Serial Experiments Lain: Episode 01 - Weird

Well, right off the bat I think this is definitely something that’s in my “stuff I like” wheelhouse.  From the opening minute right through to the closing minute of this first episode Serial Experiments Lain presents a very dream-like yet tangible world that puts one into a defensive or neutral state while they wait for the story to unfold.  Much of what were shown are things we are certainly able to identify but each of them is a little off or we’re made to feel a little unsure about them in different ways.  Shadowed areas are dotted with spatters of blood (or paint).  The soundtrack and audio ambiance move back and forth between eerie or unsettling sounds and muted human speech as it fades from relevance.

The episode opens with a collection of scenes that provide a snapshot of what looks to be a fairly typical evening in a downtown Japanese metropolis with the one exception (may not be an exception when you really think about it) of a yet unnamed girl, clearly traumatized, moving through the city.  As she braces herself against the wall of an ally we see a group of girls seemingly pointing and laughing at this particular girl which gives us the impression that bullying is at least part of the trauma she’s been dealing with.  As more snapshots of the downtown world flash before us we soon find the distraught girl standing atop a building looking out over the hustle and bustle.

All up until this point we’ve had no dialog or flashbacks to explain what is going on, who this girl is, why she’s distraught, and why she’s found her way to the top of a building but at no point do you feel out of the loop; with quick visuals, excellent animation, and eerie presentation we’re given just enough to be able to come up with a pretty good idea of what’s going on.  As well as what’s about to happen.

As she stands atop the building words flash across the screen with “you don’t have to stay here” being the most poignant bit and when we come back to the girl there is a smile on her face.  The smile is one of bliss but just as everything in this world is presented with a taste of uncomfortable uncertainty this “bliss” also feels a little off.  Just as this fact crosses the girls mind and she feels that sense of bliss it appears to be enough for her to decide to take that final, fatal step.

Time, then, pushes forward and we are taken to a point in time that is a few days later and find ourselves introduced to Lain, our protagonist, who is just arriving at school.  The eerie feeling continues which plays a role in maintaining a sense of consistent discomfort that is enjoyable in a strange way.  Lain is moving through the world in a semi-trancelike state; she is disconnected from those around her and those around her appear to disconnect from her as well.  I never got the impression that this was a deliberate, malicious attempt to ostracize Lain but a product of her Jr. High age group who are all trying to figure out themselves amidst the chaos of adolescence.

As Lain takes in the classroom atmosphere we become more and more aware of a crying classmate somewhere in the back of the classroom.  What is interesting about this scene is that we are fully aware of this crying student at the very beginning of the scene but as we’re following Lain and seeing the world through her eyes we don’t really focus on it until Lain focuses on it.  Then, even when Lain turns her attention to this part of the classroom the delivery of information is slow, sloppy, and delivered rather tersely by another student.  This explanation happens both in a conversation Lain has with another student and through some things a different student is saying while attempting to console their crying classmate.

What we end up finding out is that the student who had been crying started to receive emails from the girl who jumped from the building in the opening after her reported death.  Lain, who appears to take this information in stride, offers to reaction either way; does not dismiss the information and does not scoff at the potential of it being truth.  From how Lain is presented to us this doesn’t seem out of place as Lain’s disconnection seems to have more to it as the world seems to be fading in and out of what Lain can see throughout the episode.  People move from being distinguishable to being silhouettes to fading out completely while information presented to her, on a chalkboard (for instance), is only visible for a short while before it fades.

Lain is informed, before the scene changes to Lain’s home, that more than the crying student have been receiving mail from the girl who died, who’s name we learn is Chisa Yomoda, and that Lain should check to see if she’s received anything as well.  After getting a glimpse of Lain’s mum (an apparent overworked and disillusioned mum), Sister (who’s a bit older and disinterested in family), and Lain’s Dad (who is shown as being only interested in family in terms of having met some social obligation), Lain turns on her home computer to find a message for Chisa waiting for her.  Lain, again, takes this new information in without any hesitation and begins communicating with Chisa through email.

The episode closes when Lain is again at school and staring at a fading chalkboard when, instead of fading completely, there is a message from Chisa, potentially, asking Lain to meet her on the web.

At this point I’d like to say that Lain’s parents are especially interesting in that they appear to have very little interest in each other yet have no real ill will guiding that lack of interest.

Lain’s father is lost in a yet-to-be-explained world of computers/internet as he’s more excited about a new network (I would assume) card than he is about seeing his family.  He appears to be involved in family only in terms of having seeing it as his social obligation to start one and provide for it, leaving the day-to-day managing of it to Lain’s mother.  Lain’s mother is lost in what appears to be a state of emotional numbness; whether she’s numb from a life she never got to live (forced into marriage), numb from a family who is distant from her (forcing her to shut off her emotions), or numb from some other, yet unknown, trauma is all still up in the air.  However, any of this uncertainty surrounding the parents is presenting in a very tantalizing way; one wants to know more but we’re going to be made to wait and see how these things unfold.  Lain’s sister wasn’t given much space and the only piece I really got from her was that she’s playing out a very stereotypical older teenager mentality; emotionally distant, thinking she’s got it all figured out, and sees the family as a burden on her burgeoning social status.

