If the Shoe Doesn't Fit...

Since tomorrow is my last day at work, my team went out for lunch to celebrate getting rid of me (har har). The boss told us about a Halloween costume party he went to, and he told us about some of the costumes he saw.

One of them was a man dressed up as a woman. In fact, my boss had initially thought that the man was, in fact, a girl (not a woman, a girl).

At that, one of my co-workers muttered that it was probably the man's profession. Hopefully you can see what's wrong with this assumption, so I'll leave it alone.

Another co-worker told his own story about meeting a woman at some function, and, trying to start up polite conversation, asked her what her profession was. She responded with some embarrassment that she made women's clothes for men. "Excuse me?" he said his response was. "Like what?" Like dresses, braziers, et cetera. The same co-worker that muttered about the professional cross-dressing costumer muttered something else. The one telling the story tacked on, "Well, if it doesn't fit, you should take the hint!"

Now, I used to apply the same logic to things like this (although I've never believed that cross-dressers are inherantly bad or confused).

But, given the "hint," I arrive at a very different conclusion than my co-workers obviously did. They of course, believe that if the shoe doesn't fit, you shouldn't wear it.

Knowing that clothing is a man-made (woman-made is perhaps more accurate) strategy to keep us warm, I believe that if the shoe doesn't fit, then you should ask for a pair in your size. I know that, at one time in our history, it was unacceptable for women to wear men's clothes. When you remember that, it should beg the question, "How do you know the difference between men's and women's clothing?" My answer is that there should be no such thing as gendered clothing. Clothing, whether from the practical or the fashionable standpoint, is not inherantly gendered. A shirt is a shirt. In Utopia, men can wear pants and t-shirts, or skirts and high-heeled shoez (or all four at the same time!) and women can just as easily wear the same thing.

Currently, women can wear some men's clothing, but men most definitely cannot wear women's clothing. A man wearing women's clothing is automatically demonized, as anything woman-like is bad, particularly when a man is subscribing to it. A man wearing women's clothing is a pussy; he isn't a real man; his masculinity should be questioned; he's gay. This is a good example of why misogyny hurts everyone, not just women.

Now See Here

I'm getting fed up with being told by the right why I, as a woman, hate Sarah Palin. There's a myriad of reasons - all as shallow and petty as could be - and they all stem from, guess what, sexism.

Basically, the women of the left hate Sarah Palin because she is:

1. Sexy
2. Thin
   
3. Successful
4. Confident
5. A mother

Look. Those five things are all fine and dandy. Some people on the left may actually dislike her for those things, but I have yet to meet one. The thing is, I don't need stupid reasons to hate Sarah Palin. Just like you don't need stupid reasons to hate Joe Biden, or John McCain, or even - say it ain't so - Barack Obama. There are plenty of really good reasons to hate Sarah Palin. If the right would instead just admit that the left doesn't like her for her politics, which is really only one of the many reasons, I might not be posting this right now.

And I'm not even going to get in to the hypocrisy of the right calling me sexist for having good reasons to not like or support Palin.

That said, I really hope I don't have to deal with this woman again in 2012. My head might explode.

Men and Self-image

I ran across an interesting article on the fatosphere today, from Eat a Cheeseburger. Tiffabee talks about an article that suggests that "men suffer from body image issues after reading magazines just like women do." And not just magazines like Maxim. Women's magazines too. Why?

She reported that the main reason men feel self-conscious after reading a magazine filled with images of sexualized women is that they feel they have to live up to the same level of attractiveness in order to be worthy of the women they see in the magazines.

That makes tons of sense. And this is an excellent example of how misogyny - in this case, that which pigeon-holes women into stereotypical, too-perfect images - hurts everyone. Women's rights are everyone's rights. The feminist movement is a necessary and integral part of the humanist movement. That's why men should be just as interested as women in securing gender equality.

And so I'm also discovering that fat rights are a necessary and integral part of women's rights. Fat women are hounded - more than men - to diet, in order to be accepted by society. If a woman is going to be stuffed into the role of homemaker, mother, or wife, she needs to be thin to do it. The quintessential woman is a thin, beautiful mother that beckons to her husband's every call. And that's just not so.

The McCain-Palin Ticket

It's probably painfully obvious by now that I don't like the McCain-Palin ticket. I've been doing a lot of reading about both tickets, what they want to achieve, and what they're saying about themselves and each other. It's a dismal landscape. I wanted to talk about it some.

One of the primary problems I have with McCain is the campaign strategies he's using. It's not about issues. He'd rather slime Obama. And it's getting easier to see why. He (and Palin) avoids answering questions about his policies and stances, instead pointing at Obama, saying he'll be worse. He's telling lies, flip-flopping*, stretching truths (though Obama has done the same), butchered or otherwise taken quotes out of context, getting overly offended, calls his wife a cunt, and then gets offended when Obama supporters wear t-shirts that call Palin the same thing. (No, I do not excuse the misogyny of calling Palin a cunt, no matter who says it.) McCain's campaign isn't about McCain - it's about Obama (and lately even more about Bill Ayers)! Even the media is saying, "WTF?"

