Wednesday

Lots of things on my mind… I suppose I’ll just start writing and keep on until I’m too tired to type. And no proofreading!

~*~

In the “HOLY SHIT I’M AN ADULT” department, Rusty and I put an offer in on a house yesterday. It’s the first one pictured in this post. I haven’t blogged or Twittered about it much because I don’t want to jinx anything, and because I’m freaking out a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is the right decision and all that jazz; but it’s a BIG decision, and a major commitment. Signing a lease is one thing but getting a mortgage, that’s an entirely different level of “you better know what you’re getting into.” It looks like everything is going to work out w/ this house, but still, I appreciate any and all crossed fingers. The next few weeks will be a flurry of activity leading up to closing, and I intend to enjoy all of it! Then, after closing, there will be a flurry of activity leading up to moving in. Followed by a flurry of activity leading up to having the place looking decent enough for a housewarming party!

Priorities before closing: home inspection and termite inspection (duh); figuring out where the furnace is.

Priorities after closing: Security system; Orkin super-dousing because I don’t play around with roaches; personal pole studio; many bird feeders in the backyard.

A REQUEST: Please do not offer any unsolicited real estate “advice” in the comments!

~*~

I love Rachel Maddow. She and Suze Orman are two of my heroes. Initially I found Suze Orman annoying, but that was before I’d ever listened to anything she said – I just thought she was annoying because she seemed to shout so much. Then I realized the shouting is part of what makes her awesome. But, back to Rachel Maddow. How freakin’ cool is she?? However, I don’t like how in this New York Magazine article she says “I’m not very pretty.” Why the self-deprecation? No, she doesn’t conform to the general media-dictated ‘beauty standard’ for women, but so what? There’s no need to cast that as her not being pretty. It really bothers me. She is pretty, but it bugs me that there’s any discussion of it at all, honestly; when would you see a male pundit’s looks being such an issue?

~*~

I love love love this post at Shakesville, about Congress finally switching to gender neutral language. What is absolutely not surprising, of course, is the reaction to this news from a hell of a lot of people – whining that it’s “not important” and the feminists have their hair on fire again, blah blah. This is a perfect example of how privilege works. Inevitably, in every “conversation” like this, some dude will pipe up and say how there’s not some conspiracy against women and why don’t we feminists just shut up already, it’s just language, get over it. Well, first of all, I’m not fooled by anyone trying to lecture me on the way language works – I’ll bust out the learnin’ that earned me my linguistics degree any day of the week. But the main point is: no, OF COURSE there’s not a conspiracy – THAT’S THE POINT. No one is sitting in a smoke-filled room, rubbing their hands together maniacally as they devise ways to oppress women through grammatical rules. No one “means anything by it.” Everytime someone poses this as an “argument” it just makes me roll my eyes, because it’s like hello, you have just PROVEN THE POINT. The question of intent does not figure into this. The fact that it’s normalized, the default, we just accept it, nobody “means anything” by any of it – that is the problem! I can’t tell you how sick I am of people trying to argue intent against someone pointing out privilege in action. It makes me want to beat my head against a wall because they don’t seem to realize that LACK OF INTENT is the point!! If I hear one more person talk about how someone didn’t mean something maliciously, I’m just going to… well, I don’t know what. Beat my head against a brick wall?

Brief note about Old English: the commenter at the Shakesville thread who mentioned wyf and wer as the Old English words for woman and man, and man as the Old English word for human, is correct. The Old English word wyfman, which became woman, literally meant “female person.”

Also, I love the commenter who mentions how you’ll see exactly how big of a deal male-as-unmarked-case language is when you switch the genders and start using “she” as a general-purpose pronoun instead of “he.” It will blow some people’s minds, and some will get REALLY fucking hostile about it. The Regender tool is also a really interesting way of demonstrating how gender stereotypes are encoded in our language.

See also X: A Fabulous Child’s Story. Thanks to Catherine for showing me her original 1970s copy of the book; the illustrations are wonderful!

~*~

As I mentioned yesterday, Caroline has been doing a bang-up job with the UK prostitution law news. I have briefly glanced at the F-Word thread and even left a few comments at the Feministe thread, but for the most part unfortunately I haven’t had time to participate or do much blogging of my own on the issue. But from what I saw at the F-Word thread, it’s all the same bullshit “arguments” that give me a pounding headache. Kudos to Caroline, Ren, Natalia, and others for fighting the good fight; I’ll be back at it once I have some time, I promise. Even though these conversations with the antis feel SO repetitive, I believe it is extremely important to keep having them, because people’s lives are at stake, and if we don’t speak, then the people in power will continue to actively and passively commit violence against sex workers. Being uncomfortable or annoyed is not a justification for permanently disengaging from these issues. Absolutely, everyone must take breaks, because it is vitally important that we take care of ourselves. But that’s why it’s crucial to have many, many people involved in the sex workers’ rights movement, so that there’s always someone there to speak, and so that everyone can properly care for themselves.

