"Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It's about a willingness to see all other taboos broken down. Sure, many of us start on this path when we first feel 'same sex' or 'same gender' attraction (though what is sex? And what is gender? And does anyone really have the same sex or gender as anyone else?) But queerness doesn't stop there.

"This is a somewhat controversial stance, but to me queer means something completely different than 'gay' or 'lesbian' or 'bisexual'. A queer person is usually someone who has come to a non-binary view of gender, who recognizes the validity of all trans identities, and who given this understanding of infinite gender possibilities, finds it hard to describe their sexuality any longer in a gender-based way. Queer people understand and support non-monogamy even if they do not engage in it themselves. They can grok being asexual or aromantic. (What does sex have to do with love, or love with sex, necessarily?) A queer can view promiscuous (protected) public bathhouse sex with strangers and complete abstinence as equally healthy.

"Queers understand that people have different relationships to their bodies. We get what it means to be stone. We know what body dysphoria is about. We understand that not everyone likes to get touched in the same way or to get touched at all. We realize that people with disabilities may have different sexual needs, and that people with survivor histories often have sexual triggers. We can negotiate safe and creative ways to be intimate with people with HIV/AIDS and other STIs.

"Queers understand the range of power and sensation and the diversity of sexual dynamics. We are tops and bottoms, doms and subs, sadists and masochists and sadomasochists, versatiles and switches. We know what we like and don't like in bed.

"We embrace a wide range of relationship types. We can be partners, lovers, friends with benefits, platonic sweethearts, chosen family. We can have very different dynamics with different people, often all at once. We don't expect one person to be able to fill all our diverse needs, fantasies, and ideals indefinitely. 

"Because our views on relationships, sex, gender, love, bodies, and family are so unconventional, we are of necessity anti-assimilationist. Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed.

"Queer doens't mean 'don't label me,' it means 'I am naming myself.' It means 'ask me more questions if you're curious' and in the same breath means 'fuck off.'

"At least, that is what it means to me."

(via Tranarchism)

I dislike saying "people of this identity ARE [any subset of qualities]" because no they all aren't. So I'm going to replace the word queer in all of this with the phrase "people with healthy attitudes towards sex, love, and identity". Otherwise, ALL OF THIS OMG YES.

One of the coolest things I've seen on the internet in a long time:

These people are in half-drag. Gender is such a performance.

These images were taken by photographer Leland Bobbé, and reblogged from Sociological Images.

I'm going to think about bathroom signs like this from now on:

The myriad ways in which I would fuck up a child.

KS and I had an interesting discussion about this once a while ago, and I've wanted to explore it in more depth. 

1. Mommy, what's race?

A social construction based on ill-conceived notions of biological difference. Race doesn't actually exist, but the significance Western societies have placed on race for the last 4 or 5 centuries means that people's lives are still significantly affected by these categories White folks made up. 

Well what makes people different races?

Race is most often attributed to physical features, like the color of your skin, the structure of your face, or the texture of your hair. But it's silly because no "Black" people actually have black skin--there are some Black people with skin the color of honey, some with skin the color of chocolate, some with skin the color of soil, and some with skin the color of sand. We're a rainbow, but they call us all Black. Your great-great-great-grandmother was a woman with brown skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes--that doesn't make her any less of a Black woman than me.

Is it important to you that you're Black?

Very much so. 

But I thought you said race didn't exist. It seems silly to care so much about something made up.

Well, just because it was made up doesn't mean it doesn't affect your daily life. Like, your teacher made up rules for her classroom. You still have to follow them, right, even though they were made up. And it's nice having a community of people you can relate to--there are certain kinds of food or music or movies or just general culture that other Black people are more likely to have experienced than people of other races.

 So do all people of one race have the same culture? 

Well, no. People of the same race can come from very different cultures, if they're from different parts of the country or different parts of the world, or depending on how much money their family had growing up.

But then how do you feel connected to them? I don't understand.

 It's okay, my child, no one does.

