This week in The Slacktiverse, November 19/20 2011

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: I'm So Sad (by Crash and the Boys)
Come explore spiraling depression, liquid lunches, male privilege, and societal notions of “responsibility” in traditional relationships as Ana dips into the increasing, utter, crushing sadness that is the Twilight Lunchroom Beckoning Scene.

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: False Accusations, Ruined Lives, and I Do Not Recognize Your Fictional Reality
It’s not that false accusations don’t happen, and that lives aren’t sometimes ruined in the process – they do, and that’s something we need to address as a society. It’s that when you base your novel around the assertion that false accusations are taken as serious Unvarnished Truth 100% of the time, I have to say that I don’t recognize the world you live in. Maybe that’s just me.

Kit Whitfield continues her analyses of famous novels' first sentences; this week, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. (Trigger Warnings:racism, hate crimes and torture apology, child abuse ).

Ruby reports: As Paul explores Las Vegas, we see what Jerry Jenkins thinks the world would be like with legalized prostitution in Soon: Chapters 22-23: Paul and the Whores and Soon: Chapter 23: Angela and the Whores.

(Trigger Warnings: Lots. Violence, QUILTBAG-phobia, violence to children, human sacrifice, suicide, bullying...and probably some I missed.)

In Passing children through the fire for Moloch, Literata argued that when extremely conservative Christians say that anti-bullying legislation infringes their freedom of religion, they are claiming the "right" to sacrifice children to their religion.

This week Yamikuronue posted: On Photos and Feminism, in which I explain how the patriarchy affects little things like the way I pose for pictures; Allow Me To Introduce Myself, the latest section of my ongoing deconstruction of This Present Darkness (which was recently featured in Jarred's blog) and Political Moment, in which I use an anecdote from my life to illustrate the difference between marriage and domestic partnership.

mmy reports: This week I published a piece about the impact of changing technology on the plots of murder mysteries in Technology and mystery writer, part one, and posted a review of Dorothy Sayers' Strong Poison. In this week's installment of The Tardis in the library I wrote about The Sweet Smell of Class Essentialism. I also continued to check in to find out what was in the newspapers 100 years ago (When smoking is a civil right, Copyright and the Moving Picture Industries, Suffering Suffrage, Calculating the Cost of Living and Marked from Birth to Death.)

Storiteller spent this week writing for other people's blogs, with two guest posts. The first was for DC Food for All, a regional blog from Washington D.C. that covers food justice issues. In Food Forests and Renewable Energy: A Great Combination, she wrote about how signing up for wind power with a local company can help support an innovative urban agriculture project. Then, in a guest post for her church, Growing in the Spiritual Life, storiteller talks about what the ecological origins of weeds can teach Christians about sin.

Coleslaw writes: Once Again, it's Stewardship Sunday at church, leaving me to ponder how best to spend my money. My husband had Jury Duty, and was not happy about it. Veteran's Day made me remember my dad, An Atheist in a Foxhole. If I had stuck to my original plan of making Anadama bread for the bake sale, I would have avoided the embarrassing incident with the ants. People may be moving their money from the big banks to credit unions, but for the best customer service, interest rates, and hours of operation, bank with The Bank of Mom.

This week, Jarred blogged about anti-gay activist Eugene Delgaudio's cooption of Veteran's day to promote his opposition to the repeal of Don't, Ask Don't Tell (Trigger Warnings: discussion of Anti-Quiltbag rhetoric). He also discussed the conservative Christian debating tactics described by Alisa Harris in her book, Raised Right. He promoted and discussed his admiration for a fellow Slacktivite's deconstruction of a book he grew up reading. He finished his week of blogging by exploring a couple of the reasons that fundamentalist Christians tend to be suspicious of and downright opposed to psychology: their understanding of selfishness and how they perceive that psychology threatens the unique importance accorded to faith.

