tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37004028837392843402024-03-05T22:08:52.459-08:00Just JuicyTales of a Poor, Fat, Queer Latina in a World of Thin, White PrivilegeMsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-23021763312104994452013-10-17T10:18:00.001-07:002013-10-17T10:49:53.738-07:00I Wear Pigtails Like A Good Girl<div class="post_body">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wear my pigtails because I've always had "bad hair." Every woman on the Dominican side of my
family put in their long, labourious hours trying to tame my hair, or
explain it at the beauty parlor. Sometimes straightened without my
permission, my hair was out of my own control for so long. Now that I
manage it myself, I want all my difficult and unruly curls intact so
every person who ever reinforced that “bad hair” label can be
mesmerized.</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I wear my pigtails to show off how good my "bad hair" is.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUpA0JhDv1zMNtu3dX9KIG42kjwJmUEN7Hj4Pdo0dsCrec27Ff14qHXWYMq1nFKR2yypEti_-Zp_Jhf3NuPRytG4aMXZwDlTvdDF7hPja9xCy1XkAnHZHC-LXKBVsgHB9m6uLm_OcRqFr/s1600/Snapshot_20130409_47.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUpA0JhDv1zMNtu3dX9KIG42kjwJmUEN7Hj4Pdo0dsCrec27Ff14qHXWYMq1nFKR2yypEti_-Zp_Jhf3NuPRytG4aMXZwDlTvdDF7hPja9xCy1XkAnHZHC-LXKBVsgHB9m6uLm_OcRqFr/s400/Snapshot_20130409_47.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
wear my pigtails because my sister used to say I looked so cute in
them that I could get away with murder. If my looks could kill, you
would surely need a medic. Apparently women are all vixens, sirens, and temptresses,
and "jail bait" when they're too young to consent. I was devastated
when I turned 14 because I knew I wasn't a "<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nymphet&defid=1991843" target="_blank">nymphet</a>"
anymore. I had only ever learned about my sexuality in terms of male
pleasure and believed that Lolita was the pinnacle of girlhood. I was on a date with an older man recently and he called <i>me </i>"dangerous" when I teased him. But logically and realistically, he was the dangerous one. Bigger than me, stronger than me, more credible than me in a court of law if he decided to take by force, because<i> his</i> tits weren't hanging out. So to
reclaim my role as a baby femme fatale from the legal side of 17, to
murder you sweetly and to call attention from the blood on
my hands, I wear pigtails like a good girl.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wear my pigtails because</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
I'm not quite sure how to be femme and I feel like a little girl who
snuck into Mommy's make-up and jewelry. If I have to revert back to
childhood to feel feminine, I may as well be a spoiled princess this
time around, like my rough childhood never allowed. </span></span></span></span> I'm not really a femme; I'm playing dress up like a naughty, pouty, foot-stamping
Babygirl who needs discipline and a nice, firm tug on her hair. I
wear pigtails like a good girl so you have something to grab when you’re teaching me how to be good.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
wear my pigtails because I’m already big. Every part of my body
stands out and takes up space: big voice, big lips, big tits, big
stomach, big arms, big thighs.
There’s no need to try and make my big hair seem quiet and small. Women
are constantly being told that there is no room for big, loud women
here, but the more space I
occupy, the better!</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I demand to be seen and heard. I wear pigtails to do myself some good.</span></span></div>
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MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.3291643 -74.65142010000001 41.0995413 -73.3605261tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-4106681797771102932013-04-22T14:59:00.000-07:002013-04-22T15:04:48.234-07:00Just a Kid (Who Murdered Some People)<b>tw: bombing, shooting, racism, Islamophobia </b><br />
<br />
Today I read the letter <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-mr-michael-rogers-sj/dear-dzhokhar-i-cant-hate-you_b_3128805.html" target="_blank">"Dear Dzhokhar, I Can't Hate You"</a> and something immediately struck me as I processed the reasoning behind it. Something that makes me kind of sick.<br />
<br />
It's like this, I understand that you're feeling the Christian spirit in the wake of this tragedy. I know that I
shouldn't say anything about your relationship to the Boston Bombing
because <i>your </i>family was actually involved in the incident and I was not.<br />
<br data-mce-bogus="1" />
HOWEVER,<br />
<br />
when you write a letter about how you cannot hate Dzhokhar Tsarnaev because he's "just a kid," I
can't help but remember that Trayvon Martin was just a kid. He
literally did nothing to warrant his fatal gunshots- he certainly didn't set off bombs that
killed and injured people- yet he is still referred to as a "thug" every
single day.<br />
<br />
So, I'm not trying to invalidate your spirit of forgiveness, but I honestly wonder if you would still pray for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he looked like this<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVOvdZrtyH6-Zesa6JLzOKsFjSWKRgl3iFgN7p9u1MvX1N-VpjcfOFoR2xQ00A6zZytmwXxV_1XaU70HGKjcn9gCthJQTDD8geP1ZNEoGa8qHR5BuoundZtDnIeTSj1M0BWXyADM7a0ksh/s1600/trayvon+martin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVOvdZrtyH6-Zesa6JLzOKsFjSWKRgl3iFgN7p9u1MvX1N-VpjcfOFoR2xQ00A6zZytmwXxV_1XaU70HGKjcn9gCthJQTDD8geP1ZNEoGa8qHR5BuoundZtDnIeTSj1M0BWXyADM7a0ksh/s320/trayvon+martin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
instead of this<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35ZnrBJiw4HZkffd_3Xw_tlKLCd4DcPDiqovE8oUs7rLuANifdiPJhpQPXCM-LZqW84Rf7isHFnOi2PXlL2XsTZcRNCHyeLnWwkHc8z5RjiPmH06WGLpPk1xj110VaQ1-rlJL-EJdMhpj/s1600/Dzhokhar-Tsarnaev-3-600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35ZnrBJiw4HZkffd_3Xw_tlKLCd4DcPDiqovE8oUs7rLuANifdiPJhpQPXCM-LZqW84Rf7isHFnOi2PXlL2XsTZcRNCHyeLnWwkHc8z5RjiPmH06WGLpPk1xj110VaQ1-rlJL-EJdMhpj/s320/Dzhokhar-Tsarnaev-3-600.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Because I doubt it. But my goal here is not to attack anyone's faith or coping mechanisms. My goal is to understand why someone who sets off a bomb at a major sporting event gets referred to as "a kid" while an unarmed teenager who gets gunned down for walking home from a corner store gets referred to as "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/02/05/the-rabid-hate-aimed-at-trayvon-martin/" target="_blank">a dangerous thug who needed to be put down like a rabid dog</a>." <br />
<br />
But of course, I already understand before I even pose the question.<br />
<br />
And, of course, it doesn't just end there. It could never just end with the simple and uncomplicated issue of racism, because Tsarnaev is a Muslim, you see, and he was not born in the United States. That's why this issue is of national importance and why the words "enemy combatant" were even uttered. That's why, in his letter, Rev. Mr. Michael Rogers felt the need to tie the bombing in with Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.<br />
<br />
It seems that in this mad rush to link Tsarnaev's actions to Islamic terrorism, everyone seems to be forgetting one very important detail.<br />
<br />
<b>Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a fucking U.S. citizen.</b><br />
<br />
He was not born here but he gained citizenship. And even though he used bombs and not a gun, his attack is more like the Columbine or Newtown shootings than 9/11. But we have trouble recognizing the fact that White American Christians instill terror in us as well in this country. So the media will align Tsarnaev with other Muslims who we view as great national threats rather than acknowledge that this is strictly a domestic problem.<br />
<br />
I'm glad that the people this incident has touched are finding positive ways to deal with the tragedy, but there are still so many issues and tensions here that have yet to be resolved.<br />
<br />MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-40690265979712760732013-03-21T20:33:00.003-07:002013-03-21T20:35:49.600-07:00Sexism Sucks (Like a Woman With a Lollipop)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>tw: sexual harassment</b> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I had to go to the bank today because last week my account
was overdrawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm poor as fuck, lest
you forget. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I frequently get low balance
alerts but I usually manage to scrape enough together to make a deposit before
it gets overdrawn, so this was something I didn't know how to deal with. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When I got to the bank, I decided to talk to a consultant or
something instead of going up to a teller, to make sure I straightened
everything out at once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I waited
for the only person on the floor to become available, I helped myself to one of
the lollipops in the dish because
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>I was nervous about my financial situation and
this would give me something to fidget with</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>it gave me something to play with while I waited
for her to attend to me</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span>it contained sugar and that shit's yummy</span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This turned out to be a big fucking error in judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My house is not really that far from the
bank, but every set of eyes that lingered on me in that short walk made it seem
longer and longer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am used to a certain amount of street harassment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn't mean I like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn't mean I invite it- even if I'm
sucking on a lollipop. No, seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That shit has nothing to do with you, the pedestrian walking past
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a woman can't just walk from
point A to point B.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A woman with a
lollipop in her mouth is clearly asking for it, right? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WRONG!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Has it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i>
occurred to you that a woman with a lollipop could possibly be nothing more
than a person enjoying a piece of fucking candy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like, I don't think I would've gotten half
the bullshit I endured had I been eating M+Ms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But no, because it was a lollipop, it made you imagine me sucking your
dick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't really care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's your own business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know I'm hot, I know lollipops are
incredibly sexualized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The part where
your little private enjoyment of the 5 seconds it takes for us to cross paths
becomes my problem is when you vocalize that shit and I have to hear you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I had a few guys whisper some shit to me in the first few
blocks from the bank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Concise, one-word
comments that I tried to brush off and act like I didn't hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then came the one that made me snap.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A group of middle-aged White dudes were clustered in front
of an apartment building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I crossed over
to their side of the street to avoid the Firehouse entrance on my side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I approached them I told myself to relax
because they were in a circle, facing each other, and looked far too engaged in
their own conversation to say or do anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I wasn't even making eye contact with any of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then I heard one of them say to the rest</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"...sucking that lollipop<i> real</i> good!"