I compared both candidate's stances on issues on their websites. Obama's website not only talks about his stances ("Obama believes in...") but how he'll achieve his goals ("Obama will combat this by..."); McCain mostly only states his stances - he doesn't seem to have any idea how he's going to get anything done. Obama speaks to what he'll do when in office; McCain speaks to what Obama will fail to do when in office. The problem with this is that conservative, Republican, and swing voters are uninformed. They don't actually know what they're voting for, they only think they know what they're voting against.

He voted with Bush (not the Republican Party, Bush) 95% of the time. 95% of the time. That's a lot. And yet, he says he's a maverick, he'll bring change to the White House, but changing the status quo means he has to say something negative about Bush - but he hasn't. Instead, he agrees with him 95% of the time. I hate to repeat the Dems' slogan, but...it's more of the same. Now, if you like what Bush has done for this country and do want more of the same, well, I'm not even going to open that can of worms. You can go ahead on your merry way.

McCain has flip-flopped on the issue of regulation - he's been voting for the deregulation of financial institutions since he started in politics, and now he's suddenly saying that "strong and fair regulation" is necessary. He accepted money for his campaign from Fannie Mae as the company was going down, he packed his campaign staff with lobbyists, he is complicit in the calls for violence and assassination from his rallies, and he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate - but more on her later. He makes hasty, uninformed decisions: Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber are great examples of McCain not doing any vetting before putting people on pedestals.

Obama's voting record shows that he as voted with Dems 90% of the time. Again, that's a lot and that doesn't exactly scream "change." But, while he does say he's going to bring change to the White House, Obama doesn't call himself a maverick. Isn't voting with the Dems good because that means he's not voting with the GOP? Hopefully that means that the Dems will vote with him 90% of the time (as we all know that merely being President isn't by itself enough to get legislation through). This is also hoping we get a Democratic majority in Congress, which not only looks possible, but a filibuster-proof Congress might be possible as well.

Independent analysts say that Obama's health care and tax plans are going to help more people in bigger ways. Numbers show that having a Democractic president is better for the economy anyway. While McCain claims that Obama's tax plan is constantly changing, Obama has reiterated the same, single tax plan from the beginning. McCain will continue to give tax breaks to the rich and their companies, while hoisting more of the tax burden onto the middle and lower economic classes. Obama hopes to reverse the damage Bush has already done.

McCain owns 13 cars and 8 or 13 houses (worth over $8.6 million total; the value of one of the properies is unknown even), depending on if you want to count the 3 houses on the Sedona ranch as separate or not. Normally, I would agree with conservatives - its irrelevant slime that's meant only to distract from the issues and McCain can have as many houses and cars as he'd like (though I don't know what on earth he does with all of them). However, McCain himself doesn't know how many cars he owns, said he only buys American because he's passionate about the American automotive industry when he in fact has at least two foreign-made cars, and most of them are gas-guzzlers. And then he says he knows what the average American is going through. If I'm not mistaken, the average American does not have 13 cars and 8+ houses. The average American knows exactly how many cars he owns. The average American does not lie or forget about the car(s) he owns. Obama, on the other hand, owns one car - a hybrid, no less - and one house. So, my point is that 13 cars and 6 houses would be just fine if he didn't try to come off as an anti-greed everyman. If you point to something in your life as a plus, you had better expect people to inspect it, double-check it, and call you out on it if you're wrong or stretching the truth, particularly if you're being hypocritical at the same time.

Now - let's talk about Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin was unveiled as some sort of a messiah for the Republican Party; she's widely worshipped as a fresh new look on the White House, as well as politics in general. Why? Well, she isn't an old white man. She's also more of the same, except she has boobs. She's "morally repulsive," as Josh likes to say, not to mention unqualified, unprepared, a fundamentalist (dare I say extremist) Christian, and her conservatism is more extreme than even McCain's. After slamming Obama for being unqualified and inexperienced himself, McCain has the audacity to pick Palin, who has only been governor of Alaska for not even two years, and before that, the mayor of a town with a population of 5,000 for I think about 6 years. Before that, she was the Alaska Ethics Commissioner of Oil and Energy or Some Such Thing. Before that? She was in the PTA. She wants to be a television anchor, is a former beauty queen, showed very little interest in federal or international issues while governor, fired people that apparently didn't agree with her (though they hadn't actually done anything) while mayor, and didn't even push to make changes that support her chosen issues. She sold the governership's plane though. That sure is something. Oh. And she's a hockey mom. Her husband is about as active in the Governor's Office as she is. How that qualifies her to be Vice President of the United States is a mystery to me. And she LIES about all of this CONSTANTLY.

