Boom chicka wakka wakka wow...

Yesterday, I was in the grocery store, and I passed by a young man who had shaped sideburns that were...how should I say...reminiscent of the '70s in a way that isn't exactly decent. In other words, there was a nearly audible soundtrack that followed him as he pushed his cart down the aisle, and I desperately wanted to burst forth with a "wakka wakka boom chicka boom" as per the infamous Axe commercial. If I had been a braver person, and one able to refrain from laughing hysterically (how many takes do you think they had to do for that commercial?), I might have done so. Because, seriously, one should not be allowed to have bad '70s porn sideburns and walk the streets without hearing a few "wakka wakka wows."

As it was, I bit my lip (hard), fought back the tears in my eyes, turned my laughter into a cough, and went off in search of the sauerkraut.

Support the Lesbian Seven.

I hadn't followed this story because I naively assumed that it was such a ludicrous case that of course the court would find in favor of the defendants. (And, also, I refuse to watch sensationalistic news much anymore, so you can imagine what that leaves me with.)

Sometimes I wonder what planet I think I'm living on.

Anyway, if you haven't kept up with this story, please go to Heart's blog and read about it. And then consider helping.

Specifically, what is needed is:
*Pro-bono legal support for the appeal.
*Media contacts and writers.
*Pen pals for the women who are in prison.
*Money for legal fees, collect calls from prison, transportation costs upstate for prison visits, paying for prison commissary.
*Diverse organizational support: Building a public campaign requires support from all
corners. If you think the sentences these women are receiving are too harsh, there is a place for your support.

For more information about how to get involved, please contact:
Bran Fenner [bran@fiercenyc.org], Jessica Robertson [jessonia@gmail.com], or Jessica Stern [sternj@hrw.org].

Eight things.

I'm so tired that I'm wired. Can't sleep. Eyes are shutting but my body is twitching. In a minute I'm going to flop on the couch with a movie. But first:

(I neglected to post that I was tagged by Jessica Dreadful! Sorry!)

* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

* At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

* Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Sadly for you, all eight of my things are moving-related. Sorry.

1) Stucco houses make me depressed. When I was a kid, we knew someone who had a huge problem with a leak in their stucco house - one whole wall was a mess - and ever since then, I see stucco and think "damp, mildew, water damage."

2) I am moving into a stucco house that thankfully does not conform to this expectation. (Yes, that means I did find a place!)

3) I have printed out all the photos that I took of the new place and have been busily writing things like "my dresser here" and "Bean's workspace here" on the walls in the photos. I can't tell if this means I am super-organized or super-OCD.

4) I just went through my huge, four-drawer filing cabinet, and I still can't bear to part with my college papers. Not because they are useful or well-written, you understand, but because they give me a brief whiff of what it felt like to be me in college, and in that way, they're kind of like diaries. Diaries, I keep.

5) We are getting rid of our record albums. Mr. Plainsfeminist is, as I type this, burning them all onto cds. This is a very freeing prospect! I am giddy with the thought of having the space that their absence will leave. I haven't felt this liberated since I smashed most of my record collection in 1989. (Don't ask. But it meant I didn't have to haul those heavy milk cartons of records around to new apartments anymore, and it was awesome.)

6) While sorting out the crap to keep and the crap to toss, I found some photos (yes, I wasted about an hour this afternoon sorting photos, because the fifty or so doubles that I threw away will save SO much room on the truck) taken of the apartment we used to live in in NY when the people who moved in after us were living there. The photos reminded me that either I need some serious decorating help or else we need to get some stuff that is less "graduate student." I mean, I like that my stuff doesn't match. I think it's "funky and eclectic." But when I have to put all the funky and eclectic stuff close together, so that Great Aunt's big cherry secretary is next to the seven-foot unfinished bookcase my dad built...let's just say the next tenants had a bit more flair. And I need some flair. I need something to pull all my crap together into a "look." (That something might be a huge house, the space of which would allow my mismatched stuff the room it needs to become funky.)

7) In my haste to get rid of stuff, I've become addicted to Freecycle. (If you haven't Freecycled, you really need to check this shit out.)

8) I am beginning to hate Bean's teacher. She keeps having the class do these tremendous art projects, and then she sends the kids home with the pieces. We have one four-foot-tall purple space alien, one three-foot-long fish, and one life-size painting of Bean, among other things. I am expected to keep all of these, of course, as Bean loves them all dearly. Where the heck am I supposed to put them? Why couldn't these projects be smaller in scale? Now I have to pack this stuff!!! I am considering an installation in the back hallway of the new place...

I'm supposed to tag people now. I know this is a cop-out, but please consider yourself tagged. If you don't have a blog, feel free to post your eight things as a comment.

Looking for a place to live really sucks.

And the thing is, I always forget this. I always think that it's going to be fun and that I'll get to look at lovely places and pick the one I like the best. I don't know from whom I've gotten this naive gene, but I definitely could not have been more wrong. I think maybe I had one experience in Hartford in the early '90s where I got to see some really nice places, and I keep remembering that and blocking out all the rest of the awful ones, like the place with no stove or refrigerator (just a sink in the kitchen, and a line of people ahead of me who were nevertheless filling out applications), or the little claustrophobic crawl-space (I am not exaggerating or kidding), or the places that were obviously infested.

I always forget that looking at places to rent means looking at utter crap. I don't understand why it is that people would even show a place that is filthy. One Craigslist ad boasted about the jacuzzi in the bathroom, but by the time I made it through the stained-carpeted, dirty, bug-infested apartment that I was too polite to leave immediately, the thought of actually bathing in that tub made me nauseous.

The first house that I looked at wasn't bad - it was very nicely decorated and maintained. The rooms were too small for our furniture, though, so I couldn't even consider it. I was surprised to find that the homeowner had chosen to fill the master bedroom - which was quite small - with an enormous bed that made it difficult to move around the room. Whatever. It was nice, but not in a great neighborhood, and the "basement" was, in fact, a painted cellar. Not a place where I would want to spend much time. I don't like basements, and I especially do not like cellars.

Most of the rest of the places I saw were obviously intended for student housing, meaning that the landlords hadn't bothered to clean the place up (or get the tenants to clean it up), nor had they bothered to fix anything so that the place was in obvious disrepair.

Landlords: Treat your renters with some respect! Fix things. Pay attention to the outside of the home, as well. Make the house look nice. Don't assume that the renters won't notice. And please, don't bring me into a home if you haven't notified the tenants. It was really embarrassing to stand there while the tenant yelled at you for coming in without calling first (or even knocking!). And don't, in that case, tell the tenant that you disagree with his interpretation of the law. Just do the decent thing and apologize. You didn't impress me as a landlord when you surprised your tenant that way, and when you then chose to argue with him, you certainly did not make me want to rent from you.

Renters: Why is it necessary, when moving, to take all of your clothes out of the drawers and leave them in piles around the apartment? I don't need to see your underwear, nor would I want you, if you were coming through my apartment, to see mine. And never, in any of my moves, have I needed to put all of my clothes into little piles along the floor in order to pack them.

To that one very nice landlord who put up with Bean rampaging around the apartment: I am so, so sorry. He was supposed to stay in the car with my mom precisely so that that wouldn't happen, but he got out and followed me, and it was a busy street, and I was really stuck. You, sir, are a prince among men, and again, I apologize.

More proof that "you guys" is gender neutral.

Allison Bechdel says so. Which is good enough for me.

Off to the big city...

...to find a place to live. Comment moderation is on, as I won't have internet access for about a week. See you when I get back - hopefully, I'll have a new address!

Clarifying my NWSA post

So much for trying to be subtle.

It's been pointed out to me that what I posted and what I meant are not necessarily the same thing, so I want to correct any mis-impressions. This, of course, means being a lot more obvious about who I am and who is currently irritating me than I generally like to do on this blog.

I wrote this in my earlier post:
"If you come to a conference for the first time, instead of whinging about "where are all the panels about x" and "why is NWSA so racist/classist/etc.," you might think about why *you* didn't bother to propose a panel about x. And then propose one for next year."

I did not mean to imply - though it is clearly implied, anyway - that criticisms of the NWSA for being racist/classist/etc. are groundless. I've been involved with NWSA for about 11 years, and during that time, it has wrestled with inclusion, accessibility, and many, many other issues that have at times threatened to break the institution apart.

I also did not mean to imply, but nevertheless did, that I don't take such criticisms seriously. I do indeed take them seriously. In fact, on many occasions, I have made these criticisms.

What I *was* trying to address was a trend I've noticed in the bi/trans group particularly, which is to come to the conference and focus only on the panels and issues that are relevant to that interest group, and from that, to declare that NWSA is conspiring to oppress trans people. Now, NWSA still has a ways to go on trans issues, though I think it's worthy of mention that in a couple of years, it has done two things that I never, ever thought it would do: it's added "gender identity/expression" (I'm not sure of the exact wording) to its non-discrimination policy, and it's made a statement opposing women-born-women only policies. That doesn't mean we're out of the woods. But I helped found the bi/trans group a while back because the bi and transphobia were clearly evident (and I will write about my experiences with these at NWSA another time). I have definitely seen huge strides in the right direction since then.