</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was fed up at this point with pretending I hadn't heard
shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I immediately whipped around and
shouted angrily "I can hear you, you know!!" and, without waiting for
a response or even seeing their faces, turned back around and kept
walking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as I began to lament not
calling them assholes or walking up to really confront them, I heard one of
them whine to one of the others "She heard you say that."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn't congratulatory or celebratory or
proud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the whiny voice of a child
who is getting in trouble for something their friend made them do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these men were grown.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I imagine they hold down jobs and have families and have
people who look up to and respect them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fact that these grown-ass men, some of them with white hair, could
feel perfectly comfortable hypersexualizing a woman walking past them on the
street, and then crumble so completely when they are confronted about their little
joke, is just one of a hundred billion reasons why sexism is still a problem we
are dealing with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">But happy Women's History Month. </span></span>
</div>
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<![endif]-->MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-31562717423148160732013-02-10T13:53:00.003-08:002013-02-10T14:08:27.456-08:00To the Allies<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">tw: rape</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We, the oppressed, need to have allies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need White allies, straight allies, male
allies, etc. and we need them for two reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One, we need them in order to be taken more seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b>That's a problem.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's not right that the rest of society
(namely, the oppressors) will give our movements and causes and fights for
equality less credence if we don't have someone <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i> can relate to on our side, but that is the reality of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's why the current system is fucking
broken!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we did not need allies to
help get through to the other side, then we wouldn't be in this predicament of
being treated like sub-humans in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That would mean that the ones holding the
positions of power would have already seen that we deserved to be treated with
the same respect and given access to the same rights and means to success as
everyone else, from the start.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Two, we need people around us who treat us like people,
whether they can relate directly to our troubles or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if some of those people are the ones who
don't share that identifier with you, it kind of gives you hope about the world
at large.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that's probably wrong too,
but it's because we expect others like us to get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we shouldn't but we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">expect</i> that our experiences being queer
or being female or being poor, etc. are sort of universally felt throughout
the people in our community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because,
while there is that overwhelming sense of alienation and solitude that comes
with feeling "different," there is also that reassurance that comes
with finding others like yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even
if the differences between me and the next bisexual woman that I happen to
meet<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are like night and day, we would
still both be part of the 24-hour span; we would still both be bisexual women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So when we meet other people who are "different"
for the same or similar reasons as we are, we pretty much expect that they will
also want to be treated with more respect and stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you will disagree on the ways in which the
movement should go about attaining equality, which is another issue entirely,
but unless one of you has some seriously internalized issues, it would be safe
to assume that you both want society to make some room for you and your pursuit
of happiness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's when we encounter the people who do not understand that
experience firsthand that we feel our guard go up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's when the other person couldn't possibly
have the same things at stake that we prepare ourselves for their disgust and
ignorance and hatred, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, it's when
that other person <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doesn't</i> treat you
like the rest of the world has treated you that you kind of start to have hope
about the rest of the world because, hey,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
this</i> person gets it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This</i> person was able to catch on to the
fact that I'm a person and I should have rights- maybe there's a chance that
others will too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But that stuff, in no way, makes it okay for allies to
demand things from the oppressed in return.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As an ally, you do not get to congratulate yourself for
treating someone with basic human respect because that should be on your agenda
anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, but to a much greater
extreme, it's not a <i>favour</i> to someone if you <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">don't</i> </b>rape them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You're supposed to not rape them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don't get to cash in on it later because
you<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
didn't</i></b> rape them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(Frankly, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I made this
into a rape analogy and I totally understand if you are too- but I couldn't
think of a more obvious example of when you shouldn't expect everyone to
congratulate you for doing the right thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, actually, rape culture is definitely relevant to this discussion
about oppression and respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if
you'll forgive me for doing that, I have a bit more to say.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If your being an ally is conditional on the behaviour of the
queer, disabled, female, PoC, trans*, etc. company you keep, then you are a
very shitty ally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no one needs the
shitty and faux allies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People need the
allies who think that helping others and treating everyone with equal respect
is a given, and who recognize their own privilege and understand what that
means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You're not helping to bridge the
gap between how people deserve to be treated and how they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> being treated if you are using the time and energy to tell them
what to want and how to behave when they ask for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, and perhaps more importantly,
oppression is not about you, personally, if you have privilege.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your opinions on oppression matter, they do,
but they do not deserve equal or more attention than those of the people who
are actually suffering the discrimination and the injustices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet they do get equal or more attention,
usually more. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's because, as I
mentioned earlier, the current system is broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if someone is telling you to check your
privilege and stop talking, you need to check your privilege and stop. fucking.
talking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your actions do a lot more than
words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honestly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Look, I get it; you want everyone to know that you genuinely
care about this stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to stand
out from the rest of the bad guys who are actively making things difficult for
your friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want them to know that
you're someone they can trust to be on their side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it's so much better if you just do the
work that it takes to fix things and stop trying to make it all about you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One way to do that is to understand that no
one is attacking you on a personal level for having privilege.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you do feel like you are personally
being attacked, maybe- just maybe- it's because you are doing something
wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be incredibly disrespectful
of you and a shitty ally thing to do if you immediately chalked it up to that
person being "too sensitive" or getting angry just for the sake of
getting angry, or a case of reverse [insert any -ism here] instead of taking
the time to try and see their side of it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm not saying that these attacks are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> just pure anger and frustration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you do have to realize where a lot of that anger comes from, nonetheless. What I'm saying is that you need to
understand what your privilege means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
means that no matter how your personal experiences have actually shaped your
life, you still stand to benefit more from the fact that the system is
broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might not have benefitted
from it in a way that you can see, but you have definitely lived your life with
an immunity to some of the struggles that the oppressed face daily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when you fail to recognize that, you are
helping to keep the broken system the way it is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If you want a round of applause for occasionally treating
someone who gets a raw deal from society slightly better than they are used to
being treated, that's not helping. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because,
essentially, what you're doing is applauding yourself for not being the person
who broke the system, instead of being someone who's trying to fix it.</span></div>
MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-17782893971891257422012-12-09T16:44:00.003-08:002012-12-09T16:53:55.201-08:00The Year I Lost Everything (and Gained So Much More)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">before you read this, this is long and this is more personal than most of my posts, but that's why I
wanted to post it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">tw: suicide, drug abuse, and
depression</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Today was a Friday last year. I didn't have class but I had a routine,
yearly check-up scheduled with the Women's Health Center and then I was gonna
see a friend's show in the evening. My girlfriend wasn't on campus that
weekend but we were planning to have some really terrific sex when she came
back, 'cause it had been a while. I had five final papers to start
worrying about and working on, since I am a masochist who signs up for five
classes a semester whenever I can. It was all okay, though, because it
was nothing I couldn't handle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And then the year of absolute shit was upon me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At my routine check-up (that never takes more than 20 minutes), the nurse
practitioner found something. "I'm feeling something that isn't
supposed to be there" she said as she examined me. There was a lump,
an irregularity, something that required an ultrasound. So there I am in
the lobby, chugging glasses of water to prep for the ultrasound, texting my
friend that I don't think I'll make it to his show and I'm really sorry but
something just came up.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The ultrasound technician definitely sees something wrong and it's probably
an ovarian cyst but we won't know until later tonight. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, you know, just walk back to campus on this
dark, cold December evening, alone and weak from not eating all day in
anticipation of the check-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I get the call around 9pm, the one from the nurse practitioner that says I'm
definitely going to need surgery to remove what they believe is an ovarian
cyst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now it's real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea how to handle this
information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember filling out
forms before freshman year and talking about the parent's contribution to my
tuition with my father and how, when it came to the health insurance, he told
me that he probably couldn't afford that part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"Just take care of yourself and let's hope you don't get sick for
the next four years."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fuck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because now I'm halfway through my Junior year and I never could have
foreseen needing this surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I
will never be able to afford it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
the shit they don't prepare you for when you go away to college, when you live
on your own, when you try to make it in the real world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They never tell you that one Friday you're
just gonna go in for a routine check-up while your girlfriend is out of town
and have your whole world shatter before your eyes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So my girlfriend and I spent the next two months in and out of the Women's
Health Center on campus and the Cancer Center at [local hospital].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would spend the next five or six months
worrying about my emotional state and the obvious deterioration of my mental
health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The surgery itself, which
happened in January, radically altered everything about my life (which I
<a href="http://justjuicy-msjuicy.blogspot.com/2012/02/one-does-not-simply-get-surgery.html" target="_blank">blogged about</a>)
from how I ate to how I had sex to how I was as a student, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were advised not to have penetrative sex
before the surgery for fear of coming into contact with and harming the thing
that had to be removed, and were not allowed to have any sex for two months
after the surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was difficult to
leave my bed most days and I was so drugged up on painkillers that I didn't
even have the inclination to, so I missed a lot of classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I missed a lot of everything, actually, because
I wasn't getting exercise or fresh air, wasn't going to work at my campus job,
wasn't eating regularly, wasn't showering more than a couple times a week,
wasn't going out and being with people, wasn't doing my schoolwork, and worst
of all, I wasn't really telling anybody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was slipping into a real depression, especially since my sister was
back home and could only make the trip up to see me once, and my girlfriend was
taking a semester off and we rarely got a chance to talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I developed a sort of dependency on my
painkillers... and lied to my girlfriend about it whenever she confronted
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wasn't physically present which
made that part really easy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was supposed to take my Percocet whenever I felt pain from my incision but
it wasn't just pain from my incision that I was feeling. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was getting headaches from my poor diet and
terrible sleep schedule, and getting dizzy from standing up for too long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My back started hurting from having to put
effort into standing up straight because the incision made it more comfortable
to hunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn't masturbate, so I
couldn't rely on the natural endorphins that are released and make you feel
good from having an orgasm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn't
even fucking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">laugh </i>without it
hurting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn't like being awake and
missing my girlfriend and knowing I had work I wasn't doing and thinking about
how much money I still owed for the surgery (even with the school's standard
health insurance covering most of it) and worrying about how I wasn't talking
to other people and hating the huge scar on my body now and having anxiety
about how I wasn't leaving my bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's
when I started taking my Percocet for any random reason I could come up with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And one night, I thought about taking enough
to kill myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I never actually went through with that, and I wish I knew what made me
decide not to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a real low point
and, honestly, I don't even know how to feel like that again, thank god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish I could explain what prevented me from
doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All I know is, my girlfriend
saw me mention my suicidal feelings on Tumblr and reached out to me right away
because she is actually the best human and gave me as much emotional support
during the whole thing as she could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
I don't know how effective that was in stopping me because I was still lying to
her (and everyone who asked) about how I was abusing my Percocet, regularly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's no one else's fault, I just wasn't being
honest because I didn't want to be told to stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I'm just so grateful that I ran out of my prescription
when I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It forced me to deal with a
few things on my own and without any drug dependency in the mix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Spring semester that started a mere week after my surgery proved to be
the most difficult semester of my college career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I actually had to drop one of my five classes
for the first time since freshman year and now, my finals week was rapidly
approaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time for all of that work I
wasn't doing to finally collapse on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
finals week was the most isolated, sleep-deprived, mentally draining period in
my life, but I managed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, in my
first week home after all that, my girlfriend broke up with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, to a normal person this probably seems
like the coldest, most terrible thing to follow the months I just went through-
but my ex and I are far from normal people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In actuality, this was the best thing to happen to me since our getting
together in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">You see, we are adult humans who talk about things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the things we talked about that night
were how we knew we had to break up because after nearly two-and-a-half years
of being together and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">trying</i> to work
things out, we realized that maybe we're just shit at fulfilling each other's
needs... WHICH IS OKAY!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can get
along really well with someone and love them and respect them and communicate
with them and just <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not</b> fit well
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And part of communicating
really well with someone is realizing sooner rather than later that the
relationship doesn't work, and being okay with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I feel like that's something else that
they never tell you, especially not when you're 21 and ESPECIALLY NOT when
you're a girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We have really unhealthy ideas about relationships because there's this
heterosexualized notion of monogamy and romance and these unrealistic ideals of
finding that one person, and smoothing everything out despite all your
differences and your incompatibilities because you're supposed to complete each
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when you're a woman, it's
even more important for you to find that match because your life depends on the
man you give yourself to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's hard to
believe that you can actually be truly happy when you're single when this is
all you're hearing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you disagree
with me because you have had a different experience but these are the things
that I've learned about love and relationships from actually being in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's what I've observed from being a girl in
this time and place and being told from the media and from cultural traditions
and all sorts of things that I need to find the one person who completes me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, what if that one person who completes
me is me?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was in that relationship, happy because we get along so well but
unsatisfied because we weren't necessarily compatible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when you are insecure, you need more love
and attention than another person can really give you, because you're trying to
make up for what you don't have yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That's the terribly sad but true paradox of insecurity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And maybe this moment will never happen for
you- and for that I am truly sorry- but when we broke up, I immediately realized
that I didn't need to try to salvage and cling to a relationship that wasn't
working because I was afraid I couldn't find better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been told that I'm ugly or undesirable,
so no one would want me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others have
wrongfully believed that I'm ugly and undesirable, and have lost out and denied
themselves the pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh fucking
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right now I can't be bothered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Getting through the semester that I needed her most without my ex-girlfriend,
and coming out of it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">relatively</i>
unharmed, taught me that I could survive without her (which I sorta didn't
think was possible sometimes).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And looking back, I know I couldn't see it
then but, I had so many people around me who cared about me and who tried to
make my life easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had bosses who
understood when I couldn't cover my shifts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had professors who consistently encouraged
me to rest and take extensions rather than force myself to come to class and
hand everything in on time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had a
medical staff that was working on getting me back to normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had friends who literally devoted huge
chunks of time in their weeks to just staying with me and bringing me food and
helping me put my shoes on and just making sure I wasn't alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had family who checked in with me and asked
about me and drove me to the airport and the hospital and back to campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had a girlfriend who gave me all the love
and support that she could, that she knew how to give, that I was actually
capable of realizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And those things are hard to see and appreciate when you're hurting as much
as I was, when you are as scared as I was, when you are in the downward spiral
of losing motherfucking everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay,
so I'm still paying medical bills a year later, and I still have this massive
scar on my body, and I still get terrified at the thought of ever having to get
another surgery sometime, later in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But at least I can recognize that I am not alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at least now I understand my own worth
and can appreciate myself, which is something you don't expect to gain in the
year you lose everything.</span>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-22262279693177763342012-10-24T17:17:00.000-07:002012-10-24T17:24:20.127-07:00Major Attention-Whore<div class="caption" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Earlier today, internationally-known curmudgeonly douche nozzle Donald Trump offered President Barack Obama a deal in the form of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgOq9pBkY0I&feature=share" target="_blank">an internet video entitled "Major Announcement."</a> After the whole birth certificate episode of a couple years ago, the Donald thought that his name had been out of the papers for long enough and decided to remind us all of what an irrelevant fucking asshole he is.<br />
<br />
The following is a totally unofficial yet ridiculously accurate translation of what he said: <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Donald:</b> President Obama is the least transparent president of this country.<br />
<br />
<b>translation:</b> BARACK OBAMA IS BLACK! HE IS THE LEAST
WHITE PRESIDENT OF ALL OUR WHITE PRESIDENTS! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN AND
WHY COULDN’T I HAVE PAID SOMEONE TO FIX THIS?!??!<br />
<br />
…………<br />
<br />
<b>Donald:</b> We know very little about our president.<br />
<br />
<b>translation:</b> HE’S BLACK!!! STOP TELLING ME HE’S A
HARVARD GRADUATE! HE COULDN’T BE; HE’S BLACK!!!! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE
THIS NONSENSE! LOOK AT HIS SKIN!! LOOK AT HIS EVIL DARK SKIN!!<br />
<br />
………..<br />
<br />
<b>Donald:</b> I’m very honored to have gotten him to release his long form birth certificate.<br />
<br />
<b>translation:</b> I have no shame and make no apologies
for spending all of our precious time on stupid and inconsequential
bullshit because I’m a racist dildo.<br />
<br />
………..<br />
<br />
<b>Donald:</b> (I’m just paraphrasing here) I will give $5
million with no strings attached to any charity of his choice,
just so long as he meets my very specific demands that in no way sound
like a kidnapper negotiating the release of the child I just stole
BECAUSE I AM A FAIR AND GOOD DISGUSTINGLY RICH PERSON and could not have
possibly just given these charities money for nothing.<br />
<br />
………..<br />
<br />
<b>Donald:</b> If he releases these records, it will end
the question and, indeed, the anger of many Americans. They’ll know
something about their president.<br />
<br />
<b>translation:</b> DID WE THINK IT WAS OKAY TO JUST ELECT A
BLACK PRESIDENT?! HE’S FUCKING BLACK!!! Surely, everyone is more upset
about that than the economy or reproductive rights or healthcare or
lgbtq issues or ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE. I can’t be alone here. I’m not
racist; I just hate having a president who isn’t White… errrr..
