Category: Archived Posts

Reframing the Poly Debate

tekanji

Four Legs Good, Six Legs BadPolygamy, 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?

I. Challenging Deeply Held Beliefs

Like most Americans, I was brought up to believe that marriage was something that happened between a man and a woman. I don’t remember when the idea was challeged in terms of same-sex partnerships, but I distinctly remember when my belief that polygamy was inherently bad was called into question.

I was in high school at the time. Standing in my kitchen with someone — I forget if it was a family member or a friend — I think I was reading something about polygamy, but maybe it just came up randomly in conversation. I said something about polygamy being wrong. The person I was talking to countered with, “Why?”

I looked at them and blinked. Immediately I thought about the places in Utah where young girls are forced to marry older men. That’s what most of us think of first, isn’t it? But, a young girl being forced to marry a man is morally repugnant whether or not he’s done this to other women or not. And it is, for the most part, illegal whether it’s his first wife or fifth. Then… what? It just felt more wrong? Come on.

So I gave the only answer I could. I said, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not.”

Since then, I’ve tried my best not to accept that something is one way just because that’s the way I’ve been taught it was. In the case of polygamy, the more I’ve learned about it, the more I realized that it was a lot more complex than the usual idea that it’s a bunch of old guys marrying underaged girls in Utah or the Middle East.

For instance, did you know that “polygamy” doesn’t actually mean that it’s a man with multiple wives (that would be polygyny), but can also be a woman with multiple husbands (polyandry)? Or that there’s a movement out there called polyamory (often referred to as “poly”)? A lot of people think that “polygamy” begins and ends with forced marriages of older men to younger women (not so different from traditional heterosexual marriage), and that therefore there is no other kind of configuration possible. But, if nothing else, polyamory tells a different story. There’s everything from Vs (one partner in the middle with two attached to hir), to triangles (all three partners connected to each other), to complex connections that end up forming a tight-knit community brought together by friendship, love, and sex.

II. Compulsory Monogamy

Good for the Goose, Good for the Gander?For some people, finding one person at a time to share their lives with is the only way to go. And, hey, if that’s your cup of tea, that’s great. But not everyone is like that. Just like not everyone is attracted to a different gender, or the same one, or any person at all, not everyone wants to be with just one person. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. And it’s no more fair to say that everyone should only love one person than it is to say that only people of the same gender, class, race, etc. can love each other.

How can we fight against mandatory gender roles, heterosexism, racism, ablism, etc. and then go on believing that a romantic relationship can only exist between two people? How can we go on promoting this idea — either by our vocal assent or our conspicuous silence — and then expect our arguments against having other people’s ideals imposed on us to be taken seriously? I don’t think that we can.

If a relationship is filled with loving, consenting adults then what business is it of ours what configuration makes them happy?

III. Refocusing Our Efforts

Which brings me back to what I think is obscured by the “immorality” argument of polygamy: human rights abuses. Putting aside the problems we have a society recognizing and dealing with abuse (as that is a whole series of posts in of itself), when abuse is recognized in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, the configuration of the relationship is rarely, if ever, seen as the important factor.

Let me use this case from 2001, reported by CNN.com, as an example. The defendant was put on trial for bigamy and failure to pay child support. The article spends several paragraphs talking about Mormons and polygamy, and then ends the article with this:

The defense focused its efforts on parrying prosecution charges that Green married teenagers, divorced them and then collected their welfare payments as he continued living with them.

Green also faces a charge of first-degree felony rape of a 13-year-old girl with whom he allegedly had sex in 1986. He subsequently married the girl. The charge carries a prison term of five years to life, Reuters reported. A trial date is yet to be set.

What this article, and all the other ones like it that I’ve seen, have done is capitalize on the sensationalism of “Multiple! Wives! How Weird! And Thefore WRONG!” and either downplayed the way in which these women are used as chattel — taken, raped, and married as soon as they are biologically able to have children — or used them as a tool with which to strengthen the “wrongness” of mutiple marriage.

The suffering of these women should not be seen as evidence to support the case against polygamy, it should be treated as an important problem by itself. By making polygamy the main “evil” here, the focus is not on the actual harm being done but on the supposed immorality of non-monogamy. Furthermore, by using the abuse of women in a case against polygamy, it creates an idea that these kinds of things are unique to polygamy, instead of them being a greater narrative of traditional relationships of all kinds.

IV. Concusion

Love is... LoveAs feminists, I think that we can all agree that loving who we love is not wrong. I think that we can agree that people should be free to pursue happiness they way they need to as long as it doesn’t hurt others (a thorny subject, I know, but I think it’s a principle we can all get behind). I think we can agree that what happens between consenting adults is their business.

