Trainwreck was garbage

It's my own fault, really. I only get to go out to the movies like twice a year, and I knew from the Internet that Trainwreck was not in any way the feminist comedy I wanted it to be.

But, because of that, I altered my reasons for seeing it, and thought, well, at least it will be kind of funny.

SPOILERS START HERE

At least it won't be a sappy, silly, woman-realizes-she's-been-living-life-all-wrong-without-a-man romcom.

I was wrong. So wrong.

In this ridiculous film, Amy Schumer isn't edgy or modern at all. Simply having a woman say upfront things about how she is feeling isn't omg-cutting-edge. And worse, the reason that is supposed to be funny is that somehow we still think women can't say what they're thinking or point out that they are uncomfortable in certain situations. So, to the general public, Schumer is basically saying things they think a man would think in situations. A hilarious role reversal! A barrel of laughs at every turn. A woman who doesn't like spooning and says so? Get outta here.

Way worse, however, is how quickly this quirky character changes her tune when she meets the right guy. Suddenly it's all tears and realizations that her whole life was just a blustery lie to cover up how scared she was about not fitting into society's mold for women. She was never meant to be a whore, dude-bros in the audience! She just hadn't found you yet! And she can change, dear God, she can change. Just give her like four months of prep work, then literally two days of cramming, and voila! A woman making a huge show for a guy she pissed off by being rightfully upset at him coming at her during a function where she got a fucking call from work.

And critiquing the content like this gives the movie too much credit because it assumes the storyline even falls together just a little bit. Which it does not. There are no motives behind all these grand gestures and evolutions. There is no tension or coherent strand of character development. Plot devices are thrown in willy-nilly without even a bandaid for the viewer whenever the movie needs to make a sharp left turn. It's as if a team of 12 different writers took turns writing a paragraph of the script each, passing the pages around the table in order until it was done. And it's all lifted from other stuff!

Look, I loved Sex and the City as much as the next young 20s girl in the aughts, but goddamn it, Amy, that shit was only funny then because it was a different time. A worse time, to be honest. And not only is the main character just a mix of those four women who were much better done 12 years ago, there are literal scenes taken right from the damn series. Like the couple's fight, for instance. The SNL guy comes out from a luncheon where Amy's been pretty under-dressed and not fitting in, and bored and nervous and just uncomfortable all around. He catches her smoking (pot). They fight. Didn't Sarah Jessica Parker go to some posh party in a wacky all-colored dressed then get reprimanded for smoking a cigarette out a window (by Big), then they kind of fight and she goes outside to smoke? Like, really, guys? How about Amy's job? She's a writer for a magazine which specializes in sexy stuff? NOWAI. I have never seen that before.

The scene at the end where she's with that kid? Bright Lights, Big City.

What about Amy's boss? Kind of a less-put-together Devil Wears Prada boss, no? Not kind of. Is.

And what was the point of casting SNL in this movie? They were all playing straight characters. Like, was it supposed to be funny that they were playing straight characters? Was it a meta joke? Because it didn't really work, to be honest.

Now for the killer.

There was absolutely nothing funny about the dad character or his story line. Nothing is funny about that type of person. Nothing was funny about the emotions he brought forth in his two daughters or how he shaped them. Nothing was funny about the horrible things he constantly said. Nothing was funny about the girls' relationship with each other as they tried to handle him. Nothing is funny about MS. Nothing funny. Nothing remotely fucking funny.

And to redeem him in the middle there? "He might have offended every one of you, but raise your hand if he was one of your favorite people?" And everyone raises their hands.

Noooooope.

Can we not redeem abusive-as-fuck parents, please. That garbage was no one's favorite person.

I will never get over the use of a narcissistic, completely inappropriate father figure as something that is supposedly funny. Fuck right off. Now.

It's also super funny that the muscle man is totally gay, right? Totally hilar.

Another lazy move is how Amy gets to take the article she wrote for one publication on their clock, dust it off, and send it to Vanity Fair after she gets fired. She meets with a Vanity Fair guy and they take the story? And it's published within a few days? DOES NO ONE KNOW HOW WRITING WORKS? Damn. And that it was so good because she put herself in the piece. That hasn't been startling since freaking Hunter S. Thompson, and P.S. Carrie Bradshaw did that like five times a week in 2004.

So, what did I like about it?

The black-and-white, Danille Radcliffe and Marissa Tomei film about dog walking in New York City that came up twice. I wish to God they'd made that a whole movie instead.

The homeless guy had his moments when the movie wasn't being completely condescending to homeless people. James had his moments when the movie wasn't being completely condescending to people of color.

Schumer did say a few funny things, here and there.

But, like, that's it. And that is not nearly enough.

Trainwreck is a waste of space. It's not just not feminist comedy. It's not just not comedy. I'm still trying to figure out if it can actually be classified as a movie.

The Feminist Flames of Pentecost -- Guest Post

Sunday is the feast of Pentecost, the day that falls forty-nine days after Easter. It is remembered by Christians as the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples of Jesus as tongues of fire.

At my Roman Catholic alma mater, there was a stained glass window of the Pentecost event that featured the apostles and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Red, disembodied tongues floated piously over their heads, and with a stretch of the imagination they could be said to look like flames. It seemed to me a rather gruesome image when I was an undergraduate.

Now, as the feast of Pentecost approaches, I recall that window as a powerfully subversive image: the God whose word has been enshrined on the page had given ordinary human beings the authority to speak on God’s behalf. What kind of God would do that?

Maybe a God who wasn’t afraid of the alleged imperfections of ordinary human beings would. Maybe a God who wanted to empower ordinary voices to be extraordinary would. I think of Mary, mother of Jesus, and I imagine a woman—of all people--being given the power to speak for God. Then I look at my two small daughters, and I imagine their voices being given the very same power—to speak boldly, with authority. What kind of God would do this? The kind of God who was willing to share power and authority. The kind of God who valued what each voice could bring to the conversation. A feminist God. Am I right?

As I celebrate Pentecost with my daughters, I will share with them the story of the tongues of fire, and I will tell them that Pentecost was the day when the most powerful voice of all invited those who weren’t powerful to speak up, loud and clear. And maybe they’ll learn from their God a lesson in listening to the voices of others—and most importantly, listening to their own.

...

Kate is the married mom of two precocious tots. When she's not chasing them or dancing around them or singing at the top of her lungs with them, she likes to drink coffee, make yummy food with her hubby, edit other people's writing, pray, and write edgy pieces on religious topics. You can check out her blog, Thealogical Lady, at lifeloveliturgy.com. (And, for the record, that "a" in "Thealogical" is no accident.)

Creepster Alert (or how to recognize a potential stalker on social media)

This is a creeper alert.

So many of us post pictures of ourselves and our families and children on Facebook, and did you know that even if you do it friends only, someone can share that picture with their network AND save it to their photo page by tagging themselves in it?

Did you further know that if someone tags themselves in your picture (ie: you aren't the tagger), you, as the owner of the picture, do not have the option to untag them?

Did you even further know that unfriending the person will not untag them? You have to full out block them in order for that tag to be removed.

The good news is that if a creepy creepster is tagging himself (or herself) in your photos to make you part of a creepy FB picture collection, you probably want to block them anyway. So, seriously, get to blocking.

That's me yesterday. Those are my kids. We are going out with my husband to a Mothers Day dinner.

I do not know Jerry Jackson.

I was not "with" him.

I have never met him, and the one interaction I had with him before this left me with a creeper-alert feeling.

I was right.

He's now blocked.

But if you look at his photo page, he makes a habit of tagging himself in women's photos a lot. So that he essentially has an album of women in dresses. Probably hardly any of them whom he actually knows. That's some pretty bold creepy right that. That's some gross.

Here's the story:

Probably about a year ago, I accepted a friend request from a guy I didn't know. I never do this, but I accepted this request because we had a mutual friend who is also a journalist whom I respect without question and because his profile read that he was a professor overseas, and those two things combined seemed legit. She probably would know a professor overseas and maybe he read my stuff and liked it and had story ideas for me, or whatever.