2. Mommy, am I a boy or a girl?

I can't tell you that. Only you can tell yourself. Do you feel like a boy or do you feel like a girl? Or do you not feel like either? You don't HAVE to be a boy OR a girl--you can be whatever you want.

What are boys and girls supposed to feel like? What does it feel like to not feel like a boy or a girl?

Boys and girls and people can all feel however they want to feel. There's no way boys are allowed to feel that girls aren't, or the other way around.

 So is there any difference between being a boy and being a girl?

Most people raise boys and girls differently, but there aren't any inherent differences between boys and girls, except that MOST little boys have penises and MOST little girls have vaginas.

My teacher yelled at me when I used those words at school. She said to tell you that those words are too...va-va--vulgar for children. 

That's because your teacher thinks children are idiots. Most people do. They're wrong. I think it's absolutely pointless to not teach you about your own body and other people's bodies with the right terms. I'll write a note to your teacher.

Wait, but Mommy, you said MOST little boys have penises and MOST little girls have vaginas. So there are some boys with vaginas and some girls with penises?

Yes. And some of those little boys will grow up to be women, and some of the little girls will grow up to be men, and some of them will just stay exactly how they are. 

But at school there are bathrooms for boys and for girls. I don't know if I feel like a little boy or if I feel like a little girl. How do I know which bathroom to use?? 

Gendered bathrooms are cisgenderist and heteronormative. You should be able to use whatever bathroom you want.

But girls aren't allowed in the boys' bathroom and boys aren't allowed in the girls' bathroom! What about the little girls with penises? Which bathrooms do they use? 

Your school discriminates against them and makes them deny themselves every time they have to pee.

3. Mommy, what's sex?

Sex is a thing that happens between two or more people who may or may not love each other and may or may not be married (if they're even allowed to get married) and those people might be a man and a woman, or they could be a woman and a woman, or a man and a man, or they could not identify according to the gender binary, and there might be more than two of them. Sex often involves something called "penetration," which could be when a man puts his penis into a woman's vagina, or into her anus, or into the anus of another man. There is also oral sex, where a person uses their mouth and tongue to please another person, either by licking the vagina or licking and sucking on the penis. Sex sometimes makes babies, because when men have sex they make something called sperm, which are little swimmy things that look like tadpoles, which can join with a woman's egg inside of her to make a baby. But lots of times people have sex just because it's fun, which is perfectly fine as long as you're being safe. There are gross diseases that you can get from having sex if you're not safe, and you always have to be careful about making babies when you don't want them yet. The most important thing about sex, that needs to always be true no matter what kind of people are having sex or how many of them are there, is that the people having sex always have to both want to be having sex, or it's a very very bad and scary thing called rape.

4. Mommy, what's a church? My friend Bobby said he has to go there on Sunday mornings. We only go out to breakfast on Sunday mornings!

Churches are buildings for people who are religious. Religious people usually believe in a God, which is a being that created all of the people and the things in the world. That God is usually a man and he usually makes all sorts of rules that religious people have to follow. He usually says that if people follow his rules, he will reward them after they die, and punish all the people who don't believe in him or follow his rules?

Oh no! Are we going to get punished?

No, because religion is another made up thing. I don't think God exists, and things that don't exist can't hurt me.

How do you know he doesn't exist?

Well, I guess I don't. I can't see any evidence that he exists, but I can't see any evidence that he doesn't, either. It just seems silly to me to live my life according to something I can't see even the effects of. And a lot of the rules God makes in the Bible, or the gods of other religions make in their holy books, make me really angry. They say a lot of bad things about a lot of different kinds of people just because of the kinds of people they are, which is hatred and discrimination. People use their religion all the time to take rights away from people or to hurt or even kill them. I don't think religions are good things.

So are Bobby and his family bad people for going to church?

Not necessarily. People can pick and choose the parts of a religion that they want to practice and the parts that they don't. So if they still make good decisions and don't discriminate against people or want their rights to be taken away, they can still be good people even if they're religious.  

etc., etc.

