Can we go there?

I've been participating in - mostly reading - a discussion about biracial kids and White moms, and someone mentioned the issue of hair, and of having overheard a white mom say that she wished her biracial daughter had hair like her own because it was easier to take care of.

I've been pondering this for a couple of days because my immediate reaction is to wonder if perhaps no one ever showed this mother how to care for her child's hair. I wonder this because I'm a White woman with hair that none of my White family members and hairdressers ever knew how to care for until, as a grown woman, I finally went to a hairdresser who specialized in "ethnic" (this was in South Dakota, where "ethnic" is never used to refer to White Americans) hair and who had two biracial daughters, herself. I've never styled Black hair, but I know what my own hair is like, and I wonder - is there really so much difference in terms of ease of care? I mean, it's not uncommon to walk into a wall of hairspray in public restrooms where White women are primping (not so much lately, I guess, but years ago this was certainly true), and I do occasionally see PTA mom haircuts that are, essentially, helmets - and this means that the hair takes time and work to do. I mean, sure, a lot depends on what exactly you do with the hair, and its texture helps determine that, but I suspect that when White people say things like this, they maybe have no idea what to do.*

And what I'm being too nice to say is that when White people say things like that, it's racist.

I'm actually not going to talk about the politics of Black women's hair right now.** I'm going to instead talk about my own hair, because something I've gradually become aware of is how race has operated for me in terms of my hair. It's an example of how race is constructed, because it was only the fact that I thought of myself as White that stood between me and having well-groomed hair. I did not learn, until I was an adult, that I could not care for my hair the way most White people I knew cared for their hair.

When I was a kid, this is what White people did with their hair:
1) Shampoo
2) Rinse
3) Condition (this was new, back then!)
4) Rinse
5) Blow dry / curl / comb / put in a ponytail.

If you have hair like mine and you try this, you will be rewarded with a mess. And still, I used to brush that hair, determined to make it behave. I tried mousse. I used cans of AquaNet. I remember crying to my mother that I was going to have to shave it off and buy a wig. This was not a bad hair day. This was years of not being able to take care of my hair and of feeling down-deep ugly because of it, despite the fact that there were plenty of women of color around me, plenty of hair products for their hair around me. It just never, not once, occurred to me that I was looking in the wrong places. I just figured that there must be something wrong with me.

This prompts me to post an excerpt from something I wrote several years ago:

My hair. My aunt tells me, laughing, "When you were little, we used to say that you had Angela Davis hair." I'm never sure what to make of this; I don't think my aunt means this as a compliment. My mother remembers, "You would cry and cry when I'd wash your hair. You kept pleading with me, saying 'Mommy, I be good! I be good!'" And I think of how they used to try every morning to get a comb through it, pulling so hard I thought I'd end up bald, forcing my hair into position for a few minutes, until the wind and humidity got into it. My father would lecture in his stern voice: "If you would brush your hair a hundred strokes every morning and every night, you could train it to straighten out."

My baby pictures show reddish blond curls that stuck up all over my head, seemingly weightless. Later pictures show hair that is much darker and heavier.

But my hair did not gleam. It sat, dully, sticking out in every direction no matter what I did. Often it stood straight up from my head, particularly if I'd recently pulled off my knitted cap. The hairstylist who cut our family's hair, didn't know what to do with me. When I was thirteen, he cut my hair into a short Afro so that it curled up all around my head. I liked it, and let it grow longer and longer, picking it out as far as I could. My friends were amused by what my junior high school principal referred to as "a Zulu haircut" (another comment not meant to be a compliment). But I was supposed to be white, and there was no way for my hair to fit into white beauty, except as a joke. No white movie star had an Afro. I knew damn few Black people who had an Afro in 1982. The younger sister of my best friend started calling me "frizzbomb".

In high school, I used to get up early so I'd have time to curl my hair. No matter how carefully I wound the strands around the hot iron, there would always be one long piece that stubbornly hung down in front of my face. I spent my classes trying to tuck this piece in behind the rigid curl that ran the length of my forehead (my attempt at an eighties version of a Farah flip). Within seconds, it would untuck itself and slide squarely between my eyes. Once, as I was twisting and twisting to no avail, I looked up and caught the eyes of a boy who was grinning at my futile efforts.

I always longed for long, straight hair. I used to pretend, when my hair was wet after a shower, that my hair was really that straight. For a long while, I would hope every time that it would stay that way when it dried, but of course, it never did. I used to drape the towel over my head and pretend that that was my hair.

I let my hair grow long, twice. The first time was in ninth grade, when my hair grew past my shoulders, long enough for my mother to braid it down the back. It refused to hang straight though, and it would buckle the braid that tried to contain it, finally pulling its way loose, so that by the end of the day fierce tufts would poke out toward freedom. And no matter how long my hair got, I could never wear it in a ponytail. Instead of falling down gracefully from the elastic band, it would stick straight out in an uneven puff.

The second time I let my hair grow was in college, after all but shaving it off completely. Two years after graduation, it was long and free, and I loved it. It was a wild mane, too heavy to curl tightly, but when freshly washed it would kink up beautifully. When it got wet, it would hang in long locks, and if I didn't separate them with my fingers they would stay that way. Every morning I'd have to pull apart the dreadlocks that threatened. It was so thick I couldn't pull it back into just one barrette, and so heavy that, when wet, it took effort to lift my head. My hair was so big and so full that it didn't just hang down my back, but radiated out from my head so that I couldn't see over my shoulder when moving into the passing lane.

For the record, here's what I do these days:
1) Shampoo (I don't actually use shampoo, but I use other cleansers for curly hair)
2) Apply about a handful (yes, really) of a very thick shea butter conditioner
3) DO NOT rinse
4) Apply something else, I don't know exactly what it is, but it helps hold the curl
5) DO NOT rinse
6) Apply a finishing glaze
7) DO NOT rinse
8) Wrap my hair (upside down, so the curls are accordioned) for 20 minutes
9) Go.

It takes far less time than I used to spend in high school, and there's never any crying.

Note, too, the absence of a comb or brush.



*this very issue of White moms not knowing how to style their biracial daughters' hair comes up pretty frequently in multiracial writings.

**though I do want to say in passing, and maybe I'll post about this later, that when we are in the midst of Love Your Body and such day/week/month, I think it's a good idea to think, not just in terms of loving your curves and not purging your dinner, but also in terms of race. We tend to interpret these events as only about eating disorders, but we should also be thinking about how whiteness is central to what is portrayed to us as "beauty" and about things like skin bleaching and the ways that women of color see their bodies and are made to feel about their bodies (a great video on this is here).

Drugs and consensual sex are wild; exploiting women, not so much.

On my way to the gym this morning, I was singing along with Nickelback to "Rock Star":

'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars and
Live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blonde hair
And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary of
Today's who's who
They'll get you anything
with that evil smile
Everybody's got a
Drug dealer on speed dial, well
Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar

Except, the station I was listening to bleeped out the word "drug", so the line was, "The girls come easy and the ... come cheap." And, you know, I take offense at that. It's ok to talk about women like they're disposable, but God forbid we talk about drugs?

Even more funny to me is that the next line about staying skinny and not eating kind of depends on the drug reference.

And everyone can figure out what a "bleep-dealer" is. I mean, you wouldn't have a car dealer on speed dial, right?

But what really ticked me off was that the next song was Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side." And in this bizarro land of radio censors, "giving head" is not ok and needs to be bleeped, but "colored girls" can sing all they want to.

To recap: Drugs and consensual sex are bad. Treating women as disposable sex objects and talking about women of color as "colored" is just dandy.

Fucking censors.

The persistence of sexism.

This is cross-posted at Dakota Women.

I've written a lot about racism in the public discourse around Hillary and Obama's candidacies, but I have not written much about the very real moments of sexism she's faced. I'd like to rectify that, not so much by writing about it myself* as by sharing with you a few links I've received recently** that help to show both the scope of this sexism and also the way racism and sexism are interwoven so tightly in our national discussions.

Teaching Tolerance has a special edition of the Anti-Bias Classroom that is focused on teaching about the elections. I have not had time yet to peruse the whole thing, but the first page sums up problems with the national discussion so far quite nicely.

The Hillary Sexism Watch - just what it sounds like, and worth reading.

And lest you miss it, go here to see why Axe sucks. I mean, we KNOW they suck, but this is pretty bad.

*At the moment, I don't have anything to add to the good writing that is already out there.
**Thanks to the WMST-L Listserv.

The thing about "barbaric."

I wrote this post last month, at the same time that I wrote my FGE post, but it's timely to post it now as I've just seen this response to the FGE post. The blogger, and a commenter, as well, suggest that "barbaric" is not, in and of itself, a problematic word to use. Below are my thoughts.

In the discussion on FGE that I mentioned, one angry woman, who didn't understand why Western women's opposition to the practice was perceived as imperialist, challenged someone else's comment that "barbaric" was an offensive term. Why, she asked, did we consider "barbaric" to be imperialist and offensive?