But, by allowing the debate about polygamy to be focused on mutliple-partnerships being morally wrong, all we’re doing is buying into the idea that one way — monogamy — is the best and only acceptable way. Not just that, but we’re also allowing the focus to be taken off the real atrocity: the trafficking of women. Traditional polygamy is no different than traditional marriage in this respect, and to allow oursleves to pretend it is is a disservice to the fight for women’s rights.

The virtues of being mouthy, talking back, etc…

tekanji

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.

Moderation and Free Discussion

tekanji

Ever since I’ve gone to moderation, I’ve gotten a lot of flack for it. Hell, even before going to moderation, I got a lot of flack for my discussion rules. Especially by the very people who flagrantly broke them and only received a warning. Recently, my blog was criticized as being “like 1984” with the implication that my discussion rules are in direct opposition to “open communication and free-thought.” All this said, of course, without knowing or caring about the history behind my choice to go moderated.

Do all of you honestly believe that the decision was made easy? That this is what I wanted from the start — having to wake up and pick and choose which comments can go through? I know this may be shocking, but it’s not my idea of fun to sit here and approve appropriate comments, delete the vicious attacks, nitpick the borderline comments, and then agonize whether my decision was wrong or not. I revise the rules as much as possible, to make it as clear as possible to me (and hopefully all of you) what will and will not make it through, but even then it’s hard for me to reject posts that deserve discussion because the person making them couldn’t be bothered to abide by all of the rules.

I’m going to talk about this once, and hopefully never again. I know it won’t stop the flames. It won’t stop the people out there who act all affronted that I’m somehow taking away their ability to have an “open discussion”. But maybe it’ll be something that I can look back on when these people make me feel bad, or for others to look at if they’re going through their own process of deciding what — if any — level of moderation is appropriate for their blogs.

Because, I’ll let you in on a secret. As much as having your comments moderated sucks, and moderating comments sucks, nothing sucks as bad as needing to moderate comments. And that’s something that I hope anyone who reads this post will understand.

I. Background: The Slow Road to Moderation

You see, this blog wasn’t moderated until about a month ago. It didn’t even have discussion rules until about six months after its conception. My original intent was for this place to be a safe space for discussion and personal growth. That remains my intent.

I’ve just had to learn some painful lessons to realize that I can’t have that without harsh moderation. Not with a feminist site, at any rate.

Maybe not even with a non-feminist site, as all the “true, open discussion” that the site my recent accuser comes from haven’t responded to my invitation to discuss what I said — here or there — with anything but more attacks, or in the best case scenario ignoring me completely to tell the OP how great she is and how she’s unequivocally right and I’m unequivocally wrong. That blog may be getting a lot of comments alright, but it’s having no better a discussion on the issue than I am over here.

But, anyway, back to the past. When I first started my blog, I didn’t want to have any rules at all. I believed, as many of you do, that the only way to have a true discussion was to have it free of modly interference. And it worked when my blog wasn’t known at all; when the only people who commented were friends or the few blog friends that I had made. And then I got into a debate with this random person who didn’t like one of my posts. After a lot of problems, I decided to draft my first discussion rules. They were more a guideline to myself than my posters, so the next time a problem flared up I could know how to handle it instead of sputtering and returning fire.

This mostly worked, but as I began gaining popularity I started getting pseudo-comment spam. After deleting one that had nothing to do with the post at hand except for a vague connection in subject matter, I got an angry e-mail from the poster about how I was censoring them. I tried to explain why it was inappropriate, and it ended with them ranting and raving at me and me not responding anymore. After that I clarified my guidlines and moved on.

Soon my posts were picked up in some feminist carnivals and highlighted on some of the more popular feminist blogs. That’s when my real problems began. You see, there are a lot of angry people out there who don’t like what I have to say. No, not even that. They don’t like that I’m a feminist who says things. It doesn’t matter what they are, because I’ve gotten flames on some of the most bizzare posts. I began to have people threatening me, dismissing me, cursing at me… and these began to overwhelm my threads. I know from experience that the few regulars I have would not be able to help themselves and if I didn’t step in, it would become a flame war.

I still held off. I became more viligant about deleting posts and banning offenders. I didn’t want to go to moderation. I didn’t want to be like the blogs where only the fans get a say. I still don’t. But two incidents made me see that moderation, at least, was necessary. I’m still remaining cautiously optimistic by some of the polite disagreements that I’ve had over my opinions that good discussion is possible.

