And Now For Something Serious - and Long

Just warn you all - the title wasn't meant sarcastically.

There's discussion going on over at Alas about rape. (yeah, ok, so, a little sarcasm there) The initial post was mostly about Restorative Justice, which is interesting and all, but what sucked me in was the discussion about what constitutes rape.

Two possible scenarios that are examples of not good behavior, but don't meet the legal definition of rape, were brought up. The first is in the post itself and is essentially the story of a teen girl "giving in" to her (hopefully) teen boyfriend, partly because they're alone, she has no car, and she lied to her parents about where she was, so her options for leaving are limited and carry a lot of risk. The second one was a short description of a woman who "gives in" to her boss's advances because she fears she'll lose her job.

Sailorman replies to the second with:

... the “acceptable” option was for her to quit and sue under the various acts and statutes preventing sexual harassment. Then she’d get her job back, or get paid, and he’d get fire/fined/what have you.

Nobody thinks she should “suck it up” and have SEX with him. Yuck. But if she elects not to use the alternative avenues, and decides to sleep with him because she doesn’t want to deal, it’s not rape. It’s BAD, and it’s punishable under more than one law, and it’s morally reprehensible. But it’s not legally coerced.

Now I'm going to assume that Sailorman meant "it's not illegally coerced" since he just said that it's not rape and illegally coerced sex and rape are synonymous.

While you are mulling that over - as well as the supposed absolute certainty that she 1) can afford to quit her job, 2) can manage to bring the case to trial 3) manages to win the case and 4) that this entire process is less of an ordeal than just sleeping with her boss a couple of times - I'm going to switch gears for a moment and pick on the 16 year old author I love to pick on.

so - be warned - spoilers ahead for Eragon

Although that's kinda like saying "warning: I'm going to give spoilers for Joseph Campbell's synopsis of the hero's journey, as well as some typical elements of modern fantasy!"

But seriously.

I was thinking about that stupid scene the other day and I realized why it's always bugged me so much. It's not just that it's disturbing that the desire to own, er, I mean, rescue, a virginal maiden is ingrained in young men's psyche's at such a young age. It's not even just that it's frightening that it's so important that she be virginal and something he, and he alone, owns that Paolini would feel the need to insert sexual violence into a book in which sexual desire is fairly rare - just to show that she is both virginal and his.

The main problem is that Ayra is supposed to be a hero, but she is praised for a decidedly selfish and un-heroic act. In fact, she is considered worthy of being the object of Eragon's (and the reader's) affections by this very act. Tens of thousands of people are counting on her, an entire kingdom relies on her strength and wisdom; but she uses her last bit of energy, not for one last attempt to live so that she can return to the people who need her nor to make a probably unsuccessful attack on her nations foe, no, she uses it to save herself - sexually - for Eragon.

Now, technically, plotwise, she was just saving herself. But saving herself from what!?!? The woman had already been tortured and was described as being not just on death's doorstep, but straddling the threshold. Even if, for some weird reason, she could really only affect the guards in ways unhelpful to her escape, why not fight back, even if it's just one small punch? What did her actions really gain her, anyway? Are we under the impression that the guards just looked down at their crotch and said "Oh, well, it's not up for it today, guess we'll go back to playing cards."!?!?

Now, I can see lots of reasons why her choice made sense - but it wasn't a heroic choice. I'm sure she's a very nice person, but this should present a problem to her heroic status - not a leg up.

So why did she do it? Or rather, why did Paolini have her do it?

For the same reason Sailorman wrote

Nobody thinks she should “suck it up” and have SEX with him.

Well, why the hell not?

What if she has a dying parent or a sick kid relying on her? You'd expect a father to "suck it up" when it comes to a lot of crap, wouldn't you? To the point of risking his life, even. Isn't that what heroic father figures do all the time in the stories?

Yeah, yeah, this is real life, not the movies. But that's why I brought up Eragon. (see, there is a method to my madness) Women are supposed to scarifice everything for their loved ones as well, in the stories. Everything except their "purity."

(ok, so, um, spoilers forFirefly too.)

As uncomfortable as it is to watch, there is a part of me that loves the scene in Objects in Space, Firefly's last episode, where River calmly talks Kaylee through freeing the rest of the crew, despite the villian's threats of brutal rape if she tries to do so. Sexual violence is pervasive in mass media and women fighting back - and winning - is fairly uncommon, but it's even rarer to see women risking sexual violence to save others. Oh, they'll submit to it (ahem, see: Inara in the episode with the duel) - but they don't risk it.

Why not? Well, partly because "yes means yes and no means no." Except when it doesn't. What if yes means "yes, I'd rather you fuck me than endanger the life of my child" or "yes, I'd rather you fuck me than move my parents to a dodgy nursing home in their last days" or even just "yes, I'd rather you fuck me than get grounded and not be able to go on the trip to DC" or "yes, I'd rather you fuck me than than have to deal with finding a job in a crappy economy."

Talk about the fallacies of choice feminism at it's finest.

The question is, though, are such actions on the part of the person doing the fucking illegal, and if so, is it rape?

I wrote:

If it’s a crime to threaten or attempt to do it, why isn’t it a worse crime to actually do it? As I understand it, attempted extortion is different from actual extortion. Just like attempted murder is a different crime from all the different levels of murder.

So, if threatening someone’s job in order to get sexual “favors” (don’t you just love that term?) is sexual harrassment, why is “accepting” sexual “favors” as a result of threats (overt or otherwise) still only sexual harrassment? It may not be rape as we generally use the term, but it most definitely is not sexual harrassment as we generally use the term, either.

To answer my own question: "Because Paolini wrote that even heroines avoid rape at all cost, to the point of endangering the people they are supposed to protect."

In other words, yes always means yes. You can't criminally coerce a yes except through physical threats, because nothing short of death is worse than real rape, not even torture - and even the death part is debatable. If she said yes, she must have been at least ok with it, so it's only bad in the abstract, like attempted crimes. Still punishable behavior on his part, but no trauma or victimhood on her end. No more than someone only threated with a crime, anyway, probably less, really.

The real commonality between Sailorman and Paolini is that they both deny women's ablity to be heroic when sex is involved, although they would probably disagree with my assessment. In a lot of ways, going through the ordeal of a sexual harrassment lawsuit is a heroic act (that is, after all, how they were able to make a movie about the first big lawsuit). But Sailorman denies this fact by assuming that not having sex is always the easier choice. I'm all for people being heroic, but I think it's ridiculous to make heroism a requirement for being a "real" victim of a crime. I think it's especially silly of a country whose Good Samaritan Laws exist to protect would-be heros from lawsuits, rather than anti-heros from criminal prosecution, to do so.

Can you think of a better way to cut down on sexual harrassment than to make harrassers guilty of an even more serious crime if she does ever say yes?

And can you think of a worse way to combatt sexual harrassment than for society to almost always see no crime at all if she does ever say yes, no matter the reason why?

If my giving money to an extortionist solidifies his crime, saying "yes" to sex with a sexual harrasser should do the same - not the opposite. If I can give someone money, and still be a victim of blackmail - without any physical threats involved - then I should also be able to say "yes" to sex and still be considered a rape victim, even in the absence of physical threats. It may be a lesser degree of rape, just as we have different degrees of murder, but it's still rape.

Newsflash: Focus on the Family Unaware of the Power of Alliteration

or irony...or something.

From a cool librarian's blog that I just discovered comes this article from Family News: In Focus.

In it Phil Burress with Citizens for Community Values accuses the ALA of "trying to censor those who exercise their free speech rights and say that there are books in the library that should not be available to children."

Like many people these days, Mr. Burgess is unaware of the difference between the verbs "censor" and "criticise." Well, I guess they both start with C's.

I'm not quite sure where the confusion between "say" and "do things" comes from, though. Perhaps he just believes so strongly in the power of words that he thinks that making a formal challenge is no more significant of an action than stating an opinion out loud.

Focus on the Family makes a point of saying that while "[f]our hundred books were challenged in 2005. None were banned," and that "hundreds of books that have been challenged...not banned."

Yet somehow Josh Montez, the author of the article, misses the significance of the not only the verb "tried" (as in "tried to ban") in the ALA's radio spot (despite quoting the entire thing) but also the fact that "banned" and "books" both begin with B's.

Maybe the book that covered alliteration and grammar was "challenged" and moved to the adult section of Mr. Montez's and Mr. Burgess's hometown library.





And yes, I'm completely aware of the irony of posting something critiquing censorship directly after publishing random mumblings in favor of burning books.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

This is What it Has Come To

Tails, Harry Potter, Narnia, even The Giving Tree - they're all toast.

Everyone will just have to go buy their Christmas gifts somewhere else because they are all going up, up, away in a puff of smoke.

There are just too many of them. They are going to eat me alive!

They must be destroyed.




Ok, well, maybe I'll save some copies of Little Women and The Princess and the Goblin. But nothing else! Not even that new one about the chicken crossing the road.

simargl_wings is cool

that is all

Adonis (and his sidekick Cupid) to the Rescue!

