Earlier this month, Collie of Collie’s Bestiary posted about her experiences with Planescape: Torment.

A short while ago I started playing the computer game “Planescape: Torment,” and stumbled across this issue again, with painfully eye-opening results. Keep in mind, this game won numerous awards for its storytelling and quality in 1999, the year it was released — which makes me wonder in appalled horror just how awful the other games were. But to continue: I first noticed the sexual objectification of women with the game’s job/species designations, which float above the head of the graphical character on the screen. There were monsters, and men and women. As I recall, men were classified about 50% as townsmen and 50% thugs. Women were similarly classified as either townswomen… or harlots.

What?! Um, hold on. Why were there no male harlots? Why no female thugs? Is the game trying to teach us that women can only be for sale, and only men are capable of violence? I found myself bewilderedly wondering: are the creators of the game afraid of women or something, that they feel the need to so dehumanize women in the game?

My first reaction was to attempt to excuse these aspects of the game as “ignorable.” There’s no need to look at the portrait gallery to play the game, and the “harlots” don’t actually have much in-game purpose (they can improve Morte’s Curse ability; that’s about it). It seemed a waste to miss out on a game that had so much else going for it. This, of course, is precisely the wrong framing - it puts the burden on the player to put aside her own discomfort. Besides, there are other uncomfortable aspects to the game which are not so easily ignored, such as the geek-girl fetish of the Brothel of Cartesian Dualism Slaking Intellectual Lusts, or how every girl’s crazy for a gothed-out Hulk. A better way of approaching these issues is in terms of the costs and benefits of the design decisions - is it really worth alienating a sizable portion of your audience for this?

Read the rest…

With the popularity and availability of screen printing and selling t-shirts over the internet, seems like everybody’s got some idea, phrase or illustration they want to market in t-shirt form. So for anywhere from $7-25 bucks, you get to wear not only a piece of clothing but something that says something to everyone else. It’s what you want other people to read or notice or learn about. For that moment, whether it’s a wayward glance on the subway or the start-up of a conversation in line from a deep gaze, the t-shirt and its modern storytelling (oh, lets say in the past couple years) reveals another form of violent backlash and aggression by men to women.

Read the rest…

My dad’s coming into Tokyo today, and tomorrow I’m off to meet him for a fun-filled week of doing anything except for thinking about Japanese. I may have to speak it to get around in some places, or read it to go anywhere on the JR Line (you’d think Tokyo trains would have English, like Okazaki and Nagoya do, but nope, all kanji), but I assure you there will be no thinking of the Japanese. At all.

Anyway, what that means is that I’m gone until July 2. I won’t be able to reply to comments or make new posts (I know, how sad!) but Ariel and Jeff will be here to hold down the fort. Luke may pop in if he gets inspired too (*hinthint*). When I come back, I’ll be guest blogging over at Alas (for July and August, how cool am I) but everything will be x-posted here.

See y’all July 2!

The blog was down for the better part of several hours. Actually, every one of my websites were down for the better part of several hours. Not very happy with that, but as things seem to be fixed I’m not complaining. Much. Sorry to everyone who got errors and thanks to those of you who expressed concern.

Update 2006.06.24 (Tokyo time): I spoke to soon when I said things were fixed. When I got moved to a more stable server, Dreamhost apparently forgot to reconfigure the new Apache server. Which caused my sites to be down for about a day. Doh. The good news is that I shouldn’t have nearly the downtime that I’ve been experiencing in these past two months. The bad news is that I lost out on the majority of the traffic from The 17th Carnival of Feminists (if you haven’t seen it already, go check it out).

In the opening of this series, I talked about how popular culture influenced us because it’s all around us. I talked about how it becomes the elephant in the room because of that. But what I didn’t talk about was how popular culture fits into our battle to change harmful cultural paradigms. And, really, that’s a glaring oversight that I intend to correct right now.

You see, I came across a post today (… oy. by Julia) that gave me one of those headsmacking, “OH!” moments. Not because I agree with her — far from it, I’m about to spend this entire post rebutting the points that she made — but because I finally understand the basis for the argument that [x] concern needs to be shelved so [y] and [z] concern can be taken care of first.

Read the rest…

For the record, I don’t think that not giving a shit if you’re offensive to other feminists is something to be proud of, or something to admire. I don’t think that being trollish is something to be proud of, especially when one is trolling one’s own community. There’s a difference between examining an issue and advocating your morality as the only correct path, and frankly the latter does not encourage the former.

And, you know what? I’m really, really sick of the way that the A-list feminist bloggers shit on our community. I know saying that makes me sound like a bitter nobody. And, hey, I am a bitter nobody. But I’m not out there pulling a Hirshman by telling women what they (should) want. And I’m certainly not out there repackaging the “it’s just a joke” defence as “playing devil’s advocate” in order to excuse the real hurt that a fellow feminist blogger has done to the women out there who don’t feel the same as she does.

And by posting this I’m being angry, and I’m being divisive, and I’m sorry. I really am. But, damnit, people! I love this community. I love all the good work we do. I love the way that we support each other against the seemingly endless tide of misogynist trolls who want to destroy us because we scare them. And when I see women hating on each other rather than hating on the institution that oppresses us, it kills me.

Ragnell has just informed me that the only love her new carnival has gotten so far has been from me and the author/artist of Planet Karen. This will simply not do!

So, even though I haven’t plugged a carnival in way too long, I’m going to quote Ragnell’s announcement:

First, a word on the Carnival. The Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans periodically collects posts from the hazy side-reality where feminist social consciousness meets the outer limits of the imagination. This is to draw attention to lesser known bloggers, to bring individuals of like-minded (or at least, understanding) interests together, and to foster the growth of feminist fan communities. It’ll be held here on July 2nd, deadline for submissions is June 29th, use the submission form or email me, details here.

I recently saw a commercial for the Sony Bravia which billed itself as “The World’s First Television for Men and Women.”

At first, I thought they were advertising something like this, but after checking out the web site it turns out that it’s just a marketing campaign for a high-end HDTV.

I’m trying to figure out what the advertisers were thinking this one. I’ve narrowed it down to the following possibilities:

• They noticed that purchasers of HDTVs were disproportionately male, and saw women as an untapped market; however, they were worried that a women-centered ad campaign would lose more male buyers.
• They’re looking to provide the stereotypical man with justifications to his stereotypical partner for the purchasing decision.

Given the blatant sexism of the advertisement, I’m leaning toward the latter.

Read the rest…

So my latest infatuation is Terry Moore’s comic Strangers In Paradise, which I discovered through the immensely fun Scans Daily Livejournal community. It’s well-drawn and well-characterized, and is erasing that reluctance to check out indie comics that viewing the hipper-than-thou movie adaptation of Ghost World instilled.

What struck me, though, was a letter to Mr. Moore printed in the second issue of the first run, which asked:

I do have some criticism about the writing… is it me or do you hold a dim view of males?

[Spoilers for the first issue of Strangers in Paradise follow.]

Read the rest…

I want one month in the feminist blogsphere in which none of us attack each other because someone engages in an activity that we personally don’t like. I want one month in which feminists who have differing views on porn, BDSM, and other sexual practices can come together and have a civil conversation that examines the patriarchy’s role in all this instead of flinging shit at each other. I want one month in which we don’t privilege one set of oppression over another, but rather realize that the dynamics of oppression creates a complex and interconnecting web that needs to be tackled both as a whole as well as one thread at a time. I want one month in which the need to be the sole arbiter of Truth is less important than creating a community in which we listen to each other and realize that every person takes a different path to happiness. I want one month for us to celebrate our differences instead of using them to divide us.

For one month. Just one. Fucking. Month. I want us to blame the patriarchy instead of blaming women.

Why isn’t that possible?

And people said I was crazy when I talked about “girl power” being not much more than male appropriation of female power. Howard Chaykin’s illustrations of Red Sonja take this to an extreme by giving her a penis dildo strategically placed dagger.

She still has the chainmail bikini to give fanservice to the boys, but Red Sonja has always been a strong (both physically and mentally) character and this illustration makes me wonder if the idea of a woman holding that much power herself was so threatening to Chaykin’s subconscious that he ended up giving her a consolation penis. No one’s accusing him of deliberately doing this (because, well, how would we know either way unless he came out and said something?), but come on. Can you honestly say that you saw this picture and didn’t go, “Whoa, she has a penis!”?

Via Dance of the Puppets.

So, I finally got around to watching the movie Ark today. The first half hour or so got me really excited. The rest… well, let’s just say that the movie could have benefitted from an education regarding Women in Refrigerators.

The rest of the article is cut for massive spoilers that will ruin your ability to ever watch this movie if you read them. That being said, if you have already seen the movie or never intend to see it, please read on.

Read the rest…

I’ll freely admit it: I’m a bad activist. I don’t write letters as much as I should, and I don’t promote things when I first hear about them. I do personal boycotts, but (as I’ve stated before) I don’t think that’s enough. So it should come as no surprise that I’ve known about StarForce for quite some time. I did the obligatory check on my computer, vowed never to let that shit onto my hard drive, and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

That is, until I narrowly escaped having that piece of nasty spyware ruin my ability to experience the sequel to The Longest Journey. You see, Guilded Lilies reminded me to check the Starforce list again and, lo and behold, Dreamfall appeared on the list of infected games.

Please take a moment to imagine my reaction. I’ve been waiting for this game since 1999 and now some piece of crap company who supports a program that has been known to do irreparable harm to computers was going to ruin that! It got to the point where I was thinking, “You know, I bet there’s a cracked version out there that doesn’t include that POS virus spyware.” Crazy, I know. But you don’t understand how much I love this series.

So, anyway, I then went into denial mode. “Just because GameFaqs lists this as the only hit for ‘dreamfall’ there must be another game. The beloved creators of The Longest Journey simply would not do that to me.” The bad news is that yes, yes they did. The good news is that only the people who buy the UK or Limited edition are screwed. Aspyr, the US distributor, uses a different kind of copy-protection.

So, instead of the angry letter I intended to fire off, I wrote an encouraging one:

As an avid gamer and long-time fan of The Longest Journey, I was excited (to say the least) when I saw that the sequel had finally come out. Imagine my shock when the game appeared on the list of games that came with Starforce!

After a little bit of digging, I was relieved to find that your version of the game did *not* include the program. So, I was just writing in with my support for the decision. I don’t know if you did it because of the boycott or another reason, but I am glad that I don’t have to miss out on the sequel to one of my all-time favourite games.

Information about the Starforce boycott can be found here.

As long as Aspyr games continue to stay clean of that nasty piece of spyware, you can be sure that I will keep my eye out for your new releases.

If any of y’all are fans of The Longest Journey I encourage you to fire off a little note to the company giving them your support both for the product and for their decision not to use Starforce.

PS: I blame my love for Dreamfall for my inability to read. GL says right in her post that Aspyr Media made the decision to pull Starforce from their games.

In response to the “nice guy” controversy that Hugo has sparked in the feminist blogsphere, Mickle has made an excellent post titled Masquerade. She talks about politeness, sincerity, and what it means to be an ally.

These paragraphs really resonated with me:

I can’t help but think of this when people argue for politeness for politeness sake and I wonder about the people he was polite to - in public. Did they suspect? Would they rather have known the truth? Could they sense it anyway? Did they resent the fact that the mask of politeness my grandfather hid behind made it that much harder to fight his bigotry? Were they sometimes grateful that his mask made theirs that much easier to wear? Did they apprecraite the irony that it was their honest anger that forced him to adopt the masquerade they had always been forced to be a part of?

