I delisted my gender a while back, just to mess with them (same reason I delisted my sexual orientation; if it’s something you have a right to care about, you probably already know). Facebook was not so much of a fan of the non-gendered TRN, but eventually they stopped begging and shut up. Now most of my profile page is a sea of the third-person plural (“TRN waggled their scurvy tongue ’bout Alexander Hamilton’s recent tales”) or just sentences structured in a way that doesn’t require a pronoun at all, but apparently Facebook (or at least the Pirate English version) is unable to cope with all my activities in a gender-neutral manner.

So, okay. Why does Facebook automatically assume that I am male? Short answer: male is the default gender in pretty much every person’s mind for everything ever. Slightly longer answer: Facebook has a history of being particularly crappy about things like gender anyway.

But Facebook does have several reasons to assume that I’m female, rather than male. For one thing, my main college network is a women’s college. For another, my gender was listed as “female” for years, and I never changed it to something different. My friends list is approximately 80% female, my interests include such topics as “feminism”, and there are many photos that do little to disguise my femme-y, voluptuous self.

Of course, none of those are sufficient reasons to peg me as female with 100% certainty. I actually like that Facebook apparently doesn’t assume that students at my college, or students who used to identify as female, necessarily still are – I know several people for whom that’s not the case. And obviously, gendering profiles based on feminist leanings or a high percentage of ladyfriends would be ridiculous.

But I still find it quite interesting that I’m apparently a dude. I’m not offended at the idea that someone might think I was a man – I do have the cis privilege to almost never be misgendered, so it’s not a sore spot for me or anything. But I am slightly miffed that Facebook seems to have taken the stance of “well we can’t say for sure, but just in case let’s say dude once in a while”, rather than sticking with gender-neutral all the time or – horror of horrors! – throwing in a female pronoun here and there. I do realize that a lady accidentally being called a dude is nowhere near as big a deal as a man being mistaken for a woman (insert SISSY BOY APOCALYPSE), so they went the route least likely to offend, but…yeah.  Facebook FAIL.

P.S. Soon finals will be over and I will GRADUATE and then maybe, just maybe, I will make a substantive post! WOOT!

Note: I briefly had this post under password protection, as it dealt with some personal/intimate details and feelings. If you read the post and have strong opinions on whether or not it should be publicly published, please drop me a line in the comments (I can delete your comment after if you want).

[trigger warning]

This is a continuation of the sentiments expressed in the other day’s post, Terminology (or, This Isn’t Sex). In it, I describe how when I was younger, I assumed pretty much any sexual media to be “sex-positive” and empowering, as some sort of “take that!” to the social conservative, decidedly sex-negative movement. I conflated objectification and rape apologism with empowerment and sexual freedom and agency, in part because none of the former words were in my vocabulary at the time. I discussed how the lack of feminist terminology in popular discourse, or the misunderstanding of same, leads to the phenomenon of all criticism of pornography, etc. being labeled as prudish and anachronistic, and had I realized that at least some of the criticism was based on ideas I would actually agreed with, I would have come to certain realizations much earlier.

Today, I’m going to discuss more thoughts about sex I had at that age and how they were influenced by popular culture and education, so this is your fair warning to leave if it’s something you’d rather not hear about (Hi, Mommy!).

When I was a teenager, one of the paramount themes in representations and discussions of relationships was sexual intimacy (shocker, I know). I was lucky enough not to be in an area of the country or religion where abstinence-only sex education or purity pledges abound, but the impressions I got were still mixed, at best. In discussions with health teachers, other adults, friends, and of course almost all popular media, the following messages were disseminated:

• Teenage boys are the horniest creatures on the planet. They are perpetually masturbating, or thinking about it, and this is both completely acceptable and very funny. In almost no situation can a teenage boy control his sex drive, whether this means becoming aroused at an inappropriate times or trying to “get” sexual activity from a hesitant (female) partner.
• Teenage girls are boy-crazy, but any sexual contact with said boys is a result of peer pressure. The vast majority of girls don’t masturbate, which is why any discussion of it is both rare and considered much more”shocking”. Teenage girls can’t control their emotions and fall hopelessly in love with boys at the drop of a hat, which leaves them vulnerable to being “made” to do something they’d rather not (have sex). This is not a funny thing in the same way that boys humping apple pies is, but the girls aren’t pitied very much either, because as the possessors of a lower libido they are the Designated Kill Switch for any teenage sexual activity, which is universally considered to be bad unless we’re just talking about boys having sex with nameless figures, in which case it’s cool and funny. Any girl who fails to properly control her boy’s sexual urges is to be blamed and shamed; any indication that she might have actually invited or (gasp!) wanted said sexual activity should lead to even more blaming and shaming. The terms “fast”, “loose”, “easy”, “whore”, and “slut” should be employed whenever describing a girl that someone thinks might have wanted sex, or had sex, or been “made” to have sex, and are universally acknowledged as the worst things a girl could ever be.

People were not entirely without sympathy for the female half of the population, though. We also received frequent admonitions and instructions on how and why we should “resist” our potential boyfriends’ inevitable (and inevitably unwelcome) sexual advances. I remember distinct moments in health class, for example, where we all discussed what we would say if our boyfriend told us “you would [have sex] if you loved me” – the proper response was “if you loved me, you wouldn’t make me”. A boy who is trying to have sex with a girl who doesn’t want to (pretty much all sexual activity was assumed to fall into this category) is inconsiderate and not a nice person, and it might even be good for you two to have a Serious Discussion About Your Feelings, but breaking up with a boy who was pressuring you into sex was a last resort (don’t want to be a prude! And all boys are gonna do it anyway, so do you really want to be alone?).

My friends and I internalized these messages to varying degrees; we did endorse the “boys are uncontrollably aroused” idea, and did use the terms “easy” and “slut”, even while we acknowledged that at least some “normal” girls might want sex. I personally never took the “how to resist sex” warnings very seriously, as they seemed to hinge upon girls being universally frigid, which I knew was not the case. It was difficult for me to envision a situation in which a potential boyfriend might want more sex than I did, as I (last warning, Mom!) spent my pubescent years in a state of near-perpetual horniness. If such an unlikely situation did arise, I conceded that it would not be a good thing and might even make me love my boyfriend less, thought dumping him might be a bit much. I mentally condemned and mocked all female characters who complained of being sexually pressured as prudish and uptight. In short, it wasn’t something I envisioned ever having much of a problem with, as it depended on the “fact” that good girls resisted sex. If you want sex, then you can’t be pressured into it – and wouldn’t be likely to anyway, as the reason boys pressured in the first place was having unsatisfied urges. As long as you both have lots of mutually agreed-upon sex, you’d be safe from any messy “if you loved me you wouldn’t make me” awkwardness. Phew!

Just for the record, I was “right” in that respect. No boy ever tried to force me into something I wasn’t interested in, or was anything less than completely considerate of my feelings. This is not one of Those Stories.

I chalked this up to my decidedly sex-positive attitude, as well as the fact that people I went out with were nice boys. How lucky I was, to find people that cared about me enough not to pressure me into sex! It wasn’t until years later that I really thought about those beliefs, and I came to a shocking revelation: Someone who “makes” you have sex is not just inconsiderate, or unable to control their impulses. Those things are completely true, but no one ever mentioned that this person was also a rapist.

Let me repeat, in bold face and caps: NO ONE EVER TOLD ME THAT SOMEONE FORCING YOU INTO SEX WAS RAPE.

Not teachers, not parents, not friends, not any of the “young adult” books I so voraciously consumed (even the ones that depicted teenage girls as realistically horny). No one ever said “someone who tries to get you to have sex with them against your will is trying to rape you”. No one ever said “the character in this movie is pregnant because her boyfriend raped her”. Words such as “sexual assault”, “consent”, and “rape” were completely absent from even my twelfth-grade health class, except for a brief discussion we had on statutory rape laws and the age of consent in our state.

