirmish, arguably in self defense = 11 years

…

Not only is there sexism, racism, and homophobia evident in the distribution of justice, the media coverage is full of misogynist bias. Articles in the popular proess continually use the phrase “having sex” for what is clearly “rape”. Journalists commonly use the phrase “making advances” or “saying hi” to describe what should be called “verbal and physical assault, spitting, throwing a cigarette and threatening rape”.

The more I read, the more I am disheartened at the extent to which our justice system, a reflection of our society, is deeply, deeply corrupted.

For all the feminists and feminist allies out there, here’s an email I just got from my friend Lilly. Please contribute links!

—

Hey all -

I was complaining to my friend Erik today that reddit [EP: For those who don’t know reddit, it’s a site where people share interesting links] didn’t seem to like clothed, vocal women or non-digital art. We can read blogs for feminisms-friendly stuff, but I’d love a place to get the random, interesting best-of.

I called this feminisms because I wasn’t sure how else to title it succinctly, but this subreddit [EP: A subarea of the link-sharing site for a specific topic] is for anything that you might vaguely construe as interesting. Race, gender, class, sexuality, rejection of all those categories, and other are all welcome. You can then vote up the stuff you like and the more votes something gets, the more prominently it gets displayed.

To read the submitted URLs:
http://reddit.com/r/feminisms/

To submit a link (please do!):
1. Go to http://reddit.com/r/feminisms/
2. Click “submit” in the upper right hand corner
3. Choose a username and password (super easy)
4. Fill out the URL submission form

Let’s see if this can work. To get interesting submissions, this needs lots of people, so please forward far and wide to people you think may be interested!

~lilly

I’ve been thinking today about goals. Not life goals, but design goals. If you’re building a piece of software or a home or a device, what are your goals?

I saw a presentation today about some information visualization tools, and there were two goals talked about for a visualization:

USABILITY

and

UNDERSTANDABILITY

But I started to think: what kind of goals are these? Say you achieve these goals, that someone can sit down at your tool and USE it effectively, or UNDERSTAND the information being presented.

Then what?

Does it matter if they never sit down with the tool? Does it matter if they can’t USE it in the context of their lives? Does it matter if it doesn’t help them UNDERSTAND data that really makes a difference to them?

I think this is one of the things that’s seriously wrong with Interaction Design. And this is something Eli Blevis really drove home to us when I was at Indiana University. What really matters is: did things change for the better?

The world was one way before you put your software or your device or your building out there. The world will be another way after. Is it different? Is it better?

The iPhone is really usable. It’s really easy to browse Wikipedia while I’m on the bus. But how is my life different because I can browse Wikipedia on the bus? Will being able to look up what a superdelegate is change my life? Probably. Will it make the world better?

That’s doubtful.

But even if I think the world is better because I can read Wikipedia on the bus, who am I? What is it about me that made my opinion matter? Are there people out there whose values are being ignored?

This is where feminism comes in. My values are being readily encoded into the culture. I have built software that thousands of people use. The patriarchy is heaping prestige on me with a PhD and paying me to be here. I will run companies. But this has a lot to do with the fact that I’m a white, american, middle class, educated, straight-passing, cisgendered, nondisabled, gender-binary-passing, male-passing person. My definition of “a better world” is being amplified through my privilege

And that’s bogus. I think checking my privilege means not charging ahead towards what I think is a better world. It means acknowledging that because of who I am, my voice obscures other peoples’ voices. Because of who I am, I elbow other people out of the way to make my vision happen. Checking my privilege means actively working to lessen those effects.

But that won’t make my privilege go away. And inevitably, I think I have a responsibility to use my privilege to change things, to design things, and to really try to bring about a better future. But even when I do that, I need to be very careful to question my motives, and to question the ramifications of my choices from a feminist perspective.

At least, that’s my understanding. My white, male understanding. I’m almost certainly wrong about a lot of it, and missing important truths.

This is one of a series of posts about Awesome Things To Do In Life.

A gang of six to ten ethically challenged Nova Scotia upperclassmen boys recently took it upon themselves to verbally harass a 9th grade boy for the high crime wearing pink to school, calling him a homosexual.

Seniors David Shepherd and Travis Price, above, decided to do something about it. Says David: “It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something.”

What did they do? They organized a protest, using the internet to encourage people to wear pink the next day to school. They purchased 75 pink tank tops, armbands and a basketball to distribute to other boys. They guess that about half of the school’s 830 students participated.

The Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald reports on what happened:

“The bullies got angry,” said Travis. “One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We’re glad we got the response we wanted.”

David said one of the bullies angrily asked him whether he knew pink on a male was a symbol of homosexuality.

He told the bully that didn’t matter to him and shouldn’t to anyone.

“Something like the colour of your shirt or pants, that’s ridiculous,” he said.

As for The Boy Who Was Bullied:

When the bullied student put on his pink shirt Friday and saw all the other pink in the lobby, “he was all smiles. It was like a big weight had been lifted off is shoulder,” David said. No one at the school would reveal the student’s name.

Not only to these boys seem to get bullying, they get community organizing, and they get the importance of privacy. Awesome.

Thanks to Lauredhel at Hoyden About Town, which is where I read about the story, and is one of my favorite feminist blogs.

I recently discovered this poem. Musings follow.

I’m Not a Man
Harold Norse (Hidden Transcripts, page 133, copied from here)

I’m not a man. I can’t earn a living, buy new things for my family. I have acne and a small peter.

I’m not a man. I don’t like football, boxing or cars. I like to express my feelings. I even like to put an arm around my friend’s shoulder.

I’m not a man. I won’t play the role assigned to me—the role created by Madison Avenue, Playboy, Hollywood and Oliver Cromwell. Television does not dictate my behavior.

I’m not a man. Once when I shot a squirrel I swore that I would never kill again. I gave up meat. The sight of blood makes me sick. I like flowers.

I’m not a man. I went to prison resisting the draft. I do not fight when real men beat me up and call me queer. I dislike violence.

I’m not a man. I have never raped a woman. I don’t hate blacks. I do not get emotional when the flag is waved. I do not think I should love America or leave it. I think I should laugh at it.

I’m not a man. I have never had the clap.

I’m not a man. Playboy is not my favorite magazine.

I’m not a man. I cry when I’m unhappy.

I’m not a man. I do not feel superior to women.

I’m not a man. I don’t wear a jockstrap.

I’m not a man. I write poetry.

I’m not a man. I meditate on peace and love.

I’m not a man. I don’t want to destroy you.

***

I’ve encountered similar anti-masculine sentiments from other pro-feminist men. Just look at the list of John Stoltenberg’s works from Wikipedia:

Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice
Why I Stopped Trying to be a Real Man
The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience

This ties in well with the feminist notions that that gender can be decoupled from sex, giving men an opportunity to abandon their destructive masculinities and that this–male gender empowerment–is called “feminism”. I agree with both of these notions on some level, but something about this scenario feels odd to me.

When was it decided that masculinity is rape, racism, promiscuity, STDs, money, violence, and destruction? It may be that these are traits historically tied to men, but is this really the way we want to construct gender?

Sarah told me about her mother’s dissertation work, which was focused on medieval peasantry. Turns out women owned lots of land and business back then. What does it say about them that we assign “the money thing” to masculinity?

Or is the point to construct masculinity and femininity as loathesome, limiting things that no one would want to be in order to to do away with gender entirely?

***

Maybe we should just make like David Neiwert and construct new, positive, overlapping definitions of what masculinity and femininity are until they blend together into one awesome mess.

I remember being a boy and deciding that being a boy was just better than being a girl. The memory of my justification is pretty hazy, but I can guess what was going through my head. Boys can do anything, I probably thought. Or maybe I was thinking that we’re strong and everyone admires us. Or that we get to do science and figure stuff out. Or some such bullshit.

Over the last few years I’ve realized that if there’s any truth to these things, it’s because of some really ugly structure in the world. And it’s activism, not smugness, that should be welling up in little boys.

But along with that realization has come a problematic switch. The things I used to admire about men–the confidence, the wielding of dangerous and powerful tools, the independence–I find those things more and more repulsive. And I find myself jealous of this other kind of power… power that isn’t fed by entrenched cultural structures, but instead exists despite them.

After all, what’s more bad-ass? A boy wielding the confidence the patriarchy bestowed upon him, or a girl wielding confidence that couldn’t be wrested from her? It’s easier being a dude, but where’s the pride in having all of this stuff handed to you? And what right do I have to feel good about my value in a feminist space? Isn’t that just the patriarchy trying to assert its universal importance through me?

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I have a few insights, but the questions keep coming up, and I’m never really prepared for them.

It’s sort of ridiculous, but in the end, the thing that gives me the most comfort is sitting down and putting on a Rufus Wainwright record. As ugly as I think the patriarchy can be. I listen to his voice and I think… that, at least, is beautiful.