The obvious answer is that we in the West, particularly but not exclusively white women, tend to use "barbaric" only to talk about "other" cultures. For example, we almost never call "barbaric" the mainstream forms of body modification, such as high heels. Partly, this is because when we compare high heels to, say, foot binding, we feel safe in the knowledge that high heels only deform the foot and leg a little, and they may slow some women down, but they at least leave her mobile. So, we see high heels on a spectrum, and on the spectrum, they're not so bad.

We also tend to see mainstream forms of body modification as, well, mainstream - fairly safe, fairly accepted (except by radical feminists, bless their hearts, who remind us of what these practices actually do to our bodies), things that don't make us gasp. Pierced ears, for example. Tattoos. Many plastic surgeries are quickly becoming these kinds of accepted practices, such as breast augmentations and lifts and reshapings, or stomach "tucks", or face lifts. Many of these things hurt (a lot or a little), but the person having them done recovers, and our perception is that they are not life-threatening (though certain plastic surgeries that are common, like liposuction, are) nor do they impede sexual pleasure (though breast surgeries frequently result in significant loss of sensation). When it comes to more extreme types of body modification, things that are not so mainstream - like tongue-splitting, for example, or even, for many, spreaders in ear piercings - we are quick to say "barbaric!" because it doesn't describe many of us, or our family members, or our friends.

Against footbinding and FGE, these procedures look tame.

IGM (Intersex Genital Mutilation), performed on nonconsenting infants and children, and male circumcision, also performed on nonconsenting infants and frequently without anesthetic, are not really taken seriously by some feminists. Many pooh-pooh objections to these practices as a waste of time, when there are more serious issues, like FGE, to address. Some point out that IGM (they often don't call it this - they feel that using this terminology diminishes the brutality of FGM) only affects a very small percentage ofthe population. And often, it is pointed out that male circumcision doesn't have lasting negative effects, or if it does (loss of some, but not most, sensation), they are minor.

Maybe it's time now to define "barbaric".
From Merriam-Webster:
"1 a: of, relating to, or characteristic of barbarians b: possessing or characteristic of a cultural level more complex than primitive savagery but less sophisticated than advanced civilization
2 a: marked by a lack of restraint : wild b: having a bizarre, primitive, or unsophisticated quality."

So "barbaric" means primitive, wild, unsophisticated, savage. These are terms that have historically, repeatedly and EXCLUSIVELY been used to refer to people of color and poor people.

And yet - we use them to talk about a certain level of brutality, right? While we refuse to see the brutality within our own culture.

I could post pictures of IGM to prove a point - or, for that matter, videos of plastic surgeries - but I won't.

Finally, I'd like to suggest that "barbaric," in addition to being a racist term, is also offensive in that it comes from "barbarian." Terry Jones (yes, THAT Terry Jones) writes in his book, Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History:

"Nobody ever called themselves 'barbarians'. It's not that sort of word. It's a word used about other people. In fact, it's a form of otherness. It has been used by the Ancient Greeks to describe non-Greek people whose language they couldn't understand and who therefore seemed to babble unintelligibly...The Romans adopted the Greek word and used it to label (and usually libel) the people who surrounded their own world.

Once the term had the might and majesty of Rome behind it, the Roman interpretation became the only one that counted, and the peoples whom they called Barbarians became forever branded - be they Spaniards, Britons, Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Persians or Syrians. And of course 'barbarian' has become a by-word for the very opposite of everything we consider civilized. In contrast to the Romans, the Barbarians were lacking in refinement, primitive, ignorant, brutal, rapacious, destructive and cruel.

...

We actually owe far more to the so-called 'barbarians' than we do to the men in togas. And that fact that we still think of the Celts, the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, the Visigoths and so on as 'barbarians' means that we have all fallen hook, line and sinker for Roman propaganda...Now, however, we are beginning to realize that the story of a descent from the light of Rome to the darkness of Barbarian dominion is completely false."

So let's just examine our subject positions, shall we, when we invoke words like "barbaric" and use them, both to slander ancient civilizations as well as contemporary cultures? Perhaps there is more accurate and honest, and less imperialist, language we can use to mount a critique that will help save women's and children's bodies. Perhaps there are better ways to be allies than by pointing out how wild and savage those "other" cultures are.

Racism, feminism, and the issue of FGE.

Once again, a dust-up around FGE (Female Genital Excision) has erupted on a professional listserv that I am on, and once again, the mere mention of the practice has prompted all kinds of accusations and leaping to conclusions.

It used to be that we - "we" being Western feminists - used the term FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). We did this because that's how we saw it. Only - surprise! - African* women don't like being told they have mutilated genitals. And, too, they didn't appreciate the Western imperialist approach that cast their societies as backward and evil, while Western feminists ignored the brutalities within our own cultures. (This is where some readers on the professional listserv said to themselves, "aha! She said there are brutalities within our cultures! She is equating FGM (they don't much care what language other people choose) with things like high heels and male circumcision!" More on this in a minute.)

African women have tended to use the term FGE to describe the practice. Other terms that are used in an attempt to work with African women as allies and to be respectful and culturally sensitive include FGS (Female Genital Surgery) and FGC (Female Genital Cutting). There are, indeed, many terms in use, and there are politics around which terms one uses. One may be completely opposed to the practice and call it "cirucmcision," for example, which is a word that many Western feminists oppose because they think it doesn't do justice to the "barbaric" nature of the practice. (They get mad, too, when you try to point out the racist and imperialist attitudes that are illustrated by using words like "barbaric" to talk about non-Western cultures.)

There seems to be no way to get a certain segment of the feminist population to understand that it is possible both to oppose practices like FGE and still seek to use respectful terminology. This is perceived as attempting to "whitewash" (an interesting phrase, since we're talking about mostly White women slinging racist slurs as mostly Black women) the issue. In fact, on several occasions when this issue has come up, it has progressed in the following way:
1) Someone uses terminology that is other than "mutilation," or suggests that Western women have been imperialist in their approach to the problem in the past;
2) Someone responds with, "how can you not care about this terrible practice?! If you think it's so great, why don't you have it done?!"

And immediately, it is third grade, and we are on the playground again.

Meanwhile, what does it do for African women in America when so many American feminists have considered opinions about their genitals? I'm not saying we shouldn't care about FGE, and I do oppose it. But I mean, we don't say, "What can I do to help?" Instead, we say, "Those poor women have mutilated genitals! Ew! How disgusting and horrific! I'm so lucky that I live somewhere where that wouldn't happen to me!" And then we go off to the bathroom to vomit our lunches, or to the dermatologist for our Botox, or to the plastic surgeon for a boob job, or whatever.
Again - not equating. But why are we so fixated - to the point of distraction, really - with Black women's genitals? And meanwhile, the women whose vaginas so intrigue us may not have clean water, or adequate shelter. They may be living, for the short remainder of their lives, with HIV. They may be being raped repeatedly when they leave the refugee camp to get water and firewood.

One feminist (who gave me permission to post this here) wrote the following on the listserv:

I just want to ask why [FGS] is getting so much attention when, if you poll a large number of women on the African continent, I have the sneaking suspicion that FGS would not top the list of priorities with regards to the struggles they face as "Global South" women. (This isn't to say FGS would not be listed as an issue of concern, but would this be the main issue?)

I've been wondering about feminist discourse of late and whether or not we can truly transcend our "vagina" politics (monologues or dialogues) to create complex perspectives about women's experiences and struggles for social change and social justice.

If we continue to get stuck viewing all women's struggles as only existing between her legs, we are going to miss viewing these issues through a wider lens and to assess our body politics within the larger political arena of neocolonialism, global poverty, etc.

One thing I know, without knowing the different ways in which FGS is practiced, is that these practices do not exist in a vacuum.

One thing I also know is that I will not teach on the subject of FGS in my Women's Studies classroom. I don't feel like reducing present-day African woman's bodies to their genitalia - with the historical examples of Sara Baartman, the "Hottentot Venus," and enslaved women, I think more than enough of us have been contemplating and capitalizing on their vaginas for far too long.

I am dismayed that prominent feminists cannot, or will not, hear the voices of women of color telling them "I want your help, but I don't want you to cast me as someone with a mutilated vulva and vagina. I don't want to be an object of pity. I don't want you to talk about my culture in ways that focus only on the problems, while you proclaim yourselves to be the Great White Hope and ignore your own racism, ethnocentricism, and imperialism in approaching me. I want to speak for myself, and I want you to respect me and to listen."

It is, of course, the same debate over and over again. Trans. Sex work.** Racism in the Women's Movement and in Women's Studies. "I will not use your language because it does not say what I want it to say. It says what you want it to say, but you are not in a position to name yourself. You do not speak for women. I am your rescuer. Shut up and let me rescue you."



*Africa is not the only place in which FGE is practiced, but this discussion focused on Africa.
**The feminist who let me post her words would disagree vehemently would this connection. I don't want it to appear that she shares my particular argument re. sex work.

"If someone said that about a Black person..."

