The Antisocial Socialist

>made it to the Women's March for about 45 minutes yesterday. Turns out I wasn't needed because there was such a phenomenally huge crowd—60,000, by best estimates, which is far more than the lawn and surrounding roads outside of Queen's Park could hold. I tried to take photos, but there were so many people that this was practically impossible.


( here are my attempts )

I was pretty glad I got to go and be a part of this moment in history, even if it was just for a few minutes. I've been essentially away all weekend, but I've been passively enjoying looking at everyone's pictures, from all over the world, suggesting a nascent movement to resist misogyny, racism, and fascism.

I just had a bunch of surprisingly productive discussions around feminism and harassment, spurred by the stupid verdict in the case of Gregory Alan Elliott, the latest Tropes vs. Women video, and the overall imbalance in what we mean when we talk about freedom of speech.

Both of these cases have a lot to do with how the law is unwilling (I almost typed "unable," but this isn't true—they're perfectly capable of understanding Twitter threats against cops) to take into account both gender dynamics and internet culture. Elliott was acquitted (and may go on to sue his victims) because they didn't act like perfect victims. Why, one might ask—and the judge did—would they block him and continue to respond to his tweets?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how these things work. I know, because I've had stalkers and trolls. There is no perfect way to engage with them. Your mother might have said, "ignore the bully and he'll go away," but you knew even as a child that this wasn't true.

Internet discussion is largely public. This means that if I am telling the truth and Igor the Troll is telling a lie, our discussion is witnessed by outsiders. A typical exchange might go something like this:

Igor: Obvious falsehood nevertheless believed by those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo.
Sabs: Bunch of facts in rebuttal.
Igor: Shut up you cunt bitch ill rape your eyesocket.

(If you think I'm exaggerating, you're naïve af. This is mild by comparison to some of the things I've seen.)

Now, a logical judge, not taking gender or power into account, is going to think, "well, she can block him, why doesn't she just block him?" But Igor is not going to shut up. And to an audience—because this is the internet, and there is always an audience—if I shut up, Igor looks like the winner.

This is something that just won't make sense unless you spend a lot of time around kids, which I do. If you show kids a political debate and ask them who won, the kids will not identify the person who said the most accurate facts. They will identify the person who was the loudest and who, preferably, spouted the most insults. The primary reason, I'd argue, why Trump is popular is because most Americans haven't progressed past the developmental stage that my kids are in.

So my choosing to block and ignore may be, to me (and the judge) a sensible move of self-preservation, to Igor the Troll, and everyone watching, it looks like he won. Now, I can choose to ignore this, and I probably would, but it will be galling. It will sit under my skin. Igor the Troll will not stop talking because I've stopped talking. He may go on to talk about me, to spread rumours and lies, and he's less likely to be challenged because sensible people don't bother.

I fully understand why Guthrie and Reilly wouldn't, in this circumstance, act like perfect victims and just ignore the scum harassing them. Why should they? Why does Elliott get freedom of speech and they do not? Why is it always down to the woman to run away, to withdraw, to not go out at that time of night wearing that skirt?

Anyway, one dude messaged me and said he didn't get feminists. Did we want equality or supremacy? He compared feminism to vegans, and how there are some vegans who just are, and some vegans who reminded you that they were vegan every five minutes.

I used to draw this distinction too, before I saw what was happening to a vegan friend of mine on Tumblr. She'd post a vegan recipe and immediately get anon hate. Was it any wonder that rather than be intimidated into silence, she'd get louder in response? That got me thinking to just how often omnivores remind us that they're omnivores—bacon memes, posting jokes about vegetarians murdering carrots—but this stridency is entirely invisible, because most people are omnivores. Vegans are perceived as more obnoxious about their dietary choices not because they are (I'm firmly convinced they're not) but because it's Other, and thus marked as a political statement, while eating meat is neutral and unmarked.

Dude admitted he was afraid of women, so I unpacked that. It's the old Margaret Atwood quote: "Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them." We went back and forth for about 45 minutes, at the end of which I think he got it a bit more.

I had a similar conversation with another young man who'd posted a "political correctness has gone too far; you can't say anything without being called a racist or a sexist, FREEZED PEACH"-type rant. Now, it's probably not a secret that I don't believe in freedom of speech—as in I don't believe that it exists, period, or can exist—but I questioned him on his consistency. Did he believe, for example, that ISIS sympathizers on Twitter should have free speech? Was he vigorously defending their rights to say what they liked? Of course, he wasn't, so I walked him through his own flawed assumptions about what was violent and what was peaceful. I don't think he agreed with me by the end—I wouldn't expect him to, as he's not the sharpest chisel in the toolbox—but he remained remarkably civil throughout and thanked me.

I don't always have the time or patience to educate people about power dynamics or feminism or anti-racism, and I tend towards the hairtrigger emotional at the best of times, but I'm kinda pleased with how these various discussions went. I mean, it stresses me out that we still gotta fight these stupid battles, but what else can you do?

