More on Plastic Pixels

First, to remind us all (on the odd chance that we need reminding) why this is so important to talk about, I'd like to share with you the conversation I had last night with my dad, who usually puts up with my rambling by just nodding along.

Me:

So this site had a before and after picture of a photoshopped magazine cover, and some stupid people are arguing that it's really a composite of two pictures, even though that wouldn't make sense, because it's usually harder to do. There's all sorts of patterns on her dress that would be hard to match up.

Dad: uh-huh

Me: They're arguing that they made her torso smaller by copying from another photo where her posture is different, instead of just squishing it, which would be much easier.

Dad: uh-huh ........wait - what?

Me: what?

Dad: They did what?

Me: They made her torso skinnier. And her arms and a bunch of stuff like that.

Dad: What magazine was this?

Me: Oh, some women's magazine (checks computer) - Redbook

Dad: But not, like, a news magazine or anything. They don't do that.

Me: Well, that depends.

Dad: ...like Newsweek....

Me: That depends on who's on the cover. If it's a headshot of someone like Obama, they'll touch it up a little...

Dad: Like, if he had a zit that day, they'll cover it up.

Me:...mostly, yeah. Depends. But if it's someone like even Katie Couric, they'll totally make her skinnier than she is.

Dad: Really?

Me: Really.

Dad: (makes a sound of disgust and turns back to his newspaper)



I'd also like to clarify why I think it's important to realize that the images below are from the same photo. Someone else has suggested that the second arm is taken from another photo rather than copied from another part of the same picture. That's possible; and it's pretty irrelevant to the point.

The point is that not only is she "retouched" she's retouched in a way so that her posture is impossible. Not only is she photoshopped in a way that each different angle of her body is not just possible within a single pose, but the "angle" of her back is just not possible, period. There's not enough room left between her back and her front to make room for all her organs. There's not room left in her back for her shoulder muscles, no matter if she's standing upright or leaning over.

No wonder why so many idiots think that artwork like Turner's is simply "idealized" rather than "freaky" - even the photos we all see every day do the same general thing.

This is Not Celebreality

So, more people than should (ie, a greater number than zero) believe that the images below are from two different shots.





(from Jezebel, via Pandagon)

In order words, yes, the cover is photoshopped, but ya'll are seeing stuff that isn't even there.

Since the only coherent verbal reply that I can come up with to answer that is "WTflyingF?!?!?" I shall, instead answer with pictures.

Torso:



Squished? or Naturally arched in a different pose?




Top dress fold on the right leg:



Distorted? or Different pose?



Right hand/arm:



Hand replaced with arm? or Different pose?




What do you all think?

(you, know, all two of you.)

update: I've now added a poll. Shiny!

Whoohoo!!!!!!!

(via Tammy)

Spiderwick Trailer!

Wow! An Actual Book Review!

So, in case I hadn't mentioned it yet, Into the Wild just plain rocks.

Like the best books for young readers, it works on many levels. It's fun and the characters are believable and engaging. It's also very original. As much as I love retold fairy tales, this isn't one of them. This is fairy tale land completely re-imagined - but with a great number of familiar characters. On top of all that you get all the nice layers that make for the kinds of "oh. oh! OH!" moments that come only when you re-read at age sixteen the book you loved at age eleven. (Or when you are an adult obsessed with kids books.)

It's one of those books that's both enjoyable and easy to read, but still makes you want to pick it apart into tiny pieces and then put in back together again. Which I'm going to do, so don't read any of the posts that I will be magically appearing below if you haven't read it already, but plan on doing so anytime in the remotely near future. WHICH YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BE DOING.

update: I have the first two parts of the actual review finished, but they have so many spoilers that I don't want to post them until I can figure out how to hide/show posts. Which I had done at one point, but have now forgotten. Plus blogger layouts is making things weird. : P

update II hide/show now working! detailed review linked to below.

Part i: Mothers and Daughters

Part 2: The Power of Myth

But the Smurfs are Blue!

There's lot's of good stuff to be found at the first People of Color SF Carnival.

Lots of stuff to make you cry and lots of stuff to make you mad at the world and even some stuff to make you smile. Pam Noles essay about about diversity of skintone and the Earthsea Trilogy is especially moving, and some of the reactions to it make me want to pull me hear out.

But it's equally depressing that there are parents like Pam Noles' who claim they have their kids' best interests at heart while encouraging them to identify only with fictional characters who look like themselves. Ye gods, what a crappy thing to do to a child.

I just...What?!?!?

Now, I don't mean to turn this into "well, at least I'm a good White Girl, not like those other white boys and girls" post. The simple fact that I've been keeping this blog for over a year now and have yet to write anything on the subject of racism shows that I have a long way to go. But still, sheesh people.

Having parents who care enough to point out the flaws in the media you consume is a good thing. It's a very hard thing to do and yet it's also very necessary in order to teach children to look at the media they consume critically. Noles' parents are to be commended for not discouraging her interests while also making sure that she is able to analyze them honestly.

In responding to people who think that the casting of the Earthsea miniseries really was colorblind, Pam has this to say:

A lot of white people - within the wide world and the narrow closet of genre - think that validation of Ethnic Self means exclusion or disparagement of Ethnic Other.

Which sounds to me a lot like when guys act like validation of women is invalidation of men. Neither is true.

There is a big difference between identifying with a single character just because they happen to have one thing in common with you, and identifying with the one character who isn't white, male, straight, etc. When I scoured the library and bookstores as a child for adventure stories featuring - or at least including - girls, I didn't do so because I couldn't identify with male characters. I did so because when you find yourself identifying with the boys all the time - while most of the characters that are girls annoy the shit out of you - you start to wonder if there is something wrong with you. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it must be to be pretty much completely invisible rather than just annoying. My heart goes out to that one black kid.

(An now we reach the point where I make a confession as to being even more of a racist ass than I am now.)

I read lots and lots of romance novels. I have yet to read one of the many where the heroine was not white. Several years ago I noticed this - to my discomfort - and then quickly dismissed such actions as only logical - after all, how could I really identify with black characters, etc. when it comes to something as intimate as sex and relationships? Which is just mean and dumb and wrong in so many ways.

I don't know what changed to make me openly admit how dumb and destructive this attitude was, but I think it was some combination of immersing myself in the feminist blogosphere and occasionaly bothering to read the excellent and illuminating rants of such women as Angry Black Woman and many other people not-like-me. I was still too stupid to figure out of lot of this on my own, but my experiences in dissecting anti-feminist arguments helped me recognize the truth in what people not-like-me had to say on various -isms - even when it made me uncomfortable.

So "thanks!" and "good job!" to Willow and everyone else who made the carnival possible. We all need to be talking about this more.

"Call My Name!"

I just finished Into the Wild (which is absolutely brilliant, btw and WARNNG, possible small spoiler ahead).

So the first thing that popped into my head after reading Elizabeth's Bear's post about diversity in fiction, was this line from Into the Wild:

I can't run, she realized. Refusing to help was just as much of a fairy-tale act as helping ...

There are two things that bugged me about Elizabeth Bear's post.

First off, she starts off with the whole "don't kill me for this" routine just like guys tend to do when addressing a bunch of women and gender/sexism. Not a Huge Deal, but that crap is always annoying and dumb.

Secondly, she uses the stupid phrase "professionally offended". Now, it's quite true that there's a certain number of people who are just plain stupid. And that number is much larger than 3%, I fear. It's also true that there are a lot of people who are hypersensitive. ( I rather think I happen to be one of them. I also think I happen to be right a lot of those times. :) ) There are also people who can't seem to do anything other than complain. *cough* But using the same sound bites often abused by the very people you are trying to distance yourself from is just bad tactics, at the very least. (With obvious exceptions to be made for important and long-standing concepts like "freedom.") No matter how many disclaimers you add, it still sounds like you are on the wrong side. There's no need to leave the gate wide open to shitty connotations unless you have to.

