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I’ve just learned from Ouyang Dan that Jo Tamar nominated me for Best Individual Blogger at the 2009 Weblog Awards. Not to mention that Jo has also nominated FWD/Forward for Best New Blog!
Please vote to send us into the finals:
Vote for me as Best Individual Blogger.
Vote for FWD/Forward as Best New blog.
You haven’t got much longer to vote and I’d so appreciate it if you’d click through. It’s not hard, you just press the little green plus sign under Jo Tamar’s name (not the button above her comment, the one below, I know it’s confusing).
I’m pretty well exhausted just now. I was quite spoony around my birthday, but now I’m half asleep! I don’t think I’ll ever make it through all the leftover cake and cookies…! A nice problem to have, I suppose! A couple of family crises came to a head as well, so now life is fair bit less stressful. I had a lovely birthday full of friends and food and all sorts of loveliness. I’ve been given a bunch of new books; my friends know me well. It’s just finding the time to read them all now!
As it happens, this is the anniversary of my creating this blog, though my first post was on the 20th, and I want to celebrate my blogiversary on 31 December, because that’s when I began properly. How exciting!
One of these days, by which I mean soon, I will muster the spoons to write substantive ZatB-exclusive content. I have a lot I want to say on body image, and how feminist critiques of feminine presentation spend a lot of time missing the intersections, and all sorts of things. But right now I am just trying to get through my day. So, essentially, don’t go away, please!
Until then, here’s some stuff I’ve been writing that hasn’t been cross-posted here:
Highlighting the Fistula Foundation at Feministe. A remarkable organisation, so please find out about what they do.
The Disabled Label at FWD/Forward
To gain access to some services, I had to fill in some forms marked “disability”. That was cool, I could handle being lumped in with disabled people, oh wait maybe that means this qualifies as a disability, oh no I’m one of them, stop being a bigot they’re disabled not monsters from the black lagoon – hey. Maybe I am disabled. Maybe that describes what I’m going through. Maybe this will allow me to explore opportunities and internal spaces I’ve been shutting off. And that’s okay.
Question Time: Assistive Devices at FWD. What are yours? We have everything from Bejeweled and similar games (for dealing with anxiety) to glasses to shower chairs to alarm clocks!
Ten webcomics you should read at Feministe. I rec a few of my favourites, and the commenters add a heap more! Check it out.
Mim of Mim’s Muddle was kind enough to give me the One Lovely Blog award. I have been wanting this particular award pretty much since I started blogging, so I am pleased as anything! Thanks Mim.
You’re supposed to pass it on to fifteen people, but I feel a bit awkward about doing that. So let’s say that if you’ve commented here before, leave a comment below. The first fifteen people to respond asking for the award get it!
Or, if you were in need or more titling, ‘This is kind of huge’ or ‘WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE DOING?’
So, you know that second piece of good news I was cryptically referencing? You wanna know what it is? Do ya?
I’ve been asked to join the team at Feministe.
Yeah. I just shook when I got the email. I am trying to assure myself that they haven’t made a horrible mistake. It’s like some kind of far-off daydream. I really don’t understand. But I’m going with it.
I… yeah. Here’s my introductory post. And go look at my about page.
I can’t decide whether the best bit is getting to put ZatB on the blogroll, or knowing these amazing writers like what I do, or… it’s so wonderful, and I so cherish the opportunity. Thanks, Feministe crew.
I’d appreciate seeing a few familiar faces in comments, so to speak, so if some of you could comment on my posts there, I’d appreciate it.
(May now not sleep for a month and may spend waking hours refreshing pages.)
(But it will be fantastic.)
I’ve got such a lovely group of commenters here that I want to hear a bit more from you, not just in response to my writing. Lurkers, this is your cue to delurk if you feel comfortable to do so.
By request:
Here is a guinea pig, a satin Peruvian one in fact. At least, I think there’s a guinea pig somewhere in there.
Here is baking goodness in the form of a sandcastle cake (via Cake Wrecks):
And here is Tennant:
Never will sitting in a wardrobe with a cup of tea be the same again.
I have some questions for you, readers. Answer one, some or all.
- What’s going on for you today?
- How did you pick your screenname?
- Do you have any hobbies?
- What are you having a hard time with social justice-wise?
- Where are you from and what do you like about home?
- What’s your favourite book?
Have fun!
That’s probably the least weird title I have come up with for this. I have been in a strange, strange place since January, but especially since April, but especially since May, but especially since September, but ESPECIALLY since a certain set of incidents that occured in the ’sphere a few days ago. Which is to say, my blogging may for a time go into that strange erratic place of stream of consciousness and pictures of David Tennant again. Or I may write a lot of introspective posts. Or I might start exclusively analysing cultural phenomena. Don’t panic.
Ahem.
I have much by way of exciting things to share with you!
I’m a contributor to the brand new blog FWD/Forward, taglined FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward. The contributors are an amazing, diverse, writery group of people and I am relishing being a part of this project. It is shaping up to be rather fantabulous – and as such you much promote it to all you meet! – and I will be off to coordinate a few posts for it when I’m done with this one. Suggestions, comments, guest posts: we take them all.
Over at the Radical Readers bookclub, October’s pick is bell hooks’ Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Get reading and discussing! Our blog is here and our Goodreads group is here. I have been having some trouble obtaining a copy but will get there eventually! And I’d finished the previous month’s selections within days!
As another reminder, I’m on twitter as @challyzatb. It’s primarily locked for spam purposes, so feel free to add me.
I’ve also joined Tumblr here and Dreamwidth here. This is apparently what I do now.
Goodness me, that’s quite a lot in all, isn’t it?
This is meta week here at ZatB, isn’t it?
I have changed the tagline. It used to be ‘That’s my approach to feminism.’ Which was a little clunky and people probably never understood unless they checked the about page. But it did rather get at the essence of the blog. Now the tagline is ‘Keep changing the world.’ Don’t let anyone say it can’t be done and don’t ever stop.
In other news, I noticed from my stats page that some of you were having trouble clicking links for a few days. I contacted WordPress, they said they were sorting it out and they did in time for Carnival! So if you were having trouble, try clicking again.
Speaking of carnivals, this is the last day to submit to the Down Under Feminists Carnival. And we all know of my great and unbridled passion for DUFC. Where do you find these posts to submit? Well, there’s a whole Australasian section to my blogroll, so you could start there. We’ve got some really fabulous writing in our little corner of the blogosphere – if you’re looking for new material from new perspectives, come check us out. QoT is hosting again and it follows that the carnival should be fun.
In case you weren’t all linked up for the week already, here, have a blogroll update. In alphabetical order ’cause I’m a geek:
Genderbitch – by Recursive Paradox, who blogs trans issues, meta-activism and more.
Rebel Raising – Kate, a queer feminist, writes about motherhood really, really well.
Small Strokes – is run by Ashley, a teacher doing her masters, and has has all sorts of related feminist goodness.
this ain’t livin’ – contains an almost overwhelming amount of thoughtful, progressive postage by meloukhia.
Viva La Feminista – Veronica’s a feminist Latina mother and writer; what more do you need to know?
I have a ginormous folder of blogs I want to get round to reading; there’s so much good writing in the world. I’m already planning my next blogroll update; I like to do them in little bursts.
Welcome to the Fifth Carnival of Feminists. I’m Chally, blogger here at Zero at the Bone, and I’m very pleased to be your host for this edition. We’ve got all sorts of fabulous writing of feminist interest from around the world. Let’s get started, shall we?
Objectification
RosieRed23 takes on the bizarre preoccupation with breasts in No boobs for you! posted at Spare Candy. It’s in response to the wailing over Megan Fox not revealing her breasts in new film Jennifer’s Body as well as the fascination with celebrity nudity in general.
Amanda of The Undomestic Goddess writes Esquire: Strike Three. She’s taking on the treatment of women in Esquire: ‘Congratulations, your induction into the world of male lust, and thusly, second-class citizenship, is complete.’
Racialicious’ Thea Lim writes about some imagery that manages to dehumanise both the white woman and the man of colour involved. The post’s called Kanye West: Using interracial sex to sell concert tickets.
Reproductive justice
factcheckme presents a collection of videos related to reproductive rights. The post’s at femonade, featuring Hillary Clinton being full of win and a documentary on the work of the Fistula Foundation in Ethiopia (an amazing organisation I’ve been following for years, see their website).
Over at Feministing we have Rejecting “population control” as a way to fight climate change. Ann thinks that ‘given the history of population policy, to me the only acceptable international family planning policy is one that is motivated by increasing the empowerment and choices for women.’