I've been thinking - yet again - about the use of race as an analogy in discussions about the primaries. In Robin Morgan's "Goodbye #2," Morgan repeatedly makes mention of race. However, she does not mention race in order to talk about moments of racism that Barack Obama, or, indeed, any Black American has faced. She mentions it as a measuring stick. Her sole purpose in mentioning race is to suggest that, while there is no tolerance of racism (a big "HA!" must be inserted here, or I shall go crazy), there is tolerance of sexism. And so, she repeatedly suggests that if [insert racist image/comment/stereotype] were employed against Obama, we as a nation would not tolerate it.

I'm not going to refute this here, as I've already done so the other day. But what I do want to note is just how often I hear this phrase: "If it were about Blacks, it wouldn't be ok."

I've heard it so frequently lately, and not just in relation to Hillary Clinton, but about l/g/b/t rights issues, that the phrase is literally begining to ring in my head. I will admit, I have said it myself in the past. I have seen it as a valid thing to say. After all, the point is that we, as a nation, have come to recognize that some comments/stereotypes/behaviors are just not cool. The public response has shifted. Black people are now, some of us White people have thought, seen as fully human by the larger (White) American public, where once they were not.

Here's the problem (again, leaving aside the issues of whether racism still exists (Duh!)): in referencing race and racism in this way, we are USING other people's oppression for our own advancement. And on top of that, we are MINIMIZING other people's suffering.

When, for example, Robin Morgan mentions "this nation's deepest scar - slavery" and then goes on to completely ignore the legacy of slavery, the suffering of an enslaved people, the devastation that this wreaks - that is using Black suffering to make a point. She wants us to hear that women are sexual slaves. Why not just say that? Why, in order to drive home the point that something must not be tolerated, must we refer so dismissively to someone else's suffering?

And further, why must oppression against one group of people be measured by whether or not it would be tolerated against another group of people? And how must it feel, as a Black lesbian, for example, to hear White queer people confronting homophobia by arguing, in essence, that since we can't use racial slurs, we shouldn't be allowed to use homophobic slurs? (No, no one really argues that, but that is part and parcel of using Blackness as a stepping-stone for the advancement of another political agenda.)

It's time, White people, to stop referring to what gains Blacks have won as a way to make a point about what struggles still need to be fought. We should be able to call a crime a crime without running it past the Black-o-meter. We should be able to simply say, "that's hateful and oppressive." And - oh, yeah - we should be able to fight on more than one front. Racism is still with us, and I don't believe it will ever go away. With that in mind, it is far more appropriate to focus on how racism and homophobia are connected, how racism and sexism are intertwined, than to suggest that the Black battle has been won and that the rest of us are simply playing catch-up.

I'm off...

OK, my little chickadees, I'm heading to Vegas for the weekend. When I get back, I will try to post on Black Feminist Thought, as it is Black History Month and as I just taught this topic tonight!

Now, I must go pack.

Last night was hell, but I'm glad I did it.

It took about twenty minutes just to find a parking spot. Then we had to stand a block away, in the cold, waiting in line to even enter the building. Once inside the building, we were packed in like sardines (I'm NOT kidding). It took another twenty minutes or more just to get to the right room because of the crowds. There were so many people that I has hanging on tight to Bean, for fear of losing him.

All the good swag was gone, of course. I asked for an Al Franken sticker (I wanted to keep it as a memento), but the guy peeled it off so I had to wear it.

I am not registered to vote in Minnesota. They didn't even look at my ID. They just had me write my name and address in their files and sign. I was planning on not registering for a particular party, but for all I know, they may have registered me as a DFL-er.

They gave me a tiny blue square of paper with a full list of names, including all the folks who've dropped out. I had to borrow a pen. I marked off my candidate, dropped my bit of paper into a cardboard box that reminded me of the boxes you make in Kindergarten to collect Valentines, and left. As I was walking out the door, the caucuses had been going for only an hour, and one of the guys staffing the door said to someone else, "We've already had 10,000 more than last time." (Imagine that amount of people - 10,000 MORE - in your average small junior high school! Now imagine that all those people came through in one and a half hours, because the caucusing only went from 6:30-8.)

The whole thing took about an hour or more, and at several points I almost gave up and went home. But, I'm glad I stayed.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man.

Lately, it seems, feminists who should know better - including feminist academics - are saying some really cringe-worthy things in the course of defending Hillary as a candidate. For instance, I'm really sick of hearing - and I have now heard this from several sources - that overt racism is no longer acceptable while overt sexism is, and that therefore, Hillary is getting the worst of the abuse. Yet, some of these same (White) people will turn around and confide that they are worried that if Obama were elected, someone would assassinate him. I have not yet heard from anyone the concern that Hillary would be a target for an assassination. She might be told to iron someone's shirts, and she might have her appearance repeatedly analyzed, and she might have to pander to the American public's need for her to be both strong and warm, feminine and powerful, but she is probably not in great danger of assassination for being a woman.

It may not be acceptable to say "the n-word" on broadcast television, but it is apparently acceptable to let hundreds of Black people drown rather than rescue them from a flood that everyone knew was coming and that we had resources to rescue them from. The number of Black men in the prison system is epidemic, and they are there while White men who commit the same crimes receive lesser sentences - or no sentences. Black women are far more likely to die from preventable and treatable diseases than are White women because they do not have access to healthcare and because the healthcare system doesn't give a damn about them when they try to get help (witness the woman who just died in her home in the Twin Cities because her doctor didn't believe anything was wrong with here when she went to see him, and sent her home). Is someone really going to tell me that this is not overt, public racism?

I've also heard more than one person refer to this as being another case in which Americans must decide who goes first: Black men or White women. If that's true, and if people are really thinking this way, then it is also likely to be another case in which White feminists will sell out American Blacks without a second thought. Again.

I've heard a lot of talk about how, if Obama were a woman, no one would look twice at him, at that Obama woman with "no experience." (No one ever mentions that being Black might have anything to do with that - nope, it's all about gender.) I've heard that if Hillary weren't a woman, she wouldn't have had to deal with all the scrutiny and nasty comments (probably true) and would therefore be way ahead in the race (like John Edwards, the White guy?).

But so far, I haven't seen anyone really examine what it might mean for the race if Hillary were a White man. So let's consider it, and let's think particularly about what kind of support she'd be getting among feminists and among women more generally.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, then all the White feminists who are furiously fanning themselves at the thought of having to choose between betraying womankind and looking like a racist would immediately back Obama. They would point out that we've had enough White men in the White House, and that this is a historic moment for change. National feminist organizations would be falling all over themselves to be first to endorse him. Meanwhile, they would be pointing to Hillary's war record as signs of disregard for the poor people and people of color who have had to give their lives for the war.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, her comment about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work only coming to fruition because of the work of a benevolent president would have drawn criticism from White feminists.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, there would be more, not fewer, remarks about how she would continue Bill's legacy (were she his son).

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, we'd be looking now at a race between Edwards and Obama.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, no one would accuse female Obama supporters of voting with their crotches. (Interesting that no one said this about Edwards supporters. And, what, are there no lesbians supporting Obama? Hmm.) Instead, they'd be accusing female Clinton supporters of voting with their crotches.

If Hillary Clinton were a White man, at least I wouldn't have to listen to what is passing for feminism but is really thinly disguised racism.

Hello, Media?

They are not "suicide bombings" if they aren't suicides. Women used "unwittingly" to deliver bombs aren't committing suicide. They are being murdered.

Heterosexuality, intercourse, and rape.

A commenter at Heart's writes:
"...the relationship I have with my current partner is the first one where we have not been physical. And in fact, it’s the first relationship where I have known true intimacy. What the patriarchy thinks of as intimacy is only a shadow of what my partner and I have. More is conveyed in the simple touch of a hand or in a look than can ever be done with genital contact.

My previous sexual experiences can best be described as a series of rapes. They were with men who all were completely dominant over me. The sex just reinforced that dominance. That’s what sex is: a means to control and subjugate wymmyn. It’s a form of abuse, plain and simple. The worst part is, they were all rapists and didn’t even know it. My heart weeps for the wymmyn those men ended up with. They’re rape victims. All heterosexual wymmyn are."

I can understand trying to find ways to relate to each other that are not "male" or that do not involve treating the other person like a sex object. But this comment - and another commenter who immediately agreed that all heterosexual women were rape victims - makes me wonder what the goal really is, here.

Radical feminism has always sought to explore healthy feminist sexuality without tones of "male sexuality." Radical feminism generally opposed pornography and tried (unsuccessfully, but it was a sincere effort) to draw a line between "erotica" and "pornography," with the distinction that the latter objectified women. (As we know from the history of legislation surrounding pornography, there has never been a commonly-agreed-upon definition for "pornography" that tells us, when we look at a picture, whether or not it is pornographic. The same is true for "erotica." When I was in college in the late '80s, some of us distinguished between the two as erotica being "sensual" and pornography being "sexual" - a popular distinction during this time - but feminist theorists generally gave up on this distinction because it was still too muddy.)

But what I see in this comment does not seem to be about developing a feminist, woman-centered sexuality. True, it is about developing intimacy, and people do often embrace celibacy, alone or with partners, in order to put their energies into something else, whether that be spiritual or emotional or whatever. I think developing this kind of intimacy should be respected. It isn't easy, and I think it's great that people can do it and want to do it.

