Second Indian tiger preserve admits it no longer has any tigers.

Wildlife conservation: UR DOIN IT RONG.

--------------

In unrelated news, I plan on disconnecting my laptop from the interwebs when I get home and installing Malwarebytes (which I saved to my flash drive here), which is apparently a legitimate piece of software, was updated just yesterday (!), and which supposedly often finds and, more importantly, gets rid of Trojans that even AVG has trouble with. And, even wilder, it works fine alongside AVG, important since competing anti-virus software is a Bad Thing.

I'm real, real unhappy about this Trojan shit, if you can't tell. Since I'm utterly ignorant about this kind of thing, and because I work so much with my computer, viruses actually kinda frighten me.

Tags: fear, links, news, personal, sorrow, technologies, the internet is fucking crazy

Yeah, that's been showing up since last night on my computer. Despite the fact that this kinda virus isn't supposed to be able to self-replicate, it's popped up in a different file after being eliminated the first time. Unacceptable. I wonder if there's actually another component not being found by my AVG software which is covertly downloading more copies? I dunno. I mean really, I dunno. I don't know anything about this shit. I know I won't be accessing my bank or CC accounts online at home until this is over, though.

The virus seems to be so new that there's hardly anything on it yet, although hits in Google went up over the last 12 hours, so it's probably spreading. My therapist was right--I really AM out on the growing edge, although I don't think this is what she means.

I think she was talking more about how dangerous it is for me to expose myself emotionally to attack by posting about the idea that women are human, since such assertions can provoke such bizarre and hurtful responses, especially from women invested in the system as it exists. And she's right, it has been hard. But I digress.

At any rate, speaking of radfems and blogging and attacks, someone has taken down Twisty's blog; it's impossible to get to the site itself and all attempts to go there cause a "Download this file" box to pop up. Very shady. I can hear all the little collaborators squealing with delight that a major debunker of femininity and insidious oppression has been temporarily taken off the intertubes, but rest assured, even if she was permanently offline, she'd still know the score and still bust out with the truth, even if it was face-to-face rather than over the internet airwaves. Radfem bloggers are often hacked, attacked, and threatened until they take their sites down--so much for Patriarchy not existing!--but they never stop thinking.

In a war fought on the battlefield of the mind and spirit as much as law and the body, a feminist's mind is itself a weapon. Now excuse me while I go sharpen my axe.

Tags: feminism, other people's bullshit, personal, technologies, the internet is fucking crazy
Current Mood: exhausted; exhortatory

Burma to free political prisoners to take part in next year's election.

Who here is actually fooled by this? Why do those jokers even pretend they're a real democracy?

Tags: links, news, other people's bullshit, politics, social commentary

Obesity in America, 1850-1939: A History of Social Attitudes and Treatment, by Kerry Seagrave

Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey, by Simon Louvish

Both are in my hands; not sure if I'll have time and attention-span to read either, but here they are. Am not certain of the tone/validity of the first one, since "obesity" is such a hotbutton issue, but since it's published by a decent press and we bothered to purchase it at an academic library, I'm hoping it's decent.

The second book promises to be good; Louvish is a meticulous researcher. His writing is detailed and clear but can vary between lively and turgid. (Sorry, Mr. Louvish.) The Mae West bio, for instance, was a bit leaden but still fascinating for its content. The thing is that Chaplin was a real asshole, and I'm not sure I want to read 400 pages of "Chaplin was a creepy, pedo asshole" when, you know, I love his movies and want to preserve some affection for the little fella.

Tags: bokes, links, movies, social commentary

O HAI

IT AMS loree_borealis' BIRFDAY TODAY

BIRFDAY!

Tags: birfday

The pain of childbirth may have benefits on which women who opt for painkilling epidurals miss out, a senior male midwife has said.

What benefits, you might ask? Does the pain signal to the woman that she is or isn't in danger? That she needs medical assistance? Does it, I don't know, cause adrenaline to fire off, somehow giving the mother the strength to weather contractions, or stimulating the infant's vital functions?

No. Well, yes, he does make a nod the direction of actual medical relevance, but it's not really his primary concern.

Dr. Denis Walsh, associate professor in midwifery at Nottingham University, said pain was a "rite of passage" which often helped regulate childbirth.

He said it helped strengthen a mother's bond with her baby, and prepared her for the responsibility of motherhood.