Adonis here...

and me, Cupid, too!

....we've been reading a lot lately about how men just aren't as pretty as women, women are just naturally sexier, blah blah, blah. And we're starting to get damn pissed off about about it.

yeah!

I mean, I know we don't have any of those cool new powers like the X-men...

Please, laser eyes? I'd like to see Cyclops try and go up against the real Cylops...

So why should you listen to us, right? We're only ancient gods after all.

or Zeus!

But I, for one, am sick and tired of all you mere mortals trying your hardest to ignore the obvious truth that men's bodies are a thing of beauty....

you're all just jealous 'cause you know you can't compare to us.

...so I'm putting you all on notice: start behaving or BEWARE MY WRATH!








(um..Adonis...that was soooo not scary)

(What?)

(You need to do smething. You know, demonstrate your powers...)

(Oh, ok.)

(Ahem) So that you may know to tremble before me, I will give you just a small taste of what you deserve for such insolence...

this'll be good....
:
...and since sexy, beautiful men seems to be what you fear most, I give you


NAVEEN ANDREWS!!!!!!

(um...)

(What?)

(I don't think that's an improvement...)

(Have you seen the way fanboys react to the idea of the female gaze...much less the gaze of the gay male?)

(um...)

(It'll work, trust me.)

(Whatever you say, boss. I'm just the sidekick after all.)

Some Advice for Authors (and Future Authors)

Please do not go into a bookstore between mid September and the end of October to check up on the sales floor stock of your newly released book. Unless, perhaps, you are Eric Carle or Nora Roberts, but probably not even then.

If you cannot find your book, please do not walk up to the information desk and ask the nice employee there to find your book - all the while pretending to be a customer and not the author of said book. The employee in question is currently trying to do the work of two people at once because corporate is full of jackasses who recently took all the extra hours the store had saved up for Christmas. Consequently, the managers have been running the increasingly busier store you are now in on a skeleton crew for the last few weeks - and they need to continue doing so until November. The employee in front of you, and his or her manager, would much rather spend the five minutes you are sucking up either helping an actual customer or getting more books out onto the floor.

If you cannot refrain from doing this, do not be surprised if stacks of books "accidentally" fall onto - or maybe just near - you. It won't be on purpose, I swear. Really, it's just that we've realized you are right and that we need to make getting all our new books onto the sales floor our number one priority - right after customer service, ringing up customers, cleaning the bathrooms, and, of course, dealing with local authors. Unfortunately, just about everyone's books come out between September and November. That's when we get our Christmas overstock in as well. It's also when the always brilliant corporate big-wigs decide they are going to steal our store managers for a week for their annual retreat. When you are trying to get hundreds of boxes filled with thousands of books out onto the sales floor per day* - all while multi-tasking, because, well, I suppose the customers should be helped every once in a while - accidents are bound to happen with all that rushing about.

One final note....

To the nice, but slightly annoying author who came into RandomCity B&N, CA the other day and got me at the information desk: don't take it personally, but if I haven't managed to find the time to get the brand-new pop-up book by the author of Where the Wild Things Are out from under a stack of books in the receiving room (a stack of books, by the way, that not only covers an entire work table and then some, but is also taller than I am*) and out onto the floor, despite several customer requests, I really don't give a shit that your new mass market is still sitting on the top of one of carts in the back.




*ok, I lied, one more note: these are not exaggerations

My Grandma Rocks!

Thanks to her I now have a nearly new monitor that works. So, not only will it be easier to do my homework, but I may even begin posting regularly again.

Let's hear it for the pack rat/Depression Era mentality that says you should never throw anything out that works (or can be fixed) - even if you no longer need it. Woohoo!

Losing Libby

I picked up a copy of Lost: Season 2 and the latest Entertainment Weekly recently in order to catch up in time for the season premiere next Wednesday.

(warning, serious season 2 spoilers follow)




In Entertainment Weekly Stephen King wrote that:

If you didn't see Libby's death coming, join the club. Neither did I. Because, I'd argue, neither did the producers

Sadly enough, I think Stevie may be right about the producers not seeing Libby's death coming. I, however saw it the moment she and Hurley started getting close. I just wasn't expecting it so soon - I figured they'd wait until after they explained her stay in the mental ward.

I first saw season 1 of Lost last year right before season 2 began. I really liked it; partly because it was well written and partly because it had interesting, strong, female characters. However, I had a hard time going from watching all the episodes all in a row on dvd to waiting from week to week. Plus it clashed with Veronica Mars. So I hadn't see any but the first few episodes of season 2 until a few weeks ago.

I'm still curious about what is going to happen this season, so I'll likely at least try to follow it, but I must say I was really disapointed with the second season in terms of the writers/producers treatment of female characters.

Yeah, yeah, I should have seen this coming. It's not as if the first season was a fantastic tribute to women and feminism, and this is J. J. Abrams, after all. But still. I guess I just saw the glass as half full - but failed to notice the sinking waterline.

Libby is the very epitome of the WIR phenomenom. Abrams and Linderlof may not have created her just to kill her off, but she was created (or at least given a more prominent spot) with the express purpose of furthuring Hurley's character development. She was never important in her own right, only as a part of Hurley's life. The pairing was also odd from the beginning. Not because she was "hot" and he's fat, but in the fact that the writers made it feel even more forced than it needed to be by making it clear that this was mostly about the "nice guy" getting the "hot girl" instead of choosing to focus on the more likely story of two supposedly dissimilar people bonding in the face of extreme circumstances. It was more important to show Hurley's insecurities than it was to give us any solid reasons for why Libby liked Hurley and the focus was more on his ineptness when it came to romance than it was on their growing relationship. Unlike other pairings/triangles/circles on the show, Libby and Hurley were never equal partners when it came to how the writers treated their role in the relationship.

And so, when Abrams and Linderlof were looking for some way to make the season ending that much more shocking, she was the obvious choice. Not only was she expendable, but she was also an ill-fitting peice of the puzzle and her murder would create more "character development" for Hurley. The fact that the obviousness of the choice was less than obvious to a seasoned writer like King speaks to the blindness of privilege, not the orginality of Abrams and Linderlof.

The fact that we never got the expected confession from Libby made the relationship even more about him and even less about them and makes me angry rather than just annoyed and dissapointed.

The fact that the writers probably completely missed the irony of having an emotional prop character say to Hurley, merely an episode before her death, that it was insulting of him to suggest that everyone else may simply be figments of his imagination created to meet his emotional needs - well, that's just completely maddening.

So, in homage both Libby and the orginal WIR list, here is the Lost Body Count:

Men

Steve (or was it Scott?)*

Leslie the science teacher*

Boone

Christopher

fake Sawyer

Sawyer's Dad

US Marshal*

guy that flies into the engine*

Tom

Kate's "step"dad

Boone and Shannon's Dad

Sayid's friend

Hurley's grandfather

the guy that shot Ana Lucia

Mr. Eko's brother

countless people killed by Mr. Eko

window washing guy

the two Others Mr. Eko killed*

Ethan*

guard at Iraqi prison

drug runner

Pilot*

Goodwin* (how could I not remember Goodwin?)

Women

Joanna*

Sawyer's Mom

Shannon

Libby

Ana Lucia

Diane

countless people killed by Mr. Eko

Susan

Cindy* (or was she simply taken?)



*single episode characters/characters with no real screen time

characters in flashbacks in italics

(feel free to let me know if my count is wrong)



A few things stand out:

1) Definitely more men than women, but the situation reverses if you stick to just multiple season characters that are (er, were) on the island. Which is typical of the WIR phenomenom. It's not so much that more bodies are female (in fact the opposite is true because more characters period are male), but that women are more likely to die than men and they are more likely to exist mainly as emotional props.

2) Two of the dead women that were not main island characters were created so that main characters could attempt to save them. While many of the men who died in flashbacks did so in order to create emotional baggage for main characters, none of them were characters created to be saved. (the guy Jack tried to operate on doesn't count 'cause Jack was saving him for his daughter, not for his sake)

3) A large number of the men killed in flashbacks were fathers. As much as I'd like to make jokes about Daddy Issues, the writers already made it for me when they came up with the title "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues", and besides, it really has more to to with the process of adulthood than personal problems. In the original Little Red Riding Hood, the grandmother stayed dead. In other words, they're fathers because the characters and writers are mostly men, not because dads are bad and moms are good.

4) Several of the men who died in flashbacks were murdered by main characters. They were all bad people (with the exception of Mr. Eko's crimes), but their murders were not justified. Only one woman was murdered (excepting women killed in war), and her murderer committed suicide immediately after. 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. And murder, not accidental death, is what the original WIR was really about.

One thing J. J. Abrams does do a better job than most of is creating male characters to be used as emotional props; however, he tends to focus on fathers and not mothers (even when the character is female) and still usually falls back on female characters as emotional props even when it's not about parents. The fiance in the bathtub on Alias was a notable exception; but, well, it was a notable exception, not the norm.