...My hypothetical child wouldn't be able to interact with people of hir own age group until college at the earliest. I imagine intense bullying, innumerable parent-teacher conferences about what's going on at home, possible suspensions for screaming "fuck the gender binary" or regularly using the "wrong" restroom. I would encourage them to explore crushes on children all along the gender spectrum, which could be dangerous. I would have to homeschool hir if I wanted to avoid having to counter-teach and make hir unlearn the socialization of the school and hir peers. The world would actively work to destroy my hypothetical child. I couldn't bear to witness that.

Sex isn't gender isn't gender identity.

Reblogged from http://msqueenly.wordpress.com/

Men Ain't Shit.

I seem to be on the road to self-identifying as a feminist. Some of you might be looking at me like, well DUH, but let me explain: I've always had feminist tendencies. It's funny, but since birth I've had this nagging conceptualization of myself as a person that deserves recognition as such...but I digress. I've always had feminist tendencies. I just used to be wary of downright against calling myself "a feminist." And before you start thinking I'm some little punk, it wasn't because of all of the shit that gets talked about feminists. Who gon' check me, boo?!

My problems with feminism come from its longstanding history of ignoring the particular struggles affecting women who are anything other that White, middle-class, and heterosexual. And yeah, okay, I know the movement is officially for all women now, but honestly, I believe that like I believe Santorum was talking about "blah" people...like hell.

Get at me when you stop producing foolishness like this, feminism. It's like, damn, and I liked SlutWalk too...

I still see the experiences of women of color, queer women, and poor women being addressed primarily by in-group members. I still see personhood being portrayed as Whites-only when feminists report statistics about "Women," "Men," "Blacks," and "Hispanics." (Should I clap that you're trying when you're doing it so very wrong?) And it's just like, while I'm so glad the right to breastfeed at work has become protected by law, I'm just much more concerned with the fact that unemployment is rising for Blacks as it falls for everyone else. 

And yeah, okay, I know that Black feminism is a thing. It's a really fucking awesome thing. And then there's the whole womanist movement, too. And when I discovered these, I got more open to the idea of maybe calling myself a feminist. And when I realized the error of my previously pro-life ways, I got even more open to the idea of maybe calling myself a feminist. And the above photograph says more than I ever can about how the movement as a whole isn't doing nearly enough to address race and racism, but at least part of that needs to be interpreted in a Gandhi "It's not your Christ I have a problem with; it's your Christians" kind of manner. 

And there's another It's-not-your-Feminism-it's-your-feminists problem that I have: man-bashing. I really don't know what it's going to take for people to realize that the celebration of one thing does not necessitate the belittling of its opposite (not that I believe men and women are inherently opposites). It is possible to love one thing without hating its counterpart. I love being Black, but that doesn't mean I hate Whiteness. I'm pro-choice but not anti-children (for other people). I'm pretty sex-positive, but that doesn't mean I'm abstinence-negative. And I can't stand it when so-called "feminists" attack manhood and masculinity, rather than attacking patriarchy. I can't stand it when "feminism" doesn't realize that portraying women as "good" and men as "evil" not only belittles both genders by erases heterogeneity, but is creating the exact same issues that patriarchy creates by portraying men as significant and women as not. By talking about all the things that are "wrong" with "men," these people are just playing into the narrow stereotypes and archetypes patriarchy has carved out for men to exist in. 

Men have emotions. They hurt. They think. They dwell. They worry. They love. They fear. They have stories to tell, too.

And with that, I give you this awesome short documentary I discovered thanks to Tunde (@BrazenlyVirile) today. It's called Men Ain't Shit, and it goes out to everyone who has ever said any version of that statement. (I'm guilty of "Boys are stupid.")


Men Ain't Sh?t from Le Femme Flaneur on Vimeo.
 

Hmm...

I've bemoaned Disney's presentation of femininity and relationships in the past, but this is something I've never considered: Disney's teachings of masculinity to little boys are just as problematic.