Overall, the first episode has had a really strong opening and I hope, as the series continues, that the storytelling follows the same style.  Information is communicated to the viewer in indirect ways that feel obvious and are, in a strange way, very clear but never feel too on-the-nose; the viewer is drawn in to paying attention but doesn’t have their hand held.  I’m very interested to see what comes next and it took a great deal of willpower to avoid powering through the first disc.  If you have any thoughts or comments on the episode or my review feel free to share them.

Uncensored, feminist-lens thought for this episode: “why the fuck is Lain naked and in the fetal position for the ending credits?! What?! You needed to get some industry standard sexualization in but couldn’t fit it into the story?! JFC…..I wonder why it was hard to fit in? Could it have something to do with it being completely useless and sketchy as fuck bullshit that we’re better off without? Fuck.”

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Serial Experiments Lain / Anime Reviews

So I would call myself an anime fan but I would also want to point out that it's always been a bit of a infrequent part of my life.  When I do find anime I can enjoy I rarely watch anything else then when whatever I was watching comes to an end it'll probably be months before I find something else I enjoy.  It's been going on like this since I first encountered the stuff when I rented Ninja Scroll at the local Rogers Video many years ago.  What always contributed to my hiatus' from anime was some of the fandom surrounding the genre and there not really being a community of folks I could identify with when it came to discussing a particular show.

Now I'm not going to sit here and brood all over the place with some "woe-is-me, no one thought about anime like I did" kind of egotistical garbage.  What bothered me was that regardless of what anime it was, there always seemed to be something off about any show I watched; whether I enjoyed it or not there was always something that bothered me that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  Since learning about feminism and it becoming a lens that I view the world through I'm now able to understand a little better what was so off about the anime I watched.  For the most part, anime is like any other industry in a patriarchal world, sexist and misogynist at it's core with much of it so normalized that many creators and fans barely recognize it.

Since gaining a feminist lens some anime I watched in the past doesn't quite stand the test of time while others I've found seemed to be stories I could appreciate more.  Even the anime that I enjoyed that didn't quite hold up in terms of it's use of harmful or tired tropes ended up being fun things to go back to because it was so easy to see through some of the stereotypes playing out in them; situations where you're fully aware how cliched a particular storyline or character is but are able to enjoy it none-the-less.  As Anita Sarkeesian reminds everyone who watches her videos says: "it is possible to enjoy a piece of media while still being critical of it."

With all of that said, I think I'm going to start watching some favorite anime (as well as some anime I've been meaning to watch) and write some reviews/thoughts about what comes up for me.  I hope to be fairly frequent about it but I can't promise anything unless I find some sort of routine for these.  For my first series I will be watching/reviewing:  Serial Experiments Lain.

For nearly as long as I've been watching anime Serial Experiements Lain has been an anime that's always been on the "to-watch" list but has, amazingly, never been something I've got around to actually watching.  So I think it's fitting that my first one of these would be something that I've been putting off for so long.  I'll move through the series, probably writing something about each episode, with my feminist lens fully active and see what comes up.  I fully welcome questions or thoughts or challenges from any who feels inclined to do so.  Not sure where this will go but I suppose we'll see.

How mainstream media erases social justice progress

I can't really put into words how much the attitude of "this world is too politically correct these days" or "people really can't take a joke any more" bothers me; it's like trying to explain a colour or emotion to someone.  The closest I can really think of, and it's more of an explanation through example, comes from Byron Clark who ran a little experiment, replacing the term "political correctness" with the phrase "treating people with respect" and showed how off-base political correctness critics are with their comments (a link to an article about this is here).

What I want to write about today, however, is more on how this sort of dialog players out in mainstream media and how I see it ultimately harming any progress that has been made in any social justice movement.  I have seen it play out the same way regardless of what the context is although my primary exposure to this whole thing is around trigger warnings and sexual violence since that's what was my entry point to the social justice movement.

Recently, Amy Poehler's TV show made a very tasteless and harmful joke about child sexual abuse (a link to the article is here) and many people, rightly, turned to social media to voice their frustration.  Now comedy is, and has been, a very touchy topic because apparently there are people out there who think that because we're supposed to laugh at this stuff that it should fall outside the realm of critical analysis.  Part of this, I would imagine, has to do with the fact that comedy is very closely tied to a very normal human need for laughter; there are a fair amount of examples out there of laughter being tied to positive overall mental health.  Moreover, who we find funny and what we laugh at tends to be unique to an individual so critical analysis of whatever it is we're laughing at can feel like a critical analysis of us as individuals.  With that said I'd like to bring in what Anita Sarkeesian has said, repeatedly: it is possible to enjoy a piece of media while still being critical of that same piece of media.  Also, if you find yourself getting defensive because a comedian, show, or piece of media is receiving criticism I'd ask that you check in with yourself and do a little self-exploration into where that is coming from.  After all, you're not the one receiving the criticism, the piece of media you consume is, so there's something else that's really bothering you and I would suggest it has something to do with your own privilege being challenged.

Getting back on track.

Amy Poehler has taken some heat for what happened on the show and I believe that criticism to be completely justified.  "Jokes" about child sexual abuse, sexual assault, or any sexual violence should not be something mainstream media employs as a tool to build character, create suspense, or raise the proverbial stakes in their stories.  Sexual violence, in general, is something that many people have experienced and seeing it trivialized in popular media can being triggering, traumatizing, and provoke victim blaming.  Sexual violence can be shown but a great deal of care and thought must be involved to ensure that what is being depicted is being done for clear and honest reasons, while also ensuring that what's depicted does not sensationalize or eroticize sexual violence.  From what I understand, the child sexual abuse comment in Poehler's show was meant as a way to communicate to the audience that the comic in the show is a particularly inept comic.

If the only way you can communicate that a fictional comic is "inept" is by having them make a "joke" about child sexual abuse then I don't believe you're a very good writer.  This goes for any depiction of sexual violence in the media as well, if you can't make a joke, develop a character, or move a story forward without employing instances of sexual violence I would suggest picking a different career.

Unfortunately, mainstream media loves this sort of thing because it can take legitimate criticism of a very harmful mistake by producers and use it to dismiss and belittle the criticism and it's source.  Amy Poehler has been anointed by mainstream media as a feminist icon, which is something they like to do, and like every other "leader" mainstream media has picked out for feminism they tend to evaluate the merits of feminism by this person and this person alone.  So long as their successful the narrative tends to ignore the feminist support or involvement and does so until this "leader" makes a mistake in some form or another.  Then one of two things tends to happen: they dismiss the leader entirely or they dismiss the criticism as being a sign of a movement being "too sensitive" and prone to "toxic infighting."

With the articles cited above, we're seeing the latter of the two in this case.

Mainstream media is happy to tow the social justice movement's line so long as it's not making anyone uncomfortable (like Emma Watson's UN address, for instance) but the moment some critical dialogue is needed mainstream media cuts bait and, ironically, overreacts.  A large aspect of the feminist movement, as well as any social justice movement (although it's hard to honestly separate them if we consider intersectionality), is accountability.  Accountability is key because it means that at any given time care is being taken to acknowledge privilege and take steps that are being motivated by an intention to dismantle systemic oppression.  Accountability isn't, however, a fun or comfortable thing; in fact, if comfort and fun is a factor then I'd argue that accountability isn't precisely being consciously involved.

Unfortunately for social justice movements, the nuances of accountability are not sexy and are hard to fit into short, punchy, "click-baity" headlines or quick buzzfeed-esque, pseudo-social consciousness raising articles that mainstream media rely on so heavily.  If they can't summarize it in two minutes they're not interested.  Moreover, if they can paint it as in-fighting then they can dismiss the movement and maintain the status quo in one fell swoop.  So, once again, we are seeing critics of Amy Poehler's show being written off as "over-sensitive" and the movements they represent being dismissed as childishly unfocused.

I've often wondered how certain things like how the feminist movement has carried this stigma of being entirely about "man hating" through the decades, well I would have to say that situations like this seem to offer, at least, a partial explanation.

I would encourage anyone who's seen articles on this situation to look a little deeper and read a little more about the criticism.  Mainstream media is lying to you and they are attempting to manipulate you, there's a much more important discussion we need to be having.

Male body image and male privilege

Two articles in as many days have addressed the issue of male body image and part of me is intrigued while another part of me remains dubious.  I remain dubious because of what I've learned about the extent to which women's bodies are policed (just consider all the talk that's been had lately around dress codes in schools) as well as the timing of another article that has made it's way into the mainstream media detailing how an 8 year old girl was told to cover up at a pool.

The headline for the two news bites on male body image are: "Stop ridiculing small penises, says winner of subversive pageant" and "Adam Scott on the naked truth about male body image."  As a male-identified person who has not really measured up to certain male body image standards, I am interested to have a more extensive discussion on how male-identified people feel about their own bodies.  There's certainly some discussion that hasn't been had around this topic and I can tell you, from personal experience, that not having had this discussion has been cause for some frustration and shame.  However, I can't help but notice a difference in how this topic is being approached in these two articles to how body image is approached when were talking about femininity and body image.

It's only in recent months that the discussion around dress codes has taken steps into a more positive direction by focusing on how sexist dress codes actually are because they only ever apply to female-identified people; a quick google search will show that almost all school dress code policies are much more restrictive when it comes to attire that it's traditionally seen as feminine than it is when it comes to attire that's traditionally seen as masculine.  Moreover, the rational for dress codes often cites reasons that generally revolve on "being distracting to male students," which fits into the "boys will be boys" standard that a patriarchal society holds. The assumption is made that the behaviors of male-identified people is not something that can, or should, be looked at, so the responsibility falls to female-identified people to control and manage the behavior of male-identified people.

It's a standard that is blindingly sexist but it has become so normalized that it's difficult to have a discussion around it without falling into patriarchal patterns that invoke rigid, traditional gender stereotypes.  Historically, before the efforts of Feminist activists in this discussion were recognized by mainstream media, the discussion around dress code tended to involve depressingly "balanced" discussion as media folks tried to dismiss the camp that questioned dress codes without looking like they were being dismissive.  It is common practice for the privileged to pit the oppressed group against a voice of the oppressive group and paint the issue as essentially subjective which allows the people of the status quo to dismiss the discussion entirely; when presented with a debate on an issue that has the potential to affect the status quo, people are more inclined to side with the voice maintaining the status quo if they are, or have been, beneficiaries of it.

What we have with these two articles discussing male body image issues, is we have a privileged group finding out, probably for the first time, that there's an issue with how male-identified people view their own bodies.  The winner of the small penis pageant hints at a positive train of thought, although it's not further explored, when he speculates that the reason a woman came up with the idea for the pageant was because women "probably" (his words) have had to think more about body image in their lives.  The narrative is the same in the other article that's an interview with Adam Scott who cites his own personal history with not feeling comfortable with his own body growing up.  There is an awareness that something is wrong and that men do feel insecure about their own bodies, but it doesn't go down the road of discussing why that is and only really stops at "stop making us feel insecure."  These two articles feel more like they're placating the male ego and expressing an element of "me-too-ism" when it comes to the ever growing discussion feminists have been having around how women's bodies are policed.

I should state outright that my issue isn't with the two articles themselves, more so in consideration with the greater context of how mainstream media approaches body image issues these days.  It's hard to be enthusiastic about a topic like male body image, that does need to be discussed in greater depth, when the medium that it's happening in is still running articles that suggest that, for instance, an 8 year old girl should cover up because her body has the potential to trigger arousal in someone else.  The only people to bring up the idea that maybe boys should wear tops as well was the parents of the girl when they suggested that the rule of having to wear tops be applied to children of all genders.

The thing that I'm seeing here is that there's a willingness to talk about the harms of shaming the bodies of male identified people, but an unwillingness to talk about the harm that comes from telling an 8 year old girl she has to cover her body up.  Again, the discussions on male body image didn't invoke a debate between dissenting and assenting voices, while the article discussing the sexualization of a young girl did invoke voices from each camp.  I don't want to suggest that there was any ill intent on behalf of the programmers or editors of the respective publications, I would imagine the best of intentions behind the decisions to run the segments the way they were run.  However, I can't ignore the presence and timing of each of these articles as mainstream media, like everything else, doesn't exist in a vacuum and these articles are evidence of the gendered way in which mainstream media talks about body image.

A further issue I see with how the articles on the Q were carried out revolves around, how to put this, the precedent or context that exists for cis-male body image policing versus cis-female body image policing.  While there would be a particular standard for cis-male people that one could point to, I would argue that there's a lot less active policing going on for cis-male bodies than there is for cis-female bodies.  A cis-male child may feel shame for his body because he has not been able to achieve a certain athletic standard or doesn't look like a cis-male character/celebrity he admires, but he is not being conditioned to monitor his body to the same degree cis-female children are taught to do.  It is not difficult to find examples of young cis-girls feeling pressure to look a certain way very early on in their lives.

Adam Scott is actually proof that cis-males have more than just one type of body to look to as an ideal; there are actually a long list of other cis-male celebrities you could look at (Jack Black, Kevin James, Seth Rogan, Nick Offerman, or Aziz Ansari) who aren't known for having athletic bodies.  Moreover, while there is certainly a celebration of a certain type of athletic cis-male body, cis-men do not need to fit some narrow definition of physical attractiveness to be celebrated.  The story is much different for cis-women.  From politicians, to athletes, to celebrities cis-women's perceived attractiveness is always up for discussion and its regularly used to shame or dismiss accomplishments.

I am all for expanding the discussion on male body image, but any discussion that happens must occur with an awareness of the male privilege that exists around body image

Self-defense, sexual assault, and victim blaming

I've only been working in the sexual violence sector for a short time and even I'm a bit frustrated with how easy it is for traditional sexual assault prevention techniques to gain traction and acceptance in our society, so I can only imagine how frustrating it is for feminists who have been having this discussion for decades might feel.

I don't know how many times I've said this but I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing things that give a person a sense of safety and give them enough peace of mind to move through the world comfortably. This is not about criticizing those techniques that do give someone a sense of safety nor is this about dismissing the people, themselves, who engage in these techniques.

Having said that, working in the sexual violence sector as an educator has allowed me to learn and understand the pitfalls of traditional sexual assault prevention techniques, as feminists working in this sector have been thinking about them and talking about them in great detail for decades.  There is the greater philosophical, societal issue of the unfairness of putting the onus on female-identified people to prevent experiencing assault because society has deemed male-identified people as not responsible for their actions under the "boys will be boys" clause.  There is the in-practice issue of victim blaming that comes up when someone does experience an assault and begins to think it was their own fault because they didn't do one thing on the impractically long list of things female-identified people have been told they need to do to keep themselves safe.  And there is the issue of practicality in that most "prevention" techniques only apply to very specific situations that mostly involve strangers in dark alleys, whereas the more common sexual assault happens where the person choosing to assault knows the person they're assaulting to some degree (friend, coworker, partner, etc).

