feminist blogs

image of Partridge Family poster is from here

I begin here. I am intergender, male-assigned and privileged, and white. See the "About me" section of the blog, on the right, along there somewhere above the never-ending list of websites of interest and blogs I link to for a link to what "intergender" can mean.

When I was a child, I didn't quite "get it" about their being only boys and girls and I sure didn't get it that there were *only* two races, although Three Dog Night tried to convince me in songs like "Black and White". I knew there weren't just two classes either, but sometimes media made it sound like if you weren't rich you were poor, and if you weren't poor you were rich. I also didn't accept that there was only one "good" way to have a sexual identity, which was always an off-shoot of a gender identity--kind of like the gender identity was the prerequisite to having a sexual one. You have to want to believe that "sex" is only about gender to even "go there". I refuse to "go there".

I got that there were those two social categories, and I also got that I wasn't really either one of them. It gets tricky when trying to describe to you what I was. One could say I was "in between" being a boy and and a girl, but given how different boys are, amongst themselves, and how different and diverse girls are, amongst themselves, this doesn't really work for me as an adequate way to describe my experience. For example, I didn't live in a social space between a so-called "tom-boy" girl and a butch boy. Nor did I live in the middle of a continuum between polar ends of being a so-called "femme" girl and a "femme" boy. Or between being a butch girl and a femme boy, or between a femme girl and a butch boy (however you understand such terms--which are, of course, culturally, ethnically, regionally, and era-specific to be sure). I liked spiders and snakes and toads and frogs and insects. (See, "spiders" are NOT insects, and I knew that when I was a child.) I like seeing birds and squirrels, not shooting them. My brother liked shooting them. I thought he was the anti-animals version of a sociopath. I liked playing with some dolls--not "baby dolls" but dolls like Skipper.

Currently I am asexual and aromantic, as much as possible. I didn't use to be either. I an not anti-sex and The Amazing Feminist Texican can verify that this is the case, as she and I have exchanged thoughts and analysis on sex, including on vibrators, and none of my views reveal that I believe "sex" is "bad", "evil", "wrong" or "gets you a one-way pass straight to hell--wherever the hell HELL is. Being anti-sexism isn't being anti-sex, after all. And unless ALL you experience as sex IS sexism, then you're not likely to misinterpret critics of sexism as being "anti-sex".

And being critical of gender as a system of political terrorism, force, violation, subordination, and domination is not to be *against* people with standard gender presentations or identities, any more than being anti-corporate patriarchy makes me *against* workers at McDonalds or Wal-mart. It is, however, to note the difference between workers at Wal-mart and the Walton family of Wal-mart. The former has almost no structural or institutional power to effect significant social change. The Walton family DOES have the resources to make a significant difference in the lives of ALL of their employees. ALL of them--all the many hundreds of thousands of them. That's the difference social/structural position makes.

As I see it--and I'm not alone--gender systems exist inside conjoined systems of race, inside of oppressive economic systems, and within systems of of global political dynamics like globalisation and the invasion and violation of the Global South by the Global North. These conjoined social hierarchies include whites believing and maintaining institutions that place them over and against people of color; similarly: men over and against gay men and all women; the middle aged over and against children and the elderly--should people live long enough to become elderly--and long enough to become children, for that matter.

I refuse to see "gender" as if it existed independently of those other realities. This isn't to say that I can't, for theoretical and analytic purposes, discuss "gender" without always talking about everything else. It is to note that should I do that, I'm necessarily abstracting people's real lives.

No one, these days, who lives in a society with media and industrialisation has an experience of gender than isn't raced and classed. That isn't shaped by heterosexist racist patirarchal imperatives and capitalist forces.

A white pro-radical feminist male view might seek to see what is patriarchal about race and class. What is gendered about whiteness and being wealthy. What is stigmatised and statused as "the degraded feminine" and "the glorified masculine".

But *this* profeminist will also keep turning over these phenomena, mixing and matching them, to see what is raced about gender as well, because with an understanding of intersectionality, deeper truths may be highlighted.

I grow weary of race analysis that forgets how gendered race is. Similarly with gender analysis that forgets the gendered people are raced.

The issue for this post is to what extent "subjective" and "objective" understandings of gender, in oppressively raced, sexual, classed and globalising contexts, supports radical coalition work towards the liberation of all people from oppressive systems in which some are dominants and some are subordinates, and many are both, depending on which parts of their lives we are discussing.

