Yeah? Well.....you're a whole pack of smokes!

First, an approximation of a conversation between me and two of my teen patrons as we got ready for our second Teen Game Night.

Teen 1: "He's a …. oh, except I'm not supposed to say that here. (pause) "[something to the effect of that's stupid because] fag actually means cigarrette in some countries."

Me: "Yes, but we aren't in those other countries, we are here…."

Teen 2: "[jumps in with more about the various meanings of faggot]"

Me: "…Besides, you obviously didn't mean to use that definition. That doesn't make any sense. Why would you call someone a cigarette?…"

Teens 1 and 2: "[more stuff about the various definitions of fag and faggot]"

Me: "And in either case, you meant it as an insult. You shouldn't be mean like that. So stop it."

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure Teen 1 will use "fag" as an insult many times over in the near and far future, but at least they both shut up fairly quickly after that.

*********

Unlike preschoolers, teenagers respond fairly well to logic. They also still see a lot of black and white and respond really badly to the total absence of logic that a lot of people in charge of their education, safety, what have you, use. (Most often when they want teens to act responsibly but they don't want the headache of actually giving them the responsibility of making their own decisions.)

Take, for example, the teens that got suspended for saying "vagina" over the school loudspeaker. I have no doubt that these girls are fierce feminists, but they are also teens. Teens who are active and engaged enough to try to make an honest to goodness (and possibly unpopular) political statement in front of the whole school, during school hours, as part of something as geeky as a poetry reading...er slam.

I'm going to take a huge leap and hypothesize that these girls are not considered to be juvenile delinquents by their teachers or peers. Which means that while they may not always be obedient, or gracious when they are obedient, they do tend to follow school rules. So why choose this one to break, especially having been forwarned by their principal?

Is it because they believe in the cause that much?

They suddenly decided that being good was no fun?

Or did their principal manage to piss them off that much?

I suspect the first and the last.

I think that we probably never would have heard about this if the principal had simply said "Discussions about sexuality are not appropriate in a high school setting outside of health class (or extracurricular clubs that are formed for that explicit purpose) and so you need to find another passage."

Instead he said "Discussions about sexuality are appropriate in a high school setting - even to the point of being allowed during school performances.

But you can't actually say the technically correct words....you have to use juvenile euphemisms."

or something to the same effect anyway.

Which misses both the point of the poem and one of the main reasons one would allow discussions about sexuality to occur in high schools in the first place. The principal not only told them that they couldn't discuss what they wanted to discuss - he also showed them that he didn't even have enough of a backbone to just come right out and say so in the first place. Plus, he insulted their intelligence by acting as if the meaning of the poem was incidental to their decision to perform it in public . He also acted as if his censorship of the most important word in the whole poem did not have the same effect as censoring the meaning of the poem.

In other words, he did that wishy-washy, hair-splitting, la-la-la I've lost all sense of reason and logic thing that adults often do with teens. Which, understandably, drives teens bat-shit crazy.

It's made clear in all the articles about this that these girls thought about what they were doing. This wasn't a stupid prank. This was a deliberate "screw you, your illogical rules, and your belief that I'm too stupid to catch on."

Rock on.

Or, as Dar Williams says: "Teenagers, kick our butts."

******

Which brings us back to "faggot".

Forget "how do we teach our children to act responsibly when the president gets blow jobs in the Oval Office and pundits call other public figures faggots."

How about, "How the hell am I supposed to get these teens to treat each other with respect when we act as if it's the word that's taboo and not the act of insulting other people that's wrong?"

How do I teach them about context and intent when we'll all get in trouble for simply saying the word, irregardless of context?

How do I teach them to respect themselves and each other when I'm forced to implicitly support the idea that their bodies and new desires are shameful ?

I understand why I shouldn't use many of these words or bring up certain topics, even when I think it would be helpful rather than rude. My position of power means that I keep my opinions to myself for a variety of obvious reasons. And so, there are certain words that I will never use with them, even though I personally think that they shouldn't be so taboo.

I'm also sure as hell not going to let them get away with saying such crap in the library. We're supposed to be a safe space for everyone, and that means no slurs like "faggot."

But the whole knee jerk "shush!" reaction that I see a lot of other adults do is annoying the crap out of me.

All that teaches them is to wait somewhere else to say it.

It also teaches them that a lot of really broad topics are off limits around me. Which really clashes with the whole "I'm a trusted resource" mission statement among librarians - YA librarians in particular.

(sigh) I get the feeling this isn't going to be easy.

Because I'm All About Procrastination Today

First, y'all should go check out Elizabeth Bear's stuff about Criminal Minds and screwing around with gender roles.

- I can't for the life of me remember who I first saw mention it , sorry. :(

I (heart) Reid. Have I mentioned that lately?

Ok, back now? Good.

So I was looking at my stats to see what blog entries people were actually bothering to read, and one of them happened to be this one. In it I mention how annoying it is when guys (non-boyfriend guys) put their hands on my back to guide me out of the way instead saying excuse me.

WTF? Where do they even learn that?

Anyhoo, I noticed Hotch (or was it Morgan?) doing that very same thing to another male character on Criminal Minds a few episodes ago and I thought "huh, that's weird, maybe guys do it to each other too."

And then I thought about it today in light of the all the evidence that the writers of Criminal Minds have all kinds of fun playing with gender roles and I thought "Dude! They are so deliberately screwing with us! I so want to meet whoever wrote that into the show!"

Or maybe I'm wrong and it is something guys do to each other too.

Thoughts?

On a Lighter Note

Go see, if you haven't already.

May favorite is the one with Robin and Spoiler*, just because it reminds me so much of the actual imagery tampon commercials use whenever they are doing the "active and beautiful" theme.

Has When Fangirls Attacked already linked to this and I just missed it, or (gasp!) have Ragnell and Kalinara not seen it yet?

*I am right and that's Stephanie and Cassie? right? Sorry, I'm still just starting to branch out from manga and Runaways. Some of the superheroes that have had multiple secret and real life identities still confuse me.

"Look, Nora, in lots of things, you're still a child. I'm older than you in many ways and I've had a little more experience."

I adore my alma mater to pieces.

Quirks and all; and trust me, it has plenty of quirks.

Such as...a PE requirement.

Yup, that's right, we had a PE requirement to fulfill before we could graduate. I took Badmitton, Rennaissance Dancing, and Self Defense. Which....yeah, that says a lot about both me and my school right there.

If memory serves me, the self-defense course was the most popular PE class available; owing in no small part to the college being both liberal leaning and all-women. Our instructor was tiny, not much taller than me. I'd imagine most people saw her as pretty non-threatening. as just your normal, slightly overweight, middle aged woman. She was also in charge of campus security and had a black belt in karate. One of our final classes included a demonstration of her breaking boards with her karate chops and kicks (with one of us nervously holding the boards up for her).

At the time, the class was - to use an over-used and often abused phrase - empowering. Of course, pretty much anytime we got together and had the opportunity to yell simultaneously was an empowering experience - Convocation, Disorientation, Graduation, Friday Night parties, etc.. Adding in the practice punches and learning how to get out of a choke hold certainly gave the class extra kick to it, though.

However, one of the most memorable parts of the class was not so empowering in retrospect.

Part way through the course we got the lecture from our instructor about acting smart so that it would be less likely that we would ever have to use any of this stuff. Now, I do give her props for not pretending as though following her advice would for certain save us. I will also adore her forever for being the first person to ever tell me about the FBI's research about rape, and how they concluded that women who act confidently - as if, you know, they have every damn right to be wherever the hel they happen to be at that moment - are statistically less likely to be targeted by rapists.

Her list of advice - which sounded a lot more like dire warnings - was endless. Don't have an apartment by yourself if you can help it. Don't say your name on your answering machine. Don't walk alone at night. Don't take trips by yourself. Don't trust strangers. Watch your drink at all times. Never carry your keys with your fingers through the key rings (they can be easily broken that way if you are attacked). Carry your keys in a fist with one key poking out between your fingers. Make sure someone knows where you are going if you do go out alone. Glance under your car as you walk towards it whenever the area is deserted or it's nighttime. Have your keys ready to go so that you can get in your car quickly. Don't make your routine too normal. Get a second floor apartment if you can. Don't listen to music while jogging outside. Don't jog at night. Make sure your dorm blinds are closed before dressing and undressing. And on and on and on.

Now, a lot of this advice is perfectly reasonable - as long as it's taken with a grain of salt and one balances trying to be safe with not missing out on opportunities. Unfortunately, when people give out such advice, they usually leave out the bit about the salt and weighing various costs.

Which is part of why my reaction at the time was mixed. I wanted to be smart and safe, and her advice seemed mostly reasonable, but....some of it rubbed me the wrong way, and it was one of the most logical and reasonable bits of advice she gave us that bugged me the most.

Closing one's blinds before undressing is a pretty normal and low energy task. It might seem odd to you that she would even mention it. Unless, of course, you happen to be living on a fairly isolated campus with a student body that is all female. Privacy boundaries change. The topic of periods becomes acceptable in normal conversations. Pajamas are worn to communal dining spaces. Third story blinds that look out over the lake or the athletic fields are often left open for the view and sunlight.