Isn't that nice? I think that's nice. Here we have yet another man--in this case, one consciously and deliberately choosing to stand in as the Patriarchy, as the Authority--dictating to mothers what motherhood means, what birth means. Sentimentalizing birth, imbuing the mechanics of birth with mystical significance that has no basis in medical fact, is one of the traditional methods through which this experience is co-opted by the dominant culture. It is doubtless true that for some individual women, the choice to go without epidural or other pain relief during birth is a valid, important choice that does in fact make them feel closer to their offspring; but this is not a medical fact, this is not an objective truth, and it's certainly not for any man, either a specific man or the Man, to dictate to any woman or to women as a group.

The fact that Dr. Walsh is a "male midwife" is not without incredible irony, because the resurgence of midwifery in the last 50 years or so came about precisely because of the male-dominated medical industry's co-opting of women's bodies and women's birth experiences. That a man has infiltrated midwifery, and (unsurprisingly) become enough of a recognized authority in the field that he is encouraged to hold forth on what motherhood really means and should look like, is utterly unsurprising. This is exactly what happens whenever women try to create woman-only or woman-centric spaces: they are promptly infiltrated and undermined.

Dr. Walsh represents a turning back in time of about 75 years or so. The fact that he's not on the side that would once have required drugs and forceps is merely a coincidence. He is, in spirit, every bit as much of an enemy to women's control over their own birth experience as was the clinical, brutal, mechanized medical establishment of the early to mid-20th century. To hang him once again with his own words: "[H]e warned that a culture had emerged where most hospitals effectively offered women epidurals on demand." Yes, because God forbid--and his God does, I'm sure--that a woman, anywhere, be in control of their own fucking uterus.

Tags: fuck patriarchy, health, links, news, social commentary

The question must be asked: if Lily Powers does not actually have any power, what does she have? The woman certainly has something, and that's a fact.

I would posit that what Lily Powers has is not power, but agency. She does not even, as I'd once thought to say, have control; control is something held by persons who make the rules and enforce them. Lily is not in that position. Lily does not even have free will; her actions are predicated on her need and vulnerability, both of which arise because of the system in which she lives. That system wasn't invented by Lily, and it certainly wasn't created for her benefit or the benefit of any other woman.

Agency is a tricky thing. Lily Powers' decisions could have so easily gone wrong; we're shown a world in which she somehow escapes disaster with each new lover, somehow becomes wealthier and more successful with each daring grab she makes for autonomy and material security. We aren't shown how easily any one of her lovers could have cast her off, denounced her, and reduced her to penury. We're also not shown how easily any of them could have beaten, raped, or even killed her, practically without consequences: rich men in a patriarchal society can get away with harming "loose" women like Lily Powers. This does not, to me, sound like power, or even like temporary control. Lily always balances on the edge of ruin, even if that isn't spelled out for us by the film; she has to work like crazy just to stay ahead of disaster.

Lily is certainly a unique character. Her drive and intelligence, combined with the philosophical education offered by her only male friend, sharpened her wits and kept her spirit from being utterly submerged by her father's brutality. It is that good fortune which allows Lily to stay on her feet, eyes peeled for disaster and the next big windfall. Don't confuse that with power. Although brilliant and tough, Lily Powers occupies an extremely vulnerable position. The writers, wittingly or not, hint as much in her alliance with Chico, her companion and maid (that cringe-worthy dynamic, too, deserves its own essay); Lily refuses to abandon Chico to the poverty and abuse she herself is fleeing, and the only time we see Lily back-talk one of her keepers is when he insists she fire Chico and hire a more refined servant.

There are shades of Mae West here, an alliance of "fallen" white woman with black women as a way of saying...what? Maybe that's too big for me to parse here as well; it's an incredibly problematic trope and there's enough in it to fill a book. I can tell you one thing--the only adult in "Baby Face" more vulnerable than a loose white woman is a poor black woman, and the fact that they're thrown together in this film is a signal of how tenuous Lily's position really is.

The writers, and no doubt the directors and producers and the gaffers and everyone down to the script girl, want the viewer to believe that Lily Powers is in charge of her life. They no doubt believe it themselves. The movie, unless read carefully and critically, presents us with a character who has full autonomy and control of her situation. It's easy to be lulled by Lily Powers' obvious strong points and her rather unlikely successes into thinking that her situation wasn't that dangerous, wasn't that bad. I posit that an unspoken goal of "Baby Face" is just that: pretending that patriarchy isn't so bad, that it's really a big dumb softy and that a smart woman, a pretty woman, can twist it around her little finger and get everything she needs.

