Coping Strategies
When engaged in annoying discussions related to privilege or systemic oppression of any kind, step back, take a deep breath, and cease to engage. Sometimes, it’s just not worth it, because there are some people who refuse to get it and are not arguing in good faith.
Caption:
off-screen person: “Are you coming to bed?”
person typing at computer: “I can’t. This is important.”
off-screen person: “What?”
person typing at computer: “Someone is wrong on the internet.”
That’s my new sign for “Quitting discussion because engagement is futile.”
Other coping strategies when filled with anger at the sheer awfulness of systemic oppression: think happy thoughts. Remember that there are people who are good, people who care. Remember that any, “I. Fucking. Hate. Men.” statement would be sufficiently riddled with exceptions as to remind oneself that one does not, in fact, hate men as a group, just the ones actively wielding their privilege (including the privilege of being ignorant and demanding spoon-feeding education).
Allen Andrade Trial
Autumn at Pam’s House Blend has a post on the trial of Allen Andrade, who is accused of murdering Angie Zapata in an anti-trans hate crime (note: Andrade has admitted to killing Angie; the defense are trying to get him out with a trans panic defense, i.e. claiming that it’s perfectly acceptable to beat someone’s head in with a fire extinguisher and kill them if that person is trans.)
Crystal Ann Gray has updates on the trial at TransGriot.
I remember discussing the murder with some colleagues last summer, particularly “legal analyst” Scott Robinson’s assertion that the murder was “not a classic hate crime.” The colleagues, both former lawyers, laughed at the idea of trans panic defense; they thought it was beyond belief that any lawyer would try to get an admitted murderer off on the claim that the murder was justified because the victim was trans. Cis privilege.
My roommates were talking about prostitutes the other day and as soon as the word “transgendered” came up, began cracking up. Why? No reason other than that they thought the very concept of being trans was laughable and funny, a freak show to point at and giggle over.
These attitudes allow transphobia to flourish: seeing people as ridiculous solely for their gender identity. Not understanding how much hatred there is and dismissing it. The first contributes to the marginalization of transpeople as being worth less than cispeople, and therefore acceptable targets for violence. The second denies that the marginalization happens and denies the reality of constant discrimination.
Andrade should rot in hell, and I hope that the jury convicts him of murder and a hate crime. But these explosions of violence are not isolated outbursts, they are facilitated by the casually transphobic remarks and cis privilege.
A Thousand Words
*sigh* The same place where I saw this poster now has this poster up.
It’s a poster of an East Asian-looking person wearing what looks like a surgical mask and sterile gloves (an allusion to SARS? I don’t know.). Someone defaced the poster by writing “ChinK” and “Fag” and drawing an arrow between the word “Fag” and the person’s head. There are two Chinese characters on the poster and it’s unclear as to whether they were part of the original piece or added in response to the graffiti. If anyone knows what the characters mean, please let me know and I’ll edit this post.
[ETA] Thanks to OD in the comments and SYW, the characters mean “Air” and are probably a reference to air pollution and Yellow Sand. That would also explain the face mask. [/ETA]
It just makes me sad and angry, y’know? I love street art. I love how creative it can be, how it interacts with landscapes and whimsy to raise questions about public vs. private property, transience, and anonymity. And where someone put up this poster, someone else saw it as a canvas for expressing hatred.
Someone is so full of racism and homophobia, is so steeped in it as part of the garden variety background noise in their head, that when they saw a poster of someone who looked East Asian, they thought, “Chink.” It wasn’t enough to merely think it, though, they had to express their hatred by scrawling it out for everyone to see, a reminder to me and to every other stereotypically chinky-looking person that we are not welcome, that we will be judged by our presumed ethnicity, by the color of our hair and the shape of our eyes, and found wanting.
The graffiti reminds me of every time people have yelled at me, “Go back where you came from!” or played the “Where are you really from?” guessing game or opened a conversation with, “Are you Chinese?” or run around pulling slanty eyes while yelling, “Ching chong ching chong!” *
Racism isn’t just a joke. The questions, the insults, the taunts add up over a lifetime and the sum is a great big get back on the boat and go home, Chink, because you’re not welcome here.
Now for the “fag.” The poster looks androgynous to me, neither particularly feminine nor particularly masculine–it doesn’t have markers that meet stereotypical depictions of masculine or feminine presentation. Yet, it’s still got “fag” scrawled across it. So either “fag” is just a generic insult, because being gay means that you’re worth less than a straight person (or just worthless, full stop), or the vandalizer read the poster’s subject as male and the use of “fag” to deface the poster is tied to the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic stereotype of East Asian men being effeminate and therefore gay, because gay men are practically like women and that makes them worthless.
As a queer, chinky-looking woman, I say, “Fuck off.” I’m not leaving and I’ll never sit down and shut up.
*“Go back where you came from!” You mean California, you idiot
“Where are you really from?” I’m from America. Yeah, America. California. San Francisco. THE UNITED FUCKING STATES. No, really, I was born and raised in the U.S., and if I had to call any place else home, it would be Italy, so if you want to ask what ethnicity I am, that’s not the same question. Don’t assume that I’m “really” from somewhere else.
“Are you Chinese?” No, I’m not, and that’s not the way to start the conversation if you want to hit on me, jerk.
Sexual Assault
SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS POST AND FOR THE SHAKESVILLE POST AND ITS COMMENT THREAD.
Liss has a post up today, The Survivor Thread:
As I’ve said before, this points to an interesting, ahem, blindspot in the oft-cited statistic about 1 in 6 women being victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault sometime in their lives: Many of those women will have been victimized multiple times.
And many of us who are survivors of repeat assaults will not speak of it; many of us will pick the “worst” one and talk about that in threads on assault, as if it’s the only one. We do this for many reasons: We might feel embarrassed by being repeatedly victimized, as if it’s indicative of a character flaw within ourselves; we might have trouble discussing multiple assaults without undermining what tenuous feeling of safety we have; we might have faced reactions of incredulity from people with whom we shared this information and thought we could trust; we might have been called liars or hysterics—accusations born of the silence about sexual assault.
Disbelief is the inevitable result of swimming in a culture which renders invisible the reality that enormous numbers of women—and men—have been sexually assaulted, many of them more than once.
And so, this will be a thread of clattering teaspoons breaking that silence. Share your stories here.
This is a safe space and this is the survivor thread.
As I type these words, the comment thread is at 181 comments and counting. The thread will be longer by the time this post goes live, and I have no doubt that tomorrow morning, after people have gotten off work, come home from school, found a free moment to relax after taking care of their families, and woken up in other time zones, the thread will be much longer.
Coincidentally, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It’s almost a year to the day that I wrote about being a sexual assault survivor for last year’s Blog Against Sexual Violence Day.
There are 181 comments, almost all of which are personal stories of sexual assault. Supporting Liss’ point that the one out of six statistic says nothing about how that one will likely be raped multiple times, almost all of the comments have multiple stories. Mine does.
In my post last year, I wrote,
I can’t talk about the assault yet. I’ve thought over the words, strung them together inside my head, and I still can’t do it. One day, I hope I’ll be able to. But for now, I will own these words. I have a face, I have a name, I am a person you know, online or in real life, and I am a sexual assault victim. I am a sexual assault survivor.
One year later, here is my story:
The 8th grade science teacher who looked down girls’ shirts. His students were 13-14 years old.
