Sigh.

Welcome to my pity party, folks!  Surprise!  I apologize I didn't get invitations out, I was busy studying, while also probably feeling sorry for myself.  If you don't wanna come to my pity party, I totally understand!  I'll catch you later, when I am not busy whinging!

Seriously.  Feel free to skip this.

If you're still here (no, really, you can go!), can I just ask: why the fuck does everything crappy happen at once?  I mean, really.  Because in the past three weeks, I have had:

• Four finals and a paper, none of the classes for which I have enjoyed this semester.
• My blog suddenly started getting heavy traffic, and the trolls have come out to tell me how much I suck (Also, dude who calls yourself "Concern Troll" after I called you that?  You.  Are not.  Clever).  I now have a folder in my gmail labeled "trolls!" in case I ever want to do anything with the love I am getting.
• Some neocon rightwing wackaloon quoted me on his blog and made an unkind comment about why I must be a former teacher (because I have poor communication skills, was I believe the gist) and this shouldn't bother me, but it does, because I was an awesome teacher, and I miss it, and it's like the equivalent to me of someone talking about my mama.  You can talk all the shit about my mama you want, and I won't give a fuck, but talk about or pass judgment on me as a teacher, and I want to behead you (NOT literally).  I am not linking, because this asshole doesn't deserve the pageviews.
• Someone I know in real life decided to start being REALLY nasty and try to get at me through the blog and required me to turn on comment moderation in the first place and generally prompted me to start the folder titled "restraining order" in my gmail just in case.
• One of my roommates, who has given the other three of us in the house problems for ages, decided to act even MORE scarily irrational and unhinged than usual and make my life veeeeery difficult to the tune of AT LEAST 15 emails a day FOR THE PAST WEEK, which I then had to send a lawyer friend because she (the roommate) has started threatening to call the police on my roommates and me (for being mean, you guys.  Seriously), and have started documenting that in a folder in my gmail labeled "sniveling git."
• I have had to work out all this international-law-conference-in-Dublin stuff for myself and a journal colleague, which is just a pain.
• MY MOTHER KEEPS CALLING ME.  This never goes well (see above bit where I don't give a shit if you talk about my mama, because I've probably said worse), but she is in her, "My daughter and I are going to be best friends!" stage of her borderline personality disorder cycle, which I may prefer even less than her, "I am going to be an evil harpy" stage (I know "harpy" is a really sexist term, but fuck it).
• All the news I read is fucking terrible.  Seriously, with Arizona, and all the anti-choice abortion bills, and like everything else, the news is just a Major Bummer lately.  

Did I get everything?  I think I may have missed things.  Mostly, you guys, I AM REALLY BURNED OUT RIGHT NOW.  Like, I bet the news is not more of a Major Bummer than usual, but I am really tired and overwhelmed and so it's just getting to me.  And also, I have all these really good, amazing things happening soon, like with other people who I am so excited to meet, but I am just having a hard time getting through and seeing past my final tomorrow.

So.  I have things to write about!  That don't involve complaining and do involve a modicum of thought!  They're just going to have to wait a bit for now, until I am feeling done with my pity party.  It's super fun here, with sad clown napkins and black balloons and no cake AT ALL, just like an empty cake tray to stare at wistfully, but eventually I will be done with it, and ready to move on.  And you'll all be the first to know when that happens.

I really hope you are all doing fabulously, my dear Readers.  If not, I will totally come to your pity party, too.  We can hold one together, and play games like musical chairs where the music is provided by a broken, wheezing accordion and there are no chairs and everyone loses.  It will be awesome.

Why do I keep getting called names?

Sigh.  And I cannot tell if I prefer now getting called a "coward,"  or I liked "whore" better.  It is a toss-up.

AND.  You guys, I am supposed to be writing my counterterrorism law final. I can tell you, 1750 words per question is NOT ENOUGH WORDS.  Gayle has some Thoughts on Things, let me tell you.

Anyway. This was sent to me by a friend, and hoooboy (is that one word or two?) did it make me angry enough to write a fucking blog post about it. It was a debate in the Guardian's Comment is Free about whether internet commentators (is that me, guys? I think that is me. Although, I could also be described as an internet "ne'er do well," "whinger," or "hellcat." Whatever.) should be anonymous, and this is what some lady named Rachel Cooke had to say on those terrible anonymous internet bandits:

No one can pour out all that rage online and emerge from their office calm, kindly and reasonable – or not unless they are Patrick Bateman types, two-faced to an almost sociopathic degree. I find that my face grows hot just reading it. As for cowardice, yes, of course anonymous posters are cowards. It's pathetic. The honourable thing to do is to put your name to bad reviews and all the other stuff, and if this makes your social life awkward – as it sometimes does for me – the upside is that, in future, you will think rather harder before you begin typing.

Seriously, Rachel? FUUUUUUUUCK YOU. There's my sociopathic rage, right there.

So, apparently Rachel Cooke got some very mean comments made about a piece she had written, of the kind of awful vitriol that women writers on the webbernets often get.  Women bloggers have in fact discussed how much it sucks to get terrible comments like that and how they can be used to try to shut a blogger down. Some lady bloggers hold contests to make fun of the worst comment offenders so they can laugh at such nastiness and douchebaggery, because what the fuck else can you do?  In fact, women have even gotten death threats and then have to go cancel appearances and then get snide things said about them by men about how they can't handle heat then get out of the kitchen, which really, anyone with two brain cells is gonna use that phrase in regards to women????  This is what happens, unfortunately, and we should all be working on changing an internet culture that allows such things.  But then, Rachel Cooke uses this example of how ladybloggers get terrible shit thrown at them by anonymous commenters to argue AGAINST ANONYMITY.

Which, ok, given the maliciousness spewed at ladies, it's KINDA UNDERSTANDABLE some ladies would opt to blog anonymously.  What with the death threats and all.   I get Rachel is upset at the shit she is getting from commenters who feel brazen in posting anonymously, and I am not saying she shouldn't be upset, but that doesn't mean anyone who posts should be not anonymous.  There are some really stellar reasons some people would like to remain anonymous.  None of which merely make their social life "awkward."  Many of which have to do with the fundamental right to, you know, bodily safety, or maybe keeping a job.  With some healthcare.  Finding a job is kinda like hunting for the mythical griffin* right now, I hear.

So one of those excellent reasons for anonymity could be mine, which is that I would really prefer my rapist not find me.  Or Harriet J., who was trying to remain anonymous from her abusive ex-husband and other terrible former friends when Google Buzz may have given them access to her.  Or I have read of a professor who blogs anonymously because he doesn't want his students to know his political leanings, and then write everything for his class taking into account his beliefs in an attempt to please him.  Or anonymous bloggers in Iran, who are trying to get information out about what is going on in their country, and know if they use their real names, they could be subject to imprisonment or worse.  Or I am thinking of Chez Panzienza, who blogged about cable news and all its terrors, until CNN found out about his blog and fired him, depriving the rest of us of a really stellar insider look at the brokenness of our "news" industry.  And some of us have homophobic office environments, and we don't want everyone at work to know we are gay, and we need paychecks, because we like food and eating; or some of us need to find a job, and do not want the first thing our employers knows about us to be all our most personal thoughts and experiences. 

Look, I get really shitty anonymous comments, mostly of the kind that are trying to shut me up, mostly by telling me I am stupid and a terrible writer and have nothing at all to share, so just shut up already, GOD.  Because there are folks (other women included!) who don't like mouthy women, who don't like women who challenge their privilege or insult their favorite comedian or point out that fucking Boobquake is really fucking stupid.  But I blame this on misogyny, not anonymity.  Anonymity doesn't make anyone a douchebag.  Racism and sexism and all kinds of other things make people douchebags.  And anyway, if I didn't have anonymity, I wouldn't have ever spoken at all.  I couldn't have written about my rape, which was the entire point of starting this blog.

I have a bunch of new readers (Hi new readers!  I love you!  Welcome!) so let me kinda explain how this goes. I started this blog at the urging of my therapist, as a tool to release some of the sadness and anger and hurt and pain of being raped.  It takes me a couple hours to write every post, this one included (well, obviously not the cat posts).  This is usually because I will read it over neurotically.  I will go line by line and evaluate how honest I am being, how clear I am about what I trying to convey, whether I am being honest with myself, or am I glossing over this bit to make the post sound less depressing or upsetting to me and others.   I suffer from serious disassociative disorder, and so every post is an effort to try to put myself back together again by being as open to myself and what I am going through as possible.  This is hard for me.  And sometimes it is painful.   It means sometimes I will not let myself push whatever bad feelings there are to the back of my brain, and I will confront them, so they do not become monsters under my bed that haunt me later.

This, Rachel Cooke, is usually what we would call "brave."

Also, tell me again how I need to think harder before typing?

