A post of half-formed thoughts…

Big time trigger warnings

Ok, ages ago I posted on the bruhaha over the Bill Henson images, and promised to post on the notion of the sexual ‘innocence’ of children and why I think it’s a dangerous concept.

Briefly, I think it’s dangerous to make *that* the harm – if the harm lies solely in the ‘corruption’ of ‘innocence’ then a it would seem that a range of things flow from this:

a/ the focus lies on the victim and not the perpetrator in assessing the magnitude of the wrong and the insinuation is that the *wrong* is the ‘loss of innocence’ rather than the fact that an adult is having sex with a child.

The adult, the person of full capacity is doing something they know is not okay, and they’re doing it for their own gratification. (Yes, we can get into chats about pathologies etc later, but I don’t believe that every person who has sex with a child is *diseased* and therefore *helpless* and I think to say that’s always true makes sex crimes the acts of monsters, and takes focus away from the overwhelming instances where abuse happens within the home, and covers over a real discussion of the issues at play when people molest children)

b/ this worship of innocence plays out in an unspoken suggestion that a ‘less innocent’ child is less wronged, or maybe even brought it on by their own behaviour. See above. Don’t have sex with kids.

In the context of a society that puts preteen girls on the runway, that fetishizes the teen body incessantly, that fantasizes about ‘naughty schoolgirls’, that pornifies women’s bodies in ways which erase markers of maturity and womanhood, that airbrushes even the Crowned Most Beautiful in order to make their bodies more like that of a young teenager, this innocence/not innocence trope is profoundly sinister.

We worship bodies that look fifteen, though to assuage our guilt we’ll tolerate bodies that look, say twenty. We sexualise girls the minute their breast show the slightest HINTS of budding, we accept grown men leering over young girls as A-ok. We’ve set society up for the pitfalls of finding sex with kids a tempting idea…and then the innocence thing…

We buy into archetypes of sexuality that rely on the corruption of innocence for their ‘hawtness’, teen and preteen porn is everywhere, men leer and backslap over teen girls (through the years, Anna Kournicova, the Olsen Twins, the Veronicas etc), we debate whether Lolita was asking for it, whether she seduced him or not…the trope of the hapless unhappily married man seduced by a sexy teenager is rife in movies and tv. The ‘naughty schoolgirl’ look has an enduring appeal for men’s mags/strip shows/porn sites, and the whole basis seems to be the idea that when men are honest, they must admit that they want to corrupt innocence, to defile youth, they want to make that ‘innocent young thing’ admit she’s not so innocent at all. That seems at the heart of it all – no matter what we say, no matter how much she doth protest…she’s still a chick and we all know chicks *want it baby*, yeah.

We’ve set up the notion that it’s desirable to have sex with very young bodies, and we buy into the innocence thing in order to get off, we utilise this innocence in order to pervert it for cheap sexual gratification and now as a society we have the hide to pick up this notion of ‘innocence’ as though we’ve not utterly perverted it anyway, and suggest that *this* is what makes sex with kids wrong? Does this not suggest immediately that if the child in question is less innocent, say she dressed all sexy-like, say she made moves, say she seemed like she knew what she was doing, oh, say she had some boobs…well, you know…that means it’s not as bad as when the child is ‘innocent’ right??

Does it not also rely on biblical notions of purity and corruption? Does it not make knowledge of sex or sexual desire in and of itself *bad* and *dirty*? Are not bad and dirty girls to be punished? Does it not locate the sin in the body that ‘tempts’? Does it not make a child’s body bared into the site of temptaion and sin? Does it not take the focus *off* the wrong, off the perpetrator, of the desire, off the society that says that desire is fine/normal and ok? Is it not just an easy fucking answer to absolve us of having real discussions of where we’re going wrong?

So, in case you missed it, I hate the notion that the wrong in adults having sex with kids is in the ‘corruption of innocence’ as it plays into the notion that some rape is worse than others, not due to how fucked up the rapist is, not to the barbarity involved, not to how much humiliation was intended, not to the fact that an adult thought they could use their influence to get off at the expense of letting a child come into their own sexuality in their own time and with persons of their own age?

I also think that this notion of innocence in relation to sex crimes is not confined to childhood – the old argument “It’s worse to rape a nun than a prostitute” still finds plenty of support. NO…it’s wrong to rape. Period. To suggest otherwise is to say that some women ask for it which is to say that rape is about women tempting men and not men using their dicks as weapons of humiliation, degradation and pain.

What’s raised all this again for me is the notion of ‘availability’. It seems (and I’ve covered this before) that women are *for* sex, that’s what they’re for, no matter what they’re doing/saying, underneath it all, she’s really just a body (a pussy), a site for men’s pleasure. I mean take a look at what we’re doing to Sarah Palin. Feminists ought to vote for her cos she has a vagina – Vaginas Unite! But also we can’t quite take her seriously can we? VPILF was up within days, and in my last post I discussed the Sarah Palin dolls. Cool. Let’s fetishise her as a dominatrix and a schoolgirl. Cos while she’s the Republican candidate for VP, she’s also a chick – see above for what we know about chicks.

