Womanism/Feminism…Feminism/Womanism
When we look at labels to describe activism by women we commonly use the term womanist, or feminist. Words mean something despite how casually we toss them around. They are how we order and understand our world. In an effort to be inclusive when we write about activism many will often write feminists/womanists. This acknowledges that some WOC have to some degree separated themselves and have taken on the label of womanists because of the history of racism within the feminist movement.
The problem with using these labels is that they often appear in a certain order. Most will write feminists/womanists rather than womanists/feminists. This may seem like a small insignificant point but what it does is that it once again sets up a hierarchy about what counts as real activism when it comes to women. If feminism is routinely placed first it sets up womanism as a ridiculous offshoot. When we consider that womanists largely identify as such because of racism in feminism, routinely placing it behind feminism only reaffirms the idea that white women still see WOC as secondary bodies.
Even though writing feminists/womanists is an attempt at inclusion, the order of the words appear means something because it speaks to who has power and privilege. Often unconsciously we reaffirm power dynamics in our society. Privileging certain bodies has become a naturalized phenomenon and it takes a conscious effort to decolonize your mind. These small slights do not go unnoticed even if they are unremarked upon.
Many WOC are rightfully distrustful of white women. There is a long history of betrayal and silencing. I have watched time after time as we are assaulted and our issues ignored. We are told that we focus to much on race in an attempt to destabilize our organizing. Womanism speaks about our lives, our needs and our existence in a way that feminism never has. It validates our experiences and places us in the center of the conversation. To place feminism before womanism continually only reifies the need for womanism.
The rift between WOC and white women needs to be healed. Each new slight just adds to the bitterness and contempt and is the equivalent of pouring salt into an open wound thereby further dividing us from each other. When there is such a large history of betrayal we cannot afford to continue to fuel the negativity as it only detracts us from our common enemy: patriarchy.
WOC are always going to have issues that are unique to us, and yet we share many issues in common with white women. The anger and bitterness often causes us to ignore their valid commentary and make sweeping assumptions. There will never be one monolithic woman that can represent us and the “sisterhood” will never cure all the hurt, but we need to think about how we speak to each other if we are going to move forward.
Our future lies in unity and not in separation. It is important that we leave room for forgiveness and it is essential that white women acknowledge the ways in which they have wronged us. This is a problem that we need to tackle together with patience and love. Both WOC and white women essentially want to see women succeed, we just don’t always agree with what constitutes “woman”.
Cross Posted from Womanist Musings
The Comments We Face
By starting a blog you automatically open yourself and your space up to people who may disagree with you. In some cases you may experience several comments from people who are not so nice in telling you why they disagree with a particular viewpoint you express on your blog. While most blogs will undoubtedly encounter the occasional irate comment, the feminist blogosphere is open to a completely different breed of troll infestations and Menstrual Poetry is no exception.
Most of the trolls that attack feminist spaces have a tendency to attack the people behind the blog using rash generalizations. Most of the trolls that attack feminist spaces are also men, although that is just a coincidence, right?
I received a comment on a post I wrote, about Glenn Sacks protesting domestic violence ads created by The Family Place back in December. The comment was deleted, but I think it is the best example of the type of comments to expect when simply speaking your mind and raising awareness about issues that affect women.
you fucking stupid cunt. how about you address the real cause of domestic violence– stupid cunts like you trying to run the country. you dumb cunt feminists always love to TALK about equality. but we both know you fucking morons are full of shit when the rubber meets the road.
women love to talk about how “strong and independent they are”.. yeah why don’t these fucking idiots pay their own way when they date then? exactly. because they CAN’T. they simply like to have their cake and eat it too.
why don’t these women pay for their own child support since they have special veto power over anything the man says regarding her pregnancy. women can defraud men and have them pay for someone else’s baby. women can have a baby even if a man doesn’t want her to have it. with power comes responsibility .but women are just power-hungry cunts who refuse to accept responsibility.
i look forward to more cunts like you getting beat the fuck up until you learn the message the hard way. you can only rob men of so many freedoms before they will start fighting back. and the female face looks like a good starting place.
you make men into criminals on your billboards before they are even born and then you have the fucking audacity to complain when men fulfill your requirements of them. comical.