A man fondled my butt on the bus.
Going clubbing and random men grinding and kissing me without so much as a “May I?” I realize that’s accepted clubbing behavior, because they didn’t pursue it when I pulled back, but this is why I won’t go clubbing alone. It shouldn’t be acceptable.
Going clubbing with a friend. A man tried to dance with her and she pushed him away, saying, “It’s a girl thing.” He said, “Prove it, I want to see you kiss,” and knocked our heads together.
Walking back to my hostel late at night and being followed by a man who grabbed my hand, dragged me into a dark and isolated area, and kissed me, despite the fact that I was yanking to get my hand back. He stopped and ran away when I shouted at the top of my lungs, and I consider myself lucky for that. What was he thinking? That I wanted to be assaulted? The yanking should have been a clue even before the screaming.
I was hooking up with a man who wanted to have anal sex. I’d tried it once and it hurt, so I said no. He kept insisting and so I said ok, thinking that maybe it would be better this time. He shoved his dick in without any preparation–I was crying at how much it hurt and blood dripped out every time I went to the bathroom for the next few days. I told him to stop, it hurt, and he said to relax and it would feel better, and kept thrusting until I crawled away. We were having sex without a condom (I know, it was stupid) and later on, he came inside me although we’d agreed that that was off limits. I think it was his revenge for not letting him fuck my ass.
Last year, I wrote
I believe that the mainstream silence around sexual violence is part of what allows it to flourish, because most people are good, and I think that if they had any idea how rampant sexual violence is, they would be up in arms. Not only feminists, not only victims, not only allies, but everyone. We would recognize all forms of sexual assault as such and not dismiss “lovers’ quarrels,” slaps, bruises, intimidation, gropes, “unwilling” or “nonconsensual” sex, or anything else. We wouldn’t make excuses for them. We wouldn’t contest the idea that individuals should never have their boundaries violated or their bodies touched against their will, and that putting up with some groping, some shouting, some hitting, some raping is not simply the price of living.
I’m not sure that I believe any longer that most people are good. I do believe that the silence around assault and the silencing of victims allows and perpetuates sexual assault and further harms sexual assault victims. I read the entire thread and I am sick with rage for all of us, victims and survivors that we are.
Go read the thread. The entire thread. Don’t feel sorry for me, don’t try to shield yourself from the horror of those stories and distance yourself by offering pity. You want to do something? Support sexual assault prevention and take a stand, even when it’s unpopular and even when it rocks the boat. Read the stories and allow them to rip you to the bone as you think about them. Ask yourself if any of those stories sound familiar–if they sound like things you’ve done to someone and justified to yourself as consensual or deserved or okay. Ask yourself what you would do if someone told you their story, and be honest: it’s easy to say that you’d be sympathetic and believe them, but as so many of the comments prove, most people try to rationalize the assault, blame the victim, silence the victim, save the assailant (“Do you really want to destroy his future over something like this?”), and pretend that it never happened. Acknowledging assault breaks apart the status quo, where we can pretend that everything is okay. It’s a fragile, thin silence we skate around that lets rapists and assailants and non-victims off scot free and forces victims to pretend that everything is okay, so long as we don’t think about it too much and ignore the pain behind the empty, forced smiles.
I want to shatter the silence one word at a time and burn down the world until that facade of complacency, and the social equilibrium that prioritizes social relationships and the delicate sensibilities of everyone but the victim, are utterly destroyed. I’ve accepted that those men assaulted and raped me and I will work to keep it from happening to anyone else–and to provide a safe space when that fails, as it already has and inevitably will.
Oh, god. It was rape.
Yes on Prop. 8: The Aftermath
Yes on Prop. 8: the Aftermath
Yes: 5,387,939 / 52.5%
No: 4,883,460 / 47.5%
Difference: 504,479
Total: 10,271,399
I’ll put up county-specific data later.
Via Spectrum Blue, Protest 8, a blog organizing protests in SF. There’s one tonight at 5:30 at Market and 7th. Be there and bring your old window signs.
BBC Video of LAPD beating an anti-Prop. 8 protestor – via someone, I lost the link.
Faith is pulling together a list of Yes on Prop. 8 donor-run businesses to boycott. Before anyone gets all het up about freedom of speech, let me say this: I absolutely support peoples’ rights to vote yes on Prop. 8 and for any other Godforsaken, appalling initiative or campaign. I absolutely support their right to donate as much money as they like in accordance with their bigoted, disgusting beliefs. The corollary to that is that I have every right to boycott their establishments and remove my support from their businesses. This is not censorship. This is freedom of speech x 2 – their freedom of speech and my freedom of speech. There is nothing that requires me to give my money to people that turn around and give that money to causes I find reprehensible. A boycott is an act of free expression counteracting another act of free expression, and banning, censoring, or repressing boycotts is the true instance of repression and censorship.
Besides, a lot of you Yes on 8 voters are probably free market types. Boycotts in response to the political donations of businesspeople are a classic example of consumers freely exercising their abilities to choose where to take their business, after a particular establishment proves unsatisfactory. It’s the invisible hand at work! Wrap your head around that.
Pam on the Religious Right’s probable next steps. From the President of the Christian Coalition of America:
“It will be the goal of Christian Coalition to ensure that the other 20 states adopt similar amendments banning homosexual “marriages” including the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut which also had two judicial decisions, by one vote margins, legalizing these abominations.”
Robert @ Calitics: Pledge to Repeal Prop 8: Restore Marriage Equality
Via aaa, a press release from CAMPAIGN for Children and Families: they intend to make sure the initiative applies retroactively.
“Today, marriage licenses can only go to whom they were originally intended — a man and a woman, a bride and a groom. The people of California have successfully overruled the judges and politicians and restored marriage licenses to a man and a woman. Now the false marriages done this summer must be declared null and void. California law now says the only valid or recognized marriage ‘is’ between a man and a woman. The ballot arguments specify that the only marriages are between a man and a woman, ‘regardless of when or where performed.’ It is time for all Californians to respect the new marriage law, which has restored an age-old institution, whether they voted for or against Prop. 8.”
They are also pissed off about losing on Prop. 4. I will post my thoughts about Prop. 4 later.
Via Elena Perez, the CA NOW blog has two posts up on Prop. 8: Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 1: Dissecting History covers the legal arguments behind the SF, LA, Santa Clara County, Lambda Legal, and National Center for Lesbian Rights lawsuits.
“But, Meredith,” I hear you say, “this is a constitutional amendment — aren’t the Supreme Court’s hands tied?” Actually, due to the approach the plaintiffs are taking, the CA Supreme Court does have the ability to consider this. The legal reasoning behind the lawsuits is interesting, and if you live in California, it’s worth your time to understand it.
Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 2: Dissecting the Present: looking at the impact of Prop. 8 on married couples.
ACLU Press release on the lawsuits. Includes a link to request for a stay on Prop. 8.
ACLU Press Release: argues that Prop. 8 does not apply retroactively. Fortunately, State Attorney General Jerry Brown is on our side.