Anyway, with all this, and with our notions about women’s bodies as penetrable is another linked idea – that women are always and ever ‘available’ to men. I mean you can see that in the way women are ranked and assessed and leered at and harrassed in walking down the street, in our commodification in magazines etc. But some more examples came up for me this week and made me really fucking angry.

Hoyden About Town has a discussion of a Jim Beam ad which relies for it’s humour on the fact that two really hot chicks are lesbians – it’s entitled The Tragedy. It’s part of an ongoing campaign which trivialises stalking and makes stalking ‘fun and funny’, and which suggests that women all really ought to be compliant, brainless, opinionless, human sex robots- the perfect girlfried is an automaton that thinks her piggish muntheaded man can do no wrong…ahaha! Oh women, they’re so ANNOYING, and stupid, and they EXPECT things, and they hate it when I’m a prick! God, wouldn’t a sex slave who thought I was the shit be great. Yeah, that’s what ALL women should be…and yeah of course…it’s a tragedy for men that two hot chicks would dig each other and not them.

Unsurprisingly the ad was complained about and the response of the Advertising Standards Bureau was that:

“The Tragedy”, was not intended to mean that it was a tragedy generally for women to be lesbians, but that such an attractive woman was not available to heterosexual men.

Well, phew. Lesbianism itself is not a problem to men, so long as it’s *ugly* chicks, and the lesbians aren’t going to begin stealing mens possessions – hot chicks. And EXCUSE ME??? The tragedy is that the hottie is not *available* to heterosexual men…men, not even man. Are you getting this everyone? All women everywhere are the property of Teh Menz. Teh Menz reserve the right to put their dicks in any such woman as they find appropriate -whenever and whereever and no furhter correspondence is to be entered into.

Hot on the heels of pondering this I hear this following story in which an 18 year old hid in the boot of a car waiting for the topless waitress to leave her job at the bucks party so he could rape her repeatedly calling her a ‘bitch’ and a ’slut’, saying ‘You asked for this slut, you’re just a stripper’, telling her if she did what she was told, ie to let him rape her repeatedly while telling her it was all her fault, she wouldn’t get ‘hurt’. Curious definition of what counts as ‘hurt’. But fuck – any more chrystal clear examples of the attitude that women are ‘available’ to men? He saw, he hid, he raped, he took what he thought was his. He humiliated and punished, he hurt, he raped, he did his best to destroy her. Why? Well, really, she had ‘ no innocence’, therefore she ‘asked for it’. No innocence=sexually available=ought to be punished. The thing is it’s not confined to examples, it’s not confined to one fucked up dude, it’s about society’s fucked up attitudes to women and girls, to sex and bodies, to consent, to innocence/corruption, availability, sex and rape. It permeates everything, it’s there when we don’t acknowledge it, and it means that a child who is molested who is seen as less ‘innocent’ somehow *caused* the actions, or the topless waitress somehow *caused* this piece of shit to hide and rape her repeatedly. It means that the focus of sex crimes is taken *off* the perpetrator, and put onto the victim – is s/he sufficiently chaste enough to be deserving of our sympathies? No? Well, nasty ’slut’  probably *wanted it* then – I mean for real??? Can we not put the fucking emphasis where it ought to be – rape and child molestation: DON’T DO IT – EVER.

Just when I thought I had nothing to write about…

I was busy taking a little vacation from ranting. Sometimes I get tired of being a feminist, and of caring about the world and its fucked-up-ness. So then I tend to not read blogs/write posts, to curl up in a ball and forget about it all for a while.

But this morning I’m minding my own business, I’m listening to the radio and the announcer starts talking about the Sarah Palin action figures. Oh yes indeed. So how is Palin immortalised? She’s the Vice Presidential Candidate, so I guess suited up…and maybe in hunting gear given the focus on her rootsy appeal. Well. One is in a suit, yes. Another *has* a gun – but not the rifle over the shoulder dressed for Alaskan game hunting style gun-toting. Cos she’s a wo-man. Therefore we have Palin in a white skirt that shows her crotch (I kid you not) with an open black trenchcoat exposing a thigh holster for a pistol. Exactly the sort of get up you wear to hunt. In ALASKA. Dicks. Then we have school girl Palin. This time the short skirt actually covers her crotch, just. But she’s got the ‘demure’ (read the fantasy scenario of “I’m so good, I want you to spank me and do wicked wicked things”) schoolgirl look. Button down white shirt exposing midriff and red bra. What’s more troubling? The sexualised infantalisation of a politically powerful woman, or the overt sexualisation of school kids – they are KIDS people. Then we have the suited Palin – for some reason the suit on this one is puffed out in the arms particularly – it’s not the sleekest of looks. Almost like deliberate emphasis on the fact that a chick in a suit is not that interesting, and we all *know* what’s underneath is Stripper-Matrix-Chick, or Naughty-Schoolgirl-Porn-Chick. The woman is the Republican Candidate for the Vice Presidency and we still need to fetishize her to represent her. Comparitvely, Obama and McCain feature as Pez Dispenser heads, and plush toys – oh my, you mean you can represent someone without Pornifying them? Oh right, only if they’re dudes.Link here.

