#SB5 and beyond

You'd think I would be used to being disappointed by American democracy by now. I'm just the right age for the 2000 and 2004 elections to stand in stark contrast to what I was learning in my AP Government class.

But the Texas Senate, man, they really know how to party. Were you one of the 150,000+ people who watched a live stream of Senator Wendy Davis's filibuster...and its fall-out of shouting, debating, and flagrant disregard for legislative process? It was good times on Twitter, let me tell you--and trust, social media had their eyes on the prize while CNN, CBS, AP, and MSNBC screwed around with penguins and low-cal muffins.

And we are still watching you, Texas Senate. We're very interested in how keen you are to disenfranchise voters of color, poor voters, and female voters, between watching Davis jump through every hoop for thirteen hours and then cheating in front of the eyes of thousands (who have a petition ready, thank you) and the nasty bits of business you rolled out immediately after the Supreme Court dismantled portions of the Voting Rights Act. Since we're in a post-racial, post-feminist America and all.

(BAMF ladies)

My thanks to the four women who spoke truth to power yesterday: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Wendy Davis, Leticia Van De Putte, and Judith Zaffirini. Your tales will not diminish in the telling. Let them add fuel to a righteous fire. Your efforts were not entirely in vain.

NOPE WRONG GET OUT

A few days ago the image below went up on a Kamelot fan confessions Tumblr.

Now. Let me count all the ways this gave me flames on the sides of my face! 

1. Complaints like this specifically target female fans. When a statement along these lines is made, no matter what fandom it's for, the person making it is not usually thinking of tons of gay men who suddenly love Hawkeye because Jeremy Renner is hot. They're talking about frivolous female fans who are apparently only interested in looks, not content. Complaints in this mode are inherently sexist; someone assuming I only enjoy Kamelot because of the hotness of the lead singer is the spiritual sibling of the dickbag that makes me prove my nerd street cred by listing my favorite comic book artists.

2. Complaints like this almost never have any basis in fact. If Kamelot's music had taken a sudden downturn or become otherwise radically different after gaining Tommy Karevik as a lead singer, fans might have a reason to look askance. But it didn't; I haven't heard all of the new album yet, but it's by all accounts more like certain older albums, which should please longtime fans, and it's doing exceedingly well on metal charts. If there is an influx of new fans, it's more likely due to a new album getting lots of positive reviews and the band touring with Nightwish, a gigantic name in European metal.

3. Complaints like this ignore the fact that Roy Khan is fine as hell. If you are going to be the kind of asshole who makes remarks like this, you better remember that Kamelot's previous lead singer is also exceptionally attractive. Neither Khan nor Karevik's looks have any bearing on their musical talent, which in both cases is extensive.

4. Complaints like this ignore the fact that Kamelot has always had a sizable female fanbase. Why's that? For one thing, women enjoy good music! Wow, right? Brand new information! For another, neither the band members nor the music have ever been overtly misogynist or gross toward women. Always a plus. The culture around power metal is more welcoming than some other subgenres, and I personally have never felt threatened or unwelcome at Kamelot shows (though as in all things, YMMV). These factors combine to make a great atmosphere for all fans, including women. Female Kamelot fans are in no way new or news.

In short, keep your jerkery out of my fandom. One of the best things about being a Kamelot fan is that the fanbase is usually very levelheaded and not assy about non-issues like this. A more drama-free fandom I have yet to meet. I don't like seeing shit like this floating around, and I don't enjoy people creating issues where there simply aren't any.

Suck my status quo, J-boy

It was announced yesterday that, come Justice League #12, Wonder Woman and Superman would be shacking up. This sent yet another wave of outrage through DC fans (oddly enough I have yet to see any comments supportive of the decision; the most lenient ones are people who don't care or who are out of fucks to give--usually there's at least one person who's willing to keep sucking DiDio's dick) for several reasons: foremost for Superfans is that this is yet another blow to the Clark/Lois relationship, which is one of the oldest and most popular relationships in superhero comics. For some WW fans, including myself, this development dashes any hopes that we might have seen Diana with a female partner at last.