No one ever told me that the calm and amicable (and COMPLETELY THEORETICAL) back-and-forth I had with my boyfriend about what I might do if he tried to make me do physical things that made me uncomfortable was really a calm and amicable discussion about how I’d behave if he sexually assaulted me.

Just let that one sink in for a minute.

* * *

I realize that as epiphanies go, this one’s deceptively simple: the criticism of people conflating sexual assault with sex, maintaining a difference between “coerced sex” and “rape”, and viewing all methods of coercion short of actual restraint as totally fair game are feminist bloggers’ bread and butter. I shouldn’t be surprised, and in a sense I’m not – I’ve done enough reading about rape culture, both for pleasure and for school, to not really be surprised by anything like that anymore. I’ve read how studies about how rape proclivity and incidence of rape need to be measured by asking the perpetrators “Have you ever had sex with someone when you knew they didn’t want to?” rather than “Have you ever raped someone?” because most rapists freely admit to the first; the same false distinction goes for survivors of sexual assault. I’ve read about how people that view rape as just some other kind of sex are more likely to excuse it, and to report that they would consider doing it sometime (you know, just for the hell of it). I know all this, and it used to shock me, but it (usually) doesn’t anymore. I have been so completely disillusioned about our cultural beliefs about sexual assault that most of the time, I’m numb to any new and horrible statistics or revelations.

But this? This revelation doesn’t leave me numb. When I think about how I so easily could have been sexually assaulted and not really known why it made me feel so bad, I feel both terrified and relieved for myself (this post could so easily have been one of Those Stories), and great sorrow for all the people who weren’t as lucky as I was. When I think about all the work I inadvertently did, in my mind and in my actions, to dismiss all instances of “forced sex” as the inevitable result of mismatched libidos, I feel ashamed.

When I think about how blissfully unaware I was that that unprovoked and detached conversation I had with my boyfriend presented him raping me as a reasonable (though remote) possibility, and that even as I told him I would dump him if he did I thought in my head that I probably wouldn’t, I want to throw up.

And when I think about all the supposedly more knowledgeable and more responsible people that were supposed to be telling me how the world works and how to get through it in the best way possible – all those people that for all their talk about sex, never mentioned rape except in the context of Law & Order: SVU episodes, I feel furious.

How hard would it have been, in the midst of talking about lube and condoms and birth control pills and anal sex, to throw in a one-minute spiel about sexual consent? I realize that because of the rape culture the probability of that was very low (for reasons discussed earlier), and that to condemn any one individual for conforming to it is very unfair. I also realize that because of the same environment, any “lessons” about sexual assault would probably have been of the Esteemed School of Victim Blaming (the same Epically Unhelpful institution to bring “Why doesn’t she just leave?” to every discussion of domestic violence), but at least then the possibility would have crossed my mind.

How much did it cross the grown-ups’ minds? Is it sometimes the case, as I posited in my prior post, that people want to express pro-feminist thoughts but are forced to couch them in more “traditional”, socially conservative terms? Were some of the people talked to actually thinking about rape but unable to articulate it in socially acceptable ways?

In particular, this makes me think of a well-worn expression: “He’s only after one thing”. This phrase, and its variants, are ubiquitous when discussing teenage boys, the implicit assumption that the “one thing” they want is sex. It’s frequently said by older men, when recollecting their youthful heyday. Sitcom Dad: “I remember when I was his age! They only want one thing, and NO DAUGHTER OF MINE WILL BE HAVING THE SEX!” (then Sitcom Dad jokes with Sitcom Male Teenager about his latest “scores”). It’s sometimes said in the funny yet rueful manner people use when talking about teenage boys’ inevitable masturbation, but I’ve heard it more often as a cautionary: “You don’t want to go out with that boy. He’s only after one thing.” Unsurprisingly, teenage TRN didn’t really understand why this was such a bad thing (a horny dude who wants to fool around? Sign me up!) and attributed it to most people’s implicit assumption that girls weren’t interested in sex. A boy wanting sex couldn’t be anything other than unwelcome, because girls are pure as the driven snow. And in a lot of cases, I’m sure I was right. A lot of people, for all their progressiveness, still get super-freaked at the idea of their little girl being sexually active in a way that doesn’t apply to their little boys, and that has nothing to do with her sexual agency.

But how many people actually mean the more sinister implication? Sure, it’s a problem if two people get in a relationship and find their sexual desires are incompatible, doubly so if one person misled the other about their intentions, but someone who’s only after one thing sounds like they’d go to great lengths to get it. Someone who only wants sex and doesn’t care about your feelings probably isn’t going to be honest about their intentions if it’ll impede their attainment of said sex. Someone who only thinks of women as the means to a very specific end (I refrained from writing what I really wanted to) is going to treat them like crap. Someone who’s after sexual congress above all else, including actual consent, is a rapist.

I understand that allegations of sexual assault are taken very seriously, and that in most people’s minds accusing someone of rape without sufficient evidence (or sometimes even with it) is a far worse crime than actually raping someone. So your aunt is not at all likely to say, “Don’t go out with that boy, he might try to rape you. He’s done it to four other girls”. But is that what she meant? I think the way in which the phrase is used indicates that at least for some people, it is meant to protect women from a threat that they can’t actually admit. Of course, this means that some men who say “I remember when I was his age! I was only after one thing, just like him!” are tacitly admitting to sexual assault, which…yeah*.

I may have strayed a wee bit from my original point, which was that the way we talk about sex is important. Forced sex is not sex. Sex, or sexual consent, that is “obtained” or “gotten” is not sex. Trying to “make someone have sex with you” by any means other than politely asking, and being willing to hear a response of “no”, is not sex. Viewing people as sexual objects without feelings, or being completely willing to ignore these feelings for the sake of “getting some”, is not the inevitable conclusion to sexual arousal, and it is not sex. Someone who pressures you into sex is not having sex with you. The inability or refusal of people to use feminist terminology when talking about sensitive subjects such as sex has very real consequences. I know that I’m not one of the main casualties of the rape culture, as I have so far managed to go through life unassaulted. But when I realize how much I’ve been forced to dispassionately contemplate the possibility of my own sexual assault? That little frisson of fear is all too familiar, and it affects all of us.

*This is actually not a shocking idea – many pro-feminist men have written about retrospectively realizing that they had coerced women into sex (what they don’t say is that it was “accidental”, just that they didn’t think about it as sexual assault).

There comes a time in every grown-up’s life when they have a sobering revelation: their parents were right.

Well, maybe.

One of the things I’ve noticed during my Feminist Journey ™ is how I’ve become critical of things that I used to think were totes cool. Well, okay, that’s not news, but I have more, I swear! I’ve become critical of things I not only used to be interested in, but used to support because I thought they were progressive, or empowering, or some vague force for good in the world. Case in point: Cosmopolitan Magazine.

15-year-old TRN: OMG there’s this magazine that talks about SEX and it’s right there in the CHECKOUT LANE and it acknowledges women’s libidos and doesn’t call them sluts and helps them have better sex and become Fun, Fearless, Females! Clearly this is not only hot, but AWESOME. I feel so morally superior to all those prudes who don’t want me to read it, because they’re afraid of SEX, especially premarital sex, and especially the ladies doing it. They just don’t like women being happy with themselves as sexual beings! I feel validated in being a female with an actual sex drive! Cosmo is the best magazine ever!

22-year-old TRN: OMG I immediately die a little inside when I meet someone who takes Cosmopolitan seriously. I can’t believe I ever liked that magazine. Sure, it does manage to stray away from the Madonna-whore dichotomy of women’s sexuality, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about it. Its sex tips are not only repeated every month, but completely ridiculous. It’s so heteronormative that I don’t think I’ve ever, in the dozens of issues in multiple languages I’ve read over the years, seen a single mention of a non-heterosexual romantic or sexual interaction. It promotes hackneyed gender stereotypes and “relationship tips” (I once read one where they advised women to pretend not to be able to do certain things, i.e. open jars, in order to help your man feel manly). Oh yeah, and they’re also rape apologists.