Parenting
Kate of Rebel Raising has something to say in Is that child crazy? ‘How much of the time are children behaving in the way an adult would if their life were like a child’s life?’
“How Can Feminist Mums Avoid Being Humourless Childhood-Ruiners?” Lauredhel and the Hoyden About Town commentariat have a few things to say on the subject.
Parenting means that boundaries aren’t always as secure as one would want. You can read some of Arwyn’s thoughts on this at Raising My Boychick in Toddlers are triggering.
Violence against women
In “Corrective” Rape Is Not Foreign., piecesofstring takes on the idea that homophobic violence is just a problem “elsewhere”. It’s vital to take this on everywhere it happens.
Cara from The Curvature writes Protecting Your Safety While Speaking Out is Not Irresponsible. It’s in response to feminist assertions that Katie Price should name her rapist.
Women who make false rape accusations *don’t* make it harder on real victims. says SarahMC at the Pursuit of Harpyness. Lots of other factors do.
Angry-making
The Czech gives us an update on Jamie Lee Jones’ incredible and horrific story in Halliburton Gang-Rape *Not* a Work-Related Activity?. I hope she gets the justice she deserves.
Trans-misogyny? There’s an app for that. Helen from Bird of Paradox shares a pretty nasty Apple ad.
The Australian Immigration Department is refusing to grant refugee status to two women who fled Kenya to escape FGM. Natalie at She Speculates writes Fear of Genital Mutilation Doesn’t Warrant Refugee Status in response.
Paid work
Deborah obliterates an opinion piece arguing against women serving on the front line in the Australian military in Look out! Incoming brain-fart!! posted at her blog In a strange land.
In Promoting women is up to the companies, Jemima Aslana at Jem’s Lair discusses workplace gender equality and quotas in Denmark.
As part of her Feminism in Schools series, Ashley of Small Strokes writes Feminism in Schools: Teaching Feminism When You’re Not a Feminist. She discusses both course content and some factors that are less often thought of explicitly.
Illustrations from life
At Catspaw, Lucy talks about her experiences at university as a trans woman, including dealing with fellow students, professors and study material. The post is called I’m (Mostly Not) Coming Out.
Veronica, writing at Viva La Feminista, is wondering about the times when speaking up might make things worse. The post is called My privileged nose & reporting a slap to a baby.
Here are some reflections on (particularly racial) identity, figuring out experience and finding connections: This is [not] who you are by T. R Xands.
Disability
Ouyang Dan writes Where I jump in and defend pills…. Posted at random babble…, it’s a defence of meds and the people who take them in a world in which PWD are shamed for managing their own health.
amandaw hits it out of the ballpark with Domestic violence, C-sections considered pre-existing conditions at three rivers fog. It’s about ableism, healthcare, ableism, misogyny and ableism.
Popular culture
Next up is Disability & Television by Anna Overseas at her blog Trouble is Everywhere. She tackles the, ahem, questionable representations of PWD in Glee and Supernatural.
Laura is pondering Bisexuality on TV? at Adventures of a Young Feminist. Particularly concerned with Thirteen on House, Laura explores both the problematic and the positive.
Language
meloukhia makes a solid argument as to Why Inclusionary Language Matters over this ain’t livin’. Includes a rundown on intersectional feminism.
Chally of Zero at the Bone (what do you know, that’s me!) wants to share what’s Next on the list of things that really annoy me. Namely, progressives using ableist language.
Metafemming
At The Fem Spot, Femspotter writes So what kind of feminist are you anyway?. It’s her ruminations on the different branches of feminism, tied into a discussion of Hillary Clinton and the US election.
Dori of A Truly Elegant Mess has Important Thinky Thoughts. ‘There is a danger in making an identity out of an ideology. It leads to fighting about identities instead of discussing actions.’
A little bit of 101
At Criss writes…, Criss L. Cox presents Emotional Intelligence FAIL: Victim-blaming 101. ‘This is one of the problems in our society, the blame is always on the other guy.’
‘As a woman you can eschew or embrace femininity, but you will be rewarded and punished in equal amounts no matter which option you choose. You can never win.’ Exactly so. You can read the rest of tor’s post femininity: damned if you do, damned if you don’t at adrift and awake.
Not fitting in the patriarchal box
ashinynewcoin writes ticking all the boxes means not talking politics. She’s been thinking on the phrase “high maintenance”.
