I received a comment on an old post that I wanted to address. Forgive me, I am going to preface this post with a personal anecdote.

When the guything boyfriend and I had our first date, almost a year ago, as we sat together in the car winding through the mountains of Boulder, the conversation turned to feminism (having already meandered through interesting personal anecdotes and basic personal information, and long deep conversation about politics and history which I think left us both impressed), and he said, casually, “You know I don’t expect you to shave your legs or armpits or anything for me.” I told him he’d better not, because any guy who gave a shit about my body hair was obviously not boyfriend material. And then he, completely unbidden and with no input or prodding from me, unleashed a tirade about women internalizing patriarchal beauty standards (oh yes, he used the word “patriarchy” and everything), his male/white privilege, and the wage gap, and that basically sealed the deal for me. Maybe not love at first sight, but definitely lust at first angry highly-controversial leftist political rant. This man was a keeper.

Do I think men can be feminists? Certainly. I wouldn’t be in a relationship with one if I didn’t think he was. This is, yes, personal prejudice, but I also don’t think we’d have been able to stand each other otherwise. I also don’t usually (ever) date guys, and this is one of the big reasons why — men can be feminists, but most aren’t.

The question at hand is, however, an issue of contention among feminists and I understand arguments to the contrary. And I am pretty fucking skeptical of a lot of liberal men who claim to be sympathetic to women’s issues who really aren’t… (An aside: I find it hilarious how consistently readers continue to miss the point of that post, summarized completely in the last sentence. Seriously, folks.) But…in my experience, the only men willing to call themselves “feminists” or “feminist allies” in the first place are usually extremely feminist, whatever political disagreements we may have — otherwise they would not want to use a label which does them no favors socially. Personal experience with some men very committed to and passionate about gender equality and women’s rights has taught me that, yes, men can indeed be feminists, rare though they might be.

There is a radical feminist viewpoint which believes that all men are active agents of a monolithic patriarchy — which, in essence, is true, but this is a gross oversimplification of the structures of oppression and I think an unforgiving understanding of the nature of privilege. I think it is unfair to act as if all men are consciously complicit in and benefit directly from the system. It is wrong to state that gender oppression is the root of all evil, and assume that oppression due to race or sexual orientation or class or physical ability are not also of equal significance and importance. It is true that all men must essentially be sexist — but only because all women have also internalized sexism, because everyone of every race has internalized racism, etc, etc. The only difference is that those with privilege suffer less from these toxic attitudes than do those to whom the hateful stereotypes and beliefs apply. I do not think the fact that not all men are malicious agents of The Patriarchy needs to be disclaimed at every turn and I hesitate to point it out, as it seems both obvious and also derailing from the real point and the big picture. The fact that oppression and privilege are significantly more complex than the radical feminist viewpoint, however, bears discussion.
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Expanding a little more on my comparison of queer sexuality and kink yesterday, I really have to say that, for me, the two are inextricably intertwined.

When I talk about my “sexuality” or “sexual orientation” I’m not just talking about what genders/sexes I find attractive. I’m a pansexual submissive with a preference for “feminine”-leaning (whatever that means) people who blur gender/sex norms, who are extremely dominant. In the particular case of my current relationship, that’s a bisexual cisgendered man. (I don’t think I could relate to a cismale who wasn’t a little queer.)

My strong attractions have always been for charismatic people. Those people who have an inexplicable draw. They might not even be anything to look at or they might be drop-dead gorgeous, but that’s not why people like them. They exude confidence and charm, whether they’re particularly charming in the conventional sense or not. They’re the kind of people who generally have dozens of suitors they don’t really care for who just seem to accumulate with no effort on their part. For whatever reason, they make friends with everybody, and everybody they meets likes them. These people have a charisma that makes everyone around them eager and willing to pretty much go along with whatever they say.

These are the kind of people who compliment me. (It’s ironic; because other people would probably say that I, myself, am really charismatic. And while I’m glad I come off that way, that’s not really who I feel I am inside at all.) I’m shy in unfamiliar situations and tend to be voluntarily withdrawn. I don’t party. I don’t make small talk. I have a difficult time really relating to people and making friends (but I like the ones I do have, thank you very much). I don’t really like talking to most people at all. I prefer to stay at home, cook a nice meal, read a book, paint. I’m an introvert. I don’t like to try new things unless someone else is trying them with me. I enjoy being challenged but don’t challenge myself unless pushed by other people or circumstance. I’m incredibly indecisive. I like people with a more extroverted, commanding presence, who aren’t afraid to just make choices and stick by them.

