Quote of the Day

From the First Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling finding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional:

"A second rationale of a [put forth in justification of DOMA] is to support child-rearing in the context of stable marriage. The evidence as to child rearing by same-sex couples is the subject of controversy, but we need not enter the debate. Whether or not children raised by opposite-sex marriages are on average better served, DOMA cannot preclude same-sex couples in Massachusetts from adopting children or prevent a woman partner from giving birth to a child to be raised by both partners.  

Although the House Report is filled with encomia to heterosexual marriage, DOMA does not increase benefits to opposite-sex couples--whose marriages may in any event be childless, unstable or both--or explain how denying benefits to same-sex couples will reinforce heterosexual marriage. Certainly, the denial will not affect the gender choices of those seeking marriage. This is not merely a matter of poor fit of remedy to perceived problem, but a lack of any demonstrated connection between DOMA's treatment of same-sex couples and its asserted goal of strengthening the bonds and benefits to society of heterosexual marriage."

That is, if children "do best when raised by their moms and dads" really was a prime reason for enacting DOMA, then it would have been logical for DOMA to (a) have prevented same-sex couples from raising children via adoption or reproductive technologies, (b) to have provided additional incentives for men and women to marry and remain married, (c) to have provided disincentives for unstable heterosexuals to procreate, and (d) to prevent childless couples and male-female couples unable to procreate from marrying.

DOMA did not, and does not, do any of these things. It "simply" prevents those in legal, same-sex marriages from accessing the federal benefits of marriage, available to male-female married couples, on the sole basis of the sex of their partners.

 Thus, the DOMA "solution" to the "problem" that same-sex marriage allegedly presents society, namely the "deinstitutionalization of marriage," is not a rational remedy for that "problem."

 Can those who oppose SSM nonetheless agree that DOMA does not represent a good, legitimate, or logical connection toward its purported goal of strengthening the bonds between children and their biological parents?

[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog; Alas]

Lady Bicycle Faces

I have no idea if this is real or not, but I find it amusing.

It's a list of don'ts for women on bicycles from 1895.

Note that it's not a list of "dos and don'ts." Just a list of don'ts. Like it was threatening enough for women to ride bicycles at all, so Gawd forbid they ride bikes on their own terms.

Some of my favorites include:

• Don’t criticize people’s "legs." [Not sure why "legs" is in quotation marks! Were they called something else back then?]
• Don’t cultivate a "bicycle face."
• Don’t appear to be up on “records” and “record smashing.” That is sporty.

Note, too, if you read the entire list, how the list polices gender so that a woman's bicycling behavior would accord with stereotypes of femininity. The lady biker is ordered not to boast, not to wear a "man's cap," not to refuse assistance, and not to race. Society granted that women could bike, as long as they remained humble, non-competitive, the opposite of men/masculinity, weak, and in need of help. That is, as long as they remained different from, and not in competition with, men.

Femininity, the conventional narratives tell us, is a woman's "natural" state of being. And yet, look at all these rules that women have to learn so that they may properly display traits that are allegedly inherent in them. Doesn't the existence of these lists beg the question of how inherent "femininity" is in women? Wouldn't women, being women, Already Just Know how to properly Bicycle While Woman?

Perhaps the most amusing part of the whole thing is that, within this list of commandments telling women what kind of clothing and accessories not to wear, how not to wear their hair, what kind of faces not to make while biking, we also see the following order:

"Don’t imagine everybody is looking at you."

I can't imagine why a lady biker would ever think that.

It's just so classic, isn't it?

Women are excessively body policed, gender policed, and judged and then implied to be self-absorbed for being aware of that fact. Women have to know what the Special Lady Rules are, but we can't let on that we know that the rules exist and that people are holding us to those rules.


Can't. Fucking. Win.

Book Review- Daughters of Zion: A Family's Conversions to Polygamy

[Content note: Religiously-motivated abuse]

A month or so ago, I finished the book Daughters of Zion: A Family's Conversions to Polygamy, by Kim Taylor.

In all, I found the content to be somewhat difficult to get through. Taylor's family circumstances, of converting from mainstream Mormon faith in the US to a fringe Mormon polygamist sect living primarily in a poor Mexican colony, are mostly sad.

