Bad Dates, Being Preggers, and a Man Named Kinky Friedman--Oh My!

Who hasn't been on a bad date? Or...several. Hundred.

Cheerleaders now sell lecherous doctors overpriced drugs! "Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm - they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want." Give me a V-O-M-I-T! What does that spell!? The downfall of women in society!!!!! Rah!!! Oops, my natural size DD fell out. Sorry! Tee-hee!

Wait for the bling, y'all.

This man is running for governor in Texas. Of course. Kinky has been known to say things like, "Every time you see a beautiful woman, just remember, somebody got tired of her." Let's remember what Texas governors go on to do.

Another reason babies are bad

Or, at least, holding women back from achieveing what women have fought for centuries for--women to have equal access, rights, and pay for equal work. In this article by Linda Hirshman, a "1970s member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a donor to EMILY's List, and a professor of women's studies", Hirshman writes,

"Although college-educated women work more than others, the 2002 census shows that graduate or professional degrees do not increase work-force participation much more than even one year of college. When their children are infants (under a year), 54 percent of females with graduate or professional degrees are not working full time (18 percent are working part time and 36 percent are not working at all). Even among those who have children who are not infants, 41 percent are not working full time (18 percent are working part time and 23 percent are not working at all)."

So, my question is why. Feminism, as I believe it, is about opportunities and not restrictions--a definition that I sometimes find hard to follow. Why, after all of the millions of women who literally and figuratively gave their lives to make it easier for future generations--WHY would smart, competative, accomplished women choose to stay at home an raise babies? Hirshman asserts,

"The census numbers for all working mothers leveled off around 1990 and have fallen modestly since 1998. In interviews, women with enough money to quit work say they are "choosing" to opt out. Their words conceal a crucial reality: the belief that women are responsible for child-rearing and homemaking was largely untouched by decades of workplace feminism. Add to this the good evidence that the upper-class workplace has become more demanding and then mix in the successful conservative cultural campaign to reinforce traditional gender roles and you've got a perfect recipe for feminism's stall."

According to Hirshman's and other research, elite women are opting out from careers from the start. "As one lawyer-bride put it in explaining her decision to quit practicing law after four years, 'I had a wedding to plan.' Another, an Ivy Leaguer with a master's degree, described it in management terms: 'He's the CEO and I'm the CFO. He sees to it that the money rolls in and I decide how to spend it.' It's their work, and they must do it perfectly."

Hirshman points out that conservatives say that feminism "failed" indicated by the women who drop out of the workforce to stay at home with their children and teach them to bake apple pies. Or attend movement classes together. Pardon me while I vomit on my cute new wedge-heeled boots. Hirshman is quick to point out that they're wrong: "feminism wasn't radical enough: It changed the workplace but it didn't change men, and, more importantly, it didn't fundamentally change how women related to men." So true.

The inharent flaw in my definition of feminism is that "opportunity" isn't defined. Women should be able to do whatever they want in whatever roles they want, right. Unfortunately, the rest of society hasn't caught up. As the feminist historian Alice Achols put it, "Rather than challenging their subordination in domestic life, the feminists of NOW committed themselves to fighting for women's integration into public life."

Hirshman has a few solutions to the current situation, none of which I'm terribly thrilled with--all of them include marriage--to a liberal or to a "social lesser" or someone in a non-traditional role; or having babies and starting, "a mommy movement." Pardon me while I retch on my lovely new pants.

Really, we as a feminist movement should be focusing on childcare, not abortion, as a way to move toward equality. Only when child care (and, let's face it, millions of other factors) is accessible, free, and adequate can women even begin to be equal.

Bottom line, we're fucked.

Thanks to my friend, lennard, for the article.

Steel Magnolias

One of the best movies ever.

I have a few quotes that I'd like to share:

"Honey, the only thing that seperates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize."

"I'd rather have 30 seconds of wonderful than a lifetime of nothin' special."

"My colors are blush and bashful.
Honey, your colors are pink and pink."