And what else? An email linking me to this article, another OhNoesPoliticalCorrectnessIsRuiningOurFUN article. BORED NOW!

The first section of the article is an exercise in how to present something in such a skewed way as to present a reasonable situation as UTTERLY SCANDALOUS!!! The use of the word “outlawing” instead of merely reporting that the list is advisory in nature. Phrases such as ’so called “disablist”‘ convey the scepticism that there is any real issue. Then we have one VERY upset Kentish Professor.

So there’s a list of words with – oh really – histories and connotations. It’s a list to advise authors which words might be best avoided. Professor Frank Farudi is Proper Upset, he is, that the Nasty PC Boring Tea Swillers are taking away his Preciouses…words like ‘civilised’. Gee Mr, could it be because of that whole ‘civilisation’ project of the British Empire that resulted in murder, mayhem, opression and vile treatment of humans in the name of science, progress, and oh YEAH, *civilisation*. I guess those upstarty natives just *objected* to your Empire’s ideas of civility, fucked up as those ideas are/were. Put. The Word. Down. You don’t actually need it, there’s plenty of others, you English professors are good like that.

A collection of ranting points on rape culture, language and society

Trigger warning.

Some things I’ve been reading and thinking about – all tied in together. I’m hoping that it will make some kind of coherent sense…

Over at Hoyden About Town there have been discussions on the use of passive language in discussions of rapes (and in discrimination against women more generally). The discussion is that when we report rapes by saying “A woman was raped today” we erase the subject who commited the act from the sentence (and effectively the scenario). Lest sceptical readers dismiss this as ‘just semantics’ the post linked to above contains a study which found that men reading descriptions of rapes written in the passive voice (ie, a woman was raped) they tended to attribute more blame to the victim than when the story was told in the active-voice versions (ie two men raped a woman today).

As Lauredhel points out in that post, it is a short trip from this to rape being a ‘women’s problem’, just something that ‘happens’ to a woman, and from there, straight onto ‘women ought to be more *responsible* in their behaviour or they’ll *get themselves raped*.

This attitude was discussed in a recent post about the compensation scheme for rape victims in the U.K and recent moves to withhold a percentage of that compensation if it was found that the woman was drinking – because if a woman drinks alcohol, and later is raped, the logic went that she *contributed* to her own rape.  WTF? Contributed to some guy hurting her and humiliating her for a sense of power? By enjoying alcohol, as so many of us do, so frequently. 

Clearly the idea that if a woman drinks alcohol, that she on some level consents to her own rape is appallingly fucked up – but common.

To illustrate this absurdity in a different way, Melissa from Shakesville says in her post Geez, When will women stop getting themselves raped already?:

And, forgive me for being Ms. Fucking Obvious 2008 here, but when two people leave a pub or a party or some other venue where there’s been alcohol, and one rapes the other, what are the odds that the rapist is alcohol-free? When in blue hell do you think any of the assholes who go on about how women shouldn’t drink because they might get raped might notice the gobsmacking inconsistency of routinely failing to acknowledge that alcohol might be lowering the inhibitions of the men who rape? Oh, right—that will never happen, because that would require suggesting that men not drink, and it’s only reasonable to request that of women.

It seems that it’s ok to say that a woman who drinks brings on her own rape – and any assertion that the same could be said of any guy who gets raped would be met with open mouthed incredulity…what? No. AND ALSO, women ought to watch what they drink so they can be sure the guy they are with/chatted to will not follow then rape them. A person ought to be able to expect to buy a kebab and fall into a taxi after a night on the booze – not to be raped, and certainly not to be blamed as though a women drinking is the CAUSE of a man raping. If men rape after alcohol has been consumed with a woman, then why AREN’T we refusing men alcohol? Oh right…cos we KNOW it’s horseshit all along, it’s just this way we get to ignore it.

So thus far, we’ve touched on the issue of the erasure of the rapist from the rape, and the concomitant focus on the actions of the victim, and further this idea that women ‘contribute’ to their horrific ordeals by way of drinking, while men’s drinking goes unchallenged. Just so we’re clear, women are blamed for other ‘contributions’ as well, such as what they were wearing, their sexual history, their behaviour prior to the rape, agreeing to ‘making out’ with someone and well a whole range of other things. Each of them could be a seperate post. But I’m trying to go somewhere with this.

