Are Women Human?

Photo

Wed, 30 May 2012 10:10:08 -0400

Asian Americans and Racism: Erasure edition

Tue, 22 May 2012 19:37:09 -0400

People seem able to hold two objects in their hands, but not two thoughts in their heads.

1. Asian Americans were lynched, run out of town, murdered, deported, and put into concentration camps. Asian Americans suffered terrible violence and oppression.

2. Asian Americans now suffer lesser oppression than many other POC, and are held up as a “model minority” as a tool to show why all the other POC are terrible people, and often recruited to engage in perpetuating the oppression.

#1 seems to always be the thing people want to erase. It’s important to erase it, because it invalidates the sales job that #2 provides. See, when there is less oppression, people succeed more. (which, points out all too well, when you see other POC as collectives failing, then you have to go, “Oh, look, oppression, and where does it come from?”)

That said, erasing the past is part of what makes it so easy for many Asian Americans to hop on the anti-blackness bandwagon - when you forget that you, too, were a lynching target, then all the “Negroes LOL!” hate shit seems like it puts you above them.

That is, of course, until someone decides you overstep your bounds and you realize, just cause they let you in the house, don’t mean they stopped considering you a slave…

So, this is how I look at it - when I see people don’t know about our history - I look at us for not studying it, for not acknowledging it (and calling out white power structures who inflicted it upon us), I look to the white people who erase that history every day, who minimalize it, who try to slap me on the back and tell me, or us collectively, we’re not “like those people over there”, and I look to the education system that makes that all happen.

You know who I look to way last at the end of that line? The fellow POC who may be ignorant, but it’s not their fault between white erasure, and the all-too-often Asian American complicity in making it seem like we’ve always been the best of friends and not that they’ve gone hard on us and seem to never care when we end up dead.

I point to racism as a society wide version of an abusive family. You have the abuser, and a whole lot of the family trying to side with the abuser so they, too, don’t get hit. And the one person in the family everyone blames, because no one is willing to stand up and acknowledge who the true source of suffering is.

There’s a whole lot of ways POC reinforce shit on each other, but as far as I’m concerned White Supremacy is the source and the head, and that will always get my first attention.

"Gaslighting is a term, often used by mental health professionals, to describe manipulative behavior..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:37:02 -0400

“Gaslighting is a term, often used by mental health professionals, to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they’re crazy.”

- (via dreamhampton1)

"While cis girls, throughout their socialization and lives in our culture, internalize cultural..."

Fri, 18 May 2012 21:19:33 -0400

“While cis girls, throughout their socialization and lives in our culture, internalize cultural messages about ideal womanhood as a demand of what they need to be in order to be considered valuable, desirable, good women, they have the comparable ‘advantage’ of at least already being girls / women (or at least already having that assignment). Trans girls, though, are subjected to those same messages but internalize them as what is required to manifest womanhood at all. We’re swimming upstream against our gender assignment, and if THAT is what ‘being a woman is all about’, THAT gets internalized as the standard we need to live up not simply to be loved and valued, but in order to simply be read and perceived as ourselves. In other words, while cis girls internalize it as what they need to be in order to be good girls, trans girls internalize it as what they need to be in order to be.

This ends up creating a whole lot more existential urgency in a trans woman to live up to the cultural standards of womanhood. For us, the question driving our self-hatred and self-consciousness over stupid things like our body not meeting arbitrary-cultural-standard-of-beauty #2677 isn’t as relatively easily conquered as the desire to ‘fit in’ or be ‘good’. It’s instead driven by the pressing need to exist, to be embodied, to be seen by others and understood as who we are rather than who we aren’t.”

- Natalie Reed, Is He Checking Me Out, Or Just Staring At The Freak?

Read the whole thing.

(via kiriamaya)

laurenthelibrarian: Avengers on Parade. Adorable. Via.

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:44:02 -0400

laurenthelibrarian:

Avengers on Parade. Adorable. Via.

devoureth: My heart literally bursts with love for this cast....

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:15:18 -0400

devoureth:

My heart literally bursts with love for this cast. I’m still trying to piece my life back together after seeing the movie. Mark Ruffalo slayed. The perfect Hulk.

This makes me unreasonably happy. Especially the Hiddleston gif. So cute.

My Original Treatment for the "QueenS" video

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:06:49 -0400

dreamhampton1:

Like a Mickalene Thomas painting or photograph the short film for “QueenS” is about wood-paneled spaces decorated maximally and populated with women who enjoy being with one another.