SFChron: Same-sex marriage issue back to state top court. More on the lawsuit. I hope to God that this doesn’t come up before the SCOTUS anytime soon and stays in the state courts. I do not trust Kennedy on this and it’s going to be a 5-4 vote at the best, with three strict constructionists and one follows-Scalia-ist on the court. Korematsu has been much on my mind of late – another civil rights case originating from California – and it stands as a stark reminder that the court is not infallible, it is not all-knowing, it is not always just, and it most certainly is not always liberal or non-partisan. If anything, Bush v. Gore should remind us all of that.
SFChron: 2,000 gather in SF for same-sex marriage vigil – article about the Wednesday protest.
Julia @ Calitics: Prop 8: Questions about what went wrong, so we can fix it for next time. I do have to say that during the campaign season, I thought the No on Prop. 4 campaign was much more organized than the No on Prop. 8 campaign, although it had much less money and much fewer volunteers (the biggest day of phonebanking for No on 4: 150 volunteers statewide. A regular No on 8 phonebanking night in October: 110 volunteers in the SF office alone.).
Blaming the Victims
SFChron: two articles blaming the victims, yet again. Two articles that attempt to lay the blame at the feet of “Newsom and his supporters.” Look, this is classic victim-blaming. Blaming the victims, the oppressed minority, for their attempts to get their rights recognized, is sheer assholery and if anyone is to blame, it is the people that voted yes, the people that supported Prop. 8, and the people that did nothing. I have problems with Mayor Gavin Newsom, but for his steadfast courage in advocating for GLBTQI people, he has my vote forever. It takes real integrity to stick to your principles even after an entire nation trashes you as a scapegoat for it, and to continue to do so for years afterward. I only wish Senator Feinstein had a modicum of his integrity and courage. And Senator Boxer–where the hell were you on Prop. 8? You’re the more progressive senator and the one that receives fewer irate calls from me, and you did virtually <em>nothing</em> from your position of authority.
Just for once, for once, I would like to see an article that recognizes how difficult it is to stand up for politically unpopular principles and that leaders that do so are passing rare and should be commended for showing leadership. How short is the historical memory? Do these people not realize that by positioning GLBTQI rights as a losing issue they’re perpetuating the “common wisdom” that GLBTQI rights are untouchable disasters that will sink politicians and impeding the progress of the civil rights movement? Do they not realize that every civil rights leader was thought of as an annoying loser at the time of the movement and they are playing the part of the reactionary status quo?
New rule around these parts: BLAME THE OPPRESSORS. NOT THE VICTIMS. This rule extends to marriage equality advocates, rape victims, social justice activists, and, hell, Nader voters and any other group.
Newsom was the primary target for the statewide campaign to ban same-sex marriages, featured prominently in radio and TV advertisements. He’s the one public figure most attached to the proposition, and he’s the politician most likely to lose face now that voters have approved it.
That could be bad news for his possible run for governor in 2010, political analysts said. It may be impossible for him to overcome his association with a losing cause. And perhaps more important, this election may have shown Newsom just how far away he is from winning support from key California voting blocs.
“The Latino and black voters really turned out in this election. They helped get Proposition 8 voted in, and that portends badly for Gavin Newsom if he’s intending to run for governor,” Boushey said. “He’s going to have to appeal to those voters. They’re socially moderate, and they don’t recognize Gavin Newsom as being socially moderate.”
Paradoxically, the mayor is seen as too liberal for much of the state and too conservative compared to the city’s legislators.
Newsom said he hasn’t given any thought to what impact Tuesday’s losses will have on his long-term career.
“It’s trivial and irrelevant,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “It was never about me, it’s not about politicians. This is about people. This is about real human beings.” [emphasis mine]
Hell, I don’t care if he means it or not when he says, “It’s trivial and irrelevant.” The fact that he stood up and said that it’s not about short-term politics and his own career goals, it’s about equality and about “real human beings” means so much to me.
As for the rest–excuse me, “With a losing cause”? How about the right cause, how about justice and equality? As for repeating the assertion that Latin@ and black voters are responsible for the success of Proposition 8: stop with the goddamned racism. There are far more white voters than Latin@ and black voters combined, and yet, no one is blaming them for the success of Prop. 8. That sort of reprehensible racist analysis is easy but flawed. For one thing, it erases the existence of Latin@ and black GLBTQI people and for another, it reads as yet another instance of implying that white people are morally superior to those backward black and brown people. FUCK YOU. The biggest push behind Prop. 8 was THE MORMON CHURCH AND MANY “CHRISTIAN” CHURCHES, IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, YOU INCREDIBLE FUCKHEADS. I am incredibly disgusted that people are forgetting that when the Mormon factor (no, not all Mormons supported Prop. 8, but the institution of the church threw immense volunteer power and money behind it and that’s what I’m referring to) was all over the news prior to the election.
Sacramento Bee, 08/10/13, “Mormons lead the way in financing Yes on Prop. 8 efforts”
NYT, 08/10/27, A Line in the Sand for Same-Sex Marriage Foes
“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.” …
“He is a symbol of what is ahead,” said the Rev. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area, a leading organizer of the “Yes” ranks.
“When you have laws that make homosexual marriage a protected class, then the government has a compelling interest to normalize that and must declare anything in opposition to that hate speech,” said Mr. Garlow, who hosted both the recent simulcast and regular conference calls with as many as 2,000 pastors, to motivate the ranks. …
National religious organizations including the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic fraternal group; Focus on the Family, a ministry based in Colorado Springs that is led by James C. Dobson; and the American Family Association, based in Mississippi and led by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, have been major contributors to the “Yes on 8” campaign.
And in June, the top three leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter strongly urging members to donate time and money, and Mormons have responded with many millions.
Preachers from other parts of the country have dropped everything and moved to California in recent months. Lou Engle, who leads TheCall, a charismatic prayer ministry in Washington and Kansas City, Mo., with a large following among youth, moved with his seven children to California in September. He is holding large prayer rallies up and down the state, urging people to pray and fast for the 40 days leading up to the election. Some people are giving up solid foods; others are giving up clothes shopping or their favorite television shows.
“We believe there is a spiritual battle in an unseen realm, and that’s why I’ve called for united prayer for divine intervention,” Mr. Engle said. “It’s a defining moment for the definition of marriage in American history.”
LAT, 08/08/20, “Knights of Columbus tip the balance with big anti-gay marriage donation * UPDATED”
LAT, 08/10/26, “Proposition 8 supporters plead for more advertising funds”
“Through the grace of God, one of our most fervent supporters has agreed to make a sacrificial gift to match, dollar for dollar, whatever you and others can donate, up to a total of $1 million. That means that every dollar you give will buy two dollars in advertising time.
“Please help us buy more advertising time now. And if you can make a sacrificial gift yourself, we ask you to prayerfully consider doing so immediately. The institution of marriage which we so dearly love depends on what we do together over the next few days.”
LAT, 08/10/26, “Clergy on both sides of Proposition 8 speak out”
This last article makes it clear that not all religious people of any faith supported Prop. 8. However, many did, and many churches threw their institutional support behind the proposition of hatred, bigotry, and homophobia. The problem, as ever, is not with all religious people but with the homophobic religious people.
Disenfranchisement: It’s the New Dem Thing!
Disenfranchisement: It’s Not Just For Republicans And The RBC Anymore!
