swamped with work and life... aka the return from boston

this is just a super-quick post to let y'all know i haven't forgotten... i'll be updating SOON SOON SOON on wam! and the super-awesomeness therein.


what a great time! met some cool people and basked in some fantastic discourse.


i'm uber-eager to give you my take on things, as well as recount strange tales from the cambridge marriott, lol. work has me playing mega-catchup, however, and that has to take precedence a ce moment.


anyway, just wanted to give a brief shout out and promise of women, action and the media goodness! cheers!

WAM! curiosity...

who's going? i'll be there, blue-streaked hair and all... will you? i know there's been some heated controversy surrounding the conference and its presenters and organizers, but i'm trying to get myself psyched for it (not to mention that i happen to adore jaclyn)! so lemme know :)

bride snatching: how lovely it's becoming more common

following a disturbing title (Bride-Snatching Involved in Half of All Marriages in Kyrgyzstan) on liveleak, i came across this video:




note the shaming guilt placed on the kidnapped wives and the ambivalent, entitled attitudes of the men interviewed for this video.




i can't believe this practice, called ala kachuu, goes on so regularly(or even at all.) also disturbing is the fact that the authorities officially state that wife-snatching is illegal, but that no one ever prosecutes. and of course the abducted women are considered unclean, impure, or tainted by muslim standards, and will be shunned by their families and society if fleeing their captors, especially once the marriage is consummated, aka rape, occurs. how's that for a horribly textbook description of double victimization? thank gods there are people like the woman in the video fighting for the victims' rights.




it's inconceivable that they have to teach students that stealing your bride is wrong, but i'm glad they're at least acknowledging that there's a problem with viewing women as chattel.




this practice of wife snatching is becoming more popular since the fall of the USSR, as the liberation of the area has caused many groups to harken back to ancient customs and traditions.




hiding behind cultural relativism in this case is a load of bs to me. kidnapping is a crime, no matter to which gods you do or do not pray. your religion does not entitle you to rape, demean, and abuse others.

whatever happened to julie ruin?

lately i've been feeling nostalgic for the riot grrls of yesteryear.

queercore is practically mainstream nowadays, and it kinda takes the fun and subversive nature out of gay punk/indie music. queer punk is suffering from the same downfall of original punk music... with notoriety and publicity comes a sort of grudging recognition and acceptance. which is exactly what punk tries NOT to achieve. rebelling ceases to exist when it's done en masse. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying it's a bad thing that queer rock has made its mark, it's fantastic! that's a central goal (among others, of course) of the marginalized, right? to get your voice heard, make some changes, stir up issues, shift the current ways of thinking? it makes me smile to turn on a radio station and hear, say, tegan & sara.

BUT I WANT MORE.

it's queer-lite nowadays, if you will. what next? where has the spark gone? issues haven't quelled, but the diy spirit kinda has. sure, there are some great groups out there today, such as scream club, boyskout, girl in a coma and the dead betties. but they don't come around here. hiding in the safeland of the west coast and vancouver, if they tour, they skip right over detroit and hide away in nyc.

NOT VERY SUBVERSIVE OF YOU.

those little 80s/90s homocore pioneers traveled all over and would play wherever to just get heard. groups today have it much easier and seem to only be playing where it's comfortable. how un-punk.

and how unfair to these groups that fought for you to even get gigs. i want some riotous, angry, fun, tongue-in-cheek, black eye-inducing, laugh-out-loud, fuck your mother, 'recruit them all' queer kind of music! and i know i'm not alone. where are the pansy divisions, bikini kills, hedwigs, team dresches, and vaginal creme davises of today? staying away from the midwest, for sure... my little homo heart is aching for some REVOLUTION! and if you're one of these groups scared of big, bad michigan ~ you can all crash at my place, i'll book you and show you it's not so bad.

let me end this short little rant with the lyrics from classic bikini kill song by ms julie ruin herself, kathleen hanna. this track is called 'i like fucking':

Hey! do you believe there's anything

Beyond troll guy reality?

I do, I do, I do

It gets so hard

Just to be okay

Sometimes being happy baby

Is what I'm most afraid of

Baby, you know,

It gets so hard for me to fight

I don't know how

I guess I never did

Why don't you show me how

How to lose control?

She's so very, 'I don't care'

Just cuz my world, sweet sister

Is so fucking goddamn full of rape

Does that mean my body must always be

a source of pain?

No, no, no

She's so very 'I don't care.'