In pairs and in threesomes and alone, 20 women enter Stas and Cat’s railroad style apartment. They immediately become comfortable. They sprawl on goatskin rugs beneath Christmas lights and lean against cheap wood paneled walls. Once they’ve all arrived, they begin to prepare for a night on the town. They disrobe. They help each other into a state of re-dress. There are extreme close-ups of girls helping each other curl their lashes, a girl has her toes in her friend’s lap, another laces her friend into a vintage corset. There are hot combs on the fire, close ups of hair being parted and braided. A lot of zipping each other backs and bending down to lace a strap on a beautiful pair of heels. The tiny back of earrings fill an entire shot. They are, each of them, the other’s lady in waiting.They take care of each other.

Not everyone is busy. Cat & Stas are in various states of repose. Stas wears a yellow vest and white shirt and pants and rhinestone tie with no irony, she lays back and watches the girls in her spot get ready. Cat approves a few outfits when a girl or two asks her to.

Stas & Cat, very naturally, begin performing the last third of their song.

Alas, all they need is right there in the apartment. The party is them. They stay. They dance. They’ve dressed each other for each other and it is enough.

As discussed with ThEE Satisfaction, they’ll call a casting via social media, perhaps create a tumblr of polaroids for potential sisters for the video as a way to cross promote the album. The casting of the women in the video is the joyful responsibility of Cat & Stas.

The girls should have individual style, but like a Mickalene photo, they shouldn’t have on “outfits”…they shouldn’t match. Stas & Cat, however, should. If not each other, then their outfits should have a real put together, Coogi down to my socks look.

http://queenstreatment.tumblr.com/archive

https://vimeo.com/39716443

nuestrahermana: Write CeCe Please send a letter to CeCe while she is in jail. Let her know she...

Wed, 02 May 2012 15:41:06 -0400

nuestrahermana:

Write CeCe

Please send a letter to CeCe while she is in jail. Let her know she has a huge amount of community support and that we are all here for her.

Public Safety Facility
Chrishaun Reed McDonald #2011014667
401 South 4th Avenue
Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55415

Inmates are not allowed to receive packages, including photographs. Packages will not be accepted and will be returned to the sender. Photographs will be removed from the envelope and returned to the inmate at the time of release. Please note that all letters sent to the jail are opened, read, and inspected by jail staff. Use good sense about what you say in your letter, and don’t write about anything that is likely to get you or anyone else in trouble with the cops.

You can also organize a letter writing party! If you live in the area, you don’t even have to worry about paying for postage-bring your letters to the drop box for at The Exchange (3405 Chicago Ave S, Mpls) and we will mail them for you.

The judge forced this. The law forced this. Transphobia forced this. Racism forced this.

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:51:44 -0400

polerin:

Elections matter. Even while we recognize that the system needs to be smashed and reformed, saying that working on reforms is worthless means that CeCe’s life is worthless. It means that working to keep shit like this from happening while we work on larger issues is also worthless.

They included into evidence an old bounced check of her’s, but wouldn’t include his MULTIPLE COUNTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

Goddamnit.

Please note, I’m not criticizing CeCe’s choice. I’m sure she took the best option available to her, and being an armchair lawyer and saying that she should have fought it out? When you don’t know everything that’s going on?

You are asking her to be a martyr. She shouldn’t have to take a plea, but if the defense doesn’t feel they can protect her from bad rulings by the Judge, bias by jury, and whatever else bullshit is brought down on her? It’s her choice. It’s her life.

I’m so sorry CeCe. I hope you can keep that beautiful smile.

The Spirit Was...: CeCe McDonald just took a plea deal

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:43:42 -0400

The Spirit Was...: CeCe McDonald just took a plea deal:

thespiritwas:

from Dean Spade:
CeCe just took a plea deal—2nd degree manslaughter with a recommended 41 month sentence (actual sentencing hearing will be in a month). Horrifying to watch her forced to recount the events of her attack on the stand, to watch the judge speak to her condescendingly about how pulling scissors out of her purse as her attacker chased her down the street unlawfully endangered her attacker. This system is so disgusting. Still, I am inspired by her support team here in MN and people all over sending love.

Oh God. Poor CeCe. This is completely wrong.

leslie-feinberg: CeCe McDonaldphoto 3 of 3FREECECE! Her smile...

Tue, 01 May 2012 21:50:08 -0400

leslie-feinberg:

CeCe McDonald
photo 3 of 3

FREE
CECE!

Her smile is beautiful and heartbreaking.

transfeminism: Memorial for Brandy Martell. 13th &...