The former conservative blogger reports: This week I continued my dialogue with CARM about their homophobic "Questions for homosexuals and those who support them" (Trigger Warnings: discussion of Anti-Quiltbag rhetoric); I pointed out similarities in behavior between PETA and fundamentalist Christians; commented on a fundamentalist bloggers intolerance for anyone unlike her (Trigger Warnings: Homophobic language and talk of spousal abuse); remarked on a blogger's disturbing image of God: and wrote about one of my favorite classic video game series.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Heads He Wins, Tails She Loses
If there is a redeeming spot to be found in Twilight, it is perhaps that in the end Bella will transcend the gendered expectations of a sexist society and will transform into something god-like and untouchable. The road there is a poor one, and frequently seems less like a rejection of societal rules and more a perfect completion-and-reward system of the same, but the end is a good one, and – if you squint at it just right – it almost does seem a little feminist.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Deconstruction: The Best Day Of My Life
All this time I’ve been criticizing Twilight for the “falling” female lead, for the abelism associated with “cute” falling, and for the unfortunate implications of a heroine whose defining fault is clumsiness. Now, thanks to Cracked and a YouTube montage, I’ve had to realize that this “falling flaw” is actually everywhere... and I just never noticed.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: Good Kings, Bad Laws (and why Lawful Stupid isn't a valid alignment)
TRIGGER WARNING: Violence
Now we come to the chapter where an innocent character is tied up by the Bad Guys, placed on a brutal forced march, and threatened with whippings and death. No, it’s not Tolkien’s Merry and Pippin in the clutches of the orcs; rather, it’s Lewis’ Edmund in the custody of the White Witch. What’s telling is that if you’re going to feel sorry for Edmund here, it’s sort of on your own time – the less Edmund is humanized and sympathized with in text, the less jarring it will be when Aslan fiercely reaffirms the Witch’s absolute right to kill the boy a few chapters from now.

In case you missed this

Dash: Over at Slacktivist Patheos, attention was drawn to the fact that Nov. 20 was Transgender Day of Remembrance in the U.S., with a link to Skepchick's article on Transgender Remembrance Day.

MercuryBlue submitted a link to an open letter to television executives and powers that be concerning Becky Rosen (literally the only fanficcer on Western television) and Jane Averagefan, and the Supernatural episode "Season Seven: Time for a Wedding" and its disastrous effects on Becky's character and therefore upon the television representation of all fanficcers everywhere.

mmy writes: This New York Times article reports on the outcome of the trial of the James Ray, the "self help" guru. Ray, and the incident the led to this trial, have been discussed several times on this board.

28 activists were arrested for protesting against the criminanlisation of homelessness in Budapest on 11th November. They were fined and released, the same day. About the fines -- converting from forints to dollars just tells you how much you'd get at a currency exchange office. A more useful conversion rate for understanding the proposed 150000 forint fine for homelessness is "2 months pay at minimum wage before taxes." Which is $2320 USD (using us federal minimum wage of $7.25 multiplied by 8 fourty-hour weeks), not the $655 mentioned in the article.

MercuryBlue reports: As described in this article of Scotsman (Female student’s naked posts tear the veil from face of secular Egypt)--a women's rights activist in Egypt posted naked pictures, to which the link does not go, of herself in protest against Egypt's lack of secularism and Egyptians' insistence that a woman baring any skin is a woman being unbearably arousing to men.

This is an online hearing aid museum. You can click on the left to see examples of, and read descriptions of different hearing aid devices, sorted by century. It's really neat reading about how hearing aid technology evolved over time. My favourite is the acoustic chair from the early 19th century. I also like the transitor radio lookalike hearing aid from the 1960's.

Things you can do

Freeway Blogger writes about How To Reach A Million People Tomorrow

MercuryBlue reports: The feministe article about police/das using the possession of condoms to convict sex workers is especially relevant if you're in New York, because that's the state considering a bill to ban prosecutors and police from using possession of condoms as evidence of illegally doing sex work, and therefore the state considering a bill to decriminalize possession of condoms. There's a change.org petition linked in the article in support of this bill.

Food banks in the United States will be especially stretched to serve the needs of the struggling Americans this Thanksgiving week. Over 40 million Americans don't know where they will get their next meal. FeedingAmerica has a useful "find the nearest food bank" page for those who can donate and for those who need the services of foodbanks.

21st century bird:

Political leaders in St. Petersburg are about to vote on law that will make it illegal for any person to write a book, publish an article or speak in public about being gay, lesbian or transgender. The ruling party led by President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin could make millions of people invisible with the stroke of a pen. [Quoted from AllOut.org] (Emphasis mine).

If you have a few moments, please consider signing the petition at AllOut. It probably won't do anything on its own, but I figure it can't hurt to get the word out.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

---

The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)

Comments

[Coleslaw]

Enjoy family time.

[MercuryBlue]

Seconded.

[Laiima]

excellent!

[MercuryBlue]

Ooh hey open thread.

So I was volunteering at the food bank today, and I noticed something. The one person present who wasn't a volunteer was male. There might have been a guy or two attached to the Cadette troop that was there when I got there or to the Daisy troop that showed up after the Cadettes left; I'm not actually sure. And those one to three men and my dad are all the men I saw all day. No shortage of female types--there were more'n half a dozen people who weren't attached to a Girl Scout troop, and I didn't bother counting the Girl Scouts--but hardly any men.

Then I realized something. My Criminal Law class? Nearly all female. My Legal Research and Writing class? Only one man. My Family Law class? Only one man. My place of employment? Hardly any men, and only one I see with any regularity. My family? Seven people, two men, and my brother's off at college. Photography class and the UU congregation and Slacktivist/verse are the only places I encounter significant numbers of people who happen to be male.

I live in a predominantly-female bubble. Kind of freaky to think about.

[Account Deleted]

Thirded. Shouldn't pass up on a chance to meet up with family if you can't always visit them.

I live in a predominantly-female bubble. Kind of freaky to think about.

Huh, interesting. Is that an unusual thing in that context? I mean, I'm not sure what the statistics are like for either volunteering at the food bank or Criminal Law / Familiy Law / Legal Research / Writing class - is that a really odd coincidence, or does it come with the profession?

[MercuryBlue]

State employees skew female and so do paralegal students. (Men who are interested in law by and large go to law school. Men who work for the state were mostly elected to or nominated for the position, which pays more than stuffing envelopes does.) Dunno about stats for food bank volunteers.

[Kit Whitfield]

Since this is an open thread: I have an American-made cake tin that advises brushing it with 'vegetable shortening' before use. This is an unfamiliar term to me. Would ordinary vegetable oil do?

Also, how on earth are you supposed to measure out a cup of butter without melting it?

[Lonespark]

Regualar shortening is made from lard. Veg. shortening is also solid at room temp, so oil wouldn't do, but butter might. Then again, it may not matter, as long as you're greasing it somehow.

Cram butter into cup measure, then dig it out with a spoon? At least that's how my grandmother always did it. Except she used shortening with real lard.

[Mmy]

What Lonespark said--vegetable shortening is usually a white semi-solid substance at room temperature. And my grandmother did the same as lonespark's to measure out butter.

Link for vegetable shortening

Does this mean that your arm is feeling better enough to do a little cooking?

[Lonespark]

Re: foodbanks and such.

I remember we were talking about how no one provides diapers via WIC, foodstamps, etc. And I was looking through the coupons the other day wondered, what about sanitary napkins/tampons? Is that sometime that's good to give? I currently only usually donate food to a food bank, which also takes soap and kleenex and stuff, so they might take that stuff, or maybe I should find out of there are shelters around? But I was wondering if anyone had experience with this?

[MercuryBlue]

They should be properly wrapped in their original packaging of course.

Speaking of, if you're donating to a food bank? Always always leave the instant-oatmeal packs and Capri-Sun packs in the box from whence they came, unless the packs have the nutritional information on them as well as on the box. We had to throw out so much instant oatmeal and Capri-Sun yesterday...

And if you could check your donations to make sure the expiry date is clearly visible somewhere, that'd be nice too.

[Coleslaw]

One stick of butter is half a cup, not 2 cups. A pound of butter is 2 cups.

[Coleslaw]

Oh, and a way to measure butter, lard, or vegetable shortening without melting it: get a glass measure larger than the amount you need (a two cup measure* works for measuring one cup of butter), add the amount of water needed to fill it minus the amount of solid fat you need (one cup of water, in this case: two cups minus the one cup of butter)then add the butter until the water reaches the 2 cup line.

Then shout, "Eureka!"

*If you only have a one cup measure you can measure out 1/2 cup twice.

[Raj]

@Literata:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a beloved friend and wise Guru.

*places palms together and bows in the general direction of DC*

Namaskar, Literatacharya!

[Literata]

Namaskar and thank you, Raj and [redacted]! I hope everyone is able to enjoy time with their loved ones.