But, anyway, as for the reasons that I believe moderation is necessary. The first one is very personal. See, I own my own domain and until this incident I didn’t think anything of it. I had vaguely thought of getting a P.O. Box in the past. I knew something like this would happen eventually. But I didn’t think that it would be so soon. I am not, after all, that popular of a blogger. Some guy who was angry at me for banning him sent a threatening letter to the house my domain is registered at. It is not, by the way, my house. It’s my dad’s house. And he was the one who read the letter. It was a tense, upsetting week, especially since I’m in Japan and he’s in America.

Eventually I e-mailed Dreamhost, my host, about it — they did not yet offer a privacy protection service. I explained my situation and why it might mean that I could no longer host my domain with them. Despite receiving an e-mail from them about why they didn’t want to offer that service, the next day the suggestion was approved and now you can’t find my address so easily online. In fact, any mail you try to send to me via my domain will be destroyed without me — or my family — ever even knowing it existed.

But, still, it frightened me to know the length that people would go. Would moderation stop that? No, of course not. But these are the kinds of people who read and try to comment on my blog. People who have no qualms with threatening me and frightening my family.

The second, more direct cause, was brought to a head with my BK post. It has, and continues, to receive a lot of attention. Almost all of it negative. And I’m not talking about the, “I disagree with you, and here’s why,” kind of attention. I’m talking about the “you’re a bitch” kind of responses. But I’ll get more into that later.

Suffice it to say, I realized that I was neither in the right time zone, nor did I have the time, to properly moderate these comments. My BK thread was being overwhelmed by trolls who contributed nothing more than, “I am MAN!!!!!!” and whatever their favourite way of attacking me was, from saying I was overanalyzing to slinging their favourite epithet.

That wasn’t discussion. It was a travesty. It was the destroyer of discussion.

And so I realized that I had two options: let their bile be read until I had a chance to get rid of it (and risk retaliation from my readers in the meantime that would lead to flame wars — further killing of discussion), or slow down discussion by only letting approved comments past.

Taking a deep breath — knowing I’d come to regret it, but knowing it must be done — I stepped forward and put my blog to moderation.

II. It Can’t Be THAT Bad…

I can see it now. You’re rolling your eyes. Thinking to yourself that I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill. You have a successful blog, or are a regular at one, and they don’t get that much crap! Sure, maybe sometimes things go off topic. Sometimes you have an idiot or two. But that’s a small price to pay for free discussion!

I’m sure there are bigger blogs that don’t deal with scary issues like feminism or other oppression activism that can pull it off. Maybe even do it and have some good discussions now and then — no matter what the policy, what the topic, what the circumstance good discussion is hard to come by, I think. I cited the offline harassment above not because I think that moderating comments will affect that kind of stuff, but rather to try to impress upon you the scale of harassment I get. And I’m just a small blog.

If you aren’t convinced, here’s just a small sample of the kinds of comments I get daily:

The feminist reactions are really retarded, EVERY other commercial is a slam against men. PERIOD. They make men look like idiots or perpetrators of violence.

Get a life, seriously…Retard.

Your an Idoit. The commerical is entertaining and catchy

youre an idiot. thank you for reinforcing stupidity. is it THAT hard to take a joke? morons

Oh wahhhhh, so bitch girl can have an opinion, but someone else has one and you ban them! *THAT* is a bunch of crap.

BK can have their opinion about having fun too.

And those are just some of the recent ones. I was scrolling through looking for one that wasn’t BK related, but I realized that it would take me a long time to find it, simply because of the sheer volume of hate I’ve gotten in relation to it. I don’t even want to give these people a voice now, but I think it’s important to realize that this is exactly the kind of comment I get at least once a day, usually more. This is what I primarily cut from my blog, not the mostly reasonable comments that break one or two rules.

Yes, I make decisions on those, too, and I’ve been sticking to my guns more closely since moderation. I’ve cut things that before moderation I would have responded to with just a warning. I usually try to e-mail the authors of borderline comments with clarification on why I deleted their comment and an invitation to modify it slightly and repost it — so as to actually have the discussion I assume they were originally going for. So far none of them have responded, and most of them have used bogus e-mails so they didn’t even know I e-mailed them in the first place.

III. Conclusion

If you come away with nothing else from this post, then come away with this: I probably hate moderation more than you do. It’s tiresome. It wears me down to get the flames. It wears me down to have to read posts from people I don’t know carefully as to figure out if they have obeyed the discussion rules or not. It wears me down to think that some of my more vocal regulars might not always obey the discussion rules and since I only read their name before approving I’m likely going to get shit for it one day. I hate getting shit for having a moderated blog, as if that’s the worst thing anyone could ever do to the sacred ideal of discussion.