Also, you know, this exact thing has happened and been retconned like eight times because everyone hates it. Whatever. I will anticipate some glorious subtext in Wonder Woman's upcoming crossover with Batwoman (gaaaaaay Batwoman) and serenely ignore any goings-on with Supes unless it touches her title outright. Which, I'm sacrificing a goat today to ensure that it doesn't. Get thee hence, thou unclean thing. Pairing the two most powerful characters in the DCU is both the most obvious and least inspired relationship choice the bigwigs could have made. It's boring. Superman and Wonder Woman have a wonderful friendship, Clark and Lois have a wonderful romance, and if I really get an urge to see the demigods doing it, THAT IS WHAT FANFIC IS FOR. There are much better fic writers than you, Johns.

 (I mean this is just straight-up RUDE)

And let's be honest--if I go searching for smut involving Clark and Diana, there needs to be a Bruce filling in the middle of that sandwich. Pure Trinity porn or bust! Don't suppose we'll be getting any of that in the JL title.

In other news, Rob Liefeld, the most hated man in mainstream comic book creation, is rage-quittingleaving DC. Really! This time he means it! We can only hope. I can't blame him if the creative atmosphere is that dreadful--which I assume it is, with the possible exception of people working on Batbooks and Green Lantern titles, which are all the bigwigs care about--but his comment about overseas talent is pretty fucking nasty. A number of the best artists DC currently employs are not Americans, and guess what? This isn't news! Ed Benes and Guillem March might really enjoy drawing big tits, but their art isn't bad. Eduardo Risso is one of the greatest comic artists to ever live. Marcus To and Yanick Paquette are Canadian; do they count as evil talentless-hack foreigners? If Mikel Janin is good enough to work with Jeff Lemire, he should be good enough for you, Liefeld.

The bottom line to all of this is that comics should be good. I am only willing to spend money on things that I think are good. I don't buy books that have grammatical errors, crappy, boring plots, and suspect ethics; why would I buy a comic with the same? There seems to be a really low bar for consumption of comics, like, well it's just a comic book. No. It is not just a comic book and if you've let yourself be tricked into thinking that, you are part of the problem! Get some standards --they don't have to be MY standards, just A set of standards--and quit giving money to comics you don't actually like.

Blergh, just blergh

It's been a pretty bad few weeks for attacks on American citizens on American soil by other Americans--you know, domestic terrorism. It's also been a pretty bad few weeks for the media refusing to call these people what they are. Between the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, the burning of a mosque in Missouri,  and the Colorado movie theater shooting, I'm not real proud right now to be a white American (am I ever tho?). On (somewhat) less dire fronts, bigots lining up to be counted at fast food restaurants is hardly worth lauding, although I like it when assholes identify themselves for me, and NBC's general terrible Olympic coverage and specifically their tendency to ignore certain Black female athletes' triumphs has been giving me a little of the old throwing-up-in-my-mouth feeling.

Good news, anyone? IS there any so far this week?

I think my optic nerves are strained

Due to excessive eyerolling, of course. But how can something like this be met with anything else? Not to say Andy's post is eyeroll-worthy, but the topic at hand is a further plummet into ridiculousness plaguing the shelves of school and public libraries, and more to the point, why am I being asked to take seriously a study on profanity conducted by Brigham Young University?

Are we going to pretend now that BYU has some sort of objectivity when it comes to a subject like this? Even if the academics who conducted the study aren't church members, they're still under pressure to present data and conclusions which jibe with BYU's goals and image (and which fall within the parameters of the school's position on academic freedom). Of course they're going to suggest that books (books, of all things) should be rated. Think of the children!

(Speaking of the children, here is my teenage LDS experience: reading curse words in books and hearing curse words in music, films, and from real live humans did not make me any more inclined to swear. Indeed I was nigh on terrified of profanity coming out of my mouth. Hell, I still live in fear of letting an F-bomb slip out in front of my mother. Once upon a time in high school my mom critiqued a short story I had written, and her major complaint was that a character took the Lord's name in vain. One of my good friends likes to tell the story of the first time she heard me curse--according to her I blushed like a fire hydrant. By the way, I was nineteen by this point. Surely everyone recalls the horrible things I read as a kid? They must have had a delayed effect.)

