feminist blogs

I’ve met some of my closest friends online (heart you, tumblr), found soulmates through twitter and consider gchat a form of foreplay. It’s through the Internet that I’ve been allowed to spend these weeks writing with you.

As it’s been on feministe, my writing on my blog is pretty personal. We’ve all been told to write what we know and I’m guilty of taking that to an extreme. I post photos of myself; I ask for advice on even the most mundane of things and share experiences ranging from a difficult childhood to funny conversations with coworkers.

On the whole it’s all been positive. I’ve received great advice from total strangers and turned those strangers into some of my closest confidants. In short, the Internet has done right by me.

But then I decided to cut my hair.

For years I’ve wondered what it would be like to chop off my hair. Finally, in March, I did it. (Coco Chanel once said, “When a woman cuts her hair, her life is about to change.” Considering that I moved 3,000 miles about two months after chopping my locks, I think Coco may be on to something.)

Before I went through the actual hair cutting process I asked for opinions. Multiple times. Some of you may guess what happened next. I received an influx of e-mails from people who had a deep opinion on the length my hair; strangers who seemed invested in what I did with my appearance. Dudes sent in notes about how they have thoughts about what it would be like to run their hands through my hair. They said they’d regret it if I chopped it all off, that I’d be less attractive, that it would ruin their illusion. These people seemed to feel some sort of ownership in my appearance. To be crude, their e-mails felt like stockholders who had misgivings about design changes in a new line of products.

The responses shocked me; in some ways I was even a little scared. I took my personal e-mail address off my blog and reassessed the ways in which I present myself online. I realized that I’d allowed strangers to see intimate sides of me, but wasn’t necessary ready to deal with the ramifications of that false sense of intimacy.

A few creepy e-mails haven’t stopped me from posting mundane notes about my life, but it has made me reassess certain online safety precautions. Yes, I still do post photos of myself (with short hair!) but I’m more cautious.

I imagine that many of you also keep personal blogs and perhaps you also struggle with the level of intimacy you create. As I continue to learn and grow from my own experiences, I’d love to hear more about yours. How do you talk about your personal life? And if you do post your image on the web, how do you deal with that?

by Amanda Marcotte

So, last night on Formspring, someone asked me about the Penny Arcade controversy.  I like Penny Arcade, but I confess I don’t read it regularly, because my life as a gamer is a shadow existence mostly built around Rock Band and occasional forays into Mario.  So, I was unaware of the controversy, and had to be educated by Jesse.  (Thanks, Jesse!) So, the timeline I’ve constructed is this.

1) Penny Arcade writes a comic where the joke is about contrasting the demands of a video game with the moral precepts of the real world.  The comic involved the line, “raped to sleep by the dickwolves”.  I personally found this joke hilarious, because I’ve played enough video games that I’ve also gone down the path of finding humor in the contrast between the game world and the real world.  For those who don’t get it, the humor comes from the fact that video games raise the stakes a lot of the time by having the hero do things like rescue slaves from hell, but the goals often undermine these stakes by having you only save, say, five slaves.  “Raped by dickwolves” didn’t bother me---it’s obviously a play on the long history of imaginative tortures of hell that everyone from Dante to video game writers have come up with.

I did not think this was a “rape joke” in the classic sense of the term, which is a joke where the punch line expresses the idea that raping is awesome.  The joke of the comic was that the moral universes painted in video games are often horrific in a way that contrasts with the light-hearted nature of gaming.  That strikes me as a perfectly appropriate thing to make fun of, tame even. 

2) Someone at Shakesville takes offense.  I found the blog post an annoying rationalization for disliking humor in general, which the blogger admits she does.  I find the “but rape is real!” argument against jokes of this nature to be a disingenuous one.  Slavery is also real, as is murder and general violence.  But there’s no way that the blogger would have gotten mad about jokes in those veins, but a joke about a form of torture that is supposed to sound over the top and mystical got her into offended mode. 