Why we need a feminist revolution, part 345: Naomi Klein goes over to the Liberals and the Status of Women committee at my union is offering Zumba classes.

I have dinner at this Chinese kiosk in a shopping plaza so frequently that they know to get the hot sauce and chopsticks when they see me coming. It happens to be right near my doctor's office, and for mall food it's really good (they make a mean homestyle tofu), plus the place has a big screen TV that always plays the news, so it's where I unwind and hang out for a bit before my appointment. It's usually pretty busy there, with a mix of shoppers, commuters, and dudes from a nearby homeless shelter, and eating my takeout while raging at the news has become part of my weekly routine. Occasionally, some of the more inebriated homeless dudes will cause a ruckus, but I've never felt it was in any way a less than totally safe space.

Until tonight.

( Exciting stories of teh patriarchy )

Oh, is Michfest doing its transphobic routine again? It is?

Copypasta'd from my comment in a locked post:

Womon?!

I mean, there is a metric fuck-ton of stupidity in practically everything out of Michfest's collective mouths these days, but for some reason, bizarre spelling contortions because one is so EDGY never fail to get an eyeroll out of me. Making up words or terms that everyone outside of your little circle either won't get or will laugh at does not make you a more hardcore feminist. It makes you look like a bunch of moronic children who stapled a sign to their treehouse reading "NO TRANS PEEPLE ALOWED."

Go up to any woman, cis or trans, outside of Michfest's corner, and tell them about WBW. You'll get blank looks.

Low-hanging fruit aside, is there any space where trans people can feel wanted without a fight? I mean, my house, I guess. Otherwise, it's pretty much guaranteed that you will have to fight your way in, just like all queer folks have had to fight their way in, like all feminists have had to fight their way in, like every racialized and marginalized group has had to go where some shitheel has told them they don't belong.

I almost wish that I liked earnest folk music and being naked in the mud so that I could boycott this gender essentialist ridiculousness.

---

While we're on the topic of gender essentialism, interview with the Beer for the Ladiez woman. I still can't get over how funny I find it. It's pink! The logo appears to be Curlz MT typeface. There's a purse and a little black dress on it. Because women like that sort of thing. Did I mention that it's pink? And it is diet and makes you burp less than other beers. I wonder if the proceeds benefit "breast cancer awareness," too.

Can anyone tell me what the point of issuing a trigger warning without a jump-cut might be?

I admit that this may be a failure to understand netiquette on my part, but it seems to me that if one's intent is to create a safe space for survivors of violence (and particularly survivors of sexual violence) and otherwise marginalized people, placing a trigger warning directly above the rest of a post makes no sense.

I'm increasingly seeing posts like this:

This blog post is about clowns
[TW for clowns]

So I saw a clown the other day. He had wandered off from the rest of the circus, and was sitting in an unmarked white van, just kind of leering at passersby. I was really freaked out. Who lets clowns leave the circus unsupervised these days, anyway?

Does putting the trigger warning there actually do anything to deter a reaction on the part of someone who, say, has clown-related PTSD? Methinks if your reaction to reading about triggers is so severe that you need a trigger warning, placing the article directly below probably isn't the greatest idea.

I can see something like this:

This post is about things that crawl and have too many legs
[TW for spiders]

( Read more )

That way, if someone is triggered by spiders, they can avoid the post altogether and read the one about clowns instead. But no one off LJ seems to do this. On the serious feminist blogs, all of the triggery posts are uncut.

Of course, I don't do trigger warnings at all, so maybe I'm missing something here. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of A Man Who Rescued A Million Yiddish Books, Aaron Lansky

"M'tor nisht myaesh zayn (You must never despair). It says in Perek,: 'Loy alekho hamelokhe ligmor... It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.'"

We all know that I am a softie at heart who cries at sad movies. It's rare that I cry while reading trade non-fiction, though. Outwitting History is a short read, but took me around a week to finish because I had to keep putting it down to reach for the Kleenex. I'm not even exaggerating.

Lansky studied Yiddish as a grad student, and came to discover that thousands—indeed, over a million—Yiddish books were at risk of being destroyed as their original owners died. He embarked on an odd sort of quest to rescue the books—and along with them, the remnants of Yiddish language and culture—from oblivion.

The writing is engaging, luminous in passages, full of wit and sorrow and the burden of history. Lansky and the people he encounters—idealistic students and aging immigrants alike—are compelling, memorable characters. But above all, this is the story of the death of a culture, and since it's my culture, I took it very personally. Lansky doesn't idealize it—in one heartbreaking section, he talks about the remaining Yiddish organizations, almost all of which were socialist or Communist, and how they refused to cooperate even to save their own resources and spaces. Nevertheless, he brings to life a lost era of refugees, Bundists, activists, writers, and poets, and makes you feel their loss with razor-sharp precision.