She presents the social structure as one in which many of the men had multiple wives, many children, and inadequate means to support their families, while the women lived in poverty and dedicated almost their entire waking lives to child-rearing and performing household tasks. Many of the houses in the colony, for instance, lacked plumbing and running water. And, because the colony lacked jobs, the men were often away from their families for months at a time. Many of the women who still lived in the US, meanwhile, were living in government housing projects and surviving partly on government benefits as "single" women with children.

While the men were biological fathers, many of them did not seem to actively father, or parent, their children in any meaningful way. And how could they, having sometimes 30 or 40 children and not actually living with their families? Taylor recounts a story of one of the male church leaders who, in particular, had many children. Once, one of this man's wives was shopping at the colony store. While she went to pick up a few items, she placed her child near the storekeeper's chair. The man walked into the store and saw the baby:

"He stopped to admire the child. 'What a cute baby,' he told the storekeeper. 'Whose baby is this?'

He was started to see [one if his wives] appear as if out of nowhere shouting furiously, "It's yours, you idiot!'"

With that background, I was struck by two inter-related themes throughout this book:

One, polygamist societies where it is men, and only men, who take multiple wives, with the man having a "separate" marriage with each woman, while the wives are married only to him, are incredibly male-centric.

That may be obvious to note, but I think it needs to be noted since some people compare same-sex relationships to polygamist relationships like these. These relationships are not relationships of equals. Nor are these families child-centric or family-centric. They are about entitling men to sexual and marriage partners, so they can have as many biological children as possible while doing the least amount of parenting.

Women, unlike the men in this sect, were supposed to transcend the human emotion of jealousy and were "expected to share their husbands willingly," sometimes "actively court[ing] new wives for their husbands." Taylor describes some of the women, whose husbands were more like visitors than husbands or fathers, as "unhappy" and "love-starved," Causing Taylor to observe:

"Yet the men would be treated to the best that their families had to offer during their rare and coveted visits. I wondered: Was this why so many of the otherwise good-natured men, like my brother-in-law Paul, seemed to be growing steadily more self-centered and egotistical as they became less aware and considerate of the hardships and suffering their women and children faced each day?"

In my conversation last year with Vyckie Garrison, a woman who left the patriarchal Quiverfull movement, she echoed a similar sentiment, noting that while some men build themselves up within a religion as being like Jesus/God, "it is the wife and children who end up doing all the Jesus-like self-sacrificing … to the point of self-abnegation and burn-out." Over time, because of the way her religion "enshrined the supreme importance of males," Garrison lost the vocabulary for being able to name and recognize the abuse her husband was inflicting upon her.

Taylor, too, was taught (and, for some time seemed to believe) that, while men played central roles in Life and After-Life, she was kind of just "along for a timeless journey - making sacrifices necessary to be included in [her] husband's kingdom in which he reigned." She, like many of the women, seemed to see herself as a supporting cast member in a Big Man's Big Story.

How could men not get power trippy, egotistical, and abusive with that narrative framing their lives?

The second, and related, theme is that one of the best ways to entrap women and girls into this lifestyle seemed to be for much older men to "court" and then marry teenage girls and then to quickly impregnate them, which would solidify the girls' ties to this religion and society.

Imagine a 16-year-old girl with 2 new babies and no job experience, living in poverty in a remote Mexican colony. What are her options to "escape"?

Taylor recounts that she was 15 "the first time that a man of the church had shown interest" in her, and the man was the already-married father of one of her friends. The men, by the way, seemed simultaneously tacky and predatory, as they gifted the female friends of their own children with chocolates and cards, expecting the girls to be receptive and totally-grown-up.

Sadly, because this male-created religion/society granted men the near-total entitlement to view all girls as potential sexual and marriage partners, Taylor didn't seem to recognize the potentially-abusive power mismatch between herself and the man. Nor did her family or her society seem to have taught her many strategies for deflecting this sort of attention, which she did not seem to want, from men.

Taylor articulates the religious beliefs of this faith, throughout, only in general terms.

For instance, in reference to women's role in this religion, Taylor writes that as soon as her sister recovered from her near-fatal experience of giving birth, she was soon "well enough to continue on in her mission of bearing children to be raised in the church." More specific beliefs, the ones that the male church authority figures bickered over, debated, and killed others about (seriously), were left un-articulated in this book.