So why'd they pick her? The most frightening reason is that she's a a very talented puppet. She's getting briefed and coached by Bush's best. She's green enough to say exactly what they want her to say (although why they'd want her to connect Iraq to 9/11 when Bush won't even go there anymore is beyond me). If she does reach the presidency (and she might), she'll be another Ulysses Grant. They picked her for a reason that this country hasn't seen yet, not even in Palin's predecessor (Geraldine Ferraro, who was on Walter Somebody's ticket about 30 years ago). She looks young, she looks intelligent, she has a vagina, she's sometimes well-spoken, charming, and she's sexually attractive. It's sickening how many men - of all ages, right or left - are swooning over her. It's sickening that that's a bonus to McCain's campaign. Any questions of her qualifications are denounced as sexist. It's humiliating and deeply offensive to me, as a woman. I feel taken advantage of, and people that find her sexually attractive or think she's a feminist should feel that way too. Why didn't they pick Senator Hutchinson of Texas? Or Condoleezza Rice? They didn't for the same reason young and attractive women appear in so many commercials - to sell a product for false reasons. Hutchinson and Rice are not former beauty queens. Even Republican supporters say she wouldn't have been picked if she were a man. She's a tool; a means to an end. THAT'S real sexism. And the biggest kick in the chin - the champions of anti-feminism were only able to feasibly nominate her because of the feminist movement's accomplishments. And if she is elected, she will put the movement back many years. That's why progressive women are so passionately angry about her nomination - we're hurt. We feel betrayed. We feel cheated. And it's causing a lot of feminists to say and do many un-feminist things.

Why isn't she a feminist? Well, first off, she's an extreme pro-lifer; even rape and incest victims cannot get abortions. Now, pro-choice is not the defining quality of a feminist, of course - equality is the defining issue, and she has nothing constructive whatsoever to say about it. When a woman asked her in a town hall meeting about what she would do for the economic freedom for women, she responded with some babble about basketball. Essentially, she said nothing. When mayor, Wasilla was the only city in Alaska that forced rape victims to pay for the materials needed to convict the rapist. And that's not a trivial sum; somewhere around $1,000. The state had to pass legislation to force all municipalities to provide rape kits, just because of Palin. Alaska is the Rape State - more rapes occur there than anywhere else. Alaska has been trying to tackle this. As soon as Palin stepped in as governor, the movement came to a halt. She's the most anti-woman woman I've ever known. The fact that she is a woman and running for VP with 5 kids does not by itself mean she's a feminist. The fact that she's an independent, go-gettem woman that likes to shoot does not mean she is a feminist. That image is the media's charicature of what they think a feminist is, and that's why shallow feminists like her. They don't understand that she is anything but. She has said some feminist things, that's for sure. But she has not acted or voted like a feminist would. And that's exactly what the Republican Party is banking on by nominating her; they're trying to trick us.

I do not agree with her executive style. Posing hypothetical questions about banning books to employees then firing them when they give the wrong answer; using personal, insecure, unarchived e-mail accounts for conducting state business (that's illegal, by the way) when she's a self-declared proponent of open government; fighting corruption and reforming Alaskan government by giving important positions to her close but unqualified friends; redecorating the mayor's office with public funds; attending church services using public funds; firing Walter Monegan for not firing a trooper due to personal vendetta, then lying about it to the press, and then even after being found guilty, she still lied about it (presumably because she didn't actually read the report - she's not much of a reader, you see); Blackberrying when she should be representing; complaining that she doesn't receive special attention from the media when McCain won't let her talk to the media in the first place; it's all just pretty nasty and hypocritical.

But isn't it brilliant? They have men's votes, and they have some women's votes too, because any question or attack is spun as sexist, giving the campaign a defense mechanism from questioning frighteningly similar to religion's. Some women want a woman in the White House so badly that they don't care who she actually is or what she stands for. Republicans have historically been very good at campaigning, merely because of who they are - they're businessmen. They know how to sell products, they know how to market to people. And we're falling for it again, even after getting fooled into reelecting Bush.

And - I hate that I have to add this - I don't care about her voice and how screechy it may or may not be. That's a petty reason to not like her, and it only makes liberals look idiotic to cite this reason. Not to mention that it's sexist. McCain's manner of speaking bothers me, but I don't hear anyone complaining about that, do I? I also care less about her pregnant daughter than others; as Greta Christina pointed out, it could happen to anyone. But the hypocrisy and irony and refusal to learn from experience does not escape me.

And hell, if none of this works out for McCain and Palin, they can just change people's votes, lose ballots, keep using the same, broken, insecure Diebold (haven't they changed their name now, to distance themselves from the 2000 and 2004 elections?) voting machines, create committees and councils and investigations to pretend they care - all tried and true methods to steal an election, while accusing the Democrats of the very same, along with a make-believe thing called "vote fraud." And the American people will just nod their heads and we'll go back to business as usual, more of the same.

When I voted for Obama last week, it was as much of an anti-McCain vote as it was a pro-Obama vote. (Obama is not the perfect Democratic candidate. I would have preferred less misogyny in the primaries, for example.)

So. Happy Election Day. Please vote. But more importantly - think before you vote.

* On flip-flopping: I am all for changes in opinion when you realize you're wrong or there's a better way to tackle a problem. That's maturity, after all. But flip-flopping is a change in opinion when you have an agenda to pursue. When you change your mind for the wrong reason, that's flip-flopping. It's obvious to me that McCain is changing his opinions based on what will get him the most votes. Regarding (de)regulation, if McCain had said, "I realize that I was wrong about the deregulation of Wall Street. It doesn't work the way I thought it would. What is needed is deregulation..." then I would have blinked hard, said "omg," checked to make sure hell hadn't frozen over, but then I would have had a lot more respect for the man. But that's not what happened. Republicans are all about "stay the course," after all.