I also didn’t like the post because I object to people who use survivors as a rhetorical device to shield their arguments from criticism.  I feel, as a rape survivor, way more dehumanized by this post that purports to speak for survivors than I ever could by the Penny Arcade comic.  I reject and resent the suggestion that having been sexually assaulted in my past makes me unable to see that this joke for what it was. I think this rhetorical device of casting survivors as a group of women too delicate to even understand context and meaning, while well-meaning, actually hurts rape survivors by reinforcing the erroneous notion that once a woman is raped, she’s forever ruined and broken.  I don’t like being used as a rhetorical weapon in a general rant against comedy.  I’m not saying all survivors would agree or disagree with me.  That’s my point.  I really dislike the dehumanizing way survivors are often lumped together as one big group that shares a single opinion or worldview that just happens to coincide with the one the blogger is arguing.

3) That said, the guys at Penny Arcade responded in officially the worst possible way to respond.  As Melissa correctly notes, they attacked strawmen, and this time they really did make light of rape.  Jokes where you condemn rape in a sardonic tone really do imply that rape isn’t a big deal.  In the time it took them to write the response, there were probably like 10 rapes in the U.S. alone.  The cartoon implied that rape is less common than it is, that rape culture isn’t real, and that the whole subject is beneath you.  This was tone deaf, sexist, and stupid.

Well, Amanda, you might be asking, what were these guys supposed to do?  That’s a good question.  In all honesty, I think they should have ignored it and the whole thing would have blown over.  I realize that’s really hard to do sometimes.  And sometimes addressing concerns is a better idea.  It really depends on the situation.  But in this case, the critic comes right out and says she objects in a very general way to comedy.  When you’re facing someone who condemns the entire genre you work in, I don’t really think there’s a possibility of communication there.  It’s like trying to argue the finer points of a rap song to someone who says hip hop isn’t music.  Explaining the joke isn’t going to work, either.  Trying to make jokes about the joke will fail you as well---remember, your critic has made it clear that she finds comedy distasteful.

Turning around and committing exactly the offense you were unfairly accused of is exactly the stupidest thing you could have done.  To the guys at Penny Arcade, I would suggest that next time you want to run a comic like that, maybe email me or someone like me and ask if what you’re about to say is truly fucked up.  Looking at this from various angles, I feel like the best thing they could have done was ignore the whole thing.  I sympathize---sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a situation where a response will be helpful from one where your critics have put you in a spot where there’s nothing you can really say or do.  But whatever you do, don’t then go do the very thing that you were accused of doing in the first place. 

Dear Readers who wish to leave a comment: all comments submitted to this blog are manually moderated. This means that I have to read the comments and press the "publish" button before they appear in the comment section. This has to be done because I've had problems with trolls visiting the site. So on those occasions when I sleep in (as today) the comments have to wait until I wake up and

I was into debating long before I hit the keyboard in an attempt to do some progressive feminist blogging. In high school I first found myself comfortable in the label of “Liberal,” which got me into almost daily “discussions” with a number of my decidedly conservative classmates. That was my life back then. I read a lot of news and had a lot of opinions.

This predisposition to being opinionated and my lack of concern about being, as some may see it, controversial at times, is what lead me to blogging during my first year in college. I was new to academic feminism at the time but had within me some absolutely feminist beliefs. Looking back at some of my earliest blog posts, it’s clear to me how far I’ve come in being able to express myself and analyze and critique problem areas in my society, even though I still have a lot of progress to make. I’ve also learned something else: Blogging has helped me practice some important life skills, and those skills have transferred nicely from the internet to the world outside of the computer.

Blogging/Life Skill #1: Clear Articulation

Having discussions with people who disagree with you is difficult because it often entails a lack of understanding regarding the other’s point of view. This is why articulating your position is key – if you put in the effort to make yourself clear, there is a greater chance of increased understanding. I recently had this problem when I got into a disagreement with my parents about using the word “gay” when they meant “stupid.” I took the time to explain exactly why using that word in that way was offensive and inappropriate. While my parents eventually understood where I was coming from, they did not come around to my side of this disagreement. That leads me to skill #2.

