Deborah Lipp

Karen of Girls Read Comics (And They’re Pissed) shares her experience of attending a feminist con, and of a brief moment in an elevator when she left the safe space of the con. (Backstory; she is attending a costume party dressed as the Black Canary, which is to say, in a black bodysuit, fishnets, and a blonde wig.)

Until, going to the bathrooms on the second floor alone, I stepped into the elevator. It was filled with men who were all taller than me, and not wearing WisCon badges. They looked surprised and pleased as I got in. And I felt uneasy and self-conscious before I had time to think of why.

“Well, hey, now,” one guy murmured. “Hey there.”

“Yeah,” another chuckled.

“Second floor, please,” I said.

“Hey!” someone else said. “What’s going on on that floor?”

“Costume party.”

“Well, can we go?”

They laughed appreciatively. I said “No.” And I got out.

And that was it. They didn’t say anything foul, they certainly didn’t touch me, and it wasn’t even close to harassment by the standards of our society. So why was I shaky and scared and angry afterwards?

Two things:

1) At the costume ball, my clothing – fishnets, black leotard, blonde wig – was coded “superhero”. In the elevator, it was coded “stripper”.

2) Everyone is conditioned to assess women primarily by how sexually attractive and/or available they appear to be. Making that assessment clear is normal. Vocalizing that assessment is normal. Blaming women for others harassing or abusing them based on how attractive they are or what they were wearing at the time is normal.

If you’re gearing up to say something like “But nothing really bad happened!” or “Well, what did you expect?” or “Come on, weren’t you looking for attention?”, or “They were just being nice!”: don’t.

I know that those men almost certainly meant me no harm; they probably thought expressing a wish to follow me to a party was a compliment. It is entirely possible that none of them have ever imagined being in an enclosed space with a group of big strangers eyeing you up and asking if they can come with you could be a frightening experience. Our culture is set up so that they’ve never had to.

This and like incidents have happened to me, like many women, time and time again: strange men telling me to “smile!”; strange men shouting “Show us your tits!” as they drive past; strange men groping my breasts and ass in crowded train carriages.

(Women also buy into the patriarchal imperative to judge women primarily by their physical appearance, and that is also extremely unpleasant. However, as it is far less likely that women will follow such assessment with rape or other violent crime, it is generally much less threatening when a woman says, “You look like a whore.”)

If a woman doesn’t want to be viewed – for some weird reason – as a sex object, her choices are limited. She can be visibly angry or ignore harassment, in which case she is a FRIGID BITCH who can’t take a COMPLIMENT from NICE GUYS. Or she can be pleasant in an attempt to show them she’s actually a human being, in which case she may be ASKING FOR further “compliments” with her MIXED SIGNALS.

Or she can stay at home.

This is a perfect condensation of female experience and of the threat of sexual violence that permeates women’s lives. It’s so ordinary. The only thing extraordinary is that Karen writes about it, and writes well, and understands what it means. What it means, and the experience, is invisible. Like water to fish. Unless we write and talk about it. And of course, if we write and talk about it, we take the same risks; of being called bitches, being subjected to Denial of Service attacks, being told we’re overreacting, being marginalized, dismissed, or attacked more. Those are the conditions of the patriarchy in which we live.

And yet me must speak, and keep speaking, and speak so often that it is the deniers who sound marginal and meaningless.

So I watched Olberman tonight. I don’t always watch, and I usually love him, but I have noted a certain misogynous tinge to the show, and geez Pete did I notice it tonight.

Olberman closed the show with a snide story on Paris Hilton’s release from prison and the papparazi frenzy that surrounded it. Which, let’s face it, deserved a snide story. His guest on the topic was Michael Musto. Who quipped “As Martin Luther King said, ‘Free at last, Hallelujah, I’m free at last!'” (Yes, he got the quote wrong, but it was mildly amusing.) He then said,

“He also said, ‘Bimbos belong behind bars.'”

Thud.

Why? Because the media frenzy surrounding a meaningless socialite isn’t funny enough unless it’s misogynist? Because we can’t really poke fun at a woman unless we call her a slut? Because bimbos really do belong behind bars and white men on TV get to be the arbiters of bimbohood?

It’s just not funny if we’re not putting women in their place and insulting their sexuality. It’s just not.

Later, Musto said that such-and-such was as unlikely as “Heidi Fleiss opening a soup kitchen. Or opening her legs for free sex.”