"The only reason people are nice to me is because I have more money than God."

"I'm not crazy, M'Lynn. I've just been in a bad mood for the past fourty years."

Bostonists' Manners. Or lack there of.

"A note arrived over the transom recently, posing an interesting question in the subject line: 'Were people in Boston raised by wolves?'"

I agree. Often, as I schlepp around Bean Town, I notice how people are so reluctant to give up their seats to people who need them. Boston is a very young town, especially with all of the colleges and universities. This column is an interesting chronicle of Boston residents' reactions to people in need of seats on public transportation.

All I can say is that I'm not surprised.

A Good--and Bad--Day in DC

Thrillingly, the House took the Arctic drilling provision out of the budget. What they left is a $14.3 BILLION cut to student loan programs, making it even MORE difficult for an average American to attend an institution of higher education. Take action for the future.

Additionally, the Senate will no doubt incoporate Arctic drilling in their version of the budget.

In related news, anonther corrupt White House Aide, oh wait--I mean lobbyist--fucked up and got caught.

Let the crumbling of the Bush regime continue.

KKK, Minorities in Texas Rally to Ban Gay Marriage.

Sweet! I'm so glad we finally can all get along.

Don't worry, 74% of Texans voted to ban queers from being able to marry the people they love.

In related news, despite Bush's visit to the Commonwealth last night for a rally for Kilgore, the Dem in VA won. According to the Times, "Kaine had 812,235 votes, or 51.2 percent, to Kilgore's 737,747 votes, or 46.5 percent, with 82 percent of precincts reporting."

In Dirty Jersey, Corzine won the blood-bath of a gubernatorial race 54%-43%.

Before all you Dems congratulate yourselves too much, both Corzine and Kaine were expected to win.

Shockingly, or not at all, Menino was re-elected by 62% of the Bostonian vote. In his victory speech, Menino has, "new dreams for this city."

All the ballot initiatives that the Gubanator was pushing in CalIfornIa, died last night, including the one that squashed women's rights to control our bodies. In Ohio, unfortunately, a ballot initiative that would have taken steps to improve democracy in the Buckeye state, failed.

Finally, Mainers voted to keep gay rights in place.

Who is laughing now?

RE: Homolexicology

My friend sent me these thoughts, since they wouldn't fit into the comments space. She, for the record, wrote a 65 (!) page thesis on this subject in college. (pardon the weird question marks. i think it should stand for quotes).

Why do people feel the need to define their sexuality?

I agree with you - it all makes the most sense to me when people dig on labels as their way of initially establishing themselves within an identity-based community, like your now-engaged friend did back in college when she was starting to explore her sexuality. It especially makes sense when some suburban white kid comes out as queer and is part of a marginalized community for the first time ever. Boi is that fun, take it from me.

Also, though, it makes sense, right, that people understand how they fit into a community if they can size up other people and themselves on some sort of shared scale. People want to see how they fit in, who they can sleep with, what their role is, how they should treat other people ? and all of that depends, in part, on how people self-identify in relation to each other ? its like code! If I?m butch and you?re butch, then in most communities we would never even entertain attraction to each other. That?s just so gay, it might as well be straight, um? or something. Just don?t do it. Really, though, labels are a useful sort of intra-community communication device. I haven?t really done a study, but I bet that I smile at strangers whose clothing alone identifies them as queer to me more than I smile at random straight-looking people. Okay, I know that?s fucked up. (By the way, they usually teach you the necessity and importance of this secret gay code when you reach level 7 on the 1-10 gayness scale, Harris, so I?m surprised to hear that they?re letting people slip by to 8 without that lesson. It?s probably a good thing ? so old school!)

Speaking of numbered scales of gayness, Kinsey is a surprisingly good movie.