That, friends and neighbors, will be the subject of the next essay.


Reposted from sherlockjunior

Tags: fear, fuck patriarchy, movies, social commentary
Current Mood: thoughtful

Had very nice tea with chaptal and Emma. Sadly, ZC's brunch ends precisely at two, and because they have to switch over their tiny kitchen space in order to do dinner stuff, they don't start taking dinner orders until 2:30--so these poor jokers, who took a side trip before heading straight into ZC, were left foodless while I NOM'd delicious chocolate waffles. In my defense, I did actually offer Em some waffle, because she was particularly hungry, but she felt she could not take food from me. Poor Em; I am always serious about food. She could have had some waffle.

Em and I talked a lot about baking, and Ed and I talked about chrome steel, and Em and Ed talked about, oh, Pittsburgh. I dunno, it's hard to hear in ZC, conversation can be hard to follow in there, but it was pleasant. Plus, waffles. But at one point I thought Em asked me if I liked older books, when in fact she said "audiobooks," and I totally still feel like a dork for mis-hearing her, alas.

It would surprise many, although presumably not Ed since he's known me for, what, five years now, that I did not feel the compulsion to refer to the Patriarchy at any given time during the meal. Oh, but my lavender tea was pretty unpleasant. I won't be ordering that again. At any rate, I'm a Rat full of surprises, I am. I even talked shoes and outlet shopping with Em, although I was at a loss to supply a local outlet store other than Filene's Basement, which is apparently closing. Dang.

The CAPA summer movie series has begun and "The Awful Truth" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" are on offer for this week. I will probably attend both, in a remarkable "Rat leaves the house for something other than tea" turnaround. I don't know. It's extremely difficult for me to make myself to go that sort of thing; I think I'm beginning to see something take shape here, not just a fear of interacting with people, or of being around unknown people, but an actual fear of large open spaces full of people. I've always been slightly like this, but like my shyness, I've always felt compelled to force it down and pretend it wasn't there. It's a real relief to suddenly be forced to admit it's there, although it's a shame it had to worsen under suppression in order for me to finally admit it's there.

But I haven't done my shyness post yet, either, so I'll let that pass for now. Not that there's much to say about shyness, really. I am, apparently, pretty shy. Who knew. Anyway, movies. I'd like to see if I can take myself to the movies this week, without it being a cause for freakout or guilt if I do or don't go. That'd be nice. I missed most of the movie series last year because of all this crap, so yeah.

Tags: brane, chrome steel, columbus, feminism, food, friends, movies, personal, sartorial matters, tea, therapy

GUESS WHICH ONE I AM

Tags: bokes, femininity, feminism, links, webcomics
Current Mood: amused

Leland: WAILY
Rat: Oh noes!
Leland: WAILY
Rat: Oh noes!
Leland: WAILY
Rat: Oh noesy noes! I must pick you up!
Leland: PURR PURR PURR
Rat: You are such a mess.
Leland: A MESS WOT GET PETTED

Tags: creeturs, personal

Three of you will find this familiar.

STUFFS

Tags: art, bizness, links, things i want

Customer Disservice:

So at some point, Lee began mouthing off about a certain barista that "kept hitting on him." When I was offered the opportunity to help him pick up a large order, I decided to go along to see what kind of near-blind, socially inept female buffoon worked at this coffee stand.

She was a beautiful, but very shy, girl in her early 20's.

And she was fucking terrified of Lee. I could see it in her eyes.

But she smiled nervously as Lee kept telling her she had "luscious legs" or "lovely breasts," simply because she needed to keep her job. She was too afraid to tell Lee to go fuck himself.

"Didn't you see the way she smiles at me?" he asked after we left.

Two weeks later, the owner banned Lee from the coffee shop.

Go figure.

And all Lee could talk about at work was how that manager had totally ruined his chances of fucking this hot teenage chick that was "totally into him."

"I'll find her," he'd say, "and I bet you she'll be blowing me within 5 minutes."

I cannot stress how incredibly fucking remarkable it is that the management banned this knob. VERY FUCKING REMARKABLE.

This is not quite my life, thank god, but the underlying assumptions and attitudes are what fuels some of the similar problems we have at the libraries.

Actually, that blog may be my new favorite reading material, right after You Suck at Craigslist.

Tags: fuck patriarchy, liberry, links, the internet is fucking crazy, working for the man

Rape culture condemned in South Africa:

MULDERSDRIFT, South Africa – Dumisani Rebombo wasn't circumcised, did chores considered girls' work and was sick of being taunted for not being a man. So at age 15, he took the only course considered "manly" in his rural South African village: He raped a girl.