I saw this bumper sticker on the way to get coffee after the roll call and oh, the irony:
Redstar liveblogged the roll call at H1K
Shakesville: Democratic National Convention Open Thread Day Three
Redstar took the percentages of roll call votes for Senator Clinton:
N/A CA, NM, IL, NY
Every vote counts. Obviously, not anymore. Y’know, that was one of the things that infuriated me the most about the Democratic party this primary season, that they were willing to disenfranchise voters in MI and FL for the sake of the primary schedule. Leaving aside how stupid that would be for the general election, it’s simply wrong. I don’t care who you vote for but every vote must be acknowledged in order for the system to be legitimate.
Due to the winner-take-all setup of the general elections, some votes are more influential than others. However, the difference between the impact of a PA voter’s ballot, a MA voter’s ballot and a GA voter’s ballot is not sufficient reason to disregard any of those ballots, whether in the primaries or in the general election.
Generations of people fought for suffrage, people that didn’t have the right to vote in this country because they weren’t landed, white, and male. And now the real votes are being erased because they disrupt the symbolic theatrics supposedly necessary for “party unity.” I can’t think of a better way to destroy party unity and discourage voters from turning out than to flip primary voters the bird by telling them that they can vote, but their votes won’t be represented.
It’s Nice To Be Straight
I had a conversation today about an acquaintance going in for a minor surgery. Her fiance, a colleague of mine, is driving her to the hospital and needs to be present in case the surgery is not fully successful and he has to give consent for additional procedures.
PD: Do you have power of attorney for her?
Fiance: No, we’re not married yet.
Another colleague: Who else would it be? You’re engaged.
Fiance: And her parents aren’t here, so, yeah.
I’m not sure if the fiance will be able to make medical decisions while the fiancee is out under anesthesia, if he doesn’t formally hold power of attorney and isn’t her health care proxy. Nor do I wish for her to be stuck under anesthesia without anyone around who can speak for her and see that her wishes are followed.
However, the sheer, stunning heterosexual privilege took my breath away with how ordinary it was. It is so easy to be straight in this country. You can assume that because you’re engaged, people will take your relationship seriously. You can assume that because you’re engaged, people will think that you can speak for your significant other or at the very least ought to be consulted. You can assume that because you’re engaged, your opinion about what happens to that person will matter more than that of a random person on the street. You and your relationship are treated as if they matter to the person on the operating table. Whether or not you have any formal powers, you don’t have to worry that they will be challenged as a matter of course–the default assumption is that people will consider that relationship valid and as having legal weight rather than that people will refuse to give any credence to it whatsoever and fight tooth and nail against acknowledging it.
In my state, same sex marriage is now legal, and god willing, will continue to be so after the November election, provided that voters turn out to defeat Prop. 8 (proposition text on the last page; PDF). The state Supreme Court recently ruled that doctors practicing in CA cannot use religion as an excuse to deny treatment to LGBTQI people. So, really, you could say that it ain’t all that bad here.
Except that people who aren’t heterosexual have to fight for these basic rights, have to fight for equality. We don’t get to assume that people will treat us as equal human beings. Those marriages still aren’t recognized under federal law, to say nothing of other states’. People still go out of their way to avoid validating same sex relationships however possible.
It is so goddamned easy to be heterosexual and I am incredibly bitter and jealous. Ain’t I a person, too?
ETA: More on how goddamned easy it is to be heterosexual: he can expect to take a day off to be with his fiancee while she’s having surgery, and coworkers will understand. He can talk about his fiancee, period, without worrying about being fired, about being insulted, about being shunned, about being harassed. He can talk about his engagement without being upbraided for flaunting his heterosexual lifestyle and heterosexual relationship in everyone’s face. I wish them nothing but happiness, but I am still so bitter and envious and I want to know why I can’t have that, too.
Feminism 101: Hillary Rodham Clinton is not Bill Clinton
Something that’s come up frequently in the comment threads at Shakesville is the conflation of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton with former President Bill Clinton. This conflation can take a number of forms:
- Bill Clinton did X policy that I hate (e.g. DADT, NAFTA), so I hate Hillary Rodham Clinton for it. Bill Clinton enacted X policy, so Hillary Rodham Clinton is (a) responsible for it; (b) also supports it; (c) will continue or further that policy once she’s in office.
- I don’t want Bill back in the Oval Office. If Hillary wins, Bill’s going to be calling the shots in the office.
A big problem with these statements is that they’re deeply sexist. They are based on the idea that a woman, once married, is no longer an independent entity with her own opinions, policies, and judgment. She is not an independent person acting according to her own judgment; indeed, she has no capacity for independent judgment, she is merely an extension of her husband. What he thinks, she thinks. What he supports, she supports. What he orders, she does. You’ll notice that it never works the other way around; the husband is never the assimilated minion of the wife.
Newsflash: Women are independent persons, even if they’re married. They’re independent persons with independent personalities, brains, and opinions, and to say that HRC is the same as Bill Clinton ignores that she is a separate person from him. Last time I checked, they each had a brain. They are not the Borg. Sure, he campaigns for her. Sure, she’ll probably bounce ideas off him and value his input. The former is because they’re married and it’s normal for spouses to campaign for each other. The latter is because he’s a former president and whip smart, so it make sense for her to talk to him. However, they’re still not the same person. To denigrate Hillary by calling her “Billary” as if they’re a chimerical, combined monster, to hate her for what he’s done, to hate her for his positions, to think that she’s just a pawn and he’ll be the power behind the presidency: all of these assume that she is nothing more than an appendage of Bill. All of these are sexist ideas reliant on a sexist assumption.
Newsflash: Married people are still individual people capable of independent thoughts–a marriage license doesn’t make one merged entity out of two persons. How many married couples do you know where the spouses vote differently? How many married couples do you know where the spouses disagree and hold different opinions on a topic? Obviously, they are capable of holding different opinions. Why is it so difficult to comprehend that just because a married woman has the intelligence, skill, and tenacity to reach high office, she doesn’t automatically lose her capacity for independent thought? Indeed, if you’re relying on non-sexist assumptions, you might think that a woman with the intelligence, skill, and tenacity to reach high office and run for the most powerful position on the planet would be particularly likely to be an independent thinker. Hillary Rodham Clinton has had to buck the trend in a misogynist society for her entire life to get to where she is now.
If you want to argue that Bill Clinton will have undue influence if Hillary Rodham Clinton wins, consider this: will Michelle Obama have undue influence if Barack Obama wins? Will Cindy McCain have undue influence if John McCain wins? If your answer to either of these questions is no, then you should acknowledge that your worries about Bill Clinton are rooted in the sexist assumption that married women are extensions of their husband. You should acknowledge that your worries are rooted in the sexist assumption that married women are pawns of their husbands. The reason that you don’t think Michelle and Cindy will be the real powers behind the Oval Office, manipulating their husbands, is that you only see the arrow of influence going one way, from man down to woman. You think that women are susceptible to manipulation by their husband, because they’re women, and so you worry about Bill Clinton but give Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain a pass. Men are strong, independent, and rational, unlikely to be altered by the advice and input of their spouses. Women are weak, subservient, and susceptible, likely to be altered by the advice and input of their spouses. Michelle and Cindy are just women, so you have no worries there.