There’s other elements at work, too. I’m very short: I stand at about 5′1″. I’m always attracted and have always been attracted to taller people. This is not hard to do, most people are. But I mean much taller. My boyfriend is about 13 inches taller than me. The power dynamics are that physically evident in my choice of partners. I also have a strong attraction to men and women who are physically stronger or larger.

And trust is very important. When I mean trust, I don’t mean it in a casual sense. I mean that the more someone has the capability to harm me, the more pronounced the power disparities, the knowledge that I can trust that person makes them exponentially more attractive. I’ve known plenty of guys who were very nice men who I felt safe around to whom I felt zero attraction because they’re weren’t dominant or otherwise wouldn’t/couldn’t have the potential to exercise power over me. And my ability to trust is definitely gendered.

I’ll try to explain. It sounds terrible, but it’s true: by and large, I do not trust men. I go with my gut instinct, and it’s always been right, so I don’t give people the benefit of the doubt anymore. And it’s only ever been men who attempt to intimidate, harass, or threaten me. Because trusting men, especially men who are taller or stronger than me, is such a difficult thing for me, when I actually have met guys that I like, the attraction is much more intense than that for any of the women I’ve liked, even though I like women in general much more. The painful knowledge of how imbalanced power relationships already are and will always be between me and men actually makes them more attractive, even though physically I’m less into them. As my feminist awareness has grown, so has my attraction to men, where when I was convinced the world was totally egalitarian as a teen (or egalitarian enough) I wasn’t really interested in guys at all.

Then there’s the fact that I have a tendency to attach myself to people with more experience (and therefore, often, age) than myself, which is definitely the biggest power imbalance involved in my attractions as far as I’m concerned. (You think the height difference between me and my guy is a lot? He’s two decades older than me and has had more sexual partners than I can even really imagine or grasp in more than an abstract sense, he being my second, ever. Now that’s a power imbalance.)

And I find arguments “against BDSM” (since I don’t see how you can really argue with someone’s sexual orientation; it’s not going to change) kind of weird. The whole idea that no one can enjoy a consensual D/s relationship because of the patriarchy strikes me as a little strange. (Of course, feminists who argue “against BDSM” are really only arguing against Dominant male/submissive female power exchange because they think that’s the only dynamic that exists.) First of all, it’s the person and personality that matter most to me, not sex or gender; I don’t really think about it that much and even if it’s a factor, gender is not even close to being the deciding factor in my attraction. Second, like I said before, I admit to getting a bit of a naughty thrill out of the pre-existing male/female social power imbalance. That doesn’t mean I think it’s right, and if the world were less sexist, I’d probably be even more lesbian than I am.

But the point is, arguments about kink based on the existence of patriarchal power imbalances are kind of moot. I am queer. Even with a man, I remain a dyke. More importantly, I am genderqueer — I don’t think of myself as a “woman” in anything other than a strict anatomical sense, and I definitely do not adhere to gender roles. I have trouble with the cognitive dissonance when someone does something as innocent as refer to me with gendered pronouns. The very idea that I only submit because “I’m a woman and I’ve been taught to” is bizarre to me — no, I really wasn’t, I had kick-ass feminist parents, and I have always had a difficult time squaring my sense of identity with my anatomy and how it caused people to treat me. That, and I’m the kind of obnoxious rebellious person who does pretty much the opposite of what I think people expect of me just to be stubborn.

But, well, these musings have all been well and good, but the most important aspect of my sexuality is this: whether or not society says men should be dominant and women submissive, whether or not I am a woman, whether or not I am with a man, whether or not I am genderqueer or queer… There is no rationalizing it. Trying to be a less submissive person — not even dominant, just normal — is deeply, deeply upsetting to me. I can’t do it. The very thought makes me feel sick. I can’t physically bring myself to act that way. It doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t make sense. I have no idea how to even try.

On the other hand, being with the kind of partner who has power over me and uses it wisely and compassionately… That’s the best thing in the world. It’s the only thing that really feels right. I don’t care what anyone else thinks of it. It’s just what I need.