transparent.<br />
<br />
………..<br />
<br />
<b>Donald:</b> (again, paraphrasing) So, all he has to do
to get this money is work for it, baby. Yeah. Earn this money. Put
your college records in a brown paper bag and deliver it at the pier no
later than 1am. Tell no one where you are going. Knock four times and a
man in a beige trench coat will be waiting. The password is “squeaky
vagina.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd-3UCtnRtLMfjpUP7Zk-ZXxGXsNlVMnH0zmDy-Cjzf6h2wu46Vvb_6km9KZb7lNpmP8WR6re7-8xx4MRX_qgHs7AkoX8PPhaP9F5_WDklnChUa6NGREln_Qtd_o4BCllngvbQVwPJ2bsH/s1600/5+million.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd-3UCtnRtLMfjpUP7Zk-ZXxGXsNlVMnH0zmDy-Cjzf6h2wu46Vvb_6km9KZb7lNpmP8WR6re7-8xx4MRX_qgHs7AkoX8PPhaP9F5_WDklnChUa6NGREln_Qtd_o4BCllngvbQVwPJ2bsH/s640/5+million.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-62777928657536967902012-09-11T00:36:00.000-07:002012-09-11T00:48:56.379-07:00On This September 11th<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
It is hard to ignore the significance of September 11th in U.S. history. As a New Yorker, this day really resonates and stands out as something that made me (ten years old at the time) very confused and afraid, and even more confused and afraid when I saw those feelings reflected in the adults around me who were supposed to know what was going on. I remember how, for a moment there, this whole nation was united in feeling the loss and the vulnerability and the fear.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
But that was one attack for us. I'm not trying to downplay the magnitude, I'm just trying to put things in perspective. There are places where attacks like the one we experienced on 9.11.2001 are not as rare an occurrence. Furthermore, (and I can't believe this still needs to be said eleven years later) that attack was not the fault of every Muslim in this or any country. The loss of life may have been great on that day, but we show ourselves to be much weaker when our response to something like that is not to build ourselves up again but, rather, to single out and persecute innocent people for their faith and practices in a country where religious freedom is supposed to be part of the most basic foundation.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I say this as a New Yorker. I say this as a girl who spent the night of that September 11th literally not knowing if her father (who worked on Wall Street) was ever coming home again:</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
This Islamophobia thing we've got going on in this country- something which was always basically lurking but had a chance to really flourish after the attacks of 9.11- needs to <b>STOP</b>. Not only is it harmful; it is also illogical. It is ridiculous to hold up Islam as an example of a religion which is spread through violence, as people like to say, but ignore that whole thing called the Inquisition and that bit about Manifest Destiny. And, for fans of more recent history, certain shootings which were the result of Christian extremists... but nobody seems to want to refer to those.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The fact is that religious faith, in its very essence, requires some kind of zealotry, some kind of passion, and when that sort of thing is taken too far (in the name of ANY religion) it can result in a body count. This is a frightening reality but it is not a reality that is limited to Muslims. We need to get over ourselves.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I, myself, am queer and am obviously going to hell and/or its counterpart in a bevvy of religions according to various people. So don't come telling me that there are <b><i>some</i></b> religions that are founded on hate and violence and <b><i>others</i></b> that aren't. No. It's more like religions were formed to explain oddities in nature and to give people hope. Those stories and beliefs then evolved into the stuff that we see today. There are people who use their faith as an excuse to reach out and love people and to find the strength to carry on throughout their lives. That is good and humane and hurts no one when it is pure. And then there are the ones who use their religion as an excuse to hate certain groups of people- and that is so backwards, I cannot believe they don't see how inherently wrong that is for themselves. </div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The same goes for the memory of September 11th. I think that if people want to use this day to commemorate the loss of life on so grand a scale and to reflect on the events that soon followed in a way that makes them value life more, then that's beautiful and wonderful and they should do that. But <b>do not</b> use this day for your hate. <b>DO NOT</b> use this moment as an excuse to harass and persecute those who face the harassment and persecution daily because it makes <i>you </i>feel better. That is weak. That is reprehensible. And that is the opposite of what anyone needs right now.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<br />MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-48256432985539492532012-08-22T20:06:00.001-07:002012-08-22T20:28:02.012-07:00The Reason You "Don't Feel Puerto Rican"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I have very pale skin for someone who is Puerto Rican and
Dominican.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It often surprises people to
learn what my ethnicity is comprised of and, because people typically assume
that I am White, I do not face as much racism as Latinos with darker
complexions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this, in no way,
disqualifies my experiences as a Latina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even
if I didn't have this issue with my skin tone, I still have a wonderful ethnic marker
in my thick, curly, and untamable Puerto Rican/Dominican hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Gabby Douglas at the Olympics- whom I commend for her badassery both in and out of the competition- I
have had to contend with the most ridiculous internalized racism about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Women of my own
fucking background have criticized and scolded and insulted my hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was never good enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was never straight enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By all traditional standards of beauty, it was "bad hair." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
But this post is not exclusively about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As with any human being, there is more to me
than just my hair; there's a lot of stuff going on underneath it, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In high school that stuff going on underneath
was pretty brilliant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dude, I mean I was
a fucking extraordinary student in high school!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I'm talkin' I was in AP classes and I graduated fourth in my class of
something like 100-140 students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a
big deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, my academic
excellence came with a very strange consequence, and one of the most racist
comments I've had to encounter in my personal life.</div>
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<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
"But you're so <b>smart</b>."</div>
</blockquote>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
That was the response that I got from OTHER DOMINICANS in my
predominantly Dominican school when they found out my heritage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only is it insulting to me to be
disassociated from my ethnicity because I'm <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too
good</i> at being intelligent to fit in with my own people; it is insulting to
you, the Dominican person who buys into the idea that the ability to learn and
articulate oneself and get good grades is strictly a White thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's that White mentality of "this is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i> over here and that's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">them</i> all the way over there and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> we</i> act like this and all of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">them </i>act like that" and it's that
divide that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we KNOW </i></b>doesn't actually exist so cleanly in real life but we
somehow get convinced that it is until we start to believe that people of
colour are "acting White" when they get good grades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This particular brand of racism, in case you are unfamiliar with it, is
the "internalized racism" to which I referred in my opening paragraph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's something that I know a lot about, not just from my time in high school or that
issue with my hair, but because I am the daughter of one its proudest<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>participants.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
My father (the Puerto Rican one in the equation) writes
almost compulsively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes books,
plays, poems, short stories- all of which I stopped reading a few years ago out
of self-preservation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some point, he wrote his
autobiography.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have not read
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I refuse to read it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't need to; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>I've spent my life listening to his
anecdotes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and reading this book will
only infuriate me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the title,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Funny, I Don't Feel Puerto Rican, </i>infuriates
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Please don't feel obligated to buy
it or anything; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> don't)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That line was his response, growing up in the
Bronx in the '50s and '60s, to people who would say "funny, you don't look
Puerto Rican" when they learned of his ethnicity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This title floods me with unwanted memories of my own high
school experience with my ethnicity and it pains me to know that my father truly believes that there is a certain way to<i><b> be</b></i> Puerto Rican.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span> </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I don't want
to be the person who tells other people how to identify, but I'm his daughter so I know where and how he cultivated this mentality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, in large part, based on the 1961 film
adaptation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West Side Story</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I shit you not.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
At the tender age of eleven, my father saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West Side Story </i>and
identified more with the Jets than with the Sharks. Thus, he concluded that he was more White
than Puerto Rican, neglecting two imperative points in the process:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
1. He was not an immigrant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was born in New York and so were his parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course he identified with the White
kids!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were the New Yorkers! If the Puerto Rican characters had been 2nd-generation New Yorkers like he was, he probably would've felt more like them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
2. <i>West Side Story</i> was written by White
men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were not accurate depictions
of the experiences of actual Puerto Ricans living in New York; they were the
brainchildren of some White guys who wrote down what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i> saw as being the major differences. Even the Sharks' music is not based on Puerto Rican music: the "I Feel Pretty" number features castanets (which are from Spain), the structure of "America" is traditionally Mexican, and that mambo they do in the gym originates from Cuba but all those Spanish-speaking countries are interchangeable, right? Additionally, those Sharks were portrayed by the
likes of Russian Natalie Wood and Greek George Chakiris- great performances and
all but fuckin' A for authenticity, guys! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
My father and I differ in a lot of ways but I think I am
most proud of the way that I refuse to allow stupid things like that to govern
how I identify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that I'm a Latina
and if someone is gonna try to tell me that my experiences don't count because I
don't resemble their pre-conceived notions of what that is, then they can show
me the credentials that make them an authority on my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact is, I had a Dominican mother and a
Puerto Rican father (whether he feels that way or not) and there is no
stereotypical media representation or grade point average I can get that will
change that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime, I have decided that for my
own mental and emotional health, I will start referring to my father's book by its
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">true</i></b>
title: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It's Not Funny But Internalized Racism and the "Us vs. Them" Mentality
of White America Which is Informed by Media Representations of Latinos (That Were Written by
White People in the First Place) Have Been Embedded in American Culture and
Attempt to Disqualify My Experiences as a Genuine Puerto Rican</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
It's a mouthful, but it's better than ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-70105062994019862572012-08-02T10:12:00.000-07:002012-08-02T10:14:17.848-07:00diary of a queer woman of colour/film student<div class="caption" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is something I posted on Tumblr last night. I decided to put it here as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like intense films.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like when important characters die. I like when their death means
something deeper than just another one biting the dust for the sake of
beefing up the body count, when someone who they loved and trusted is
responsible for it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like when the person responsible loves them too. I like when they
are conflicted about the murder and have to live with the guilt.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like when actors look awful. I like when make up artists spend
their energy making their eyes look puffy and when they have stubble and
disheveled hair and bruises and look like they haven’t showered in days
when their characters haven’t showered in days. Or when they look like
they just woke up when their character just woke up.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like when time is malleable and the film doesn’t unfold in
chronological order. I like the challenge, having to figure out what’s
going on and hate being led by the hand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like when actors surprise themselves and everyone else. When they
leave their comfort zone, when they ad-lib and go out on a limb and even
scare me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like when questions of morality are used to disrupt the status quo. I don’t like when they reinforce it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I don’t like when films insult my intelligence.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I don’t like the way some human beings are reduced to stereotypes
while others enjoy the warm hues of complexity. I don’t like narratives
with double standards or when women are objectified and not treated
with the same respect by the camera as men or when people from oppressed
groups are made the butt of the joke… or the villain.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I like films. I like to watch them. I like to analyze them. What I don’t like is feeling like they don’t like me.</span></div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-71473884037818167692012-06-12T20:09:00.002-07:002012-06-12T23:58:58.429-07:00The Problem with Pretty<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I got hit on in Spanish yesterday. This is nothing unusual; I tend to attract older, Spanish-speaking men as I walk through the city, minding my own business. It was this particular man’s phrasing that stood out to me. </div>