Every feminist/womanist/humanist blogger I have ever spoken to about blogging has talked about the amount of obnoxious, sexist, and ridiculous comments they have received for simply speaking out about issues that need to be spoken out about and the comment above is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the comments we have to deal with go.
The first lesson you must learn when starting a blog where you point out the mass hypocrisy of patriarchal society and speak about the fundamental rights people, including people with a vagina, should have is develop a thick skin because there will undoubtedly be people, especially those who happen to be men, who disagree with you and in fact think that the patriarch should continue to rule over our lives.
Rihanna Is Erased By Do Something.ORG When They Confront Domestic Violence
Earlier this morning I was sent a link about a campaign run by DoSomething.org. In an effort to raise awareness about violence against women they have created a re-enactment of the beating that Rihanna allegedly received from Chris Brown.
Extreme Trigger Warning on the video.
At the end we are told that 1 in 3 teens are abused in a relationship and viewers are encouraged to go to DoSomething.org/Abuse to get three free bracelets, one blue and two black to raise awareness. Violence against women is just the latest cause to get the “Bono of activist treatment” (read: the bracelet, or the ribbon certification).
These bracelets have become the symbol of our so-called concern for diversity and tolerance, and yet they function just like any other fashion appendage. Does anyone really know what each one of the multi colour bracelets and ribbons even means anymore? We have this social idea that putting on a symbol of an issue somehow means we have performed some sort of activism. The bracelet, or ribbon allows us to profess a stated belief without making any concrete efforts for change. It functions more as a badge of inertia than anything else.
I fail to see how we can possibly praise this video as womanists/feminists and yet Courtney of Feministing has completely endorsed this video.
While I could understand why some people would be outraged by this bold PSA tactic, I’m completely in support of what Do Something is doing. They’re making the incident–which has been so obscured by the media hype, ignorant commentary from pundits and the public alike, and so much disrespect–real again. A woman, a man, out of control emotions, and inexcusable violence. If Rhianna weren’t already horribly outed by this whole incident, I might feel like it were an invasion of her privacy, but at this point, it’s just so public. It seems like the most respectful thing we can do for Rhianna is make sure that this whole thing inspires young people to get educated about relationship violence–as the ad does.
So, because she has already been violated once, what’s one more time? We can comfort ourselves with the belief that no matter how triggering it may be for her to be held up as the “role model” for battered women, it’s for a good cause. Let’s remove the last bit of agency and self respect that she has by co-opting her experience without permission because ultimately we secretly identify with her abuser anyway; how else could we justify displaying a total lack of solidarity with the victim ?
This is about realism right; so showing simulated violence which in no way reflects the real terror she must have felt as Brown spilled her blood all over his car is showing the horrors of domestic violence? Hearing the monotone drone of the narrator as he describes what have must have been the most terrifying moments in her life, instead of her screams of pain and fear is meant to place her in the center of this incident?
In the final act of co-option the woman chosen to play her isn’t even black. So in a bid once again for realism, it is somehow appropriate to replace a black woman with a white woman? What does this tell us about which bodies are valued in this society? Are we to feel more sympathetic to this pseudo-victim because she is white? Are we meant to have an easier time identifying with her because of whiteness? In a world in which the black woman is daily devalued, replacing her physical body without commentary and assuming that whiteness can represent her is truly a racist act. Just as in Richard Wrights, The Outsider, though both white women and black women are victims of violence, it is the harm done to the white female victim that is understood as the truly criminal act. This is not because we value white women universally, but because we over value whiteness to the extent that any crime committed against it is considered a true social violation.
This video is not the least bit groundbreaking and in fact plays on racism and false images of violence to promote hipster activism. We live in a society that believes that problems can be solved through capitol rather than engagement. We wear our so-called causes around like latest fashion accessory happily moving from issue to issue, as each social problem comes in and out of vogue. Though this model has failed to produce any tangible results, we continue to embrace it because we like our activism like McDonalds; fast, cheap and full of unidentifiable ingredients.
Cross Posted from Womanist Musings
Where Have All the Morals Gone?
I have not brought up the topic of the Rihanna/Chris Brown controversy, and for good reason. Just like media publications are supposed to keep the identities of domestic violence victims secret, I also believe it is important not to trivialize domestic violence and abuse, which is exactly what popular publications have done by not only identifying Rihanna as the woman who Chris Brown brutally attacked, but publishing pieces without the moral code of telling their readers that there is no excuse for what Chris Brown did.