As a reader, I wondered if such omissions were intentional or if Taylor was even aware of, or fully knew, the specific beliefs of her (former) religion. It did not seem to be women's place to fully understand the religion, as many of the men seemed to make the beliefs intentionally esoteric in order to build up and maintain male power while the women handled all of the menial, day-to-day affairs of, you know, ensuring the continuity of the society.

Dear Internet,

So says Pema Chodron, in When Things Fall Apart: 

"Opinions are opinions, nothing more or less. We can begin to notice them, and we can being to label them as opinion, just as we label thoughts as thoughts. Just by this simple exercise we are introduced to the notion of egolessness. All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are. 

To have even a few seconds of doubt about the solidity and absolute truth of our own opinions, just to begin to see that we have opinions, introduces us to the possibility of egolessness. We don't have to make these opinions go away, and we don't have to criticize ourselves for having them. We could just notice what we say to ourselves and see how much of it is just our particular take on reality which may or may not be shared by other people.

....

It's up to us to sort out what is opinion and what is fact; then we can see intelligently. The more clearly we can see, the more powerful our speech and our actions will be. The less our speech and actions are clouded by opinion, the more they will communicate...."

From a spiritual standpoint, I would refer to myself as an agnostic, non-dogmatic Buddhist-leaning person. And, the above quote is a pretty good example as to why that it is, for me.

Here, notice how Chodron isn't telling us what The Truth is for All People Everywhere. In fact, she (and this spiritual leader is a woman, imagine that!) advises that we notice how we think, that we observe reality, and that we figure things out for ourselves.

Neither is her advice a commandment issued from upon high. It's a suggestion, and it's one in which she doesn't claim that something Very Bad will happen to us in our eternal afterlife if we do not heed it.

In encouraging free thought and questioning, Chodron's writing is devoid of the insecurity, the lack of trust in humanity, that mars so many religions, especially those of the fundamentalist type.


Welp, anyway, your regularly-scheduled opinion-sharing will resume tomorrow, here in Fannie's Room.

Today's Random, Deep Thoughts

So, while I was away a couple weeks ago, I wondered if I would miss Big Things on Internet.

When I returned, about 949 blog posts had added up in my Google Reader. But that's okay because about 412 of them all repeated that Obama had "come out" in favor of marriage equality. I actually started to become annoyed at hearing it over and over, if you can believe it. (#ungrateful?)

Then, when I chimed in, like everyone else, about that North Carolina pastor who opined about sex-segregating the "lesbians and queers" inside an electrified fence, a commenter here chimed in to tell me I was being "dishonest" about calling his Big Plan eliminationist.

Dude was, after all, going to drop in food for us.

*blink blink blink*

One hears a lot of, um, interesting ideas on Internet. And, well, you know how progressive feminist types are often accused of Looking For Things To Get Mad About. The above comment kind of struck me as Looking For Things To Not Get Mad About.

There's a time to give one's opposition the benefit of the doubt. However, when a pastor is opining about removing a group of people from society, and ensuring that they can neither inter-mingle with the Normal People nor procreate, that is not one such time.

Then, over at Family Scholars Blog, I got into my approximately 357th Internet conversation with a commenting n00b in which I had to explain that setting boundaries around what types of blog comments I find hostile and, thus, unwelcome following my posts, does not actually constitute a violation of one's precious Free Speech Rights.

The more I engage with people on Internet, the more I come to question the ways in which I have historically divided people with respect to political issues.

I have a sincere appreciation for those on the other side of any given issue who share the same values I do regarding civility and respect. At times, I feel more allied with, say, SSM opponents who are civil than I do with SSM proponents who are hostile.  Sometimes I feel as though it isn't Team Equality versus Team Bigotry, but Team Civility versus Team Hostility.

In addition, the more I do this blogging and Internet thing, the more it is reinforced in me that it is nearly impossible to have a productive or worthwhile conversation with someone on the "other side" if I have to spend the bulk of my time defending myself against hostility and/or continual accusations of bad faith. Generally, I have good intentions. I write exactly what I mean to say and only what I mean to say. I try to be clear, direct, and assertive. And still, people continually tell me what I'm intending or suggesting or Really Saying. They accuse me (and others) of being "disingenuous" or "out to deceive" or "insincere." As though they know.