Sometimes them crazy-ass Republicans make me wanna be a crazy-ass liberal...

So, to protest affirmative action (because that's obviously still cute, right), the Campus Republicans at UCBerkeley had a bake sale yesterday, where a baked good cost a White man $2.00, an Asian man $1.50, a Latino man $1.00, a Black man $0.75, and a Native American man $0.25. Women received 25 cents off of whatever price for the men of their respective race had to pay. 




^Note that, according to this formula, Native American women are worthless.

All this, to somehow say that it's a bad, crazy, terrible, unfair idea for the admissions officers at UC schools to be able to take into consideration whether race has unfairly disadvantaged applicants in terms of resources they had available to them [like, oh I don't know, having textbooks in their classrooms, teachers who care, Honors and/or AP classes being offered at their schools, guidance counselors who are trained in the college admissions process, you know, a decent education...]. Obviously racial segregation that begets concentrated areas of poverty play no role in any of this. Or at least, not a role that anyone should give a shit about. Because those people obviously don't want to be educated. They could go to libraries if they wanted books. They could use this nifty thing called the internet. Oh wait, they can't afford transportation or computers either? Well, that's their own fault, they should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps instead of holding their hands out to the government. Oh, they can't afford boots? Well...

[end sarcasm]

I very much want to propose that we (we being racial/ethnic groups on campus, the College Democrats, random feminists, Sustained Dialogue, the Women's Center, and social scientists galore) hold a counter-bake sale. [What a ridiculously entertaining notion, the bake sale as a political tool.] I wouldn't really even be changing much; I would probably keep almost the exact same pricing structure, with a few minor tweaks here and there. The only difference is, we would say ours is to demonstrate the differences in pay grade between members of each group. Based on the wages we give members of each race-and-gender-based-group, we've adjusted the price to reflect what, respectively, they can each afford to pay. When we start valuing people equally for the work they do, everyone can pay the same price. 


This has been an Oh so you think you're cute rant.

-------------
Interesting points raised by my friends when I posted this on Facebook:


What do they do for people of mixed racial backgrounds? [To this I add transgendered individuals or others who don't fit neatly into the gender binary.] And the rationale for making Asians less highly ranked than Whites (on either their pay scale or my hypothetical one) is shaky at best.

A revolutionary concept: "Power through candor."

I'm pretty sure that's what I aspire to practice every single day. I'm excited to share in Lidia-Anain's new project, SexLoveJoy, a platform dedicated to that concept, specifically through:

• Women candidly answering difficult questions about sexuality, gender, love, relationships and life.
• Women revealing their secret desires, fears, thoughts and struggles.
• Women celebrating sexuality, gender, love and relationships in ALL their forms.
• Women exposing common threads that unite us as women.
• Women promoting respect for the differences among us by building AND maintaining a SAFE venue for ALL women to tell their stories.
• Women being brave, candid and sharing our power with one another.

According to the website, "SexLoveJoy is a video web series and collection of essays in which brave women fearlessly share and talk about things most keep hidden away in their secret places."

That sounds like exactly my cup of tea. If you'd like to get involved, use my referral link!

http://sexlovejoy.com/yqy9f 

I approve very highly of The Good Men Project.

It's an online magazine about masculinity and gender issues from the perspectives of progressive men. I think the world needs more things like this. I wish the ratio of women to men in my Sociology of Gender class hadn't equaled than the student-faculty ratio for the class. I wish that most of my conversations about masculinity weren't female-dominated. One of my big problems with feminism [I know you're all like, damn, how many big problems with feminism does she have?], or maybe just with the way feminism has been perverted over the years, is the tendency of feminists to condemn the masculine. 

Tad Hargrave exemplifies this beautifully in this article from TGMP:

"If you were to sit down the average progressive male and ask them, “What are the gifts that women and the feminine bring to the world? What are the gifts that sexism, patriarchy and oppression have blocked the world from receiving?” The list would be long. Of course, there are dangers of conflating women and the feminine together directly–these lines are often not so clear. One can be in a woman’s body and deeply masculine and vice versa. But still, the list would be long. The gift of birth. The gift of their cycle. The gift of nurturing. Deep intuition and sensitivity. An amazing capacity for depth of feeling. The way that women are often the ones to carry a community–often the invisible giants on whose shoulders a community rides.