Yeah, I know I linked to this post about radical feminist critiques of BDSM before, but I’m still thinking about it and still had a few things I wanted to articulate in response. (Sidenote — Trinity totally rocks. That is all.)

One thing that has always really bothered me in feminist discussions about kink is the assumption I often see that a woman could only want to be submissive if she’s been abused, coerced, brainwashed — that nobody could possibly be born with these sort of desires, that they’re inherently unhealthy and abnormal and could not develop on their own in a vacuum. There’s this sometimes unspoken, often articulated, assumption that the only way a woman could want what I want is if she has been emotionally damaged.

I suppose I’m just here to say: well, they can develop in a vacuum, and they’re not abnormal for me. I have never been sexually or physically abused by a parent, family member, friend, partner, or anyone else. As much as I desire a relationship where I am not in control, where there is a distinct power imbalance, where I might get bitten and smacked a little, pushed to my limits and beyond my comfort zone sexually, mentally, and emotionally…I have no desire to be abused. Wanting to be dominated consensually by someone I trust who respects my hard limits but not always the more flexible, softer ones is entirely different from being with someone who forces me to do things I really don’t want to do.

(That’s one reason it’s hard for me to find prospective partners: there has to be an enormous amount of trust and understanding. I always have to wonder what part of this escapes people: being submissive makes finding a sex partner I can trust much, much harder, since I am very aware of the fact that it’s possible to coerce me into doing things I don’t want with my tacit “consent”. More on that some other time.)

So now that I’ve laid that out, the real point I’m trying to get at. One thing that’s been nagging at me for awhile is the realization that these criticisms of kink are exactly the same as arguments about homosexuality. The argument, especially, that women are made queer by rape or other trauma. Most of the normally, otherwise very intelligent women I see arguing that BDSM is inherently harmful and degrading to women would never say such a thing about queer women because it’s plainly ridiculous. Most women do not decide to be lesbians because they’ve been damaged by men in their lives. The assertion is clearly and fatally flawed.

So why is it okay to say these things about submissive women? (And it’s always submissive women. The very concept that dominant women could possibly exist seems to fly over these people’s heads — when they do acknowledge the existence of dommes, it’s usually in a sneering, “it’s all just an act they put on for men, they aren’t actually powerful” sort of way. And forget the idea that a submissive woman might want to be topped by another woman.) Why is it not okay to say that I only like women because of some severe psychological trauma, but it’s perfectly fine to assert that I Must Have Nasty Issues if I want to let a partner (especially, heaven forbid, a partner with a dick) to tell me what to do and be in control?

I am not damaged. I am not queer because of abuse. I am not submissive because of abuse. I have been both queer and submissive my entire life. I can recall having both of these desires from an incredibly young age: an unusual attachment to female friends and a near total absence of crushes on male peers, and a persistent desire to be “owned”, an eagerness to please and take care of everybody in my life. These are the things which fulfill me. These are the things that I need to be happy. Attempting to deny me that because it’s “un-feminist” or “unhealthy” denies and undermines my actual health (mental and emotional, by extension, physical) and my very real dedication to women’s rights.

I should not have to justify my submissive identity (and it is that — it is not simply a role I adopt in the bedroom, it is a basic cornerstone of who and what I am) anymore than I should have to justify my attachment and attraction to women. Would the feminists demanding that I “examine” the roots of my kinky desires for their entertainment ever dare to say the same thing about my queer desires? Of course not! Even if (and this is important!) I did feel I were only attracted to women due to an abusive past, it still wouldn’t be relevant, it still wouldn’t mean there’s anything wrong with my same-sex attractions, and it still wouldn’t be any of their damn business. Because there is nothing inherently wrong with my sexuality, in the queer sense or the kinky sense.

I find the allegations I’m not a real feminist actually hurtful. It’s like someone saying that because I like to play video games with fake violence in them I can’t be part of the anti-war movement. One has pretty much almost nothing to do with the other. While it’s definitely worth looking at how violence is normalized in our culture and how that feeds our willingness to do real harm to others, my personal recreational habits don’t disqualify me from standing up for my pacifist principles.

And kink is the same. Real abusive relationships, which are disproportionately a matter of violence committed by men against women, are terrible, evil, horrible, and wrong. My submissive desires, which, if they were unwanted, would in some cases constitute abuse, do not harm women as a whole. My submission has nothing to do with anybody else’s relationship. Just as it’s nobody’s business which variety of genitalia I entertain in the privacy of my own home, it’s nobody’s business whether I want to be spanked, either. It’s not okay for other people to tell me it’s wrong for me to sleep with a woman. It’s not okay for other people to tell me it’s wrong to be submissive.

Let’s try another example, if that one doesn’t work: it’s like arguing that since I personally am not attracted to most men, I’m a horrible misandrist man-hater bent on overthrowing the patriarchy and instituting a repressive matriarchy. It just doesn’t make sense. There’s a small subset of people who believe in female superiority (which I think is way more harmless than the converse concept, since matriarchy enjoys less widespread popularity). There’s some people who believe intimate partner violence is acceptable. Obviously, that doesn’t mean all feminists want to oppress men. Why isn’t it equally obvious that not everyone into BDSM wants men to be able to rape and abuse women?

I’d like to be charitable and believe it’s just ignorance that leads to this glaring gap in logic. But I don’t actually. I think it’s just that people who make these arguments honestly know they’re being disingenuous and hope nobody will call them on it. Well, I’m doing it, because I’m damn sick of reading this tripe spouted as if it’s some brilliant new idea no one’s ever thought of before, as if it’s a criticism that can actually survive the barest scrutiny by someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re talking about.

So the other day I finally got around to shaving my head, something I’ve been threatening to do for months but apparently no one took seriously. I showed them. Donating my massive amounts of hair to Locks of Love.

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Roy over at No Cookies for Me (discovered just now through his guest blogging at Feministe — yay!) posted a wonderful, thought provoking entry regarding discussions about the sex industry and how they neglect the actual reality and humanity of the sex workers involved:

I sat there at my desk, talking about sex workers and sex work and porn like they were abstractions… but they’re not, and mythago rightly called me on my shit. It took me a while to realize that, but it was a totally fair criticism. My sitting there saying that stats show this and stats show that and look how many sex workers were this or that… none of that helps them now, and talk like that does make me more likely to find myself allied with religious conservatives who have a “moral interest” in condemning sex work… and sex workers.

And when I allow myself to ally with questionable or even flat-out bad groups, I have to accept that the damage they do in the name of our cause is damage that I’m contributing to. I can’t wash my hands of the harm that my allies do if they’re doing the damage in the name of our mutual cause. If I’m rallying behind the cry of “PORN HARMS ALL WOMEN!” and I allow myself to get backing from a group that’s adding “BECAUSE DIRTY SLUTS ABUSE SEX!” then aren’t I at least somewhat culpable? Because, ultimately, don’t my actions help further that cause, as well? And doesn’t that mean that the damage they’re doing is to some extent, on my hands?

Because those people have made it absolutely clear that they don’t care about the women involved. They’re not working to help end the abuse of sex workers. They’re not condemning poor working conditions. They’re not working to help sex worker’s rights. They’re not even remotely interested in making sure that their voices get heard. They’re interested in keeping the whores out of their neighborhoods.

This is my big problem with a lot of (radical, particularly) feminists. I don’t disagree that most pornography is harmful to women* — and not just in a vague, nebulous sense. I believe a great deal of it has a real, tangible impact on the women involved. The industry can be unsafe and abusive, and sometimes it cheats the women out of the money they thought they were going to make by having sex on camera. Not to mention how it’s clear that depicting women actually experiencing pleasure is apparently pretty low on the priority list. (Because women exist for men to enjoy. Whether we enjoy ourselves isn’t important to a lot of people. It’s actually terrifying.) And it hurts women who buy into it, who think that they have to have labial surgery to be acceptable as a sex partner.

But trying to criminalize porn will not help anyone. The women who are harmed will be harmed more because they will have even less recourse. When people discuss sex work in impassioned, black-and-white moral terms, so often they forget that sex work isn’t just about feminist theory. It’s about the actual women who do it, for whatever reason. The lives of women are not abstractions. They are real people with real lives and their ability to make a living however they can manage is incredibly important.

Is it right that a woman’s only option to support herself might be sex work? Absolutely not. (Although if she really enjoys doing it, and, yes, I think that’s possible although perhaps rare in a world this fucked up, and she can make a living on it, more power to her.) But it doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. What matters is that this is a human being who needs the money to live.