I loved the first season of Alias, but it quickly went downhill for me. I had hoped that Lost would turn out better, but now I'm not so sure.

If the buzz I hear is even remotely true, I probably should have just bought Battlestar Galactica instead.

edited because it's Linderlof and Abrams - not Linderhof and Abrahms, to add names to the list, and to include the quote from Libby

Another Six Weeks of Winter?

After several months of avoiding such addicting activities as blogging and reading When Fangirls Attack - because I am easily distracted and really needed to spend the time looking for a new job - I decided to peek out of my hole for a moment.

One of the first things I found was this.

I feel like a groundhog that just saw her shadow on Groundhog's Day.

(WTF is wrong with people anyway!?!?)

Sorry if I hide back in my hole for a while. I know - I'm a coward and totally lacking in solidarity at the moment. But what with job hunting, planning a long road trip, applying for graduate school, and having to borrow other people's computers because my monitor finally died, it's not really easy to find the time to do this anyway. I'll try to crawl back out of hibernation one of these days.

Look Sharp Me Mateys: There Be Spoilers Ahead!

I have decided that:

1) The final scene with the Kraken is a total shout-out to the Sarlacc - for obvious reasons

2) It's very sad that so few people have read or even seen Treaure Island - as evidenced by the occasional person admitting that they didn't get the whole black mark thing at first.

3) Luke is going to get the girl this time - or heads will roll!

4) All those critics are going to eat it in another ten years, just like they did with Empire. I'm just not sure how much crow they'll have to eat.

5) The whole cannibals storyline was only slightly less offensive than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

6) This series will have (very tiny) spoilers for Pirate's 3 inasmuch as it seems to be about how Jack became a pirate and how he first heard about the Aztec gold.

7) Elizabeth is not sad at the end of the movie because she thought she made the wrong choice (or decided she loved Jack more), she didn't tie Jack up to save herself, and she has so remained true to character. She has always been fascinated by pirates and has always been one at heart plus one of the first lines in the first movie is when her father tells her to watch over Will; every choice she's made in the movies has been made with that goal in mind.

8) All the people who are confused about Elizabeth's actions need to read House of Mirth and A Doll's House. In other words, Elizabeth is not confused about who she loves, but what she wants - not the same thing. She's also quite willing to sacrifice herself and her honor for the people she loves. She sacrificed Jack and her honor for Will's life, and now she's expects to have to sacrifice her hopes and Will's love for Jack's life.

9) The whole water wheel thing was a bit much. Not because it was too long, but because it was really hard to follow. Maybe repeated viewing will help. (checks gift card for Krikorian)

10) "Where's the rum?" = "I have a bad feeling about this."

11) "Savvy?" = "May the force be with you."

12) Do you know how I know Luke's going to get the girl this time? Because Jack and Elizabeth didn't kiss during the whole "my hands are dirty" scene. At the very least the writers would have given us more time to adjust.

13) Besides - Jack settling on one woman? Please.

14) Ok, well, considering #8, Will might not get the girl either. I might be ok with that. But I don't think most of America would be, so he probably is. Going to get her, I mean.

15) When we first see everyone in Pirates 3 one or more of the characters will be in disguise.

16) Davy Jones will ultimately help to break the East India Company's hold over the Kraken.

17) I am a freakin' idiot because it took me this long to realize that Pintel and Ragetti are R2-D2 and C-3PO

18) Jack became a pirate because he had a bad run in with the East India Company. (yeah, I know they already gave that one away)

19) Will will be much more interesting in the final chapter - or I'm going to be very mad.

20) Pirates 3 will be absolutely fantastic! (knock on wood)

Oh Yes It Is!

I seem to be having problems posting to monkeycrackmary's journal, so I'm replying to this entry here.

This is freakin' AWESOME.

And anyone who says otherwise will have to walk to plank!

I just finished this today during lunch - look for a review here later this week!

From Now On, I'm Just Handing Out Copies of "Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook"

OMG - yes! times, like, a thousand.

I will go through the following conversation at least once a day - often several times a day on the weekend:

"I need a book for a boy."

Sometimes the parent will go ahead and add the age without my having to ask - but they rarely leave off the gender.

"What grade is he in?"

"He's six."

If the child is standing beside the parent, he or she will usually simply gesture to the child. Because booksellers, like animators, can tell not only the ages of children, but their reading level as well, just by standing in their presence.

This is, of course, where I want to say "First of all, that isn't what I asked, and secondly, I hate recommending books to six year-olds through their parents, so I'm afraid you'll have to come back either with your kid or after the next shift starts."

Instead I say:

"What grade is he in?"

"First."

I love the parents who will still simply say "first grade" betwen the end of June and the beginning of September. Are they aware their child is not in school at the moment? (Yeah, yeah, we have year-round schools, but the majority are still on traditional schedules - it's dangerous to assume that their kid is one of the few who have already begun the new year.)

"Is he starting first, or leaving first grade?"

"Starting"

(Just my luck.)

"Is he reading already?"

"Yes."

(Ok, so obviously, I need to stop asking so many yes or no questions. I'm a bit afraid anything more complicated mught scare them away, though.)

"What kind of book are you looking for?"

I really don't know why I ask this question - they pretty much never have an answer.

"Do you want a book for him to read - or for you to read to him?"

"Oh - for him to read."

Again, I don't know why I ask this question, because they all give the same answer. Does anyone continue reading to their child past age five? Parents, a word of advice: my mother is a first grade teacher and one of her biggest regrets is not reading aloud to us after we learned to read. I really hope you won't have the same regret and that it's just that you have all kinds of cool read aloud books picked out already.

"How well is he reading?"

"He's at a level 1 / level 16 / level (insert random meaningless number here)."

Like this actually tells me anything - besides the fact that you bother to show up for parent-teacher conferences. Every single damn school has pretty much their own system and every single publisher has their owm system as well. I wasn't asking for a lottery number, I was asking for actual information. Can he barely read "cat" or can he manage a whole chapter in one sitting? Does he understand only basic phonics or can he manage some of the more complicated stuff? Does he still need to sound everything out or does he have a decent number of sight words stored in his head?

After asking the same question again and again in various forms ("What is he reading at school?" "Which reading group is he in?") we finally determine his approximate reading level and I take the parent to the Beginning Readers section and point out the right level of books for the main publishers and warn him or her that all the publishers use different systems, so a DK Readers level 1 will be very different from An I Can Read level 1.

"So what's good for a boy?

"Well, what does he like?"

About half the time the parents will actually have a decent answer, but half the time they really don't - and that's just very, very sad.

And then - even when they do have an answer, it's often something that ends up not being helpful.

"He likes karate."

Yeah...there's just such a huge demand for karate books for kids that are able to read "cat", but still struggle with "balloon". Did I mention that I hate recommending books to six-year-olds through their parents?

Mystery!

I found a scrap with the name of my old friend and roomate written on it just lying amid the mess on our coffee table - along with a a phone number. We haven't spoken in years (mostly my fault) and the area code is for a state that, last I heard, she wasn't living in.

No one is around to ask how it this scrap of paper found it's way on our coffe table! Is it myEm? Is it a different Em? Why is she trying to contanct me now? Is she trying to contact me now?

Grr...it's a good thing I'm off to see Pirates, I need something else to obssess about or I'll go crazy.

Color Blind vs. Civil Rights Activism

Tekanji is right, this is a must read.

What Teen Angst Novel Are You?

(quiz created by E. Lockhart - hat tip to "he who collects last words")

I am Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

Which is really funny because Catcher in the Rye, like Charlotte's Web, is one of those rare kid/teen classics that I've never actually read.

I own a copy - because I thought it was really sad that I had never read it. I planned on doing so....really.

I bought it just over a year ago now and I've never really been in the mood to read it.

Now I know why. It's me - and I find me rather boring most days.





(I am so bummed I wasn't cool enough to get Tithe.)

:)

because:

1) I went shopping today and I didn't have to pay for (all of) it because I got some gift cards for my birthday. Retail therapy works - when you're not the one footing the bill.

2) The award-winning John Green dropped off a comment the other day.

3) I discovered a site with Westmark fanfic the other night while rummaging through my SiteMeter stats.

4) Not only are there a handful of open positions for librarians in my area - but a couple specialize in children's books and reading programs!

5) Uglies is going to be a movie!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pirates, Gluttony, and Wenches

(Ed. note: I started writing this back in March, but got sidetracked. I thought it would be fun to revive it and polish it off in time for the opening of the new Pirates movie.)

My brother and I took his girlfriend to Disneyland this week. She had been to Disney World once before, but never Disneyland. The first and (almost) last ride we went on was Pirates of the Carribean.

It's always fun to go on Disneyland rides with people who have never been on them before. It's nice to remember what it was like when I was little and going to Disneyland meant going to Disneyland and not just riding the same fun but familiar rides for the ten billionth time. It's also interesting to see, on rides like Pirates, what newcomers notice and what they don't.