Marjorie Morgan at Girls Outdoors wants to draw your attention to Freya Hoffmeister. Freya is paddling her sea kayak around Australia, trying to be the first woman and the second ever person to achieve this task. That’s pretty amazing.
Three more for the road
Over at The Bitch Who Roared, Linda Radfem shares The Marriage Thing. It is an institution of which she is not a fan.
The Angry Black Woman wants to know What Do You Do When You Experience or Witness Street Harassment?
Kim Powell of the news with nipples keeps us up to date on the latest in super sciencey laydee studies. Apparently women can’t keep secrets and, well, Women drink so they can’t smell vaginas?.
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Now for an extra bit of fun: Here’s a visual representation of the most common words used in all these posts (including the carnival itself (the meta! it’s too much!)) I made using Wordle.
The folks at WordPress have been having a bit of trouble with links lately, so I predict some of you finding the same. Let me know if you have any problems, please. Thank you for coming by; do stick around and check out my other posts. The next carnival is being held at RMJ’s Deeply Problematic so don’t forget to submit.
In honour of the 94th anniversary of Alice Sheldon’s birth, which was a few days ago, here is a review/analysis of the classic science fiction story “The Women Men Don’t See” (1972). Published under her pseudonym (and maybe written by her persona) of James Tiptree, Jr., this is arguably her most iconic story. You can read it here.
Let me start by saying that this is an unbelievably good piece of writing. Tiptree articulated so many means of oppression I could never quite lock down before. I could hardly bear to read it. When I first read this story I took weeks to finish because it kept touching a nerve. I had to keep stopping because I was constantly overwhelmed. Tip was deftly throwing all these experiential truths about women I had innately known but had never heard anyone express, the habits of movement, thought and relating you adopt to live as a woman. When I finished this story, I knew that I had to claim feminism for myself.
It runs thusly. Our hero is an American government agent of some sort, Don Fenton, on a fishing holiday in Mexico. The small plane in which he is travelling crashes, leaving him stranded with Estéban the pilot, a Mrs Ruth Parsons and her daughter, Althea. The way science fiction stories generally have gone after this is that the white man saves the day. It’s obvious that Don thinks this is how things are going to go, too. He grows frustrated when the women neither panic nor respond to his attempts to save them. (‘The women are shaky, but not hysterical.’) Reading, you become aware that the situation is well out of Don’s hands. And then, of course, the aliens arrive. The women end up saving themselves, but you’ll have to read the story to find out how.
Crucial to “The Women Men Don’t See” is the turning of science fiction’s alien convention to feminist use. Women are presented as aliens. Don can only relate to women through preconceived ideas: setting up camp is ‘playing house in a mud puddle’. Surely Ruth must be the ‘Mother Hen protecting only chick from male predators’. Even on the plane before the crash, he thinks ‘The Bonanza jinks, and I look back with a vague notion of reassuring the women. They are calmly intent on what can be seen of Yucatán. Well, they were offered the copilot’s view, but they turned it down. Too shy?’ He can’t see that the women are not what he thinks, and it frustrates him that they can operate outside of a context in which he has power. (Most disturbingly: ‘The woman doesn’t mean one thing to me, but the obtrusive recessiveness of her, the defiance of her little rump eight inches from my fly—for two pesos I’d have those shorts down and introduce myself. If I were twenty years younger. If I wasn’t so bushed’.) Indeed, there are many little references that turn the reader towards this idea of alienation – ‘End of communication. Mrs. Ruth Parsons isn’t even living in the same world with me’ – but of course the crowning moment is when aliens of the outer space variety turn up. Don draws his gun and yells at Ruth to get behind him. When she doesn’t, he slips on an injured leg and shoots her by mistake, reinforcing her difference. Don proves his thought that ‘she’s as alien as they, there in the twilight’ perfectly true.
That’s not the only construction of the other in “The Women Men Don’t See”. When Don and Ruth go off to fetch water, he develops a notion that Ruth is fantasising about Althea and Estéban having sex back at camp. Mother Hen’s little quirks, as he puts it, are really his; it’s for the reader to pick up that Don is projecting his racist, sexist, powerless imaginings. His fantasy is rife with racialised language, the usual meme of the young white woman being taken by the macho brown man. ‘Oh, for mahogany gonads.’ (There’s more to be said about race in this story, but I think I’ll need some co-readers to really pick it apart.)
But it’s the positioning of the audience that makes “The Women Men Don’t See” exceptionally clever and Tiptree’s signature piece. It is only by adopting a feminist reading position that the story clicks. That is, Tiptree asks you to accept women’s accounts of their own experience. You have to realise that Don isn’t the protagonist at all: Ruth is. It’s only then that the structure, the progress of the story falls into place. It’s not that we’re to see Don as bad, or that his experience is invalid. I think Don is there to observe, to tell the story because Ruth has no means of doing so. I think Don’s a shining example of how we can easily, horribly, miss the whole point and merrily shore up oppression. I like what Julie Phillips, Sheldon’s biographer, has to say: ‘… maybe it is about what it says it’s about: the writer’s difficulty in speaking of, or even seeing, women’s experience – including her own.’ But then, as much as being Tiptree allowed Sheldon to say things she couldn’t say as a woman, the persona was horribly limiting as well. She once wrote that ‘I’m getting fairly tired of being a man; so much one can’t say.’
How you read this story depends on how and where you see the author. If you’re relating to Tiptree as he was known at the time of writing – a tough, mysterious man, sympathetic to feminism, if in an odd fashion – it reads like an insightful piece that never quite reaches its zenith. If you’re reading Tiptree as a woman – bright, confused, going ever onward – you can see it as a beautiful, layered game. And then, where is Tiptree in the piece? Perhaps you see him in Don, with his background in intelligence work, love of fishing and stumbling attempts to understand. Then there’s Ruth, the quiet and persistent voice moving around the edges. (I think of Ruth’s voice like one on a badly tuned radio, rarely clear, going to extremes.) I lean towards both, because Alice Sheldon had many ways of relating to herself, and I think this piece must represent her internal dialogue as well as a societal one. There’s just one scene in which we get to hear Ruth’s voice loud and clear, and what she says seems to be a representation of one of Alice’s attitudes – oh, just one, hers was a complex feminism – towards women and our chances. And it’s not pleasant. But if ever there was a classic line, it’s ‘What women do is survive. We live by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine.’
While Tiptree cannot envision the end of the patriarchy, she sees escape as a possibility. You see this appear again and again in her writing. In “With Delicate Mad Hands” (1981) the heroine, CP, can only escape patriarchal society by crossing the universe. But, as with many of Tiptree’s stories, love and self-realisation mean CP’s death. “The Women Men Don’t See” is a little different. While we know that Ruth and Althea go on, live their lives, perhaps continue their family, we never get to see what this experience of freedom looks like. And that’s fine and good for the purposes of this story, because its arc belongs as it is. But nowhere in Tiptree have I yet found a beautiful future. Even the utopia in the classic “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” (1974) turns out to be anything but. (But then, I’ve never read an all-woman utopia that actually was. I find Joanna Russ’ Whileaway very discomforting.) This is terribly sad. Tiptree, you and I are stuck here on Earth, in the chinks of the world-machine. There’s no escape for us but what we make of what we have, even if we don’t know what that will look like.
(Get it? I wrote ‘meta’ instead of ‘bit of’ and they sound sort of similar! I don’t think I’m ever going to run out of dorky titles for my meta posts. My favourite one is There’s something in your hair. I think it’s a piece of meta. I’m willing to take suggestions.)
Hey! The Fifteenth Down Under Feminists Carnival is up, the first edition hosted by founder Lauredhel since the original. You should go read it, even if you’re not a down under feminist, because it is full of goodness; full I say! The carnival is a fabulous thing for we NZ/Aus fembloggers to have. You can help keep it going by submitting your own posts or those of others (details here). You can start by checking out the Australasian section of my blogroll, which is – goodness me! – sorely in need of the update it will shortly get.
In other linky news, I’m changing the monthly blogging round-up I do to something less time-bound. (Iiiit waaaaas haaaaaard.) Possibly it will be sorted by topic or writer. Possibly it will come in the dead of night. I am trying to think what to call it. Linksplosion? Perhaps you have a blog recommendation you would like to share with me and your fellow readers, or an entry for possible inclusion my linksplosion or whatever it’s called.
Also, I just started up a delicious account, in which I’m bookmarking various things – thus far mostly social justice blog posts – I read and like. I’m adding a link to the sidebar. So if you want to see the sort of things I’m keeping for reference, that’s the place to go!
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