Let’s Cure Gay Hate Instead

This dude is scary.

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Spreading Christmas Cheer Through Charity…

…unless you’re an illegal immigrant.  According to the Houston Chronicle, some Houston charities are requiring that parents show photo identification/proof of citizenship before their children get toys:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6746254.html

“Those who do check immigration status or other qualifications say they are trying to ensure they make the best decisions about whom to help.  ’We want to be good stewards, so the people that are donating to us trust we’re going to do the right thing,’ said Sonya Scott, manager of care ministries at West Houston Assistance Ministries.”

As Christopher Hitchens likes to say: Actually, sunshine, we’ll be the judge of that.

Actually, Ms. Scott, when I put my pocket change in that little red bucket outside of Stop & Shop, I don’t earmark it for white, U.S.-born kids.  And I’m sure there aren’t many donations to your organization that come with terms of use.  There aren’t some needy kids who deserve a moment of happiness more than other needy kids.  I put my money in because I’d like all of them to benefit from the generosity of charities like yours.  Ok, I also like hearing the guy ring the bell.  But it’s mostly the first thing.

Finally I’ll say that for me, when generally virtuous organizations adopt policies of racism, classism, and xenophobia it really feels like a hostage situation.  You can’t feel great supporting them anymore, and for obvious reasons you can’t feel great boycotting them.  It’s plain manipulation, intentional or not.  And it’s the worst kind of betrayal when community organizers manipulate and marginalize those in their own community.

~Lucie

UPDATE: The article also accuses the Salvation Army of participating in the discrimination.  A rep from the organization later said that they only require SSNs to prevent fraud.  A couple of other organization made similar statements.  What do you think?  Legit or bullshit?

http://www.khou.com/news/Houston-charities-say-they-dont-intend-to-discriminate-against-illegal-immigrants-78255872.html

Sixteen Candles

A few nights ago I sat down with my whole family to watch a movie: Sixteen Candles directed by John Hughes (who also gave us Home Alone and the Breakfast Club)

I don’t know what it was about this PG rated “sweet and funny” (Roger Ebert) teen classic; maybe it was the fact that when it came time for “the geek” to rape the beautiful, passed out prom queen, nobody gave it a second thought.  That when the “jock but actually a really nice guy” character says “I can get a piece of ass anytime I want. Shit, I’ve got Caroline in the bedroom right now, passed out cold. I could violate her ten different ways if I wanted to,” it’s taken as a sign of his great maturity and sweetness that he doesn’t in fact violate her “ten different ways”  …rather than a sign that he isn’t a rapist and a criminal. That aforementioned Carolina clearly deserves to be raped, after all, she’s a beautiful cheerleader, and it’s about time the tables turned!

I won’t even go into the racism; suffice to say there is a foreign exchange student from China named Long Duck Dong.

If this is a PG rated classic, the kind of movie we show to twelve year olds, the kind of movie a whole family watches together on thanksgiving, the kind of sweet nostalgic movie taken as the antithesis of the violent, misogynistic, torture porn and regular porn and all the other garbage my mom finds so offensive…and it’s blatantly endorsing sexual abuse.

Well, I guess I already knew we lived in a rape culture…

Thoughts?

Peta, again.

'cuz corsets have everything to do with animal rights

Peta did it again. For those who can’t read the fine print, this ad is apparently advertising for “Animal Birth Control”–so simple even playboy cover-girl Dita Von Teese understands how sexy it is. I’m all for preventing deaths of dogs and cats in shelters, but I don’t understand why we need to objectify women to explain why it’s important to do so.

Here’s my list of issues with this ad campaign:

1. Just generally, what do playboy cover-girls have to do with animal rights?

2. Why glorify this completely irrelevant image of a school girl and professor. Why does female education have to become sexualized? When was the last time you wore stilettos and corset thing to class? When was the last time an adult woman opened up a book with the cover of “ABC”. Oh, and it’s heteronormative.