After the acceptance, I forgot about it because we had no reason to interact.

Then two months ago, he sent me a random PM and I noticed our mutual friend had vanished. I also noticed that he spoke like a chain email from a Nigerian prince, but I've been insensitive to English Second Language before, so aside from noticing, no judgement. Except, probably not a professor. And today when I alerted a group of women to this man's behavior, their investigation showed that, no, he is not a professor at the University of Oxford. Jury's still out on whether or not he used to work for or with One Direction though. Um...

I'm one of those people who feels bad about unfriending people. In fact, this person has become only the second person I've unfriended, and he is the first I've blocked. As such, I actually replied to his response that day:

And that was the end of it. He let the conversation drop, which was fine by me. I had meant to unfriend him after that, but something in my real life distracted me, the little pm box vanished in my ever exploding inbox, and we had no further interaction of any kind, so I forgot all about it.

Until this morning.

When he tagged my photo of me and my girls.

Now, most of the women's photos where he tags himself are young, made-up gorgeous-looking women in fancy, sexy evening wear. But of the 80 or so photos (two of which he tagged himself in just minutes after tagging mine), a few scattered photos were like mine. A nice enough looking mom with her children. Why?

Two of his friends (both nice enough looking moms with children in their profile pictures) liked my photo within minutes. So my theory is, he uses photos of his 'friends' with kids to counteract the damn creepiness of scoping young, single women in dresses looking glam. My photo in which he tagged himself perhaps lent legitimacy to his online persona. The other women don't know I don't know him. They probably fully believe I was "with him" at the time. Or, if they've had their own photos co-opted by him, perhaps it gave them a feeling of peace. 'Maybe it's a compliment,' they might be thinking. 'Maybe he just likes the photos and tags himself to show how much more he likes them than the average liker. At the very least, I'm not the only woman this has happened to, so maybe it's more normal than I think.'

Well, I'm not going to be a party to normalizing creepy behavior online, and I'm certainly not going to allow my children's photo to be stacked up in an online library of pictures of women this guy "was with".

Before the internet, someone collecting photos of women like this would have easily been the subject of a crime thriller movie. Why on Earth would the medium of Facebook suddenly make it okay?

Ladies, if someone you don't know requests you as a friend, and you accept that request, if they give you ANY reason to unfriend them, do it.

And if they act like Mr. Jerry Jackson, here, block them and report them, too. It's not just for you. It's for the other women. And there are almost always other women. Someone must speak for them because too often they second guess and forget and do not speak for themselves. And then they're part of a collection of creepy photos online.

Nope.

How much slut-shaming can we fit into a day -- Guest post

Slut-shaming is the act of shaming someone for being -- or even just appearing to be -- sexual. It is used to control the behavior of women and girls by criticizing or demeaning them any time they don't conform to the rigid expectations of our sexist society. Some incidents are pretty straightforward. If someone yells "slut" to me from their car as I walk down the street in a short skirt, almost anyone would agree that I was just slut-shamed. However, sex-negativity and misogyny are so ingrained in our culture, that more subtle acts of slut-shaming occur every day (sometimes all day long) without anyone even realizing. A lot of people might not notice (or care) when this kind of slut-shaming takes place right in front of their own eyes.

I consider myself a sex-positive feminist, so I might be slightly more tuned in to slut-shaming than the average person -- I did run a blog called "Evil Slutopia" for seven years -- but I never really thought about exactly how often I experienced (or witnessed) slut-shaming on a daily basis. So I decided to do an experiment and document every incident that I experienced or witnessed, no matter how subtle, within a 48-hour period of time.

This is what happened...

Day 1

-- I start my day by flipping through radio stations. I almost immediately hear a conversation about women who cheat. The term "nymphomaniacs" is used.

-- I post a photo of myself in a Facebook group for fashion critique. One woman describes my outfit as “very street walker.”

-- As I scroll through the other submissions, I notice more than one woman asking the same kind of question: "Too much boobs?" "Are my boobs too big for this?" "Is this too low cut?" "Do I need to wear a cami under this top?" Most of the responses are encouraging, but it still makes me wonder why this question keeps coming up.

-- As if she psychically knows I am reading about low-cut tops, my mother refers to the shirt I'm currently wearing as being too revealing. Cleavage is my favorite accessory.

-- While listening to Paramore, "Misery Business" comes on and I catch the line "once a whore you’re nothing more, I’m sorry that’ll never change." Boo.

-- Chatting with a guy friend online, the conversation turns to dating and he says, "you’re not that picky. Well… you’re not picky with who you hook up with. Maybe you are with who you date."

-- My daughter tells me about a lesson from her English class this week. The teacher gave everyone a list of twelve people with descriptions and said they can only fit seven in a life boat... who do you take? (Context: They’re reading Lord of the Flies.) One of the people that was dismissed by her group was a 23-year-old cocktail waitress who had worked as a prostitute in the past. My daughter says the conversation went something like this...

Classmate: We don’t want her.
Daughter: Why not?
Classmate: She’s a prostitute.
Daughter: Who cares? We need some women so they can reproduce.
Classmate: She only has a ninth grade education.
Daughter: We only have a ninth grade education.
Classmate: Yeah but we're not prostitutes.
Daughter: <Eye roll>

-- Scrolling through Facebook, I see that one of my friends has posted something about "Hookers for the Handicapped," a program in the Netherlands that provides citizens with disabilities with money from the government to pay for sexual services. I’m not sure if this is a real thing, but the first comment on his post is "I hope they don’t get herpes."

-- I read a blog post about RealDolls (anatomically-correct, rubber women). The author mocks the people who buy them and says, "I fear only what this says of our humanity." Wow. A little heavy-handed for sex dolls, don't you think?

-- I go to a party with friends and the topic of sex comes up, as it usually does. I am especially vocal on the topic, as I usually am. While I'm talking, I catch a glimpse of an eye roll in my direction from another party guest who has overheard our conversation (although I can’t prove it was necessarily aimed at what I was saying).

-- I flirt with a cute guy friend at the party and someone mistakenly refers to us as a "couple." We both correct him that we're not a couple, but later when he catches us kissing he suggests we were lying when we said we weren't a couple. He seems confused by the idea that you can casually make out with someone without trying to date them.

Day 2

-- I make a conscious effort to hide a hickey from the night before and then wonder if I’ve actually just slut-shamed myself.

-- A guy I sort of know shares a photo on Facebook from an anti-feminist page. It is of women at a Slut Walk protest screaming at a man who exposed his penis to them. The caption is “Feminism. Because street harassment should be illegal.” Sigh.

-- My daughter tells me that her father said earlier that he didn't approve of the outfit she wore today. He said she needed to button her shirt farther up. (She's wearing a button down with a tank top under it that isn't even that low cut.)

-- I feel like watching some bad TV on Demand, so I turn on Two Broke Girls (CBS). The character Max makes a comment about her boobs. My mother, passing through, says "this role is beneath her." I ask, "why, because she said boobs?" but she doesn't elaborate. Max makes a ton of sexual comments and aggressive advances towards a cute waiter, while Caroline slut-shames her repeatedly. I don't get to see how it ends because I have to turn it off when they make a "Precious" fat joke.

-- I switch to Your Family or Mine (TBS), a new show that is about... I don't know... a family? "Only strippers should dress like strippers." Pass.

-- I consider trying reality TV instead, so I put on Little Family (Lifetime), a spin-off of Little Women LA. Pregnant Terra and her boyfriend Joe are looking at baby clothes, when she shows him a baby bikini. He questions why she's trying to make the baby "sexy." Ugh. Before I can even grab the remote, he says, "I don't know what Terra was thinking. A baby has nothing to do with a bikini and she'll be wearing turtlenecks 'til she's 18."