However.

When someone moves from saying, "I was dominated in my relationships with men"* to saying, "all heterosexual women are rape victims," and in the context of promoting a celibate life, then I have to wonder, first, if the goal is to eradicate sex from relationships because of a belief that sex, itself, is harmful to women. "Sex" hasn't been defined here, so I don't know if we are talking about penetration, orgasm, or what. And, too, when we talk about "all heterosexual women," we need to remember that the same variety of sexual experience applies. Plenty of heterosexual women don't have intercourse but have other kinds of sex. Are they rape victims, or are we only talking about intercourse? Is the assumption that heterosexual women never want to have sex of any kind with their partners? That they are never freely able to make decisions about their sexualities and sexual relationships?

There's a really good argument to be made - and Andrea Dworkin made it, in Intercourse - that we as a culture have constructed violence and force into heterosexual intercourse. Here is how she supports this claim (and in this next part I am actually drawing from Laura Carpenter's work, but the following paragraph is from Dworkin): we think of virginity loss as only happening in relation to heterosexual intercourse, which is, as sex goes, a male-defined act. It is "male-defined" because it is dependent on the penis: we know it has occurred only if a penis has entered a vagina and ejaculated. Whether or not the woman orgasms is immaterial.

Dworkin reminds us that we think of virginity loss as something that happens in one, forceful moment; we accept that it involves tearing and pain. We never question this reality. But Dworkin points out that vaginal walls stretch, that over time, they can accomodate, and that we *could* think of first intercourse as a gentle process that occurs over time. We don't. That tells us something about how female and male sexualities are perceived in our culture, and about how men and women are perceived in our culture, and about the ways in which female sexuality and experience is already defined for us, before we even get to explore it for ourselves.

So there is good reason to challenge patriarchal notions of sexuality. I would even go so far as to suggest that there is a "gray area" - that there is, in fact, cultural coercion - operating on women in regard to sex in general. Intercourse is central to the notion of heterosexuality, which is not to say that there aren't many heterosexual people who have more enlightened perspectives on their own sexualities and who can make honest choices to engage in whatever kind of sex they want to engage in.

I'm not saying that intercourse is rape. I am saying that the fact that we assume, as a culture, that it is inevitable that a woman will engage in this kind of sexual practice; that the fact that we assume, as a culture, that virginity loss must be painful; that the fact that we assume, as a culture, that female pleasure doesn't matter, but male pleasure does, in determining whether sex has been had - all of these things add up to a loss of some agency, a loss of some options, on the part of women AND of men. And there are, therefore, times when intercourse is culturally coerced (not unlike Rich's notion of compulsory heterosexuality).

But even given that, that is a huge step away from claiming that all heterosexual women are rape victims, which is something that even Dworkin didn't claim. Such a claim mimimizes the reality of rape and the agency of women who have taken risks to explore and defend their sexualities. It suggests that there is no difference between consensual sex and the actual brutality of forced sex. It also posits, once again, the notion that women who are not heterosexual are, simply by virtue of their sexual identity labels, free of rape (not true - rape occurs within women-women relationships, and women who love women are still raped by men). Finally, it suggests that men exist in all of this only as a harmful force, that men who have sex with women are always raping them because men+sex=rape. (As an aside, this is not a real helpful construction for those of us who work with boys and men to take leadership in stopping rape and sexual assault.)

None of this is feminist (nor, sadly, is it original). This commenter is really quite revolutionary - building a relationship on an emotional connection rather than on sex is radical and inspiring. But it would be nice if the justification for that act could be in the good that comes out of it, and not in the assumption that one experience is universal, nor in identity politics posturing.


*I'm using quotation marks here, not to quote verbatim, but to quote approximate ideas. I'm also not quoting the commenter's spelling of "woman" and "women," because I wrote like that for while and I find it annoying now.

Warning: rambly post.

No, seriously, this is just a long ramble, and there isn't any neat coming together point. If you are in search of something meaningful and profound, turn back now.

So, I'm going to Las Vegas. For a conference. And here's the thing: one of the bragging points about this conference site, according to the folks putting on the conference, is that it's a NON-GAMING HOTEL.

"The fuck?"* you may ask, incredulously, as I did. But yes, this is a selling point.

Now - what is the point of going to Vegas if not to gamble? I'm not going to see Cirque du Soleil, which I can watch on t.v. any time I want, but which I really have no desire to do, anyway. I'm not going to see Barry Manilow, though a friend of mine was really disappointed that he won't be there then and so is going to see Cirque du Soleil. I'm going to the conference, and I'm bringing $20 or $40 that is set aside to be turned into quarters and fed to the gods of the slot machines.

Is this a feminist thing or is it just a confusion about entitlement and individual rights? I mean, I know that addiction is addiction, and I don't want to make people feel that they can't come to the conference because they can't be tempted, but I'm doubtful that gambling addictions among the membership is the reason for this. It may be that this group of feminists doesn't want to support a hotel that supports gambling and thus feeds off of others' addictions, and I can respect that, but at the same time, I'm not really convinced that this is the same animal as, say, avoiding non-unionized hotels. And plus, it's VEGAS. It's not like the conference is in Windsor or Niagara Falls or someplace that doesn't have a reputation for gambling (and prostitution, for that matter).

Feminist circles - at least some of the ones I travel in - are known for trying to accomodate everyone's needs. (Aside: Doesn't that sound a lot nicer than saying something like "Feminist circles are known for policing everyone's behavior?" Because at least in this case, I think it's really about trying to meet needs of a vast and diverse group.) In the NWSA, for example (not the conference that is happening in Vegas), there are always struggles between different constituencies. The Disability Caucus gets pissed off when Caucus business meetings are scheduled for early in the morning because many of the people who have disabilities have ones that are worse in the morning - more painful, more flare-uppy, etc. The Disability Caucus also points out that people with disabilities need to stay in hotels rather than on college campuses, so that they have (hopefully) easy access to sessions within one large and accessible building and so that they have air conditioning (not available on college campuses in June). This is a moot point now, anyway, since next year, the conference will move to the fall and will always be held in hotels, but still, holding the conference at hotels has angered the Women of Color Caucus and others who point out that this is far more expensive than staying on campus and that many WoC are priced out of attending at all. There are always some sanctimonius vegetarians/vegans who complain about the food available - ok, I know, this is really harsh of me, but fer crissakes, the world does not cater to most of us, and if you're going to attend a conference at a hotel, you should expect that it will not have much in the way of vegetarian/vegan food because, really, WHERE IN THE COUNTRY HAS MUCH IN THE WAY OF VEGETARIAN/VEGAN FOOD?! Not many places. And this is not the NWSA's fault.

OK, so I've gotten off-topic, but the point is, it's one thing to try to accomodate everyone. I think we *should* try to accomodate everyone, not just in feminist circles, but in general. I mean, that's part of respecting each other, isn't it? And the concerns of the Women of Color Caucus and the Disability Caucus are valid concerns (and they are exempted from the next sentence). But I also think that there's a point where some people begin to demand for themselves an experience in life that most people simply do not have. It seems to me to be a kind of arrogance to go to Vegas and insist on staying away from even the hint of gambling, or to go to New Orleans and complain that there is a lack of vegetarian food (I'm reaching, here, but you all know what I mean, I hope), or to complain about the service in the hotel restaurant at all (it's a freakin' hotel restaurant, and you are not so special, so just sit tight and wait). Or to claim that being asked not to wear perfume so as not to aggravate people with environmental sensitivity challenges one's identity as a person who has a particular scent. I've heard feminists say/do all of these things.

What I'm really getting at is that some feminists use feminism for their own purposes of entitlement. This is certainly not unique to feminists - I mean, the Christian Right does this all the time when they claim to be an oppressed group that is offended by a particular book in a library or Halloween parties or the fact that December holidays other than Christmas do exist. Instead of recognizing that there are lots of other people around who also count, they make it all about them and cast everyone else as the oppressor. But when feminists do it, it particularly peeves me, because I would like for feminists to be above reproach. And we're not, of course, because no one is, but I would still like for us to be.

But see, I think when you're trying to live out a principle, one of two things happen. Either you get frustrated because you feel that while you are trying very hard to be sensitive to all these other folks, no one is paying attention to who *you* are and what *your* needs are, so you get to a point of saying, "heck with this, I'm forming my own group to focus on people like me" - or you end up saying really preposterous things in the service of protecting some other that everyone but you recognizes that you see as other.

I sometimes think that, as feminists, we have too many rules about what we can do and say and think in order to be *good* feminists. I've just been pointed to a blog discussion from last August that I mercifully missed the first time around, and about halfway through the several hundred comments, I realized that the core of the whole debate was in the definition of "feminist," and that half the commenters were leaving it open to people to decide for themselves whether or not they fit under that moniker, and that the other half not only knew damn well that they were defining the term very specifically so as to leave out a good number of people who described themselves as feminists, but they were also being passive aggressive and not saying this straight out until well on into the fray. And that's where I just threw up my hands in disgust and heard myself saying "blah blah blah" as I was reading one of the more obnoxious posts about what feminism IS and what it ISN'T, which was based entirely on that commenter's personal taste but being presented as solid fact. And further, the very fact that someone had dared to ask questions about feminism that these commenters didn't approve of was seen as encroachment on their territory as feminists. So in this case, the very claiming of "feminist" as an identity label was being approached as an entitlement, as something that various people felt they had the right to control.