If you can’t face Hillary Rodham Clinton as an independent person and judge her on her own merits, you’re sexist. If the best reason you can muster for why you dislike her is that you hate Bill Clinton and you worry about how much influence he’s going to have if she wins, you’re sexist. You can’t fathom a strong, independent woman and you feel the need to cut her down using time-honored misogynist drivel. You’re afraid of a woman being in a position of power and you can’t fathom that she’d be independent. You’re trying to rationalize that fear and make her groundbreaking campaign fit into your pathetic worldview by positioning Hillary Rodham Clinton as subordinate to her husband, so that everything is hunky dory and peachy and conforms to the sexist framework that makes sense to you. You are sexist. Face it and get over it.
Dear Sharpton & NAACP
NAACP National Headquarters
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore MD 21215
National Action Network
Rev. Al Sharpton
106 W. 145th Street
Harlem, New York 10039
To Whom It May Concern,
I recently heard about the NAACP’s involvement with the Dunbar Village rapists’ case. Seeing as how the NAACP’s mission statement is to “Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination,” I thought for certain that the NAACP was standing up for the victims in the case, who suffered rape, assault, disfigurement, and grievous bodily and mental harm. Advocating for them, providing legal counsel, pressing law enforcement agencies to do their utmost to find the six rapists currently not in custody, and ensuring that the cases of this black woman and her son would not be lost. That injustice would not prevail again in the case of a population that has consistently been disregarded, silenced, and abused.
I was horrified to find out that instead, the NAACP is standing up for the rapists. This is completely unconscionable, particularly given the DNA evidence and confessions, and the magnitude and monstrosity of the rapists’ crimes. By standing up for the rapists, you’re telling every woman of color in this country that we do not matter. Our suffering does not matter. When we’re raped, assaulted, abused, and victimized, even a group supposedly committed to fighting racism and injustice will not be our allies. Instead, you will ignore women and ignore children, because in your eyes, we don’t matter.
With your actions in this case, you do no more than perpetuate the subhuman status of women of color in American society. By standing up for these rapists, you are not fighting racism for a world of equality–you are fighting for a world in which white men and black men are equally patriarchal and can rape with impunity, while everyone else is left cowering in fear, unheard and oppressed. If you were fighting racism, you would have stood up for the victims and would have advanced a case where, for once, sexual violence against a black woman and a black child are being taken seriously rather than dismissed.
I am completely appalled, and furthermore, I will never support or contribute to the NAACP until you renounce your position and demonstrate a commitment to helping all people of color–remembering that people means women and children, and not just men.
Sincerely,
Me.
Feel free to take, copy, expand, make much more eloquent, whatever–just so long as you print and mail to the NAACP and Sharpton.
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, Children’s Rights Are Human’s Rights
Last time I checked, women were people. Children were people. Men were people. The word people encompassed all those groups and more. People did not exclusively mean men.
Al Sharpton and the NAACP apparently aren’t operating by the same dictionary as I am. The NAACP’s mission statement reads, “Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.” (emphases mine) You’d think that’d mean standing up for all people, now, wouldn’t you?
Apparently not. The Dunbar Village rapists:
On June 18, 2007, a black woman was gang raped by 10 youths and forced at gunpoint to have sex with her own 12 year old son in a housing complex called Dunbar Village in West Palm Beach, Florida. The young men not only viciously punched, kicked and sliced this sister and her son with glass objects, but they also blinded her boy by pouring nail polish remover into his eyes.The young men forced this sister and son to lay naked in a bathtub together, and attempted to set them on fire (they could not find matches). The youths boldly took cell phone pictures so that they could enjoy their violent, immoral and sadistic acts at a later time. The violence continued for more than three hours, and although this sister’s neighbors heard her screams, no one called the police or came to her aid.This sister and her son had to walk a mile to the hospital, because the assailants stole her car, and threatened to kill her and her family if she told the authorities.
Only four of the young men have been apprehended, while the remaining six are on the loose, doing Lord knows what in our communities. There is no manhunt for the remaining suspects.
Al Sharpton and the NAACP are involved. Sounds good, right? They must be advocating for the woman and her son, right? They must be standing up for individuals who are generally discriminated against, un(de)represented, and don’t receive justice, and they must be pressing the cops to search out the other six gang rapists, right?
WRONG. Sharpton and the NAACP are standing up for the rapists, arguing that because some white rapists are free on bail, it’s unfair that these black rapists are being held in jail. Look–I think that all of the rapists should be in jail, and although it’s possible that there is racism at play in the refusal of bail, it’s also possible, and highly probable, that the Dunbar Village rapists are being held without bail because of the magnitude and monstrosity of their crimes. BlackAmericaWeb has a discussion of the two rape cases and the difference between them.
Bail is usually granted based on the defendants’ risk to the public or whether they pose a flight risk. And it doesn’t take a genius to see that the Boca Raton teenagers who got drunk and had non-consensual sex with drunk, underage girls who they were hanging out with pose less of a danger to the public than the West Palm Beach teenagers who armed themselves with guns, staked out a stranger and committed every act that their perverted imaginations compelled them to do.That’s why they need to stay locked up.
BAW also points out that despite their supposed missions of helping all black people, the NAACP and Sharpton’s actions in this case do nothing more than betray the majority of their constituents and enforce the societally subhuman status of black women and black children:
Black women are 12 percent of the U.S. population, yet we make up 13 percent of all rape victims. And scores of black women are silent about rape because of the kind of thing that Sharpton did. They believe they won’t be listened to; that no one will care.Sharpton bills himself as a spokesman for the voiceless. Too bad this time, he decided to lend his voice to the ones who needed it the least — and guarantee that more raped black women will continue to suffer in silence.
Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems’ call to action is below. Please, please call, write, and email Sharpton and the NAACP. In this fucking world, we aren’t going to receive anything gratis. We–women, minorities, women of color, and everyone else who isn’t a rich, straight, cisgendered, white man–have to demand our rights and fight for them. Don’t be silent. Speak up.
Read the rest of this entry »
Fun and Joy of Being a Korean-American Woman
Yesterday, I went to the Ferry Building to run some errands. I was walking through the plaza reading Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead when I heard a call behind me.
“Hey, beautiful!”
It wasn’t coming from someone right behind me, so I ignored it. It sounded like he was ten feet away or so, and whatever–it’s not worth my time to face off with some jackass catcaller. It was just one comment, and maybe that would be it.
“Do you love me?”
The passive response of ignoring him clearly isn’t working. I was irritated at the first comment and I’m growing angry, but I tell myself that maybe he’s not yelling at me. Maybe he’s yelling at someone else, not that it would make the situation any better–by not facing him and not calling him out on his verbal harassment, whether it’s me or someone else he’s catcalling, I implicitly condone him harassing a woman because she’s a woman and she dares to walk outside in the city. Dares to exist and live in public spaces.
“You don’t love me.”
Okay, I’m angry now. Goddamned right I don’t love you, you jackass fuckwit asshole. I don’t like sexist jackasses who yell indiscriminately at women and feel entitled to sexually harass women and think of women as sex objects for their viewing pleasure rather than as people and make women feel unsafe, unwelcome, and afraid in public spaces. I’m thinking about facing him and calling him on his shit.
“Fine. Go back to China!”
Ok, that’s it. That is absolutely it and I’m not taking racist shit from anyone. Sexual harassment is bad enough, but the combination of racism and sexism makes me see red. I stop, whip around, and see that I’m the only stereotypically “Chinese” woman in the vicinity, so there’s no question that he’s been yelling at me the whole time. I see one man in the area, an African-American man lugging a suitcase.* I yell, “Excuse me, are you talking to me?”