Fatphobia

I, like the vast majority of my culture, have fallen for the rule that Fat Women Are Gross. And I, as part of a tiny minority of my culture, am learning that that just isn't true. I'm not sure what I weigh now. I know I'm over 200 pounds, but I'm not sure how much over. I'm 5'5". I describe myself as "chubby" when I'm feeling optimistic, and "fat" when I'm not. Before I move on, I'm willing to bet that you've already made the assumption that I eat a lot more than I should and that I'm sexually starved.

Headline: Woman Eats Brownies, Gets Laid.

Well, here's the thing. To be honest, I don't know if I eat more than I should. Not anymore. I used to think so. But now I'm not so sure how much of that is our society dictating belief without evidence. (However, I do know that I do not eat healthily, and that likely has a lot to do with my weight.)

If I do eat more than I should, it's not because I'm sexually starved; it's not a substitute. Nor does being fat make me grossly unattractive. I get laid a lot. Couple times a week. I love every minute of it, and I have a strong suspicion that my partner does too. (If you just grossed out, then stop and think about what you just did, what prejudices you are host to, and why you think that way.) I don't eat food because food is a substitute for something that's missing in my life - I just like food. I like food like I enjoy listening to music, or coding, or writing, or reading. I just like it.

The other thing that deserves mentioning is the fact that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). One of the major symptoms of PCOS is weight gain. So it's not just me and my love for food, healthy or unhealthy (and I can tell you that it's never safe to assume that it's that simple with other overweight women too).

The truth is - there are some men and women who are genuinely sexually attracted to the kind of woman that you would not find in a Playboy magazine. Big women. Non-thin, non-slender, non-skinny, non-lithe women. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot more people that find large women attractive than society thinks. When I got to college and stopped wearing clothing that hid my body, I began to see a lot more interest from my fellow students than I'd ever dreamed of in high school. I need two hands to count the number of individuals that showed more-than-just-friends interest in me. I never thought I'd need more than a finger or two for that. In fact, before reaching college, I had become very comfortable with the idea of being single (with lots of cats) for the rest of my life. And all my boyfriend says is, "You're gorgeous. I'm obviously not the only one that thinks so." I still have a hard time with this concept; I'm still learning a lot about how my body isn't ugly like society seems to think it is.

But the amount of people out there that still think fat people are bad far outnumber the people that don't. And that's a huge problem, pun unintended. The truth is that fat isn't always bad. There is no "epidemic." Some people happen to be fat, just as some people happen to be thin, and while environment and the food you eat has a lot to do with it, genetics has about 77% to do with it. That's right: 77%. Not to mention that diets not only don't work, but could do more harm than good.

McCain and the "Liberal Feminist Agenda"

The McCain-Palin campaign gets crazier.


Yes, he did just say that choosing Palin was a "cold, political calculation" to counter the "liberal feminist agenda." There are a lot of conservatives voting Democratic because they don't like how far-right McCain and Palin are. Needless to say, I can't blame them at all.

Violet at Reclusive Leftist surmises, I think correctly, that this means that McCain sees two different feminisms, a liberal and a conservative. It's the conservative that McCain supports, the liberal he is against. Okay. I can see him being moronic enough to think that (as does Violet).

Palin calls herself a feminist. Does this mean that she's a conservative or a liberal feminist? Judging from her actions (not what she's said while on the campaign trail), it's pretty clear that she is not a liberal feminist. So what does a conservative feminist believe? McCain's website does not have a section discussing women or their rights, unlike Obama's website. I surmise that a conservative feminist believes she has the right to be a mother; clean the house; do the dishes; make dinner; raise the kids; run for mayor, governor, or Vice President; and give birth to her rapist's baby, but I don't think equal pay is in there. Maybe freedom from domestic violence, excluding the woman's husband (because marriage implies consent).

I don't want someone that believes those things in the White House. In fact, I would not call someone that believes in those things a feminist. That's an anti-feminist. That's a regressive. Feminism is an integral and necessary part of humanism, of progressivism. Those are not central tenets of the Republican platform.

That said, isn't it strange that Palin would call herself a feminist? It's a loaded word, nowadays. You can't just call yourself a feminist and receive an unweighted "ah" in return. Violet seems to take her at her word; I sure don't. I don't really care what she says; I care what she does. She has done more to upend women's rights than she has to support them, and that's true whether or not you take her pro-life stance into account. (Violet calls her a "pro-life feminist" - I can let that go, but even if I did, the rest of her platform and her actions as mayor and governor are still anti-feminist.) McCain went against the anti-feminism of his party to pick her in the first place, in order to appeal to Hillary Clinton's feminists; it follows, then, that she's going to call herself a feminist in public to further that end (and it looks like it's working).

In other news, Palin gives us this gem over the weekend:

[...] I don't support gay marriage. I'm not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can't do, should and should not do [...]

Funny, those two statements are mutually exclusive, to my understanding, and yet they came in one breath.

The Final Debate

Now that I've had some time to stew over the final presidential debate, there are few things that keep coming back to me.