For the record, when I say "victim blaming" I am referring to the more subtle ways in which society makes a person who experienced abuse feel like they were partly, or totally, responsible for the assault they experienced.  This is done not in overt "this was your fault" finger wagging kinds of ways, but by unthinkingly questioning the behavior of the person who experienced the assault: "are you sure it was assault?" "what were you wearing?" "did you lead him on?" "you're a guy though, don't all guys want sex?" Questions imply judgement and sexual assault is one of the only crimes where society feels justified in questioning the person who experienced the crime and determining to which degree they participated in the crime they experienced.  This is something we don't do for people who are victims of drunk driving, murder, theft, physical assault, identity fraud, or whatever other crime you can think of.

We engage in victim blaming subconsciously because it is a way of distancing ourselves from the assault in that if we can point to what the person who experienced the assault did wrong, then we can make sure we don't experience assault by not making the same mistake they did.  It's understandable because the alternative means accepting that sexual assault is something that we might experience, and that's certainly a scary thought, but this practice ultimately makes it a more hostile and difficult environment for people who have already experienced sexual assault.  Moreover, it creates an environment where the people who actually have control over whether or not an assault takes place, the people who chose to commit it, are not held accountable for their actions.

These are not new insights.  Feminists identified these a long while ago and have been campaigning for years to try to get this points across to society at large in order to push sexual assault into the same category as drunk driving; a category where there is a social consensus that regardless of how sympathetic we might be with the person who committed the crime, we still hold them fully accountable for the decision they made and the harm they caused.

So when you see criticism being directed at the recent study that came out of the University of Windsor and made it's rounds of various mainstream media sites, know that all that I've discussed above is motivating that criticism.  Know that the criticism is coming from a place of this study being nothing new and know that it is an indication of a growing community of people, who want to take this discussion of reducing sexual assault into a more effective realm of holding those who choose to do it accountable.

What is further motivating the criticism of this study and it's quick, broad acceptance, is that there are way too many unanswered questions; there are any number of reasons one could cite to account for the alleged reduction in sexual assaults.  For my part I can't help but think that the more likely reason there is such difference between those who took the training and those who didn't, is that those who took the training and still experienced an assault would be far less likely to report their assault because there is a much higher likelihood that their behavior will be questioned because they took the training:

"Why didn't you use your training?"

"What was it about the training that wasn't effective?"

"Didn't you know what to look out for?"

Moreover, those who took the training and still experienced an assault are likely asking themselves those questions already having grown up in a society that has normalized "prevention" techniques for female-identified people.

Again, I get the appeal.  Those numbers are certainly attractive.  It would be easy to just accept the result of this study, implement the training, and continue on with our lives.  Unfortunately, this would be a lateral move in the efforts to reduce the number of sexual assaults in our society as this kind of thing gets us no closer to holding the people who choose to assault accountable, which is where we need to go in order to really see some change.

SCOTUS and Normalized Violence Against Women

"Because Eminem said it at a concert where people are going to be entertained..."

This reasoning just makes my skin crawl.

The Supreme Court decided to not to convict a man who posted threatening lyrics from singer Eminem on his facebook because they felt the standard to convict was too low, which gives us yet another example of how our society normalizes violence against women.  People have been critical of Eminem and his views about women for many years now and for good reason; the fact that he would write such violent songs about women and the fact that millions of fans would buy the albums already speaks volumes about how normalized violence against women is in our society.

But now, in this case, because some people find lyrics describing violence against women entertaining, the Supreme Court feels that they cannot considered threats and should be protected under Free Speech regulations.  While the man in question may not have said, explicitly, that the lyrics were in reference to his partner, the fact that he would post them publicly in the context of just having split up is troubling.

At least, it should be...

It's troubling because SCOTUS's invokes 'context' as a way to defend the decision not to convict when it's the context of where and when the man is using the lyric that they should be looking at.  The most dangerous time for women experiencing domestic violence is attempting to leave or immediately after having left the relationship, so for this man to be posting lyrics like this publicly has to, or should, be concerning.

Let me put it another way.

If a friend was posting lyrics that were about suicide, would we ignore them because songs are entertainment and there's no subtext to why someone would post lyrics like that publicly?

Music can be a powerful tool for emotional catharsis and there are a lot of feelings that people can have that can be addressed through listening to certain songs.  We all have songs in our music collection that are for very specific times in our lives when there's more negative thoughts going on than normal and we need a bit of extra help.  Internally identifying, validating, and naming those feelings through music can be a healthy way of addressing them.  But, if we start publicizing certain things it changes the context of the situation.  Again, if we consider the situation where someone is posting media that talks about suicide we'd start to get concerned about whomever was posting the material.

Whenever we make something public, part of our motivation is seeking validation for whatever it is that we're sharing; we're testing the waters to see how people feel or react to something that we think is important.  It can be normal things, like vacation photos, or it can be harmful things, like lyrics containing violence against women.  Now, not everyone who posts something alarming on facebook is guaranteed to act on them in every instance, but it should raise some red flags if we know that there's more to the story in terms of who is posting and it should tell us that there's something that needs to be addressed.