Just cuz I named it right here sweet Chickadee

Don't mean for a minute you should think

I'm opposite of anything

But if you wanna know for sure I'll tell you

We're not gonna prove nothing nothing

Sittin around watching each other starve

What we need is action/strategy

I want, I want, I want

I want it now

I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, babe

I do, I do, I do

GABnet 3 unfairly detained in the philippines

dr. annalisa enrile, the head of gabriela network USA, a us-philippines women's solidarity group, along with two of its founders, have been watchlisted and subsequently banned from coming back into the us after attending the 10th Women's International Solidarity Affair. enrile, ninotchka rosca and judith mirkinson, have been unfairly detained by filipino leader gloria macapagal arroyo. macapagal arroyo is obviously flexing her political muscles, as there is no real reason to hold the ladies unless there is some kind of perceived threat from them. what, they're protesting the massive amounts of murder, rape, and abuse of hundreds of people, particularly women, living and working under her rule? how DARE they!? injustice and her intimidation tactics must be exposed, and obviously should not be tolerated. vigils were held in their honor yesterday in chicago, ny, san francisco, and la in front of the philippine consulate offices. (i know, i've dropped the ball a bit on this one, but i've been swamped with work lately...) anyway, today, they're to attempt boarding a flight ~ i'll be waiting to see if they arrive home safely :)

let's go shoe shopping... um, i think i'll take the ones with the dismembered body parts?

women's fashion mags don't exactly have the best track record, but this ad in v magazine, has GOT to be the oddest, most disturbing one i've seen in a while. boobs and butts in a shoe? i mean, come on! let's cut up some women's body parts and shove them in giant shoes. maybe some women will buy them!

who took these objectifying images? bela borsodi. so i went to his site, hoping to find some justification within his other work. i was disappointed, to say the least. images such as this, this, and even this flooded his portfolio. perhaps even more appalling is the fact that these images are bundled together with seemingly tame photos of accessories with everyday objects, such as this. it's as if he's trying even harder to emphasize the fact that women are nothing more than handbags or shoes. they were simply groped bodies, breasts to be ogled, silhouettes (note the belt that covers her mouth), submissive paintings, or painful-looking drawings.

now, that i'm trying to say there's anything wrong with sexuality in art. i actually prefer and even take part in such artwork myself. there is, however, a definite implied sexism within borsodi's work. there were, in fact, so many offensive pics i stopped looking about 3/4 of the way down the list... what a creep. and he's obviously extremely successful, due to his worldwide listing in all the top mags. i'll leave you with this one lovely image, typical of borsodi's work.

now i wanna pop his misogynistic balloon.


***EDIT*** just wanted to add that i scooted my booty over to feministing, and what's on their most recent post list? mmhmm. said ad. maybe we can all get together and start a boycott?

what in hell is wrong with ann althouse?

reading this from feministe before i even had my coffee today has made my skin crawl. there's so much i could say about it, but jill put it so well. i hope those idiots get what's coming to them. and with any luck, aa will learn a lesson in humility. good luck, jill.

blogebrity & christenings of several types ~ welcome!

inspiration

so a big fattie thanks are in order to mrb for getting me prepped to stop basking in my 'i'm such a loser and not doing anything viable for the world at large' whining and actually start taking action. the other night we discussed various feminist issues and websites to which he frequents, as well as his new blog. it's going great, sir! i adore the fact that the biggest feminist i know is a tall, heterosexual, middle class, white male (in no particular order.) *grin* i need an outlet as well. and while i don't really care either way whether or not people read this, i do need to get it all out. maybe for self-justification, maybe to stroke my ego, but definitely to keep me (perhaps?!) a little more sane.



and so, this morning, at work, instead of actually getting shit done (as i should also be doing now, lol,) i went to feministing to check out what the blogebrity (my newly created word of the day!) jessica valenti had to report. and is there a hot plate today! the article in question , is one that i had no idea people felt so strongly about. silly me!



i was truly unaware that women are being required to jump through so many hoops about taking or not taking a surname. i really don't believe that my name should be in legal question, decided by the courts. if one partner wants to take the other's name, or combine them somehow, or keep their birth names, who cares?!? names are a very personal thing, and individuals have every right, just as they have the right to choose first names, to keep or discard them at will. signing paperwork and making things official should not be more or less depending on your gender.



the idea here is to GIVE PEOPLE THEIR OWN RIGHT TO CHOOSE. the commentary on valenti's relatively short post astounded me. i was amazed at the amount of people getting so touchy about being expected to side permanently either way. (ie to change or not to change)



here's how i see it:

if you tell women they should change their names out of respect to their spouse, that's not right. similarly, if you tell women they should keep their names out of respect to themselves, that's not right either. decisions are personal. and although they affect us all, they must be made. it's your RIGHT to choose whatever name you would like. and you shouldn't be made to go through extra bullshit or criticized, whichever way you lean, to make that decision, as long as it's not expressly hurting yourself or anyone else.



(how's that for the definition of liberal , lol.)

and just because i REALLY need to get back to work, i won't even start on the fact that as a queer woman, i don't even quite factor into this debate, as i don't even receive the right (thanks, dear government) to marry and worry about taking (or not taking/adjusting) my surname.