Now, Ms. Bear also rightly points out that fear of criticism is more likely to silence well-meaning authors than jackass authors and that

....one of the major problems we find in dealing with racist/sexist/looksist/queerist/classist/ismist assumptions in fiction ... is that in some ways, there is no win.

She also goes on to offer a very obvious and good solution to this problem. That is, in fact, the purpose of the post, most of which is recommended reading.

But, with the huge disclaimer that I don't write professionally and so I don't quite know what it feels like to have your baby torn apart in public by the very people you hoped to make happy, I think that Ms. Bear left out something important.

The whole idea that "in some ways, there is no win" is not just a dilemma for well-meaning authors. It's just how things are when it comes to most of these -isms.

My mother teaches first grade. Several years ago, on the day the class made pilgrim hats for Thanksgiving, the mother of one of her students came to talk to her after school. The girl was crying and the mother looked close to hysterics. The mother also didn't speak English very well, and so had some trouble communicating the reason why she had come by.

It turns out that the mother had come by the classroom because she thought something really awful had happened, but she wasn't able to get what had happened from her daughter. (The daughter was simply upset because her mother was.) Why did she think this? Because her little girl was wearing a white hat, and white is the color of death in Chinese culture.

My mother was horrified and, feeling extremely guilty, tried her best to explain the history behind the pilgrim hats - all the while making the little girl a pink hat to replace the white one. After telling me the story, my mother kept wondering aloud what she could have done to prevent all this. (And she meant this quite sincerely; my mother was on the verge of tears herself at that point.) I told her that there was nothing she could have done; she did everything right.

This isn't strictly true, of course, but this was the first second-generation Chinese-American my mother had taught, and the girl had just joined the class, so it's not like she'd spent years ignoring all the differences between her student's cultures and her own. Fuck-ups will happen; the real solution isn't just to try to prevent them, it's also to simply deal with them as best you can when they do happen.

The correct solution, however, is never inaction. It may be tempting to use our privilege to shield ourselves from having to deal with all this crap, but that's not a solution, that's a cop-out. The real solution is to say. "Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that. I'll do my best to consider that carefully before my next story." Or even "Well, I did that for reasons, X, Y, and Z. I understand that you disagree with me, but we aren't going to agree on everything. Please don't take this to mean that I don't care what you have to say, however." Lot's of times, it ain't gonna help; but trying to be respectful and then also trying to be gracious - ok, honest and respectful, in any case - about criticism is certainly a better choice than doing nothing at all.

One last bit of advice from the non-professional - just because no one is yelling at you doesn't mean they think your stuff is all a-ok. It may easily be that the -isms in your work are so commonplace as to not be worth giving special attention to. Or, it may be that not even bothering to address the issue has made you sunk so low in their expectations that they no longer think you are worth addressing either. After all, Joss Whedon doesn't get hit with so much feminist critique because feminists think he doesn't care

Remember that the next time someone complains about x,y,z in your work. When they aren't doing it because your stuff is so spectacularly bad that to let it slide would be a crime against humanity, they are usually doing it because you managed to make something that meant something important to them.

note: this doesn't apply to abusive and malicious criticism, but that didn't seem to be the kind of criticism Ms. Bear was talking about.

Accentuate the Positive

First of all, Revena and the rest of the crew at The Hathor Legacy are crazy. They've obviously caught me on one too many good days.

Secondly, I should be in bed.

Third, you should really go check out the rest of the blogs they picked. The ones I already recognized are very good, and the others that I've checked out so far are as well.

And since the topic is thinking, I thought I'd share a few thoughts prompted by the archives at Marketing to Women Online.

I recently started using Dove shampoo/conditioner and deodorant.

I like both. Although I can't promise how long the shampoo/conditioner part will last. I can't seem to find one I like. And I hate the design of their economy sized bottles. (Stupid Dove, my hands are smaller than average, not bigger! And please get on the upside down trend.) Which I pretty much must buy not because of the cost but because my hair is insanely thick and currently long and I run through regular sized bottle way too fast.

I bring this up because one of the posts talks about the Dove ad campaign and an article by a guy discussing it's effectiveness. Holly concedes that dude Seth may be right, Dove's campaign may get a lot of positive attention now, but the goodwill may turn sour once the campaign has lost it's novelty. She ends, however, by saying that Dove has finally made it onto her radar screen while shopping, and that's a big first step.

What we really have are two questions. It's not just, "Did Dove make a good decision or not?", it's "Did Dove make a good decision?" and "How far should they push it?" In another post Holly mocks* people who have just now realized that advertising requires strategy. Maybe Holly means something different by strategy than I think she does, but it seems to me that Seth's long term grade supposes that Dove's strategy ends with the part of the campaign that we had seen at that point.

When companies are trying to completely re-brand, their initial advertising is always much more "edgy" than later and - even the majority of concurrent - ads. (ABC bananas, anyone?) There is no reason to think that Dove will be consistently aggressive** in promoting their tagline of "real beauty." In fact, having never seen any ads on the actual TV except for their stupid deodorant ones, I can safely say their initial ads were as much about getting free positive publicity - mostly heard/viewed by a targeted demographic*** - than the effect of the ads on the average viewer.

I personally think that the Dove ads were a freakin' brilliant move, and that their best strategy is to make the long term campaign balance out more widely accepted images of beauty with the occasional well-placed "edgy" ad.

They get bonus points for focusing their most recent mini-campaign around one of the things women simultaneously fear and love the most. Being an older woman means being invisible to the male gaze, something that women are taught to fear. Being older means supposedly being ugly in an irreversible way, which is what makes one invisible to the male gaze.

But being older also often means being better at ignoring the male gaze and loving the real you. Even for younger women, images of older women don't just make us say "ick, I don't want to think about that!" When done well, they often remind younger women of the people they admire most: their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, great aunts, mentors, role models, etc.

Dove manages to demolish the idea that older women are not beautiful and remind women that inner beauty matters too. And in just 30 seconds? And lucky Dove for getting rejected by TV. What brand doesn't want to be considered both too riske for the mainstream and yet not too out there for baby boomers - and beyond?

Which brings us to edgy advertising. Something Holly has also written about.

There is a difference between being shocking and being outside the norm. Sometimes the two converge, but not always. The Bluefly ad Holly talks about is shocking, but it's hardly outside the norm. The TJ Maxx, commercial, on the other hand, is not really shocking at all, but it's certainly not quite as done to death as using women's bodies to sell products. Especially not when it's a woman - and one other than the bride - focusing on something other than "happily ever after" at a wedding.

Same with the Dove campaign. There is a insane amount of idiotic "just be you!" advertising out there. Besides not being idiotic (yes, I'm talking to you, Sprite), the Dove commercials manage to be "just be you!" ads while also being both shocking and outside the norm. As the shock wears off, they will have to rely on other techniques to sell their products. But as the success of "Let Me Play" campaign showed, women are more then willing to open their wallets to brands that market themselves as anything resembling real empowerment. And like the Nike ads, Dove's new campaign makes emotional connections**** to it's potential consumers that last long beyond the shock and awe. Plus, Dove also has the huge gap between "ideal" beauty and real beauty on their side. It's not like they have to try to convince people that up is down, they just have to remind everyone that variety is a good thing and women are wonderful in all kinds of ways. Unless TPTB are stupid, Dove's "real beauty" campaign should do well for quite a while.

Like Holly, and apparently a lot of other women, Dove is on my radar. This is after years of seeing it as the kind of soap that grandmothers with no flair or taste use. Even more shocking than the shampoo/conditioner and deodorant, I've even now been known to use Dove body wash instead of Bath and Body Works.

And none of this was on purpose. I didn't see the Dove ads and decide "I'm going to support pseudo-feminist brands today!" I walked into Tarjay to buy shampoo/conditioner/deodorant/soap and thought "Huh, why don't I give this a try. Looks as good as anything else." And turns out it is. Possibly even just the tiniest bit better than most of my previous regulars.