Blogging/Life Skill #2: Knowing When to Say When

When I first started blogging, I wanted to encourage as many people to participate in discussions as possible. For a long time, I did not enforce comment moderation, and that meant that I spent a lot of time checking on comments. It also meant that a lot of unsympathetic, and at times downright sexist, commenters made their way into our threads. My gut instinct back then was to engage with commenters, including trolls who were not interested in any type of productive discussion. I would spend countless hours hashing out arguments that had been presented in my posts in more detail in the comments so that one commenter might walk away with some nugget of feminism lodged in their head. That was stressful at times, and I finally learned that it was most likely unproductive. There is a difference between a troll and someone who disagrees with you who comes to the table willing to civilly engage in discussion about a topic that they feel strongly about. I had to learn to cut the trolls from my blogging life, so I turned on comment moderation. The same thinking applies to people in my life outside of the internet. While I’m not always the best at picking my battles, I’m getting better at knowing who and when to engage.

Blogging/Life Skill #3: Rules of Engagement

Learning how to engage in debates has been helpful to me even outside of the blogosphere. I try to live my politics in all aspects of my life and that means needing to know how to take part in productive discussions. Before I started blogging, it was easier for me to fall into the trap of ad hominem attacks if the person I was debating with made the first move into that territory. Blogging has helped hone my ability to attack issues without attacking people, and it makes it easier to spot those who do not have strong cases to present when they either cannot or chose not to do the same. I have learned to address all issues brought up by those who disagree with me, instead of addressing only points that will help my case, something sometimes missing from ideological adversaries who come to my blog looking for a fight. I have also learned the hard lesson of conceding when someone who otherwise disagrees with me completely brings up a point that I either cannot address with my current level of knowledge or that I had not previously considered when making my case. I accept that I am not perfect, and I welcome all fair and civil attempts to help me grow in my knowledge. There have been times when I have made a mistake and have been corrected by commenters who explain how I was wrong. And it has made me stronger as a blogger and as a person. It’s one of the most important things I’ve taken from blogging.

Blogging/Life Skill #4: Embrace Differences

Ok, so this has been a general rule of mine for most of my life, but it has been put to the test frequently in my work as a feminist. One of my first lessons as a feminist was that people who may have similar beliefs about things like gender equality, sexism, etc. may not always agree on the route to take toward achieving shared goals. They also may not even identify as feminists. This was a particularly difficult lesson for me to learn because in discussing my feminism with other people who also call themselves feminists, I have come across some ideas that I find very distasteful. Learning to negotiate plans of attack against recognized problems alongside people with whom you may disagree is not only a skill for the blogosphere. It’s one of the only ways to accomplish any real change in the world. There are allies everywhere, even in places where tactical differences seem more obvious than similarities. Learning to find value in different opinions has been a large part of my life, especially when it comes to feminism on my college campus. There’s no time to worry about fighting with other members of the feminist and pro-feminist communities, so I had to learn to listen and open my mind.

Perhaps practicing these skills in the more anonymous setting of the internet before trying them offline has helped make me more successful in my ventures, even as I continue learning as I go. Either way, I feel like progressive blogging has helped make me more productive outside the internet, and for that opportunity I am grateful.

by Pam Spaulding

I’m reporting from NYC at the 2010 BlogHer convention, and it’s my first time attending this event, held this year at the New York Hilton. It is HUGE; it’s like an explosion of women from all walks of blogging life - mom bloggers, young newbies, seasoned women full of energy and activism, lifestyle bloggers, etc.

I’ve yet to attend any sessions; I’ve been so busy with offline networking - there are many areas for just chatting and meeting up. I also had a number of other appointments outside of the con, so that complicated matters a bit.