We talked a lot about how Disney alluded to the ride throughout the movie (it was on our minds already because Pirates will be closed soon for updates in conjunction with the new movies). For those of you who have never seen the movie and/or the ride: the screenwriters did an awesome job of using the ride as inspiration while not letting themselves be constrained by it. In fact, the stories mirror each other so well we're all more than a little worried about what they plan on doing to the ride. Aside from the issue of messing with a classic, how are they going to be able to change the ride without changing it so that no longer matches the first movie? (Ed. note:I've been on it since they made the changes, and I can tell you how they did it, but I don't want to print any spoilers for another few weeks at least.)

We also talked a little bit about the "pc" changes that happened in 1995. I always thought the changes were stupid. These are pirates - the whole point is that they are bad people, so how much sense does it make to have them act in a "pc" way? As we were riding past the auction the second time, though, the girlfriend made some disparaging comments about the appearance of the women being auctioned off and I suddenly had an epiphany.

For those of you that have never been on Pirates, the "controversial" bits were the auction and chase scenes that make up the pirates pillaging a captured town. The auction scene comes first and I must admit has always annoyed me a bit. It consists of about five women lined up for auction (yeah, right - like real pirates would bother) - supposedly for marriage (ha!) - and all in various states of distress. Some are almost pretty, some are not at all, most have their faces partly hidden. Two more women await buyers a little bit apart from the main line. The woman who is second in line to be auctioned off is a ravishing redhead (yes, just like the one that slaps Depp in the movie). She is preening as the pirates make catcalls. The first woman to be auctioned is a relatively nice looking but extremely fat lady who also stands preening as the pirates instead make fun of her and ask for the redhead. The chase scene is just around the bend and used to consist the new "husbands" chasing their "brides" - except for the fat lady, she is the one doing the chasing. Now, however, the chasees carry food, so supposedly that is what the chasers are after. It's ambigious whether the fat lady is simply protecting her property or is acting out the tired stereotype of the fat person with an absurdly insatiable appetite. The scenes are funny (and more than just the women or the fat lady gets made fun of) but they also rely on cruel, adolescent jokes.

I think the reason the "jokes" never bothered me too much when I was younger was because it was obvious the real "joke" was one the pirates - they were so busy being naughty that they never even noticed the town burning to the ground around them and trapping them inside. To a certain extent, I still think that's true. The fat lady's gluttony is the most obvious punchline, but it's the pirate's gluttony that deals the harshest "joke" of all.

So what's the problem? The problem is not that the ride creators showed pirate's being well, pirates. It's not even just that they made juvenile fat jokes. The problem is that by setting up the scenes the way they did, they used her and the other women to perpetuate the cruelest "joke" of all - one that is both dangerous and unneccesary to the storyline. The real "punchline" of the auction scene (and the original chase scene) is not that the fat lady is absurd, but that the weeping women are. The fat lady's size would not be as much of a punchline if she were a man (several of the pirates are rather stout themselves) and neither would the joke be as obvious if the redhead was either not there or not preening. Both the fat lady and the redhead are needed to set up the joke, because the joke is not really that the fat lady is pathetic, but that the weeping women don't know how good they have it. The main point of the scene is that women can protest otherwise all they want, but in the end what they all really want is a man. The women are not weeping because their situation is dire, but because they are not pretty enough to have the "power" the redhead has nor are they so desperate that they must admit the "truth" as the fat lady does. Those wenches just don't know how good they have it - they're lucky they aren't so ugly* that they have to chase men down instead of the other way around.

Just as they keep Song of the South hidden deep within their vault (even as they built a new ride based on it) Disney made the changes to Pirates to protect themselves from public opinion. By adding food to the chase scene, they fool themselves - and try to fool us - into thinking that it's now about food and property, not sex. By putting more of the focus on the fat lady, and less of the redhead (who has always been notably absent from the chase scene) they are trying to pretend that the "joke" is now - and perhaps was always - all about fat people, and not at all about sex and rape. Since the auction scene remains unchanged, the changes they did make only end up highlighting the sexism of the original creators and the end result makes it quite obvious that the changes weren't really made in order to make the ride more palatable to feminists. "PC" was just the cover story. All the changes do is make the reference to rape (and therefore sex) that much more ambigious - the scenes certainly aren't any more respectful of women than they ever were. The real intent was yo make the ride less frightening to overly protective parents - but they could hardly admit to that.

*because, after all, in this day and age, is anyone really considered uglier than a fat person?

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom: In Which Miss Lucinda Abernathy Begins to Understand the Difference Between Being Self-Sacrificing and Being a Doormat

Although I think Ampersand's question about feminists liking Y: the Last Man deserves a more lengthy answer than the pithy one I gave him (if for no other reason than because the title of my post suggested that it would contain such an answer) my thoughts on that subject are still as jumbled as they obviously were when I wrote the post in question.

So, instead, I give you one of the many reasons I read romance novels. Er, well, why I read Julia Quinn, anyway. The quote below is from the latter part of On the Way to the Wedding.

Our hero, Gregory, and heroine, Lucy, are sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons and discussing Lucy's upcoming marriage to another man, his bad luck wooing her best friend, and other trivialities.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He turned. Regarded her with a contemplative curiosity. "You say that quite frequently."

"I'm sorry?"

"Yes."

"I...I don't know." Her teeth ground together, and she felt quite tense. Uncomfortable. Why would he point out such a thing? "It's what I do," she said, and she said it firmly, because...Well, because. That ought to be enough of a reason.

He nodded. And that made her feel worse. "It's who I am," she added defensively, even though he had been agreeing with her, for heaven's sake. "I smooth things over and I make things right.'

And at that she hurled the last peice of bread to the ground.

His brows rose, and they both turned in unison to watch the ensuing chaos. "Well done," he murmured.

"I make the best of things," she said. "Always."

"It's a commendable trait," he said softly.

And that, somehow, made her angry. Really, truly, beastly angry. She didn't want to be commended for knowing how to settle for second-best. That was like winning the prize for the prettiest shoes in the footrace. Irrelevant and not the point.

"Where Are We Going Guys?"

I don't know how she picked up this particular phrasing, but my niece has been asking this nearly as often as "Where we at?" (my sister insists that Precocious know asks "Where are we at?" but I have yet to hear the "are" except when the question is phrased "Whose house are we at?")

Yes, Precocious and Cuddles are back in town (along with my sister and brother-in-law) and my goodness have they changed in just a few months. Little kids tend to do that, I guess.

Cuddles, now that he is old enough to recognize faces, is much more clingy (to Mommy) than he is cuddly (still adorable, though).

Precocious has been slightly less daring lately than the name might imply (largely owing to the fact that we decided it would be a good idea to take her on some of the dark rides in Fantasyland - turns out it really wasn't). I suppose though, that having such well developed fears may in and of itself be considered precocious after all, since it's much more of an early preschool thing than a toddler thing.

Needless to say, they have both been cracking me up and wearing me out.

Cuddles is terribly proud of his ability to throw things - even though he's still rather confused on the mechanics of the process. He thinks that biting the furniture is hilarious, probably because we have a hard time not laughing when we tell him to stop, and he makes funny faces a lot. I think he thinks they sorta go hand in hand with talking - I can't imagine where he would have picked that idea up.

Precocious currently thinks that flies are the funniest things in the entire world. Don't ask me why. She also spent most of one evening running around my grandmother's house yelling "All aboard the circus train!" again and again and again. Yes, Disneyland was a big hit - despite not liking Pinnochio at all and becoming quite hysterical when Mommy and Daddy got in line for Pirates.

I should also warn the world that she is already quite the negotiator. When my parents were passing out gifts, she explained to us that she should get the bigger (stuffed) puppy and not Cuddles, because she's the big girl. When that didn't work she informed all of us that she and Cuddles had decided to trade. Earlier that same day she tried to convince me that the butterflies we were looking for lived a few houses down - directly after I had explained that we had to stay in great-grandma's front yard.

Silly, silly kids.

Why "The Last Man"?

(c'mon - someone had to to make that pun)

Yeah, so, I guess I ought to knock off a few of those things on my to do list.

Let's start with the one that will get me lots comments. (yeah, right.)

Y: The Last Man roxxx!!!!!! Ok, well, not so much. But it's amusing. Er....at least, issues 1-5 and 37-42 are anyway. The rest may be as well, but I haven't read them yet. (so...I may be revising my opinion later on)

The premise is, of course, idiotic. It is assumed to be every (hetero) man's fantasy (all the women in the world to myself mwahahaha...) and what every idiot assumes is every feminist's fantasy (no more men - almost, anyway - let's throw a party!). For some reason this comic is supposed to appeal to women, and despite the fact that I actually do like it, I have no idea why people assume that I would.