Plus, as another article points out, "If more women feel beautiful, goes the underlying marketing premise, more will be inspired to take great care of themselves by buying beauty and hygiene products." (It also has some interesting stuff to say about men and women and wanting to be connected versus being on the top of the heap.)

Far too much of the advertising aimed at women is about making us feel worthless without what is being sold - especially when it comes to our value as objects to be looked at. Imagine if most of the ads aimed at men were like those stupid Bowflex commercials. That's pretty much how most things are sold to women. Especially when it comes to beauty products - or pretty much anything not directly related to kids or housework.

It's not just that Dove is now on my radar. It's also that I didn't care before that Dove's soap was soft, but now I do. And it's not because I now believe that it's soft and I didn't before. It's because not feeling shitty about myself makes me feel like I deserve small pleasures like soft soap, instead of soap that is simply smelly and may - in an alternate universe - get me noticed.

Advertising does work, it just doesn't all work. I think it's safe to say, though, that Dove's campaign works better than many, if not most.

***********

*Gently, though. She's a lot classier and more professional than I am. At least on her blog, anyway. :)

**Yes, I realize that there is lots about the ads that aren't aggressive at all.

***and by target demographic, I don't just mean "women who buy beauty products and soap" I also mean "women who look critically at how such things are advertised to women." I do not know what my mom, sister, etc. would think of Dove's ads. But I also don't know if they've seen most of them. But I can promise you that every single flippin' feminist and budding feminist blogger/lurker/bitch reader/etc. has heard of them and thinks of the campaign as a whole in a more positive light - despite still having complaints - than just about any other ads for such products.

****I still cry whenever I see those damn ads. And I hate Nike.

Lots of Little Boxes

Golly ghee whiz I can’t think of any heroines who are equally immersed in gore and sexual muck without a clear-cut hero who enjoy a very devoted romance following. No, wait, I just ran out of fingers on which to count.

-snort -

(ps - If you haven't checked out Smart Bitches, Trashy Books yet, you really should. Seriously.)

Next time I get into an argument with someone about which is more sexist/more feminist: scifi/fantasy or romance, I'm just going to ask them - "Which romance novels are you claiming as pure scifi/fantasy?" I have a feeling that will end the debate before it starts. Because I'm beginning to suspect that a large portion of the best of both genres are being claimed by fans of both genres at the same time.

Harry Potter - the Musical!

There's a reason why I hardly ever read the movie reviews in the LA Times. And that, when I do, I usually take the opposite of the critic's advice.

Aside from being a condescending snob, is Mr. Schickel unaware that the Harry Potter books are unfinished? Or was he expecting the Harry Potter movies to turn out more like the Fullmetal Alchemist anime?

I personally think that Harry Potter - the Musical would kick ass. (And I soooo....want the anime. Preferably about Mooney, Prongs, Wormtail & Padfoot.) Most fans I know would as well. And the variety of fanfiction alone disproves the idea that fans only care about cannon. The bigger issue is that cannon is the only thing we (occasionally) agree on - and that's just because there's someone to break up the fights.

Most of all, though, most Harry fans would not be happy with a movie made only by people who weren't ever able to read all of the source material. I really don't think that suggests that fans only want movie adaptations of books that are exactly like the books.

After all, if they did, Harry Potter fans would be so upset at the loss of S.P.E.W. and the like in #4 to even consider dragging themselves down to see David Yates latest interpretation.

You'd think someone who ranted about opinions not being the same as reviews would understand the difference between teenagers howling "what about the part I've loved the best since I was 12!" upon first viewing and fans being able to appreciate someone else's interpretation of the a book they like.

(That said, I'm curious if the movie versions of either The Goblet of Fire or The Order of the Phoenix make any sense to anyone that hasn't read the books.)

Wednesday Words of Wisdom: Just Nod and Smile

So, I know I'm the only one that ever cared about this, (and that it is again a Thursday and not a Wednesday) but I need something to make me write more about books. Partly because maybe then I'll take a big chunk out of my TBR pile.

So, today's Wednesday Words of Wisdom come from Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst, which I picked up because

a) I'm a sucker for retold fairy tales.

b) The title reminded me of one of my favorites: Into the Woods (I'm a sucker for anything Sondheim as well)

and

c) Tamora Pierce raved about it

Oddly enough, today's quote has nothing to do with fairy tales, and everything to do with working in the service industry:

The problem with being a hairdresser, Zel thought, was that you had to listen politely to everyone's pet theories, right or wrong.

And yes, today's quote takes up less than a fourth of the post.

Is the Problem Logic, or Reading Comprehension?

The Women in Refrigerators theory makes the assumption that women really are killed or treated worst then [sic] men in comics, but I’m not convinced that’s true. Below is the list from Women In Refrigerators. Following the “---“ is my commentary and some male characters who were treated similarly or worse.

What was that about anti-feminists just making shit up anyway when they run out of not so brilliant arguments from feminists?

Since the topic is WiR, I think it's safe to assume that what our intrepid blogger is focusing on is injury, death, depowerment, etc. - not badly written characters or the ratio of men to women, etc.

So - although the sentence is muddled so it's hard to tell - he seems to think that the point of the WiR list is to prove that more women die/etc. than men.

From Wikipedia, that bastion of feminist thought:

The site features a list of female comic book characters that had been injured, killed, or depowered as a plot device within various superhero comic books.......[Gail] Simone maintained that her, "... simple point (had) always been: if you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won't read comics. That's it!"

How the fuck do you get from that to "more women die in comics than men"?!?!?

Which brings us to the other question, is the problem reading comprehension or logic?

At no point in the wiki article - or anywhere else I've read - does anyone argue that more women are killed in superhero comics than men. That would be like trying to argue that female soldiers are more likely to be harrassed or assault by their fellow officers - by arguing that female soldiers make up more of the casualties than male soldiers. Which would be ridiculous.

It has been argued that female characters are more likely to be killed, injured, depowered, etc. than their male counterparts. Which may true - so long as you stick to recurring characters with names. Which brings us to the quote from Gail Simone and what most people consider to be the phenomenon known as WiR: the fact that women are rarely treated as interesting in their own right, but instead tend to be mainly important because they are someone's girlfriend, mother, sister, co-worker, etc. And that even when they are interesting, they don't tend to last long and usually die because a male character needs motivation or angst.

One of the things I noticed when I did a similar list for Lost - after being pissed at the whole concept of Libby's character - was that a lot more men died than women. But the men who died tended to be obviously temporary characters. The opposite was true when it came to the women who died, they tended to be people we had gotten to know - and more of the now dead people we had come to love were women - and of the women that we'd gotten to know, a greater percentage of them ended up dead compared to the men we'd gotten to know.

Plus, men and women tended to die in different ways. As I said back then:

All the men murdered on the island were either bad guys murdered by good guys or good guys murdered by bad guys. All of the women murdered on the island were good characters murdered by good guys. I'm not sure what this means, but there does seem to be a definite gender difference when it comes to being murdered.

While I don't know if comics has the same phenomenon going on, it does seem to have a similar one, where women are more likely to be murdered because of their association with good guys, if not directly by the good guys. As opposed to being killed because the bad guys/good guys see them as a threat. (I'm guessing killing off bad gals because of their association with bad guys doesn't happen often, not only because the bad guys wouldn't care as much, but also because only bad guys touch other guys stuff.)

In any case, our intrepid blogger is either incapable of understanding what he reads, or he doesn't understand the difference between saying that

members of group X are more likely than members of group Y to be [blank]

and

of the people that are [blank], more are from group X than group Y.

I shall leave you, dear readers, to figure out which of these is the problem.

The Customer Is Always Right - - - Not!

This reminds me of the time some guy tried to correct me when he asked for a physics book on a particular topic and I didn't give him the answer he liked.

(I don't remember exactly how it went but basically he was using a physics term to mean something slightly more narrow than it actually meant and I was answering as I would to any other random person - which means I was broadening the topic more than I would if I was back in physics lab.)

