Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

I saw this brilliant piece of Whedon work when it first came out (last week) and supposedly it was then going to exclusively be on Itunes. But I guess not!

Ever wanted to know what a musical done by Joss Whedon starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion would look like? Check it out. Then come back and take a look at the great commentary that's gone on around it. I've got to admit, I didn't really wear my critical hat when I first saw it. I was just transfixed by this random and crazy thing that had popped up in my inbox.

But yes, yes, it is the story of the Nice Guy, the Asshole and the Sweet Girl caught in between. I love Nathan Fillion and he did a brilliant job here, cuz I hated his guts. I honestly can't top the Feministe commentary in this regard, just go see for yourself!

And...cuz...it's fun?



Oh yah.

This semester's courses

So I thought y'all might be interested to see what I'll be taking this coming semester, my first full time being back in school for two and a half years (it wasn't supposed to be this way). I am really excited, and credit-wise am well into my Junior year. I'm taking the intro course because it's required for the major, and it wasn't offered at my JC where I took my first Womens Studies course, a history class.

Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
Pretty self explanatory.

Gender, Race and Nation
Through an interdisciplinary perspective, examines the politics of representing women and gender through differences of race, class, sexuality, nation and state. Focuses on feminist and related social movements including US women of color.

Women and Media
Analytic modes, including feminist, psychoanalytic, and economic criticism, to assess both how women are represented in mass media and the status of women employed in mass media.

Gender and the Culture of War
Using historical, theoretical, fictional and cultural texts, students discuss political, cultural and ideological configurations of war in conjunction with case studies of men/women’s involvement in different violent conflicts.

Lesbian, Queer and Transgender Identities
Examination of lesbian, queer, and transgender identities in cultural and historical contexts. Using a transnational feminist approach, presents a challenge to Western assumptions about sexual identities and analysis of sexuality through nation, gender, race and class.

Wow, really?

5 year old Adriel Arocha is being blocked from attending school in a Houston-area school district.
The reason?
As an Apache, he has long hair that he has been growing in his Native cultural tradition that “violates” this school’s dress code rules.

The kicker though is that the school board is willing to make exceptions on religious or other “proven” moral grounds, but doesn’t think that being Native American cuts it.

Yah, really.

h/t to Jessica at Feministing for the lead

Benefit for Angie Zapata

In my daily perusing I came across something I want to share.

We hope that you are able to attend the Benefit for Angie Zapata on July 27th hosted by her friends and family.

On Thursday, July 17, Angie Zapata, an 18-year old Latina transgender woman was found murdered in her home in Greeley, CO. It appears that there may be anti-transgender motive in this brutal crime.

This event will be held on Sunday, July 27th at 8 pm at the Sipres Lounge, 1490 County Road 27, Brighton, CO 80603


If you are unable to attend, consider making a contribution to Angie Zapata's memorial fund. Contributions may be made at Academy Bank in Wal-Mart, 60 W. Bromley Lane, Brighton or checks made payable to Monica Murquia may be mailed to CAVP at P.O. Box 181085, Denver, CO 80218.

If you are unfamiliar with the Zapata case a brief summary can be found here.

Beauty Privilege -or- How the "feminists aren't all hairy and ugly!" reassurance actually hurts us all

Apparently I have one bone left to pick with Valenti over one of her choices in Full Frontal Feminism. That is, her numerous reassurances that "not all feminists are fat, ugly, hairy, lesbians." Yah ok Jessica, but how about those of us who ARE? Or those of us who maybe aren't all of those things, but maybe, say, one of them? I've been picking at this sore for a while and Feminist Gal's post on beauty privilege over at Oh, You're a FEMINIST?! finally tipped me over the edge to post about it.

Now first of all, you should totally read that post, because it's good. But what it brought up for me was consciousness of my own beauty privilege, which I have more or less recognized myself to have before those words were put on it. Being in possession of beauty privilege has certainly worked in my favor in life, and I've taken full advantage of it. It makes my explorations of topics such as the hair on my body more easily accessible than it must be for others. I can afford to buck the system, because I can, if I choose to, assimilate very easily into it. And I have had an uneasy relationship with that fact, at turns choosing to conform and not to conform.

As Valenti said in her book, few things sting women worse than being branded "ugly" and I have, in fact, had my fair share of that. It is harsh, it is lasting, and feminism did help me work against the affects of it. So I understood why she brought it up, and I think I understood her goal in doing so. However, the repeated assertion that "we're not all like that!" only serves, imo, to distance ourselves from these notions of ugly, instead of stomping them into the ground. It was incredibly alienating, as someone who chooses to be hairy most of the time, to read a fellow feminist defining something of herself through what she was not, and what I am.

