RQ's shared items
Monday, September 07, 2009
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Toil and Trouble- A Labor Day Post
We don't value work.
We value money. That's not the same thing. We disdain those who make less than us and worship those who make more than us, but we don't value the actual labor of people.
We value investment, which is not work. We value finance, which is not work. We value interest, also not work. We value the people who does these kinds of jobs, the pushing of money from one place to another, not because of the work but because of the money. If those same men were pushing something less important around, like a broom on a dirty floor, they would not be valued so highly.
So here's a little econ 101 lesson for you. There are 3 segments of society: business, government, and the rest of us who are both consumers and laborers. Economists will tell you that all three are inter-dependent, (well libertarians will tell you that government is superfluous, but they are idiots so we will ignore them) and that you need all three sections for a society to work.
But they are wrong.
Both government and business need us, the laboring consumers. Without us nothing gets made or bought, no taxes get paid or votes get cast. Armies don't exist, business meetings aren't made. When we don't work, the economy fails and governments tumble. When we can't buy, the economy fails and businesses falter.
But we still exist. Even unemployed and broke. We are the thing that the entire system is dependent on. We can, and have lived, without trade, without rulers. We need them less than they need us.
That is what Labor day should be about.
People have died to prove that point. We don't remember, and we are not taught in school, but neither business or government has ever gone gently into labor reform. People usually have to die first. They died so that we aren't locked into unsafe buildings. They died so that we could work only 40 hours a week instead of 72. Children died (and still do) doing horrible tasks for tiny pay that no adult would ever agree to.
Our labor is important. And there is no reason why a full days work shouldn't be enough to provide for the basics, when a full days labor now provides 20% more productivity than it did 30 years ago.
We did that. But wages don't keep up and when times are hard we pay the price. We are not the ones being bailed out with massive government funds and getting bonuses for failed ideas. We get pink slips. We can't get our government to provide for the basic health and safety of us laboring consumers by instituting single payer healthcare. We are asked to make the sacrifices of our time, our health, our families, but we do not reap the benefits of those sacrifices. That is for the business class alone.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Are you an obnoxious stalker or just "determined"
Ruth says that I am unusually sensitive to stalker like behaviors (she didn't mean it in a bad way). I would never leave repeat voicemails or send multiple emails without getting a response (with one exception, which I won't go into but no one who heard the details would think it's weird). I would never read the blogs of people who don't like me (shit- i didn't even read the trash at Jill Staneck's place, apparently being trashed by Staneck gives me feminist blogger rock star cred- who knew?) or even of people I don't like. Life is too short to be worried about people who don't wish you well, and I've never really cared about other people's opinions of me. I would never troll a blog (except that one time that OD made me do it to explain privilege to a clueless white dude, but even then I felt super icky about it for days). I don't google ex-boyfriends or friends to see what they're up to. These things, to me, seem like the height of rudeness and intrusion.
Actually, I am way more likely to never call or send an email unless one has been sent to me first. This has been a bone of contention with romantic interests and friends in the past. My big response is- meh.
So when people do those things to me (and there will be more a few reading this blog post and wondering if I mean them- and I probably do mean them) I feel both icky and pissed. Seriously, what part of banning, refusing to answer emails, telling you I have no interest in further conversation by using the time honored classic "fuck off" is unclear? Why would you, stalker types, want to hang around a place where you are unwanted, or get the attention of a person who thinks that a vacation to the green zone in Iraq would be more pleasant than being your facebook friend? What is so broken in you that a relationship founded on disgust and harassment sounds swell?
I do not understand this behavior. And worse, I really don't want to understand it. I really just want the stalker types to get a clue and move on, preferably to a desert island with no internet access.
But you know, I'm sensitive that way.
Friday, September 04, 2009
In which we discover that our fearless leader
Is in fact a bleeding heart, pinko, commie anarchist at heart.
But that is not all my fair readers. I'm morally all pink and squishy too
So take a test or two and tell me how you fared.
h/t to JJ, who reminded of this test.
Question
How the fuck did it get to be Friday? I think I lost an entire day somewhere, probably Thursday.
This is what a forced-birth society looks like
In Niger, where if I recall correctly the number one risk factor for HIV is being a married woman, because you can be pretty sure that your husband will be sleeping around. Niger has a complete ban on all abortions, and will not sell contraceptives to unmarried people.
In Nicaragua and El Salvador, where abortion is completely banned, even to save the life of the mother.
How about Chile- another forced birther paradise.
These are all places with complete bans on abortion. What about the "liberal" places that allow them to save a woman's life?
Afghanistan, frequently used as an example of why us western feminists should STFU because we don't have it as bad as Afghan women do.
Iraq, Iran, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Syria, also not places known to be good for women.
And then there is Ireland, both the Republic and Northern Ireland ban abortion except to preserve the life of the mother. This is tragic, but fortunately Ireland is part of the EU, and operates like any state in the US where where abortion is difficult to come by. The women who can afford it go to England, and unless you're a 17 year old girl in foster care, the state can't do a damn thing to stop you.
What should be noted is that in all of the above mentioned places (except Ireland) poverty is crushing, honor killings are real, so is forced marriage and child marriage. The lives of women and children are considered expendable. That is not an accident, that is the result of refusing to allow women the full status of human beings.
That is what the forced birthers in this country want for us.
And I say no.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Whatever doesn't kill you
does not in fact make you stronger.
I have been thinking, as have many many people in the blogosphere, about Melissa McEwan's amazing piece The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck.
To say my mother was hard on me would be an understatement, but she didn't have to be that way. She wasn't hard on my brother, not in any way close to how she was on me. In those rare moments of clarity, when I could ask her why without triggering a giant fight about how I was just "overly dramatic, blah blah blah" she said it was because the world wasn't going to be nice to me, and I should learn to deal with it cause I'm a girl.
She thought that she was making me stronger. I will give her that. But years of therapy, bouts of depression and agoraphobia and an inability to finish things that might actually make my life easier, like school, and I know that what she did didn't prepare me for the world. Each new cruelty, each little bit of unfairness, left a crack, a tiny fissure of pain and insecurity. I am a road map of scares and breaks and bruises.
That's what our terrible bargain does to us. It's not just "eat shit or spoil the afternoon". Those "jokes" about women drivers or pms or rape, leave a crack. Each cat call, or scary moment with a boy who may not take no for an answer, or ass grab, leaves a little fissure. Every dude who refuses to acknowledge our right to control our own bodies cause real, not theoretical, damage to real women.
It is a testament to our strength that so many of us carry on, cracks and all.
So when confronted with the daily hurt, we can choose to shut up, or we can choose to fight. But choosing one or the other doesn't actually lessen the damage. Either way we are going to get hurt. I'm a fighter by nature, but lemme tell you that after a while I feel like curling up in a ball and crying. When good guys, like one of my roommates decides to go on a screed about his (admittedly) awful ex by using every horrible sexist name in the book, it hurts me. He's not just insulting his ex- he's insulting every woman on the planet. So I ask, in nice terms, cause this is a person i like most of the time, if he can try using different insults. I explain- nicely- why. But but but he says, trying to justify why in this one instance misogyny is not just ok, but justified, required even.
Those kinds of things cause cracks. Roommate and I used to cook dinner together fairly regularly, now i don't even want to be in the kitchen. I don't want to be around someone who, when the chips are down, will hate on people like me and not see a problem with it.
And after what seems like ages of troll battling with yet another dude who thinks his (poorly reasoned) intellectual arguments and refusal to actually hear the stories of real, living breathing women are his god given mission, I am tired and hurt and still more damaged.
And any man, who claims to love women, or who claims not to hate them, should try not to hurt them, and should listen when we tell you that you are hurting us. It's not an intellectual game, it matters and it hurts.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
How come no one thinks
that feminist moms have sons?
Only daughters sometimes.
I mean- hello- feminist here. According to the trolls I'm a man hating, hairy legged, shrill feminazi.
And I am raising a boy. But not just a boy, a boy who will grow up with feminist values and ideals.
But apparently feminists can only give birth to female children or something.
I take it back- Dan Savage is WAY worse than Cary Tennis
1) Renee is dead right. Savage is more than a twee bit of a racist.
2) Savage pretty much thinks women are ewwwwwwwwwwe grody. Look, I get it, he's gay and girl parts gross him out and he thinks he is being cutesy by describing them as canned hams dropped out of windows. But his description of female anatomy is in the exact same vein as homophobes descriptions of the dirty gay sex. So in his efforts to be satirical, he just comes off using standard misogyny against a group who has no power in order to make himself feel better. Way to go- Dan.
3) The fat hatred just oozes out of him. Thank god he has a son instead of a daughter- she'd be looking at an eating disorder before she was out of diapers.
Savage is also the editor om my town's local alternative-weekly. And they have some damn fine writers on their staff. Charles Muedede, Lindy West, and Erica C. Barnett all make pretty words. But Savages hate for all things not white, attractive and male make reading the rest of the paper a chore. I can't even sift through SLOG anymore without getting bitch slapped by one of Savage's fat hating posts. It's really old, it's really tiresome, and how nice that he's getting a tv show so he can be the bitchiest gay on the tubes.
Though Savage might want to check his exceptionalism. They are only tolerating you cause you say shit they like to hear about the rest of us bad Others. Do you think he'd be as popular with straight white dudes if he wasn't so quick to hate the same things they hate?
I think we need a little fun
While bashing troll logic certainly has it's merits, I need a fun post.
OD and I were chatting last night about how we like Rachel Ray. She's not a virtuous foodie, she appeals to the everywoman (you know- the people that actually do most of the cooking in society rather than the holier than thou males cheflebrities).
And then we got to talking about embarrassing food loves, those things you can only eat when no one is watching.
And I've got a doozy.
I love vienna sausages. I love those salty little meat phaluses. I make the Kid buy them though, cause I don't want anyone to know that the Queen of the Dinner Party likes processed meat in a can.
I also love cup of noodles.
And industrial ranch dressing, the watery kind that you used to get with school lunches.
How do you slut shame if there is no sex involved?
It's easier than you think.
Ouyang Dan sent me this lovely (and by lovely I mean nausea inducing) post about the difference between "Octomom" and Michelle Duggar.
First, the author, a bright shining beacon of illiteracy and class privilege, can't manage to use Nadya Suleman's name, not even once, in the entire piece. She can't, for even half a second, imagine Nadya Suleman as a human being and instead turns her into some kind of sad cartoon monster.
Then there the whole class privilege shit. The author would be fine is Suleman had money and her kids weren't going to require assistance to grow up.
But here's a little secret that Mom's Logic Julie may not know- most children in this world are born to poor parents. If we followed Julie's logic, most of us would never have been born. Only rich people are virtuous enough to have sex and risk childbirth.
Oh course Julie thinks that the Duggars are a perfect example of unfettered breeding, no debt, blah blah blah. But the Duggars have used their magic ability to reproduce in order to finance their lifestyle. Diapers are donated (and with 19 kids- that's no small cost) houses, vehicles, and they get money for being on tv. These things didn't happen before they decided to have endless numbers of children- but after.
But Nadya Suleman isn't married. She has a not quite American sounding name. She has, from most reports, a horrible mother. She has a couple of kids with disabilities. She has, by all accounts, a difficult life.
So she did what she thought would make her lovable. She did what we've all been told. She embraced motherhood. Not just embraced it, but clung to it long after she should have. Perhaps she was looking for that ultimate meaning that motherhood is supposed to give you, that boundless joy or whatever it is the fetus fetishists think all women have for tiny babies. She was following the rules that society set up- be a mother, be fulfilled. And she kept trying to find that, through each pregnancy.
She doesn't get the donations that the Duggars do. As a poor, unmarried mother, she is not virtuous enough to shill the products. She doesn't get a tv series, but a trashy expose'. She doesn't get the loving letters and beaming press pics, she gets death threats and judgment.