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:26:22 -0400

transfeminism:

Memorial for Brandy Martell. 13th & Franklin, Oakland

A couple of things that didn’t come out well in the photo was the sheer mass of glitter on the sidewalk, and the pink Highlighters we could use to write a message.

Photo by A.M.

Why feminism hasn't taken on disability issues yet

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:58:12 -0400

fromonesurvivortoanother:

1. Mainstream feminism hasn’t even accepted race as a factor for analysis yet.

We are still having race problems; the Slutwalk sign fiasco is notable. Mainstream feminists like Naomi Wolf and Jessica Valenti getting away with barely mentioning intersectionality (or non-white authors) in their work is another. Or, you can just open up the pages of Ms. Magazine and see how very white it is. When Women of Color are mentioned, we are tokenized or have colonial and racist ideas projected onto us. Two decades ago, Elizabeth Spelman’s Inessential Woman critiqued mainstream feminism for hoisting sexism over all other oppressions, and even suggesting that it was the “root” or precursor to all other oppression. That was in 1988, and people still think this is the truth.

If feminism can’t even handle racism against Black people— a racism that has been consistently studied and tracked, and which has an overarching narrative in the West, then it’s no surprise that it can’t handle disability, which has no overarching narrative and which has only come to public awareness and study in recent decades. Feminism can barely handle a rigorous analysis of oppression against Latin@, Asian, and Middle Eastern peoples as they intersect with sexism. Even fewer people have questioned colonialism or even know what it is; one example of this is how there are still white feminists out there who see the hijab as something “oppressive” and Muslim women as people in need of their “rescue”.

2. Mainstream feminism has not accepted class as a factor either.

In fact, it has an investment in ignoring class analysis.

The commodification of feminism has turned it into middle class, white women’s activism. This is why talks about contraception and abortion focus exclusively on “rights”, without much discussion on being able to actually afford those rights (for more on this, see Andrea Smith’s Conquest). This is why there is almost no push for food stamps and other welfare programs in mainstream feminism, despite study after study showing how poverty has disproportionately affected Women of Color and their children. If mainstream feminism was concerned about class, it would be pushing to free the disproportionate number of imprisoned Women of Color, or finding ways to fund and support survivors of domestic abuse and sexual abuse, with specific emphasis on more marginalized groups. Instead, these fronts are conspicuously silent.

With the commodification of feminism, white feminists have written about the dangers of sexism without ever having to question their own privilege and how that protects them from many of the things WoC have to deal with. Some of them have even gone as far as to piggyback on the work of other Women of Color, using their ideas verbatim without credit, and profiting hugely from it. Mainstream media publications like Jezebel will question sexism while simultaneously refusing to “believe in” trigger warnings. Others like Shakesville talk about how women are not “crazy” without ever questioning why “crazy” is a bad thing to be called in the first place.

3. Mainstream feminism is still invested in the gender binary.

Full stop. Many prominent feminists are still openly transmisogynistic. Others still have the idea that biology is destiny. If feminism can’t get past an either-or western dualism, then it definitely can’t handle intersectional analysis of disability, which often does not present clear choices.

4. Mainstream feminism is not teaching history in a critical way.

Women’s Studies as a whole is still dominated by a white, middle-class, thin, able-bodied, neurotypical, and cisgender analysis. The majority of WST students also fall into this worldview. These students (and casual feminists) are never taught about the racism, cissexism, and heterosexism throughout the history of feminism, much less “privilege” as a concept. Reading lists are still overwhemingly white and middle class— many of these students haven’t even heard the word “intersectional”.

The wave model for feminism is also problematic, in that it prizes physical activism— activism that was only possible for (educated) white women who did not have children, or who had enough money to get someone else (read: Women of Color) to take care of their kids for them. This capitalistic model of success and failure completely ignores analysis, thought, and the mundane but necessary background work that made these things possible. It also prizes a western-centric historical view without acknowledging work done by others.

5. Disability, unlike other oppressions, lacks unifying factors.

There is no underlying dynamic which influences all disability experiences. Disabled people themselves are split along lines of class, race, gender expression, and sexuality. Even the other, “less complicated” axes like race and class are still infinitely complex. But disability is a huge range of experience that even disabled people don’t understand completely. You could be disabled in one way but never understand how another person with a disability experiences the world.