So what I'm angry about has nothing to do with the practice of calling NWSA to account for itself, which I think is a healthy and important practice. I'm angry about people who come to the conference wanting to be pissed off; they enter without ever looking around to see what anyone else's interests/concerns are; they resist, year after year, making alliances with other groups and never bother to attend other groups' meetings unless they suspect that they need to show up to make a point about inclusion; they refuse to take part in the life of the organization, showing up at general assembly meetings only long enough to vote on their own interests - and on more than one occasion, asking other groups to support them in their votes and then skipping out before voting with those other groups on the votes of those groups.

It is not a coalition effort, and that is what I object to most.

And re. my point about taking responsibility for proposing the necessary papers/panels - I just mean that it's one thing to criticize an organization. It's another to criticize it as being too this or not enough that and "why isn't anyone doing anything about this" and then to state openly that you have never been there before, and you have no interest in getting involved, and you plan not to attend in the future, though you might be willing to do some guerilla consciousness raising. What the fuck? Why bother? What point, what greater transformation, do you hope will be made?

And to think it is a radical move to get on the committee that reviews paper submissions - thereby overhwelming the conspiracy to prevent trans panels from being accepted - is just silly, since there are open invitations to be on that committee, which anyone would know if they got involved in the organization and read the newsletters and the emails from the organization.

I keep thinking of the year when the bi/trans group attempted to torpedo the Feminist Mothering Task Force's (then called "Feminist Mothers and Allies) transition to a Caucus. What happened was this. I had earlier been to the bi/trans meeting as a participant, but also to ask for support for this shift to a caucus. The group agreed. But later, at the assembly at which we were all to vote on the shift to caucus-hood, one of the bi/trans group members suddently raised the concern that the name of the group excluded trans parents, and the group made clear that it would not vote for the Feminist Mothers group to become a caucus unless the name was changed. We saw no problem with discussing a name change, but the group needed to vote on the name change, and only a few members of the group were present (usually, a name change would be done over time and with the input of the group members).

That was not enough. And we came very close to losing the chance to become a caucus, after ten years of trying, during which I was the only member of the bi/trans group to become involved in the Feminist Mothering group.

Since the bi/trans group felt strongly about being included in the Feminist Mothering group - and I, too, feel that this inclusion is important - and made clear that members wanted to participate, we sent them a few invitations to participate in the group: to be part of the discussion about our name change that followed, to submit panels with us on parenting and trans issues, to join the caucus. We never received even one response.

And all of that I remember when I walk into a meeting and hear about what a horrible organization NWSA is and how oppressive it is, and I look around and see people who resist and refuse the effort that is necessary to transform an organization. The Women of Color Caucus, the Lesbian Caucus, the Feminist Mothering Caucus - we struggle with NWSA. But we also work with it. There are examples of groups that have, at times, succumbed to the NWSA's indifference, such as the Disability Caucus. But one cannot transform an organization if one refuses to be a part of it, and that, at bottom, is the root of my anger and frustration.

***

I have not yet discussed the safety issues at this conference, but I want to direct you to someone who does: Diary of an Anxious Black Woman. The only thing I want to add to what she's said is that I know of a couple of additional cases of men at the hotel harassing lesbian couples who were walking/talking together. Clearly, this was a white, middle-class, heterosexual environment, into which dropped NWSA.

I'd be interested to know if NWSA will follow up with a statement to the hotel of some kind, or to the St. Charles Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

In honor of the 4th of July...

...I wanted to share a Boondocks comic strip with you all.

But I couldn't find it. Anywhere. And I've been searching online for quite a while.

So here is the next best thing: a synopsis.

Huey Freeman is the older brother of the family, a quick-witted, elementary school socialist. His younger brother Riley is a self-styled gangster rapper, and the two are being raised by their traditionalist grandfather.

Huey and his family deal with yuppie neighbors, a classmate who thinks that all African Americans are either rappers or basketball players and a school principal whose idea of racial sensitivity training involves having teachers watch 1970s blaxploitation films.

The strip is frank and honest in dealing with political issues. In one installment, Riley complains about having missed the neighborhood Fourth of July barbecue. "I can’t believe Independence Day came and went and nobody told me," he says. Huey responds: "I bet millions of African slaves said the same thing a couple hundred years ago."

The visuals help, but you get the point, right?

I think I can still call myself Plain(s) Feminist...

...but I am moving to the Twin Cities, baby!

Yes, I got a job.

Yes, it is in Women's Studies.

Yes, that fact makes this post seem unnecessarily bitter, but trust me, it's really not. Just ask my adjunct or temporary-hire colleagues.

Yes, it felt awful to run into friends at the conference who had applied for the job I ended up getting. Almost, but not quite, as bad as when the situation was reversed. There is just nothing good about this job market.

Yes, the band from Minneapolis that I listened to in college is still playing gigs there, which is quite cool. (Someday, I will have to write a post about them.)

I'm going up in a few days to look for a place. Wish me luck!

Back from the National Women's Studies Conference

I didn't make it to the "sexy" sessions (Jessica Valenti, on one hand, and the Wheelock Conference folks, on the other), but there was still plenty of drama.

...

I just wrote and then deleted what would have been a really snarky and pointed paragraph. Instead, let me say this:

- If you come to a conference for the first time, instead of whinging about "where are all the panels about x" and "why is NWSA so racist/classist/etc.," you might think about why *you* didn't bother to propose a panel about x. And then propose one for next year.

- If you submit an individual paper when the directions clearly state that full panels have a better chance of being accepted, please don't mope and act surly when your paper isn't added to the session you want it to be added to. If you want to be in a paper session, then propose a full panel. This is not rocket science, people.

- Having a wedding in the same facility as the feminist conference does not oppress you. I don't care how much you hate the institution of marriage and how much you don't want to be around wedding rituals. You are in a public space, and you don't get to impose your preferences on everyone else's behavior. Deal with it.

- Complaining that the wedding is oppressing you will seriously undermine your very legitimate concerns about safety in public spaces.

- Organizers should perhaps not book feminist conferences at golf resorts that were formerly "gentlemen's clubs." I'm just saying. I think some of the safety issues and harassment were connected to the sense of what that space was and the access that gave the other guests to women's bodies.

- If you perceive the mere existence of panels that speak to the experience of mothering as a message that women should "stay home and have babies"...well, I really don't know what to say to you, other than that you clearly are not doing much in the way of listening, now, are you?

- If you perceive reasonable objections to your presentation as confrontational, then you need to consider taking a vacation next year, instead.

- If you are a resort hotel that routinely overbooks and tells its guests, "I know you think you reserved a non-smoking room, but that's really just a request and not a guarantee," you suck.

- Music by women only is a nice idea, but it is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad approach to a DJ'd dance. Please, do not do that again. And while we're on the subject, one might consider quizzing potential DJs on what constitutes danceable music. One Pointer Sister-style song is fine. Many such songs are not fine. Also, switching genres dramatically and erratically is not fine, either, which is why real DJs generally don't do it. And seriously, if you're just going to play crappy music that no one can dance to, that is not empowering to anyone. (Has no one ever heard of Alison Moyet, for pete's sake?!)


Aside from all of that, I did get to witness history in the making. The NWSA passed a resolution opposing women-born-women policies and urging feminist organizations who had such policies to rethink them. This is a huge deal, and it could not have happened five years ago. What's more, I believe that it passed unanimously, or very nearly.

OK, so seriously: I had a great time. I did. Which is why, despite my laundry list above, I never miss this conference.

I am off to argue with people I agree with...

...which means I'm going to the National Women's Studies Association conference in Chicago. Or, rather, west of Chicago. I anticipate many hours spent waiting for the NWSA shuttle to take me to the conference site. Must remember to pack knitting and a book. Sigh.

Point is, you won't be hearing from me for a few days because I will be busy conferencing. However, this is a conference that has in past years drawn folks like Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys, Wendy Chapkis, and other controversial feminists. So...I may return with stories.

I am off to pack. See you when I get back.

I want...

One of the things Bean and I enjoy doing together is buying candy. We are both, as he says, "candy lovers." We both, as I pointed out to him this afternoon while he was wailing because I wouldn't allow him to eat all of his candy before dinner, want to have our candy when we want to have it. We don't want to wait.

(It might be worth mentioning that, before dinner, while he was watching "Jimmy Neutron" and thus otherwise preoccupied, I sneaked into my room to eat my Hostess Fruit Pie in secret. Even though I wouldn't let him eat more than half of his roll of Gummi Life Savers until he'd eaten dinner.)

(It was cherry, in case you're wondering.)

So one of our favorite things to do is to visit the candy shop downtown, the one with the handmade chocolates and the penny candies that I didn't know were still being made. (Incidentally, all this time I thought it was Ferrara DAN. It's Ferrara PAN. Who knew?)

