I'm all about the idea that if we "accept" differences without valuing them, it's not really progress. (i.e. I'm for women's rights - they just have to act like men because girly feminine stuff is sissy and weak and frivolous. I'm for gay rights - I want gay people to get married because a marriage is the only kind of relationship that should have protections and rights. And so on.)
Naturally, I totally loved this video by Jay Smooth about the idea that anything gay = weak. When, really? Christopher Street Boys (and Girls and Otherly Gendered Folk) are badass.
Transcript below the cut (which hopefully works now!):
"Christopher Street Boy." Larry Johnson, the running back for the Chiefs, got into an argument with a fan on twitter this weekend - which is always a smart thing to do - and in the midst of this argument, Larry Johnson called this fan a fag, and then he said "Christopher Street Boy. Is what us East Coast cats call u." Christopher Street Boy. Now, Larry Johnson, I gotta ask, what is it you think Christopher Street Boy means, exactly? Because I don't think it means what you think it means. I'm guessing have a vague idea Christopher Street is associated with gay people, and in your mind gay means weak, so you thought that was a good way to insult somebody. But that's not exactly what Christopher Street Boy means. So since I am also an East Coast cat, I'm gonna try to help you out, and break down some history for you.
Christopher Street is associated with gay people, mostly because of something called the Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Riots happened in 1969 in a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn, which like most gay bars back then used to get raided by cops all the time, because cops thought it was their job to harass gay people. But on this particular night, at this particular gay bar, these particular gay people decided that they were not having it. And they went outside the bar and fought back for the first time against these cops. And they fought back so hard against these cops outside the bar? That ten cops had to run back in the bar and lock themselves inside to hide from the crowd. This gang of ten cops was hiding from the people who you call Christopher Street Boys. And then, when those cops called a whole bunch of back up, that crowd of Christopher Street Boys, and Girls, had a showdown in the street with all of that backup, that went down in history as the Stonewall Riots and gave birth to the gay rights movement. Which means, Larry Johnson, that when you call that guy a Christopher Street Boy and you think it's a clever way to call him soft and wimpy, you're actually talking about people who are famous for winning a bar fight against a GANG OF COPS. You're talking about people who started a movement by showing the world gay DOESN'T mean weak. You're talking about people, Larry Johnson, that were way tougher and more courageous than you will ever be in your life. That is who Christopher Street Boys are.
And I'm not saying you don't have a right to speak! I'm actually rooting for you to keep on tweeting. I want you to jump in that social media hole and keep digging, so that the Chiefs will finally be forced to put your crappy two-yards-per-carry ass on the bench. And then I can start using your backup on my fantasy team. That would be great for me.
But I still felt like I should pass this message on to you, because as a representative of the East Coast Cat coalition, it's my duty to let a fellow member know you were slipping on this one, and you need to tighten up.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Christopher Street Boys Are Badass
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
My Favorite Thing... Ever?
Maybe that's a tad hyperbolic, as I'm also a fan of food and oxygen and the human capacity to love.
But somewhere near the top of that list? Free documentaries on the internet. Here's a few sites dedicated specifically to this:
Snag Films
Hulu Documentaries
Logo Real Momentum GLBTQI Documentaries
But what triggered this post was actually a documentary I watched on youtube yesterday, Boy I Am. It doesn't speak to my exact experience (no single piece of media really speaks to anyone's exact experience, does it?), but a lot of the topics it addresses are topics that have been bubbling in my head as a feminist (and beyond that, a person whose work and studies and support networks all involve feminists and feminism), and as an increasingly gender non-conforming person who has always been invested in transgender inclusion and rights.
Here's part 1:
And part 2:
The rest is on youtube (you can find it, I believe in you), and I recommend viewing the whole thing. If you want to know more about the film or buy it, the film's official site is here, and you can purchase it through Women Makes Movies.
This is also one of the reasons I really truly deeply love the internet: finding people who think like you (especially in the case that "you" are marginalized or non-normative) is easy in ways generations before could not imagine.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Invisible
Q: Where in the news media can you find a discussion of race in which the host addresses the most basic ways white people are privileged, instead of mindless squawking about what is and is not racist, or, more often lately, "reverse-racist"?
A: Come on now.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - Neutral Man's Burden | ||||
| ||||
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Theme of the Day Is, Themes
I am endlessly amused and impressed by collections of clips displaying themes in pop culture that we take for granted. And so today I have amassed for you a COLLECTION OF COLLECTIONS.
Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions (Lonely Island):
I'm Not Here to Make Friends (FourFour):
Finally Tonight, Jesus (Everything is Terrible):
Put the Camera Down/Turn It Off (FourFour):
Medicine (Target Women with Sarah Haskins):
I could actually use a lot of other Sarah Haskins videos, I'm sure. I'll leave just this one for now, since I was shocked that I never noticed this stupid black and white theme.
I'll add more as I find/they inspire... please leave any I've missed!
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Hmm.
Today I was asked: "So, what does a feminist do?"
To which I replied: "Anything they want to."
Oh my gosh I'm going to write about Dollhouse and share things from rallies in RI but just for the minute have Joss Whedon's Equality Now speech:
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
How It Works
Um, I haven't been posting lately because I've been hopping around the East Coast and then over in France at Taize.
It was my third pilgrimage in the last three years. Maybe this isn't something you would assume about me from this blog (or maybe you would? I have little idea about how I'm perceived). After talking about being a bit of a church geek (though the friends I travel with to Taize constantly remind me that I'm not a real church geek, not at all) in a response to a Bishop poem that alluded to Peter, I've had a professor ask me, "So being a church geek is compatible with being politically left?"
To which I, bewildered, answered: "..Yes?"
"How does that work?"
I gave him a brief and insufficient answer about Jesus being a big liberal commie. I guess I could rant on it a while here but, I started writing this entry about how I wasn't going to write anything lengthy yet. And I always feel utterly scattered whenever I try to pull my shit together to talk about religion. But what it boils down to is that the base of my political views and the base of my Christian views are the very same: Egalitarianism. In other words, love. It's not some miracle that they work together. Truly, sometimes, it is the only way they work.
Anyway, that's why I've been out. Maybe I'll write something more expansive soon. I'll leave you right now with my two favorite English-language songs from Taize. Neither of these videos are mine.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A Few Words on Political Correctness
So, today Shakesville pointed me over to the Daily Kos, which I know of but almost never read and, well, I guess this kind of thing is why.
The writer, after really sensibly explaining that dismissing marginalized groups as "oversensitive" and "too PC" is just a convenient way to acknowledge what you're saying is disrespectful, but belittle and emotionally attack your critics, and go on offending people. Good.
Then, of course, he goes right on to belittle and emotionally attack critics and go on offending people. But don't worry! It's ok because the people he's pulling fatphobic, transphobic and misogynist joke about are conservatives! He also throws in some racism and ableism in at the end for good measure.
You REALLY don't get it already.
Ok, first, fuck putting quotes around transphobic. I know you know it's real. The problem with jokes aimed at conservatives, or anyone, that exploit marginalized groups (in this case, people that deviate from normal/ideal gender phenotype and presentation) is NOT that you're directly saying "such and such groups sucks!" It's almost never that clear. But the joke just isn't fucking funny unless it involves the prejudice. If gender was acknowledged to be fluid and gender binary was meaningless? Calling Ann Coulter a man, a drag queen, a tranny, masculine, or saying she dresses too femininely, or isn't feminine enough just wouldn't make any sense, never mind being funny. By making a joke about anyone's gender nonconformity, you are reinforcing the validity of gender conformity. One may say "but I support transgendered people!" I'm sure you have, politically. But you're also happily engaging in the system that dictates their difference; their difference which makes them the butt of jokes, their difference that causes people fear them, their difference which causes their lives to be valued less than NORMAL people, their difference which causes the brutal murders which create the need for a Transgender Day of Remembrance.
You didn't mean to. But you fucking did.
I see similar in arguments against hate crime laws - why is this joke worse because it's aimed at a certain kind of person? Why is this crime worse because it's aimed at a certain kind of person? Neither is because hating super-special marginalized people is the super-awfullest kind of hate and so we have to be super-sensitive to it. It is because when you joke about, or harass, or commit violence against, one marginalized person (or one person who is targeted because of their perceived association with a marginalized group, such as a cisgender person who is perceived as transgender), you are sending a message to ALL people of that marginalized group: it is not ok to be what you are. It is deviant. It is funny. It is bad. It will not be tolerated. It will be punished.
God, I could go on, but that part infuriated me the most for personal reasons, and of course because I've heard too many "progressives" repeating the ever-hilarious "Coulter is a man" sentiment recently.