Here's one reality: a wealthy white gay man may exercise his power in a variety of ways. He may have stock market investments that support genocide and rape globally. He may choose to purchase an apartment building in a city where neighborhoods are experiencing racist/classist gentrification, thereby supporting the oppressive displacement of poor people, making some of them homeless. He may get beaten or called horrid names any day by any het man who seeks to express his homophobia against the nearest gay man to him. And he may participate in gay or heterosexual cultural events that are deeply misogynistic and racist, as well as heterosexist and classist. He may make fun of women who are heavy or of women who are... women.

The queer-identified people I know in the cities and sections in which I have lived are mostly white. Most of my friends are people who do not live near me. And most of my friends are not white. This means I get many views into queer and non-queer society.

With these multiple views, different truths are highlighted. Just as with the old parable about several blind men feeling a different part of an elephant, not realising they were ALL experiencing one being, so too do those of us who look at reality through one lens miss out on the whole of what we are looking at.

Gender is, first and foremost, political and enforced. It is secondarily social and institutionalised. It is, third, personal or individual, mediated in many ways. Fourth, it is tied to what is often called biological/asocial phenomena, such as the shape of genital tissue, the levels of various hormones in one's system, and chromosomal patterns. What gender isn't at all is "natural" as that term is commonly used in public discourse. A social justice movement which seeks to reverse this order is doing something that is VERY political, and VERY pro-status quo, and VERY oppressive: misogynistic, racist/white-empowering, oppressive to the Global South, genocidal, and ecocidal.

To make "gender" a primarily personal-individual-subjective matter is to deny the enormous force that is in no way purely "subjective" that is exacted against all of us to maintain male supremacy and patriarchal atrocities against the bodies of those deemed girls and women .

Dominant U.S. society wants us to all believe that gender is primarily natural, biological, and chemical--that it is a reality that is best intervened on with chemicals, medications, surgeries, and other "treatments" that seek to normalise and reinforce it as an oppositional binary: one is a man or one is a woman. And, if "transgender" one is a man (or boy) in a female body or a woman (or girl) in a male body. Or, maybe, on is also intersex and intergender and, honestly, dominant society just doesn't want to deal with that, other than to deny intergender reality exists, and to surgically change visually intersex people to "appear" more normal. Normal is always oppressive in a society in which norms exist to reinforce oppressive institutions.

If I am outside, in a social space, a police officer makes determinations about how dangerous I am based on many criteria--some highlighted more than others depending on where in the world I am. If I'm near the border in Arizona, the shade and hue of my skin as well as facial and other physical features are scrutinised, to determine if I might be "Mexican". In a white-majority/white-dominant/only white rural area, my class presentation might be most paid attention to, along with my gender presentation, including the degrees to which I stand out as possibly "gay".

As a white, male, intergender, non-intersex, adult person who is registered and treated socially as a white adult male, as, in many ways, a "man", I get how gender is both subjective and objective, and how that distinction is artificial on many levels.

I played jump-rope with girls rather than basketball with boys during elementary school recess. Many boys and very few girls took issue with me doing that (even though professional male boxers played jump-rope). Why? Because my actions were threatening to the boys, but far less threatening to the girls. The boys--most of them het--were shoring up their gender identities by socially reinforcing their sexist attitudes, their misogynistic practices and jokes, and their girl-excluding behavior. To see someone who appeared to be a boy willfully and joyfully engaging with girls in what the boys saw as "girly" behaviors, meant their own sense of themselves as "appropriate boys" was threatened. Because if I WERE a boy, and was playing jumprope with girls, how could THEY be boys and need to refuse to do so?

Their solution at the time was to fuse sexuality* and gender into terms like "faggot", "sissy", and "queer". This, in their minds, kept me "other" than what they were--or so they delusionally thought. That I wasn't any of those things didn't matter to them.

(*among the males, we were, most of us, pre-pubescent then and were not being willfully sexual with anyone, while surely a percentage of us, myself included, were being or had been sexually abused)

You might ask, "Julian--you WERE queer, weren't you? I mean I get how you'd not want to claim those degrading terms, but you were, well, 'odd' as someone perceived to be a boy wanting to play with girls in activities that boys steered clear of BECAUSE they were things girls did on the playground?" I'd say "No, there was nothing 'odd' about it. Nothing more 'odd', let's say, than liking The Partridge Family. Because here's the secret the "appropriate boys" didn't want you to know: they ALSO liked watching The Partridge Family, but felt too ashamed to say so, socially. What may well have been odd about me was my willingness to publicly align myself with girls who did so-called 'girly' things.