I tried to be nice at first, but when he flat out told me I was wrong - in slightly condescending tone of voice - I explained that I had a degree in physics*, not so gently corrected him, and explained that I was answering the question assuming the common usage of the word, not the way physicists use it. Then I explained that we don't carry books that specific; he would have to order a textbook from us. (duh)

Generally, though, I get the sexist stuff less often because I work in the kid's section; in fact I'd imagine the guys get it almost often as we do in the bookstore - especially if they work in the kid's section.

In other customer news, I had a lady ask me today about a book that I was never able to find, even in the computer. Why not, you ask? Well, this was the information she gave me: it was about the wedding industry, it was new, it was an expose, she heard about it....somewhere.

Which works if you have google, but inside the store I don't get to use google.

Now, normally I'd just feel bad and hate our lame search engine and our lack of internet access. But this was one of those times that I don't feel bad because this was one of those times when I had the bookseller's equivalent of a backseat driver. (Backseat bookseller?)

As I'm searching she asks:

"Can you search by topic?"

(Um, yeah, just did. A couple of them, actually. I got squat.) "I can search by keyword. You said it was new?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know how new?"

It just came out.

(Oh, that's helpful.) - I do a broader keyword search, but this time only searching books published in the last six months. Again, I get squat. - "Did you read about it in a newspaper?"

(mumbles about hearing about it everywhere) "Can't you just browse new books?"

"No, not for weddings. We don't have a New Release section for Weddings. But I can narrow the search by publication date. I just did that. You don't remember any specific publication you heard about it in?"

"No. Can you look up books that are in the news recently?"

"I can, but only by specific publication. There's no overall list." (Which is why I'm trying to get you to give a good guess about which newspaper/magazine/show - doofus. Because the major ones are giving me squat.)

"Can't you just look in weddings?"

(I'm noticeably annoyed by now. And so is she.) "I could, but the problem with this book is that it could listed under a bunch of different topics. It may be under Weddings, or it may be under Business or Current Affairs.** You don't remember anything else about it?"

"No."

pause

"Well, thank you."

"Sorry."

Needless to say we were both lying through our teeth.


*which of course led to "what are you doing working here?" grrr....

** turns out it's under Sociology. Which makes sense when you know that it's not just an expose on the wedding industry but also an analysis of why the wedding industry has grown to the size it has and what this means about all of us. And Sociology doesn't have a New Release bay/shelf either.

Seriously, people, this is why when your bookseller asks you questions, you should respond with actual answers, not annoying questions that amount to "have you thought of doing this obvious thing, idiot retail worker?"

Summer Reading is Killing Me

So, I'm still here.

I'm just also trying to organize my life, put together a couple of programs a week at the library, and have gotten caught up in Potter mania. Blogging will resume eventually.

Wait!

This deserves a longer and more emphatic response, but since I need to be at work in five hours and my brain is mush, for now I'm just going to say:

In direct opposition to my previous post, I'm taking a hard stand on this topic. Cheryl is right. And a lot of people are being dumb and are demonstrating that it's not just fanboys that can exercise privilege.

Seriously people, how hard is it to say "Gee, I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to go ponder my ignorance for a while and see if it changes my opinion." ??

And Cheryl - some of us are listening, we just aren't always sure how to add to the conversation and forget that sometimes "Hey! look at this!" or "Oooohh. Good point!" or even "Peoples, please. Think of someone other than yourself for a change," is all that's really needed.

Heinz's Dilemma

I really, really, really should be asleep. Or at least trying to get to sleep.

But I think I've figured out why so much of the recent conversations about "offensive" covers and whatnot have been bugging me so much.

After I finished writing an overly long response to ami's questions about girl gazing, I realized that what bothered me about the other responses was not just that they weren't really thinking about what it's like to be the woman being watched, blah, blah blah. But that they answered an open ended question as if the only two responses were "yes" and "no."

I can't condemn girl watching - when it's done with all the caveats they include - but a I can't completely condone it either. Not because I think their wanting to do it is wrong or anything but healthy and even good, but because life is messy and complicated and their intent and actions and being deserving of happiness themselves aren't the only factors.

But most of all because I don't see it as a "yes or no" question.

ami partly presents it as a "yes or no" question herself with her first line and by talking about when men watching her makes her uncomfortable and when it doesn't, and by talking about what she does when she looks at guys. But she also presents the possibility that it's something more by not coming to a conclusion and by not repeating "Is it just a harmless sport or can it be harrassment sometimes? :|" - a line paraphrased from the original article - after her final "What do other ppl think? :3"

What I think is more complicated and less concrete than any answer to her first question could ever be.

Joel, however, starts out by saying:

I think there's a line between an appreciative look that's harmless... and an outright ogle that creeps someone out.

and everyone else agrees.

I don't. Or at least, I don't think that the line is solid and clear and always in the same place.

I don't the line is even where the conversation should always be focused on.

A woman was near death.... There was one drug that....might save her....the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. ....The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together.....half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No..." So Heinz...broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

Why is this the question that is always asked? Why is Heinz's the only one whose actions are scrutinized?

Why are we always asking "is this offensive or not?" as if that was only question that applied? Why are we constantly turning others thoughts into this pigeon hole of "condemn or condone?" when even their own clear answer to that question is contradicted by the nuances within their rant?

"Offensive" suggests a solid, clear line. But that's not what I'm getting from most of the complaints I'm reading. Even the ones condemning DC, Marvel, the world, whatever. Perhaps I simply need to be more thorough in my WFA link-reading, but most of the rants that I read (that are longer than a sentence or two) contain a multitude of ideas that go beyond a simple yes or no answer.

In the end, agreeing on whether the answer is "yes" or "no" is not the most important issue. The variety of people supporting the campaign for a memorial for Stephanie Brown - many despite their own feelings on the matter - shows that better than anything else. Because the real question is not something as simple as "should DC give Stephanie a memorial?" the real question is messy and complicated with no clear answer. It's "what can we do to make this better?" and "how can we change was so obviously needs to be changed?" and "how do we even begin such a task, much less finish it?"

Examples and narratives are useful, and that's why we talk about covers and art and story and character development and everything else. But we aren't making guidelines. We shouldn't be making guidelines. The question isn't "is this offensive or not?" Nor is it "what about this is offensive and what isn't?" The question isn't even "what about this challenges sexism, racism, the status quo, etc. and what supports it?" The questions are "What does this mean? What do people take away from this? Where is it's place in all the other narratives of our lives?"

The fact that sexism is often our focus does not necessarily change these questions into the kind with clear yes or no answers.

Just because we have to make decisions ("support the Girl Wonder crusade or not?") or feel the need to take a stand ("the Heroes for Hire cover is/is not degrading") doesn't mean that we always have to answer yes or no questions in everything we write.

It doesn't have to be Feminism Vs. Zombies*. It can be fun and silly and stupid and sexist - all at the same time.

*betty, please don't take that to mean that I didn't really, really, love what you wrote, because I did.

Look Ma! A Positive Post About Comics!

I am only cautiously optimistic about the possibilities of a Veronica Mars comic and Avalon High manga (despite any squeeing you may have heard).

I do, however, have a lot of faith that a graphic novel for Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series will be quite good.

(hat tip to The Ladies of Lallybroch, whose boards I will lurk from time time in order to find spoilers.)

Why?

- She's a good writer.* She knows how to create believable and intriguing characters and how to pace a story to perfection - and usually does so.

- The part of the draft that's been posted looks well done.

- She's also writing her own characters, not someone else's, so there should be no problems of them acting out of character.

- She's not new to comics. Long before she became a bestselling author, Professor Diana Gabaldon picked up some extra cash writing comics for the Walt Disney company for a couple of years. She's also grew up reading them - although apparently not superhero comics. (you'll have to scroll to the bottom for the relevant info). She may not be the next Gail Simone, but she's hardly another Jodi Picoult.