Here are a few calmer words on being "politically correct" (i.e. respectful) from Jay Smooth:
And embedding is disabled, but yeah, I immediately thought of Beau Sia's response to Rosie O'Donnell a few years ago, when the writer at the Daily Kos finished with:
And I thought, real easy to say when you have the privilege of not associating these "jokes" with "real issues" like, say, the violence they justify.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
why I still love the internet
lily allen + queers + webcams =
Seriously, I love you, internet. I was researching androgyny the other day, and, can you imagine trying to find a comprehensive and sympathetic perspective on that in books? I mean, I'm sure it exists somewhere, but in my local library? Nuh-uh. Thank you internet, for connecting queers!
I am using the word "queer" today in retaliation to the Plumber Who Must Not Be Named's recent admonishment that:
I'm not sure if he's trying to attack GLBTIQ folk's right to use it, or defending his right to use it. If it's the former, well gosh, I have no idea why we'd want to spin unusual and different into a positive. And if he's defending his right to use it, well gosh, I have no idea why a guy who says he has gay friends but won't let them near his children calling us unusual and different might be insulting.
Also, who the fuck says "honky"? Really? That's really the racial epitaph that... oh, why do I bother. This is what Lily Allen lyrics are for.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Some Things I Needed
So. It might be redundant to say gender issues are a theme of my life right now, but the past few days have just been... you know when you're reading a book, and you get to the chapter that uses the title in a bunch of sentences? It's been like that.
I had dinner with the wonderful Jennifer Miller on Tuesday. Here's the short youtube version of the documentary Juggling Politics about her political Circus Amok:
On the way to see her screen the film and perform that night, I got harassed for the first time about my buzz cut. Nothing traumatic - a gang of ten-year-olds shouting. I didn't hear most of it. A friend told me later that they asked if I was a boy or a girl.
The next day, we workshopped a short story in a fiction class that had a scene implying rape was justified/healed by pregnancy. I wish I was surprised that some other people didn't understand why it was upsetting.
Later that day I watched the single most disturbing film of my life. There were multiple graphic rape scenes. My professor apologized afterward for not warning us about them. I was trying not to break down for the rest of the three-hour class.
Today in another class were talking about Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. That's always a little bothersome because I'm practically a Bechdel fangirl, but also because the book deals with sexuality and gender a lot, and I'm constantly being reminded that my understanding and experience with these topics (and therefore the connections and reactions I have with the book) doesn't match the majority. There's a lot of examples I could pull out, but what affected me today was Bechdel's story about seeing a pornographic wall calendar and feeling inexplicably exposed and ashamed, and then telling her brothers to call her Albert instead of Alison. Other students assumed it was just another example of wanting to be butch and masculine, but I think the inclusion of the calendar points to something else - the inherent vulnerability of being female.
So my head is swelling with all of this and more. Shaving my head has spurred some thoughts on where I fall on the gender spectrum. The other day a friend online posted something I really needed to read: she, like me, was wondering about her gender identity, and she, like me, had the thought, "Who the fuck am I to be transgender? How dare I?" I have this feeling, like, if I wasn't strictly female, I would have figured it out by now. Which is, of course, bullshit.
I also found Alison Bechdel's coming out story online this week, and this scene was really significant:
Speaking of shaving my head, I posted some photos on my facebook account, and somehow the whole of my extended family knows about it now. I expect this entry itself will be read by at least one or two family members that google me with enough intensity. I don't know if I can express this without sounding like a hypocrite, or self-important, but, the thing is, if I write publicly about my personal life (which I have, more in song than here, but I hope this blog is headed for a more personal tone), I don't do it for people that I know. I'd prefer if people that I know let me choose how and when I share things with them. I write publicly in the hopes that someone else needs to hear something that I have to say; just as I needed to hear about Jennifer Miller and Circus Amok when I came to accept that my body would never match ideals about hair (without much unwanted suffering), just as I needed to read that Alison Bechdel was still struggling with her identity at age nineteen as I'm still struggling with mine at age twenty-one, just as, in that fiction workshop, I needed to hear that one other person was upset by that scene before I could say it myself.
Today on Feministing, this song was posted:
I've been listening to it kind of non-stop all day. After a week of feeling drained the casual nature of misogyny and the normativeness of ignorance about gender's complexities, I needed this.
(edit: CocoRosie's history of racism has been pointed out in the comments on Feministing. Ugh. Their song made me cry, but, ugh.)