I’ve also hated for a long time men’s ‘jokes’ about prison rape, or their equation of being treated poorly in the workplace/in a social setting to being ‘fucked up the arse’ or having to ‘bend over and take it’. Why? Well, I’ve never formulated the words for it this comprehensively, but commenter Rebekka in this thread slammed this as part of rape culture. This solidified it for me, and thinking it through I am discomforted by it because:

a/ if it suggests rape it equates some dumb passing annoyance with rape and that’s fucked up

b/ if it suggests just anal sex it says that anal sex is always abhorrent, always painful, always humiliating, degrading, a way for the ‘fucker’ to debase and assert control over and contempt for the ‘fuckee’.

c/ it makes clear that the speaker is ‘not the sort of person’ to enjoy anal sex, that anal sex is punishment and submission. It asserts an ‘us and them’ mentality mainly directed at homosexual men, considered ‘wrong’, ‘deviant’, ‘perverted’, ‘violated’ and ‘emasculated’ for the presumed monolithic enjoyment of anal penetration – poofs and women might ‘take it up the arse’, but not ‘real men’. This sort of homophobia makes me furious, and the idea that penetration=violation, the idea that certain types of bodies are penetrable/for penetration and the correct manly role is fucker/violater is horrific, and feeds into rape culture.

d/ Yes, it’s about anal sex, but it also implies that fucking is assertiong of power/submission, that to ‘let’ someone bend you over and ‘fuck you’ is to degrade yourself, to do something you don’t enjoy and to grit your teeth and wait til it’s over. So…where does that leave heterosexual women?

e/ further, the same men seem to not mind the idea of anal sex with a woman. Wait on – you just finished insinuating that to ‘bend over and take it’ is to let someone degrade and humiliate you and inflict pain…and therefore, you either think that to do this to a woman is hot *because* of this, or you know you’re talking macho crap at the expense of others when you crap on with your ’us and them’ crap and that making anal sex jokes is stupid but you like the power in the game, or you see women and gay men as less than human, as objects, lodging places for your dicks to be bent over and fucked – thank god I’m a ‘real man’ and not debased like that. Which is it fellas? I don’t have all day.

So, just to trying to keep this rant together in some way, we’re talking about the erasure of the rapist and the focus on the behaviour of the victim. Further we’re talking about the idea that FOR A WOMAN, having a drink, wearing ’sexy clothes’ (which, hey, it’s demanded of us for men’s viewing pleasure don’t forget), flirting, interacting with another person, or walking while female equals some kind of contribution to rape. We’re also talking about the representations of some bodies as penetrable/others as impenetrable, something linked with attitudes to do with ‘proper’ masculinity, linked with homophobic violence, disrespect to women and rape culture. If women are penetrable, made for penetration, to be bent over and fucked, and ‘real men’ are not, this affects the ways we think about and talk about rape. Men raping women is natural, normal, a fact. Men raping men is what happens to dudes in prison who never get to be ‘whole men’ again, cos dudes don’t get penetrated. “P**fters”* and “chicks”* get penetrated. That’s what they’re ‘for’. 

So many men I know have expressed this fear of jail (and these are dudes who aren’t facing social/racial discrimination, it’s just not likely to happen to them). Why so scared? Cos of the threat of rape. Now I read in a Criminal Laws text book (which I don’t have to hand) that the stats for rape in prison are one in four. That’s the same stat I’ve heard for women out in general society. You know that squelching fear you feel when you contemplate prison rape? Welcome to our lives.

So anyway – what triggered this post is that in the Sydney Morning Herald lately there have stories about a stripper who is accused of raping a man with a sex toy. Now. Stop. If you’re about to accuse me of saying this is ‘less serious’….then shut your face and cool it.

I want to look at the language here. As Hoyden commentor Mindy noted, the passive language is gone in the reporting of this case. The stripper has been mentioned *as the accused rapist* in all the articles I’ve seen. A man did not get *himself* raped at his friends bucks night. He wasn’t raped all by himself. There was a rapist involved. Is this possibly because it is a ‘man’ rather than a woman? That it is just a fact of life that women ‘get themselves raped’, that the rape of a woman is nothing unusual? That a man is not ’supposed’ to be raped?

The reporting is interesting, for a number of reasons. I can’t draw any conclusions, as I don’t really have them, and because I should be essay writing – but:

I’ve seen headlines that have ‘raped’ in inverted commas – is this a quick way of saying at this point it’s alleged that the stripper raped him, we can’t say she ‘did’ for legal reasons? Or is it more sinister?

Is it some kind of ‘Oh yeah, she ‘raped’ you buddy! Whatevs’. Is it disbelief that he objects? Is it incomprehensions that a ’straight man’ has been violated by a woman/outside a prison setting?

Now I want to proceed carefully here, because the articles discuss that the guy was at a bucks party where there were two strippers and a topless waiter (and one imagines at this bucks party substantial amounts of alcohol), that the men had been cheering the stripper on ‘in a mature way’ (that’s not my quote). There doesn’t appear to be a tone to this, an accusation. It seems to be very matter of fact.