Because sluts are funny.

The thing is, with the Paris news, these guys are delighted because they don’t have to hide it. They have the perfect excuse to trot out all their hatred for the bitchez and the pussy and how dare bitchez have pussy? It’s safe to hate Paris.

But we should recognize that it’s not Paris they hate. It’s women. She’s just a convenient example.

I had a conversation with my son about abortion.

Actually, I’ve had more than one. We talk about politics, about blogging, about feminism, about all these things. And at some point I knew I had to make the personal political, and the political personal. What he didn’t have, what our intellectual conversations weren’t providing, was a face on the issue, a human, real face.

So I told him. I had an abortion.

And here’s what I said: “I was twenty years old. I had left my first husband and was living in my mother’s basement.”

And he jumped in and said “…you had no choice.”

In that moment, I saw what the face of abortion was to him: It was compassionate to the point of pathetic. And that’s what we do, isn’t it? If we don’t slut-shame, we patronize. Poor sad girls with no choice, nowhere to go, no money. Tut tut we should support their right to make this sad tut tut choice.

And sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it’s the very end of an unraveling rope. Sometimes a life is at stake. Sometimes there’s just no other way.

But what I said was, “No. I did have a choice. I could have had that baby and scraped by somehow. But it wasn’t the life I wanted. I didn’t want to be a girl in a basement with a baby and a shitty job. So I made a choice.”

And see, that face isn’t much there in the abortion conversation. The face of a smart young woman who sees her life shriveling up and says NO WAY. Not going to happen. Not to me. Because I have a choice.

I think my son learned something from that conversation. I know I did.

Probably you’ve already heard about the “controversial” new birth control pill that prevents menstruation.

I’ve been wondering what, exactly, has so unhinged the far right about this pill. Part of it, to be sure, is that they oppose any form of birth control, because they’re all about women being the last ones to control their own bodies. If they ever succeeded in banning birth control pills and EC, they’d go after diaphragms and vaginal foam. Which just proves how far out these wingers are (emphasis added):

As Mary Alice Carr from NARAL pointed out, 98 percent of American women will use contraception at some point in their lives.

But is that enough to explain it? Is anti-birth control fervor enough to explain the sudden wingnut embrace of the glory of vaginal bleeding? I think not.

Here’s what I think. Women’s periods are one of the few “safe” excuses men have available to explain why bitches is so crazy. They’re afraid that they will lose the ability to say “she’s on the rag” while twirling a finger next to their heads. How, in all seriousness, can you be really patronizing if you can’t say “It’s that time of the month, isn’t it honey?”

And while I know I’m coming off tongue-in-cheek here (I can’t help it, I’m just naturally funny), my point is real. Menstruation is scary and mysterious to the patriarchy, but a handy tool of separation. The “red tent” may at one time have been woman-positive, but it’s mostly been used to limit and oppress women. Nowadays, we in the West are allowed to go to work even when we bleed, but we still manage to get shamed in a thousand subtle and not-so-subtle ways for having this part of our physiological makeup. And they just don’t want to lose a shaming technique.

Today at Shakesville, Brynn posted about the idea of womb envy.

do you think the principle that femaleness is the default and maleness a Johnny-come-lately to the biological scene, operating on a very deeply subconscious level, fuels the fear and hatred of women that leads to brutal stonings and rape, not to mention, a near-universal inequality and subjugation of women throughout the world?

Brynn was riffing on a scientific article about the discovery of partheogenesis in sharks.

My thoughts: I don’t think it has anything to do with partheogenesis, really. I don’t think human beings have any innate subconscious fear of virgin birth. Mythologically, it’s a Johnny-come-lately, and always very benign and very blessed. Buddha, Krishna, Mithras, all virgin births, all saintly males. The stories are low-stress and the women in them are all pretty much “in their place” (under the bo tree and pregnant).

But I do think womb envy is at the deepest root of misogyny. Plus, you know, a lot of complex Oedipal stuff. The mythology about menstruation, female sexuality, and female power is considerably more fraught with anxiety and tension.

Basically women have power—biological power in the form of childbirth, lactation, and the magical blood thing—and men are dependent on them from boyhood, men are envious and terrified, men fear and hate their own dependency, therefore the only solution is to usurp power and treat women as if they have none.

It’s the run-on sentence of all human culture.

