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"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
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May
4
Very Short Break
Filed Under blog news, blogging | 16 Comments
As I suggested I might, I’ll be taking a short break this week. Just a few days, and I’ll still be around moderating comments and such. In fact, taking time off from writing may give me a chance to finally get caught up on my blog reader and to go through the news for what is honestly the first time in a week.
Popularity: 12% [?]
May
3
On “Real Rape” and Rape Apologists
Filed Under assholes, blogging, feminism, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 60 Comments
Rev. Stuart Campbell sent me this email in response to this post about Johnny Vegas:
Sexual harrassment
…is what you will doubtless describe this email at, since you seem to be on only the remotest of nodding terms with your marbles. However, I do urge you with the greatest of sincerity to reconsider your approach to what you incredibly damagingly describe as “feminism”. I have no idea whatever of your personal circumstances beyond the comments you make on your blog, but it appears that you’ve suffered some kind of sexual assault short of rape, but desperately wish to channel the anger of those who have been raped.
I have no desire to minimise whatever you suffered, but as someone who’s worked with several rape victims I find this behaviour deeply troubling, and rather more importantly know it to be greatly counter-productive in terms of attitudes to women. Perhaps things are different in America, where it appears to be widely acceptable to call for the murder of abortion-clinic doctors and the like, and adopt a rather cavalier approach to human life in general, but in the rather more rational environment of the rest of Western society your attitude only serves to encourage and empower misogyny and the trivialisation of all forms of sexual violence by portraying genuine victims as hysterical exaggerators. Your attitude to debate, rather astonishingly in the circumstances, only makes your position even weaker.
Regards,
Rev. S. Campbell
If Campbell actually has worked with rape victims, I offer those victims my greatest sympathies and hope that they find the actual help they need.
Popularity: 29% [?]
May
2
Blogging Against Disablism
Filed Under blogswarm, disability, discrimination, feminism, reproductive justice, violence against women and girls | 1 Comment
I’m very sorry that I missed Blogging Against Disablism Day, yesterday. I’m even more sorry that I don’t have much of anything to say on the subject right now.
I would like to note that less than a year ago, I didn’t know a damn thing about the disability rights movement. I was only vaguely aware of its existence. Blogs — and this is perhaps the thing that I love most about the blogosphere and what it can do when at its best — opened my eyes. I’m exceedingly far from being an expert on disability rights now. But I have done some research. I read more than one disability rights blog regularly. I’ve struggled to overcome a lot of my own prejudices in that time. Which is precisely why it amazes me that I wrote this post last year — Disability Rights Are a Feminist Issue — and still agree with it now. I’m glad and a bit relieved to say that I can recommend your reading it.
A few things I didn’t note in that post that I would like to note now:
If feminists believe in reproductive justice, disabled or not, we must be particularly concerned for the rights of people with disabilities. Their reproductive rights are in some of the greatest danger, and we really need to work to overcome our own prejudices on that matter and recognize that reproductive justice is for everyone, not just some. The problems with the pro-choice movement are precisely why the term reproductive justice was coined, and if we’re going to use it in a way that is more than mere appropriation, we need to recognize that attitudes towards the reproductive rights of those with disabilities was and still is one of those problems.
We also must be particularly concerned for the rights of people with disabilities if we care about violence against women. Women with disabilities are much more likely than women without disabilities to be sexually assaulted. Women with disabilities also have a much higher rate of being victims of intimate partner violence.
And really, if we just care about women, if we care about feminism, we should care about the rights of those with disabilities. Women are a large part of the disabled community, and they face discrimination on a daily basis in terms of medical care, housing, employment, the right to make personal decisions and much more. Women with disabilities are women. We are feminists, and may have disabilities ourselves. It is our job to fight legal and social systems that prevent women from the opportunity to live happy, safe and free lives. The argument for why disability rights are a feminist issue really is that simple.
Diary of a Goldfish has the roundup from the blogswarm. It’s holds a huge amount of posts and is full of great bloggers, so I strongly encourage you to read through it. For more on the intersection of feminism and disability activism, I couldn’t more strongly recommend F.R.I.D.A. as a source to add to your blog readers.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Apr
29
Oops
Filed Under LGBTQ issues, blogging | 2 Comments
Uh, so I set up wordpress to post this for my yesterday . . . and it totally didn’t.