-- I decide I'm not going to stop looking until I find at least one show that doesn't slut-shame. I try Finding Carter (MTV), a show that I sometimes watch with my daughter. Fraternal twins Carter and Taylor are shopping for dresses for a party...

Taylor: Carter thinks that I should slut it up.
Dad: Carter’s wrong. Very wrong.

-- I figure Last Man on Earth (Fox) is probably safe because there are almost no characters on the show at all to slut-shame. I was wrong...

Carol: Why would there be any hard feelings? All you did was make a series of quick slut-based decisions about sharing your body with a man you hardly knew.
Gail: Carol, you know we would never have done that stuff if we’d known Phil was married.
Carol: Of course. I don’t hold it against you. You had no idea. And you’re not even from here. In this country we tend to do a little bit of research before inviting a man into the land down under.

-- I finally turn on Mom (CBS). The character Bonnie is going through withdrawal as she gets sober again and imagines both a "Good Bonnie" and a "Bad Bonnie" arguing over her.

Good Bonnie: I’m the reason she reconciled with her daughter.
Bad Bonnie: I’m the reason she had a daughter.
Good Bonnie: At age 17.
Bad Bonnie: Oh yeah here comes the slut-shaming.
Good Bonnie: I’ve asked you not to use that kind of language around me.
Bad Bonnie: Slut.

They earn points for acknowledging that slut-shaming is, you know, a thing, but points deducted for the voice of reason on the subject coming from the imaginary persona that is advocating for drug use. I decide to give up on television for the day.

-- I read an article about revenge porn. The author suggests that anti-revenge porn laws might do more harm than good, but fails to give any evidence of this actually being true. (Laws against posting all nude photos are referenced, but that's not exactly the same thing.)

--Another article about yet another pharmacy that refused to sell a woman birth control pills because of their "morals." I can't even bring myself to read it.

-- Just before bed, I get a notification from an online dating app. It's someone way out of my age range, so I politely decline. He responds by calling me a whore. Thanks and goodnight.

So what did I learn? Nothing I didn't already know: Slut-shaming is all around us, all the time.

Now to be fair, not all of these incidents were blatant examples of intentional slut-shaming. Some of it cannot be mistaken (like being outright called a "whore"), but some may not have been slut-shaming at all (like the eye roll during my conversation) and others were, but only indirectly so. A lot of the slut-shaming we experience (or inflict) every day is probably unintentional, but it still does damage. For example, mocking someone for buying a sex doll may not be textbook slut-shaming, but criticizing someone's sexual behavior sends the message that there is such a thing as "too much" or "too weird" when it comes to sexuality. It perpetuates the idea that some kinds of sexuality need to be policed or controlled, and when that belief exists, it is usually women that end up bearing the brunt of it.

Slut-shaming contributes to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts in girls and women. It also reinforces rape culture, through misogyny, victim-blaming and rape apologism (e.g., "you can't rape a slut"). One little comment on a stupid television show might not make or break a person, but when it's the eleventh or so experience of the day... who knows how deeply ingrained these "anti-slut" messages can really get? I'm not saying that someone is a bad person if he or she accidentally slips up now and then, but we can all be more conscious of it.



...

Abby Rose Dalto is a freelance writer, editor and social media consultant. She is also a single mother and a sex-positive feminist. Abby was Co-Founder of ESC Forever Media and Co-Founder/Executive Editor of the blog Evil Slutopia, where she wrote under the pseudonym "Lilith." She is the author of two books, Create Your Own Sand Mandala: For Meditation, Healing and Prayer and Create Your Own Power Jewelry, as well as numerous articles on a variety of subjects. She holds a B.A. in Women's Studies with concentration in Creative Writing and Literature. Visit her online at www.abbyrosedalto.com.

What's in a name? -- Guest post

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
...
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.


~ Juliet Capulet, Romeo and Juliet,
Act 2, Scene 2, lines 37-38; 42-53,
William Shakespeare.

She makes a good argument for it, doesn't she? You love someone, and it's a reasonable thing to ask them to surrender their name for you. Their name, that carries with it their history and sense of family honour. It's easy to say that when your two families are at war, and you'd give anything to see their bloodline extinguished anyway. Harder, when it's just the ordinary decision of whether or not to change one's name upon marrying, as I am currently debating.



Those of you who know your Shakespeare may have noticed the lines I deliberately omitted earlier:

Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
(Ibid, lines 38-40, emphasis mine)

so there's no dispute that she intends this to be a mutual surrendering, although it is interesting that she spends seven times the length of those lines asking him to change his.

So, if Shakespeare is relevant today, is it valid to ask our men to change their names for us? I am hoping it is.

In my particular case, I have a sister but no brothers, no uncles on my Dad's side, my Grandfather is long deceased, and my Dad can't even remember the last time he saw or spoke to his male cousin (whom, I believe, had only daughters anyway). So, in the ordinary course of events, my Dad's surname will be extinguished after this generation, and there will be no one who was close to either him or my Grandfather who will be able to carry it on.

That being said, why shouldn't there be? It is entirely a cultural matter that us ladies surrender our family name and heritage, when our men do not have to do likewise, but, culture can be changed. At least, I personally do not consider cultural reasons by themselves to be enough to continue a tradition, especially one I don't agree with.

And I don't agree with it. I side with Juliet on this issue.

To lay out all of our options:

1) The traditional route, I surrender my name and family history and honour, and take on that of my beloved as if I belonged TO him (rather than, WITH him). The fact that for me, this is socially a climb-down, and I would be surrendering a surname from the English aristocracy for an American one that... isn't, also makes that suggestion unpalatable to me (although I concede that maybe it shouldn't).

2) What's good for the goose is good for the gander: he completely changes his, as, in fact, Romeo himself was eager to do:

I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
(Ibid, lines 54-56.)

And also:

Juliet: Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
Romeo: Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
(Ibid, lines 66-67.)

However, how can I, with fairness, ask my beloved to do something I am not to willing to do? No, this is not an option, not for me.

3) Nothing changes, nobody surrenders anything, we both keep our family names and heritage and just make do having to different names. In many cultures, this is still the norm. I'm not completely against the idea, but to a certain extent, I say, “Well, what's the point of getting married, then? Don't we want to look like we belong to and with each other?” For some paperwork, this actually is the way we will go. For example, I don't see any reason to pay quite a lot of money for a new passport when my current one is only a couple of years old, just because I've got married. I'll just leave it in my current name and travel under that, and then when it runs out, get a new one in my married name, but I personally think it sounds a little cold-hearted that we'd never be introduced by the same name in the flesh.

4) Use the American tradition of adding the maiden name as a second middle name, even though they then go by their husband's surname. To be honest, I can't really see the point of that. If I'm not going to continue to use my surname as my surname, why bother?

5) Hyphenate. Either one or both of us. I'd prefer both. The feminist in me is crying out, begging, that we take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove to the world that in this marriage, we really do intend to be equal partners. BOTH of us matter. Both of our families, and histories, matter too. We're BOTH changing our identities when we get married, and why shouldn't our name/s reflect that?

My beloved isn't in favour of that, for a few reasons:

a) hyphenated names (apparently) cause issue with automated forms, and such. (Eh. The technology around automated forms was designed by humans, it could therefore also be redesigned, if needed...)

b) which way around would we do it? Personally, I'm a fan of both of us just adding the other's name to the end of our current name, because that points to more equality; we're both doing the same thing. He thinks that's making things unnecessarily messy, which, I have to admit, I don't think is nearly as important as he does. Were we to pick one version over the other, there's also the aesthetics argument: which way looks/sounds better? I'd argue, mine first, because otherwise there's five consonants in a row, which makes it a bit difficult to say, and also, mine's the longer name, so it does sound better that way, but that's another (small) reason he isn't up for it.

c) He – correctly – points out that the process of changing our names will be a hassle. He forgets that I'd have that hassle either way (unless we chose option 3), and thinks we ought to avoid options that create more hassle “for the sake of it”. I think it's for the sake of him showing that he doesn't think he's better than me, but he can't quite connect the dots yet.

d) But what would we name the children?? Aren't we making life intentionally more difficult for them, especially if they then want to do the hyphenating thing themselves?? Well, for starters, we are no where near a firm decision on if there even will be any children, and if we do, by the time they get to marrying, they'll be able to make their own choices about this, but why can't we just cross that bridge when we come to it? Flip a coin or something, to see which one of our names will get passed down?