I hate this, people. I hate having to do it. And I hate that most people who I direct to this post will not read it and not care. You may think I’m out here to be a bitch, to take away your freedom, or that I’m some power trip. And I can’t stop you from thinking that. But, honestly, all I am is someone who wants to have some discussion that doesn’t involve being called a bitch, idiot, or any other kind of slur.

How NOT to get me to support your cause

tekanji
The Right Reason?
The “Right” Reason?

Note to Mother’s Rights Activists: If you want my support, do not use sexist advertising like the image above.

My tits will never feed babies. This is by my choice. Not you, not your group, not anyone has the right to decide what the “right” way to use my tits are.

And, frankly, setting up this “right” way — ie. breastfeeding — sets up the “wrong” way as any way that is not involving a child. Way to reinforce that women should feel shame about ourselves. That breasts should only be seen as neutral when there’s a baby attached to them. That every woman wants to be a mother, and furthermore that they should be a mother.

You can decide how you want to use your breasts, but leave my breasts — and the breasts of all other women — out of it. Leave them out of your sexist, anti-woman, anti-non-mother campaign. Leave me out of it. Because I will never support you.

Update: Darth Sidhe has posted an excellent analysis on why this campaign is anti-woman.

Hat tip to Darth Sidhe, image found via cf_hardcore LJ.

How To Transform Yourself Into a Misogynistic Asshole

tekanji

Girls, we need to have a talk. Is this a familiar scenario for you? You come home from a long day of work or school and are looking forward to relaxing on the couch to play a few hours of your favorite game. Within seconds, your husband/boyfriend/father/brother swoops in and starts harping in your ear, “Games are for boys, BITCH!” Tired of hearing the same crap in your ear every day? Want to play your games in peace? Better yet, do you dream of sharing your love without getting sexually harassed, talked down, or called male? Well, you came to the right place.

Straight from the mouth of a gamer who happens to be female, I will… well, I certainly won’t be making a stupid, sexist list that derides women as naggers and then tells you how to get them to play games. But I sure as hell will be critiquing one from a writer whose creds is that she’s a “female gamer” — but apparently that doesn’t exempt her from spouting a load of sexist crap.

  1. Never Forget That All Women Nag!

    2. Within seconds, your wife/girlfriend swoops in and starts harping in your ear, “I’m not going to spend another night watching you play that stupid game for hours…blah, blah, bitch, bitch, BITCH!” Tired of hearing the same crap in your ear every day?

    The author (sorry, her handle is too l33t for my poor female brain to type) opens up by playing unironically on the stereotype that women will nag and “bitch”. I find it telling that the one word in the entire paragraph that draws your attention is the only one she put in all caps: bitch.

    Women, please take note: While you may feel like “one of the boys,” and indeed they may tell you that you are, emulating them by putting down other women will not make you any less of an interloper. All it does is make you an asshole who alienates herself from both groups.

  2. Women Love Shopping, Tee Hee!

    3. Play your games after she goes to bed or when she is out shopping, or offer her a deal (i.e.-if she lets you play for an hour, promise to watch her favorite chick TV show for an hour.) You can suck it up for the sake of gaming. Once she sees that SHE is your priority, she should be willing to compromise a little.

    Just in case the hypothetical girlfriend was starting to look too much like an individual human being with all that talk about not playing games when you’re supposed to be spending time with her, our author had to throw in this line about shopping. Because shopping to women is like gaming to men! And, furthermore, that any TV shows that one gender likes the other will automatically hate. Because men and women are different!

    I also like how she’s like, “your girlfriend should be your priority” and then emphasises that it’s all a show to get her to compromise. Because loving relationships between women and men, especially gamer men — or any geeky men or any men with a hobby, really — can’t exist. Women are out to nag — excuse me, bitch, because that’s what we are, bitches and not people — and men are only interested in keeping their women for… the sex, I assume. Because the men she’s painting in this picture sure don’t seem to have girlfriends because they like them.

  3. Women Feel Important When They’re Stereotyped!

    4. You know girls, they are ALL about feelings… Point out your favorite character (unless of course, your favorite player is a D-Cup bimbo!) If you’re stuck on a board and can’t figure out where to go next, ask her to help you figure it out. Let her know that she is important enough to you that you want to share your gaming passion with her.

    But not, apparently, enough to see her as an individual rather than some sorry caricature of that “bimbo” (the woman-hating words come out again!) player this hypotheical guy may love. So far these non-gaming SOs have been painted as nagging bitches, shopaholics who watch “chick shows” whatever those are, “all about feelings” (because logic is for men!), and really not worth any time except that their nagging between sexual exploits gets in the way of what’s really important: game time.
  4. Electronics are Scary!