[chris the cynic]

Literata, happy birthday!

[Kit Whitfield]

Does this mean that your arm is feeling better enough to do a little cooking?

Yep. :-) Heavy-duty chopping is still a bit beyond me, but I made some home-made pizza today...

--

Happy birthday Literata! xxx

Raj - can a mono-lingual person request a translation of 'namaskar' and 'charya'? I'd be very pleased to improve my knowledge... :-)

[MercuryBlue]

Trigger: rape. So Dad just pulled me aside and told me to stay clear of the Occupy movement, certainly after dark. Guess why. Apparently there have been confirmed incidents of rape at various Occupy locations. Victim-blaming, because clearly if I spend time with the occupiers and I get raped there the latter is my fault for doing the former. Several other flavors of rape culture I can't be bothered deconstructing right now, I'm too mad. It's not for political reasons, he swears, it's for my safety. *steams*

[MercuryBlue]

Happy birthday, Literata.

[Inquisitiveravn]

MercuryBlue: It might be a valid concern. I think there was a link to an article or post about that issue on a previous "This Week in the Slacktiverse." Also, I visited the local Occupy site a few weeks back, and there was a "comedian" on stage making some seriously unfunny sexist jokes. The woman working the information table apologized to me, and said that if she weren't stuck at the table, she'd do something about it.

[Mmy]

Happy birthday Literata!!

[Literata]

Thanks all! It's particularly a pleasure to share it with this online community, because you have helped me grow so much, especially in the last year. Hugs to all!

[Jarred]

Happy birthday, Literata.

[renniejoy]

Happy birthday, Literata!

[MercuryBlue]

Inquisitiveravn: I'm not saying it's not a valid concern, because I know damn well it is. I fact-checked. Baltimore, Cleveland, Glasgow, and Dallas all have reported rapes, and FSM knows how many went unreported, according to The Feminist Wire two weeks ago. (Also, 'Occupy Vagina'.) What I'm saying is, the Occupy movement has problems, but if no women show up because they're all afraid of being raped, the feminist problems with Occupy will not go away.

[Winter]

Happy birthday, Literata.

[chris the cynic]

Trigger: rape. So Dad just pulled me aside and told me to stay clear of the Occupy movement, certainly after dark. Guess why. Apparently there have been confirmed incidents of rape at various Occupy locations. Victim-blaming, because clearly if I spend time with the occupiers and I get raped there the latter is my fault for doing the former. Several other flavors of rape culture I can't be bothered deconstructing right now, I'm too mad. It's not for political reasons, he swears, it's for my safety. *steams*

I don't have a good response. All I can offer is my first thought. Which was pretty much this:

By that reasoning you should stay clear of Delaware, certainly after dark. There have definitely been confirmed incidents of rape at various Delaware locations. Clearly if one spends time with Delawareans and gets raped the latter is their fault for doing the former. It's not for political reasons it's for your safety.

Or one could pick something other than Delaware. The target of first resort for many people is the Catholic Church.

-

I don't know what can be done about the actual crimes, which obviously need to be addressed and prevented.

-

I've been debating for, I guess, hours whether or not to post some version of this post. I feel like I don't have much of substance to add. The fact that your father is basically trying to use the idea of rape to scare you out of taking a political stand is all kinds of wrong.

If it makes any difference, I look up to you.

[MercuryBlue]

The fact that your father is basically trying to use the idea of rape to scare you out of taking a political stand is all kinds of wrong.

That is it. That is the thought I was chasing earlier and was too mad to get at.

[MercuryBlue]

Okay. Drafted an email to Dad explaining how he is wrong like a very wrong wrong thing. What do you folks think?

I realize that, when you pointed out the rapes that have occurred at Occupy locations and told me to stay clear, you were acting only out of concern for my safety. When you said that you have no political motive, I believe you.

But.

What you said has the effect of threatening me with rape in order to get me to back down from a political position. It also has the effect of blaming the victims of the Occupy rapes for being somewhere they could get raped, rather than the rapists for committing rape. Neither of these effects is acceptable.

I'm not going to camp out with the Occupy folks, but I was never planning to. I need to keep my job and to attend my classes, and I'm not about to ask to borrow a tent I don't even know if we have in order to go sleep on cold hard ground that doesn't have Internet access.

