A Probability of Being

This has been retweeted in #talkaboutit for a bit, it's Louis C.K. doing standup. Transcript and thoughts below the cut.

[Trigger Warning for description of rape] When I was about 11, my family was watching a Chinese serial about Temujin, or Genghis Khan.

Today is the anniversary of the murder of the 14 women at l'Ècole Polytechnique Montreal, 1989 . On this day 21 years ago, Marc Lèpine purposefully went into a classroom of engineering students, separated the men from the women, made the men leave, shot the women, then wandered the school finding more women to shoot at. In 45 minutes, he had killed 14 women, with the rationale, "I hate feminists."

This was originally written for Jeff Vandermeer's Ecstatic Days. I can't remember what the impetus was, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Feministe. It's been linked all over - Jim Hines linked to it too ! Original post here . Sometime back my brother went for holiday in Phuket (not so extraordinary, I’m afraid, since Thailand’s right next door to Malaysia), and he told me he was hoping to put the moves on a woman he found attractive. “You got condoms?” I asked. “Yep.” “Don’t forget to get consent.” “Of course!” said he, indignant that I could think otherwise. “Enthusiastic consent.” “Oh yes yes yes,” he replied eagerly. “Actually, one-up that: enthusiastic participation.” “Hmmmm…” he turned thoughtful, as if it was a whole new level. Which it is, and a step further from what I want to talk about today. (I got the concept of enthusiastic participation from Hugo Schwyzer a few years back.) The concept of enthusiastic consent has also been expoun...

So, while considering the anecdata of how some men seem to get really affronted when a) their partners refuse to take their name and b) it is suggested that the children take on the mother's name, I wondered how really difficult it would be on a man's psyche to have his wife's name. Somehow, I get the sense that not only is it rather an affront, a challenge to convention, but it is also downright insulting to them. But why? Do men carry the pregnancy? No. Do men do majority of the housework? My dad does, but he's an exception, not the rule. There is the burden of the Second Shift, and I have no doubt it affects women globally. Do men do majority of the child-raising? Not that I know of, or else we wouldn't be so surprised when we hear of fathers taking an active hand in handling children. Do men do anything else other than bring home money, which more and more women are doing these days? Not that I can think of, but hey, I could be wrong! This might be d...

People, tell me this: why is the name-changing debate so fraught in North America? I just read BeckySharper's takedown of this ridiculous defense of making women change their names, in which Dudely Dude makes the case that it should happen, and it's right that it happens, because society tends to be patrilineal, and it's useful to... what? I don't even know anymore.  I really do not understand it! In Malaysia, most of the cultures there are strongly patrilineal. This means, to me, that the father is always acknowledge within the name of the children, and the mother is not. Chinese children take the surnames of their fathers (as I do). Malay and Indian children are "son of" or "daughter of" their father, in their names.  Wives do not have to change their names. They just don't. There's no point! Besides which, the structure of our names do not necessarily lend themselves to name-changing. Siti Kamariah binte Kamaruddin does not have a la...

Hi all! It's International Women's Day!  This year's theme for International Women's Day is "Equal Rights For All", which I imagine does not just extend to women only, but also men.  One of the things which undermines feminism is the idea that rights are a zero-sum game: if women get more rights, then men will lose rights. It's as if rights are finite things which are arbitrarily distributed. Like apples. I just bought some. Which means I deprived someone else of the very same apples! Oh nos, that poor person! There are only so many apples in the world! Except, whoever it is I "deprived" of the apples I bought could buy them somewhere else.  Even that analogy fails, because there are some people who cannot afford to buy apples! Fortunately, though, rights are not concrete things like apples. Which means they are exponential! Which means they can reach out to apply to everybody!  Everybody means women of colour, transgendered and transse...

For those who have never read Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape , I have to say, you are missing out. When I first read the book , I was deeply moved, and in its own small way, although it states truths that most of us already knew, having it all in one place distilled the facts and tendrils of knowledge into a revelation of its own.  Yes Means Yes! was edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, both famous names in the feminist blogosphere. Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer and activist, and has received several grants, done a lot of cool things, like found the WAM! conference. You can totes look her up . Her main site is CounterQuo.org , which is very flashy, but if you can read it, it's got really neat stuff. Although the talk was on rape prevention, how rapists operate, rape culture and other awful stuff, Jaclyn Friedman was upbeat and cheerful, presenting her argument with pop culture references, using really vernacular lang...