Obviously, there are many reasons why I think differently now then I did in middle and high school. But you know what? If someone had actually said the latter paragraph to me when I was at the height of my Cosmo phase, I might have listened – probably not as much as I do now, but I would have least understood the idea that there were objections to Cosmo other than OH NOEZ LADIES HAVING SEX AND LIKING IT. It’s gotten to the point (documented well by Ariel Levy) where the social conservatives in our society are demonizing sexuality and fetishizing virginity so much that any frank depiction of sex, particularly with women involved, comes as a relief (you think women should cover up all their skin? Well, I’m going to get NAKED!). Of course, it’s usually a false idol, as objectifying women and portraying them as perennially thin, hairless sex machines just dying for a good “pounding” is neither novel nor particularly helpful. But I wonder how much of the criticism that when I was a teenager I mentally labelled as “socially conservative” (or “prude”, or whatever the hip terminology was) was actually based on principles that I would agree with now.

Another example is the current kerfluffle with Apple and iPhone apps. For those just tuning in, Apple recently decided to ban ~5,000 apps for the iPhone because they were objectifying to women. I don’t have an iPhone, but I have read about the really creepy apps they’ve had in the past – really racist, predatory, and just plain misogynist. Apparently the number of people complaining started to actually affect their profits, or publicity, or some other thing big corporations care about, because they instituted a bunch of new criteria that (most) apps have to conform to.

And what of our liberal-minded dude friends? Did they rejoice with us that people would no longer be amused by looking up an animated character’s skirt against her will, or spend hours making imaginary boobs wobble? I mean, after all, we all know that the conservative men are the prudes, the anti-sex ones! If there are things that make women feel creeped out and objectified and unsafe, then surely our progressive man-friends will support us, as is the liberal way!

Well (SPOILER ALERT) – not quite.

Jill at I Blame the Patriarchy does a good job of compiling some of the most ridiculous comments posted on a Gizmodo article about the new rules. Frequent mentions of censorship, the Parent’s Television Council, prudes, virgins, social conservatives, 1984/Big Brother, and how “empowering” the Suicide Girls strip app was for women (making conventionally attractive women take off their clothes for you! Groundbreaking!) abound. In short, there seems to be little or no recognition of the fact that certain things are objectionable for legitimate reasons. Obviously, I think there’s a big disconnect between the “women’s rights = human rights” school of thought and the progressiveness of a certain segment of the left-wing male population, who seem to think that voting for the occasional pro-choice candidate and watching ’30 Rock’ makes you woman-friendly; even if they do or did understand the feminist point of view, they just don’t care. But how many people are we losing to this mainstream point of view by hesitating to use (gasp!) social justice terminology, invoke standard 101 arguments, or being anything other than totally “sex-positive”?

I know I’m treading dangerously close to the Porn Wars here, but I think we can all agree on some things. Treating women like walking boob display cases, devoid of any emotion or attribute other than jiggliness? Not sexy, and not sex. Fantasizing about sexually assaulting a woman who wears a short skirt in public, by peeking up it to see her crotch? Not sexy, and not sex. Even saying the phrase “gray rape” in a nonironic way? Not sexy, and not sex. Women becoming sex workers because of desperation and poverty, and the increasing “acceptance” of this since our economic downturn? Not sexy, and not sex. None of these things do anything to:

• End women’s sexual oppression and objectification, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, and dichotomization of female sexuality
• Increase the sexual pleasure or happiness of actual women
• Promote new and positive role models, or ideals, or options for women. It’s the same old shit, wrapped in a pink ribbon and a heaping helping of “empowerful“.

In short, not every depiction of sex is the same. Sometimes the person with the vintage nudie mags isn’t celebrating the diversity of the human form; sometimes the connoisseur of “lesbian” porn isn’t actually a proponent of LGBT rights; sometimes the porn film entitled “Women Who Know What They Want, and Get It!” isn’t actually about women’s sexual agency*. That’s something I didn’t fully realize when I was younger, and I regret it. But how many other people feel the same way, and are afraid or unable to articulate it? Maybe your dad didn’t have a problem with you masturbating to porn, he had a problem with the fact that it was bukkake (no link for you). Maybe your mom didn’t care that you were reading smutty books, she cared that all of the Harlequin titles have really rapey titles like “The Italian’s Inexperienced Mistress“. Maybe the reason your sister wasn’t uncomfortable about the scantily-clad women on your walls because good girls should practice modesty, but because  it reminds her that most women are expected to drastically alter and “maintain” their bodies just to meet a minimum standard of “acceptable”.

I think one of the saddest parts about the backlash to feminism is the inability of people, particularly women, to be able to be taken seriously about legitimate concerns regarding matters such as sexual consent, objectification, or other important feminist issues. You can either embrace the stripper workouts, the incredibly graphic depictions of forced fellatio found in most pornography, the rising demand for labiaplasty, anal bleaching, and vulva dyeing, or you’re a prude. Because feminism is dead/no longer necessary/was never necessary and everything is as equal as it could possibly be, if not skewed towards the female half of the population, the only possible arguments against Marge Simpson being on the cover of Playboy are anti-sex/anti-woman/anti-masturbation/anti-freedom. So a lot of not-explicitly-feminist people just criticize using the avenues currently available, which are also the ones used by social conservatives, even if their end goal is the antithesis of whatever Phyllis Schlafly or Laura Sessions Stepp are currently vomiting. The spirit is willing but the Angry Feminist Pwnage is weak.

So, retrospectively, maybe the prudes and the squares are sometimes right in spirit, even if they have a completely unproductive way of expressing it. Next time someone says something like “Lady Gaga is such a bad role model!” or “I just don’t think Baywatch is a good show for children to watch”, ask them why (and feel free to condemn them if their criticism is based on anachronistic reasoning). Maybe someday, everyone will be able to articulate it in a way that actually promotes equality, rather than masquerading as garden-variety sexism. And maybe, on an even later someday, those arguments will be taken as seriously as the potential loss of exploitative masturbatory fodder is taken today.

*I know, I know. “Sometimes” is an understatement.

Twelve housepoints to whoever can guess which entry this is from!*

What better way to portray pioneers in women’s higher education (that are still producing better outcomes for female students than are co-ed colleges) than as rejects from Barbie’s Dream House?

Oh, if only. Can you IMAGINE how much more awesome our underwear pillow fights would be?

In completely and totally unrelated news, Time released an article that said only 13% of Wikipedia contributors are women (h/t Feministing). Even though in many countries (including this one) women outnumber men in post-secondary education. Boy, that would really be something to get pissy about if sexism weren’t deader ‘n a doornail, amirite? Snerk.

*For anyone who can’t see the picture clearly enough, it’s from the bottom of a Wikipedia page. There are multiple collapsible categories and boxes that this entry belongs to; all are shades of blue except for the ‘Seven Sisters’ bracket, which is hot pink.

You know, you can think and write about patriarchy and rape culture and misogyny all day long until you think you’ve really got a handle on it, and all it takes is for someone to come along and give you a swift kick in the pants for everything to go completely to pot and you have to start all over again.

See, here’s the thing. Women are trained to fear rape. A lot. It’s something that women take completely for granted – it’s expected! – but that nobody who hasn’t lived as one can ever fully understand.

Don’t walk alone at night! Don’t get drunk in public places! Don’t wear revealing clothing! Don’t take a drink from someone you don’t know! Take self-defense classes! Walk confidently! Don’t wear your hair in a ponytail! Hold your keys in your fist so as to have a makeshift stabby implement to gouge out your attacker’s eyes! Don’t park next to big vans! Don’t sleep around with a lot of boys!

Yadda yadda yadda. One of the most chilling things we can realize is that rape is every bit as common as we were told it was – if not more – but that doing all those preventative measures really doesn’t do shit. Because by telling women that as long as we follow all of those rules – ALL of them – we’ll be safe, we lull ourselves into a false sense of security. Anxious security, of course, because there’s tension between “I’m not supposed to be drinking in public” and “I’m a grown adult who should have every right to do so”, but as long as we follow all. those. rules to the letter, we’re safe. And every time we hear about somebody who was attacked, a lot of people’s first instinct is to analyze the story and see where she went wrong. Was she drinking? Was she wearing a short skirt? Did she go home with somebody she’d just met? Well, there you go! Victim-blaming helps those who aren’t victims yet get on with their lives, because as long as you can pinpoint the “rapeable” behaviors, and keep from doing them – ta-da! Of course, not coincidentally, this also feeds right into the patriarchal narrative of women being responsible for men’s sexuality and not having the right to go around living their lives without running the risk of being assaulted, but hey – as long as we can sleep at night, right?

But then you start reading a little more and realize all the cracks in the narrative. Like the fact that even though men are much more likely to be attacked by strangers or in public places than women, we’re the ones that are told to stay in the house. We’re told to “trust our instincts” and not get near a stranger that might attack us, but that ignores the fact that we’re much more likely to be assaulted by someone we know and love. We’re told to not go out alone, but that ignores that the fact that we’re much more likely to be assaulted IN OUR HOUSE, or the house of someone we know. We’re told to take self-defense classes and be assertive, but that ignores the fact that self-defense classes don’t really work to stop rape. We’re encouraged to “stand up for ourselves” and “kick him in the balls” if we’re harassed or attacked, but that ignores the fact that women are much more likely to be arrested and jailed for defending themselves, especially in cases of domestic violence. We’re told to fight back and say no, but don’t realize that perhaps the scariest kind of attack isn’t from a stranger, but from someone you care about deeply, and that you might have mixed feelings about hurting them even as they’re hurting you. Or that being frozen in fear and shock is perhaps one of the most reasonable responses to an attack, but the one most likely to be used to justify your rape. We’re never told that rapists on college campus were found to be under the influence of alcohol 75% of the time – more often than the victims were – because that doesn’t fit in with the whole “LADIEZ DON’T DRINK BECAUSE THEN YOU MIGHT GET YOURSELVES RAPED!1!” story.

It’s a sobering reality to have to come to terms with, and it takes a long time. Realizing that you’re more vulnerable than you had thought you were – and in ways you had previously assumed you were safe – is a terrifying thought. But wait! In the neverending funfest that is the patriarchy, there’s always more!

Because then you read a little more, and you know what you realize? Not only are you much more likely to get attacked than you had thought you were – if someone does hurt you? No one cares. Oh, people act like they care, and they use the word “rape” for any bad thing that happens because it’s so universally acknowledged to be a Bad Thing, and people say women can “cry rape” and supposedly get all these instantaneous results and justice, even if it’s a false allegation (which as we all know are even more traumatic than sexual assault!). But really? It’s a crock of shit. You know what happens to you when you get raped, after the actual assault is over?

Your university doesn’t take the crime seriously, and when you sue them for it, they say this (emphasis mine):

Pacific spokesman Richard Rojo said Thursday that the school does not consider the incident to be a rape.

“We would call it date rape,” he said.

Rojo said the university considers “outright rape” and date rape to be different, in that date rape does not involve “a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly.”

He said, “These are people who knew each other. … It’s a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities.

“It doesn’t make it right. It’s a sexual assault, and that’s why the university took action in this matter.”

If your attack is picked up by media, it will almost inevitably be reported in terms of “sex”: “forced to have sex”, “had sex with”, “sex slave”, “slept with”, and practically never be reported as assault, molestation, or rape.

If you live in the United Kingdom, and decide to report your rape, there’s a good chance your complaint won’t even be recorded, let alone prosecuted. If you decide to prosecute, you won’t have a case unless there’s physical evidence (which probably won’t be processed, because police departments cut rape kit budgets all the time!). If there’s physical evidence, you’re pretty much fucked anyway, because I mean really. Weren’t you asking for it? Your name will be dragged through the mud, as the prosecution finds out if and when you had slept with people before – because sluts just can’t say no! You might not be allowed to even say the words “rape” or “sexual assault” to describe what happened to you. Your odds of getting a conviction will be incredibly low.

In fact, if you’re a prostitute raped at gunpoint? Your judge might change the charges from “rape” to “theft of services”:

The accuser testified that she initially agreed to have sex with Gindraw and a friend of his in exchange for money, but that Gindraw refused to pay her, held a gun to her head and forced her to have sex with several men, according to a transcript of an Oct. 4 court hearing.

“She consented and she didn’t get paid. … I thought it was a robbery,” Deni told the Philadelphia Daily News.

We all know that women who were wearing skimpy clothes were asking for it (even if they’re a 10-year-old girl!). But what if you were wearing jeans?

Italy’s highest court has ruled that a woman wearing jeans cannot be raped. The Supreme Court of Appeal in Rome on Wednesday overturned a rape conviction, saying that the supposed victim must have agreed to sex because her jeans could not have been removed without her consent.

What if you did initially consent, but then didn’t want to have sex anymore?

An appellate court said Maryland’s rape law is clear — no doesn’t mean no when it follows a yes and intercourse has begun.A three-judge panel of the Court of Special Appeals Monday threw out a rape conviction saying that a trial judge in Montgomery County erred when he refused to answer the jury’s question on that very point.

The appeals court said that when the jury asked the trial judge if a woman could withdraw her consent after the start of sex, the jury should have been told she could not. The ruling said the law is not ambiguous and is a tenet of common-law.

What if you were a 10-year-old indigenous Australian girl who was gang-raped by nine men?

Despite the fact that under Australian law, a 10-year-old is too young to give informed consent, the court found there were mitigating circumstances.

“The girl involved was not forced, and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you,” Ms. Bradley said in her judgment.

I could go on (really, I have hundreds more of these in the queue), but hopefully my point is clear. When you are raped, 90% of people won’t give two shits about you, and will grasp at any and all straws they can to find a reason that what you underwent was not, in fact, rape, because then that means they don’t have to care about it.

Even if you were a 13-year-old girl who was drugged, vaginally and anally raped, while protesting the whole time. Because of course that’s the big story du jour – Roman Polanski! Big-time director! Who has made all sorts of good movies! Who has worked with many big Hollywood names, and won many awards, including an Oscar! Who has also – just by-the-by – been hiding out in France for the last 30 years because he pled guilty to raping a little girl!

It seems pretty unambiguous to me. 13 is below the age of consent, so any “sex” had with someone at that age is rape, even if it needs to be qualified with a “statutory” in front of it to make the lawyers happy. Period. And then we have the fact that she was drunk on champagne and zonked out on Quaaludes, which also means she was unable to consent, so it’s rape again. Of course, if all of that wasn’t enough, she said no! Repeatedly! And begged to go home! And was sodomized for her trouble! Newsflash: compounding reasons that an encounter was rape do not cancel each other out. It just makes it worse.

But then, of course, I’m just a Puritan American who doesn’t understand “high art”.

The festival has been “unfairly exploited” to secure Polanski’s arrest over a case that is “all but dead,” said U.S. actress Debra Winger, president of the film event’s jury.

“Despite the philistine nature of the collusion that has now occurred, we came to honor Roman Polanski as a great artist,” Winger said in a statement read to reporters.

“We hope today this latest order will be dropped,” Winger said. “It is based on a three-decade-old case that is all but dead except for a minor technicality.”

Among Polanski’s most successful films are “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), “Chinatown” (1974), and “The Pianist” (2002).

Rape apologism hit a new low today when I found a “Free Polanski” petition signed by some of Hollywood’s best and brightest. Ever enjoy anything with or by Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Monica Bellucci, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Weinstein, David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, Steven Soderbergh, Diane von Furstenberg, Pedro Almodovar, Alfonso Cuaron, Whoopi Goldberg, or Terry Gilliam (GAHH MONTY PYTHON)? Ever think anything good about the Cannes Film Festival? Well, congratulations! All of these people and/or organizations have now publicly announced their support and outrage over Polanski’s finally being arrested after 30 years of fleeing from the law.

We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski’s arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.

The European take on this seems to be “silly Puritan Americans with their uptightness about sex and love!” (it’s a case of morals, guys!), presumably based on the erroneous belief that the victim “consented” as best she could and that the rape was “only” statutory. Even if I were willing to concede that statutory rape is not real rape (which I am not), it wouldn’t apply here! But because Polanski has made some good films, people beg that we give him a break. As Melissa puts it:

Very few, if any, of the people who have publicly defended Polanski, or who have worked with him, make it their business to champion or associate themselves with admitted child rapists. They make an exception for Polanski for the same reason exceptions have been for other famous, artistic men – directors, writers, actors, comedians, singers, musicians, dancers, choreographers, painters, sculptors, photographers – who have been known to sexually assault women and/or children: Because geniuses get special dispensation.

Because there’s only one Roman Polanski.

So goes the breathless defense of the artiste, while the flipside of that particular coin, because thirteen-year-old girls are a dime a dozen, goes unspoken.

In the world of patriarchy, thirteen-year-old girls are a dime a dozen. We’re all expendable – young, old, attractive, ugly, boys, girls – every person that is victimized or brutalized in connection with rape culture is Not Important. Whether their reasons be more psychological self-preservation or deliberate protection of the Right To Rape, most people in the world – even some people you know – won’t give a shit about you if you’re attacked, and will do everything in their power to discredit you and make you think it was your fault, because doing otherwise would mean confronting never-questioned beliefs about society, and the realization that we’re not as safe or as blameless as we would like to think we are.

So that’s the latest in my list of “hard truths to swallow”: not only am I essentially powerless to prevent my own sexual assault (it won’t necessarily happen, but if it does, I’ll have no control over it), but if/when such an event occurs, almost no one will believe me and practically everyone will find some way to conclude that it was my own fault. After being violated once, it will most likely happen again, only this time in front of everybody I know, unless of course I choose to not tell anyone and suffer in silence, in which case it’s my fault if my attacker does it again because I didn’t do my duty as a citizen to report a crime.

And that’s what’s keeping me up at night.

P.S. Go fuck yourselves, petition signers

Shockingly, I don’t agree with this viewpoint (spoiler!). Obviously, I don’t agree with any of it, but one point in particular that I want to discuss is the “enjoying” bit. The whole idea that we “look” for things to get pissed about is excellently debunked by Liss at Shakesville here, and I heartily concur. I do not spend my days combing through websites and books, eavesdropping on people’s conversations, watching films frame by frame, in order to catch any minute instance of someone not being “P.C.” so that I may pounce and say “ah-ha!”. And if/when I find something, it doesn’t make me happy.

Granted, there are times when I go looking for instances of a particular brand of misogyny, perhaps while researching statistics for a blog post or trying to prove a point to someone (“See! Sexism isn’t dead!”). It gives one a sense of agency, a sense of purpose and control, to be able to respond angrily to blatantly offensive things instead of just sitting back and taking them; nonetheless, as satisfying as fighting back can be, I usually don’t have to expend any energy to find something to fight back against. It’s more a question of “which thing slapping me in the face am I going to actually deal with today, and which things am I just going to ignore for the time being?”

But of course, everyone needs a day off. Being a cranky badass, awesome as it can be, is also exhausting. Sometimes you just need to sit, back, relax, and forget about fighting The Good Fight for a little while. I fully support, as well as participate in, the critiquing of various pop culture and media works. I think it’s very true that pop culture, such as television shows or magazines, both reflect and influence our attitudes about any number of social issues (creating a self-reinforcing cycle), and that every time a sexist joke gets told on a sitcom, somewhere a feminist loses her wings. However, and I don’t want to shout this from the rooftops because I have the kneejerk feeling that it makes be a BAD!FEMINIST, there are definitely times when I just don’t care. When you’ve been pushing back against an enormous wave of crap all day, just lying back and resting for a while and letting all the things float by without comment can be, quite frankly, the only way to deal.

Feministing has a recurring series about this, called (Un)Feminist Guilty Pleasures – things we disapprove of on an ideological level, yet still like in spite of ourselves. I think it’s a really good idea to point out that everyone has these, because of course feminists grew up and were socialized in the same world that everyone else was. Even though I know it’s wrong, I sometimes still find jokes that are offensive to some marginalized group funny, or at least not bothersome enough to boycott their source. There are also, of course, all the things I liked before the Big Feminist Awakening – things that were grandfathered in, and only now upon rewatching or rereading do I realize how creepy they are (Animal House, anyone?). Even if somebody would be perfectly content on an all-feminist, LGBT-positive, anti-racist, free trade and vegan diet of movies and books, I don’t know that it’s really possible. That is to say, most writers, directors, producers, and people with any sort of power in arts production are men and other privileged groups (such as white people); this makes it very difficult, even if someone had a completely pure vision, free of any kyriarchy-related detritus, to actually see it through to completion. The quality may be exemplary, but the quantity is sadly lacking.

It’s always upsetting to be emotionally attached to something that produces those niggling feelings of anger and guilt. It’s the slow and grinding way of wearing someone down, rather than abruptly bulldozing over them, but the end result is the same. I think the worst kind is when you’ve been happily immersed in a  new TV show, say, and are watching episodes at a merry little clip, all the while thinking what an intriguing and fun story this is, and how great it is to finally find something you can just relax about and not worry about all that misogyny crap, and then it hits. In a previous post, I described a similar revelation as a hypnagogic jerk, but this is a little different. It’s more like looking at something you’ve seen a hundred times before, and suddenly, this 101st time, looking at it from just the right angle or view, to see something you hadn’t seen before. A twist, if you will, on the way you were looking at it before. “….ohhh. I see.” The small sense of betrayal, and letdown, but mostly resignation, because at this point should you really be surprised anymore. Like waking up from a nightmare, only to realize that you’re still dreaming after all. To paraphrase one of my friends, it wouldn’t be a very good patriarchy if you could escape from it from any substantial length of time.

There are, of course, shows and there are shows. Battlestar Galactica is different from Friends is different from Bridezillas. But when even your favorite shows cause you to keep up a mental tally of little pangs (“and when it gets to this number, I’ll actually do something, dammit!”), the quality of your relaxation is going to be inescapably diminished. I know feminists don’t flip a “I’M OFFENDED” switch on just to piss dudes off, because if we did, I’d be able to flip it off. Ignorance is bliss, and once you’ve become familiar with seeing and analyzing all the ways in which society’s prejudices are reinforced, you can’t just stop seeing them (at least, not longer than a little while). If my whole purpose in pointing out misogyny was to “shake things up” or rebel, then it’d be an act that I could drop when I was all by my lonesome and wanting to unwind. But I can’t. And it really, really, sucks.

To be fair, it’s not feminism’s fault. I’d rather be informed and actually able to do something about it, rather than blissfully ignorant, because of course people are negatively affected by sexism without even knowing it. But I think it’s important to talk not just about how the little things affect the Big Things (like domestic violence and rape culture), but about how the little things are also Things in their own right. After all, when someone who has the fortune and privilege to not be experiencing or fighting against one of The Big Things at the moment, can’t even catch a real break without being constantly reminded of her second-class status and the other myriad ways in which people are marginalized the world over? That, my friends, is a good patriarchy.

No really, I am totally that person who, at the slightest provocation, will start to go about social insects or childbirth in America or the history of syphilis, because I think it’s just that cool. Thanks to a rabid curiosity about the world, a fairly good memory, and nearly constant Internet access, I have become a veritable well of quasi-useless factoids. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and in elementary school a good portion of my interactions with classmates were them asking me for homework help.

I’ve met a lot of people, in a lot of different contexts: different jobs, different schools, different social events, and as would any person, I’ve made a variety of impressions. It would be grossly misleading to imply that everyone I’ve ever met has liked me; I’m obviously not an impartial judge but can imagine that some of my negative traits include a grating sense of self-righteousness, over-prurient sense of humor and a not insubstantial amount of social awkwardness. However, there’ve been very few interactions with people where I felt that the other person saw me as too stupid. Yes – obnoxious, annoying, boring, lazy, inconsiderate – but not slow-witted or unintelligent. Whatever people’s other feelings about me have been, I’ve managed to go through my life having my intelligence relatively unassailed by would-be doubters (or if I haven’t, I’ve obviously been too dense to notice a lot of it).