I was thinking this afternoon that introducing a gummy line was probably one of the smartest things Life Savers ever did. Because regular Life Savers - I don't think they can compete with Altoids and everything else. I certainly wouldn't be buying them, and I wouldn't give them to Bean, either. I mean - Life Savers. Boring. And vaguely reminiscent of carsickness (my mom used to give me one to suck on in the car). But take just about any candy and make it a gummy, and you've probably got a sellable item.

Anyway, so remember those Smarties from your childhood?









They got bigger.

And, along with being bigger, they got a bit overpowering. They seem to have, more or less, become SweetTarts. However, the green Smarties are still very definitely lime, thank God, because I think if I got a green apple Sweetart, I would puke.

I'm sitting here, working my way through this pack of Giant-Ass Smarties, and...yeah. I'm feeling a little over-sugared, and I think I'm getting big sugar sores on the inside of my mouth, and I'm probably wearing the enamel off my teeth, but, hell yeah, I'm gonna keep eating.

...and this meme is worth it if only to check out the one I'm linking to...

...which would be jewgirl's.

And also, I had too much Diet Pepsi with dinner, so I'm up anyway. Might as well do a meme.

OK, so this meme goes like this:

"For this meme, I'm going to ask you to answer three (hopefully not dumb) questions: What is the dumbest question you have ever been asked? Why was it dumb? And, even though it won't help, because answering a dumb question never does, what's the answer? (Or, as I like to think of them: The Big Dumb Question, The Big Dumb Reason, and The Big Dumb Answer.)"

This actually happened recently. I am moving, and I wanted an estimate. So, I tried to find some information online, but all the online options involved sending my phone number and email out into the ether and waiting for zillions of panting moving companies to call with quotes. So, against my better judgment, I do. A woman calls, and she not only has a bad cold and is talking through her nose, but she is also chewing gum or eating while she is talking to me. And I started asking her some questions about how much the move would cost, and luckily I had the weight from our last move (7180 pounds, by the way - yes, we have that many books), so I gave her that and she was able, after putting me on hold for a long time and dealing with some confusion on her end, to give me an estimate.

Then, I asked about their packing services, because, what the hell, right? Might as well ask.

And so here's the dumb question: she asked me, "How much stuff do you have - how many boxes?"

If I knew the answer to that question, wouldn't that mean that I had already packed them?

Then she put me on hold, only she didn't quite hit the button, so I could hear her asking her boss for help because she couldn't "figure out what [I] wanted." I had thought that she'd give me a range - "x many kitchen cabinets is generally between $- and $--" - but no, she needed to know the number of boxes.

Then she asked, "Is 40-50 boxes about right?"

I said the only thing I could say: "I really have no idea."

So she gave me an estimate for packing 40-50 boxes, and I made a little note next to the name of her company that read "um...completely incompetent? Don't hire."

And obviously, I still don't know how many boxes I will need.

Please consider yourself tagged if you'd like to be.

Now I'm going to go drink some more pop and eat leftover Mexican food.

Hidden Costs...

I've been trying to clear out a lot of the crap we've accumluated over six years of living in this apartment. The most dispensable items are books and baby things. Now - I am a big one for hauling my crap to the college library, Goodwill, the battered women's shelter, and other places that can use these things. However, whenever I do this, someone undoubtedly says, "why don't you have a garage sale?" Which is not a bad idea, except that, in order to have a garage sale, one needs to 1) get all of one's crap organized, clean, and ready to sell at once, and 2) sit in the garage or on the lawn for two days and hope that the couple of people who come by decide to buy something - and haggle with them, because no matter what you charge, "it's too much to ask for a garage sale." Plus, garage sales here aren't held on the weekends. They're held on Thursday and Friday and Saturday morning. Like I have time for this.

My feeling is basically that, if you'll take it off my hands, you are welcome to it. That's one less thing I have to worry about - or store - you know? But over the last couple of days, I've had dollar signs in my eyes, and so I've spent an inordinate amount of time carting bags and boxes and odds and ends all over town:

- three trips to the secondhand baby stuff store (so far - at least one more to come);
- one trip to my office to double-check that I had doubles and newer editions of various books;
- one trip to local head shop to try to sell records (hipster college dude was less than interested and passed up Icicle Works, Psychedelic Furs, and three Fawlty Towers records for one Beatles album - please);
- one trip each to two used book stores;
- and, three trips to Goodwill.

I made $70 (not counting what all these trips have cost me in gas), and I still had to lug most of the crap to Goodwill at the end of the day. It's just not worth it. From now on, everything goes straight from my house to Goodwill.

Also, I decided not to sell hipster college dude my records for the $3 he offered. Not if he doesn't know what Fawlty Towers is.

I am, right now, sporting my very first...

...motorcycle shirt. Seriously. I opted for the dealership logo rather than the Victory Cycles logo because I have no bike knowledge and I didn't want to look like a total idiot if someone came up and asked me, "do you ride?" But at least I can say that I bellydanced for the Biker Bash!

Which I did, and it was a hoot. I was expecting something a bit more raucous, sort of Sturgis-y, but really it was just moms and dads and kids. It was actually a benefit to raise money for a camp for kids with cancer, so there were also some older men who were members of a local volunteer organization that sponsored the kids' camp. Oh, and the cheerleaders in halter tops and cutoffs washing the bikes - but that sort of goes without saying, doesn't it?

So, we danced, had a brat, danced some more, and came home. Somehow, I managed to refrain from buying this band's t-shirt:












Not that the band wasn't good, but...
Sigh.

The perils of Gmail.

You know how Gmail anticipates the email address when you start to type it? Like, you'll type in "b" for "babysitter" and it'll pull up "big-name author you emailed last year?"

You see where this is going?

Yes, I did it. I invited a famous author to babysit for Bean next week.

Fortunately, she has a sense of humor and responded kindly to let me know that I'd probably emailed the wrong person. (She was also kind enough to let me know that she wasn't available, which not all babysitters do.)

I'd love to know the most embarrassing thing you've ever done on email...

Interviewed by Pseudostoops!

Here's an interesting sort of meme: Pseudostoops was interviewed on her site last week, and she offered to interview interested readers and sister bloggers. When I saw how interesting her answers were, I knew I wanted her to interview me. (If you'd like me to interview you, drop me a comment or an email.)

1. The title of your blog is plain(s) feminist. Feminism is a clear part of your voice and writing- that makes sense. I get the "plains" part, too- South Dakota, etc. Why is the 's' parenthetical? Is this one of those times when there’s an obvious double entendre that I’m missing?

Well, maybe not. The "(s)" makes the title "plains feminist," as you write. But it also makes it "plain feminist" – as in, not necessarily any other "type" of feminist. At the time that I was starting the blog, I knew I wanted it to be clearly related to feminism, but I didn’t want to identify with a particular school of feminist thought. I feel that I am both a part of and between various schools of feminism – Second and Third Waves, a critical sex radicalism, and so on. So I decided that it would be, as the slogan reads, "just plain feminism."

Also, when I write the title, here or on other blogs, I tend to alternate between writing it as two words and as one word, and that’s simply because I get lazy – I picked an annoying title to type, and leaving out the extra space and the capital "F" is just that much easier. And also, because I tend to prefer it as one word, and I might change the title to reflect that one day.

2. Has your career always been in academia? Did you consider any other jobs, or was being a professor something you always knew you wanted to do?

Before I went back to school, I worked for a few years in development, which was not something I enjoyed particularly or was especially good at, but it was and continues to be a field that is wide open (especially to women) and that pays extremely well even for part-time work. I got into it via telemarketing, of all things, and ended up working for a couple of private schools and theaters over the course of a few years. Essentially, I did a lot of direct mail pieces (those letters you get from your alma mater asking for money, for example) and some events, such as phonathons (those calls you get from your alma mater asking for money). I have found that my experience in development has continually been helpful to me, not because I’m good at asking people for money, but because I’ve become good at thinking of ways to raise money.

I never would have thought of the possibility of becoming a professor had it not been for Mr. Plain(s)feminist, who constantly encouraged me. When I first started grad school, it was partly motivated by the fact that I hated my career and didn’t know what I wanted to do. When the Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas debates occurred, I was further encouraged to invest in feminist work, and that helped give me the courage to go into Women’s Studies rather than something more "practical."

While I was in grad school, I realized that most of my peers (who were struggling to make ends meet) were unaware of the well-paid work that was available in development, and I had a dream of starting up an employment-matching program for graduate students and local employers who wanted highly-skilled, part-time/temporary, professional employees to do development, marketing, and writing work. I wasn’t able to find the time to do it, but it’s a project I may come back to at some point.

But I’ll add that for most of my life, I’ve had the persistent fear that I am not well-suited to most jobs and thus doomed to unhappiness, and even failure, in my work life. Teaching has been the one career in which I’ve found joy, and so I think my calling really lies there and in writing and other related academic pursuits. (I have thought at times that I’d also enjoy "rock star," but I get bored easily with the same songs over and over, and I also have acute stage fright (though that is getting better).)