And one would think, one would hope something feminists could agree on is that women being able to live is important — but somehow, we manage to forget that for many women that’s exactly what’s on the line. The lives of sex workers get lost in the discussion and suddenly they don’t matter. I wouldn’t argue that most people are intentionally devaluing the lives of these women, but that’s the end result. Isn’t treating women’s lives as negligible exactly the attitude we need to get away from?

1. I also don’t think porn should be criminalized because I don’t think it’s inherently harmful or wrong, but that’s another discussion entirely.

A transwoman in Vancouver has just had a discrimination suit dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada. Heart actually has a detailed overview of the case posted at her place, but I refuse to link to it due to the disgustingly transphobic remarks she and her readers have made in the comments. (Yeah, um, don’t bother trying to argue about this. This is a queer blog. It won’t go over well.)

So instead, I’ll quote this article:

The Supreme Court will not hear arguments about whether a women’s service organization erred in excluding a trans person from working with the Vancouver-based group.

The Feb 1 decision denying “leave to appeal” to the Supreme Court Of Canada leaves Kimberly Nixon without further recourse for her exclusion from Vancouver Rape Relief.

The battle began a decade ago when Nixon filed a human rights complaint against the organization over her treatment.

The BC Human Rights Tribunal found that Nixon had been discriminated against on the basis of her trans identity and ordered Rape Relief to pay her $7,500 in damages.

But the victory was short-lived. Rape Relief appealed to the BC Supreme Court, where the tribunal’s decision was overturned. At that time, Rape Relief did not dispute the allegation that it rejected Nixon because she is trans, but argued it was allowed to do so. Nixon appealed to the BC Court Of Appeal, who upheld the province’s Supreme Court decision in 2005.

The argument here is that a woman raised with male privilege has such a different experience that she can’t relate to or counsel cisgendered women who’ve suffered violence. (Well, that’s the relatively benign argument. We won’t get into the paranoid “feminist” arguments about “appropriation” and “infiltration”, or the otherwise outright offensive arguments.) The reality is far from this simple.

The reality is that there is no universal, essential experience of womanhood. The mainstream American feminist movement has often and rightly been criticized for ignoring the experience of women of color, queer women, poor women. None of us have grown up or been raised the same way. None of our experiences have been exactly the same or meant the same thing to us, impacted us in the same ways.

My experience as a biracial, queer, ex-Mormon feminist can’t be compared to a straight, white, Christian woman. It can’t be compared to a woman who grew up in poverty, or another culture, or another part of the world. We are not the same. There is no unifying thread which connects us, nothing magical or spiritual binding us all in sisterhood with one another except those threads we weave ourselves, those bridges that we build, and our shared humanity, which, might I remind you, we also share with men.

What is this experience transwomen can never have or understand which makes them not “real” women in the social sense? We can’t argue it’s dependent on the presence or absence of female sex organs; there are women with birth defects and women without wombs. There are women who have been victims of Female Genital Mutilation. There can be women born with ambiguous genitalia. And, so, there can be women with male sex organs, too.

An appeal to blood is useless here for the reasons stated above: not all women, even cisgendered women, bleed. Some women have reproductive health issues. Some women have been through menopause. Not all of us bleed the same way. I can hardly relate to women for whom menstruation is a horrible, agonizing ordeal — for me, it is something I hardly even think about. Given the huge amount of physical variation, the ultimately subjective nature of our interactions with our own bodies, I hardly think a woman born with a penis can be much different from me than a woman with endometriosis. Both are foreign. Both are certainly women.

There is no biological congruence. There is no identical socialization. Even women who have endured the same event will process it differently, come to different conclusions. Nobody is an island, but neither are any of us the same. It’s been argued that no one can ever truly understand another person, and I agree. Given that, how can anyone really believe there’s anything essential that ties all women together? Even if we all emerged from the same common background, I don’t think that would be true.

Those who claim transwomen experience some overwhelming male privilege which makes them incapable of understanding women, empathizing with women, being part of women’s groups, I think are woefully ignorant of what it means to grow up gender-variant or queer.

