Leahgates

I’ve taken some time away from blogging while I’ve been in grad school, and it’s given me an opportunity for some perspective on the feminist blogosphere. I started working at Feministing in 2009 with a goal of centering trans issues within feminism. I think the oppression trans folks face, particularly the extreme marginalization and violence aimed at trans women in this misogynist culture, is exactly what feminism can exist to change. I understand feminism as a response to gendered oppression in a patriarchal context, where femininity is devalued. I see the worst of our gender hierarchy landing on the shoulders of folks who fail to meet the strict rules of the compulsory gender binary in a way that’s perceived as feminine. This plays out when, for example, queer men and trans women are specifically targeted with violence. So I see the exclusion of trans women and our issues from feminism (or the feminist movement’s active perpetuation of transmisogyny) as a problem that needs to be addressed.

Centering the issues of trans and gender non-conforming folks requires a shift in thinking for folks who’s feminism is based in cisgender norms, though. The norm in our culture is to assume someone will identify with the gender assigned to them at birth based on a doctor looking at their crotch. Which means we assume a link between gender and genitals, which leads to a supposed link between gender and someone’s sexual role and reproductive capacity as well. As I pointed out regarding the “War on Women” rhetoric about attacks on reproductive rights, most reproductive rights organizing packs the assumption that woman = person with a vagina who can make babies. This is true for a lot of women, but it’s not the experience of all women. And painting all women as fundamentally baby making factories is exactly what the anti-choice movement wants. Feminism that’s based in a link between gender and genitals doesn’t just exclude people who’s bodies don’t fit – it’s a fundamentally flawed analysis that perpetuates an essentialist idea that feminism partially exists to combat. Feminism that centers a trans feminist take on gender, that recognizes that woman ≠ vagina, offers a more accurate gender analysis in general that benefits everyone.

A growing number of trans women, including myself, have been working in the feminist and social justice blogosphere for a while now. I’ve heard from a number of the most prominent feminist writers that they really like my work. Which is nice, but frankly I’m here to make change within feminism, so this means nothing to me if my writing’s not encouraging a shift in their analysis. This is the continuation of familiar problem: when women of color introduced the idea of intersectionality, they made the point that their experiences were not white women’s experiences plus race. For feminism to take their issues seriously it needed to center the experiences of women of color. The amazing thing about this approach is that it still benefits white women, but it doesn’t exclude the experiences that happen at the intersection of race and gender. However, white feminists continue to treat the issues of women of color as something to be added on to feminism, the “especially women of color” that makes their argument stronger. But the argument still overwhelmingly begins with the experiences of white (and typically class privileged) women (the same thing happens when addressing trans women’s issues – I have absolutely been complicit in this).

I see this pattern continuing in a moment when trans women are trying to raise our issues within feminism. Recognizing our humanity and our oppression requires shifting the link between gender and genitals. A feminism that doesn’t do this will continue to perpetuate our exclusion. I was particularly struck last Fall by the coverage of Naomi Wolf’s Vagina book. The feminist critique seemed to be that Wolf reduced women to their vaginas, or really to her specific experience of her vagina. So, based on this feminist read, the fact that the book is cisnormative is the first, most obvious critique. But this was missing from most feminist discussion of the book in the press. Wolf’s argument was consistently called out for essentializing vaginas and women in a way that is heterosexist and racist. I was told trans issues were cut for space from an incredibly long round table discussion about the book among a bunch of prominent feminists in media. Which is frankly ridiculous. As Jaclyn Friedman demonstrated in one of the few articles that actually mentioned this issue, it takes very little space to highlight:

Women who don’t have vaginas, and people with vaginas who aren’t women? [Wolf] Never heard of ’em.

Simple, right? The fact that the most obvious critique wasn’t a priority for a lot of feminists writing about the book says a lot about the place of trans issues in their feminism. It’s not actually important. It’s something to be tacked on when we’re talking specifically about trans folks. But it’s not central to how they think gender.

The voices of trans women within feminism have definitely had an impact. Tumblr’s a great example – a lot of the feminist base is thinking very seriously about the ways our understanding of the world is grounded in cis norms, and they’re making space within gender for other ways of having bodies. But a lot of the most prominent feminists, the folks who are writing in major publications, doing TV and getting book deals, haven’t shifted their analysis from being based in cis experience. Frankly, the movement could leave a lot of its more prominent figures in the dust.

