sundries

[rm]

Sexism, let me count the ways: a new book in the UK asserts that women who allow nannies to help raise their children produce boys who grow up to be adulterers. And the girl children? Well they just become sluts and substance abusers.

The high school that canceled the prom because of a lesbian in a tux also reportedly repeatedly suspended a transgender student for earlier this year. In the realm of the slightly bizarre, this has come to light through Dan Savage, who has a good record about a lot of things and is entertaining as fuck, but has also been repeatedly faily regarding transphobia.

Wreckage of WWII plane found in Oregon.

That man who would become Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised regarding a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have indicated. Anyone got any insight into precedence/likelihood of the pope resigning?

I know we're supposed to hate A.I. (which I still think came perilously close to being one the greatest films ever made in spite of all the ways it falls apart; when I think about what it could have been had its vision fully succeeded I can barely breathe), but I can't introduce this link in any other way: Man Hatten, the place where the lions weep.

Dear Amanda Palmer: The problem with hipster racism is that if people don't know you it doesn't sound like a joke (which was never very funny anyway); it sounds like racism. Also, despite the illusions that celebrity media and internet culture encourage, most of the people who are really pissed off at you right now, don't know you; hence your racist joke sounding, you know, racist. Also, please stop contributing to our societal abuse of the word irony.

That said...

Dear Everyone Else, I am extremely sick of people calling her "a bitch" and "a slut" and other gendered terms that are about shaming female gender and sexuality because they either are (rightfully) angry about this latest debacle and default to those words (I'm working on it too!) or, and this is what I'm really irritated about, because they don't like that she's marrying Neil Gaiman.

This thing is about Amanda Palmer and who she is in public. While this thing may or may not be relevant to who she or Gaiman are are in private, if you don't know them personally (_personally_, not whatever quirk of internet/celebrity culture put the whole Internet on a first name basis with them) who they are at home isn't relevant to you, and the jealousy and misogyny I've seen directed at her deeply, deeply muddies the water in the critical response to her work and the performance of her public life. Please knock it off. It's not helping, and it's not appropriate.

At long last, a URL and registration information for the Bristol conference at which I'll be presenting the paper about mourning for fictional characters: Desiring the Text, Touching the Past: Towards An Erotics of Reception.

Observation about White Collar fandom: Look kids, the rape narratives are back. No, really. Rape hasn't been a huge topic in Torchwood fandom at all. White Collar fandom? Rape, rape, rape, prison rape, prison rape, prison rape. Some of it's kinkmemes, some of it's people processing their own experiences, some of it's just there, but I'd forgotten this aspect of fandom. This sort of thing was prominent in Harry Potter fandom, but it had slipped my mind the degree to which its thematic absence from Torchwood (although I've seen a few stories here and there) is atypical of both fandom and media in general.

Comments

[moljn.livejournal.com]

I'll leave it to others to go deep with this if they want, but I feel compelled to add a few things.

1) Irish is a race now?

2) In general, stereotypes about a "race" are racist. Your three drunk examples are all racist/prejudiced stereotypes. Of course it's possible to invoke a stereotype in ways that turn it on its head or otherwise make it clear that you're not serious, but that brings us to

3) Context matters. The sender matters. Both your jokes read very differently depending on who's telling them. I actually don't think it's the soldiers that look bad in the first one, but rather the people who blew them up. For the record, I'm neither Irish or British, or black, but as an outsider I'd feel a lot less comfortable with a Brit telling that joke than an Irish person (who, absent the right delivery and my knowing them well, would probably still weird me out), because people get to poke fun at their own stereotypes in a way that others don't, as you found out with your gay friends.

And since I don't know where you live, the source of the joke might even have been an American with Irish roots, which I'm pretty sure is a whole other kettle of fish.

4) As for the penis joke, well. For one, less than 12" is not "quite small" and the focus is instead on the foot-long, not-white penis. As, once again, an outsider, the stereotype I see is not the puny-membered white man, but the oversexed black man, and if the speaker is white then, as above, I think that could become problematic very quickly.

4b) On a non-serious note, that's a really bad joke. You know what's 12" long and white? My calf. My ruler says so.

It also says this post is quite long enough.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Re 3 I think the joke could be taken in a number of contexts depending on who's saying it. It could be a bad taste comment on the legitimate dangers British troops have faced in Belfast, it could be glorifying in the killing of British troops, or it could be stereotyping the citizens as Belfast as all being republican terrorists. It certainly represents a very stereotyped view of the conflict itself (which was, FWIW, not a British-Irish conflict directly, but focused between loyalist and republican factions within Northern Ireland itself, hence why the issues of what constitutes nationalism here are so sensitive - plenty of people within NI identify themselves as British and wish to remain so. If it were just a case of making the English fuck off, it would have been much easier to sort out).

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, except for the idea that it reflects on the citizens of Belfast. the comment on Belfast, IMHO as just the location of the incident and not reflective of the people contained therein. Yes I agree that it sows a stereotype of the ideas behind the conflict. I was not presenting it as a perfect storm, but as something I overheard.

As I , a non participant with limited information , it seems the conflict between two nations - and not tow races. To some people I am wrong, to some I am right. You may be right that I chose a bad example based on my own ignorance / limited education on the situation. I see it as nationalism and not race.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

As I , a non participant with limited information , it seems the conflict between two nations

No, it's a conflict within one very divided nation, as I said above; focused on factions within Northern Ireland itself. Hence why the issues of national identity here are so complex.

I'm not sure how the setting being Belfast could possibly be unreflective, since the joke would cease to make sense if you substituted say Paris or New York or even Dublin.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how the setting being Belfast could possibly be unreflective, since the joke would cease to make sense if you substituted say Paris or New York or even Dublin.

Two American soldiers walk into a restaurant in Baghdad .....

( Not that I have heard this variation , but it could work )

[delchi.livejournal.com]

1. No I mean that as an example of nationalism, not race. The problem becomes that some people see that as a race, and not a nationality.

2. I see racism and stereotyping as different things. YMMV.

3. Agreed. Completely. My only objection is that you call these things "my" jokes. they are not mine, they are things I observe and hear in public. they should not be construed as being created nor having agreeing opinions from me.

3a : I currently live in Denver, CO.

4. The whole "joke" is open to interpretation. YMMV.

4b : I never implied or expected anyone to think it was a "good" vs " bad" joke. Again , it was collected form places I have been. I appreciate your candor.

[moljn.livejournal.com]

1) You called them a race in your fourth paragraph. If that was supposed to be a quote, fair enough. And frankly, those people are either ignorant or stupid, but whether it's based on ideas of nurture or nature, it's still prejudice.

2) It's all prejudice in my book, albeit in the shape of a Venn-diagram of some kind. We'll just disagree.

3) No worries, I meant it as shorthand for "the jokes in your comment".

3a) In that case, I really wonder if the jokester was Irish or "Irish", not that you necessarily know.

4b) I didn't mean it as anything against you, only the joke. Its badness just really stood out to me.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

"White Irish" is an official racial category on the UK census form, and Irish people can (and should) avail themselves of the protections of the UK Race Discrimination Act in cases of workplace or other discrimination.

[moljn.livejournal.com]

OK, I didn't know that. Thanks. I admit I find it a little weird, but I guess race is a matter of perception more than anything.