I would not trade places with her for a million dollars and she's made choices I never would have, but that doesn't mean I don't have some mercy for her. I also wouldn't trade places with Michelle Duggar, but there are enough people willing to offer her kindness.
Seriously- stop with kid hating already
So I wake up this morning to someone's toddler screaming bloody murder outside my bedroom window. "IIIIIIIIIIIIIII WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE".
And this is not the first time it has happened.
But I live across the street from a park. And Kids are part of society. They exist,yes they do. And just like beer bellied rednecks in wife beaters, the fact that I don't like them much (except for my own kid and the kids of my friends) doesn't mean that they can or should be shut away until sometime when they are less annoying.
So I refrain from screaming obscenities at the screaming child's parent, because screaming children are fun for no one and I'm sure the parent is already having a lousy morning. Much the same way that I refrain from screaming obscenities when the local university's football fans take over the public transport system.
But kids don't vote, or pay taxes. They are needy little bastards, each and every one. So many people who find tiny, gooey, filth covered hands and snot covered faces distasteful feel the need to bitch at already harried mothers for LEAVING THE HOUSE WITH CHILDREN IN TOW.
Children should be kept under lock and key until they are full of the appropriate amount of teenage angst and eyerolling. (At least according to the child-haters)
So when an idiot politician makes a crappy remark to a single mom with her kid who is asking about health insurance, surely the real matter is "How dare that woman bring her child into a public space"
and not "How dare that politician be such an retching ass nuggett"
Amirite?
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
You don't just tell them to wait!
Telling kids to wait to have sex, without explaining they whys or hows, is like telling a kid not to cross a street. Sure, we grown ups know that you have to look both ways for cars, etc. But kids don't.
So I am immensely pissed about Obama's abstinence commercials. You don't have to tell me about the icky parts- just tell me to wait.
Nope. Not going to work. Abstinence is a pipe dream. It doesn't work and the myth of perpetual virginity until marriage has never existed. Not a 100 years ago, not in the glorious Leave it to Beaver 50s, and not now.
So I am super grateful when I get to read this bit of awesomeness from Ouyang Dan about sex ed and kids.
(and for your juicy piece of gossip for the day- I am in her piece somewhere. Bonus points to anyone who can guess what line is about me)
Excuse me, but your white privilege is showing
So I'm trying to figure where in Japan a friend of mine is stuck.
And I'm googling maps, cause I'm a modern girl.
And the first map of Japan that I click on is in Japanese.
Which I cant' read.
And for half a second I'm a wee bit irritated. Except that it's a map of Japan, in Japanese. Of course most maps of Japan would be in Japanese.
Even those of us who strive towards goodness and understanding are sometimes dumb as a sack of hair.
It's a contest- Update
Godless whores: 13 donations and $664.78
"Good" Christians: 1 donation and $20
I think we have a winner folks. Though I am more than happy (and still desperate enough) to keep this going if the Christians think that time will change things.
Darwin for the win!
Go read this
I think this choice quote
.
the capacity of women across cultures to dissolve relationships that aren’t working has been much underestimated
perfectly illustrates my point in this post.
I think the nuclear family is a very recent concept, a couple hundred years, give or take. And it's not working out so well. People are rational creatures at heart, and divorce exists and is as popular as it is because it is helpful. That more women are choosing motherhood without marriage is because it is in their best interest to do so.
I could get all anthropological and start babbling about how all recent human evolution is lamarkian in nature and that the greatest of human leaps have been ones of cooperation like language and menopause rather than ones of competition like war, but everytime I get all philosophical it gets quiet around here.
So I'll just leave you with this. People are rational creatures. They will act in their own best interest, even when society at large says their actions are wrong. Women will seek to control their own fertility despite frothing mouthed protesters, gays and lesbians will push to be treated as equals despite frothing mouthed protesters, immigrants will cross dangerous borders looking for work despite frothing mouthed minutemen. Eventually, society will change it's view because those who act in their own best interest are the ones that carry society into the future.
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