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“Estás muy linda,” he called out to me when I walked past him, which translates to “you are very pretty” but, which implies that this statement is not always true, that my prettiness is temporary, short-term, fleeting. </div>
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My inner drag queen started to amuse herself with the thought “He must’ve meant ‘eres’ (the permanent version of ‘estás’) because I am ALWAYS pretty.”</div>
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But here’s the problem with pretty:<br />
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I spent so many years of my life truly believing that I am not pretty. It didn’t matter very much to me because I always knew that at least I am smart and funny and I care about other people, so I stopped putting beauty on a pedestal. I simply accepted that it was not an adjective that many people would use to describe me. I didn’t realize that, although I said that I didn’t care about something as superficial as physical appearance, I was, in fact, selling myself short and filling my head with this idea that I deserved less than what I wanted. And worse: less than what I needed.</div>
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I figured that since I wasn’t pretty, I should not turn down offers from the handful of people who were deluded enough to believe that I was and I felt I owed it to myself, and them, to be with them, even if they did make me feel awful about myself in other ways. Sometimes that didn’t even manifest in other ways at all. My first boyfriend praised my tits but told me on our first date that I should lose a few pounds. And I stayed with him for nearly a month after that!</div>
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That’s what insecure people do: we stay in abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationships longer than we should because we have trouble realizing that we have options.</div>
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Unfortunately, we live in a society that is constructed on beauty worship- which I would be more or less okay with, except that it is one idea of beauty. One nearly-impossible-to-achieve standard of beauty.</div>
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Take my breasts for example and how that boyfriend I mentioned was under the same mistaken impression that most people are under: tits should be big and waists should be small. For the most part, it does not work like that. Of course there are always rather thin people with rather large breasts, and vice versa, but usually, the body is naturally proportioned to support that abundant tit-meat you’re carting around. </div>
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But if your breasts are “too small,” you must be anorexic or “under-developed,” and you undoubtedly wish you had a bigger rack. If you happen to have that large chest that everyone is supposedly dying for, but also happen to be fat, you must be “too fat” and could stand to lose some damn weight- and you are obligated to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone and everyone. And forget it if you’re a man. If you’re a man and you have (big) breasts, you are either “not a real man” because gender is entirely dependent on secondary sex characteristics (SARCASM!!) or you have man-boobs brought on by too many cheeseburgers and not enough exercise. No one is allowed to be content.</div>
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And I honestly wish that the presence, absence, and/or relative size of breasts were the only areas in which beauty is scrutinized, but we all know better.</div>
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And it isn’t as if those precious few who actually fulfill the criteria can even enjoy their adjective much. There are all kinds of counter-attacks for the “beautiful people.” We accuse them of not having substance, of being obsessed with their looks, of being stuck up, of being mean, of being self-absorbed.</div>
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We objectify them.</div>
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We pick them apart, making fun of their “imperfections” until we are no better than the masses who called us ugly.</div>
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We call the beautiful women who don’t want to fuck us “bitches.”</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And the worst of all, we say that women who have the audacity to embrace this beauty that we worship, by wearing the revealing outfits the fashion industry convinces them they need, are all “asking for it” when they are raped.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We are conditioned to think that being pretty is the most important thing in life. More important than being intelligent, or being compassionate, or being independent, or any other thing that a human being is capable of- so we all break our backs trying to look beautiful, forgetting that we already are, and forgetting that external beauty does not measure human worth.</span>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-89662306733632432212012-05-08T12:45:00.001-07:002012-05-08T13:00:20.954-07:00Asking for the Moon<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Last night I had a dream that my father was talking
smack about gender equality. You
probably don’t know my father, but this is very realistic. He was arguing with another man about how
bitchy feminists are, how cold and unforgiving they are… when they fight for
basic human rights. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In my dream, I started arguing with him, defending
that fight- much like I do with him in real life. After listening to me for a few minutes, he
responded with what he must have considered a very poignant misquoted line from
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now, Voyager*</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"I gave you the moon, why can’t you be happy with the
stars?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What my dream-father meant, of course, and what
dream-me actually understood (because I was unconscious) is “men have given you
so much, so many things, why can’t you be happy with what you have? Why are you
asking for more?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My response to him went something like this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Because we want the moon. Because the moon shouldn’t even be yours to
give, you stupid asshole. Because having
the moon is a basic human right. And how can you say that you gave it to me and
then ask me to be happy with less anyway?!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I stand by those words even now that I’m awake. I’m actually really proud of myself for being
able to make such an articulate argument while I was unconscious. Now, if only I could transfer that
awesomeness to these final papers I still need to write... </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe I was able to think so clearly in my dream
because it is an argument that I constantly have to reiterate when I’m
awake. It is an argument that so many of
us, suffering from all different kinds of oppressions, have to make all the
time. Asking to be treated like a human
being is not asking for too much. And, as
nonsensical and contradictory as what my dream-father said was, it perfectly
encapsulates the kind of bullshit that we often encounter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Because the 14-year-old girl in me likes to stare at
<a href="http://jamesmcavoywithsloths.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">fan manips of James McAvoy with sloths</a> and prevent 21-year-old me from actually
getting work done, I am a very passionate Tumblr girl. I recently got into an argument about race
and gender with a sexist, transphobic, racist asshole on Tumblr, like you do,
in which I had to defend my major and career path in addition to my role as a
woman of colour. In the same post, he told
me “you already have your equality” and, at the same time mind you, accused me
of wasting the opportunity I’ve been given with my college education by
studying about injustices rather than studying to be a scientist because too
many women “complain about the lack of females in scientific subjects, and with
this decide to study feminism to ascertain why, rather than actually break the
chain and enter these fields themselves, thereby contributing to the trend that
they oppose.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I mean, it’s a valid observation; not enough people
are trying to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">be</i> the change that they
seek. I will grant him that. However, I must take his criticism with a
grain of salt because a) I have been through his blog and he is an asshole and
b) he said all this and still claimed that I “already have [my] equality.” Furthermore, I don't think he understands that women are socialized to pursue careers that do not focus on math and science. We are encouraged to do other things because the misconception is that women are not as good as men in these fields. This, of course, leads to stereotype threat and the internalization of that harmful belief that women are actually not good enough, and then women do not try to become scientists. And the few that do are so clearly entering a man's world that, more often than not, they begin to feel intimidated by the majority. Additionally, I don’t think it’s fair to charge some
people with that kind of responsibility while others just walk around, pursuing
whatever profession they desire without having to worry about how it reflects their
whole gender or race or sexual orientation, etc. So I said this:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"What I am majoring in/plan to do
with my life is not the issue. The issue is that no matter what I do, I
will be held up as an example of what my entire group as a whole is capable of
in a way that men never have to worry about- unless they are not white or
straight or cis or neurotypical or able-bodied or from a middle-class
background because that’s the whole point here; when you have privilege, you do
not experience marginalization and therefore do not understand the imbalance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And I don’t understand how you can
tell me that I already have equality and reinforce the fact that I clearly
don’t, and NOT even realize it. If there was true equality, as you suggest
there is, I would not have to tailor my career path to fill that gap because,
by definition, there would be no gap."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">What faux-allies and most people
with privilege see when they look at us, the oppressed, fighting for our basic
human rights, is a group of people asking for more than they need. They think our demands are outrageous and
blame us for our own dissatisfaction. They
expect us to be content with the crumbs offered, to sit here repeating to
ourselves *“Let’s not ask for the moon, we have the stars” (the actual quote
from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now, Voyager</i>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So, let me
make this really simple and easy to understand; if you have the moon, a.k.a.
privilege, you don’t get to tell other people not to ask for it, a.k.a.
equality. </span></div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-61531544990638352242012-03-14T19:52:00.000-07:002012-08-23T16:15:58.539-07:00#ToMyUnbornChild<br />
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Since this month began (you know, Women’s History Month, the
month that’s supposed to make me happy and proud) I have been bombarded with
overwhelming true stories of ridiculous hate crimes and it’s fucking appalling. There is no other word for what’s been going
on. </div>
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First, there’s the story of George Hodgins, the 22-year-old
autistic man who was <a href="http://thautcast.com/drupal5/content/loving-and-devoted-parents-do-not-shoot-and-kill-their-sons" target="_blank">killed by his mother</a>
in a murder-suicide that will likely be remembered as another “act of
desperation from a long-suffering mother” instead of the despicable murder it
really was. The next thing was the
murder of the 28-year-old Mexican <a href="http://www.queerty.com/mexican-trans-advocate-agnes-torres-found-murdered-20120314/" target="_blank">transgender activist Agnes Torres</a>. Unlike George, she was not killed by
her own parent, but she <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was </i>the sixth
member of the LGBTQ community to be murdered in the town of Puebla since
<b>January</b>. Now, on the heels of these
horrific stories I’m learning about (but, sadly, am no stranger to) comes a Twitter trend so disturbing that
I have to put my foot down and address it. </div>
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Expecting parents and people who fantasize about someday having
children often write letters or make promises to their offspring about how they
intend to raise them. I know that when
my sister was pregnant with her first child, she wrote a letter of undying love
and unconditional support to him. Similarly, my girlfriend
often vows that anyone who dares to hurt her future babies will suffer
unimaginable pain. This is typical,
protective, parental devotion. What is
decidedly <b>not</b> “protective,” “parental,” or a display of “devotion” by any
stretch of the imagination is the string of unsavory and homophobic tweets
found on the hashtag #ToMyUnbornChild, a trend which has been absolutely blowing
up recently.</div>
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Here are just <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">some </i></b>of the grotesque things people
have been tweeting:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbJrsTTkagR-DWWlo9ayrN58U4d0yrfKHMsD8SxJGm3h32s1PVzbFv_Nv__wisjay82bouqXBW8Qk19DPjJ6LRimkFp0-RSiTqeXMc6fTr_n-b58FHlshYX_8-BSI_TrwLLS3uHkbX3uBw/s1600/tomyunbornchild5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbJrsTTkagR-DWWlo9ayrN58U4d0yrfKHMsD8SxJGm3h32s1PVzbFv_Nv__wisjay82bouqXBW8Qk19DPjJ6LRimkFp0-RSiTqeXMc6fTr_n-b58FHlshYX_8-BSI_TrwLLS3uHkbX3uBw/s400/tomyunbornchild5.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
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So basically, I am praying that every single one of these
people just puts the kid up for adoption instantly so that someone who would
actually like to be a parent can have a chance. Or, they should get an abortion- and that
brings me to my Women’s History Month angle. The way I understand it,
Republicans are all gnashing their nails because sexually active (and responsible)
people all over the country have the outlandish idea that they are entitled to
reproductive rights. This includes
access to contraceptives and birth control as well as the right to abort the
unwanted fetuses they have become impregnated with. Scary stuff indeed. It is so scary, in fact, that women were not
allowed to attend the meetings in which these issues were discussed (<a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/166311/republican-hearing-contraception-no-women-allowed" target="_blank">the Republican Hearing on Contraception</a>). Anyone with a uterus (i.e. the people
who typically become pregnant) was automatically disqualified from these
hearings.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Apparently, the only people allowed to attend the hearings were people who would rather let unwanted and unloved
babies grow up and be murdered at the hands of their own parents than allow the
unfit parents-to-be to abort the potentially gay fetus they so despise. <a href="http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/fetus-focus-fallacy.shtml" target="_blank">A fetus is not a living being</a>; a baby is. When a person gives birth to the thing
that they were carrying in their womb during their pregnancy, when that
creature breathes air independently for the first time, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> is when it is another living being. So, abortion is not murder. And even if everything I've said is suddenly rendered inaccurate and this debate regarding the abortion/murder struggle becomes more clouded than it currently is, you know what <i>is</i> a perfectly simple example of murder? Killing your 22-year-old son because you
consider him a burden. That is homicide, straight up, and sympathy for that is disgusting. Killing your gay child would also be an
example of murder, but I guess not many Republicans would care to back me up on
that observation. </div>
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<br /></div>
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As an unwanted child myself, it disgusts me to think that someone should have to grow up knowing that their parents hate their very
existence. Whether it’s because they are
gay, bisexual, autistic, transgender, or just happened to be born to people who
didn’t want them, no one should live in fear of one day being murdered by
anyone, least of all their own parents.