Before I begin, I want to say that I don't see the point in declaring a "winner." That's not the point to me, as a voter. My primary interest in watching debates is to hear something new and to clarify the old. I was mostly disappointed in the previous debates, both presidential and vice presidential*. This debate offered some new things to think about though.

I continue to appreciate and value Obama's calm. As I'm sure I've stated in the past, I do not want a president that doesn't think before he leaps, not to mention a president with a hot temper. I also appreciate a solid intellect. I was glad to see more of his intellect (which McCain attacked, making the word "elitist" pop up into the minds of his base) and more of his calm.

I'm already sick of hearing about Joe the Plumber.

I giggled happily when McCain exclaimed surprise when Obama told Joe the Plumber that he would be fined zero dollars.

I yelled obscenities when McCain continuously used the phrase "pro-abortion," as there is no such thing, and I was very pleased when Obama said that himself.

I stopped yelling when McCain used air quotes to describe women's health and claimed it to be exaggerated by the "pro-abortion" movement and that women's health is an "extreme" position to defend. "That's the extreme pro-abortion position: 'health.'" I cannot begin to describe the way I felt. I actually teared up, I was so angry. To tell over half the population of the country you want to represent that their health problems - including death during childbirth - are myths, exaggerations, worth snickering over, and putting in quotes...I cannot begin to describe the rage. How is it that he could have done that, so thoughtlessly, so disdainfully? I was going to just link the video, but I'm going to put it here instead:


And while McCain tells the women of American that their health is unimportant, Obama purses his lips, shakes his head a little, and reaches for a glass of water. This was the moment where I wished Obama were less calm and more passionate. Had I been in Obama's place, I would have launched into a tirade. Actually, if I'm going to be really honest, I would have burst into tears (I really am not cut out to be President, let alone debate about what I would do if I were).

* The point of interest from the vice presidential debate regarded gay marriage. Biden categorically declined support of gay marriage, but declared approval for equality in civil unions. Bollocks. And we all knew what Palin was going to say long before she said it.

Getting Started Early

I was going to write about the presidential debate last night. But then I got to work this morning, checked Google Reader, and ran across a few things that I just can't stay quiet about. I'll write about the debate later. (Read this in the meantime.)

First, there was a single news story from the Politics section of Slashdot: apparently, some researchers think that how messy your bedroom and office are reflect your political leanings. Sound like bullshit? I think so, because I can think of some neat liberals, and I can think of some messy conservatives, and I bet you could too. On top of that, the scale between messy and neat is one-dimensional; political leanings are at least two dimensional (generally economics/state control and social issues are the two major dimensions). A few examples of the next questions that should come to mind: What about a libertarian? What about a social liberal/fiscal conservative? What about moderates? What about people that don't have any strong political leanings? What about people that start out conservative (say because their family is conservative, so they were raised that way), then "convert," so to speak, to liberalism (or vice versa) later in life? What about the political leanings of the rest of the world? Why, for god's sake, do we need to impress divisive binary upon perhaps the most perplexing, complex, and incredible natural machine yet discovered in the universe? So I was already grumbling to myself about this story when I reached the very end:

I, for one, support a woman's right to clean.

I really could have done without that, thanks. So clever; so edgy. I read through the comments a little, and I haven't found anyone point out the misogyny of this remark yet; all I've found so far are little fights between commenters about "You're using the OLD definition of Republican" or "I wish you people would know how to use liberalism correctly," or what have you. Only a couple of the questions I asked above were asked (like "I'm a moderate - where do I fit in?" and "I'm conservative, but I'm very messy - what gives?"). But there is this:

I, for one, support a man's right to tell women to leave his belongings alone.

Excellent! If it wasn't old before, it definitely is now. And that comment has a score of 5, with a label of "Funny." Funny, I didn't find it very funny.

So if that wasn't enough to frost my cookies, then there's this: Southampton, NY, on Long Island, apparently strip searches all women that are arrested for whatever reason. Literally, for whatever reason. It's policy. Strip search all arrested women. Men? No, you don't have to strip search all men, that'd be grody. So, if this weren't bad enough, here's this:

But then, it also has a policy of turning on a video camera whenever they strip search females, and broadcast the strip search throughout the police station.

Angry yet? I sure am. It's not even that they do it and would get in trouble if they were caught - it's policy. The institution that is there to protect you when you need it most will strip search you and broadcast the process to the rest of the officers in the station, making you not only feel safe, secure, and protected, but ashamed, embarrassed, violated, and abused - but don't worry, it's for your own safety and protection. I don't think I need to describe why this is wrong or bad. I think it's pretty clear. And that's why I can't figure out why the fuck it's policy.

Sarah Palin's New Hair Style/Strategy

HuffPost is reporting on Sarah Palin's sudden change in hair styling. Normally, I would be a bit annoyed at the sexism of reporting on such a thing in the first place, but what they're actually saying is not, "omg, how sexy," but "omg, how sexist." A quote from her hairdresser:

"We would talk a lot about how if she looked too pretty or too sexy, people wouldn't listen to her. How important it was for people to see her as an intelligent, smart woman. It was comical when her hair was down, how big a difference that would make, especially when she was running for governor."