Twenty years later he searched for the woman to beg her forgiveness — a rarity in a nation where a culture of sexual violence is deeply embedded in society.

Rebombo agreed to share his story with The Associated Press on Thursday as researchers presented findings at a conference on sexual violence that show more than one in four South African men surveyed admitted to committing rape.

"Rape is an expression of male sexual entitlement," said Rachel Jewkes, chief researcher for the survey conducted by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation. "South Africa is an immensely patriarchal society. The history of the country has shaped the dominant forms of South Africa's racially defined masculinities."

...

"Apartheid made violence an instrument of control and violence became the norm," said rights activist Mbuyiselo Botha. "Men would feel emasculated." Angry and humiliated, they took out their frustrations on the weakest victims, women and children, he said.

Firstly, I'd like to thank the AP for finally DOIN IT RITE. They have been doing it wrong in regards to gender, sex, and violence for so long, and so often,* that I am practically floored that one of their writers undertook to cover this story, and that it actually made it over the newswires.

Secondly, it takes a big man to admit that he acted horribly, that he lives in a matrix of oppression and behaved accordingly, that his victim is a real human person and that his actions have consequences for her. It takes a big man to say, "This problem is men's problem. We need to stand up and fix this." That is difficult to even conceive of under patriarchy, where victims are blamed for being victims and men are, always and forever, not accountable for their actions.

Thirdly, I approve of the language used in this article: they name the problem for what it is, namely, not a bunch of disconnected events, but a system of violence and oppression which colors the actions of all members of society. They even give it its right name: patriarchy. Thank you, AP, for doing what so many are too cowardly to do.

The fourth point is a chunky blend of concepts. I dislike that a story on rape focuses mostly on a man's story, although they do talk quite extensively about the long-reaching consequences this horrible event has had on the victim. However, the story is set up in such a way that men are the focus and women, as usual, become marginal and disappear. There's even hints of that old patriarchal trope that rape hurts the perpetrator more than it hurts the victim--just hints, just hints. Nothing deliberate, but with evil as insidious as patriarchy is, it finds a way to sneak in anywhere it can. I worry, too, that focusing on South Africa's rape culture allows the readers, presumably someone in North America or Europe, to pretend that the problem is only over there, only in "Third World" countries, when in fact aside from the cultural quirks like circumcision being a rite of passage, the rape story told in the article could happen anywhere, any time. It's happening right now, probably a few blocks from you, even as I type this. Anyway, I give the AP 50% on this one.

I keep returning to the third point, though. I keep wanting to print the story out and whack reluctant believers on the nose with it, albeit gently, until they wake the fuck up, while shouting, "Even the A-FUCKING-P has come around, people. Throw off your goddamn chains and do the same." And then I remember that people don't read through osmosis, so nose-whacking does no good.

This brings me to the fifth point, which is that there's slight whiffs of collaboratory attitudes in the story, namely, "See, this man didn't rape anybody today. Let's give him a cookie." It is genuinely awesome that this specific individual is trying to atone for his sins, but once again, this attitude makes his victim disappear and puts him in the center of the warm rosy spotlight of our approval. It's another patriarchal trope. This is heavily related to "MY husband is one of the good ones--he hardly ever makes me ask him to vacuum," or, "There's no such thing as patriarchy; individual men have always been really civil to me." Oy. Mind you, this idea is part of that big giant set of survival skills known as femininity, skills required of women in order to avoid at least some of the violence potentially directed towards them, but it still makes a Rat awful tired.

So. Some bad, but it's old, tired, stupid bad that gets in just about anywhere; the glimmerings of some good. People noble, people ignoble. It's important to call out the shit while being happy about the Shinola (and other stretched metaphors), because constant vigilance is a must when your enemy is invisible, sneaky, and above all, normalized.


*Real genuine headline: "Pregnant 9-year-old alleged rape victim. [em. mine]" 'Nuff said.

Tags: femininity, fuck patriarchy, helping, injustice, joy, news, social commentary, sorrow, the mass media is crazy, trauma, zero tolerance
Current Mood: impressed

Of course, when the revolution comes, the collaborators will be second up against the wall.

Don't mind me, I just hate stupid people even more than usual this morning. I normally have plenty of sympathy for collaborators. Femininity is a survival skill, after all.