That is fucking disgraceful. </div>
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<br /></div>
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So, To <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My</i> Unborn
Child (the one I’m not planning to have any time within the next ten years, if
at all), </div>
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<br /></div>
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I really wish I could promise you a world that does not suck
at its very core. I wish that when you
are born, you don’t have to endure this despicable environment that champions
ignorance and hate and snuffs out any sign of deviation at the source. I wish that I could give you assurance that
the people you meet would only judge you based on your character, like Martin
Luther King preached, but I can’t and for that I apologize. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do more to change
the harmful way that people think and act to make this world safer for you.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The only thing I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i>
promise to do is raise you with unconditional love and support from my heart-
even if you do end up being straight.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Love, </div>
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Mom</div>
MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-53902571086232665962012-03-08T22:14:00.001-08:002012-03-09T17:56:04.945-08:00The Twilight Effect<br />
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First off, Happy International Women’s Day! That’s right!
We get one little month to celebrate our history; one measly day <s>that
people hardly remember</s> for women all over the world. But, hey, it’s something.</div>
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<br />
It was a pretty sad day for me, though, because I finally
finished reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twilight</i> today. I know. I KNOW!
</div>
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<br />
It was assigned reading for my Women’s Studies class and I’m
just a painfully good student. I say “painful”
and I absolutely mean it because I found this book so distressing that it was actually
hurting my brain. Now, since this
harmful piece of literary shit has been floating around for nearly a decade-
with a movie franchise that seems as impossible to kill as Edward Cullen
himself- anything I might say about the abusive relationship or Meyer’s
horribly inept writing has been said before and said to death. Suffice to say, the Edward/Bella relationship
is abusive and unhealthy and no one should emulate it, ever, because Edward </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span>is possessive- way beyond the point of flattery</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span>stalks her, but actually!, and gets creepily
intrusive (she specifically tells him NOT to listen in on certain conversations
and he does anyway without a hint of remorse) </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span>uses physical force to get his way (dragging her
around, carrying her against her will, kidnapping her to take her to prom…)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span>spends no less than THE ENTIRE BOOK “laughing,” “chuckling,”
or “suppressing laughter” at her whenever she does/says anything</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
5.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span>is a vampire that wants to drink her blood (more
than anyone else’s blood… ever)</div>
</blockquote>
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and then, of course, Bella has absolutely no sense of
self-preservation.</div>
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<br />
I get that the book was relatable- believe me, I
understand. I knew exactly how Bella
felt in those 140-odd pages towards the beginning she spent over-analyzing
every interaction she had with Edward.
But that hardly means I want to read about it! And I honestly cannot recall another book in
which the villain (and actual plot) was introduced in the last quarter of the
fucking novel. But my problem with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twilight </i>is not entirely centered on the
fact that it is awful (AND HARMFUL!); my problem is that it makes me
embarrassed to be a woman.</div>
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<br />
On this day, of all days, I should be able to look at
the things that my badass predecessors achieved and fought for and be proud. Instead, I had to finish reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twilight</i>- a book whose heroine is a
self-proclaimed “damsel in distress”- and I just can’t find anything to be
proud of right now. Obviously, there are lots of things
to be proud of and inspired by- just in the way of women writers alone- and
yet, I have this overwhelming sense of despair. Why?
Because as a woman, and as a woman writer, I’m terrified that Stephenie
Meyer will have some bearing on the way people view women writers. It’s obvious that she already does, but I really
fear that her terrible books and views will endure as the kind of things that women
write. I find that unacceptable.</div>
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<br />
When a man writes a shitty book, he is not held up as an example
of all masculine authors. Instead of
singling Meyer out as one awful writer, people tend to expand on it and make it
an issue of her being a woman, specifically targeting young girls. That offends me. I think we should just say “Stephenie Meyer
wrote some terrible books, not because she is a woman, but because she can’t
write.” and leave her gender out of it. It
was insulting to have to endure that book, all the while, knowing that this is
how people will expect me to write, what they will expect me to write
about.</div>
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<br />
And, while I’m on the topic, I would like to express my
disgust with the current meme “Still not as gay as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twilight.</i>” This meme is
appalling on so many levels and I know “it’s just an internet meme, calm down!”
but I don’t think anything as persistent as that can be considered
innocent. It stems from this idea that
something is “gay” if it centers on romance or appeals to women. I will admit, dousing your leading man in
pride parade glitter is hella gay, but that’s kind of the only thing in this
whole story that isn’t 100% heterosexual- and I don’t mean that as a good
thing. The story, the characters, their
interactions, every last thing in this book reinforces the gender binary and
the institution of heterosexual romance.
Again, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">SHE CALLS HERSELF A DAMSEL
IN DISTRESS!!!! </b>Need I say more?</div>
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<br />
So, to recap,</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Happy
International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month</b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">stop
blaming all women writers for Stephenie Meyer being shit</b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">stop
calling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twilight </i>“gay”</b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">don’t
emulate the Edward/Bella relationship</b></div>
</blockquote>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-45924302760836436282012-02-07T23:47:00.000-08:002012-02-08T00:27:47.892-08:00The Worst Mistake<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">“Whats the useless skin around the vagina called?...
A woman.”</span></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Isn’t that a hilarious joke?! No? You didn’t think that was funny? You thought it was offensive and sexist and
subscribes to the harmful misconception that everyone with a vagina is a woman
(and, similarly, people without vaginas are not women)? Yeah, I didn’t think it was funny either. I was even less inclined to find it amusing given
the circumstances under which I found this joke.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Before I explain those circumstances, I think we
should pause and focus on the word “joke.”
These are definitions of the word as found on dictionary.com:</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333;">1.</span>
something said or done to <span style="color: #333333;">provoke</span> <span style="color: #333333;">laughter</span> or cause <span style="color: #333333;">amusement,</span>
as a <span style="color: #333333;">witticism,</span> a <span style="color: #333333;">short</span>
<span style="color: #333333;">and</span> <span style="color: #333333;">amusing</span>
anecdote, <span style="color: #333333;">or</span> <span style="color: #333333;">a</span>
<span style="color: #333333;">prankish</span> act: <i><span style="color: #333333;">He</span> <span style="color: #333333;">tells</span>
very <span style="color: #333333;">funny</span> <span style="color: #333333;">jokes.</span>
She played a joke <span style="color: #333333;">on</span> him. </i></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">2. <span style="color: #333333;">something</span> that is <span style="color: #333333;">amusing</span> or <span style="color: #333333;">ridiculous,</span>
especially because of being <span style="color: #333333;">ludicrously</span> <span style="color: #333333;">inadequate</span> <span style="color: #333333;">or</span> a
sham; a thing, situation, or <span style="color: #333333;">person</span> <span style="color: #333333;">laughed</span> at rather <span style="color: #333333;">than</span>
taken seriously; farce: <i>Their pretense <span style="color: #333333;">of</span> generosity is a <span style="color: #333333;">joke.</span>
An <span style="color: #333333;">officer</span> with no ability to command is a <span style="color: #333333;">joke.</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #333333;"> </span> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">3. a matter <span style="color: #333333;">that</span> <span style="color: #333333;">need</span> not be <span style="color: #333333;">taken</span>
very seriously; trifling matter: <i>The loss
was no joke.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">4. something <span style="color: #333333;">that</span> does
not present the expected <span style="color: #333333;">challenge;</span>
something <span style="color: #333333;">very</span> <span style="color: #333333;">easy:</span>
<i>The test was a joke for the whole <span style="color: #333333;">class.</span> </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">My personal favourite is number 3 because it is
clearly not applicable in this situation.
This joke and where it stems from is hardly “a trifling matter” and we
cannot pretend that it is. We have not
reached a point of gender equality where we can look back at it and laugh, and
even if we did reach that point, there’s not a hell of a lot there to laugh
about. Telling a woman to get back in
the kitchen or to go make a sandwich isn’t funny. It’s not that we’re too sensitive; it’s that
we’re too oppressed. We are still the
victims of institutionalized discrimination that prevents us from equal rights,
earning equal pay, getting respect, and being taken seriously in general. This brings me to that aforementioned
circumstance and how I happened upon the "hilarious joke" I opened with. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Acquiring 1,445 likes in 8 hours, this cartoon was
posted on Facebook by a certain group, accompanied by the caption “Worst mistake
in history”</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOCsLEGVgF-VV5rUU-wrSVtZMYXTTO3iIp353PVKxXO-BxZ2WrIp6oKWGAz5xBnuWvP5OJcH8RK4QC9W1aA94om_a9w7wG3FM1EW2Ls8iAzXRls84nXEEYYxIqZWCqoFDZUo8jXKL1qVl/s1600/worst+mistake+sexism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyOCsLEGVgF-VV5rUU-wrSVtZMYXTTO3iIp353PVKxXO-BxZ2WrIp6oKWGAz5xBnuWvP5OJcH8RK4QC9W1aA94om_a9w7wG3FM1EW2Ls8iAzXRls84nXEEYYxIqZWCqoFDZUo8jXKL1qVl/s400/worst+mistake+sexism.jpg" width="330" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Come again?
The “worst mistake in history” you say?
I hope you’ll understand why I’m not particularly amused by this kind of
joke. And I hope that in that
understanding you DO NOT chalk it up to me being “too sensitive” or not having “a
sense of humour” or some other bullshit that is meant to justify this kind of
blatant misogyny. It is hardly an issue
of not taking a joke; it’s more an issue of recognizing the thinly veiled
message of the disgruntled, privileged male who is grossly misinformed in his
opinion that women currently wield too much power, and being fed up with it.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Usually, when I get upset I say something. (It’s this wonderful ability I’ve had ever
since I learned how to talk.) So, I said something. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">“this is not just a
joke. this is extremely sexist and
extremely harmful. where the fuck does
anyone get off expressing discomfort because a group of people (a group which,
incidentally, makes up roughly 50% of the globe) learned to speak, a.k.a. voice
their opinions, feelings, complaints?!
how dare anyone present this as a problem and how dare they label that ‘problem’
as ‘the worst mistake in history?!’<br />
this isn’t just a cartoon and I will not relax becuz it’s just a joke. anyone who is saying that is so thoroughly
embedded in the misogynistic perception of the world and our culture that they
don’t realize how ultimately harmful and inherently pernicious this cartoon is.”
</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">My comment got 10 likes before it was removed when I
disliked the group. In retrospect, I
think I should not have disliked the group because now the majority of the
comments look like this:</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">These are just<b><i> some</i></b> of the comments you can find on
this picture. For the record, I didn’t
block out their names because these assholes don’t deserve anonymity. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Don't try to placate me
with the standard "they're just jerks on the internet." It's true that
they are jerks on the internet, but it can hardly be reduced to that. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">And to Chris Favuzza: Seriously? It’s a “bitch fit” to be offended when
everything about this cartoon, comment section, culture, mentality is a
personal threat to our dignity. This
kind of thing plays no small role in how women are treated in the professional
world, not to mention the dating world, the domicile, the medical world, the
education system, and the legal system.
Where do you get off thanking those who displayed what you would call “a
sense of humour” but what I call “complacency?” And I'm not personally attacking all the women who found this funny; I am, however, pissed the fuck off at the culture which allows this kind of thing to go on and then tells me to "shut the fuck up" about my anger.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">But since everyone is so quick to cry about how a
lack of humour is causing all these “uptight” women to get all bent out of
shape and hysterical about a simple joke, let’s focus on that for a
second. Fuck Sam Phillips and his truly
original request for a sandwich, let’s look at what Tremayne Craigg has to say:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">You probably <i>would</i>
just laugh, Tremayne, but I would argue that that has more to do with your
relative position of power than with your genuine good nature. It’s not the same when a joke is made about a
man’s worth in society as when the joke is made about women. And, personally, I don’t think it’s nice to
do that to men either but that’s just because I happen to be an egalitarian. You see, Tremayne and people of his gender have
the luxury of moving on. And I really
didn’t appreciate being reduced to a “sensitive bitch” because I was offended
by a) the cartoon, b) the caption “worst mistake in history,” and c) the
asshole comments telling me to lighten up, calling me useless, demanding that I
go make a sandwich, explaining that I require a dick shoved in my mouth, and reiterating that I need to get over myself.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">This is an issue we do not address nearly enough in
this country, and it isn’t going anywhere.
It’s not just a fucking joke to be laughed at, and then disregarded; it’s
a fucking tragedy and it is suffocating us.
What harm could it do to stand by and let that suffocation occur? Well, it might prove to be the worst mistake
in history. </span></span></div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com1New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.5217853 -74.3218301 40.9069203 -73.690116100000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-84179987838148152562012-02-02T03:30:00.000-08:002012-06-14T18:05:05.538-07:00One Does Not Simply Get Surgery<br />
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Let me tell you a story about how lazy I am.</div>
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When I was in Junior High, I would spend my entire summer on
the couch watching TV. I don’t mean I would come back from shopping or playing
outside with my friends and then spend 4 hours on the couch; I mean I would
wake up at noon, walk to the couch, and live there until 3 in the morning. But this alone does not a lazy person make; you
need to put in effort to achieve that- I had effort covered. </div>
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Since my family couldn’t afford to give me a cell phone yet-
and honestly, what 12-year-old really needs a fucking cell phone?- I had to devise a way to answer the house
phone without getting up. I took a
curtain rod that we happened to have around the apartment, brought the phone with
me to the couch, and pressed the rod on the phone cradle so I could lift it whenever
it rang. </div>
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Now, I recently had surgery, so my life has been going
through some radical changes in the past month. I’m not allowed to lift anything that’s heavier
than 5 pounds and bending down just doesn’t happen, so I couldn’t put my own
shoes on until the other day. Getting
used to my own recovery period is very hard for me because my body is in
constant pain and I spend most of my day being paranoid that if I sneeze, my
incision will rip open… again. </div>
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The day I came home from the hospital, I was really hungry
and there was a bag of Cheez-Its just out of my reach. Like any absolute badass would do, I used my
headphones to lasso the bag and pull it towards me so I could feed myself. This is the story of my life right now, but
what does it have to do with the theme of my blog? Well, my current state is intersecting with
those parts of my identity that I like to center this blog around. From the title we all know that I am poor,
fat, queer, and Latina, so let’s talk about how this surgery is affecting me.</div>
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<ul>
<li><i><b>Poor </b></i></li>
</ul>
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Because I have virtually no money, I was very fortunate that
most of my expenses were covered by my school’s health insurance. However, I’ve still had to pay nearly $100 in
copayments and for all kinds of medications and anti-biotics. Maybe that isn’t a huge amount of money to
most people, especially compared to how much the entire surgery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">might</i> have cost me, but it is a lot to
me. Plus the $100 it cost for me to stay
on campus over winter break so I could be closer to the hospital and the doctor
who performed the surgery. Not to
mention the fact that I feel like crap most of the day and, therefore, abhor
the thought of leaving my bed, so I have to order a lot of take out to prevent myself
from starving. </div>
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Also, blood from my incision
has gotten on pretty much everything I have worn in the past 3 weeks and isn’t
coming out in the laundry so, since I just don’t have the energy to wash this
stuff by hand, I have to buy some new clothes soon. This is all in addition to my regular expenses like this
semester’s tuition, my phone bill, and the books I need for class. And then, on top of all of it, I have been in
no condition to work, so I can’t even earn this money back any time soon at my
campus job. I’m in a very frustrating financial
position at the moment… and I thought things were bad<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> before</i> the surgery.</div>
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<ul>
<li><i><b>Latina</b></i></li>
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Another thing I may have taken for granted before is my hair
care regime. Maintaining my Puerto
Rican/Dominican hair has always been frustrating. It’s thick, curly, difficult to manage, and feels
not unlike barbed wire. Since the
surgery, it’s gotten even harder to take care of this hair. Showers drain me of my energy, so I don’t
take them everyday like I usually do and I certainly don’t wash or brush my
hair as frequently as I used to either.
These friends of mine (white girls) offer to do my hair for me but
I cannot permit that. </div>
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Technically, they’re
not allowed to touch my hair in the first place, but even if I let them for the
sake of helping me out, white girls do not understand this hair- not unless
they were raised in Washington Heights or majored in Ethnic Hair Care at Beauty
School. So, while I appreciate the
gesture, I have to settle for only tending to my hair every 5 days. This is highly problematic, especially for
someone who is as self-conscious about their appearance as I am. This brings me to my next issue.</div>
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<ul>
<li><i><b>Fat</b></i></li>
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The fact that I need to buy new clothes, as I previously
mentioned, means that I must once again subject myself to the impossible task
of acquiring clothes that fit me AND flatter my curves. More adventures down a sea of aisles that
carry every size except the one I need and the one just below that. More attempts to squeeze my ass and thighs
into something that was not made with my ass and thighs in mind. But right now, that is the least of my
worries. A more important aspect of the fat
issue during my recovery period is this attitude I have towards the rest I
need. </div>
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Consider the fact that I started this post by telling you
how lazy I am- as if this is comparable to a pre-teen on summer vacation. One of my biggest problems right now is that
I think I’m being lazy when I call security for the ride across campus that I
am entitled to or when I ask one of my friends to go fill up my water
bottles. There are so many stigmas
attached to being fat and the false idea that people are fat simply because
they do not exercise that I have internalized that harsh and unforgiving
attitude and am criticizing myself for not being more self-sufficient. I know that it’s wrong to think those things
and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself for these physical limitations but I
can’t help it. This idea has been so engrained
in me that I hesitate to ask my friends for things; things they are prepared to
bring me, tasks they are willing to carry out. </div>
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I don’t want to be seen as a lazy fat girl, so I’m
struggling with this issue of independence.
I have no money, so making simple accommodations like buying painkillers
takes a huge toll on my already-empty wallet.
I can’t bear to leave my bed some days, so I’ve missed a lot of classes.
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I wish being cut open and sewn back together was all I had
to deal with right now. Balancing all
this excess baggage is too difficult, and I can’t lift more than 5 pounds.</div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com1New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.5217853 -74.3218301 40.9069203 -73.690116100000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-42225855876317426212011-12-24T01:36:00.000-08:002011-12-24T02:12:17.649-08:00Funny Girls and Double Standards<br />
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Soooooooo I just saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bridesmaids</i>. I know I’m mad late on this but I was too
busy to catch it this summer. And by “too
busy” I mean I was watching my new favourite achievement in the positive
enforcement of gay characters in films, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">X-Men:
First Class</i>- which my poverty-stricken ass coughed up the price of admission
for on three different occasions. (McFassy
fourever!!) Before I say anything about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bridesmaids</i>, I have to say that I
enjoyed the film. However, from the
poster and the things I was hearing about it all summer, I thought it was going
to take place within the bridal suite in the hours before the wedding and it
would just be a bunch of really crass ladies in gorgeous dresses proving that
female comedians can be just as funny as their male counterparts. I was really excited to see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>.</div>
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What it ended up being, of course, was much sillier and
zanier and conformed more to rom-com conventions than I expected it to. I was still pleasantly surprised by what I
saw; I was just a little disappointed. But
more than anything, I am disappointed in what I’ve been reading people say
about the movie. </div>
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It’s not that I’m a feminist. First of all, I don’t consider myself a
feminist. Secondly, I don’t think you
need to be a feminist to see that there is a total fucking double standard in
the way women are allowed to behave in public/media. It pisses me off to see people crying about
the<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrb7_XIIbhI&feature=related" target="_blank"> gross bathroom scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bridesmaids</i></a>,
which takes up a lot of space on the imdb boards. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea; I’m not
one for shit and vomit humour but I was glad that it was in the movie. It didn’t feel gratuitous or unnecessary to
me; it felt like a natural part of the story’s progression. </div>
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I’m rewatching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Knocked
Up</i> right now as I write this and it’s a movie I love a lot but it puts me
in an awkward place. Minus all the pot-smoking
and sexism, I relate more to Seth Rogen’s character than I do to Katherine Heigl’s. I’m pretty chill and conventionally
unattractive and I say inappropriate things.
Most importantly, I have a sense of humour. But there’s no room in Hollywood for women to
be funny if they’re not supermodels too.
And a lot of the time, when these gorgeous women do get to be funny,
they are usually either the straight-man (pretty gendered terminology there,
no?) or the joke is at their expense.<br />
<br />
The great thing about that food poisoning scene in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bridesmaids</i>, in my opinion, was seeing
women do those vile bodily functions without men around to deem them disgusting,
as in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not Another Teen Movie</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Change-Up</i>. If a man shits or pukes in a comedy, it’s
hilarious; when a woman does it, it is only considered hilarious if there is a
man present to say how gross it is. You
would never get a woman crapping in the middle of the street in a bridal gown as
the entire joke in a man’s comedy. The
joke in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i></b> scenario would be whatever insultingly amusing line the
man would say about such a thing. </div>
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There is a part of me that gets so giddy whenever Leslie
Mann straddles a toilet. Even when the
movies are as horribly offensive (on a multitude of levels) as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Change-Up</i>, I find it kind of
liberating to see women getting just as nasty as the boys do; because we
can. We can be just as good at
disgusting and we can also be just as good at clever as any man in the industry
but women are rarely given the chance. I
think the first time that ever registered for me was seeing Emma Stone in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superbad</i>. Yes, she is the “love interest” and remains
pretty limited in that role, but the first time we see her, she’s making dick
jokes with Jonah Hill- and keeping up! THAT
WAS ME IN HIGH SCHOOL! There are so many
girls that I know who do that yet so few of them on the screen. </div>
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Then again, women are usually only ever seen keeping up with
the men. When I was in school, the class
clowns were always boys. A guy would
fart loudly in the middle of class and it would be funny. It would be his joke for our benefit. I don’t ever remember a girl doing that. And I’ve overheard so many conversations
about how my male classmate’s balls smelled and felt but I cannot recall a
single time when a female classmate discussed the smell of her vagina just as
proudly. Girls are always expected to be
ladylike. And the thing about guys
getting so turned off when a woman says “suck my dick,” like, honestly, if you
don’t want to hear that then don’t continue to make your penis the center of
the universe. Don’t perpetuate the idea
that a penis is a symbol of strength and power and fuel the need for women to
prove themselves on your level because it is the only level you
understand. Also, try not being so
disgusted at the thought of women having penises, because some women do have
them and it isn’t disgusting or unladylike at all.</div>
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Speaking of female anatomy, both conventional and
unconventional perceptions of it, I think one of the most refreshing things
about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bridesmaids</i> was Maya Rudolph’s
monologue about how she and Rose Byrne’s character got their assholes bleached. That was beautiful. It’s not that I thought it was particularly
funny (although I was in stitches at the time because Maya Rudolph and Kristen
Wiig bounce off each other brilliantly), it was that the lines were said so earnestly
and that we weren’t supposed to recoil in horror or anything because there was
more to the scene than just the picture they were painting. So it would be dishonest to say that I didn’t
feel like this film was kind of ground-breaking. I know it was ultimately directed by a man
but since it was written by two women and the cast was mostly made up of female
talent, it is hard to say that it was not a positive achievement for women
filmmakers, women comedians, and women in the media in general.</div>
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What I will say to critique this film is that the main
character was straight, skinny, blonde, white, and middle-class. All of the women in the film were most of
those things, if not all. They were also
neuro-typical, able-bodied, cis gendered, and, though religion was never
discussed, I’m sure none of them suffered from religious persecution of any kind. So while it is amusing to watch Kristen Wiig
and her cohorts get in and out of these situations, she is still a straight,
skinny blonde woman who has problems like weird roommates and an awful
fuck-buddy. You might argue that she’s
poor and say that that creates some problems for her, especially after she gets
fired, but I’m pretty sure that never affects her the way it would affect
someone who <i>doesn’t</i> have a mother with a… what the fuck was that? a
three-bedroom house?! Does her measly
paycheck of over three times more than I make in two weeks stop her from buying
any of the things she buys in this film (the expensive bridesmaid dress, the
plane ticket to Vegas) or from owning a car(and getting it fixed)?
And yes, I understand that it’s Hollywood so of course she has a never-ending
supply of cash to make things happen, but still. If your character is struggling financially,
show her giving something up to balance it out, don’t just show her complaining
about how much things cost and then buying them anyway.</div>
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And why was the entire plot of this movie about how
competitive women are? The whole movie
hinged on the fact that Kristen Wiig and Rose Byrne are each trying to
establish themselves as the best companion and go to such catty lengths to do
so. One of the worst scenes in my
opinion was when they were trying to out-do each other with the engagement
party speeches. It’s not that the
premise of the scene was not funny or that the writing/performances was/were weak;
it’s that the whole thing went on for too long. I think it would have been more effective if
they had just made it Wiig, Byrne, Wiig, Byrne instead of dragging it out like
they did because a) how is Maya Rudolph NOT going to fucking notice there’s
something up at that point?! and b) it ruined the flow of the movie. </div>
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As ground-breaking as it was, the whole movie was about how women
are obsessed with social status and will be total bitches to attain it. AND THEN!!!!!, when they feel too threatened
by the competition, they waste no time calling that competition a lesbian… as
an insult. Any shred of positive, let
alone neutral, imagery this movie promoted towards homosexuality- and it takes
more than a brief drunken kiss between two women during an action-packed moment
in the film when seven other things are happening at once, though I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i> appreciate the fact that it never
turned into a pornographic male fantasy- burns to a crisp when Kristen Wiig calls
Rose Byrne a lesbian for stealing her best friend. While we’re at it, I’d like to say that I’m
glad the Melissa McCarthy character wasn’t a lesbian because oh my god, what a
stereotypical dyke she would be! And she
was totally my favourite character and performance by the way, from her first
scene, talking about the dolphin.</div>
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Basically, the problem with women in comedy is that they
have to be smoking hot or their looks become the joke. Even Melissa McCarthy flirting with her real
life husband Ben Falcone is presented as unappealing. And the sex they have during the end credits…
I just don’t know. I’m fat and I don’t require a fucking 3-foot sub when I have
sex. Like, I get it, they were trying to
show us the weirdest, nastiest sex they could come up with but I’m not entirely
sure why they felt it was necessary to make that happen between two fat people
or why the weird, nasty sex between them had to include food. There are just so many things, sooooo many things,
they could have done for that scene and they just didn’t. And yes, I laughed my ass off during the whole
thing.</div>
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<br />
I hope I’m not alone in this, but I think that certain roles
and topics should not be off limits for women just because we are women. And I don’t think that it’s right to call it “forced”
or “awkward” when women are being funny, like so many people on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1478338/board/" target="_blank">imdb did</a>. I’m not trying to tell people that what they
don’t find amusing is actually really hilarious; that’s not my place. What I am saying is that we need to
reevaluate the way we look at women and comedy and the double standards we, as a society, support. </div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.5217853 -74.3218301 40.9069203 -73.690116100000012tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-31324888178536122572011-12-01T00:34:00.001-08:002011-12-24T01:56:16.667-08:00Representation in the Media (and How Screwed We Appear to Be)<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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As a film studies major at [Rich, White Hipster College], I
often look to the media to help me understand people. I think that when we study the outlets people
use for expression and the things they create, we can learn a lot about the
mentality and the culture that fostered the creation. Of course the media is never really an accurate
reflection of the truth, but it is a decent indication of what the people want
to see. When <i>The Cosby Show</i> came out (I am obsessed with <i>The Cosby Show</i> and have to talk about it) the average Black family
in America was not nearly as well off as the Huxtables were. In fact, the show has often been criticized
for being so unrealistic in that respect.
However, when you look at television ratings from the 1980s, you see
that <i>The Cosby Show</i> was rated #1 for
five solid seasons. Clearly, America was
beginning to warm up to the idea of successful Black people and true
assimilation. We’re still not entirely
there but it would be impossible to look at how far we’ve come and ignore the
impact of <i>The Cosby Show</i>. </div>
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Right now I’m taking a course on Middle Eastern cinema and
media. Earlier this week I had to watch
the film<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787523/" target="_blank"> <i>Towelhead</i></a>
for this class. Based on the novel by Alicia
Erian, the film tells the story of a thirteen-year-old Arab-American girl growing
up in Texas during the Gulf War. She is
psychologically abused by her white mother, physically abused by her Lebanese
father, bullied by virtually every person in her school, and (most
horrifically) raped by her neighbour. </div>
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Now, it’s not a spectacular film but it’s okay and, anyway, I
think that the themes it deals with are more important than the composition of
the film itself. The thing is this was
the umpteenth screening for my Middle Eastern Cinema class where rape and/or
abuse occurred. All semester, we have
been watching films where the most godawful things happen to the principle
characters. Today I finally confronted
my professor. At the beginning of the
semester he said that he hoped to challenge what we thought of the Middle East.
Well, we’ve talked a lot about Edward Said
and Orientalism; we’ve talked a lot about the veil and the most recent
uprisings and the role of the internet in those uprisings but then we study
these films like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1473149/" target="_blank"><i>Scheherazade Tell Me A Story</i></a>,
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808417/" target="_blank"><i>Persepolis</i></a>,
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1094275/" target="_blank"><i>Under the Bombs</i></a>,
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347048/" target="_blank"><i>Head-On</i></a>,
my favourite, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425321/" target="_blank"><i>The Yacoubian Building</i></a>,
and now <i>Towelhead</i>. Ultimately, I feel like we have explored more about
these different cultures than we would have in our everyday lives, but I’m not
sure how much our preconceived notions have been challenged when we watch these
films.</div>
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In the Western world, we have been conditioned to view that
part of the globe as savage, violent, irrational, and oppressive to women. Now, I’m not gonna say a fucking thing one
way or the other because I’m not from any of those countries, I’ve never been to
any of those countries, and I don’t know a damn thing I didn’t learn in a
classroom, so it’s really not my place.
However, I will say that based on what I’m seeing, it certainly seems
that way. But you know what? It doesn’t look too good in this country
either. So, what I’m wondering about
right now is, how are <i>we</i> being
portrayed? </div>
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Lest you think I’m talking about how the U.S. constantly comes
across as ignorant, belligerent, arrogant, greedy, imperialist dickwads-because,
like, we kind of are- I should clarify what I mean by “we.” As it says in the subtitle of this blog, I am
a poor, fat, queer Latina, so my “we” is kind of directed towards other people who
fit those descriptions. You know, the
ones Hollywood <b><i>doesn’t </i></b>make movies about; the ones whose voices rarely reach
the mainstream. There are just so many
thin, straight, white people in movies and on TV and it pisses me off because
me and my kind are fucking blips on the radar. </div>
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When I think about which characters are the best stand-ins
for me, I think of Santana on <i>Glee</i>. </div>
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First of all, I detest <i>Glee</i>,
so I’m not thrilled about this. My
girlfriend loves it though so I’ve seen a few episodes and it’s hard to ignore
the similarities. However, there are
obvious differences; I am fat while Naya Rivera is quite thin, and I haven’t
seen enough episodes to learn about her socio-economic status but I <i>imagine</i> that she’s middle class if she
goes to that white-ass suburban school. So
Santana doesn’t exactly do it for me. The
next character that comes to mind is America Ferrera in <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296166/" target="_blank">Real Women Have Curves</a>.</i> Of course, I’m not first-generation American and
she’s not queer so it’s back to the drawing board. The only character that I can come up with
whose identity is so compatible with my own is Oz, played by Judy Marte in<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389235/" target="_blank"> <i>On the Outs</i></a>.</div>
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Oz is a poor butch Latina growing up in the inner city and
while she isn’t explicitly out of the closet, she is often perceived as a
lesbian and might as well be one. Also,
she’s not exactly fat but Judy Marte is pretty thick in this film. For all intents and purposes, Oz is my
identity doppelganger. Now, let’s have a
look at her life, shall we? Well she’s a
drug dealer who gets imprisoned during the course of the film. FABULOUS.
That’s the exact path I’ve always envisioned myself taking. I’m glad that this is how I am portrayed in
the media. It’s so comforting to see such
a positive outcome for a character like that.
I can hardly wait to start following in her footsteps. </div>
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I don’t know about you but I think it’s severely fucked up
how even in 2011, only a certain type of person gets to be a part of the
storytelling process. We’re not even
gonna talk about <i>The Help</i>. I would like to know why we’re still so
closed in. Why are we still so afraid of
hearing other people speak? And, while
we’re at it, why are we still so bent on hurting each other? </div>
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When people look back at our movies and TV shows and music
videos to learn about us, what are they going to see? They’re going to look at <i>Glee</i> (ewww) and see people who are terrified of coming out to their
families- and for good reason, when those people respond by kicking them out of
the house. They’re going to look at news
coverage of the Occupy Wall Street/Oakland/etc movement and see people being
pepper sprayed in the street for peacefully protesting a corrupt government
that would love nothing more than to keep us all in poverty. They’re
going to look at this Penn State fiasco and think that we cared more about some
fucking football games than we cared about putting a child molester behind
bars. They’re going to see a society in
which we actually needed to create the It Gets Better campaign because the
present is just so shitty for some people that we need to plead with them to
stick it out.</div>
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If we don’t change some of this shit, that’s how we’re going
to look- because that’s how we will have been. </div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-19958206016138927492011-11-14T21:41:00.001-08:002011-12-24T01:38:49.425-08:00A Real Drag<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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In my first blog post I decided to kick
things off with a nice fat acceptance, HAES message that I hoped would make me
and everyone who read it a little more comfortable with MY body. (And yours too. Relax. I’m not a TOTAL bitch.) However, I don’t expect every post to be
about that because, as the subtitle of my blog explains, I have other issues to
address. Issues like this one:</div>
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I am queer. Hold your
applause and/or Bibles back for a second; I’m not done. I am a bisexual woman. (We exist, I promise. Our male counterparts do as well.) But more
than that, I am a bisexual woman who calls herself a drag queen. </div>
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Say
whaaaaaat?! </div>
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Yes. Yes I do.</div>
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You see, I’m not trans. (My girlfriend says I'm “gender fucked”
and this actually seems appropriate.) Despite my whole weight-related
insecurity complex, I am satisfied with my body and identify with the gender
that I was assigned- for the most part.