He looks at me. “Yeah.”
I’m furious. Livid. Sexual harassment simply for being a woman is run of the mill for me–I don’t like it and I’m increasingly likely to not tolerate it, but the racist comment just broke my restraint. I yell at him, “What the hell makes you think it’s okay to yell at random women and harass them, you asshole?”
He sulkily replies, “You harass us all the time.”
I see red. I yell at him, “I’ve never harassed you in my life, and it is not acceptable to harass random women. Fuck you!”
I’ve never seen this man in my life. I’ve never harassed an African-American person in my life. I’ve never harassed anyone for racist or sexist reasons in my life. His bullshit attempt to use anti-African-American racism as a justification for anti-Asian racism and anti-woman sexism is complete bullshit and it doesn’t even work as a justification. If anything, having experienced racism himself should have taught him that racism is wrong, period, and it’s poisonous to everyone. Using it himself is hypocritical and it makes him petty, vindictive, and immature. I learned in kindergarten that two wrongs don’t make a right, and his attempt to use racism to justify racism and sexism is simply nothing more than perpetuating the system.
He walks away and I storm off, mind awhirl with anger, loathing, fear, and adrenaline. Facing a harasser always results in the volatile emotional cocktail of the flight or fight response. While I’m fighting, the anger burns away almost all of the fear, but as soon as it’s over, I’m left shaking and the fear lurches back. Women are told not to respond to harassers because as soon as they know you’re paying attention, they’ll ramp it up. They might grow violent. And so we have to endure the verbal and physical attacks on our persons and let them go on, because if we don’t, something worse might happen. Dum dum dum. Fuck that shit, I’m not listening anymore to that passive endorsement of harassment and a patriarchal society where women are advised to endure harassment because they can’t expect anything better. Fuck that shit, I’m not putting up with harassment from sexist individuals anymore.
Behind every “Hey, beautiful!” is the notion that I, a woman, exist for the harasser’s viewing pleasure. I’m walking along the sidewalk so harassers can stare at me and remind me that because I’m a woman, I don’t deserve respect. Because I’m a woman, I don’t deserve to feel safe outside. Because I’m a woman, I’m a sex object and I shouldn’t be outside running errands, jogging, working, or living. Because I’m a woman, I deserve to be catcalled and intimidated.
Insults and catcalls aren’t just words. First of all, words have power. They’re the predominant form of communication between humans and they’re used to cajole, placate, threaten, thrill, and more. Words matter. Second, behind every catcall, every reminder that in the harasser’s sexist worldview, women exist for men and women are inferior to men and he’s entitled to treat me as lesser, is the reality that one in every six women is raped at least once and far more women are sexually assaulted. I turned around and yelled at my harasser, but the entire time, I was thinking about how he was larger than I was and quite capable of assaulting me. If someone thinks it’s okay to act sexist and racist, that person might not have qualms about attacking someone perceived as inferior for sexist and racist reasons. The entire time I was in the Ferry Building, I was scanning the crowd, looking for him so that I’d be prepared if he tried to grab, grope, shove, bump, or hit me. This alertness and fear is part of being a woman, even in liberal, progressive San Francisco.
I faced the harasser and stood up for myself. It’s my way of challenging every sexist harasser who thinks it’s okay to objectify me–to break out of the box they put me in and say, fuck you. Fuck you and your attempts to make me a passive object who’ll succumb to your oh so charming insults and swoon before you, or a victim who’ll stoically endure your fucking insults. I am a person, an individual, a woman, and I am active. I deserve respect, civility, and safety by virtue of being a human being, but if you think you can take those away from me because I’m a woman, I’ll take them for myself.
————————————-
* I only note his race because it’s relevant to his pathetic justification for his racist sexual harassment. As pocochina says, I don’t give a flying fuck if a man harassing me is white, black, yellow, brown, or any other color. He’s harassing me and that’s what matters to me; his ethnicity is irrelevant.
Five Years On
I’ve tried to pull my thoughts together on Iraq and failed. What I’m left with is incredulity. Six and a half years ago, I couldn’t believe it when someone rushed into a classroom full of high schoolers at CSU LB and announced that the U.S. had just bombed Afghanistan. A year and a half later, the drums of war were rattling, and I couldn’t believe that, either. Ominous murmurs in the newspapers, online, in the political sphere, all of them repeating, discussing, denying, supporting, rejecting, proposing war, war, war.
I was against the invasion from the beginning because — because why? Because I was, and am, against war. It’s simplistic, but there you go. It’s my basic principle. I am against preemptive, unprovoked invasions. It’s a simplistic position because it doesn’t take into account that sometimes, you have to fight. Sometimes, as in WWII, you have to fight because it’s the only way to defeat evil, and to stand by and watch is nothing but cowardice and passive evil. But Iraq was different. They hadn’t invaded or attacked the U.S., and despite Saddam Hussein’s atrocities, surely they didn’t justify invading a country and razing it to the ground. Surely they demanded diplomatic efforts and aid. War is a blunt force tool. It’s a bomb. You can use it to demolish hospitals and kill innocent civilians. You can use it to demolish prison walls and set people free. You can use it to demolish enemy encampments and kill enemy soldiers. It’s not targeted, it’s not limited, it’s not careful. It’s a ravening beast that burns down more than you’re aiming for.
In the jingoistic drum-beating prior to the invasion on March 19, 2003, I think the warmongers forgot that. Not everyone who supported the war was a warmonger–some people wanted revenge, some people wanted safety, some people wanted to help the Iraqis. But the bellicose pundits, pols, journalists, writers, bloggers, and talking heads who wanted war and gloried in it–I think they were pumped up about war, about blowing things up, about using big guns and big tanks to “liberate” an oppressed country, and forgot that war means sending real people to kill other real people. They’re not numbers. They’re not casualties. They’re friends, they’re enemies, they’re the boy in my brother’s Boy Scout troop who enlisted after high school, they’re the boys in my class who went to the Air Force Academy because they wanted to fly. They’re people who look at the ROTC and the military as a way to serve their country. They’re people who want to help other countries. They’re people who are looking for a path into college and out of poverty.
In another time, in another country, going to war would’ve meant saying farewell to my father or my cousins or my brother or my uncle–Korea does not have a volunteer military. It is only by the grace of money–class privilege–that I don’t have any family members currently serving in the U.S. military. But just because I’m not personally impacted, just because my family is not at risk, doesn’t mean that I can forget about the people who are in Iraq. To do so is selfish and inhumane.
Every death is a person. Every number adding up to 3,982 stands for a person. That’s only deaths, and that’s only U.S. military personnel. It leaves out the casualties, the civilians, the mercenaries. It leaves out the Iraqis, the soldiers from the “Coalition of the Willing.”
Call your senator. Call your representative. Call Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, and John Edwards (don’t have info for him). Tell them in no equivocal terms to end the invasion of Iraq. Tell them to work for U.N. intervention. Talking about time lines, goals, projections, costs, and progress is so much obfuscation at this point; the war is completely fucked and the country has descended into a hellhole, thanks to incompetent leadership by incompetent, greedy, evil people. The military can’t do nation building and right now, while it rushes about putting out brush fires, people are dying. It’s a no-win situation, because as soon as they stamp out violence in one area, it flares up elsewhere. End the occupation.
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights–And What About The Children??