    5. For non-gaming chicks, the modern console and controller can be damn intimidating. Don’t hand her a controller and expect her to know what to do with it. If she handed you a makeup bag and a set of hot rollers, would you have any idea what to do with them? Make sure you teach her. Walk her through the controls. Explain things clearly, but don’t talk down to her.

    Intimidating? Comparing it to makeup? This author clearly has never had the benefit of reading any of the how not to write these types of articles guides. Personally, I’d say don’t write them at all. If men are ignoring their SOs because of the sake of games, it’s not because of makeup or intimidating controllers and everything about the sense of entitlement these guys have.

    Wake up call, people! It’s not the women who are the problem in this scenario, it’s the men! No person wants to be treated as an object for their partner’s amusement in a relationship. The men being described here — and I know they exist, because I have had the unfortunate occassions to hang out with some such losers — don’t respect women, don’t treat their girlfriends right, and then wonder why they get dumped. Telling them that their problems will be fixed by getting their nagging bitches of girlfriends into gaming solves nothing. It just lets them believe the fantasy that they don’t have to actually treat the women in their lives like they care about them, and in that scenario everyone loses.

  5. Chick Means Stupid!

    6. The key to turning a regular chick into a gamer chick is taking it slow and playing games that she is interested in and that are at her skill level. If your girl has never played before, or is slow to pick it up, throwing her head first into a first person shooter or 40 hour RPG is not the way to go. The trick is easing her into it with “chick friendly” games. Once she masters the “chick” games, then let her determine when she is ready to move on to more challenging games. She will progress at her own pace. Don’t push her too fast or she will only get frustrated with her skill (or lack thereof.) I know this may be boring as hell for you at times, but believe me, it will all be worth it. Here is a list of games that are great intros for her:

    Number of times the word “chick” was used in that paragraph: 4 And at least two of those was synonymous with stupid or non-complex. The games she suggests? Mario, music games, and puzzle games. Because, obviously, they’re “chick” games because they’re easy. Unlike first person shooters. Which are completely complex and require a lot of brain power.

    And I challenge her to a DDR match if she believes that it requires “less actual gaming skills.” What are gaming skills? Reflexes, ability to adapt to the new challenges of the game, and the ability to become skilled in the gaming environment. All of which DDR has, plus the added element of physical power. You need stamina to keep that shit up. I have played a wide variety of games in my 15+ years of gaming, and DDR remains one of the most challenging games.

The snobbery of the “boy’s club” is so apparent here, and what’s more sad is that it’s coming from a woman herself. Instead of challenging ideas of “hardcore game” = good versus “casual game” = bad, or challenging men to treat these women as individual people, the author has chosen to throw her lot in with deriding women with negative stereotypes, multiple uses of slurs, and insults to our intelligence. Yes, I may be a hardcore gamer, but that doesn’t mean I’m one of the boys. Frankly, when “the boys” behave like women are only around for their entertainment, I’d much rather be unpopular by calling them to task by it, than agreeing with them only to gain a bunch of friends who will never accept me because of my gender.

Wonder Woman brings up problems with E3's dress code

tekanji

I blogged about my mixed feelings regarding E3’s crackdown on booth babes a while ago, but it seems the ambiguous wording has caused some problems. Kasey Poteet, a VJ for MusicPlusTV, decided to put the policy to the test by dressing up as Wonder Woman.

I. Against the rules? By the rules? What ARE the rules, anyway?

If you’re wondering what Wonder Woman costume would merit being kicked out but don’t want to watch the film, you can see a screenshot of Kasey’s outfit here:

Inappropriate Attire
Inappropriate?

At first glance I could have told you that E3 would deem her attire inappropriate, seeing as she has on what amounts to a sparkly bathing suit. But, given the ambiguity of the rules I personally have seen, I believe her claim that she read through all the handbook carefully before deciding on her outfit.

What she says next, however, really sticks with me [emphasis mine]:

I would also like to point out that, uh, I am representing a game that they are showing here, wearing more clothes than the character from the game. And yet I’m still inappropriate to minors, which aren’t even allowed to be in the show. From what I understand it says 18 and over.

I’m going to address the latter point first, as I think it illustrates the weakness of using minors as a shield. If E3 allowed people under the age of 18 in, then it might carry more weight. I mean, while I’m not sure I personally agree, I can see the logic behind trying to stay away from “adult” themes and materials during an event that is attended by a lot of minors.

Putting off the discussion on whether or not a Wonder Woman costume is “adult” themed or not for the moment, I think that saying that claiming the dress code violation is offensive to children erases the entire reason behind the offense. The point is not — or at least I don’t think it should be — that sexuality, or sexiness is wrong or whatever, but rather that the abuse of booth babes was taking the focus away from the game by using women as sexual objects.