What we experience that is "subjective" is shaped by objective realities. Objective realities, like misogynistic violence, are bound tightly to idea and ideologies that some people are deeply invested in, financially, and in other ways, such as by fusing one's egoic identity to these ideas and ideologies.

I watch males who present as boys and men engage in practices and behaviors that shore up their identities and senses of self as "masculine"--and that is a highly conditional and relative thing. What it means to be "masculine" varies from culture to culture and era to era, as well as across region and across generations in one family.

What it meant to be a "masculine" male-man for my maternal grandfather was VERY different than what it meant to be "masculine" male-man for my paternal grandfather. My own father's ways of being "masculine" were not in accordance with white non-Jewish forms, in many ways.


End of Part 1. See the images below of people jumping rope--and you tell me how era, region, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and gender are related to each one--get busy, now: this assignment is due before Part 2 appears on this blog!

image of children, female and male, playing double dutch is from here

image of a very strong man, Mohammed Ali, jumping rope is from here

image of teenage boys playing jump rope is from here

image of a bronze casting depicting two girls jumping rope is from here

image of a girl jumping rope is from here

As I mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of the mystery genre. This summer, several of my favorite mystery authors released their new books. In this post, I will share my impressions of these new mysteries. 1. Tess Gerritsen writes very hardcore detective mysteries. For some reason that I haven't yet been able to identfy, American female mystery authors write books filled with scenes of

**Trigger warning for sexual assault**

Terrible news from my home state:

A 17-year-old girl reported to Berwyn police in 2003 that her doctor, Ricardo Arze, had pulled off her clothes and sexually assaulted her in his exam room, state records show.

Two years later, another patient reported to Berwyn police that Arze had placed his hands on her breasts, breathed heavily on her neck and tried to touch her genitals, claiming it would help treat depression, according to a police report.

Not until 2007 -- after at least four women had filed complaints -- did police launch the investigation that led to Arze being charged with sexually assaulting patients and having his license suspended, records show.

By that time, the family physician had allegedly assaulted at least 21 women and girls at his Arze Doctors Center in Berwyn, according to criminal and civil complaints that outline attacks stretching at least to 2000.

...That police had received allegations against Arze as early as 2003 came as a shock to one of the women who reported being abused by him in 2007.

"I am disgusted," she said of law enforcement. "They should investigate why they didn't do anything. They were accomplices."

The women said they continue to suffer trauma from the incidents. They cannot see male doctors. One has recurring dreams about her alleged attack.

Arze, who is scheduled to be in court Aug. 16, won't lose his medical license for good even if convicted of all the sexual assault and battery of patient charges.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has interpreted the state Medical Practice Act to mean that it cannot permanently revoke a physician's license unless a doctor has been twice convicted of felonies involving controlled substances or public aid offenses.

A Tribune review uncovered 16 convicted sex offenders who have held Illinois medical licenses within the past 15 years. Not one had his license permanently revoked. One doctor convicted of sexually abusing a patient was never disciplined by the state in any way.

h/t

I’ve written previously about the portrayal of women in the military — in particular, the U.S. Navy’s attempts to redefine femininity to make the Navy more appealing to women by assuring them they can be strong, smart, and still go shopping and stuff. Katrin sent in an example of a 10-minute Israeli Defense Force recruitment video that does something similar. The women are pretty, all with long hair, most wearing makeup, and the woman they focus on is shown playing the piano in an elegant formal dress and earrings:

Ultimately, rejecting that world of nice clothes and piano-playing for the more masculinized role of a combat soldier (Israel is one of the few countries that allows women to serve in combat positions) is clearly depicted as the preferable choice. And, interestingly, the IDF is shown as an escape from sexual harassment by men.

However, IDF women are being portrayed in another way as well: a number of former female IDF soldiers posed for Maxim magazine back in 2007. The first line of the article:

They’re drop-dead gorgeous and can take apart an Uzi in seconds. Are the women of the Israeli Defense Forces the world’s sexiest soldiers?

I’m putting the images after the jump because they’re potentially not safe for some workplaces — the women aren’t nude, but they are quite scantily clad.

Lest you think this was simply a bunch of individual women who are no longer in the IDF choosing to pose, the Jewish Post reveals that “the strategy was in fact, a government sponsored push to evoke a sexier depiction of Israel to American males in New York.” While the above video was created to attract women to the IDF, the Israeli government conceived of the Maxim spread as a way to use IDF women to appeal to men:

David Saranga, Consul for Media and Public Affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, explained that they were just seeking good demographics. “Israel’s image among New York men aged 18-38 is lacking.” Saranga figured the spread in the popular men’s magazine would offer “an image they’d find appealing.”