Of course, I also have tons of questions, most of which have no answers yet, since it's still in the "not quite a done deal yet" stages. (What artist will they pick? If she's talking to her current publisher, does this mean it will be published under Random House's graphic novel imprint? How do they plan on marketing it?)

I'm not terribly nervous that the project will be shelved, however, considering how much money her books make and the general expansion of the graphic novel market in recent years.



*Yes, I had problems with her latest Jaime and Claire novel too, but she's still a good author.

Speaking of Twisting Feminist Arguments

Has anyone actually said that they think this cover is offensive?



I've seen people complain about it, with the complaints mostly centering around the fact that Black Canary is dressed up for the wedding but Green Arrow apparently can't be bothered. And that, combined with her carrying him like a potato sack, it suggests the stupid but pervasive idea that women are desperate for marriage but men are desperate to avoid it. Plus, a few people have also found the suction cup arrow to be "wha?" worthy.

(It is, but it also undermines the overall message about Green Arrow not wanting to get married, as does the expression on his face. Together, they make the cover say more than it appears to at first glance, which is why this cover has also gotten a certain amount of praise as well.)

I've yet to hear anyone call it offensive, though. Or any synonym of offensive.



Now, at least one person has implied that this cover is offensive.



She never actually said "offensive" but she did call it - in combination with a lot of other stuff - "a slap in the face" so although I don't think offensive is the best word, it's not an unfair representation of her words either.

For the record, I mostly agree. Although, again, offensive is not necessarily the word I'd use.

Generally, it seems as thoough the people critiquing the covers and the story line summaries are being much less vehement in their disapproval than the people that are accusing other people of overreacting.

It looks like some people are looking to create a controversy, and it doesn't seem to be the people annoyed by DC turning Black Canary into Bridezilla. To my biased eyes, those people mostly seem to be doing what people with blogs tend to do: bitch about their pet peeves. It's the people tossing around words like "cover controversy!" and "offended!" that seem determined to tar and feather someone.

Mostly, though, it looks as though people are simply once again reacting to stereotypes of feminist arguments rather than the actual arguments. If you read through the comments in the first link, you'll see people describing the complaint more clearly than the original poster did. Which gets something more along the lines of "oh, ok - that makes sense" from the original poster. Which makes me wonder where in the world she got her original assertion.

The fact that this is once again another feminist doing it only makes the cries of "don't complain about stuff that isn't actually sexist!" all the more stupid. One of the biggest reasons why feminism has such a bad name is because of misrepresentations of feminist arguments. Silencing our actual arguments in the name of not being controversial does nothing to fix this. In fact, there's a great deal of evidence that clearly stating our arguments wins more people over than retreat does. Not letting misrepresentations slide is much more likely than anything else to turn "I'm not a feminist, but..."s into feminists and make the extremes of feminism seem less controversial to other feminists.

Of course,most important thing to remember in the midst of all this debate is that a bachelorette party where the guests are wearing significantly less than the guy who pops out of the cake has got to be one of the stupidest ideas ever to be put on the cover of anything.

Gatekeepers

Every so often someone makes the argument that we shouldn't give so much attention to the little things that bugs us/that aren't obviously sexist/that may not be sexist because it lessens our credibility when the really important stuff happens.

For example:

BONUS: Something Comics Fans Should Never Do Again

React to any expression of female sexuality on a comic book cover as something that inherently denegrates the character's integrity or the character's ability to be perceived as an "ass-kicker". This is dangerous because it makes complaints about legitimately sexist garbage like the MJ statue and HFH #13 more likely to be ignored.

I say "Bullshit."

This statement is dangerously close to filling a bingo square by alluding to the "but what are you doing about x,y,z?/it's just comics!" argument. A sentiment that is dismissive of feminist theory and how the status quo is maintained: all the little things that seem inconsequential often help create the foundation for the bigger things. Do I really need to remind anyone that comics itself is considered by many to be one of those "little things?"

As I've argued before, it's exactly because our visual definitions of male and female vulnerability/strength are so different that someone - several people - felt as though the Heroes for Hire cover would be be appropriate. Whether or not you think the wedding story line is just good fun or not, there is a parallel between the Black Canary cover and the Heroes for Hire cover. Both show normally competent women looking vulnerable and they do so by playing to stereotypes. That one is a joke while the other is not* does not mean that there is not room to question the reasoning behind doing either cover - or story line.

To argue that one should only complain about the "legitimately sexist garbage" raises the question of who decides what is "legitimately sexist garbage." When this sentiment is paired with the argument that false complaints damage feminists' reputation, the implication is that our "male default" society - not women or feminists themselves - has the final say in what is worthy of discussion. Simply arguing that someone is wasting space with their argument, or saying that you think that they shouldn't say or do something, is not in and of itself an attempt to silence feminist or female voices. But when it's combined with the suggestion that we should not make that argument because we must defer to the prejudices of the culture we are critiquing, it comes dangerously close to doing so.

The assumption that people will be turned off of "legitimate" complaints because the same people are making "non-legitimate" complaints is another example of having a different standard for a non-privileged group than for privileged groups. People demonstrate quite often that they are capable of understanding that disagreement on one issue does not always mean disagreement on every issue.

There is also the sexist implication that men are less capable of doing this than women - at least when it comes to sexism.** If I recall correctly, the first few men mocking the original complaint are not exactly known for being virulently anti-feminist. I seriously doubt complaints such as these dramatically alter how they view feminism. I think that men are quite capable of figuring out what is sexist and what isn't, and so disagreements among feminists (or between feminists and "I'm not a feminist, but..."s) are hardly going to befuddle them in a manner similar to when sitcom husbands are faced with housework.

How does this fit with my agreement with Kalinara's statement that:

A man telling a woman what she should or should not find sexist is proving he doesn't understand the meaning of the word.

Note how Kalinara phrased her declaration. It's not so much about men not having a right to an opinion on what it sexist, it's about a man - or anyone, really - telling a woman that she should have a particular opinion. Lynxara's argument bugs me because she*** isn't just saying that pervyficgirl is wrong, she's saying that she should only talk about things that Lynxara thinks are sexist. Lynxara may believe that the Black Canary wedding story line and covers are merely an "expression of female sexuality" but pervyficgirl obviously does not. (And however mockworthy her name may or may not be, one can hardly accuse her of being anti-sex.) There's a fine distinction between arguing with or dismissing a complaint, and claiming to speak for everyone or being the voice of authority. It's certainly extra levels of stupidity when the topic is sexism and it's men that are doing it, but it isn't a good argument when anyone does it.

This leaves us with just one remotely valid argument, which is that such complaints often support feminist stereotypes. Well, yes, they can, but they only do because it's anti-feminists who often have the floor. They only do so because schools and the media tend to teach parodies of feminism, not actual feminism; it's not that simply being exposed to these arguments make people think that all of feminism is bunk, but that this is often the only feminism they see. Not voicing these concerns will not mean that people won't see feminism this way, it will simply mean that other arguments will be taken out of context instead.

Arguing that this means we should concede ground for reasons of strategy ignores the fact that the best defense is a good offense. One could just as well argue that a wider number of complainants and longer list of demands strikes more fear into the hearts of our enemies, and that having such a long list is often a better bargaining strategy than only making the demands nearest and dearest to your heart.

No, the better argument is to encourage people to write clearly and carefully when they write about the more nuanced feminist complaints, not to ask them not to make such complaints at all.

*******

*I actually think it's quite likely that the HfH was meant to be a parody of sorts, at least when it comes to the artist's intent, but the general consensus seems to be that it is not. Which just goes to show how unimportant intent really is.

**The other assumption is that non-feminists (male and female) will view such criticism differently than feminists will. This is true, and may be an argument for being more careful when making more controversial arguments, but it's not a valid argument for not making them at all.