Growing up queer means that you know from a very young age that you do not belong, that there is something wrong with the world or wrong with you. Girls who are tomboys are teased, discouraged from pursuing their interests, but in many ways are tolerated because it’s okay for a girl to want to be a like a boy, to be “better”, more “masculine”, as long as she understands that she can still never be as good as the genuine article. But effeminate boys? There’s nothing worse in the world; a boy acting like a girl? That’s a huge step down. Being “feminine” is wrong, bad, less. Women are flawed and men who resemble women in any small or superficial way are not treated kindly.

Male privilege looks very different when people think that you’re a fag (or, for that matter, a butch dyke). You’re a target, you are harassed and tormented, beat up, murdered, simply because you challenged some sociopath’s sense of propriety. Is that privilege? Is it a privilege to be gay-bashed? Certainly, most transwomen will have had some advantages in their upbringing, but I can hardly fault any woman who wasn’t raised thinking she was worthless, thinking she simply wasn’t as good, that she was dumber, more emotional, capable of less, an object for the pleasure of men. Any woman, trans or cisgendered, who has managed to escape these messages has nothing but my astonished pleasure for her good fortune (and it’s ignorant to assume that transwomen haven’t had some exposure at least by proxy before transition, and that they don’t experience life the same way any other woman does afterward, at least if they “pass” — if they don’t, I think their experience is much worse).

Kimberly Nixon is post-op. Any arguments revolving around the presence of a penis are at this point incorrect and irrelevant (although they’d be bigoted and wrong in any case). Any arguments about her experience as a woman, her ability to empathize with female victims of violence, are similarly flawed. Transwomen experience life as women, and are disproportionately victims of prejudice, discrimination, violence. This leaves only her experience growing up as justification for the actions of Vancouver Rape Relief.

None of us have had the same experience growing up. None. Most of us have trouble understanding the forces which formed other people, looking through that lens sympathetically to try to understand why people are the way that they are, or are not. Kimberly is no different from any other woman in that regard, and it is no excuse for this kind of shameful prejudice, especially at the hands of so-called feminists.

I have said it before and I hate that it’s necessary, but I will say it again, as often as I must: any feminist who does not fight for the rights of all women is no ally of mine.

I don’t normally post about science fiction related things here, since it’s not really the focus of the blog (although that will probably change since it’s pretty much my life right now), but it is something I’m really into. So, NPR had a story yesterday about James Tiptree, Jr., called The Secret Sci-Fi Life of Alice B. Sheldon. They interviewed the author of a new biography of Tiptree that came out earlier this year. This isn’t news to me, and won’t be to some of you, but I still thought it was really cool to hear something about such an influential female SF writer on a mainstream program.

For those of you who don’t know who she was and don’t want to have to follow the link, I’ll sum up with the written introduction on the NPR page:

Science fiction writer James Tiptree, Jr. earned the reputation of being a male author who understood women.

Tiptree’s stories often addressed gender issues — on Earth and in worlds beyond.

One story in particular involves a woman opting to live with an alien nation, for the sole reason of avoiding the feeling of confinement she has in her male-dominated society.

There was a deep secret behind Tiptree’s sensitivity: In reality, he was a she. Alice B. Sheldon (1915 - 1987) used the male pen name to write in a time when male authors could expect more success in the realm of science fiction.

Julie Phillips wrote James Tiptree, Jr., a biography subtitled: “The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon.” Phillips tells Andrea Seabrook why she was inspired to write the book, more about who Sheldon was and how the nom de plume changed Sheldon’s life.

Tiptree has really been an influence on my life and writing. Not because I’ve been influenced greatly by her style and subject matter, although I do think some of her writing is excellent, but more because her life and approach to it is so fascinating. I’ve always found the “feminine” gender role limiting. Until a few years ago, growing up, I felt I could solely identify with male role models, because I knew of few women who lived the sorts of lives men have always been allowed. It seemed that being female, feminine, limited you to a certain set of expectations, potentials, possibilities. Whereas being male or at least acting like it allowed anything to be possible. Men could do anything, be anyone. Women could be wives, mothers, and love interests. (Failing that, temptresses, witches, and Lady Macbeth. These have always been the feminine archetypes I preferred.)

I grew up in Utah, where gender roles and gendered expectations are alive and well and much more overt than in many other parts of the US, and this profoundly affected me. My mother was surprisingly feminist considering her background, and even though she was a stay at home mother of five (who now regrets her decision not to work), she always told me there was nothing wrong with being a girl and that I could do anything I wanted to do, anything a boy could. This was all well and good, but unfortunately, even if our parents are wonderful they are not the only influences on our life, and what I heard from my mother seemed to contradict the reality that assaulted me every day.