The good news is that the Yiddish Book Center does exist, and continues to digitize and translate its large collection. This somewhat mitigates the pain of reading about people who could be my grandparents or great-grandparents sobbing as they surrendered their precious book collections, the "portable homeland" that was frequently the only thing of value they had ever owned.

Related, I also saw:

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, currently showing at the Gladstone.

This exhibition consists of four rooms, showcasing comics on themes of sex, family, culture, politics, and the body. Primarily black-and-white, underground-style, and brutally honest, these are frequently hilarious reads. (My favourite, by Sharon Rudahl, was called "How I Got Purged From My Women's Group," and is a must-read for strident feminist types.)



Speaking of awesome feminists, monster_grrrl, her roommate L., and I caught:

Rasputina (with Ariel) at Lee's Palace

I first saw Rasputina years ago, opening for—someone. It's a testament to how good they are that I honestly can't remember who it was I'd actually gone to see.

They're still that good. Better, even. There's been some turnover in the band, and increasing levels of sophistication in their lyrics and composition, and they told us some wonderful stories about early American history, Emily Dickinson, feral children, and the time Melora was in a threesome with a party that shall be named and an albino abominable snowman.


[Rasputina cover Heart's "Barracuda"]

The opening band were godawful, but monster_grrrl did an excellent imitation that was almost worth suffering through them.

And a last bit of music:

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune

I have such good friends. I hadn't even heard that there was a new movie about Phil Ochs, but bcholmes and C. contacted me almost simultaneously to make sure I knew about it.



It's very good. It's of the talking-heads-and-old-footage school of documentary filmmaking, but you don't really mind because the talking heads are interesting and the old footage included a great deal I hadn't seen. (Did you know that there was a music video for "No More Songs"? I didn't even know that they made music videos back then.) The interviews ranged from those you'd expect (Billy Bragg, Michael and Sonny Ochs) to rather surprising (pre-sellout Christopher Hitchens what? Taking the same stance on the Dylan-Ochs rivalry that I do? Say it ain't so!).

There's a certain amount of hard-to-take historical inevitability. Oh, Phil Ochs went to Chile, you say? And became friends with Victor Jara? This ends about as well as you'd expect.

The thing about Phil Ochs is that a movie about him isn't just a nostalgic look at a time when musicians were actually involved with the protest movement. It's kind of depressing how current his songs are, when I read about what's going on in Wisconsin or Bahrain or Libya.


[Also, he seriously had a sense of style, which is rare in a folksinger.]

I tried to take notice of the Penny Arcade thing, but the controversy failed to arouse my passion sufficiently because I never actually found that comic entertaining in the first place. I think I'm just not That Kind of Geek.

This said, I hate neckbeards and rape apologists is cool and deserves a signal boost.

I still don't get Tumblr, though.

Show us your tits, writ large.

Memo to all concerned: My boobs do not cause earthquakes. Nor are they for your viewing pleasure. They are just boobs. Rather nice ones, but none of anyone's fucking business.

I was about to say: "Where is Twisty Faster when you need her?" But fortunately she's right here, because this whole thing is making me itchy in my second-wave feminist place.

The following is coloured, of course, by my own musical tastes and latent Canadian patriotism.

I was nodding along to this until she mentioned post-rock as an example of "dude music." Because Sophie Trudeau is definitely the noodlingest member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mt. Zion (as well she should be; as far as I can tell, she's the most musically talented one in the band) and on a macro level, their music reverses the polarity of chick singer/male musicians.

I also don't like the implication that dudely music is an exploration of form over content (i.e., wanking on guitar and singing about nothing important), while lady music is the reverse. I don't like wank for the sake of wank, but one of the things I love about post-rock is that it's really both. The lyrics are absolutely all about the oppressed, while the music is unpredictable and multifaceted.

Anecdotal evidence:




This is not "music that has nothing to offer people who are disenfranchised or oppressed, because it either is totally uninterested in their disenfranchisement/oppression, or actively profits from it," and, video-aside, if you listen to it rather than watch the video, the three female musicians are the ones in the foreground. Also, they're doing something interesting, unlike most, uh, socially conscious music.*

Anyway, I think the phenomenon Silvana talks about is definitely a real thing. It's just that one's taste in music is so highly subjective (at least when we're talking about popular music) that it's nearly impossible to map onto politics. Even if "he has a shit-ton of records, but none are by women" is a pretty good indication that a dude has Issues With Women.

(For the record, I snerked at the mention of Pavement, because for utterly personal reasons, Pavement will always read as a dudely band for me. Also, I have a slight preference for female voices over male, which widens to a huge preference when it comes to, say, opera.)

All this is to ask: Am I the only 30-something feminist who doesn't see what the big deal about Sleater-Kinney is?


* Not that I always need something interesting going on in my music. I'm fine with breathtakingly poetic lyrics and music that just sounds good, or vice versa. But when it's both, I do get really excited. When it's neither, no amount of political solidarity will keep me from mocking it.