riotriot

This is so badass, I don't even know what to say. Back in January, feminist punk group Pussy Riot scaled some fences to enter the Kremlin and, wearing some really brightly colored clothes, rocked hard to their song "Putin Pissed Himself." In the snow, because it's Russia. You have to watch this. Rock out with them and their pelvic thrusting until they get arrested by the police. And then they performed in a cathedral! Amazing.

I don't know Russian, but Google offers me this (incomplete and no doubt imperfect) translation of their song about Putin (their cathedral song was called "Holy Shit"):

Go to the Kremlin is the rebellious colonies
In FSBshnyh offices explode window.
Females ssut for red walls
Riot announce Abortion System!

Attack at dawn? I will not argue
For our freedom and yours a whip to punish
Madonna in Glory teach to fight
Feminist Magdalene went to the demonstration

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Revolt in Russia - Putin zassal
Revolt in Russia - we exist
Revolt in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live at the Red
Show me the freedom
civil anger

(a loss on the square)

Dissatisfaction with the culture male hysteria
Wild leaderism eats brains
Orthodox religion is a hard penis
Patients are invited to conformity

The regime is going to censor the dream
It's time to disruptive clash
A flock of females sexist treatment
He asks for forgiveness from feminist wedge.

Revolt in Russia - the charisma of protest
Revolt in Russia - Putin zassal
Revolt in Russia - we exist
Revolt in Russia - rayot rayot

Come out to the street
Live at the Red
Show me the freedom
civil anger

What can you do? Honestly, today I would just love you to share this video with someone. and, y'know, you can always get involved with or give money to your local chapter of Girls Rock Camp.

naked people have little or no influence in society

I like clothes. I also hate injustice. So this is actually a big quandary. Even if you're not as mad crazy about cute dresses as I am, you probably wear clothes. And your clothes are probably made by exploited workers in third world countries. This is one of those things we all prefer not to think about, because what can you do, right? Right. I wish I had an easy answer. Obviously I don't, but I do have a few ideas.

For one, I'm happy to have learned about the existence of the Clean Clothes Campaign.  They focus on:

• Putting pressure on companies to take responsibility to ensure that their garments are produced in decent working conditions;
• Providing solidarity support in urgent cases of labour and human rights violations;
• Raising public awareness about working conditions in the garment and sportswear industry and mobilising consumers to push for change;
• Exploring legal possibilities and lobbying for legislation to promote good working conditions and to compel governments and companies to become ethical consumers.

 (kindly note the British English spelling). I am, however, a little depressed by two things: 1) they're active in 15 European countries, but no North American ones, and 2) they've been around since 1989, and well, here we are. That's not their fault, of course. It's a lot of people's faults. Yours, mine, and most especially various governments. Because it is still really hard to buy fair trade clothes.* (And why is it so much easier to buy fair trade coffee? If you know, please tell me) I want to buy a new bra, and I thought to myself, I wonder if I can buy a fair trade bra? The internet has only succeeded in showing me these four, none of which I'll buy. Ugh.

Another thing I love (although it doesn't solve my bra problem) is shopping at thrift stores. What a nice way to op-out of exploiting labor and also not be naked! In San Francisco, at least, you can dress yourself real nice, pretty much head-to-toe (at least outerwear) from thrift stores.

Finally, I want to point out the genuine and total awesomeness of women-owned co-ops. Poking around the internet just now to see what I could find that would be positive and inspiring and action-oriented, after getting all depressed (justifiably so!) over sweatshop labor, I came across Mata Traders. They have some super cute dresses, as well as jackets, jewelry, and more. Got a couple leagues up on Ideeli, that's for sure.


And if you're all like wait, what does this have to do with feminism? Well, let's see: Women are constantly being encouraged to adorn themselves and their attention is constantly directed away from the way they're participating in post-colonial oppression of women, men, and children in other parts of the world. I'll go ahead and chalk this up to a feminist issue.


(p.s. Know of an awesome anti-sweatshop movement or source of fair trade clothing that I'm ignoring? Super! Tell me all about it!)

*And I am not even going to start on American Apparel. Talk about a wasted opportunity to be awesome. That's all I'm going to say about them.
 

feminism is for everybody (part two)

Until quite recently I hadn't been aware of much out there for men interested in feminism and gender equity. I suppose there are a lot of reasons for this: I'm most interested in things that are written for me (a woman), and I already have enough trouble keeping up with those things. And I suppose because I feel feminism is so embracing, I hadn't really thought it would be necessary for there to be a separate place for men. Although of course I can see how it might be alienating or even terrifying for a lot of men to spend time on a website called "bitch" with the tagline, "a feminist response to pop culture" (my personal favorite antidote to the patriarchy). Ok, I'm sold: To ensure that men are being reached, let's get excited about more accessible spaces.

It wasn't until I stared dating my boyfriend that I heard of The Good Men Project. I was immediately intrigued. What is the titular project? They want to talk about "men’s roles in modern life. We explore the world of men and manhood in a way that no media company ever has, tackling the issues and questions that are most relevant to men’s lives. We write about fatherhood, family, sex, ethics, war, gender, politics, sports, pornography, and aging. We shy away from nothing. Our content reflects the multidimensionality of men — we are alternatively funny and serious, provocative and thoughtful, earnest and light-hearted. We search far and wide for new stories and new voices from 'the front lines of modern manhood.' And we do it without moralizing and without caricaturizing our audience; we let guys be guys, but we do it while challenging confining cultural notions of what a 'real man' must be." Which sounds pretty awesome. Which is why it was it was a pretty big bummer when the founder of the project got into some unpleasant feminist bashing lately (tidily summarized here). It lead one of their frequent-contributor male authors to resign. Shortly thereafter, that same contributor was surrounded in a different controversy which caused him to decide to "withdraw from explicitly feminist spaces." It's a big controversy, and complicated. It's also clear to me that Hugo Schwyzer is an incredible and articulate feminist ally, and it's sad to me the way so many have resorted to name-calling. In sum: I am bummed out that The Good Men Project does not seem interested in committing to making space for feminism or treating feminism and feminists respectfully, and I am bummed that so many feminists would so fiercely turn on a male ally.