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One continuing source of frustration for me is the fact that in every single “debate” (I use the term loosely) about shaving, makeup, and other (American, white) cultural beauty standards, everyone seems to miss the real point. When I post about it, of course I get the obligatory male response telling me how I need to alter myself to properly fit cultural norms in order to “look my best”. Hell, even other feminists have occasionally posted comments which amount to “well, if women sometimes want to wear heels/whatever to feel pretty…”

The point here is not about high heels. Not about bras. Not about makeup. Not about shaving. Not one of those individual things is at the heart of the matter of what I or other people critical of these beauty norms have really been struggling to say. You know what it’s about?

Bodily integrity. It’s about wanting my body to be seen and respected as a normal human body. It’s about wanting to be accepted as good enough on my own merits.

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I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile. I just didn’t have the heart to finish it or post it, but I need to. So, not quite as timely as it could have been since it’s been a little while since the events I address, but…still worth saying.

I’ve been too depressed by recent events in the news to even feel like writing about them — even though these are things which need to be talked about — but what is there to say? Between the recent violent attacks on young girls in my country (I refuse to call them “school shootings”; I’m from Colorado, and this is no Columbine) and our national legislature’s decision to legitimize the Bush administration’s war crimes, I feel too hopeless to even try. Why bother? No one seems to listen or care; things keep getting worse despite the work of all the amazing activists I know. But that’s just temporary burnout talking. Anyone who actually cares, anyone who actually tries to make the world slightly better, will feel like that sometimes. That doesn’t mean I can stop trying; of course, I can’t. Not standing up for what one believes is right makes one complicit in the whole mess.

If nothing else, here’s what I have to say: the fact that, in 2006, in the fucking United States of America, little girls are being killed by grown men simply for the crime of being born female, should tell us that feminism is still necessary. The fact that, in the US, religious conservatives keep pushing their agenda to prevent women from having any sort of control over their own bodies and health — and hey, people, you realize that women take hormones reasons other than the perverse joy they feel at preventing the implantation of possibly-fertilized eggs, right? to treat PCOS and endometriosis and such? and that by denying them their medication based on your moral principles you’re causing them extreme pain and agony for reasons which have nothing to do with your moral objections, not that your moral objections have any legitimacy anyway? — should tell us that feminism is still necessary.

And, of course, it’s not just here. The other day, I heard a report on the radio about how children in Afghanistan attending co-ed schools are receiving death threats, how little girls have been killed for going to school…go ahead, tell me feminism isn’t necessary. Just try to look at that and tell me that we can’t specifically promote the rights of women as human beings, that women and men are equal, that we should be “equalists” instead of “feminists”. Oh, but of course, I forget: we’re not like “them”. This is the US, not the Taliban, and anyway, we’ve liberated the people there, haven’t we…right?

But the people who would point to that as an example of a place where feminism is needed and then claim that US feminism is misguided, misplaced, useless… The way this place is headed, I can see that kind of future as a distinct possibility.* We’ve already fallen too close for comfort. And damned if I’m going to quietly allow myself to be put in a place where I can’t control whether I give birth or how many children I have, where I risk being killed on a daily basis simply for being born female (or not-white, or queer — but then, aren’t we there anyway?).

Those are only the worst extremes of what I’m afraid of. There’s smaller things, more insidious: I live in a place where girls being discouraged or prevented from developing their abilities in certain areas is said to reflect their inherent aptitude; where woman and girls are encouraged to endanger their health or kill themselves in pursuit of an impossible vision of ideal beauty (which seems, by all accounts, to consist of not-exisiting); where if women are not sex objects, they have no value, and if they are sex objects, they have no value. Where women and people of color and everyone who’s just not lucky enough to be born a straight, cisgendered, white male is considered by many to be responsible for their own oppression.

For all these reasons and many, many more: feminism is necessary.

1. I don’t mean this to come across in a “oh my god I don’t want to be like those poor brown women” kind of way, but in a “oh my that’s terrible, I want to help, and I also need to protect my own interests” kind of way. Just in case there’s any confusion.