Very little possibility of beefcake? check

Leading female characters that are only leading because there are no men to take their rightful place as leaders? check

A storyline that manages to be all about men (especially one in particular) even though all but two of the characters are female? check

"Nice guy" character being chased by feminazi's, protected by la femme Nikita in dreadlocks, and occasionally sparing time from his busy schedule of tracking down his girlfriend (oh, sorry, fiance) and saving the world by his mere existence to put the womenfolk in their place? check

Remind me again why women are supposed to like this?

Remind me again why I ever broke down and picked this up?

Oh, yeah, because it's written by Brian K. Vaughan.

If you haven't ever read anything else by Vaughan - and I'll admit Runaways and a few issues of Ex Machina is pretty much all I've read - then I should probably tell you that he and Joss Whedon are mutual fans of each other's work. Which has you either suddenly intrigued or rolling your eyes. I most definitely fall into the former group.

When I saw how Vaughan handled the practically all-female Runaways, I started to wonder if maybe Y wasn't so bad after all. Every time Gertrude opened her mouth, it became that much harder to imagine Y as the completely sucky comic I had presumed it to be.

So, I picked up the first trade paperback, and found it both surprisingly good and predictably bad.

Y: the Last Man is not an interesting look at what the world would be like without (almost any) men; it can be rather annoying when it comes to that. (The Washington Monument? Seriously, Brian. I, personally, would end up parking myself in front of the statue of Lincoln and bawling my eyes out; I would not be lighting candles in front of a big phallus.) It is, however, an entertaining (and at times infuriating) look into the mind of a feminist leaning man in a misogynist world. Y: the Last Man is not really about women at all. At most it is about Yorick's/Vaughan's perception of women and his struggle to be fair and respectful of women in a world that pushes him not to be.

Franny at So So Silver Age wrote:

Ultimately, Vaughan is using the unmanned scenario to explore manhood and masculinity through a character who is decidedly not the American ideal superdude, who is a composite of anxious shortcomings thrust from being a guy to not just being a man but the man. And ultimately, it serves feminist purposes to reevaluate and reflect on the meaning of masculinity.

I think she has it exactly right and that this is the underlying and unspoken reason why people think women would be more interested in this comic than men: men aren't supposed to question these things (but all those feminists secretly wish they were men, right?)

When we are first introduced to Yorick he is practicing his escape artist skills. It's obvious - anvil sized obvious - that this is meant to foreshadow future events: in the near future he will be constantly hunted and must constantly escape capture. Throughout the story, pretty much everyone wants to tell him what to do. Those that don't usually simply don't bother telling, they just do.

I suspect it is also meant to by symbolic of Yorick's attempts to escape the constraints of gender - his struggle throughout the story is not just to escape physical capture but to resist being defined solely by his biology. His most valuable asset to society is his ability to help create the next generation (not that way - get your mind out of the gutter). He understands this and generally agrees that this needs to be his number one priority. He is often frustrated however, with the fact that he no longer matters as an individual - to everyone fighting over him he is an object, really. He spends much of his time trying to contact his girlfriend and is a constant advocate for the idea of romantic love, the importance of personal relationships, and the validity of emotions.

Of, course, Yorick being an escape artist is also a nice plot device; it makes it hard for people to keep him locked up - which would have made the story either really boring or forced Vaughan to focus on other characters. If it was possible to keep Yorick locked up, Vaughan might have actually had to write about a world run by women. Instead, he gets to write about about a man trapped in a world run by women.

Y: the Last Man does not turn the world on it's head by creating a world in which women fill men's shoes, it turns the world on it's head by putting a man in a traditionally feminine role. Sometimes the story shifts and it becomes the usual, annoying "nice, average guy searching for the perfect woman" but most of the time Yorick's story fits very nicely into the "fiesty heroine who is being forced to marry for the sake of the family reputation/younger siblings/war torn kingdom, but believes in true love anyway" cliche that pops up again and again in Romance novels. He's even got the taciturn bodyguard, the emotionally cut-off elder sibling who starts out as a hinderance but later becomes an ally, and the whole "physically weak but usefully clever" thing going for him.

Which explains why I like it: I read Romance novels. I'm not completely sure why everyone else is so into it, though.

I also find it odd but interesting that so much of the buzz about the book centers on not only it's gimmicky premise but on the Amazons - and the idea that they are stand-ins for radical feminists. With so many other examples of strong - feminist even - women in the series, it seems quite obvious to me that, in this world without men, they are meant to represent the unapologetic violence that men are supposed to embrace, not Andrea Dworkin and every woman who fails who disown everything she says. They are more than Rush Limbaugh's fictional feminanzi's brought to life, even if Vaughan has trouble shaking such stereotypes. Despite being women, they are "real men" who do what needs to be done and respond to heartache with destruction and anger, not tears. They understand that violence is needed and that the rest of the world "can't handle the truth." In some sense this is meant to be commentary on the human condition and the not so big differences between men and women. Mostly though, they are there to provide a foil for Yorick and create scenarios where he has to choose or reject violence.

It seems quite normal to me that a group like the Amazons would exist; anger is one of the stages of grief, after all. However, it also seems really abnormal that there wouldn't be other radical groups: ones that claim that the end is here and women were found unworthy, ones that blame women, liberals, the church etc. for the disaster, and so on. To me, it's the fact that such groups are almost non-existent in his world and the apparent focus on the Amazons that is troubling, not the mere existence of the Amazons alone - or even any of the actual interactions between Yorick and the Amazons (that I've seen). However, the Amazons exist and the religious fanatics don't because Vaughan sees the former as useful foils for Yorick, not because Vaughan thinks that feminists are evil, nasty, and out to get men. That doesn't mean his writing is any less flawed because of his lack of conscious intent, just that it's useful to keep that in mind when picking the story apart.

But, then, like I said, I met Gertrude first. It's hard to read a comic in which the fat, nerdy, cynic gets the hunk and think that the writer has it in for feminists.

(ps - don't worry about spoilers in the comments - I've obviously skipped ahead anyway.)

A Few Days Ago in the Backroom

Me: "Oooh...look! We got Backyardigans in!"

Co-Worker: "We got Madmartigan in?"

I spend the next few minutes giggling.

Co-Worker: "You're going to be thinking about that all night, aren't you?"

Today's Epiphany

After reading the ten billionth complaint about how X-Men 3 should have picked either The Cure or The Dark Pheonix storyline instead of trying to do both, then wondering for the ten billionth time how in the hell the writers/director/producers could manage not to see this, I realized exactly how this happened.

It's the Evita syndrome.

No, I'm not referring to Eva Peron herself, nor the movie really, and not Madonna either. I'm talking about the original musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

One of the fantastic things about going to a small, expensive, stuck-up, academically inclined, liberal arts college is that you get to take classes on weird but fun shit like "Musicals by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Stephen Sondheim" just because you feel like it - and still get actual credits for it. Ok, well, it was only one credit and it was an J-term (interim) class, but still - how many (non music majoring) UC students get to take interim classes where they study Sweeny Todd?

(Where was I again? Oh, right. Evita.)

It's even better, of course, when such classes are taken at a feminist-leaning women's college because then your professor isn't shy about pointing out the fact that Evita's biggest flaw is ALW's sexism - or the industry's, take your pick. Evita is supposed to be the story of Evita and Argentina. Or, rather, the story of Argentina told through Evita's experiences. However, ALW didn't think that a musical with a woman as the lead, rather than just a lead would work (for whatever reason). He didn't think her husband's character was really the right one to pull it off either, so he created Che, Antonio Banderas's character.

It should have been a good idea, actually. Che represented the working classes, Juan Peron the upper classes, and Eva Peron was the woman who fought her way from Che's world to Juan's. The problem is that Che's purpose was to take some of the focus off of Evita when he should have been simply used as a foil to highlight certain aspects of her character. So instead of an elegant story about class, corruption, and conflict, you get a schizophrenic mess that can't decide who the main protaganist really is.

X-Men 3 is the same kind of mess - it can't decide if it's setting up the younger generation to take over, dealing with the morality of a "cure" for something that may or may not be a disease, or the story of Jean Grey and why she is the way she is. It tries to do all of these and more and ends of doing none of them well.

It also suffers from the same underlying sexism - the belief that a woman (or a storyline centered around a female character) can't carry the movie.

100LittleDolls wrote:

I agree with others out there that the movie should have just been "the cure" storyline. A Dark Phoenix storyline is too big and should have had it's own flick.

I'd heard people say before that they should have picked one or the other, but if they'd stated which I'd missed it. The problem is, the powers that be probably felt that they couldn't do the cure storyline instead of the Dark Pheonix saga because Brian Singer's ending for X-Men 2 got fans all excited about the Dark Pheonix. (Damn you Brian for leaving before the trilogy was over! I have no idea if you would have been the best person to bring Dark Pheonix saga to the big screen, but you would have done so much better than the mess that ended up being made.)

Unfortunately, not only did all the new people have all their own pet ideas they wanted to use (and this was a big part of why we got the mess we did as well) but there aren't very many people in the movie business that think that a female lead can carry a movie the way a male lead can. So, no matter what, they would have been looking for another story to fill in the gaps of the one they were not capable of writing well- just like Andrew Lloyd Weber did back when he wrote Evita.