Domestic violence cases are often looked at from several different views and most of them include shaming the victim. Victim shaming has sadly become a normality in society and by not educating people, especially teens, of the statistics and true dangers of domestic violence, victim shaming will continue. It is never okay for a man to raise his hand or beat his girlfriend. When the topic of domestic violence comes up, many people jump at the chance to say something to the effect that women are also abusers and as a woman whose childhood could make up several books about how this is completely true, when it comes to beating your significant other, take a look at who the obvious physical threat is. Males are more of a physical threat to females, no matter what kind of spin you put on the topic. But these and many other truths about domestic violence are often cast aside in order for people to play the blame game and that is exactly what happened in the Rihanna/Chris Brown case.
There is a pandemic going on when it comes to violence and teens are not being given the education and support they should be receiving, as proven by what several teen girls have had to say about the pop stars:
“I thought she was lying, or that the tabloids were making it up,” one girl said.
Even after they saw a photo of Rihanna’s bloodied, bruised face, which had raced across the Internet, they still defended Mr. Brown. “She probably made him mad for him to react like that,” the other ninth grader said. “You know, like, bring it on?”
Should he be punished? No, said the girls, whose names were withheld at the request of the school. After all, they said, Rihanna seemed to have reconciled with Mr. Brown.
“So he shouldn’t get into trouble if she doesn’t feel that way,” one girl said. “She probably feels bad that it was her fault, so she took him back.”
Her friend nodded. “I don’t think he’ll hit her like that again,” she said.
On a Facebook discussion, one girl wrote, “she probly ran into a door and was too embarrassed so blamed it on chris.”
All of the phrases I emphasized are exactly what society has been saying again and again when they are shaming the victims of abuse. These teens are not making these statements up, they were taught to react and question cases of abuse like this. They were taught that patriarchy is A-OK and as females, we all must remain in line because if we get abused, we had it coming or “must have done something to make him angry”.
This point is driven home even further by the fact that the Boston Public Health Commission recently interviewed 200 teens and found that 46% said Rihanna was responsible for what happened and 52% said both bore responsibility, despite knowing that Rihanna’s injuries required hospital treatment.
In order to truly educate children and teens about domestic violence and even that domestic violence exists and is a problem in our culture, completely disregarded by society due to obscene amounts of victim shaming, we must set better examples for them and how to react when a controversy like this strikes them in their celebrity-driven world. It is never okay for a man to lay a hand on a woman in a violent matter and shaming Rihanna while apologizing for Chris Brown is not helping any situation, anywhere.
RAINN’s Technology Access Project: Offering Free Website & Email Services to Affiliates
Most of us have relied on the internet for valid, educational information. A lot of us have relied on the friends and support systems we have cultivated online to help sort out our feelings, opinions, and problems in our day to day lives. We undoubtedly live in a society where a great amount of people have become reliant on technology but there are still needs to be met when it comes to the information and support many of us need via the internet world, especially those of us who have survived or are still surviving abuse and trauma. RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization that has aided so many survivors in need of support and advocates of survivors in need of information. RAINN has not only helped people through their 1-800 hotline, but because they understand the reliance we have on technology and the fact that more survivors are willing to open up via the internet, where they can remain completely anonymous, they opened up a 24/7 online hotline.
In an effort to bring more technology-based support to survivors, they are ensuring that all of their affiliates across the country have the ability to have a web presence of their own for the survivors in need in their areas. Because the vast amount of companies, organizations, and people who use the internet do not have the knowledge necessary to create a clean, functional, and user-friendly web presence of their own, RAINN has started the Technology Access Project that will offer all of RAINN’s participating affiliates a free website and free email services to help aid and support their base of survivors, as well as to educate those in their areas about abuse and trauma, and also how to heal, starting in Spring of 2009. The Technology Access Project is made possible by Grant no. 2008-TA-AX-K012, awarded to RAINN by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice.
This is a monumental step forward for survivors in need of RAINN and their affiliate’s support and services. Because they are offering websites and email services for free, they are ensuring that every single participating affiliate of theirs has the ability to create a web presence without any financial burden or even technical experience. RAINN’s technical staff will be available for any affiliate who is lacking in technical experience to walk them through the brief setup process and they will also be available to answer technical questions for as long as they are using the service. Best of all, your domain name will not be owned by RAINN; ownership will be retained by the affiliate even if they decide to stop using RAINN’s service.