Not only that, to assume the internet is lawless and there is no accountability is silliness.  I am held very accountable by my name.  Stuff that Gayle says will be linked to, or not, or derided, or applauded, all based on the quality of my writing and the importance of what I have to say.  I am building a reputation.  And while it's not my "legal" name, I take everything that I say here and put out into the universe very seriously.  I love when I am linked to - it's like this tremendous joy that I have written something useful maybe other people will like.**  And if I want anyone to listen to me or keep reading me, I must continue to write good posts.  If I were to start running around on other blogs making really transphobic comments, let's say, then I would lose readers and credibility.  In fact, my reputation is all I've got here on the internet; I can't go by charm, or looks, or persuasive skills, or anything else other than the substance of my writing and the quality of my prose.  I never aimed to have an audience, but I have one now, and I really, really love the community that has sprung up here, and I continue to find this all a gift.  My anonymity does not change anything.

In fact, I get to play in person with a couple of stellar, lovely ladies whom I have met through my blog shortly (I.  Am so.  Excited).  And I will probably be Gayle to them (not because I don't want to tell them my real name, but because Gayle is how they know me).  So Gayle is about to be essentially a real person in the real world; still me, just with another name.  And that almost makes my head explode, theory-wise, but mostly: those nasty comments to Rachel Cooke were not because of anonymity.  No, they were rooted in something much worse, something which is more insidious, and requires us to all fight against to change.  Anonymity may allow people to show the symptoms, but it's never the disease; how could it be a disease when I could not be writing to you without it?

OK, and finally, Rachel Cooke?  THINK.  Dude, who the fuck is gonna run around making sure everyone who registers for comments is registered under their legal name?  Are we gonna require licenses or personal identification to sign up online to comment?  Are we fucking Arizona?  Who is gonna regulate this?  For fuck's sake.




* Griffin update!  Readers, they've never managed to catch ANYTHING in my ceiling.  The thinking is it has moved out now - it's been very silent up there (although, up until last week, it would still manage to eat all the food, including the food in the trap, and spring the trap, but NEVER be caught in the trap).  All holes have been patched that access that attic space from the outside, and they are now going to just replace our insulation and fix the giant hole.  The griffin was always too wily for us, and while he scared the crap out of me by scratching at the air vents at 6 am, I wish him well, wherever he has gone.  

** You guys, recently I have been linked to by other really, really amazing blogs, and I squealed in happiness both times.  Literally.  Aloud.  I still kinda feel like I am too new to be linked to by the Big Kid bloggers and all that, and it's a little intimidating (read: PETRIFYING), but it's still such a tremendous compliment.   I'm totally honored.

You guys, and this is why I can't ever get anything done. Part II.

I have shit to say, Readers.  Buuuuuuuuuut: I have two days to write 3,500 coherent words about counterterrorism law, and then I have another final Friday.  So, I can't talk to you.  At least until something makes me so mad I either have to mangle something or write a fucking blog post about it.  But know I love you.  This is only a temporary break-up (and unlike the your actual past partners, I mean that honestly.  Also, it is me and not you, but really this time). 

But, and here is another reason why I still never get anything done: Amouch is really vertically challenged.  He is the most inept cat I have ever met.  His jumping skills lie somewhere between that of a rock and a rhino.  So, if he wants to get into my lap, which he does the second I have sat down and thus have formed a lap, he just kinda . . . paws at me until I give up and pick him up.  I could ignore him, but he will do this for ten minutes straight, and possibly longer, but that was as long as I could go without giving in and picking him up.  I cannot shut him out of the room, because then he cries piteously.

But of course, if I pick him up, he is too large, and I have to hold him with one hand to steady him, and then I can't type.

It is a conundrum here at Unnatural Forces.  But here is him in action, and just so you know, that is not my normal voice, nor the voice I usually use to talk to the cats.  It was the voice that one uses when one is attempting to video or snap a picture of your pet, when they promptly, once you grab your camera or phone, begin to do ANYTHING OTHER than what you wanted to capture.  So I was encouraging him.  But really, it's hard to work like this, you know?  Also, sorry for the bad quality, such is my phone.  You get the idea.



See you on the other side, Readers!  Misbehave for me in the meantime!

I am not an elitist. I will just never read your Tom Clancy.

So Gayle, who assumes EVERYTHING is always platonic and thinks that hanging out with some dude for a drink because the plan is to talk about counterterrorism jobs with nonprofits in DC and said dude's dissertation, and that is NOT DATE MATERIAL, and that was the PLAN, and thus there is NO DATE, but nooooooo what does Gayle know, had a couple drinks with some dude from her counterterrorism law class.

He thought it was a date.  I was so not excited by that idea, and I made that clear by nonverbal signals, but lest I need to make it clearer, I will verbally do so next time.  And, in an aside: Do not touch me.  Seriously.  What is it with the dude touching me - the light swipe on the arm, the hand on my back?  What?  No.  Is this what dating people do, or at least where one person thinks it is a date?  Do men show interest like this?  Was I ever ok with this?  Because I don't like to be touched anymore.  It makes me feel like public property, and not in control of my own body (because, control issues, after the rape?  I HAVE A FEW), which makes me not happy.  There will also have to be a verbal discussion about the touching next time.

But!  Ok!  Two paragraphs in and I will attempt to find my point!

We made conversation, this dude and me.  The dude asked me what are my favorite movies, and we had a good discussion about that, although he asked what my single favorite movie was.  I responded there is no way on god's green earth I can answer that question, who can?, so we discussed genres we like, and how I like doing retrospectives with my Netflix, like Herzog and Almodovar and now Hitchcock, and he was with me on this, and I mentioned I used to be a movie reviewer when I lived in NYC, so we talked a bit about newer, edgier movies, and we connected on our love of the classics: Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront.  So, ok, I am thinking, I can be friends with this dude.

(Oh, wait, but he did say two of his favorite movies were Gone with the Wind and The Sound of Music.  Readers, can I tell the truth?  I have never stayed awake to the end of either of those movies.  And I have tried MANY times.  Such that, a couple of years ago, someone wrote about the racial politics in the Sound of Music, and I was like, WAIT.  There are Nazis in that movie??????)

But then I asked him his favorite books, which to me is actually a more interesting question.  And he said, "Anything written by Tom Clancy.  I also really like everything Robert Ludlum has written."

My response was ". . . ."

Lest you charge that Gayle is passing judgment without cause, I have READ a Tom Clancy.  In 7th grade.  And the only thing I remember about it now was that I thought it was complete crap, even then.  AND I have read a Robert Ludlum book.  Recently!  There is a story. Lucky you!

At some point when I was living in Morocco, two friends of mine, a couple, had moved in with me (I had a ridiculously large apartment) because their lease had ended, but they were going to stick around for a couple more months.  During the time period they were staying with me, they took a vacation through I think Eastern Europe.  When they returned, the lady, first thing she did, was thrust Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity into my hands and say, "Holy shit, you have to read this.  It is the WORST.  BOOK.  EVER."

These two had been hostel hopping in wherever, and most hostels in Europe have a couple shelves of books in all different languages that people can leave if they are done or grab a new one if they need one.  I myself have still a couple hostel-picked-up books.  The gentleman of this couple had finished his book in one such hostel, and the only English language book there in the book exchange was The Bourne Identity, and he thought: awesome.  That's a great movie.  So he started reading it.  And then he started reading it aloud to his partner.  And they laughed.  And then he gave it to his partner, who read it, because it is SUCH a bad book, it reaches a level best described as HILARIOUS.

And then it got handed to me and I read it, because it was supposed to be so uproariously bad.  Which it is.  It reads like what I think would be a parody of a bad action novel, but it is sadly not a parody.  The dialogue is even worse than in fucking Avatar, I tell you.  We spent the rest of the time they were living with me quoting bad dialogue lines to each other and laughing.

So.  Robert Ludlum is just in fact a shitty writer.

Now, I have noooo problem with people whose favorite writer is Tom Clancy.  I don't.  I don't look down on those people.   Because we all read for different reasons.  Some very smart people I know love to go watch exploding-things movies, and like Transformers, because it is a lot of fun.  They want to be entertained, and they would like it to be mindless.  Some people watch, I don't know, Grey's Anatomy, and know it's trashy, but use it as brain candy.  And so I guess some people read their books like that as well - just for sheer entertainment value.  And that's cool - look, life is hard, and if you read for mindless pleasure, then that's how you take a break.  I understand that.

But . . . we're not going to be close buddies if these are your favorite books and kinda all you read.

Well, ok, if you say your favorite book is The Celestine Prophecy, The Secret, or The Alchemist, we're not going to be friends period, let's be real.  But . . . literature is a really big part of my life.  Because intellectualism is a really big part of my life.  Being a nerd.  Discussing theory.  Talking about art and books and music beyond their entertainment value.  Fuck, I can't even talk about pop music (hi, Lady Gaga) with folks without lapsing into long dissertations on her as a feminist figure. I'm sorta academic about stuff, and the people I am closest with are academic about stuff, and that is how we move through the world and interpret it.  It's just how we do shit.  And I really do just enjoy reading smart things - Delillo, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, Roberto Bolano.  And I don't think I'm better for it.  And I don't think anyone is worse for liking Tom Clancy.  And most people change it up between the two.  But if you don't, and you hang out with Robert Ludlum all the time, we're just not going to have that much to talk about at some point.  Which . . . . happened last night.  So there we go.