Which leads me to my next point…

II. Good for the game, not for the cosplayer?

Justice League: Heroes for PS2Another issue that has been overlooked by E3’s ban on booth babes, and apparently any woman atendee whom they deem inappropriate, is that it severely limits women’s ability to cosplay as female characters. Especially female characters in upcoming games.

Kasey’s costume was a pretty typical Wonder Woman costume. The one my sister wore for Halloween a few years ago wasn’t much different, in fact. I’m not sure if the featured game was Justice League: Heroes or not, but I’ve included a screencap of Wonder Woman from that on the left. No matter what incarnation — including the one with the skirt — Wonder Woman has always worn a glorified bathing suit.Inappropriate?

Other popular characters like Lara Croft, Rayne, even Rikku from Final Fantasy X-2 would be banned from potential cosplay lists given E3’s rules, too. While there are undoubtedly male characters, such as Conan or perhaps the Hulk, that are similarly limited, the laundry list of usual suspects isn’t nearly as long. In fact, I was kind of grasping for the two I mentioned.

I wish Kasey had given more airtime to her comment about how her costume wasn’t any worse, and perhaps showed less skin, than that of Wonder Woman in the game. This is an issue that has gotten swept under the rug by the language E3 has chosen to employ in its rules. If these kinds of costumes are inappropriate for the people attending the convention, then why are they acceptable in their showcased games? Why does E3 allow games that create these kinds of characters that are inappropriate to cosplay in their non-adult games?

III. Wonder Woman: Crusader for justice or perpetuator of raunch culture?

I don’t know how I feel about Kasey’s stance on all this. While trying to find more clips of her show, I checked out her profile on MusicPlusTV and MySpace. She’s out there being a VJ, which I think is cool. She took a stance and stuck to it; also cool.

What bugs me, though, is that she pushes herself as sexy first and a geek second. To clarify:

    Tits are not indecent

  1. She seems to cosplay as “sexy” characters on her show. From the two clips I could find, she cosplays in outfits that show off her figure. Okay, given what I said in Section II of this post, that in itself is not so surprising. Nor something I can get overly grumpy about, although I’d feel better if I knew that her male co-host also did the cosplay thing.
  2. The vast majorities of pictures of her that I saw were of her naked, partially naked, and/or in erotic poses. She’s a model, so she’s obviously proud of her body and it makes sense that she’d want to show it off. She’s also into fighting sexual censorship, which I admire, but I personally don’t think that her approach gainfully combats a sex negative society. Especially given the way that geek culture already objectifies fictional women as well as real geeks who happen to be women.
  3. She projects a ditzy persona.This last point probably pisses me off the most. Even her having a bubbly personality doesn’t explain her saying things like “[sometimes I’m] WAAAAAAY to thinky,” and just in general downplaying the intelligent woman that I’m convinced that she is.

Bringing that over to her activism at E3, I must admit that I was at first annoyed. I thought to myself, “Did she honestly think they were going to let her in???” But, having watched the clip and sat and thought about the issue, I don’t really think she did. I think her entire point was to bring light to this issue.

I don’t know if there was more discussion on this outside of the clip, or if it was brought up in a later episode. Because of that, I don’t know exactly what angle she was approaching it from. Given her brand of activism, I think part of it might be from the, “Look, they’re barring women who want to do this from doing it!” And I both agree and disagree with that sentiment — something to be discussed in further detail at a later date, although I will say that I find the way in which E3 has chosen to approach this issue as troublesome (ya think?).

I also think that she wanted to bring to light the hypocrisy of E3’s attitude towards real women versus their silence of the women they allow to be showcased in the games. At least, that’s what her one line about Wonder Woman’s in-game costume conveyed to me. Seeing as, you know, I ended up writing a lengthy post on the matter.

Overall, I’d have to say that despite not agreeing with the way in which Kasey conducts her politics, I am glad that she took a stand. I’m glad that her stand was passed around the internet and that I found it.

IV. Conclusion

Bringing things back to the original issue, about E3 and its ambiguous line about “appropriate” oufits… Wonder Woman is not rated M for mature. She’s not sexually explicit. What she, and Lara, and Rayne, and even friggin Rikku, are is objectified. For good, ill, or neutral, that’s the lot of most video game women. Up until this year, real women were dressing up in the same manner that the video game creators dressed up these characters. Because of this they, too, were objectified.

And E3’s enforcement of the dress code has done nothing to address this root cause. In fact, I’d go farther to say that it has covered it up like some dirty little secret. When the announcement to ban booth babes was first made, I was skeptical. And, I think this incident has caused me to realize why: the lack of booth babes at E3 has done nothing to change the boy’s club of video games, nothing to fight or even address the ever-present objectification of women, and in the end amounts to nothing but them becoming hypocritical moral police of what women can and can’t wear.