I will be gone all day — and I do mean all day – for Equality and Justice Day in Albany. It’s the lobbying day for LGBT issues and I’m excited to be a part of it, especially since some cool stuff will be going on. But it does mean that I’ll be gone from 4 in the morning to sometime around 10 at night.
I probably won’t get the chance to check back in until Wednesday evening, since I’m busy that day too. I’ll be speaking on my first-ever panel at a fundraising conference about the work I’ve been doing online with Planned Parenthood, and probably a bit about my blogging, as well. Not a big deal, but public speaking always freaks me out — especially when the people I’m talking to get to talk back!
I’ll probably be exhausted by the time I return . . . but hopefully I’ll have something interesting to report.
I am exhausted, and I do plan on writing a post about yesterday and getting it up this evening. See you then.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Apr
28
Feminist News and Links
Filed Under blogging, feminism, media, random | 20 Comments
I’ve been pretty busy, lately. Here’s some stuff I won’t get the time to blog about in depth:
With regards to the Seal Press boycott, many have asked “but what are feminist authors to do?” Prof Black Woman answers that question with a list of kick-ass feminist and multicultural printing presses.
Lauredhel goes after one of my biggest pet peeves: the media referring to rape, particularly child rape, as “sex”.
An Austrian man admittedly kept his daughter prisoner for 24 years — slightly more time than I’ve been alive — continually raped her and impregnated her (at least) seven times. Horrific.
I keep forgetting to mention this hilarity: many anti-abortion opponents do not support the latest bid to outlaw abortion in South Dakota. They feel that because of the unworkable “exceptions” for rape, incest and health, the bill doesn’t go far enough. Let’s hope the asshats manage to bring themselves down.
Maybe we should be more concerned about the fact that Vanity Fair has no problem with sexualizing 15-year-old girls in their magazine and what that says about adults, rather than whether or not it will cause teenage girls to run off and join some kind of crazy promiscuous porn circus? (And maybe wonder when the fuck Annie Leibovitz went from shooting the most iconic magazine cover of all time to just shooting racist and sexist smut?) Just a thought.
Don’t forget to Wear Red on Wednesday.
The U.S. marine accused of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl is facing court martial.
Professional tool Marc Rudov calls himself a “feminist,” says that women say “‘I do’ at the alter and ‘I don’t’ in the bedroom”. I wonder why women hate him so much?
Racist attacks on Obama get even worse.
The Feminist Art Project is promoting feminist art/exhibitions throughout the country. In related news, there is A Day of Collaborative Performance in the Bronx next month, and participants are needed.
Tigtog gives an important warning to those who use wordpress.com to host their blogs. If that’s you, this is a must-read.
Also, last chance to get your nominations into the Carnival Against Sexual Violence.
What have you been reading? Feel free to shamelessly self-promote.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Apr
23
It’s a Small Feminist World
Filed Under WOC issues, blogging, feminism, race and racism | 16 Comments
It’s an ironic one, too.
I will admit that I have not been following the Seal Press debacle extremely closely. I paid attention for the first week, and not a whole lot of new stuff seemed to happen after that. And though they’re definitely related, the BFP/Amanda “thing” came up and it kind of dropped off of my radar.
I thought that Seal Press was wrong from the beginning. The super-duper condensed version of what happened? Black Amazon wrote a comment on her blog that said “Fuck Seal Press.” Then a representative from Seal Press showed up and proceeded to begin a blog war by acting like a stupid, unprofessional, privileged asshole (sorry, calling them like I see them). Again, this was a pretty clear cut situation.
There was a question up in the air: why did BA say “Fuck Seal Press”? It was a remark addressed in a sort of private way to a friend, and for good reason, BA refused to say.