Et tu, Joss?

As much as I'm enjoying Astonishing X-Men - and just generally love Joss' work - I have to admit that Karen has a damn good point. (caution: spoilers there and below for Astonishing X-Men and Serenity)

I think it's quite evident that Joss has issues with adults and authority figures in general, but he does seem to have problems with adult women more than adult men on top of everything else. I think Karen is right that a lot of this is ingrained and unintentional. I also think it's the type of thing Joss was trying to allude to in his little speech about inequality eating at everyone's soul - but that still doesn't excuse it.

Kalinara once argued that women were stuck in refrigerators not because they were women, but because they weren't the main characters. I responded that it's more than that. Since male is the default gender, it's not just that male heros mean more female love interests, it means that women are less likely to be anything but love interests.

For Joss, it's not so much female characters as it is characters that exhibit traditionaly "feminine" characteristics while still retaining their confidence and authority that he tends to write off. It was Wash and Book that bit it in the movie, not Inara or Zoe. I have a feeling that a lot of this comes from the mysogynistic tricks people get taught as storytelling techniques. Somewhere I have a half-written and never posted rant that I started about the epiphany I had after watching the season finale of Criminal Minds: even when women make it all the way to secondary/co- hero, they are usually the obviously expendable characters - and I think that has to do with "feminine" characterstics being considered expendable.

It was obvious from the start of Lost* that Claire and Shannon were more vulnerable than Kate to the whims of the writers because they were both written as more "feminine." A part of this is due to all of these stories being action stories - but only part of it. Many of the story arcs have been about people stepping up and displaying survival skills they didn't realize they had - a character that starts out vulnerable need not end up that way, and not all vulnerable characters need to be female. Part of why Sun and Kim's stories are so interesting to watch is because both of them are vulnerable at times and strong at others. They not only love each other very much, they have learned how to rely on and support each other.

Joss has the kick-ass teen girl down. He also does a hell of a lot better job than most when it comes to treating women as people and writing about women who have relationships to each other and not just to men, but I do think Karen is right. Joss e really needs to find a way to write about strong, feminine adults without having to kill them off all the time.

PS

Betty says everything else that needs to be said over in the forums:

I think that Joss gets more than his fair share of criticism simply because he can support it. No one's going to bother spending more than five minutes on showing why, say Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire is problematic to feminists.

Alternately, he gets more than his fair share of criticism because he's not perfect, and he keeps on getting held up as the pinnacle of achievement by feminism in pop-culture. While Buffy is fabulous, I do hope that it's not the best thing feminism ever achieves in that medium. Onwards! Upwards!

*ahem - I should note that I've only seen the first third of the second season - so, sorry if what I'm writing doesn't make much sense in light of anything that happened after that point.

Things I Want to Write About But I Don't Have the Time (Yet)

Why I love my alma mater (inspired by Ragnell's post about joining the military and some of what's been going on at Girl Wonder.org)

My first impression of Gail Simone's Bird's of Prey. (short version: yes, I like it)

Why Y: The Last Man has me hooked despite the fact that when I first heard the premise I thought I was going to barf and I still have some serious issues with it. (hint: I'd be interpreting it completely differently if I hadn't read Runaways and met Gertrude first)

Misogyny in Disney's Pirate's of the Carribean ride - and why the changes actualy made it worse. (grrr..this one is half done and I really want to finish it in time for the release of the new movie)

Net Neutrality and how copyright issues got me reading blogs in the first place. (yeah...this was supposed to be done in time to actually attempt to raise awareness about the law being voted on today)

That really cute thing my niece did the other day.

Oh...and there was that summer reading thing.....and I have tons of ideas for this too.

Whedon's Words of Wisdom

A late edition of Wednesday Words of Wisdom

Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity; we need it to stand on this Earth as Men and Women. And the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it.

Go here to hear him say it himself.

A Tale of Two Customers

The Saturday before Father's Day

Customer 1

I'm running around getting stuff ready for the Clifford storytime that's starts in less than an hour, and I notice that the man sitting at the picnic table with his two preschoolers has put playdough in front of them - right on the actual table. I'm so distracted by this stupidity of this that I idiotically ask him to make sure the playdough is on something other than the actual table top - rather than asking him right away to pack it all up like I should have.

A few minutes later I walk by again, and not only is the playdough still on the table, it is also now, predictably enough, on the floor as well.

I apologize (because we wimmin-folk must always apologize before we ask the menfolk to do something they should have done to begin with - god, I hate it when I do that) and I tell him that I need him just to pack it up and save it for when they get home - like I should have done to begin with. I point out the fact that his kids are like, three and they are going to be messy no matter how well he supervises them.

He looks a little flustered and confused, but says ok. He promises to pick the mess on the floor up as well.

A few minutes later I walk by again, and the kids are still playing with the playdough. Daddy is sitting right beside them absorbed in whatever reading material he is currently browsing. I say - in a slightly firmer and more exasperated voice, that I really need him to pack it all up - now. I make a mental note that he has at least picked the huge chunks off the floor - but that I'll need to pick up all the little bits he missed once he leaves.

However, at this point the jackass starts to argue with me. Not in a threatening way - no, in a wonderfully passive-agressive way. After I respond to something he says by pointing out the little bits still on the floor, he practically feigns blindness and asks me to point out ever single tiny piece on the floor so that he doesn't miss it. Somebody obviously doesn't know how to function without Mommy around - and it ain't either of the kids. (Who, btw, are playing very nicely - they just happen to be so young that I doubt either of them has the motor control to be able to write their names legibly. Keeping 100% of the playdough within a confined space on a horizontal surface is beyond them both in terms of mental and physical development.)

I walk away and come back a few minutes later - and yet again the kids are still playing with the freaking playdough. I say, quite emphatically and visibly annoyed, that he needs to put the playdough away now. Daddy Dearest then proceeds to look up at his preschoolers, who happen to be 6 inches away from him, and say "I told you to put the playdough away." Um, yeah. You know, what, jackass? It's actually quite age appropriate for them to not follow directions when they don't feel like it. You, otoh....

I immediately make a beeline to my department manager who happens to both be in the kid's section at that exact moment and the manager in charge of the store for the next few hours, and I ask her to keep an eye on them and go talk to him if he doesn't start putting the damn playdough away in the next 30 seconds.

He doesn't , of course, so she does, and then he finally does.

A moment later, as I'm walking within spitting distance of him, Daddy Dearest stops me and asks what our policy is regarding things, like oh say, bringing playdough into the store. I say that our customers are welcome to come in and hang out, so long as whatever that are doing is neither interfering with our business nor potentially damaging or annoying to our property or other customers. Exact policies depend on the situtation. Sitting down and using the table to do homework, for example, is ok - as long as there aren't people wanting to use it to browse the books that we actually sell. It's not as if, however, he ever would have brought paints into the store, now would he? He then asks "Is playdough really that messy?" To which I look at him incredulously and ask back "Have you ever had to pick it up off your own floor?" Unfortunately, this was obviously a rhetorical question. Even more unfortunately, he continues being a jackass and accuses my manager, who has walked up, of being rude. Still in that passive-agressive "but I don't understand why you needed to be so rude about it" kind of way. We both have a hard time not laughing when he threatens to report her to her supervisor.

Customer 2

After we are done reading Clifford stories, we invite the kids to come up and give Clifford a hug and get their picture taken with him. As always, the kids rush the stage to form a semi-circle around Clifford, and then patiently wait their turn to give him a hug or to pat his fur. Some are eager, others are hesitant. Some give him a quick hug and turn around. Others linger so long I start to think that I may have to remind them that other kids are waiting.

One particularly cute little boy comes up beside me; inching his way towards Clifford and giggling hysterically the entire time. When he finally makes it up to Clifford, he laughs even harder and starts sort of patting him with his fingers. I realize that he's trying to tickle Clifford, so I say to Collene/Clifford "Clifford, he's tickling you!" because I know you can't see or feel a damn thing in those costumes. (Half the time you can't tell when the ankle-biters are trying to hug you.) She hunches Clifford's shoulders and starts shaking like she's actually being tickled. Little boy giggles even more hysterically, which I hadn't though possible until then. He continues to tickle Clifford for a little bit longer, and then walks off, still having giggle fits. By this time, I am, of course, suffering from them myself.

Coldstone's or Ben and Jerry's?

(via When Fangirls Attack, as always)

For Christ sake I was attacked for using the term "female" instead of "woman".

Oh my, do I get to take credit for this, or is it just a matter of great minds thinking alike?

I may have to buy myself an ice cream - just in case.

Somehow using the word that most accurately sums up both girls and women as a group makes me a misogynistic woman hater. But I can refer to men and males, and that's fine.

Ok, well he does have a point there.

And yet, there don't seem to be very many boys in comics, at least not compared to the number of "girls" - a not insiginificant number of whom are all grown up and have been for quite some time. So I can rather see where his detracters are coming from, and I don't think that, at the moment, it is unrealistically demanding to ask people to use the term females not just when they mean both girls and women, but when it will be obvious to others that they are referring to both children and adults - for everyone's sake. It's good to be clear - the problem is that common usuage of the term "females" has made that particular word anything but clear in most instances.

Besides is it really going to kill you to type eight more characters?

(Well, apparently, it's much more of a task than forgetting you ever liked any of the characters and comics put out by one of the biggest and most well-known comics publishers in the nation (world?) because the people in charge of the company keep proving that they veer towards "asshat." Oh, no, Scott, you weren't being a tool at all - it's all the fault of those damn feminiazis)

Updated to add:

Scott is also being terribly inconsistent here. He claims that he was using the terms males and females to make it clear that he was talking about children and adults, but his initial complaint equates "female" with "woman" not "girl or woman."

I've said before that the unnecessary use of the term "females" bugs the shit out of me; since we're on the subject of consistency, I'd like to take this opportunity to make it clear that I'm not overly fond of the term "males" when used a synonym for "men and boys" either. It doesn't come across as nearly as derogatory as "females" - partly because it's used much less often. However, since it is most often used when one is discussing gender differences, it's purpose is usually to reduce people to their biology - not to save typing time or be more precise. I'm against this for obvious reasons.

Yes, Virginia, You Do Have to Grow Up

I'm posting this here because I'm going to have to gut this to post it on Hugo's blog, and I wanted it in it's entirety somewhere on the world wide web.

Carlos,

You wrote in Hugo's comments:

I am not a hard player. I was asking why I shouldn't try to be one! But I am not sure whether I am a profemnist!

I need to first point out that you seem to be setting up a false dichotomy here. Perhaps, though, you were really trying to ask "Is being a player really being anti-feminist?" or "Can I be feminist and a player as well?" These are not only thought-provoking questions but also happen to be the ones Amanda and others are trying to answer with their "feminism is fun!" comments.

What came out instead was "Do I really have to be an adult yet?" The answer to which is "hell, yes." Which, unfortunately, did not seem to be the bulk of Hugo's answer to you.

My beef with Hugo is not that his teaching method doesn't work, but that (judging by his own words) he's abandoned it in his most recent advice to you. I'm guessing that Hugo got you to treat your sisters more nicely and change your views on gendered double standards in part by tapping into your genuine concern for the women around you and challenging whether or not your attitudes were really helping them or being respectful of them.

That is what I'm suggesting he do now. Tap into your desire to be a responsible, respected member of your community - however you define it - and question your priorities. Not by arguing that you can't have fun, but by reminding you that any amount of power brings with it a certain amount of responsibility. If you can find a way to be a "player" and still be responsible and respectful, more power to you. But if you are trying to decide between being a "player" and doing what you should, your beef isn't really with feminism specifically - it's with being an adult.

That is not, however, what he did. Or at least that wasn't the part he focused on in his blog post anyway. Perhaps your actual conversation was quite different, but as he presented it, responsibility was only a quickly dropped tangent in the overall discussion.

Quite frankly, whether or not you consider yourself to be a feminist is not my main concern. My main concern is that you treat everyone around you with respect and dignity.

In a recent interview, comic book artist Brian Wood was asked

Would you consider yourself a feminist?

He answered:

I don't know.  I don't know how to answer that question.  I guess I would say no — I'm uncomfortable with labels, and writing mostly female characters isn't a deliberate decision, at least not on the level of a social or political statement.  However, I don't try to get in the way of other people's interpretation of my work.  I just find it odd and a bit sad that a story with a strong woman in the lead has to be something that's rare and noteworthy and possibly a feminist act, and can't just be commonplace.

The "I'm not a feminist, but..." sentiment usually annoys me to no end, but Wood's sentiment practically warms my heart, and I vastly prefer it to this:

I get that injustice and inequality exist, but at the same time, I don't know why I have to get involved in this now, when I'm so young.

Since Hugo couldn't be bothered to focus on the obvious, I repeat, once again:

If you are old enough to understand that injustice and inequality exist, you most definitely do have to get involved in this now - no matter how young you are. The extent of your involvement in any particular cause or issue will be tempered by how capable you are in dealing with it and by any other responsibilities you may have, but under no circumstances do you get to put off growing up until you feel like it. Not if you expect others to respect you back.

Please also note that, as Hugo points out, feminism is a process - this is mostly because growing up is a constant process. (God knows I'm still working on both myself.) The fact that other people - even female people - are sometimes less feminist than you is no more a valid excuse for you to backslide than "but everyone else was doing it!" was ever a valid excuse with your parents. Questioning whether or not certain actions are really feminist or not - based on your experiences with the way many women react to them - is a valid and logical response. Basing your conclusion on your experiences alone, or using others stupid behaviour as an excuse for yours, are not.

Life is a Process

Apparently Hugo wants to compound the annoying.

Right off the bat, he gets it wrong. I, at least, was not annoyed because I "felt [Hugo] took it too easy on Pete when he announced that he wasn't ready to practice pro-feminism and give up some of his "bad boy" behavior" I was pissed because he failed to concentrate on the most obvious and fundamental problem with Pete's framing of the question: treating others nicely in order to get something out of them isn't really very nice.

Hugo then goes on to argue for an incremental approach - without (yet again) explaining his actual approach. As far as I can tell, the idea seems to be that he wins Pete's trust by being one of the guys, and then Pete slowly comes to see how wise Hugo really is.

First of all, sorry, but that shit ain't ever gonna to work.

By all means, use your privilege to everyone's advantage - but if you aren't using your privilege to challenge the whole idea of privilege, then it really isn't to everyone's advantage, is it? That goes for every step of the process - not just the final event - because, as you point out, there isn't one. You can challenge it a little or a lot depending on the situation - but it must always be challenged.

Secondly, yes, Hugo, we all realize that becoming feminist is a process. Amazingly enough, we know this in part because practically all of us consider ourselves to be in the middle of this process ourselves. Despite my snarkiness, I don't actually believe I know everything - even about feminism. I'm not questioning that one needs to learn to walk before one can run - I'm questioning your actual arguments.

(....and that really bad pool analogy - but others have covered that pretty well already)

As I said elsewhere, like a lot of people asking for advice, Pete's question just screams "I know I should do this, but I don't want to; please tell me I don't have to!" At which point your job is not to say "No, you don't have to." Commiserating on the fact that life is both hard and strange is just fine - helping him turn this lament into further excuses not to act like an actual adult is not. Especially when such laments essentially boil down to "they are not worthy!" as one can easily argue your upholding of the of "good girls" who like "bad boys" stereotype most definitely falls under.

Pete is going to decide to be a good person or not. As with everyone else, this will be daily decision and struggle. Pete's problem is not with feminism in particular, but with being a responsible adult. Once he learns to act like an adult, you can argue feminism with him on a point by point basis - until he learns to be an adult, any feminism he adopts will be half-hearted and easily abandoned.

If your goal is to stay friends with him so that when he finally decides to become and adult, you can be there to guide him into feminism - fine. But that's not incremental, that's "waiting in the wings". And in the meantime you are reinforcing the homosociality that makes it so easy for him to stay a child when it comes to dealing with women.

You claim to be following Martin and imply that those who disagree with you think everyone should be Malcoms. I am saying that you are not even following King's example in this particular instance. King did not back down from focusing on the truth just because it might anger people. In fact, angering people was a crucial part of his strategy - the whole non-violence thing only really works when you have something to compare it to. If all they'd done was serve the protesters food when they sat down at the lunch counter, there really wouldn't have been anything to protest, now would there?

In missions work, you learn fast that hectoring (the "hellfire and brimstone" strategy) gets you nowhere fast.  Though Christianity has a history of aggressive and often violent proselytizing, modern evangelism is an elegant, intellectually sophisticated,  culturally sensitive seduction.  I'm convinced that those of us who preach feminism should use the same strategies!

WTF?

Telling people they are evil doesn't win many allies. Wow. Real shocker there. So feminists should do everything they can to never show anger - no matter how justified?

Again, WTF?

Feminism has never had quite the problem most religions have had with regard to separating the sin and the sinner. Public perception that they are one and the same is a big problem, but so is public perception that feminists are bitter, frigid, hypocritical, whores who do in fact hate all men (not just acts of sexism). You are in the position to help dispel these myths. And what do you do? You argue that even feminists like "bad boys" because women don't like wussies. You go from "Being pro-feminist isn't about getting laid!" to "you're reinforcing stereotypes if you act that way!" in less than a nano second. What about focusing on "women are individuals" or suggesting "maybe the "bad boys" were just better looking than you" or perhaps even "maybe the "good girls" could see through yourmask"? What the hell happened to "feminism is about (believing women are human/treating women with respect/etc.)"?