I am not for a second suggesting that he is lying/wanted this to happen, I am not suggesting he ‘brought it on himself’, or should have known better, or contributed by drinking, or anything else. I’m just thinking through what it would play out like if a woman had been raped by a male stripper witha a sex toy during/after a night on the sauce, after dancing with the stripper, after participating in a rather physical routine, after cheering in a ‘mature way’. I think the narratives would sound somewhat different.

I think this illustrates even further the idiocy of our approach. No one’s saying “Well, he got on the sauce, he danced with her, he saw her whip a guys crotch, he got down on all fours, he clearly wanted it to happen” – what I’m saying is that that *would* be the implication if she was a woman. And why the difference in treatment? Because of the ways we concieve of rape as a woman’s problem, women’s bodies as being ‘for’ penetration and mens as not, because of the language we use that focusses on the woman and her behaviour and erases the rapist from the rape, because of the blame that shifts onto the victim in that way of talking, because we blame women if they drink/dress up/sneeze – because our attitudes to women are fucked. So rather than say ‘It’s less bad’, I’d rather be saying ‘the discrepancies in the treatment/the outrage/shock that a man could be raped by a woman might help some men think through the fact that language is important, and that these reports might help to illustrate that NO MATTER WHAT,  any human is allowed to live her/his life in the way they see fit, and swing drunk and half naked from chandeliers if they so choose and still NOT be told they *contributed* to their own *rape*. Rape is not a thing that ‘happens’ to you, not a thing you ‘invite’ – it is a fucked up thing that someone else does to you, and the blame  lies with the rapist and with society for the bullshit is spits out regarding rape.

*Sorry – trying to point at the ugly aggression of the word.

In which I apparently *live through my blog persona* (don’t read this unless you like reading batshit boring stories of bad weeks)

I’m having a day.

I have an essay due in a week – an essay I don’t know how to broach. Basically I look at the New South Wales attempt to make it an offence to ‘annoy’ participants of World Youth Day. It wasn’t decided by reference to the implied Constitutional freedom of political communication, but the essay is a ‘What if’ exercise – how might it have been decided on Constitutional grounds, and is it better that the court decided the case within the common law. Actually interesting stuff. But hard…and spirally I guess…so many cases, so many judgments, so many threads of reasoning.

Anyway. I’m tired and grumpy. I’ve said before that my son has special needs, and it’s been hard at home for the last six months or so. We’ve just been kind of motoring along as best we can, but I’m getting overwhelmed. The school is ok…they don’t love me as I cracked it big time and took them to the Department of Education when they suspended my son when he was eight. And I’ve got a big meeting with them coming up this week which I’m nervous about.

So I’ve been doing research into support (and basically there is technically support available, but the respite applications I put in never went anywhere, and in order to access the services available I’d need to take time off work which I need to save up for times when my son is sick etc) and feeling a bit down over the difficulties he’ll face in adolescence, worrying and feeling like I’m ‘failing’ him (because, what? I haven’t made it disappear?). But you know. WTF. I’m one person. I work enough to put food on the table, I study to make sure one day we can have food on the table, plus maybe some savings, or even (gasp) a car. He knows he’s loved, he’s a funny and loving kid, he’s smart, reads like a demon, and is informed and engaged socio-politically. He just ‘gets’ stuff, and has empathy, and reads, interprets and ‘talks back to’ media. But you know…I focus on what doesn’t get done. And do I get angry at his dad for fucking off? Or the lack of support for carers? Or the fact that for every service I’ve accessed/every training course I’ve been on, the assumption is that you’re married and there is someone to tag team with? No, I tell myself I suck.

So you know, I have a shitty afternoon at work, dealing with arseholes on the phone, and the office phones are going, and the mobile’s going, and I see it’s the school, and I KNOW what’s happened is his teacher has failed to let him out of class in time for the bus *again* even though he knows he *has to get the bus as I don’t drive and my workplace is like a thirty minute walk from the school*. So my workplace is ‘unconventional’ in that the three of us are friends, and laugh a lot each day and swear like troopers, and carry on and exaggerate like any good lawyer would. So I hear the office phone go (while I”m ON the phone answering stupid bank questions) and I think my boss has told them I’ll call back, and hung up and I say at full volume (and good god that’s considerable, I DO have a set of lungs on me) “Yeah, it’s the FUCKING school to tell me he’s missed the FUCKING bus cos his FUCKING IDIOT teacher hasn’t let him out on time”…then my phone line rings…my boss had not hung up, he’d been waiting to transfer the call. So the lovely teacher’s aide probably heard the whole thing. OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shiiiiit. I don’t even think the teacher IS an idiot. Annoying sometimes yes, but I was just blowing off steam in the context of a bad day at work. 

So my son finally walks in the door and he says that, where his teacher previously had agreed to modify the number of assesment tasks my son was to hand in, that he’s now said he expects all of them to be handed in – tomorrow. So I have to write a letter saying nicely but firmly “NO”. And we’ve got this goddamned meeting on Wednesday with the school – I don’t think they’ve done nearly enough this year to train his teacher or to put anything in place for my son, but I felt like there was good stuff happening – he was responding to his new teacher, who has quite the authoritarian air, so I figured that I would back this teaçher’s play and get my son to do the full quoto of homework and just monitor how that went. Well now I am thinking it’s too much, and has been for a while, and needs to change, and I’m headed for an inevitable showdown I think. Which is fine as I will win since he’s my son and all the knowledge to do with Aspergers (including our documented meetings with the Department of Education in years gone by) is on my side to insist on the school allowing for a reduction in the assesments. But you know, all in essay week – oh yeah, just after my son’s been off sick for a week with bad asthma.

Then I get a call and the long awaited appointment with the new paediatrician who took over from the old dude who retired (and this new guy cancelled our first appointment to go on holidays) is cancelling our upcoming appointment on account of he quits. WHAT?? Is anybody actually KIDDING?

Then I study and get all anxious about whether I’ll cover it all, whether I understand the issues, have a grasp on the relevant points etc…when a dude I know pops up on instant messaging, and we’re chatting happily til he gets all in my face over some alleged idiotic hypocrisy of mine…and worse is the aggression in his tone…I said ‘That doesn’t sound like me’ and he’s like “Urm…well – it was!”, and while I’m trying to digest that basically starts banging on about how because I have a blog I’m living through some kind of online persona?? Except – I don’t *live through* this blog. And I don’t have a persona. People who read this and have met me can pick it – this is how I talk. I’m not creating some kind of mask for the world. And…I just didn’t get the point of any of it. And then it turns out that the shit I was meant to have said – is not what I said at all, and happily that’s easily ascertained as we only ever talk via instant messaging, and gmail keeps every freaking chat we ever have. But honestly, even if I *had* said the things I’d said, why be like that with people?

Anyway, it’s now WAY later than is good for me to go to bed. Fuck it. Work, study and antagonistic school meetings to look forward to. Blurk. Yeah my blog persona’s all nice and shiny and manufactured and bears no resemblance to who I am/the live I lead. Fucking hell

*Feminist smackdown continues*

One. More. Time.

FEMINISTS are arguing for Sarah Palin to be taken seriously as a candidate. We’re busy discussing her politics, the issues, what she stands for – the mainstream media is discussing her possible extra marital affairs, her daughter’s pregnancy, her pregnancy, can a ‘Mom’ work in the Whitehouse, and…VPILF:

Sydney Morning Herald Screenshot today?

The writing chopped off that should be seen running across the bottom of the picture:

Cocktail of Cleavage and Authority – Sarah Palin is having a remarkable effect on the conservative male

The pic leads to an Annabel Crab article, whom normally I love, but occasionally get shitted by – for the laughs she will dilute or skate right over the top of the issues that are the basis of the article.

Today we got a run down of men’s infatuation with Palin and Thatcher, including a “rough translation” of a Silvio Berlusconi quote that Thatcher was a ‘nice piece of pussy’. We get:

It’s something more; a compelling cocktail – authority plus maternalism, with a hint of cleavage.

Matron’s back.

And she’s hot.

And she’s armed.

Call it the dominatrix effect; it’s the same element that used to turn grown men into fawning, wobbling supplicants before the former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

She makes the quick point that Clinton was never discussed in these terms* (that’s right, and it deserves more than the one small paragraph it got – perhaps a look at the implications of this bullshit misogyny) – before attention turned to the *FAIL* by feminists to ‘deal elegantly with Palin’. Jeez, sorry we’re not being elegant, we’re busy discussing her stance on the *issues*.

So anyway, what’s Crab’s *evidence* of this humongous *Failure of the Feminists*?? Oh yeah. That the National Organisation for Women won’t back her play – that’s right the National Organisation for Women is busy fighting for women’s rights and choices. They aren’t going to back an anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-sex-ed candidate just because she’s got tits. In Crabbe’s books it’s a FAIL!!!! FAIL N.O.W, FAIL ALL FEMINISTS EVERYWHERE ON THE BACK OF JUST ONE QUOTE!!! FAAAAAAAIIIIIIIILLLL!!!

She sees this *failure* to back Palin/a woman,any woman, as a diminishment of the National Organisation for Women. I see it as standing for the rights of women to make choices, that’s right, the rights of the women whom Palin’s government would like to deny their choices, AND for the rights of Sarah Palin. We’re not denying her her *right* to stand for office, we’re excercising our right to say “She is NOT a friend of women’s rights to choose when/how they reproduce, whom they love – we wish her success and gainful employment, but we do NOT endorse her as a political candidate”.

The National Organisation for Women should NOT be backing a candidate simply because she ís a woman. Or because she is a mother. Or because she is a hot mother/woman. Or because she is a hot and able to shoot mother/woman.   

I expected better from Crab. Not ‘because she is a woman’ because Miranda Devine is a woman (and by the way I would still fight for Devine’s rights to choose her lifestyle, to not be subject to harrasment) but because she can write well, and because she has the facts at her disposal – why did she not mention the explosion of feminist blog posts keeping an eye on the sexism of the media’s treatment of Palin, why did she not acknowledge WHY N.O.W would not endorse an anti-choice, anti-rights-for-same-sex-partners, anti sex-ed candidate?

*It’s true that for all the sex scandal surrounding Clinton, we’d never run a headline about his intoxicating ”Cocktail of COCK and Charm”. 

More Devine Bullshit

Oh lookout! Miranda Devine, hard hitting investigative journalist is on the trail of the nasty feminists.

OH NO!!! Feminists do not blindly and uncritically support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for Vice Presidency. And she is a WOMAN! How DARE they be such utter hyprocrites!

She attributes the “excoriation” of Palin over this last week to feminists: this despite the fact that feminists have been keeping a strict eye on the instances of sexism directed against Palin, objecting strenuously and articulately to her being reduced to a VPILF, to her being ripped apart and assessed over her family choices/sex life/vicious personal rumours, in fact to anything directed against her that is not a fair discussion of the issues she supports/issues relevant to her potential role as VP:

Feminists stand up for Palin’s rights to be treated as a real life, actual candidate to be taken seriously (and boy is she taken seriously, her politics are disturbing):

Here, here and here at the Australian feminist blog Hoyden About Town

Here, here, here, here,here, and here at Shakesville. That’s right six times on this blog, three on Hoyden’s. (Wait, more sexism watches at Shakesville here, and here).

This is from just two feminist sites, in what – a week? 

In my readings of feminist sites (I think I’ve linked to about six or seven sites in all in this post) I have not come across one ’excoriating’ Palin, or having a go at her on the basis of her personal life.

Disagreeing with her and finding her stance on important issues repellent and cause for grave concern does not equal excoriation. The other issues facing Palin that Devine raises (and accuses feminists of perpetrating) – the rumours over the pregnancies, the affairs, claims she *breaths fire*  are not, generally speaking coming from feminists but from mainstream, gossip peddling ’news’ publications, like Miranda’s own SMH which has been steadily running front page gossip articles about Palin over the last few days.

Devine argues that Palin’s reaction to baby Trig being perfect in her eyes should be cause for applause, that her management of her family and professional roles should be admired, that she is personally fascinating being a moose-hunting mamma, that she’s about to break the glass ceiliing. She manages to imply that it is feminists who want to deny her her choices in life, the feminists who ask if a mommy really should be allowed such a time consuming job, the feminists leading the attacks over her personal life, the feminists starting rumours. Devine says feminists assert without evidence that Palin is a homophobic anti-choicer, but the one bit of ‘evidence’  she uses to ground these claims that it is feminists doing all this is a quote. From the New York Times…I’d link you to that article, but Devine didn’t bother so I can’t. I don’t know what the article was, but a quick headsup Miranda: one NYT quote (even *if* written by an actual feminist) does not sum up feminists positions on and problems with Palin. Please see the links above and below. (Oddly enough these both manage to defend her right to be treated as a candidate, and not to be disrespected and annihilated by rumour, and simultaneously to point out issues with her politics! Feminists managing to not be one dimensional! Who’d a thunk it?)

Basically it’s the usual codswallop from Miranda, but you know, for real! It’s the mainstream media in fact going to town on Palin’s personal life, it’s the mainstream media asking if a mommy should be allowed a big job like this, the mainstream media who disrespect her choices – as to the feminists, I’d argue the position is: It’s great for Palin to have so many choices – it’s a shame she wants to deny life choices to others. And *that’s* what it’s all about Miranda.

So for feminist/left wing discussions of the *actual* opposition to/issues with Palin (AND for more writing about the frustration over the rumours/discussions of Palin’s personal life/love life/family life) coming from feminists/the left more generally, see posts and comment threads here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here*, a great collection of links here, here, here (that one’s a Times article)…ok, you get the point right? Cos I’m going crosseyed. The point is there are many many feminist/left wing posts on the valid concerns over Sarah Palin’s politics, and the prospect of her being the Vice President. So far not *one* of them has been about “I’m just not sure a *mommy* should be VP” or based on the rumours.

[Edited to note that I will add more links as I come across them...the thing is they're multiplying extremely quickly, so if you follow the links, you're likely to come across links on those links, and so on...enjoy. ALSO!! It has been noted over at Hoyden that while the feminists are still saying "OFF LIMITS" to bagging Palin out over personal life stuff, that there are quite a number of 'progressive male' bloggers doing so. So I need to add that caveat to my proclamation that the feminists and the left more generally have steered clear of this shit.]

Deal breakers…no, not you Charlie Manson!

