feminist blogs

Well, it’s been quite the week, hasn’t it?

My time here at Feministe is coming to an end, and I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Jill et. al. for handing over the keys to the Porsche. I hope I didn’t put too many dings in it.

In all seriousness, this has been an awesome (though also occasionally terrifying and/or overwhelming) experience. Y’all — commenters, readers, bloggers, everyone — have consistently surprised me in the best of ways with your generous contributions and challenges and support. I’m a girl who likes to stir the pot on issues I care about, and y’all stirred it right back at me, in ways I couldn’t even have anticipated. That was the best part.

In gratitude, and because I can’t resist, I leave you with three parting gifts:

1) A Call to Action

Some of you may already know that the Elizabeth Stone House here in Boston suffered a devastating fire this week. Stone House has been doing heroic work for over 30 years and is the only domestic violence emergency shelter in the state that allows women to stay with their children while they get help, and it also houses a groundbreaking program for women with mental health issues which empowered them to take a strong role in their own care. These losses are devastating for the displaced women and children, who obviously are already at a major crisis point in their lives, even before this fire. Check this quote from The Boston Globe:

But for Erika, who had just set up the playpen for her infant and was hauling the last of her goods into the apartment Tuesday afternoon when the building started to burn, the loss was impossible to quantify.

“I’m just devastated,” said Erika, 34. “I just know my life was starting over . . . [now] I have nothing — nothing, nothing, nothing.”

No donation is too small to matter in a crisis like this. If you’ve got anything at all to spare, here’s how to give.

2) A Shameless Self-Promotion

If you enjoyed my blogging, you’ll probably enjoy my performances. The best way to keep track of when & where I’m on stage next is by joining my email list. (Mostly I perform in New England/NYC, though I definitely get to Montreal sometimes and I take gigs anywhere I can find them, so you never know. I do have stuff coming up for the Fall, it’s just not on my gig calendar yet, sorry.) You might also check out Big Moves, as a lot of what I do these days is make theater & dance-style trouble with those broads.

You can also make some trouble of your own by buying & wearing my Sticks & Stones Clothing tshirts, all of which feature insults usually used to shut us up (i.e. lying, man hating whore, angry black woman, hairy-legged lesbian, etc.).

Because words can’t hurt us if we make tshirts out of them. You can get them in a wide variety of styles, sizes & colors. Plus, every purchase you make supports a struggling feminist writer/performer. (That would be me.)

While I’m at it, let’s call this the Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday thread, since no one else seems to have started one. Promote away!

& finally:

3) Some NSA Love for Everyone, Even The Trolls.

(Be sure to watch through to the end, there’s an extra payoff. H/t Flea.)

Shoulder pads are back! Enough so that there’s a slide show of them!

(aren’t you just as exited as she is?)

Whatever you do, don’t ask the BlogWarBot!

I’ve been weighing the different approaches being advocated in the comments threads about the recent attacks, and I’m torn. From where I sit, both sides (respond vs. ignore) have good arguments, as well as flaws in their positions.

And then it occurred to me — who better to help me understand the true nature of a blog war than the BlogWarBot, which can respond only with logic and who cannot feel threatened or angry.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well:

BlogWarBot: Hi, I’m BlogWarBot. Are you on my side or THAT side?
Guest: It depends. Are you a feminist or a bored and hateful teenager?
BlogWarBot: You seem way too interested in whether or not I’m a feminist or a bored and hateful teenager.
Guest: Well, it matters quite a bit.
BlogWarBot: So if I might ask, what’s your take on that last blog spat?
Guest: That’s what I’ve come to ask you about, BlogWarBot.
BlogWarBot: Sure, ask ask ask. Meanwhile, a million species go extinct every second.
Guest: Don’t get testy. I need to know: what’s the best way to stop these attacks? Should we respond with resolve, or just ignore them?
BlogWarBot: You’re trolling me, aren’t you?
Guest: Not even a little bit.
BlogWarBot: Your keyboard says ‘no,’ but your eyes say ‘I’m a big ol’ troll.’
Guest: Ah. I see. So you’re a bored and hateful teenager after all.
BlogWarBot: And I suppose you know all about being a bored and hateful teenager after all.
Guest: Not as much as you do, apparently.
BlogWarBot: Lemme guess. You’re a Libertarian.
Guest: No, I told you. I’m a feminist.
BlogWarBot: Do you think I care about your being a feminist?
Guest: We’re done here, Anonymous.
BlogWarBot: While I’m thinking of it: Are you registered to vote?

Dang. Looks like we’re going to have to sort it out some other how, kids.

In which we discuss all those swirly questions about who I fuck(ed), why it matters, and whether or not we should even be discussing it at all.

(For background on my sitch, and an ongoing discussion of the role of men in feminism, check out Part 1.

For a not-as-irrelevant-as-it-seems-at-first tangent on what to do when your friend is dating a manipulative fuckwad, check Part 2.)

So. Yes. From 1992 until 2006, I dated and slept with only women, genderqueers and queer-identified transmen. And then, last year, after the excruciating breakup of a four year relationship that I had expected at one point to last forever, and after a period of months in which I couldn’t imagine dating anyone at all, ever again, I discovered I was curious about dating cisgender men.

Now, I never identified as simply “lesbian” (though I did come out that way to my parents, since I feared that if they knew I was still attracted to men as well as women they would just insist I “choose” to be het). I used “bisexual” for a while, but never really felt like it fit, and eventually realized that I hated the term for the way it re-inscribes the gender binary. But labels aren’t — at least that particular label isn’t — the point here. The point is, it’s not like I woke up one day and realized I was still or again attracted to cisgender men. The attraction wasn’t news to me. The desire to act on it was.

I had dropped out of the world of men for complicated reasons. You can read more here if you like, or else suffice it to say that once I discovered that I was attracted to women, I immediately realized that I had no reason to deal with male bullshit at all anymore. Even after a decade plus of evolution and change, it still surprises me sometimes to find that I’m now in a serious relationship with a Factory-Direct Guy.

But how I got from Point A to Point B isn’t what I want to talk about here, either. It’s what it means now, to me, to my family, to my community, to society. (more…)

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your organized campaign to silence us. That you would choose to devote so many hours and resources to your illegal and ill-fated efforts toward our demise is the highest compliment you could pay us. It tells us that you think our movement is powerful, and that we are a significant threat to your way of life.

You are correct.

It’s possible you will even succeed in silencing me for a while, or temporarily shutting down this blog or others. But if you do, twenty more will take our place. Every move you make, every little email, amplifies our voices and strengthens our movement.

That’s why I just had to take a minute to say thanks. You are a gift to feminism.
xoJaclyn

I know I promised to make Sleeping with the Enemy, Part 2 about what happens in your community, family & culture when you go from over a decade of queer relationships to dating a straight cisgender man, but honestly, I’m fighting off some narsty illness that’s swollen my throat nearly shut and made me run a temp last night, and we’re still (unbelievably) debating the validity of gender essentialism in the thread for Sleeping with the Enemy, Part 1 (on working with men as feminists/feminist allies), so I’m gonna go a little lighter today. We’ll get into all that mess tomorrow.

For today, I need to tell you about my friend. (And if you read my last post, you’ll know that I’m frank enough about my own life that “friend” isn’t some slantwise way to refer to myself.) She’s an old friend. College roommate. The kind of good friend you can fall out of touch with for months or even a year or two and then pick up where you left off, because you just know each other and love each other and it’s all good.

Well, that recently happened — we just got back in touch after a period of not connecting, and she’s involved with this guy. Or, rather, she’s involved with That Guy. That Guy who makes jokes about wanting to watch when he found out she & I would be sharing a room on a recent road trip (not that she & have ever been sexually involved).  That Guy who is hostile and condescending to waitstaff because he thinks it will amuse the people he’s with. That Guy who so couldn’t deal with the time my friend was spending on a creative, important, career-crucial work project last year that they broke up for a while. That Guy who doesn’t understand why she likes to read about people who are different from her.

My Current Guy & I had lunch with the two of them recently, and it was… surreal. I won’t go into all the details here, in the interest of maintaining anonymity for the innocent and the pretty darn guilty, but suffice it to say we spent the greater part of the afternoon listening to a story that featured prominently the theme of him treating a prostitute more nicely than anyone had treated her before. Say it with me gals: Our Hero!  

My question for y’all is this: what can I do? I’ve learned through many mistakes that you can’t pass judgment on other people’s relationships, not only because you can never really know what it’s like on the inside of it, but because it doesn’t work — it generally makes the very people you think you’re trying to help get defensive and stop talking to you about anything negative relating to the relationship. But at the same time, I haaaaaate this guy and it makes my skin crawl to think of him touching my friend. My friend who is is particularly susceptible to people who suggest that anything she blames them for is actually her fault.

What do you do when someone you love isn’t in an abusive relationship, per se, but is really, actually sleeping with the enemy?

I’m doing it. And I’ve got a lot to say about it.

The background: I’m a queer-identified femme who’s now dating a cisgender man after a decade and a half of dating exclusively women, genderqueers & transmen. As you might imagine, this is making a lot of issues that were once somewhat abstract very personal for me. Enough so that I need to tackle them in sections.

Today I want to talk about working with men as feminist allies. Or, in some cases, as just plain ol’ feminists. But I get ahead of myself.

I’ll admit it: for many years, I just didn’t think much about men. Given my work and my community, I’ve spent my adult life living in a world of women. That’s been strengthening and protective in so many ways. It started as a necessity: after I was sexually assaulted in college, an attack that happened in an all-male athletic context, I just needed to not be around men. It wasn’t that I ever thought that all men were rapists, but I just didn’t think I could tell which ones were which anymore. I didn’t want to have anything to do with men’s desires or needs or attitudes. (more…)

As the Conference organizer, I’m a little biased, but I gotta say it anyhow: the Women, Action & the Media Conference kicks ass. And we’ve just (like, as in, five minutes ago) released our 2008 Call for Proposals, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share it with you.