I am thrilled that RAINN has decided to do this and that the Office on Violence Against Women saw a need for technological support and filled it, making RAINN’s Technology Access Project possible.
Only In A Woman’s World: Frito Lay Goes Girly
There I was happily watching CNN this morning when they reported that women are now no longer seen as a niche market. It seems that the recession depression has largely effected men and companies are now realizing that it is women that have the disposable income and the discretionary power to spend.
Rather than using this as an opportunity to validate women, companies have resorted to ridiculous essentialist pitches to garner our attention. If you identify as female you must love the colour pink, fluffy clouds, and rainbows. The utility of the object in question is irrelevant as long as it is pretty, cause you know how all of us wimminez just need everything to be pastel and cutesy.
While it is necessary to some degree to draw on large generalizations to effectively market, creating a single monolithic representation of what constitutes woman is extremely problematic. The images that we see end up not being about our struggles or our triumphs but womanhood as it is understood through the patriarchal lens. Advertising in this way quickly becomes yet another tool that is marshalled by patriarchy to discipline women into perform a gender essentialist, submissive femininity.
Each year more women seek post secondary and graduate education. We are entering fields that were once male dominated, crashing through glass ceilings at every turn and yet Frito Lay has decided that the best possible way to appeal to us, is to pander to our so called obsessive need to count every calorie because of a fixation on our bodies. These generalizations are not only essentialist, they are highly demeaning.
Frito Lay has even gone on to make webisodes in which these shallow women are featured.
Notice how every single item is either low calorie or low in fat. Women of course never just pig out cause hey we all need a good junk food and pyjama day from time to time. Apparently we are racked endlessly with guilt every time we decide to eat.
Women are so much more than what the advertising industry has constructed us to be. These images are not innocuous, rather they set up damaging ideas that translate into the devaluation of women. In a world in which not conforming to ideal body standards often translates into shaming, and less employment opportunities (read: feminization of poverty) such mode of advertising must be challenged. Commercials like this are made to benefit patriarchy and we internalize these images without thought or resistance we are assuming this unbalanced definition of womanhood.
Just like every other social organization patriarchy is highly dependent on the labour, finances and support of women We collude daily in small ways in our own oppression often without being cognizant that we are contributing to our own second class status. While we certainly do not control the media we do have the power to eliminate or reduce the purchasing of items that serve to create woman as the eternal ‘other’; we not only owe this to ourselves but to our daughters.
We cannot be post feminist until we move away from the idea that we do not deserve to be treated seriously. Since the advertising agency has found a new belief in our purchasing power, it is essential that we leverage this to ensure that the degree to which we are constructed as flighty, brainless, narcissistic beings is reduced. A world in which the full depth of womanhood is equally represented would lend itself to greater opportunities, and a reduction in the degree to which patriarchy manages to maintain its control. Woman is a complex identity and can never be fully appreciated as long as it is continually equated with flower, pastels and diet materials.
Cross posted from Womanist Musings
Submissive Feminists? Professor Foxy Gets It Right
I’ve seen this question pop up a few times within the feminist blogosphere; off the top of my head I know I’ve seen it addressed over at Greta Christina’s Blog. Professor Foxy has started posting over at Feministing not too long ago and she is a sex educator, dealing with questions on sex and sexuality and a question she answered today was from a feminist who likes being dominated in the bedroom.
Professor Foxy,
I’ve had submissive sexual fantasies since I was very young and it’s something that I’ve always found really difficult to come to terms with. I’m a very assertive and driven person in real life so it’s just really hard for me to accept how much I sexually enjoy giving up control and power.
I’ve been dating my current boyfriend for two years and we’ve experimented quite a bit with bondage and dominance play. It’s always incredibly arousing and fun for me. And he enjoys it too because he can tell how much it turns me on.
Intellectually I understand that these feelings are just a part of my sexuality and that they don’t have anything to do with who I am outside of the bedroom. But at the same time, every once in a while I just feel so ashamed and guilty. It’s hard to reconcile being a feminist with my strong sexual desire to submit. What can I do to accept my sexuality for what it is?
