Invisibility

Cross-posted at Female Impersonator

A huge topic in Feminism is the claim that minorities and women are invisible in our society. The default "human position" is male. When reading something in which the author is not specified, the average American assumes that the author is male. If the author is female, of color, or homosexual, we praise it as a "fine piece of work by X minority". In short, a white man can publish a book and be praised for his contribution to academia, while a woman, person of color, or any other minority is primarily identified by that minority specification, not their accomplishments. Their contribution is something that belongs to a collective, whereas a white male's work is attributed solely to him, not to his unstated group membership.

Being a Feminist, I abhor when the majority subconsciously classify the words of a "minority" as representative of that minority group. It creates this sort of "otherness" in which we are all hyper-aware of race, gender, and sexual orientation because it seems to be known as the most important facet of one's identity.

However, when this identity is not stated, we simply assume that someone is a straight white male. Perhaps we might think the tone is sufficiently feminine, and then we consider that the author is a woman. Unless a piece of literature specifically alludes to homosexuality, race, or religion, we assume that the author is heterosexual, Christian/Atheist, white, and usually male.

I, just as much as the rest of you, am equally guilty. I subconsciously make distinctions of "otherness" when reading something by a woman, a homosexual, or, for instance, a Muslim. I make insensitive comments even about my own gender unknowingly because I grew up in a society that counts privelege and many different bigotries as a standard part of socialization.

What I really do not like about the mainstream Feminist movement is that it ignores a lot of these intersections of privelege. We do discuss issues that affect all women, but I have noticed that when we discuss relationships we always seem to discuss them in the context of heterosexuality. Among other things, we generally do not touch issues facing South American women or Middle Eastern women, or concentrate on the inequities facing a "stay at home Mom" or a particularly poor woman.

More than anything, however, I notice the assumption of heterosexuality. As a bisexual female, many of the discussions in the context of heterosexuality do not apply to me at all. A huge portion of my identity is not covered by mainstream Feminism, although I do not think it is by design. The pursuit of a feminist relationship between two women is not absent of its pitfalls. Absent, however, from the usual columns on how to craft a feminist relationship is any mention of homosexuality, polyamory, or transgenderism.

I only thought of this recently because of the discussions surrounding Amanda Marcotte's racially offensive illustrations in It's a Jungle Out There. Privilege very often results in a subconscious prioritization of issues. I see that many feminists place women's issues above racial issues and gay rights frequently. It is not appropriate to demonize the privileged, because we all are in our own way, but it is useful to point it out.

I suppose then that this is my two-bits. I would like to see a lot more about gay issues under the Feminist umbrella, not only because both are important to me, but I think that it is instrumentally important that Feminists remain cognizant of all types of priviledge, especially those types we might unknowingly further.

For what it counts, I suppose this is a bizarre sort of post that I write more as a minority than a majority. Considering my educated whiteness, this is a rare state for me. The fact still remains that when I write, I do so knowing that all of my readers assume that I am heterosexual. This is both a blessing and a curse. One day, I hope that my invisibility as someone who is not heterosexual will be obsolete.

Rock of Misogyny

Cross-posted at Female Impersonator

The greatest way to observe how not to be a feminist is to watch reality television. No show my roommates watched this year fit that horrible stereotype more perfectly than "Rock of Love 2" in which Brett Michaels, the former lead singer of Poison, simultaneously dates/fucks 25 women.

Tonight was the Reunion show, where Brett and his Rock of Love, Ambre, met again while a studio full of slobbering apes, including him and his male co-host, leer at his female cast-mates.

I was roped into watching the show by a product of my weak will and the constraints of living in a patio home with two other people. I suppose I stayed in front of the television simply because it was too bad to believe.

Regardless, the highlight of the night was not the objectification of the French stripper, Angelique. What was perhaps the saddest thing I heard was the irony of a man who simultaneously dated over twenty women and made no secret of his "rock star lifestyle" (read: right to sleep around in a farce of a committed relationship) questioning the character of two women. In particular, runner-up Daisy DeLaHoya, who lived with her ex-boyfriend-turned-friend, and Kristy Joe Muller, who first went on the show while she was separated from her husband, and now claims that she has committed to six months of relationship counseling with him before she makes a final decision.