So, basically, when her hair is up, she is trying to look intelligent and thoughtful. But, the hair coming down is a last-ditch effort at appealing to the horny? And it makes a big difference? Excellent. Add that bullet to the growing list of Sarah Palin's anti-womanisms. I don't want to see her as an intelligent, smart woman, I want to hear her as an intelligent, smart woman. Since she obviously hasn't been blessed in that arena, I guess that means her hair will have to convey it to us instead. Of course, I'm just being jealous and immature, because Sarah Palin is too sexy and too confident for a woman to support, right, Time Magazine?

And as a last comment - if you take a look at HuffPost's slideshow, scroll to the very last photo, dated today. The one with the cute little (endangered) polar bear pin on her jacket? Yeah. Hypocrisy speaks louder than words in this case, I think.

Angelina Jolie: Breastfeeding on W Magazine Cover

Okay, so breastfeeding in public is bad. That's the status quo. Normally I don't read much into entertainment news, but Angelina Jolie has apparently been taking some heat for allowing herself to be photographed breastfeeding her twins. Oh noez, right, well, here's the actual photo:


Shocked? Flabbergasted? Yeah, me too. I think it's a beautiful photo, and I roll my eyes that we see so much worse in the media - for example, the lusciously hypocritical Fox News - and yet, a photo like this is holy-shit-bad (probably particularly to the lusciously hypocritical Fox News).

There are a lot of bans regarding the female body in our culture, and others around the world. In Middle Eastern countries, for example, women must completely cover their bodies. In fact, there's lately been suggestion that women should start covering one of their eyes, because two eyes are just too seductive. Only on nudist beaches does it seem to be okay in the US for women to walk around as topless as male counterparts, and that's even more stringent than some other countries, like Italy (and Italy at least doesn't just have skinny, young women on display either).

I'm pleased that Jolie has the courage to stand up to this nonsense, and I hope we see more women like her lead the way.

WoW Sexism: One More Thing

I recently wrote about sexisim in World of Warcraft, but having done so, I realized I forgot a very personal moment that seems silly for me to have forgotten. (This story probably does deserve its own post anyway, I suspect. The old one was long enough.)

First, a little background. Generally speaking, guilds that participate at least semi-regularly in raids have a Ventrilo ("vent" for short) or TeamSpeak server for voice communication during raids (and off-times, for social interaction). Since our raid leaders are overwhelmingly male, you tend to hear mostly male voices.

I don't tend to speak very much in vent. I raided before the expansion, when the largest and most common raids were taken on by 40 people. So our raid leaders at the time were pretty strict about vent use - no chatter, no off-topic conversations. Only information that all 40 people needed to hear was allowed. So I learned to be pretty silent, since I'm not a raid leader. And that's stuck with me. Even though the largest raids nowadays max out at only 25 people, crosstalk is still a problem.

And so, when one of our female members spoke (who has been in the guild for some time, I believe), she was mistaken for one of the other female members. The officer was lightly ridiculed (by his fellow male officers), and he responded by stating that he has a hard time telling us women apart. I stated in a matter-of-fact-but-lighthearted-manner, "Sexist prick." There was laughter, followed by, "I'm guessing that was Casp." Yes, it was Casp.

I do not have a hard time telling the males from the other males, nor the females from the other females. The only exception I can think of - and it's a rather obvious one - is in the case of new people: it merely takes time to learn their voice and manner of speaking, particularly if they don't speak often. But this was not the case this time.

Usually, there isn't a terrible problem with our male players confusing women's voices. It has happened more than once though, in current and past guilds, with different men each time. This time stands out to me mostly because it's the most recent, and - importantly - because of his response to me. With the way the exchange progressed, it felt as if the word "bitch" was on the tip of his brain when he correctly guessed my identity. I believe I have a reputation for calling people out. Does speaking up make me a bitch? According to the co-founder of Bitch Magazine, yes. Is that a bad thing? According to the co-founder of Bitch Magazine, no. And I agree. Calling people out on sexism is never a bad thing.

There is another woman in the guild that I have great respect for, who has an even greater and more infamous reputation for being a bitch. Nanika calls out ignorance, untruth, whining, illogic, and bullshit in general. Some men unseriously state that they're afraid of her. I admire her.

The Perks of Progressivism

I'm glad I'm a progressive. With every blog post I read, every news story that trumpets the end of the world, every frantic neo-con that's found something else to worry about - I find more peace in the fact that I don't feel any need to agree, play along, endorse, or worry.

Now, I realize that I might have the political definition of progressivism wrong, but to me, being progressive means that I feel that all human life is equal (women are equal, non-whites are equal, gays are equal, etc. to their male, white, straight, etc. counterparts); fully equal civil rights is the best thing we can hope for in this nation; secularism in government is paramount to that end; sexual liberation, privacy, and education will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, rapes, sex crimes, etc.; intellectualism is something to prize and foster (and so scientific research should be funded and encouraged). My feeling is that if someone happens to be doing some crazy things - while not doing any harm to anyone - that I myself wouldn't do, why the fuck should I get bent out of shape about it? I also don't see the use in the government trying to legislate morality - it doesn't work, it hasn't ever worked (for any significant amount of time), it's not supposed to work, it's not legal, and it's not the government's job anyway.