Last week, it turns out that the story emerged, and I missed it. Adele Nieves, a published woman of color writer and editor, came forward:
An informal meeting with an editor from Seal Press at the WAM conference regarding the proposal for my anthology left me feeling frustrated and deflated. I was not seeking or particularly interested in having them publish the anthology, but merely hoping for advice on my book proposal. The editor, while impressed with the format of the proposal, advised me that anthologies don’t sell, and I should get someone like Gloria Steinem or Katha Pollitt to contribute, even though, as she said, I wouldn’t be able to get access to them. I was struck by the fact that she did not suggest I contact Daisy Hernandez, bell hooks, Andrea Smith, or Alice Walker. I might not have access to them either, of course, but given the intent of the anthology is to highlight the voices of people of diverse backgrounds, especially those we’ve not heard from in other works, I found her comments discouraging.
Afterwards, I had a private conversation about the meeting with a small group of friends, including Black Amazon, in hopes they could help me work through this. They did.
Earlier this week, I wrote a post about my feelings on the Amanda Marcotte controversy. In it, I briefly mentioned an article I had written for a feminist anthology that was shopping around for publishers. Today, about half an hour before happening to stumble across Adele’s explanation in a roundabout way via Ilyka, I got a message from the woman behind that anthology (saying that the project was now on hiatus for reasons that don’t seem to be very important here — for me this is sad, but not devastating).
Why is this relevant?
Because the woman behind the anthology is Adele. We’re talking about the same damn book.
And do you remember the title of the article I wrote? The Importance of Allies: A Call to White, Straight, Middle-Class Feminists.
You know, this thread got me close but not quite there. Now I’m going to go cry about how much my fellow white feminists can suck.
Popularity: 18% [?]
Apr
21
Parental Advisory: Explicit Content
Filed Under blogging, fun, random | 13 Comments
This just made my day:
The Blog-O-Cuss Meter - Do you cuss a lot in your blog or website?
Created by OnePlusYou
HAHAHAHA.
Stolen from Ren, who has a paltry 34.5% of her pages containing curse words. Better pick up the pace, Ren!
By the way, the average is 9%. And my rate of swearing is apparently 988% more than other websites that took the test. I’m not sure whether to count this as a big win or an ultimate fail.
Honestly, I didn’t think that I swore quite that much — more like a 75%. Then again, it must automatically read comments as well. In any case, I feel like I should throw in a few expletives here just to live up to my apparent reputation. So . . . fuck. And ass.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Apr
19
On Being an Ally
Filed Under WOC issues, blogging, feminism, race and racism | 17 Comments
Last week, I noted that BFP’s blog had been shut down. And I said that with regard to the situation that caused her to close it, I did not know what to say. Later on in the day, Holly put up a post on the topic. And after reading it, and reading the thread, I did know what to say.
And I didn’t say it.
A few months ago, I wrote an article for an anthology that is currently shopping around for publishers. It’s called The Importance of Allies: A Call to White, Straight, Middle-Class Feminists. It’s about just what it sounds like: the fact that the mainstream feminist movement has been overwhelmingly white, straight, middle-class, and though I do think that we’ve made progress, and though I do think that more of an effort is being made, we haven’t come nearly as far as we think we have. I think that a lot of the article is outdated now, and that’s a shame — not for me and the damn article, but because I gave us more credit than we deserved.
My eyes have been opened.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Apr
18
Quick Note on Email
Filed Under blogging | Leave a Comment
Ever since I announced my joining Feministe earlier this week, my number of emails has skyrocketed. I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has sent me stories and generous compliments — I really do appreciate it.
My relationship with email is one of my shortcomings, and I’m behind on non-urgent messages during the best of times. So you can imagine what my inbox looks like right now. I’m going to try to get through a lot of them today, but I just want to reiterate what I said on the “about” page — if I haven’t/don’t get back to you (assuming that you have not sent me hate mail), I apologize and it’s not anything personal. Much love!
Popularity: 14% [?]
Apr
15
Mother May I?
Filed Under abortion, anti-choice extremism, assholes, cross-post, legislation, misogyny, patriarchy, pregnancy, rape and sexual assault, religious fanaticism, reproductive justice, social conservatives, violence against women and girls, women’s health | 4 Comments
Who remembers the 2005 and 2006 California propositions that tried to instate parental notification rules for minors seeking abortions? You know, the ones that failed? Well, not so fast. Looks like it’s probably going to be on the ballot this year, too. Meet the man you can thank:
Jim Holman, owner of the San Diego Reader, has spent millions trying to persuade Californians to pass a law requiring parents to be notified before their underage daughter has an abortion.