3 Your profile mentions that you play guitar. Are you self-taught, or did you learn as a child? Do you intend to put Bean in music lessons?

I took a few guitar lessons, both times from rather weird men. One was the son of a professor at my college, and he always struck me as a leering sort of type. But he did teach me some very useful finger-picking and strumming patterns that I use to this day. The other was a musician who was teaching in a community ed program, and when I confessed to him that I just didn’t have time to practice often (I was working full-time and taking graduate classes), he pretty much told me not to bother coming. (Not that I don’t understand his position, but I took the class to learn, figuring that what I couldn’t learn right then, I could remember and learn later, when my classes were over. Which I did.)

I am not and never have been confident on the guitar, however. I would much prefer to find someone who would play while I sing, so that I could concentrate just on that. But the world is full of singers who need accompanists – most singers who want to perform, in my experience, have had to learn to accompany themselves. The problem is that it’s preferable to sing badly and play well, rather than the reverse.

As for Bean and music lessons – if I could arrange our lives to follow my own hopes and dreams, then yes, Bean would be taking music lessons right now, and we would be playing music together on a regular basis. However, he is a peculiar sort who seems to have his own hopes and dreams, and he is not interested in music lessons. Also, while I think he might want to try an instrument when he gets a little older, right now, he’s got his hands full with gymnastics and swimming.


4 You write clearly and forcefully on difficult, important issues. You also live in a small community where, as you’ve pointed out, everyone knows everyone else’s business, and where, I’d guess, your views are not always in the majority. Is there tension there? Do you ever find yourself biting your tongue for the sake of keeping the peace?

I feel sometimes that I’ve bitten my tongue clean off and still managed to disrupt the peace quite considerably!

Yes, there are tensions, but I feel that they are frequently less to do with people’s actual beliefs (with the exception of emotional moments like abortion rights rallies, in which the pros and antis come together (and the antis heckle the pros)). But very often, people don’t talk openly about controversial issues; they may disagree when the topics come up, but they tend to want to keep the peace. This often makes me feel out of step, because I am more used to speaking up and out and addressing the disagreement or problem and trying to find a resolution. Not only am I used to responding in this way, but I’m also used to having this response style valued. It’s less valued here, though conversely, I have had total strangers walk up and shake my hand and thank me for saying something they agreed with in a public forum.

The tensions I’ve noticed are often related more to people’s conversational style than to their beliefs. For example, being direct will get you in trouble as it is perceived as being blunt or rude. (Usually, people tell me that I’m tactful, but here, I’m considered blunt.) And the result is that anyone who is offended will probably not be direct or forthcoming in addressing it. It is really frustrating, and it makes it difficult to deal with tensions productively.

I do find that my copious, sailor-like swearing has been tamed quite considerably since I've moved here.


5 If you could change one thing about Mr. Plains Feminist, what would it be?

Mr. Plain(s)feminist and I are very different in some ways, and generally, this works nicely because we complement each other. But if I could change one thing about him, I think I would instill in him a love for dance. Though, that would mean that we’d need to pay a sitter every time I felt the urge to put on my dancin' shoes.

Big Frameline Film sale.

Frameline has converted their films to DVD, and they are selling the VHS tapes at much cheaper prices until June 30. ("Cheaper" being a relative term.) On top of this, all Frameline titles are on sale during June at 20% off (with the
discount code Pride2007).

If you teach in Women's/Gender Studies, you should check it out.

The rush of the 21st century.

There have been moments over the last few years when I've finally made some particular technological jump, and each time, I've felt the same ecstasy: "Ah, I've finally joined the 21st century!" I felt that way when I bought Mr. Plain(s)feminist a CD player back in 2000. I felt that way when I, somewhat reluctantly, bought a DVD player in around 2003. I felt that way when I ditched my analog cell phone and bought a digital one in 2005, and when I finally bought an MP3 player in the same year.

Mr. Plain(s)feminist recently bought me a flash drive so that I could work on a borrowed laptop last week while I was on a writing retreat. He also pointed out that it was high time that I back up my files - which I hadn't done since, oh, say, 2003, when I was writing my dissertation. And even then, I'm pretty sure I wasn't backing up anything except for my dissertation files.

Now, I know that this is not a good thing. I know that everyone should back up their files, often. Here's the thing: when I last backed up my files, 'way back in 2003, I was still using disks.

No, not cds. DISKETTES.

You youngsters may not remember diskettes, but it is impossible to get very much information on them. Thus, backing up one's files meant a little pile of diskettes, each with a portion of a particular file on it. And, it took a very long time.

So imagine my surprise when, this afternoon, I finally bit the bullet, sat down in front of the computer, and backed up all of my work on my flash drive, and then backed it up a second time on ONE (1) CD. In like, ten minutes. And then I backed up my photos on another CD. I felt so giddy at the ease and speed of the process that I then began going through all of my old diskettes, erasing them one by one - because, surely, there are a couple of others out there who still have computers that can read them - and tossing them into the trash.

So, today, yet again, I have that wonderful feeling of being one with technology: I have backed up my files, and I have done it without using diskettes.

Thank you very much, and goodnight.

Comments?

This is weird - I'm not sure why, but Blogger doesn't seem to be allowing comments on my last post. I'm going to test this theory by posting this and seeing if comments are allowed here...

...

...Never mind - fixed it!

Status Report: Five and One Quarter Years.

(NOTE: I actually wrote this on May 17th, and I'm glad to say that things have definitely improved (even though I never got around to updating the chart). But still, I wanted to share it with you. And also, I'm too lazy right now to write a new post.)

We used to have the morning routine worked out:

Bean wakes up. We snuggle for a little while before it's time to really wake up. Depending on his mood, he or I will pick out his clothes for the day. Depending on his mood, his getting dressed will take very little or a whole lot of reminding (and, on slow mornings, assistance). He will also go potty and, on a good morning, brush his teeth. Once he's ready, he comes out to his little table in the living room for breakfast in front of "Charlie and Lola." ("Charlie and Lola" is the single best cartoon on television and deserves its own post.) After breakfast, we leave for school.

It took us the better part of the last school year to get this down. I devised a rewards chart with pictures of the tasks he needed to complete each morning; if he completes most of them, he can watch a DVD that day; if he completes all of them, he can watch television that day. It's not perfect, but it works.

Except that, for some reason, and fairly suddenly, we can't start the day without a full-fledged screaming fit from Bean. The fit is generally preceeded by me doing something, usually standing in the wrong place or, like yesterday, talking when Bean didn't want me to. Not responding is not an option, as that makes him lose his shit. If I attempt to stand in the right place, or if I say gamely, "OK - sorry, I'll be quiet," it is still no good - I have ruined it, I have done something unforgiveable, and now we must all be miserable until the mood passes.

The screaming, slamming of doors, and stomping of feet are so regular and so loud that I've pointed out that they could result in our being evicted.

Evenings are worse, though at least not in terms of decibels. The mornings may be loud, but there is still less effort needed on my part to get him ready than there is at bedtime. Bean takes after me: he is not in the least bit interested in going to sleep. At all. Ever. Unless he's sick.

Here's our bedtime routine:

It becomes evening. Bean goes batshit crazy at the mere mention of bedtime. One night last week, I suggested that he get all ready for bed and then we could watch part of Night at the Museum. Getting into pajamas went fine, but he balked at using the bathroom and brushing his teeth. He ran around the apartment and ignored me when I told him to go in and get ready. When he did, he brushed his teeth but didn't go to the bathroom. Then he went to the bathroom but didn't pull up his pants. Then he pulled up his pants but wouldn't wash his hands. Every few seconds he spent in the bathroom accomplishing a small part of these tasks was punctuated by his racing out of the bathroom to go somewhere else in order to do something else. That night, the "something else" was yelling at me for making him brush his teeth when he didn't want to do it.

What was most maddening about that night was that I told him clearly, patiently, and repeatedly that if he didn't do what I asked him to do, there would be no movie. On top of this, he began screaming, which I have outlawed in our house. Finally, of course, after umpteen chances, I had to tell him that there would be no movie. And then there was a fountain of frustrated and disappointed tears.

What happens, I suspect, is that by 7:30, he is wiped out. He does not get enough sleep, and he does not wind down for bed easily. So when it is time to get ready for bed - and I always suggest special stories or snuggle time, which he always wants - he becomes overwhelmed: he does not want the day to be over, and he's too exhausted to realize that if he simply gets ready, he'll still have lots of time before he has to go to bed. And when he finally does lie down at night, he will nearly always lie awake for HOURS. When I used to read to him every night, he would fall asleep more quickly; however, I'm now in a bind. It takes so long to get him ready for bed that when he finally is in bed, it is far too late for a story.

But on top of this, I think there is something else going on. Bean is attached to me, and when I say "attached," I mean, the kid is like glue. He loves Mr. Plain(s)feminist, but the sun rises and sets on Mommy. And now that he's 5, I think he is starting to pull away a bit, and so he's got this battle as he wants to make sure I'm there all the time and also wants to separate himself from me by, it seems, taking out all of his anger and frustration on me.

Here's what this looked like the other morning:

Bean is struggling to put on his pants. The back pockets are bunched up and the pants are therefore uncomfortable and not going on properly. Bean is frustrated and doesn't understand what is wrong with his pants.

Bean: AAGH! My pants! The pockets! GRRRRR!!! Help me!!

Me: Oh, let me fix those for you. (I fix the pockets.) There. Is that better?

Bean: I hate you! (Runs into his room. Calls from room.) Mommy, you know I don't really hate you, right? I don't want you to feel bad. I hate you!!!

I left out the part where he called me a disgusting piece of poop, by the way. I also left out the part where I spanked him for slamming the doors. We are neither of us very good at this, sometimes.

I am reading, once again, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey. Though it sounds like a handbook for parenting a "problem" child, it's really just a handbook for helping parents to control themselves and to model this self-control to children - to teach them, in effect, not just to do or not do certain things, but actually how to manage difficult emotions. It's a great book, and it helps me a lot. For one thing, it reminds me how to be human and how not to turn into a shrieking person who constantly doles out punishments.

After I hit "publish" for this post, I will update the chart to include evening tasks. There, the rewards will be bedtime stories, with more stories won when more tasks are completed.

Wish us luck.

Back soon.

I will be away for the next few days and then for a few days next week, as well. I'm not sure that I'll be able to post during this time. So, I'm putting the comments on moderation and I hope you'll check back in a bit. See you soon!

Stirring Shit.

Lately, IRL and online, it seems that the groups I'm involved in are plagued by shit stirrers. You know what a shit stirrer is, right? A shit stirrer is someone who delights in manipulating people and conversations so that others will be upset, someone who cooks up drama for the sheer enjoyment of it or for personal gain. The shit stirrer is always pointing the finger at someone else, often several someone elses. When others get upset, they often discuss this with the shit stirrer, who gets to enjoy the extra attention and even to act as a confidant. Meanwhile, the shit stirrer can sit back, relax, and watch the fireworks fly.

IRL, it seems easier to catch on. There are the conversations held through back channels that can be compared, so that very quickly, one sees the shit stirring actually taking place. Online, it can be less easy, particularly when the shit stirring is taking the form of intelligent conversation. There, it can be hard to spot a manipulative discussion, particularly when it is happening within the closed community of a listserv or bulletin board in which the members have been together for a long time.

What is your favorite way to handle shit stirrers? After seeing the stocks at the Renaissance Festival, I'm thinking that it would be great to make shit stirrers wear a big red "S" on their clothes so that we could see them coming.

TB guy.

I've been wanting to post about this, but I've been busy dancing at the Renaissance Fest this weekend (six performances in two days, and we ROCKED it). I'm coming down with a cold (yesterday was cold and rainy), I've got a sunburn (today was sunny), and I'm exhausted, but all of it is in a good and happy way.

Anyway - so I'm late to comment on this, but as I was reading around tonight and trying to catch up a little on the blogs I follow, I found this entry that pretty much says a lot of what I've been thinking.

Now, I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt a little. I mean, I frankly would not be surprised if it turned out that the public health officials are covering up for having told him exactly what he's saying they told him and not what they're saying they told him. How hard is it to believe that a governmental agency really could have made a huge mistake like that - hmmm?

I can also appreciate that he was really in fear for his life, that he really believed that he might not get the treatment he needed. After all, not that long ago, an American died because he was stuck overseas without health insurance that was accepted in the country he was visiting, and his medical situation was too serious for him to be allowed to fly home. So I can understand the fear.

But we know that when he flew back home, he knew that he was putting others at risk in order to do so. What he decided was that it was ok for him to fly back in order to save his own life, and it was also ok if he risked the lives of others to do it. That is the crux of this issue, isn't it? That he put others at risk in order to save himself.

I don't think his apology is enough, nor do I think that media appearances are the correct venue for rectifying this situation. Let the matter be decided by the courts. Is it ok for someone to decide to possibly infect and kill others in order to save one's own life, particularly when one's own life is not at immediate risk? And would such a case have to wait until others were known to have been infected by this man? Until they died?

I'd love to know what the legal precedents are for that.

It's about time I added this.

I've been using these products for a few years now - if you have curly hair, you owe it to yourself to check them out. I'm adding the site to my sidebar, as well.

Being anonymous makes you brave.

Though I have to say, I appreciate the honesty of the comment below. I don't think I realized before that there are people who see racism this way: there's x amount of power, and we white people have got it, so if we try to change that, we'll be giving all the power to the people of color who hate us and only pretend to be our friends. Moreover, it doesn't matter if they're being oppressed, as long as we aren't. Why should we give up any advantage we have?

That's just sad. Maybe I'll have more to say about this later. Particularly about the implication that genocide is just fine, as long as whites aren't being killed. Except...though the comment is written in an even, reasonable tone, it smacks of white supremacist "logic" and rhetoric, particularly the suggestion of a coming race war. Which makes me simply want to share it, as it's important to know our enemy, so that my readers can note that Aryan Nation or whoever has learned some measure of subtlety.

And incidentally, as far as people who make such arguments as the one below are concerned, I'm not really a white person. I mean, I am - I totally have white privilege. But under the terms of the Wannsee Conference, the Nazis would have thrown me into the camps along with everyone else, and I'm pretty sure no white supremacist would want me, either. Which is fine with me.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Anti-racism, race traitors, and whiteness.":

I am white. Why should I support 'anti-racism'? By definition, its only purpose is to disadvantage white people. Now you may argue that 'white skin privilege' is unearned and unfair and thus we should work to abolish it, even if it does disadvantage us. To that I can only ask, why? Do you really believe if the tables were turned and instead of 'white skin privilege' there existed 'dark skin privilege' that those with dark skin would be falling all over themselves to purge their society of the advantages it afforded them? I don't believe that.

Some may argue that even if we could not expect such moral reciprocity were situations reversed that we should press on to abolish 'white privilege' regardless, because it's the right thing to do. Again, I must ask why? Is it supposed to result in the making of a better world? Let's consider the example of South Africa. I cannot think of a nation in which the white population has proceeded further or faster with the abolishment of their 'white skin privilege'. What has been the end result? What was once the most modern nation in Africa has been reduced to a violent, corrupt hell hole. Crime is so bad that the nation had been referred to as both the rape and murder capital of the world. A great deal of this violence is directed against the dwindling white population by the black population. Such is the extent of the anti-white violence that Genocide Watch has stated that the actions of the blacks are warning signs of the beginning of a genocide against whites in the country. See here:

http://www.genocidewatch.org/BoersSlain01.htm

Have the anti-racist actions of the white South Africans to dispel their 'white skin privilege' resulted in a better world? It certainly hasn't for them. Far from creating harmony and peace, the actions the whites took to disempower themselves left them vulnerable and essentially defenseless in the face of the violence now directed at them by blacks who utterly hate them. Many of the white South Africans have realized what a mistake they made in surrendering their 'white skin privilege' and agreeing to live under the rulership of an ethnic group that wants to commit genocide against them. Unfortunately, for them, it's too late. Why, as a sane white person, would I want to put myself in the same position these white South Africans have? There is no reason. There is absolutely no reason a sane person would want to submit themselves to the power of a group with such hostility toward them as the black South Africans have toward the white South Africans. There is no reason at all - the very notion is insane.

The experience of the white South Africans is hardly unique. Nearly anywhere in the world where whites are a minority they are treated with contempt and hostility by the non-white majority. If you are white and doubt this, I invite you to take a trip - unescorted - thorough one of the 'minority' neighborhoods of your nearest large city. Or, better yet, why don't you go for a short vacation to some nation in South America, or Africa - and don't just stay in the tourist areas. To get the full experience you need to really meet the natives. Another wonderful place to visit would be nearly any of the nations of the Islamic world. Again, don't just stick to the tamed tourist zones, you want to experience the real culture. Most of you would be quite hesitant to do any of these things because you know to be true what I have been saying all along - most of these people *hate* you. As the white South Africans learned, no amount of anti-racist action on your part is going to make them hate you any less. The only thing your anti-racist activities can do is to serve to make you more vulnerable to their hate. Why would any sane human being want that? I certainly don't.

There may be some of you reading this who believe that whites are so evil and have such a history of oppressive behavior that they deserve to be hated and mistreated. There may actually be some of you reading this right now who feel that the world can only move forward once the corpse of the 'white race' has been cast into humanities collective ditch. Sure, you may think to yourselves, the dismantling of the white race may be violent and unfair to many but the overall good it will do will outweigh any such considerations. I've seen similar things written before, and I have no doubt that some of you share this view. I cannot hope to dissuade those so warped from such insane beliefs. Anyone white person who thinks that way is so consumed with pathological self hatred that reason is utterly lost on them. I can only say that your anti-white 'partners' in anti-racism will see that you are properly rewarded for your activities.

As for the rest of the people reading this - normal, sane people who don't hate themselves and don't want to submit themselves to the governance of groups that despise them - you need to ask yourself why in the hell you support this sort of a movement. It will not help you in the short run or in the long run. Helping to empower those who hate you while disempowering yourself is nothing less than cutting your own throat. Why do it? Those you are 'helping' sure as hell wouldn't do the same for you. Wake up, before it's too late.

Why Craigslist is scary.

Enough said?

Dropped.

Just a note in case anyone is paying attention to the blogroll and noticing that I've dropped a couple of links. Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds was one of the funniest (and also most disturbing) blogs I read, but unfortunately, Subservient Worker has decided, not only to change the blog's focus entirely and write only about her own life, but to delink all of her past posts. She's a great writer and she has interesting things to write about, but you know, it's just not the same. I went there to read about the obnoxious traits of the filthy rich, and it's just not fair to do a 180 like that. At least, she could have left the old posts up. Well, whatever. I'm sure I'll still go back and read her from time to time, but her change in focus means I'm reading less, and if I'm reading less, it means I'm making room on the blogroll.

And then there's Strip Club Server. SCS had me hooked for a long while, until fairly recently when she wrote what I felt was a fairly mean-spirited and disrespectful post about prostitutes in her club (though I would bet that she didn't mean it to be mean-spirited or disrespectful but was simply going for humor). I thought about dropping her at that point because I thought it was really not cool and didn't feel inclined to read more. Anyway - she's dropping herself; her blog post yesterday says that she's discontinuing the blog.

By the way, don't look for any political rhyme or reason in this - I don't monitor the contents of the blogs I link to, nor do I necessarily delink if someone writes something that I find offensive. It's all about whether or not I read the blog I link to. If not, it's gone.

The new Technorati sucks.

It just does. I used to be able to look up my blog ranking easily - it would give me a number (the number of websites that link) and a rankings (the number of blogs more popular than mine, essentially). And Technorati used to update my ranking quite regularly.

Now - I have a number of new sites linking to me over the past couple of weeks, but none of them are showing up on my Technorati searches. And when I search from the main page, I have to run two searches - first a search that results in "There is nothing in the known universe about plainsfeminist," and then I have to click on "blogs" on that page in order to find any links to my blog.

Technorati has helpfully set up a blogsearch-only page at s.technorati.com, but it doesn't give the ranking, nor does it allow you to order the results by "freshness" (recent links), which the old Technorati used to do.

Essentially, what they've done is to make Technorati faster so that people could search everything, all over the web. I guess that's great, if that's what you need Technorati for, but why fix the blog search and ranking when it ain't broke?

SO not impressed.

A Sad Day for Reporters Everywhere.

I have to preface this first by saying that the following comes from a newspaper reporter's blog (I know, I know) and not from a news article. But even so.

Here is a classic example of why I so often have a hate on for reporters. My favorite quote:

"The fact that ten years after his death people still think [Matthew Shepard's murder] is a hate crime makes me contemplate the roll of the media. Why did the media jump on the bandwagon - it was a hate-crime based on Shepard’s sexual orientation? A 20/20 investigation in 2004 revealed his death was due to a simple robbing that turned brutal. If you ask several University of Wyoming alumni, they say it was a “drug deal gone bad.” I guess it depends which side you’re on and which side you want to believe. But there is information out there citing both – that it was hate-crime and that it was a drug deal gone bad."

We are in sad, sad shape as a nation if newspaper reporters are looking to 20/20 to get their facts (not to mention random U of W alumni).

In other news, Rodney King's beating was really deserved because he resisted arrest. I know, 'cause I saw it on t.v. Oh, and also, I asked some people who live in L.A. But, you know, it's all about whom you want to believe and which side you're on, right?

Thanks to Anna at Dakota Women for the tip.

No one wants to see your pledge card.

I saw someone at the mall the other day with a huge abstinence pledge card in her wallet, and I immediately wanted to grab her arm and force her to listen to my detailed sexual history. Too Much Information, in both cases.

Ex-Gay Book.

I've pointed out numerous times to my students, friends, and colleagues that what the "ex-gay movement" does for conservative Christians is allow them a place where they can be open about their gayness within the Church. Of course, it's not exactly "open" if the reason they are open about it is to denounce it, but anyway - the point is, elsewhere within conservative Christianity, there is deep and widespread revulsion for the gay person, despite all the rhetoric about loving the sinner and hating the sin. In "ex-gay" communities, there is a belief that gay people are simply people who are struggling with this particular sort of "sin." This is, of course, one of the main things that draws people to the movement - it resists the mean-spirited homophobia that exists elsewhere in conservative Christianity, offering instead a sort of "homophobia lite" that grants personhood and salvation to the struggling Christian: "Their sense of relief, of belonging, of finally discovering an authentic self, springs from their sudden experience of mutual recognition. They can be Christian in a place where they won’t 'hear any of the stuff about you’re scum, you’re going to hell,' and where no one will try to exorcise or ostracize them."

The above quote comes from an interesting book review in the Women's Review of Books about this very topic. Tanya Erzen's Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement appears to get at this important component of the movement that many outsiders to conservative Christianity do not understand. She also explores the ways in which gay culture, while expressly discouraged, continues to flourish within the movement - though it is, to be sure, a sort of a sad echo (in college, I attended one meeting of an ex-gay group in Hartford to support a friend of mine who wanted to go, and that's what I remember most about it - the pervasive sense of sadness that dogged the people there, the palpable feeling of loss).

Interestingly, Erzen points to ways in which ex-gay people are manipulated and used by the Religious Right; reviewer Esther Kaplan notes that "At one point, a few New Hope participants contribute their testimonies to an ex-gay ad campaign and become furious when their stories are manipulated to oppose AIDS research and gay civil rights."

I am already trying to dream up courses in which I can use this book.

Status Report: Cat Pee.

Someone in this house is taking great care to pee outside the litterbox. I first noticed this about three weeks ago, when Mr. Plain(s)feminist brought the litterbox into the bathroom to clean it out. After he'd removed it - and after I'd taken a shower and then walked every inch of that floor with bare feet - I noticed that the bathroom floor stank of cat piss. I washed the floor with Lysol disinfectant wipes (and scrubbed my feet with hot water and soap) - and by the way, folks, if you have any of these wipes in your home, you might as well throw them away. Cat pee - 1; Lysol - 0. And I washed the floor three times before I figured that out. I did have some Windex wipes, though, so I washed the floor again and the smell disappeared immediately.

I couldn't quite figure out how the pee had actually gotten on the outside of the bottom of the litterbox, though. I blamed the pee spillage on the stupidly-designed litterbox liners that fit like a sleeve over the whole box. We bought the old kind, the kind that sits inside the box like a garbage can liner, and I prepared myself for a clean floor.

About a week later, same scenario - Mr. Plain(s)feminist bravely cleaning the catbox, and again, there I am, this time haplessly sitting on the pot - again with bare feet - and realizing that the reason the bathroom reeks of pee is that there is cat pee all over the floor.

And again, my first response was the damn Lysol, because I'd managed to completely forget what had happened the week before.

This time, I decided to remove the top of the litterbox and to keep the box meticulously clean, in case someone was deliberately peeing outside the box in protest. (And meticulous it has been. To say that I have paid more attention to that damn box that to my own grooming is not much of an exaggeration.)

And shortly thereafter, somebody did indeed pee on the floor outside the litterbox, which explained how the pee was getting underneath the box.

And so I went to the pet supply store and I found the very largest litterbox I have ever seen. It is a thing of beauty. It has a high "spill-proof" attachment that adds several inches of height. It is large and comfortable enough that all of us can start using it if we want to. I am thinking of installing cable in it. And further, I have added to it Nature's Miracle Litter Treatment. If there is
any sign that anyone has been there and even thought about leaving a deposit, I am there with my little kitty poop shovel and my plastic bag. And I don't scoop out only the poop - oh no. I scoop out the wet litter, as well. I am now the full-time litterbox attendant.

And still, someone continued peeing outside the box. Regularly.

Mr. Plain(s)feminist brought both cats - with full bladders - to the vet on Friday morning to have their urine tested for infection. Unfortunately for everybody, when they got there, they no longer had full bladders, and so there they stayed until the vet could determine that neither had a urinary tract infection (the vet staff was kind enough to clean the carrier and liner). "Can you separate them tonight?" she asked, "so that we can figure out who is doing this?"

So, into the bathroom with a private litterbox went the eldest for the night, so chosen because she was far less likely to raze ankles in a mad dash for the door. However, she has a hell of a mee-yowl. Finally, at about five am, after numerous dreams in which her piercing cry featured prominently, and after said cry had dropped significantly in register (yes, she was getting hoarse), and after I'd checked to make sure that neither had overflowed their litterbox, and after I'd newspapered the rooms the litterboxes were in within an inch of their lives, I let her out.

I still don't know who is responsible for all the pee. However, I've noticed that having two litterboxes seems, for the moment, to have done the trick. While there still seems to be a little problem of aim, at least there is no evidence - so far - of further spraying. After ten years, "they may be tired of sharing," the vet offered.

Which gives me an idea re. our tiny, one-bathroom apartment.

But the good news is, so far, it looks like there will be no need for any behavior modification drugs for the cats. Just to be safe, though, I still haven't taken down the newspaper.

Spring, and a young woman's fancy turns to...

Today I cleaned the venetian blinds, something I've been wanting to do since around the time when Bean was born. I did start to clean them then, but found that it was a huge task. Either in the last stages of pregnancy or the first stages of new motherhood, I did not place the venetian blinds very high on my list. So I put that project on the back burner for about 5 years or so, and today, finally, we have clean venetian blinds. This is a more strenuous job than you would think, and I'm glad for all the weight-lifting I've been doing.

I also did Bean's windows and screens and the dining room sliding glass doors and screen.

And I started on the porch furniture.

Tomorrow I'll finish the windows.

I have more interesting posts for you, but I have to get through my spring cleaning first. Also, I'm in an organizing and painting mood, so I have to head over to OfficeMax.com and look at office furniture in order to reorganize what Mr. Plain(s)feminist calls his workspace but what is really an exceedingly messy corner of the bedroom. (In all fairness, he's doing the best that can be expected given only a corner of the bedroom - hence the need for better office furniture.)

Amnesty's Report on Native American and Alaska Native Women.

I know this is old news, but I promised to blog about it, and maybe some of you haven't read about this yet. You probably all heard that the Amnesty International report found that more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetimes.

Did you know that the U.S. Government has made it difficult to impossible for a Native woman to report a rape on the reservation?

According to Andrea Smith, author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, "rape falls under the Major Crimes Act," which means that "tribes are generally reliant upon the federal governments to prosecute sexual assualt cases." However, she explains, "Department of Justice representatives have informally reported that U.S. attorneys decline to prosecute about 75 percent of all cases involving any crime in Indian country. U.S. attorneys are particularly reluctant to prosecute rape cases...[and as of] 1997...only two U.S. attorneys regularly prosecute[d] rape cases in Indian country" (32).

Let me quote a bit more, here. What this means is that the Federal Government cannot be relied upon to prosecute these cases. But, Smith continues, "[b]ecause sexual assault is covered under the Major Crimes Act, many tribes have not developed codes to address the problem in those rape cases the federal government declines to prosecute. Those with codes are often hindered in their ability to investigate by a wait that may last more than a year before federal investigators formally turn over cases. In addition, the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) of 1968 limits the punishment tribal justice systems can enforce on perpetrators...[and] the U.S. can prohibit remedies [such as banishment] that do not follow the same penalties of the dominant system" (32).

Rosa Del Angel of Amnesty International writes me that,

"At the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation (in North and South Dakota), women often have to wait hours or even days before receiving a response from the
Standing Rock Police Department, if they receive one at all. Many survivors reported that they had experienced sexual violence several times in their lives at the hands of different perpetrators.

Some survivors have to travel more than an hour to get to the Indian Health Service (HIS) hospital in Fort Yates, where they may discover that no one on staff can conduct a sexual assault forensic exam. Staff may send women to a medical facility in Bismarck, 80 miles away -- those that make this journey may then face lengthy delays and leave without an exam. If a woman has to go to a non-IHS facility, she may initially be charged for the service. These factors can be a serious barrier to reporting the crime and undergoing a forensic examination."

Does this make you angry? Take action.

Jerry Falwell is dead.

And all the jokes have already been made (be sure to read the comments).

But seriously - I know that "Christians" like Falwell see themselves as at war with the rest of us, and that therefore, he would have seen these comments as just more evidence that he was on the correct path. But - it's just sad when you have nothing to show at the end of your life but hate and a lot of people who are glad you have died.

Why I Hate Mother's Day.

I have never liked Mother's Day. I don't like Father's Day, either, but that one tends to fly under the radar quite a bit compared to Mother's Day. Right or wrong, with Mother's Day, I feel pressure. With Father's Day, I feel that anything I offer - card, gift, warm sentiment - will be accepted (except, perhaps, by Bill Cosby, who has often complained in his stand-up act and in his television show that his kids' Father's Day presents lacked evidence of care).

But the bar is significantly higher for Mother's Day. It's not that it's set by my mother, particularly, but culturally, this is the one moment when we are all supposed to show our mothers just how much we appreciate them, and the event takes on a kind of sickening tribute to Stepfordism. The cards always focus on all the laundry and cleaning and baking mom always did with little appreciation from the rest of her family (who, in Hallmark-land, never did any of these things themselves). They worship the selfless sacrifice of Hallmark-land mothers.

OK. I'll say it. Hallmark-land bears little resemblance to the real world. In how many families these days are mothers solely responsible for the housework? They may do more of it than other family members, but I'll bet many or most older kids are helping with laundry and cooking and cleaning - that is, if the family doesn't "outsource" this work to a paid employee.

Further, how many of our mothers are set to "selfless sacrifice" all the time? Of course, this is part of a parent's job, to sacrifice for our children and to put their needs first. But it is not ALL of a parent's job, nor is it something that we should - or could - do all the time. A child should see his or her parents as real people, and that means that parents should sometimes put their own needs first. And children, too, should learn that being part of a family means making sacrifices and compromises for and with the other members. It doesn't just happen from the parents on down.

Then, too, Ellen Goodman points out how false the pronouncements of Mother's Day appreciation ring when we see how poorly moms fare in the workplace (not dads, by the way!). We pay a lot of lip service to the importance of family, but we don't think twice about putting moms in the workplace out to pasture on the mommy track.

But none of this is really why I hate Mother's Day. At bottom, I hate it because it is a trumped-up, co-opted holiday. It had its origins in a radical movement to promote peace and disarmament, first, and later, to involve women in fighting for better sanitation. Noble goals. And this has been turned into an excuse to spend money on greeting cards, flowers, jewelry, and restaurants. From a political movement to a lavish expenditure on one's own individual mother, without thought of mothers - and children - who could really use our help.

Old School.

[Disclaimer: I have no clue whether the links below will work or not. I tried on Monday evening to post the above YouTube video on my site, and here it just appeared today, so who knows what the hell YouTube will do.]

Isn't it cute when young folks today talk about "old school" with regard to music and they mean something by the Counting Crows? Tee-hee.

No, seriously, I'm feeling nostalgic for old school rap. I wanted to have my students look at some rap lyrics in class, and as I was searching around to find which ones I wanted to use, I started thinking about how much fun I had twenty-something years ago listening to folks like these guys...

Sugarhill Gang, Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Sister Souljah, Kool Moe Dee (I know, stop laughing)...

Bean has embarked on a quest

...to find out "what happens if." Last week, he used his child safety scissors to cut his hair.

A couple of days ago, he taped a piece of paper to his nose and then cut the paper - and his nose - like he'd seen Sponge Bob do on television.

Yesterday morning, I awoke to a soaking wet Bean who had been pretending to be a fountain while brushing his teeth. There were puddles of water (and even some toothpaste) decorating the sink and floor, and I even had to throw away the roll of toilet paper because it was too wet to be salvaged. (I suppose I should be grateful that he's never seen any of those old fountains that feature statues of little boys peeing!)

By the time I had cleaned up the bathroom, he had already taken a crayon and written his initials on the dining room table.

Last night, while I was picking up and trying to get him into bed, he called to me from the other room. "Mommy...not that I want to get into trouble...but I wrote with my crayon on the green chair." (This would be the New Green Chair.) Fortunately for both of us, Folex worked perfectly (and immediately). (PSA: This stuff is amazing. It got grape juice stains out of my beige rug.)

After I cleaned the crayon off of the New Green Chair, Bean and I had a conversation about how much fun it was to see what it would be like to try something new. I asked him to please check with me first before going ahead and trying it. He nodded, looked thoughtful, and asked: "Mommy, is it ok to draw on my clothes?"

Bone tired.

I wanted to post a whole bunch of old-school rap clips, as I am just finishing up a unit on poetry and today's class focused a bit on rap. I was nostalgic last night and wanted to share with you some of the clips I showed my students.

I also wanted to post a picture of my new coin bra (for bellydancing).

But I am too tired to deal with the (admittedly not too taxing) technology involved. I am beyond tired. I've skipped the gym for two days in a row and I have no interest in doing anything that doesn't involve lying on the couch.

I am in a rut. I am ready for vacation. I want school to be over and I want it to be summer, and then I want there to be, if not a sandy beach, then at least me on my balcony with a book and an umbrella drink and a warm breeze.

It seems I also owe the Wheelock Conference folks an apology.

I'm eating a lot of crow lately, and it's not very tasty.