This decision feels really large to me. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really stand up and be counted, to take a decision that will lead to multiple conversations, and maybe, in a small way, be part of changing the world! To deliberately not take it, I have to admit, does feel... cowardly. And I am not a coward. My own deep-seated family values, which half of this conversation is about, are “be kind, be brave, be fair, be loving.” Brave, and fair, is more important than cowardliness or wanting to make life easier for oneself.

I didn't create this unfair patriarchy, although given the hand I've been dealt, I do feel obliged to play my part in dismantling it.

And yet.

My beloved didn't create it either. How far is it fair to mke him fight this battle, when it's not his personal fault? I love the man, and I want him to be happy. I think that means, not continuing to pressure him about it, even when it frustrates every bone in my body.

I can only influence myself. I can take my choices on, and I will hyphenate my name. He will, in all likelihood, not change his at all, but I will hope and pray that I'm wrong about that. It feels somewhat anti-climatic, but what other choice do I have? As my beloved himself often says, “A good compromise leaves everybody mad, right?” And, of course, in the words of Juliet, our marriage will still smell sweet, regardless of what we end up calling ourselves.

...

Sarah Fountains

An accountant living in the UK, who's engaged to an accountant living in California. Currently she lodges with/housesits for/nannys for/freeloads from close friends with two extremely boisterous sons. She's been reading parenting advice in books and on the internet as a hobby since she was sixteen, and cares particularly about adoption issues; she's probably also the only voice in the feminist crowd insisting that sexism goes both ways in different circumstances. She loves dancing and sewing, fails at one but not the other, and struggles continually with things that other people refer to as "common sense." Her lifetime ambition is to be organised enough to justify baskets in the refrigerator, and has yet to meet someone who doesn't laugh at it. Most days, though, she still has laundry on the floor. Read about her international adventures at: http://marriedwiththemominlaw.blogspot.co.uk

It's not men keeping women back in the workforce

When women speak up in the workplace, they are viewed in a negative light, that is, when they're not interrupted by men first, according to a new piece in the New York Times. Women who contribute new ideas and expand upon business management information are viewed as aggressive and suspicious, whereas men doing the same thing are considered driven and 'take charge'.

Women are considered incompetent until they prove otherwise, which they do by working 2.5 times as hard as men, while men are considered competent until proven otherwise. This is the way of the world, and more and more studies on leadership and business are backing it up.

I posted this piece on my Facebook the other day, and immediately a nice guy (a real nice guy, not a Nice Guy) I went to high school with started hemming and hawwing about semantics and scientific methods and research. All in the name of 'finding the root of the problem.'

That root, for so long, has been considered to be a problem with women themselves. They're not as committed as men. They're forced to make life choices that don't suit the business world (have a family), they can't be as available as men, etc. Or, sometimes, it's blamed on the system. The glass ceiling, the relatively new phenomenon of women in management needing to rid itself of the training wheels, certain overtly sexist individuals throwing up barriers to woman success, and etc.

In each of these scenarios, there is an implication that it is mostly men who are concerned with holding women back, whether consciously or not. That we are on one team, and men are on the other. That men can support us or not, but that all women wish for and are fighting for the right to be viewed as just as competent as men in their field, should they deserve it.

Because of this misconception, we get men from all walks of life rallying up in defense of their kind, either partaking in one of the two scenarios above: ("if you look at it on an individual level, there are hundreds, nay, thousands of women, who can't commit to the job, who choose to raise families in lieu of their careers; this is not men's faults!") or ("I fight for women in my work place! I know their value and try to help whenever I can. These messages are no longer valid. So many men have come around! We're fighting with you! Stop stabbing us in the back!")

My friend summed it up nicely with his comment on the article

: "What struck me is how often the phrase "...and women" comes up. It seems men and women alike are guilty of the same thing. I wonder if there's any industry where this is less of a problem? I doubt there's any place it isn't... But why is this becoming 'worse' of a problem? Is it a particular generation of manager that is the problem? Is this a problem in other similar countries? IE: is it just America?"

Here's the thing that nearly everyone forgets: Women can be and often are guilty of sexism and misogyny. Because they hate other women? No. Just like most men don't engage in sexism because they hate women.

Feminism is frequently attacked because men feel defensive, as if by wanting equal rights, we are somehow implying that they personally are stopping that from happening. Women will defend men who feel this way, too, and the whole thing goes off the rails because suddenly we're not even talking about feminism. We're talking about a section of society getting their feelings hurt over something they're not guilty of, over something feminists never said they were guilty of.

So if it's not men, and it's not women, and it's not the newness of the system, then, my friend rightly wonders, what the heck is it? Why do both women and men view an ambitious, talkative, creative woman as a threat, where they view the same kind of man as a boon to their organization?

This intensely interesting piece, which shines light on the change of treatment due to gender in transgender people, shows clearly that throughout life, throughout careers, throughout industries, this different framing thrives. Men are simply treated better. By everyone.

Why?

Because we are not fighting the conscious thoughts and desires of men determined to keep women off their turf. Those days are gone, and most feminists know that. We don't need to defend the fact that "not all men" treat women as less-than in the workforce.

We are fighting a finely tuned and deeply ingrained notion of gender roles and gender traits in society. We are up against an institutionalized problem of unconscious or subconscious ideas about what women should be and what women are. We have ingested since birth the tenets that women are more scatterbrained than men, that they don't have forward-thinking ideas, that they are catty and vindictive, that they simply don't do the same caliber work.

No one thinks this. I know you don't think this.

It doesn't matter. You've eaten the pie. You had no choice. I had no choice.

It's not us against them. It's not women versus men. It's not men holding women back in the work place. It's not women holding themselves back. It's not managers holding them back.

It is the patriarchy. And the patriarchy, I repeat, is not men. It's not you. The patriarchy is the basest organizational structure our society and cultural has depended on for centuries that has etched a pattern in our brains as to how things should be, so powerful that our conscious and acute efforts to counteract that pattern only skim the surface.

Women are held back in the work place because we haven't yet broken out of the mental pattern that tells us that's how it should be. Writings like this aren't meant as complaints, or whining, or to pit one gender against another, or blame any one sect of people for our problems. Writings like this are meant to shift the conversation from the surface of the issue to the deeply ingrained underbelly where the problem really sits. It's a call to action, not because we are guilty of sexism, but because we have control over how this dialogue continues, and we can work together, men and women, managers and employees, to make it better over the generations.

It's not our fault we are where we are, but it is our duty to do better.

Raising kids who don't suck -- Guest Post

#GamerGate. MRAs. PUAs. Jian Ghomeshi. #ByeFelipe. The 2014 Midterm Elections.

I’ve got a stepson who just turned seven and two kids arriving in May, and this is the environment their mother and I will be raising them in. I suppose it’s better than raising them in Europe during the Dark Ages, but I always kind of imagined that humanity would suck less than this by the time I got around to having kids of my own. Since we still suck, though, how the hell are we supposed to raise kids who don’t?

I’ve always imagined that to be the purpose of parenting: to raise kids who don’t suck. Or at least kids who suck less than you. Like, I hope that my kids come around to feminism before they turn 40. I hope they don’t get caught up in the self-loathing and judgement of fundamentalist religion. I hope they pursue their dreams and passions instead of letting other people talk them into doing “the practical thing.” I hope they learn to be comfortable in their own skins. I hope they learn how to be kind and forgiving and compassionate. Most of all, I hope they learn how to think for themselves.

