Hidden Figures: Yes, Go See It Right Now

Here’s how to deal with the fact that a great orange buffoon is getting sworn into our highest office: go see Hidden Figures. Just go. Go see black women fighting misogyny and racism and Jim Crow while doing badass math. You need to see that right now.

*This review is mostly spoiler-free*

Take your children to go see it. Yes, even the young ones. Yes, even the teens. Look: I was in a theater full of little kids and teenagers, and they were sitting there beside unrelated adults up to the age of probably-watched-John-Glenn-orbit-live-on-teevee-with-their-own-kids, and apparently they were all riveted. I have never been to a movie that full of young folk who were so extraordinarily quiet. I’ve never been in an auditorium packed with nearly 400 people of all ages and had such an uninterrupted experience. The kids will do fine, and they need to see this.

Hollywood put out a movie about black women doing math, and it was spellbinding. I never thought they’d try. And since they tried, I never thought they’d do it with so much math and so few explosions. They had exploding rockets, but seemed almost embarrassed to mention them. There was a love story, but only because one of the real women this movie is based on actually got married in the middle of our race to space. It wasn’t shoved in just to hook our emotions, and you get the feeling they’d rather be doing more math. The movie stayed remarkably true to actual, historical events.

You’ll get to meet three of the most extraordinary women in our country’s scientific history: Katherine Goble (later Johnson), Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. You will get to see them be math nerds. You will get to see them have interests other than marriage and children. Hell, you’ll even get to see one of them fix a car. In a dress. Did you know women could fix cars while wearing dresses? Well, now you do.

You’ll get to see three black women star in their own story, as heroes, not as sidekicks and inspirations to white people. This wasn’t a story about white people learning how not to be racist gits (although several white people learned this, the movie isn’t about them). This wasn’t a story about three career women trying to also balance their roles as wives and mothers (although they were). This wasn’t a story about men learning how to deal with career women, women smarter than them, and figuring out how not to be sexist gits (although this all happens).

No. Continue reading “Hidden Figures: Yes, Go See It Right Now”

Hidden Figures: Yes, Go See It Right Now
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F*ck the Fridge

Want a long meditation on my story world? Want to see how feminism and social justice are changing my thinking? Read on:
 
 
I had my main character, Dusty, losing Mom and Grandma and her best woman friend. To be fair, she also lost her father and a brother and a fiance, but then, I also had her future hubby being motherless, and goodness knows how many other women I’ve offed. Women I knew nothing about. Women who often didn’t even have names outside of mother or grandmother.
 
You know why? Because my society taught me that’s what women were for, and as much of a rebel as I can be, I didn’t question that.
 
Many of the stories I grew up with had dead mothers. I mean, fuck, look at Disney. Dead mothers everywhere. Women whose main claim to fame was giving birth to the heroine or hero, and then tragically dying to give the kid a rough start in life. Sure, you could have strong female characters – but they were basically defined by their absent mothers and their strong male role models.
 
And because, as a storyteller, I read all of these stories and absorbed them, I ended up regurgitating the tropes without realizing what I was doing.

Continue reading “F*ck the Fridge”

F*ck the Fridge

Dear Liberals, Feminists, and Assorted Allies: Stop Slut-Shaming Melania Trump

Too many supposed good progressive feminist-friendly people lately have been gleefully sharing memes that slut-shame Melania Trump. See, she posed for nude photos! She doesn’t have class, like all the other First Ladies!

Bullshit.

CN: slut-shaming, Trump, mentions of marital rape

Continue reading “Dear Liberals, Feminists, and Assorted Allies: Stop Slut-Shaming Melania Trump”

Dear Liberals, Feminists, and Assorted Allies: Stop Slut-Shaming Melania Trump

Quick Hits: The Bible Backs Me On Abortion. Plus: Why Vaginas Are Not Like Milk Cartons

A couple of things have crossed my radar recently that don’t really merit posts of their own, but I want to share them with you, so here we are. It’s an odd combo, I grant you. But there is a common thread here: both of these issues are tied together by religious views of (cis) women.

