I've noticed something strange that a lot of women say and write. It begins:

'I wouldn't call myself a feminist...'

...and ends with an arguement that inevitably pushes for women's rights and is upset by their oppression.

So why are so many women scared of associating with a word that simply means to believe in gender equality and its protection under law?

It's time the misguided amongst us reclaimed the word and wore it again as a badge of pride and progression.

I work in IT. I am female. I've worked in IT for nearly seven years. During that time I have copped misogyny from every angle. There has been sledgehammer sexism:

"Welcome to Technical Support, GIRL speaking."

"Oh hai, can I speak to a technician?"

"You are, I am fully qualified to troubleshoot and resolve any connection issue you are experiencing."

"Thanks darl, but you wouldn't understand it coz it's technical, put me through to one of the guys."

There's been subtle sexism:

"Oh, you work in IT. What made you decide that as a career option?"

And plain, straight, undeniable misogyny:

"Love, get one of the boys to fix it. Your mouth would be better on the end of my dick, and your hands cooking my dinner."

Overtime I have developed coping mechanisms and strategies to deal with all of the above issues, and everything in between. In the first instance, I am quite adept at telling people that being a vagina owner doesn't preclude me from having technical skills. I try to use the word vagina as much as possible in these moments because it really makes people uncomfortable. Not like penis. You could drop 'penis' into a conversation and no one would feel like looking at their watch and wondering how long until they could run a mile (unless that sentence was "Have I told you about the gunk dripping from my penis lately?" in which case it's the topic not the word that is causing discomfort. In more ways than one.) No, VAGINA is a wonderfully powerful word. It is absolutely female but devoid of all those feelings usually associated with women like lust, desire, sex. A vagina is a thing that cannot be understood or dominated. It is not cute and pink like a 'pussy', nor does it hint at being something to be taken like 'snatch'. A vagina is dark, mysterious, maybe it's a bit hairy. Your mother had one but your teenage sister doesn't. Vaginas are not found in porn, but in anatomy books.

By using this word when educating a person on my technical ability I have immediately put them on the back foot by taking away all notions that as a female I am weak, ruled by emotion, and a thing to be conquered. (It's difficult to ask for help from someone you are trying to be superior to) Instead I have replaced their ideas with an unknown and made them feel just a little bit uncertain about how to proceed. This opens up the communication as the power play has been eliminated and I can move forward resolving their issue or obtaining the information I require.

The subtle sexism and the blatant misogyny have been harder to deal with. My mentor once said to me, "The most important thing you can learn is to pick your battles." Her words resonated through my mind for days before I came to the clear realisation that I, on my own, cannot fight and win every battle, but I can certainly fight and lose all of them. I eventually stopped throwing myself against the immovable objects not because I wasn't an unstoppable force, but because I would be more effective working on those things I could change.

Humour has been my greatest tool. In response to the blatant misogyny type, I like to respond by saying in a cool, calm voice "I'm sorry, I am currently unable to resolve your technical issue as the dishwasher needing unpacking, I was too busy shopping, and the local men's football team all required lattes after their three course meal. Please feel free to sit and twiddle your thumbs in front of your broken PC until you are ready to apologise for being completely crap."

And why did I decide on a career in IT? Well the market for receptionists, secretaries and home makers was just too difficult to get into so I went with fixing computers instead.

Dealing with sexism and misogyny is different for everyone. It took me nearly a decade to be comfortable with my responses and what works for me will not work for everyone. The good thing about being in a Brigade is that while you're resting, your compatriots are fighting their battles. And every battle won benefits us all. With enough of us, we can win this war.

Viva La Revolution! Viva La Feminism!

Originally posted at The Stripey Sock Brigade

Accepting Kyriarchy, Not Apologies

Dr. George Tiller, one of America's few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.

Terrorism, plain and simple. The American Taliban.  

It's shocking to write. But it's time to start calling it what it is.

When Jim D. Adkisson walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church with 76 rounds and a shot-gun, he killed 2 people and was charged with murder. His motive was "he hated the liberal movement" and was upset with "liberals in general as well as gays." He should have been charged with terrorism.

Today George Tiller, a Wichita doctor, was killed INSIDE the lobby of his Wichita church. Reformation Lutheran Church became a crime scene; fundamentalist terrorism.

The right wing media hacks make targets of the left. The fundamentalist reverends blather their intolerance of other Americans. Their marriages are in jeopardy if the GLBT community can walk down an aisle. Their children are going to be molested if you have to rent to a same sex couple. Fear...fear...fear the queer.

Bill O'Reilly's hit piece on Dr. Tiller is a training tape for Christian Fundamentalist Terrorists. Never did he ask the woman interviewed how she, as a 13 year old, got pregnant, who was the father, or where her parents were when she underwent an abortion at Dr. Tiller's clinic. I'm sure O'Reilly's drivel will insist on personal accountability for the murderer. I'm sure he won't be in line for any "accountability" for calling the doctor "Tiller the baby-killer" or his clinic a "death mill."

Are anti-choice groups celebrating today? An abortion doctor is dead so women won't have unwanted pregnancies!

[Via Huffington Post]

So, I read today that the designer of Mattel's Barbie doll was obsessed with sex. Seriously? We need a book-length study to tell us that?

We in the land of feminist academics have been teaching the pernicious sexual politics of Barbie for years. The breasts that defy gravity, the hair, the long, long legs and of course the cruel, nipped in waist. Oh, don't forget the tiny clothes, the f*ck-me pumps, not to mention the well-equipped kitchens in every Barbie Dream House. The message of Barbie seems unambiguous to me.

Still, many students (and not a few colleagues) consistently resist seeing Barbie as a miniature sex toy, claiming instead that the doll was a good role model for little girls. (One could, after all, purchase a Barbie doll dressed as a doctor.) Or claiming, equally untenably, that toys had no impact on their ideas about gender roles or their own sexuality.

These students, mostly women, want to rescue Barbie, to protect their own childhoods from academic interrogations of pop culture and what those interrogations might reveal. That's understandable. Yet, many of these same students sit in my class pouring out of tank tops, squeezed into low-rise jeans, or tugging on mini-skirts so short they are nearly impossible to sit down in. That is, dressed like Barbie.

It's an experience I regularly have as a feminist critic of popular culture: a media event, book or news story demonstrates that I'm not wrong, my ideology is not based in "over analyzing," "hyper sensitivity," or "reading too much into things" (the three most common criticisms feminists tend to encounter). It's disappointing, frankly, to stumble so often upon evidence of society's sexism and to keep having to explain that it's there. Disappointing that Barbie was so obviously a sexed-up, misogynist, bad idea for little girls and to realize how thoroughly our culture embraced the toy anyway.

So, here we are again. Feminists were right: no one but a sex-obsessed man with a perverse idea of female anatomy would create a female toy like Barbie. And, as is too too often the case for feminists, being right isn't something to celebrate.