Nerve seems to be getting a little hipper these days: after that cool special they did on bisexuality (in response to His Idiocy’s Recent Study), they’ve currently got a Reproductive Rights special issue up (because we can’t all be having all this fabulous sex without preventing pregnancy, you know?).
Not bad. Maybe someday they’ll review my book, even.
Feminist Blog
Thanks to Katha Pollitt, I just discovered a great source of feminist reading, a blog called Feministing.
I’ve put a link up in the blogroll, but wanted to call your attention to it. It’s a good mix of stories, from pop culture stuff to book reviews to news.
Gender Queer History: Calamity Jane
I was up late (as usual) and a movie about Wild Bill Hickock was on, with Ellen Barkin playing Calamity Jane.
Calamity Jane started wearing men’s clothes in 1870, when she was 28. She said: “Up to this time, I had always worn the costume of my sex. When I joined Custer*, I donned the uniform of a soldier. It was a bit awkward at first, but I soon got to be perfectly at home in men’s clothes.”
About two years before that, she was described as “extremely attractive” and by another observer as a “pretty, dark-eyed girl.”
She “set herself apart from other women in that she could work and socialize with hard and tough frontiersmen: from digging for gold, drinking in bars, cussing and dressing like a man, she was mostly accepted by them.”
Interesting to me – she slept with men. Wow: a butch het woman, the kind that Judith Halberstam says don’t matter.
* It was probably not Custer, as there was no record of him being where she was at that time.
I found the above bits and a more complete biography about her at this website.
The Dark Side: Women, HPV, and a Cancer Vaccine
Back in April, I wrote about how a potential vaccine for one form of cancer – cervical cancer caused by HPV – might be blocked as a result of our usual anti-sex, unrealistic Religious Right. The thing is, girls could be saved the chance of ever getting cervical cancer by getting the vaccination, but some people would rather those girls risk dying of a preventable cancer because they feel that giving the girls a vaccination might ‘encourage’ them to have sex.
It’s along the same line of thinking as ‘let our kids die, but don’t give them condoms.’ That is, an idiotic line of thinking.
One of the regulars over at DailyKos has written an astonishingly good piece about women, HPV, the vaccine, and why some people have a problem with saving girls’ lives. I strongly recommend reading it through to the end.
Thank You, Rosa
She was always one of my favorite models for activism – not someone out to change the world, not someone out for the power & the glory, just a woman who’d had enough.
Thank you, Rosa.
American Grrls
The AFA (American Family Association) and an anti-Choice group called The Pro-Life Action League (ugh) are boycotting the company American Girls for two reasons:
1) They are pro-Choice and pro-contraception.
2) They encourage support for girls dealing with sexual orientation issues.
Girls, Inc. – the company that produces American Girls – was taken aback by this boycott. The president of the company, Joyce Roche, said “Girls Inc. takes positions on public policy issues if it believes women’s rights and opportunities are at stake. ‘Our philosophy is that women should have the right to make decisions about themselves,’ Roche said.
Crazy idea, that.
Support Girls Inc. by buying American Girls products and emailing them to let them know you support their stands on these issues.
The Beauty Myth, & Your Wife
I got involved in an altercation in another group I’m in (what a surprise, right?) when I was trying to explain why partners might be put off by yet another make-up seminar.
But it was a CD, ultimately, who explained it best, and I decided to post what she had to say, here:
Keep this in mind. Ponder these fantastically offensive ideas.
– The most important thing about a woman is her appearance. That trumps intelligence, character, spirit, etc.
– Her appearance is not appropriate as-is. She must buy stuff and spent large amounts of time using it. If she does not, she should be ashamed. If she does, well, she’s still not OK. After all, there’s always a better airbrushed model on every billboard.
Horrible, evil claims? Things that nobody in the trans community would be scummy enough to believe? Definitely. And yet pretty much every woman alive has been told these things – implicitly or explicitly. The process of being a mature woman includes learning to rebel against these evil ideas. Defending her spirit against this kind of garbage is CRUCIAL.
So, when you accidentally trigger those defenses by saying something that maybe shouldn’t be interpreted as promoting these evil attitudes – but, then again, understandably could be – CUT HER SOME SLACK. Don’t split hairs of wording with her and tell her she had no business perceiving offense. Tell her you’re on her side, and leave it at that.
Are her defenses too touchy? Her very soul depends on those defenses. Better she defend herself vigorously, and occasionally unnecessarily, than to give the garbage any chance for a toehold in her.
At the same time, I can see why you’re tempted to answer, “Don’t be offended!” Because we’d be ashamed to hold such attitudes, and we don’t like the thought that we came across as believing that even for a moment. But the better way to bolster womankind is not to get bogged down arguing in who should or shouldn’t have been offended, but all to affirm together that allthe synthetic trappings of femininity are for totally voluntary use as we each please.
– Jade Catherine, http://alum.mit.edu/www/rebar
Interesting Survey
Here are the results of a survey that rates a state by its “pro choice” and “pro life” percentages (and which presidential candidate they voted for in the last election.)
Check out the weighted and unweighted averages at the end, especially.
Terribly Worried
Actually, I’m not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women’s social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there’s no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it’s important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we’d all be thrilled. I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they’re there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective.
(italics mine)
This choice little quote comes from yesterday’s Meet the Press, as spoken by Reuel Marc Gerecht, Director of the Middle East Initiative for Project for the New American Century.
Women had more rights under Hussein than they’re going to have after the US “liberation”? Um, how does that work? And what on earth does the word democracy possibly mean if women’s social rights don’t matter? 1900?
I’m flabbergasted.
Thanks to Betty for blogging this one; you can find links to other bloggers on the same topic in her post.
Gloria Anzaldua
I just found out – when looking up a reference – that writer Gloria Anzaldua died last year. Her essay “Speaking in Tongues” was an important one for me (it’s in the collection This Bridge Called My Back) and I’m sorry we have lost such a firebrand.
There’s a good interview with her from 2000 that appeared in the journal MELUS.