People have called me an elitist for liking Shakespearean plays or not watching TV or reading what I read.  And that is NOT the definition of elitist.  Elitism is NOT liking literature or fine arts; it is sneering at people who don't.  And I really do get that some people take brain breaks with Transformers or Tom Clancy.  I just . . . won't have much to say to you, after awhile, probably, if you are a primarily Tom Clancy reader.  We speak our lives in different languages.  It doesn't mean we can't communicate and enjoy each other.  It does mean, though, that we're not going to be having sleepovers and staying up painting our toenails while gabbing about gender and race theory, in between discussing the latest Boys Are Stupid story or wondering fucking magnets, how do they work?*  And that's ok.  Rock out with your Tom Clancy, dude.  And may you find a lady that does in fact want to go on a date with you AND can discuss with you her favorite Bourne book in the series.

Although, seriously, if you like The Alchemist, I judge you.



*Answer: Magic is everywhere in this bitch.

Gayle needs better trolls.

Readers, "Anonymous" just sent this comment, in regards to the previous Boobquake post:

 This blog is intellectually bankrupt. 

Hahahahahaahahahahaha!!!!!  I laughed, Readers.

Because actually, I wrote that post after several extra dirty martinis.  That's all the troll's got?  Sad.



UPDATE:

Alright, what motherfucker linked to my post?  Because now I just got this:

Who said maybe people aren't doing it just to show some skin, I am honestly doing it as a racist white b*tch who says "F*** U and your theories!  

There is something just a wee bit intellectually bankrupt (HA!) about feeling like it is ok to be a proud racist, but deciding it is just not polite to curse, and instead employ asterisks.   Also, this sentence makes no sense.  I feel like Unnatural Forces deserves a more thoughtful kind of troll.  Bring it on, internet.  Bring.  It.  On.

I'm sorry, but no: "Boobquake" is a really terrible fucking idea.

Um, dude?  Just no.

So, some Iranian cleric stole the line right out of fucking Pat Robertsons's mouth and said,

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes." 

Which, yeah, is stupid and fucked up, I got it.  So a lady named Jen of Blag Hag decided to have a "Boobquake," where women wear their most low cut shirts and show some cleavage in order to prove that this quote is just silliness.  Boobquake has devolved, as Amanda Marcotte pointed out, into a bunch of men shouting, "YAY Show us your titties!!!!!"  Because if there is ANYTHING we want to do to prove solidarity with women in Iran, it is to exploit ourselves for men.

Sisterhood, indeed.

For fuck's sake.  Look, if we want to buck this Iranian cleric's ideas of what women can do we could . . . walk out the door without a man?  Go to our job like always?  FUCKING BLOG?  Any of these things would be against what this cleric believes, and would show that women can do all kinds of liberated, equal-to-men type things, and the world doesn't end.  No earthquakes.  Every day.  Lookit that.

But here is where it strikes me as fucking offensive.  This Iranian cleric?  Has direct influence over Iranian women, and their lives.  And those women have a whole set of things to deal with that we really can't even comprehend.  But a big part of what they do have to deal with is men reinforcing their cultural and national tradition by using women's bodies. 

This is simple theory, folks.  Basically, any group that feels threatened, and feels the need to build an identity, they do things like delineate between What We Are, and What They Are and We Are Not.  And I can go into Iranian history and whatever, but the shortest summary possible is: the Iranian revolution resulted in this need to build a cultural and national identity (especially as Iran cut itself off from the West).  And culture wars are usually waged on the bodies of women, in a return to "tradition."  So in Iran trying to build a postcolonial and separate identity, it reverted back to "tradition," where women were covered and "modest."  That was What They Are.  And What They Are Not is lascivious, loose, Western women, women who are wanton and dirty and worth nothing because they were whores and whatnot.

So.  This Boobquake?  Is basically reinforcing the very fucked-up identity building that has ravaged the lives of women in Iran.  What exactly are we proving in boobquake?  That we women can parade around like sex symbols for men?  Um, woo?  But THAT IS WHAT THIS CLERIC IS SAYING.  And that cleric isn't like religious leaders here - he legislates.  He makes the laws.  How does that help Iranian women, who get berated for showing an ankle?  Is this throwing our "freedoms" in their face?  Isn't this just reinforcing the binary identities that have made them have to cover every inch of their bodies?  And isn't this making really light of the fact that there are millions of women across the globe who are in very oppressive countries that may fucking get STONED to death for daring to be female and show an inch of skin?  Like: Wow, you guys have really mean religious leaders over there that make your lives really pretty horrible for being female, haha, lookit my breasts!!!1!11! 

Who are we really showing up here?  And what are we really reinforcing?  And how MUCH IS THIS NOT HELPING any of the Iranian women who actually have to live under beliefs like the above?  Because given a chance, I do not think they would fight for equality that looks like women wearing revealing clothing so men can get all into it and derail its original purpose.  We Western women?  Are not exactly totally free, either, and thus this ALSO reinforces the incorrect notion that the West has women's equality, THE END.  As if we don't need to work some shit out over here, too.  Which: CLEARLY.

Boobquake is like fucking cultural ethnocentrism at its worst.  I mean, I personally find it distasteful, because with my big breasts, I don't really feel like getting comments made to me while walking down the street.  This doesn't make me liberated, to be subject to harassment, and let's be real, that is exactly what will happen.  But other than that, it gives this fucking cleric fodder to turn around and point and say: SEE????  This is all the Western women care about, the flaunting of their sinful, earthquake-causing tits!!!!!!  and yeah, that's silly, but you know, he'll take that as ALL THE MORE REASON women of his country should be clamped down upon.  Because the women of Iran, modest is What They Are, and They Are Not Us.  And if Us means my freedom is actually about putting my tits out there in public to show some Iranian cleric whose idiocy DOES NOT AFFECT ME that I can be ALL ABOUT THE SEXUALIZATION OF MY BODY, then I don't really want to be Us either, thanks.

How you know you're a good teacher: a short quiz

When your middle schoolers dump one of their classmates in the trashcan, the first thing you do is:

a. discipline them sternly and tell them they should never treat a peer like that
b. call for the dean to report them
c. rescue the kid in the trashcan
d. shriek, "WAIT WAIT WAIT nobody move!!!!" and run for your camera

Seriously, Readers?  I was an awesome teacher.

Just missing my former profession today like mad.

The lady thing I won't talk about. Even with feminists.

So, I have been thinking (ahahaha, I know, right?  I NEVER do that).  And it was because of the Jezebel post about the MTV True Life episode, which I just watched, on Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

And, you know, it's MTV, so it's not the most tasteful or thoughtful show, but: I don't really want to talk about reality TV.  I was thinking about how being feminist and being aware of privilege makes me really struggle with my own BDD. 

I was diagnosed four years ago.  It's definitely gotten worse as time as gone by, and exponentially worse after the rape.  It's also not a disorder that stands alone; it ties in to my bipolar disorder, my anxiety problems.  But also, really, what woman DOESN'T have BDD to some degree?  Every woman I know dislikes something about herself, thinks she is too fat, hates her hair, despises her ankles.  It's always something.  And we ladies think, god, if we could just lose that weight, or fix this, or look like that, we would be fine.  Or, at least that is how I think.  I fantasize about being beautiful and imagine I would be that whole new person and have the courage to go out and feel pretty and meet people and find someone to date and get an "A" in every class and everything would be all fucking magical!   And, of course, I know I am full of shit, but I still partake in those fantasies.  Like I bet an awful lot of women do.  For many of us, this is just a fact of being female and moving through the world, sadly.  And the fact that we ALL as women have to manage with these feelings of self-hate means that this is a symptom not of our own, but of some larger cultural disease.  That part is what's easy for me to intellectualize and understand.

But I still wouldn't go to the prom-y type thing my law school has, because I felt too fat to get in a dress.  And even though I love to swim, I won't get in a bathing suit to go swimming at the gym.  And I cannot go shopping without every single time, even when I am thinking I am compensating for my BDD, picking out clothes that are two sizes too large.  And I won't wear tank tops, because my arms are too fat.  And sometimes, I stop eating.  Or I won't go out with people, especially to a party, because I will go and look at all the other women and feel like the ugliest thing that has ever walked the earth and want to run back home and hide.  Sometimes, I will feel so hideous I will not leave my house and cry.  I hate and hate and hate on my body so much occasionally I have consider dying as an option, because then I could escape it.  So I can intellectualize, but I can't get over it.

Good therapy has been essential to managing it (also, to hiding it, let's be real).  I hear that voice in my head and think, "Gayle, SHUT UP NOW."  I know my thoughts are not based in reality.  I know it is a disorder.  I remind myself that there are people starving on this earth, and that I am one of the most privileged people on the planet, and I am not actually physically disabled or have any serious illnesses, and I need to fucking just get over myself already, JESUS.  But I will still purposefully go all day long without looking at my face.  Every time I go to the bathroom and wash my hands at the sink, I will never look up into the mirror.