Rating children's, middle grade, and YA fiction would provide yet another excuse for parents to not be parents and yet more ways for libraries to be bullied into pulling books off shelves regardless of their buying and evaluation policies. But come on, if you're not policing your kid's reading (or listening, or viewing), no one else should be expected to do it for you. The role of librarians is to provide the most comprehensive array of media possible for patrons and to help patrons select media suitable to their tastes and needs. That is NOT the same as collating a list of all perceivable offenses for each book in the system. As Andy indicates in his post linked above, stickering books with a rating system provides a shortcut for people to be preemptively offended--if the book is OBVIOUSLY bad news, why bother to read and evaluate it? There is no such thing as a rating system that fits everyone and is completely objective, nor should there be. This whole business smacks of the continual underestimation of youth patrons and the increasing bent to fob parental and personal responsibility off on someone else, not to mention the whole distrusting-children angle. Yeah, I don't have kids, yeah, I don't want to have kids, but I was a kid once and one of my very favorite growing-up memories is the knowledge that my mother trusted me and let me use my library card as I saw fit.

And if books were rated by some outside body (a literary version of the MPAA or whatnot), guess what? That would be a barrier to purchase for both the general buying public and libraries. I'm waiting for publishers to scream about this, and hoping they do so. The bottom line for me is that there is no integrity to this study and godfuckingdammit I am annoyed that anyone should have to act like there is. I'm annoyed that this idea of rating YA books has been put into people's minds by an institutional body interested chiefly in backing up its religious overseers. I'm annoyed at the mere thought of giving more opportunities for the willfully ignorant to boil down books (or music or TV or film) to X number of curse words, context-free and inanely reductive. Let's be clear--I detest both the MPAA and the RIAA's Parental Advisory Labels, and I really do not want to see literature be subjected to these kinds of archaic, effectively meaningless systems.

*facepalm*

My hometown library system is in the news, and not for a good reason. Hell, is any Florida news ever good? Such an embarrassing state I hail from. Anyway, in the interest of helping the dear folks out back home, I present a partial list of Literature Easily Accessible at the Brevard County Public Library That Will Scar Children for Life and Cause Adults to Abandon All Morality (AKA Some Things I Read Age 13-17 That Taught Me More About Sex Than the Brevard County School System):

The novelization of The Wicker Man

Anne Rice as Anne Roquelaure's Sleeping Beauty trilogy

Incarnations of Immortality and every other fantasy series Piers Anthony has ever written

obvious shit like A Spy In the House of Love and Tropic of Cancer

River God

any number of Zane novels
part of Sin City

Trainspotting (the novel and the film)

hoary classics such as Lady Chatterley's Lover (hey, it was naughty when I was fifteen)

Rubyfruit Jungle 

These are all going to be removed, right? Right? For the betterment of humanity? Right?! 

 

Women who love women

Occasionally I pop over to Feminist Mormon Housewives to see what the forward-thinking members of the LDS community are up to. Recently there was a post about female friends which struck me. I don't think our society is very interested in female relationships, not when there's a possible male/female romantic relationship to be had. Lots of popular cultural memes revolve around the concept of "frenemies," women as backstabbing and untrustworthy friends, women as gossips, and so forth. A lot of young women end up with the feeling that it's easier to be friends with men, because there's "less drama." There is also the impetus of fitting into the boys' crowd and being "one of the guys"; I venture for some women, being the odd lady out and having male attention is somewhat of a powerful feeling. 

I can relate to this as a woman who was deeply unpopular in high school and was not used to having appreciative male attention, but I strive to not feel and act this way. A lot of my interests are traditionally dude-heavy: I like science fiction, action films, comic books, and heavy metal. I have a lot of male friends. I like hanging out with guys and I get along easily with guys. BUT: I also love women. I love being around women, talking with women, and having relationships with women. I do not subscribe to either the idea that men and women can never be friends without sexual tension fucking things up (literally) or the idea that women's relationships will always be drama-filled and emotionally dangerous. I also don't really find that boy friendships are for one thing (going to cons, headbanging, attending sports events) and girl friendships are for another (getting pedicures, venting about love lives, watching Moulin Rouge!). There doesn't need to be any kind of false demarcation in the lives of our relationships. People like what they like and hang out with who they hang out with. There are horrible people in every gender group and of every sex and sexual orientation. There are women who will demand to check your credentials when you tell them you like such-and-such kind of music; there are men who will gossip about you behind your back. 