Side note: when people ask me why I went to a women's college, I want to point to experiences like this. Nothing opens one's eyes to the subtle way that culture and other institutions blindly favor men than going to a school that is focused only on women. Not that one needs to do so to see that "male" is the constant default "in real life", but - for me, anyway - there's just something about having spent several years in a culture where "female" was the default that solidifies this knowledge in a way nothing else could have.

Back to the main topic....

I immediately knew why the thing about the blinds bugged me. I was convinced I was behaving illogically as well, but I still rebelled at the suggestion and deliberately ignored it. Not because I thought the 15 seconds it would take to do this was really all that much of an inconvenience, however.

Here's where I explain, because I'm sure very few of my current readers know this, that I spent my entire high school career checking not only my windows - but also in my closet and under my bed - each and every time I got undressed. I didn't do this because I was irrational or paranoid. I did this because it was the precaution that I had learned to take in order to prevent my brother from spying on me. It was the safety measure that I found worked best. It became so automatic that I didn't stop doing it until I had been living in the dorms for quite a while. What had started out as a logical response to clear and present danger had morphed into something closer to a tic or a security blanket. Until one day my brain noticed what my body was doing....and I stopped and pushed the horror of what I had become back into the dark corner of my mind where everything else about that time dwelled.

Until we got the lecture.

And all I could think when she mentioned the thing about blinds was that I didn't want to go back to being afraid all the time. I refused to go back to living in a world where even my own bedroom was unsafe. I thought at the time that I was being illogical, but in reality I was being very logical, I was just to scared to examine everything throughly enough to realize it.

I wasn't living on a co-ed campus in the middle of a city, in a bedroom that looked out into the street. I was living on a relatively remote all women's campus and my bedroom window looked out over lots and lots of green space surrounded by forest. Yeah, some creep could hide out by the trees with binoculars, but I it seems to me that such men are looking for victims, and will find them no matter what I do. Yes, a couple of extra seconds spent doing a simple chore was certainly low cost enough to be worth the safety gained by doing so. The problem is that this would never be a mindless task for me ever again. I would never be able to go to the window and simply consider it normal behavior, like closing the door to the bathroom or keeping my mouth closed as I ate. This had gone far beyond normal cultural mores long before I'd ever gotten to college. And it wasn't ever going away - at least not anytime soon. It's still something that I often think of when I go to open or close my bedroom blinds.

So my choice was not between having to do normal, simple, short tasks and endangering myself. It was between doing something that would make me a tiny bit safer and not expecting to feel like shit for at least a few seconds every day. What would seem to be the logical choice to any outsider was no longer an acceptable option to me.

At the time, I didn't question any other particular bits of advice our instructor gave us (remember, I thought I was being illogical), but the experience did leave me with a vague uneasiness with such advice. As time went on and I had to decide more and more often whether or not I would follow her safety measures, I found myself looking more critically at what I would be giving up by doing so. I've decided in favor of ditching her advice to a degree that would shock and alarm many, I'm sure. I've walked down streets alone at night. I traveled alone by myself dozens of times. I've done so without making sure anyone has my itinerary (what itinerary?). I've even walked alone, by myself, in a foreign city, with no cell phone, at frickin 1 am at night, and I was perfectly fine, thank you very much. And no, no one knew where I was except me.

Do you know when I wasn't safe? In the middle of the day on a crowded subway full of normal people. That's when some guy decided my boob was his little pet.

And in my bedroom, when I was alone by myself, and no one else was home except my own family.

And do you know what else? I don't regret getting on the subway that day. If some fortune teller had told me that my choices were getting on that subway and experiencing that humiliation along with everything else I did that day - or staying home where it was safe - or even choosing to travel to Paris with a group and doing group things instead, I still would have taken that damn subway. Because that was the subway that took me to Monet's Waterlillies.

So, I'm with Sheezlebub on this one: you can take your "advice" and shove it you know where.

An Apology to All Female Gamers

I'm afraid I managed to reinforce some of the not so nice stereotypes about girls and games over the last few nights.

I didn't mean to, I swear!

See, here's how it happened:

YALSA came up with the idea to start a new annual teen event called Teen Tech Week and being a YA librarian and all (yeah, yeah, I'm technically just a "library assistant") it was my job to come up with stuff for the teens to do. Besides, I thought it was a pretty cool idea anyway.

However, since I was never cool even when I was a teenager, and since I'm still getting to know the teens from my area, I put out a survey asking them to rate some ideas that I had...well, ok, some ideas I got from YALSA's wiki and site.

The overwhelming winner was...well, it was actually a movie night, but we couldn't get the license in time, so we opted for a Teen Game Night, which came in a pretty strong second. So, I borrowed my brother's Playstation, hauled my teeny tiny TV up the mountain, ordered some pizza, and told the the kids they were welcome to bring any of their own games and game systems. Several brought in games and handhelds, and we left the computers on and provided board games as well, so there was plenty for everyone to do. One of the teens actually brought in a big huge TV*, so we were able to set up another station with yet another kid's XBox.

Overall it was a HUGE success. I saw lots of faces I had yet to see ever in my entire four months working there and I know several of the kids came in because their friends told them about it. Dude, I'm getting word of mouth advertising!

However, I haven't played anything other than puzzle games on my computer for, well, several years. Not since my brother and I shared an apartment and a Playstation, I'm ashamed to say. (A different brother and Playsation.) So...I sucked. Plus, I was only half paying attention to the game (for the whole two minutes I played any) because it was my job to keep an eye on things.

It also didn't help that I was all nostalgic about all the old games, or that I had to keep asking "so how do we do this?", or that I just tried laughing my miserable failure off as if it were a joke.

Grrrr...

Well, I may be able to keep the Playstation for a while, so I might see about practising some so I am less of an embarrassment to my gender the next time around.

Of course, that probably means I should pick something up besides Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2....


*yeah, so, there's lots of obvious potential problems with letting them do this, but the kid who brought the TV in is 17 and is leaving for Boot Camp and then Iraq in less than 6 months, so I kinda figured he was old enough to make his own decisions about such things. And all the other kids had carrying cases for their gear and games, so it was quite obvious that they do this often, and that their parents know they do.

Since When

do Thin Mints come wrapped in foil tubes instead of plastic ones?

And why is this bothering me so much?




Oh...yes, because after spending two evenings in a row hosting a teen game night, I really don't need anymore reminders of how old I am.


"Nintendo Gameboy Color! I remember when this was the coolest thing ever!"

"Super Mario Bros.! I remember when we got our first Nintendo!"


Yeah...I think I'll shut-up right about now.



(the game nights were super cool, though)

Congrats!

Apologies for disappearing again. I'm giving my cousin a bridal shower this weekend and I've been busy getting ready for the last week or two. I've also been sick, so any other spare time I've had I've spent sleeping (or at least resting - by breezing through almost all four seasons of Remington Steele).

But I wanted take a moment to say congrats to all the 2007 ALA literary award winners, most especially John Green for following up his Printz winning debut novel with a Printz honor winner for his second try (not too bad) and Kate DiCamillo for not only knocking everyone's socks off with every book, but also writing award winning books for more than one age group.

Gems, All

From the DC boards (via Occasional Superheroine)

Shyguy and Herald: why don't you give your point of view about why the blog ISN'T feminist

Mr.M: Give your point of view about why you think it IS?

I'm torn. I can see both sides.

Context : The thread is about Occasional Superheroine's Goodbye to Comics posts and what they are actually arguing about is whether the term "feminist rant" as posted by "Mr. M" (whose handle, is not, in fact "Mr. M" - but rather starts with M) is dismissive.

Methinks "Mr. G" - the author of this odd question - is confused as to why "Mr. H" considers the phrase "feminist rant" to be dismissive.

To be fair, apparently so is "Mr. M":

I entered into this civilly, I attacked no one, esp. Valarie, who I'm sure you think I did by describing her work as "feminist."

But, wait! There's more.

...Do you know what feminism is? Do you think it is the opposite of chauvinist? Or misogynist?

(dear god where do these people come from?)

"Mr. H" states the obvious

You didn't JUST say "feminist", pal.
You called it a "feminist RANT".
There is a WORLD of difference.

(psst - herald - I love you)

I was, of course, on tenderhooks to see how "Mr. M" would respond.

Unfortunately, he dissapoints with usual fallback of the dictionary definition of "rant". Because, of course, he went through all the words he could think of that meant "a bombastic, extravagant speech" and decided that "rant" worked best. He in no way choose rant because it's what feminist complaints are usually referred to. And well, the dog ate the part of his dictionary that explained that "rant" also means "To speak or write in an angry or violent manner" and "A speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence" and gave such example sentences as "The vast majority [of teenagers logged onto the Internet] did not encounter recipes for pipe bombs or deranged rants about white supremacy” He also must have confused it's synonym "rave" with that thing you go to.