Yesterday morning I heard a commercial on the radio for a “news” show on “Women in the Military.” I actually meant to blog it yesterday, but sometimes ideas leak out of my brain and get all over the floormats in the car.

The gist of it was: Is it really okay for women to be in combat? Cuz, y’know, weak and girly and they get their stinky perfumes all over their guns. Or something. The thing is they used all these clips of soldiers saying how women are great, and professional, and in every way as good as men, and then the Ominous Voiceover comes on and asks Ominous Questions: Are women really tough enough? Should they be there at all? Do they menstruate all over their military equipment? Do they have cooties?

(I made some of that up.)

All I could think was, “Why aren’t we done with this yet?” I mean, This is a done deal, it should be old news. Fuck, women in the military is old news, and questions about their fitness doesn’t exactly “support the troops,” does it? I mean, how far back do we want to question? I half expect the Ominous Voiceover to come on and say “Women and the Vote: Is Suffrage Really a Good Idea?”

I am reminded of one of Isaac‘s favorite sayings; that dinosaurs make a lot of noise and tear down a lot of trees as they die. Because they know they’re dying out.

So then last night I see this post on Pandagon, talking about how scientific studies that bash women’s freedoms get media attention (like the so-called “dangers” of daycare) but studies demonstrating the opposite are never reported on. (She’s riffing on a piece Echidne wrote.)

It’s all of a piece. The “culture wars” are dying dinosaurs thrashing about trying to stop the changes that will make them extinct. Unfortunately, dinosaurs still have a lot of power to hurt us; to reduce reproductive freedom, to diminish opportunities, to lay some mighty fucking guilt trips. But it does help, from time to time, to remember that they’re dinosaurs.

Happy Mother’s Day. Woot. I have some thoughts on the topic.

I think I spend about twenty percent of the time thinking or fearing that I’m a bad or inadequate mother. Our culture gives us a picture of motherhood that is both sub-human and super-human. “Moms” are a thing, whether a glowing, lovely thing, or a harried, wearing mom-pants thing. What has continually thrown me about motherhood is that it’s not a thing; it’s me being a mom, other women, both ordinary and extraordinary, being themselves; we happen to be mothers, and motherhod happens to be consuming, but it isn’t an identity. It has no personality traits. It’s simply a part of the lives we have. And that utterly violates our expectations.

It started in pregnancy. Here are two things about pregnancy no one will tell you: It makes you gassy, and stretch marks itch. So here I was, thinking I was the frickin Madonna, all round and soft-focus, and instead I was belching and scratching my belly.

And then I had a baby. I’m a very distractable person, I need lots of things to focus on or I get bored. Yet somehow I thought I’d enjoy focusing on a baby. Which can’t talk or do a little dance or really do anything interesting except glow and pee. I used to prop books on his little head when I breastfed. Because breastfeeding? Wonderful but not really occupying.

What I ended up bringing to motherhood was me. All my good and bad qualities; not “mother” good and bad qualities. So I’m impatient, easily bored, I say inappropriate things, I’m short-tempered, and a shoddy manager. (Mothers need management skills. There’s like, paperwork.) I’m also smart and funny and blunt and I get people. I get Arthur. I have the knack for seeing inside someone and knowing a lot of what’s in there, and Arthur’s a person who needed that, even more than most kids. So that worked out for us. That’s maybe the best part of us as a family.

Sure, motherhood changes you. Like, utterly. Reaches in and rips you open with a love bigger and more demanding than anything you’ve ever known. The thing to me that motherhood is, at its heart, is that love. The other stuff, that yes I’m more short-tempered than I was before, and have more gray hair, and am a much better cook, well no matter who and what you are, you adapt and change in response to your own lifestyle and the people in it. In my case, one of those people happens to be my son. Motherhood didn’t give me cooking skills, a life in which they were useful and needed did.

What motherhood is for me is simply this: How much I love him. Not that he loves me. Not what I do right or what I do wrong. Not any social accoutrements of parenthood. Just love. And the longing to be and do more to fulfill that love.

Today I heard another Jeopardy College Championship commercial. I wonder, did they plan a female version all along, or did someone notice how offensive it was?

This one was…
Typical College Student: “Guys, manicure, guys, cell phones, guys, new handbag.”
Jeopardy College Champtionship Contestant: “Guys, manicure, guys, cell phones, guys, Quadratic Equation.”