I am going to continue to support the Occupy movement, because although it has its problems from the feminist point of view (and what movement doesn't? Google 'Elevatorgate' for an example of feminism fail within the atheist movement, which I am also not leaving), it looks like the only thing going that's actually got half a chance of dealing with the fact that one percent of the country owns forty percent of the wealth and twenty-five percent of the country owns nearly ninety percent of the wealth. Occupy looks like the only thing going that's got half a chance of dealing with the fact that CEOs make three hundred some-odd times what average workers make. Congress is more interested in dealing with the debt and deficit than in creating jobs, and Occupy looks like something with half a chance of changing that, though admittedly first we have to figure out how, since ain't none of us got the money to create jobs with and the banks won't lend business-startup money to the likes of us (seeing as half of all new businesses go under within five years) even though new and expanding small businesses are the biggest source of new jobs. And if feminists like me stay in the Occupy movement instead of running away from the feminism fail found within, Occupy's got maybe a third of a chance of dealing with how women still earn three-quarters of what men do and how women of color earn even less than white women.

Thank you for understanding.

[kisekileia]

I like your email, MercuryBlue, although I'm sure a lot of people not on here would find it not diplomatic enough/offensive.

Literata, happy birthday!

[MercuryBlue]

Diplomatic? Who, me? I'm a Logic Bomber, not an Appeaser.

Point, however, taken, and suggestions welcomed.

[kisekileia]

Hey...I said that a lot of people would find it not diplomatic enough/offensive, not that I find it not diplomatic enough or offensive :). The people who would find it not diplomatic enough/offensive are probably the ones who react that way to any blunt assertion of one's rights.

[Account Deleted]

Not really related to the ongoing conversation, but I think this is sufficiently important to throw in, and I figure this is the place for it; if not, my apologies.

Political leaders in St. Petersburg are about to vote on law that will make it illegal for any person to write a book, publish an article or speak in public about being gay, lesbian or transgender. The ruling party led by President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin could make millions of people invisible with the stroke of a pen.

(Emphasis mine).

If you have a few moments, please consider signing the petition at this link. It probably won't do anything on its own, but I figure it can't hurt to get the word out.

[The Board Administration Team]

@21st Century Bird: We added your comment/link to the blogaround.

[Raj]

Kit: Raj - can a mono-lingual person request a translation of 'namaskar' and 'charya'? I'd be very pleased to improve my knowledge... :-)

I, too, value knowledge, so I'm happy to do what I can to increase the knowledge of others.

“Acharya”, which can be used either as a stand-alone noun or a suffix to someone’s name (with the initial “a” dropped if the name ends with “a”) means something like “wise, learned teacher”. Like “guru” – another term I applied to Lit – the term is of religious origin, but it’s quite acceptable to use it in a secular context. “Guru” has a similar meaning, but means something more like “mentor”, as it implies a relationship based on personal guidance.

“Namaskar”, from my mother tongue Marathi, is synonymous with the Hindi term “Namasté”, which you might have come across. It can be either a polite greeting or a salutation of deferential respect. I meant it both ways; Literata is both a very dear friend and a mentor for whom I have immeasurable respect (which she has earned many times over, but has never demanded). I am fortunate and proud to be under her mentorship, and am striving to be a credit to her.

[Ross]

Newt Gingrich, the new GOP frontrunner (In 1997, I read a postapocalyptic short story part of whose backstory was a Gingrich presidency, which of course led directly to the end of the world. O, how I laughed at the implausibility. But it was a sufficiently horriffic story that it makes me edgy right now) says child labor laws are stupid, and suggests firing school janitors and making poor kids do the cleaning.

Governor Rick Perry has get rid of civilian control of the military.

At some point, the GOP candidates crossed the line from "Positions with which I disagree" to "Examples you would tell a child in order to illustrate the abstract concept of evil"

[Ross]

s/has/has promised, if elected, to/;

[MercuryBlue]

Words fail me.

[Account Deleted]

(Ross) At some point, the GOP candidates crossed the line from "Positions with which I disagree" to "Examples you would tell a child in order to illustrate the abstract concept of evil".

Yeah, no kidding. At which point did "don't go overboard with regulations" morph into "bravely onward, to the early 20th century"? o_O

(TBAT) @21st Century Bird: We added your comment/link to the blogaround.