Oh the horror. You "fake" sluts; how dare you play with the emotions of a man who is sleeping with and dating many women at once while you are close friends with your ex or separated from your husband.

The cherry on top of the shit sundae was when Daisy angrily asked why Brett took advantage of her feelings for him the final night of the show to get some nookie. Admist snickers from the audience (how dare that woman question a man!) Brett replied, "well, I am a man".

Yes, of course you are. Brett Michaels would like you to know that men have no free will outside of the rushing of blood to their penis. The satisfaction of his manly libido is much more important than your feelings. Honestly Daisy, did you think you could possibly be equal to a man?

Pedophilia is Sexy

Cross-posted at Female Impersonator

With the recent uproar surrounding the bust of the polygamous compound down in Texas, I took the time to do a little theorizing why pedophilia seems to persist, contrary to opinions that state that only "backassward third world countries" do that. I started with examining the American perception of "sexy", although I am fairly certain that this social feminine norm holds constant for most modern cultures. Then, I looked at the tendency of college males to "date down". I finally try to make sense of this all in a larger scheme of what our society thinks is "sexy", and how that might fuel pedophilia.

I feel that it should go without saying that I am firmly anti-sexy. I really dislike the constant barrage of female sexuality to sell products. Considering that the mainstream definition of "sexy" is submissive or only sexual in the context of pleasing men, I have no desire to be sexy, nor do I have any desire to see "sexy" images day in and day out.

Probably the thing that bothers me the most about "sexy" is this infantilization of women. If you do not possess a Y chromosome then age, maturity, and ambition are not tolerated. You are to be stupider than your man, lest you intimidate him. If you are smarter, do not tell him so. The Cloud-Father hath gifted man with a penis, making his opinions more important than yours. This is especially apparent when a stronger female, denying the power of socialization, dares to be particularly outspoken or "shrewish". Inquires are made to her mental state. Her voice is "shrill" and her displays of any emotion are weepy. Perhaps her anger is "hot" or "sexy". She is urged to stop fighting and start fucking. "You quarrel like a married couple," they say. "You would have hot hate-sex together."

The message is clear: women are babies, mentally ill, PMSing, or need a good dose of masculine throbbing superiority. They are not entitled to an opinion, unless it is demonstrably flawed or analogous with your own. Like I said earlier, a woman's place is making babies and boners, not instigating meaningful conversation.

What is the consequence of this infantilization? I would not be incorrect to say that I am fairly certain that men are attracted to younger women for precisely this reason: the fetishization of youth, stupidity, and weakness. In circles of my friends, my male friends will openly discuss how they prey on high school girls. My female friends will then confess that they dated college boys in high school, and usually lost their virginity to them. This trend rarely goes the opposite way.

The popular sentiment is that men date younger women because women mature faster than men. I say that is bullshit. Regardless of the growth of breasts, hormones are not responsible for my twenty-two year old male friend dating a sixteen year old girl. What he likes about her is her innocence and her gullibility. She probably has never had a serious relationship; she wants desperately to please him. If he was to stop calling her, she would have no way to contact him. In short, she is malleable. A female university student would not sleep with him for his approval. She also would not be impressed with his age and his car. In short, he would put himself in a position where he is as vulnerable to rejection as his paramore by dating his equal.

This is simply not done. Why would a man want a wise college woman when he could have a younger high school teenager desperate to sleep with him to explore her sexuality or to please an older man? Why would a man place himself in a position where he is equal, god forbid, to a woman if he can maintain superiority with his age and her idealism?

The very things that draw men to younger women are the same things that draw pedophiles to children: malleability, gullibility, innocence, virginity, and youth. On the long spectrum of sexual encounters beginning in rape and pedophilia and ending in genuine consensual sex, men dating women much younger than themselves for those reasons is closer to the morally wrong end of the spectrum then the consensual one.

