I sound like Camille Paglia

http://www.xojane.com/issues/i-screamed-at-my-therapist-for-asking-about-my-short-skirt-and-then-got-sexually-harassed-a-mllion-times-so-maybe-he-was-right

I read this piece last week with very mixed feelings. On the one hand, yes of course women are free to wear whatever they please, and should be free from public censure including but not limited to sexual harassment. (When I say 'not limited to' I'm thinking of entreaties to smile, or like, hollering that you look bad or whatever. No good, any of it.)

The conflicted part comes when I think about the many reasons why I would never wear the outfit that Emily is talking about. The reasons I"m thinking of are:
-I don't want to get stared at more than usual on the street;
-I don't want to have men staring at my body;
-I don't need the attention.
Ok, those boil down to one reason I guess, I don't need or want the attention.

Emily has told us in the past that she is being treated for sex addiction, and that she is a self described attention seeker. I'm not making any assumptions about her past or her motivations, she is very forthright about these things.

And, I don't think you can really analyze the outfit and the reactions to it in a vacuum that doesn't take these things into consideration. And I get that this may be perceived as gross sexism.

The thing I can't get my mind around is--is the point of this piece (and a million others like it) that women will wear what they want when they want, and wish to take no heed of the cultural climate in which they make their sartorial choices? Like, are we saying that we want to behave AS THOUGH all fashion choices are equal, that none of them have any cultural or sexual implications?

It would be great to think that way: I dress the way I do to speed the revolution toward egalitarianism, in spite of the fact that I know I will be objectified all day long. It's a brave choice. Dressing for utopia.

But the sad fact is, we don't live in that utopia. We live in a time and place where our clothes and bodies and sexual presence will be commented on. Sometimes loudly, and on the street. For myself, I prefer to dress and present myself defensively, because I can't deal with the unpleasant repercussions of wearing the type of (really pretty/cute etc) outfit that Emily got so much flak for.

And I feel like to ignore the reality that there are consequences for these kinds of choices, is to say, de facto, that you're willing to deal with them. Emily knows that the fashion/publishing/women's magazine audience for whom she dresses (and for herself, obviously), is not the ONLY audience that will pass judgement on the clothes. I'm sure she's well aware that her therapist, and bicycle couriers and many random assorted sexist pigs, will also provide an eager audience.

And I hate that thinking this, or writing this, sounds like victim blaming. At the same time, while street harassers need to take responsibility for their actions, unfortunately most women are forced to either dress defensively, or assume the responsibility that these men seem to have abjured. And it does worry me a little that I sound like Camille Paglia.

Joy killing vegan feminist attends comedic theatre

I went and saw the Soulpepper production of The Sunshine Boys this weekend. I have a very short memory for things I fucking hate in theatre, hence why I would attend a comedy or (eegads) a musical (hate hate hate hate).
The acting was great, I'm sure the play is amazing, it's Neil Simon, I get that he's a touchstone for modern comedy from the 60s/70s. Probably not a bad thing to go see....except it was long, annoying, and the humour is totally lowbrow.

The joy killing feminist in me became particularly incensed in the scenes with the sexy nurse. Not because I myself am a nurse and bristle at the stereotype of the sexualized nurse (although I'm sick of it for sure and feel like the trope is convenient shorthand for not only sexism but a grinding lack of imagination). No, this was annoying to me because it finally crystallized something I find totally annoying in comedy.

This convention is where the white man takes credit for the joke that was laboriously set up by the (usually female) "straight (wo)man" who has to feign a lack of understanding of both the set up and the joke.




There are allusions to mildly racist jokes but clearly sexism is still totally fine in modern theatre, especially when it's a re-production of a comedy gem like "The Sunshine Boys".
It kind of makes me long for new material.

you already know from this picture who the comedic genius is, right?

Feminism, Speciesism and my little Doom's "spay"

Bear with me I have to ruminate on my dog's spay. They call it a spay but if she were human we'd call it a 'total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral oophrectomy'. She had a general anaesthetic and I gather some pain relieve post procedure, but since then (Monday), nothing. I asked the staff about pain medication and they said they prefer them to feel some pain so they don't overextend themselves. I guess that makes sense. It didn't make me feel any better though when she screamed while trying to get up on a bench, or climb stairs, position herself on the sofa or really do anything, that first day. I do know that my 4 yo dog didn't have the same pain response, or didn't express it that way.
I guess dogs are like people, with a certain level of sedation they get either dopey and, well, sedate; or they get a little agitated. Poor Doom was the latter.

But getting this done reminded me of how sometimes when you ask people what gender their dog is they'll say something like "well he used to be a boy/girl"--the implication being that the spay/neuter procedure erased the gender. And I think that's fucked up!

I just finished reading a great book called 'Living Dolls' by a UK author Natasha Walter. It's sort of generally about a backlash of sexism as manifested partially in this kind of body fascism that encourages and rewards women for looking like dolls.
She goes into detail about this, plus other stuff about how the trend of de-gendered toys in the 1970s that was a legacy of second wave feminism is kind of done and over. Now it seems that gender roles are even more rigidly circumscribed.

The last part of the book she talks about how research into gender differences is one of the best-funded types of non-pharmaceutical type research (ie; research that a drug company isn't banking on to make them billions of $). And goes on to explore why, who's invested in scientific evidence to demonstrate that women and men are difference physiologically and psychologically. She talks about how studies demonstrating how women/girls prefer pink and men/boys prefer blue; or studies that attempt to show women's superior language skills, men's superior math aptitude etc etc are continually reported on whereas studies that disprove these differences (even if these studies are bigger, more scientifically sound/replicate-able etc) are more ignored. So when you see a headline that says "SCIENCE PROVES WOMEN PREFER PINK'--it's worthwhile to examine what the sample size was, whether the study is published in a peer reviewed journal, and if it's ever been replicated. Basically she's saying that science (and western culture) is very invested in perpetuating ideas of gender differences. It's a little like eugenics I guess.

But getting back to Doom, it made me think about how gender is completely ignored in animals! I mean I can't imagine me getting a hysterectomy etc and then claiming that I'm a neuter, or genderless, because my 'plumbing' is gone. But for animals not only do we think there is CLEARLY no difference between a female and a male dog, but the procedure of removing reproductive organs is coded as erasing that gender completely. It's so stupid. I mean, either it's important, or it's not. I guess part of it is that we live in a culture that devalues animals outright, and part of it is that we live in a patriarchy that has a great deal invested in maintaining the status quo.

Anyhoo, it made me think again about feminism and speciesism, and how both are fucked up and fucking wrong.