I can assert that yellow jackets are wasps rather than bees, that tetanus doesn’t actually come from rust, or that rabies is the only disease that can be prevented after its transmission without people batting an eye (except perhaps in disgust). There is, however, one thing I can do that can completely change the way a person is interacting and speaking with me, so that in a moment I go from “pleasant, acceptably well-informed person talking to me about ______” to “OMG HOW DID I EVER LISTEN TO THIS PERSON AS SHE’S CLEARLY NUTS.” That thing, of course, is to say something feminist.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t happen all of the time. It certainly doesn’t happen with close friends, who’ve already been vetted for pro-feminist leanings and at any rate are used to my dealings in such so as to not be surprised when I mention them. And sometimes, I meet new people who are just as into the femmo-blogosphere and angry rants as I am, which is super-cool. A lot of the time, though, the mere mention of something “subversive” is enough to bring the conversation to a screeching halt.

It’s interesting, too – what can do it. As a rule, I surround myself with fairly liberal people, so as long as I toe the liberal “party line” I’m okay. It’s just a matter of not challenging the status quo too much.

Okay

• I think women should get equal pay for equal work.
• I support the troops, but really think the military needs to get its act together and repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
• I’m pro-choice because it’s a private medical decision to be made by a woman about her body.
• Religious fundamentalists really bother me because of their policing of human sexuality.
• Rape is an awful thing to happen to a woman, and anyone who does it is a monster. No means no!

NOT Okay

• I think part of the reason that women’s earnings relative to men’s in this country have been stagnant for 30 years is because of the continued expectations that women will take care of all domestic duties (such as childcare and housework), which men as a group seem in no way to be willing to take on, in addition to the fact that some job types are segregated by gender and the “pink-collar” workers are paid much less than equally-skilled workers in “blue-collar” jobs.
• I support the troops, but really think the military needs to get its act together and repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” In addition, the sexual assault rates for American soldiers is absolutely disgraceful, and our military needs to get its act together and deal with the rampant misogyny endemic to its culture if it wants to create a suitable environment for female soldiers, which then again maybe it doesn’t want to do after all because militarism is a key component of patriarchy.
• I’m pro-choice because forcing a woman to remain pregnant and/or give birth against her will is a form of physical and psychological abuse, and the entire anti-choice movement is predicated on the belief that sex is dirty and women should be punished for it in order to be kept in their proper place, which is why very few if any anti-choice organizations support contraception.
• Religious fundamentalists really bother me because of their policing of human sexuality, and female sexuality in particular (among other things, of course).
• Sexual assault is a crime committed almost entirely by men to women (and men). “No means no”, while absolutely true, is an inadequate response to sexual violence, because it places the onus on the victim to protest, rather than establishing it as a given that every person must ensure that all sexual partners are freely and enthusiastically consenting. In addition, while sexual assault is a monstrous thing and thus its perpetrator might tautologically be called “a monster”, more often than not a rapist is someone who appears fairly normal and is in fact more likely to be someone you know than a stranger on the street. Furthermore, while any person who sexually assaults someone is responsible for their actions, we as a society bear some blame for contributing to and perpetuating rape culture, which teaches among other things that women are sexual objects to be competed for and won, and that any means of obtaining “consent” short of physical restraint are absolutely fair game.

(I had more of these, but I figured enough was more than enough)

See the difference? The first ones you hear all the time. The second ones get you uninvited from parties. Even if you don’t deliver your thoughts in long-winded paragraph form, declaiming on a podium in the center of the room, merely expressing views similar to these is the fast track to derision and dismissal. In the blink of an eye, you become a hysterical female completely incapable of critical thought.

I understand, of course, why this happens (at least on an intellectual level). I am not believed because saying these things draws attention to the fact that I am a woman, rather than just a regular person (“one of the guys”, or at least one of those women who’s content to go with the flow and not cause trouble); because these are (culturally speaking) extraordinary claims that require extraordinary proof; because anything remotely pro-feminist has long ago been publicly discredited as the end result of man-hating, false martyrdom, and loneliness (which in turn is predicated on the basic assumption that patriarchy doesn’t exist, thus any response to it must be dismissed somehow); because of the false belief that the best and most “objective” judges of what constitutes a particular oppression are those who will never have the misfortune to experience it. I get all that – if being a feminist were super-easy, then we wouldn’t need it.

But it still takes my breath away. How can someone I’m talking to, someone who’s known me for months, years even, someone who knows that I am not very prone to exaggeration or fabrication except for the purposes of humor, someone who knows how much I read and think about things before stating them as fact, someone who is perfectly content to accept most of the things I say as truth even if they are surprised by the revelation, suddenly do a complete 180 and insist that I must be either deluded or deliberately misleading when I say something feminist? And then, once I start talking about army ants or the etymology of the word “quarantine” again, everything is perfectly fine and I’m back in the circle of the learned and reasonable. How can people that are completely behind me 99% of the time suddenly mock me or treat me with extreme skepticism when (and ONLY when) I say something about gender equality, and then revert back to the usual modus operandi when the moment has passed?

It’s as if people assume that I tripped and fell into the lake at a women’s college and emerged a fully formed feminazi, toting Dworkin in one hand and smearing Rogaine on my legs with the other. It wasn’t like that. I too was originally of the viewpoint of my erstwhile conversational partners – highly skeptical of the idea that feminism had any practical modern application and that feminists had anything remotely useful to say in this day and age, except to certain pockets of holdout sexists from the 1950′s. It was only after a great deal of reading and observation and a tremendous amount of thought (all of which is still ongoing, of course) that I started to get a handle on what I felt was actually true. The incorporation of information that I honestly hadn’t been aware of into my worldview, coupled with critical thinking about cultural attitudes and beliefs that I had taken for granted, is what actually “converted” me to the feminist cause. Not “drinking the Kool-Aid”. Not being lonely/fat/hairy/lesbian (not that any of those are bad, or that several of them don’t describe me, but they’re hardly an impetus). Not going to a women’s college (though that probably helped).

Obviously, as long as most people remain firmly convinced that patriarchy doesn’t exist and thus feminists are both unnecessary and deranged, these reactions will keep on coming. It’s not surprising, but it is insulting – both as a feminist, and as a thinking person, to have people assume that I’m completely ’round the bend or just silly enough to “follow a trend” without thinking it through. And it’s hurtful. I eagerly await the day when my credibility as a person will not be severely compromised by the usage of the word “feminist”.

AN: Upon rereading this, I realize how much it resembles a personal religious revelation and an impassioned plea for others to “see the light”. As a distinctly non-religious person, I have nothing constructive to say that would address this, except that feminism is based on reason and evidence whereas faith is, by its very nature, the antithesis of those things (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but not applicable to the matter at hand). And also that I don’t care what religion someone is as long as they don’t use it as an excuse to be an asshole.

Sad but true.

Preeetty much, yeah (That’s a screenshot, btw, of the simple-yet-endearing http://www.obamasplanforgayrights.com).

So, this has been building for a while – ‘this’ being ‘Obama’s not as ‘fierce’ as he would like to think with the queers and their civil rights’ – and I haven’t said much, if anything, on it. Maybe a couple things. But nothing, really, on how he’s pretty much done jackshit on his ‘promises to the BTLG community’ shtick since getting into office. I’ve wanted to, yes! And the tension has only been building. But I haven’t, for a few reasons:

• I’ve been posting very sporadically in general
• I’ve been either busy (school) or destressing from said busy (cuddling with the dogs, and reading the entire ‘Earth’s Children‘ series by Jean M. Auel, which happens to be in my local library. Ayla and Jondalar FTW!)
• Lots of other shit has been going on, in the country and the world (WTF Iranian election?! I’ve been glued to Twitter since Saturday!) and in the dark corner of my head where I think up blog posts, i.e. abortion, patients’ rights, right-wing hate speech, misogyny in the media, ad infinitum.