Fundamentally, I just don’t get it, with these “arguments.” At the F-Word, for example – how much clearer could Caroline be? It’s not about whether you think sex work is right or wrong. It’s not about how it’s constructed in our society or why it exists or where it comes from. It’s not about wondering whether sex work would still be around after The Revolution. It’s not about discussions of “normalizing” prostitution, questions of whether sex workers can choose their work, debates about what exactly is being sold. IT IS ABOUT SAFETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS. This should not be a source of debate. Feminists should be united on this, completely. It should be a foregone conclusion. That the conversation always drifts back to ideology, what prostitution “means” and that kind of thing, really disgusts me and astounds me. And this constant conflating of sex work and trafficking? STOP, ALREADY!!! This is what Sex in the Public Square held a week-long forum to address, but I guess most of the antis didn’t bother to read that, now did they. The way trafficking is ALWAYS brought into these discussions, such an obvious red herring but one that always leads to derailment, just floors me.

Sigh… Ren, I’m going to need another Typical file.

~*~

To say this essay by Latoya of Racialicious is powerful would be an insulting understatement. It’s entitled “The Not Rape Epidemic” and is the original version of the essay which appears in the Yes Means Yes! anthology. She has a trigger warning on it, so be aware of that if you’ll be clicking through.

And you certainly should click through, because I think this essay is a must-read, especially for men. The essay resonated with me on a very deep level, to a degree that I feel I can’t articulate. Women experience this shit all the time and most of us don’t say anything – because we know from experience that if we do, it won’t help and will likely hurt. One time a male friend remarked that he couldn’t really see a mutual female friend the same way after learning she’d been raped; I was so bothered by his statement that I said nothing. What I was thinking was, if you truly knew how many of your female friends and acquaintances had experienced sexual assault, you wouldn’t be speaking to most of them if you have such a problem with “seeing them the same way.” Men don’t realize how prevalent this is. They might hear the 1 in 4 stat but often I don’t think it really registers on a “yes, this has happened to someone I know” level.

I want to write more about Latoya’s essay but I can’t find the words. What I want to say about it is beyond words.

~*~

Tomorrow night I’m leading the Social Media Club Atlanta meeting. The topic is “Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo.” You can RSVP on Facebook or Upcoming – or just show up! (Though RSVPing is always nice.) Here are some links I’ll be using for reference material, if you want to read up ahead of time. There won’t be a quiz but there will be a Bingo game, with an appropriately self-referential prize.

And finally this gem from Laura’s LiveJournal, which is short enough that I can just post the whole thing. When I put the link in my browser it wanted me to log in, so I don’t know if the post was friends-locked or what, so I’m not linking; but I doubt she’ll mind me sharing this chunk of wisdom…

Just an observation from Twitter

Robert Scoble is a self-promotion machine. It gets tiresome.

I’m sorry, but I am about to un-follow ever media marketing PR link-spamming mongol because I am sick of their shit. The only topic more boring is…oh, I can’t think of any topic more boring.

That is all.

Heh.

I’m excited about the meeting, but also a little nervous! Please come out and help make it an interesting discussion. (It’s all in good fun, so I hope no one gets pissy about the words on the Bingo card.) Here’s the description again:

SMC ATL: Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo

When: Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Manuel’s Tavern – North Avenue Room

Thanks to Amber Rhea for leading the conversation and bingo game! Bring your bingo dauber and POV on these identity topics!

  • Is your online identity different from your IRL identity?
  • What does it mean to “manage your online identity”?
  • Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?
  • Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization: yea or nay?

Note: this is what a dauber is.

~*~

And that’s a wrap. I’m getting sleepy, so it’s time for bed. Rusty and I are getting up a little earlier than usual tomorrow so we can go over to our potential new house and see what the traffic on Moreland is like at the usual time when we head to work. If we have to adjust our schedule to account for it, I don’t mind; I actually like getting to the office early. We just want to be aware!

This post is going to have a million tags.

Jan 07 2009 10:34 pm | Category: Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »