What Do Steven D. Levitt and Summer's Eve Have In Common?

Answer: they are both douches.

Today, as you may be aware, is the Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. In a culture where it's cool to play a game that has a "fuck prostitute then beat her to get your money back" option (yeah, I know, you can kill anyone in GTA, and maybe you can even rob anyone in GTA - the prostitutes, however, are the only ones that you basically get to rape by retroactively removing the grounds for consent) that is mighty necessary.

I've known a lot of women who have worked in the sex industry - phone sex operators, dancers, pin-up girls, escorts - and they tend to have several things in common, among which are (a) amazing senses of humor, (b) a very low tolerance for any variety of bullshit, and (c) stories about being treated like subhuman trash by bosses, clients, and even friends or lovers who had "moral" objections to their jobs. The abuse they take can be emotional, financial (just ask a dancer about how club owners work - they can charge you for working in their establishment, then take a percentage of the money that you make there, meaning basically that you pay a fee for making them a profit) or, yes, all too often, physical; what matters is that sex workers can't really fight back. When you enter the industry, it seems, you're stripped of both your voice and your right to defend yourself. The other person always has a superior weapon: I may be an asshole, a con man, an abuser, or a rapist, they can say, but you're a whore. The legal system, along with most of the American public, will agree.

Sex workers are considered expendable - and, because of that fact, they're all too often targets of violence. Because of that fact, it's also not considered necessary to treat their deaths with any pretense of respect or compassion.

Look at this. Now look at this. Now, tell me that I'm wrong.

Because sex workers aren't considered fully human, it's completely acceptable to form strong opinions of them or use them as fodder for your career-making journalistic think-pieces without soliciting their input, representing their (diverse, obviously) perspectives, or even speaking to one of them. Even DFW's piece on the AVN Awards had an unfortunate "look at the freaks/what if I get a boner?" tone, but the worst example of it, in recent memory, is Female Chauvinist Pigs, a Defense-of-the-One-True-Feminism type deal by journalist Ariel Levy. Female Chauvinist Pigs contends that (a) more women these days are modeling their sexuality on that which is presented by sex workers, specifically that of porn stars and strippers - which is true, (b) it has become culturally acceptable to visit strip clubs or watch porn, even if you are a lady - which is true, and (c) all sex workers hate their jobs and are exploited and sad and never experience "authentic" arousal, which could be true (although it's, you know, not, because you can never begin a sentence with "all sex workers" and have any hope of its being accurate) although Levy would have no way of knowing that, because in her little opus on the fakeness and sadness of sex workers she does not interview a single goddamn one of them. She seems never to have considered that they might have a perspective on the matter, or that they could say anything she could not say for them.

Which, all things considered, is still a step up from writing an article in which sex workers - people, who happen to do sex work- are referred to, repeatedly, as "goods." As objects. As inhuman, removed from any discussion of human opinions, or experiences, or rights.

Just in time for the Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

Wow, what a fucking douche.

[Via and via.]

A Revolution Without Dancing

... Ugh. That'll learn me not to Make Statements while I'm drunk. Seriously: the "calling in gay and/or Bjork" thing? I had meant to post something in support of it, and I also thought it was funny that when I told someone I missed work he said, "oh, you called in gay!" And then I hadn't posted yet, and it was 11:45 p.m., and I was watching this PJ Harvey cover of "Satisfaction" on the YouTube, and somehow my need to steal that dude's joke became identical with my need to
share the PJ Harvey video with the world became identical with my thoughts on "Satisfaction" as feminist statement (like, yeah, the Rolling Stones are totally sexist dudes, but in a female voice it means differently, and anyway, as Emma Goldman said, "a revolution without arguments after which I get to cry to 'Angie' in a crappy bar is not a revolution worth having") became identical with "withdrawing a marginalized group's labor and capital from the market in order to demonstrate that group's crucial role in society is a pretty great statement, at least on a symbolic level" and all of this, combined with a not insubstantial amount of whiskey, melded into a post that was... well, not offensive, I don't think, but definitely dumb, and also not really about any of the above-listed things at all. So, yeah, for the record: I would say that drinking and feminist politics definitely have a relationship, of the "they totally do not get along and should not be invited to the same party" sort.

Which is not at all the point of this article! The point of this article, actually, is probably to whip the lady blogs into a furor and thereby increase the author's name recognition - oh, and hey! it worked - but Alex Morris, on the way to her (his?) five minutes as a succes de scandale, manages to make some random point about how feminists are all big lousy drinky drunks who ruined feminism, as in:

For better or worse, drinking has become entwined with progressive feminism. “I don’t think that the drinking in and of itself is feminist, but I do think that it comes from a feminist place, that it can bolster one’s sense of herself as liberated,” says Jezebel editor Jessica Grose. “You know, the whole point of Third Wave feminism is that individual choice should not be judged. If you choose to opt out and be a stay-at-home mom, then that’s your choice.” And if you choose to drink yourself unconscious in some random guy’s bed, that’s also your prerogative. To say that you shouldn’t would be paternalistic hand-wringing, implying that a woman needs to be protected from herself.

Yes, ladies: thanks to feminism, you can be a selfless stay-at-home mother or a drunk slut who gets date raped! I mean, I guess it kind of sucks that there are no other options, but hey! At least you have a choice!

This article is so dumb in so many ways (for example, it contains about 5,900 iterations of the word "alcopops," which I think means Zima and sparkletinis, and I don't think the young, Third Wave-influenced, New York-based feminists to whom Morris refers would ever even drink these apparently feminism-killing beverages; I mean, fuck, he or she is talking about me here, indirectly, and I'd get drunk off my own fermented urine rather than put a Captain Morgan's Bottled Raspberry Mojito Drink to my lips; girls drink them, sure, but the girls who do that and the girls Morris writes about are culturally and alcoholically distinct groups) that it is tempting to focus entirely on its mistakes and to ignore the real news: all of these responses, which are fun. You'll note that none of these writers really denies drinking! In fact, some of them use the piece as a way to squeeze in irrelevant back-handed boasts about what big drunks they are. Check out this irresponsible twat, who, within the space of one essay, manages to reflect poorly on women, feminists, bloggers and alcoholics alike.

The thing is, it's not as if I've never yelled at another lady, or accused her of killing feminism. I do that a lot, actually! It is this super fun circular dialogue that goes as follows:

GIRL #1: You're killing feminism! Stop it!
GIRL #2: Stop saying that I've killed feminism! It kills feminism when you accuse me of killing feminism!
GIRL #1: You're the feminism-killer, as evidenced by your efforts to censor all criticism of or dialogue about your feminism-killing, which by the way have killed feminism again!

It just goes on from there. I mean, I hated the "Thinking and Drinking" thing - hated it - because I generally believe that jokes about date rape are never ever ever funny. I could probably find lots of folks to back me up on that. Then again, those same folks would probably be disgusted by my frequent and casual use of the word "retard," and I would make fun of them for being vegetarians, and the whole thing would just go South really fast, so maybe we should all just aim for a little more nuance and a little less righteous scorn.

This may come as a shock, but a lot of feminists are, um, girls - and the narrative of morality, for girls, is pretty retarded. We're all brought up on the same fairy tales, which tell us that women are either pure, virtuous maidens or evil witches - stay-at-home mothers or drunk sluts. There's Cinderella, and there's her Wicked Stepsisters, but the character of the Stepsister Who's Pretty Nice and Tries Really Hard but Has Some Failings does not exist. We require perfection of ourselves, and we require perfection of others, and in the process of demanding universal moral purity, we all too often make hypocrites of ourselves.

It was Emma Goldman who said that "a revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having," and I don't know about you, but I don't dance until I've had a few. She also said that "it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think," which, if true, means that Alex Morris's article about drunk feminists must have been an absolute breeze to write. She did not, on the other hand, say "I yell because I care." The person who said that - often! to me! - was my mom. We all care, and we're all yelling, and just because we don't always agree doesn't mean that we can't respect each other. These conversations about who's killing feminism - whether they take the form of shouting matches, passive-aggressive blog posts, or articles in New York magazine - are, in fact, the proof that feminism is alive and well, if a bit hung over.

Vanity, All Is Vanity

Blah blah blah Tina Fey blah blah Vanity Fair blah Maureen Dowd blah blah blah sucks blah scar blah blah weight blah blah "showing tit" blah blah blah.

Anyway! Yes, Maureen Dowd has some fucked-up business that she needs to attend to, seeing as how she's swallowed the whole "being a powerful woman is about lipstick and heels" thing like a hungry bluegill going for a worm, and if her previous work did not convince you that she lives in this state of perpetual insecurity re: Whether Maureen Dowd Is Performing Gender Correctly and/or Whether Someone Else Performs Gender Better than Maureen Dowd, this will. ("Overcompensating," I think, is the term one uses.) It is basically about how Tina Fey used to be so hideous that no one could look directly at her for fear of being blinded, but then became pretty so that everyone could love her, including Maureen Dowd. Because you can't be a woman, you see, unless you give dudes boners. You know who gives dudes boners? Maureen Dowd! She would like to tell you all about the boners she gives dudes, because there are lots of them, you see, because she's really pretty and she wears these high hee -- hey, wait, where are you going?

Anyway again, did you know that Tina Fey used to weigh as much as I do? Also, she was alive during the early '90s, and therefore had a terrible haircut! Look at how fat and ugly she is:

WHAT A FAT. WHY IS SHE SUCH AN UGLY FAT? GO BACK TO YOUR FAT CAMP, YOU GIANT FAT.

However, seeing as everyone else in the entire universe has already formed and published an opinion on this, I can probably skip the question of whether Tina Fey was ever unattractive (answer: no, but the '90s were - dig up pictures of yourself in your Before Sunrise giant bohemian smock dress or rebellious Jordan Catalano pageboy for confirmation) and focus on one entirely relevant and interesting bit of the piece:

Fey saw an entertainment reporter on TV say that Palin had been gracious toward Fey, but Fey hadn’t been gracious toward Palin. “What made me super-mad about it,” Fey says later, “was that it seemed very sexist toward me and her. The implication was that she’s so fragile, which she is not. She’s a strong woman. And then, also, it was sexist because, like, who would ever go on the news and say, ‘Well, I thought it was sort of mean to Richard Nixon when Dan Aykroyd played him,’ and ‘That seemed awful mean to George Bush when Will Ferrell did it.’ And it’s like, No, that’s not the thing. This is a comedy sketch on a comedy show.” “Mean,” we agreed, was a word that tends to get used on women who do satirical humor and, as she says, “gay guys.”

“I feel clean about it,” she says. “All these jokes were fair hits.”

This is very true, and something I hadn't really thought of before. So, um, neat. Careful readers may notice some not-so-subtle effort on Dowd's part to identify herself with Fey. She's not mean - you're a big sexist! Etcetera. The key difference is that with Fey, the hits are fair.

Busted, Part 2: The Real Goal of Political Change

Is shopping! At least, that's what Bust tells me today, in their think piece on the Great Obama Dress Scandal of '08:

The modified version of the Narcisco Rodriguez’s dress was showing off her confidence in not being pigeonholed into wearing those lame-ass, boring suit-dresses. We still have ways to go, but I think it’s awesome that powerful women are getting closer to be being on the same playing field as men, but why do they have to dress like them too? We all know that Michelle is incredibly intelligent, successful and naturally gorgeous. She was also the breadwinner of her family! So, peeps needs to chill out on that one outfit and think more about what a bonus she is going to be to the White House. Does every first lady have to be compared to Jackie O’s immaculate style? Don’t forget that Jackie’s era was one of the best decades in fashion.

Oh, Bust: this is so totally not the same type of coverage that I could get from any commercial women's rag on the market. No: pretty dresses are subversive! And so is speaking about a female political figure in a way that is almost entirely focused on her wardrobe, apparently! Wave your feminist flag high, sisters - and put a Louis Vuitton logo on there too, while you're at it.

Seriously, though, why do we have to dress like men, whose clothing is usually well-made, comfortable, durable, and apt to stay in fashion for more than a few months at a time? Why can't we just wear custom-made designer dresses all the time to signify our total fabulousness? Remember when Simone de Beauvoir analyzed women's subjugation in terms of its economic cost, pointing out that a relatively enormous portion of the average female secretary's salary went to clothes, makeup, accessories, and various cosmetic treatments such as hair styling, manicures, and pedicures, without which she would not be considered "fit" to be seen in an office, thereby diminishing her already tiny income and demonstrating that gender roles and capitalism were both involved in keeping women in a socially vulnerable and marginalized position? That was so totally lame. Simone de Beauvoir wasn't even hot, so how could you take her seriously? To the ladies of Bust - I, with my dirty jeans, button-up shirt, and messy hair, salute you, for showing us how real gender equality can be achieved.

You know, for an actual analysis of why Dressgate was regressive, fucktarded, and lame, you could go to Womanist Musings. Of course, Womanist Musings has neither the market share nor the revenue of Bust, but you shouldn't take that to mean that feminism and capitalism are at odds or anything. They are totally not, as Bust demonstrates every day. Now go buy yourself something pretty, cupcake.

Busted.

Hey: do you remember "Girls Say Yes to Boys Who Say No?" You know, the infamous poster/slogan that became a touchstone for the second wave of feminism, insofar as it illuminated the second-class status of women within left-wing activist communities by presenting women as sexual rewards for radical men rather than as people who were themselves working for radical change? Well, good news; now that feminism has succeeded and no-one will ever experience gender discrimination or misogyny ever again, we can bring it back!

It's ironic, you see; you can tell because they are doing nothing to deconstruct or critique the original image, preferring instead to faithfully re-create it with new models and slightly different copy. You've come a long way, baby, but no need to worry - the place you've arrived at looks just like the place you left.

You can probably guess where I found this. Ah, darling BUST: things would be so much easier for you if you admitted that you weren't a feminist magazine any more, and that at some point along the line you transformed into Hipster Cosmo. Really, you don't need to worry about the political coverage; I have far better sources for that. Just show me how to knit a bright pink dildo cozy and keep me up to date with the newest rockabilly looks. It's what you want. It's what you've wanted all along.

Anyway, on November 4th, I'll be doing my part by offering my sexual services to any and every man in my district who promises to vote for the Democratic candidate. RSVP for location. Lines will form; get there early.

You Say I'm Crazy? I Got Your Crazy.

The new Britney Spears video is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever seen. I know, I know, "why did you watch it?!? why are you even talking about it?!?!" But I think that it is actually notably stupid, like, this is what the third wave would look like if we all got together and listened to Peaches all night and drank like twelve Sparks apiece and then instead of going out for ill-advised tattoos in the morning we all went shopping for wigs and lobotomies. Like, why do you keep straddling him if he's such a douche? Why does your kitchen wallpaper have "Womanizer" all over it? Why are the eggs square??? OH MY GOD BRITNEY! WATCH THE ROAD! 

I kind of love the dude's acting skills though. He is so clearly thinking, "this is a real step up from community theater! Next stop: Godspell!" 

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