I have a hard time saying much besides GAH with my mouth stuck open in this "omg no they didn't" face.

video of America's Next Top Model doing the world's most bizarre racial-image-having photoshoot I recall ever seeing.

As one friend said: this is post-racism?

Apologies if this is a repeat for you, but Kim hadn't seen it, so now everyone has to.

Everyone's seen that Glamor magazine OMG publish a photo of a nearly-nude woman (NSFW), right? Specifically - a nearly-nude woman who models plus size clothes, and therefore looks "normal" as a wearer of size 12 or whatever, poofy little tummy and all. She's cute.

I stopped reading magazines so long ago that I can't comment on the power of seeing someone look "normal" in the pages of a fashion magazine. It seems like a nice idea & one that garners lots of praise on the rare occasions it happens - why are those occasions rare, though? I'm guessing aspirations are still assumed to be more effective sales tools than relatability. Are they?

The article featuring the photo is about as annoying as any other fashion magazine article; instead of your appearance being a thing you need to fix, it's your self-opinion.

I suspect the thought process that makes a person - or the fringe element of any political group - think let's put a stop to this violence... by committing acts of violence is deeply ingrained in our culture (cf most wars). This is sad. It makes people behave in stupid and cruel ways.

George Tiller (a Kansas doctor who was known for performing late-term abortions) was shot on his way into church today. I can only imagine what his life has been, knowing the volume of hate and violence directed at him for doing what he believed was right - providing a medical service that is legal in this country.. Gah. Go in peace, Dr. Tiller.

Strange to think people can still be martyred in 2009.

Now and again I wonder if I'm missing something very important by ignoring print and television journalism (and, really, everything but NPR). And then a newspaper will publish something like this. I'll save you a click, if you like: it's a random stream of evolutionary psychology "facts" that purport to celebrate Darwin.

Well, sure. If you want to celebrate Darwin's 19th century attitudes about gender.

My favorite is not actually about gender, but the idea that abusing one's stepchildren is somehow explainable as a biological imperative to adore only one's bio-kids. Cause it has nothing to do with the family functions that result in & from stepfamilies. Nothing at all.

Oh, and for the record? I've never met a man who can mentally reimagine a 3-dimensional object in space as effectively as I. That whole "men are better at spacial relationships" thing grates on me.

Waiting for data migration to finish. I'm sitting at the office listening to a series of songs that all sound like DDR tunes. I miss DDR, but I'm not enthusiastic about housed-up Madonna versions of "American Pie".

I can, however, totally imagine that this particular stretch of music would feature a lot of center-right-center-left steps followed by a series of jumps and spins.

Oh, but wait. Here's "Beat It". That's better.

I bought mats for my trunk room so I can have a matted room again [90 year old floor is cool, but a recipe for ass splinters when you're doing yoga on the floor, and Prasara does not confine itself well to a yoga mat.]. Between the mats and the camp fuel [Hey! I have a yard! I can have my own fuel and fire toys!], I ran into a series of boyfriend-themed tshirts.

This is kinda cute and ironic. It was grouped with other Nike shirts, one of which said "Your boyfriend likes my game". Like. Seriously? Does even women's sporting trash talk need to be about men? What about OUR MOMS? "Your mom likes my game" (now with 10% more lesbian innuendo); I think that's better. Cause you know there aren't any dude's shirts about girlfriends.

I suppose there's an alternate reading of the shirt, too - it could be a "feminist" critique of women being focused on men & being pretty or something: you know, sport-boyfriend woman vs. man-obsessed woman. In which case, I'm actively disgusted rather than the amused sort of offended I'd be in response to my original reading.

This conversation I've been having with dreamalynn about fashion and zombies gave me an idea. Let's all dress up to highlight our so-called "worst" features!

Like, how can I show off my double chin? Or my flappy upper arms? What could I wear to accentuate a nice muffin top AND some sassy "cankles"? Cause the rules that say these things are unhot are just arbitrary rules.

Discuss.

Ah, the men of Fairmount.

Saturday morning while I was stretching on the back porch, one stopped to pee on my fence. He looked around Sex Workers' Dispute Alley but not at the houses or yards that face it (there are like 4 - this is no dark and private alley), and was so surprised when I chortled that he turned around without zipping up. To his credit, he excused himself politely.

Sunday evening a slightly gap-toothed man in at least his 40s (I'd guess 50-something) on R street waved me over as I drove home. He wanted to tell me how sexy I am and ask if I'd call him if he gave me his number. He was also more-or-less polite, so I avoided pointing out that I do not drive down the street for his consumption and questions.

I'm annoyed by the presumption that some guy has a right to just proposition me like that, the idea that I should interrupt whatever I'm doing to consider it. Is this a class thing? A culture thing? The menfolk of my acquaintance pretty much never do this thing.

Ironically, I'm really not annoyed by the alley peeing at all.

US gets served by Rwanda. We should seriously consider bringing it.

Smartypants friends list, is that the first country to have a majority female parliamentary body?

I am bothered by some of the gender-focused rhetoric about Palin. I am also - don't mistake me here - bothered by her.

But. I've heard the "if Palin gets the votes for McCain, that means women are crazy and irrational and vote for people who are like them" argument. Well. DUH. Everyone votes a little bit irrationally. How else do you think Bush II got elected [Meaning, whatever you think about his politics, one of his selling points in his first campaign was personableness.]?

This seems like yet another way of accusing women of being the sole owners of a trait that is a) human and b) not inherently that bad. It's not wrong to vote for someone in part because they're relatable. In many ways being human and genuine makes a person better at leading.

Palin is human and genuine and believes a lot of things I find DEEPLY DISTURBING AND WRONG. But I don't think people/women who agree with her and also think she'd make a nice party guest are being irrational, hysterical wimminfolk. They're just being people I disagree with.

I work on the 4th floor now, which is officially the number of flights of stairs I am too impatient to climb. So. I take the elevator more often than not.

Invariably I get in the elevator with a couple of guys, end up in the back because they insist I enter first, then have to wait for them to carefully step to the side when we all get to our floor... so they can again insist that I leave first.

This is mind-bendingly inefficient. And then! I feel obligated to say thank you, because that is the agreed upon polite response to someone holding the door. Grr.

I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to put into words how weird it is to work with all dudes suddenly. Most of them claim to not notice that they're in a room full of dudes, for one [I can understand that - without someone pointing it out, there are many ways I wouldn't notice my own majority/privilegedness.], although I suspect from their initial circumspection and silence that they are lying.

It's weird in a surprisingly pleasant way, though. The lack of other women coincides with a general absence of gender-role-play. That thing mixed-gender groups (at least mixed-gender white people groups, which is where I've seen it) do where they divide along gender roles, and there's supposed to be some kind of kinship with your own gender... not happening here. I'm not reminded of any perceived affiliation with All Women Everywhere, so in some ways my network affiliation seems more pure: I am primarily affiliated with the team, the project, the work. It's as if gender doesn't exist in this bubble of the team. It's. I mean. It's strange. It's as if I've inherited that whole male-privilege thing.

By the way. No one has said anything that directly offended me in any way; it occurs to me that more often than not it's been the women at work who've managed to push my fat queer feminist liberal buttons. Men, if anything, are curious about those things. Which. Well, duh.

Stay tuned for: 1000 ways in which I am culturally insensitive and refuse to let my Indian peeps call me "ma'am" and "boss". I'm not kidding. My metaphors and mannerisms are so influenced by American popular culture that I have to work harder to be understood (that is, to not be a jackass). Meanwhile, the guys are accustomed to a more hierarchical model in which I am the boss, so they won't admit that they have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

I hadn't intended to post anything about the whole "Open Source Boob Project" thing that so many of my friendslisters have been talking about cause, honestly, y'all have way stronger opinions on the subject than I do. On both sides. And I don't know - I can imagine a kinder, more utopian form of sexuality where people were simply curious about touching (which is how I read the thing when I first saw it, and how I'd still like to imagine it), but I also realize that people can get way out of hand with the public skeevitude without the aid of a regulated invitation to groping... especially at cons. Which are, oh, by the way, places where women often really really really hope to get away from that physical-appearance-and-sexual-availability-defines-us crap. Alas, geekitude does not guarantee a safe, grunch-free, space. Note the massive "milady, blahblahblahblahblah" comeons at Pennsic, ferinstance. And the Boob Project? It doesn't help that the dude who posted it comes of as King Skeeve in other posts. Or that, you know, they're "boobs" all jeering middleschooler style.

But. Whatever perspective one may have on free-touching passes in public spaces, I think it's safe to say that interpreting participation in such a 'project' as self-victimization and an invitation to sexual assault is RANK BULLSHIT. It isn't the only "don't walk alone at night" style post I've seen on the subject, but it & its comments are by far the worst. There's some nice sexism with a hint of classism and racism in a variety of the other counter-projects, too.

It disturbs me greatly how much wrong shit surfaces when we start to talk about sex and sexism.

Last week I voted for Clinton. Which I did, honestly, because both she and Obama are decent candidates on many issues I care about, enough that they were essentially even in my mind. And she's female.

And someone turned her likeness into a nutcracker figurine. You know, her thighs crack nuts.
And people who don't like her often do so for the bumbling, inarticulate reason that "she's a cunt".
And every damned person in the country likes to call her by her first name and all the dudes by their last ones.
And because I live in the state of Virginia, and have never even voted in a county where a woman's name was on the ballot.
And because, when talking about her leadership ability, someone invariably brings up that she either does or does not "stand by her man" as they believe she should or shouldn't.
And because Shakesville can list 62 citations of sexist talk about Clinton in the last six months.

I understand not wanting a specific woman to be president because she has political views with which you disagree. But "BECAUSE SHE'S A CUNT"? Seriously? That's just stupid. I worry, given the overt and depressing sexism that people and the media are directing and targeting at Clinton that Obama, when he wins the Democrats' nomination, will face just the same thing - but less overt, cause I just don't see even conservative pundits getting by calling him a "porch monkey" the way they do with calling her a "she devil". Is this country backwards enough that we still can't really handle the concept of a woman (or a black man) in charge?

Some dude called my decision "sexist". Emotional, it may be. But sexism isn't just making choices based on gender, idiot: it's systematic. There are 86 women in the US Congress (out of the 425 total, in case that number isn't at the front of your mind). And 62 ways Clinton is a fulcrum for this country's sexism. Damn straight in an even-to-me contest, I'll pick the candidate who gets excoriated for looking like me.

And she has a fucking last name, okay?

Owning and wearing dozens of pairs of shoes is a compelling way for a woman to announce that she is strong and independent, and can shoe herself without the help of a man. She's saying, 'Look out, male-dominated world, here comes me and my shoes.'

That's right, I can shoe myself, dammit! I love the Onion. Though I do wish they'd have their fake interviewees use less jarring grammar.

Bellies are beautiful. [not all photos are work safe]

Here's the deal. I'm helping sheana out with some graphic ideas for fatgirlriot. Which is a community/blog/politics site.

And I have this idea. I've gotten more literal about community in design equaling actually showing your community. Thus, say, the reworking of TTE's website driven entirely by photos of the actual tribe and students.

So yeah. I'd like pictures of fat - as defined by you, fat person in or making the picture - feminists [I'm gonna assume that despite the girl in the site's title, that a relatively un-gendered design is still preferable, so consider your personal gender to be included when I say "feminists", got it?]. Ideally doing something marchy, or rioty, or art-making or fist-raising or active in some way. I think if I can get enough images they're gonna be like, spilling out of something. Should these be photos? Art? I have no clue. I tend to get graphic ideas in a vague, intangible way, and I don't know what to do with them until I have the pieces to play with.

Right? So you'll send me pieces to play with, right? Give me visual toys!

You realise, of course, that if you send me stuff, you're letting the future fgr use it on the site and any associated promo.

It's the Roe v. Wade anniversary today. And we? Still can have abortions. *

So, that should be a good enough reason to get up this morning. Thanks to all of you who are out defending clinics and funding abortions today.


* unless we're poor. or live in south dakota. or most rural areas. some restrictions may apply.

There's an interesting discussion (mostly in its veering into Rosie O'Donnell's racist comments) on fatshionista about Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump being asshats to each other.

The thing that particularly strikes me is O'Donnell saying He wounded millions of women by saying that I was fat, you know? Celebrities make really awful fat empowerment icons. Cause they say things like that - calling me fat is wounding me? The hell? Trying to diminish my arguments (which in this case sure seem pretty small anyhow) with attacks on my Otherness certainly makes you a sizeist, heterosexist shit, and I definitely see the contribution of public comments that reduce a person to their Otherness as contributing to the Fuckedupitude. But. I have a hard time perceiving the word fat as a wound, which I think is what she meant.

Anyhow. Worth reading.

So, I'm home sick (I keep insisting in my mind that I'm not sick, but then sneezing incessantly and acting kinda wobbly and cranky), and I'm watching West Wing 6. And there are things in Faith Based Initiative that I think somone must have been trying to offend humorless feminist hags with. Like, within the first 2 minutes, we have Josh & Toby calling a temp "this girl" and the camera pointedly watching CJ put on lipstick. Cause, you know, that obviously means she's still a girl despite the whole chief of staff thing and the allegations of lesbianness.

Hee. It's like there was a bet that someone couldn't get angry feminists to call in at the same time as the pissed-off "pro-marriage" people.

Whenever I say something about the whole "women are supposed to be pretty and valued for their bodies" thing, at least one person has to respond in all positive, sweet & loving intent...

"Don't worry! You are pretty!"

Gah. Okay, I admit I am. Shut up, okay? That is almost never my point. I mean that we need to stop valuing women so much as pretty physical objects - versus all our other fine qualities, for which men are often valued more (not that they aren't also evaluated on appearance; it's just not as central). And, in fact, the need to reassure me of my value attractiveness kinda proves the point, doesn't it?

Also, when people insist on reassuring me that I'm pretty when that's not what I'm talking about, I assume that they also kinda mean I'm not - since they jump so quickly to that assumption.

Ahem. So, really, what I mean is never tell a feminist she's pretty. We're all such sourpusses and incapable of lightening up, you know. I know cause people on Big Fat Blog told me so. Not that I'm bitter or anything.