Because I'm boring and ever so slightly obsessive, I listen to some certain songs almost every day, depending on my mood. For a while it was Reise Reise by Rammstein, and for another while it was Disney songs in Arabic, and so on, so forth. Sometimes I share these songs, sometimes I don't. When I do, though, I get pretty interesting conversation. Let's call my friends E and M. Eurovision intrigues me. Everyone I've spoken to about it laughs at it, or mocks the acts. It's true that many of the acts are cheesy. Anyways, last year's winner was Alexander Rybak, from Norway. "Oh yes," E said, who's from Belgium, "that cute Norweigen fiddler." Let's make no mistake, he's absolutely , utterly adorable .  Then I show them a song like this: Most of it's the usual typical moony bordering-emo of Young Dude Seeking Love, but the chorus took the cake: But I know a magic dolphin swimming above the world And in my dreams he p...

Today is NARAL's Blog for Choice Day, and its theme is on Dr. Tiller and on trusting women.  I never met the man, and I wasn't even aware of what he did until he was killed. What I did know was that sometimes, for whatever reason, wanted babies cannot be carried to full-term. Whether it's due to complications, or danger of the mother's, or the baby was already dead in the womb - late-term abortions don't usually occur for shits and giggles, especially if they happen practically weeks away from the actual birthdate.  I can't even begin to imagine how devastating that must be, to learn that for whatever reason, I won't be able to carry my baby to full-term, even though I'm almost there. It would be even worse to know it's already dead inside me, and needs to be removed or else I will die.  But the last thing I would want happen to me is to be told I can't get the safest option possible for a late-term abortion, that I am required to put myself...

So, I'm sure if you're reading this blog, then you have definitely read Starling's excellent post on Schrodinger's Rapist over at Kate Harding's. And if you haven't, well, don't feel bad, but head on over anyway, because the post is excellent, and although its comments are 1000++ strong, they're still worth reading. Among the comments was this gem: Women Want My Attention is a delusional default, since just over 50% of the population is married and a significant number beyond that is partnered. So really, the default should always be Not Interested Unless Otherwise Signaling.  Serendipitously or otherwise, I listened to this Youtube video: For those who can't see it, never fear! Because only a few certain bits are relevant to this post anyway. The context of the video is as follows: in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas , every year after the major football game, if the Aggies win, they are treated to a night at the Chicken Ranch, the titula...

I do not understand Polanski's defenders. Now, I've not seen many Polanski movies. I think the only one I've ever watched was Macbeth. It was a decent movie. I've never seen any of his critically-acclaimed movies. Hell, Polanski as a filmmaker hardly even made a blip on my radar when I was younger. Possibly because I was in Malaysia and we only ever get the blockbuster stuff, none of this schmancy film festival stuff. But let's make it clear: he raped a child. Never mind that he raped her 30 years ago. Honestly, that should make it worse, not better. Running away to another country? How could the government there have slept properly knowing they're harbouring a man clearly flouting laws that are put in place to protect innocent people? And he flouted it, too. He pleaded guilty, and never showed any remorse, only gave excuses. How can people excuse this? Oh, but Roman Polanski is a great artist. I've known for a while that Hollywood wasn't the bastion of ...

Not all mothers are feminist and not all feminists are mothers. I know some women, feminist or not, who rather loathe children, and I know some women, mothers or not, who rather loathe feminism. The following quote comes from book 4 of Marilyn French's From Eve to Dawn , and I found it interesting: ... part of [conservative feminist] analysis seems to me to be on target: a feminist society should be centered on children. Moreover, we cannot overestimate the importance of the philosophical foundations of patriarchy, its division of experience into two distinct realms: mind, ruled by men; body, in which women are immersed. One is volitional, the other necessary; one is granted the right to dominate, the other the requirement to obey. And there is no question that in struggling to change patriarchal values, women are stumped by the so-far-immovable male refusal to take responsibility for children. All efforts at equality founder on the fact that women give birth and take the responsib...

People reading this blog have probably read Melissa McEwan's post, The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck , which discusses dealing with sexism which happen on what could be called a micro-aggressive level - sexism that comes from not from random men in our lives, but men we love and care for, who shock us with the misogynistic things that come out of their mouths. My dad, although he is made of Awesome™ and Win™, and my brother, slightly more typical than my dad, have occasionally sprung such unpleasant surprises on me in the past. Usually it's my dad, circulating emails filled with stereotypes, counter to what I know to be my reality. He means well, and just wants to share a laugh, but I have written back angry emails telling him, no, this isn't funny, and this is why. There used to be a time when he would have a very long CC list, and I would hit Reply To All. Yes, all, I Ruined Afternoons. =/ In retrospect, I didn't do a good job of it. I didn't have th...