And you know - as sour as the world looks since we haven't achieved the above things yet - things are pretty good so far. I don't feel guilty when I have sex with my boyfriend whom I am not married to while using contraception. I don't feel guilty for admiring an attractive woman that walks by (or admiring aloud with my boyfriend). I don't see anything wrong with people that get off on BDSM (though I, myself, don't). I don't see anything wrong in associating with minorities if I happen to strike a chord with them. I don't get angry when I see boobs on TV. I don't have to weird out on someone if their religion doesn't agree with mine. I don't have to keep my vagina under lock and key until I'm married. I don't hate all Muslims just because of 9/11; it's more reason for me to be non-religious, actually, instead of hating a religion that isn't mine. I don't even hate conservatives because they're conservative. I know that I can love my neighbor even better than some Judeo-Christian person can, because it doesn't matter what color their skin is, what gender they're sexually attracted to, or what they do behind closed doors - I can still love them for just being neighbors. It's nice to be progressive; there are so many more open doors. I learn new things all the time; I learn how to think about things differently all the time.

But isn't it funny that progressives - particularly feminists and atheists, in my experience - are criticized for being so angry all the time? Regressives are clammoring about all kinds of things that are wrong with the world. They try to push legislation that enforces what they - a subset of the total population - find moral and acceptable. They're angry a lot (Bill O'Reilly is a good example) - mostly about what other people do with their own private lives. And yet, I have so much more freedom than they do. I can watch porn if I wanted to, without having any guilt or worry of being found hypocritical, and a regressive can't do that. In fact, a regressive would persecute me for that. I won't even get into the hypocrisy that ensues when a regressive is caught doing something like that after spending years of his/her career fighting it. But you know what - regressives watch porn too. And I'm okay with that. But I can't figure out why regressives want to ban and outlaw things that they themselves do anyway, just because this book says that it's bad. That's the only reason they give too - gay sex is bad and dangerous because it makes baby Jesus cry.

Being angry is okay, by the way. It's what you do with your anger that matters. Bill O'Reilly does it wrong. Martin Luther King, Jr. did it right. And before you say, "gee, MLKJr sure didn't seem angry," think again. Would he have done what he did if he weren't angry? You would be angry too, if you were the target of "separate but equal" bullshit and racial repression. You would be angry too if the Constitution defined you as three fifths of a white person. You would be angry too if you had to get up from your seat so that a white person could sit there. And before you go, "you're not black; how do you know?" then remember that I am a woman. Sexism is the new racism. It's rampant and ubiquitous, to the point where people still have no idea that it's there and they're actively participating in it. And that's not to say that racism is a thing of the past! Progressivism is an uphill battle by its very definition: it's easy to stick with the status quo if you're the one in a place of privilege.

Progressives want to open more doors. Regressives want to shut, lock, and monitor all doors. It's so much easier to just open the doors, so we can all watch porn, for example, if we wanted to. The key phrase there is "if we wanted to," by the way.

Sexism in the World of Warcraft

Okay, okay. Yes, I play the damn game. ("Oooh oooh what do you play, what do you play?") I play a night elf ("awwwwwww :(") holy priest named Casperne on the Kul Tiras sever, with a bunch of nerds that line up under the banner of Lexington.

There is quite a bit of sexism floating around the world. Of Warcraft. (Sorry, had to do it.) Not only are the users themselves rather sexist, but the designers, at least, are too.

The foremost thing to discuss is, of course, the playerbase. Due to WoW's infamy, its playerbase could not be contained to a single demographic: rich and poor, young and old (12-70, I'd guess, averaging around 20), male and female, gay and straight, mature and immature, introverted and extroverted, educated and uneducated, right and left (-winged and -handed). Thus, you often have the pleasure of playing with really idiotic, immature people. Conclusion: no wonder there's misogyny abound. The best example is probably the oft-declared, "Girls don't play WoW!" or "There aren't any girls on the Internet!" Obviously, this is incorrect, and, in fact, most people say it knowing that it is, and I guess that's supposed to make it funny. Similar to "Oooh, don't hurt me, feminist-man-hating lady!" It's just not funny anymore.

There is, however, one good thing regarding gender that WoW embraces: you can play whatever gender you want. There are a lot of men that play female characters, and they aren't ashamed of it. (Compare to Ragnarok Online, where, when you create an account to start playing, you choose your gender, and then you can only play characters of the matching gender.) There are only two major reasons for this that I know of so far. Some of these players admit that they just like to see their female character's boobs jiggle when they run (and similar reasons), while others simply don't like the male character models. There is one other reason, and I've only heard my boyfriend give this reason so far: some identify better with females in real life, thus find it natural to play a female character. I have no idea how common this reason is. Only a handful of times have I ever heard someone use the choice to play the opposite gender as ammunition in an argument. It's generally a pretty accepted thing to do.

But when the developers themselves program misogyny right into the game, I tend to get a little annoyed. For example, this is my human female paladin:



Pretty skimpy, huh? Here's what this outfit looks like on a human male:



Surprised? I'm not either. The guy doesn't even have to have an uncomfortable wedgie all the time. It would have been pretty simple to just have the armor cover up the same amount of skin. This lends more to the sexist idea that the female body is community property and that women exist as eye candy.