I posted about the Wheelock Conference a while ago and suggested that their DVD did not constitute fair use. I have since been in contact with Gail Dines, one of the conference organizers, and I asked her about this as well as about the use of images of performers in pornographic media, without their consent, to argue against pornography. Here is her response:

"These are good questions, ones we discussed at considerable length as we developed the slide show. On the question of permissions: We consulted an attorney and other experts, and we have no doubt that our use of these images constitute a "fair use" in copyright law. On the issue of the performers: The feminist anti-pornography critique has been rejected by some women in the sexual-exploitation industries, of course. We go forward recognizing that it's a difficult choice, but believing that without the images many in the audience would not understand the systematic misogyny and racism in pornography. Below is the part of the script where we acknowledge that. In the script we make it clear that we focus our critique not on the women who perform, but on those who make and distribute --and reap the profits from -- the material.

From the script:

In what follows, the women's faces are not blurred and are often recognizable. We cannot know how these women would feel about having their images used in this presentation. We have made the difficult decision to show them, because the women's facial expressions are crucial to understanding these images. We ask you to recognize with us the moral complexity of this decision, keeping in mind that these
women are human beings with dignity."

So, first: as I am not an expert in copyright law, I cede to the lawyers and experts the conference committee consulted on the meaning of fair use.

And second: if, then, the DVDs constitute fair use, then legally, consent from the performers is not necessary. In fact, it is most likely the publishers of the original material that would need to be consulted for permission to use the images, though again, this is not necessary if the usage falls under fair use.

Finally: I realize that Dines' explanation does not resolve the tensions around the conference (see here (scroll down to the comments) for sex workers' responses to it); nor does it resolve the issue of using pornography - and therefore, the images of sex workers - to argue against pornography; nor does it resolve the issue of anti-porn websites and DVDs publishing images of pornography and thus becoming, in a sense, pornographers. These are all sticky issues. As an educator and researcher, however, I recognize the need to use pornographic images in order to teach about pornography, whether it be to argue against porn or for it or for a more middle-of-the-road critique. Simply to analyze it requires being able to study the images. (I suspect that, had the conference been a critical examination of porn rather than an anti-porn conference, sex workers would not have been concerned about these images being used.)

In one of my sexuality classes, I paired Kamala Kempadoo's Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition with Rebecca Whisnant's and Christine Stark's Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. This, I felt, was the most ethical approach I could take to the issue (and I'm not holding myself up here as an example of how to be ethical re. pornography, I'm just explaining how I personally have tried to resolve the contradictions I've been talking about). There are images in Not for Sale that are hard to look at. One of the things I asked my students to do was to critically analyze these images, to see them apart from the specific critique that accompanied them and to discuss whether or not they'd necessarily draw the same conclusions. This was a way of testing the strength of the argument (and generally, we found that the arguments were strong - as were those in Global Sex Workers). But, as Dines states above, it is also important to look at several examples of porn in order to draw conclusions about porn as an industry. Sometimes, we hear "scare tactics" about what is represented in pornography - but other times, the conclusions, particularly about issues such as how race is represented, are right on.

(Incidentally, this is also true for advertising in general - not a bad connection to make, I think, in the classroom.)

I'm sure this post will upset some people, and I'm sorry for that. I continue to see value in both sides' analyses of sex work (though my use of the term "sex work" would, for some, already place me in the non-anti-porn camp, despite whatever my feelings might actually be). I also continue to give particular weight in my own considerations to the voices of sex workers, while I still keep up with what researchers on either side have to say. That's the best I can do.

Edited to add: Some folks have argued that, instead of using the images, it would be more ethical to simply use testimony from sex workers, whether they be guest speakers or, I presume, written testimonies. I've done this, actually. I've also allowed students to go to a strip club to interview folks who worked there (this was an option they came up with and asked permission to do). One of the problems here is that management doesn't always like this, and it's possible that 1) the interviewer could get the employee in trouble, or 2) the employee might not trust the interviewer or want to talk in the club. Also, in this smallish town, there is perhaps more stigma attached to dancers, and so it's not easy to find dancers who are willing to be identified for research projects - understandably!

Blogroll updates.

There are some new folks on the blogroll, and maybe this is a good time to explain how I choose whom to add:

I add the people whose blogs I read frequently enough to want to shortcut from my own blog. I don't agree with everything every blog listed there says, but for one reason or another, I read them because they're interesting, informative, funny, and/or well-written. They may also anger, offend, or disturb me, and if that happens often enough, I will probably delink them.

I also add people who are my friends, just because.

I also add sites that I think might be useful or interesting to others.

I don't have any political policy for linking or delinking.

(Danielle, I wanted to add you, but I wanted to check with you first - is that ok?)

...

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked any longer by things I find online, but this struck me as so bizarre and so disturbing that I can't even come up with a title for this post.

In short, one former blogger and frequent blog commenter has essentially blackmailed another blogger into not writing about radical feminists or radical feminism. The threat: to "out" her online. (As if there aren't already enough people who think feminists are nasty and vicious - now there's more fuel for that particular fire. Thanks for that.)

(I actually wasn't going to post much myself because Belledame did such a great job with her post. But then I got going...)

I have commented a few times on others' posts relating to the feminist blogwars, and I've written a couple of my own, but in general, I've tried to stay out of it. Why? Because there is no point. There are people with whom I know I can have a rational conversation, and people with whom I know I can't. There are people out there who blog about people like me, I'm sure, and call me all kinds of names and challenge my commitment to feminism. So what? I really don't care. I don't have the time or inclination to make a habit out of justifying myself. I'm getting close to 40. I wasted a lot of time in my twenties trying to gain the approval of certain feminists and lesbians because I so desperately needed to be validated. I don't need that anymore. I'm validated all on my own. I'd prefer to stick to the rational conversation, for the most part, and to leave those who feed off of discord to starve.

But threatening to expose someone is beyond the pale - of feminism, of the bloggers' code, of the law. And threatening to do so unless a blogger desists from certain topics, language, attitude, whatever, is not only all of these things, but it's also naive as hell. First of all, the internet is public. Whatever information is on it is public, whether it be on a "private" or "locked" board or not - because putting it on the internet is a means of publishing it (and legally, this is pretty much where it stands, as I understand it: if you don't want people to know it or talk about it, don't put it out there.). Emails, bulletin boards, blogs, whatever - it's all out there, permanently. People take down posts and think it's over - nuh uh. It's retrievable (you know that "cached" option in Google?). And second of all, the nature of public discussion is that people talk about the issues they're thinking about, which may be ideas and arguments they've read on a blog or discussion board. The convention is not that folks *won't* talk about these things, whether they are criticizing or praising, but that they *will.* Again, if you aren't comfortable with that, then don't put it on the web.

Ironically, that someone who calls herself a radical feminist would use blackmail (what was that about "the master's tools," again?) to prevent Renegade Evolution from bashing radical feminists - and would even attempt, as well, to hold her responsible for what her readers (or her so-called "posse") might say - that right there just did more to hurt the image of radical feminism than anything Ren or anyone else ever posted. When people say hateful things on their blogs, as a reader, you have to assume that there are other issues going on. When people repeatedly go after particular individuals, after a while, you think, "man, why bother? Why not just stay away? This person must be looking for a fight." (And there are people on both sides of the aisle who do this.)

Blog readers, I suspect, see through a lot of the bullshit and posturing for what it is, and they don't get quite as bent out of shape about a nasty comment here and there (especially, I'd bet, the ones who don't post). They don't automatically assume, "oh, she said this about pros/antis - she must be right."

But most people find blackmail to be distasteful. Even the blackmailer herself apologized for resorting to such low tactics - which tells us something.

Thing is, she did this in an environment in which a few feminist bloggers have recently had their personal information strewn all over the net (by antifeminists, by the way). She's upped the ante, and it's not something she can take back: she's changed the whole nature of the dialogue. Now, others will figure, "hey, Stormy's blackmail worked - I can do this!"

How long will it be until Stormy becomes the target of what she's spawned? And no, that's not a threat, nor is it suggestion: I oppose outing in almost every circumstance (exceptions would include someone whose online anonymity is allowing them to put others at *real* (not internet drama) risk, and by that I mean, for example, that one is in danger of having this person stalk them in real life). It's an honest question. The dialogue has changed, and I only hope that no one else will decide to follow Stormy's path. Because any and every one of us could be next.

Other than that, with regard to Belledame's post (linked above): what she said.

I owe Katie Hnida an apology.

Because I originally criticized her book here after having gotten only a few pages into it. And then today, I came home for a late lunch and was looking around for something to read while eating, and I saw her book still sitting, unread, on my shelf. So I picked it up.

And I read it pretty steadily through for the rest of the afternoon and evening until I finished it a little while ago.

No, it's not perfectly written, and in many ways, I can't relate at all to Hnida (and her lists of her own accomplishments early on in the book are kind of a turn off - there's really no good way to do that without it sounding like bragging). But hers is a compelling story, and I did find myself not only unable to put the book down, but also cheering for her along the way.

And it turns out that she wrote the book herself, so I'm willing to overlook the little things. If you have a chance, check it out.