But how do you teach those things? I know that my example has more of an impact than my words, but is setting a good example enough? What if I say all the right things and set a great example and none of it works?

I know, I know...I’m probably overthinking this, but it’s hard not to. I read the comments of angry men in response to feminist issues, and I wonder how many of them were raised by well-meaning parents who said the right things and set the right examples and still ended up with kids who are shitheads. I feel like I have an advantage in that I’m working in partnership with an incredible person; I’m confident that her influence will bring out the best in them, because I see the effect it’s having on the Monkey. He’s emulating his mother’s best qualities more and more every day, and that gives me hope. And still, I worry.

Also? I just realized that the title I picked for this article could have been misleading, and there’s a possibility that someone might have clicked on it hoping to get advice on how to raise kids who don’t suck. If you happen to be one of those people, I’m sorry. The truth is, I know nothing about how to raise children. I’m not even entirely sure that I know how to change a diaper, let alone how to help a child navigate the emotionally and psychologically hostile world around them. I’m reading a lot of other people’s advice and hoping that at least some of it comes naturally. I mean, there has to be something living in the recesses of my unconscious mind about what to do with a kid, right? I don’t think humanity would have lasted this long if we didn’t get some of our parenting skills instinctually.

So here’s to hoping that a combination of accidentally meeting and falling in love with the right person, some instinctive child-rearing ability, and a healthy dose of dumb luck will help me pull this parenting thing off. And if they turn out to be shitheads anyway? Well, I’m sure I’ll still love them. I’ll just make fun of them and bide my time until I can turn the grandkids against them.


...

Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiance, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com

Growing Up, Coming Out - Guest Post

Today we have a powerful post on how to live your truth and the benefits of it, no matter how hard it may be at the time. We all have cliffs off which we must jump. Take courage, take heart. You will be understood.

...


Once you have kids, every time you blink you’re certain they grew while your eyes were shut. Infant to baby, baby to toddler, toddler to kindergartner. They grow out of clothes over night, seeming to shoot up like weeds when your back is turned. Clichés spout from your lips, “Wasn’t he just crawling? Didn’t she just learn to talk? Wasn’t it just yesterday…” You’re practically humming “Sunrise Sunset”. You go to rock your kindergartner at night and his long legs dangle over your lap almost to the floor. Your arms still remember cradling him to your breast, when his whole body fit on your lap. Even the younger one is always running away and ‘do{ing} it myself!’ It’s to be expected. Needless to say, it’s better than the alternative. But what you never expected… what I never expected was my own growing up, keeping pace with theirs.

As I’ve watched them grow, my kids have taught me things that prompted my own growth. My son, T, has taught me to move past my default introversion. From the time he was a baby he was a social kid. He loved meeting people, being out and about, in the middle of things. I pushed myself to join a mom’s group where both he and I made friends. I didn’t want him to be afraid of the world, as I had been so often when I was a child.

Even though she’s only two, my daughter, M, is teaching me to speak up for myself and for what I need. To be discerning with my attention. She doesn’t just smile and talk to someone because they talk to her. She checks them out, considers them. She is not afraid to let me know when she wants, or doesn’t want, something.

So the changes in myself have taken me aback. After all, I wasn’t a kid when I had my son, my firstborn. Not like my mom who had me at seventeen. I was, ostensibly, an adult – thirty-two. I’d gone to college, to grad school, had jobs, gotten married. I thought I knew who I was, had it summed up in a handful of words – thirty-something woman, stay-at-home mom, writer, feminist, spiritual-seeker, polyamorous, bisexual, fangirl, wife. But as T and M got older, I found myself surprised as I walk past windows and mirrors. Who is this woman? Where did she come from? Where has she been hiding?

Even as I smiled my way through my life, there were cracks in my mask. I burned out during my internship as a grief counselor, I drank a little too much, I ate a little too much. There was a year of digestive issues that the doctors couldn’t diagnose, some depression, some anxiety. But over all a pervading feeling that I was not really living. I had responsibilities, a family, and I wanted to do it right – have the 2.5 kids, the perfect home, the perfect husband; not rock the boat – but I had the nagging sense that I wasn’t. Doing it right was doing it wrong.

I was drifting in this limbo when suddenly life slapped me upside the head. A friend had a serious health scare; a family member nearly died; a friend of the family lost her son who was T’s age; a neighborhood mom my age with a daughter M’s age was killed, randomly. I was drowning in wave after wave of knowledge – this life is fragile, short. Whatever comes next, we have this one chance. How could I keep living in fear? I closed my eyes and leaped.

I came out as a lesbian, to myself, to my mom, to my husband. Slowly, I am beginning to live. I still don’t know what that means, or if I’m doing it right. I have been immeasurably lucky – my ex, B, and I are committed to becoming friends and remaining a family. Mostly for the kids, but also for us. We were together for twenty-one years. We grew up together. We don’t live together, but we are just a few blocks away from each other. We share custody 50-50. We are determined to create something new, to not be constrained by the way divorce usually is done.

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m just figuring out who I am at nearly forty. I can’t believe that I’m just growing up. I feel guilty for changing my kids’ family out from under them. For hurting them, and hurting B. But I also want to teach the kids that it’s necessary to live one’s truth. Even when it’s hard, even when it’s painful. Even when it’s a mistake. Because otherwise you aren’t living. And that is a lesson that I don’t want to teach them. I want them to avoid the masks and the limbo, and to remember who they are. To stay true to themselves.
...

You can see more of her journey here, at World Split Open.


 

#AllMenCan LISTEN (on Policy Mic's Apparent Unravelling)

I'd like to start this diatribe with the realization that in posting this (assuming they read it) I'm totally blowing my chances of ever working for Policy Mic in the future. Which peeves me because at some point I'd have really liked to write for them. But, alas, it must be done.

After becoming embroiled in a mild skirmish on Twitter which they didn't really respond to, today, they published this piece on women's rights:

37 Men Show Us What Real Men's Activists Look Like

Where to begin?

First of all, can I just say I am so relieved to have 37 men telling me what they think about women. The pushback wasn't complete without an article highlighting men, guys.

Secondly, it's staged.

EIGHTEEN of the 37 pictures were taken in the same room. Since Policy Mic didn't remark on this, I can only assume they gathered their male employees in the cafeteria or something, and had them hold up signs so they could complete this assignment. I hope I'm wrong. Maybe it was another company who decided to do a project on it. But if that is the case, the project should be recognized, don't you think?

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about.

Times that by 18. Call me cynical, but the message doesn't have the same impact when it feels like we are being tricked into thinking these were random calls to internet activism by men propelled by their own volition.

I mean, check this out. In 17 and 18, there is the same man in the same plaid shirt in the background (that guy is actually in the background of 15 and 16, too. Same pose. Everything.)

Also, 26 and 37 are the same picture.

Oh. Looks like they fixed that, now. ^^

Let's take a look at some of the signs, shall we?

4) Alpha males, huh?

5) "It takes strong women to give us the strength to know better." This is in regards to hitting women. I do not appreciate the implication that in order not to be hit I need to be a strong enough woman to teach a man not to do that.

8) "MRAs don't speak for me." ... Not all men.

10) "Because I'm a man and I will never hurt you." Not. All. Men.

21) "My masculinity doesn't include misogyny." NOT ALL MEN.

34) Wielding is spelled wrong, but more importantly, it's a sign indicating that the reason men should be involved is that their own safety is at stake. Which might be true. But isn't really what the conversation is about right now.

Also important to know that the man in #34 is a writer for Policy Mic. Which they didn't mention.

UPDATE: courtesy Brooke Binkowski, San Diego reporter.
#1 - PolicyMic founder Jake Horowitz
#9 - PolicyMic sports editor Bryan Graham
#12 - PolicyMic social media editor Jared Keller
#18 - PolicyMic editor Michael McCutcheon (and this shows that the room which is featured in half the photos is a PolicyMic room or somehow connected to PolicyMic).
#34 - PolicyMic contributor Charles Clymer

(Again, nothing wrong with that, but it needs to be noted in the article, guys).

