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It is nice when basic concepts are illustrated so succinctly.
Baby high heels. It is an actual phenomena. Hard to have words for this one other than choked rage sputtering sounds.
Women will bring peace to the world (if men don’t destroy it first) and they shall do it through understanding and listening to each other. Listen to the power of their words.
“Ten black mothers sat on the stage in an auditorium and looked into a diverse crowd of women in the audience. They were about to share something personal and hurtful with this room full of mostly strangers.
They were going to talk about something they didn’t normally share with their white friends or colleagues.
It was about to get real in that room.
In the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager fatally shot by a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer, conversations about race in the St. Louis area have been loaded.
Christi Griffin, the president of The Ethics Project, wanted this to be different. She wanted to invite mothers of other races to hear directly from black mothers the reality of raising a black son in America. She wanted them to hear the words they each had said to their own sons, in different variations over the years, but all with the same message: Stay alive. Come home alive.
She wanted mothers who had never felt the fear, every single time their son walked outside or drove a car, that he could possibly be killed to hear what that felt like.
Griffin’s son, now grown, had never gotten in trouble nor given her any trouble growing up. But when her son was 14 years old, the family moved into an all-white neighborhood. She took him to the police department to introduce him to the staff. She wanted the officers to know that he belonged there, that he lived there.
When he turned 16, it was time for another talk. Every single time he got into his car to drive, she made him take his license out of his wallet and his insurance card out of the glove compartment.
“I did not want him reaching for anything in the car.”
He graduated from college with a degree in physics.
Marlowe Thomas-Tulloch said that when she noticed her grandson was getting bigger and taller, she laid bare a truth to him: Son, if the police stop you, I need for you to be humble. But I need more than that. I need for you to be prepared to be humiliated.
If they tell you take your hands out of your pockets, take your hands out. Be ready to turn your pockets out. If they tell you to sit down, be prepared to lie down.
You only walk in the street with one boy at a time, she told him.
“What?” her grandson said. In his 17-year-old mind, he hadn’t done anything wrong and nothing was going to happen to him.
“If it’s three or more, you’re a mob,” she said. “That’s how they will see you.”
She started to cry.
“Listen to me,” she begged. “Hear me.”
Finally, she felt him feel her fear.
If they ask you who you are, name your family.
Yes, sir and no, sir. If they are in your face, even if they are wrong, humble yourself and submit yourself to the moment.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Because I love you.”
She told him she would rather pick him up from the police station than identify his body at a morgue.
When her grandson left to go home, she called her daughter to tell her about the conversation. Her daughter asked her what she had said, because her son came home upset, with tears in his eyes.
“I hope I said enough to save his life,” Thomas-Tulloch said. “I’d rather go down giving him everything I got.”
The mothers talked about the times their sons had been stopped in their own neighborhoods because “they fit the description.” They shared the times their sons had come home full of rage and hurt for being stopped and questioned for no reason. And they told the other mothers how often they told their sons to simply swallow the injustice of the moment. Because they wanted them alive, above all.
Amy Hunter, director of racial justice at the YWCA in metro St. Louis, said it’s taken her 10 years to be able to share this story about her son without crying. She didn’t want her white friends to see her cry when she told it. She didn’t want to look weak.
Her four children are now older, but when one of her sons was 12, he decided to walk home from the Delmar Loop in University City where he had met some friends.
He saw a police officer circling him, and he knew. He was wearing Sperrys, a tucked-in polo shirt, a belt. He was 12, and he knew, but he was scared.
He lived five houses away, and he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I knew you were home,” he said to his mom when he finally made it home after being frisked. “I knew I was about to get stopped, and I thought about running home to you.”
His mother froze.
“I forgot to tell him,” she said. “I forgot to tell him: Don’t run. Don’t run or they’ll shoot you.”
Her 12-year-old cried when he told her what had happened and asked if he was stopped because he was black.
“Probably, yeah,” she said.
“I just want to know, how long will this last?” he asked her.
That’s when she started to cry.
“For the rest of your life,” she said.
It doesn’t matter about your college degree, the car you drive, the street you live on, she told the moms in the audience. It’s not going to shield your child like a Superman cape. She admitted that it was difficult to share these painful moments.
Just one of the mothers on the stage asked a single question of the audience. Assata Henderson, who has raised three children, all college graduates, said she called her sons to ask them what they remembered about “the talk” she had given them about how to survive as a black man.
“Mama, you talked all the time,” they said to her.