I told you there was no neat coming together point here.

*My friend's mom reads this blog, or at least she used to, and whenever I swear here, I always think of her and kind of blush.

Marriage advice.

Yet another friend/student/acquaintance (does it matter? if you're reading this and think I'm talking about you, I'm probably not - that's how often I hear this news) has decided to tie the knot. After far too short a time dating, in my opinion. And frequently, at far too young an age.

What is it that explains this mad rush for the altar? What makes people decide, "hey, this one is different, I love him/her, we're getting married - NOW"? It isn't so much that they all go for the ring as it is that they seem to have an urgency about it.

And so I say, "hey, that's great, I'm glad you're happy, congratulations." And I mean it, sort of. I *am* glad that they're happy, and that they've found someone they see as a soulmate. I'm glad that they feel part of someone else and that they are loved and loving.

But what I don't say, and what I also mean - and if you are planning on getting hitched at some point soon, you might want to skip this part or risk having your bubble burst or getting pissed off - is that it's damn stupid to marry someone you've only been dating for a few months or a couple of years.

I didn't used to feel this way, but I've seen a few too many divorces on the heels of marriages after short courtships (and this goes for both different- and same-sex couples). RIGHT on the heels. In fact, so soon after that part of me wonders whether or not the "happy couple" should return their wedding gifts.

I think getting married puts tremendous pressure on a relationship, and that this pressure is exponentially greater 1) the shorter the length of time the couple has been together, 2) the younger the couple is, and 3) the less the amount of shit the couple has been through together. (If you're already living together, that helps some with 3, because living together can count as going through shit.)

And I also notice that, very often, this rush to the altar occurs simultaneously with other big changes - say, graduation from college, or the recent break-up of a previous relationship (yes, they happen that quickly). It's as if these folks are thinking, "My life is uncertain now. I need to do something to make it feel more stable and less out of control."

I just don't think that marriage is the answer, at least not if what you're looking for in marriage is stability and permanency.

Or, to put it another way, I've come to feel that marriage isn't something we should look at as the preferable way for young people to "begin" their lives together. I think we should look at it as a way for people to formalize, if necessary, a connection between lives that have already been lived together for some time.

Things you should know about.

1) A new mothering blog, this one on Black mothers in academe. Sekile (in Rochester! Near my old stomping grounds!) writes: "I've recently jumped on the blogging band wagon. My decision to blog is partially for personal reasons, needing a place to dump/reflect on my realities as a mother and an academic. However, I also have done some preliminary research on the intersection of black women, mothering, and academia and hope to continue in this direction this year. There is some emerging literature on black women in the academy as well literature on mothering in the academy however the realities of black women who choose to mother has been given little attention. Anyway, my hope is that this forum will allow me to be less splintered in my life by blending both personal and professional. The blog is bare
bones right now but I hope to add resources and other elements as it matures. In the meantime please spread the word to women who may be interested in it or my research. By the way, I'm also interested in hearing from black women who choice not to mother as well, your voices are just as valuable to me as I gain deeper understanding of Black women's realities on college campuses."

2) You know how much I love overhearing funny bits of other people's conversations? At least as much as Green loves seeing people trip. So I was thrilled to find My Pointy Ears Are Up, and since Pinky appears to be here in town, I'll have to watch to see if I'm ever quoted. (Psst - Pinky! Update!)

3) Spread the word about the NWSA Women of Color Leadership Project (and apply!).

4) I also discovered Double Hoo today. I don't know what a "double Hoo" is, but I'm sure if I read enough posts, I will figure it out.

5) The fact that I was able to do this is a privilege. Don't think I haven't been thinking this all day, or that I'm not trying to figure out where exactly this expense is going to be made up (thank goodness for my job, for interest-free credit cards, for overload courses, and for Mr. P's freelance work). But this week, my cat's trip to the vet ended up costing me the equivalent of one month's rent.

Kitty update.

Thanks to all who have expressed kind wishes for my cat (and sympathetic wishes for me). As a recap, she has been peeing outside the box, licking fur off her tummy (which I'm told can be a form of self-comfort in the face of stress, perhaps induced by moving and by the lack of Mr. P's presence for most of the fall), and she seems to have some kind of urinary tract something or other.

I managed to get her back to the vet's for the follow-up appt. this morning - which took two hours - without her peeing in the cat carrier (!).
They aren't convinced that she has a UTI, though they are keeping her on the abx (they did a culture, and it didn't grow anything, but they think it might just be difficult to grow. Huh. So much I don't know about medicine.). She has had bloodwork and x-rays, and she will be having an ultrasound this afternoon to make sure that she doesn't have a mass in her bladder.

Meanwhile, there are plans to put her on kitty anti-depressants. (Stifling negative thoughts, taking vitamins, and fighting for social change just doesn't work so well for kitties.) On the drug information the vet gave me, it reads "has been used in animals for separation anxiety, for inappropriate urination in cats, for feline lower urinary tract disease, and for obsessive grooming behaviors."

Doesn't that sound perfect? Happy pill, indeed!

3 Hours and $230 later...

...my cat has antibiotics for a perceived UTI; my gym bag, blankets, and iRiver arm band have been thoroughly sprayed with Nature's Miracle and are in the wash right now; all bags of any kind have been put in closets to deter anyone who thinks the litterbox is not a good enough place to pee; my windshield has a nearly full-length horizontal crack in it, which is what happens, apparently, when it's -9 degrees and you put the heat on full blast to keep your cat from freezing; there are still bloodstains on my white down comforter, on the couch, and likely other places that I have not yet discovered; one of us will have to wrangle the cat twice a day for the next week to give her the medicine, and by "one of us," I mean "me," as Mr. P is heading out of town for a week; and I missed getting to tuck in Bean because I was sitting in the vet's (cold) office.

But the cat is purring contentedly on my lap...

How is it that we still don't get this? Feminism, Lesbianism, Class, and Race.

Various blogs I've read lately have had one or another version of the "gender v. race" discussion. It so happens that I'm reading lesbian feminist theory of one kind or another for class, and so the ways in which white feminists and feminists of color are missing each other (actually, it's more like feminists of color are speaking directly to white feminists, who are looking somewhere above their heads while having their iPods blaring, is what it looks like to me, sometimes) are pretty much whacking me over the head, at the moment.

For this class, I've asked my students to read a number of texts that discuss lesbian identity and feminism. The two I'm thinking about right now are Gloria Anzaldua's (I'm not sure how to insert accent marks in Blogger without first writing this in Word, so I can't spell Anzaldua's name properly) Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza and Dorothy Allison's Skin: Talking about Sex, Class, and Literature.

So what hit me once again as I was reading just now, and what's consequently sent me to the noisy row of computers from the nice, quiet spot where I was reading and contemplating, is the context in which these two women talk about themselves as lesbians and talk about what "lesbian" means.

(Bear with me - the ramifications for feminism, more generally, will become clear.)

Dorothy Allison writes:
"I have known I was a lesbian since I was a teenager, and I have spent a good twenty years making peace with the effects of incest and physical abuse. But what may be the central fact of my life is that I was born in 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina, the bastard daughter of a white woman from a desperately poor family, a girl who had left the seventh grade the year before, worked as a waitress, and was just a month past fifteen when she had me. That fact, the inescapable impact of being born in a condition of poverty that this society finds shameful, contemptible, and somehow deserved, has had dominion over me to such an extent that I have spent my life trying to overcome or deny it. I have learned with great difficulty that the vast majority of people believe that poverty is a voluntary condition."

What this means is that for Allison, CLASS is the central fact of her life. Not gender. Not being a lesbian. She writes about race and gender and sexuality and the way that they all intertwine with class in her life. She says, a bit further on:
"Traditional feminist theory has had a limited understanding of class differences and of how sexuality and self are shaped by both desire and denial" - and quite a bit later - "My sexual identity is intimately constructed by my class and regional background, and much of the hatred directed at my sexual preferences is class hatred - however much people, feminists in particular, like to pretend this is not a factor."

And, by the way, she's talking about hatred directed at her S/M sexual preferences by lesbians, not hatred directed at her lesbianism by the straight community or the larger patriarchy.

What does it mean for feminism that this lesbian activist, who was out in far more dangerous times than these we live in now, still saw class as the fundamental aspect of her identity? That she still saw herself as oppressed by class within feminist communities that were trying to challenge the patriarchy and create something new that was woman-centered and therefore healthy and safe and empowering for women?

Then I think of Anzaldua. Anzaldua's writing about lesbianism is woven so closely into writing about cultural identity that it is difficult to pull out a thread that focuses just on lesbian identity. When I first read this book in graduate school, I tried to do exactly that, to pull out the theory on the "pieces" of identity that I found most interesting. I think I must have believed it was possible to do that, and this is a major problem among white feminists, that many of us still believe that our identities are separate pieces, that gender is the same for all of us. As one commenter posted recently at Belledame's about Black feminists who were protesting Gloria Steinem's NYT piece on Clinton and Obama, "when they stop being oppressed for being Black, they'll still be oppressed for being women." (Which is a deeply problematic statement anyway, as several people pointed out - I mean, when is this day coming when racial oppression will suddenly end? And in what universe is it possible that one form of the intertwined, institutional oppressions will be extracted and eradicated? Oppression doesn't work that way. And neither do most people experience their identities as separable.)

So the point is, if you read Anzaldua, you see via the contrast one excellent example of how white feminism has defined lesbian identity as a sort of stand-alone concept, as something that, by virtue of its whiteness, is focused on the individual and on the individual's ties to a political community that replaces blood family. Also by virtue of its whiteness, this version of lesbian identity is primarily occupied by gender, because awareness of race doesn't really enter into the picture. White lesbian feminists have absolutely tried to address issues of racial oppression, but what I'm talking about is a fundamental lack of awareness of how race functions.

So: How do we define women's issues? How do we define feminism? If we include as women's issues those that involve individual rights (such as abortion) but not those that also involve family and community and culture (such as poverty, lack of access to health care, sovereignty, etc.), then we are defining White Middle-Class Feminism.

Am I really gonna hafta hear "if he were white" all spring?!

Listen: I'm not a fan of politicians. Politicians spin truth, to put it nicely. They do what is politically expedient to do. And I don't like the feeling I've had (and I'm not alone) that Hillary assumes (and that the DNC assumes) that she'll be the Presidential candidate next fall because she's the institutional candidate, the one who represents the status quo for Democrats.

But tonight I wandered over here, where, in the comments, I got to hear a "feminist" try to defend Hillary with comments about how, "if Obama were white," he wouldn't be drawing anyone's interest, and where I got to hear another commenter attribute Hillary's viability as a candidate to her husband. I mean, is there anything more racist than suggesting that a man only got where he is because he's Black? Or more sexist than saying that a woman wouldn't be a strong candidate without her husband? (YES, I know that we're talking about Bill Clinton. NO, I'm not saying he has nothing to do with her popularity. But let's remember, Hillary Clinton is also probably the Most Hated Woman in America, and a huge part of that is due to her husband. So, a little perspective, please.)

Let's remember that, whatever we think of them as candidates, these are Senators who have actually accumulated some degree of experience, power, money, and prestige on their own. If we're going to discredit them, can we do so because they're too conservative or because they have rotten voting records or because they're saying stupid things and acting like asses? And can we leave the racism and the sexism out of it? In liberal circles? Please?

Self-Righteous Racism (and Minnesota Nice)

Here is a tale of much fucked-upness.

So, I get home from work today, and my Downstairs Neighbor (DN) is waiting for me. She asks if I've heard from LandLord (LL). I have not. She gives me a *look* and says, "well, she's called me three times to tell me my car is parked in front of the neighbor's house. It isn't. I told her the first time it was your car."

Let me back up. Between us, DN and Mr. Plain(s)feminist and I have four cars. Now that Mr. P is living here, both of our cars, and one of DN's cars, are on the street in front of our house, because LL has not yet fixed our garage doors, which stopped opening last month. So, for the past week or so, Mr. P or I have been parking in front of the house next door. I've felt badly about it, but it couldn't be helped; there is no other place to park. I mean, no matter where I park, it will be in front of someone else's house, and I figured that it was temporary, and that the garage would be fixed soon, so it wasn't too big of a deal.

NextDoor Neighbor (NXDN) has "issues" with her parking space, and is very uncomfortable with anyone parking in front of her house. She hates to use her garage, you see, and was clearly beside herself that anyone would park in front of her house. Anyway, I had no idea that she was so upset until today, when I heard that she had been calling LL to complain. Rather than come next door and knock on the door and ask us if we could please park down the street a little further, she called LL. (When I spoke with NXDN today, she suggested that perhaps I wasn't used to living in the city and didn't understand city etiquette, which entailed not parking in front of someone else's house. I pointed out that I'd lived in several cities, and that where I was from, when a neighbor had a problem with another neighbor, they would go next door to discuss it with them.)

Let's examine this, shall we? What kind of privilege does one need to have to not think that maybe calling someone's landlord to complain about them might have consequences for the tenant? And further, what would make someone call the landlord rather than just calling the next door neighbor?

When NXDN called LL, she mentioned the green car, which was mine. DN has a green truck. LL called DN to complain about her green truck. DN told LL it was my green *car* and not her green *truck*, and that LL should call me. LL didn't. Then she called DN twice more over the next several days to tell her to move her car (which was not parked in front of NXDN's house). Meanwhile, when DN calls LL, LL doesn't return her calls. When I call, though, LL returns my calls immediately. And while LL doesn't get most things fixed promptly, she does seem to make an effort to fix the things *I* call about. (DN's garage door didn't get fixed until *I* called about it.)

While I was talking with DN, then NXDN, then DN again, I later learned, LL was on the phone, now finally having decided to yell at Mr. P, who reminded her that if she'd fix the garage door, we wouldn't have this problem (which shut her up).

So the consequence of NXDN calling LL, in this instance, is that DN, one of the best neighbors I've ever had, and a friend, was blamed for my error and is now beside herself, sick of the shit and ready to find another place to live.

You know, I get the territorial behavior over the parking space. I get that NXDN wants things to be the way they always have been, and that she is threatened by people who obviously don't seem to know the rules of her neighborhood and who are messing up her evenings by forcing her to park in the garage, which she's afraid to do at night. I get it because I am exactly the same: I want my parking space, and I don't like parking in the garage, and I feel annoyed when people do little things that make me change my routine. I want my things where I want them, and I want other people to respect my space. And I know that this is petty.

And I also get that she, too, knew that this was petty, and that this is why she called LL instead of tracking me down. It was easier and less direct to call LL than to confront me. It's like when the people down the hall are having a large party and someone calls the police instead of telling them to turn down the music. No one wants to be the "turn down the music" neighbor.

And I get, as well, that in her comfortable life, NXDN didn't think about what it might mean to call the white landlord of a Black tenant to complain about something. She saw "her" space with my car in it, she noticed that DN occasionally parked far enough back that, when I parked behind her, I was in front of NXDN's house. She felt angry in the way that only privileged people can get angry (and I know this, because I've been there, too); angry about something to which she felt entitled but which was not actually hers - there's no law that governs the street - that was suddenly taken away from her.

So NXDN has her parking space back, and DN is in the process of deciding how long to stay here.

Meanwhile, DN offered me her parking space for tonight, so that I could move my car from in front of NXDN's house. (What was that about etiquette?)

5 Things.

Katie tagged me for this, but I'm going to do it a little differently and just list regrets/non regrets rather than listing exactly five of each:

Things I Regret
That I have let fear hold me back in various areas. For example, in college, I never auditioned for any plays because I felt so overwhelmed by the near-professionalism of the students I saw in the Theater Dept. I didn't even know how to prepare for these kinds of auditions, and those kids seemed to have been doing it for all of their lives. I didn't take any film courses because I felt really embarrassed about admitting that I needed help with some of the basics - like, I didn't really know what to DO, and the people who took those courses intimidated me. I also regret that it took me until I was in my late thirties to be brave enough to perform at coffee houses. I do regret that my move to the midwest has meant that I only see my family a few times a year. (On the other hand, they've all rooted themselves on the east coast, and they could always move here if they wanted to...)

Things I Don't Regret
That I kept plugging away at this academic thing and didn't stop applying for jobs, even though I also don't regret that I simultaneously ventured into more creative work when it seemed that a teaching gig might be out of reach. I don't regret at all, even for a second, moving here to take the job I have currently, which I love. I don't regret having a kid.

Tagging: Ren, Green, and all the lurkers who email me that they read my blog but who don't comment.

A response to Steinem (on Clinton).

Nope, it's not mine. Go here. Excerpts:

"Yesterday morning, Gloria Steinem, influential second-wave feminist, weighed in at the New York Times with an opinion piece titled “Women Are Never Front-Runners”. I guess we can tell where she stands in this debate.

(Incidentally, if women are never front-runners, than how did Clinton get as far as she did on the “inevitable pseudo-incumbent” campaign she’s been running that made her the front-runner for most of last year? I find the headline of this piece to be a wee bit of hyperbole.)"

...

"Though she writes, 'I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest', Steinem opens her article with the observation that 'gender is probably the most restricting force in American life'. She continues by implying that the race barrier has largely been resolved, because 'Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women'."

...

"Steinem further suggests that negative treatment (or impossible expectations) of Senator Hillary Clinton stem exclusively from a sexism 'as pervasive as the air we breathe'. She notes that a fictional Achola Obama (who, unlike Senator Obama, doesn’t seem to have achieved anything more than state legislator) would not be seen as electable while Senator Barack Obama – by virtue of his gender, says Steinem – is. Not only does this ignore the very 'un-electable Obama' argument that has been a core component of Clinton’s stump speeches, but Steinem carelessly paints all criticisms of Senator Clinton with the same sexist brush. She notes 'Clinton could not have used Mr. Obama’s public style – or Bill Clinton’s either – without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits'. But, Hillary Clinton has tried: notably in Selma, Alabama earlier this year, when Clinton and Obama delivered back-to-back speeches in neighbouring churches. Obama’s speech was generally heralded as rousing and inspiring. Clinton’s was not criticized as being 'too emotional', but too robotic and fake. In fact, I suspect that Clinton can’t get away with Obama’s or Clinton’s style of speaking not because she’s a woman, but because she’s simply not that charismatic a speaker."

Oh, and if you go over to read the whole thing, skip the comment that completely and utterly misses the point...

And while we're at it, check this out: Hillary isn't the first woman to run for President. I can't believe I forgot about Shirley Chisholm (embarrassed).

Flyin' the friendly skies.

- According to the helpful Northwest phone representatives I spoke with when I was stuck in Detroit during snowstorms a couple of weeks ago, when you are in airline representative holding hell trying to rebook, you should REMAIN SILENT and NOT SELECT ANY NUMERICAL OPTIONS when you get the automated response system. That will bump you immediately to the customer service queue. Also, according to me, if you are using your cell phone during a time of mass flight cancellations and delays, you should immediately hang up and use the dedicated phone lines that you might be able to find in the terminal. They will put you right through. If you stay on your cell phone, however, you will either get bumped off the line repeatedly or wait on hold for the better part of an hour.

- What is the deal with airlines who change their policies about carry-ons from the airline's general policy without noting this in the reservation information? It's always been one briefcase/purse plus one carry-on. I intensely dislike being told upon boarding that I can only carry on one bag, total, and that I need to gate check one of my bags, especially when one bag holds my computer and wallet and the other holds my dvd player, tissues, gum, water, and child-quieting-candy. And when I tell the flight attendant that I need to get on and move the contents of bag 2 into the bags of my travelling companions, I don't appreciate the lecture about how I should have done that before I got on board. Though I did feel badly about making a bit of a scene. Sorry about that. Not your fault, I know, but your airline kinda sucks and should have handled it better.

- A special circle in hell should be reserved for people who put their seats back in coach. There is No. Room. for this kind of behavior. And when I tap you on the shoulder to ask you to please move your seat up because you are knocking the laptop off my kid's tray table, do not ignore me as I tap and "Ma'am?" you and be an ass about it. Just because you're seated directly behind First Class does not entitle you to take up my space. Also, guy in back of me? I totally support you. The gate attendant should not have told you he was going to gate check your bag and then left it there. I'm glad someone picked it up and brought it back to you. The fact that I didn't chime in with a "heck, yeah!" when you pointed out that this was not cool was only due to the fact that everyone on the flight seemed tired and grumpy, and I felt a bit intimidated about speaking up. But I think everyone there had your back.

- Another special circle in hell should be reserved for gate agents who do not announce gate changes. I mean, really, what is up with that? We are all sitting there quietly waiting our turn to get on a plane, and some of us have been there for a long time, so even if you've had a busy day, please, announce the damn gate changes. We're not all watching the boards. Some of us are trying to sleep/read/contain our kids. FWIW, the phone representatives think you suck. The one I spoke with, the one who could hear you announcing that customers should call the phone representatives to rebook, pointed out that she'd been a gate agent for five years, and that she always had to stand there and rebook until the line was gone, and that she was never allowed to tell customers to call the 800 number. She was more than a little pissed about that.

- If you are going to sell $2 half-cans of Pringles and $5 snack boxes, then at least have the decency to have change available. There is just no excuse for that.

Why everyone is not entitled to an opinion about everything.

UPDATED - SEE BELOW.

Actually, the title of this post is about a larger issue, something I've blogged about before - the notion that one is not entitled to believe something abjectly stupid. I mean, I can't prevent you from having an opinion, and I certainly wouldn't try to stop you from proclaiming your ignorance to the world, but I don't think that having a brain gives people an automatice right to hold opinions about things about which they know nothing. Or, to put it another, perhaps clearer, way - I don't think you are entitled to be listened to or respected simply because you have an opinion. All opinions are not created equal.

What this post is really about, though, is the case in point: Elaine Vigneault's opinion of depression and anti-depressants.

Sometimes the watch words are phrases like "I believe." When someone says "I believe" or "my belief is," it can preface almost anything - it can be an informed opinion based on research, or it can be a suggestion that dinosaurs didn't exist, or it can be an explanation of personal faith, or what have you. I note this only because I found the phrase noticeable in this sentence:
"my belief is that depression is a normal state of being, a state some have called the human condition. Not all people are depressed, but such a significant portion of highly intelligent people experience symptoms of a 'disease' called clinical depression that I believe that depressive habits of thought are common enough and safe enough not to warrant a disease classification."

This is not a new idea, certainly, this notion that "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" (see? it's even a bumper sticker!) or that intelligent and creative people are particularly upset about the state of the world and so take to their beds in a kind of melancholia.

But it's also not an accurate definition of "depression." Depression is not dissatisfaction with the world. It is not outrage. It is not sadness. If you imagine depressed people as revolutionaries (which she does - see below), then you're not getting it. Depressed people, people who are depressed enough to go on anti-depressants, often don't make it out of the house. These are people in pain.

Here's the quote:

"My theory is that many people’s depression is anger turned inward. Anger is a powerful emotion that can be both destructive and constructive. Anger that is unjustly aimed inward becomes debilitating depression, but justified anger aimed outward towards things like injustice can be a powerful motivator. I think if more people embraced this view and used their anger as a motivator, we’ve have a revolution and possibly a better world.

There’s a saying, “if you’re not mad as hell, you’re not paying attention.” And another one “ignorance is bliss.” I think both are true. I think happy people are people who wear rose-colored glasses and don’t see reality clearly. That’s not to say happiness is ignorance; I’m saying that constant bliss can only be achieved through drugs, ignorance, or some other form of blurred reality. Occasional bliss is available for anyone willing to accept it: puppy pictures, flower bouquets, a compliment to or from a stranger, a familiar tune, a tickle, a love note, a memory… But constant bliss… that’s not real.

So, anyway, I just think we should be really, really careful about medicating the depressives, because they could be future revolutionaries and powerful dissidents who we need to lead the changes to our social world." (see comment #106)

So, first, Vigneault has a theory about depression (kind of like Elaine Showalter has a theory about chronic fatique syndrome, eh? And not a bad analogy, at all, in terms of the effects these kind of ignorant assertions have on other people's lives). And second, she's basically giving the finger to all the people who are so depressed that it's an effort to get out of bed, the people who think seriously about swerving into oncoming traffic to just make it stop. You know, because the rest of us need their pain so that they can lead us. And third, she's saying that if your anger is turned inward, it's your own damn fault: you could control this if you wanted to and were motivated to do so.

One of my favorite bloggers is Heather Armstrong, who has written frequently about her struggles with depression and her near death from it - and the salvation that has come to her from her meds. Recently, she posted a link to her husband's reflections on living with someone with chronic depression. It's funny that I happened to read this just after reading Vigneault's Tom-Cruise-like response on Feministe. Jon points out that people who make these kinds of comments are really, really not helping: "Stop being an arrogant know-it-all. You aren’t right. You are wrong. If someone tells you they need help, your opinion means less than that of professionals. Stop being ignorant. Stop being obstinate."

Vigneault comes to her postions from her own experiences: she is "seriously against anti-depressants myself because of my own experiences with them and how they fucked me up." OK, that's fine - I have zero problem with that, and most people, I would guess, have zero problem with that. The problem comes in when the leap is made from "they didn't work for me" to "they are horrible and don't work for anyone." She says "my opinions about depression come hard earned." Only her opinions come hard earned, I guess - no one else, in the history of time, has ever had a different, valid, opinion based on experience (forget about research).

She also self-righteously defends her position that anti-depressants are universally dangerous by painting herself as a martyr: "Suffering is the human condition. I choose not to medicate." Which again suggests that her understanding of what depression can become for some people is seriously lacking. Again, it's not that there's a problem with her personal choice not to medicate. It's that she is dismissive of everyone else.

Look - I am skeptical when it comes to the medical monster that is our health care and pharmacological system. I have had anti-depressants practically forced on me and refused them all the same. But I would never take my own experience and decide that it is universal and that everyone else is completely deluded, which is what Vigneault is doing here (to a commenter who says that anti-depressants helped them, she replies "I’d argue about whether they really did the trick or if you just believed they did..."

And, to come back to Elaine Showalter - it's really, really uncool to use the term "hysteria" when talking about treatments for depression or about any health issue, particularly one that predominantly affects women.