Two thousand years ago, the subjugation of women was just about complete. The patriarchal religions were quite firmly entrenched. There were a few women rebels, but on the whole, women... stopped having power over their own lives. Women no longer made history as a collective. Women were erased, too. Two hundred years ago, women started writing again. This was only a few women, and in response to troubles usually caused and perpetuated by a few men which affected everyone. But two hundred years ago, women began writing and began to find their voices again. Two generations ago, we finally found some semblance of equality between men and women, at least, in certain places. We could go to school and we could work. It was not true equality. It still isn't true equality. But it resembles it, and gives us a foundation to build on. It's been a hard journey, but now we can speak about -isms and acknowledge the problems within society, even though there are hateful screeds trying to sile...

So my dad said the other day, "you could do better than the stereotypical China Doll makeup, but I know that's not your usual style." This was in reference to a shoot I did a while back. (Yes, I model, but that's neither here nor there.) The theme of the shoot was "light fetish / pinup" and I was made up according to a reference picture of a retro pinup - plenty of blush, fake lashes, dark eyebrows, and red lipstick. So, think about that combination for a moment. They're not exactly typical "China doll" makeup things, not in my mind. When I hear "China doll", I personally think "porcelain skin, large eyes". So I had a look at the pictures, and I went, "huh. I guess I kinda do look China doll-like, especially from certain people's perspective." It's the red lips, I figured. The red lips and red cheeks are reminiscent of Chinese opera. My friend, the excellent Katherine o'Kelly , said that it had to do wi...

When I was in a car with my parents one day, and my mum was nagging me about getting a boyfriend, social networking so I could find one, so on so forth, and make sure it got done before I was "on the shelf," I pointed out that she'd never nagged my brother the same way. She said, "you're a girl. Things are different for girls." Now, mind you, this comes from a strong-minded woman who married and had kids in her late 20's/early 30's, and I thought, "so kuno ." (" Kuno " means "old-fashioned". Like, seriously old-fashioned. Like, previous civilization's old-fashioned.) It wasn't the first example of sexism in my life, and not the last. But when I think of how sexism manifested in my culture, I think of that moment. Malaysian women I've read in the papers have claimed that feminism isn't applicable to what goes on in our country. Because, of course, we all know that women are human in Malaysia. Except, of c...

My friend Tariq tried to show me this blog post at work and I didn't click it, because the latter part of the URL was "let-your-boyfriend-take-nekkid.html" or something similar and I knew what the gist of it was: some dewdly d00d telling wimmenz that they should let their boyfriends take naked pictures of them, because that is what good, sporting girlfriends do, dammit. Putting aside the notion that this usually ends up in ill hands, particularly spread around as a form of revenge or just for kicks by said boyfriends, and putting aside that this is only another exhortation from some male to women at large to further cater to male interests, and putting aside the fact that pornography already exists, I asked my friend, so, does he advocate the opposite as well? To which Tariq replied, with great regret on his side, I'm sure, for the iniquity of his sex, that no, said blogger is just generally blaming women. Although for what reasons, I cannot fathom! Nor did I bother c...

We've come a long way: it used to be that men were the beings of higher reason, and women were animals. Hundreds of years we were told this, and men carved spaces for themselves in places of power where women were not allowed to reach. If a woman did, she was beaten down by those above, clawed at by those below, and to further punish her, stripped of what little dignity was afforded to her. And now, when we ask for men to be accountable for their actions, men claim that women are the pretty perfect beings that must be protected, and men simply cannot help their nature to be beasts that would destroy a woman's precious [whatever it is] given half a chance. If men are so damned dangerous, why are they even allowed to walk the streets? Why sequester women and tell them to take all sorts of precautions in their daily lives that men are never asked to take? Why don't we just make life safer for these precious precious women and just lock men up? No wait... that would be making t...

Inspired by this piece on Pandagon , and previous discussions at the Hathor Legacy. Judging by the mass media, the language we use, it would seem that male = the default experience. Anybody doing gender analysis in media knows this. Male = default, female = specific. That's where there are flicks, and then there are chick flicks which presumably cater to the very special female audience. And men are not expected to go because they'd have to imagine themselves in the female protagonist's position and that's alienating to men (despite the fact that women have to stretch their imagination and put themselves in male protagonists' shoes all the time). But if masculinity is so natural, being manly is so natural, being male is so default, then why do some men spend so much time differentiating themselves from women? Why this investment in the gender binary for a sense of identity? Why all these how-to books on masculinity? Why did the Spartans take their sons away from th...