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Reflections on Head Shaving
After saying for years that I would do this soon, I hunted down a pair of clippers and just did it. I have never been happier. I have urges to fix my hair throughout the day, and instead I touch my fuzz and just smile. I feel like I've escaped somehow.
All of the attention I've received has been positive so far, but I haven't strayed far from my college campus. Here are some things I have noticed, though:
1. Several people have asked if I did this for charity, or gave my hair away. It wasn't long enough, but I didn't really think about that option. I don't think that's a bad thing, or a good thing, just neutral: didn't think of donating my hair. Just wanted to chop it off. No reason required.
2. I have been compared to every Famous Bald Woman I can think of, save Britney Spears (whose head-shaving incident, I maintain, was awesome). Natalie Portman, twice. GI Jane. Sinead O'Connor. Deb from Empire Records. Though I liked all the comments, since I like all of these women, it baffles me that shaved heads are still abnormal enough on women that this sort of thing happens (and that people focused on Britney's baldness as a sign of insanity). Also, thinking of fictional shaved women, I couldn't help but notice a trend: Portman's character was forcefully shaved. Demi Moore's character shaved for the military (I haven't seen the movie, but I imagine it's either compulsory or, more likely, to prove herself). Robin Tunney's Deb freely chose to shave her own head (a scene which really stuck with me and I've posted it below), but throughout the film she's poorly adjusted and in a place of desperation. I looked for more on the web - Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3 apparently shaves to avoid lice. Where is a happy well-adjusted fictional woman who ditches her hair?
The idea to write this down came from the popular What I Learned By Shaving My Head.
Share in the shaved head heaven with me:
There's a longer version of the following scene on youtube, with embedding disabled.
Watch more Empire Records videos on AOL Video
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
My Blood and Sweat is in Kaniakapupu
I suppose I've been writing here semi-regularly, so let me share just a little something from what I'm doing. I'm on an anthropology travel course right to Hawaii, learning about the islands' history and culture. There's a million things I could tell you about, but I'm exhausted so for now I'll just point you to a few resources:
Support the Friends of Iolani Palace
Defend Oahu Coalition
(I wish I had more... keep checking back!)
Some books to look for:
Music, Past, and Present at Kamehameha Schools
Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887
Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawaii
From a Native Daughter
Hawaii's Story By Hawaii's Queen
And this video is almost the exact tour I took of the ruins of the summer palace at Kaniakapupu with Dr. Baron Kaho'ola Ching, except, of course, we didn't have the guy with the cheesy-TV-host-sounding voice and after the tour my roommate and I chopped down a tree that was degrading a wall (something tells me cheesy-tv-host-sounding-voice-guy didn't jibe so much with the manual labor). I can't begin to describe the experience and this youtube video, despite its 27 minutes, pales in comparison.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
It May Not Be Cold Enough to Freeze Your Winebago
But I still hope all five of my readers are somewhere safe, warm and loving today.
This year I was quite excited to find out that A Muppet Family Christmas, the special that pretty much makes Christmas Christmas for me, is on youtube in five parts. If you've never seen it, you are missing out. Here's part the first:
Friday, June 20, 2008
Youtube Favorite Friday: Cuteness (and apologies)
Yep, can't get enough of going "aw" at this one:
I love Sesame Street, so much.
So, sorry I've been totally neglecting this thing. Taize was good, but also hard, I still don't know how to convey the spiritual experience in words, but some more concrete highlights:
- Chocolate and butter sandwiches, for breakfast, everyday.
- Being humbled by people who walked there... from Italy.
- Picking up a slew of dirty ASL signs (prooobably just our group).
- The catchy tune stuck in your head is sung by monks (well, and everyone else).
- Sobbing with people you just met, and some of whom do not share a language with you.
So. That's that. I start work at camp tomorrow, so yeah, blogging is not my priority right now. I may stop in occasionally to link somewhere else, but don't expect too much original content until September.
Speaking of linking other places, here's a few of my favorite stories. I'm limiting myself to ones I found this morning, or else I'd just go on and on:
-Feministe: Latina teacher fired for not regurgitating the same old crap. Oh social justice, how you need to be a requirement- for students, and apparently school administrators. It's fucking scary that challenging Eurocentrism is so dangerous.