And there’s another one. As much as I would like to deny it, it’s almost certainly true that my straight and cis privilege makes me somewhat less likely to report on TLGB issues than other ones. I probably subscribe to fewer queer blogs than feminist ones (though they are, of course, far from mutually exclusive), and I also am more likely to write about things that have directly affected me, which again, as a cis straight woman, are less likely to be GBTL-related. So there’s that.

And then there’s the fact that the past week or so has seen the whole “Obama’s not as ‘fierce’ an advocate as he would like to say/think” meme go into OVERDRIVE, what with the Department of Justice saying same-sex marriage is the same as incest and all, in a brief released last Friday.

Understandably, that brief caused the blogosphere (or, at least, select parts of it) to explode. I haven’t seen much, if any, coverage of it in the MSM (Rachel Maddow notwithstanding), but that could also have been affected by the brief being released on a Friday and then the whole Iran thing happening (though of course, the networks didn’t really cover that either, so maybe there’s no excuse?). Next week, there’s been a ‘gay’ DNC fundraiser scheduled for a while, and Friday’s DOJ brief was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many TBLG orgs and people. Well, clearly, this was an untenable situation, because if there’s one thing the Democratic Party luurves about them queers,  it’s their money! So Obama decided to write an “Executive Memorandum” forcing some federal agencies to provide some benefits to some same-sex couples, expecting a cookie

Perhaps this cookie.

Or two.

Sarah Palin has this one.

And cookies there were! Well, a couple of them. But most people were not mollified, and even more orgs withdrew from the fundraiser today. So now there is a storm of shit, and I am in the awkward position of wanting to write about all of it but having blogged none of it.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post this today, along with a couple links to articles or posts I think do a good job of encapsulating, succintly, exactly what the eff is happening and why people are pissed. Then, starting tomorrow (maybe?) I’ll post some more things about what I and we have learned about this admin in the past few months, and what seems to lie ahead. It’s the whole thing with procrastination; you know, “getting started is half the battle” and all that. As any physics student knows, the coefficient of static friction is always greater than the coefficient of kinetic friction. So this is to get the ball rolling, and now there can be some more substantive writing sometime soon. Huzzah.

Obama’s unfulfilled gay rights promises, The Guardian‘s Comment Is Free

President Obama betrays the gay community, Salon

Affiliation with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party does not, in fact, make one a “leftist” or “left-wing extremist”. The idea that the word “socialist” means that fascism, the actual type of government espoused by the Nazi party, is the logical extension of progressivism is facile and asinine. Here’s a hint: racial supremacy, legally enforced gender roles, execution of homosexual people, jingoism, statism, militarism, and corporatism, while not unheard of under “liberal” regimes, are not what we’d call the “go-to” hallmarks of progressive governments. Here’s a quote from the WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE (talk about a good time to link to Let Me Google That For You):

According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and fascism, especially once in power, has historically attacked communism, conservatism and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the “far right” or “extreme right.”^[32]

I blame Jonah Goldberg and his inane book “Liberal Fascism” for this – at least, the idea may have existed before his publicizing it, but he certainly gave a lot of stupid people ammunition. If you haven’t heard of this veritable masterpiece of scholarly discourse, here are a couple reviews to tickle your fancy. Apparently, the subheading of the book was originally: “The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton”, some choice quotes are “[it is] impossible to deny that the New Deal was objectively fascistic” and “[Woodrow Wilson] was the twentieth century’s first fascist dictator”, and its author has said in an interview that “The only reason [Mussolini] got dubbed a Fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I” (you know, not because he founded the Italian Fascist Party).

But, you know, this post isn’t about how Jonah Goldberg is an idiot. AFAIK, he hasn’t said anything about this latest act of domestic terrorism: a neo-Nazi white supremacist killing a (black) security guard at the DC Holocaust Museum.

So, dear right-wing talking heads (I’m looking at you, Limbaugh, Beck, and assorted other wingnuts),

Your attempts to dismiss and deny the current trend of extreme right-wing domestic terrorism, as well as your wholesale encouraging and enabling same, have been duly noted. Please return to your regularly scheduled incendiary lies.

Recommended Reading:

About That DHS Report, Media Matters

Right wing media and the fringe: A growing history of violence (and denial), Media Matters

The Big Hate, Paul Krugman, New York Times

Fascism is not liberal: The profound dishonesty of Jonah Goldberg, Orcinus

When I first heard the news on Sunday, I was surprised but not shocked – coming as it does on the heels of the DHS report on the growing danger of right-wing extremism in the country, I had braced myself for the worst. I was angry, certainly, and sad in an abstract way, as one is whenever hearing about someone who’s died, but my attention was mostly focused on monitoring the maelstrom in the progressive blogosphere. I read lots of things I hadn’t known about abortion availability, and the extent to which anti-choice activists will go to get their way, and became increasingly outraged. As I think I have made clear, I feel very strongly that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy is paramount, and those that would campaign to remove it from her get on my shitlist right quick. I started collecting and bookmarking and compiling posts, planning one of my own on the matter. One thing that I noticed in several posts (such as this excellent one from Shakesville) was the mention of personal sorrow on the author’s part – something that I couldn’t really identify with. I mean, I was super-pissed, but heartbroken? Weeping? Not really. It’s not that I’m heartless – on the contrary, I’ve been known to bawl during Disney movies and Buffy season finales without reservation – but I just didn’t feel personally affected by the event. There were some vigils held across the country last night, and I could have gotten to one very easily, but I just didn’t think I’d fit in. I wanted statistics and scathing analysis, not some pseudoreligious sobfest. What would be the point? So I stayed home, and I read some more.

Dr. Tiller was one of only three doctors in the country who provide late-term abortions. Three. In a country with 300 million people, the biggest economy, the third-highest population – only three doctors specialize in the procedures used in post-viability terminations. And now, there’s only two. Post-viability abortion is something that tends to get people even more riled up than ones performed at earlier stages of pregnancy, and as such, elective abortions past 24 weeks are not legal in this country. The only legal abortions are medically-indicated – ones in which the fetus is non-viable, or cases in which the mother’s health is threatened, or cases in which a child rape victim was unable to procure an abortion at an earlier time. Women from all over the country are referred to these three abortion providers (in Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska). If they are unable to procure airfare, or get a referral? Too damn bad.

I am a firm believer that not all abortions are tragedies – there are innumerable reasons why a woman might want to terminate her pregnancy, and crushing guilt or tragic circumstances are not a prerequisite. However, post-viability abortions are a special case, in that they usually are tragedies. To clarify – the tragedy is not that an abortion was available or provided to these women. The tragedy is that after months of pregnancy, possibly years of hoping and planning for a child, parents are confronted with the stark realization that they will not, in fact, be having their baby. Due to circumstances beyond their control, and that they were not aware of or were not present at an earlier gestational age, they have had their dreams of a new child ripped away. In many cases, their own lives are at stake as well.

I have no respect whatsoever for the “protesters” who stand outside abortion clinics and harass patients and healthcare workers. However, I think it takes a special kind of hate to make camp outside a clinic known to specialize in post-viability abortions and terrorize families who, if things had gone according to plan, would be just as upset as much more upset than even the most rabid anti-choice activist is at the idea of terminating their pregnancy. It’s the equivalent of going to a burn unit in a hospital and pouring battery acid in the open wounds of the patients, self-righteously smiling and lecturing all the while.

There are stories online by women who have had late-term abortions – A Heartbreaking Choice, in particular, is a good place to go if you aren’t familiar with these kinds of tales. In a post on RH Reality Check, AnnRose calls these procedures “mercy abortions”, and she’s not wrong. The former site has a specific section dedicated to Dr. Tiller’s clinic. I’m very sad that I wasn’t aware of Dr. Tiller before his assassination; the more I read about him, the more I understood my fellow bloggers’ sorrow at his death.

