Texty

Thought experiment:

-Gender (like race, orientation, etc.) is a key part of who someone is, and shouldn't be ignored in an attempt at equality.
-It is, however, a cultural construct. It's not something you're born with, but something you develop over a lifetime of both cultural/social influence and personal choices.
-Therefore, the gender identity one has, and wishes to be recognized by others as a true part of oneself is likely to be different for each person. It's not a given, for instance, that every woman wants to look pretty. That may be a part of a given woman's gender identity, but it's not a hard-coded aspect of gender identity itself. Because there is no such thing.
-Because some gender-coded traits and behaviors are negative, that means that if one chooses to embrace those things, one may well be criticized for them.
-And therein lies the wisdom: recognizing that being criticized for a given negative gender-coded trait/behavior isn't the same thing as bias against one's gender identity in toto, or against the idea of gender or gender identity in general.

Ergo:

Criticizing how someone chooses to express their gender identity isn't a criticism of all people who have that gender identity, nor of the idea of gender identity itself. So yes, I CAN tell a teen girl that spending more time doing her hair than she does on her studies is stupid. Being mindlessly vain isn't a defining characteristic of all teen girls. The ones who choose that as part of their gender identity don't get to hide behind the idea of gender identity itself to avoid criticism for that choice.

(This post brought to you by my being so damned tired of clueless women arguing that it's sexist to call them out on their shitty behavior, just because said shitty behavior is supposedly feminine.)

(Fair warning that I probably won't respond to comments--not up for a debate. Just need a rant.)

So ... that Time cover, with the breastfeeding toddler? Ugh. Ugh in itself, yes, but also ugh for the shitstorm it launched (as they knew it would--way to up circulation numbers in a declining market, folks!)

This is one of the reasons I'm dreading becoming a parent--especially an adoptive parent who won't be breastfeeding, and who will be working at least part of the time while her kid is still pretty young. The Natural Parenting!!! Brigade is downright viral at this point, and it's virtually impossible to avoid them. Breastfeeding is the most visible of their wars, but they're all over everything related to kids, from conception to birth to grandparenting. According to them, if you're not a biological mother physically attached to your kid from (at least) birth to kindergarten, you're a Bad Person.

Which, of course, is bullshit. Bigoted against fathers, adoptive parents, same-sex parents and mothers who have no choice but to work, yes, but also bullshit, too. Yes, there are some benefits to breastfeeding, baby wearing, etc. ad infinitum, but they have yet to produce any reliable, peer-reviewed studies saying kids who aren't constantly attended like this are suffering.

And in fact, looking at the college-age kids who were raised like this 20 years ago, a lot of them ARE suffering. They're so used to having mom (and occasionally dad) holding their hand 24/7 that they don't know how to do anything on their own. They don't know how to find information on their own, they don't know how to get a job or do their own schoolwork or pay their own bills or do their own taxes. They sometimes don't even know how to travel around their own city. When I did my recent college thing, I was absolutely astonished at the number of kids there who didn't even know how to do basic research, and whose attitude toward education was that it was just a piece of paper so they could get a job outside of the service industry. They're so pampered that they're actually offended by the idea that they should expend any of their own effort to get something they want: they're plagiarists, pirates, etc., and actually get upset when told that no, you have to work for that, and don't get to crib off of someone else's work. (And don't get me started on the ones who think that people who worked hard to get an education don't deserve more respect--including more respect for their opinions. Yes, kiddo, that dude with the geology doctorate DOES know more than you or your high-school dropout Aunt Sadie about carbon dating. STFU.)

I shudder to think that these kids might someday be running the country (or, as is more likely, that my own generation and the one before it are going to be stuck wiping their asses when we should be retired, because they're incapable of taking on the responsibility.)

The entire goal of parenting is to produce a healthy, sane, self-sufficient adult. Yes, that means being there for your infant when she needs you, but it also means teaching your little bird how to fly on her own. If you're not letting her fall sometimes, and learn how to pick herself up and start over again, you're not doing your job. Absolutely, you need to protect her from serious harm, and if you're too busy fucking off on your own whims to notice when your kid really does need you, you're not doing your duty. Parents who ignore their kids or let them come to major harm under the idea that they're "toughening them up" make me want to scream. But if you're playing human hamster ball for your kid, trying to ensure that she never even skins a knee, you're doing her a grave disservice. Your job as a parent is to teach your kid to fish, not just hand her a rod and expect her to know how, and not just give her fish so she never needs to learn.

Some of the problem here, of course, comes down to essentialist feminism. It's one of the few areas in which hardcore religion and hardcore hippies come together: the idea that a woman's natural purpose is birthing and raising children. Women raised to believe this also come to believe that being a mother is the core of their identity, and when they start sensing that their kid doesn't need them as much anymore, they panic, and start getting clingy. Some of them react by having another kid--making sure they have a dependent babe in arms as soon as the older one is walking and talking. Some of them react by trying to keep their kids as dependent as possible for as long as possible.

And no, this is not good for the kids, no matter how they try to spin it. More than anything else, kids need stable, adult role models in their lives. They need to see examples of people who are self-sufficient, fully formed people. If your entire life and identity is centered around them, and you have nothing else, then they're not learning that. (Not to mention that you're also setting yourself up for a serious crisis should you ever lose your source of financial support. If the only thing you know how to do is raise babies, you're completely screwed if your meal ticket goes away.)

One of the other things that irritates me about their justification for this is their citation of the practices of "traditional cultures." OK, 1. Cultural appropriation sucks, and 2. You don't live in that culture. You're not training your kid to hunt and gather. You're supposed to be training your kid to do the modern, urban equivalent of that. Kids in traditional cultures virtually never go far from their families/tribes of origin because they don't need to. Kids in the modern first world aren't going to have their families within reach every time they need something. If you want your kid to eventually have her own job and apartment and to pay her own bills, then she needs to start by learning how to walk and talk and feed herself on her own.

As we've been preparing for the adoption, I've run across some pressure to adopt special needs kids or ones who have other challenges. I've been told that if I'm not willing to raise a kid who needs constant attention for years on end, then I shouldn't be a parent at all. I've even been told that because I eventually want to kick my kid out of the nest in 20 years, that I'm probably not suited to be a parent. And that's just ... mind-boggling. Martyrdom through parenthood is NOT a noble, morally superior thing, and wanting to be a separate person in addition to being a parent doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. On the contrary: it means you're mentally healthy. Living your entire life through your kid? Yeah ... not so much.

Right now, I'm watching my mother-in-law slowly dying because she sacrificed her own health for the sake of getting pregnant 10 times, and raising a bunch of kids. I've watched that family suffer because she had no job skills and didn't work and therefore can't get social security and had no health insurance of her own. I've watched HER suffer because she bought in to her religion's insistence that she submit to her husband's decisions, and therefore didn't know how to cope when he turned into a raging tyrant. I'll be damned if I'd even consider ruining my life--and my KID'S life--by doing that shit.

So, no: I would never have done natural childbirth, because it would've put my health and safety at risk. I won't be breastfeeding (even though it can be induced), because I'd have to go off critical meds to do it. I won't be co-sleeping, because there's a high risk of smothering my kid, and because I want to actually have sex with my husband in that bed. I won't be baby-wearing all the time because my kid needs to have some time on her own to do her own thing--and so do I. I may at some point use the services of a nanny or au pair because I have somewhat limited energy, and it's not fair to my kid to be cared for by a zombie, plus there will likely be times I'm working from home, and need someone to mind her so I can focus. I will be--gasp!--leaving my kid with a sitter sometimes so we can go out to nice restaurants and R-rated movies and other places where squalling little ones don't belong.

Of COURSE I'll be feeding her and loving her and being there for her when she's scared or confused or just needs to cuddle. So will M--hi, she'll have another parent! He counts, too! I'll even be staying at home for the first 6-12 months, when she needs that kind of constant attention. But I won't be living my entire life as if my kid is the only thing in it. I want my kid to eventually have her own life that doesn't center around being a baby machine. I'll be damned if she's going to see her mom do that.

Just had a moment of shaking my head sadly at something Elijah (yes, that one) retweeted. And in the middle of responding to him about it, I kinda lit on a little epiphany. Mostly about politics, but it can apply to other things, too. In a nutshell: when you're young and have a crapload of energy, a year seems like forever. And when you're righteously indignated by something, you tend to spend every ounce of that energy trying to correct it RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT.

But then--and this is the sad/frustrating part--eventually it becomes clear that revolutions don't usually create results, and definitely not overnight. You look at all the energy you spent trying to fix things, and look at how little seemed to have been changed in (what seems to you like) a very long time, and you get dejected. And then apathetic.

In the worst cases, people then decide that if all their effort was for (seemingly) naught, then there's no point in expending any effort at all. They end up like those sad, bitter people who sit in front of their TVs and bitch about poor sports refereeing, and never bother to vote because they think it's a waste of time.

In the REALLY worst cases, people end up as nihilists, and start merrily destroying everyone else's lives just because their own didn't come with sparkles and porn stars by the time they were 25. If they didn't get what they "deserved" and "worked for", then dammit, no one else should get anything, either. Gnarrh!

The problem with this, of course, is that it's not just sad to see people wasting a perfectly good life being bitter and hateful, but the ripple effect of their go-eat-worms tantrums actually makes it worse for everyone else, and even harder for the rest of us to work within existing structures to create lasting, sustainable change that benefits everyone.

There's always a moment of awakening when you're young. When you're old enough to get your family blinders off and see the world for what it really is, but young enough to still feel relatively powerless to create change, there's a serious shock to the system. Depending on where you are at the time and what personal injustices you've suffered, the next step is usually going completely apeshit on whatever group or system you've decided is ultimately repsonsible.

What influences you get around this time can shape your politics for years to come. Read Ayn Rand? You're going to assume that you're one of the Special People who are being beaten down by the drooling masses, and either go full-on misanthrope, doing your best to make everyone else's life miserable, or drop out of the system, thinking that, as you're so incredibly special, your absence will undoubtedly make a statement. (Hint: you're not, and it doesn't.) If you're poor, the overall political landscape where you're at will lead you to either blame government or blame capitalism. (Rarely, some folks learn to blame both, and even more rarely, a few very bright people figure out that the real problem is the marriage of capitalism and government, which should be separated as cleanly as church and state.) If you're in a marginalized group, you can easily end up angry at and suspicious of anyone who even remotely resembles those who have oppressed your people, and end up isolating yourself.

Whatever your particular quirk, though, personal injustice + charismatic cult leader = rageflail. And, when the rageflail has spent itself, and one sees so little change, the disillusionment sets in. Next thing you know, midlife crisis, substance abuse, your kids think you're messed up, blah blah.

The moral of this story is probably something along the lines of tortoise and hare, but I don't necessarily agree that's the only way to create lasting change. Personally, I've found it most effective to do life in a series of hardcore sprints, with long rest periods in between. That may be my ADD talking, but hey, it works for me. Whichever method works best for an individual, though, the principle is the same: don't burn yourself out expecting to create large-scale change overnight. If you keep working at it in useful, practical ways, either slow and steady, or in bursts, or whatever, change WILL happen eventually. Eventually, you'll turn 40, look back at where you came from, and say, "Whoa. Holy shit. Nine years ago, having gay sex in Idaho could get you life in prison, and now same-sex couples are getting married in several states. Who knew?"

Keeping your spirits up when the inevitable setbacks occur is hard, definitely. But if you factor that in, and also factor in your own rest periods to rebuild your strength, eventually, you'll get there. Two steps forward and one step back is still a step forward. I truly believe that, outside of a few true sociopaths (many of whom have disproportionate political and/or economic power, dammit) most people really do want to see the world become a better place. Not just for them, but for everyone. Where the problem comes in is if, in our frustration at that not happening how and when we want it to, we either stop making any effort, or start throwing our anger and frustration into destruction.

Which, of course, will just end up disillusioning more energetic kids down the road.

Thinking further about abortion-related issues tonight ...

IMHO, the difference between progressive and libertarian thought comes down to this:

Libertarians assume that if government/society (and, occasionally, religion) simply gets out of the way, everyone will be free to make whatever choices in life make them happiest.

Progressives know that without a public framework in place to ensure that everyone, no matter where they start in life, has access to every choice available, there is no such thing as true freedom of choice.

( We are all created equal. But we are not all born equal. )

As the bumper sticker says: no one is truly free while others are oppressed. And if we continue to allow this oppression under the idea that overreaching authority is the only thing standing in the way of everyone being free, happy little clams, we are shirking our responsibilities as human beings in a civilized society.

What with this whole KomenCorp/Planned Parenthood funding debacle, I'm seeing an uptick in folks talking about abortion. Most of this is sensible, of course--I try to stay away from places where people think women are obligated to go through pain, misery and the risk of death for the sake of an amorphous clump of cells--but I've also seen a bit of the "oh, abortion is such a tragedy" sort of thing, too.

Ugh.

Abortion is NOT a tragedy.

You know what really is a tragedy?

-The fact that contraceptives aren't 100% effective, healthy, free, and readily available to anyone who wants them.

-The fact that so many girls and young women think their sexuality is the most or only valuable thing about them, or who are afraid to say no to sex they don't want, or to ask their partner to use contraception.

-The fact that so many boys and young men think that marriage and fatherhood are inherently weak or uncool, and that sexual conquest without respect for their partner is a badge of honor.

-The fact that we don't immediately remove children from abusive homes, and lock up sexual predators for good.

-The fact that sex education is incomplete, wrong, or utterly nonexistent for millions of kids because we've allowed religion to trump science, and because we treat sex as something inherently dirty and immoral.

-The fact that we don't have universal health care which would improve reproductive health across the board, and also ensure that women facing an unintended or complicated pregnancy don't choose abortion solely because they otherwise couldn't afford the medical costs.

-The fact that many poor women choose to abort solely because they can't afford to raise the child.

-The fact that we have a horrible cultural split in how we see mothers: as either saints or demons. We create a cultural standard in which mothers are revered beyond any other role a woman can play, and then wonder why so many girls and young women choose motherhood before they're ready. And then, when they have gone down that path, if they didn't do it the "right" way, we call them lazy sluts, leeching off the government.

-The fact that adoption is a minefield of both cultural stigma and overly-complex (and expensive) bureaucracy, making it incredibly difficult for women who want to choose that to find waiting families. (Seriously: don't get me started on the horrific class divide involved; so many girls/women adopting out only because they can't afford to parent, and so many parents of modest means unable to adopt because they can't afford it. Gross.)

If we weren't such a borked country, the number of abortions would be next to nothing because the number of unintended or problem pregnancies would be next to nothing. But because we are so borked, it's ridiculous to call abortion a tragedy when it's quite often the best solution under far-more-fucked-up circumstances. Abortion will and always should exist, because there will always be circumstances in which it's necessary. But for the love of FSM, why can't we fix all that other stuff that has the rate so damned high to begin with?

I can't help but think that so many cultural and economic problems would evaporate if we simply got rid of the idea that the best caregiver for children in virtually all cases is their biological mother, and that they need her to provide 90% or more of their care.

Think of how much easier it would be for fathers to care for their kids without having it called "babysitting" or otherwise being denigrated as unmanly.

Think of how much easier it would be for same-sex couples or single gay folks to be considered good parents.

Think of how much easier it would be to get children away from abusive or neglectful parents.

Think of how much easier it would be for women to get better education and job skills, and therefore financial independence.

Think of how much easier it would be for people dealing with infertility to get the services they need, including egg donation and surrogacy.

Think of how much easier it would be for adoptive parents to be considered a child's "real" parents, and for adopted kids to understand that they weren't abandoned or unloved by their bio mothers.

Think of how much easier it would be for a mother to be considered a good parent even if her partner or daycare provider is caring for the child for several hours a day.

It's not just sexist, but bad for children and families in general to keep clinging to the idea that the mere act of incubating a fetus makes you the world's best parent, and that that should subsequently constitute the entirety of your identity and sense of self. Not all women were born to be biological mothers, and not all biological mothers should be primary caregivers or parents at all. This has been borne out time and time again by solid research. So why do we still hammer on it under a completely false ideal of a woman's natural purpose?

Based on a Slate article someone linked on Twitter ...

I think some pro-choice folks are being a bit disingenuous about their definitions of life. Truly, unless there's something biologically wrong, a fertilized egg is a form of human life. A very tiny, barely formed version, but yes. It's alive, and it's human, and barring the thousands of things that can go wrong with a pregnancy, it'll emerge as a separate human being in ~40 weeks.

An abortion, assuming an otherwise-healthy zygote/embryo/fetus, is therefore the willful killing of a potentially viable separate human being.

But you know what? I can live with that. Because I don't think every human life, in and of itself, is sacred. I think we should avoid killing if at all possible. I think we should exhaust all attempts at diplomacy before we engage in war. I think we should exhaust all attempts at rehabilitation before we serve the death penalty. I think we should do what we can to heal and mitigate pain and suffering before we consider euthanasia.

But I also think that the quality of life matters more (significantly more, in some cases) than life itself. And that includes the quality of life for those affected by the other human in question. If killing a dictator means the end of suffering for the thousands under his regime, then so be it. If the only way to save people from a guy on a killing spree is taking him down, fire away. If the only organ donor for a dying man is someone who can ill afford the risks of surgery for the donation, then fine. The guy dies. And if the only way a girl or woman with an unintended pregnancy will go on to have a healthy, productive life is by killing the embryo inside her, then go to it.

We are far, far too squeamish about death in and of itself, and spend far too much effort on avoiding it, when we should be focusing on improving the quality of life when we have it. Am I going to die sooner because I can't stand the severe pain and exhaustion that accompany hardcore workouts? Probably. Do I care? Not really. I'm mentally healthier than I would be if I spent hours suffering humiliation and pain in a gym, and that alone is probably cancelling out at least half the potential damage associated. I'm generally a long-range sort of person, but there truly are some things for which the shorter-term negatives vastly outweigh longer-term positives. Abortion, for the women who need to choose it, is one of those things.

I spose this is where my utlitarian sensibilities kick in. I want the best quality of life for the maximum number of people, and on some occasions, that does mean that a few outliers may end up getting screwed. And honestly, I have no problem with that. An embryo that may someday become a separate person does not have greater value in the world than the owner of the uterus that it's camping out in.

Which leads me to the other issue I have with prolife rhetoric: the fact that the majority of their efforts are concentrated solely on the pre-birth life of existing embryos, and not on the lives of people who are already born--even babies. You don't exactly see them lobbying for universal healthcare for kids, right? So if some poor urchin dies of a curable illness because her parents couldn't afford care, oh, well. But heaven forbid allowing her mother to have aborted the thing in the first place, rather than suffering through the agony of watching her suffer and die and not being able to do a damned thing about it. In the minds of the people who believe this is OK, they justify it by saying that the suffering of a child is proper punishment for whatever sins her parents committed--having sex, being poor, etc. So much for their championing of innocents.

The greatest lie of the prolife movement is that they don't spend even an iota of effort on helping to prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place, which would prevent millions of abortions. If they really cared about those embryos, instead of using that caring as an excuse to moralize about the behavior of the girls and women carrying them, they would do everything in their power to make sure they never existed in the first place. They'd be working on foolproof contraception. They'd be working on universal mental health care. They'd be working to end rape. None of this screwing around with abstinence education. They KNOW that doesn't work, and yet they flog away at it anyway, because their real goal has jackall to do with life, and everything to do with controlling women's sexual freedom, either for religious reasons, or out of some twisted concept of encouraging "personal responsibility."

I imagine that there are some prolife folks who really are walking the talk, and doing everything they can to stop abortion before it's even necessary, and to ensure the health and well-being of the children who might otherwise have been aborted. But I'd be shocked if they constituted more than 5% of the number of people who describe themselves thus. And until those folks become the majority of the movement, I'm always going to call bullshit on any rhetoric spewed about the sanctity of those innocent zygotes.

Comments screened because I'm not interested in debating this topic. Any arguments to the contrary would simply make me reiterate what I've said above, and I hate having to repeat myself.

At the risk of irritating some ...

I admit that one of the reasons I love living in the PNW (the Western half, at least) is that we tend to be socially standoffish. We're exceptionally polite and compassionate, but not overtly friendly. It takes quite a long time to get a native (or near-native, like m'self) to warm up enough to socialize with regularly, and get close to. But the benefit of that is that once you do make it past the polite smiles and handshakes, the friendship you do get out of it is deeper and far more sincere than you might find elsewhere.

See, people are always talking about how legendarily friendly people are in the South and Midwest. They talk about how folks will bring casseroles to a new neighbor, chitchat in line at the grocery store, etc. People coming here from those environs tend to describe our local social customs as cold, at best, and perhaps even rude. (Our habit, for instance, of not RSVPing to social events until the last possible moment.)

But the difference is that the friendliness one tends to find in those other places only goes so far, because it's a custom borne of the safety of sameness.

( Diversity counts )

So, yes, it's easier to feel isolated living here than it might be for people who easily fit in with the majority elsewhere. But the benefit is that the friendships we make here are much more satisfying than an insincere hug from some stranger in Texas might be. I've heard us described as the Northwest Mafia, and that's not entirely inaccurate. It's a damn hard time getting into a "family" but once you're in, you're in for life. Granted that if you screw up, that life's pretty damned short, but still. ;)

( * )

For the rest of the day, I, Texty, pledge to pretend that selfish, ignorant, hateful bigots don't exist, in order to prevent my head from exploding, and to keep from spamming a poor friend's FB with a righteous smackdown of a complete tool who's commenting on one of her posts.

So say we all.

Irritating me at the moment:

-"Let them eat cake" attitudes.

If you're lucky enough to be in a position of privilege which means you've never had to experience a given hardship, please don't prescribe behavior to people who have.

-The implication that bigotry is just a difference of opinion, and it should thus be no barrier to making friends with someone, especially if you have other things in common.

Let me guess: You'd also suggest that rabbits ought to try to make friends with cougars just because they're both mammals, right?

-The implication that fighting for one's rights and complaining about discrimination means you don't care about anything else.

It's true that sometimes people get oppressed-person's-myopia, and that does consume their every waking hour. But chances are good that if all you see about someone is that they're (insert trait here), it's not because they're making a bigger deal about it than they should, but because YOU are.

-The implication that having a non-standard gender or sexual identity, and being open and honest about that, means you're obsessed with sex.

Yes, said folks may on average be more aware of and in touch with their own sexuality, but that has jackall to do with how much shaggery they think about/want/have. Yes, Virginia, there are celibate queer folk.

And for the cherry on top of this: The implication that having a big interest in sex is a bad thing, regardless of one's gender or sexual identity.