It made her wonder, she said. She said she wasn’t pointing any fingers, but it made her wonder about the conversations the other mothers were having with their sons, who grow up to be police officers, judges and CEOs.
“You’re the mothers,” she said to the crowd. “What are the conversations you are having with the police officers who harass our children?”[
[Source]
Let’s not have the porn = ‘freedom of speech’ argument this one time okay?
I live in a country where if you film any act of humiliation or torture, and if the victim is a woman, the film is both entertainment and it is protected speech. Now that tells me something about what it means to be a woman citizen in this country, and the meaning of being second class.When your rape is entertainment, your worthlessness is absolute. You have reached the nadir of social worthlessness. The civil impact of pornography on women is staggering. It keeps us socially silent, it keeps us socially compliant, it keeps us afraid in neighborhoods; and it creates a vast hopelessness for women, a vast despair. One lives inside a nightmare of sexual abuse that is both actual and potential, and you have the great joy of knowing that your nightmare is someone else’s freedom and someone else’s fun.”
— Andrea Dworkin
All of the following has been cribbed from David Futrelle’s We Hunted the Mammoth – Thank you David for doing the heavy lifting on this one.
“The Honey Badgers — a mostly female A Voice for Men spinoff group known for its unlistenable internet “radio” shows — was sent packing after conventioneers complained about their connections to #GamerGate — a nine-month-long orgy of harassment targeting outspoken women in gaming and their supporters — and their alleged disruption of a panel devoted to women in comics.
According to Calgary Expo officials, the group was kicked out for “actively disregarding” the Expo’s efforts to provide “a positive and safe event” for attendees.
The Calgary Expo has a clear policy when it comes to who it admits to its show and the standards that must be followed.
“The Comic & Entertainment Expo Committee does not tolerate harassment of any type at any of its events. Harassment can take many forms. It may be, but is not limited to, words, signs, offensive jokes, cartoons, pictures, posters, e-mail jokes or statements, pranks, intimidation, physical assaults or contact, or violence.”
What did these people do? Let’s look at a sample of their work:
David Futrelle continues:
“I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that this in itself would be enough to get the Honey Badgers booted from the Calgary Expo. A group that literally sells rape joke t-shirts and coffee mugs to raise money for itself is a group that doesn’t belong at a convention that’s trying to be “positive and safe” for its attendees.
Add to this their connection to #GamerGate — a hate movement — and A Voice for Men — a hate group — and it’s pretty clear that Calgary Expo officials had more than enough justification for their decision to send the Honey Badgers on their way.”
And there is the news from the land of reason. If we head over to the other side inhabited by privileged members of the oppressed majority, we see a much different picture being painted. I’ve already done a post on how amazing cogent Lucian Maverick is, but the fun-house version of reality and desperate seriousness of his words begs for reproduction (from Free Speech Doesn’t Mean Much to SJW’s – A response to the Calgary Expo):
“Who knew that Canadians were cool with fascism? Neato. Let’s not beat around the bush here. This wasn’t done for equality or because people felt unsafe or anything like that. Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or has an agenda. Or both. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
I’m calling the LoLcopter in early on this one. Lucy Maverick is excels at making shit up. The reason the Honey badgers were expelled from the Calgary expo was because they violated the rules and terms they agreed to when they set up a booth there. See David Futrelle’s piece on as to exactly why they were given the boot.
“Let’s put all our cards on the table – this is censorship. What Calgary Expo has done is censor opinions that, professionally, disagreed with someone else. Seriously, did you all listen to that audio that was taken in Mundane Matt’s video? Did that sounds like someone being threatening and hateful? Did that sound even remotely like a person who was waving a gun around or wanting to hurt anyone? No, it didn’t. It was a reasonable discourse between two people. Yet, because they were associated with GamerGate, the Authoritarian, McCarthy wannabes in the SJW clique had to get them thrown out. And, what’s more, banned from any future attendance of such expos. Something that is going to hurt the career of Alison Tieman, since she now cannot promote her artwork. She drew the comics that Honey Badger Brigade had at her booth. It’s nice to see that Calgary Expo is also in favor of destroying women’s careers. #EqualityExpo my ass!”
LoL. When you go against your booth rental agreement – you get booted. Maybe LM should read the Calgary Expo Faq, it would stop the raging stupid.