***So it occurred to me part way through writing this that I assumed lynxara to be a woman, when I have no idea if lynxara is a he or a she. Since it doesn't really change the point of my argument, just whether or not lynxara's statement pisses me off or really pisses me off, I'm leaving my silly assumptions in as an example of this.

I'm Sure the Problem Lies With My Illogical Brain

* Nebraska Revised Statutes
Section 27-403
Rule 403. Exclusion of relevant evidence; reasons.

Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.

Source:
Laws 1975, LB 279, 13

(emphasis mine, hat tip to Marcella)

I'm still trying to figure out how "rape" and "victim" are not only "unfairly prejudicial" - or at least more so than being able to say that "they had sex" - but are "unfairly prejudicial" to such an extent that they override any and all concerns about the language used during the trial being "misleading" or causing "confusion."

What's in a Name?

Some people have been arguing that it makes sense for a judge to disallow "rape" "sexual assault" "sexual assault kit" and "victim" from a rape trial because using these terms presumes guilt.

First of all, I was under the impression that the prosecution is presuming guilt (based on the evidence they've gathered) - that would be the point of the trial, after all.

Secondly, it may be different in other states, but as far as I know my state allows prosecuting attorneys to use the legal definition of the crimes that they are accusing the defendant of. See the previous sentence and "rights of the accused" as to why.

Third, banning "rape" and "sexual assault" from witness testimony is not the same as requiring that attempted murder victims use words like "kill" or the like instead of word "murder"- which doubles as a legal term. This is because "rape" does not have as many synonyms as "murder" does. The judge has effectively banned about the only two terms that are used by laypersons to describe the crime in question. And the latter is mostly by used only by laypeople if they write for newspapers or if the assault is something less than rape.

Furthermore, said persons may want to look up the legal definition of "rape" in the state in question before they focus on "rape" as a legal term. It's not. The legal term is "sexual assault." (hat tip Kristen)

Fourth, if legal meaning of "sexual assault" (or "rape" if that were the case) prevails above all else despite the profound lack of clarity that will result in the victim and the prosecutors not being able to use this term, then the legal meaning of "victim" should prevail as well. The state in question defines "victim" (at least as it pertains to sexual assault) to be

the person alleging to have been sexually assaulted

Yes, "alleged" is included in legal definition of "victim" in the state in question. I rather think it's quite likely that this is the prevailing legal definition of the term.

While I can see the logic behind arguing that terms like "victim" and using the legal definitions of crimes to mean something nonlegal can be confusing for jurors and might prejudice them, I hardly think that it does so to a greater extent than banning both "rape" and "sexual assault" - while simultaneously allowing for "sex" and "sexual intercourse" (which presume consent) to be allowed.

Amanda, Jill, Bean, and Shakesville have more. (Shakesville is down, I will add when they come back up.)

update

Since that particular argument also seems to boil down to "such things are standard" - can get a special "wha?" As in, "then why the need for special orders?"

Hide Your Little Yellow Thingies!

Oh dear god.



LOL

The internet is a lovely place, is it not?




hat tip to imaginary_guilt

via jade reporting

Things You Should Know

Since I don't do enough useful stuff with this silly bog of mine:

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Because, Eastern Michigan University, knowing is half the battle.

(idea stolen from Auguste, who has more to say on the subject)

(hat tip to Melissa as well.)

So, It's Official

On the internet nobody cares if you are a 70 year-old Chinese immigrant, or a 22 year-old Harvard student, or a stay-at home blogger dad...

Does this mean that "Where are all the women bloggers?" won't be making the rounds anymore?

And People Look Down On Me For Not Reading This Shit

“We found that how people use chargers is very different,” she said. “For her, she wants it to be instantly understandable.”

from a NYT article on women and technology. (via Shrub)

Yeah, because all the guys I know are looking for any excuse to do more work.



Oh, wait, was she instead implying that women are stupid?

/sarcasm

Since the paragraph immediately preceding this little gem was:

....the $20 Easy Charger, is aimed at women, who usually end up managing the household’s batteries....Large light-emitting-diode readouts spell out what the countertop charger is doing at every phase of the charging cycle. Focus-group testing indicated that men were turned off by the Easy Charger, especially in how its readouts appeared to tell them what they thought they already knew, said Mandy Iswarienko, the brand manger for rechargeable products.

Not only would that appear that she was indeed implying that women are stupid*, but it also looks as though she may be right.

Or it would, if it wasn't for the little bit that Marriott (the author of the article) managed to mention without bothering to note that it had any significance.

Let's read that first line again.

...the $20 Easy Charger, is aimed at women, who usually end up managing the household’s batteries.

(emphasis mine)

So, let me get this straight, men don't need all those 'readouts [that appear] to tell them what they thought they already knew" - but it's women who manage the apparently tricky task of managing household batteries?

(ps - how do the men think they know what phase of the cycle the charger is in without a readout - psychic energy?)

Here's the charger in question, by the way.



Note how the "readouts" are vastly different from half the chargers I've ever used, what with the words "done" and "charging" printed right on the two light covers and everything, rather than a changing picture of a battery. That's just....revolutionary!

In all seriousness, I do think it's a pretty smart design choice, but I fail to see how printing words on the little lights suddenly means that the charger is "spell[ing] out" what phase it's in. Except in the literal sense of actually using letters, of course, but I don't think "spell it out" was meant literally in this case.

Although mostly I'm still gawping at the idea that they spell out "every phase of the cycle." There's two "phases" - "charging" and "not charging." It's not, um, like a dishwasher or a washer/dryer, which actually do have several phases.

For comparison, here's the "guy" charger, the Dock and Go:



So, they did technically "spell it out" in the sense that the "guy" charger has just a light, no words. Presumably the light changes color and/or blinks. Which means that "spell it out" really means "you don't need to know some special code to figure out if it's done or not." (The phone chargers at work do this, and I can never remember what is supposed to mean what. Except that red means that nothing is working.)

So really, it's not that guys like stuff to be hard, it's that 1) the guys they tested like to pretend stuff is harder than it is and 2) the women they tested were less likely to be familiar with the semi-standard flashing light code that many chargers use.

Which reminds me of the time I wanted to recently smack some sense into a co-worker...but that's a story for another day. Or the next post anyway.

In any case, this is pretty typical for the article.

“If a man brings home a big whooper of a television, the woman is going to say, ‘That’s stupid; it’s too big for the wall,’ ” he said.

Mr. Brady said that men and women tended to have radically different approaches to televisions in the home. “Men want the TV to dominate the room,” he said “Women look more at the TV to not be the centerpiece of the room, but more of an accent piece.”

Um, maybe it's just me, but I think my Dad's and my brother's big screen TVs are stupid because the are too big for the room in the sense that the rooms they are in are not big enough to let you sit far enough away to be comfortable, not that they visually dominate the room. (And I have excellent peripheral vision. And I love architecture.)

That, plus the fact that they are way too high a quality for a lot of my older DVD box sets, which end up looking supremely crappy on them. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Buffy Season 1.) It's like the time the whole family went to go see Fantasia 2000 at an IMAX theatre (yes, I'm serious. and yes, you can stop laughing now.) I could totally see the pixels on all the computer animation. Bigger is not always better.

The combo TV-DVD players, which usually cost $800 to $1,000, are equipped with auto wake, permitting users to turn the television on by simply slipping a DVD into it. Knowing that one does not have to fumble with a multi-button remote control becomes a subtle signal to buy.

Plus there's that little bit about not having to go searching for the magically disappearing remote just to watch a damn movie. Now if only they'd stop being idiots and go back to putting all the basic buttons onto the actual TV/DVD player as well as the remote, I'd be so much happier.

“Women are busier than men,” she said. “I don’t love technology enough to sit down and spend two hours with a manual like it’s some great puzzle. Men get great gratification out of that. I’d rather read a book.”

Again, you think maybe it's not so much the men liking it more, but the men being less likely to be stuck doing it when it is no longer fun? Seeing as how it's "women, who usually end up managing the household batteries" and "women [who] are busier than men" and all.