-Conflicted feminist
I was thrilled to see Professor Foxy’s response; it was completely spot on and as the comments are already indicating, a lot of women find themselves conflicted when it comes to their feminism and their sexuality so this is not new, but still something that women find themselves torn with themselves about.
Here’s the response:
Hi Conflicted -
A good step towards accepting your sexuality for what it is may be to unpack it a little bit more. I want to quote you back to you: I’m a very assertive and driven person in real life so it’s just really hard for me to accept how much I sexually enjoy giving up control and power.
I’m going to come back to the first part, but first let’s focus on the second part of the sentence: I sexually enjoy giving up control and power. YOU give up control and power. In the real world, power and control are taken from women in an effort to make them submissive. In your sex life, as convoluted as this may seem, you are in power because you make the choice to give up power. Your boyfriend (yay for him) engaged in this because you (still in power) asked him to engage. As much as the sex play is about you “giving up power,” in reality you are still the one in control.
A friend of mine is a strong, independent, assertive woman, who, like you, enjoys being submissive sexually, says it this way, “even when I am being submissive, I know that I am the one in power. I let the person dominate me, I set what can and cannot be done, and I can call a beginning and stop to the action.”
And now back to the beginning of your sentence “I’m a very assertive and driven person in real life.” Sex can be a healthy way of achieving balance in our lives. Acting out your submissive side (a side every person has) allows you to unwind and let go. We all need to have a place to act out all of our different sides and it looks like you have found a place to act out one of them.
I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with this. Do your bedroom practices differ from your feminism, or more broadly, from the person you conduct yourself as out of the bedroom?
Blogging IS Activism
Debra Dickerson recently published a reply on Mother Jones to a New York Times article on the future of abortion providers, saying:
Today’s feminists need to blog less and work more. If women want reproductive choice to remain more than rhetoric, they’d better stop assuming these clinics will be there when they need them.
I agree with the fact that women should stop assuming that abortion clinics will be there when they need them, which is why I encourage pro-choice people to speak out on behalf of reproductive rights and how important it is for every woman, everywhere, to have the right to choose. And one of the most influential ways to reach a great amount of people now is to start a blog or incorporate feminism and reproductive rights into your existing blog.
I am often asked what I am doing for feminism and what I tell them is that I blog. I share my feminist ideals on my blog and encourage educated and informed conversations on a wide range of topics that matter to me, to humans, and to my feminist activism. Many people don’t think that blogging is enough, but if you read the bulk of feminist, womanist, and humanist blogs out there, most of the topics that are brought up for discussion come directly from living life and being a humanist out in the big, sometimes cruel, always controversial world. We see the injustices in our society around every corner we walk. We experience sexism and misogyny nearly every time we go to a bar or club. We are confronted by men as well as other women for our basic viewpoints and our refusal to back down and stay silent. Just by blogging, we are informing the people who read our blogs, who identify with our principles, and we are also faced with younger generations finding our blogs, being educated about feminism and perhaps identifying as feminists who would otherwise perhaps not know what feminism is and what it is to be a feminist without our openness and passion to share our thoughts and views on a public platform. And hell, maybe one of those people who read what we have to say will go to medical school and become an abortion provider. Perhaps they will even blog about their experiences.
Dickerson also posted:
But you young chicks maybe need to go the Northern Exposure route, sending folks to med school in exchange for a few years running an abortion clinic. That feminist fire in the belly? I gotta say: Pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives ain’t exactly what we previous generations thought feminism was.
Yes, “young chicks.” The feminist fire in our bellies encompasses many feminist principles. We care about reproductive rights, we care about birth control, emergency contraception, and we care about comprehensive sex education in every school in the country and around the world so abortion services are not so widely needed. We care about equality. We raise awareness about where we are not treated equal and who we are not being treated equally by. We raise awareness about gender, gender identity and expression, race, privilege, and we raise awareness about when we are being blamed by so-called previous generations of feminists for not doing enough.
Dickerson somehow got some warped perceptions of feminism; feminists today are allowed to speak openly about sex and sexuality and give other women the permission to identify with their sexuality because it is still seen as taboo for a woman to be open about her sexuality and that is the result of woman shaming; the same woman shaming that Dickerson herself is displaying and condoning.
Feminists do not blame other generations and call them slackers. We do not tell them that they aren’t doing enough when every day, we are raising awareness and working towards an ideal, woman and human-friendly world.
