Oscar, Louisa, and More: When the Guns Go Off…

I’m not a PUMA sympathizer, but I think this woman’s rage needs to be heard. Her daughter, Louisa, was shot by her other daughter’s ex. She is in a coma and not expected to make it. Her other daughter is battling cancer. In 2009, it looks like this woman, Betty Jean, may lose two daughters. In a particularly horrifying twist, the man who shot her daughter is now claiming that Betty Jean was his intended target.

Betty Jean and her commenters talk a lot about advertising that celebrates violence against women – although I am as appalled by it as anyone else is, I think it’s a symptom, not the cause. Violence against women has existed for millennia, it won’t go away if we make disturbing Dolce & Gabbana ads go away, although this may be a good start.

Neither do I think that banning porn and refusing to wear tight blouses, or whatever, as some commenter suggested, is going to prevent women like Louisa to become the hapless victims of assholes armed with guns. I think this violence is much more primal and horrible than that.

I was reading horrific news concerning another shooting (this one of an unarmed, restrained black man) on Feministe yesterday (check out RaceWire too, please) – and I wondered about how people, men in particular, are encouraged to view violence as a great way to solve a problem – be it financial, emotional, work-related, etc.Continue reading “Oscar, Louisa, and More: When the Guns Go Off…”

Happy Eastern Orthodox Christmas! :)

For those of us who celebrate their holidays according to the Julian Calendar. What I have always liked about it, especially in the States, is that I got to have two Christmases. One was for gifts, the other one was for prayers and singing. It worked out alright. It still does. So have a good one!

orthodox-christmas

Women as Children: Why the “Seduction as Rape” Philosophy is a tad Problematic

I was reading this, when I once again came dangerously close to ruining my keyboard through spillage. Behold:

[one of the definitions of rape is] seduction: when a man persuades a woman to have sex with him, often subtly, through being kind, polite, chivalrous, etc;

Just in case you are mystified – what Maggie Hays is essentially saying is that a woman who is turned on, say, by the sight of her man cooking a delicious lunch and tackles him halfway through, is, in fact, a rape victim.

Of course, she has Andrea Dworkin to back her up: “Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape.”

Oooh. That’s right. Us little ladies are so confused by our own sexual desires that we couldn’t possibly know what it is we want. At all. Better to lock us all up so we remain virginal and pure, singing songs to the Mother Goddess in our pristine convents, enjoying apolitical lesbian-sister love (but not in that way), unexposed to the beastly predilections of men.

horrifying-wrong
no words can do Maggie justice, but i try…

*the sound you hear is me choking on my coffee*

Right.

Okay then.

The above thinking is actually a direct extension of patriarchal and demeaning standards used against women throughout this great, big, horrible world of ours. I was reading some interviews done in Saudi Arabia a few years back – on the subject of women potentially getting the right to vote – and something that jumped out at me was a woman who was quoted as saying that women couldn’t possibly be allowed to vote, they’re far too easily charmed and lead on by men, after all. Maggie? Andrea? I think I may have found your ideological twin.

The thing about seduction is – of course it can end up with you making choices that you may later regret. Continue reading “Women as Children: Why the “Seduction as Rape” Philosophy is a tad Problematic”

Happy New Year? Maybe?

I’m not making any resolutions, and I’m not even trying to guess what 2009 will bring for me or anyone else. I just want this winter to be over.

Still, it was an alright year as far as I was concerned, not a very alright one as far as the world in general was concerned, I guess, and maybe I should just feel lucky that my couch is cozy and my coffee still hot. I mean, I even had a few minutes under a genuinely hot shower at our new place! I even spoke to human beings, instead of staring at them longingly from across the great divide, and instead of getting all happy and excited when a little red number “1” pops up on my Thunderbird during the day – only to discover that it’s Amazon.com, trying to sell me some third-rate Diana biography from a spider-infested shelf somewhere.

See, it can’t all be that bad.

Cheers! And goodbye to my year, the year of the Rat. The zodiac has swung around again, with some weird purpose of its own. Twelve years ago, I was living in Charlotte, hoping that Jean-Luc Picard would come pick me up in his pimped-out spacemobile on a cold winter night like this one. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

“Year of the Rat” – Badly Drawn Boy.