Once upon a time I parroted the idea that "I just think it's easier to hang out with guys"--I know of what I speak. This attitude is rooted in sexist tropes about men AND women. This attitude reinforces the idea that most women are "girly" and useless, unintellectual, petty, out to steal your man--that smart women prefer the company of the compelling male personality. This attitude needs to be combated. Women's relationships are valuable and valid and deep, beautiful, strong, and ALL women are real women. Women are interested in sewing and interested in reconstructing medieval trebuchets; women like to read romance novels and books about entomology; women listen to Rascal Flatts and Slayer. Throw out the snap judgments--they are a way of not having to do the hard work of relationships. Incidentally, this discussion on fMh dovetails into yet another debate in the geekosphere about "fake geek girls." Do they exist? If so, why do they exist? What is their purpose? What are they trying to prove? These questions aren't the point; the point is the furthering of the "boys' club" mentality and the woman-on-woman crime present in these discussions, since a good amount of the shit being flung is coming from women. Women accusing women of not being real, because REAL women have curves and REAL women want to be mothers and REAL women don't start fights and REAL women this, that, the other. I reiterate: all women are real women. Women who are just discovering comic books because they loved Thor are real women, and real geeks. Women who are learning how to play videogames are real women, and real geeks. Women venturing into the hefty pages of George R.R. Martin because someone DVR'd Game of Thrones for them are real women, and real geeks. I hate seeing geeks lambast one another for perceived lack of cred and I especially hate seeing women nerds doing this to other women. I hate seeing the same old tired-ass falsehoods, that "fake" geek girls are trying to get attention or start drama.


As mentioned previously in this post, a lot of the things that I am into have a largely male fan community. I have faced and will continue to face questions about my credibility as a metal music fan, as a comic book fan, as a sci-fi fan. Because the bar is so low, I expect this from men. I don't expect it from women and I hate it when it happens, because it feels like a betrayal. Surely they know what it's like to be sneered at or disbelieved! Yet it still occurs, because internalized misogyny is insidious and difficult to root out. So I say, Be strong in your relationships. Be welcoming and try not to be judgmental, in geeky matters or on Ravelry or in any community you are part of. We already face so much bullshit from all sides, so let's not add to it.

Basically, fuck Rick Scott

What can I say, it's a vulgar week. Mostly because of this waste of space, my state's horrifying governor.

A reubttal from my university's Department of Anthropology students: This is anthropology. Maybe it's because I used to be part of that department, maybe it's because I value education of all kinds and detest deliberate ignorance, but this has made me more frothingly angry than anything else Skeletor has done so far (and he's done a lot of stupid shit). There aren't enough curses in the world's languages for this loathsome creature my fellow Floridians elected.

Basically, fuck Columbus Day

So, here in the US, it's Columbus Day. Not an observance I have much use for. Instead of whacking on about the history of the nation, I thought I would provide a few links for my dear readers' perusal.

The Native American Heritage Association, a non-profit charity for reservations in South Dakota.

I Am Not A Mascot, a fantastic blog written by an Oglala Lakota Sioux journalist.

Native American Heritage Month is next month!

My culture is not a trend, a Tumblr account chronicling instances of micro and macroaggression against and appropriation of native cultures.

The American Indian College Fund, which provides scholarships, fellowships, grants, and other education opportunities for native students.

The cradle of life is Africa

So there's this. This too.

It's pretty easy to understand why anyone with a brain is het up about these idiotic new advertisements from Summer's Eve, those purveyors of lavender-scented cooters. There are a lot of reasons to be pissed--the use of dude actors with phallic objects, you know, doing stuff while the women stand around waiting to see who they get to have sex with; equating "woman" with "vagina" and boiling down a complex group of people to their genitals (and ignoring the fact that not all women have vaginas); the not-so-subtle undertones of conquest and rape; the downright racist ads aimed at Latinas and black women; every space on the bigot bingo card is there! Because I'm stupid and naive, I'd thought that this sort of thing was going the way of the dodo; apparently not. Advertisers still want you to think that your genitals are nasty and smelly and need to be pressure-washed before the dudes will go near them. My major beef with these ads is just that: the misconceptions surrounding female genitalia and what they're "supposed" to look/smell/act like.

Let's get something clear. The vagina is a self-cleaning oven. Its internal flora are supposed to be there. Your cervix is supposed to produce fluid of varying consistency and scent throughout the month. Your labia can be washed with mild, unscented soap or even just water, unless there's some sort of infection going on, in which case you might need medication, and GUESS WHAT? Such infections often get going by something getting into your junk that shouldn't be there. Something that contains Red Dye No. 3 or ammonium lauryl sulfate or artificial scents or sugars.

This stuff, of course, is what douches and "cleansing washes" are made out of.