Dickerson asks us, today’s feminists, what we are doing for the struggle. Head on over to Mother Jones and clue her in.
Trans Hate Continues To Lead To Violence
When I first started to educate myself about the transgender community, I was shocked to learn the degree of violence that they face. I continue to fail to see how someone living their life makes another so uncomfortable that feel that it is necessary to express hatred towards another human being. In many cases this hatred impacts employment, housing, medical care, and can lead to violence.
Two trans men were recently verbally and physically assaulted at the Dupont Circle gay bar Fab Lounge.
According to the Washington Blade:
Mitch Graffeo, 40, of Alexandria, Va., said the incident began when he and a friend were getting ready to leave Fab Lounge shortly before 3 a.m. on Feb. 28 at the conclusion of the club’s weekly lesbian night. As his friend walked over to a sofa to retrieve his coat, a female customer began “groping” his friend, Graffeo said.
The 29-year-old friend, also from Alexandria, spoke to the Blade on the condition that he was identified only by his first name, Jaime.
Graffeo said Jaime, who is about 5 feet 4 inches tall and has a slender build, recently began a female-to-male gender transition process and has a youthful, boyish appearance. Graffeo noted he transitioned more than 10 years ago and his gender is readily recognized as that of a male.
“They said, ‘What the fuck are you? Are you a girl or a boy?’(emphasis mine)” Graffeo recalled one of the women saying to Jaime inside the club.
Graffeo said another woman, along with a man who was with them, joined the first woman in shouting insults aimed at Jaime’s appearance after Jaime asked the first woman to leave him alone.
Jaime told the Blade as many as three women in the bar ran their hands over his chest as they taunted him over his appearance, saying they wanted to find out if he was male or female.
He and Graffeo then left the Fab Lounge, which is located in a second-floor space at 1805 Connecticut Ave., N.W., in an effort to avoid a confrontation with the women, the two men said.
“When we were about 20 feet from the club’s entrance, one of the lesbians came up from behind and put [Jaime] in a headlock and again began to question his gender,” Graffeo said.
Jaime said that as the woman released him from her grip, another woman punched him repeatedly in the head and body, inflicting injuries that included a concussion, doctors told him later.
As the alleged assault unfolded on the sidewalk near the corner of Connecticut and Florida avenues, Graffeo said he asked the women to leave Jaime alone and announced he was calling the police on his cell phone. At that time, the woman who had held Jaime in a headlock “grabbed my phone out of my hands and hit me in the neck and head a few times,” Graffeo said.
Minutes later, Graffeo said, the male friend who had accompanied the women inside the club arrived in a car, which he stopped on Connecticut Avenue in front of the Royal Palace nightclub, which operates below Fab Lounge. He said the two women entered the car, which turned onto Florida Avenue and drove eastbound, Graffeo said.
The two assailants have been arrested but have yet to be charged with a hate crime. I find the delay in declaring this a hate crime reprehensible. Clearly the purpose of this confrontation was to demean and assault two human beings based on a trans gender identity. They asked if the victims were boys or girls and further touched them to ascertain how their bodies were configured. When incidents like this happen a strong message needs to be sent regarding the unacceptability of such behaviour. Fortunately these two men escaped with their lives but many have not been so lucky after confrontations with people that are determined to hate based in cisgender privilege.
When I read about this story at the bilerico, the focus seemed to be that we should not assume that the assailants are lesbian simply because they were in a lesbian bar. Though I agree with this statement, I find it completely irrelevant. The GLB community has been known for its virulent trans hatred but it is not uniquely transphobic. Transphobia happens across the sexual/gender spectrum. Our concern should be that these violent incidents keep reoccurring and that people are losing their lives.
When the media reports on violence aimed at trans people they often use the wrong pronoun, blame the victim, or somehow reduce the issue as unimportant. Trans people are thriving members of our community and they are being unfairly targeted. We justify the violence against them in a desire to preserve our undeserved cisgender privilege.
I have read the commentary from otherwise intelligent women using the most ridiculous justifications for their hatred like “trans women can’t give birth, or they don’t have periods and that is why they are not women”. Obviously there are cisgender women to whom those same conditions apply and yet we would never dream of declaring them unwomen. Essentially this is about the ability to express power over another and not because the gender identity of another individual is threatening in some way.