But he makes up for it by later stating

I have some trouble calling her work "feminist" because it's not calling out men as a whole, nor is it a "call to arms" for the women of the world to rise up and overthrow their "vagina-challenged" opressors. It just doesn't have that smack to it.

See, guys, that's why I'm so bitchy. I like being called a feminist....and if I don't bag on men all the time, how the hell are you going to know that I am one? I really hate it when people mistake me for a "I'm not a feminist, but...."

Another "Mr. M" seems like he might be taking this all as seriously as it ought to be

The fact that mainstream comics has not dealt with this subject is a crime. Rape should leave you feeling outraged, invoke feelings like you wish it never happened, it should make you react!

but then shows his true colors

In stories about heroes saving people from mass murders and drug pushers and evil despots and corrupt presidents...rape should not be so taboo that we are not able to confront it like all of these other concepts. And even if there are kids reading this, how is it different than watching the nightly news? Kids need to know about these subjects and the earlier they learn the more of a chance a potential rapist can be averted or educated.

Yes, because Sue Dibny's rape was motivated by the same concern that prompted Speak and was dealt with in the same, responsible, thought-provoking manner. Complete with information on how to contact RAINN and Men Can Stop Rape.

He then responds to the obvious point that DC used rather than addressed rape with

In your opinion. You keep forgeting to write, in my opinion after you say things like this, 'cause that's all you're really speaking for. Just you. The rest of as get to make up our own minds. Thanks for caring though...

Cuz, you, know, everyone else on the board is using their "imho"s as they should!

And nevermind that it's quite obvious from what Valerie writes, and conversations not on the DC boards, that a large number of women (you, know, the people who are more likely to live in fear - or live through - sexual assault) agree with people other than "Mr. M" #2

Although, I must say my personal favorite from that thread is everyone arguing that without Sue Dibny being raped, there would have been no reason to go after Dr. Light. Call me crazy, but I rather think it wouldn't have been difficult for the masterminds at DC to come up with a reason other than "save the princess from, shocking, titilating violation!" to get the team on the hunt for Dr. Light.

Heck - I'll bet if they thought real hard they might have even been able to come up with a reason that allowed Sue Dibny to continue to help our amazing heros!

- side show (if you can stomache it) another commenter complains that Valerie brings everything back to her "broken vagina." Commenter is schooled by others in the basic literary terms "metaphor" and "theme." Hijinks ensue!

Yes, I know, I'm a bad person for picking on such easy targets. But it's so much fun!

Besides - how else is "Mr. M" #1 going to know I'm a feminist!

Speaking of Terms That Need to Dissappear:

(at least for a while)

Fan Service

Now, I'm going to admit here that I wasn't actually aware of what this term meant until Ms. Tokyopop came to visit and she explained it in her "What is Manga?" presentation.

I'd heard it used before, and I had a vague idea of what it meant, but I didn't hear it all that often and so I wasn't entirely clear on the exact definition. I honestly didn't really care.

But when she stated it as baldly as she did, and I thought of her examples and all the other things that I've heard the term used for, all I could think was "what a completely stupid phrase."

Because, of course, all the examples of "fan service" are not only sexual, but they are meant to appeal to heterosexual boys and men.

0_o

Am I not a fan?

How is this serving me?

'Cause I generally find it to be very rude, actually.

Now, I'd be willing to let such fan service slide as simply "not my cup of tea" if there was (more) stuff that was serving me AND if said stuff was referred to as fan service as well.

Because if panty shots in manga is fan service - then so are the lovely butts that Kalinara and Ragnell adore so much in the Green Lantern comics. But no one calls them that. Because girls aren't fans, I guess.

No, when fan service does come out for women, it's not only botched all to hell, it's derided as bad writing and pornography by all.

Look, I'm under no illusions that the latest Anita Blake books are smut, and not always well written smut at that. I also don't see how anyone can find the comic book adaptation to be anything but poorly adapted and poorly drawn.* However, I don't really see why the comic is more deserving of a smackdown than half the stuff I pass over as I'm picking up the latest Runaways or Wonder Woman. And I will defend Laurell K. Hamilton over Piers Anthony - often a favorite of fanboys - to the death. And I won't be the one dying.

The Anita Blake comic deserves all the derision it's getting, but I have to question the underlying motives of many who are deriding it. Is it really because it's so much worse than everything else? Or is it because the idea makes so many people uncomfortable? People, after all were making fun of it long before it hit the stands. And yeah, there's a lot to make fun of in the source material, but no more so than half the shit that makes the bestseller lists. There's just very little on those lists (largely due to the makers of said lists screwing with the numbers btw) - or in comic stores - that focuses so much on women having sex.

There's plenty that are all about women getting fucked, however.

>:p

I really didn't mean to go on a tangent about Hamilton's books, I'm just getting really annoyed at derision for fan service and/or porn for women masked behind derision for the not surprisingly low quality of such porn and/or fan service.

And while I don't mean to be the feminist police, may I politely suggest to my fellow feminists and fans of shapely male butts - and our allies - that if they'd like to see more of the same - even if only for other's sake, they may want to think about making it clear that they are dissing DBPro/Marvel for doing such a shitty adaptation of what has been widely regarded as a fun book and not dissing the basic idea of said fun book. 'Cause we all know we aren't dealing with mental giants here.

Please, please, please demand that comic book publishers do leaps and bounds better next time. But please try to make it clear that we want better - not that we want them to drop the idea. That we love Manhunter and we want our adolescent power fantasy, but we sometimes want that other kind of fantasy too. We just want it done well.

And please, everyone, stop calling boob shots fan service unless you are willing to call shirtless Mal and Simon fan service as well.

(Personally, I think Mal in a dress and Jayne getting knifed should count too, but I can deal with the definition remaining sexual.)

*well, actually, having seen Brett Booth's sketches, I think it's not so much that they aren't pretty, but that they don't work well for comics and that the penciler and colorist made tons of bad choices in trimming them down for mass publication.

Doh!

I am a frickin' idiot.

The Colleen Gleason who wrote the book that I've been going back and forth with myself about buying (it looks interesting, but I'm not sure, and I just bought a whole bunch and...) the Colleen Geason whose new book was given a huge thumbs up by The Smart Bitches (always a good thing, maybe I will pick it up...) is the same Colleen who reads my blog. Er, well, read a post and left a nice comment anyway.

Don't ask me why it all suddenly clicked today when started reading her interview over at SBTB's - but it just did.

So, sorry for not picking the book up yet, Colleen. I work at the big box store on Friday and I promise I will do so then.

And I swear - I am working on that post I promised.

Damn

Now I actually have to do one of these things.

OK, here goes.

1) My first crush was on an anime character. And since I'm not that young it was - of course -

Rick Hunter!

(My little brother teased me about that for years, the little snot.)

ROBOTECH RULES!

As does Fraggle Rock, The Gummi Bears, and Voltron.

Power Rangers and that stupid purple dinosaur can kiss my you know what. Children's librarian be damned - I only have to pretend they're cool when the kids are around.

2) I like to drink pickle juice.

Not all the time, but I really, really like pickles. Not the big ones that you can barely fit in your mouth, but the thin wedges that let the juice dribble along your tongue. Once I start, I have a hard time stopping. And if my craving isn't satisfied when the jar is empty, I'll pour a couple shots worth of pickle juice into one of those itty bitty jam glasses and sip it slowly.

3) I am currently watching Reminington Steele.

(Well, technically, I'm currently at work, but you know what I mean.)

Earlier this week, I picked up seasons 1, 4 and 5 (which, from what I can tell looks to be only a single episode) for a total of less than $40. It is soooooooo my new guilty pleasure.

Yes, the pseudo-early 80's-feminism is grating, the storylines are just awful for the most part, and Remington Steel can be quite the dick (sigh - yes, pun intended).

However - it's Pierce Brosnan! A young Pierce Brosnan!! Who runs around getting into fistfights with mob hit men after falling into overly large water harzards at miniature golf courses!!! And occasionally gets his ass handed to him by his (inconsistently) competent female boss/partner/....whatever!!!!

God I love technology. What would I do without the internet and TV shows on DVD? Read even more novels, I suppose.

4) I didn't get my driver's license until I was 24.

And yes, I grew up in southern California.

Somehow the whole fascination with cars and being able to drive on our horrendous freeways completely passed me by. I don't think it really helped that my physics professor father would explain physics to me using the relative momentum and stopping time required for various vehicles at typical speeds. Neither, I'm sure, did the fact that I was perfectly capable of grasping everything he was trying to explain to me.

I also failed my first driver's test because I didn't wait for a pedestrain. Now, it should be noted that said pedestrian was about to jaywalk and was obviously doing the sensible thing and waiting for me to continue on my way. But it was still a stupid thing for me to do during a driving test.

5) I almost got a perfect score on the logic portion of the GREs.

(and I knew which two questions were wrong when I turned the test in, but I didn't have time to fix them, dammit!)

Not, of course, that you'd know it from my blog posts. But then my score had everything to do with my doing logic puzzles for fun in junior high and in no way reflected my abilty to string words together persuasively and coherently.

BONUS!

I usually hate these things - and love them at the same time. Generally, I hate chain letters, and these things are kinda like chain letters. I especially hate figuring out who to pass them onto, so I usually don't. Except these memes are fun - but too fun because I keep wanting to go off on tangents and add more stuff.

But I had to do this one either way bc it was 100littledolls that tagged me, and I feel bad for not emailing her the words of support that wouldn't post to her blog for some reason.

So, I did it! But I'm not passing it on yet. I'm going to wait for that. And I may. Or may not. You can drop hints if you want to be tagged. Or I may decide to keep it all to myself. I'm weirdly anti-social that way.

The Myth of the Boogyman Rapist (Warning: Long, Rambling Post)

I know that I've said similar before (and I'm sure this won't be my last post on the subject) but I'm going to bring it up again because it can't be mentioned often enough. Although this time I'm going to let twf in the comments at Feministe do it for me:

I guess I’m just saying that part of where blame-the-victim comes from is thinking that “rapists” are not real people

Often times, the response to pointing out that one should be asking why rapists rape, rather than why women "get raped", is either that "no one wants to think about that" (which begs several obvious questions) or that such people are just plain sick - which is implied by the first response.

That reminds me of the quote - that I can't quite remember - about how everyone who commits murder is insane at the time. Sane people don't kill. Which has some truth to it - but no one would ever suggest that only obviously bat-shit crazy people could possibly be guilty of murder. And yet many people assume something similar when it comes to rape. Only evil men rape. Which isn't true at all - at least no more so than the idea that every murderer is insane.

This really seems to be where the majority of guys mess up. They just can't imagine that the guy sitting in the cubicle next to them at work - trading sports scores, TV gossip, game strategies or what have you - could be a rapist. Their drinking buddy? No way. The guy they see opening doors for women all the time? Pshaw. The die-hard Buffy fan? Are you kidding?

Which a lot of women I know would find funny in a dark humor, you gotta laugh if you don't want to cry, sorta way. Because we spend so much of our time wondering if the guy sitting in the cubicle next to us could be a rapist. Or the janitor. Or the security guard. Or anyone else who may be in the building with us long after most everyone else - including all our female co-workers who reminded us not to stay too late because "it's not safe." - has gone home.

Granted, a certain amount of this is that we have a hard time believing that the people we interact with on a daily basis could do such a thing. But a part of it is also a willfull blind spot on the part of such men - willfull because it allows them to cede responsibility for their own actions. They aren't required to worry that their friend may be capable of such things. They aren't required to examine their own behavior and change it accordingly.

Most criminals justify their actions in some way - even if it's only along the lines of "they deserved it." Rapists often believe that not only would conviction be unfair (which, I'd imagine, is quite common) but that no one was even inconvenienced, much less hurt. Many men see anything that leaves bruises or causes bleeding to be highly suspect, but dismiss a whole host of other behaviours that hurt women.

It's not a coincidence that many of the jokes about consent revolve around the idea of legal documents. The inescapable implication is that there is some exact - and ridiculous - procedure that feminists are asking for. Which in turn suggests that there's a reason why it's silly to expect clear consent to be easily obtainable. The obvious one being that women don't want sex - at least not as much as men. Which kinda makes the whole idea of enthusiastic participation a farce. Consequently, just about any way of getting a "yes" - or even the silence of previous "no"s - is acceptable as long as it doesn't require physical violence - because how else are you going to get it?

Recently, a commenter at Pandagon dug a hole for himself in arguing that the suggestion of safewords was a reasonable response to a woman whose boyfriend had raped her while she was tied up (she had agree to sex, but had made it clear that she did not want to do the specific act he ended up forcing on her). While there are all kinds of things to pick on in his comments, the part that I found interesting was how much this real life scenario mirrored a hypothetical rape scenario argued over at Alas, A Blog.

Both women were with their boyfriends? Check.

Both women had repeatedly said no? Check.

Both women's choices were restricted in some way by the rapist? Check

Both women made choices that contributed directly to being restrained? Check.

Now, there are some big differences. In the second, the girl never screams out "No!" during sex. (It's unclear if she ever says "yes" and, as just stated, she has said no repeatedly. It's also made clear that she is simply giving in to what he wants - her desires haven't changed.) The second victim is also not brutalized enough to require an overnight stay at the hospital and the restriction was mostly veiled threats and psychological ("Don't you love me?", boyfriend is her ride home, she snuck out of the house) rather than the physical restraint in the first.

It is quite clear when comparing the two, however, that they are simply different degrees of the same thing. In both cases the boyfriends do not respect their girlfriends stated wishes. Both rapists see getting what they want - rather than mutual pleasure - as the main goal. Both are willing to ignore - or get around - the entire concept of consent in order to get what they want.

Many, however, would only see the first as a rapist. Even disregarding legal definitions and (supposedly) looking at both scenarios only through the lens of what consititute's consent in the true meaning of the word - many would claim (and did) that the second guy is merely an asshole.

Considering how many people are willing - on the other hand - to conflate copyright violations with stealing, I find that very telling - and frightening.

Putting aside the logistics of legal definitions and punishment, this hypothetical rape scenario - although less violent than the real one - certainly deserves to be called such. If it doesn't, we're going to have to seriously rethink how we use words like "steal" - even outside of talking about copyright. If one can "steal" a parking spot - this can certainly be called rape.

But men especially get uncomfortable at the suggestion because it's safer for them to think of rape as something strangers do in dark alleys. Or psycho boyfriends that send their victims to the hospital. The very logical assertion that sexual violence is a spectrum and not a clearly defined act tends to put them on the defensive.

From the comments at Alas:

Rape is so horrible to me, and I view it as one of the most violent acts against a woman that a man can commit, either through physically violence, emotional abuse or emotional manipulations, and I have no desire to view a man that has raped as any other than horrible person, I can’t have all these gray areas about what rape is

Which, unfortunately, seems to sum up many people's views on rape. The fact that life is messy and uncertain, and that otherwise good people can do bad things, is too scary to be worth contemplating. Even if people get hurt because of it.

I, however, don't want people simply hurt because we're all too scared to look inside ourselves.

So, listen up, everyone:

1) Women like sex. We don't need to be "tricked" into agreeing to pleasure. We just sometimes need to be convinced that sex with you will be worth it. And sometimes you just aren't going to be able to do that. Because sometimes it just isn't. And the fact that sex with you isn't always (or ever) worth it is not proof that women do not like sex.

2) Rapists are not monsters. Or, at least, they are no more monsters than murderers are. And very few people around saying "I can't have all these gray areas about what [murder] is" Especially the justice system, which recognizes at least a dozen type of murderers if you add possible state and federal charges together. Some of which include the word "involuntary." Meaning - you aren't an evil person who wants to harm anyone, you're just a stupid shit who cares so much more about your own wants than other's needs that you ended up causing someone's death. I'd say that idea, at the very least, can be applied to our hypothetical rapist. Especially when one is talking about morals rather than legal definitions.

3) Safewords - and even notarized consent forms - only prevent rape if both people understand the meaning of "no", "yes" and "willing partner" to begin with. Because rape, like murder and theft, isn't just a legal definition, it's something people do to other people. "Date" rape, marital rape, the rape of prostitutes, and all kinds of other rape existed long before the law recognized such rapists as worthy of punishment. The law is merely a tool for protecting people's rights and the current interpretation of the law is not a trump card to be used to ignore the ways in which people hurt each other. We really don't need to providing would be rapists with more excuses.

4) The only way to prevent rape is to educate people about what causes rape - and it has nothing to do with short skirts or women going out to bars. It's caused by people disbelieving that women like sex, pretending that all rapists are boogeymen, and acting as if rape is something that happens rather than something someone does to someone else. Death is something that happens. Rape and murder require perpetrators who fail to respect the rights and desires of others.

VM Forever

I got seasons 1 and 2 of Veronica Mars on DVD (thank you, mom and dad!) and I've become obssessed all over again.

I've also realized (because I'm slow that way) how loaded with meaning everyone's names are: Kane, Woody, Mac, Mercer. It makes me think all I need to do to figure out "whodunit" is review everyone's names. Plus - Keith Mars losing the race for sheriff to someone named Lamb - not effing likely.

And I really, really want that shirt she's wearing in the episode where she tracks down Wallace's girlfriend's sister when she disappears after her bachlorette party. The shirt that's like all the truck flaps - only it's a guy.

'Cause that's just too cool.

Sadly, it's not one of the things listed on CW Style.

This is Just Too Perfect and Too Sad

at the same time.

From She's Such a Geek, we get the discovery that when you put

biologist OR physicist OR scientist “she says”

into google news search, google responds with

Did you mean: biologist OR physicist OR scientist “he says”

It does not do the same if you replace "biologist OR physicist OR scientist" with "teacher OR nurse OR housekeeper."

I also tried searching with

teacher OR nurse OR housekeeper “he says”

and I didn't get anything back but the search pages I asked for.

