Barry Deutsch Cartoon

Barry Deutsch is one of my favorite political cartoonists. I support him on Patreon, and enjoy his work very much.

He just posted a timely cartoon, and encouraged us to share it. I think it's pretty on point, so I'm doing so.

Apparently Girls Shouldn't Say No

So the Kanesville Elementary School in Utah thought it was an awesome idea to make a rule for their 6th grade dance saying that if someone asks you to dance with them, you have to say yes.

Because teaching kids that if a boy makes a romantic offer, a girl has to say yes is such a good idea. For both the boys and the girls -- teaching girls that they have to say yes, and teaching boys that girls can't say no. Yeah, that's not going to cause any problems in the future. [headdesk]

A number of parents objected, because they have functional brains, and the school is backpedalling. But I'd really like to know what rock the school authorities -- whoever it was who came up with this -- have been living under for the last year. Or actually, the last few decades.

They framed the original policy in terms of being kind to one another, and okay, I can get behind that. But surely it's much better to teach kids how to say "No thank you" kindly, without making the person who asked you feel bad. That also gives the asker practice in accepting a "No thank you" with civility, rather than turning agressive out of humiliation or anger. Yes, being turned down hurts (ask any writer [cough]) but learning to handle a rejection without melting down is part of becoming a functional adult.

At least this got nipped in the bud, but if my kid went to this school, I'd be doubly vigilant to make sure they didn't make similarly horrible decisions in the future. Best of luck to the kids.

Angie

Model Deals with Dirtbags Online

So Emily Sears is a model, and like many models, she posts pics of herself online regularly. It's part of the job, building her reputation and brand, all that good stuff.

But there are dudes online who think it's just neato-kewl to send her pics of their penises, just... because? I don't even know. Do these guys really think some woman they've never met is going to look at a crappy phone-pic of their junk and think, "OMG I wanna this guy to bang me hard!!" Really? [eyeroll]

Eventually Ms. Sears got sick of this crap, and decided to start doing something about it. She looked at the guy's online profile, and found his wife or girlfriend, and sent her a screenshot of what the guy sent, with a note saying she thought the woman should be aware of what her husband/boyfriend was doing online.

I think this is an awesome solution. :) A friend of Ms. Sears, a DJ named Laura, who also gets dick pics on a regular basis, has started doing the same thing.

Good stuff, click through and read about it. The comments are actually worth reading too. I particularly like the one where a woman tells about how, when she was fourteen, some dude sent her a dick pic and she sent him a picture of cutting a banana. [smirk] I hope that had him crossing his legs for a while.

Angie

Writing Characters Who Aren't Like You

Someone on a mailing list posted this link (thanks Lyn!) and I had to pass it on. Daniel Jose Older, an SFF writer and editor, wrote an article called 12 Fundamentals of Writing "The Other" (And The Self). If you write, or have considered writing, about characters who are different from you in some basic way, this'll give you some good stuff to think about.

I particularly like #5 -- "Racist writing is craft failure." Absolutely. It's easy to reach for obvious traits or characteristics without thinking about it, and have your hand fall onto a racist (sexist, homophobic, etc.) cliche. If bigoted cliches end up in your story, they're like any other cliches and make the writing weaker and more shallow.

Good stuff, check it out.

Angie

Quoting Now Equals Libel?

So apparently linking to an article where someone is quoted -- with links to the original sources -- as saying something that makes him look like a sexist asshat is now libel. That sounds like fun, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

Mr. Sean Fodera apparently thinks that any woman who wears attractive clothing can't possibly be a feminist, because (I guess?) in order to qualify for the feminist club, you're required to have nothing but army fatigues three sizes too big, or similar, in your closet. Okay then.

It just occurred to me that MRK seems to be deeply involved in this whole anti-sexism matter. I remember seeing her posing with Hines and Scalzi on one of their very scary cover parodies, and I know she chimed in with a snipe at the petition signers on the Radish thread.

I find it very funny and ironic that she would jump on this bandwagon. For a long time, her website featured an array of photos of her in a diaphanous white outfit, posing on a beach. No metal bikinis or such, but they were not innocuous writer headshots either. One of them, with her recumbent on the sand with legs exposed, made her somewhat attractive. I also recall she's fond of wearing tight-fitting gowns and plunging necklines when she attends cons and award ceremonies.

I'll have to add "phony" to "incompetent" and "arrogant" in the mental tags I've assigned her.

The Daily Dot has a screen grab of this bit from SFF.net, in case it gets deleted.

The whole Dot article is about the latest wave of sexist, racist crap coming out of the old guard SFWA types. It's depressing, but at this point it's really not surprising. What's particularly eyerolly here is Mr. Fodera's belief that this is actionable libel. John Scalzi commented on this, and I see it as a public service to spread it around. Not only to point out the sexist gluteal haberdashery, but to spread the word that no, this is not libel, and threatening to treat it as such just makes one look even more ignorant than the original commentary.

Also, note the Streisand effect in action here. I've never heard of Mr. Fodera before, and I'd wager most folks who read my blog haven't either. Now we've heard of him, and the impression left isn't exactly positive. Good job, Mr. Fodera!

Angie

Dear Dudebro

This is why John Scalzi pretty much owns the Internet.

Some months ago, Scalzi said that if his Twitter followers could raise $500 for Clarion within the next half hour, he'd have someone take a picture of him wearing a very nice Regency frock, and post it to his web site. They did, and he did. Much more recently, some misogynistic little boy whose insult quotient is about at the level of "Neener neener!" took the picture and memeized it, in a way he clearly thought would be distressing to Mr. Scalzi. [smirk]

Click through to see the picture, and enjoy seeing Scalzi hand it all back to this guy with a dumptruck. Seriously, this is awesome. :D

Angie

Literary Segregation

Hal Duncan wrote an awesome post on segregation in our fictional culture, and everyone who writes or reads (or watches TV or movies, or makes or consumes any other kind of fictional media) should read it. Powerful stuff.

The status quo in the media, in our narratives, is segregation. It’s a state in which members of abject groups--black, queer, whatever--are deemed to not belong as main characters. This is the segregation of not being able to sit at the front of the bus. The abject may be allowed in as an exception if this "serves the plot" if there's a reason for the character’s gayness. This is the segregation of being stopped in a white neighborhood and challenged on your purpose in being there. The abject may be allowed in as Gay Best Friends or Magic Negros in service of the straight, white protagonist. This is the segregation of travelling into a white neighbourhood to work as a cleaner in someone’s house.

Yes, this. This is what's going on whenever someone says they don't want to read a story about a woman, because they're not into all that shoes-dating-mommy stuff, as if any narrative about a woman must be about "woman things." Or when someone else says they don't want to watch a movie about a black character, because "I don't want someone preaching at me about racism." As if any narrative about a black character must feature racism as the driving force of the plot.* Or when someone protests watching a TV show about a gay character, because "homophobia, blah-blah-blah, and besides I don't wanna see two guys doing it." As though every narrative about gay people has to be blatantly sexual, and must focus on homophobia.**

Those stereotyped cliches are the uniforms Duncan talks about, the special roles people who aren't white/straight/able-bodied/male/Christian/and-so-on have to wear to justify their place in a "normal" narrative. A story can have a black protag only if the story is about Black Problems. A story can have a gay protag only if the plot is centered on Gay Issues. A story can have a female protag only if it focuses on Women's Stuff. The idea that a mystery could have a black detective, or that a war story could have be about a female officer, or that a thriller could be about a gay spy -- without the protag's blackness or femaleness or gayness being a key to the situation or conflict -- well, that just doesn't occur to very many people. The default protag is the straight, able-bodied, Christian white man, and it takes deliberate thought for most writers to reach for someone else, unless they're writing that Black Story, or Woman's Story, or Gay Story, or Blind Story, or Autistic Story, or Jewish Story, or whatever other "special" narrative they're crafting, aimed at a "special" (meaning small, niche, specialty) audience.

Only by recognising that system for what it is can we deal with it, as we must and as we can. If we can desegregate the buses, we can desegregate narrative. When it comes to fictional representation of the abject, if we can understand what we are striving for as desegregation, articulate it as such, there is no argument against this. Otherwise? Simply demand better treatment for queer characters, and they'll say we're demanding special treatment; they'll call it political correctness. They'll say we want leather armchairs at the back of the bus. Simply demand more queer protagonists, and they'll say we're demanding quotas. They'll say we want seats set aside for us at the front, even at the expense of some poor old white fart called Art.

Demand desegregation, and all this straw man bullshit is exposed for what it is.

This. It's not about quotas or "special rights" or political correctness. It's about being allowed to sit in front of the bus, about being allowed to be the protagonist, to save the world and solve the mystery and find love and win the competition, and anything else that straight white guys have been doing in fiction for centuries.

Read the whole thing, because Hal Duncan has a powerful voice, and a clear perspective that sees past the crap that's been there so long it's become invisible.

Angie

*I won't even get into how someone who reacts that strongly against hearing about racism is probably the exact sort of person who needs to hear about it.

**See previous note about people who recoil from hearing about bigotry being the ones who need to hear about it.

The Perfect Metaphor

Still on the Resnick/Malzberg thing. I've been trying to figure out how to model what could possibly have been going on in these guys' heads, because they're not stupid, whatever they might've been displaying recently. Ferret Steinmetz hit it perfectly.

When you do something very difficult in an Xbox game, you get an Achievement. It’s a fizzy little thrill, not unlike winning a scratch-off lottery ticket: you vanquish a difficult boss and there’s a blip noise, then an alert at the bottom of the screen: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.

You’re told the name of your special Achievement. It is added to your profile, and is yours forevermore.

...

There appear to be a lot of feisty old dudes who think they’re awesome at this equality thing.

Here’s the thing: by 1970s standards? I’m sure all of these gentlemen were enlightened. Compared to the treatment women, gays, and blacks got from mainstream society at the time, these dudes were well ahead of the curve. And at the time, they deserved all the credit for going above and beyond ordinary treatment. Still do, in a certain sense.

The problem is, in their heads, they Achievement Unlocked. They became Good To Girls, or Friend To The Negro, or Comfortable With Homos. And that badge could never be removed. Once they’d proven their magnificent tolerance in the crucible of the Issues of the Day, they never had to question their position again.

That's it, right there. Steinmetz nailed it completely. Click through to read the whole thing. I hope Resnick and Malzberg do, and that it makes a lightbulb go off in their heads.

Angie

There's Always One Joker

In with all the other April Fool's posts that went up a couple of days ago, one of the web site staffers over at the Locus website decided to write an incredibly unfunny joke stirring a stack of feces that'd long since gone cold and crusted over -- the incident from 2010 when WisCon, an SF convention founded specifically on principles of social justice, dis-invited one of its guests of honor for publicly posting an anti-Moslem screed on her LiveJournal. The basic message of the post was diametrically opposed to the foundations principles of WisCon, and continuing to honor this person would've been a travesty, so she was dis-invited. There was some kerfuffling, but then it died down. The person who wrote the non-funny April Fool's post for the Locus site decided it needed to be stirred up again, and saw nothing wrong with saying nasty things about Moslems, women, feminists and fat people in order to get his "point" across. Or maybe he saw that as a bonus?

The Locus magazine staff, being decent people, pulled the post as soon as they saw it that morning, and posted an apology. We know they're decent people because it's a real apology, not the usual "We're sorry you're so overly sensitive, and we had no idea you'd be so unreasonable as to be offended" kind of non-apology these incidents usually produce, so kudos to the Locus folks.

The guy who wrote the offensive post decided a little more stirring was necessary, so he posted to his personal blog, making it clear that yes, he had intended to be offensive, and yes he had meant to be taking a shot at WisCon over this 2.5-year-old incident, and that he was outraged -- outraged, I say! -- at the craven censorship to which his superiors were forced by the politically correct harpies of WisCon. Because clearly it's impossible that anyone not associated with WisCon could have been at all upset by what he'd said.

[If anyone cares, I don't work on WisCon, and have never even attended.]

I'm not linking to Mr. Shit Stirrer because I don't want to reward him for his behavior by giving him any traffic, or his blog any incoming links. I'm not naming him for similar reasons. If you click through to the page with Locus's apology, though, there's a link in the comments to his post, if you really want to read it. It's the usual self-righteous garbage bigots spew when they're called on their shit.

Jim Hines posted a commentary on his own blog, and as usual made some excellent points and worded them beautifully. One of my favorite parts:

I was a skinny, overly bright, socially inept, fashion challenged kid with glasses and a speech defect. My teenage years were utter hell. Looking back at any of those incidents of name-calling, having my books knocked out of my hands, being shoved in the hallway, tripped on the steps outside the school, having my belongings destroyed, and so on, very few of them in isolation were such a big deal. Real physical injury was relatively rare. But when those small jabs continue day after day, they add up. They whittle away at your strength and your hope, and it never, ever lets up, never stops, until you’re sitting alone in the bathroom with a syringe full of your father’s insulin, searching for a single good reason not to jab the plunger down and hopefully put an end to it all.

The backlash against the Locus article isn’t about someone taking cheap shots at Muslims and women. It’s about yet another person taking those shots, lining up to bully those who are already a popular target for abuse. And it’s about everyone else who stands around, encouraging and enabling that bullying.

The whole thing's worth reading.

And he's absolutely right -- it's not just about this incident, or some older incident, or another one that'll happen next week. It's about all the incidents taken together. If every day, someone pokes you -- never the same person twice, but someone new every day -- it might seem ridiculous to charge any of them with assault. But let it go on for weeks and months, let alone years or decades, and your body would be one huge bruise, and each new poke would be agonizing on top of the damage left by all the others. And if you complained, people would say, "Why are you making such a fuss? He just poked you! Sure, it's kind of rude, but you don't have to make a federal case out of it! Mellow out!" Those same people would glare with indignation while the person who "overreacted" dragged their purple, crippled body away.

A constant stream of offenses which are individually minor is just as harmful as one huge offense. This slam against Moslems, women, feminists and fat people was just one more in a long, long stream of offenses that members of every one of those groups has to put up with regularly, often daily. It's not minor, it's not funny, and the Locus staff acted appropriately, as any decent people would.

Angie

The Invisible War

I really want to see this movie. I know it's going to piss me off royally, but I still want to see it. And after researching things like this, I can't even find it in me to be skeptical about the movie's accuracy, based on what's in the trailer. If so many in Congress will help government contractors in the field (i.e., mercenaries working for the US government) cover up rapes, when these are just hired hands and not sworn troops, how can we imagine that the US Military would not do whatever it could to cover up a plague of rapes within its own ranks? What a scandal! Of course they'd cover it up, for the same reason the the Catholic Church covered up its child molestors for so long, the same reason Penn State covered up for Jerry Sandusky for so long. The authorities think that the scandal to themselves and their institution is worse than the horror of what the victims are put through.

Apologists claim that some significant number of women who report being raped are lying for whatever reason. Some radical wingnuts claim that most women who report a rape are lying. The fact is that even today, in the 21st century, enough women who report being raped are treated horribly -- during the report, during the investigation, during the trial if there is one, and sometimes even afterwards by their friends, families, co-workers -- that most women who are raped have to think long and hard about reporting it for fear of being traumatized all over again, and many never do.

This looks like a good movie. I hope it draws some attention to the issue.

Angie

PS -- of course, men are raped too. It's just as horrible for them, and the social pressure against reporting a rape is just as strong for men, if for different reasons. Most people who are raped are women, though, so that's where most of the problem is. If there are men in the military being raped by their fellow soldiers, I hope someone makes a movie about that as well. Any nest of vipers needs to be hit with a flamethrower, no matter who's being bitten.

Aicardi Syndrome and a Pose-Off

Fantasy writer Jim Hines did a blog post asking fans to donate to the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation, an organization that raises research money for Aicardi Syndrome, a disease that affects 1 in 105,000 little girls. He says, "It causes brain malformation, visual problems, seizures, developmental delays, and other medical complications. Most research puts the life expectancy for people with Aicardi between 8 and 16 years."

The Aicardi Syndrome Foundation is the only source of funding for research into this disease. It also helps families with daughters who've been hit with it. It's a great cause, and I urge everyone reading this to throw some money their way, even if it's only a few dollars.

If you do donate, and report your donations to Jim, he'll do another set of book cover poses at each milestone. If you haven't seen this post before, check it out -- Jim demonstrates the ridiculousness of the positions SF/Fantasy/Paranormal female characters are twisted into on book covers by attempting to get into those positions himself, and having his picture taken. It's hilarious, and also underscores some serious shenanigans on the part of the big publishers, 'cause seriously dudes, this is stupid, and it's all based on the idea that the men who buy these books just want to see boobs and butts, and the women who buy these books will go along with stupidly impossible objectification on the covers, because women will sigh and shrug and buy whatever makes the men happy. [cough]

[If you're still going, "Wait, what--?" then check out this pic, parodying one of the Avengers movie posters. In the real poster, Black Widow is doing the boobs-and-butt pose, but all the men are in normal, tough-guy-ready-for-combat poses. This artist turned it around, giving Black Widow a normal pose and putting Captain America into the standard female boobs-and-butt pose. The other men are just displaying their butts. It's awesome. :D ]

And as if that weren't enough, Jim is challenging John Scalzi to a pose-off at two of the milestone points, $1000 and $2500. I really hope they make the $2500, because the pose-off should be great.

Aside from which, Aicardi Syndrome sucks, and deserves support. Please help out.

Angie

Responding to Rape

Jim Hines, a great fantasy writer, also blogs about social justice issues. Recently he was scheduled to appear on Reddit, in the fantasy area, to do a Q&A about his upcoming book. He cancelled because Reddit is hosting a rather large and active thread where men who've committed rape are talking about what they did and why and how and how it felt, and apparently they're getting an appalling number of back-pats and attaboys for it, along with praise for how "brave" they are to post anonymously about how awesome it was rape that woman, or reassurances about how they didn't really do anything wrong because after all, from what you said it's not like she screamed and cussed and tried to fight you off, right? Or whatever. :/

Jim posted about the cancellation and his reason for it, and of course a bazillion people from Reddit came over to tell him what a censoring dumbass he is. A few people made calm and reasoned arguments about why they thought he was wrong, which is cool, and there were people supporting his actions as well. One of the latter posted a comment I have to share.

Laura Resnick's comment, trimmed down to emphasize a point:

This all makes me recall my experiences when I took a basic self-defense program designed for women. ...

And what I found interesting, shocking, and really eye-opening was HOW HARD most of the women in the group found it to defend themselves. I don't mean they couldn't learn the skills. I mean that their upbringing ahd socialization had sCOMPLETELY indoctrinated them with the idea, the belief, and the behaviorial pattern that they DIDN'T HAVE A RIGHT to defend themselves. to such an extent that trying to practice self-defense moves against an attacker in a classroom setting was traumatic for them.

...

This conditioning was so powerful that there were women in the class who stood facing the attacker, weeping helplessly over their own indoctrinated inability to lift a single finger to defend themselves against a physical attacker.

... [I]t really opened my eyes to how many women have been taught their whole lives, by everyone and everything that's ever had influence over them, that if they're assaulted, attacked, raped, then they must lie there, still and weeping, rather than fight back.

And because of that conditioning, rapists like the ones bragging on Reddit can convince themselves they didn't do anything really wrong since, gee, it's not as if the assault victim really FOUGHT, right? She just cried a little and lay there, right? "So that must mean what I did wasn't a violent felony, right?"

This fits perfectly with a post I did a while back about how rape happens, about how women are socialized to go along and get along and keep the peace and make other people happy, about how they're not supposed to fuss or object or disagree and if they do they're being a mean bitch or a stuck up bitch or an angry bitch. So many women don't fuss or object or disagree, until suddenly some guy is pushing their legs open and if they object then, they're a teasing bitch.

So, many women just don't object. Much less, as Laura's experience with the self-defense class for women shows, physically fight back.

Raising women to be ladylike, with a traditional (mild, demure, passive, pleasant, pleasing) definition of ladylike, is a significant chunk of the rape problem in our society. Of course, most of it is egotistical men* who think they're entitled to anything they want, including a particular woman. But if we stopped enculturating women to be passive and started raising them to kick up a screaming, cussing, punching, kicking fuss whenever some entitled dirtbag decided to invade her territory, preferably well before it ever got to a place/situation where rape could happen, that'd take a decent bite out of the problem.

Angie

*Note that not all men are like this. I shouldn't have to say it, but I'm saying it anyway. In particular, I can't imagine any of the men who comment here regularly being like this. It only takes a minority, though, to get a whole lot of women worried and wary, especially since the raping minority don't wear T-shirts that say RAPIST. If you're a guy and this bothers you, or if you've ever had a woman give you a look like she was wondering whether she could trust you, that's the rapist minority messing it up for all the nice guys.

August Stuff and Some Links

Writing: 9204 -- 3 pts.
Editing: 4380 -- 1 pt.
Submissions: 5 -- 5 pts.
TOTAL: 9 pts.



Still not where I want to be on writing, but it's more than July, and July was more than June, so hopefully I can keep up the trend.

Some Links:

Fantasy Art -- Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor -- This Tumblr thread collects artwork of female fighters wearing armor that might actually protect more than 5% of their bodies in a fight. There's some great art here, so check it out. I particularly like this one, a cartoon that comments on the issue. :)

Iowa Student Dies After Brutal Beating in which Attackers Shouted Gay Slurs -- The media's attention has drifted away from the issue of anti-gay bullying and bashing, but kids are still dying. Marcellus Andrews, 19, was a college student and member of his church's drill team when some guys in a truck stopped and attacked him on the porch of a friend's house. They called him a faggot while beating on him, and one of these jerkwads kicked him in the face when he was down. He had severe head trauma and died in the hospital. This crap might not be making big headlines the way it was earlier in the year, but it's still happening and it still needs to stop. :(

CHRONICLES OF MANSPLAINING: Professor Feminism and the Deleted Comments of Doom -- I just ran into this one today. It's framed by a discussion of a particular incident, but in general this is absolutely the best explanation of what "mansplaining" is and why it's offensive that I've ever run into.

Then the blogger, Sady Doyle, explains how this springs from and feeds into the larger issues:

Here’s where we appeal to that “lived experience” thing. Because: Have you ever had a guy come up to you — on the street, in a bar, whatever — and just straight-up say, “hey, I wanna talk to you?” Happens all the time, right? Happens to women, all the time. But have you ever just straight-up said, “no?” Not “no, I have a boyfriend,” or “no, I’m busy,” or “no, I have to race to save the city from the Joker’s diabolical machinations, for I am the Batman,” or any other excuse: Just the word “no,” by itself?

Yeah. So you know what happens next, after you say “no.” The guy always keeps talking. He tries wheedling, or begging, sometimes. But if you say “no” firmly enough, or often enough that he gets the point, the dude just starts yelling. He tells you that you’re not that hot. He tells you what a bitch you are. (“You bitch, I have a Rolls Royce,” was my favorite of these.) Sometimes he follows you down the street, yelling at you; sometimes, he follows you in his car. These dudes are always so fucking certain that they’re entitled to your time and attention that they will harass you until you give it, or at least until you’re scared and sorry for not giving it. You do not have the right not to interact, as far as these guys are concerned.

...

That’s the real problem behind Mansplaining, and all the rest of it: We live in a culture where men are taught that, if they want women’s time and attention, they are entitled to it. They simply cannot grasp that a woman has the right to say “no.” You bitch, I have a Rolls Royce or you coward, I have more blog traffic than you: Whatever it is, it’s a guy insisting that he’s entitled to a form of attention a woman doesn’t want to give him, and lashing out at the woman for not giving it. From hence springs Mansplaining, sexual harassment, rape culture, and everything else we don’t like about how men treat women, from the tiniest violation to the most violent. All of it, ALL of it, springs from the idea that women should be ignored or punished when we say "no." Which is the idea Professor Feminism is reinforcing with his actions, as we speak.

The guys who comment here are cool, and actually see women as human beings. There are some guys in the comments at Tiger Beatdown who likewise Get It and aren't part of the problem. So many men are, though, that a majority of women in our culture treat all men they don't know well carefully, fearfully, because they have no idea which guy is cool and which guy might start with the "Who do you think you are to say 'no' to me, bitch?!" drill. Back to Sady: "That’s what it’s actually like, being a woman: Playing nice with every random asshole, because this random asshole might be the one who hurts you. And then, if he hurts you anyway, they’ll tell you that you led him on."

This relates back to my post last year on how women are socialized to be victims, and men are socialized to believe that anger is the proper response whenever a woman denies them something they want.

And to wrap up on a couple of positives:

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich -- Warren Buffett This is an NYT op-ed piece by one of the richest people in the country who thinks it's time America's super-rich paid a bit more tax. Nice to know not all the super-wealthy are scrambling for every shelter and loophole they can find. Props to Mr. Buffett -- I wish the Republican bigwigs would listen to him.

School Superintendent Gives up $800,000 in Pay -- Massive kudos and applause to Fresno County School Superintendent Larry Powell. His area has been hit with some of the highest unemployment in the country and his schools were suffering along with everyone else. Powell effectively retired, then let them hire him back for $31,000 per year, which is $10K less than a starting teacher makes.

"A part of me has chaffed at what they did in Bell," Powell said, recalling the corrupt Southern California city officials who secretly boosted their salaries by hundreds of thousands of dollars. "It's hard to believe that someone in the public trust would do that to the public. My wife and I asked ourselves 'What can we do that might restore confidence in government?'"

He also said, "How much do we need to keep accumulating? There's no reason for me to keep stockpiling money."

Another rich (or at least very well off) guy who deserves major props.

Angie

This Is How it Happens

Harriet Jacobs at Fugitivus made this pretty awesome post about how most women in our society are socialized, how we're taught to behave and relate to others in social situations, and how that leads to a culture where way too many women end up getting raped and then blamed for it. I'm going to quote the core list, because it really needs to be spread around, but I encourage you to read her whole post. I had to stop myself from just going on and on and on with the copy hilighting, because it's all true and it's all important.

If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:

* it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitch”)
* it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitch”)
* it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitch”)
* it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitch”)
* it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and your needs (“bitch got daddy issues”)
* it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitch”)
* it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitch”)
* it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitch”)

If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.

And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.

Most of that crap never took with me. I've always been loud and agressive and out there, even as a kid. Most of the times I got punished, it was for something I said rather than something I did. If I didn't like someone, or what someone was saying or doing, I made it really clear. That made for a lot of awkward social situations. I've never been The Popular Girl, never had a lot of boyfriends, never really fit in perfectly with the people around me. But you know what? I've never been raped, I've never felt unsafe out in public with strangers, even late at night on lonely streets. I know where to draw lines, I know how to say no, I know how to make it clear from the start that I'm not interested in talking to someone. Polite women are the ones who get raped, and I never have been; I can't regret that. :/

Ironically enough, the only time I've ever felt unsafe in that way was at a party at my mom's house. I was in the kitchen doing dishes and a sort of second-tier family friend (Gusto? I think that was his name) was drunk and insisted on getting close and touching me. He was feeling "friendly" or whatever, and wanted to hug me and press against me. I gritted my teeth and let him have one hug, but he wanted to keep on hugging and after the first one I wasn't having any. He was sort of a friend, though, and I didn't want to make a fuss. (Don't get loud. Don't set boundaries. Don't be mean to someone who's just being friendly.) I was saying no and backing off, but I ended up cornered against the counter with a big wooden meat platter with spikes on it between me and him like a shield, spikes out. He was kind of confused for a minute or three, like he was trying to figure out how to get to me around it, but he finally got a fucking clue and wandered away.

You know, I knew nothing "serious" was going to happen. There were like a dozen people around and I knew I wasn't actually going to get raped or anything. But it was frightening anyway, and I can't even really explain why except that this guy I had no interest in whatsoever, even as a friend because he was frankly a creep from pretty much all angles, was trying to touch me and get way more in my space and way more intimate than I wanted to, and I didn't know how to make him stop without making more of a fuss than would've been socially acceptable. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to be groped, but what do you do about it when it's someone's friend and you're right there and there are people around and no one else seems to think anything is wrong? It's exactly like the paragraph in the post above about the woman at the bus stop who's being hit on by a guy. My brother Sean was right there and didn't do anything, didn't say anything to Gusto, even though he was his friend (I think he was; I know he was the friend of someone in the family, and it wasn't Mom or me; maybe he started out as a friend of a friend, but he came to our house a few times over the years) and afterward, after Gusto staggered off, when I expressed that that'd been upsetting and kind of scary, Sean was very eyerolly and dismissive. He said that if anything had "really" happened he'd have stopped it, but nothing happened and there was nothing to be upset about. It was just a hug after all, nothing to make a fuss about. He sounded kind of angry, just a little, that I'd even vaguely imply that Gusto might've done anything wrong, even though Sean was there pretty much the whole time I was being stalked around the kitchen and trying to fend the guy off with no luck.

But that's the problem -- unless it's some stranger jumping out from behind a bush to drag a woman into a dark alley and rape her, it doesn't count. Nothing less than that is worth making a fuss about. And if a woman does make a fuss about something not worth making a fuss about, then you're back to "Mean bitch," and "Crazy bitch" and "Stuck-up bitch" etc., all that social pressure to be Nice and to be Polite and to be Ladylike and to not upset anyone, to just put up and deal and smile and pretend it's all okay, because you're the woman and that's your job. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if Gusto had tried to stick a hand into my bra or down my pants, Sean would've been right there to haul him away and maybe smack him around a bit. But just wanting to hug me, to touch me in a way I didn't want -- that doesn't count and I had to be pressured into agreeing that it was no big deal. So I'm supposed to be nice and polite and go along when some drunken creep wants to touch me against my will. Keep doing that and eventually you do get raped, and everyone around you is saying, "But you didn't protest when he groped you!"

And this was ME. Loud, aggressive, social-bull-in-a-china-shop Angie, who (usually) takes no shit from anyone, and still I ended up in a situation where I felt pretty strongly the social pressure to go along, be polite, not cause a fuss in a crowd when some creep was trying to touch me. My fear of the social consequences with my friends and family if I'd shoved him away or cussed him out or raised my voice at him took away effective options, made me seriously afraid because I couldn't think what to do, and reduced me to a passive defensive action behind a spiked cutting board until the guy trying to grope me gave up and went away. What kind of a chance do normal women have, the ones who've actually been successfully socialized in all the nice, polite, ladylike behavior, when some determined, smiling guy wants more than a drunken hug and grope? Not much.

This is why rape happens as often as it does, and this is why so many people jump in to deny that it was "really" rape, because the woman didn't yell, didn't punch or kick, didn't tell him to leave her the fuck alone, didn't even protest too much when he first groped her. This is how it happens, and this is how it's dismissed.

Angie, who's very glad all that quiet-polite-ladylike stuff never really took

Bad Girls?

Stephanie Draven posted today asking why there aren't more bad girls in romance. She said, "This may be because women make up the vast majority of romance readers and we can be a bit hard on our own gender."

Umm, yeah. [wry smile]

It seems to me that women are often the hardest on other women. It might well be the patriarchal culture that created the rules, but women are often the most enthusiastic and bloodthirsty enforcers of those rules. (Mainstream, het) romance as a genre reflects the traditional gender roles and limitations more than any other genre, as demonstrated in the invisible (but very solid, penetrable by only a tiny percentage of writers) rules about female protags' sexual behavior, for example. Once the guy and girl meet, they're not allowed to have (real) feelings for anyone else, and certainly not have sex with anyone else, no matter how long -- in terms of page-count or actual months or years in the storyline -- it takes for the main characters to get together. Guys are allowed to break this rule more often than girls, and the occasional girls who do are much more likely to draw howls of "Slut!" from infuriated readers.

And it's kind of entertaining to compare the proportion of 25- and 30-year-old virgins in romance novels with the actual population. [eyeroll] To say nothing of the complex and painful contortions the writers will bend their characters into in order to justify it. And of the ones who aren't virgins, the vast majority had blah or downright horrific sex. Because god forbid the girl ever have a great sexual experience with anyone other than her destined mate. Only if she's pure and chaste and innocent for a truly ludicrous amount of time does she eventually deserve the Awesome Orgasm of True Love.

Moving away from sex to other horrible, unfeminine sins, Stacia Kane was recently evicerated by a mob of readers who were outraged that her Chess Putnam was a [gasp!] drug addict! And wasn't grovelling with shame and repentance by the end of the first book!! Unholy Ghosts isn't even a romance -- it's urban fantasy, published by a SF/F house -- but it has a female protag and sort of feels romance-ish in tone. Apparently that's enough for the Pitchfork-Bearing Mob of Romancelandia to claim Unholy Ghosts for romance, and then punish the author for not following romance rules. Wow.

This kind of nonsense is one of the reasons I wandered away from het romance and went over to m/m. Aside from the fact that two hot guys is always better than one :) the genre is newer, and because of that there aren't as many rules and expectations about acceptable character behavior. A guy can have a fight with his lover, go out angry to a bar and get laid with some stranger, then go home and make up -- that is, behave like a perfectly valid type of real person -- and the vast majority of readers don't have a cardiac. (What a concept.)

So yeah. [cough] I would like to see more "bad" girls in romance. For that matter, I'd like to see fewer character types labelled as "bad." Slut-shaming is one of the major tools of that patriarchal culture we're supposedly trying to move past, so can we dump it now plskthnx? And why is it that a woman who can kick butt with the guys -- a fighter and survivor -- is labelled a bad girl?

It'd also be nice if characters were allowed to have real, serious flaws, like Chess's drug addiction. And I'd like to see female characters who can be grumpy or arrogant or focused on their work or unconcerned with domestic matters or excessive grooming/preening (you know, like any number of male characters?) and who are not presented as just not having grown up into Real Women yet. There are a few around the genre, but again, not nearly as many as there are in realspace, proportionately.

As it is, though, one of the primary messages of mainstream romance is that only women who conform to a particular, narrow definition of a Good Woman deserve romance. True love and great sex come (eventually) to the good girls, or maybe to the occasional character who was a bad girl but then learned better, and changed, and did an appropriate amount of grovelling.

It's seriously amazing how creative the really good romance writers can be within this limited range -- it takes an incredible talent to write a memorable character, especially a female, within the narrow walls of genre romance characterization. I think it'd benefit the genre as a whole if the walls came down, though, and the genre were thrown open to a wider variety of character types. Giving authors more latitude encourages creativity and exploration beyond the trodden (paved, regulated, monitored by radar) path. Not all readers would care for the new character types, but that's all right. There are still plenty of readers who prefer basic contemporary romances, but that hasn't stopped the newer subgenres (fantasy, futuristic, paranormal frex.) from doing well and finding large audiences. Variety is always better than uniformity.

Stephanie again: But I hope that society has evolved enough that we can enjoy other fantasies too. That we can enjoy stories about women in search of their own redemption. About women who don’t coax men into conforming to social rules, but who help men break them.

Amen.

Angie

Misc. Links

New animals discovered in Borneo, an economist's analysis of digital content as a public good, a professor of digital media's thoughts about avatars for characters of color in computer games, and a really hilarious journal post.

New Animals Discovered in Borneo -- I think my favorite is the stick insect, like a walking stick only a bit over half a meter long, pictured walking up the side of a guy's head. Oh, and props to the guy, too, for having guts. :) The flame-colored snake is gorgeous, and the lungless frog makes me think about aliens for an SF story.

Why Content Is a Public Good -- this is a guest post by Milena Popova on Charlie Stross's blog. She talks about public and private goods, and rival and excludable goods, and the various combinations and how the market works (or doesn't) to distribute or control the distribution of the various types. I've never seen the subject (primarily e-books and music, but also applies to movies and such) discussed from this point of view before. She starts at the beginning and explains the vocabulary for people who don't have econ degrees. Definitely worth a read.

Chimerical Avatars and Other Identity Experiments from Prof. Fox Harrell -- Prof. Harrell talks about avatars in computer games and the lack of variety available in avatar types, particularly for players of color who'd like their avatar to represent them as they are, particularly if they want a decent range of options beyond skin color. This is a familiar issue in gaming, but it also applies to books.

How often can a reader of color find a character who's like them in mainstream genre fiction? Or a female reader in an adventure-oriented genre? Sure, we can appreciate and empathize with characters who aren't like us, but white readers don't have to do that very often, and never at all if they don't want to. A series of characters who are all basically alike can give readers who are different the impression that this author or series or genre isn't for them, and can give a writer who is different the impression that a genre doesn't welcome their viewpoint. It benefits all of us to encourage a variety of character types in the media we consume, which (for those of us who are creators) means including a variety of character types in the media we create.

I Has a Sweet Potato by Littera-Abactor on LJ -- I'm pretty sure I haven't linked this here before, but it's hilarious so even if I have, there's no harm done. :D

Dog: I am starving.
Me: Actually, no. You aren't starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And Best Beloved fed you extra food while I was gone.
Dog: STARVING.
Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving.
Dog: Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
Me: I am now ignoring you.
Dog: STARVING.
Dog: Did you hear me? I am starving.
Dog: Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine.

[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]

[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]

Me, yelling: What the hell are you doing?
Me: *makes haste for the kitchen and finds dog there*
Dog: *picks up entire raw sweet potato, which is what was causing the baseball bat noise, and flees for the bedroom*
Me: *chases dog, retrieves most of sweet potato, less the portion which has disappeared into dog's gullet*
Dog: See? STARVING.
Me: ...That can't be good for you. It's a RAW SWEET POTATO.
Dog: I had to do it. I haven't been fed. Ever.
Me: You realize you aren't normal. Normal dogs don't steal raw sweet potatoes.
Dog, sadly: I was badly brought up.
Me: Yes. Yes, you were.
Dog: By people who starved me.
Me: Oh, no. I am not doing this again.
Me: *exits the room, bearing sweet potato*

There's more. Definitely more. :D Click through and read the whole thing.

Oh, and I got an acceptance on a story called "Unfinished Business," which is a sequel to A Hidden Magic, yay! :D It's short and funny and is basically erotica, picking up on something a couple of supporting characters were doing about two-thirds of the way through the book. It's scheduled for release on 26 June, just a month after HM, which is great timing.

Angie

But of Course, There's No Sexism in the Genre

It seems horror writer Bev Vincent writes like a girl.

Vincent was invited to submit a story to an anthology. The editor asked for some edits and they worked back and forth for a while, and finally both were satisfied with the story, which had a male protagonist. The whole book was polished up and sent to the publisher.

The publisher decided, for whatever reason, to send the antho to an unnamed but supposedly well respected editor within the genre for review and comment. This editor bled all over Vincent's story, with comments such as the following:

"It’s quite a challenge for a writer of one sex to explore writing from the perspective of the opposite sex. Bev Vincent has not done a convincing job."

and:

"The story seems far too personal, introspective and emotional for a man . . . It is hard to imagine a fellow from a place like [the setting] uttering the following line." The editor then provides three sentences from my story as examples. He or she continues, "And I can’t think of many guys from [setting] who call home every Sunday afternoon to talk to their family" [Emphasis his or hers]. Another brilliant insight: "Most men don’t think deeply about the dewy greenness of nature." The ultimate conclusion: "She [sic] needs to write more convincing [sic] from a man’s perspective."

This would be outrageous and sexist in any event. What makes it also hilarious, in a bitter way, is that Bev Vincent is a man. He says:

I’ve heard female writers talk about gender bias in the industry before, but it’s always been an abstract concept to me. Not something I’ve ever experienced. Oh, sure, people often think I’m female based on my name—it’s a common enough mistake, which I’ve had to deal with all my life. I like to tell the story about how I was almost assigned to the women’s dorm at university. However, I’ve never before had an editor criticize my writing based on a false assumption concerning my gender. Or make blatantly biased statements about the male perspective.

And that last bit is why this is an issue of concern to men as well as women, even men who don't have first names which sound feminine. Here's an editor who's trying to control how male characters are portrayed, trying to put limits on what a male character can do or say and what he can or can't be interested in or concerned about. Here's an editor who thinks a male character can't be introspective.

The WTF is powerful with this one, Obi-Wan. [eyeroll]

Then just to ice the cake, the original antho editor -- who'd been perfectly happy with the story when the book was submitted to the publisher -- completely caved and told Vincent to make the changes called for by the anonymous consulting editor. Vincent refused to gut his story or completely reconceive his character to please some anonymous idiot (my words, not his) and pulled his story from the book.

See what Vincent has to say about it, and some commentary by Nick Mamatas with an interesting (and even more outrageous -- wow, I used to like Poul Anderson) context.

Thanks to Avalon's Willow for the links, and yet more commentary and context.

Angie