Thank you.

[hapax]

@Ross:

Blink.

Blink.

Okay, that's it. Time to get off the computer and go pull the covers over my head.

And hope, when I wake up, that this very scary dream will be over.

[The Board Administration Team]

Yup, for those who noticed a temporary interruption of service TypePad was down for a while. It is back up again now (which you will know if you are reading this) but for the moment things seem to be rather slow.

[Ross]

Furthermore and more pleasantly, this: Adam Cadre, who I've cited here before, has a wonderful post up about the Occupy movement, which says, in part:

Three — and this is the important one — "get a job" deliberately misses the point of what "we want life to be better for us" means. It doesn't mean that I want life to be better for me, and she wants life to be better for her, and he wants life to be better for him. It means that he wants life to be better for us, and she wants life to be better for us, and I want life to be better for us. So even if I were currently in need of one, my getting a job, even a great one, would only get us one three-hundred-millionth of the way to solving that problem. As the Occupy movement has highlighted, economic injustice is a collective problem, and solving collective problems requires collective action.

And then he goes on to explain why libertarian arguments against the validity of collective action also invalidate their beloved property rights.

Occupy the first person plural

[Asha]

I am trying to explain to my mom why libertarianism doesn't work. Where can I find good info for that? I'm trying to explain why privilege affects that. Help!

[The Board Administration Team]

Further information on the temporary outage. Some blogs report that they are still loading more slowly than usual however things seem to be improving.

This board is backed up regularly so nothing comparatively little will be lost if a server crashes.

[sarah]

@MB: I work at an all-female college. Skews the stats for me, too. We have male staff and professors, but they're kind of a minority.

Also, happy belated birthday, Literata!

[Dash]

Happy Birthday, Literata! And Kit, I'm delighted to hear your arm is healing well.

Over at Slacktivist Patheos, attention was drawn to the fact that Nov. 20 was Transgender Day of Remembrance in the U.S., with a link to this article by Skepchik.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Ross, yes. I did once say that the US Republican Party sometimes seems less like a political party and more like a surrealist art project, but "examples you would tell a child in order to illustrate the abstract concept of evil" is also a good description.

TRiG.

[Lonespark]

Thanks for the Adam Cadre link, Ross.

In other news, I actually saw that video of occupy folks being pepper sprayed, and I am surprised. Not shocked, exactly, but...those people were just sitting there . What. I saw it on The View when I was at the coffee shop, so I'm glad it's getting mainstream exposure and I hope a lot of other people will have a blink-and-reboot kind of reaction, because...SRSLY?!?

[The Board Administration Team]

Thanks Dash -- we have added it to the blogaround

[Literata]

MercuryBlue, I think your letter is fantastic.

My response to the pepper-spraying incident is similar. It has even made it onto Al Jazeera news.

I had a great birthday, and thanks again to all.

[storiteller]

Lonespark, my husband is not really into activism at all, and that video had a really strong impact on him. He keeps saying, "They're so nonchalant!" (The fact that cops are just so blase about the whole thing is really disturbing to him, justifiably.) I think that video and some of the others may actually result in some serious sympathy from the public and shame to the police, the way that the scenes of attack dogs in the 1960s did for the civil rights protestors.

[chris the cynic]

Dash, thank you for the link.

-

Apparently I wrote a story in which a transgender character rose from the dead on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I have no idea how I should feel about that.

-

My response to the pepper-spraying incident is similar. It has even made it onto Al Jazeera news.

I have been told, though do not know from experience, that Al Jazeera is very good at covering stories that ought to be covered.

[Ross]

@chris: It is. It's REALLY WEIRD. Someone lost the remote one day after it had been switched from Fox News to Al Jazeera in the office, and in the weeks since then, they haven't covered Lindsay Lohan ONCE!

The only celebrity I've seen on-screen this entire time was Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens).

[Literata]

Al Jazeera does in fact cover important stories. There is significant cognitive dissonance in them covering the Occupy UC Davis incident not too long after LitSpouse and I were glued to their channel for Arab Spring news. I'm glad they are.

[truth is life]

@21st Century Bird: While I don't doubt United Russia would do something like that, I am confused about how local leaders in St. Petersburg (unless I am very misled, St. Petersburg hasn't been the national capital since 1917) would have the power to ban QUILTBAG literature everywhere in Russia (again, unless I am very much misled, 1/2 of the city's population is probably not QUILTBAG, statistically speaking). Unless it's something where Russian publishers are based in St. Petersburg, in general, or for some reason books that aren't published there are generally no available in Russia? But both of those don't quite seem to make sense...

Not that I disagree with the petition, of course, I'm just wondering how this seems to be a national-level threat instead of a (very significant!) local one. It seems more comparable with, say, Dallas banning QUILTBAG literature than with the US doing so as a whole, but the quotes act like it's the other way around.

[MercuryBlue]

Okay. Here goes nothing. *sends Dad the email*

[chris the cynic]

Okay. Here goes nothing. *sends Dad the email*

Well, I'm suddenly all nervous and worried about how he'll respond.

I hope things work out for you.

[MercuryBlue]

More victim-blaming and more insisting that it's not political and more victim-blaming. Even if I concede that it's not political, which I might as well do because he says he'd warn me off downtown Newark NJ for the same reason, he says "You can put whatever lens on it you want. That does not change the fact that certain areas of this country are not safe unless you are a martial arts master." And that's victim-blaming. Which I'm reiterating until he gets it.

[MercuryBlue]

If you are stupid enough to put youself into a dangerous situation, then you are a victim of your stupidity. This conversation is about your safety, not who is at fault.

You are not equiped with the skills to ensure your safety in that type of situation. That is not victim-blaming.

I will not reply to this conversation any more.

*sigh*

[kisekileia]

:(
I'm sorry your dad is so fucked up, MercuryBlue. Dangerous situations, in the sense in which he's using the term, are not made dangerous by some force of nature--they are made dangerous by people's individual choices to harm others, and those people are responsible for their actions.

[MercuryBlue]

I don't know if 'fucked up' is applicable, unless that applies to everyone who's unfamiliar with the concept of 'rape culture'. Thank you for the sympathy.

[Dash]

MercuryBlue, I hope I'm not jumping in inappropriately. It's just that your conversation with your father is precisely the one I had with mine, many years ago. You may not be interested in someone analyzing what's going on, and if not, please feel free to skip this post.

It seems to me that you and your father are having two completely different conversations that happen to share some words. You are trying to tell him that his basic attitudes about rape are wrong. He is (I would bet) trying to tell you, "Please stay safe." He is also quite likely thinking about the boneheaded things he did at your age, specifically to prove that he was strong and independent.

You are focused on the assumptions underlying his statement, and he is entirely focused on the surface.

So you are saying, quite rightly, "If a woman gets raped, it's not her fault, simply because she was in a particular location." And he is saying, "stay away from locations where something bad might happen." His comment about the martial-arts master looks to me like he's trying very hard not to say "you're a woman, so watch it." (Oddly, that line about the martial-arts master is almost exactly, word-for-word, what my father said to me. What do they do--have a set of flash-cards for these occasions with the same phrases on them?)

It's quite possible that, if you had this discussion with him in general terms, when he wasn't concerned about anything you personally might do, you'd find he was really quite enlightened on the matter of not victim-blaming. But that is not going to come out when he is focused on remembering how much trouble he either barely avoided or didn't avoid when he was your age and worried that you're going to do something similar. I think that's a pretty standard parental mode when the kids are young adults.

Anyway, that's just what it looks like to me, from very incomplete information. I hope I didn't overstep.

[MercuryBlue]

I already told him flat out I'm not going camping with the Occupy folks. I'm not even hanging out with them beyond a few moments here and a few moments there and that only because they happen to be camped right by where I work. So my safety should no longer be a concern. But yeah, we probably were having the exact different conversations you say we were.

[Dash]

Best wishes, MercuryBlue. I really think there is, for the father in these cases, a certain amount of (a) if she doesn't agree with me, it must be because she didn't hear me; I'll repeat what I said, because it's so obviously right, and once she hears me, I'm sure she'll agree, because she's so smart (must be--she's my daughter, after all!); and (b) wait a minute! how did we get to the point where I say something and my kid doesn't immediately say, "OK, Dad!"

At least that's what my father told me--twenty years later!

And of course, there is the fact that he is so determined to get his point across that he isn't hearing what you're saying.