Tags: fake feminists, webcomics

Poll #1426290 Rumpshakin'
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Your friend sends you a video of two women, apparently naked, shaking their asses for the camera. You find this hilarious. Do you open this video at the library and watch it, inflicting it on all and sundry?

*sigh*


EDIT: maxograph, you bad girl. No wonder you're banned from a dozen public libraries from here to the Rockies!

Tags: liberry, other people's bullshit, polls, the internet is fucking crazy

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=69218

I kinda threw it together. Probably missed a bunch of good stuff. Jewelry is popular in this area since it's so much easier to make than clothing.

Tags: art, bizness, links
Current Mood: blah

It's brutal, son.

Yeah, maybe it's not all in complete sentences, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that doesn't fucking matter. When shit is this bad, you use what means of dispersal you have.

Tags: links, news, politics, sorrow

*laughs til she cries*

Tags: movies, sex, teh funny

This shows up in the very first episode of Monty Python, along with some really amazing classic stuff: the pig motif, the artists' bike race, the World's Funniest Joke, a particularly amazing piece of animated Victoriana, and god knows what else. I'm not even through the whole ep yet.

I've got the entire set out from the library, but honestly, I don't think I can take that much MP all at once, and it's due back. It's just that this is the first time this particular item's been checked out, and I know by the time I see it again it'll be fucking trashed. People are twits.

Tags: liberry, movies, other people's bullshit, teh funny

A feminist blogger I'm fond of refers to femininity as "survival skills." I think that's something I knew before I heard her say it, but she has a way of crystallizing concepts for me at the perfect moment, when I most need to hear them. See, so-called "empowered" women in film have been on my mind a lot lately, specifically Mae West (Mae is always on my mind, let's be honest), but also Barbara Stanwyck. I watched "Baby Face" again today, and it made me sadder than ever before. The filmmakers, I'm sure, thought the movie was all about power: to be specific, Lily Powers' (ha!) power. And given the way our culture rolls, I'm sure audiences in 1933 and since have thought the same thing. It's easy to be swept along on the suggestion that Lily Powers is a badass who goes where she wants and gets what she wants because she's somehow magically risen above oppression (oppression which, we're told, isn't really so bad to begin with--but that's for another post).

But see, really, it's not about her power at all. She doesn't have any power, because the men around her have it all. Lily Powers has the incredible brass nerve to use her beauty and intelligence to play those men in order to avoid being raped, beaten, or cheated by them--but that's not the same as power.

What is power?

Power means not needing to connive or manipulate. It means that you're never thrust into a situation where physical danger, or deprivation of basic physical or emotional needs is imminent. It means your dad doesn't pimp you out to his bar's customers, or to the sleazy mobster offering "protection" for his speakeasy. It means that you can go to a company and get a good job without having to screw the guy in Personnel. It means that you get promoted because you're hardworking and intelligent, not because you slept with your boss and then played his boss (and, in turn, his boss!) for a sap. It means all that stuff and more.

It doesn't mean all the crap Lily Powers had to do, and had to put up with, in order to survive. And if Lily Powers did better than survive--if she did more than live hand-to-mouth--well, that doesn't change anything. We all want to do more than live hand-to-mouth. None of the men around Lily Powers were suffering any financial deprivation, and they didn't have to fuck their way up the ladder to get the good stuff in life. No, they were recognized on their skills. And their penii, of course.

No. Femininity is not power. It's a fucking survival skill.

You know what, too--we are shown through the whole movie that Lily is really smart. She's uneducated, but she's not an idiot. She's really brilliant, and she does work hard; we get clues that she also educates herself as she goes along. She just also knows that none of her intelligence and hard work will get her anywhere unless she also puts out. Let's face it--we are shown repeatedly, also, that the men around her will take what they want from her eventually anyway, if she doesn't give it up. So she does the cunning thing, and engages in sex willingly--at a time and in a way that will benefit her.

Christ, it's fuckin' terrifying. It's like all the ugliness and horror and misogyny of our stinkin' society laid bare, but we're given it as if it's a funny story about a powerful woman. "This is the kind of devastation women can wreak!" the movie tells us. "You empowerfulated women are the real rulers of society!" you can practically hear the Hearty Male Studio Staff say, while congratulating themselves on the cash money they're gonna make off this hot little flick, and the booze and hookers they're gonna buy with the profits.

Oh boy.



Reposted from sherlockjunior because this shit's off the hook.

Tags: damn the man, fake feminists, femininity, feminism, fuck patriarchy, movies