There's a reason I deeply enjoy "douchebag" as an insult, and that's because I know that douching is bad for you. You should not let a douche anywhere near your business. Good rule for life!

*And guess what? NOT A VAGINA. "Vagina" has become a catch-all term for everything south of a woman's belt, something which advertisers like Summer's Eve continue to use to their advantage (teehee, we said "vajayjay"! Look, we're serious and using a proper medical term instead of something cutesy like vajayjay. Etc). The cradle of life, in female biology terms, is the uterus.

New shoes

Presumably you fine folks have heard about the DC universe reboot. You can probably also guess how this makes me feel inside.

Yeah, pretty much like that, where Batman is Geoff Johns Dan DiDio Diane Nelson Jim Lee Bob Harras THE MAN and I am, well, I'm Diana. Especially since apparently the Super-Marriage is getting nixed and Clark Kent+Diana Prince is a go (gag me with a forklift). Despite DC's trumpeting of diversity, the Batwoman title I've been waiting for since the zero issue in FEBRUARY has yet to launch, and the new!Justice League core line-up looks oddly like every other incarnation: WW, Supes, Bats, GL, Flash, and look, Cyborg! Newness! Diversity! And collars!

Color me, as it were, extremely unexcite.

ETA: THIS JUST IN--Batgirl/Nightwing rebooted. Oh HELL NO, DC. If this turns out to be true, I don't even know.

To be blunt

So, there's this. I have to say, Matthew Vaughn: a catchy (maybe? Never heard it) song is not topping my list of reasons I want to see X-Men: First Class. Here are a few things that ARE topping that list:

• 
  
  
  Michael Fassbender and Kevin Bacon, being fine pieces of villainous ass.



• 
  
  
  The inclusion of Emma Frost, my favorite Marvel lady.



• 
  
  
  It's a goddamn X-Men film. I saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand at midnight opening night and it was a steaming pile of garbage and I didn't particularly care because it was a goddamn X-Men film.



• 
  
  
  The Sixties setting is intriguing.



• 
  
  
  I'm into self-abuse (the literal kind, and sometimes the metaphoric kind if I'm looking at Michael Fassbender), and I neeeeeed to know if this film is going to suck, based on its jacked-to-shit lack of continuity, even movie continuity, and its bizarro lineup.

Matthew Vaughn, Matthew Vaughn. Sir. Get real! There will be PLENTY of women seeing your film! Have you not been following the recent ridiculous conversation about female nerds? WE EXIST. And we don't need a fucking love theme to get us into the theatre. Jesus fucking Christ.

Stopping HR3

By now I'm sure most people have heard about this travesty of a bill, but it bears repeating until it is stopped.

Write your representative, especially if you live in a place suffering from conservative reps. Tweet about your story, your friends' stories, news stories. Tweet your rage and retweet others', post on Facebook, email friends, blog statistics.

This sort of festering bullshit must be halted.

Sin is treating people like things

One of my favorite Terry Pratchett characters said that, and it remains the best definition for "sin" that I've seen.

So who's sinning today, Diana? you ask. Why, Marie Claire, of course! Presumably you've all heard about the horrific goings-on over there today, but in case you haven't...well, I ain't linking to that article. I refuse to give them the page hits. Instead, read Cleolinda's takedown.

I stand by my comment to her entry: articles in this manner, no matter who they're about, ARE TERRORISM. They are bigoted and hateful and mean (in both senses). They are about putting people down and keeping them down. Insert "gay" or "black" or "elderly" or ANYTHING in place of "fat" and the message remains the same: hate.

I am not fat. I am not even overweight. I'm a skinny white able-bodied cisgendered heterosexual young woman. I have every fucking privilege in the world. This article is not about me, right? WRONG. IT IS ABOUT ME. It's about me, you, five of my close friends and scores of other people whom I admire, my teachers, my colleagues, my students, people on the Internet I've never met. It's about everyone, because guess what? the bell tolls for you. There is no excusing writing like this, no matter what the topic or who the hate is aimed at. It's hate and it needs to end.

So fuck you, Marie Claire, for allowing this piece of garbage to be published. I hope your magazine goes belly-up. Dear readers, would you like to help that happen? Read one of these instead!

+Fatshionista

+Curves Ahead Tumblr

+Big Fat Blog

+International Size Acceptance Association

+Australian Fatshion