(sigh)

I can't give up on him though, because in addition writing a lot of thought provoking posts, he has the sense to apologize for his most obvious mistake.

For that reason, I'll reiterate. My problem, Hugo, is not with the idea of an incremental approach, it's with the idea that an incremental approach is synonymous with nibbling around the edges. I think that, no matter what, you always need to do your best to go after the heart of the issue before you. Sometimes it's not best to push very hard, but if the issue raised is childish selfishness, and you end up spending the bulk of your time talking about showing a good front and not giving fodder to enemies, you fucked up.

It's ok that you fucked up. As long as you admit it so that you can do better next time. (even if it's only to yourself)

This whole feminism thing is a process after all.

In Which I Pick up the Mantle of Feminist Police Yet Again

There's a lot about Ms. Healey's recent post that deserves applause - but at the moment I'd like to call attention to this part:

The patriarchy (or patriarchies) is not a conspiracy. It doesn't have to be. It is an insidious creator of and creation of culture and the ideal of male domination is so deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of humanity that it is occasionally difficult to recognise its slimy appendages.

Because it can't be repeated enough, let's have that again:

The patriarchy (or patriarchies) is not a conspiracy. It doesn't have to be.

Why did I pick this part out? Because I'm getting really annoyed with the latest reincarnation of "I'm not a feminist, but...":

I'm not one of those feminists who believe in a vast patriarchal conspiracy, but....

Sweeties - that's like saying "I shave my legs, but..." or "I don't burn my bras, but..."

All of these statements set up a false dichotomy which undermines the feminist goal you are supposedly professing support for. If you feel clarity is needed, it's best left to the end. Otherwise your "clarification" is really just a concession that weakens your argument and insults those of us that actually understand what "the patriarchy" means.

psst - thanks for the links Karen

Because I'm Picky

(...and I apparently inhierited my dad's fondess for lecturing...)

Inertia is something objects have. It doesn't change unless the make-up of the object itself changes. Mass is a measurement of inertia.

A superpower that allows one to change an object's inertia would be very cool and very useful. I could make someone "light" enough that I could easily throw him or her, and I can make myself (or just parts of myself) "heavy" enough that my opponent would have a difficult time harming me. I could even start doing all sorts of cool things most people only get to do in zero g. The acrobatics I could do would be more useful and unique than my ability to use my powers as a substitute for super strength. Like Superman, I could be both impenetrable to bullets and able to leap tall building in a single bound - I would just find it more difficult to do both at the same time.

Momentum is also a quality that objects posses, but it is dependent upon both mass (inertia) and velocity. (p=m*v) Velocity is a vector, which means that it must include not only an amount (speed) but a direction. A change in velocity may consist of nothing more than a change in direction. A change in velocity will, of course, change momentum as well.

Kinetic energy is a kind of mechanical energy. Again, it is a quality used in describing objects. Like momentum, it relies on mass and velocity, but unlike momentum it relies on velocity more than mass. (KE=1/2*m*v*v)

A superpower that allows one to change an an object's kinetic energy would be rather like a superpower that allows one to change an object's momentum. Anyone can do that by applying force and affecting velocity. It's only a superpower if you can do it ten times better than normal humans. This is what Superman does - he uses super strength to change momentum and kinetic energy to a greater degree than a normal human could.

Being able to simply transfer kinetic energy from one object to another is only a superpower if you can do it without having to touch the object with anything else. Being able to play pool is not a superpower. If you are able to transfer more kinetic energy than a normal human would then your superpower is the ability to change an object's kinetic energy to an abnormal degree, not the ability to "transfer" kinetic energy. If you are able to store kinetic energy and transfer it at will, then that is your superpower. It has very little to do with inertia and claiming that your superpower is the ability to transfer kinetic energy is like saying Nighcrawler's superpower is the ability to travel from one place to another.

Sorry for the physics lesson.

I just read Jake's excellent snark on Inertia (via When Fangirls Attack) and I'm not going to blame anyone in particular (I have no idea if the fault lies with the people who created Inertia or with the people describing her powers), but there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding of basic physics terms going on here. Plus, I've run across even more in trying to find her powers described further: Yes, Nightcrawler's inertia does not change when he teleports, but I still rather think you meant to say that his momentum does not change when he teleports. Inertia may sound fancier and kinetic energy may sound cooler, but cool and fancy sounding words just make you sound stupid when you use them incorrectly.

I realize that comics are all about suspending disbelief (radioactive spiders, genetic mutation, crime fighting aliens that pass as bumbling reporters) but it's one thing to not limit yourself to what is known or possible, it's another to toss out Newton for no reason. I'm enjoying Runaways, Astonishing X-Men and the new Wonder Woman very much, but I worry that reading most superhero comics would be like watching The Core: I'd laugh hysterically through most of it, and yell during the rest.

Masquerade

Hugo's most recent "insert foot in mouth" post (hat tip Amanda) reminded me that I wanted to say something a while back about feminist friendly spaces, converting others to the cause, and polite discourse. One of Hugo's comments about believeing in the power of politeness or some such (yes, I'm too lazy to look it up) reminded me of something my mom told me about my grandfather once.

"He was always to polite to people in public," was what she said about him.

That's not an exact quote, but that was the gist of it - and she said this as if it was a virtue.

At the time, the shocking relevation was that my (then recently) deceased grandfather was likely a closet bigot. The context of the conversation was one about race, civil rights, and growing up in the south. My mom has lived in southern California since she entered junior high, but she spent her childhood going back and forth between So Cal and my grandfather's home town in Georgia. She was a small child when Brown was decided. When my grandfather was a child growing up the rural south, the youngest Civil War veterans were still alive. I've been told that my grandmother will still avoid supermarket lines if there are black people at the register.

My mother was essentially telling me that my grandfather may have been prejudiced, but he was nice enough not to let anyone he was prejudiced against know it.

I can't help but think of this when people argue for politeness for politeness sake and I wonder about the people he was polite to - in public. Did they suspect? Would they rather have known the truth? Could they sense it anyway? Did they resent the fact that the mask of politeness my grandfather hid behind made it that much harder to fight his bigotry? Were they sometimes grateful that his mask made theirs that much easier to wear? Did they apprecraite the irony that it was their honest anger that forced him to adopt the masquerade they had always been forced to be a part of?

I understand that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I just think people need to remember that allies gained under false pretenses tend to make shitty allies. Individuals for whom the deciding factor in their political and ideological beliefs is the number of times they may get laid do not make good feminists. Being bluntly honest may be a bit "off-putting" but it's still more likely to result in a useful ally. After all, non-violence may have been a hallmark of the civil rights movement, but "polite" discourse was not. "Polite" conversation doesn't include discussions about race to begin with - and "polite" sure as hell doesn't describe the act of holding a lunch counter hostage. I rather think a hell of a lot of people considerd it downright rude at the very least.

I always hated the stupid intro to "The Real World" - the one where they talk about people not being polite and being real instead. As if the two are polar opposites and rudeness is somehow inherently more real than being considerate. I hate the idea that one must always have polite discourse for the same reason. Adhering to social norms isn't any more real than breaking them simply because you can. Pretending to respect someone isn't really any more polite than being honest about how little you really do respect them. Sometimes you have to be polite to gain allies - and sometimes you have to be honest to the point of rudeness in order to make any progress.

Yes, I am Alive

I have spent the last couple of weeks

A) being sick

B) getting my parent's kitchen ready for the remodel

C) coming home from work exhausted from moving crap around for our "remodel"

and

D) obsessing over the excessively geeky Dr. Reid, played by Matthew Gray Gubler, from Criminal Minds

I was planning on writing a semi-decent post today. However, yesterday morning, about an hour before I needed to leave for work, I discovered that someone had incapacitated all three of the cars in the driveway. Two had two tires slashed each. The other car only has one damaged tire, but two of the side windows were shattered. The best part? Two of the cars belong to my parents - who happen to be in freakin' Alaska on a cruise at the moment.

So - I spent today trying to at least get mine fixed so that no one has to drive me to work and back and I don't have to try to take the bus. (I'm all for mass transit, but this is So Cal - the mass transit here sucks and should be avoided whenever possible.)

It's like one of those riddles. You have three cars that don't work. You have very little money in your account. Most of it is being taken out on Monday to pay for one of the cars. The rest was saved up to buy books during employee appreciation days - which ends before you get your next paycheck. It's the weekend and the only people picking up at the insurance office have no idea how the insurance money gets doled out. How do you get at least one car in working order in time for work Monday morning - without spending so much that you bounce a check or can't buy yourself some books as an early birthday present? Remember that simply putting the spare on and driving to Costco Tire center won't work because you have two damaged tires and the spares for one car won't fit on the others.

Apparently, the solution to this particular riddle is a very nice older brother; a pair of level headed parents who call from Alaska to suggest putting the spare on, leaving the other end jacked up, and taking both tires to Costco in the trunk of another car; and a half-forgetten credit card that was never activated because credit card debt is bad (and you have enough of it already anyway).