I just found out that Sazz, a radical feminist whose blog I read periodically, is pregnant, and blogging about her experiences with pregnancy and the medical establishment. I didn’t realize this, but she’s been studying reproduction as a Ph.D. student for two years. It looks like it’ll be a fascinating series to follow.

My mom told me a while back that her feelings about childbirth changed a lot after watching our cat Tod¹ give birth. Tod gave birth in a box in our closet, and she was purring the whole time. My mom said it was kind of a revelation: that birth isn’t a medical emergency, it is a normal thing that women are naturally equipped for.

Update: Thinking back, I think I misrepresented my Mom a little bit. I don’t think she said anything about medical emergencies or normalness or naturalness. I think she just said that she realized it doesn’t have to be a terrifyingly painful thing. That it can be calm, and manageable. I should ask her what she really said though.

“And when I call a woman a ‘bitch,’ it carries the weight of cultural enmity, brings to bear a hatred ratified by centuries. And she has no equivalent response.” - JJisafool

This word, “bitch,” you like to use it every now and then, no? You’ve been wronged by a woman, perhaps, and doth want to protest. Or maybe you want to playfully engage in some power play. Put a woman in her place, in jest, with a hand out and a smile on your face. It’s just such a unique and weighty word, isn’t it? I nice way to titillate women with your flair for juggling weapons in front of their faces.

And maybe you’re right and she’s in a good mood and she’s willing to let it roll off her back and laugh along with you. Or maybe she’s not around and you think she’ll never catch wind of it. That makes it OK, right?

Um, no.

It is not OK to call a woman a bitch, ever, never, ever.

Nevenevevver.

Because the fact is, we live in a society where there’s this word “bitch” for women and there’s nothing equivalent for men. You know, a patriachy. A place where men are given a certain kind of weapon, and women are not. Assholes are respected. Dicks are empowered. Douchebags, Jerks, Bastards, none of them have to struggle, as the quote above points out, under the “weight of cultural enmity”.  A Bitch does.

The word “bitch” is one of few words that you can toss out lightly while simultaneously conjuring connotations of genuine subhumanity. Like, you’re out of the species dude. You’re a dog. You’re a thing to be tied up out back. To be sold to other men for breeding purposes.

There’s another word that carries similar connotations of subhumanity and there’s a good chance you’re pretty good at stopping yourself before you use it on a person of color, no matter how funny you think you are.

Using the word “bitch” is wielding your power as a person of privilege over someone who was denied it. I am as guilty of it as the next guy. But now we have to stop.

The reality of social movements is that they tend to be populated by the people who are most effected by the movement. The civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s was predominantly African American. The feminist movement is driven by women. I’ve found myself more and more interested in participating in these movements, but I often find myself without good role models. It’s not appropriate for me to emulate Claudette Colvin or Malcom X or Dead Prez. I’m not black. Nor can I emulate Virginia Woolf or Andrea Dworkin or Liz Phair. I’m not a woman.

But I’ve found a few good role models. I see pro-feminist things in the men around me that I can emulate, even men who don’t identify as pro-feminist. And really, many things that women feminists do are totally appropriate for men to do: defying gender stereotypes, calling people out on sexism, spreading information about sexist events as they happen around us.

One of the best recommendations I think I’ve gotten from women feminists is that I should be constantly checking my privilege. That whenever I am doing something or expecting someone else to do something I should think about what role privilege played in making it easier or harder for us.

The trouble is: I’m a white, straight-acting male, and that simple fact makes me blind to a lot of things. I’ve never had to think about whether people thought I got a job because of my gender. I’ve never had to try to reverse that, and until fairly recently I wasn’t aware that some women and minorities have to worry about that. Not every woman and every minority has to worry about it, but I’ve certainly benefited by the fact that I was born into a group of people who is categorically exempt from that concern.

To make this job easier, a number of “Privilege Checklists” have been fashioned, to help people see privileges that might be invisible to them:

White Privilege Checklist

Male Privilege Checklist

Straight Privilege Checklist

Non-Trans Privilege Checklist

Update:

Being Poor

Average Sized Privilege Checklist

Able-Bodied Privilege Checklist

Obviously, it’s useful to read those checklists that apply to you. But the ones they don’t apply to you (because you’re a person of color or queer or female or transgendered) might be worthwhile to look at too. Because maybe there are privileges you enjoy that others in your gender/orientation/race do not. There are privileges on the Straight Privilege Checklist that apply to me, and privileges that don’t.

I kind of feel like these things are important to know.