So consistently, I read a version of feminism that leaves me out. This happens regularly on this very blog, which we’re starting to work directly to address. Cisnormative assumptions are also a standard part of private conversations among public feminists that I’ve been a part of (I’m consistently amazed by what people don’t realize they’re saying in front of me). It stands out in language that defines women as baby makers. But it’s also a set of assumptions at the ground level that determines what issues are considered important feminist issues and how those topics are addressed. Sexual and gender violence, reproductive oppression, health care access, employment, body image… issues are consistently framed in ways that ignore the particular experiences of trans and gender non-conforming folks, especially feminine spectrum folks. This isn’t just a rhetorical problem – feminism played a role in setting up domestic violence shelters that exclude trans women, for example.

Trans and gender non-conforming folks face extraordinary discrimination that should be a feminist focus but is still a marginal issue at best. This needs to change. It is changing. It’s not enough for feminists to enjoy the writing of folks who experience marginalization that they don’t. To take those issues seriously, it’s necessary to think about how they’re different from your experience, how they shift the base you work from, and the assumptions you have that might end up perpetuating exclusion. This is the work we all have to do as part of an intersectional feminist movement where we all have different experiences of privilege and oppression.

U. PITTSBURGH (US) — New sensor technology could make it possible to diagnose and monitor diabetes through a breath analysis alone, researchers say.

Diabetes patients often receive their diagnosis after a series of glucose-related blood tests in hospital settings, and then have to monitor their condition daily through expensive, invasive methods.

COLUMBIA U. (US) — Graphene, even if stitched together from many small crystalline grains, is almost as strong as the material in its perfect crystalline form.

The new findings resolve a contradiction between theoretical simulations, which predicted that grain boundaries can be strong, and earlier experiments, which indicated that they were much weaker than the perfect lattice.

Graphene consists of a single atomic layer of carbon, arranged in a honeycomb lattice. “Our first Science paper, in 2008, studied the strength graphene can achieve if it has no defects—its intrinsic strength,” says James Hone, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University, who led the study with Jeffrey Kysar, professor of mechanical engineering.

BROWN (US) — Testing every person in India’s billion-plus population every five years for HIV would not only be cost-effective but also could save millions of lives for decades to come, a new study suggests.

In India most people who are HIV positive don’t know it—even though testing and treatment are relatively cheap and available. The new findings hold true even with more intensive testing for high-risk groups.

UC DAVIS (US) — Compared to those with normal vision, people who should wear glasses but don’t have a significantly greater risk of failing a balance test with their eyes closed.

The research, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, suggests that vision may play an important role in calibrating the vestibular system, which includes the bones and soft tissue of the inner ear, to help optimize physical balance.

He huffs, he puffs, he stumbles, he fumbles- will Mr. Waddles ever get outta his tent?

As seen on MSN Now. Posted by TheYuusou.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Corgis

From the CO SportsDesk: Tebow’s got a new team, and he’ll report to minicamp today! Here he is getting his game face on.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: puppies

Which forms of violence are the U.S. military willing to recognize? An Air Force veteran and survivor of military sexual trauma (MST) has raised the question in an interview with USA Today.  Twenty years ago, an airman raped recent enlistee Lisa Wilken in her dorm room. When she reported the assault, though, military prosecutors discouraged her from pursuing a case against her assailant because, as they said, the attack hadn’t been “violent enough.”

Restricting the definition of violence is a powerful weapon of the violent. Within an honest discussion of harm and coercion, the violence of sexual assault–regardless of the physical specifics–is indisputable. Yet the ability to declare authoritatively which forms of injury deserve the label allows the military to avoid unwanted responsibilities, no matter the truth of its claim. How convenient, when facing Wilken, to pretend all violence draws blood.

The lie is nothing new for military leadership, nor is it inflexible. A narrow definition of violence, fixated on immediate physical damage to the exclusion of psychic and economic harm, makes space for the U.S. to call an occupation a peace-building operation. When those limits unhelpfully constrain they are temporarily waved: how else could we name civilians combatants? These are semantic games, but they’re deadly—and, if you’re only concerned with American lives today, they subject U.S. servicemen and women like Wilken to tolerated sexual assault.

It shouldn’t be shocking that the military uses similar tactics to dismiss rape survivors and sidestep rules of war. Yet when we talk about MST we too often ignore the Armed Forces’ mission and methodology, as though this context were incidental. The reporting system’s reliance on the chain of command receives some rightful criticism, as does the pervasive casual sexism of the newly co-ed force. But every institution has its own obstacles to accountability, and each brews its own special house misogyny. We forget that this particular institution is an explicitly violent one. We pretend what our fighters do abroad is irrelevant to the invisible war they fight against each other.

Ana Marie Cox’s essay on “the real roots” of the problem, published today by the Guardian, provides a welcome exception to this rule. Cox focuses primarily on the psychological repercussions of war for those who fight, only implicitly acknowledging a broader military ideology at fault, but she clearly draws the connection between military function and sexual assault. In the wake of last week’s remarks from Senators Sessions (R-AL) and Chambliss (R-GA) attributing MST to porn and hormones, she writes:

In discussing the problem of suicides and depression [in the military], some analysts have wondered about the role played by the tactics of modern warfare: it is more random, more prolonged, “asymmetric”, and, as we have been reminded this week, fraught with confusion about who the enemy is. Troops serve longer and more numerous tours, and function for longer periods under tangential supervision. There’s a clear psychic toll.

It’s a truism among feminists – if not senators – that rape is a crime of violence, not of sexual attraction. It’s a function of rage, not lust. Could it be that the real crisis in today’s military is tied to not who these soldiers are, but the nature of what we’re asking them to do?

It’s no surprise that Democratic anti-MST champions like Senators Gillibrand (D-NY) and McCaskill (D-MO), for all their good work, aren’t highlighting the connections between modern militarism and sexual violence. A whiff of that thinking would label a politician unpatriotic forevermore, and there are more fun ways to commit career suicide. Yet disappointingly few Left-feminist camps are willing to use their own power to name violence–we too can play that game–and disrupt anti-MST advocates’ nearly comical silence about the nature of American warfare.

Perhaps we’ve convinced ourselves that a radical vision of demilitarization justifies inaction on MST (it doesn’t), or maybe we’re hesitant to criticize the work of war in which survivors, as well as perpetrators, engage. Whatever our hang-ups, let’s get over them–and fast. Internal violence is inevitable within a violent force, but if we can identify the particular rot that permeates from the battlefield to unsafe dorm rooms, perhaps we’ll have a chance to build a more just military for both American troops and the rest of the world.

I told my niece one time, and I stole it from I don’t remember where, “if a guy offers to buy you a drink and you say no, and he pesters you until you say okay, what he wants for his money is to find out if you can be talked out of no.” 

I don’t get pictures of strangers’ genitals in my inbox, but lots of women I know do.  It’s common in some dating sites and apps, and the ubiquity of the cockshot on Fetlife spawns its own breeds and strains of jokes.  And the joke is that they are famously NOT HOT.  I’m not talking about people trading pictures when they know each other, or are in the process of getting to know each other.  I’m talking about the unsolicited stranger cockshot.  If it is so famously not going to arouse the recipient (I know zero women who have ever said they were aroused by an unsolicited stranger’s cock pic), then how in the world would it be a good strategy?  Why do it?

Here’s my hypothesis:  What this guy [Edited: versions of this keep popping up and then going 404.  Try this.]  was trying to do was not to arouse the recipient or get her to react to his attractiveness.  It was to see how she would react to a boundary violation.

Suppose he was just trying to show her how hot he was.  Well, then, he could have asked.  If he really wanted to know if she wanted to see a picture of him full-frontal nude, he could have just said, “Hi, I like your profile and you’re really hot. I have nude pics available. Not to brag, but I’m a pretty athletic guy and I think I have a nice cock. Want to see?” And if she said yes, it’s pretty likely that it’s because she actually wanted to see him naked. In addition, this approach would have the salutary effects of showing an awareness of boundaries and allowing her some say in the way the interaction unfolded.  If he starts with the idea that she might be taken with his physical offering and want to have sex with him, that’s sort of an obviously superior strategy.