Sadly, though, this is a kind of chicken-and-egg example of normalized violence against women; if violence against women is so normalized that it can be considered entertainment, then it shouldn't surprise anyone that SCOTUS wouldn't identify it as threatening.

Linkage:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/supreme-court-elonis-facebook-ruling/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/supreme-court-facebook-threat_n_7470634.html

Your systemic sexism is showing: why no one is defending MLA Deborah Drever

[Author's note: the article contained herein does roll with a very gender binary based theme and I should point out that any of the issues that I've listed here as being problematic for female-identified people are often magnified for anyone who falls outside of traditional binaries regarding gender or sexuality or who is non-white]

A favorite anti-feminist argument is often made that since there are female-identified people in positions that were traditionally held by male-identified people and that these positions happen to be powerful ones, feminism's cause is long over and activists should just shut up already.

Unfortunately, a lot of the people that make this argument don't take an extra moment to listen to the feminist rebuttal which states that just because women are in positions of authority, it doesn't mean that issues of systemic sexism are solved.  There are countless articles, books, blog posts, and so on that have been written by feminists who are trying to call attention to the more subtle forms of systemic sexism that face female-identified people in certain fields.

In video games and the tech industry, there's rampant entitled misogyny that can make work environments, cons, expos, and just the everyday experience feel extremely unsafe for female-identified people.  There are many examples of attempts to call out these attitudes being met with an extremely hostile and violent defense, which often conclude with some statement claiming that this is just the way the industry is and you either put up with it or quit.

In the business world, women's bodies, family aspirations (if any), and professional aspirations are heavily policed.  From archaic sexist notions around birth control coverage and maternity leave in the United States to the whole concept of "Having it All" only ever being applied to female-identified people pretty much globally, female-identified people are routinely made to feel unwelcome; often shamed/encouraged to have children, but rarely given support to do so.

Finally, and here's the main focus of this post, in the political world female-identified politicians are likely to be analyzed/scrutinized on their appearance, emotional demeanor, and personal history.  When Allison Redford was found out to have been misusing tax payer money Albertans were, understandably, frustrated and many people rushed to criticize her and her choices.  While her actions were certainly worthy of criticism I felt the type and amount of criticism failed to match the crime; Redford wasn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, politician to misuse tax payer funds.

Now I'm not a PC minded person and I have to admit I experience a dash of schadenfreude when politicians of parties I don't align with screw up and are lambasted for it; however, even in situations where I don't particularly like the person or what they said it seems society really lays into female-identified politicians when they mess up.  I'm thinking specifically of a comparison involving, say, Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin as compared with Rand Paul or Todd Akin (funny sidenote: I couldn't remember his name so I typed "legitimate rape guy" into google and got his name).

For Bachmann or Palin, there is almost a consensus when they screw up and it is far less likely that people would be willing to forgive or make excuses for their actions; moreover, there is a greater likelihood that society will start dredging up every other mistake and screw up Bachmann or Palin made, further lambasting their character.  Whereas for Paul or Akin, while the feminist/social justice community will remember their actions, there is a far greater likelihood their actions with be either forgotten, ignored, or excused with the likely claim of whatever it was they said/did being "taken out of context."  For the record, it is a frightening thought, for me, that any of Bachmann, Palin, Paul, or Akin have, or have had, political power.  However, I can't help but notice the different ways they end up being treated in society.

Now I am a bit biased in the sense that I do happen to consider politicians to be people (they are, seriously, go look it up) so I'm always willing to give them a bit of wiggle room in terms of their ability to move through the world and make decisions.  Given that I accept that they are people and given that people are imperfect, one must expect the odd screw up here and there and be willing to forgive on a case by case basis.  In fact, a screw up here and there is likely to make me more interested and sympathetic towards the politician and make me more likely to believe stuff when they say it; I am far more interested in hearing a person's opinion about a policy than I am hearing a political parties position parroted through a human shaped puppet.

So how does MLA Deborah Drever factor in.

Well, I'm seeing the same trend that I saw with Redford; she's being lambasted by the media from all sides, she's been suspended by her party, constituents are crying for a recall option to get her removed from office, and she's being tasked with "making it up to everyone."  As with Bachmann, Palin, or Redford, I doubt she'll ever be able to make it up to people because people are already campaigning for her resignation from political office altogether.  Hell, even after Redford had resigned from political office in disgrace I remember seeing continued criticism of her life well after the fact.  The fact that we linger on female-identified politicians indicates a subtle, yet powerful, systemic misogyny that is in play in our daily lives and probably effects each of us regardless of the state of any progressive mindsets.

There have been male-identified politicians who have made homophobic comments and who were removed from office or encouraged to resign, but society didn't linger.  After the customary attempts to ensure people that whatever it was was "taken out of context" failed, the media and community at large concluded that the next reasonable step was to get them out of political power.  I would say that Deborah Drever's comments were on the same continuum of homophobic comments, but I would not say that they were coming from the same place and with as much systemically instilled hatred as other comments.

Yet, no one rushed to convince people that Drever's instagram was "taken out of context."

In fact, many rushed to drudge up every other questionable piece of her social media, cathartically critiquing each one.  Moreover, she's been made to apologize for each and every "mistake" as society lingers on her faults, savoring each moment.  And finally, to complete the catharsis, polticial analysts are now suggesting:

"The controversy around Deborah Drever has shown that, going forward into the digital world, politicians will be under a lot more scrutiny online.  Political scientist Melanee Thomas says that it will only become more vital as representatives are younger."

To which I can't help but ask: what was so unique about Deborah Drever that only now will "all" politicians be under more online scrutiny? And what's with the shot about younger politicians?

I have a real problem with this negative fascination with young politicians and the idea that they're somehow inferior to the "experience" of older ones; that "young people" don't know what they're doing if they're doing something other than what the older generations want them to be doing.  Are we really suggesting that dumb decisions become more understandable or worthy of our forgiveness the greater the time difference is between when the decision got made and when the person decides to run for office?  If Deborah Drever was 36, instead of 26, would we not be having this conversation?  Or is 46 the magic number? 47? 50?

Moreover, I can't help but wonder about the male-identified MLAs.  Are we not talking about their bad decisions and how young they are because they haven't made any bad decisions and youth doesn't negatively impact them in the same way it does for female-identified people?  Or are people just not inclined to look because it feels "normal" to have male-identified politicians so there's no need to search for something to undermine their character?

Food for thought.

Quote Source Here

The discussion we should be having about Josh Duggar

I'm going to be upfront about something.  I had no clue who the hell Josh Duggar was or why everyone was talking about him until there was so many different articles about what went down that I could no longer ignore it.  The Learning Channel was something I stopped watching long before I gave up on cable television altogether so there is a lot that I've missed out on.

Or not, I suppose.

Combing through the various articles detailing the actions of Josh Duggar and the subsequent societal skewering of him, the family, the show, and TLC there's a major discussion that I feel is not being had.

Yes, Duggar's actions are not "mistakes."

Yes, Duggar's actions are criminal.

Yes, the fact that many rushed to his defense is a clear indicator of rape culture.

All of those discussions are good.  However, there is a major problem in how his choices are being talked about and the category of offender that he's being lumped in to.  For the record, I don't have a problem with him being labeled an 'offender' given that he's admitted to his behavior and the choices he made.

He also apologized and recognized how harmful they were...granted only in the context of how those actions could ruin his life, but I'll take anything I can get given the state of things.

The discussion that's not happening is that Josh Duggar is being placed into an 'offender' category, in addition to his religious background, that is starting to 'other' him in the sense that people are not feeling surprised at his actions.  Any time we talk about someone who chooses to abuse children terms are brought in that villainize them, which is a product of the human desire to inflict harm on those that we think deserve it.  The Duggar Family's bigotry makes the catharsis all the more sweet and makes it easier to think of Josh Duggar as a monster who deserves all the negativity we can muster.

However, by turning Josh Duggar into a Pariah we also turn his choices as well as the attitudes & beliefs that motivated them into a Pariah as well, removing them from our life experience.  Once we've done that it's easier to think of Josh Duggar as sick and twisted and his actions are equally perverse and horrific, which allows us to distance them from ourselves and our own actions.  I get the impulse, I share it, but this process is something we're going to have to get away from if we're ever going to start reducing the amount of sexualized violence in the world.

By distancing the attitudes & beliefs, including the behaviors they ultimately motivate, from ourselves we hinder our ability to figure out where they coming from and what is perpetuating them.  Josh Duggar is not a monster from another realm, he is a human that grew up in Western society much like millions of other people.  There is a case to be made for certain mental conditions that some people may have that mean they're attracted to children, but not all of these people choose to act on their desires.  The molestation term is being used in conjunction with Josh Duggar's actions, but regardless of whether or not he has a psychological condition his choice to commit abuse against multiple people is not a product of being unable to control his desires.  Josh Duggar felt that sexually abusing was a choice he was entitled to make; that the boundaries of another person were not worth respecting.  This entitlement is not 'monstrous' it's, sadly, an everyday thing.

From Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" to the rampant sexual objectification in movies and video games to Sebastian Vettel being a little disappointed there were no Grid Girls, society tells men that women's bodies are for their enjoyment.  Given Josh Duggar grew up in this world and grew up in a family who has traditionally divided gender roles that give more social standing to male identified people, his choice to sexually abuse five girls shouldn't seem that shocking.

Josh Duggar is an easy target: his family's bigoted views, his choice to sexually abuse young girls, and the fact he's part of a rather unorthodox family mean he's already 'othered' for a lot of people.  Make no mistake, Duggar should be held legally accountable for his crimes, but society is not gaining anything by vilifying the actions of a person who admits that what they did was wrong.  We don't get points for punishing the obvious.  We need to look at the less obvious, the parts of society and ourselves that are the source of sexualized violence.

Until the public outcry is as unified regarding Josh Duggar as it is about Formula 1 Grid Girls (or other normalized sexual objectification), until people are not willing to let professional athletes get away with sexual assault, until the majority of society stops dismissing Feminism, until we start believing people who have experience sexualized violence and not imply that they somehow brought it on themselves, until we recognize that violence against women should not have become a normalized experience, until society really starts looking inward and in places that are personal we're not going to get anywhere.

On famous people, women against feminism, and intersectionality

Alrighty, I have some work to do but the computer I need for that work is old and currently updating so I thought I should get some thoughts down. Been having them for the last few days ever since I encountered a rather enjoyable discussion on someone’s facebook feed in the comment section of an article by Roxane Gay. In the article Gay voiced some frustrations around the fact that Emma Watson’s speech was widely lauded by the mainstream media and branded “Emma Watson’s Feminism.” This is part of a larger presentation of “new” feminism that the mainstream media thinks is so vastly different from the “man-hating” feminism of old. The problem is that the feminism they deemed as unacceptable was never really real in any strict sense and was actually the by-product of mainstream media writers of old not understanding what feminism was all about. At any rate, mainstream media has a shitty track record of talking about feminism.

Gay was approached by someone who asked about making feminism more accessible to men to which her response was that she didn’t care for making feminism more accessible to anyone. Gay’s criticism centered around the fact that celebrity endorsements of feminism go a lot further, faster than any work done by any feminist activist.

I’m not going to talk about the article here. It’s here for your consideration.

The long and short of my view, for what it’s worth, is that it is very frustrating that it takes star-power endorsement for some people to pay attention, but I also can see the value in the fact that now there’s a new crop of people interested that were not before the star-power influence.

Why I’m bringing it up is that it sparked a nice little discussion in the comment section about intersectionality, policing (or not) feminism, and what the movement is all about. One of the responses got me thinking about resistance to feminism, which is something I’m dealing with when it comes to engaging men, and why/how that sort of thing comes about. Before I knew it my response was 4 paragraphs long and not at all related to the topic in question. So I ‘Liked’ the comment and decided to write something separate in my fancy new writing space about what I was thinking about.
Good god that was a lot of background info, hope ya’ll are still with me.

I think that there’s an element of ‘forest through the trees’ that develops for people that are deeply involved in any particular movement. It’s not a failing by any stretch but I think it plays a factor in people’s resistance to getting involved, especially if the media is pushing an inaccurate, harmful definition of the movement in question.

People involved in feminism have, or will develop, a good handle on who they’re fighting for with the lived experiences of that particular group in mind. Whereas people on the outside are generally looking for a quick summary from someone they can easily identify as a ‘leader’ of the movement. I don’t quite know what to call this but it would be something along the lines of knowledge/context/arguing from silos disconnect?

Perhaps: Context disconnect?

I dunno.

Anyway.

People on the outside of feminism are invested in the practice of anointing leaders because it creates an easy focal point for discussion and knowledge searching; IE, if I have a leader in mind, I can easily look them up which speeds up the time and reduces the mental energy required to self-educate. For the mainstream media, who have a vested interest in presenting a so-called “neutral” stance, an easily identifiable leader is even more important because it streamlines the narrative that they can present and allows them to avoid as few nuances as possible; IE, Leader X says this, so we’ll run with that and anyone who disagrees with Leader X we’ll pose as an opponent. Finally, the more people want to stay out of a discussion the more they’ll rely on the words of an easily identifiable leader because it allows them to read, evaluate, and get out of the discussion as quickly as possible.

Recently, I watched a talk between Gloria Steinem and bell hooks and when they did the introduction for Steinem the presenter made a comment about “you became a leader for a movement that wasn’t supposed to have any leaders” (that’s not verbatim, just how I remember it). It was brought up later in the discussion about how feminism is, and was supposed to be, a movement-without-leaders as a major emphasis for feminism was allowing various people to bring their stories and experiences to the table. People within feminism can grasp the concept of a movement-without-leaders, but to people on the outside all they see is infighting and disorganization.

Moreover, the feminist movement, recently, has put a large emphasis on intersectionality which further complicates the movement-without-leaders concept. This may lead media to lean more heavily on their stardom bias and people outside the movement to recoil (just look at the #womenagainstfeminism hashtag on twitter); after all, a movement that’s intersectional means recognizing that privilege is intersectional and that’s always an initial barrier because doing so is usually uncomfortable.

I get that uncomfortable discussions around intersectional privilege might be a barrier to people getting involved in the movement, but I would argue that I don’t see that as a problem. I’m reminded of a bit of advice from bell hooks when asked about accessibility with regards to feminism: it was something to the effect of “if feminism is everything to everybody, then what is it?”

Barriers and boundaries are important for maintaining integrity. There are complex factors that feminism is working against and it is important that people within the movement do their best to get a handle on those complexities in play. People within feminism are navigating an ever evolving movement as more and more voices join the chorus, this is not ‘in-fighting’ it is growth.

Whew, there. That’s a lot. If you made it this far, thanks!

That’s all for now…I’ll write more later…