On the outside, ableism is regularly joked about as a non-existent axis of oppression, while inside, we form our own disability hierarchies and try to judge who has a “legitimate” disability and who doesn’t. A middle class white, cisgender woman with a disability experiences a very different reality from a poor Black trans woman with a disability. We have also been raised to believe that things like race and gender take priority over other identities.

In mainstream feminism, where an individualistic, capitalistic, success-based ideology is touted as the way to go, there is no room for people who literally cannot work. There’s no room for disability when women— that is, able-bodied and neurotypical white women— are supposed to be succeeding in the same way that men do.

My Conclusion: If you are a person who deals with disability issues, don’t rely on feminism for it. It’s not going to happen for a long time.

flyingfreakflag: I feel compelled to clear something up once...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:28:24 -0400

flyingfreakflag:

I feel compelled to clear something up once more. I Emma Caulfield, don’t fear this animal in any way. Whoever does, I feel, should likely seek counsel. I once played a character who had a strange fear of rabbits. Only Joss knows why that is. I for the record, do not know why Anya had a fear of rabbits. Maybe she was attacked, maybe she got food poisoning off bad stew, I don’t know. I hope this post clears this up. And for the follow up question, I have a HUGE fear of sharks. I won’t go in the ocean unless it’s like calm bath water and I know for sure sharks don’t go there…kind of like the Dead Sea, or say the beaches of Dubai. Even then, I have mild anxiety when I’m in the water and feel lucky I’m still alive when I get out. Also this one time, I had moths fly out of a cupboard into my mouth and ever since I have a bit of PTSD when I see one….

"When I say what I’d like to see happening amongst black young people I’d like to see them stop..."

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:37:15 -0400

“When I say what I’d like to see happening amongst black young people I’d like to see them stop blaming themselves for the set of circumstances in which they find themselves in. One of the things I really dislike is when black young people will say, “Well if we were more motivated or if we listened better in class”… I’ve just encountered so many privileged young white people who don’t do that to themselves. Who get high and come to class and become supreme court justices. Because they have the sense that they have the right as young people to fail sometimes, to be experimental, to be young, to move through the world. So I mean I think that’s part of it. I hate how much we police black young people and encourage black young people to police themselves.”

- Melissa Harris-Perry

(via daniellemertina)

feitclub: Supposedly that is Neil Aspinall, The Beatles’ road...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:08:04 -0400

feitclub:

Supposedly that is Neil Aspinall, The Beatles’ road manager. BUT I BELIEVE.

!!!!

Which trans women get talked about in the media - and how

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:59:14 -0400

newmodelminority:

Which trans women get talked about in the media - and how

garconniere:

disclaimer: i must admit, i try to avoid arguments that begin with “why are talking about THIS when THIS is happening?!” but it has been on my mind for far too long and i can’t shake this. no, i’m not the best person to write about this, but i can’t find anyone else who has expressed similar concerns about it so i’m going to put it out there.

important note: this is not intented to criticize trans women, or the choices of one trans women over another; it is a criticism of which stories about trans women get told, and why. it is a criticism of silence. it arguing for a space in newspapers, on televisions, on the radio, and online for productive discussions about how dismantle institutional forms of transphobia, racism, and intersecting systems of oppression.

jenna talackova’s story, in short:

the Miss Universe Organization will allow Jenna Talackova, a transgender woman, to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant.
“provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions.”

cece macdonald’s story, in short:

Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald is a young African American transgender woman who is charged with two counts of “second degree murder” after an incident that began when she was violently assaulted because of her gender and race.

unfortunately, if you know anything about oppression you wouldn’t be surprised to know which story is front-page news, and which one isn’t being talked about at all. talking about what happened to cece means confronting instituional racism and transphobia.

when you google “cece macdonald,” you get 3 680 results.

when you google “jenna talackova,” you get 6 290 000 results.

asking to be allowed to participate in a beauty pageant, and being granted permission even though you were forcibly assigned male at birth, is perceived as revolutionary, forward-thinking, wonderful. jenna gets invited to talk shows, she gets her photo and name published thousands of times. she fought for the right to live her life the way she chooses to.

but what about cece? asking people to question and challenge the legal system that puts an african-american trans woman behind bars, charges her with murder, for defending herself against racist & transphobic slurs and physical attacks? no. that’s asking too much. that’s too complicated. “we don’t know the whole story,” they say.

do we not want to hear or challenge the stories that are too “complicated?” people don’t see one simple solution in the case of cece macdonald. it’s not a happy subheadline with an accompanying glamour shot. it’s not a matter of one rich white guy changing a rule after being pestered by a few LGBT organizations and having the financial means of filing a law suit.

in this case, you can’t even use the argument of the big bad mainstream media turning a blind eye. look at gay media outlets, too, and you’ll find radio silence. the advocate, “the world’s leading source for LGBT news and entertainment,” has three full-length articles about jenna tacklova. and when you search for cece? nothing. most of where i’ve found this information has been through tumblr and twitter.