But if you were to ask the same man, “What are the gifts that the men and the masculine energy brings?” You would often see silence. And shame. Answers come but . . . not as readily. There’s a deep sense, in this culture, that men are a bad animal. A sense that “we don’t need men’s protection–we need protection from the men.” "

If we've reached a point where we feel that men as a collective cannot be celebrated, then we are doing something horribly wrong. Yes, patriarchy exists, and needs to be eradicated, but it doesn't afflict all men, and afflicts many women. Patriarchy is not a "men's issue," just like the work-family-balance isn't a "woman's issue". These are people's issues, society's issues. 

He also quotes a progressive female friend of his, who says the following:

“I’ll tell you something many of us women talk about in these circles for conscious change. We’re surrounded by sensitive new age men and what we really want sometimes is a man who could just bend us over the couch. Yes, we want men to be more sensitive. But sensitive to US as women. Sensitive to our needs and desires and body language. Not overly sensitive and taking everything personally. I need a man who’s solid in himself enough to notice what’s happening over here–not someone who’s obsessed with himself and what other people think of him.” 

 I added the italics there, because for a very long time I've felt like it makes me a bad...person-who-is-conscious-of-the-problems-of-patriarchy to want to be "man-handled" (I wish there was a better term) from time to time. I'm almost uncomfortable asking this question, but I've learned that questions that make you feel that way are the most important ones to ask, so: Does every action that could be construed as being based on male privilege (or white privilege, or class privilege, etc.) have to be interpreted as such? It seems to me that being progressive should be about finding ways to do these actions respectfully. Like, I don't mind being hit on as long as dude is coming correct. I like to wear makeup and flowers in my hair, and I don't think this makes me any more or less of a woman. And sometimes I want "a roughneck n***a, mandingo in the sack/ who ain't afraid to pull my hair and spank me from the back" -- LL Cool J feat. LeShaun, "Doin It". I just also want to be able to hold insightful conversations and go on romantic outings and just kick it on a couch somewhere with him. All of that can be confusing for me, so I can't even imagine what the conflicting messages must be like for guys.

So Nightline just had a special on transgender teens

And when I heard it come on on my mother's television upstairs, I groaned a little and half-listened to the first minute or two. And then I remembered what happened with "The Help" and decided that if I'm going to hem and haw about something, I should probably at least watch it. They started off interviewing a female psychologist who was talking about how women have been allowed to get more masculine--"look at us, we're wearing pants"--but men haven't really been allowed to get more feminine. Society still freaks the fuck out when the president of J.Crew paints her sons toenails. And I sigh at social conservativeness. I rally against it wherever it exists! 

People were like OMG SHE'S RAISING HER SON TO BE GAY (a lot of them used more offensive terms that I wouldn't dare repeat). People were like I'D NEVER LET MY CHILD DO THAT. I was like, *wishes she could slap ignorant people everywhere* 

So what if a little boy wants to paint his nails like his mom? WHY IS THIS A MATTER OF NATIONAL CONCERN?! If I'm allowed to not paint my nails for the first 21 years of my life, then he should be allowed to experiment with painting his if he wants. Society said nail polish is for girls, society can un-say it. Simple as that.

"But what if your little boy goes a step further and actually tells you he's a little girl?" the Nightline special asked. Evidently all hell breaks loose. 

Okay. Now let me start off by saying that I can understand why this might be traumatizing for parents. Oh you had such high dreams of teaching your son to play baseball and watching sports together and buying him his first condoms and other touching father-son moments. Moms, you wanted to watch your little boy develop into a handsome man and feel proud of your accomplishments. I get it. But hey look, there's softball, and some girls like sports, and everyone should be protected, and I think the biggest accomplishment any parent can have is knowing they did what's best for their child. And trying to mold your child to fit your dreams IS NOT A GOOD LOOK. 

It has come to my attention that transsexuals and transvestites really freak people out. I first learned this one day when I was in Atlantic City with my mother and we saw some men dressed as pretty fly ladies, and my mom mentioned something about how it made her uncomfortable. [Disclaimer: my mother is offensive sometimes. She's also a bit homophobic. It shames me.] And I just said I thought they looked good. Then in high school I had a friend, Joe, who revealed to us after a while that he was about to embark on the process of becoming Cassie. A lot of people were weirded out by it, but I was just happy that she was finally going to be happy. At Princeton, people treat the Drag Ball like it's such a big deal and I know guys who always crack jokes about dressing up and going but never actually do. Before you call me a hypocrite because I've never been either, I've never been because I don't know what I would wear. Jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers is an entirely appropriate outfit for a woman. They even make female boxers. So what am I supposed to wear that is entirely inappropriate for a woman? [And how do I make the 38Ds disappear?] 

Anyway, back to this primetime special. So it started off really well. The first story was about a woman of color whose four-year-old son loves to wear dresses and calls himself a "Princess Boy". Though she tried to fight it at first, her older son encouraged her to let his brother "be happy" and she wrote a book about their family and has become an accidental activist. Some students at his preschool don't like to play with him, and some parents are mean, but he has friends and, most importantly, seems genuinely happy. Because he still identifies as a boy, this child is most accurately labelled a transvestite.

The second story features a family in rural bumblefuck whose son eschewed things like fire trucks and action figures from infancy, preferring barbie dolls and pink tutus. When he's ten, he finally has a mini breakdown and tells his mother he's a girl and can't do this anymore. Hir parents decide to let hir start dressing as a girl at home, but that isn't enough for hir and eventually they decide to let him to to school as a girl. Jack changes hir name to Jackie, and hir older sister comes to hir 4th grade class to talk to hir classmates before she comes in. None of the kids laughed or said anything ignorant, and even their crotchety grandparents don't disown Jackie. Jackie's parents decide to put hir on drugs that will suppress male puberty. Everyone is happy. Success story number two. 

Then we get our first actual teen, and our first look at the not-so-rainbows-and-butterflies side of this story. Vanessa was supposedly a normal boy until high school, at which point he started getting teased and having things thrown at him because he was different. Vanessa has been selling hir body as an "escort" to fund her "habit" of black-market hormone therapy and to raise enough money for top surgery (remodeling of the face to appear more feminine, reduction of the size of the adam's apple, and breast implants) in Mexico. Against the wishes of hir mother, Vanessa goes to Mexico and undergoes a somewhat shady (but thankfully complication-free) surgery. Hir mother is supportive and welcoming she she returns, saying she is going to love her, because "that's what she needs". 

And up until this point, I am okay with this special. They've shown the good and the bad, and both are needed to make an expose even halfway legit. But then, they found this fool. I don't remember his name. He went through a normal functional male--no, I'm sorry, he called himself an alpha male--life, getting married and having kids and never having the slightest thought he might be a woman on the inside until he got divorced at age 33. Then he started hanging out around some transsexuals and decided hmm this might be cool or something. He went to a doctor, got put on female hormones, and decided to spend $100,000 undergoing fancy surgeries that turned him into a female supermodel basically. She was fucking hot. But after 7 years of life as Samantha, he realized he had never really wanted to be a woman in the first place, and spent another $50,000 to turn back into a man. And now he's on national television saying that he doesn't think anyone is born thinking they were born the wrong sex, and blaming transsexuality on doctors and their hormone therapy. 

[This is where my respect for Nightline got up and walked out the door.] You just got finished showing us the stories of children who have, since birth, exhibited signs and symptoms of believing they were born into a body of the wrong sex and have been fighting since the earliest of ages for the right to be who they ARE, and then you're going to let this FOOL who dropped 100 Gs on a WHIM tell us transsexuality doesn't exist?! STFU. In fact, GTFO. I wanted to turn the TV off, but I'd committed to the idea of this post already, and I wasn't going to punk out. But YOU JUST FINISHED SHOWING US YOURSELVES that this isn't a whimsical desire, something someone just wakes up one day and decides to do. This is these people's lives! But you undermined all of that by letting this fool open his mouth. [Confession: I have difficulty supporting the right to freedom of speech on the part of people whose messages spread hatred and -isms of any variety.] 

They then turned to some foreign musical artist who became the youngest person in the world to fully physically make the M-to-F transition at sixteen, having to undergo all sorts of tests and becoming a big media scandal in her home country before they allowed her to make an exception to the rule that one has to be 18 to undergo the surgery. She talked about how she knew it was what she wanted, and all the support and love she's gotten from fans around the world. I suppose her story was meant to show the social acceptability that M-to-F transsexuals can garner, but what struck me was the sort of throwaway line of hers that she doesn't want to be known as "just that transsexual artist." She wants to just be herself.

And that's the take home point of this very long post, people. Transsexuals, be they M-to-F or F-to-M, are just trying to be normal people. They just want to own their bodies the way the rest of us own ours. They just want to be comfortable with themselves, and it's ridiculous that close-mindedness on the rest of our parts might keep them from doing so. Why? Because it's something we're unfamiliar with? Oh-hey-look-something-new-and-different-let's-shun-it is a mentality we as a society should have outgrown a hell of a long time ago. It's 20-fucking-11 people--now that the technology exists that these people don't have to suffer in a body that doesn't feel theirs, why should we try to make them? No one would balk at someone who has been in a horrible accident getting plastic surgery. I think being born into a sex category that doesn't match your gender is one of the worst accidents I can imagine. So get the fuck over it, okay?  

I've been wanting to talk about masculinity for a while

Specifically, about changing definitions/cultural understandings of masculinity and how it's becoming slightly more okay in some places to be a man who is not "macho," just as it's becoming okay to be a woman who isn't excessively feminine. I think both of these things are wonderful, but I think that the not-particularly-feminine woman is something we see a lot more often (particularly within the realms of people of color and/or low income groups) than the not-hegemonically-masculine man. But I'm one of those crazy liberals who wants to rip gender norms to shreds and promotes egalitarianism in partnerships and shit, so maybe I'm more attuned to this kind of stuff. I don't know. I know that I want a man who isn't afraid to have and share his feelings. Who can appreciate art. Who can cook and clean and will split these responsibilities with me when we're on that grown shit level. Who reads. I don't give a damn whether he likes sports or video games or if he can change a tire (though I'm not gonna lie, handyman-ness would be convenient). Who is at least somewhat fashionable. I guess what I'm hinting at is that I am attracted to "other" masculinities. Quiet masculinities. Some might even go as far as to call them androgynous masculinities, but I'm not really a fan of the "androgyny" movement because it seems a far cry from simply ceasing to associate certain traits with certain categories of the [far too narrow] gender binary. 
Okay I'm devolving into a tangent. Back to the point here. I've been wanting to talk about masculinity for a long time now, since that Sociology of Gender class I took last semester, and more acutely since a conversation I had with a very dear friend of mine a little over a month ago about what kind of a man he is. This conversation included me listing some of his traits that I think align to "masculine" ideals in quiet ways, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he felt unconvinced. It made me want to do something, because other masculinities shouldn't feel illegitimate [nor should other femininities, other racial identities, other LGBTQQ identities, other anythings!]. And so the day after that conversation I clicked the "New Post" button and stared at the blinking cursor for a while, feeling totally uninspired as to what I wanted to say. I would start typing things and then delete them, and eventually I just deleted the post and figured I'd try again later.
But later never really rolled around, and I have come to realize that I just felt like it wasn't my place to be trying to write about masculinity. And I'm not one to usually let myself be put in places, but it's like, you know, there are few things I hate more than when someone who is not a Black woman tries to tell me about myself as a Black woman. Hell, I don't always take to other Black women telling me about myself as a Black woman. So who am I to try to talk my way around and through something I can only ever be an outsider to? The first rule of writing is to write what you know. So I let the talking about masculinity thing go for a while. It was still something that I knew needed addressing, but I just didn't quite know how. 