-Queerty: "Can’t I Just Have Mayonnaise?" Whines O’Reilly Over "Gay" Commercial O'Reilly's homophobia and glaringly obvious straight privilege here is endlessly amusing/distressing to me. He totally can't grasp the concept that the loving housewife being replaced by a New York deli man is "gender play". Because he totally can't see past two guys kissing. Because if it was a man and woman, it would be normal. Because straight people are normal and gay people are a disturbing and political affront to all straight people. I just feel bad for him at this point. Could someone educate him, please?
-Bitch Magazine: Factory Girl: Dora the Explorer and the Dirty Secrets of the Global Industrial Economy I'm kind of envious of how many issues the writer managed to neatly packed in this one article. I tried to sum it up, but please, just go read it.
-Fourfour: She just doesn't get it Oh, how I hoped- or perhaps rationalized- that Tila Tequila was at least slightly positive for bisexual visibility. But, alas- she's gone and spouted another old bisexual stereotype, and to make matters worse, still thinks she's helping.
Ok, I found another video of the kid, so today you're lucky enough to get two youtube favorites:
I wonder where she is now?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Youtube Favorite Friday: New Crush!
Yep, I'm totally fucking girl-crushing on Julia Nunes.
Besides being magic on the ukulele - an instrument that evokes awe in me because I usually see it as a toy instead of, well, an instrument (maybe because I bought my own at a toy store?) - she's also just so sweet and goofy and sincere and cute. She's got all of this confidence I never have when I'm performing. Maybe I should try putting music on the youtubes sometime.
Well, I'm going to Europe tomorrow, so I might post something about France of Switzerland when I get back. This'll be the last post 'til June, though. Sorry to deprive you again, you five readers, you.
In conclusion: Julia Nunes! Come to Rhode Island and play a show with me!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Youtube Favorite... Saturday
Hey. Sorry I'm late again. Finals are cracking down. (Aaaaaand Season 4 of Buffy arrived in the mail.)
So, some lighter fare today:
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Worry
Hey, all. I was going to blog about Toaster Strudel today. I even wrote "not paid to say this" in frosting on a toaster strudel and took a picture. They're delicious, was what the point was going to be. But I got an email from The Boy this morning, and now something else is totally occupying my brain.
The Boy, as I affectionately refer to my significant other of over three years on this blog, is studying in Buenos Aires right now. He mentioned to me last night that the city has been covered in smoke for a few days, but seemed to be clearing up last night. This morning, he emailed me to say the smoke wasn't over. So I looked into what the news had to say about it. And I saw this video:
And that's some mind-occupyingly-frightening stuff.
I keep reading that this is farmers burning residue from crops, and that they do it annually- so has this happened before? Or did something just go wrong this year? The Boy told me, with what seemed like a fair amount of certainty, that this was connected to the dispute Argentinian farmers have been having with the government. That could just be his perspective or what the people in Buenos Aires are saying, but no new sources I've seen have mentioned it. I clearly don't know what the truth is. It's just another question to occupy my brain today.
(pictures from here)
The Boy was told it's not dangerous. That certainly sounds familiar. Obviously there's a difference, but how can breathing in smoke this dense every moment not do any damage?
"They say that it's okay, but I say don't breathe that shit in."
Anthrax, Kimya Dawson. song, lyrics.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Youtube Favorite Friday: Buffy
The Saint-Marie, not the slayer.
This video hasn't been working for me. If it doesn't work for you either, let me know and another song of hers up. If it does work for you, lucky, you get to enjoy the voice of Buffy Saint-Marie.
I first found her when Kimya Dawson posted the same video in her livejournal. She went on to talk about how inspiring and strong Buffy is, how brave, and gives Wal-Mart a great big fuck you. I really enjoyed the latter part at the time, but for whatever reason didn't pay the former so much mind.
Then I started writing an article for the Women's Center newsletter (I'll post it when it goes online) about progressive female artists, and I put Buffy on my list of people to check out, because I certainly trust Kimya's tastes. I ended up listening to Buffy Saint-Marie constantly for a solid week. She's amazing.
At the same time, a lot of things corresponded- my housemate went to a conference about women in politics, and the last speaker talked about how women often don't get politically involved because they don't think they understand every facet of the issue(s), but men don't have that same political inhibition. And in an essay class, we had to write about an experience with an animal, and I wrote about an injured pigeon that some kids were tormenting in kindergarten, and the essay ended up being about how baffling cruelty and a lack of sympathy has always been to me, and how powerless I feel every time I think about the fact that I'm in a country whose government condones torture. Then the Yoo memos were released. And none of my friends knew about it, and the TV didn't talk about it, and at this point everyone is watching Obama and Clinton and thanking their lucky stars that there's less than a year left of Bush, but there's still torture and we should still be talking about it. Fuck, we should be yelling in the streets about it! And I spent my days at work reading and writing about Buffy Saint-Marie and Billie Holiday and Patti Smith and Sweet Honey in the Rock and Ani DiFranco, and I one day I finished the piece on Buffy, and I went home, and I wrote my first protest song.
I ended up going back to that livejournal entry of Kimya's because, of course, I wrote about her, too, and wanted to work in some quotes displaying her feminist and anti-corporate sensibilities. So I read it again, I read this again: "All the strong women, who helped make me who I am, are on my mind. Maybe because of all the messages I have gotten from those of you who have said that I have changed or empowered you. Let's keep it going."
Kimya Dawson is the whole reason I picked up a guitar for the first time in eight years, and why I started teaching myself and writing songs. When I read those words, it just felt like magic, like the universe made sense for just a few minutes. It felt powerful.
Maybe that's all incomprehensible to you. It might be beyond words.
I guess, all I can say is, thank you, brave women. Thank you, Kimya. Thank you, Buffy.
More Buffy
More Kimya
More Me (including the protest song, "Inexcusable", uploaded for the occasion- it has some mistakes because it's new and quite fast, making it hard to play over and over. Be forgiving.)
Friday, April 11, 2008
Youtube Favorite Fridays: Calpernia Addams Chaps Your Ass (or, Hitting the Brick Wall)
For this week, I chose Calpernia Addams's long list of Bad Questions to Ask a Transsexual.
Her smiling rage is so lovely and righteous. There can only be so many polite, even-toned education moments (usually met with confusion, skepticism or flat-out offense) before a person either stops bothering or starts screaming. I live a relatively comfortable and privileged life, and still, I know I've run out of steam (or, less often, had steam build up to the point of explosion) when trying to engage others in real conversation about sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and so forth from time to time. Sometimes it just feels like there's no progress, not even that seed of enlightenment planted, and you just want to shout some sense into some eardrums. That, of course, gets you labeled as over-sensitive (or a feminazi, or a reverse racist, or selfish, or a plain old bitch) and others use it to undercut your credibility. Sometimes it's a brick wall that you no longer have the strength to dismantle.
That devastating discouragement has hit progressive bloggers hard in the past, and right now it seems to be particularly affecting women of color. Brownfemipower is down, and the permanence is unclear. Holly at Feministe covers that better than I could. Reappropriate also went on hiatus late last month, and Jenn, the blogger there, posted a comprehensive explanation. You should really go read it, and I'll end with an excerpt:
I’m tired of discussions of sexism being misconstrued as male-bashing, I’m tired of people who don’t know feminism thinking they can define it, and above all, I am tired of the suspicion of my racial solidarity and my pride in the Asian American community because of my identification as a feminist and the choices in my personal life. I’m tired of constantly talking and not being heard, and having to defend who I am to the men in my community. I’m saddened by the countless emails from feminists who write to me to tell me that the hoarde of anti-feminist commentors on this blog have chased them from commenting. I feel like I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall, and all I have to show for it is ostracization, derision, and occasionally ridicule from some Asian American men. I feel like the adage “working twice as hard to get half as far” is poignantly relevant to how hard I’ve struggled for the same acceptance in the APIA online community that some of my male colleagues enjoy almost innately.
...
It’s telling to me that this kind of hiatus occurs so frequently in the feminism of colour blogosphere. Something about having to fight the tides of racism in the feminist community and the sexism within our racialized communities makes us more susceptible to weariness. We are fighting a war on two fronts; perhaps this is why so few feminists of colour blog, and our blogosphere community remains so small. Perhaps this periodic need to rejuvenate is all the evidence needed to demonstrate how difficult it is to exist at the political intersection of race and gender.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Whoops! Late Youtube Favorite
I was away this weekend, so I missed my one steady feature. Sorry about that.
I'll give you the Youtube Favorite, and a bonus: the March newsletter of the Women's Center at which I work. Our year's theme is Stereotypes, and that month's theme was stereotypes about mothers. Enjoy! (pdf)
To compliment that, here's one of my favorite lady Kimya's songs about motherhood:
