A recent talk by J. Jack Halberstam on Gender Studies as a discipline, at The New School for Social Research:
Good News: ENDA & DADT Update
ENDA & the bill to repeal DADT are supposed to go to the floor this month!
Meanwhile, the whip count on ENDA, which Obama also backs, is entering its fifth week. The effort has most recently focused on rechecking support among Members thought to be more comfortable with the legislation than politically imperiled moderates who have raised most of the concerns, one source familiar with the effort said. That, the source said, bodes well for its progress. But many Members remain officially undecided and have quietly voiced frustrations about the prospect of taking a tough vote that they see as a distraction from an agenda focused on job creation.
“It seems to run contrary to what the Speaker said a few months back about focusing on jobs and moving away from these controversial items,” one senior Democratic aide said. “Anything that’s not specifically tied to keeping the economy going raises red flags for folks.”
But Frank said that he is optimistic about the vote count and that transgender protections will remain in the bill.
“There’s no chance of doing it without it,” he said of the transgender protections.
Frank said he’s told wavering Democrats that “the principle is the same. It’s discrimination.”
He said concessions were made in the drafting of the language to address moderates’ concerns. For instance, Frank said, transgender people with “one set of genitals” would not be able to go to a bathroom for people with another set of genitals.
And, Frank said, they also would have to have a “consistent gender presentation” in order to be able to sue for discrimination.
“They can’t sit there with a full beard and a dress,” Frank said.
We’re going to need to make a lot of calls, folks. Stay tuned.
Happy Mother’s Day
A happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers.
This isn’t the cheeriest article about parents – and the children who have stopped speaking to them – but I thought it was an aspect of family/parenting that we otherwise don’t talk much about as a culture.
Are You Being Served?
(via Petti Pie)
Men Are Valuable Even When They Aren’t Dads
There are times, as a woman, that if you actually manage to recognize your own humanity, instead of your use as a breeder*/parent, you still have to face the fact that people write articles like this explaining that you are not an asshole.
It’s astonishing.
Just try to imagine the same article with the word men in place of women: “Childless men have been able to accumulate education and resources they otherwise wouldn’t have had if they’d had children. This time and income could then be put back into other people’s families “to pay for lifesaving operations, or to rescue the family farm, or to take in a child whose mother had fallen gravely ill.”
I mean, really?!
And while this particular article is pro child-free women (albeit condescending), it amazes me that any argument has to be made that women are of value even when they aren’t parents, that many women choose to be childfree (for whatever reason) and/or that even women who wanted kids and didn’t have any (for whatever reason) can live satisfying lives.
Can we get back to ZPG ideas? Is it possible, even, for people to consider all this talk about being green when it comes to children? There are too many of us on this planet & we’re destroying it as a result, and we don’t have a goddamn chance if the value of women who don’t have children has to be explained.
What bullshit.
* to clarify, since someone objected to my use of the term breeder: i used the term breeder to point out that this is the way our culture thinks of women if articles like this have to be written. i don’t use the term otherwise, but i do think it’s highly problematic that someone might object to the term but not the attitude/culture that treats them that way. that is, the only evidence that the culture doesn’t consider women breeders, and breeders only, is if there is inherent value in a woman’s life when she isn’t a parent.
Crossdressing Still Illegal?
Who knew? Crossdressing is still illegal in Oakland, California, & has been for 130 years. Maybe it won’t be soon:
“These laws have a history of being used as a tool of oppression,” said Kaplan, Oakland’s first openly lesbian elected official. She said laws similar to Oakland’s have been “an excuse for persecution” against the LGBT community and people who don’t conform to traditional gender rolls.
She noted that police in New York City used a similar statute when they raided the Stonewall Inn in 1969, setting off demonstrations in an event that became a seminal point in the gay-rights movement.
In Oakland, the cross-dressing ordinance is not enforced and hasn’t been in recent memory. City officials also believe it is unconstitutional. But a report from Kaplan’s office noted that under the existing language, women in uniform working in the police and fire departments could be subject to arrest and misdemeanor charges.
New Rufus Wainwright
I already did a Two Tune Tuesday, for Rufus Wainwright, so today I’m just going to tell you he’s got a new record out, called All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, and there’s a cool review of it in Viceland.
He’s also on tour all over the place (but when will he be in Milwaukee, at last!)
I have no idea what Rufus Wainwright fans are called. Rufusians?
Pirate Metal Extravaganza
Adam Ant Live – for the first time since 1995. There’s a track list at ALF, and a great review – including Adam’s post-show meltdown – by my old friend Helen Howard.
Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson died in 2004, and for the first time since then, MoMA has launc
hed a retrospective of his work. There are slide shows on both MoMA’s site & on CNN, where I found this info, via Fareed Zakaria (whose show I love, as it’s one of the only shows that is actually international in perspective, as opposed to being Here’s some stuff abotu some other countries, now back to the US, true center of the universe).
I’m sorely tempted to get to NYC before it ends in late June in order to see it. Here are a few of my favorites:
May Day: Massey Miners’ Families Offered $3M for Loved Ones
But they had no money for safety regulations.
Today is May Day, still celebrated as a workers’ holiday by many, and this news makes me sick. To hell with Massey, BP, and the state of Arizona.
What we’ve seen with Massey and BP is a direct result of the cronyism of Dubya who was more willing to let his friends make money than to enforce safety standards. Those men shouldn’t be dead. The people who worked on that rig shouldn’t be either. Where are the shitheads who make these decisions? I want to see them cleaning the oil off all marine life.
I can’t even bear to read the news about Gulf spill, but I am absolutely sure I would trade a million Sarah Palins for 1 goddamn sea turtle. She should be choking on oil, instead.