1. The Fetus in Jewish Law; or How My Position On Abortion Turns Out to be Many Centuries Old.

I’ve always supported abortion rights, but I used to be a lot more conservative about it. I’d got infected by the prevailing American squeamishness, and figured abortion should have some restrictions. I was never one of those life-of-mother-only people, but I thought abortions past, say, about four months into the pregnancy maybe should be restricted to threats to the mother’s health and problems with the fetus and so forth. Then, as I began to learn more about what pregnancy does to a woman, and as abortion foes made inroads on abortion rights, I decided fuck restrictions. I actually got to a point where I figured a pregnant person should be able to have an abortion any damned time they pleased, up to and including right around labor. Until that fetus was actually on its way out, it had no rights to use another person’s body whatsoever. And the formerly conservative part of me sort of cringed at that. I mean, it’s pretty extreme, right?

Turns out that Jewish rabbis have been ahead of me for centuries. Continue reading “Quick Hits: The Bible Backs Me On Abortion. Plus: Why Vaginas Are Not Like Milk Cartons”

Quick Hits: The Bible Backs Me On Abortion. Plus: Why Vaginas Are Not Like Milk Cartons

Abortion Isn’t Okay Because It’s Legal – It’s Okay Because It’s a Human Right

Since the terrorist attack on the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, I’ve been seeing this photo going round:

Image is a screencap of a text post. I have reproduced that text below for easy reading.
Screen cap of a post that seems to have originated with Amanda Duarte on Facebook.

My Google-fu has traced it back to this September public Facebook post by Amanda Duarte. It reads:

I don’t care if Planned Parenthood provides nothing BUT abortion services. I don’t care if it’s a million-story abortion superpark with abortion waterslides and an abortion electrical parade. Abortion is legal. ABORTION IS LEGAL. If I read one more “defense” of Planned Parenthood that says “it’s not JUST abortions!” or “only 5% of what they do is abortion! And abortions aren’t federally funded!” I’m going to abort myself. Abortion is legal, culturally necessary, and good for humanity. It has been and will be practiced for millennia. It is essential. It is a fact. By minimizing, denying or apologizing for this fact, you are allowing these venal anti-woman Nazis to frame this debate and continue to chip away at this essential right. Abortion is not tragic. It is not painful. It is a fact. It is a right. Demand it, fight for it, and for the sake of the women who have given their lives to defend it, stop apologizing for it.

And I pretty much completely agree with it, except for the legal part. I don’t think that’s an argument we should be making. Yes, in the United States, it’s legal. It’s not currently legal in many countries. Does that mean abortion is wrong in some countries and right in others? No.

Abortion is a human right. Continue reading “Abortion Isn’t Okay Because It’s Legal – It’s Okay Because It’s a Human Right”

Abortion Isn’t Okay Because It’s Legal – It’s Okay Because It’s a Human Right

Why Secular Anti-Abortion Arguments Fail

Beth Presswood came across the most asinine anti-abortion article I’ve ever seen. Go and read her post. I’ll have a little something to say about it when you return. It won’t be nice, it contains quite a bit of foul language, and I’m not shielding anyone from my anger, but if you’re a secular forced-birther, you’d better damned sure show me you read, comprehended, and thought carefully about what I said before you dare to open your mouth in my presence. Continue reading “Why Secular Anti-Abortion Arguments Fail”

Why Secular Anti-Abortion Arguments Fail

Would You Really Love Those 70 Million Babies, Pro-Lifers?

Two old white men whine about abortion. (Well, they also lie extravagantly, but I just want to address this more commonly-spouted bit):

“’It’s a pile of babies almost 70 million babies tall, mountains and mountains and mountains of babies,’ Jim Bakker said.”

Okay, Jim “Convicted Felon” Bakker. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about abolishing abortion so all those precious “babies” lived. Continue reading “Would You Really Love Those 70 Million Babies, Pro-Lifers?”

Would You Really Love Those 70 Million Babies, Pro-Lifers?

A Perfect Example of the Necessity of Inclusive Language in Reproductive Rights Activism

A couple of weeks ago, Ophelia Benson hounded an abortion doctor into blocking her because she insisted that using the term “pregnant people” somehow erased women. In the process, Ophelia gleefully erased non binary AFAB folk and trans men. When called on her bullshit, she tried to invoke Black Lives Matter, which went about as well as you would expect.

I doubt Ophelia is reachable, but some of the folks on the fence or not too far into this ridiculous camp may be, and for them, I wish to bring their attention to the following, which illustrates exactly why we include AFAB trans people when we fight for reproductive rights. Content note for rape and anti-trans violence. Continue reading “A Perfect Example of the Necessity of Inclusive Language in Reproductive Rights Activism”

A Perfect Example of the Necessity of Inclusive Language in Reproductive Rights Activism

Yes, Trans People Need to be Included in Abortion Discussions

Ophelia Benson recently harassed an abortion doctor who used inclusive language when advocating for abortion rights on Twitter. It’s pretty rich: a supposed champion for women’s rights decided it was far more important to pester an abortion doctor for using the term “pregnant people” than defend her against the howling anti-choice crowd attacking her for providing pregnant women, trans men, and non-binary people with a functional uterus. You can see the whole sordid exchange here.

As a cis woman with a (probably) functional reproductive system: No, Ophelia. You’re not doing a thing to help me avoid being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. Abortion doctors using inclusive language doesn’t set women’s rights back a bit. Having trans rights included with mine doesn’t hurt me – it helps. If we could see trans people as people with full rights to bodily autonomy, it would be easier for everyone to see women as people with those rights, too. So let’s just get that clear right now.

People like Ophelia do more harm than good. Cis women like me aren’t going to get better and shinier rights by shitting all over trans people. We’re not going to better protect abortion rights by denying a place at the table for trans folk who are in need of reproductive services. All it does is further harms a minority that’s already quite harmed enough. Women have a rough time getting the reproductive care they need, true. Trans men and non-binary people with female-assigned reproductive organs run into the same obstacles we do, and then have to deal with even more barriers to care: Continue reading “Yes, Trans People Need to be Included in Abortion Discussions”

Yes, Trans People Need to be Included in Abortion Discussions

“Now is the time we raise our voices”

In light of the Tim Hunt saga, now seems to be a good time to rerun this piece. I’m hoping to free up some time to write up some fresh stuff for ye – in the few scattered minutes where I’ve not been obsessing over finding a place to live and how to get rid of a ridiculous number of books, I’ve had Thoughts about privileged people’s responses to both Hunt’s sexist asshattery and the appalling slaughter in Charleston. I hope to share them coherently soon. Right now, I’m just wanting to grab certain people – almost inevitably white men – by the lapels, and shake them and shout at them until some sense penetrates.

One thing I will say is: good. I’m glad they’re whining about witch hunts. I’m glad they’ve been rocked back on their heels by the volume and effectiveness of the response. I’m glad they’re clutching at any excuse to avoid facing the reality that they’re losing. They’re losing their assumed and unquestioned superiority. They are being forced to share, and they can’t stand it. They’re being required to behave, and it’s outraging them. They’re facing actual consequences, and they have no idea why, or how to deal with it. They’re having to confront some damned ugly facts about how society works, and they’re completely horrified. Good. The louder they howl, the more they protest, deny, and try to accuse and redirect, the clearer it becomes we’re getting through to them, and it’s making them more uncomfortable than they’ve ever been in their clueless, privileged little lives.

This is why we raise our voices. This is why it’s essential that we never stop. Not until they’ve finished howling their wretched little lungs out, and are finally ready to listen. Then, only then, we might have a chance to speak without having to shout.

Read this. Read all of it. If you’re very busy and must read it later, read this bit right now. Continue reading ““Now is the time we raise our voices””

“Now is the time we raise our voices”