And apparently this series was an attempt to make Israel seem less masculinized:

“Israel is viewed as a very macho society. We want to show that we are a normal society like others,” said Saranga.

How depressing that showing pictures of nearly-naked women in an attempt to appeal to men is the essence of being “normal.”

It’s a good example of segmented marketing — presenting different audiences very different images of a product (in this case the IDF) that may even seem contradictory. In this case we have the IDF as a place for women to prove themselves and escape unwanted male attention…and the IDF as a source of hot chicks for men to ogle.

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)

by Amanda Marcotte

I was a little late to the Janelle Monae bandwagon, but I picked up her LP, and I’ve been completely addicted.  Monae has pulled off a task that very few can, which is to be both super poppy and arty weird.  And don’t flap your gums at me about Lady Gaga, who has a self-consciously weird public persona, but whose music isn’t even in the same category of ear-catching freshness.  My mind went to Roxy Music when I first heard it, but also to Prince and to Outkast.  It isn’t a surprise that her big single is with Big Boi, therefore.

So here’s my Genius Ten.  Leave yours in comments, or comment on whatever you like.  As usual, this is an open thread.

Original song: “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae (featuring Big Boi)

1) “The Cell” by Eryka Badu
2) “Beep Me 911” by Missy Elliott
3) “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” by Gnarls Barkley
4) “How Long Do I Have To Wait For You” by Sharon Jones
5) “Nothing Even Matters” by Lauryn Hill
6) “Adore” by Prince
7) “Who’s Loving You” by The Jackson 5
8) “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye
9) “All I Could Do Is Cry” by Etta James
10) “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston

Videos below the fold.

And a little disco to get you going this morning:

Everybody (in the media)acts like Obama is slumming when he appears on a women's discussion show with Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, etc. Jon Stewart mocks the arrogant media and The View too.


Politics News Gender

According to the latest results of the “Financial Experience & Behaviors Among Women 2010−2011 Prudential Research Study” 95 percent of women are involved in financial decision-making and 25 percent are the sole financial decision-makers in their households. Prudential surveyed 1,250  women in the U.S. who are between the ages of 25-64 who are sole and [...]

I have finally figured out how to use Twitter. (Better late than never, I guess.) So make sure you follow @Clarissasblog on Twitter. Also, leave your twitter name in the comments if you want me or other visitors to the blog to follow you. If you want to share some interesting people you follow or some crucial information about Twitter that a technologically challenged doofus like me might not

In a truly phenomenal moment that throws into doubt the credibility of the British Ministry of Health, Anne Milton, Britain's public health minister, has suggested that calling overweight or obese people "fat" would encourage them to lose weight.

Pause. Let that sink in for a minute. Are you reading The Onion? No, you are not. This is a legitimate suggestion from a public health official. Maybe telling children they're dumb would encourage them to learn more ... or make them feel ashamed, depressed, and demotivated, just like many overweight people feel in countries that demonize them on a regular basis and treat them as disgusting, pathetic outsiders.

Milton made the observation that she would feel less worried if someone called her "obese" than if someone called her "fat." So maybe, as this implies, we're just calling overweight people by the wrong names. Hey, maybe they'd feel even worse if we called them, say, ugly fat repulsive freaks!  Then they'd really want to lose weight!

This argument goes beyond the illogical to the demeaning. It assumes that if overweight people just feel bad enough about themselves, and are socially shunned enough, they'll take action! They probably feel great when they look in the mirror and think they're obese, but once doctors insult them a little more, they'll take heed. Never mind that many overweight people are already socially shunned and made to feel like small children by health professionals, that they're condescended to and belittled ("if you just did this" "why can't you take care of yourself") and that they're stigmatized by society. A little more condescension, a few more insults, that should help!

When will people -- including and especially health professionals -- come around to the conclusion that idolizing extreme thinness and vilifying anything above a size 4 creates some very unhealthy and destructive behaviors, and some traumatic relationships to food? When will it become common knowledge that encouraging women to feel guilt, shame and disgust towards their bodies never engenders any kind of healthy, sustainable, positive growth? Not as long as Anne Milton is in charge, apparently.

Photo credit: InCase.

We previously posted Annie Leonard’s breakthrough video, The Story of Stuff, and a follow up, The Story of Bottled Water. Kraig H. sent along another by Leonard on how cap and trade will not stop climate change:

(View original at http://contexts.org/socimages)