I guess it’s sheer stupidity on my part to imagine that someone could be as famous as Dr. Tiller and not hold some very deep-seated personal convictions about women’s reproductive rights. In my mind, I had imagined someone who had kind of fallen into providing abortions along with other health services and then happened to be shot – a hapless and innocent pawn in the anti-choice lunacy sweeping the country. How I thought this, I’m not sure, as I knew that under federal law, no doctor is required to perform an abortion unless sie wants to. For those that might want to, inadequate medical curricula, TRAP bills,  and the inevitable terrorization that accompanies abortion providers are enough to winnow out most of the rest, leading to the current situation in the U.S., wherein 87% of counties have no abortion provider at all. Only 35% of American women live in these counties. So any doctor that performs abortions, period, is ahead of the curve.

I knew all this, but I was still unaware of Dr. Tiller’s particular commitment to the cause.

His clinic was was bombed in 1986, causing $100,000 worth of damage. In 1998, five years after his assassination attempt, the FBI informed him that he was #1 on the hit-list of violent anti-choice groups. At the clinic, patients pass through a metal detector into a building with no windows, with a police car permanently stationed outside and armed guards patrolling the back entrance. He was subjected to endless prosecutions – just this past March, he was put on trial for having provided illegal abortions (and was acquitted). A transcript from the above (excerpted) documentary states that

My kids were harassed in high school. I had to write letters of complaint to the City Council and the Board of Education. We had people who actually camped across the street from our house. I restrict where I go to eat, where I travel. You see a car following you, you think, “Ah-ha, let’s watch that.” You’re always on alert. You’re always looking around.

It’s an understatement to say that Dr. Tiller would need strong convictions in order to continue providing abortions under these conditions. But provide them he did – without hesitation. When his clinic was bombed?

Undeterred, Dr. Tiller hung a sign outside the rubble reading, “Hell, No. We Won’t Go!” He set up shop in temporary quarters and continued to provide medical care until his clinic was repaired.

When he survived an assassination attempt?

There was never any question in my mind that I was going back to work the next day. I belonged there and they were not going to separate me from my job and they were not going to separate me from my community. So I did go to work the next day, and we got everything done. People got taken care of, it took a long time. Arms hurt, bled a little bit, but so what? I am not going to be run over and I’m not going to run out. It’s just that simple.

When the FBI told him he was an anti-choice target?

That did not deter him either. His only concession was to wear a flak jacket to and from work.

Dr. Tiller took a very matter-of-fact approach to providing abortions, a fact remarkable in and of itself.

When it became legal and my patients began to ask for it, I’d say, “Sure. It’s a legal process.” I was a service provider. I was a physician. The patients needed abortions, and I did them. It is my fundamental philosophy that patients are emotionally, mentally, morally, spiritually and physically competent to struggle with complex health issues and come to decisions that are appropriate for them.

A simple and eloquent viewpoint, and unfortunately, one that is not shared by many people. The mere fact that Dr. Tiller continued to perform post-viability abortions makes him a very rare bird indeed. And then, of course, there’s the stories about him as a person.

Accounts of women who went to Dr. Tiller’s clinic invariably speak of his gentleness, his kindness, how safe the workers at his clinic made them feel.

My husband and I found Dr. George Tiller to be a caring, sensitive, and compassionate man who truly believed he was helping those of us who were desperate and had nowhere else to go. While we were at his clinic, he was very concerned about an 11-year-old child raped by her stepfather. And, when we were tormented by Operation Rescue protesters outside his clinic, he put on a bullet proof vest and personally drove us out of there while we hid in his van.

Another commenter remembers:

I remember him firmly stating that he regarded the abortion debate in the US to be about the control of women’s sexuality and reproduction.

I remember he spent over six hours in one-on-one care with my wife when there was concern she had an infection. We’re talking about a physician here. Six hours.

He told the story of his previous shooting, where a woman shot him twice in both arms as he drove out of his clinic. At first he wanted to run her down with his Jeep, but then he thought “she shot you already George, she’ll do it again!”

And another:

I remember being puzzled about a T-shirt he was wearing, which said “Happy Birthday Jennifer from team Tiller!” or something similar. Turns out it comemmorated [sic] the birthday of a fifteen year old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and came to Tiller for an abortion. As luck would have it, she was in the clinic the same week as her birthday. So the clinic threw her a party.

The walls of the clinic reception and waiting room are literally covered with letters from patients thanking him. Some were heartbreaking – obviously young and/or poorly educated people thanking Dr. Tiller for being there when they had no other options, explaining their family, church etc. had abandoned them.

I remember my wife, foggy with sedation after the final procedure, being helped from the exam table. He had her sit up and put her arms around his neck, and then he lifted her into a wheelchair. “You give good hugs” she whispered. He paused just for a moment. “You’re just fine,” he told her.

It was when I was reading the above that I finally started to cry.

Why did I cry? It’s not just because Dr. George Tiller was perhaps one of the greatest advocates for women’s rights this country has ever known – having saved countless lives, giving hope to thousands more. It’s not just that doing so requires a tremendous amount of respect for women’s lives, and strength in one’s convictions. It’s that doing so also, inevitably, requires an incredible amount of love.

Dr. Tiller risked his life, his livelihood, his family – all because of the love and compassion he felt towards women. I honestly can’t imagine the love needed to do what Dr. Tiller did, day in and day out, despite being terrorized for 34 years; were I in the same situation, I hope that I would do the same thing, but I don’t know. The thought of how much this man gave to women and the pro-choice movement makes me a little dizzy. It’s the same love that his children recognized (two of whom have become physicians as well):

“My daughters came into my study. I was reading. And they said: ‘Daddy, if not now, when? If not you, who? Who is going to stand up for women with unexpected and badly damaged babies?’ I had the support of my family, and we were able to proceed ahead.”

Dr. Tiller made tremendous sacrifices in order to give hope and life to women in need. He didn’t have to provide counseling to women who had had abortions; he didn’t have to allow women to see and hold their aborted fetuses to say goodbye; he didn’t have to throw birthday parties for patients. He did so because he cared that much. And how was he rewarded?

On Sunday, Dr. Tiller was working as an usher at his church. His wife was already sitting in their pew; the service had started a couple minutes earlier. As he handed out leaflets and talked to church members, a man walked in and shot him. Even though he was not at work, Dr. Tiller was wearing the flak vest that he’s been wearing for 11 years; not to be deterred, his murderer shot him in the head.

The thought of a man who had done nothing but care for his patients and provide legal medical procedures, being summarily gunned down in his place of worship next to his family is honestly a little more than I can take. Having attempted to terrorize him for 34 years and been met with resistance every step of the way, the anti-choice movement finally succeeded in silencing him. A great light has gone out.

While Dr. Tiller was still alive, the gentleman and scholar Bill O’Reilly made a special point of referencing him on his show, calling him “Tiller the Baby-Killer” – go here for a compilation of more than 28 instances of O’Reilly’s incendiary speech. Kristjan Wager caught the fact that the anti-choice organization Operation Rescue, which made a point of denouncing Tiller’s murder, still had a graphic on its page with Tiller’s face, entitled “America’s Doctor of Death”. Go to any blog post, newspaper article, or YouTube video that even mentions Tiller’s name, and you will seen hundreds of thousands of people dancing on Tiller’s grave. Today, OR’s founder, Randall Terry, stated that Dr. Tiller “reaped what he sowed”, implying that as a “mass murderer”, he deserved to die.

I’m still very angry, and plan to post a lot more on this subject of reproductive rights in the near future. But right now, I’m mostly just sad. Dr. Tiller left behind a wife, 4 children, 10 grandchildren, and thousands of women who will now be less able to get potentially life-saving medical care. Not only are there fewer abortion providers now, but even fewer are likely to enter the field or continue their services. This is the very definition of terrorism. The only difference between this man and the victims of any other terrorist attack is that a large part of the country is rejoicing in his death.

Now I really wish I’d gone to that vigil. It’s a lot better than crying alone in one’s room.