37) "If there weren't women, there would be no men." Oh. Well. Um, thanks for that brand new information?

In the middle of this article, they ask us to use the #allmencan hashtag to make our voices known about what men can do.

I've said this many, many, many times before, but I'll say it again.

All men can LISTEN.

And if they were listening, well, maybe we wouldn't feel the need to post articles with them talking over us so much.




 

One Man's Journey Through Labor -- Guest Post

 As feminism continues to fight against the misogynistic tendencies of our current culture, my friend Mike has graciously agreed to post about the labor process, from the male perspective. Enjoy it. I know he did.

               

My wife’s water broke just as I was sitting down to masturbate, which was sort of annoying. Or at least that’s what she said. Neither of us had ever gone through the labor process before, and as it turns out it’s not as obvious as TV makes it out to be. So, while she was in the bathroom, I turned to Dr. Google and…still had no idea. Eventually she went back to bed and I joined her. A few hours later she was in so much pain she insisted on going to the hospital, and, despite still not having any idea if she was actually in labor, we were off.

Once Amber was hooked up to the machines at the hospital they told us, definitively, that it was possible she was in labor. She asked if she should call out of work, and was told, “Not yet. But maybe shortly.” Admittedly I was pretty exhausted (I work until 1:30 am and go to bed at 7 am normally, so I had slept about two out of 26 hours at this point) but I was pretty sure I was done with this whole ‘labor’ thing already. Just under an hour later we were told that she was going to be moved into a delivery room, and Amber gave me the okay to tell people this was actually happening. A statement she would soon regret.

“Wow, delivery room chairs are REALLY comfortable” I posted to Facebook at 11:15 am on February 15th. “I’m not being sarcastic, this chair is nice. They told me to take a nap, but then they keep coming in like they expect something to happen and waking me up. It’s like they have no regard for my comfort. Oh, Amber is in labor on the other side of the room.” 

“What color is it? The chair, I mean.” Comes the reply from one of my best friends. I let him know it was a nice dark blue, and he says, “Nice. Soothing. Tranquil. Sounds like a good chair. You two should be happy together, seeing as how they gave Amber a while bed.”

“Breaking news!” I post at 5:26 PM, “I just slept in the chair for a little over an hour. I feel pretty rested, all things considered. I had to use my hoodie instead of a pillow, but that isn’t the chair’s fault. Amber is also good.” My boss responds, letting me know that she thinks I’m probably focused on the wrong thing. Amber checks her phone for the first time and realizes what’s happening, and the first threat against my life is made.

Around 6:30 I got hungry and took a trip down to the hospital cafeteria, where I made the biggest mistake of the day. “Did I opt for the hospital cafeteria fish? You’re damn right I did. #Neverscared.” Less than ten minutes later I was singing a different tune, “Did I opt for the hospital cafeteria fish? Damn…you’re right. I did. #alittlescared.” I feel queasy, but I push down the fish with some amazingly delicious chicken fingers and solder on.

It’s almost 7 pm and I know Jeopardy! Is on, but my sister and I can’t seem to find it on the hospital TV. “The biggest pain of the day has been trying to find Jeopardy! On the TV in the delivery room. The TV has a ‘guide’ button, but it does nothing. How can they expect me to deal with these 1990’s conditions? Giving birth is hard.” A friend of mine feels my pain and tells me so, “Man, that’s rough. And I bet Amber is just lying in bed while you deal with all that, huh?” A second threat against my life is made verbally, as Amber posts that she hates both me and my friend. Someone else asks if Amber has hit me yet, and I point out that she’s both drugged up and out of reach. Not for the last time.

It’s now 11:28 pm. “Just over 14 hours in the hospital and my lower back is starting to hurt slightly. Probably a 2 on the pain scale of 10. Annoying, but not bad. Despite this, I’m finding this labor thing much less painful than everyone claims.” After some responses I have to point out, once again, that Amber is drugged up and out of punching distance. I do admit, however, that it may be possible that this is worse on Amber than it is on me. A friend from work posts, “You’re really taking this like a champ, Mike. I’m impressed,” but I don’t want people getting the wrong idea about me. “I’m no hero. I’m just a guy trying to make his way through this crazy, mixed up world…” Someone wonders why Amber hasn’t killed me yet, and she responds, “Don’t worry, I know where he eats and sleeps.” I get a little uneasy until I realize that there’s no way she remembers saying that once she’s off the drugs. Probably.

Hours pass. I fall in and out of sleep in my comfortable delivery chair, and I think Amber even falls asleep for a bit. My mother agreed to stay with us for the night and she manages to stay awake while doing some knitting. Around 3 am the nurse declares that our baby is ready. She calls the doctor, and while we wait the nurse asks about my job and we have a nice twenty minute conversation about StubHub. Eventually the doctor arrives and everything changes. They start to monitor the baby’s heartbeat and two hours into the actual pushing the doctor remarks that his heart rate has been steady this entire time in a way she’s never really seen before. “He’s the most calm baby I have ever delivered.” Amber smiles and remarks that he takes after his father.

My next, and second to last, Facebook post goes up. “At 5:15 am on February 16th, my amazing wife gave birth to our son, Owen Enrique-Osmun Provencher. He is 6lbs and 8ozs. There is no joke here. Don’t get used to it.” He cries a little, but true to the doctor’s word he’s not bothered by the whole birthing process for long and quickly calms down. I post one more time to Facebook before we move to the room we’ll all be spending the next few days in. “I think my wife is in love with another man…”

Congratulations to Mike and his wife, Amber.

 

16 Steps to Every Argument a Man Has with a Woman Online

Now, I know what you are thinking. Every argument is different. The players involved are different. The content and context are different. There's no way this piece can be indicative of a general reality.

Only it is.

I am going to use a specific argument to flesh out my points, but that's only because this particular argument went on for 1,000 comments and covered every single base. Usually, only a few of these show up at the same time. But in this case, we got a bingo, and that needs to be recognized. In fact, I've even left off a few, due to length.

1) A condescending comment from a man to a woman, meant to be a "compliment". Usually this occurs when a thread is already in session. This time, the man had the guts to go to this woman's page, and post it with no prompting at all.

Let's take a moment to go through this before we get into our next steps:

a) You were using your radio voice again.

This implies it's an issue that's been spoken about between two people before, with the receiver acknowledging the advice and vowing to make a change. That isn't the case. This person hardly knows this woman, and they had not spoken about her voice before. (Which also happens to be...her voice. Not some random act for you to find "cute.")

b) Very cute, but no offense

Any time you see the words "no offense" that is a guarantee whatever comes next is about to be offensive. If you find yourself using that phrase, stop. Do not speak on.

c) Exude the confidence I know you have. Be proud of the 30-year-old professional that you are. Who knows, maybe you can be the anchor someday. I look forward to seeing that.

This implies she's not proud of herself and doesn't have confidence. This woman is a hard-hitting, no-nonsense reporter and has been so for decades. She doesn't want to be an anchor, either. Surprise! Not everyone does! (She's also not 30, lol). This basically says turn into my vision of your goal for yourself so I can get behind this. And...no.

d) Good luck doll.

GOOD LUCK DOLL.

Okay, back to our steps:

2) Understandable backlash from people who see the offensive comment:

"Just saw your post here on _______'s Facebook page. You were using that douchey, neckbeardy tone again. Very cute, but no offense, you sound like a 45-year-old asshat. Exude the intelligence I know you must have since you're friends with ________. Be proud of the 30-year-old professional she already is. Who knows? Maybe you could actually turn into a supportive and good friend. I look forward to seeing that. Then I can say, "I saw you that one time when." Good luck, bro."

3) Bystanders completely baffled at aim of original comment and attempted deconstruction:

Q - I can't even get my head around his motivation. Hitting on you by "negging"? Honest but assholish attempt at advice? He secretly hates you and has been biding his time for an opening to be mean? 

A - "This woman will appreciate that I see the potential she has, and that I am treating her almost like a real person because I'm asking her to be a person that commands respect, while at the same time, I am expressing fondness and familiarity toward her with my cutesy taglines that degrade her into exactly what I just told her she ought not be. In this way, I show her that her intellect is worth something, but also that I am not immune to her 19yo femininely wiles. Then maybe she'll be so grateful, she'll take my advice, act as I've advised with everyone, except me. With me she'll be soft and child-like, just like a woman should. I am very complex."

4) The original commenter says "I wasn't talking to you." (even though the comment is open for all to see, and not a PM).

I really was just trying to help. I'm sorry for offending you. But since ______ herself hasn't flamed me, I'm going to assume that she accepted my constructive criticism. Notice that she didn't "like" any of your comments?

5) Professional accolades and accomplishments that mean nothing are trotted out.

In this case, our man is an architect and we can thank him for many beautiful buildings. This obviously entitles him to give shitty advice in regards to news broadcasting. He knows things, guys.

6) The person he is talking to says something. Anything.

In this case, it's kickass. I mean, boom.

7) Bye, Felicia.

That should end our story, but alas.

8) Women who have been watching the thread understandably rejoice.

8) The White Knight. Some other dudebro comes around a bit later, feeling the urge to tell the women who were insulted how wrong and mean they are.

I found the thread rather depressing myself. ______'s response was detailed, on point, and said everything she wanted to say. Almost everything else just reinforces my conviction that FB is like the worst aspects of high school.

9) Dogpile and Bullying are invoked. (Remember, this man comes into this space, which was clearly dying down, to take ownership of it and make it all about him.)

what you seem to be saying is that this is a venue where you can be rude and bullying without consequences. _________'s response was a textbook case of taking the high road, and would be perfectly appropriate delivered to someone's face, not to mention a spot on, devestating rebuke to condescending assholism. About half the comments here are just textbook gang-bullying by people who probably think of themselves as decent human beings in real life. 

I've been on the bottom of these kind of dog piles, and it's no fun. The really disturbing part is seeing people who probably think of themselves as progressive resorting to bullying tactics I associate with the extreme right, like "feminizing" one's opponent by insinuating he's some kind of sissy ("did we get our wittle fee fees hurt" etc.) and a group of individuals ganging up on someone who has expressed the "wrong' opinion. It's like the mean girls club in high school.

11) Mansplaining.

If I may offer a bit of advice (yeah, I know, mansplaining") but why give a shit about being labelled a "bitch"? The men who hang that on you are assholes whose respect you don't need, and the rest of us understand that you have to drop a hammer on these twerps or they just waste everybody's time. 

It's a difficult line to walk. It's hard for me too, and the sad truth is there are plenty of men out there who don't like being "bossed around" by a women. But hey, fuck them, you know? That's their problem, not yours.

Oh my God, we were so wrong about you. You totally "get" it. You even know you're mansplaining. Thank you so much for validating our lives, and yet again telling us how we can behave. We have never seen this before.

12) Watch your tone, ladies. (I'm Darlena, so one less black mark I have to amateurishly make in paint.) Annnnyway, maybe we would get what we wanted out of our communications with men if we were just nicer. Thanks for letting us know what your idea of a discussion is. We will try to behave better and adhere to your ideal discussion.

13) Concern Trolling. They're just looking out for our best interests. As men, they can help us win this world. If we'd only let them share their valuable and relevant experiences.

Concern trolling. I'm pretty sure you knew what was going to happen if you came into this thread AS A MAN and tried to school us all, yet you decided to do it anyway. I have absolutely no doubt that you are here without any attempt at respect, and seek only to piss us all off so that you can get off to it.

14) Pre-conceived notions / Not all men. Then, inevitably, women standing up for themselves against mansplaining get the 'you don't even know me' line, sometimes plied with 'not all men are like what you say we are!' Okay, that's true. Not all men are like that. But you are.

15) The follow up. Then the conversation usually goes like this:

Woman: "I just don't understand why this even has to happen. A condescending, sexist as fuck post was made. From very early on it was very clear this post was not okay. But instead of any apology, or even at attempt at self reflection, an attempt to listen to any of us, it's just flailing and whining that we're mean bitches. I'm so sick of this shit."

White Knight: "what you seem to be saying is that I should just fuck off, butt out, and slink back into my hole. That I have no right to join this discussion in anyway unless my contribution consists of "yeahyourite." Cool. Enjoy your epistemic closure. Who died annd made you king of this thread"

16) You people.

Woman: He's acting like we did this to HIM. He's the one who came into this post to shit stir it all up again just because he clearly enjoys putting women in our place and finger wagging at us.

White Knight: If the tables were turned, I would not participate in the bullying, mob behaviour. You people should be ashamed of yourselves.

This is normally where I'd write a witty conclusion, but Julia wrote one for me, right on that thread, so I'll leave you with this, the point of the deconstruction.


"Women are allowed to support each other. We're allowed to get annoyed or pissed off at men who constantly belittle our efforts, our work, our choices, at men who only want to comment on our physical attributes instead of, quite literally, ANYTHING ELSE we happen to do. Hence the anger at the original post. Which is still one of the shittiest negging posts I've read in a long, long time.

We're allowed to respond however we want. It doesn't make us stupid, or not worth being listened to, or not worthy of being right. Our response does not make it okay for you to hop into the post, insult all of us willy nilly at once, then act surprised when we respond.

Fucking goddamn ridiculous.

You've tried to police women for how we respond to sexism with more sexism. You've derailed the conversation completely with your own intense need to finger wag at women.

You have NO BUSINESS telling women how we should or should not respond to asshole men. We live this life every single fucking day and we have every single right to get pissed off if we want to. Just because YOU don't like our tone does not mean our message and our points are invalidated, no matter how hard you're trying to invalidate them and pretend they aren't important because of the words chosen to express ourselves.

You have talked over women, you have talked down to us. You have tried to mansplain how we should respond to situations that are, quite frankly, none of your fucking business.

You call us bullies, a mob. And yet you're perfectly content to try to bully us into being silent, to bully us into responding how you see fit. You are doing the exact same shit you claim we are, when you're the one who jumped into this thread for no reason only than to be a condescending asshole.

In short: go fuck yourself."

So, if you are a man, thinking about engaging in a debate with a woman about how society treats her...

DON'T.






   

Clarity in the Check Out Lane - Contributor Post

Today, I'm lucky enough to share a post from Pollychromatic who had a sobering experience at a grocery store that cemented a realization that so often floats around our collective peripheral vision.

...



I was standing in the checkout line waiting my turn. Bored. Looking at the magazine covers rather than making eye contact with the other people in line.

As you do.

I was doing this, and something really clarified for me.

See, there was this horrible rag cover. Globe or National Enquirer, or Star, or something. It had the title of “Worst Beach Bodies.” There’s Kim Kardashian’s butt, front and center, titled “Double Wide.” Ha! Ha! Because Kim Kardashian has a butt that is wide, you see. Oh, and we all agree that big butts mean fat, and fat means ugly err, I mean not healthy. So we can all make fun of her butt being big because really we’re just concerned about her health and fuck if she doesn’t deserve it because what the hell is she doing thinking her big butt is okay to show off to the world as desirable! How dare she?! The nerve!

NEEEEEXT!

People I don’t know, people I don’t know, people I don’t know and… what? Is that the little person from that tv show? Amy Roloff? What in the actual fuck? They’re making fun of her? Because her body is different? And she dared to show it on the beach?

Are you fucking kidding me?

You know that point when your ears start to make that whooshing sound and your vision narrows, and you realize that you might just actually be one ragequit away from a for real stroke because you actually got that pissed off?

I was there. Right there.

And I want to use nicer language. I want to not use curse words, because I’d like for you to pass this around, and I know that using curse words makes that harder for you to do. I know that curse words are the retreat of a small vocabulary and that it takes finer skill and creates more power to write without them, but I am so enraged by this.

But it made something clear.

See, I’ve grown desensitized to the fat shaming. Every now and then it’ll get my ire up, but I have come to expect it. It’s what our media does. It’s what people in our culture do. It’s what our coworkers and friends and family do. Not all of them, sure, but enough. We can spread the body positivity from here to eternity, but the streak of shame and blame that we place on people, and ourselves, for fat, for daring to be fat? That’s wider than all the fat combined. It’s heavier, meatier, and I am here to tell you uglier.


Gabourey Sidibe can make her speeches about living past the hate and finding her own beauty, but at the end, we know, we all know, there are a world of comments that will come after about how she should still lose a few pounds. At the least, “for her health.”

And we’ve come to expect that, if not accept that. We don’t, as a culture, accept that fat is a genetic difference, we don’t, as a culture, accept that fat is just another one of the facets of beauty that exists in our species.

But.

I did not expect that to be put on a little person. I didn’t expect the highly critical eye of the media to turn to a person who was born with the genes that express themselves through one of the many varieties of drawfism. Amy Roloff is a little person. Her body is different. Making fun of her body for being different makes as much sense as making fun of Stephen Hawking because he’s in a wheelchair.

Here’s another horrible part of this. They cropped the picture carefully. They didn’t make fun of her husband for daring to be a little person on the beach. All the hate was reserved for her. Because that’s what we do.

And I really should have known better. Because we know better, don’t we? Of course the media is going to make fun of Amy Roloff. Just like they make fun of Gabourey Sidibhe. And it really is all the same. And it isn’t about a focused set of standards of beauty. It isn’t about the overuse of photoshop. It isn’t about fashion. It isn’t even about attraction, or health.
It’s about being bullies.

We’ve accepted a culture that bullies, especially, women. We take part in it. We consume it and regurgitate it and spread it far and wide on Tumblr and Pinterest and blogs and Instagram.

And god. I sort of want to thank that horrible magazine for clarifying it for me. Because damn if another picture dissecting what parts of whichever actress they took apart this week for being too fat was going to get through to me.

If you are a woman, you are less than. You are a consumable product. Here are your array of products and services to purchase so that you can be consumed. And you will consume it. $20 billion a year on the diet industry. $34 billion a year on beauty products and services (I’m sure there’s some overlap there on beauty services/products and the diet industry, but you get the idea). There’s a lot of money to be made by telling you that you look like crap. And when you get fed up and feel down and depressed about it, there’ll be a whole row of magazines at the grocery store, and entire blogs dedicated to ripping apart actresses and female celebrities who didn’t live up to the expectations that you haven’t been able to live up to either. And maybe you’ll rip them apart, too. So you can feel better about how shitty you feel about yourself, inevitably.

And maybe it’s time that we see that we feel like shit because we have been consumed and processed through a machine that digests us to turn us into ready consumers for their products and services. Maybe it’s time we realize that this media machine is not celebrating the beautiful life, but the impossible life, simply so we will consume it and be consumed by it. That the reason will feel like shit is because we have been shat.

And maybe we need to step away from the bullies and stop giving them our voices and ears to use. We need to stop consuming this. There’s just no world where it is acceptable to make fun of people’s bodies for being different. We need to turn it around on ourselves. There’s just no world where it is acceptable to make fun of our own body for being different.

Dammit, we are the expression of a beautiful conglomeration of millennia of evolution. We are life. We are living, breathing, thinking, dancing, rolling, wrinkling, jiggling, taut, stretched, bunched up, beautiful life. In myriad forms. We are life.

And that is beautiful.

Dying and Rising - Abortion and Easter: Contributor Post

Today I am blessed to have an extremely personal post by good friend and thealogian K. A. Her bravery and strength in sharing her story so that others may not feel so alone is inspiring. I am so lucky to be able to consider this woman a friend. Remember, people in all walks of life have had abortions, and each one must deal with it in her own way. And each one needs support.

...


My name is Kate. I'm a woman of deep, life-long faith. And a number of years ago, I aborted a wanted baby.

I was in relationship with a man I loved deeply, but our relationship was not known to others. If our pregnancy had been discovered, we (or, at least, I) perceived that we would lose support as a family from all those who then supported us as individuals, and we wouldn't be able to make a life together, much less support our child. The decision was ultimately mine. He was there when I took the pill.

A couple of weeks later, our relationship ended. In the midst of grieving the loss of that relationship, I lost sight of my grief for the tiny fetus that would have become our first-born child.

Now, all these years later, I am the mother of two amazing daughters; I am also the wife of the best man I know. My life is beautiful and full. And I'm finally giving myself permission to grieve my first pregnancy, the pregnancy that became my first abortion.

To my surprise and consternation, I've had a difficult time figuring out how to grieve it. Once I decided to allow myself to grieve, I intentionally tried to access my grief for over a day. Nothing came. I read a book called A Solitary Sorrow in which a therapist discussed her encounters with women who had had abortions. As I read the therapist's stories and considered my own, thousands of thoughts flooded my mind, but I couldn't access any emotional content.

I had already shared the story of my abortion with those closest to me long ago, so I decided to shared my story with several additional trusted friends. When one of them--the one from whom I most feared judgment--replied with compassion, my heart broke open. I ran to my husband and sobbed on his chest, a tidal wave of long-hidden grief bursting the dam in my heart.

In the United States, abortion is often heatedly discussed, but actual abortions--the abortions chosen by women all around us--are almost never discussed. To have had an abortion is an enormous taboo, and that impacts the self-perceptions of those who have abortions. The woman who has an abortion will often either perceive herself as a terrible, hypocritical sinner, or she'll tell herself that she's not supposed to feel any attachment to the tissue that grew in her womb.

I am pro-choice and completely support the right of all women to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy for the reasons she holds close to her heart, but I now also have the profound and personal realization that women who choose abortion need to be supported in their right to grieve that choice. The decision to choose abortion is rarely a neutral matter, and often it isn't the most desired outcome of a pregnancy, but when it is chosen it is almost always perceived as the best possible choice among the choices that are available. That makes for a lot of messy feelings, all hidden behind the rage of society's abortion debates.

I am one woman among many who has experienced abortion, and sharing the story of my abortion publicly here and now is terrifying. Even though I already experience deep support from some, I expect judgment and hatred from others. I expect to be disowned and cast out by at least some in my life who would otherwise keep me close. Beyond those I know personally, I expect strangers to point fingers, to call me a baby-killer and a whore and an evil woman, and even to threaten me for daring to speak up.

As I seek to answer my vocation as a future minister, however, I feel compelled to risk all of this. As a woman who buried her grief for years and discovered, after sharing it, that she is still loved, I can no longer justify cloaking myself in timidity and fear while other women still bear the burden of their grief alone (many in far more oppressive circumstances than mine). If I had known even one woman like myself--a woman of faith who chose abortion and dared to share her tale later so that others might be able to face their own stories--I might have been able to grieve and begin to heal far sooner.

I invite any woman who has had an abortion to consider letting her grief rise up and to share her story with someone she trusts. And for those women who can't think of anyone to tell, consider sharing it confidentially with someone who will listen to your story without judgment. If you are someone to whom one of these grieving women shares her story, I invite you to release all your expectations of how she should feel or how she should have acted and listen instead with all the tenderness and compassion you hold within you.

As a Christian, I experience on this Easter day the strange, radical truth that tombs aren't necessarily destined to remain closed. Perhaps, if we who have experienced abortion allow our grief to rise up, we will visit the tomb one day only to find it empty--and we'll realize that what was dead was made to be raised to new, undying life in us, just like Jesus was raised up from death in the midst of those who loved him.