Return to Gender 101

[LadyShea]

She has a great shop too!

[Ari]

Not exactly Gender 101 but...
Kink.com (a SF based porn company), held a prison themed party last night, where you could "get arrested" for only $100 a person. Since gay and trans do so horrible in prison many thought it was pretty insensitive, especially on pride weekend and protested. Turns out kink.com really followed through with their 'get arrested' theme and called the cops on protestors ending up with 6 queerfolk beaten and arrested by the police. Including a National Lawyers Guild observer. Many models are now boycotting kink.com and I expect it to only grow. Leave it to kink.com and their douche CEO to turn a small controversy into one that may end his company (I hope).
I originally thought it was cool SF had kink.com but the asshats that run it have proven me wrong.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Ari

In other words, what started as women saying 'fuck you I'ma do my own thing' to the establishment became a sexy costume to match what men wanted.

It is nice to know that some times the world works the way it is supposed to.

[The Man]

I love the Rude Pundit.

You Wanna Keep Harassing Women at Clinics? Then Let's Play

So let's get out there, every goddamn Sunday, and head to the churches that send their lunatic Jesus-fellaters out to try to shut down Planned Parenthoods, and stand on their sidewalks, just like the one up there outside St. Mary's in Grafton, and let's make churchgoing a living fuckin' hell for 'em. Let's bodily block the access to the walkways that lead to the church. Let's bring signs that have pictures of women who were killed by illegal abortions. Let's go up to them and try to convince them to convert or go atheist, following them until we are on church property and have to stop. Let's block the street by walking back and forth in the crosswalk. Let's force the churchgoers to need escorts to even get inside.

Shit, let's plaster the telephone poles with photos of the priests and church leaders, their addresses, their phone numbers. Let's tell them as they pass, "We know where you live." Let's film everyone going into the church and post those on a website. Hey, it's a public fuckin' sidewalk, man. Let's scream at them about how they're terrible people, how they support raping children, how they have given money to help silence victims. Can't you hear their silent screams? Can't you? Fuck, yeah.

Going to church is a choice, no? Let's make sure they regret that fuckin' choice, however legal it may be for them to make it. Then let's see how quickly they're begging for buffer zones.

[Angakuk]

That seems like a fair tactic. Just so long as they target only those congregations that are actively engaged in targeting the clinics. Most Christians and most Christian congregations are not so engaged.

[Hermit]

Dummy-spit time, for what it's worth:

Not having been aware of the makeup thread until it was revived, I began reading it from the start. It did not take long for me to get seriously pissed off with the environment that makes makeup an issue. Whence the formal and informal pressures for women to paint their faces, and for that matter shave their armpits and legs? Yes, just a rhetorical question, but what the fuck? Not painting your face is an insult to people that women encounter at work? A sign that they don't take their job seriously? And some of this crap is written by women, and this crap keeps getting published by major magazines and websites? Why don't they apply to men?

I barely got to the end of the first page before giving up. It's so fucking depressing. Yes, compared to the honour killings, wholesale and wholescale disenfranchisements and shoot the girls in the head if they dare want education in less "advanced" nations, this stuff is a first world problem. Still, the gap between our perception of how far we have developed socially and how far we have is immense. Our sexism (and racism for that matter) is definitely not as brutal as elsewhere, but it is pervasive. Most of us don't seem to be aware of it much of the time because it's fucking normal. Socially, we are not nearly as developed as we delude ourselves to be.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by The Man

I love the Rude Pundit.

You Wanna Keep Harassing Women at Clinics? Then Let's Play

Blergh. Because nothing would make those particular jerkoffs happier than to actually feel like martyrs. They would gather excitedly inside the big room of their church after they got through, and shout about the dragons they slew on the way in, and sprain their wrists with high-fiving, having finally seen some overt sign of the persecution they've been telling themselves all along they suffer. The contrast with what women on their way into a clinic want, and need, and experience when confronted with these threats and hatred, is practically complete.

[lisarea]

Stupid Clutch. I was pretty excited about that idea until you went and ruined it.

[The Man]

Well, to be fair, they're going to pretend to be martyrs whether they have legitimate reason to feel that way or not. If they're going to feel like martyrs either way, we might as well actually be doing things that justify them feeling like it.

Agreed with Angakuk about the fact that we should only target the churches responsible for this heinous crap, though, but to be fair, the Rude Pundit specified that he was talking specifically about "the churches that send their lunatic Jesus-fellaters out to try to shut down Planned Parenthoods".

Anyway: LGM has a rundown of how today's two Court decisions are linked. This could also go in SCOTAL Itch but I'm too lazy to make two posts right now

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Stupid Clutch. I was pretty excited about that idea until you went and ruined it.

[The Man]

Sparsely attended ‘men’s rights’ soirée arrives at source of their problems. Hint: It’s women

[Sock Puppet]

Heh. I read some of the comments, and I would like to point out that "vaginally-privileged sociopathic cultist" is open for custom titleage, if anybody needs it.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

It was time for a change anyway!

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Heh. I read some of the comments, and I would like to point out that "vaginally-privileged sociopathic cultist" is open for custom titleage, if anybody needs it.