So why didn’t he do that? Possibly because it would not have answered the question he wanted the answer to.  I think the question he wanted an answer to was “if I’m wildly inappropriate, how will you respond?”

The unsolicited cockshot is coercive from the start.  By the time she thinks, “I really didn’t want to see that,” she’s already seen it.  She can then:

(1) just ignore him;

(2) call him on his inappropriateness;

(3) play along and humor him.

This woman went with #2, in spectacular fashion, which didn’t go well for him.  But there’s social pressure, basically from birth, to caretake men’s feelings and not make a fuss or be aggressive.  I think overtly assertive responses are rare and some sort of noncommittal response to these pics are pretty common.

Note what he does after she tells him it’s unwanted.  If the purpose were to show off his physical assets in the hope that she’d be interested, one would expect his reply to her reaction to be some sort of apology.  But that’s not how he reacts.  Instead, he tries four times to talk her out of her stated boundaries.  He asks if it’s too big.  He tells her to “relax.”  Then he calls her “prude.”  These are sort of the classic tropes used to attack women for expressing boundaries or calling out sexism: Frigid, uptight, humorless, prudish.

Now, at this point, he can’t possibly believe she’s typing one-handed.  He is conscious of the rejection.  Instead of going away, he tried to bully her out of it, and see if he could still pressure her into playing along.  In fact, that’s what he kept trying to do, until she followed his profile to his Facebook profile, then to his mother’s profile, and threatened to expose his conduct to his mother.  She was being very clear that she wanted him to go away and have no further contact with her, and he kept messenging her until she had an effective threat in hand.

(There’s an aside here about his mother and how he treats women.  I tend to think there’s a difference between shame and embarrassment; I can understand being embarrassed about your mother finding out details about your sex life.  But it’s clear to me that this guy would be ashamed.  In other words, he knows it’s wrong, but he does it because he’s okay with doing things that are wrong and invasive and abusive to women, as long as they’re not his mom or his sister.)

What’s the purpose of this kind of deliberate boundary-testing?  To find out if she can be talked out of no.  That’s how the Creepy Dom picks targets.  That’s how many predators pick targets.  In matters of sexual assault, and also intimate partner violence (which overlap a great deal), the boundary violations start relatively small — the inappropriate picture, the “courtesy” expressed as mandate.

They don’t stay small.  They escalate, slowly but surely.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Sex Negativity, sexual assault

RUTGERS (US) — Scientist have described the process that allows corals to form skeletons, and they say water acidity doesn’t affect the process.

Those skeletons—destined to become limestones—form massive and ecologically vital coral reefs in the world’s oceans.

Hello, my name is Oliver Wendell Holmes. My mom calls me Oliver or Ollie. I was born in Wisconsin. My mom found me after a lot of internet and newspaper searching. So far I've decided that car rides, sticks, and naps are my favorite things. I've also become very fond of sleeping on my mom's lap before she has to go to work!

Communing with nature at the zoo

Topper the boxer finds a lime and he doesn’t particularly like it. But he can’t walk away, either.

This isn’t the first time the Topster has gone head bangin’, either. Ooo, LUGGAGE TAG!

Posted on YouTube by Claire M.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: dogs

U. MICHIGAN (US) — Often called “living fossils,” the prehistoric-looking sturgeon are actually evolving very quickly when it comes to body size.

“Sturgeon are thought of as a living fossil group that has undergone relatively slow rates of anatomical change over time. But that’s simply not true,” says Daniel Rabosky, assistant professor in the ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan and a curator of herpetology at the Museum of Zoology.

EMORY (US) — A new compound reduces PTSD-like symptoms in mice that have been exposed to stress, a finding that could lead to a treatment given to people shortly after a traumatic event.

The research meshes with recent studies—including one looking at military personnel injured in Iraq—hinting that morphine administered after traumatic injury may lower the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

You know how, when you see a sleepy little puppeh..and he’s just waking up, and he kinda rolls over, and has that warm little puppeh smell, and the belleh is warm, and there’s some BLINK BLINK BLINK stuff, and then he rolls over and cuffs his nose, you know like they do. Max adorbs and stuff?

All that is just a WARM-UP…for what happens at 1:13.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Baroo, puppehs