“As for you, Calgary Expo, you kowtow to these people too, and you better believe that there is such a thing as bad press. I’m going to make sure it gets out. I’m going to make sure that people know that you are an organization that promotes censorship and has no problem ruining the careers of women. Which is what you’ve done. You’ve destroyed a woman’s ability to promote her artwork at comic book expos. Honey Badger Brigade raised over $10,000 to get to your bigoted expo. I hope you don’t give them their money back, so they can sue your asses. You people make me sick.”
Sadly this is the more cogent of the two whiny-pissbabies we’ll be observing today. From the more unhinged column we have the frothy commentator the Right Vidya. From his post: Time to Take the Gloves Off, #gamergate! :
“Likewise, there is the very recent event at the Calgary Expo, where a group of pro-#GamerGate women were forcibly asked to leave, because their booth sold #GamerGate merchandise. It doesn’t matter if they’re a threat or not: the end goal for SJWs is the complete and utter annihilation of #GamerGate and anyone who supports #GamerGate. From there, they can proceed to push their “convert or perish” doctrine onto gaming unopposed.”
Again, full marks for making shit up but lets make this about me and my supposed right to be misogynistic asshole while gaming. Whiny man-babies be pissed about having to treat women like people after all.
“These are not rational, reasonable human beings. There is no “negotiations” with them. They demand nothing short of total compliance. They do not want peace, they do not want compromise, they do not want coexistence. They want the systemic silencing and marginalization of everyone who is not on their side. Everything is filtered through their worldview: their compassion and empathy is purposefully crippled in order to maximize their effectiveness. Their perception of events is dictated through ideology. Their reactions to events are only based on dogma. They have surrendered their individuality to the greater good.”
You can’t make this stuff up. RV is having a tantrum because the old shit won’t fly anymore and nothing shall stand in his way to preserve the status quo.
“We need to treat them like enemies. We have to be more aggressive, more brutal, more vicious. Stop yelling at each other over petty stuff like someone calling @srhbutts a dude- he’s the enemy, he doesn’t matter, whatever helps push him out of the picture is good. Leave your perceptions of “right” and “wrong” at the door. This is a culture WAR, not a culture disagreement. War is an ugly, brutal thing, and we must take an ugly, brutal approach in handling our enemy. We cannot stop until we are entirely certain that fandom will be safe from the SJW menace.”
Give me fandom or give me death!!! :) Male entitlement, written large by Gamer Gate, and individuals such as Lucy Maverick and RV is a large toxic pool of quarter baked ideas, straw versions of opposing arguments and great deal of “waaaaaaaa”.
Adults are watching, and adults are laughing. :)
Another great run down on this drama is available from House Mouse Queen on her Blog Mancheeze.
:(
Now that we’ve dispensed with that missive and hopefully all of the egalitarian fun fem types, we can be begin proper on the little ways of that being human and female are different in society. My faithful readership thoughtfully intones,”But why Arb, you’ve posted stuff like this before… we get it.” I’m sure you do, but not of enough of the people out there seem to get it, and thus we have will have another narrative interlude in which we get to see what it’s like to have two X chromosomes instead of just one.
Thank you Maggie for sharing.
” This post is going to be a mess, because I’m just …untidily angry right now. It began with a series of tweets I made today about my ever-broken Datsun. The mechanic had told my husband that he was “working on that Datsun just as fast as I can because now that I’ve met her I can’t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel again.”
Little girl.
As I tweeted that I was 33 and had earned each of those years and thus preferred to be referred to as “Danger Smog-Dragon” or “Rage-Mistress” or “Ephemeral Time Lady” or “Maggie Stiefvater, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of the Raven Cycle,” a well-meaning fellow replied that perhaps I should “use [my] words, politely but firmly, to his face…” He further observed that he’d told his wife that “you know, Honey, unless you’re willing to SAY THAT to (those people), NOTHING is going to change”.
(note: please do not go search for this fellow on twitter to rage at him; this is not about him. He is set dressing, made more appropriate to the conversation at hand by the fact that he probably is a perfectly nice guy who really didn’t mean disrespect).
I told TwitterMan that I was tired of have to use my words.It’s been 33 years of using my words. Why is it my job to continuously ask to be treated equivalent to a male customer? Why is that when I arrive at a shop, I’m reminded that I have to push the clutch in if I want to start my own car? It’s 2015. Why is it still all sexism all the time?
I discovered that I was actually furious. I thought I was over being furious, but it turns out, the rage was merely dormant. I’m furious that it’s been over a decade and nothing has changed. I’m furious that sexism was everywhere in the world of college-Maggie and it remains thus, even if I out-learn, out-earn, out-drive, and out-perform my male counterparts. At the end of the day, I’m still “little girl.”