[lisarea]

What rhymes with disaster? Robin Thicke trolled hard in Twitter Q&A | Music | theguardian.com

[Ari]

Next time Thicke should team up with the NYPD twitter PR department #myThickePD
Post your pictures of Thicke helping you unconscious, you know you wanted it!

[Watser?]

Damns, I was gonna post that but then I forgot and also I was like who the fuck is Robert Thicke anyway?

[Ari]

Originally Posted by Ari

Not exactly Gender 101 but...
Kink.com

Minor update. 3 people remain behind bars, and both sides have told their different perspectives to the media. Kink.com security claims vegetables and a metal object were thrown at them (but possibly weren't hit with any) and one guard was punched in the stomach during the protest. I don't buy it, not only did everyone that left report a peaceful protest, these events occurred during the protest yet they waited till the crowd cleared and only organizers remained to call police. There's some reports their security followed people away from the scene to try and ferret out who were the organizers.
Of the 7 people cited/arrested, most were for "resisting arrest" which seems like bullshit since there appears to be no crime they were originally arrested for, at least one was a trans women who just happened to be riding her bike by the area, the SFPD claimed they stopped her because it was reported one of the attackers was "on a bike."

While I'm clearly biased on the subject, being a kink related event their security knew exactly what it would mean to call the cops and appeared to try and use them and their excessive-force to the best of their ability. I can't wait till gopro style cameras are on every protester to document the reality. My next camera purchase will most likely be a go-pro and possibly wireless SDcard for this very reason.
Not that I'm tired of this shit or anything.

[The Man]

[Janet]

Memo to The Raw Story:

1) Saint Clair, Michigan and Saint Clair Shores, Michigan are two different places. Your story did not mention the right one.

2) It would have been nice if you had mention that the reason the MRA conference was moved from Detroit to Saint Clair Shores was because of a protest organized and carried out by women. But I guess that would have actually involved given them credit for accomplishing something and we can't have that.

[lisarea]

Pamela Clark - 35 Practical Tools for Men to Further Feminist Revolution

I especially like how this focuses on invisible work and expectations.

I have probably told this story before, but: Way back definitely pre-1992 (because that's when I got a cell phone), I showed up for work one day and was informed that I was supposed to leave RIGHT AWAY to go on a special super-fun surprise team building retreat for the day at some secret location.

And of course I said no, because I had a kid in day care and needed to be available in case of emergencies, and I couldn't just pick up and go incommunicado for an entire workday with no advance notice and without even knowing where I was going. (Also: Creepy.) I could and did take business trips, but that always required advance planning.

It was just enormously stupid, because not only did anyone predict that entirely predictable objection, but they seemed totally baffled even after I explained it to them. And of course, then I was the big mean buzzkill for ruining their totally fun and spontaneous plan by refusing to go along. And it hit me really hard that day that I was easily the youngest person there, but I was obviously the only grownup. Almost everyone there had kids, but everyone else with kids was a dude, and when they'd have to take a day off to do something with them, their away messages always said, "Babysitting."

I think it was really the first time I realized how childish and irresponsible a lot of men are just in their daily lives, and how totally oblivious they are to it.

[LadyShea]

when they'd have to take a day off to do something with them, their away messages always said, "Babysitting."

OMG I will say it again. I hate that with a fucking passion. I call men on it when it is said in my presence, which has been surprisingly frequent over the years. "Caring for you own kids is not babysitting, it's parenting. Fucker"

[lisarea]

Yeah, I raised a stink about it at that company, too. The way it worked was that if you needed to stay home unexpectedly, you'd call in, tell a secretary what your deal was, and they'd put that in your message field.

I was a single parent, but I had day care backups and backups of my backups so that it rarely affected my ability to do my job, which meant that I only had to call out for kid reasons very rarely in real emergencies.

But the once or twice I did have to stay home for TLM reasons, they'd put something like "Sick child" or something, whereas male coworkers would get the stupidly twee "Babysitting." And that creates a very different impression. For me, it's my personal obligation, but for dudes, it's this cute and admirable thing where they're selflessly doing someone else's job or something.

So I actually brought it up with them and told them they need to stop calling it "babysitting" when a dude was home with his own kids. I know they thought I was being stupid and nitpicky, but fuck that. And of course, when they signed themselves out for planned days home, individual dudes kept calling it that.

Many years later, too, at another company, I'd declined a trip to a client site because I had multiple clients I was working with at the time and going on site was pretty much superfluous anyway. But then, I overheard my boss telling the client, "Well, she's a single mother, so it's hard for her to get away," and I totally tore him a new one. I knew he just didn't want to admit that they didn't have my full attention or something, but he just fucking threw me under the bus by blaming my personal life. It was SO MUCH FUCKING BULLSHIT and it's one of the main reasons that I wouldn't even put a picture of TLM on my desk at work most of the time. Funny how only people who actually knew I had a kid were always the ones who ever acted like I was pathetic and helpless like that.

[The Man]

[Ensign Steve]

When I was little I had a stepdad who my mom married when I was six. He worked early, like six to three, then he picked me up from school and took me home while mom worked until 5. People would hear about this from mom and go "he babysits?!" and mom would tell them "it's not babysitting, she's his daughter". Until like yesterday when I read these posts, I always thought it was a stepfather thing. Good lord. And this was like early 80s.