Every once in a while I wish that I were a gay man. I do not identify as one, I just occasionally
wish that I did- there’s a difference. Sometimes
I feel like it would be so much easier to do what I’m doing if I were a man, at
least there would be a name for it. Instead I find myself inventing terminology
like “criss-cross-dresser,” a word which may have existed before it first escaped
my lips but which I had never heard until then. </div>
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A criss-cross-dresser: like Victor/Victoria, only less
androgynous in my case. </div>
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I have always loved and admired drag queens and drag
culture. Even in my über youth (it sounds pretentious to say “in my youth” when I’m 20 years old) I was
obsessed with the gayest, campiest movies known to man. When I was little, <i>Valley of the Dolls</i> and
<i>What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?</i> were among my favourite films. I wanted to be those ridiculously gaudy,
over-dramatic, utterly fabulous monsters. I still do. I want glitter and
feathers and loud colours! I want to be
a shimmering tower of confidence, creativity, and charisma. I WANT TO BE BETTE MIDLER!!!! </div>
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But I’m not Bette Midler.
I can’t be because my sexuality gets in the way. Now, I don’t care about any positive things
people have to say about inclusiveness in the LGBTQ community; I feel out of
place at Gay Pride Parades. Do you know
how hard it is to be a bisexual woman and a drag queen at the same damn time? Say what you will about Lady Gaga (I think we
all have a problem with SOME ignorant and offensive thing she’s done, said,
sang, worn, danced in/on) but she is making my gender identity issue just a
little bit easier for me to define to other people. I mean, it’s not particularly easy to go to a
Pride Parade with two separate agendas:<br />
<br />
1. represent bisexuality<br />
2. be a drag queen</div>
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It’s frustrating!</div>
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I go into it trying to normalize my sexuality because no one
believes it’s real. Bisexual women are often
treated like straight girls who fuck other girls for male attention. That’s not okay. And then bisexual men are treated like gay
men with one foot still in the closet who don’t want to admit to being gay so
they’re playing it safe by being bi.
That’s not okay either. None of
this shit is okay! Yes, straight girls
make out with other women for attention sometimes and yes, sometimes gay men
are too afraid to come out at first but Jesus fucking Christ, whose fault is
that?! I might be a huge fan of blaming
society but… society anyone? Is there
anyone here who cares to disagree with the plain truth that society is so damn
homophobic <s>some </s>most times that you can’t really blame someone for being
nervous about coming out? Similarly,
will anyone attempt to deny the fact that men impose their fantasies of getting
with two women at once or of watching two women going at it so much that maybe
straight girls have gotten it into their heads that it’s the only way to land them?</div>
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Hey society, stop fucking up! It would make my bisexual life a lot
easier. Thanks. </div>
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That’s on the one side.
On the other side we have my gender identity. When I’m not promoting the idea that my
sexual orientation a) exists and b) is not the devil in my pants (which sounds
kind of awesome actually), I am trying to pass myself off as a subversive,
gender-bending female impersonator. Whenever I get into my draggy persona, I
assemble my outfit as a man who is pretending to be a woman might. I do everything bigger and fiercer and adopt
this confidence I don’t normally have, and pray that no one catches me faking
it. It disrupts the illusion, you know? A drag queen<b> knows</b> she’s the shit. But you know what? It’s hard to be subversive when you’re a girl wearing
make-up and a dress. There’s not a lot
to work with there. </div>
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I guess what I’m saying is, it makes me mad when I watch
fabulous cross-dressers like Tim Curry in <i>Rocky Horror</i> or Divine or any-damn-body
in <i>To Wong Foo</i> and I want to express my gender the way they do in these
performances because it feels so right to me and I just can’t because I know it
wouldn’t come out right. I don’t know
what it’s like to be a man in heels and I never will. </div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700402883739284340.post-38225318163555354072011-11-11T14:31:00.001-08:002011-11-12T11:23:03.534-08:00The Strawberry Girl<br />
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You know that part of your body that you wish you could
change? That thing you obsess about; the
reason you spend too long in the mirror fussing with things only you notice?
You know when that thing is your whole body?</div>
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I’d like to show you a picture of how I like to look when I
leave my room for the day.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjCliaDuHcxFqKVvhITEOgtcFTk9VZHmtaUqmHJG8ZXrfB-IQ7jWiAdIMmXM0hpKTCiMH3zyP0XjJaEawfbaMBmsy3OglhtUKRbQ6CAeqkkWsSBGiZXlXSM-VtQM9nsNazxejq2h2GNJ3s/s1600/11.6.11+cleavage+and+jeans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjCliaDuHcxFqKVvhITEOgtcFTk9VZHmtaUqmHJG8ZXrfB-IQ7jWiAdIMmXM0hpKTCiMH3zyP0XjJaEawfbaMBmsy3OglhtUKRbQ6CAeqkkWsSBGiZXlXSM-VtQM9nsNazxejq2h2GNJ3s/s320/11.6.11+cleavage+and+jeans.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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This isn’t a belly shirt, it just happened to be riding up
at the moment. I don’t wear belly shirts.
As you can see, my goal when I get dressed is to emphasize my breasts
and my hips and distract you from everything else. I try to distract you from the fact that
underneath my clothes, I really look like this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcItEtSkWgb-4-BLMGRReTS-Md8a7_uLuzdWDQkf46haDAh8ZLkvmk_db4lChO1pVA4SRtidorZLwLkcrcQmL5QVxere0CdbvzD2JnQq28k5KuVV4LPTHc9pMXFYNhRGgPIzWgGLhwcNZ1/s1600/11.9.11+black+underwear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcItEtSkWgb-4-BLMGRReTS-Md8a7_uLuzdWDQkf46haDAh8ZLkvmk_db4lChO1pVA4SRtidorZLwLkcrcQmL5QVxere0CdbvzD2JnQq28k5KuVV4LPTHc9pMXFYNhRGgPIzWgGLhwcNZ1/s320/11.9.11+black+underwear.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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If you don’t see much of a difference between these two
images, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re
not missing anything. My point is that I
see a difference. </div>
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My point is that, if I’m not covered up when I look in the
mirror, I tend to think about how I have rolls of fat, my stomach is huge, my
thighs are enormous, my legs are short and stubby, my skin is sooo white, and my
arms have all this excess fat. A lot of people
think that I look just fine, but many more will consider me “overweight.” Here’s
the thing about throwing words like “overweight” and “underweight” around; they
imply that there is a standard weight that everyone is supposed to be. I don’t think there is but somehow I have
been conditioned to look at my body and feel the need to dress it up in ways
that give off the illusion that my body is smaller than it really is. </div>
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When I was ten years
old, I cried because the doctor told me I weighed 150 pounds. I had always been on the chubby side but when
I fractured my leg the year before, I was stuck at home in a cast for seven
weeks. Since my self-control is shit, I
spent every day pigging out and watching Maury.
Yes, I have favourite paternity test episodes. More importantly, I was never able to lose
the weight I had gained. I was, however,
perfectly capable of adding to it. I
have never had a problem there.</div>
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Every once in a while I would get on an exercise kick and set
out to jog around the block for 30 minutes.
This would invariably end the same way every time; I would get bored
after ten minutes because the block I lived on was dead and, even if I could
afford an iPod, they hadn’t been invented yet.
Also, because god has never been on my side in this weight loss thing, a
squirrel would pop out of nowhere and I would get scared. I am a New Yorker and all rodents terrify me. So, boredom and fear would unite and send me back
to my house where I would sit on my ass watching TV and not try this again for
several months. </div>
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Now, ten years and somewhere between 60 and 75 pounds later,
I still don’t do the jogging thing. I
don’t see how I could; squirrels still freak me out and I still don’t own an
iPod. I also have huge tits, which is a
full time job. Don’t get me wrong, I love
my girls and show them off with frightening regularity, but there’s something
so uncomfortable about having them bounce around at their own free will when
I’m just trying to do innocuous shit like, oh I don’t know, walk down a flight
of stairs. This is why I hated my High
School gym class. It’s not that other
students would make fun of me; no one in my school cared enough to pick on me,
at least not to my face. It was all a
case of paranoia. It was sort of an
irrational fear that I looked ridiculous running and doing jumping jacks. If there’s anything I love about college, it’s
the fact that Physical Education is now permanently out of my life.</div>
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I can see how all this may sound like I have some huge issue
with my body, like I hate it or I’m not comfortable in my skin or something
like that. That’s actually not the
case. At least, that isn’t the case
anymore. I wouldn’t say that I am 100%
in love with my body, and I clearly have my problems with the way I look, but I
would never cry over my weight like I did when I was younger. I am much more accepting of it and I’ve even
reached that point where I am comfortable with the word “fat.”</div>
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Yes, I’m fat. No,
it’s not an insult. </div>
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I have friends who weigh a lot less than I do who complain
to me about their weight, and I honestly don’t know what to say to that. Seriously, what do you do in that
situation? Here I am, I haven’t been
under 200 since Junior High School- and I’m 5’ fucking 4” too, so it’s not even
like I can balance it out by being tall- and I have people coming to me all
freaked out at the thought that they might weigh like 30 pounds less than I currently
do. It’s like complaining to someone
about your salary when you actually make $20,000 more than they do.</div>
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Of course I acknowledge that everyone is different and that
people have different comfort levels with their bodies. Clearly, I don’t expect everyone to be
satisfied with their weight because I don’t have a problem with mine, even if
they do weigh less than I did in seventh grade.
And I know that this is what I must seem like to people who are bigger
than I am. My point is, this is a
vicious cycle, and it needs to stop. There
shouldn’t be any stigma attached to being fat.
There really shouldn’t. I
obviously sympathize with that feeling of looking at the scale or in the mirror
and not liking what you see, I’m not going to invalidate that dissatisfaction,
but I refuse to offer “you’re not fat” as comfort. </div>
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If someone is not fat, it is merely a fact. It’s not something to give gold stars
for. And if someone is fat, it’s not a
bad thing. It may be treated like it is,
but it’s not. We need to stop associating
“fat” with such negativity. One step in
that direction would be to stop creating euphemisms that tip-toe around the
issue. Everyone is always so quick to
find excuses for the people they like.
My personal favourite is when I get told that I’m not fat; I’m “just
luscious” or “just juicy.” So now I feel
like a strawberry, which is great because, let’s be honest, I definitely am
luscious and juicy, but what does this say about society’s attitudes towards
fat people in general? </div>
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Well, one thing I have noticed about society is that it does
not want us to exist much, outside of punch lines and cautionary tale segments
on crap talk shows. Isn’t that what I’m
supposed to feel in a clothing store that doesn’t carry anything above a size 12
or XL. I wear pants anywhere from 16 to
20 and I can breathe in a Large top, but usually I need an XL or even a 2XL
because, you know, boobs. The fat girl’s
dilemma, of course, is that “plus size” clothes are boring and shapeless and
sexy clothes just don’t fit. It’s a
stupid dilemma and we shouldn’t have to deal with it, but we do. We are forced to deal with this double-edged
sword all the time; it’s a stifling and oppressive world in which we are told
to put our bodies on display, but when we do, we are told that our bodies are not
good enough to flaunt. Well fuck that
because I like to show cleavage and if I have to go to a maternity store to get
a cute outfit, I do. Again, I really
shouldn’t have to resort to that, but I sometimes do. </div>
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I mean, seriously. Plus
size stores need to step it up. I want
clothes that are flattering to my awesome curves. Maybe you wouldn’t call me a feminist- hell, I
don’t- but I like when people find me attractive; it’s very comforting. I try not to define myself by it, but I like
it. I like to look sexy but when the image of sexy is a physical impossibility
for me to achieve, I think something is wrong.
I shouldn’t have to settle for someone who’s only going to fetishize me
because being “a fat chick” puts me so low on the totem pole of
fuckability. This is not to say that the
only reasons to be against fat hate are that we can’t get laid or find cool
clothes, though those are major issues. Overall,
this movement is about respect and being treated like human beings, rather than
consistently being insulted, bullied, or made to feel guilty about our
weight. That’s just a basic human
right. </div>
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And honestly, I would really appreciate it if the media
didn’t programme everyone to find my cellulite repulsive. </div>
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<br /></div>MsJuicyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02765490432788619349noreply@blogger.com0New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.5217853 -74.3218301 40.9069203 -73.690116100000012