Now, I generally dismiss conspiracy theories based on Occam's razor, and this is no exception. I don't think this bit of sexism was purposely built into google. The most likely possibility is that it's simply a result of the combination of search algorithims, the number of instances in which female scientists, physicists, and biologists are quoted, and the number of times that people search for such quotes.

But that's what makes it all the more interesting. It's such a perfect example of how prevailing biases in one area, and the absence of activisim in another, can combine to turn even something that wasn't meant to be sexist into a tool of sexism.

It's such a perfect rebuttal to the idea that lack of action in a culture were such biases exist means that one is being neutral.

After all, if you add negative 1 to 0, you've still got negative 1.

Yes, I Will Most Definitely Go See Blood and Chocolate

(Ok, maybe I'll just rent it, but still...)

It's directed by Katja von Garnier - who also directed Iron Jawed Angels. Which, yes, had some problems, but was still very, very good.

Poll: which trailer is cheesier:

Blood and Chocolate

or

Rocky Balboa

??????

Ahem - just sayin'

Some Thoughts on Mary Sue

I think there needs to be a temporary moratorium on using the term "Mary Sue."

Why?

Because it is, in the end, a sexist concept.

I get why it came about, and I don't really see sexism as the motive for the original idea, and I don't doubt that teen girls writing fanfic are more guilty of writing Mary Sues than teen boys.

But using it to refer to popular media as often as people have been lately is just stupid. And annoying.

Yes, Joss Whedon's female leads, Anita Blake, and probably even Vivian from Blood and Chocolate and all of Tamora Pierce's heroines all deserve the title of Mary Sue in some way or another.

But you know what? If they do, so do half (or more) of the male leads in popular culture.

My pet theory for why girls are more likely to write Mary Sue fanfic? A) they are more likely to write fanfic and B) They need it more because fewer of the female characters out there fulfill the same function for girls and women that Rocky, Eragon, Batman, Luke Skywalker, James Bond etc. fulfill for boys and men.

So, yeah, any female equivalent of Rocky is going to have aspects of Mary Sue-ness - because Rocky has aspects of Mary Sue-ness.

But we only call River a Mary Sue, not James Bond. And seriously, which is more deserving of the title of Mary Sue - James Bond or River?

So, please, unless you are willing to deride Harry Potter for being a Mary Sue, please refrain from talking about Buffy's - or anyone else's - Mary Sue-ness.

That goes double for not being happy with the direction of a series because the writer did something you don't like to the characters you do like in order to do something he or she likes with his or her favorite character.

Feel free to not be happy about it. Feel free to deride their writing, choice of favorite character, not so secret fantasies, whatever. But complaining that Whedon's Astonishing X-Men has turned into a Mary Sue story about Kitty Pride just seems a bit silly when there's an entire X-Men series devoted to Wolverine. The way in which he has done so may be worth complaining about. Aside from personal taste, the fact that he has done so isn't.

Synergy and Sexism Mess Up Blood and Chocolate Marketing

So, you've got this cheap (but possibly fun) movie about a love triangle between two werewolves - one a rising leader in the pack and the other the daughter of the old leader - and a human boy. It's based on an older YALSA pick.

Most people are going to see it as an Underworld knockoff as both have to do with werewolves, intrigue, and love stories. This is partly true since the book has been around for longer, but the movie probably finally got the green light because of Underworld's success and is produced by the same people (and possibly "borrowed" some of the werewolf visuals).

In reality, however, the story is more along the lines of a cross between Win a Date with Tad Hamilton and the coming of age stuff in early Buffy episodes (and other superhero type stories). As such, the main target audience will be teen girls (the main audience for the book) and scfi/fantasy/superhero fans that prefer Spiderman and other coming of age type stories over say, The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings.

So, what movie are you going to put the trailer before?

Eragon?

Freedom Writers?

No - apparently you put it before Rocky Balboa.*

WTF?

I realize there's not a whole lot of movies out there to choose from, but - WTF! That has to be the least likely crossover audience ever.

Needless to say, the audience laughed their asses off.

Just like they would have if there had been a trailer for Ever After or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants before any of the Rocky movies.

Because of course, MGM is doing both movies, and Blood and Chocolate has scifi/fantasy stuff in it, so the perfect place for the trailer is before the umpteenth (and reportedly awful) movie in the ultimate macho macho movie series about the ultimate macho guy doing macho guy stuff.

Yeah, ok. That makes sense.

One person who saw it and laughed and says (same link as above):

I love metaphors, but after watching a couple of minutes of teeny bopper garbage and then having that cerebral title drop on the screen, the absurdity is obvious. You can't give such a stupid looking production a brainy title like Blood & Chocolate.

Completely ignoring the fact that he may be looking for brainier stuff to go with his metaphors, but the "teeny boppers" the film was made for really do not.

Trust me.

A name change might help get more teen boys in, but the the title is perfect for appealing to fans of Midnite, Tithe and The Sisterhood. Which (should be) the movie's target audience.

The book may be sophisticated, it could be great "literature", but the movie is pure cheese...

The book is great - but it's not Jane Austen. It's mostly just really good cheese with a little bit of deep thought thrown in. Like most really good teen books.

It is a PG-13 movie. It is aimed at children, and children are not gonna get this title so Blood and Chocolate is in trouble.

It's aimed at teen girls (and, to some extent, women in their 20's), not children. Note the change from teen characters - which would appeal to mainly tweens - to adults in their 20's - which will appeal to an older audience.

And, I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single teen girl alive that needs "blood and chocolate" explained to them.

Ever.

Blood and chocolate. Chocolate and blood.

Violence and sex. Sex and violence.

Not terribly complicated.

Which would be why a) I first picked up the book based only on the title and b) there are so many damn books in the romance section that have chocolate in the title. Chocolate is not an intellectual metaphor for sex the way that nosebleeds in manga are, it's a physical one that just about every woman instantly gets because chocolate triggers the chemicals in our brains that tell us something is pleasurable. So, it's hardly an intellectual metaphor. It's about the least intellectual you can be, and still call it a metaphor.

The only reason the film is "doomed" is because it's a movie for a niche audience, and so by definition it's got limited potential. More importantly, it's the niche audience that studios rarely make movies for, so it's the audience that's least likely to be in the habit of going to see a specific movie (as opposed to going to the movies as simply something to do) and there's less potential for easy publicity since it's not as if the're were a whole lot of choices for where the put the trailer.

The solution to that, however, is not to try to market this as another mainstream movie, it's to make more movies that appeal to this niche audience so that, they too, will get into the habit of making a point of seeing specific movies rather than just whatever looks halfway decent on whatever day they are in the mood for a movie.

But then, maybe I'm just weird, because while there are lots of nice serious, mainstream movies lately that I ought to get around to seeing sometime, the only movies that really have me wanting to make a point of going to the theatre are Bridge to Terebithia - because it was my favorite book as a kid- and Blood and Chocolate - which I've also read and really liked.

You know what else, though? If I hadn't read either of the books, I'd be more likely to make sure I saw Blood and Chocolate than Bridge to Terebithia. The trailer for the latter just makes it look silly and sweet (which it's not) but the trailer for the former looks like some nice mindless fun. With lots of pretty eye candy.

And (gasp!) a female lead. One who, unlike Kate Beckinsale in the Underworld trailers, is presented as someone for us to connect with rather than simply watch. I liked the Underworld trailers, but Beckinsale's character was presented in a cross between the typical hero voice over and a damsel in distress explaining her situation to her hero (too much emphasis in the sexy, and not enough on the scary monster who can easily rip your throat out). Vivian is presented as more relatable, but still physically strong and the focus of the story in the Blood and Chocolate trailer.

The fact that I've read the book and know that it may (like the book) manage to be a little bit more than that, is simply the icing on the cake.

*Has anyone else seen trailers for this anywhere else? I can't remember where I first heard about it, but it was recently (nd the movie comes out soon) and I know it was online rather that from a trailer.

Different Ways of Knowing

Growing up, I hung out with my brothers more than my sister - she was the oldest, I was the second youngest and we usually got along like oil and water. This meant that I was often drafted for various pick-up games. Baseball, basketball, races, soccer, golf, pool: you name it - we did it. And when we did, every so often one of them would stop and pause, make that fake crowd noise, and soak up the fake adulation. I never did; I never really understood it.

My brothers and I also played soccer from kindergarten until high school. We played other sports as well (they played more sports than I did), but soccer was the main sport for all three of us for most of our childhood. My dad was taught how to play by friends in college who were from South America and he fell in love with the game immediately. He was always one of our coaches, always a volunteer ref, and would get excited like a kid at Christmastime when the World Cup would come around and soccer would finally be on TV. Cable and then affordable satellite was a gift from the gods because with it came soccer games on Univision and then the English Premiere League (and by then, the MLS, as well).

When the World Cup finally came to the US, our parents splurged and got plenty of tickets. I was never really one for watching sports, but I was excited to finally go see people play a sport that I understood in a huge stadium with tens of thousands of screaming fans. The reality was even better than I imagined it would be; in some ways it like my first time in a stadium. I couldn't believe that everyone there loved my sport as much as I did; I was so used to it being ignored, mocked, and looked down on. I finally understood why so many guys liked watching sports so much and why they enjoyed live games in big stadiums so much. The adreneline was unlike anything I'd felt before - it was almost as good as playing a championship match myself.

When the Women's World Cup came to the US in 1999 I was dissapointed that the start of my grad program and financial situation meant that I couldn't go to any of the games, but I watched all the ones they showed on the basic cable my roomates and I could afford. Simply watching them on TV gave me the same rush I felt the first time I walked into the Rose Bowl in 1994; the world felt so full of hope and possibility.

Several months later I was in my parents front yard, getting some exercise by practising the drills I remembered from AYSO and high school. I made an especially spectacular move (for me) and was immediately startled to hear the the soft roar of a fake crowd coming out of my mouth. I was stunned. I hadn't known until then that it was in there, inside of me, just waiting for the right time to come out, but I knew right away who had put it there: Mia and her teammates. I was not silent as a child because I dared not give into the urge - I was silent because I lacked the frame of reference that the impulse required. Mia and the rest of the gang planted that picture in my head, and in the minds of thousands of other girls and women. It was as if someone had finally shown me what colors were after years of living in shades of gray. For some reason, when it came to soccer, I needed to see women succeeding in order to dream in technicolored hues.

(I remember thinking in the summer before seventh grade, as we watched the 1990 World Cup on pay-per-view, that my junior year, and the 1994 World Cup, was a really long ways away. Now it's 2006 and I'm reminscing about ditching grad school classes to watch the first Women's World Cup in the US - in 1999. My how the time flies and the world turns.)

*******

I started writing this post back in the summer; I'd originally meant for it to be a segway into talking about soccer, sexism, the World Cup and the infamous importing of prostitutes for the most recent Cup in Germany.

I've ressurected it from the draft graveyard because of this link from When Fangirls Attack. In it Dane quotes (I don't know who)* as an example of sexism

It’s the difference between "this is written/drawn for me and it’s nice" and "this is written/drawn for me and it could have been written/drawn BY me because I can really identify with the women doing it."

*Dane - links please!

(side note: while I don't completely agree with the label, The Dane gets a whole plateful of cookies for calling it sexism, and not reverse sexism)

There's been a lot of discussion about the Minx line, female creators, and Minx's lack thereof. When it comes to real life examples like Minx, there's a lot of things that come into play when discussing they whys, wherefores, and why nots of gender disparity. I just wanted to take a step back for a moment and remind everyone (and possibly explain to those that don't understand yet) why we even care about the gender of artists, writers, and even soccer players.

It's not because we don't think men can't do a good job. In fact, it's often quite the opposite. It's because we've all had that feeling of not being connected to something we love; of doubting ourselves, despite intellectually knowing we shouldn't, simply because we belong to a group that is (practically) invisible within a community of fans or among the superstars that we aspire to be. We all know what it's like, in some way or another, to watch our brothers cheer themselves on, and wonder why they do that or what it would be like to feel the same way.

The saying that you should write what you know has some truth to it, and that's where some of the complaints come from as well. Of course, most of the great stories are about the kinds of things that everyone can relate to. So obviously, writers can write about people they empathise with, but are not exactly like, and readers can read about characters they empathise with, but are not exactly like. The entire fantasy and superhero genres wouldn't exist of this weren't true.

When entire groups of people are almost completely missing from the equation, however, this often means that even well-meaning writers and readers will overlook what should be obvious. Michele Serros, the author of Honey Blonde Chica and other YA books, remarked during a panel on YA novels at last year's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, that a professor once told her that she ought to change some of the references to various aspects of Hispanic culture from her books because the "average" reader wouldn't recognize them. Serros' logical reaction was that she and her mother had figured out all the references to east coast life that dominated the YA novels available to her as a child, why couldn't other readers do the same? Far too often though, people's reaction - both critics and readers - includes the assumption that the dominant group is the norm.

Often times this goes beyond never asking the dominant group to stretch their empathy and imagination and always asking other groups to do so - and into innacurrate and riduculous portrayals. Based on what people are saying about the Minx authors, Minx books very likely won't have all the idiotic assumptions that many of DC's other comics have.

However, it's not illogical for new readers to be wary of these authors because of their gender. It's not as if the girls who choose Dramacon or The Babysitter's Club over a Minx title never read anything created by men or are choosing not to read these particular authors because they think boys are icky (ok, well -some, maybe) or because of something they only heard or went through once or twice. When women and girls are wary of unknown male authors, it's often because of repeated bad experiences and they almost never write off male creators altogether. The same can't necessarily be said of the hypothetical "average" readers that may be confused by references to Hispanic culture in Serros' novels or people who use stereotypes about certain groups to avoid dealing with them altogether.

While unfortunately some of the end results are similar, there is a difference between picking a writer/bookseller/mechanic, who is hispanic, female, etc. because you fear being condescended to otherwise, and not picking a writer/bookseller/mechanic, etc. who is hispanic, female, etc. because you think that they are incapable of doing a good job.

I'm not happy with the situation, and I'll recommend the Minx titles (or not) based on the books themselves, not the creators gender, but I'm not going to criticise teen and tween girls if it turns out that they need that Mia Hamm moment or if they need some time to recover from the getting burned by yet another clueless attempt to relate to them as girls, teens, whatever.

After all, for all that I complain that boys need to learn some empathy and pick up a few more books that are written by women or - god forbid! - where the main character is a girl, I completely understand why so many boys who wander into the library and bookstore look at me and mostly see yet another woman trying to tell them what they should read or would like. I understand that these are completely different situations, and that part of the solution to the latter has to be making sure that it's not only women who are helping them choose their reading material. Part of helping people learn to be gender blind is making sure that no one gender dominates - especially to an absurd degree.

There is a lot to criticise about DC's choice of authors in light of DC's own comments about wanting to open up comics to more girls. As a line of books, Minx looks promising. As a line of books that's (supposedly) meant to do more than ride the manga wave, it leaves much to be desired.

In the end, it's as simple as that.

**************

In 2001 the WUSA began it's inagural season. In 2003 play was suspeneded permanently, without my ever having gone to a game.

All kinds of people have all kinds of opinions on why the WUSA failed, and if was doomed to do so or not. Here's mine: the WUSA failed because there aren't enough girls and women who make that fake crowd noise, and for most of us that do, it was often a fleeting experience, nothing like the layers upon layers of memories that most men build up over their lifetime. But make no mistake, the WUSA will be back. The memories may be few and faded, but there are still more there than there used to be. It's just a question of how long it will take to build them up high enough.

Eventually, as with DC's attempt to tap into the vast numbers of girls and women who read comics, even the mostly clueless will be trying to get a part of the action.

One Last Thing....

...about the meeting for YA librarians.

The conference room we were in had all these celebrity "Read' posters up on the walls. (For some reason Sean Connery holding a book about Scotland sticks in my mind.) One of the posters that was almost directly across from me was of Orlando Bloom.

It was really quite distracting.

I rather suspect that we have all of our meetings in that same room.

So - I'm wondering if it would be better to sit on the same side of the room as I did this last time, that way I know I'll have something to entertain me if the meeting gets boring, or if I should make sure my back is to the poster so that I don't miss anything important.

I Promise I'll Talk About Something Else Soon

From the Comic Book Resources forums, via this post from Sporadic Sequential, via When Fangirls Attack:

...it's a fantasy story and they've explicitly said they're not publishing genre work under the Minx line.

Huh?

Really?

I missed that.

And why the hell would they do that?

And why the hell would they make a rule that all their stories have to be about being a girl, and then hire almost no female creators?

(And don't some of the upcoming stories fall under the superhero and action genres anyway?)

Oh, and for the record, people need to learn to shut the fuck up with the comparing the excitement over TinTin's comic to the buzz over Snakes on a Plane. Not the same thing at all. Yes, it's true that online buzz may not equal actual money for a company. Oddly enough, intelligent people knew that before Snakes on a Plane bombed.

Snakes on a Plane however, was loved because the very name was a satire on Hollywood marketing and project greenlighting. It's not terribly surprising that when it came to going to watch an hour and some change movie that wasn't a satire, a lot of people that loved the name passed on opportunity to watch the actual movie. (Honestly, who the fuck didn't see that coming?) The problem with the buzz over TinTin's comic, however, is the normal one of "just because a dedicated fanbase is willing to pay money for it, that doesn't mean enough people are willing to may money for it." Which is entirely different, since the question for prospective publishers is not 'will the fanbase abandon the idea in droves" but "is there a larger market for this product?" The answer may not be "yes", but it's also not the obvious "WTF were you thinking?" that applies to Snakes on a Plane.

Yes, More Minx

David Welsh has some of the best and most intelligent comments on the new Minx line floating around the blogs, imo. His recent article for Comic World News is no exception. (via CC) In it he does a great job of explaining something that's been bugging me for a couple days now (and in an aside, no less).

He starts out by admitting that:

Categories like shôjo and shônen don’t have they weight here that’s attributed to them in Japan; if a story sounds good or the art appeals to a given reader, they won’t much care who a Japanese publisher tried to market it to originally.

But then adds:

(Of course, DC is shooting for just that kind of compartmentalization with Minx, so maybe it’s more relevant than I think.)

EXACTLY

Look, I'm not at all pleased that kids are so gender consious when picking books. And not all kids are. And boys tend to be more so than girls. (I'd love to see a graphic novel imprint for 10-14 year-old boys try to make it with mostly female creators.)

So, it really shouldn't matter that Minx currently has only one and half female authors.

Except that the girls that are going to be appealed to through names like Minx and authors like Castellucci tend to be, in my experience, among the most gender conscious for their age. Not every girl will care about the gender of the creators. Most girls won't. But the ones that do are the same ones that DC seems to be going for. Which really begs the question - WTF were they thinking?

I would also like to point out - as others already have - that girls wanting books that are about being girls to be written by people who were once girls is more along the lines of wanting mysteries to be written by people with experience in solving them. It doesn't make sense as a hard and fast rule, but it's not completely illogical to consider such things when one is deciding on whether or not to try a new series. You may already know that Mike Carey rocks, but your average Clique reader hasn't ever heard of him.

Tokyopop Visits

As promised, my notes from Tokyopop's presentation - and an answer to Lyle's question (sort of):

As I mentioned in the previous post, Hillery Pastovich came out to talk to us at our Youth Services Director's request; a request that was prompted by a previous controversy surrounding an adult book about Manga.

Ms. Pastovich was very nice and was very good at her job, which was mostly to convince my fellow librarians that graphic novels have a place in libraries, to get us interested in her company's products, and to give us some knowledge that would be useful in responding to concerned parents.

Since none of us need the vocab lessons or to be convinced that graphic novels are good things, I'll skip ahead to the interesting bits.

- Tokyopop is in the early stages of revamping it's rating system. Generally, some of the OT stuff will become M, some T stuff will become OT, etc. Don't expect to see it until fall, and they may or may not go back and adjust some of the already published titles still in print.

- The first copies of Kilala Princess just came off the presses. She brought a few copies for us to look at. Sadly, there wasn't much time to do so. You can see even more on their website than I got a chance to read. (Although it was different pages, weirdly enough. I think the website must start with the first chapter, but the book includes a prologue.)

- Any librarians out there (and presumably laypersons as well), you can go directly to http://www.tokyopop.com/libraries/ so that you don't get "lost in message boards for the rest of the day" trying to find useful information.

Which brings me to Lyle's questions:

- I don't know about Tokyopop, but Ms. Pastovich was well aware of the problems caused by revamping the site. I doubt they plan on drastically changing it anytime soon, although one would hope that they figure out a better way to direct potential readers to actual content sometime soon.

- With regard to how librarians (and readers) can find out which titles belong to which genres (since Tokyopop's imprints are mostly by age) Ms. Pastovich says the new books should have the genre printed on the back and side of the cover. Their website does break down the titles by genre as well, although I'm not sure if they make that information clear on the synopsis pages or on lists of new books, etc.

The whole hour was a lot more fun than I've made it out to be. Ms. Pastovich had some pretty funny comments about some stuff. Tokyopop apparently called up YALSA and asked them "Are you sure?" (or something to that effect) when they found out that some of the more controversial manga - such as I Luv Halloween, which she described as "South Park meets Quentin Tarantino" - had been nominated for various awards. When talking about Fruits Basket and it's popularity, her comment was "we're not sure why, but ok!" She said the same thing in reaction to middle aged women being the largest demographic for Yaoi. (I decided my first meeting was not the best time to explain the attraction to those that don't already get it.)

She also did a good job explaining why they started the Jr. Manga imprint and how it was different from regular manga. Essentially, little kids were always asking to be read from manga books, but pre- and early readers have a hard time following lots of panels of sequential art (which makes sense, considering how kids learn to read) and the stories weren't always appropriate, so they started making larger books with only two panels per page with stories appropriate for young children.

I'm not sure about the new MangaChapters line, just because from what I've seen, the mix of manga and print hasn't been completely worked out. However, I think it's a good idea, especially since some of the librarians who were skeptical about the value of graphic novels perked up at the idea of a book that would be a bridge from sequential art to "literature."

And that's all, folks!

County Removes Graphic Novel With Hamster Sex From it's Shelves

First, Some Background

This is going to be hard to explain without naming names, but I'm going to try.

I live in [Blank] County, CA. It is one of the largest counties in the United States. A big bunch of that is desert, national forest, designated wilderness, etc. There are huge swathes of land - some of it with people living on it - that are not incorporated into any city. It is the county's job to provide to these areas the kind of services that cities provide. Thus, we have a countywide library system with branches anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour apart. Please understand, though, that [Blank] County also has a lot of people. Some branches are very tiny and serve small communities (like mine). Others are big and serve areas as heavily populated as any decent sized city.

[Blank] County, like a lot of local governments, has had some issues with corruption recently. That means they have an image problem at the moment. [Blank] County is also one of those reddish-purple spots on those voting maps that everyone likes to post. The reps we send to the state and national level tend to lean right, several of the homes near my branch up in the mountains are strictly vacation homes, and we have one of the largest Mormon populations outside of Utah. Needless to say, we also have a very diverse population, including a a very large working class and poor population and a significant number of Spanish speakers. [Blank] County is still very much California, but it's slightly poorer and much more conservative than most people imagine California to be.

I mention all this only because it turns out that there was a reason why Tokyopop was invited to speak at my library's countywide meeting for YA/Childrens' librarians.

[Blank] County Removes Graphic Novel With Hamster Sex From it's Shelves

Last spring, a kid from [Middle of Nowhere], CA, checked out Paul Gravett’s Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics from his local [Blank] County Library Branch. When he showed his parent the one page that showed Hamster Sex! (why? what self-respecting teen does that?), the parent brought this fact to the Library's attention.

The book ended up getting pulled completely from the shelves of every branch in the county that owned a copy, rather than simply moved to the appropriate location in each branch. Yes, someone had decided that since it was full of "cartoons" that it belonged in the Juvenile section. Publicly, the Library Director says that it was a joint decision with the County Board of Supervisors. The rumblings I heard today suggest that that the decision was made against the library's wishes. I don't know which story is correct.

I do know, however, that we can request this title from a nearby county through the same system that we use to request books from other branches in our own library. No, I do not mean interlibrary loan, I mean that all a patron has to do is walk in and ask us to request the book from the system and it will arrive a few days later, free of charge. This isn't something special for this book, it's just a deal we have. I thought I'd mention it because it highlights so well, IMHO, just how ridiculous this stuff can get to be.

But Shouldn't Children Be Saved From Graphic Hamster Sex?

I was in grade school when The Simpson's came out and were a Big Thing. Kids used to wear Bart Simpson T-shirts to school all the time. My parents never let my brother or I watch it.

I'm still not sure if this was a good decision or a bad one. The Simpson's is not a children's show and children really shouldn't be watching it. However, since it's not a show made for kids, I really don't think we would have liked it, and I wonder if not letting us do so simply made it forbidden fruit.

I'm not against directing children's media choices. I think that's our job as adults. But I also know that I read a lot of stuff as a kid that would have shocked my parents, and I really think I benefitted from it in the end (here is where I would link to my as yet to be written posts on scifi/fantasy and romance novels). Generally, I'm mostly for directing children's choices, and mostly against dictating children's choices. When it comes to stuff that isn't schoolwork or chores, I think it's better for kids if they have a certain amount of freedom. I also think weeding out the really bad stuff is easier if you keep the dictating to a minimum and stick to more creative ways of directing their choices. Even as a teenager, I knew that it would be easier to get my then preschool cousin away from Ren and Stimpy and Rocky and Bulllwinkle (neither of which seemed appropriate to me for a four-year old) if I said that it was time to play outside instead of making a big deal about either of the shows. I understand that sometimes you just need to say "no" in clear and plain language - I just don't see that the library had gotten to that point. I think people were mostly just freaked out by something odd and no one wanted to be seen as defending Hamster Sex! - for kids!

Most of all though, I'm really against other adults telling me what I can read. I happen to like a lot of stuff that I don't think kids should read and a lot of stuff their parents wouldn't read themselves. But my tax dollars go to pay for library books as well. It's one thing to argue that the money should go to pleasing an audience consisting of more people than just me, it's quite another to get rid of books already bought just because kids (possibly) shouldn't be reading it.

I'm also beyond fed up with the idea that if it's cartoons, it must be for kids. Thankfully, that's slowly changing - it just needs to change faster, then we won't have as many problems with stupid stuff like this.

After all, Laurell K. Hamilton's books and Gregory Maguire's Wicked include a lot of weird sex (the former probably more explicit than the Hamster Sex!) and they're still on our shelves.

A Million Reasons Why Andrew Clements is Awesome

And Mike Reed Isn't Too Bad Either

Since I had to type out a bunch of reviews of recent books for my Library Studies class, and it is the holiday season, I figure I'd share some of the better ones with you. (After translating them from HW speak.)

A Million Dots.

Written by Andrew Clements. Illustrated by Mike Reed. Published by Simon and Schuster. Copyright 2006. ISBN: 0689858248

The author of Frindle, The Report Card, and other favorites has a new book out this year, A Million Dots. This new book, however, is a picture book - and non-fiction to boot! Lucky for us, it turns out that Andrew Clements writes awesome books for kids of all ages.*

A Million Dots is a book with - you guessed it - a million little dots. Really, really, itsy bitsy, tiny, little dots. In order to help children understand scale and conceptualize just how big those really big numbers are, Clements, and artist Mike Reed, use all those tiny dots to count to one million.

The book begins by showing one dot about the size of a period, and then ten, and then a hundred tiny dots. The rest of the pages each have a couple thousand dots on them, so that by the time you get to the end of the book, you've looked at one million tiny dots.

Each page also features an odd and/or interesting fact (the distance from the earth to the moon in school buses or some such) and an accompanying retro style illustration. The illustrations are covered with a grid of tiny little dots and the effect is stunning rather than distracting. The dots make the illustrations look similar to the way grainy old photos do, thus the dots end up complementing and blending in with the pictures instead of detracting from them. To top it off, the dot corresponding to the number mentioned in the sentence is highlighted in the illustration by not only a slightly larger light colored circle, but often a cleverly placed star, or other relevant feature, as well.

(This would be as good a time as any to say that I'm putting my vote in for Reed to at least get a Caldecott Honor this year)

In short, A Million Dots is very cool and would make a great gift for any kid between the ages of 5 and 10.

*Yes, Clements has written pcture books before, and beginning readers as well, but (as far as I know) he's best known for his novels for children.

Oh Good Lord

Someone is trying to make my brain explode.

Quote:
Originally Posted by EmeraldGuy32
I think she's refering to the [strippers] that aren't actually whores.

wh...who would want one of those? what the hell is the point?

(I suspect Ragnell.)



Homework.

Must. Finish. Homework.


although my post on why I started reading romance novels is obviously long overdue as well

Goodbye to Fanboys (for the moment)

So, I'm procrastinating because I have homework that's due tommorrow but the work is damn boring because it's all about kids books and the class isn't that hard, so it feels like busy work.

So, I'm procrastinating by clicking on links at When Fangirls Attack and I run across this:

and the girls women thing is 30 years old. Most people today don't care. Most women I know still refer to themselves as girls, have girls night out, refer to movies they like as chick flicks. We don't need 30 year old feminist garbage, we've moved beyond it. People are people.

There is so much that could be said in response to that, but for the moment, I simply must congratulate spiderrob8 on accomplishing something I had previosly thought impossible: I am so ready to go do my homework now.

Explaining for the umpteenth time why Mo Willems and Sandra Boynton rock my world suddenly sounds infinitely more appealing than it did ten minutes ago.

Give Me Your Questions!

Hillery Pastovich, National Sales Manager from Tokyopop, will be coming to a countywide meeting for YA Librarians in my area next Wednesday - and I will be there since, while I am (as of yet) only a lowly Library Assistant, I am in charge of YA stuff at my branch.

So, while I'm sure most of it will be a sales pitch to us, and I'm not sure how capable Hillery Pastovich will be at answering your questions, and I do need to be careful of what I ask because this is the first time I will be meeting all the other YA Librarians and I'd really like to get to be an actual librarian at some point, please do let me know if you have any questions you'd like me to ask.

I return, I will do my best to ask them and post both her answers and any other interesting information from the meeting.

Classic Graphic Novels

Especially since it looks like Kalinara could use some cheering up, I thought I'd share with you all that Sterling Publishing* is putting out a new line of classics adapted as graphic novels.

Unlike the last set we got in, which was pretty much junk, this one looks like it might be worth looking at. The artwork I've seen so far looks promising. The first two titles out are Dracula and Tom Sawyer (sorry, no A Little Princess yet, and since the line is called All Action Classics, likely not for a while). Dracula reminds me of the overly stylized Disney Hercules - not my cup of tea, especially with the tiny female waists, but it's at least pretty and readable, which is a step up from the other comic classics we got in. Tom Saywer looks really nice, however. It reminds me of Bone and the new Babysitter's Club, which makes me happy because I love Mark Twain.

Since it's from Sterling, I'm cautiously optimistic. We get a lot of junk from Sterling. They aren't really known for finding the next Newbery or Caldecott. Mostly they publish the kind of low end titles, such as an endless supply of sudoku or craft books, that are obvious attempts to chase the latest trends. However, Sterling also publishes some of our top selling classics for kids. Granted, they are top selling at my store in part because we get them cheap (due to no copyright and other reasons stated below), but they are also very nice looking and the abridged classics are about as good as your're going to get when you chop books in half - or thirds.

I'm not quite sure when they are due to hit stores. The only date I've seen is November, and we don't have any in yet.

*I should share that Sterling is either owned or in partnership with one of the companies that pays my bills (I'm a little confused as to the actual relationship). Since I'm not terribly happy with them, that doesn't mean a whole lot at the moment, but I thought you should know.

Comics for Girls - I'm Back From Hibernation! Edition

Jill at Feministe has a post up about DC's decision to publish and market a series of almost manga style (my words, not hers) graphic novels for girls.

There's a lot of good comments in response, such as:

I can’t help but feel that DC wouldn’t have to go to all this trouble if they just took down the NO STINKY GIRLS sign on the superhero clubhouse.

I think that's true - to a certain point.

It's important to remember why DC is doing this. Unfortunately, they are not doing it because the powers that be at DC have finally realized that girls do not have cooties after all. They are doing this because books for teens - most especially teen girls - are consistent top sellers at just about every major bookstore. Graphic Novels - most especially Manga - is also the biggest growing section at most bookstores. Other than new releases and workbooks for kids, it's pretty much the only section that keeps getting more room at my store. Within the last year alone, we've added several bays to the adult Graphic Novels (with most of it going to manga), several shelves to the teen manga, and an entirely new (but still small) section of kid's manga. And that doesn't even count all the random beginning reader books put out by Tokyopop, the influx of graphic novels in the first chapter books section (most of which are published by Tokyopop), or the soon to be half a shelf in young readers devoted to Bone alone.

Another commenter wrote:

i personally dont think theres a need to specifically target girls with girl comics…i certainly had no trouble finding awesome ones

Now this, I don't understand at all. I'm happy that she was able to find comics she liked, and I'd never suggest that girls (and women) don't read comics or that companies need to market to girls to get any girls to read comics, but I'd say it's pretty irrefutable that boys have an easier time finding good comics than girls do. Granted, as many people pointed out, marketing isn't going to solve the problem by itself. But it can't hurt, either.

As I commented on the Feministe thread, DC simply woke up and finally smelled Tokyopop's profits. The graphic novels for girls they are putting out are deliberately meant to ride on Tokyopop's coattails. Knowing how books get shelved in every B&N, and having helped several hundred kids look for books, it's quite obvious that the choice to make a series of black and white graphic novels - and not a series of comic books in color - and to market them exclusively at girls, was a marketing decision meant to ensure that their product would be placed next to Tokyopop's Kingdom Hearts and DN Angel in the teen manga section. The decision to hire a relatively well known author of books for teen girls is just the icing on the cake. (And suggests that DC is serious about making this work in the long run, and not just grabbing a few bucks - knock on wood.)

Compare that to Marvel's decision to revive White Tiger as a young woman and hire Tamora Pierce and Tim Liebe to write the new series. I applaud Marvels' decision as well, but I worry that it won't generate the profit's DC's line will, and thus will die an early death - the awesomeness of Tamora Pierce notwithstanding. I also wonder if Marvel made the right decision in making it a traditional comic book. Without a lot of marketing outside of the comic book world - and there hasn't been much - Marvel is barely capitalizing on the huge built in fanbase for anything with Tammy's name on it. Yeah, they can publish it as a graphic novel later - like Runaways - but that means that there's the danger that, like with Runaways, the comic book industry itself will tend to downplay the overall profits since much of it will not be made in the traditional way. Which means they'll have less reason to continue to try to break their own mold.

Finally:

By the way, I agree with the sentiment that I wish they’d change the way they write comics (maybe hire a few more female artists/writers as well), instead of creating “just for girls” comics.

I really do wish this as well. But as long as simply writing a story along the lines of Anne of Green Gables or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is considered writing something that is "just for girls" there will be a time and a place for "just for girls" comics. I don't like sharp gender divides, and I don't like how such attitudes suggest that stuff like Marvel's new White Tiger doesn't even exist, and I really don't like how this kind of thinking tends to ghettoize some of the best books ever written for children and teens.

However, I much prefer it to people thinking that "girl" stories are not even worth writing - which has generally been DC's attitude in the past. Just because you'd never read That Summer or would prefer Captain Underpants to Babymouse doesn't mean that they aren't damn good books and that the world isn't a better place for them having existed.