I understand that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I just think people need to remember that allies gained under false pretenses tend to make shitty allies. Individuals for whom the deciding factor in their political and ideological beliefs is the number of times they may get laid do not make good feminists. Being bluntly honest may be a bit “off-putting” but it’s still more likely to result in a useful ally. After all, non-violence may have been a hallmark of the civil rights movement, but “polite” discourse was not. “Polite” conversation doesn’t include discussions about race to begin with - and “polite” sure as hell doesn’t describe the act of holding a lunch counter hostage. I rather think a hell of a lot of people considerd it downright rude at the very least.

Yesterday, my friend and I were sitting on my apartment’s balcony eating dinner when something happened. My building overlooks another apartment building that is across the street. One of the neighbors in this building was sitting with his chair beside his open porch window, turned sideways. My friend remarked, “That guy keeps staring at us.”

I looked, and saw a pink cock in a rocking hand. My first instinct was to yell at him, publicly call him on what he was doing. But then I thought what if he comes over here? He knows where I live. “[Friend],” I said. “He’s masturbating. Let’s go inside.”

We lost our appetites, and were no longer comfortable sitting outside. Our mobility was limited by our fear of this man.

When relaying the story to friends, I had a few laughs with friends. But I was asked innocently, “Guess no more wearing skimpy outfits!” (We weren’t–not that I owe anyone that explanation–but so what if we were?) I was teased, “Were you wearing skirts?” And I was told, “That’s what you get for looking in someone’s window.”

My friend and I are involved in someone’s fetish against our wills, and we’re the ones questioned by people who are generally supportive. Hell, the first thing I do is defend that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But so when would the wrong have started? If my friend and I had been egging the guy on? By being physically affectionate towards each other? Sunbathing in our bikinis?

So, as y’all should know by now, I currently live in Japan, but I consider my home area to be the Washington and British Columbia areas. My mom lives there and she recently e-mailed me a news article about the formation of GLBT Month in Jefferson County. The reason she did this was because of one letter to the editor that angered her very much.

In a nutshell, Connie Rosenquist, the letter writer, is angry over Jefferson County’s decision to have a GLBT Month. My mother said that most of the responses to the original article were positive, but this negative one pushed her buttons for a reason she couldn’t name. I read it and knew immediately what it was; it was the same attitude that opponents of this proclamation in the original article expressed. An attitude that oppression activists are intimately familiar with.

I’m talking about privilege.

In this case, the ability to believe that one’s privileged state is the “default” and therefore see any attempt at equality as the non-privileged groups to get “special” rights, or to see them as trying to shut you out of “your” community. I’ve taken this on from the perspective of helping potential allies, but now I want to examine exactly why these attitudes are actually harmful to the expressed goals of equality, neutrality, and inclusion.

Read the rest…

[First a big shout-out to Tekanji, Lake Desire and Shrub.com for giving me the chance to guest blog! My name is Luke and I rushed this post out to press once I read jdpbookworm’s great post below that I think is a good branch-off point. I warn, however, that this post is a real behemoth in length. The more I went back to it, the more I added on so you might want to pack a ham-sandwich before diving in or something. Anyways, i’d love to get your feedback, thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc.]

Pimp Your/My Oppression

We’ve all seen them.

It’s some night-owl hour and in-between reruns of Roseanne and ElimiDate you see for 30 seconds the uniquely American bazaar of young, thin, often blonde women with flowing hair and large breasts: In some form, you see “The Yes Girls.”

All-too-discreetly advertising itself as none other than a phone-sex line for men where young women dressed (or undressed, for that matter) in lace and satin seductively grasp their phones, bodies supine with eyes gazed towards the camera whispering lines of “We always say ‘yes’” like they know exactly what customers of the phone-sex line would want to hear in some meta-rape fantasy sort of way.

Read the rest…

[Quick intro in lieu of the full introduction I haven’t bothered to write yet: tekanji invited me to guest-blog here a few days ago. I don’t currently maintain a blog, but I moderate the Gender Roles and Patriarchy Hurts Men Too communities on LiveJournal, the latter of which I’ve crossposted this article to. Like the other bloggers here, I’m especially interested in the intersection of feminism and popular culture.]

There have been quite a few discussions lately (On Hugo Schwyzer’s blog, at Punk Ass Blog, and at Pandagon (also this post), Saucebox and Neurath’s Boat, about young men who think that feminism and heterosexual male sexuality are incompatible. (Which is even more interesting given the discussions here and Putting the “Fist” in “Pacifist” about how most men aren’t feminist *enough* to be worth getting involved with.)

I originally started this post as a “how-to guide” for these (presumably) sincere but frustrated nice guy types (I’m probably giving their professed sincerity more credence than it deserves, but the ones who are just the larval form of MRAs don’t really deserve much mention - I’m talking more about the ones Protagoras calls “Shy Feminist Men”), but was quickly overwhelmed by how much “how to” would be needed, and it was increasingly obvious what was fueling these misconceptions.

Read the rest…

Polygamy, polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, polyfidelity… By whatever label, using whatever configuration, the concept of poly is to involve more than two people in intimate relationships. In the Western world, this practice is mostly seen as immoral. The legal marriage of multiple partners is largely illegal, and the unquestionable “rightness” of this idea is used and abused by both sides when the concept of same-sex marriage comes up.

But I think that it’s time that we, as feminists, reframe this debate. We need to reach inside ourselves and ask why the idea of poly relationships feels wrong. What is it that makes the stereotype of polygamy objectionable? Is it the idea that monogamy isn’t the only healthy relationship style, or that the only example of poly relationships have been ones that traffic in women?

Read the rest…

I think this is the first time I’ve chosen to take a theme for a feminist carnival head on. When I first found out Bitch|Lab was hosting the next one, I was all set to write on sex positive feminism. First because this blog hasn’t had what can be considered an “upbeat” post in a while, and also because it’s an excuse to write on a subject that I don’t actually write about a lot. But her suggested theme about writing on the virtues of being mouthy caught my eye. I am, without a doubt, a mouthy author. Sometimes to the point where I have to put up an apology because my mouthiness crossed the line into viciousness.

Being mouthy is both liberating and infuriating. I say what I feel, how I feel it, but because it’s threatening — especially coming from a woman — it also means that, regardless of how right or wrong I am on an issue, I get hatred poured on me. There are times when I think it’s a virtue, there are times when I think it’s a curse, but, ultimately it’s just me.

This is who I am. I can no more change this about myself than I could stop breathing. And, furthermore, I’m proud of who I am. Even when it causes me pain to deal with the harassment I get, even when it causes me pain that I get called a facist because I don’t let people vomit all over my blog with their bile, even when I think to myself that this is what my life will be: an endless round of being smacked down by people who don’t like what I say and how I say it. Even then, I know myself. I know that I have to do what I think is right. And I know that it isn’t all about the bad.

I know there are people out there struggling the same way I do. Dealing with what I do. Maybe they’re stronger than me. Maybe they’re not. But if I didn’t fight, then how could I come to know these wonderful people? Blogging has brought me some of my best friends, it has brought me together with people who believe in doing what they believe is right. We’re all mouthy in our own ways. We don’t always agree. But this is a community we’re building. A solitary mouthy person is just one voice against the crushing tide of people who want to silence voices they don’t like, but a community of us is not so easily silenced.

And that, I think, is where the virtue lies. Call me what you like — mouthy, bitch, man-hater, etc. — but know that there’s nothing you can say to me to change who I am. I’m an outspoken feminist who believes in advocating for what she sees right. And I’m not the only one.