This is where I was originally going to end this post, but something's been nagging at me. When I read Vigneault's blog and she expresses her frustration with the negative responses she's been receiving to her comments, I have to wonder if she honestly thinks that this is simply an issue of people not wanting to hear what she's saying and therefore shutting her down. I think she really doesn't get that what people are reacting to is not a criticism of "big pharma" or a healthy suspicion of the diagnosis of an illness and the effects of its treatment, but rather the fact that she comes across as determining for everyone else, for all time, that depression is not a mental illness and that anti-depressants cause brain damage and don't work (oh, and also, that therapy doesn't work, either). It's one thing to launch a criticism - it's another to insist that your criticism is valid because everyone else is just like you.

And if there's one thing we know for sure about brain chemistry, it's that everyone is different.


UPDATE:
Elaine Vigneault responds, sort of. Here's my comment in response to her:
"Well - it's true that I did not make the reference to Cruise to paint a flattering picture of your argument. I think he was wrong about much of what he said about depression and anti-depressants. However, like it or not, state it or not, you are in agreement with Tom Cruise. He says the exact same things you do about depression and anti-depressants and psychology. So why do you see it as name-calling when I point this out? About the only difference between your two positions is that you focus on social change as a response to depression (when you're not denying that it exists, because the way you describe depression bears little resemblance to serious depression) and he focuses on vitamins and Scientology.

As for proving that depression is a mental illness, as you know (because you mention it), the DSM does that quite nicely, whether or not you choose to agree with it. And yeah, psychology isn't a perfect science, nor is it unbiased. But the fact remains that, according to the professional, expert, and research community that has the qualifications to determine these things, depression is a mental illness, and you can argue this until you're blue in the face, but it won't change this fact. Even you, yourself, say above that "we don’t have a clear understanding of depression and other mental illnesses" - which is true, both in that we don't have a clear understanding of what causes them and how they work and how to treat them, AND in that depression is a mental illness.

But now it sounds, from what you say above, that part of your issue is that you want to be able to say you're depressed without having to also be perceived as disabled or as having a mental illness. Which opens up a whole 'nother area of discussion.

In my post, I did, of course, make other criticisms of your argument - which you have not addressed - beyond the five words that you quoted and offered as an example of how I wasn't criticising your points..."

Probably not an original post about the Iowa primary.

First off, as Donna Brazile so beautifully said, Hillary is the "establishment candidate." That's my issue with her - a vote for her is, more or less, a vote for the status quo. She is the face of liberal feminism, not revolutionary - and certainly not radical (by which I mean *real* radical, not what-passes-on-the-interweb-for-radical) - feminim. She's not revolutionary in any sense of the word, except that she happens to be a woman. And because of this, she is also, methinks, the DNC's candidate. So what happened in Iowa means a lot, because it just may mean that the DNC will wise up this time around and not appoint a boring, same old same old, non-risk-taking, non-revolution-making candidate. (And the other candidates should totally jump on this "establishment candidate" label - that is something that all of us recognize about her, I think, even the people who are pulling for her, that she is establishment all the way.)

And second, the fact that Barack won was such a refutation of all the people I would otherwise respect who say annoying things like, "oh, America isn't ready for a Black president, so we should vote for a sure thing like Hillary/Edwards/Biden," or "electibility is the thing." Um, yeah - Obama's looking electable now, isn't he? So now can we move past these pathetic attempts at strategic voting and focus instead on rejeuvenating the electoral process and getting behind the best candidate, whomever that may be? Because I don't want an "electible" president. George W. Bush was an "electible" president. I have seen a lot of awful people get elected to various positions - you don't have to be good to be electible. I want a GOOD president, dammit.

And third, if folks like Barack and John McCain have good showings in the primaries, it will perhaps help to change the political machine that seems so bent on cranking out the most unimaginative and uninspiring "leaders" that can be found. I can't tell you what a refreshing change it is this year to actually see some impressive folks in both parties. I'll even go out on a limb here - and I'm probably out on this limb by myself - and say that it isn't so much Barack's blackness that makes him so historically important and so important for our country, but rather it is his politics, both some of his political positions and his manner of politicking, that make him stand out as the watershed candidate. (When Charlie Rose talked about this historical moment we find ourselves in and called Barack the historical change candidate, I was pissed at first that he didn't also see Hillary as a historical change candidate, because of course, she is one, as well, as is Richardson, for that matter. But the more I think about it, the more I see her establishment politics as taking away from her monumental role as possible First Woman President, just as Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice have estranged themselves, by their politics, from their historical roles (at least, this is so in my own little head. I do not presume to speak for Black community).)

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a shower and wipe off the feeling of "ick" that's come from having seen Mike Huckabee on Craig Ferguson and having found him eminently likeable. ZOMG. Scary.

Holidaze.

Not the most original title for a post, but here I am, back home, and overwhelmed with all that the New Year is hurling my way. Nothing bad, just the usual work that I need to get caught up on after two deliriously blissful weeks off. The fact that I have been sick for the whole time - and that I had to spend the night before Christmas Eve in a hotel in Detroit due to snowstorms that caused me to miss my connection - did little to dampen the sheer pleasure of reading (books! Several of them!) and of watching t.v. (whole seasons of shows!) and of knitting (a scarf (re-knit about four times until I got it right) and two dischcloths!) and of eating (many boxes of cookies!) and of playing in the snow with Bean (!). The only things I did not get to do that I had been looking forward to doing were:

1) going to the gym (due to my cold); and

2) going to the coffee shop with my laptop and deleting all my old emails.

(This last may not sound like a big deal to you, but as a card-carrying OCD'd person, lemme tell you, the thought of that makes my eyes roll back in my head and my tongue to loll. In a good way.)

So, I read not only some of the books I received for Christmas -

- which included Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (which I enjoyed; in addition to it being a great read, Ellen Forney's illustrations are awesome (and you know what, I recently discovered that we actually went to college together, although I'm pretty sure I never knew her while I was there. At the same time, however, I do, have this nagging feeling that we may have been in the same small Lesbian Studies class...) and Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman's
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (which, so far, I'm kinda "meh" about - when I finish it, I'll have to write more about it) -

- but also some of the books I gave as gifts, including Ryan Knighton's Cockeyed: A Memoir and Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America.

I even made it through another third of the The Book That Would Not Be Finished, also known as Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia on the flight home. I've been reading this book off and on, mostly off, since August, and I just finished the India part, which I think I liked better than the Italy part, even though some of her descriptions of self-sacrifice for religious rapture were a bit off-putting. I'm a few pages into the Indonesia stories, and I suspect that, despite how unmotivated I've been to finish it, it will end up being a book I will recommend to others. Heck, I recommend it now. Go read it.

The book I meant to bring with me to read but forgot at home is The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon. If someone had said to me, "hey, you should read this book. It's about a guy who set himself on fire when he was a kid," I'd probably have said, "no, thanks." But I found it in the memoir section of a great used bookstore and had to buy it. During the same week, I also bought Barrie Jean Borich's My Lesbian Husband at the original Amazon Bookstore. I picked up this book purely by chance; it did not seem on the surface to be something that I would necessarily want to read, only because I've read so many books already that seem like they could fit under the title of "My Lesbian Husband,", like, wow, yet another book about lesbian relationships, or maybe another about a lesbian couple in which one had transitioned - not uninteresting or unimportant topics at all, but just ones I had read a lot about already. It just didn't grab my interest, but I picked it up, anyway, and I opened it up to page 118 and I read these sentences:

"When I asked Linnea what does it mean to wear a ring of promise, I did not fail to see her bright and beckoning face, did not fail to know that I was more than a boozy blaze of a girl imagined by a famous alcoholic homosexual who died too young, did not miss the fact that Linnea was no stock-studio savior positioned in the back of a cutaway cab. She was real husband material, reaching for ways greater than words to say she loved me. It is just that I wanted to know who would write the story of this tempered metal I should wear so close to the skin. The ring was not an idea that Linnea and I imagined between us."

Readers, I was blown away by this prose. And I bought the book purely because of those lines. I have no idea whether or not I'll like the book, but I couldn't ignore the beauty of Borich's writing.

I also mentioned t.v. watching. I finally got to see the second season of Weeds, so now I'm only one season behind. Hopefully, the Season 3 DVD will be available shortly. (I'm hearing good things about The Wire, now that the series is about done, so I'll have to start watching that, now, too. Apparently, I can get it from On Demand.) I also saw the first season of 30 Rock, which I had zero interest in before, and which I can't get enough of, now. And of course, I watched the obligatory several episodes of The Sopranos, because that's just good television.

Bean and I and a few others got to sled in the backyard and have snowball fights, the latter of which also involved a lot of laughing and tackling and falling down in the snow. Delightful times!

Also, because my folks still have a dial-up internet connection, I got to play many, many games of Solitaire and Golf while waiting for various pages to load.

So it was a good, restful, even productive two weeks (I even did some planning for this semester), but now I am hit with that bad feeling one gets when one returns from a vacation. Like, "Holy Shit, I have a lot to do!!!"

So today's plan, now that it's almost 1:30pm:

1) Get dressed.

2) Hit McDonald's.

3) Go to the office to do a couple of quick things that can only be done there.

4) Go grocery shopping.

5) Come home and watch t.v. while making lists of things I will commence doing tomorrow.

Happy New Year, y'all.