Welcome Swag

The welcome bag is an enormous burlap bag holding many goodies and promotions, but wow - really heavy on stuff for kids - toys, alarm clocks, grow-a-plants… The item holding 3 cans of Play-Doh was the most amusing - and heaviest goodie by far.

What was really nice is that there was a Swag Exchange room where you could recycle (i.e. dump) the items you didn’t want and pick up ones you liked that others discarded. Well what did you know—the tubbie containing the Play-Doh was overflowing. Note to vendors—bag-dragging goodies that need to travel aren’t popular, even if fun and useful for kids.

Exhibits and atmosphere: this is NOT Netroots Nation

One of the fascinating aspects of BlogHer is that it’s fairly non-political on the surface, but highly political once you scratch that surface. The conference is very mom/kid/family-focused when it comes to the market that the vendors and sponsors target - there are kid-accommodating eco-friendly cars, toys, learning projects...and a whole lot of food, from Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean, Healthy Choice...I lost track. You could basically graze the hall and leave full. Also, I have to go back today to check out the skin care and other lifestyle vendors. There was one exhibit with some feminine protection items. I joked on Twitter with Lizz Winstead:

Pam_Spaulding: #blogher10 sponsors: food, everything for baby, autos, lifestyle products...def not #nn10. Totally different feel.
6:07pm, Aug 06 from HootSuite

lizzwinstead: @Pam_Spaulding I’ll be there tomorrow. Curious to compare and contrast. #blogher10 #nn10
6:08pm, Aug 06 from TweetDeck

Pam_Spaulding: @lizzwinstead @Pam_Spaulding A mind-blowing difference. You didn’t see a tampon of the future @ #NN10.

lizzwinstead: @Pam_Spaulding And I don’t have much of a future in the Tampon dept.... #NN10

In all seriousness, the number and variety of corporate sponsors at BlogHer dwarfs those at Netroots Nation. Of course, when you think about it, the level of PC at Netroots—concerns over union issues, corporate responsibility, etc., I would think one advocacy group or another attending NN would have some problem with some of these companies, making it difficult to please everyone.

All of these sponsors are dying to get to the technically adept, wired moms and other women who have a lot of spending power that are attending BlogHer. It’s an aggressive presence of a wide .

There’s no specific targeting of the LBT market at BlogHer; it’s not that there aren’t lesbians here and I’ve seen no trans folk; I’ve spoken to several lesbians, but they are there as moms, which means they fit that target market. So if you’re a child-free, not-straight woman, BlogHer may feel like an odd experience, a dip into a very hetero-centric pool. That said, there’s no homophobic vibe at all; in fact the sisterhood of living in a man’s world is quite powerful politically, and that’s a common thread in the discussions. Women still earn only 77 cents to the dollar that men earn, with women of color earning way less than that. The need for more political involvement and organizing is essential, something Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said during her Q&A (more on that later).

It would be great to see more women of color at BlogHer as well. Netroots Nation has bolstered its POC and LGBT presence (and content) significantly over its five-year existence; women’s issues not so much. Of course these conferences are not equivalent in purpose, but it’s hard not to analyze the differences and similarities in programming and exhibits and what it says about target audiences.

**

The panel I am on today at 3PM:

Change Agents: How to Start, Engage in and Moderate Civil Political Debate
What are the online “rules of the road” that can keep even heated debates civil? Where is the line between dissenter and troll? How do you take personal responsibility for your role in the debate, and how do you encourage the behavior you want to see on your site and at the online communities you frequent?

Four women will share their secrets to stirring their readers and engaging in friendly debate: Ann Friedman of The American Prospect and Feministing.com hashes it out with Denise Tanton, community manager at BlogHer.com; Pam Spaulding author of Pam’s House Blend and Suzanne Fortin, the writer behind Big Blue Wave. Join us for a lively discussion, pick up a few tips, and share a few of your own!

As you can imagine, we’ve had to deal with all sorts of moderation issues over the years, and there will be war stories discussed about trolls, astroturfing, reprimands and warnings, and more.

Some photos of the brilliant women I’ve met up with at BlogHer10.

@sharkfu, a.k.a. Angry Black Bitch; with @GloriaFeldt of HeartFeldt Politics.

Cheryl Contee, a.k.a, Jill Tubman of Jack & Jill Politics. @ch3ryl; @LisaStone, BlogHer Founder & CEO.

I’ll have a post about yesterday’s meeting with Sen. Gillibrand later (I have to head over to the conference now!).

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I’m white, and I have a daughter. My skin is pretty light, but my daughter is extraordinarily pale. A’s got white blond hair, eyebrows that are so pale they’re all but invisible, and blue eyes. When she turned a year old, we took her for a checkup. The pediatrician made sure she was hitting all of her developmental milestones, and talked to us about making sure her vaccinations were current. She also talked about things to be aware of when we take her outside since it’s summertime, like sunscreen. T and I are both far more experienced than either of us would like with nasty sunburns, so we try to make sure that A is well-slathered when we take her out. When we told the pediatrician we tried to be vigilant about it, she nodded. “Yes, that’s an important thing when you have princess skin like she does.”

T and I stared, confused. “Princess skin?” I asked.

“Princess skin. Really, really pale skin, that blond hair. Princess features.”

“Oh.” T and I shared a look, but decided to let it go.

Afterward, I thought about all the things I wanted to say to the pediatrician. What’s wrong with just saying light skin or likely to get sunburned? Why the idea that princesses have to be white, blond, and blue-eyed? Surely there are brunette princesses, princesses with darker skin, princesses who don’t sunburn easily? Do you talk to people with a wide range of skin tones about the importance of sunscreen? Of all the ways to describe A’s features, why princess?

And then I thought about all the things I wanted to say to A, even though she’s no where near old enough to understand. In my head, the phrase white privilege definitely floated around, but so did dark mutterings about Disney and a marked inability to feature any non-white heroines. I thought about phrases like alabaster skin (e.g., Snow White), usually marked by cherry red lips. And then I tried to think of princess stories that didn’t involve white people. I remembered one of my favorite fairy tales, Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, which features non-white princesses. I thought about Disney’s mixed results in dabbling in racial and ethnic diversity (Aladdin lyrics, cough, cough). I thought about The Enchanted Forest Chronicles where a the heroine is (in part) not a typical princess because she’s not blond and blue-eyed. Those are just the things I remember thinking about over a month ago. I’m sure there are dozens more. Even as I write this now, I wish I had organized my thoughts on the subject better, because I know it’s the sort of thing that will keep coming up over and over again.

A’s only thirteen months old, so I definitely have time to get some kind of coherent narrative together about what it means to be privileged by having pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. I just didn’t think it was going to start so early.

Consider this a friendly reminder to the Feministe community and to readers who may have come in from other websites: It is guest blogger season at Feministe, which means that we have invited dozens of writers to come share our space, and to each write for two weeks. We published a list of ground rules and general guidelines for reading and engaging with guest bloggers. I’m quite frankly embarrassed by the way some of our guests have been treated over the past month, and particularly over the past two days, so these rules are re-published below.

Please note that we are also trying to (quickly) adjust our comment moderation capabilities in response to these issues. Feel free to leave feedback here. And we ask not only for your patience while we get our comment moderation strategy under control, but also for your respect and basic kindness towards the people we have opened up our blog to. That doesn’t mean you can’t engage, criticize and challenge, but it does mean that you need to curb any rudeness or knee-jerk anger that you might otherwise feel comfortable displaying towards the regular Feministe bloggers. I’m pretty tolerant of negative or rude comments directed at me; I am not tolerant of those comments being directed at a guest in my house. You can take those comments to your own blog, or you can choose to not read posts by writers who anger you, or you can choose to simply withhold comments that are rude and do not contribute to any productive conversation. Alternately, you can spend your time writing inflammatory or rude comments, and then I will delete them, and then we will both be mad and no one wins and I might also choose to ban you if you really get on my nerves. We’re mostly grown-ups here, and you can decide how you want to spend your time and how much of it you want to dedicate to Being Mad On The Internet. Your call.

Now, as a refresher, our rules for guest blogger season:

1. Please think of our guest-bloggers as invited guests who are staying over at our house, and think of yourself as a friendly neighbor dropping by. Show them the attendant respect. All of the permanent Feministe bloggers will have far less patience with rudeness to guest-bloggers than we have even to rudeness directed at us. Engaging with and even challenging the posts is always ok — just do it respectfully and in good faith. If you aren’t sure that your comment achieves that, please refrain from posting it.

2. Know that guest-bloggers are fully allowed to moderate their own comment sections. Some of them will have stricter moderation rules than others. Some of them will have looser rules. These rules will not always accord exactly with what you expect from the regular Feministe bloggers. Know that the Feministe comment policy still applies, but that each blogger will have a slightly different style and you may not like it. If you don’t like a particular blogger’s moderation style, we suggest reading their posts and just skipping over the comment sections.

3. Know that the guest-bloggers have a wide range of histories, backgrounds, viewpoints, politics and feminisms (and non-feminisms). Part of the point of the guest-blogger series is to introduce Feministe readers to different perspectives and new writers. Not all of the guest-bloggers are going to have views that accord exactly with what you’re used to seeing on Feministe. That’s a good thing! We can all learn and be challenged and hopefully move forward.

4. Know that the guest-bloggers have been given full reign to write about whatever they want. Some of them were selected precisely because they write about things other than feminism. Complaints that they are not covering what you think is important, or questions of “Why is this on a feminist blog?” can be answered right now: Because that’s what we, the Feministe team, wanted. We wanted a wide range of topics to be covered. We wanted to cover some topics that are not, at first glance, glaringly feminist. You are welcome to skip posts that don’t appeal to you. And you are welcome to blame the regular Feministe bloggers for the occasional non-feminist post! But do blame us, not our guests.

5. Be conscientious of what you may not know. The guest-bloggers, as stated above, come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Take care not to assume a writer’s gender, race, physical ability, religion, sexual orientation, location, citizenship status, nationality, history, etc.

6. Finally, have fun! Learn some new stuff. Add some new blogs to your RSS feed or google reader or blogroll. This is our favorite time of the year, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

-The Feministe Team

[UPDATE: Edited to reflect change in the function of the feature.]

Some concerns about comment moderation have been brought to us by the community, so we have decided to try something new.

Below every comment you will have “thumbs down” link with the ability to report a comment for moderation. This icon should also be accessible for screen readers. With enough “thumbs down” votes, the comment will “hide” with the option of being seen only by those with exceedingly curious minds until the official moderator can get to it. We hope this will flag offensive comments more clearly for us while we attempt to moderate amidst our daily work/life duties.

This function should not be used to shut down discussion you disagree with. This function SHOULD be used to notify others that the comment is abusive or egregiously off-topic.

We are trying to figure out a friendlier way of moderating that doesn’t rely on a sole entity to bear responsibility or make questionable moral calls on comment content. If you have additional ideas or concerns, please weigh in below.

by Pam Spaulding

My good friend Joe Sudbay of Americablog and I were interviewed by former Air America radio host Sam Seder while we were at Netroots Nation (you can see me in the background, but my vid isn’t available so far). Joe’s is up, so take a peek.

Also, Joe interviewed Sen. Harry Reid:

AB has a good post up today, ”Why didn’t Robert Raben demand that Clinton’s DOJ defend a law seeking to overturn Miranda?”

***

BTW, I also just put up a FB album called NN 2010 The Homosexual Agenda, ”An album of activists, bloggers, and allies gathering to collude on how to overthrow the enablers of the equality status quo.”

It’s a stream of photos from one of the parties that Greg Rae of Living Liberally and Mike Rogers, organizer of the National Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative, threw for LGBT bloggers and allies while at Netroots.

It may look like just a party, but think about the LGBT online political power in the room. We’ve been meeting in groups offline for some time, with this conference being one of the most prominent non-LGBT related ones. It dispels the notion that we’re all just a bunch of online armchair critics sitting in Cheetos-stained PJs spouting off. Nearly every person in that room is on the same page strategically (and we know exactly who isn’t), and believe the approaches we are taking are compatible.

Right: With Palm Springs, CA Mayor Steve Pougnet (who is challenging and will defeat Mary Bono Mack), Mike Rogers, Rep. Jared Schutz Polis.

We are human beings who do care about the LGBT and progressive movements, and our roles to play in helping move equality forward. Our progressive colleagues at NN certainly recognized the unprecendented LGBT attendance and cross-pollenation of ideas that Netroots Nation provides, and that we are committed to pushing the envelope. It’s sad we have to with a self-proclaimed LGBT-friendly administration and Congress, but there you have it. Sitting back and waiting for change isn’t cutting it.

And because of the work of Mike Rogers with the National Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative pre-conference this year, we had representation from a wide variety of LGBT Beltway legacy orgs and news orgs who sat down with bloggers to bridge some of the communication gaps that are painfully apparent as everyone tries to navigate the new power and communication structures that have quickly emerged and continue to evolve. We’re past the head-in-the-sand time. Now perhaps the White House might think about sending someone to attend next time around.

One of the feminist bloggers who attended my panel on electing more progressive women to office approached me afterwards and was crestfallen that there was only one panel on women in politics and noted how prominent LGBT issues were at this NN. I told her that I’ve been to all but the first NN, and have seen tremendous growth in LGBT influence at NN after starting with just a handful of attendees and no panels on our issues. Building the coalitions and actively pushing your way in the door is the only way to be heard above the many voices and inertia the progressive movement has had toward LGBT (and women’s) issues to date.

***

One last note: I get mobbed by fans/readers at this event; my fellow bloggers call me a “rock star” (ahem, Joe Sudbay). The rock star thing is hilarious.

I do get fan mobbed at NN. Maybe not like Markos, but it’s true that I cannot make it down any corridor without several people wanting a photo of/ with me or an interview. I am very appreciative of being able to meet readers, many of them are lurkers, not commenters. It’s quite humbling when many of these people are actually pols, other bloggers and activists much more important than I am (IMHO). I still don’t get it. That whole ‘imposter syndrome” thing, I guess. But since I am really just an average person working an average job in the real world, it is disconcerting to recognize how popular my online work is to so many. So thank you all; I enjoy meeting and speaking with you. 

I can at least report to my wife that no one hit on me in Vegas. I don’t think she has anything to worry about; I’m a rock star without the sex appeal, LOLOLOL.

:::waves:::

my name is mai’a. some of y’all know me, most of y’all don’t.

i am a black ndn queer mama to a three year old bad-ass princess. live in cairo, egypt. write for a few blogs like guerrilla mama medicine and flip flopping joy. run a zine distro with my girl aaminah at thaura zine distro. am a poet, outlaw midwife, anti utilitarian anarchist, visual artist, and all around dredlocked diva.

i blog about palestine and the middle east and africa, motherhood, reproductive justice and health, home birth and abortions, community building, survival, the fall of industrial civilization, and fairies.

some more quick notes:

there is no need for us-centrism

anti-mother/anti-child comments not appreciated

i have a pet peeve against straw man arguments

i am pro palestine/anti israeli government. the ‘balanced narrative’ is a delusion.

and i love a good argument/debate. emphasis on ‘good’. ;)