Sam in the City has written another delightfully insightful post – this time she talks about ‘deal breakers’ – what attributes can another person have so absolutely heinous that you will not consider dating them? Atrributes that make your stomach turn, your knees tremble (in a bad way) and have you heading for the hills screaming “Get behind me Satan [not in a good way]“?

Her list is fairly instructional for the novice ‘Ask Sam’ reader as to who her bread and butter commentors are and what sort of tribalistic fevered ‘let’s assert our power by verbally tearing apart women and the kinds of women we *particularly hate*’ kinds of comment themes she’s fishing for. If you can get them going on that the comments (and therefore the hits) come rolling in.

So. What makes the list? Let’s see? Violent crimes? Blatant aggression? Terrifyingly poor attitudes to life? No?? Um…wait…gambling addictions? Fundamentalism? Wait, wait, I’ll pick one…a lackadaisical attitude to personal hygeine?

No. You guessed it. *Chicks with tats*, *Feminists*, *nice guys* and *pretty boys*

It’s just so EASY – she’s like a sitting duck. A big one. Out in the open. In duck season. With two broken wings, one leg and you’ve got a bazooka. Doesn’t seem fair really.

Let’s see. First up a *friend* with a dilemma “My b/f will dump me if I get a tat…should I do it anyway?”. Heavens NO young child, a man (ANY man!) is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD!!! What are you THINKING???

Then to illustrate her pearls of wisdom she goes for a little Paris Hilton slut-shaming and advises (quietly, carefully, like her friend’s an easily spooked animal who’ll freak being talked to like a real grown up) that said friend try a henna tatoo first – the alleged result?         

                   ” So she did. Half an hour after getting it done, she was ready to scrub it off. “It’s ruining all my outfits,” she wailed, and then removed it. Luckily she could …

PHEW!!! Luck-Y!!!

She *wailed*??? After *half an hour*??? And a rose on her hip was ruining…all…her outfits? I’m beginning to suspect Sam in the City is not a *real* journalist, like sometimes she makes up pretend idiot friends who can’t make decisions and wail helplessly over the dilemma of a temporary tattoo that is ruining their outfits. Cos that is how women act. For real. We don’t know what we want. We change our minds more frequently than our underwear. When something goes ‘wrong’ we can’t fix it – even if it’s just washing a little texta off our hip, we have to sit on the floor and shriek over it first. We’re just *like that*

Then – feminism – new friend/contact “Oh helps! I’s feminist. Can’t find boyfriend! Should I sell out beliefs for boyfriend? Because clearly I must choose!” [Of COURSE you should ditch the lezzo hairy legged politics *girlfriend*, you''ll never get a root otherwise, and then HOW will you fake a pregnancy and make him marry you and fulfill your destiny by hating your husband, making him miserable, stealing his kids, taking his money and leaving him a shell of a man???]

Then…nice men. Oh yes, that old chestnut, thrown out by angry men world over. “It’s because I’m too nice…that those fucking bitches won’t fuck me! Goddamn those stupid sluts! They’re all the same! And they all want Collin Farrell! Or James Dean. Treat em mean keep em keen! They LOVE that shit! Why don’t they realise how NICE I am, that I’m hot shit, ready for action and they’re useless dumb girls who don’t know what’s good for them? I mean SHIT! It can’t be me right?”

Then…pretty boys. Because men should be rugged, manly and able to open beer bottles with their eye sockets. And if they are “hotter” than you, you will spend your life an anxious wreck, breathing into brown paper bags and vomiting into pot plants…because you couldn’t have anything else going for you. Since a woman is just a decoration, if he “outpretties” you, you’re FUCKED! (duh!) men CHEAT! Biological destiny! Written in the genes. Poor buggers.

Then she opens it right on up asking what are deal breakers for the readers, and what they think of her list. Let the slut-shaming, judgmental, woman bashing CRAP begin in earnest. Yeeeehaw! I gots me rifle, let’s shoot some kangaroo and drink rum til we pass out in our own vomit! (Where are all the supermodel hot, sports watching women who think that’s hot???)

Is the pope a Catholic? Does a one-legged duck swim in circles? Will Americans vote for another moron? Ahhh…you’ve stumped me

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald tells us that Republican Presidential nominee John McCain was “stumped” by the tricksy question posed by a wily reporter in November 2007 of whether he *thought the use of contraceptives could help prevent the spread of H.I.V* – John McCain “You’ve stumped me”. Asked if he would support the distribution of condoms if he *knew* that they *would* stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, he replied, it is reported that he had *never got into those issues before*.

Well, don’t worry John – I’m sure this won’t come up as an issue at all when you’re LEADER OF THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!

I’m sorry, but I think if you are *stumped* by that question you have no business in politics. It’s no intellectual curve-ball dumbarse…it’s like do you believe in gravity? It’s a no brainer. Condoms. Save. Lives. Sex. Is. Normal. People. Will. Have. It. They shouldn’t die for that.