The disorder is both bolstered by and bolsters my disassociative disorder.  Basically, I cut my head off from my body.  I believe I am a decently capable, smart individual, and I can walk into many situations thinking that I will be able to manage them, or be able to rock them even, based solely on the brain in my head.  I think of it as being able to "head" through things.  And if I don't look in the mirror all day, I can forget my body.  I can forget I hate it.  I can forget that I find myself so hideous, that on some days, I won't walk out the door.

It also feels like the disorder of horrendous privilege and anti-feminism, too.

I mean, lookit.  I am not actually fat.  I'm not thin by any means, but I am not actually fat, not by any standard based on numbers and sizes.  And even though I FEEL tremendously large and disgusting, and when I look in the mirror I think I am gargantuan, I don't get called names for being fat.  I don't get disrespected by my doctor for being fat.  People are not repulsed by my body.  I never have to worry about flying and being charged for two seats.

And that is some serious privilege.  Then there is my feminist shame, because it means that I have lost the war against the culture that tries to tell me I will always be too fat, I have failed to internalize any of the feminist rhetoric about new beauty standards or really embracing my body at any size.  I will speak about my mental illness, my rape, ANYTHING, with other women, other feminists.  But I will never speak about the BDD.  Because it makes me feel like an asshole to even bring it up.

Especially because it means I wish to co-opt other women's illnesses and trivialize them, when I pray at night for the strength to have an eating disorder.  Or I feel like I devalue fat women's actual experiences when I read fat acceptance websites and books, trying to help myself accept the body I am in.  And I look at other women and think horrible things and put them down or hate them and how can I even claim to be a feminist when my disorder makes me so anti-woman?  And when do I get to claim a right to a disorder, when many women suffer from this disordered thinking?  God, Gayle, and there are still people starving in Haiti - why don't I dedicate my energy to fixing things instead of just loathing myself?

It is such an asshole disorder, guys.  For real.  

And so I also hide it.  I won't tell people the extent of it, how bad it is, why I can't go out that night, why I shy away from parties or clubs or dressing up or anywhere I could be judged by my appearance.  And I won't tell people because they almost always respond, "But you're pretty" or somesuch compliment, and that makes me feel worse, but it also makes me think I can't trust that person, because they are so clearly lying to my face.

There are things I do to manage it (once again, thank you, psychotherapist).  I will not insult myself in front of others anymore.  I work on taking compliments.  I try to say a nice thing in my head about every woman I see walking past, because if I am kind to them, I am hoping I will be kinder to myself.  I never look at any magazines other than Harper's and the New Yorker and Bitch.  I do not watch TV, I do not spend time discussing with women what we are putting in our mouths or how we shouldn't have dessert, I remind myself my food does not have any morality attached to it, I try to shut my roommate down when she talks a lot about her weight, and I beat it the fuck up the stairs when my roommates watch The Biggest Loser, which they do ALL THE TIME, that show must air like 3 times a day, I do not understand.

But, I struggle.  And, it's hard.  And BDD takes up a fuckton of my energy, while keeping me from doing things that I would love.  It really came up today, again, when I started thinking about a future drinking date with a couple really brilliant ladies whom I have met through this blog, and I panicked. I had to talk myself through that, because even though they seem so amazing and it will be such a gift to be able to meet them, I wondered: what if they are all so much prettier than me?  They will look down on me.  I will feel bad around them.  Maybe I should not even go.

And that?  Is insane.  I know it is insane.  And I will go and meet them anyway, and they may want to throw something at me when they meet me (ladies, please don't throw something at me, ow), because there is probably nothing wrong with how I actually look, and I am being a egotistical fool.  The asshole disorder strikes again!

And look!  I just wrote a whole long post which boils down to a pity party about how hard it is in my head when I don't actually catch any flak for it in the real world!  GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!  I am like the fucking Tina Fey of feminism, people, my LORD.

But, this was part of the reason I started the blog.  I hoped I could drag all the monsters that haunted me out into the light, where I could see there wasn't really anything under my bed all along.  And it was meant to be at first just about rape recovery, but I have come to understand that the BDD contributes a lot to the disassociative disorder, and was really exacerbated by the rape, and in learning to feel ok in the body I am in again, I am going to have to tackle all of it.  Even the stuff I am shamed of.  Even this disorder that makes me feel like I am a giant privileged douchebag for having it.

And that's really it.  You will probably never get me to talk about this in person, because it is a disorder I am deeply ashamed of.  But there it is.  I wrote about it.  I admitted it.  I got it out.  And maybe tonight, the monster under my bed?  Will seem a little less scary.

Woohoo!

Readers, how excited am I today?  Not because I spent 6 and a half hours studying evidence law with folks because my exam is tomorrow.  That?  No fun.

But, you know what else happened today?  NOTHING CRAZY.  Nothing crazy happened today.  Well, ok, maybe a little crazy, just a shred, this morning, but alright, like 99% of the day was not batshit insane. 

And frankly?  Given how things have been going?  That makes today just fucking grand, I tell you WHAT.

Also, I must say: everyone hates outlining in law school, and this is because it is the suck.  But I find it at least occasionally funny, because I will usually, while I am typing like mad during in my daily classes just trying to get all the notes down, add in my own little jokes or asides, and forget they were in there until I go back and read through my notes.  Like, I found this one from Constitutional Law II:

Lawrence v. Texas [majority] says traditionally laws banned oral and anal sex for EVERYONE.  In the 70's gay-specific bans were started.  We had a long tradition of laws saying you can't have sex unless it's to have children AND GOOD LORD, that would suck.  SO, point being, not a long anti-gay tradition with the big, gay sex. 

And today, I was (whose idea was this?) the one who was writing up all our review work, and included this bullshit, which I forgot until just now, reading through:

Rule 706 - Court appointed experts.  WHATEVER.  NEVER MIND.  DON'T LOOK OVER HERE.

Because seriously, guys?  Federal Rule of Evidence 706?  It is useless.  DON'T LOOK OVER THERE.

Update:

I am so very special, with the Federal Rules of Evidence.

• 605 - judge can't testify, and if judge does, no need to object if they do, because: you'll just be overruled.  CLEEEAAAAARLY
• 606 - no testimony of jury before verdict, after verdict limited circumstances
• Pretty much, can't challenge a jury trial, but CAN challenge events BEFORE  jury sits to hear case - like lying during voire dire
• Only allowed to challenge if outside influence or clerical mistake - but meth in the jury room is just fine
• 6C - jury screwed up damages in calculating, and it stayed.

• 611 - Scope of cross is limited to direct, or credibility of witness
• 612 - REFRESH, MOTHAFUCKAS!!!  Writing to refresh memory.

Music confessional time, part II, or phenomenon involving the Indigo Girls

Ok, so here is what story came up in my head that I had forgotten about until after I finished writing my last music confession:

My senior year of high school, our senior class trip was to Disney World (also, fun side note?  My family didn't have the money for the trip, and I wasn't going to be able to go, but a week before the money was due, I had one of those scratch off lottery tickets, given to me by my dad?  And I won $300 bucks on it.  So I got to go.  Magic is everywhere in this bitch).  I went to a big high school, and there were maybe . . . 300 kids on the trip?  Maybe more?  I don't know.  We were in Florida for five days.  And, not surprisingly and I don't know how this didn't happen every year, but a bunch of kids got drunk at the bars where they didn't card, and a couple kids got arrested and thrown in jail, and I don't know, I think the teachers might have been pulling their hair out, but I had a grand time.

ANYWAY.  So, ok, for context: there was a thing in my high school with the Indigo Girls.  I don't know why.  I suspect it is because it is lyrical and easy to sing.  All the ladies in my high school knew the lyrics to loads of Indigo Girls songs, and it didn't matter if you were a stoner or a jock or a thespian or whatever: it was just common currency, among us ladies.  I remember singing Indigo Girls through long and tedious field hockey and lacrosse practices.  We would sing while we were doing drills.  We just did. 

So.  We are in Florida.  It is maybe day 4 of our trip?  I think the next day we were leaving.  But we all pile on a bus, one of many, and we are on our way back to the hotel after a day at the park.  I am with my friends, and there are other people on that bus with whom I am friendly, or am acquaintances, or with whom I don't speak at all.  And someone in the back of the bus, I don't know who, begins to sing the Indigo Girls' song "Galileo."  And every lady, every one, stops their conversation as they hear it traveling to the front, and joins in.  The boys all go silent, and every girl on that bus raises her voice and joins the song.  We don't miss a beat.  A word.  And then the song is over and we all laugh and go back to chatting with our friends.  The boys sat there in stunned silence for a couple of moments, I can tell you.  The boys I was sitting with just went, Whoa.

A guy friend of mine was sitting on that bus, and later, he would tell me he was totally amazed by this spontaneous collective song.  He said, not all of you were friends on that bus, like at all, right?  And I said, true.  But you could all just sing like that, know the lyrics, just join in?  And I said, yeah, dude.  And he looked at me with wonder and said, That was the first time I realized that there is an entire language that girls speak that we guys don't know anything about. 

And I said, NO SHIT.

Most of my guy friends were really into, like, being the DUDE about music.  They counted their CDs, they indexed, they bragged, they tried to have better taste than each other, or at least act like they did, or at least put everyone else's music taste down as much as possible.  And we ladies, well . . . we just wanted something we could all sing to.  Seriously.  We didn't do that ridiculous competition shit.  Music, among my friends, was about what we could sing at the top of our lungs while driving around at midnight on a Dunkin' Donuts run (you remember those), or what we could listen to while sitting with a friend who was crying over an asshole now ex-boyfriend.  There was something communal about it, but sometimes, I think it was just: we liked what we could sing along to.  And what we could sing through lacrosse practice.  Or on drives to and from school.  Or on the bus to and from field hockey games, when we would get the bus driver to turn on the radio and have lip-syncing contests.

It wasn't always the Indigo Girls.  Sometimes it was The Beatles, or "Blister in the Sun," or the Dire Straits' Romeo & Juliet, or anything else that would fit easily into our mouths and we could sing together to pass the time.  It didn't really seem to be about Good Music.  It was about good singing music.

And, look: I do not have the world's greatest voice.  I can hold a tune, hit the right notes mostly, and have gotten into singing groups when I've tried out.  BUT if I can and have done these things, it is because I spent HOURS upon HOURS driving around in cars with friends singing Tori Amos.  Seriously.  The second we'd be in a car, we'd sing.  Loudly.  And sometimes badly.  But no matter, because it was FUN.  And it was OURS.  It was this ladyspace where dudes did not tread.  And that made it wonderful.  They were so busy looking down on our music they had no idea how it brought us together.

And so yes, while it felt that appreciating the Indigo Girls AND The Stones at the same time was revolutionary, because all the dudes around me were telling me that Couldn't!  Be!  Done!, we ladies just got on with our singing and our ladyness and our shared language of song.  We can talk all we want about "good" music and "bad", but sometimes, the music is about what it can DO, what it is good FOR, what it's practical use is.  Indigo Girls were part of our lady language, where we didn't have to listen to anything the dudes had to say, because they had so easily and completely dismissed it.   It brought us together, and allowed us to raise our voices, and sing.  The end.  And THAT alone is testimony to why all kinds of girl music, even the "bad" kind, is really radical and awesome and why I will never, ever hate on the Indigo Girls, and will always, even if I don't want to listen to them anymore, rather love them.

My cats? Still "helpful."

Azrou  is "helping" me outline here.

And as soon as I dump him off my lap, because he lays on my arms while I am trying to type and makes it impossible, then Amouch "helps."

Annnnnd this is when I give up and start reading blogs, which I really shouldn't be doing.

But very importantly, the cats are helping me stay calm.  There has been a metric fuckton of personal crap going on here over at Unnatural Forces, to the point where I now have a folder in my gmail labeled "in case."  Meaning, in case I need a restraining order.  So fun things, right when I so.  can't.  deal.

ANYWAY.  When shit comes up, and it makes me worry about my exposure online, I have to talk myself through the panic attack and remind myself how much I love this space.  Soooo, I'm just going to be over here trying to study and work through some shit which insh'allah is now all over with (IT BETTER BE), and I'll be back soon.

And I have to dump this cat off my lap, so excuse me.

Damnit, internets, just work

Readers, I had to turn on comment moderation (which, seriously, the suck, I know) but I've been checking, and it seems that some of the comments have now gotten lost in the ether?  Maybe they will appear at some point?  Considering I think unicorns and gnomes run the the webbernets, maybe the mythical beasties occasionally munch on especially tasty comments?  Fuck if I know.

Anyway, if your comment is lost, it was (most likely) not rejected or deleted; I pressed the "publish" button, but the magic didn't make it appear beneath the post.

I am going to go do a bit of copy and paste work on a comment I know didn't post, but let me know if you continue to have problems.  And I will . . . make an offering to the internet goddess, perhaps.  Lord knows.

I am not your grandmother's enemy combatant

Welcome to the second or perhaps third installment of "You thought you were coming to a feminist blog, and now you are having to read about international humanitarian law, the fuck??" here at Unnatural Forces!  Because the very lovely and amazing Sane Person over at her blog asked me a question on a comment thread about the status of the Guantanamo detainees under international law, and I said I would answer.  Of course, I said I would answer like years ago, SORRY ASP, but here we go.  And yes, I should probably be doing finals outlining, but this is more interesting than criminal procedure, and ALSO I want to remind everyone that if you are ever captured in armed combat (or the United States government just starts trying to assassinate you, WHICHEVER) DO NOT RELY ON ANYTHING I SAY because I am a law student and I don't know anything except whatever I actually know this, the end.

First step in understanding international law of war status: forget everything and anything Bush and/or Obama has ever, ever said.  Forget it all, it's wrong.  Bush made up an entirely fictional category of detainees, "unlawful enemy combatants," which DOES NOT EXIST under international law, so he could say that none of the rights and privileges under international law applied.  He claimed he could hold people beyond the reach of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law.  The Supreme Court did not go for this in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, but DID NOT actually challenge the President's authority to label detainees thusly.  They just said whatever the detainees were labeled, they still got habeas (corpus, the right to challenge your detention granted by the Constitution) and Geneva Convention rights.

Courts in the U.S. are pretty deferential to the President in foreign affairs and war powers, and so every court thus far has accepted the President's definition of what an "unlawful enemy combatant" is, without taking up the issue of whether that is even a valid status.  It's not, but our courts treat international law kinda like you had that friend in 6th grade whom you liked well enough and she was fun to hang out with but didn't totally trust and thought she might start flirting with the boy you liked if given half a chance. 

Ok.  So.  There are only two status categories in detainees pursuant to war: they are unlawful belligerents (or combatants), and lawful belligerents.  Simple!  The definition for a lawful belligerent actually comes from the Hague Convention of 1907.  There are four criteria that must be met for a lawful belligerent:

1. To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
2. To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;
3. To carry arms openly; and
4. To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

If you are taking part in hostilities in civilian dress, or you are violating the laws of war, or you are furtively carrying weapons, then you are an unlawful belligerent, which is what most terrorists would be categorized as.  But every detainee MUST be treated humanely pursuant to a status determination, like a judicial review, which is required under the Geneva Conventions.  And Salim Hamdan's military commission judge said there had to be two status determinations: the initial one by the government, to make sure they are actually not holding an innocent person, but a second judicial one, if they intend to try the person for criminal law.  At any rate, the detainee should have a meaningful opportunity to confront evidence against hir and put on evidence of hir own that ze is not an unlawful belligerent.

So what is the majority status of the Guantanamo prisoners?  Innocent, actually!  They are not belligerents at all.  But for those who are, once the government determines your status as an unlawful belligerent, there is disagreement in the international legal community as what the government can do with you, although everyone agrees one thing: you are a criminal.  This is why the U.S. has traditionally tried terrorists in the usual federal courts - they are just criminals.  If the U.S. wants to prosecute for war crimes, like in the Doctors' Trial in Nuremberg which were run by the military and governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the U.S. can use courts-martial.  Bush proposed the bullshit, half-ass, unjust, not-very-successful military commissions, a third sort of judicial system just for GTMO detainees, which are in their third incarnation, and still possibly unconstitutional.

If you want to know my opinion, I say we try terrorists in federal courts as criminals.  Why?  Well, many reasons, but frankly, I will let Judge William Young speak for me here, in sentencing Richard Reid, the attempted shoebomber:

Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you (sentence details omitted).

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.
Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist….

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders….
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.

Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.

It is for freedom's seek [sic] that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We care about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties….

Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.

The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will. Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.  [emphasis from here]

I know.  I always get shivers when I read that, too.  Any more questions, send 'em my way, and if I know the answer, I'll try and explain.  After finals.  Gayle really needs to get on the finals thing now.

This is what happens when you study evidence law with four dudes.

Yup - four dudes and I crashed out in a room at the law school and attempted to learn evidence law, when this gem came up from DS:

So, it's like, judicial notice is something where there is no controversy, it's clear and everyone takes it as fact.  Like, in the adult bookstore charged with obscene materials, and the materials, they were all about people swimming in donkey semen, the court could take notice that they were obscene, because, obviously.

So of course I threw that in our review notes.  Thus beginning this email exchange:

RM: I am stunned the amount of semen blowing a donkey yields.

Me: DS is not, are you, DS?

DS: Oh, I mean, I am quite familiar with the volume of a standard donkey load.

ES: Ahem.  Have a cocktail, friends.

Me: ES!  What are you doing googling "donkey semen" at this late hour?

AE: Ah, a true verbal act.

This will continue for days, I am not even kidding.