For most of us, reclaiming our bodies as our own, is going to involve bucking the system in some way. Coming to have the authentic relationships with our bodies that Valenti stressed the import of, is going to involve accepting pieces of ourselves that others have branded ugly. For me, that's involved my body hair. For Valenti herself this involved her nose and those who branded it when she was she was young, as well as the whole stupid "boob-gate" thing. This stuff is vital to feminism, there is a reason why second wavers paid so much attention to it. There is a reason why hippies went hairy, and why bush was in, in the '70's. It was good work, promptly and thoroughly thwarted by "the ugly stick." And until we can get that shit training out of our souls, our choices are not based on our own desires. And if they're not based on OUR desires, whose are they based in...whose standards are we reinforcing?

This reclamation always has, and always will, be rooted in our ability to stand together, not in defining ourselves against each other.

Hear Us Roar

Via Essin' Em I got word of this new collection of survivor's stories being gathered.

Many women have had similar defining moments in life—a sudden or gentle awakening where something unmistakable happens: a woman’s experience of herself shifts from powerless to powerful, from whispering her worth…to roaring.

Hear Us Roar! is a collection of auto-biographical stories, like Andrea’s, that celebrate the vitality, strength, and power of women across the globe. Our goal is to collect stories from 100 women by July 31, 2008, publish them in a book by the end of the year, and raise $100,000 from book sales to be donated to charity by June 2009.

Are you ready to roar? Do you know someone else who is? For more information, and to submit your story online, please visit the Tell Your Story page.

Music MeMe

I was tagged!

So in no particular order, my current top five songs...

Maybe it's because the Ruby Room is around the corner from my apartment, or maybe it's just cuz I'm digging this new album and everyone's already heard Mother Mary, but...


Alanis Morissette - All I Really Want


Moulin Rouge - El Tango de Roxanne


m.i.a. - Paper Planes


And as has already been featured here at The Jaded Hippy, Flobots - Same Thing


I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you feel inspired, share away!! (and link back so I see it!) And since we're sharing, I see absolutely no reason not to end with my namesake...All's well that ends well...

Fuck you, PETA

h/t to Ann at Feministing who brings us the story of PETA still defending these ads because, basically, they can't think of anything better to get people's attention.

So fuck you PETA, fuck you and your uncreative, sexist, bullshit ads. I liked you better when you were throwing blood at fur wearing celebrities.

"Deconstructing Transgenderism" psssst your cis-privilege is showing

So I linked y'all earlier this week to the latest edition of the Radical Feminist Carnival. And it was a really good haul. For the most part. The exception was that mAndrea managed to get another of her transphobic posts in a feminist carnival. Even more distressing to me was that she did so unacknowledged in this case. When her first post came out in the Carnival of Feminists, there was a significant response and uproar. Resulting in a long discussion and many people letting Natalie know that transphobia is not an acceptable part of their feminism or any equality rights movement. Yet in this new Radical Feminist edition, not a peep. And I don't know if that is because it went unnoticed, or because any commenters pointing it out did not have their comments approved. I do know that I left a comment, complimenting allecto on the impressive amount of work she had done, but voicing my disappointment at the inclusion of mAndrea's work. My comment was not approved.

So here is my voice. There were many great posts in that Carnival, but mAndrea's was not one of them and I want to be perfectly clear that I in no way support her views. And I'm appalled that the host allecto would call it "a fun...topic". It's also interesting to note, that basically her entire premise (quoted for the Carnival post) is based on a faulty understanding of feminist gender theory, and was just today debunked by Feminism 101.

mAndrea:

This individual claims to be a different gender then hiz birth body indicates. Well we have a problem with that word gender. Because feminists keep saying that there is no gender. So if transgenderism is a valid medical condition, and transfolk really do need to change body parts, then the reason they need to change those body parts is because gender is real. Which automatically makes the favorite feminist theory invalid — yanno, the one where they screech that gender is a social construct. Yanno, the one theory which has formed the foundation for all other subsequent feminist theory for the last three centuries. Yanno, the one theory which if rendered invalid automatically reboots every other feminist theory in existence.

Feminism 101:

FAQ: if “gender is a social construct”, aren’t feminists saying that gender doesn’t really exist at all?
Posted on July 21, 2008 by tigtog

A: NO. Social constructs are human conceptions, invented but not therefore imaginary (unless one thinks that social consequences are imaginary).
[...]
Social constructs exist because people are acculturated to a shared tradition/belief/convention that such constructs are meaningful systems. It is the multiple intersections of social constructs that institutionalise people’s perceived social roles. The nature of social constructs that is most important for feminism (and other progressive ‘isms) is that social constructs are malleable rather than inherently fixed, and by deconstruction and persuasion these constructs can be modified (although there may be a great deal of social inertia to overcome along the way).

Transpeople do not throw all of feminism's theories out the window. Transpeople do force cispeople to do something they may not have ever done before, which is question their own gender identity and what it means to them to be the gender/sex that they are. But I have found that train of thought, while challenging, to be incredibly rewarding to explore. We cannot simply stick our heads in the sand and pretend that a topic such as gender is not going to be as complex as people are. Finding our own boxes for people whilst simultaneously decrying the boxes put on us by kyriarchy is hypocritical, to say the least.