I think that in this country in particular, ambiguity is just a downer, as evidenced by the continual violence laid on trannies in the name of some type of security? at public bathrooms, at airport checkpoints, at schools, at doctor?s offices, etc, etc, etc. Also evidenced by the sneers you used to get from women you where hitting on when you would tell them that you were bi. One thing that is really interesting about this whole why-do-people-love-labels thing is just how westernized it is, especially if we?re talking about queerness. Obviously my experience is only good for what it is, but I spent some time in Mombasa, Kenya in Fall 2001, and one of the things that was so striking there, to me, was a general cultural disregard for all things gay. I have some cool photos of anti-gay slurs and I definitely got mocked and judged when I asked some Kenyan friends there about where the gay people were. I just wanted to find my people you know, (a convenient use of labels), but gay people didn?t really exist there; it wasn?t an identity that people really seemed to take on at all. Because of that, there wasn?t really any threat of being people being harassed for being gay. I, for one, was assumed to be straight by everyone I met, which is funny because in the US, I?m practically never mistaken for straight ? I?m your average dyke next door ? and I had a more vehemently queer image then than now. But then here?s the kicker: in Mombasa men ? sometimes the same ones that just spit up all this homophobic trash to me ? they would walk all around town and told hands and kiss each other and just generally show so much more affection than I had ever seen two straight men in the US show to each other. (And I?m certain that this trend happens around the world with both men and women.) And of course most of these men had a wife or were most likely going to marry some woman some time in the next decade, but almost certainly some of them slept with each other. And, from what I could tell, sometimes it was even widely known that two men were sleeping together, but it wasn?t a big deal because that behavior wasn?t linked to an identity. Which just goes to show that it?s not like labels, in and of themselves, that are so empowering. But in the US, they definitely can be, which makes you wonder about the kind of society we live in where it takes the birth of an identity and a community to defend ourselves (politically and
physically) against the misuse of power and control. Perhaps labels just perpetuate that, I don?t know.

So in terms of labels here in this country, I generally like the word queer because it is so shifty and ambiguous. I liked when you mentioned that your engaged friends in the traditionally gender-roled relationship (let?s call them the Lesbians) are in the average non-queer relationship. Not to rob the Lesbians of their queerness, but I think it?s great when people think of queerness as not necessarily linked to who you sleep with or even sexuality as traditionally understood at all. Straight people who do all sorts of crazy sex things ? those people can be queer if they want. Why not. Cowboys in Idaho who invent sex machines with dildos and saddles ? that guy is totally queer, regardless of where he sticks his own. Probably more queer than the Lesbians who are getting married, if you ask me. I think that ?queer? is an interesting departure from the previous labels in this genre because it is so shifty. People don?t know what the hell it means and lots of people, including my own parents, can?t even tell if it?s being used derogatorily or not. I feel like ?queer? separates me from the ?gay men and lesbians? just as much as it separates me from stereotypically ?straight?
people. But I don?t really go around and yell about being queer all the time? or actually maybe I do. I?m not sure, ha. Do I? Maybe only when it?s convenient for me. Well, that seems like a good place to stop. Go queers!

Praying for Clean Air

It's no real secret that there is a huge evangelical environmental movement. In the Times today, a Pew fellow noted, "'It's still early in the process,' he said of evangelical involvement in the environmental movement. 'Among rank and file, evangelicals are as environmental as the rest of us. They're in favor of environmental protections, at least in principle.'"
"On the other hand, he added, 'they don't like environmentalists. They associate environmentalists with the Sierra Club and with people who have nontraditional religiosity. Alliance leaders have a real opportunity here, but the impediment is getting over the image of environmentalists.'"

Good point. Maybe if the progressive community can get over itself and start working together, we'd get somewhere. Anywhere. Instead, we have one of the scariest SC nominees in history (ok, in my life. ok, in my adult life.), we're still in Iraq, and instead of debating why over 30 million Americans live below the poverty line, we debate whether or not a small number of women can control their own bodies.

We need strong, strategic, and hard working organizers to turn this country around.

Maybe we should pray for them.

Another reason why accessories are oh-so-important

Madeleine Albright speaks volumes with her brooches.

Maybe she also networks at a spa.

Solutions...?

Please. If you're going to bitch about the current situation of our society, offer solutions.