Via When Fangirls Attack.

What Do You See in This Cartoon?

tekanji
New Yorker Cover
New Yorker Cover: What Do You See in It?
  1. What was your reaction when you saw this cover?
  2. Are you familiar with the New Yorker and its covers? Do you think that influenced your reaction? If so, how?
  3. After further reflection, did you see something different than your first reaction, or did the details of the picture just reinforce your original idea?
  4. Please share any other thoughts on this cover that you may have.

I’m not going to get into my own opinion of it yet because I want your honest reaction not influenced by what I think. So, readers, I urge you to look at the picture and then comment without reading other comments or visiting the original post. Of course, if you want to make a second comment for after you’ve seen other people’s opinions, I think that would be awesome, too.

Via Alas, a Blog.

Carnival of Empty Cages 2

lake-desire

Welcome to the second issue of the Carnival of Empty Cages, the collection of blog posts celebrating compassion, veganism, and animals. This issue’s theme is passion. What gets you going? Read on to find out.

Looking at Oppression

George Dvorsky, Canadian transhumanist philosopher, writes on The myth of our exalted human place on his blog, Sentient Developments. He argues that transhumanists and animal rights activists are on the same wavelength, and critiques speciest:

At the very core, though, what the speciests cannot bear is when an animal’s life is ‘put ahead’ of a human’s. More accurately, what they find repugnant is the thought of a human death when a cure could have been developed through animal experimentation — the underlying assumption being that an animal’s life does not have the same value as a human’s. To the speciest, the animal’s suffering is either not really happening (i.e. the misconception that animals don’t really feel things the way people do), or that its suffering is a justifiable sacrifice in the name of science or in helping more ‘worthy’ human lives.

Carnival organizer vegankid writes about love, loss, and a few animals lucky enough to escape the fate of the discarded in no token mother’s day:

The animals in my life provide an unmeasurable amount of inspiration in my life. When i think of their stories and look at them, i know that my role as a mother cannot simply stop after feeding time. Lets look at Trombone. Trombone came into my life last year. I was at a friend’s house when we received a call explaining that Trombone was in the back of a pet store awaiting his sentance of death by freezer and wondering if either of us would care for him if he were to escape from prison. Any animal lib kid is well-aware of what we call vegan guilt. Well, of course we said yes (even though there were already a dozen animals between the two houses). And thus began Trombone’s life as a liberated political prisoner.

Brownfemipower writes about how
Animal rights are being used as a way to further animalize and violate people of color. She writes:

Radical women of color activists, unlike most of the white dominated animal rights organizations, have long recognized the link between animal health and community health–government endorsed mass extermination of animals was used as a blatant tool of genocide against native peoples. And it is the Native women of Canada and Alaska that first recognized changing migratory patterns of caribou and increased levels of dioxins in the fatty tissue of the animals they eat.

It is our breasts that fill with poisons from the animal meat we eat, it is our wombs that create diseased eggs, it is our children that are born without skeletons and die from government handouts or gas station hot dogs induced diabetes.

Becoming and Being Vegan

Being vegan can sometimes be isolating, so it’s always encouraging to find we’re not alone. Isil of The Veggie Way reports that Dr. Janez DrnovÅ¡ek, President of Republic Slovenia, is possibly the world’s only vegan head of state. She quotes him:

We don’t always realize how we treat animals, how we manage them. They are living creatures. … Just think of all slaughterhouses and production of beef or poultry where conditions for animals are impossible. Often animals are transported in trucks without any water, which is extremely cruel.

The Vegan Vulcan traces how she became vegan in not so ethical vegetarian:

Many moons ago (winter of 2001, to be exact) I became a vegetarian. Kind of. I felt that by eliminating meat from my diet, I was making an ethical choice, good for the environment, good for animals, good for me. But this story is not praise of myself, and my dietary “ethics”– it is a story about waking up from what I consider to be the myth of ethical vegetarianism.

Kristy of Bluer Than Pink searches for her passion and decides that it’s living by example by sharing her love for food. In her post Passionfruit she writes:

The strangest thing happened after a few months of being vegan I suddenly felt a lot of clarity about everything, the interconnectedness of everything (animal rights, environment, women’s rights, peace and more),I even had clarity about how the current relationship I was in at the time was not suitable, yes I know i’m starting to sound like a hippy or maybe a little crazy, but it was truly a beautiful feeling.

Yes food is my biggest passion and is very much connected to my veganism.