Character models' body types deserve to be pointed out. The female human body is fairly proportioned, in my opinion. Her waist isn't itty-bitty, her thighs are healthy, and her boobs are, though ample, not enormous. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the male body is the truly unfair one: he really is packing, to an unrealistic degree. (And I just noticed that his legs appear to be shaved! Nutty.) When the blood elf race was announced as the new horde race for the expansion, I was ecstatic to find out that the male blood elf was not packing huge muscles. He was skinny, almost frail, and certainly feminine. Personally, I find such a body type to be extremely attractive. But Blizzard's average player doesn't, and after a lot of homophobic clamoring, Blizzard beefed up the model to the same levels as the male human, and it hasn't changed since.

As far as being a woman playing the game among males goes, I've been pretty pleased. I have never been talked down to because I'm a female and I don't know anything. No one has ever apparently disagreed with me because I'm female. My knowledge of how to play my class has never been questioned because of the fact that I'm female. In fact, I get a lot more respect for playing my class well in this game than I do for getting good grades in my tech classes at school. Men appreciate my work in the game more than they do in class. I can't begin to theorize why this might be true. In fact, this is merely anecdotal; it might not be true. It might simply be easier for my teammates to communicate respect to me over the Internet than it is in real life.

You might be surprised that those are the only examples I came up with. I chose to leave out the more "mundane" examples of misogyny (instances are divided into "5-man" and "25-man" dungeons, for example, instead of "5-person" and "25-person"), because they mostly come from the playerbase, not the developers themselves. And again, there really shouldn't be much surprise about the playerbase being misogynist. On top of that, the truth is that I play this game for much the same reason others do: to escape. I tend to try very hard to ignore misogyny in WoW because I'm trying to have fun here. And, as Shakes has wisely said, if I were dedicated to purposefully finding and calling out misogyny everywhere, I would be a very unhappy woman indeed.

Doubt not that I will continue to post examples of misogyny in WoW as I come accross them, even the mundane ones.

A secret that really isn't a secret.

A PostSecret secret that stuck out to me today:


Of course, this is no secret, really, and feminists have known this for a long time. According to Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch Magazine, the definition of bitch is this:

"Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men."

Truthful would certainly fall under this definition too. Those words - strong, angry, uncompromising - are more often than not words to describe men. And so when a woman shows those peculiarities, it's bad, because, somehow, men monopolize those characteristics. Bullshit, I say.

I rather like the basic definition of feminism, coined by Cheris Kramarae: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are human." It's short and to-the-point, with a touch of snarkiness that might cause the woman who coined the definition to be labeled as, well, a bitch. If telling the truth makes me a bitch, then sign me up. I just wonder what truth this secret-sender offered - if it was the truth about rape, violence, misogyny, then I hope she spoke up loud and clear.

(Shakespeare's Sister also has an excellent post about the word bitch and other forms of misogyny, why they're alienating, and why they should not be ignored. This is where I got Andi Zeisler's definition.)

The Tie

I wore a tie to work the other day. It goes down to my belly-button; it's red, with small, diagonal, black stripes; and I don't have to actually tie it. It's not a strip of cloth that I have to wind and weave around itself. It's actually on a zipper mechanism so that you can slide the tie up and down a zipper to tighten it around your neck. A brilliant idea. I wore it with a white, button-up shirt and gray slacks, by the way. I thought I looked pretty sharp.

So I wore it to work the other day. I've only worn it twice so far, but both times, my male colleagues have ignored it while women compliment me on it. "Cute tie," they said. After I heard it the second or third time, I realized that they didn't say "nice tie" or "neat tie" or "sharp tie." They said "cute." What on earth is cute about a tie? It's a masculine article of clothing, a garnish of personality added to a business suit that's otherwise meant to convey professionalism and seriousness to colleagues and clients. Nothing cute about it. (Unless it's pink with bunnies and kittens on it, I suppose. But that's not what my tie looks like. It's red with stripes. Classic. Unisex.)

So why did they say cute? Is it because the wearer is a woman? Is it because the complimenter is a woman? Is it because I'm younger than them, and so I am not to be taken seriously? When you think of a female wearing a tie, what do you see? I see a young girl in a school uniform getting off a bus to attend class at a private school. I realize that's not the image that I want to see. It's not professional. It's young, and young girls are often cute.

Am I trying to find meaning where there isn't any? Maybe.

I'm not trying to make a statement by wearing this tie. I'm not trying to be a staunch feminist, insisting on wearing slightly manish clothing so that I am taken more seriously. I just like the tie. I like red and I like stripes and I like the contrast with the white shirt. I like the tie in the same way that I like the string of tigers eye beads that I sometimes wear with collared shirts - I think it looks nice. It's a nice garnish to otherwise professional, boring clothing.

In fact, I am not the only adult woman to wear a tie. I know I've seen it before. And I know I did not think of a schoolgirl when I saw her. If I find a photo, I will post it. And I will continue to observe reactions when I wear it. Perhaps I have not collected enough data.