Hope everyone is having a nice holiday! I am, except for the whole issue of my new laptop refusing to turn on so now I can’t play FFXI until it’s fixed. My only solace is that my old laptop works, so it’s coming back to Japan with me so I don’t have to be sans-computer.

Anyway, I came across a post called How to Stop Being an Ignorant/Indifferent White Feminist… from a blog that’s new to me, Leftist Looney Lunchbox. I’ve added it to the links, but I thought it deserved a highlight as well.

Here’s just one of her many great points:

4) Don’t use us as tokens. This rarely happens in blogistan, but it does happen more often than not in the ‘real world’. Many of you feminist bloggers are quick to point out that ‘your blogs are not educational resources for men’, instead men should take it upon themselves to educate themselves about their own privilege. Likewise, you as white women need to do the same. We are not your token pieces. We are not ‘obligated’ to ‘educate’ you about race relations or anything else for that matter.

She also talks about being more analytical regarding news stories involving people of colour, not just reading white feminists but all kinds of feminists, stopping defending one’s white privilege, and, well, not saying racist things.

Via feminist LJ.

[Crossposted to My Vox blog.]

Via Majikthise, Brad Hicks has a good analysis of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

There’s not much more I can say about the analysis, but the responses in comments are quite interesting, particularly in how the song is defended. It’s illustrative of the ways in which the status quo with respect to rape and consent gets defended.

Read the rest…

Still on blog break, but since the others are busy I may as well do some more link blogging. Here’s a post I came across today that deals with misogyny in geeky fandoms.

Here are some exerpts:

And that ironic, self-aware misogyny is still misogyny. You have to make a point of actually criticising it before “it’s ironic” is a servicable defence.

But this “geek space” we’re in… It isn’t taken seriously by the mainstream, which gives us a certain amount of free agency to do whatever, because standard reaction is “Oh, those crazy undersexed geeks and their weird fantasy women!”. In response, we have created a psychological space in which it’s not just OK to treat women like shit, it’s awesome. We have then endlessly justified it using every lame excuse in The Big Lame Book Of Big Lame Excuses. Handily, this means we don’t even need make apologies, because blah blah ironic blah blah parody blah blah she shoots the guy after he rapes her so she’s the real winner! You just can’t take a joke!

All “irony” and “parody” are doing, in this context, is creating a safe space for misogyny. They aren’t real irony or parody, because they never challenge the stuff they’re supposedly mocking.

On a related issue, Fox News contributes to the skyrocketing divorce rates with this insulting piece. Seriously, if their relationships are that bad that they believe that kind of BS, why are they married in the first place?

Via queer_rage

Still on break. Having fun playing Final Fantasy XI. While I’m gone, you can check out this post by Tamora pierce.

Here’s an excerpt:

[...] But honestly, why is it strange to like to write for girls?

Aren’t they worth it? Look at them on the soccer field, or bent over a book. Watch them in the mall, looking at music or clothes, or at home or in gym, practicing headstands and somersaults. Do you see them in class, getting all fired up about injustice, or in a club, dancing to set the world on fire? Do you see them bent over sketch pads or lap tops, working away, or read their internet posts, where being unseen sets them free to say what they think? They’re a more tremendous resource than oil or water, and they are trashed, ignored, lectured, talked down to, shoved aside, told they’re hos/sluts/technoignoramuses, tied up and abused in games/movies/comics/television, handed diets until they collapse from the weight of them–and yet they are still thinking, still active, still passionate, still idealists. They are world-beaters.

Why aren’t more people writing for them, and I mean “for”, as in, in ways that makes them feel like what they are: a powerful force. People who make a difference. Not toys, not negligible quantities to be shoved aside every time people get their panties in a bunch about boys, but serious players on the world stage. Serious contributors to everyone’s lives.

The Ninth Feminist SF Carnival will be hosted at the League of Substitute Superheroes (part of Girl-Wonder.org).

Call for submissions can be found here.

I’ve had it with Spam Karma. Because it bypasses the indigenous moderation settings, it’s causing certain comments to bypass moderation. The plugin I downloaded for it just doesn’t work properly, and because I’m no longer going to be around every day to catch these things that’s just simply not acceptable.

So, does anyone know of any other decent spam blockers that don’t interfere with WP’s moderation setting? I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.

Also, if people are still having problems with their comments being marked as spam, please let me know. I think the cause is Akismet, but I need to know all the details I can so I can troubleshoot things.

[Hi everyone, I'm Jen/Arielladrake. Tekanji has kindly invited me to guest-blog here for a while. I'm a mixed race (Asian/white) Australian, bisexual cisgendered woman who lives and goes to university in Queensland. I'm a sociology/politics/applied ethics major with a bent towards gender studies. I have a personal/political blog on Livejournal, which can be found here.]

Something that comes up often in discussions about challenging privilege is this idea that asking someone to check their privilege is akin to expecting them to engage in some kind of Maoist form of self-criticism. This analogy almost always gets my back up for a few reasons. Some of these are quite personal, and I don’t really wish to go into them here, but aside from that, it’s about the fact that such reactions tend to betray a misunderstanding of the nature of the state, and a failure to acknowledge the particular coercive powers of the state; coercive power that non-state parties generally don’t have. However, this misunderstanding, whilst one reason for my frustration, isn’t the whole story either.

Read the rest…

[12.13 Please Note: Comments are not "being deleted" as many people are claiming. This blog is moderated and that means that all comments must go through the moderation queue first. Because of an issue with Spam Karma, sometimes comments get approved without going through first. When I see that, I automatically put them back into the queue without reading them first. That doesn't mean they're deleted, it just means that they haven't been reviewed by a moderator yet. The bloggers here do not live online so be patient!]

Apparently a lot of people are having trouble getting comments through. I’m not sure if this is another Akismet problem (it was freaking out about a month ago) or a Spam Karma problem. If you try to comment, please save your text in another file before you submit it so you don’t lose anything if it screws up. Also, if you have any idea what plugin is giving the error, I would much appreciate being informed.

Half the time I’m not even being mailed the comments, and the other half I’m getting mailed comments but then they aren’t in the queue to approve. I’ll try to fix this as soon as possible, but since I don’t know what’s freaking out and why I don’t know how long it’ll take.

Blogging has ceased to be fun, so I’m going to take a break and enjoy playing FFXI. My co-bloggers will hold down the fort as well as their lives allow, so please play nice. Comments may take a while to get approved because they’re online a lot less than I am, so please be patient.

First of all, I’ve added a new section to the Discussion Rules about what to do if you’re told to check your privilege. Just a reminder, folks, this blog is an anti-oppression blog and while it’s okay to disagree with what’s said, if you’re told that your comment comes from a privileged POV saying “no it doesn’t!” (however politely) is not acceptable.

Also, comment threads are not the place to ask questions or comment about the Discussion Rules. Period. If you have a question, you can contact me with it. I may or may not answer. But if you try to argue the merits of the rules on the board, your comment will be deleted (hopefully before it gets posted… damn Spam Karma) and I will heavily consider banning you.

If you want, you can view the trainwreck of comments here.

Katie has an interesting proposition over at her blog:

What if every Friday, one among all the “But I LIKE lipstick!” feminists in the blogosphere rounded up all the arguments she’s had to come up with to defend WHY she likes lipstick? What if she channeled it into a dead-serious ad for why men would like it too, if they’d give it a try.

Other feminists would then cross-post and quote her post.

Seriously, what do you think about making this a shared blogosphere project?

Lipstick one week, humanities majors the next, shopping the next (tell Walmart-mom-raised men the really awesome learning experiences they missed out on while they were at the lake!), etc.

We probably won’t sell any male readers, but if we collaboratively work at this every week for a year or two, we’ll get good at it.

Then we’ll have 52-104 well-developed and sensible arguments that male and female readers can take to real-life discussions in their locker rooms and homes.

She later clarifies the goal of this project:

The aim is genuinely encouraging men to embrace traditionally feminine qualities and so challenge the accepted ideas of gender, the ultimate aim being to get rid of gender steretypes altogether. (i.e. anyone can wear skirts, anyone can be super strong, anyone can wear lipstick no matter what their sex.)

I’ve changed the way that blockquotes are formatted in an effort to make them more readable.

This is what the new blockquoting format looks like. Do you find it more readable? Less readable? Do you have suggestions for making it better?

Thanks!