Homolexicology

William Safire, in today's Times, discusses the origin and current usage of the various homo-words: gay, lesbian, queer. While the essay is kind of interesting ("The word gay,...was British slang for "a loose woman" in 1825, turning into "a homosexual boy" in 1935 and gaining that meaning in U.S. slang in the 1950's." Who knew "gay" meant whore?), it served more as a reminder that there are many people who fall into some sort of homo-tendencies (as Safire says, "The reader will note my careful use of the word homosexual as an adjective modifying a noun like man rather than as a noun itself. That's for two reasons: first, because the prefix homo is from the Greek homos, "the same," in this case denoting a "same sex" relationship, not to be confused with the Latin homo, "man," as in homo sapiens, the current species of human being.").

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how I identify--sexually. I used to say "bi" until that got me a lot of dirty looks from ladies I was hitting on (interestingly, men love it. That is another story.). Now I use "queer" (sans all the queer theory I studied in college), if anything at all. I often wonder why people are so obsessed with how they (and others) are defined--sexually or otherwise. I'm repeatedly asked how gay I am. For instance, this past weekend, I was standing around in a bar with some friends (and friends of friends) when one man turned and asked me where I fall on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being uber gay). Without skipping a beat, I responded 8. What the hell does 8 mean? Why do people care? What if I went around asking people how straight they are? That would be weird, right?

I have two friends who have recently started sleeping with women and now both are in "serious" relationships--that is, they are "in love" (I put quotes in because both women have told me that they're In Love). Both of my friends declared their love for their significant other fairly early in the relationship (but what do I know--I rarely allow my relationships to get that far); both are extremely happy. One set of dykes are what I like to stereotype as Western Mass Lesbians--they live in a cute little townhouse, grow their own veggies, do good stuff for a living, started to live together as soon as one graduated from college, and will no doubt buy a chocolate lab and name it Ghandi or Rosa (Parks). The others (I haven't met her boifriend) are New York Dykes (edgy, urban, artsy, scenesters). I'm interested in the latter relationship mostly because my friend has suddenly become very aware of the dyke dichotomy--the butch/femme thing. When I last saw her, she talked for ages about how she is "seen as femme" and then went on for a while about what that means (in her life), asked how other dyke friends of mine define themselves. And then tried to make me declare how I identify (for the record, neither butch (ha, that would be funny--have you seen me? I’m oppressing myself...ah!) nor femme).

While I think it can be useful for people who are beginning to explore their sexuality and the gendered roles that society provides for us, it's also repressive. I have a good friend from high school who began to date a woman (to whom she is now engaged) late into our senior year of college. She went through an interesting change when she started to date her fiancée--she cut all her hair off, dropped all her girly clothing, and became really angry/militant (more than me at the time, which is saying a lot). She and I were talking about that time period a few weeks ago (when we were, of all places, at a Catholic wedding in New Hampshire). She jokes about that time now and mostly characterizes it as not knowing how to handle being a dyke--to her being a lesbian meant adhering all the stereotypes (short hair, bad clothes). She now dresses like she used to--more feminine clothing, she's grown her hair back out, etc. It's also worth noting that I rarely see such a gender-roled relationship (queer or otherwise): her fiancée literally works on the cars and my friend gardens; my friend is going to be the first to carry a child. Their relationship is, in other words, like the average non-queer relationship.

So, I'm not sure what point I'm wanting to make here other than to question why people feel the need to define their sexuality and how that plays out in one’s life. There are several reasons, probably. First, it's an empowerment thing--the more people identifying as queer, gay, lesbian, etc, the more we'll be accepted in this (heterosexist) world. Also, as much as I hate to admit it, people want to be part of a group--to find the place where you fit; it's comforting. For the record, I recognize this is a privileged series of thoughts.

Really though, I just want to sleep with/have crushes on/flirt with whomever I want, without having to say "now I like boys. Now I like girls". Fortunately, the put-you-in-a-box people haven't stopped me before and won't stop me now.