In all honesty, I am not all at shocked when it is revealed that so-and-so is a pedophile. In a world where sexiness is submissiveness, youth, and stupidity, children are not that separate from the collective vision of the ideal woman. I do not think that there is something concretely wrong with pedophiles. Equating the "disease" of pedophilia with sociopathy or real psychological issues conceals the point and fails to hold men responsible for their actions. Pedophilia is the darker cousin to the very real and very prevalent image of "sexiness" that our society holds as the feminine ideal. The only disease pedophiles have is the egocentric view that they are entitled to rape (and sex with children is nothing but rape) children because they have internalized their masculine socialization to a greater extent than other men. Perhaps their self-esteem is especially low, so they feel that they cannot have consensual sex with someone of age because no one would be attracted to them. Perhaps they are married men that molest young girls because they feel that they are entitled to some sex that does not come accompanied with a human being expecting them to be decent to them.

Many men like to fuck dolls. They watch porn in which the actress takes abuse and exists solely for the pleasure of her audience and any man on camera without a care to herself. A sick man will internalize this image, and seek women out that adhere to this porn star image. A particularly immoral man will not only internalize this image, he will purposely groom someone malleable and immature to service his needs like the porn he watches every day, or in the movies he sees in the theaters. These men are pedophiles, and they are criminals responsible for their own actions. They are not insane, nor are they tugged about by a nonexistent brain in their penis that overrules their sense of morality. They are men that think that they are entitled to sex with someone that asks nothing in return.

My point is that the mental states of a man who preys on children or a college-aged man who preys on sixteen year-old girls are not dissimilar. They are both products of our culture and masculine socialization.

Abortion as art to protest society's definition of the female body

Cross-posted at Essembly

All over the news is general outrage that Aliza Shvarts, a senior Yale art student, inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages with herbs to harvest the fluids for her art. Now it comes to light that the piece is an elaborate hoax:

"The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman's body," said Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky.

If indeed, it is a hoax, then I am glad that the poor girl did not have to suffer to make her point. Although, she did make a brilliant and controversial point.

A woman's body is meant to titillate or to bear life. A woman's womb falls under the eminent domain of the state, evidenced by the outrageous controversy over abortion and prostitution. In short, a woman's agency does not extend over her own reproductive organs, or so the popular sentiment continues to claim with insipid discussion of abortion and birth control.

However, Shvart's project directly opposes that notion in the most shocking and contentious way possible. It takes this illogical view of a woman's womb as scared and brilliantly defiles it with the bloody taboo of a self-induced pregnancy termination. There seems to be the general sentiment that a miscarriage is something ordained by God, and that what happens in the magical and mystical uterus is the domain of the Cloud-Father and the all-seeing state, not the woman herself. A miscarriage chosen by a woman, and not for practical purposes? Well, that's just not done.

Furthermore, it may blur the lines. What separates menstrual fluid, an abortion, and a miscarriage? Our morally upright God-crusaders would like us to believe that life begins at conception or some other such nonsense based on superstition, misinterpretations of a really old book, and "ewww gross" reactions that they really should have grown out of at seven. If the story was true, the viewers of Shvart's piece would be unable to tell. The hip and savvy art student could even ask the horrified viewers to pinpoint which blood clot contains the soul for maximum humor.

Shvart's "art" is also the crazy and bizarre statement that her womb is not yours, the state's, or God's. It is her uterus, her reproductive rights, and if she wants to tax her body to the limits for what she views as art, well, that's her right.

Most of all, this story inspires me to great obscene heights. My muse compels me to draw the image of a mother ripping her fetus out through her stomach in my own menstrual blood. I appreciate the irony. Like the pregnant man, stories that produce such stupid and judgmental commentary, especially from people that have no idea what having a womb entails (read: men), is just plain amusing. Bill O'Reilly utterly fails to grasp this point, among many others, when he blogs:

Still, we can't completely fault this girl for trying to start a dialogue. Once in college, I too, created an art project to fire up some discourse.

It was actually a performance piece involving a rat.

I took a live rat and placed him in a diorama of a pre-war, lower-middle class Polish living room. Then I shoved a dradle up its rectum and played "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof while it bled to death out of its ass.

I titled it "The Gift of the Jews."

O'Reilly and his pose of Offended White Men would like you to know that doing what you please with your body is comparable to the Holocaust, animal abuse, and antisemitism. Ignorant men, and the slew of women who mistakenly apologize for them, would rather the other sex remain chained to their bed during pregnancy, lest the generous gift our Cloud-Father has visited upon us not be welcomed by our sinful and devious female minds. Godforbid we use the products of our own body to create anything but babies and boners.