After two failed ballot measure campaigns, Holman said last year that he didn’t want to try again.
But when other anti-abortion advocates, including winemaker Don Sebastiani, launched a third campaign, Holman couldn’t resist opening up his checkbook once again.
“Sebastiani was not deterred. He said, ‘We have to go back again and again,’ ” Holman said. “He led with big donations and I sort of followed.”
The result could make California political history.
The $1.8 million donated by Holman and Sebastiani so far is likely to put a parental-notification initiative before voters for the third time in four years. The measure would require a physician to notify a parent or guardian 48 hours before performing an abortion for a girl under the age of 18.
If the measure qualifies, it would be the first time since the California initiative process was established in 1914 that the state’s voters will consider the same measure so many times in a four-year period.
Planned Parenthood is arguing that Holman, while not doing anything illegal, is abusing the electoral process, and I agree. No, money alone does not get an initiative on a ballot, but if you spend $1.8 on an issue that inspires the kind of passion abortion does and don’t manage to get the just-under 700,000 signatures needed in a very large state, you’d have to be pretty damn inept. Holman is, of course, perfectly within his rights — that doesn’t mean there’s nothing unethical about it.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Apr
14
Blog About The Congo Rape Epidemic
Filed Under Africa, International, WOC issues, activism, blogswarm, feminism, human rights, media, misogyny, patriarchy, race and racism, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 4 Comments
Yesterday was the day to blog about the Congo rape epidemic. As Sunday is my day off from blogging, I missed it — but as I always say when I come in late to these things (a specialty of mine), it’s better late than never, and it’s not too late for you to participate either.
I was unfortunately not able to watch the documentary The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, since I don’t have HBO, and I hope that it will be soon available through another outlets for those of us who don’t have access. But I’m happy that it has been made and that it has inspired bloggers to engage on this difficult topic.
It’s human nature to want to ask “who is responsible?” And the obvious answer is “the rapists.” This is absolutely true; of course they are responsible. But this type of epidemic does not materialize from nothingness. When rape is allowed to exist this rampantly and for so long, when weapons and funding do not appear out of thin air, when the world’s richest and most powerful nations turn away or ask simply and disinterestedly “what can we do?”, we must hold others accountable. And as Anxious Black Woman notes, among them are the Corporate Rapists, those who benefit financially from the conflict through their pillaging of the land’s natural resources. She prints a partial list of those corporations that absolutely must be disseminated as far and wide as we can manage:
Popularity: 18% [?]
Apr
13
Moving Up
Filed Under blog news, blogging, self-promotion | 26 Comments
This post is an announcement. It will stay at the top of the blog for several days; newer posts will appear below.
Today, I just so happened to reach my 200,000th visit on the blog. And this Friday, April 18th, will be my one year anniversary of blogging and the one year anniversary of The Curvature.
I know it’s cliché, but in some ways I feel like I’ve been doing this forever, and in other ways I feel like I’ve just started. A lot has happened in the past year and I have been far more well-received than I ever could have dreamed. Thank you, everyone, for reading, commenting and/or linking to me.
And things are changing! This week, I will become a contributor over at Feministe. Feministe is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite feminist blogs. It’s filled with great writers who deal genuinely with intersecting movements and more than just “white women’s issues” on a daily basis. It includes the views of trans* women and men, sex workers and other marginalized groups who are regularly spurned in other feminist spaces. Its writers listen to their readers and engage with the difficult topics that it’s often easier to ignore. I see a comment on the site at least once a week from a reader who explains that these are the reasons they read Feministe. And I am personally honored to have been asked to be a part of it.
I will not be abandoning The Curvature. It’s my home, and after a year I’m certainly not ready to abandon it. I still intend to write here my usual six days a week, while contributing two or three posts to Feministe each week. A lot of what I post at Feministe will probably be cross-posted here.
I’m sure that figuring out how to get it all done will take me a bit of time, so I hope that you’ll bear with me. And while I’m sure that most of you read Feministe already, I hope that those of you who don’t will start — and not stop reading The Curvature! Wish me luck.
Popularity: 15% [?]
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"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body." --Margaret Sanger
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"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less." -- Susan B. Anthony