Tara of Tara’s Ramblings blogs on her transition to veganism with photographs of meals and links to her favorite vegan products. From Going vegan?:

I’m feeling myself being pulled more and more towards this. Though I don’t ever see myself as a vocal advocate, nor as agonizing over every single purchase I make, as some do, even eggs and dairy foods are sounding less and less appealing to me. I had a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich this morning–I have always loved these–and it tasted just…wrong. I mean it tasted normal, but just wrong. I suppose for once I couldn’t get out of my mind (previously easy to do) exactly what I was eating. Of course, that’s blatantly sitting on an english muffin staring you in the face. A lot easier to ignore when it’s cooked inside the food.

The Broke Vegan writes about being vegan and fairness:

Part of the reason veganism has finally become part of my life is because I believe life should be fair. I believe that no living creature is more significant than another. I do not believe that the life of a cow is less important than mine. I do not believe that I am better than another because I have a Master’s degree. I do not believe that I am inferior because I am a woman or because I am Black. I do not believe I am superior because I am married or because I have a boy and a girl, etc. etc. Because of this, life gets very hard sometimes.

Masculinity and Meat Politics

Our own tekanji analyzes the sexualization of meat in response to a Burger King commercial in I’m So Glad I Stopped Eating at BK. She writes on the emasculation of men who don’t love meat:

They quite obviously draw the line between “healthy” food (tofu, especially, is the poster child for “healthy food”) and MAN FOOD, namely BK’s burgers. And, you know what, I don’t think that’s cool. As someone who loves burgers, I don’t like one of my favourite foods being used to shame men into thinking that if they aren’t “carnivores” then they are less manly. I, frankly, see it as BK emasculating men who don’t want to buy their product. And, really, if anyone is going to be emasculating men around here it should be us feminists. I’m kidding! Jeez, y’all can’t take a joke. What are you, a bunch of humourless feminists? Ha, ha. But I’m serious about the BK thing. And that’s not cool.

There is also a discussion of the Burger King commercial on the veg_feminism LiveJournal group. LJ user xmorningxrosex writes:

So. veg*n guys must not exist. because we all know that you need meat, and lots of it, to be a man. and women can’t eat meat without seeming unladylike. no, salads and diets are for women, big piles of meat are for men.

The Disillusioned Kid also writes on the manliness of eating meat. From Flogging the dead cow:

Note the way that meat is associated with strength and – at least impliedly – sexuality. Your very manhood is determined by whether or not you maintain a sufficient intake of dead animals. If you should fail in your duty to maintain this intake tean it is incumbent upon your female partner to “drag” you to an appropriate meat dispensary (cooking it at home is clearly insufficient) and put this right. Maybe you should go the whole hog and move to the States while you’re at it. Just to make sure.

Food Specifics

Katie the Frugal Veggie Mama writes about the importance of veggies sending good food to represent our cooking:

I always have angst when I bring food to my kids’ classes. I always feel like vegans/vegetarians can’t send in a less than amazing treat or people will turn their noses up. Tuesday evening found me biting my lip while searching for the perfect treat. Just to make it interesting, several kids in the class have allergies to chocolate and peanuts. What’s a frugal veggie mama to do??

She develops a molasses cookies recipe!

Speaking of food, Christy and Paul of Two Peas, No Pod share photographs of their hearty tofu scramble breakfast.

Every Saturday we get up at 7am and go to the Farmers’ Markets with my Mum. When we get home, we take full advantage of our newly acquired fresh produce (and the fresh home-made tofu that we buy there too), but having a hot breakfast of scrambled tofu, garlic mushrooms and tomatoes with sourdough toast. We also try to make fresh celery, carrot, apple and ginger juice.

It is the most delicious way that I can think of starting the weekend.

In Closing

This last-coming submission from Ninth Wave Designs on the novel Weight is a wonderful closing to the carnival:

Space travel was a larger-than-life factor in the mythos of my childhood, and I was familiar with the story of Laika’s trip into space as part of that myth. The story I read in grade school never mentioned that she died during her mission, but I knew without being told. For some reason all of the great expansive American optimism associated with our early space program, contrasted with my instinctive sense of Laika’s cruel claustrophobic end, generated a deep conflict in my young mind that is still with me. Winterson has unexpectedly found a way to address my early established deep sense of suspicion, and offers a balm with these words: “Laika was free.”

That’s all for this issue. The vegan blogging community is awfully quite and made me collect a lot of these posts myself, so I want to say a special big thanks to those of you who submitted things: vegankid, Brownfemipower, Kristy, and NWD.

Please visit the carnival home for information about hosting a future issue of the carnival. Hosting carnivals is fun. The next issue will be August 1, 2006, at two peas, no pod.