The South and Equality

Neal Broverman wrote a great piece for the Advocate on the South's problem with equality and LGBT rights. I'm not a southerner, but the state in which I live has a pretty dismal record when it comes to LGBT protection, and same-sex marriage doesn't seem a reality here unless it becomes legal at the federal level. This is why it's so important for those living in states facing similar problems to speak out.

Earworm of the Day: Mary Lou Lord - Some Jingle Jangle Morning

This song was released around 1998 or 1999, and indeed, does feel like a "90s hangover." I mean that in the best possible way: the early nineties (if we are to believe the nostalgists) were full of grunge and flannel and heroin, while the latter half of the decade belonged to pop and boy bands. And it's this dichotomy that defines the decade at large.

School Uniforms and Slut Shaming, Part Two

(I guess technically this could be called punk shaming or weirdo shaming, sorry.)

One rule the boys at my high school did have to adhere to was the hair rule: it had to be above the collar. And boys had to be clean-shaven. (I transfered schools the middle of my sophomore year and was shocked, shocked, that high school boys could grow mustaches.) That rule changed when a number of guys came to school with mohawks and spikes. (Hey, it wasn't below the collar -- I even did a little cartoon about it for a creative writing class.) The hair rule was changed to, and I quote,  "any hairstyle that draws attention to itself shall be prohibited." This was applied across gender lines.

Even then, a rule that was explicitly made to curtail the boys was enforced more harshly when it came to girls who had "alternative" hairstyles. I knew one girl who was expelled until her hair grew back after she shaved it. (I wore the back of my head shaved where the brunt of my hair, a triangular bob, would flop over it -- think Jane Lane meets Skrillex -- which was a pretty acceptable "art chick" hairstyle in the late 80s, if I remember correctly.) I don't remember any boys being expelled for their hairstyles, not even longer ones.

Shelving: Meg Wolitzer - The Interestings

The Interestings  is everything I wanted Freedom and The Marriage Plot to be. Don't get me wrong, I loved those books, but Franzen and Eugenides  both fail at creating female characters that don't exist simply to orbit around male ones. One thing I really like about The Interestings is that the relationships between women are often flawed and imperfect. I'm halfway through, so I've yet to tell whether it passes the Bechdel Test (there are a lot of conversations about me), but I don't think that's as important as having characters who are plausible, who make mistakes, and yes, who make mistakes when it comes to the men in their lives.

Links & Bits: 5/17/13

s.e. smith talks about writing under a gender-neutral byline.

Laina Dawes explains why she was never a riot grrrl.

Probably the only thing I've read about this IRS "scandal" that makes sense to me

Brett Easton Ellis's Rant in GLAAD

Tyler Coates  did a nice job breaking down Bret Easton Ellis's GLAAD rant:

"First things first: Bret Easton Ellis has a lot of important things to say here. In response to [recently out] Jason Collins, Ellis argues that the media brouhaha surrounding the athlete’s public coming out infantilized not just Collins but gay men worldwide. On the one hand, there’s the notion that Collins is a hero for being public about his sexual orientation; there have been plenty others (more conservative critics, of course) who seem to dispute Collins’ hero status. Ellis criticizes the conventional coming-out media narrative for being just as patronizing as it is empowering."

He goes on to mention Ellis's reluctance to "represent," which I actually agree with: no one should feel obligated to represent or fashion oneself into a role model. But with celebrity comes responsibility, like it or not, and public coming out narratives are still very new. It wasn't that long ago when Ellen's "I'm Gay" Time was deemed controversial by those in the media.

Something That's Been Bothering Me

There was a great quote I wanted to link to today, and, like usual, I found myself running a litany of the writer's past aggressions, weighing the good (and this blogger does quite a bit of good) against the bad (there are, unfortunately, a few documented failures). In the end, I said "screw it," and wrote this instead.

This is becoming one of my biggest pet peeves within the social justice/feminist blog world: feeling as though everyone should be fully vetted and ideologically flawless before recommending their work. Granted, a big part of the problem is the medium itself; it's easy to define someone by the last thing said online.

That's not to say that we someone's faults should be ushered way, shoved under the rug where they're easily forgotten, especially when they're pretty big failures, but it gets tedious combing through the bulk of someone's work or blog for them.