When we think of power, we always conceive of it as coercive and this ultimately creates an expression that reifies many of the binaries and social constructions that are damaging to our society. When we use the wrong pronoun what we are essentially doing is denying someone’s existence by declaring that we have the right to determine what is understood as male or female, furthermore disciplining a failure to conform is yet another way in which cisgender privilege is maintained. We have so over valued hierarchy that we have allowed it to control what bodies truly matter in this society and this is why the trans panic defense is routinely employed to legitimate violence that we would find otherwise intolerable.
What happened to those two men is atrocious and that it occurred because of someone’s desire to maintain our artificial divisions. It further speaks to how far removed we are from the fair and equal society that we claim to live in. Someone who is trans gender has not made a lifestyle choice; they are living their lives and therefore they deserve to exist without violence, or threat of it. Acknowledging the humanity of a fellow human being will not devalue you in any way; in fact it is the first step to assuring that we all exist with the rights and freedoms that we give lip service to.
Cross Posted From Womanist Musings
Nobody Likes an Apologist
I know we don’t see many of this on the internet, especially in the [feminist] blogosphere, where it seems that the bulk of people who use the internet picked up their free-to-be-an-asshole cards while buying their first computers, but we do see a lot of frequent double-talk in the political media. Not only double-talk, but we see a group of whiny, privileged apologists incapable of forming a complete thought for themselves and those people consist of [mainly] Republican spokespeople.
Many Democrats, Liberals and basically any group of people or persons who have rejected the archaic ideologies that the Republican party strives for will tell you that lately, it seems as if Rush Limbaugh is the speaker for the Republican party. This is probably because there does not seem to be anyone out there pushing for the job and what other candidates do they have–Ann Coulter? Meghan McCain? Firstly, Ann Coulter can’t even be taken seriously by her own party and I am convinced the atrocities that have spilled out that woman’s mouth are made up by a publicist with only one thought in mind–Offend as many people as possible across both party lines in order sell books. Meghan McCain is still trying to make a name for herself in the Republican and internet/blogging/journalist world riding on nothing but the failed coattails of her father. Secondly, both of these potential-Republican-speaker candidates are women and since the Republican party stands for very anti-woman policies, I don’t see them accepting vagina-possessing “official speakers.” So sure, Rush Limbaugh can be the speaker of the Republican party–I know I’m great with that since the man is rude, sexist, and an overall disappointment to society; he has all the credentials already! Other potential candidates with these same credentials include Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and pretty much any man currently serving time on Fox News, but they don’t seem to be stepping up to the plate with full force.
But while Republicans as a whole are not taking the reigns from Rush Limbaugh, there are a few speaking out against him… and then apologizing for their thoughts and opinions.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele on thoughts and accusations that Rush Limbaugh is head of the Republican party:
“Rush is not the head of the Republican Party. He’s an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”
And Michael Steele’s apologies:
“My intent was not to go after Rush–I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh…”
“I was maybe a little bit inarticulate… There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking…”
So to get this straight, Steele thinks that Rush Limbaugh is incendiary and ugly but he has an enormous amount of respect for him, then presents us with some famous Republican double-talk where he tries saying he did not attempt to diminish Rush’s voice or “leadership” (thus making it true that Limbaugh in fact is head of the Republican party?) and lastly, admits to not being able to form a complete and educated thought for himself since what was going on in his head did not come out of his mouth.
Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-GA):
“I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party.”
And Phil Gingrey’s apology:
“I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments and I just wanted to tell you, Rush, [...] that I regret those stupid comments.”
Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC):
“Anybody who wants [President Obama] to fail is an idiot, because it means we’re all in trouble…”
And his apology (kinda-sorta):
Sanford’s Communications Director said that “the governor was not referring to anyone” in particular.
But Mr. Sanford, only one person has so publicly stated that he wished for Obama to fail. Who else could you possibly have been speaking about?
Whatever the case in any of these three hilarious and pathetic examples, it shows that the Republican party really, as a whole, is just running in circles. They don’t even know how they feel… about anything! What ever happened to saying someone you meant and not apologizing for it, despite who it pisses off? There is this little thing called thinking for yourself and people, as a whole, we should be embracing that. We all have the ability to form thoughts of our own and just because you disagree with someone who happens to be of the same party you affiliate yourself with does not mean that you have to apologize for what you think. Free thought doesn’t work that way.
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The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