INFORM YOURSELF.

SIGN THE PETITION TO HAVE THE CHARGES AGAINST CECE DROPPED.

TELL CECE’S STORY, because not enough people know her name or her story.

recommended reading:

Support CeCe MacDonald

This is what happened to CeCe by Redlark at Feministe (February 9th, 2012)

Undoing Racism, Undoing transphobia: Demand justice for CeCe by Savannah Lefty Girl (February 12, 2012)

Sign the petition here

The View Needs To Widen Their Scope on Jenna Talackova: Discussing Transphobia While Being Transphobic by Jorge Antonio Vallejos at Black Coffee Poet (April 9th, 2012)

No Feminism without Trans Feminism by Laurie Penny (November 2009)

fuckyeahfeminists: Charlotte Ray Became 1st Black Female Lawyer...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:03:30 -0400

fuckyeahfeminists:

Charlotte Ray Became 1st Black Female Lawyer 140 Years Ago

Pioneering Black female lawyer Charlotte E. Ray achieved her historic feat 140 years ago today in 1872, becoming just the third woman ever admitted to practice law in the country at the time. Ray was also the first woman admitted to practice law in the nation’s capital and the first woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court.

so-treu: inspirationcocoa: I’m reblogging this photo because I...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:09:51 -0400

so-treu:

inspirationcocoa:

I’m reblogging this photo because I just read this article about how people should subscribe to HBO so GIrls will stay on the air and we will have more shows about women written by women and here is my response:

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it seems like every time they say, “yay for women-helmed shows!” They mean white women. I don’t see Jez or really anyone talking about how we should all support Scandal because it’s written by a Black woman, starring a Black woman and based on a real political strategist who is also a Black woman. That’s f*cking groundbreaking.

And it is.

you mean black women are WOMEN??????????????????

How to Sabotage Yourself

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:54:35 -0400

pinebark:

Over the past few years, I’ve been honing my skills in self-sabotage. Graduate school has helped me refine techniques that I’ve been gradually acquiring my entire life. Now, I feel like I’ve reached a point where I need to give back and share some of my insights on the art of self-sabotage — which many wrongly assume to be an easy and simple process. I’ve developed these techniques over the course of my time in graduate school, but I think the general ideas will be useful for those in other fields and situations.

Refuse to accept compliments. Others will think you’re merely being modest, and maybe even you will, for a while. Luckily, modesty is indistinguishable from deep self-doubt. One of the benefits of this technique is that done often enough, you can come to simultaneously believe that your achievements are nothing special and that performing well is simply your baseline state, making it unworthy of celebration. I know that these notions seem logically incompatible, but with enough practice, this state of cognitive dissonance can indeed be achieved.

Follow a large number of people online and compare your achievements to theirs constantly. This might seem obvious, but there’s a trick to it. The goal isn’t just to compare yourself to any one person online — anyone can do that. Instead, you want to compare yourself to the collective intellectual and creative output of your entire Twitter timeline, treating it as if it were the work of a single superhuman being. This is really the only way to guarantee that any kind of comparisons you make between yourself and your online acquaintances will disfavour you.

Persistently devalue your work. Again, seems simple, but you haven’t really mastered this one until you’re able to devalue anything simply because you’re doing it. Once you get to the point where you could treat the same work done by someone else as unbelievably amazing, you know you’ve really got it down.

Let success in your pursuits define you as a person. So much of our success in our careers, academia, the arts, and so on is determined by random chance — being in the right place at the right time, for instance. So, letting your self-image rest on your success in any one of these is pretty much a surefire way to disappoint yourself if you’re not doing as well as you’d like at your job, in your degree program, as a performer, etc.

Define “success” ambiguously, and redefine it often. This is perhaps the most crucial of all. What happens if you get lucky and do end up “successful?” You got into a prestigious graduate program, were hired for a great position, or got your work showcased at an important festival. Remember that none of these things counts as “success.” Success must always be somewhere far off in the distant future, not within reach. If you start to feel successful, just remind yourself of all the other people who are more successful than you. Tip #2 can be helpful here.

GPOY :/ Graduate school is awesome at helping hone these skills, for sure.

*hugs*