3. What’s with this call back to ’50s fashion? This is a bigger problem than just this ad, but I get kinda creeped out over this fetish for the 1950s white housewives in big polka dot dresses, and bubblegum pink.

4. If you watch the video on the site, in between/during all of Dita Von Teese’s talking about pets, we see her getting her picture taken in various poses. Are we supposed to be listening to her, considering her voice to be important? Or are we just supposed to be drooling at her body? oi.

5. Oh and what a boring typical idea of sexy. Way to perpetuate stereotypical ideas of beauty with body size, race, and gender. woot.

Gross.

As if you really needed another reason to think that health insurance companies suck.

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Help!: A Thorny Question

Friends, I’ve recently been presented with an interesting job opportunity.

“Ted” has been posting on Craigslist for months, looking for a woman to teach him how to approach women in public. It sounds coercive and awful—he’s going to pay a woman to teach him how to claim his God-given right to any woman’s attention at any time.

Unemployed as I am, I comb the Gigs section daily, and one fateful night, I decided to respond. I told Ted that he needs to learn when women aren’t interested in talking, and he also needs to think about the personal safety issues women face all the time. I even outed myself as a feminist.

Shockingly, Ted wrote back, and I made a plan to meet him at a coffee shop and discuss the job.

If I get this job, I plan to use it to teach Ted when not to approach women in public, aka 99% of the time. I don’t want to give this guy the confidence to talk to any woman—I want to teach him to recognize when women don’t want to talk and respect that. Ultimately I want to teach him that pushing women’s boundaries in public social situations is never acceptable.

I’d like to use this opportunity to mold a decent, non-d-bag man from someone who’s at least recognized that he’s having trouble talking to women, and won’t find my perspective in the standard lore. There’s a lot I can use for teaching materials, like Phaedra Starling’s piece “Schrodinger’s Rapist” and RP’s “But I’m Nice!”. But I’m worried about three things: first, if I’m helping a man talk to women, won’t my perspective necessarily be diluted? I find myself nodding my head when talking to men disturbingly often. How can I do this in good conscience? Second, what if he’s a d-bag? What if he’s a rapist? Third, what if he doesn’t really listen to me, just uses some parts of what I’m saying to manipulate women? I just don’t know how to do this, or if I should.

I need advice, everyone. Is there any universe in which this isn’t blatantly cooperating in women’s oppression?

Feministing and Pre-existing

Pre-existing condition of capitalism?

Feministing had a great post today about how health care reform is a feminist issue and it got me thinking to do a bit of research. What I found was that women are in need of a complete overhaul of our health care system and we need it now. Check out here, here, and here for more information.

It’s no secret that women’s health care is pricey and important. Don’t know how much a gyno costs? Ask your mom or a sister. I honestly don’t understand how we can justify forcing women to pay for their own health care, simply because women face health issues different from males, especially if we’re statistically less likely to be able to pay for it because we are often not paid (or not paid equally) for our labor. And let’s not forget that not only do our health care issues affect women disproportionately but women of color especially–women of color are twice as likely to have no health insurance and are more likely to receive late or no prenatal care. And of course our current health care for trans folks is even worse.

Also I hope you all checked out the 4 month year old who was denied health insurance because he was “too fat”. The fat phobia going on in health care these days is some seriously scary stuff.

It’s important in this time to remember that we are not too sick, too fat, too woman-y, too trans. On the contrary, we are ourselves, our existing conditions are the conditions of existence, of life. Instead our health insurance companies are too greedy, too cruel, and too powerful.

Remember, “the personal is political,” and for all those facing health care issues remember you are not alone and that there is nothing wrong with you–there’s something wrong with our system. Here’s to hoping our politicians wake up and we get some sort of public option and that we are not denied care simply for being who we are.

Women’s Happiness 201

Follow-up to that other article posted a while ago: Here

Sexual assault prevention tips

Guaranteed to work!