Rape + tired + stress = nothing good

You know, I don't really know how I feel personally about the trigger warnings that the feminist blogosphere has been talking about lately, but I am also definitely not an asshole, so have a:

[TRIGGER WARNING]

Ok, so the point of this blog was to try to give voice to everything I was thinking and feeling in remembering, and then acknowledging, and then trying to heal from being raped.  And I am going to try to be as honest as I can possibly be, but you know what's harder than writing a blog about being raped?  Getting yourself to figure out WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE FEELING about the rape.  Because I am so epically good at pushing all those feelings and emotions down (I couldn't even remember what really happened for nearly 3 years) that by sheer force of habit I am totally unable to easily grasp what I myself am going through.  It's a little like getting hit by the waves of an invisible sea.  You end up suffering from these symptoms, that come out in weird ways and at weird times, without ever being able to see or understand or get any grasp on the disease.

So, here's what's going on: nothing good.

I am in the middle of finals.  I have four of them.  I am really behind, because this is just how shit goes.  I am tired and cranky and stressed.  And what happens when I am tired and cranky and stressed?  I become very bad at taking care of myself.  All the work I have been doing to try to manage my disassociative disorder and get healthy did not just fly, it like warp-speeded, out the window.

So not only am I trying to handle stress and really study and fucking memorize the Federal Rules of Evidence (which: ehhhhhhhhhhhh), I am also fantasizing about starving myself.  I have daydreams of putting a gun up my vagina and pulling the trigger.  I wish to cut huge chunks of flesh out of my sides and throw them to the ground.  I want to take a machete and split my entire middle open and let my innards bleed out.  I spend a good chuck of time every hour telling myself how fat I am, how disgusting I am, how I would love to do nothing more than escape this body.  I can't make it stop.  When you're raped, you can never get away from the scene of the crime.  So, for me, I just immediately revert, when I am tired, to imagining doing brutal violence to my body, because that crime against my body has been written all over it and in it and it feels like it has even gotten into my veins and the marrow of my bones and I want to make it go away.  I want it to stop.

I don't want to do this anymore.

But, you know, I don't really have a choice, do I? 

I want to make it clear that I am not in danger, and that I am not suicidal, and that no one need worry.  This is just how rape survival goes.  At least for me.  And there is an endpoint to this, sort of, and my last final is the 30th, and I can rest and again begin the work of healing.  And this is lucky, because many women do not have endpoints to the other stresses in their lives, and they are in a war zone or a continuing dangerous situation or are struggling to feed their families or don't have as good a support system or live in a culture that blames them for their own rape or any of the other horrid things women have to face every day.  More than anything, more than even how much I want to hurt myself, I am grateful.

So, if the blog is a little erratic, I apologize; this is going to become an annoyingly self-serving space for me (ahaha, as opposed to how it is always ANYWAY, right?).  If you keep reading, then thank you.  And come April 30th, I promise: I will personally, and with great emotion, have a drink (or several!) to toast you.  Girl scout honor.

Music confessional time

I have been reading LADYPALOOZA over at Tiger Beatdown, and I realized, I have to speak up.  Look, I am going to own this shit right here:  I went to Lillith Fair when I was a teenager.  And I FUCKING LOVED IT.

I know everyone trashes Lillith Fair now and says it sucked.  And the music was bad.  And whatever.  But, you know, I am seriously suspicious of that.  It reminds me of what Sady has said about hating on Twilight - some people make fun of Twilight merely because it was written by a woman, and lots of girls like it.  And I admit, Twilight is very very very bad and makes me stabby, but also, there is a devaluing of music or literature or any art if women do it and women like it.  It must not be Serious.  It must not be Good.

And, do I listen to almost any of the music that I heard at Lillith Fair anymore?  No.  I don't.  Because I think I have cultivated a decent musical taste, and that music is just not in my aesthetic anymore.  But part of the reason I also don't listen to it is because I associate it with a very specific time and place growing up when I really needed to have same ladies speak for me, and be able to sing my heart out with them.

You know, my family is not the most functional, but I was given a very solid rock upbringing.  My dad educated me seriously on Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Cream.  I was raised on that stuff.  And you notice anything about that list?  Yeah.  And I looooove Led Zep, and I will always love Led Zep, but when you grow up listening to lyrics that command some lady to, "Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg,"  you know, after a while, you can really crave some fucking Jewel.  You know?

I loved Liz Phair in high school.  I loved Sleater-Kinney.  But I also loved Sarah McLachlan.  I mean, that song about having difficulty getting along with your mother?  I was having difficulty with my mother!  Or the Paula Cole song about being angry at all the ways your boyfriend devalues your opinion because you are a woman and he feels like he can?  I so got that!  Or when Sheryl Crow sings about feeling vulnerable and really just wants her partner to reassure her?  I understood!  Because sometimes, I didn't want Bikini Kill, because I couldn't conjure angry - I was sad and lost and maybe having boyfriend problems and I just wanted to sing mournfully about it or be quiet with it and breathe through it. 

And also, here was the thing about Lillith Fair - it was a celebration of being female.  Or, we made it a celebration of being female.  Sometimes, I just wanted a musical ladyspace.  I didn't want to have to defend my music choices to the dudes I was with.  In fact, they were ALREADY discounting my musical tastes for having breasts, or liking people who sang who also had breasts, so FUCK IT, we might as well celebrate the breasts.   

The first Lillith Fair I went to, I went with like 6 (7? maybe 8.  We filled up a mini van to the max) other girls to a ski mountain in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.  These girls I went with were all older, and they were mentors in a way, but they were also so generous and kind and just wonderfully beautiful people (this was my junior year in high school - they were seniors, or home from their first year in college).  We laughed like mad the entire way there.  We all wore hippie dresses and NONE of us talked about boys or how fat we were or anything negative about ourselves or picked on any other female, not even ones not in the car with us, at all.  I had brought my markers, and I was beginning to cover everyone with designs and drawings (a decade of art school paid off!).  We sang.  We handed out all the cookies and cake we had baked for the trip and couldn't finish to other drivers on the road.  It was silly and lovely and fabulous.

And once we got to Lillith Fair?  We danced our asses off.  We sang as loud as we could.  We celebrated being together and singing and moving our bodies and being in the rain, and then being in the sunshine.  I had strangers asking me to marker something on their skin, too, and it was so nice, to have all these lovely little interactions with strangers and decorate them.  And for me, who was self-conscious and hated my body and had so many self-esteem issues, at no point did I remember that I thought I was fat.  Or less than.  Or that I shouldn't laugh so loud, be so out-there and present.  I was just in my body and surrounded by really loving women and we just celebrated ourselves and our friendships and our female-ness.

I am sitting here smiling, remembering this.  That was Lillith Fair to me.  I don't care if the music was "bad" - it was exactly what we needed it to be.  And I understand how Lillith Fair only featured a certain kind of lady singer, and mostly the kind of lady singer that was considered still a "lady" instead of an "angry feminazi bitch," but, lookit: you know what I did after that Lillith Fair?  I went home and broke off a relationship I was in that was unhealthy because after spending a weekend (we stayed overnight at someone's sister's house in PA) around such support and singing and silliness and total glee, I was like, yeah, no, fuck this.  I just danced around with a bunch of beautiful women and sang my heart out.  There is no reason I have to tolerate shit for being a lady right now.  Being a lady is GRAND.  And if you are making it not grand, that is YOU, not me.

Now, there are times when I cannot stand Sarah McLachlan now.  Or the Indigo Girls.  Or whomever.  When they play it in Starbucks, I kinda just want to get my coffee as quickly as possible and leave.  But that shit was just really healthy for me for a while.  It felt healing.  And then sharing it with other women and being joyous about being together was also healing.  I mean, look, I love Le Tigre, but their music, as much as it sometimes speaks to me, doesn't really promote silliness with lots of other women in the rain and swirling about in long dresses and just being ok in the body you are in.  Le Tigre plays its own part in my life.  And Lillith Fair, in a very positive way, did too.

So, yeah.  I am actually considered, even though law students seem to have woefully bad music taste on the whole, to have pretty good music taste among my compatriots.  But I just refuse to dump on Lillith Fair.  Because part of me thinks that in the hating, there is just a little too much sexism, a little too much devaluing of women and their voices and their experiences and their tastes, for me to feel comfortable with participating.  I went to Lillith Fair.  I loved it.  It is one of my favorite memories from high school.   

AND I heard Joan Osborne, which I don't even CARE what you think about music, she has an AMAZING voice.  So there.

Update: the creature that lives in the ceiling

So, yeah, our griffin?*  Really fucking smart.

The trap has been checked (not by me, you couldn't pay me to deal with it, I do not fuck with mythical beasties) twice.  And both times the food was eaten, the trap was triggered . . . and nothing was in the trap.

Our nice handiworker man maintains that we have an entire family of squirrels up there, but I know it's a griffin, and the trap is too small, and she's wily.  You can almost hear her through the air vents, chuckling.


* If you are confused, read here.

Oh-my-god-I-am so-tired-of-studying cat blogging

Azrou, technically, is feral (you can see, too, his claws never totally retract?).  I picked him up off the street in Casablanca, and he eventually moved back stateside with me.  The vet, when I first brought him in, thought he wouldn't make it (he was 3 weeks old when he found me and very sick).  But, no, he is possibly the most stubborn creature currently walking this earth, and there was no way he was going to die when he has ever!  so!  much!  to say!  You can have hour-long conversations with him.  Also, he is too smart, and had a habit in my last apartment of, if I had people over and we were in the living room and we weren't paying enough attention to him, turning the light out on us.  Yes.  He did this multiple times.  He would cry, put his paw on the dimmer switch, and then eeeeeveeeeeeeer so slowly dim it until the light was out.  And then he'd cry again.  He's kinda a shit.

He is also incredibly loving and friendly and happy and if you ever meet him, he will heart you so hard, and if you sleep over he may sleep on your head.

He also, Readers?  LOOOOOVES the fridge.  He cries to get in the fridge.  He will crawl into the fridge at every opportunity.  The second you open the door, he's trying to figure out which shelf has space to accommodate him.  And sometimes it is hard to get him out without pulling half the food out with him, so my roommates and I just shut the door and leave him in there until he cries (it takes a while).  But he doesn't eat the food.  He's never gone after people-food.  He just . . . likes the fridge.

Like, what is wrong with this next picture?  Oh, right.

There's a cat, right there next to the eggs, on the tortillas.  WHERE ELSE WOULD HE BE?

Seriously, my cats remind me: I love my life.

I am only saying this once and there may be a test later, so you better take notes

Ok, we are having a slight problem in comments in the last post.

I never thought I would have to make comment guidelines for this space.  But, I also thought no one would read this blog.  But, you know, hi everyone!  Welcome!  Maybe!  We need to talk.

First, finer thing?  Lovey, thank you.  You are a grace.

But, ok, here are my commenting guidelines:  I am Gayle fucking Force, and I am empress of Unnatural Forces.  I make decisions about what comments stay or not.  This is a given.  But I JUST WROTE A POST about how awesome and substantive the discussions have been here.  So, if you are not on point,or contributing to the discussion, or you are telling me I am not a Super Serious Feminist and have failed the feminist movement somehow (HAVE YOU SEEN THE POST WITH PICTURES OF MY CAT PLAYING WITH A TAMPON????) or I didn't write the post you needed me to write and therefore are merely criticizing rather than discussing the topic from your point of view . . . you might get deleted.  Because I might feel like you are fuckering the discussion.

That being said, I have a very long fuse.  I won't delete you for sure unless you say violent or scary or triggering or dangerous things.  I really believe in freedom of discussion and the marketplace of ideas and all that (unless you are one of those people who incorrectly invokes censorship!!! and the First Amendment!!! in which case you get deleted for being an idiot).  So, I am going to tolerate a lot.  There are blogs which shut down speech and tone and comments WAY too often, I think, and that drives me up a wall, and while I understand they are trying to create a safe space, they are also keeping a great deal of people who have valid things to say but are afraid to offend quiet.  And feminism is a learning process, and I understand not everyone is there.  I'm not there.  I get called out on things all the time; I just don't want this to be a space where anyone feels like they are afraid to share because they are not up to whatever "feminist standard" the community (ostensibly) is.

So.  You have shit to say, or you disagree with me in substance, then AWESOME.  No, really, this is the forum to really discuss feminist issues - please, I want that.  You can challenge my ideas on feminist issues and theory if you want.  But, you know, if you want me to respond, you should probably use "I" statements and instead of telling me what I did WRONG, engage with your own analysis.  Because if the substance of your post is How I Did Feminism incorrectly, or wrote unclearly, or I didn't really "deconstruct" when you sure as hell ain't doing it, I got nothing to say to you.  Because, essentially, what am I supposed to say?  "No, I'm not"?  That is not an argument I have any fucking interest in having.

And, important news flash!  Did you know I am in the middle of law school finals?   And I have five classes?  I am just saying!  So if my posts aren't totally coherent, in like academic essay form, with a thorough enough analysis, FUCK. OFF.  Don't tell me what deconstruction is, also.  Because you suck.  AND you don't know what you're talking about.

But here's what happens a lot in comments, and I have seen it on other blogs - bloggers will write really personal things or share very painful memories, and people dismiss that, and bring the conversation around to all about them.  If you commented in the last post, did you notice I added a personal note in that story?  Did you see that I have had an awful lot of instances wherein I have been called a "whore" and that has been thrown in my face to dehumanize me?  I think that a lot of people take what bloggers say for granted.  But every time I share, every time I write about my rape, or my anxiety, or my fear, or my personal stories, I am making a decision to put something very personal, and make myself very vulnerable, in a public space.  And are you considering that before you are commenting?  Or are you coming at me, like, look, this is what I want, this is what I need to see, I was hoping for better feminism than this?

Because you are being an inconsiderate asshole to me, if you are doing that.

A couple things that are especially stupid that I would like to respond to from the last post:

I would have addressed more of your post, but you went from Tina Fey's segment to addressing several other extreme and generally throw-away opinions (women can be good wives or whores, women who work at Hooters are stupid, it is the woman's fault when a man cheats with her, etc).

These are not throw away opinions.  These effect women's lives.  Women like me!  Women like lots of people who are reading this post!  Because women have to deal with fucked up narratives about our sexuality all the fucking time! So shut the fuck up!

I don't see how you linked Tina Fey to larger patterns.

Did you miss the point about the rape culture? 

What chance does feminism have if feminists only argue against people who have no interest in hearing them[?]

First off all, what chance does feminism have to do what?  Sometimes, feminism is about helping me not go insane.  Feminism has done wonders to keep me mentally healthy!   YAY FEMINISM!!!!  (It has done a lot of other things, like, you know, give women the vote, for example.  There's that, too).

I personally get frustrated when feminist issues are simplified in the way I thought Gayle Force was doing here, because (for ME), it has led to isolation and constant anger. I am not intending to philosophize or write an academic critique, and I only leaned that way when challenged that I wasn't seeing the deconstruction going on in this post.

THIS BLOG IS NOT ABOUT YOU.  Perhaps you were misled?  And are you attempting to challenge me like I will learn?  Learn what?  What the fuck am I learning from you?  Sometimes, feminist issues are simple!  And personal!  There's an awesome lady named Betty Friedan, by the way?  Also, the "personal is political" is kinda a thing!  And if you want a Super Serious Feminist, go read Judith Butler.  WE POST CAT AND TAMPON PICTURES HERE. 

Look, you can challenge me about stuff (not rape stuff).  You can bring your personal experience to the table.  Please do.  But I can tell you: if you want to educate me on feminist theory, you better bring the university, and you better know what the fuck you are talking about with lots of support and properly cited, because I am REALLY solid on this. 

The thing is, I thought I might get comments about how privileged that post was - because, it occurred to me in the shower this morning that even though I got called a whore after resisting the social narratives that would police my sexuality, women of color are usually labeled hyper-sexual and whores simply by virtue of the color of their skin.  It is a privilege to even have the option of being a "good girl" and to have the chance  to play by the rules by not admitting I loved and enjoyed sex and slept with folks as it pleased me.  That chance is not extended to women of color.

See - THAT?  That would have been an awesome comment.  And I am really not very good yet at picking up on trans issues - I would have loved a comment about my not acknowledging my cis privilege.

Instead I got a Concern Troll.  Which, does, indeed, make me feel like Big Girl Feminist Blogger officially now, so thanks Concern Troll!  I didn't even delete your comment.  

So.  Those are a lot of words to come back to the basic point which is: if your presence is not doing anything worthwhile in this space, or you tick me off, or you are being an inconsiderate asshole, or you make me not want to share very personal things about my rape and be vulnerable here, you may get deleted.  I don't monitor comments, and I hope I never have to.  I don't want to have to screen comments before I allow them to get posted.  And mostly because, well, have I mentioned that I am in the middle of law school?  I HAVE FOUR MORE FINALS, YOU GUYS.  GAH.

Ok, I am going to go home and study evidence now.  YOU ALL WISH YOU WERE ME, I KNOW.

In which we discuss my whoreishness! Or my whoredom. Or how I am whorelike. WHATEVER.

So, yeah.

Sady wrote a piece over at Feministe about Tina Fey's feminism, or, you know, lack thereof, in her appearance on Saturday night live.  And I totally encourage you to go read the post, because it is awesome, but something about this segment really struck me:



Because Tina Fey just called me a whore.

And let's get this out of the way first: if you are a feminist worth your weight in bras to burn, you do not use the word "whore."  No, you do not, and you can try to use it ironically, but I will reserve the right to think you are are an asshole because: using women's sexuality as a way to insult them is just really misogynistic.  I don't care if you also call men "whores" - you know what it means, and you cannot divorce it from the history of what it has meant, and as long as women are called whores as if their sexuality is for public comment and they can be judged on their decisions to basically NOT BE PURE VIRGINAL VIRGINS, you suck, and you are not in my feminist club.  I hear there's a fauxgressive club across the street that will let you in.