Many people do not seem to know how to set boundaries in conversations, or don't know that they can, while many disregard other people's boundaries once they are set. Many people are surprised when others, especially women, do know how to set boundaries and actually expect them to be respected. Many people view boundary-setting as hyper-sensitivity or, at the other end of things, as hostility.

(I don't know. People aren't logical).

Given that the political landscape in the US is such that individual autonomy and boundary-setting/respecting are very low priorities, it does not surprise me that those who set boundaries are widely mocked, ridiculed, and told that they're hyper-sensitive by Bad-Ass Tough Guys (And Sometimes, Gals) Who Don't Care About People Abusing, Harassing, or Violating Them.

(Apparently).

Even though I know how Internet is, I continue to be disappointed by it at times.

I enjoyed my time away.

A part of me questioned whether to come back at all, largely because of all of these thoughts I've shared with you today. I don't say that fishing for people to compliment me into continuing to blog. Mostly, I wrote this post just to share what's been on my mind lately and to let you know that my tolerance for jerks has been severely decreased. My tolerance for unwarranted accusations has been decreased.

So many people think they are owed space, on their own terms, to vent their oftentimes hostile opinions in Internet venues that other people have created, put work into, and built. And so they likewise think that it's a human rights/free speech violation for, say, a blog owner to set boundaries around what kinds of communication is and is not welcome in the spaces they/we create.

And, frankly, that entitlement pisses me off. If one is capable of writing dozens of comments on someone else's blog within the span of 24 hours, then it's likely ze is capable of starting hir own blog. A blog where they can build up their own audience through their own efforts, rather than other people's efforts, and say whatever the hell they want.

My blog is not an affirmative action program for jerks.

So yes, to those looking for a "gotcha!" (and aren't so many people on Internet looking for those?), this makes me "intolerant."

I'm okay with being intolerant of jerks.

Anyway, talk about any of this, or whatever, today!

Quote of the Day

"Listening to MRAs talking about feminism is a bit like sitting in on a book club in which no one has read the book." -David Futrelle

Oh, come on now, David. 

It's not that they haven't read... something. It's that they're basically the only ones still poring over and parroting selected quotes from The SCUM Manifesto and The Women's Room, neither of which they've actually read in their entirety, and pretending that these two books represent today's Feminist Canon.

LOL.

I see this MRA ignorance repeatedly.

Aside from their aggression and entitlement, the biggest failing of the MRA movement in particular, and so many anti-feminist personalities in general, isn't that they disagree with feminism. It's that they don't even know feminism well enough to render informed, thoughtful critiques of it.

Which is why the mental image that comes to my mind whenever I hear "MRA" is always a picture of a toddler closing his eyes, putting his head down, and windmilling his arms through a crowd of grown-ups in order to show everyone how very angry he is.

He just doesn't have the tools, discipline, or know-how to engage his strong feeeeeelings in a more civilized, productive manner.

Both Sides Are Just As Bad?

[Content note: eliminationist rhetoric]

So says North Carolina's Pastor Charles Worley, after the passing of the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage*:

"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers, but I couldn't get it passed through Congress. Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out…And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out."

Just like when, right after that ban on practicing Christianity passed, that one Gay Rights Organization Director gleefully told his members that next on the Gay Agenda was a plan to round up all the Christians, put them on a ship, and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, all to a chorus of "amens" by LGBT people.

In all seriousness, I am fully aware that many people who oppose full equality for LGBT people do not agree with, and might even publicly condemn, Worley's statement.

My point here is twofold.

This sort of rhetoric is not rare. They way homosexuality is discussed at Family Scholars Blog (where I guest blog) is simply not the way it's discussed and debated in the vast majority of venues that I, and many other LGBT people, have participated in.

And two, it is a false moral equation to compare this sort of eliminationist, hostile rhetoric, backed as it sometimes is by religious organizations that cry "anti-Christian bigotry" whenever the state grants even the tiniest concession to LGBT advocates, to when LGBT people and organizations call anti-equality advocates (accurately or inaccurately) bigots.

*If you watch the linked video, note how the newscaster warns that the video of the preacher speaking "might be offensive to some." 

Might be.

To some.

Ah yes. All of us over-sensitive PC Gone Too Far types who object to things like exterminating groups of people.

Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog