Taking advantage of traffic Captain Moron is sending my way

It has happened again folks. I have been troll-link-bombed. Today I broke my own record of site hits (the current count stands at 440), all thanks to this little website called Captain Moron (not the actualy name). The site is primarily focussed on complaining about people they don’t agree with having the gall to post anything at all on the internet.

But I must say I have much more respect for this new group of trolls, than I did for the last batch, which prompted me to write my comment policy and my troll post. At least this new batch took the trouble of reading my short version of the comment policy at the top right of the screen. So far it is only a troll-link-bomb, but not a troll-comment-bomb.

I am taking advantage of my 400 hits a day, and rising, to draw attention to some older posts that people were particularly interested in, starting with my post about gynecology. As I point out in that post, I never go to a gynecologist, unless I am having a problem and women might be interested to know that pelvic exams and pap-smears are often over-used and unneccessary. I recommend reading the comment section as well. There is a lot of information available about reproductive health-care for women in the comments and a lot of great links too. I thank all of the comment contributors. It’s been a good discussion.

Women’s weight is also often fussed about and this post has also created a nice discussion. Basically you don’t have to feel like shit if you aren’t thin. You don’t have to feel bad mentally or physically, because being strong and feeling good about yourself has nothing to do with your weight and what other people think of it, your lifestyle is far more important. Dances with Fat has some great resources that show what’s really up with the “weight debate” and how much money and bullshit is really at the source of all the bullying.

Do you like sex? So do I, but on my own terms. Here is a post about “foreplay” and to continue this topic, I don’t like the word “virginity” either and here is why. The final post I wish to draw attention to on this topic is abortion. The only tragedy of abortion is not being able to get one or being ostracised for getting one.

Oh, yes! The new batch of trolls made all the same mistakes as the last one. They failed to see the point of social justice (read: feminism) and a long time ago I also created a lovely post for that too. It’s about how if you make any mistakes you seem to lose the right to fight for equality. Another frequent complaint about women is that we don ‘t know how to drive. Being an excellent driver myself, I call bullshit, especially with all the horrible accidents that are caused by irresponsible male drivers.

I also don’t agree with how the patriarchy expects women to dress these days (or in the past) and how muslim women are often treated by both men from their own cultures as well as men from wetsern cultures. You can’t tell if someone is empowered by looked a their clothes.

So there you have it folks. This is basically a link round-up. In part this is an experiment to see how usefull a link-bomb can be. Most of the current hits go directly to the main page of my blog, so this will be the first post they see. Let’s see what kind of an effect it will have.

I will keep you posted. ;)

The Importance of Intersectionality in Radical Feminism

I have a confession to make. To be perfectly honest I don’t even know why my type of feminism is referred to as radical? Radical means “root”, but why being in favor of total and complete equality for all people is such a radical idea is beyond me. To me this concept that women deserve everything that is considered a human right makes perfect sense. It is what I have been taught in school all these years. Every adult I spoke to as a kid always told me: “You deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and enjoy all human rights. To be held back on the basis of your sex is an antiquated concept that has no part in modern society.”

Oh, boy! What a lie that has been. I have since learned that to be female means not enjoying the same rights and treatment that men enjoy, not by a long shot. I have learned that first and foremost my appearance is my most important attribute and that I will get treated a little better when I am closer to the ideal standard of beauty for women, but not too much. They may like to look at you, but they don’t want to listen to you unless to hear you agree with them and “it’s a complement when they hurl obscene remarks in your direction, don’t you know? It’s a sign of desirability and you’d better be happy while you still get those.” In many cases I was not even allowed the same comfort and convenience of “dress code” that the men had.

I was expected to take action in the hopes of preventing a sexual attack on my body and if I failed it would be all my fault. I have learned that I am often ignored or ridiculed or hushed when I try to speak my mind or ask those “inconvenient” questions as to why things are not as equal as I was promised as a child. Equality was the lie I was sold all the way through my childhood.

Nowadays I don’t see many “choices” women make as free as they are portrayed. I, too, compromise a lot. I have been shaving my legs again to avoid harassment, for example, and to make it a little easier to get hired. I hide my feminism from most people I meet. I didn’t always do that, and what happened is that people stopped listening, shut me up or forced me out somehow. Dealing with outright hostility to one’s expressed opinion is an unsettling experience, especially if you were under the impression you were just having a friendly debate.

So why is it considered root feminism? Human societies are not a natural occurrence, but are man-made. The rules and laws we follow, whether official or not, are also man-made and ensure that a great many people get the short end of the stick; women in particular. Rich white men have created hierarchies among oppressed classes. It is not merely that they oppress everyone they perceive as “not like them”, they also have put hierarchies in place to make sure that the oppressed classes also oppress each other.

Many of those among oppressed classes have actively bought into the “hierarchies as natural and necessary” and work hard to oppress those over which they have slightly more privilege. Case in point: Fat-hatred. I have written about this before, and it still surprises me that even many feminists have an attitude of “what’s the big deal” or “why don’t you just lose weight then” or “well fat is rather ugly/inconvenient/unhealthy, I am merely telling you for your own good”.  It is like I haven’t heard these messages thousands or times before, and without realizing that they will chastise men for ignoring their own privileged state, but refuse to examine their own ignorance and privileges.

Another thing is the “sex-industry”; many women, including feminists, will argue that doing “sex-work” is a choice pure and simple. Would they be willing to do that kind of work? Of course not. But someone has to do it, “so they run less risk of rape”; is how the argument goes, willfully ignoring the fact that many prostituted women never got to choose their prostituted state, because many of them are trafficked or forced into it through crushing poverty. In this case the pro-porn/pro-prostitution, female advocates are perfectly willing to support the slavery of women whose faces and names they don’t even know for a false sense of security. I call it false, because wherever a sex-club opens in any given neighborhood the number of sexual assaults in that neighborhood rises. Women are perfectly capable of throwing other women to the dogs, just like men do. Should they not be called out for that?

Fighting racism, especially the quiet obsequious kind, is another important radical feminist issue. To be a white woman in a patriarchy makes for a difficult life, but for women who don’t even have white privilege, this is a whole other ball game. For every ethnic group of women in a white patriarchal society there is a different form of misogyny. Consider the stereotype of the demur, little Asian woman, or the stereotype of the angry, black woman, with an insatiable sexual appetite who is often portrayed as more animal than human. This is a type of misogyny we white women don’t deal with and even at times level at women of color. There is a hierarchy among women that some women work very hard for to keep up, cheered on by their (white) patriarchs. When considering for example the demands that are made of women of African descent to get haircuts that costs a thousand dollars a month, just to keep their jobs, and the fact that I didn’t know that until I saw that documentary “Good Hair”, I was a little shocked. It was incredibly ignorant of me to not even consider how many black women were forced to “emulate” the sleeker hair of white women. Not keeping in mind what others have to go through is another reason why intersectionaility is so important.

Simply put: Intersectionality matters. You can’t get rid of one form of oppression and leave another intact. That will do nothing to destroy the patriarchy. You’ll merely plug one of the hundreds of holes in a sinking ship. That is not an effective strategy. I am all for having different groups of people focus on different forms of oppression. Fighting forms of oppression on all sides with different people will work, but if you refuse to even see other groups of people trying to bring down that same patriarchy, then you might as well be on your own trying to dig through granite with a spade.

Shopping Tactics

This week I came to the shocking conclusion that I was slowly running out of pants (trousers for all you British folk) to wear. No this is not due to backed up laundry, but because all my pairs are slowly getting holes in them and I know that nowadays it’s no longer done so sow on some patches; which is shame, though I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that.

Today I realized I could no longer put off the required shopping trip and started with what I feared would be another afternoon searching in vain for something that would fit me. Long before I became fat this was already a problem. I am well endowed in the ass and thighs department (yes, I blame my father’s DNA) and most pants are made for people with a considerably smaller ass than mine and much thinner thighs. It doesn’t even matter if I go up or down a size, I can hardly ever find a pair that will actually fit around my thighs and ass, but not fall down my ankles anyway, because I can fit my waist in there twice. It is funny how my body shape has changed very little, though I have gotten fatter.

As an added bonus I have also gone up two sizes and my choices are now even more limited than before. I now wear size EU 48 and most stores don’t go up to 44. So my shopping trip started with the frustrated process of finding my size in the seas of pants. I left more than one store in an angry huff. Finally I decided to stop wasting my time and simply inquire at the desk what the largest size was they carried. If the answer was 44 or 46, I left immediately with a polite “thank you”, though fuming. At least the sales people were courteous and apologized for not carrying larger sizes and sometimes even did a thorough search to see if they could accommodate me after all.

This went on for the next three or four stores. Finally I hit the jackpot, though I didn’t realize it at first. I entered this little store called “Bonita” and asked the same question. They said that they carried my size and larger and invited me to look around and offered help. I found their prices rather high and told them so. I explained that I was a student and my budget was limited. I felt a little down, because I finally had found a store that actually liked customers, but was out of my prices range. Fortunately they had some items on sail that were pretty reasonably and I left with three pairs. The sales people were very understanding. One of them had a son in college who also struggled to make ends meet and she was very patient and helpful. I tip my hat to stores like that.