But alas, how quickly we forget the humorous anecdotes of Dad going not so quietly ballistic late into the night on Christmas Eve - when his tinkering is made less fun by the practicalities of actually having to get shit done.

*possibly the writer was, but that drivel sounded like it came straight from some idiotic marketing/PR press release.

The Really Scary Part?

This is not the only one of it's kind out there.

How about this:



please note that the decay has managed to touch neither superheroine's breasts. trying to look sexy, my ass.

Or this:



Sadly, it seems to be a trend (and no, I don't mean the zombie bit.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Violence against women as a punch line is so overused that even misogynist comedians should take a break from it for no other reason than on account of it being excessively amatureish.

Showing women who are maimed or had violence done to them as sexy is so pervasive in our culture and so fundamentally disturbing given real life stats that, no matter how good-natured the intent, it's pretty much never a good idea.

Plus, it tends to make the whole irony of a sexy zombie not so ironic after all.

Buffy 1.1

You're like a textbook with arms.

I just started re-watching Buffy. Because I'm pathetic like that. And I figured that as long as I found interesting things to talk about, I'd talk about it.

*I really like that we meet someone besides Buffy first. Not only does it help with the world-building, but we also get see a female villain right off the bat. Which is cool. Especially since she isn't all smexed up. Yet, anyway. Darla does quickly become a bit smexed up, but in her first scene that's not really the case. For example, her little schoolgirl outfit is meant to make her look young and vulnerable and therefore contribute to the bait and switch. The fact that it plays to some people fetishes is a bonus, but not it's main purpose.

*Charisma Carpenter didn't even look young enough to play a teen in Ep 1. And I hate how this always sounds as though it's a complaint about her as an actress or how pretty she is. CC is gorgeous and a great actress. She also doesn't look old, she just doesn't look like a kid.

*This is obvious in part because Gellar and Hannigan are not only closer to their character ages, but they also still have a bit of the kid pudginess that teen girls often have. (For TV stars, in any case.) You look at them and can tell that they are very close, but aren't quite in adult bodies yet. It makes CC look even older than she would otherwise.

*Jesse is a Nice Guy (lite). And that's why he dies. He keep hitting on Cordelia for absolutely no reason other than that she's the hottest and most unattainable girl in school. Even blithering idiot Xander knows shallowness and meanness should be a turn-off. That's why Xander stumbles his way into being a nice guy.

*Lots and lots and lots of exposition. And apparently Watcher is a synonym for "Narrator."

*Angel comes off as creepy more than intriguing. And Gellar isn't really convincing when she says that he is annoying, but is supposed to mean something else. In fact, most of the dynamics are off. Interestingly, the most natural looking scenes are between Willow and either Xander or Buffy.

*Wow. Everyone is so very white. Now that I'm attached to all of them, I wouldn't want to lose any of the characters as I've come to know them. But still....

*I very much get the criticism that Buffy is still reinforcing harmful beauty standards, but I have to say that the show wouldn't have worked in the early days if Buffy hadn't been (TV's version of) a typical CA beauty. If she had looked like Kendra or Willow, we wouldn't have been surprised by many if the things Buffy did because the untypicalness of how she looked would have been a clue as to the untypicalness of her actions. That said, I think we are well past being surprised by a female action hero, and so that same excuse doesn't work elsewhere. (And yeah, some of us were well past it then too, but I'd say enough people weren't that it was justified.)

*Who the fuck wears a dress like that to a non big city club? And why in the world would Buffy choose pants and and an unflattering button-up shirt to wear to her first visit to the Bronze?

*Scenes in the caves: very cheesy. But the Master is kinda scary looking and the humor helps because it says "yes, we know it's cheesy looking. It's because our budget is small, not because we are stupid."

*I find it really interesting that they ended the episode with a Buffy in danger "to be continued." I'm sure that it was mostly because 45 minutes wasn't enough time for all the exposition and an actual plot, and it's best to end on a cliffhanger. But there's also something interesting about the fact that the show ends without us having not yet seen how powerful Buffy really is.

Thoughts on Childhood and Othering

Feministe guest blogger Roy has a post up ranting about people who say they hate children. His very good point is that making blanket statement about children themselves is othering and discriminating.

I wasn't terribly surprised to see this argument pop up in response:

My point is that childhood is a phase, not a permanent state. You cannot identify a permanent set of children and work to change their status, because they will not remain children. Children can’t be said to be discriminated against, because they aren’t permanent members of a group. Instead, they will inevitably leave that group and join the “other side.”

Pardon me while I digress for a bit.

Sophomore year of college the trustees hired a new President specifically to make financial changes. Needless to say we were not happy about a lot of them. One particular one was protested from the moment it was suggested. Candlelight vigils were held, letters were drafted and sent, etc. We were promised that this would not, in fact be one of the cuts.

Spring break comes around, and during that week - when everyone is off campus - that exact change was announced.

It's pretty typical of colleges to do this. I saw the same thing happen again at the University of Oregon when the President went back on his word and overturned a joint decision made by him and a committee of students and faculty. And he announced it during summer break. And they can get away with it because a significant percentage of the people they are screwing over changes about every four years.

Childhood, like being a college student, is a temporary stage, but the fact that children will one day be less powerless does not mean that they are not constantly screwed over the way college students are by their administrators. The temporariness of childhood is part of what makes abuse - both large and small - so heart-breakingly constant. It's certainly not a reason to fail to see a pattern in the abuse.

And the way our culture often treats children - especially once they've grown past the cute stage - is very much abuse.

My supervisor asked me just the other day if (in the near future when we have money for another person) I would consider dropping the children part of Youth specialist and concentrate just on teens.

I have to admit I was a little floored. I tend to feel like I'm drowning when I deal with the teens. I never liked being one, I never liked my peers when I was one, and I rarely feel like I understand them the way that I understand the younger children. And quite frankly the teens that come into the library drive me batshit insane on a regular basis.

But I've also noticed that most adults tend to treat teenagers as either oversized children or defective adults. Despite having been a teen at some point, there's often no respect or understanding for what they are going through, much praise less for their skills or compassion for their developmental limitations. We scorn teens for not yet being adults in a way that we rarely do with younger children.

The fact that todays teens will not be teens forever does not mean that teenagers are not among one of the most derided groups of people in modern society. Neither does it mean that their lack of power is not often used to abuse and neglect them.

It scares me and makes me very sad that I can considered to be a really good YA librarian just because I try to treat teens as people - and not defective adults or monstrous children.

Random Musings (when I should be asleep)

Why do so many people, during feminist arguments, bring up the idea that other people are going to "revoke their credentials" or some such nonsense?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that such people are invariably arguing that other people are taking feminism too far or misapplying it. And therefore, while these other people are perhaps still in the feminist club, they're obviously no longer in the "rational people" club.

Which just screams projection to me.

****

Maybe it's because I identified as feminist from a relatively young age....

Or maybe it's because I've never actually had anyone say that I'm not one. Quite the opposite, in fact, it's generally when I'm doing what I feel are completely normal things that people decide to call me a feminist as if it's a dirty word....

Or maybe it's because I've had relatively few problems (I think) understanding the difference between judging people and judging actions......

....but it's just such a foreign concept to me.

Feminism isn't a club you join, it's something you believe in. And if it's something you believe in, then it's something you believe in. People can't decide for you if you do or not.*

They can argue about whether your actions are feminist. They can argue about whether or not you are a "good" feminist. They can argue about whether they agree with your definition of feminism. They can even argue about whether or not you really believe the things you say you believe. But they can't decide for you whether you believe them or not.

We can't kick you out of the club** because there is no fucking club in the first place.

It's your choice to be a feminist or not. It's your job to define what that means. And the fact the other feminists disagree with you about that definition doesn't mean anything other than the obvious fact that different people believe different things.

Acting otherwise is just the same as acting as if there'd no difference between calling an action sexist, and calling the person who did the action to be completely against feminism and all things moral and good.