As for overseas travel, the papers show that Clinton did spend some time conferring with foreign leaders on strategic issues. But the records suggest she spent a lot more time fulfilling the traditional role of the first lady: meeting the leaders’ wives and focusing on women’s and children’s issues.
As Melissa says, “The contempt for “women’s and children’s issues” could not be more palpable.”
I am incoherent with rage right now, so I’ll leave you a numbered list:
1. Dismissing “children’s issues” when the tabloid-esque so-called ‘news’ of the big corporation-owned media conglomerates are usually whining, “But what about the childreeeeeen?” How hypocritical. How dare you. How dare you dismiss children’s issues as unimportant because it’s in the purview of the First Lady. This framing only hammers home what Pocochina said in her post I Am Hillary Clinton:
When Senator Obama derides the eight years of political and diplomatic service First Lady Hillary Clinton gave to this country as “tea parties with ambassadors,” he is personally benefiting from a patriarchal system which only values work done by men, and grants the value of work done by women to men, and because I am not a man, he is saying that whatever work I do, its value belongs to someone else.
Similarly, the LA Times dismisses the work that Clinton did because she is female. The work that she did is irrelevant because it’s done by a woman, is what the LA Times is implying. Focusing on womens’ issues and childrens’ issues – health care, education, poverty relief, reproductive rights, sexual violence – is unimportant, because that’s what the First Lady does. It’s a woman thing. It doesn’t matter. Here are some “women’s issues”:
- Ignoring genocidal rape (The Curvature)
- Iraqi women substantially worse off since the war, even though “women’s rights and gender equity were mentioned as symbolic issues for Iraq’s new national agenda”. (BBC)
- International Women’s Day protests highlight violence, inequality: “The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia.” (Agence France-Presse)
- Women’s lives worse than ever (The Independent)
Six years after the US and Britain “freed” Afghan women from the oppressive Taliban regime, a new report proves that life is just as bad for most, and worse in some cases.Projects started in the optimistic days of 2002 have begun to wane as the UK and its Nato allies fail to treat women’s rights as a priority, workers in the country insist.
26.9% optimistic about the situation in Iraq
63.9% said violence against them had increased
76.2% said girls in their family were not allowed to attend school
68.3% described the availability of jobs as “bad”
70.5% said their family cannot afford to pay for the necessities
43.6% did not think that the circumstances of women were considered by decision-makers
Notice a recurring trend, here? People don’t pay attention to women’s rights. People don’t pay attention to forced marriages, rape, sexual assault, gender-based violence, the denial of education, unequal pay, domestic abuse, denial of reproductive rights (and thus agency over your own body), and the denial of basic human rights to women, and the LA Times article both reflects and perpetuates the reason why: women are not valued. Work done by women is not valued. Work done by women for women is even less valued. It is thought to be irrelevant, it is thought not to matter, because it is done by women, for women, about women.
As for “children’s issues”:
- President Vetoes Second Measure to Expand Children’s Health Program (NYT). “President Bush vetoed another children’s health bill on Wednesday, effectively killing Democrats’ hopes of expanding a popular government program aimed at providing insurance to youngsters in lower- and middle-income families.”
- U.S. Curtailing Bids to Expand Medicaid Rolls (NYT). “The Oklahoma Legislature voted in May to cover 42,000 more children under Medicaid by increasing the income limit to 300 percent of the poverty level, from 185 percent. “In recent weeks,” Mr. Fogarty said, ‘we got a very clear signal from federal officials that we would not be allowed to go beyond 250 percent of the poverty level.’”
- Leave No Child Behind (excerpt from Bushwhacked, in Austin Chronicle). No Child Left Behind = Lots Of Children Left Behind. Too bad for them and society at large – but good for test prep businesses!
- Congress Votes for a Stimulus of $168 Billion … And Forgets The Children (NYT). “In those talks, Ms. Pelosi dropped Democrats’ demands for an extension in unemployment benefits and an increase in food stamps, two strategies that economists rate highly for providing a quick stimulative effect, and instead agreed to a plan centered on the tax rebates favored by House Republicans and the Bush administration.” (emphasis mine)
- Hunger 2008: Working Harder for Working Families (breadfortheworld): “Three decades ago, a low-wage job was enough to lift a family of three out of poverty; today, it scarcely comes close to getting them to the poverty line, and without food assistance and other government support a family struggling to get by in the low-wage economy would be on the absolute edge of desperation.”
This is what happens when we dismiss “children’s issues”: children receive shitty education. Children are uninsured. Children grow up poor and hungry because EBT and WIC programs are dropped because no one cares enough to go to bat for “children’s issues” in the government. Children suffer and society as a whole suffers as a result.
2. “the records suggest she spent a lot more time fulfilling the traditional role of the first lady: meeting the leaders’ wives”
The sheer ignorance, or perhaps the willful ignoring of reality and how the world functions, is dumbfounding. Raise your hand if you’ve been in business and wined and dined a prospective hire, a prospective client, a boss, a client, a friend of a client, a friend of a colleague. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in academia and seen your department wine and dine prospective grad students and prospective hires. Raise your hand if you’ve ever made or heard a joke about political elites working out deals in smoke-filled back rooms, lawyers working out deals while golfing, power lunches, power breakfasts. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to an industry cocktail party, parties at trade shows, parties at conferences, charity galas where the rich and powerful schmooze and make connections. Raise your hand if you’ve joked about making connections at posh schools or secret societies.
What’s my point? The point is, politics, business, and life generally function via meet and greets. Via lunches. Via cocktail parties. Via meetings that at first glance appear to be pointless: chit chat with friends of friends or leaders’ spouses, even “tea parties.” You go to those to make connections, to meet the people you’ll be able to call in for favors, to do favors for people, to get leverage. You go to those to subtly hammer out deals, to talk about what issues matter to you and which issues you’re willing to trade on, to work through channels more subtle than official negotiations or official diplomacy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken people out to lunch as a favor to a friend or colleague, for which they owe me or vice versa; how many times I’ve seen deals closed over a nice dinner; how many times I’ve seen people pass business along to friends of friends or casual acquaintances; how many deals I’ve seen come in because the client and a colleague got drunk together at a party.
Why is “meeting the leaders’ wives” then dismissed as unimportant work? Why is it dismissed as fluff? When it’s men meeting each other for business meetings or diplomacy or rounds of golf, it’s accepted as standard business schmoozing and a good practice. Why is there the unspoken assumption that when politically active, high-powered women meet each other, it’s unimportant and they’ll be talking about–I can’t even imagine what they’d be talking about that’d be worthy of dismissal. Political issues, government issues, foreign policy issues, diplomacy, “women’s and children’s issues.” I think those are goddamned important. The unspoken assumption is that at their “tea parties,” these women will be talking about the latest fashions and TV shows or god only knows what. That assumption rests on the belief that women are too dumb to wrap their minds around more important concepts, even when they have a record for standing up for health care, foreign policy, children, and, yes, women. That assumption relies on harebrained stereotypes that dismiss anything a woman does because she is a woman and therefore it’s only to be expected that she’ll talk fluff and do fluff. We evaluate women based on stereotypes rather than taking a second to think about the woman in question and consider her record.
That is sexism.
To the writer of that awful LA Times articles and to everyone else who disregards the work of everyone who focuses on “women’s issues” or “children’s issues,” I would like to remind you:
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. I believe that now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:
It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed — and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference have not been able to attend — or have been prohibited from fully taking part.