They recommended a few other stores to me at well and seeing as I also wanted some jeans I wondered into Miss Etam, Where had a sale on all their denim items. At first I looked frustrated through the racks and couldn’t find anything my size. Then a friendly sales woman pointed me to the part of the store that carried the larger sizes. They actually had quit a lot, though it doesn’t compare to all that is available in all the different clothing stores if you are thin.

I was again met with helpful and friendly sales people who, in record time, helped me find what I was looking for and I ended up leaving with a smile on my face and two pairs of jeans. This shopping trip has actually turned to be a fun experience. Thankfully there are some companies that will accept the money of fat people. Quite frankly I am surprised how some businesses aren’t going bankrupt with their limited supplies and narrow minded attitudes.

My Weight

Today in class we messed around a bit with a scale. We were suppose to weigh various large objects, but the scale we used was designed to weigh people. Some objects could not be weighed directly so somebody had to step on the scale and hold the object, afterwards we would subtract the person’s weight from the total and, well you get the idea.

One woman in my group exclaimed that she would “definitely not step on that scale!” When we were done with our assignment two guys stepped on the scale and they both weigh around 70 kilogram. I told the “lightweights” to get out of my way so I could step on the scale. I know that joking with people’s weight is a toxic thing to do, but sometimes I need a buffer against potential weight-related harassment.

I weigh 94 kilograms, which is at least twenty kilograms heavier than all of the people in my study-group. When I was done, the other woman in my group also stepped on the scale. She too is around 70 kilograms but assured us several times that usually she is “4 kilograms lighter” than the scale indicated.

I know where her anxiety comes from. I still feel it too at times, though overall I am a lot happier with my appearance, despite the fact that the vast majority of people think that fat=ugly and a whole bunch of other negative things they can think of.

This is why I like Joy Nash. She tells it like it is. I especially like this quote from her:

“Tell people how much you weigh. It’s just a stinking number.”

She is right. If you can diagnose every person on the planet with a scale alone and the prescribed treatment is always “lose weight”, than we would fucking all be doctors. No college degrees necessary.

So with that in mind I stepped on the scale in class and said my weight out loud. When I got home I put my height and weight in the sidebar of my blog and I want to encourage other (feminist) bloggers to do the same. Let’s stomp out this weight bigotry! Let’s do it today and start a new revolution, starting with the internet.

Bonding over Booze, Insults and Bigotry

It would seem that I am surrounded by morons in my new college. I am really liking the classes so far, but some of my fellow students are really struggling with basic math and physics. High-school algebra already seems a huge hurtle for some of them. This, of course, doesn’t make them morons, but it is frustrating especially considering the fact that I busted my ass last year to get my math and physics skills up to speed so I could do this course.

What makes them morons is their bonding rituals. It always involves alcohol, which is not even remotely the worst, but I so often hear the n-word being used and people being called a “whore” as a way of insulting them or singing songs about fucking female students from other courses , and it doesn’t look like they mean with mutual consent.

I am of course “not suppose to take the lyrics literally”. I mean rap-stars sing about much worst and they don’t mean it either, right? They don’t really go around trying to pressure as many women as possible into having sex with them, right? “It’s just a bit of fun, don’t you know?” But every time I hear shit like that I feel even more of an outsider.

I feel like an outsider for two very important reasons. For one I don’t like to join in the bigotry. It makes me cringe when I encounter it and I just can’t put myself to joining in as a way of mainstreaming and not standing out. I am obviously very quickly becoming unpopular and that will probably hinder me a lot. You need people to work with and these “bonding-rituals” are a way of forming groups to work with.

The other reason I feel like an outsider is because I am of “the wrong sex”. Those songs they sing about fucking all sorts of women, where the lyrics make it very clear that a woman = a fuck-hole for them to stick their dicks into, are about me as well. I am a woman and those songs portrait me as nothing more than a masturbatory object. Oh wait. I should “be so lucky”, cause I am also fat. Yes the fat “jokes” are also abundantly present in these rituals. Especially those about fat women. I am another kind of “source of amusement”.

I feel like puking. I feel like I am already really screwing it up. What am I suppose to do? Throw my principles overboard? Pretend this doesn’t hurt people. Pretend that the women from other courses, who have heard the misogynist-songs, don’t think we are a bunch of assholes who have their brains in their asses? I saw them them watch my classmates behave like hateful morons and I could almost hear their thoughts. And they would be right. How is such behavior acceptable?

The best part of this story is yet to come. My involved was obviously half-assed to none-existent. In my attempt to not end up completely at the bottom of the rungs I stayed, but tried not to participate, which was an obvious mistake. I should have just left. We have enough homework for that to be an excuse.

But my half-assed performance in the ritual left people there upset. Imagine that! They are upset.