So, that being said, essentially, again, Tina Fey called me whore.

As far as I can tell, according to Tina Fey, if you are not a married woman, and dare to, I don't know, leave your home with your breasts and attract a man who may be married, you are now a whore.  Because the only people she actually sticks up for in this segment are wives.

Ok, let's back up: the idea that there are two kinds of women here - the successful ones and the ostensibly stupid ones with boob jobs, is already problematic.  Tina Fey, god, there are smart women with boob jobs and accomplished women with tattoos and clever women who work at Hooters.  Stop creating a binary between the "good" women and the "whores," because there is none, and you have just given an awful lot of people, men and women, a foundation to feel justified in treating a whole category of women, like women who work at Hooters maybe who probably don't make much money but have a job (which is kinda like an endangered species recently, I hear) and have to pay the bills just like the rest of us, inhumanely.

Women come in two species, in Tina Fey's world: there are the "good" wives, and the Hooters waitresses.  And the Hooters waitresses/whores deserve to be abused.  Tina Fey, way to embody the virgin/whore dichotomy!  The Catholic Church called and wants its centuries old concept back!

But of course, the whores are to blame for the cheating husbands!  Why?  Gosh, because women are supposed to defend their sexuality from men who just can't help themselves!  They must maintain their "goodness"!  And everyone else's!  This is their responsibility!  Like, if you are guilty of having a vagina and wearing clothing that shows that you have skin?  YOU HUSSY!  It is your fault that men cannot apparently control their sexual appetites! 

See, and now the rape culture AND like every abstinence-only education program in the U.S. want THEIR foundational premises back, too!  Tina Fey, you are stealing shamelessly from the patriarchy.  You are going to owe mad royalties.

And, but here's where it's personal: I am that whore.

I am not married.  Sometimes, when I am in the mood, I like attracting men.  Sometimes, I like sleeping with men.  But none of this takes place without the consent of the men.  And only one of us, if said man is married, can make the decision to cheat on Tina Fey.  And I can't (at least in a majority of states).  So . . . why am I getting the full brunt of the blame?

Because when Tina Fey says all is not lost for wives, she is saying that wives?  Can't be whores (apparently also, in Tina Fey's universe?  Wives never cheat).  But the way she talks about Bombshell McGee (is this a woman's real name?  Or like a joke?  I do not read tabloids, Readers, I have no idea) is that BMcG's main problem (other than the anti-semitism/racism thing, which is not the point of this post, although Tina Fey makes being a whore out as worse than racism, which, WTF?) is having breasts.  And flaunting them.  And being sexual.  And what BMcG really did was be a non-married woman (or at least a willing partner) in a space where Jesse James then decided he wanted to sleep with her.  Her crime, essentially, was being perceived as sexy by a married man.  And she got called a "whore" for that, while he gets off totally free of blame.

So, ladies, I think this means that our options are, if we do not want to be labeled whores, to get married tout suite, or never leave our homes with anything other than burlap sacks on.  Because if all cheating is NOT going to be blamed on men but on us, well, we don't want to be whores, now do we?  And what exactly can our defense be?  "It's not my fault the married man tried to cheat on his wife with me, Your Honor - I was wearing my burlap sack!  I tried to stop him!"

Yeah, no.  Burlap is itchy.

Honestly, also, I am especially sensitive to the word, "whore."  I have been called one MANY A TIME.  And it never had anything to do with who or what I was actually doing with anyone else.  It was about my perceived transgression into sexual agency - I owned my sexuality.  I talked about it.  I admitted that I liked sex, I masturbated, I was into non-vanilla things.  And so people would assume, without ANY actual basis in fact, that I was sleeping with someone, that I was a whore.  A slut.  I must have been sleeping around!  One summer, when I was a camp counselor, the rumors about my alleged sexual voraciousness got so ridiculous that a friend and I started making up rumors to spread that were just completely unhinged, to see if people believed them.  They always did (one of the rumors we spread was that I slept with FIVE MEN AT ONCE.  Like, all at the same time, they were fucking me.  Which is not even physically possible, I am pretty sure, but no one questioned the veracity in passing that rumor on in a manner that did indeed resemble wildfire).  Folks loved talking shit about me, even though it was silly and false, because as one of those "bad" women, I deserved that kind of abuse.  There's nothing a group of people would rather do than be a judge-y and women-bashing around a couple of beers together, apparently! 

Or get on Saturday Night Live, throw a picture of a woman's body up like she is public property, insult her, blame women for the actions and choices of fully functional and capable men, and call me a whore. 

Tina Fey, I am not a whore.  But you are a really, really shitty feminist.

Guess who finished her fucking paper???

WOOT!

Seriously, Readers, writing a paper for an asshole professor whom you know will grade you down for being correct is suuuuuuuch a slog.  Oh my god.  Anyway, it is 22 pages and lots o' sources worth of finished, all about how Predator drone attacks are illegal under international law.

Here's the thing:

NO, WAIT.  Ok, this is like legally required here.  DO NOT rely on anything I say about law as gospel.  Ok?  I am just a law student.  I can be denied admission to the bar if someone relies on what I say because I passed myself off as having, like, official legal knowledge.  NO PLAYING WITH PREDATOR DRONES, KIDS.  You are perfectly allowed, however, to use anything I say and argue with whatever warmongering asshole you meet at a party and if you have a drink in your hand, feel free to throw it in hir face if ze says something along the lines of "Whatever, they're just Muslims" or even, "International law doesn't matter to the United States because we're special."  Then stomp on hir foot and run away.  I give you permission to do that.  Have at it.

Ok, so, folks have said they like the legal stuff, so I am going to explain how international law works, and why drones are illegal, in like 3 easy steps:

1. Customary international law (CIL) is the law that binds all nations.  CIL is determined by looking at state practice (and when I say state, I mean nation here) across the globe and something called opinio juris, which is fancy schmancy legal talk for: whatever everyone says.  What judges, legal scholars, treaties, UN conventions, etc. are saying.  Because states have to be doing whatever they are doing because they think they are required by law, not just because it is out of the goodness of their hearts.  Like, normally, torture?  Against CIL.  As is extrajudicial killing, apartheid, piracy, slavery.  The big bad stuff.  And states don't have to agree or sign a treaty to be bound by this stuff: if pretty much everyone the world over says it and agrees with it, it's international law, and it don't matter a damn bit if your state reserves the right to, I don't know, use biological weapons.  World says, "Tough shit."

But CIL changes over time, it adapts, the norms governing states alter.  Obviously, apartheid wasn't illegal 100 years ago, and no one contemplated biological weapons then either.  So, CIL norms shift.  Basically, you look to see what happens when a nation does something that's novel under the law.  If the other nations rush to copy it, or don't object, well hey: you've got a new international law norm.  If other states protest, CIL has not shifted, and what you're doing?  Still illegal.

2. Ok, so: Israel started using drone attacks in summer 2001.  The U.S. said: hey, those are extrajudicial killings.  Those are illegal.  Bad, Israel, no!  (Hey, if you want background on drones, try Jane Mayer's article in the New Yorker; it's like everything Jane Mayer writes, meaning extremely good).  But then 9/11 happened and the U.S. was like, YAY DRONES!

So I kept telling my douchecanoe professor that drone attacks were illegal under CIL.  And he kept telling me they weren't and I should be reading some cat named Ken Anderson who would put me straight.  So I read Ken Anderson.  And Ken Anderson called drone attacks "per se illegal."  He said:

To put it simply, the international law community does not accept targeted killings even against al Qaeda, even in a struggle directly devolving from September 11 . . . The result is that a strategic centerpiece of U.S. counterterrorism policy rests upon legal grounds regarded as deeply illegal – extrajudicial killing is one of the most serious violations of human rights, after all, as well it should be – by large and influential parts of the international community.

3. My paper is done, my point proven, Elvis has left the building.  And THEN I had to write 19 other pages of bullshit to finish this fucking thing. 

AND I had to write all those pages for a man who suffers from severe reading comprehension problems apparently, no less.

But lookit that, Readers!  You mighta just learned something today!

Anyway, if anyone is like reeeeaaaaally interested, I guess you can email me and I can email you my paper.  Basically the U.S. is now claiming we can use drones now under the legal justification of self-defense.  Except of course the way we characterize self-defense as this big fuckoff power that allows us to do whatever and kill whomever we want?  STILL NOT ACCEPTABLE under CIL.  We are just swinging and missing over here, folks.

That's it.  I still have a post to write about the legal status of the Gitmo detainees, and I want to write a post about being a "whore," but my brain has gone soft and mushy and I am going to do something to entertain it before it has just had it with me and tries to escape out my ear and make a break for the door.

But remember, like I said: I know I have been doing international law all year and written many a paper on it and have had internships and jobs working on it but I am still not a lawyer.  No relying.  I am right, though, so whatever with my fucking professor.