At the end of the day, I figure that it is best to shock and appall as many people (mainly ignorant fuckwits like O'Reilly) as often as possible. I mean, it worked for sexism, why can't it work for reproductive freedom? The more you are exposed to sexism, the more we absorb it into our consciousness as normal. Perhaps more self-aborting art students and pregnant men would do us well.

Update: Apparently it has been brought to my attention that the O'Reilly "blog" is fake. In my defense, it is kind of hard to tell satire of someone as loony as Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly from their real sentiments.

Racism: not dead, affects young children

Cross posted at Essembly

Video:

A 17 year-old's documentary tests how black children perceive race. Mirroring a study done before desegregation, black school children are asked to choose which baby doll is the "good" or "bad" doll, which doll looks like them, and which one is their favorite. The two dolls are identical except for their skin color.

The results mirror the study done centuries before: out of the 21 black children, 15 prefer the white doll as the "good" doll, although all of them recognize that the black doll looks more like them.

It is not rocket science to conclude that the black children, who both know that the black doll is "bad" and looks like them, probably have already picked up on cultural racial stereotypes. What kind of sick world do we live in where children are taught to hate the color of their skin?

Fair Pay and the Equal Rights Amendment

Cross-posted on Female Impersonator

On behalf of Blog for Fair Pay Day, I reflected on the considerable resistance to legally prohibiting sexism in the work place. There are several acts and amendments being considered by our legislators, one of which is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act briefly covered in Lindsay's post.

However, when I was first informed of this "Blog for Fair Pay" event, I did not think of the Fair Pay Act; I did not even know it existed. What immediately came to mind is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923. If passed, our 28th Amendment would read:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Our 110th Congress (2007-2008) has introduced the amendment as S.J. Res. 10 and H.J. Res. 40.

This amendment, over eighty years in the making, would finally grant women equal rights in all legal matters as guaranteed by the federal government. Currently, various states do grant various legal protections by law, but the fact remains that not only is there no federal amendment barring discrimination by sex and not since 1972 has the amendment passed both houses of Congress.

The federal ERA would prohibit states from restricting state-funded abortions differently from other "medically necessary" procedures sought by men. This interpretation of the ERA was upheld in 1998 when the New Mexico Supreme Court found that the state's ERA required that Medicaid pay for abortions. Justice Minzer ruled:

New Mexico's Equal Rights Amendment requires a searching judicial inquiry to determine whether the Department's rule prohibiting state funding for certain medically necessary abortions denies Medicaid-eligible women equality of rights under law. We conclude from this inquiry that the Department's rule violates New Mexico's Equal Rights Amendment because it results in a program that does not apply the same standard of medical necessity to both men and women, and there is no compelling justification for treating men and women differently with respect to their medical needs in this instance.

Furthermore, opponents have argued that an ERA would require the legal recognition of same-sex marriages because the amendment would prohibit any legislation that bars participation from a legal contract on the basis of gender. Other considerations that have defeated the bill are claims that an ERA would draft women, prohibit same-sex schools, and require that women serve on the front lines of the armed forces.

It is instrumentally important that we urge our legislators to pass the federal ERA, especially if the amendment could finally guarentee women's right to contraceptives and abortion once and for all. Luckily, twenty-one states already have an ERA on the books: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virgina, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Unfortunately, twenty-nine states, despite attempts, do not have an ERA, including my home-state of lovely Arizona (one of the few states that did not ratify the federal ERA when it passed both houses in 1972).

Today, as we reflect on the necessity of Fair Pay, and our outrage that income is still so variable upon gender and race, we should remember that not only have some legislators curtailed our right to object to unequal pay, they have defeated the ratification of an amendment that would grant us equality under law repeatedly for over six centuries.

What is this?

This is my personal blog. Here I hope to keep scraps that I cannot post else where and bits of pieces of things I want to save. I want to archive everything I post here. Eventually, I'll get around to fetching old material.

Introduction to the Madness

Think of this post as a glorified FAQs where I post snarky hypothetical interview questions and answer them in the usual obnoxious, but awesomely intelligent, manner.

Why did you start this blog?

The world needs more radical feminists. I found that most blogs are speaking into the vast echo chamber that is internet idiocy, and I wanted a place where I could express controversial sentiments that would otherwise horrify my peers and shock my parents.

Why do you hate men?

It's not men that I hate, actually. I hate the patriarchy, and its enforcers. I hate those that defend their right to more than their fair share on the basis of their genitalia. I hate those that exploit and defend the exploiters. I hate rapists, murders, abusers, and chauvinistic pigs. I hold men more responsible for the deplorable state of the world simply because their gender collectively profits off the subjugation of the female sex. This sentiment is more common-sense than radical, considering that men own 99% of the world's wealth and make up more than 50% of their country's leadership (excepting Sweden). I hate those who deserve to be hated, pure and simple. If that's radical, then I'm a radical motherfucker, okay?

What's with the title?

I'm really passionate about being right when it comes to feminism. Thus, my intellectual superiority (I wish I was kidding) when it comes to gender issues fills me with a fire, or a blaze, of political righteousness. Also, women have two x-chromosomes, so I attached XX to the Blaze. Also, I thought it looked cool. Recently, I discovered that people were accidentally getting referred to my site with searches such as "XX Rape" and "XX Women". The thought that deviant perverts looking for disgusting abusive smut are accidentally stumbling across my blog is extremely amusing.

Why are you so shameless and personal?

The personal is political. If I only spoke impersonally, I would sound as if I was some outside observer that thinks herself above the patriarchy. Nothing is further than the truth. The male-dominated world influences my life every day. If I recorded here all the nasty misogynistic things I heard and saw, personally, I would have to post eight times an hour. Feminism is personal. The ideology has radically changed how I think of myself and the world around me. If frank talks of masturbation, sexual abuse, and "deviant" bisexuality bother you, then I'm glad to be a nuisance.

Why are you so pedantic and wordy?

I have a bizarre sense of humor that culminates in written expression that is riddled with hyperbole and sarcasm. I have a very dark sense of humor, and I weald my metaphorical pen like a beating-stick. I abhor dumbing down my writing for the sake of being gentle. Fuck that shit. Half the problem with radical movements is that they are not radical enough. I really don't care how accessible my message is to teh menz. The status quo coddles nay-sayers all day long, so I figure that is my job to be as brutally honest as possible.

What the hell is with your terminology?

I read a lot. A lot of what is read is gender theory like Dworkin and other advanced Patriarchy-blaming goodness. If the terminology doesn't make sense, ask politely and I might clue you in. Otherwise, see Feminism 101, or I am Not Responsible for Your Basic Education for more details. I go out of my way to disseminate my vast gender knowledge to you. If you go to a whale-hunt with a small pointy stick, you're going to be in trouble. Please don't attempt to debate if you have no idea what things like "false consciousness" and the "rape culture" are. It's disrespectful.

Why are you such a bitch to commentors?

Quick question: would you go to an astrophysics blog after completing high-school algebra, assume a lofty tone, and attempt to school others on their erroneous calculations? I really hope not. Also, if you have a penis and you think that peppering your comments with "honey" and other infantilizing rhetorical devices makes you teh smartzors and superior, kindly fuck off. All sexist commentary about my shrill tone, alienating rhetoric, and self-victimization will get the banhammer.

Can I link to your blog?

Sure. Please drop me a line in the comments to let me know that you have done so. If I ask you to remove the link, please do so. Unless you're a complete asshole, I probably won't.

Comment Policy

This is my blog and personal space. I reserve the right to delete any comment, regardless of content. Contributions are encouraged, trolling is strictly prohibited. The following will always be deleted:

1. Threats of violence against the poster or another commenter
2. Insults directed at the poster or another commenter that are unduly inflammatory, sexist, racist, or offensive
3. Off-topic posts
4. Hijacking the thread and soapboxing
5. Spam or link-heavy comments
6. Exceptionally horrible grammar and syntax
7. Proclamations of my utter failure as a human being and a supposed inferiority to your awesome powers of reason
8. Inquires or statements of the poster's or other commenters' weights, attractiveness, or mental complexes
9. The serious use of labels like feminist, fat, strident, bitchy, young, or gay to discredit someone
10. Anything that pisses me off

This is my space, and I get to be as loud, opinionated, and mean as I want. Deal with it. If you really want to whine about how horrible I am, use your own damn blog.