********

*Which is part of why I've disagree with those who say men can't be feminists. When it comes to organized political movements, there's some validity to that argument. But I think that, in general, men can be feminists and define feminism. I just don't think that non-feminists can define feminism. And I don't think that we can completely define feminism for each other. So - guys who try to argue that feminists are misguided or are really hurting women, etc. are obviously full of shit, and guys that fuck up but keep trying are feminists - like us, while guys that don't really bother trying tend to be sexist assholes by default - on account of the patriarchy and all that.

**As always, there are huge exceptions. I very much understand women who are part of other non-privileged groups taking exception to American feminism as a political movement and choosing not to align themselves with us or feeling (sadly, often rightly) as though their voices are not seen as important. However, it's generally white, middle class women who act as if the choice to be a feminist or not is beyond their control. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the women who reject feminism in favor of more radical or more inclusive political movements tend to make it very clear that it was as much their choice as it was a reaction to the choices that others have made. And they also make it very clear that their rejection is not of the basic idea of feminism, but of a political movement that does not allow these ideas to apply equally to all women.

Because this is Important

(and I'm too tired to write a real post)

Melissa's had some great - but heart-wrenching - posts lately about rape and how it's normalized through humor. In her most recent post on the subject she responds in the comments to someone who makes the tired old argument that:

If I were wasted and walked down a city street with $100 bills sticking out all of my pockets, then got jumped you’d call me, at the least, irresponsible wouldn’t you?

Having responded to such arguments at face value before, without really examining how false the core of the argument is, I want to highlight the Melissa's fantastic reply, which boils down to:

Relying on the “guy getting mugged” comparison tells us two things, however. One: It shows how deeply ingrained the notion of women’s bodies as property is. Comparing a woman’s genitals to a $100 bill visibly dangling out of a man’s pocket is laughable in both practical and intrinsic ways, and yet the association was cited with not a hint of awareness at its patent absurdity. Two: It illustrates how far removed you are from the real threat of rape. Invoking a mugging is evidently the closest thing you can imagine to being forcibly subjected to an assault on one’s sex organs. That must be a lovely world in which to live.

I will be stealing that the next time I get into that argument with someone.

Huh? (with almost spoilers)

Now that I'm all caught up on my Buffy comics. I just have one question:











How did The First manifest as you-know-who?

It's Not All About You

(A recent discussion made me think of the story that this post begins with. I've shared it in comments before, but I decided it deserved it's own post, so here goes.)

One of the interesting things about going to college is the experience of having friends who are in Psych 101 do experiments on you. It's really fun to try and guess what they are really about, because of course they almost never tell you until they are done, because that would mess up the experiment.

First-year at college a few friends of mine read a story to me and some other friends of ours and told us that there would be a memory test at the end. The story was about a high school kid arguing with his English teacher about his grade. When the story was done we were asked all sorts of questions about what had happened. We only got one question wrong each, and it was the same question.

"Was the teacher a man or a woman?"

We all said "woman"....

....but the story never said.

Because, this being a liberal all-women's college, the experiment was not a memory test at all, but a lesson in internalized sexism.

We all do it. All of it. The sexism, the racism, the homophobia, you name it. If it exists, we pretty much all do it. It doesn't matter if we are male or female, gay or straight, rich or poor, black or white or any other color, we all do it. The only way to stop doing it is to recognize it and name it every time you see it. And even then, really, you never actually stop doing it, you just do it less.

We usually don't mean it. We usually don't see it. And we definitely usually don't mean to be unfair or cruel. But we all do it. And it usually is. Even if we don't see it. Especially when we don't see it.

So when you hear someone toss around terms like "male gaze", "the patriarchy," or "colonizing" or when someone says that something is sexist, racist, homophobic, classist, etc. remember that they may not talking about you any more or less than they are talking about themselves.

Drive-by Parenting - Special Bookstore Edition!

Now normally, I despise drive-by parenting. However, being no less of a hypocrite than everyone else, I am always ecstatic when I have an opportunity to engage in it and get away with it. (Except for the whole "kids being in danger" part that usually prompts it.)

I was meandering around in the bookstore the other night picking up massively huge piles of books that kids had left on the floor, on chairs, on the completely wrong display, in the so very obviously wrong section and from pretty much everywhere except a place where people would not accidentally step on it, when I heard some kid yelling something.

Now, kids yell all the time, so I automatically tuned it out. Until I realized that he was calling for someone. Since the kid looked to be about four and he'd been yelling for a good while already, this wasn't a good thing. So I stopped him and asked him if he was lost, was he looking for someone, was he with his parents....

Cute Kid: "Yeth. I'm looking for my thithter."

Me: (not his parents?) Your sister? What does she look like?

CK: (silence)

Me: How old is she?

CK: Six.

Me (SIX!!!!!! Fantastic, now I have missing parents and a missing kid and I can't do a Code Adam on the six-year old bc there is no way this kid is going to be able to give me a description. Shit.) How old are you?

CK: Five. I need my thithter.

Me: Well, why don't we go look for her ok? Let's look around the kid's section first , maybe you just missed her.

CK: (takes my hand) I already looked.

Me: Well, why don't we just look again. If we don't find her in here, we'll look around the rest of the store.

We found her just as we were about to leave the kid's section - she came walking back from having gone to the bathroom. On the other side of the store. Apparently alone.

Me: How old are you?

CK's Sister: Six.

CK: I told you that!

Me: Do you know where your parents are?

CKS: In here.

Me: Well, why don't we go find them.

So, I start walking around the store, a kid in each hand. We get about 15 feet from the kid's section when the kids turn around and I see this guy walking up all upset and confused. He tells me they're his kids. (Thankfully, it's usually really easy to tell if the people who say they are the parents are the parents bc of the way the kids act.)

I start to tell him that his kids were alone in the kid's section and that he needs to stay close to them and he cuts me off and says he was nearby.

I tell him that his son was yelling for his older sister for quite a while and he explains that he's partly deaf in one ear.

Me: All the more reason to keep them close to you.

I barely manage to not add "jackass" - partly cuz he looked so confused.

On that note, a few rules for parents, since with summer approaching, I predict that reminders will become necessary more frequently:

1) We are not a baby-sitting service.

2) If your kids do not behave, I will tell them to do so.

3) How nicely I ask them to do so will depend on their age. I will use my substitute voice on 12 year-olds that are doing things that preschoolers know are wrong.

4) I won't care that you are sitting right there.

5) Unless your kid is old enough to stay home alone, you had damn well better be sitting right there. And too distracted by your other children to have had a chance to tell the kid stepping on the books to stop doing so.

6) If you are not sitting right there, I will find you and tell you that your child needs watching. Even if they are fourteen. And do not argue with me about this one. My bosses will not fire me for making sure that your children are not destroying the store and/or are not kidnapped. They probably won't even care if I'm snippy with you when I tell you to do your damn job.

7) The children's section is not a playground. Do not let your children play tag or use the very unstable benches as launching pads. (Dancing on the stage, is however, permitted. Even if it's cuteness is directly disproportional to how aggravating everyone else has been that day.)

8) If you disobey these rules - even after I've explained them to you - I will kick you and your children out. The $3.99 you were going to spend on a Spider-Man 3 or Disney Princess paperback is worth losing if it means the company avoids a lawsuit from your kid cracking his or her head open.

Special note:

Your twelve year old is not in really in any danger of being carried off, so stop hovering. Older kids tend to kick up a fuss if people they don't know try to make them do stuff. So (except for semi-private places like the restrooms) your kid is just fine as long as you and he/she stay within earshot or within agreed upon areas.

Extra special note:

Your five -year old is in danger of being carried off, so keep him or her within your sight, not just within earshot. It's not statistically likely, but bad people who want to hurt kids know where to find kids - and our store is one of them. And until they are around seven or so, most (non-shy) kids will go along with any adult who seems friendly. Especially in public places with lots of strangers.