Now it is the time to act on behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too. Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care. Families rely on women for labor in the home. And increasingly, everywhere, families rely on women for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives.
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes — the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.
Let — Let this conference be our — and the world’s — call to action. Let us heed that call so we can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future. That is the work before you. That is the work before all of us who have a vision of the world we want to see — for our children and our grandchildren. — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Plenary Session in Beijing, China: 5 September 1995(emphases mine)
“Women’s issues” and “children’s issues” are human issues.
Remember the GOP
I’ve been following the Democrats’ mudslinging over the past two weeks, but haven’t said anything because, well, what is there to say, other than that I’m profoundly disappointed in both the primary campaigns for the Democratic nomination? I realize that the point of the primary is for the candidates within each party to fight against each other until there’s only one person standing, at which point the party bases are expected to forget the past couple years (years!) of insults and mudslinging. We’re expected to rally behind the party’s candidate and fall in line for the causes that the candidate ostensibly stands for, which are ostensibly the causes we support, at which point the narrative changes to the Democratic and Republican candidates fighting viciously with each other until there’s only one person standing. It’s a system built on immediate conflict: fight the enemy you’ve got right now and make that contest seem like the end all and be all of the world, then pretend that you (and your campaign and your supporters) haven’t been insulting the intelligence, ethics, liberal street cred, life experiences, and humanity of your opponent (and campaign and supporters) and expect them to fall in line behind you while you get up and fight the next enemy.
That’s stupid. It is inherently stupid to call people racist, sexist, classist, ignorant, gullible, stupid, etc., and then expect them to work with you and support you. I think that most liberals, whomever they’re supporting now, will vote for the Democratic candidate in November, whether or not they have to hold their noses, but banking on that is not the smartest move. Disaffected voters who feel that they’ve been coerced into voting for you simply because you’re better than the GOP candidate and better than the status quo are probably not going to be enthusiastic about campaigning for you, donating to you, actively supporting the Democratic party, or doing anything beyond filling in the arrow by your name come November. This situation does not make for a cohesive Democratic front against the GOP attack machine and it certainly doesn’t make for an effective, cohesive liberal movement after the election.
I’m not saying that conflict is bad or that partisanship is bad or that division is bad. On the contrary, I generally embrace all of those things and think that arguing can be useful and productive.* However, right now, I think that the opression Olympics and mudslinging between the Clinton and Obama campaigns are a fatal error for the following reasons:
1. It makes it more difficult for the loser’s supporters to get on board with the nominee.
2. It distracts attention from the real issues at hand: not the policy differences between the candidates, but the problems with George W. Bush’s status quo.
3. It distracts attention from the fact that McCain is far worse than either of the two Democratic candidates.
I’m not saying that we need to hold our noses and vote for the Democratic candidate in November. I’m not saying that we need to stop holding our candidates responsible for the shit that they, their campaigns, their supporters, and the mainstream media spew. I’m not saying that we need to stop agitating for our candidates to represent our views.
I’m saying that it would be more productive if, instead of competing in the oppression Olympics, we could have civilized, thoughtful discussions about the effects of sexism, racism, and other systems of prejudice. They’re important issues. I’m a fan of airing dirty laundry and at least we’re sort of talking about racism and sexism now. Kinda. Not in a productive fashion – we’re still stuck on the name calling. But it’s something, I guess. It’d be nice if we could move on to something more thoughtful than pointing fingers. Both sides have grievances, obviously, and they’re complicated. Namecalling isn’t going to solve the prejudices or lead anywhere but bitterness.
I’m saying that it would be more productive if, instead of painting the opposing candidate as the devil, we could refocus and remember that the devil actually walks the earth in two forms these days: the current White House occupant and the candidate he’s endorsed.
At this point, I don’t know if I’m angrier at the campaigns or at the more vitriolic parts of the blogosphere. The obsession with keeping score and weighing wrongs (and I don’t exempt myself from this, although I’m trying to stop) is unproductive because it’s endless and subjective. I get the impression that at this point, most people I know have come down firmly in the camp of Clinton, Obama, or Undecided But I’m Voting Dem In November, and aren’t going to budge. If that’s true, can we remember that the GOP will be fronting a candidate in the general election, too, and the mainstream media loves him? McCain has the GOP attack machine and the mainstream media in his favor and it’s important to remember that McCain has a myriad of flaws because the media sure as hell aren’t going to point them out.** The race for president isn’t just between the Democratic candidates. It’s between the Dems and the GOP, and the sooner we start campaigning against the GOP as well as against each other, the better.
I’m not saying that you have to vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election because McCain is worse. I hate that rhetoric, the idea that I should settle for the Dem nominee because at least she or he will not actively abrogate my civil rights and it could be so much worse, dum dum dum! (I don’t respond well to threats or veiled intimidation tactics)
I’m saying that you can support your candidate, hell, you can fight with the other candidate’s supporters, but in the meantime, don’t forget to fight with McCain and his supporters. Anger is one of the few truly renewable resources and I think there ought to be plenty to spread between your candidate, the opposing candidate, and McCain, with an everflowing font left over for Bush. Basically, I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to shoot themselves in the foot come November. I don’t trust them to succeed against McCain, the GOP, and the mainstream media if they can’t even keep their campaigns from spouting racist and misogynist crap and drawing a bitter line in the sand in the primary.
I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago:
Pizza Diavola: if they were smart, both obama and clinton would be campaigning against mccain
Pizza Diavola: holding the press accoutnable for idolizing st john mcfuckhead
I stand by that.
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*Inevitable qualification: there are some issues over which, and some people with whom, I do not argue, because I know that the discussion is not going to be productive and the costs will probably outweigh whatever gains there are. Context matters.
**The only source I’ve consistently seen point this out is Shakesville, particularly Melissa McEwan. They’re pretty much the only non-partisan liberal blog I’ve found these days – the comments can get unpleasant, but the posts, by and large, remain civilized and intelligent.
Being An Ostrich
I’ve been out of the loop the past few days, since work blew up last week and I went to the ‘burbs for the long weekend. I even spent most of Saturday far, far away from internet access and had lunch at a cliffside restaurant south of Point Lobos where there was no cell phone reception. It was blissful.
It turns out that I missed quite a bit while I had my head buried in the sand, and quite frankly, I don’t have much to say about it all. I’m fucking tired of these campaigns that have been running since shortly after the midterm elections in 2006, I’m tired of all the posturing by both candidates’ supporters, I’m tired of the goddamned mainstream media in the U.S. and how they play such an important role in turning the presidential election into a popularity contest run according to their own beliefs and petty narratives, I’m goddamned tired of feeling helpless, angry, and hopeless about the state of the nation. I hate that when I take a weekend away, I don’t want to come back because the thought of ignoring everything and focusing on books, music, and cooking is extremely seductive. I hate that it’s unusual to find someone in real life who thinks the way I do about politics, feminism, sexism, racism, homophobia, poverty, and other social issues and that I’m continually surprised and bloody impressed when anyone expresses opinions and a level of considered thought that seem positively marvelous because for once, I’m not disappointed.
I need to step back, shake the water off, and take a good, hard look at some personal and political things right now before diving back into being politics, rage, and feminism 24/7.