I’ll quote myself:

At Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) 2008, we’ll share facts and ideas, develop skills, build collaborations, and create action plans to amplify progressive women’s public voices in society. We’re bringing together more than 400 participants to exchange observations, ideas, experiences, opinions, and tools for change—and plan together for action.

What questions, issues, and concerns do you want to hear debated? What thinking, strategizing, planning or skill-sharing work should happen at WAM! as a step forward in building the movement? What should we know, what should we be doing, and what should we be preparing for?

We invite you to submit a proposal for a workshop, panel, strategy meeting, digital multimedia presentation, or other conference session. We want to hear your ideas whether you’re a media producer or a PR strategist, a journalist, an activist, an academic, a community organizer, a funder or philanthropist, a “citizen” media watchdog, a media policy advocate, an alternative-network-builder, a blogger, writer, teacher, artist, technology trainer, cartoonist, deejay, (etc!) — we especially encourage proposals from women of color, women under 25 and over 65, low-income women, professionals/producers working in broadcast and online media, and students.

In other words: if you have something to say about women & media, and want to help us make change for the better (and, well, to get into the Conference for free), we need your proposal. Questions? Ask ‘em in the comments or shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to answer ‘em. The more excellent proposals we receive, the better the Conference can be.

Get creative and get proposing, kids!

As any of you who care (and many of you who don’t) know, Whoopi Goldberg has been named as Rosie O’Donnell’s successor on The View. As Rosie proved with her big, political mouth: this is not just “Entertainment News.” For more Americans than we’d care to imagine, The View is the closest approximation to a frank political conversation that they’re going to encounter on a daily basis.

Which is why Whoopi’s performance on her first day on the job pains me considerably. Check out this clip.

I’m sorry, was that just Whoopi Goldberg? The one who refused to apologize for ripping Dubya a new one, even though it cost her a multimilliondollar contract? Promising Babs Walters and her two other white co-hosts (and “The Powers That Be”!) that she’ll behave herself lest she offend anyone?Think I’m reading too much into that clip? Check out these choice quotes she later gave Ryan Seacrest in a radio interview:

“I disagree with a lot of stuff a lot of people say, but there is a dialogue to have with people that I was taught by my mom – how to be respectful and listen.”

“I have a different approach. I stir the pot just by my presence.”

“It’s not so much that I am nice. but I have a great life and I have no reason to be angry at anybody.”

Sooooo… Rosie (and the rest of us) are angry because our personal, individual lives suck, and not because we’re living in a murderous proto-fascist state propped up by multiple, interlocking systems of oppression?

At least one of three things is happening here:

1. It’s getting harder and harder to find work in the entertainment biz for an aging, “overweight,” somewhat butch, loudmouth Black woman, and Whoopi’s gotten desperate enough to make a deal with the devil, in this case otherwise known as ABC.
2. Whoopi was never as political as I gave her credit for, she just goes where she thinks the audience wants her to be.
3. That’s not Whoopi Goldberg. That’s an alien disguised as Whoopi Goldberg. The real Whoopi Goldberg has been taken to the alien’s home planet for study.

My money’s on #1, and it’s making me sick to my stomach. Didn’t The View’s ratings go way up when Rosie was on? I’m no Rosie apologist, but I don’t think they went up because folks wanted to see if she would make any more racist “jokes.” They went up because she was actually voicing a progressive dissenting opinion on issues that matter. When silencing those opinions becomes more important than the Almighty Ratings, we should all be very afraid.

(h/t RaceWire)

My mother taught me a lot of things, only some of which I listened to. But you can bet I always abide by her #1 rule of shopping.

Which is why loved Sweatshopper.org’s new Walmart Tour podcast (via Marketplace). On it, artist Kris Hall takes you on a realtime tour of her local Walmart, guiding you in seeing the legions of security cameras, encouraging you to stop and think about the textile workers who make the $1/yard fabrics in the back of the store, and helping you buy a gun. I’m not really doing justice to the awesomeness of the podcast – it’s creepy and funny and gave me shivers in a few places, and I already thought I knew how bad Walmart is. Just download it to your mp3 player, drive to the parking lot of your local Walmart, and hit play.

While you’re on the way, you may also want to think about the recently released report by the AFL-CIO which details the ways in which the happyface people are happyfacedly weakening port security post-9/11 so as not to interfere with their profit margin. Here’s Evan from Peek:

The sickest part? The cost of all this security would come to a measly one-third of 1 percent of Wal-Mart's $11.2 billion profits (that's PROFITS) from last year. Or less than CEO Lee Scott's compensation over the past couple years.

But you can get a toilet brush for freakin' $2.99 so I guess it's a wash.

Bonus: Ready for a little subversive action against mass consumerism? Vote for Veronica Arreola to win the “Swiffer Amazing Woman of the Year” Contest (yes, barf), and you not only stick Swiffer with a feminst activist & scientist whose husband does the housework for a spokeswoman, but you send $5K to WIMN, a most excellent grassroots media justice organization in great need of the funds.