I remain firm in my belief that there is a place for men in feminism. In fact, I think it's really important that there is. Bitch media recently posted an awesome article about this that pretty much mirrors everything I'd want to say on the subject, but the short version is that feminism is for everybody because the patriarchy hurts everybody. Sure, it hurts some people a lot more than it hurts others; but it hurts everybody. What saddens me about all of the controversies above is that the willingness of people to turn on allies. There was a lot that went wrong here, but when a bridge is broken, you need to repair it, not burn it down. It is a bridge. It is the thing that connects you. We have to support each other. There's far too much worth uniting over to set out to destroy the people who are already on your side. Where is the go-to place for men in feminism now? I'm not sure.

I want to end by saying while most of the feedback I've been getting about this series (which ain't over yet, y'all!) has come from the ladies in my life (encouragement, questions, Facebook "like"s), I'm really, really happy that I've gotten some responses from my male friends, too. I mean, on the one hand, if you're friends with me, you kind of already know what you're in for. So I guess my final thought is a question: Fellas, what do you see is your role in feminism? And what do you think it could be? I invite your comments (ladies, too).

synchronicity

I signed myself up for the mailing list of Women, Action & the Media and promptly filed it away in the back of my brain, i.e. basically forgot about it. Happily, they just sent me an email. Because you know what they're all about? Exactly. It's in the name. And so they're every bit as excited about Women's History Month (or maybe it should be called Women's Future Month?) as I am! They're having a decentralized conference in a lot of places, some of them online, so check that out. What exactly is WAM! (yes, it's the same acronym as the Women's Audio Mission, I know – but it's not my fault!)? Well, WAM! "connects and supports media makers, activists, academics and funders working to advance women’s media participation, ownership and representation. Our work is part of an advocacy movement for gender justice in media." Righteous! They have some pretty stark statistics about the media. So, that should change. Let's get on it!


I'm thinking it's about time to have a chapter in San Francisco. If I start one, will you join me?

feminism is for everybody (part one)

For no particular reason, this thought crossed my mind today: What if I just bought bell hook's Feminism is for Everybody for everybody's birthday for a year? ("everybody" here used to mean, "everybody I would be buying a birthday present for that year") I don't actually think I'll be doing that, but I do want to take a moment to talk about feminism, women's rights, and women's bodies. After all, the body is the start and source of all "difference" and discrimination. But what is a woman's body?

I started writing this post about about the Intersex Society of North America, an organization dedicated to "systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female." (Hyperlinks theirs and, especially if you're not sure what I'm talking about right now, I encourage you to follow them.) It seems that, as an active organization, they are no more, although they do maintain a comprehensive web page. The new action place seems to be Accord Alliance.

Now while I am eager for us all to enter a post-gender world, that's not what Accord Alliance is (or ISNA was) all about. And that's okay with me. They are tackling a largely ignored challenge and source of discrimination in this country, and I stand with them in that. And although ISNA is closed, their webpage continues to have a lot of helpful information about what it means to be intersex, and do a great job of unpacking why it's neither accurate nor okay to call someone a hermaphrodite. Accord Alliance is doing a lot of work around education, for medical professionals, for the general public, and for families of intersex people. What can you do? Read up, get educated, and, if you feel so moved, make a contribution.

writing women in

I'm pretty sure there are more articles about Yu-gi-oh! on Wikipedia than there are about the Blue Stockings. Or even the suffragettes. Is this related to the fact that over 80% of Wikipedia contributors are male? Possibly. But let's not sit and stew about it; let's change it! 

This Saturday I'll be attending Wikipedia's women's history edit-a-thon, and you should join me! It's in downtown San Francisco, and includes food & drinks. Not in San Francisco? No problem! That's the amazing thing about the internet, kids; you can edit Wikipedia from anywhere in the world. This is something you can totally do. And it's free. I would love you to join me. Hope to see you there!


(p.s. Huge kudos to Angie for sending this my way!)

shoot to kill

Street harassment is a problem that, historically, even somewhat sympathetic male-bodied people have a hard time understanding. If you're not used to the endless pile of insults and come ons that assault women in public spaces, it's hard to understand the rage many women feel even at more "innocuous" remarks. It's never just a drop of water, my friends, it's a drop of water being added to a deluge. Just yesterday I was out for a run and I was jogging in place at a stop light, waiting for it to turn green, when a male voice behind me said, "Did ya forget how to move forward?" I thought: Do I even want to deal with this? Because sometimes just acknowledging these remarks "invites" further comment, acknowledges these remarks "escalates" the situation. 
I turned and frowning, said "Were you talking to me?" 
"It was just a joke," said the middle-aged dude behind me.
"Right," I said, and turned back around. The light turned green and I ran off. But this could have gone a number of ways. And what I think many men fail to understand is that this, this "innocuous" situation, this is annoying. 

Well, no one needs to fake empathy and harbor confusion any more. They can just play a video game. That's right. Hey baby is a game about street harassment. It's a first-person shooter. You're a woman. You're being harassed by men as you walk down the street. And then you shoot and kill them. I've never been a man, but I was interested in this New York Times article by a man who played the game. Speaking of which, you should play it. It's free. I did. Tell me what you think!