This man's thoughts are a really good place to start.

Stephen Colbert is winning so hard

in the game of my affections right now. 

I wanted to blog about these ads last week, but didn't know how to type STEREOTYPICAL, RACIST, and CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE in large enough letters. Or how to convey that I'm fucking sick and tired of women being told that their bodies aren't good enough at every damn turn. SUMMER'S EVE, YOU ARE CREATING A PROBLEM HERE TO INCREASE YOUR REVENUE (and exacerbating lots of other problems in the process). So much shaking my goddamn head here. 

But that's just me whining. Colbert did something so much better than whine. He launched a counter-attack [though I must say that the fact that simply making a very similar ad tailored to men reveals the ridiculous nature of the situation just goes to show how accustomed we've become to women's bodies being problematized in the media...]: 

The Colbert Report
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2nd 30 Day Letter Challenge: Day Two--Letter to an Inanimate Object You Hate

Dear Single-Sex Single-Stall Bathrooms,

Hate may be a strong word for how I feel about you, but it is not a warm happy feeling by any means. I am more...confused and perplexed by your very existence. And more frankly, I simply do not approve of you. To borrow a phrase my boyfriend uses for a Midwestern game called cornhole, I am against everything [you] stand for. 
Now I recognize that in multi-stall public restrooms, there are some people who don't like the idea of having a person of a different gender taking a piss in the stall next to them. Additionally, urinals really freak some girls out. (Not girls who'd wear this dress, evidently, but that's a whole 'nother story I can't even get into right now...) Some women claim safety concerns, which should never be trivialized (although I think there are better anti-rape measures than making people pee in different places, like saying, hey, men shouldn't rape, but again, I digress). I will never forget this scene from Boy Meets World (one of the greatest shows to ever be on television and I will FIGHT YOU if you disagree) in which Cory cannot handle the gender neutral showers in his dorm (jump to around 3 minutes in):

 

Though I do not sympathize with anyone who feels this way, I empathize with them and respect their opinions, so I have no major problem with sex-segregated restrooms in general. Though I will freely admit that I will go into a men's restroom to wash my hands or grab a paper towel if it's closer than the women's restroom, and if there is a line out the door to the women's room and free stalls in the men's, you know where I'll be. And in my personal experience, though I tend to dislike making generalizations, guys seem to be pretty chill when they find a girl in their bathroom. 

I do have a major problem, however, with you, sex-segregated single stall bathrooms. Don't pretend you don't know who I'm talking to: all you rooms with a toilet, a sink, a mirror, and a handicap rail. WHY DOES THERE NEED TO BE ONE FOR MEN AND ONE FOR WOMEN? YOU ARE IDENTICAL 6 FT. BY 6 FT. ROOMS. For argument's sake I have spent time inspecting you, and there are no differences. The only thing you accomplish is to not so subtly remind us that the world thinks there's some grand difference between men and women. I suppose you even more subtly tell us that there's not, because these rooms are exactly the same, but that might be too subtle for the masses to handle, so I'm raising my fists and shouting SEPARATE IS INHERENTLY INEQUAL! Pardon my French, but we all shit on the same toilet in our homes, why do we need separate ones out in the world? Don't even try to defend yourself by saying women need trash cans for their "feminine products" (I disapprove of that term, btw), because I'm sure men's bathrooms would be a lot cleaner if there were more trashcans in them. And in fancy single stall bathrooms both genders get fancy soaps and hand lotions (speaking from experience again), so don't try to talk your way out of it by being gender-normative. 

There is no reason for your existence, please eradicate yourself from my social world.

Good riddance,

Maya

While I'm pushing for this...

I DEMAND this.