1. Why is liking to cook a gendered behavior and why is it unfeminist to take care of my house? Because, really, these are practical life skills and something that needs to be done by someone. This isn’t abstract theory. I’d be lying if I claimed there was no pressure whatsoever to take care of my house, but when I’m the only one with the free time to do it and I don’t actually mind, and if my siblings do their chores also and the boys do as much if not more housework than the girls, what exactly is the problem? Christ. You’d think wanting to eat decent home-cooked food or not wanting the kitchen to be buried in dirty dishes was some sort of crime against feminism. (And I’m not even supportive of so-called “choice feminism”!) I mean…really, people, it’s just something that needs to be taken care of, preferably by someone who doesn’t mind taking care of it.

Now when everyone else refuses to clean the litter box, that’s what pisses me off. Which reminds me…ugh.

2. Why are there no decent candidates running for…well, anything? The gubernatorial election in Colorado is specifically what I’m talking about. So there’s the Republican candidate, terrifying in most every way, and the Democrat who, true to the party line, is less evil and doesn’t seem to actually stand for anything without scowling about how he disapproves personally first (see: stance on abortion), and then there’s the Libertarian who is great on women’s issues and gay rights but is, well, Libertarian, and thus whom I cannot vote for in good conscience as the commie I am.

Okay, that’s oversimplifying. Her stance on immigration terrifies me, as does the general Libertarian philosophy regarding social welfare programs, which she definitely supports. Which brings me to the big point: all the candidates have fairly inadequate platforms regarding immigration. This is a big deal to me. I get to hear people using “immigration” as a thinly-veiled pretense for their racism every single day. “Immigration” as an excuse to ignore the complex race and class issues that are actually at the core of the matter. “Immigration” as a front to promote hate speech against not only undocumented workers, but pretty much anyone who vaguely resembles what they imagine lurks south of the border (where everything is Mexico), which includes anyone with darker skin, a Spanish-sounding last name, and/or a funny accent — because if you’re not white you must be “illegal”. No other explanation for it.

And I’m sick to death of this. Beauprez’s the worst; his website from what I’ve seen (and I didn’t linger very long) seems to be fairly tame compared to the propaganda his campaign’s been plastering all over Denver. It’s all xenophobic, reactionary hate speech. That’s all it is. At least Ritter’s only committed to enforcing the laws we already have, punishing companies who hire undocumented workers and the like, which I can support from a legal perspective even if it isn’t particularly useful or humane. (My personal opinions and proposed solutions? Maybe another time.)

I hate feeling these split loyalties. I can’t find a candidate who seems anywhere near decent on all the issues personally important to me: gay rights, women’s rights, immigration, and a general commitment to helping people in poverty you know, not starve or die from preventable illnesses and that kind of thing. The one that’s okay on the first two is terrible on the others. The one that’s more moderate on the last two is not that great on the first two. There was recently a post on the feminist community on LiveJournal urging people to vote for Winkler because she’s unabashedly pro-choice…without realizing that, for some of us affected by other issues, that’s not enough on its own. When I hear people talking about how “Mexicans are less than human” (actual quote) and about what they want to do to “those Hispanics”, you know what? Whether I, the queer Latina girl who mostly doesn’t like guys and isn’t sexually active, can get an abortion is the lesser threat to my immediate wellbeing.

3. If you have to preface a statement with “I’m not racist…” whatever comes out of your mouth next is almost certainly racist, and if not, it’s at the least going to be ignorant, poorly thought-out, problematic, or insensitive. Ditto for “I’m not sexist”, “I’m not homophobic”, etc. I know it’s been said before but it bears repeating.

3. a) If you feel the need to include someone’s race when talking about them in a situation where you would never think of attaching a racial slur if they were white, you’re racist. Sorry. (Or not. Yeah, not sorry.)

3. b) If you don’t want to be around me because you feel “judged” because I think you’re racist, maybe you shouldn’t say racist things. No, I’m not going to feel bad for leveling judgement after you just said something horribly offensive about the ethnic group I happen to, um, belong to. Especially if by “horribly offensive” I’m just trying to be polite about the fact that you just told me you want to commit what would legally constitute a hate crime.

4. Okay, I think I feel better until something else comes to mind.

5. Oh yeah, and I’m going to see the Dalai Lama speak tomorrow and that’s going to be really, really awesome. This isn’t an annoyance…unless maybe we start talking about how I feel about Tibet. I guess that’s another discussion for another time.