Possibly this is the point where some people are asking why this tiny gesture of all gestures should be the one to break me.
Here is the anatomy of my rage.
Step one: It is 1999 or 2000. I am 16. I go to college. A professor tells me I’m pretty. A married man in the bagpipe band I’m in tells me he just can’t control himself around me: he stays up nights thinking of myskin. Another man tells me he can’t believe that ‘a little bitch’ like me got into the competition group after a year of playing when he’s been at it for twenty years. After becoming friends with a professor’s daughter, I’m at her house sleeping on the couch, and I wake up to find the professor running his hand from my ankle bone to my thigh. I pretend I’m still asleep. I’m 17. “If something happened to my wife,” he tells me later, “I could be with you.” At my next visit to her house, I see the wife’s left a book on the kitchen table: how to rekindle your husband’s love.
Step two: It’s 2008. I finally buy the car of my dreams, a 1973 Camaro, and make it my official business vehicle. The first time I take it to put gas in it, a man tells me, “if I were your husband, I wouldn’t want you out driving my car.” I tell him, “if you were my husband, I’d be a widow.” The car requires a lot of gas. I get cat-called every other time I’m at a gas station. Once, I go into the gas station to get a drink, and when I come out, a bunch of guys have parked me in. They want, they say, to have a word with me, little lady. We play automotive chicken which I win because I would rather smash the back of my ’73 Camaro into their IROC than have to stab one of them with the knife on my keychain.
Step three: It’s 2011. I’m on tour in a European country, on my own, escorted only by my foreign publisher. I am at a business dinner, and say I’m going to my room. My female editor embraces me; my male publicist embraces me and then puts his tongue in my ear, covering it with his hand so that the crowd of twenty professionals does not see. My choices are to say nothing to avoid making a scene in front of my publisher’s people, or to say FUCK YOU. I apparently was never offered the choice of not having a tongue in my ear.
Step four: It’s 2012. I buy a race car. Well, a rally car. Someone asks my male co-driver if I’m good in bed. Someone asks me if I got sponsorship because someone was ‘trying to check the woman box.’ People ask me if I drive like a girl. Yeah, I do, actually. Let’s play a game called: who’s faster off the start?
Step five: It’s 2014. I’m driving my Camaro cross-country on book tour. It breaks down a lot. I’m under the hood and a pick up truck stops beside me. “Hey baby,” asks the driver, “do you need any help?” “Yeah,” I reply, “do you have a 5/8 wrench?” He did not.
Step six: It’s 2015. It’s sixteen years after I learned that I was a thing to be touched and kissed and hooted at unless I took it upon myself to say no, and no again, and no some more, and no no no. My friend Tessa Gratton points out that a male author used casually sexist language in a brief interview. She is dragged through the muck for pointing out how deeply-rooted our systemic sexism is. The publishing industry rises to the defense of the male author as if he has been deeply wronged. I tweet that the language was indeed sexist, though I didn’t think it was useful to condemn said male author. A male editor emails me privately to ask me if maybe I wasn’t being a little problematic by engaging in the discussion?
Step seven. Still 2015. Someone very close to me confesses that her college boyfriend keeps trying to push her past kissing, and she doesn’t want to. I tell her to set boundaries, and leave him if he doesn’t. A month passes. This week I find out she just had sex for the first time after he urged her to have several glasses of wine. She doesn’t drink. She was crying. She says, “I didn’t say no, though.”
It’s been sixteen damn years. I’m tired of having to say no. I’m tired of the media telling me that it’s mouth breathing bros and rednecks perpetuating the sexism. No: I can tell you that the most insidious form is the nice guy. Who is a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. I carry my own prejudices that I work through, and I don’t believe in demonizing people who aren’t perfect yet — none of us are. But the nice guy who says something sexist gets away with it. The nice guy who says something sexist sounds right and reasonable. The nice guy’s not helping, though. It’s been sixteen years, and the nice guys are nice, but we’re still things to be acquired. We are still creatures to be asked on dates. We are still saying no, still shouting NO, still having to always again and again say “no, please treat me with respect.”
I was just invited to a car show; the well-meaning guy who asked wanted me to bring my souped up Mitsubishi. I clicked on the event page. It’s catered by Hooters. I’m not going. Yeah, it’s a little thing, but I have a lifetime of them. I’m taking my toys and going home.
“I can’t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel again.”
bleatmop
Mystro
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