Not just kitchen bitchin'

I started writing a comment in response to this video being posted on Facebook, and it got a little out of hand, so I figured I should just repost it entirely: I think cities/states/provinces/municipalities not funding/subsidizing education is deplorable. I think access to education is a right. But one aspect of this issue that my students pointed out to me is how much wage inequity factors into a greater burden being placed on post-secondary institutions.

The way they phrased it is that going to post-secondary is being sold to them as a mandatory way of improving their lives, or “just what someone does”, if that someone isn’t lazy and complacent with being poor, or cares about their family’s future. I had a lot of students working in dollar stores, fast food chains, or janitorial/maintenance work positions, who were going to this private institution to the tune of $10k/semester for a certificate program, or associate’s degree at best. All of them were going with the understanding that getting this piece of paper would make them qualified to apply for jobs that would come with better salaries and benefits packages.

Mid-semester, a lot of them would ask me for guidance (which was terrifying because in my head I was thinking, “Kid, who is actually at least five years older than me, it’s a miracle that I put on pants today and stopped crying long enough to teach you about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I have two(ish) degrees and I can’t afford the therapy/medication I need because I have no benefits as a sessional instructor here and I need to pay rent and eat. I have no advice for you, the single parent working nights full time and going to school" the whole time) because going to school for these “better lives” was costing them so much, even at moderately better paying jobs, they’d be paying off their student debt until retirement. Most of these jobs are roles that, ten years ago, you would either learn the skills on-site through a guild/apprentice type situation, or you could do a 1-2 semester course for that was part time and wouldn’t bankrupt you.

Now we force them to take “electives” and they pay $2-3k/semester for me to make them read Poe and discuss dramatic irony and omniscient vs. limited narrators and tone, which is fine and all, but they will never use that understanding while intubating a patient or investigating a domestic incident or assisting someone at a detox centre. So they’re stuck in this catch-22 where they don’t have a hope of making more in the jobs they’re doing and socially get no respect for, but the “brighter future” they’re being told they are so worthy of comes with a price tag that negates going in the first place.

There’s a shit-tonne of them graduating with the same qualifications, thus tipping the supply-demand balance (which is a disgusting way to think about humans — as commodities — but that’s the reality of life in Canada right now) so they get into these “professions” rather than the “jobs” they had before (which admittedly are probably a lot more emotionally rewarding for them, but that likely has more to do with how their clients/customers treat them, not the work itself), where their entry-level salaries become the best they can hope for, and then we force new immigrants and other vulnerable populations to do the “jobs” these people had a year or two previous, because we refuse to acknowledge “foreign qualifications”, creating the next generation of students to go back to school to get degrees they already hold, except this time all of, or at least most of, the deans of the educational body on their parchment will be white.

And why are they all in school? Because we told them their contributions to society as someone who cleans toilets, makes our lunches when we’re too busy, provides us with cheap but accessible stuff when we’re in need (huh, that’s weird, sounds a lot like work we classify as “women’s work” when it’s done for no pay…) wasn’t worth our respect. Twenty-year-old me would cringe and probably call current-me a fascist for what I’m about to say, but frankly I don’t know if, at the rate of taxation Canadians are comfortable paying, we could feasibly subsidize education for all of the people we’ve now told need a piece of paper with their name close to some old white persons’ names on to be worthy of their and their families basic needs being met. I think if we just gave people an ethical amount of money for the work they’re already doing, and gave them such luxuries as a week or two off a year and protection in case a health/personal emergency came up, post-secondary institutions wouldn’t be stuffed to the gills with people who aren’t really sure why the fuck they’re there, thus preventing for-profit, private institutions the conditions they need to thrive, i.e. the vulnerable populations they bankrupt so the well educated but less privileged, aka “sessional instructors” can teach the vulnerable, while the instructors have no job security and heinously low wages.

TW: body image, eating disorders

Just the other day, one of my good friends wrote a post about a pair of pants, a snarky sales associate and how much of our worth we place on the pant size we wear. It sparked a discussion among a few women I know about body image and what struck me the most was that this conversation is such a deja vu. It happens all. the time. We keep silent but once we break out of our shells, we all have such similar experiences.  Even the most seemingly confident women I have met--women that I have even been in awe of for that very confidence they exuded-- have admitted to not always being body positive, to counting calories or skipping meals, to having full blown clinical eating disorders.

On a conscious level, I think we all KNOW that sizes are arbitrary and vary by country, store and style. We also know that our worth isn't defined by any of these numbers, but rather by our accomplishments, by the impact we make in the world and how we positively affect the people around us. And yet we're taught from an early age that fitting certain criteria of beauty standards is what determines our worth. As much as it pains me to have these conversations because it's hard to see that so many intelligent, successful, awesome ladies can have their self-esteem knocked over by something like pant size, I still think it's important to have discourse around these common experiences and point out these systems

As much as I like to talk about body positivity, fat-phobia and loving our bodies, I think there's something to also be said for accepting that we're not all at that stage all the time. I have had a long and complicated relationship with my body; I have hated it, starved it, exercised till I dropped and basically checked off every box on the "things you shouldn't do to your body, you idiot" list. After a lot of work and a lot of time, inch by inch, day by day, I have gotten to where I am today: the place where I eat all of the food groups without crying and hating myself, the place where I can say to myself "I'm not going to gym today as planned because I don't feel like it" and it won't ruin my week or even my day. I have gotten to a point that I couldn't have imagined at other times in my life but I'm not always going to be prancing around naked, loving myself, and screaming "PIZZA ROLLS NOT GENDER ROLES." Sometimes I will be but not always. I will have bad days, I will have terrible days, I will have slip-ups and times when I can't bear to look at myself in the mirror.

Does that make me a bad feminist? So be it. I think, though, that it makes me human. It makes me someone who was bombarded by messages that I should look a certain way, that no matter what I did or how much I read or what I accomplished, I would always be slightly prettier, more successful, more valuable if I wore a smaller size or weighed a little less.  Are we REALLY, TRULY contributing to the body positivity movement by sweeping these realities under the rug and just not talking about them? About always feeling like we have to frame body image issues or eating disorders in the past tense if we want to be taken seriously as feminists and confident women? When Feministing editor Chloe Angyal wrote an essay a couple of years ago about her eating disorder, she asked her readers for forgiveness, forgiveness because she was supposed to be a voice against “fat talk,” against sexist body ideals; she felt like she had let people down by starving herself, like she had a personal responsibility to transcend the systems that often surround eating disorders. She is not alone. As someone who identifies as a feminist and has struggled with an eating disorder, I feel like I’m somehow letting down the team when I have negative thoughts about my body or eating. Which is beyond screwed up because it again places blame on individual women, and ignores a) the fact that it’s a mental illness and b) the systems that pummel our confidence and body image from birth. 

When we don't have these conversations, we are isolated. We already engage in so many acts of isolation: dieting, over exercising, bingeing and purging, skipping meals, self-harm. We thought we weren't good enough or thin enough, that it was US, that we were somehow wrong or broken, and somehow everyone else (read: mostly models, mostly airbrushed) was attaining these beauty ideals effortlessly. Now that we're being body positive, we are again isolated because somehow everyone else seems confident and positive about their curves, while we have days that we struggle. When we have these frank conversations, we realize that this isn't the case at all and, while we may not completely eradicate any of those thoughts or feelings, we can at least learn to be more open, honest and supportive about them. And that is huge. There is no describing how important it is to have a community instead of letting all that self-hatred stew in that stagnant, dark place in your brain that shit-talks you and develops intricate worst case scenarios for a living. 

It's no worse to tell women they aren't allowed to feel bad about themselves when we've been socialized our whole lives to do so than it is to tell women that they aren't allowed to feel confident about themselves. Both shame women for their relationship with their bodies instead of working to dismantle the systems that got us there. Because the thing is, telling a woman what she should be doing, thinking, believing as a feminist is no less oppressive or patriarchal than the gender roles and expectations that feminism is supposed to be fighting in the first place. Nobody can tell you what your relationship with your body is or should be. It is, in the best case, complex. Add trauma, sexual assault, eating disorders, disability, self-harm, or any number of other experiences, and your relationship with your body may get more and more tumultuous and difficult. These experiences are part of your journey; your body may not always look the way you want it to you, but acknowledging all that it has survived can be a useful approach to body positivity.  

When we're so preoccupied by hunger, calories and numbers, we don't have the energy left to do all these amazing things we're capable of: the jobs, the travelling, the writing, the relationships. And the more we try to quantify our worth by the numbers on the scale or the clothing label, the less we acknowledge those unquantifiable qualities and successes that make us so awesome. Being realistic and honest about our limitations and where we are in that moment is so powerful. 

It's impossible to shut down all of those thoughts all the time in every woman but I think if we can have these sorts of supportive and safe spaces that allow for vulnerability and the sharing of experiences, we can at least be more aware of the fact that this is something greater than the individual, that we're way too fantastic to be defined by those things but that it doesn't make us any less badass if we have a bad body image day, week, month or year.  

Yesterday I signed documents with my boss securing gainful employment until at least November. On Monday, I’ll sign documents securing a second job guaranteed until December. I haven’t gotten a paycheque since April 24th; I’ve been unemployed for two and a half months. In both of these jobs I’ll have to dress in some variation of business casual and my wardrobe is filled with options best described as “grad school chique” and are really only dressy if you’re comparing me to 18 year olds in crop tops and high waisted shorts. Despite my lack of cashflow, it seemed a momentous enough occasion to mark it with the purchase of a few nice multipurpose things that I could use to extend the few dress shirts and skirts I currently own. 

Aritzia was having a sale, and while all that meant was I’d be able to afford a single pair of pants I figured, “why not?” and went inside, leaving shortly thereafter, confused as to why highwaisted, pleated pants my grandmother would’ve loved to match with a pair of orthotics were $90, I went next-door to Banana Republic where there was allegedly also a sale going on. I managed to find some navy cropped dress pants that weren’t repurposed nursing home attire and was flipping through tags to find my size. 

“Do you want help finding a size?” 

I ruminated on this question while watching the sales clerk, quickly realizing that what she really wanted to know was what size I was since she was clearly not going to let me rifle through the pile of neatly folded pants on my own. I thought about the size I’d like to ask for, despite not being able to wear it for about 7 years now, and resolved myself, responding, “Oh, um, I was looking for a 12 or a 14, I guess…”

“Hmmmm..” she trailed off, sucking her teeth. “I don’t think we have a 14,” she sorted through the pants and expertly flipped half the pile over with one hand while sliding out the pair she wanted with the other, pausing to look me in the eye, “but 12 will be good. Just try them. I mean, 14 is… BIG,” she finished, punctuating the statement with the same face you’d make when you realize, while sitting on a hot bus home during rush hour, that the baby in the stroller five feet, screaming, and downwind from you, has just shit itself and you have at least another 20 minutes to go before your stop. “Try the 12, I think you’ll be fine. I’ll start a room for you.” 

For some godforsaken reason I didn’t just leave the store, and instead poked around, found a blazer, and went to the change room where the pair of pants that would make or break the rest of my day waited for me. It would’ve been one thing for them to not fit without the preface, but now I was waiting for passive judgement: my body was either acceptably sized based on this woman’s (and by extension as a representative of the brand, Banana Republic’s) opinion, or it was clearly not — disgusting, excessive, a sign of everything wrong with this country, corpulent, unattractive, unfuckable, unworthy of the threads women together by huge machines and sewn together by a worker in Asia getting paid slave wages to make $110 pants sized up so those with the capital can buy pants a size smaller than they’d take elsewhere, paying for the privilege of artificial thinness. 

Unsurprisingly, the woman who spends all day fitting people’s bodies into clothes wasn’t wrong and the 12’s indeed fit, but not well, and so they were left, discarded in the change room. Still high from the realization of impending pay cheques and now filled with righteous anger as well as a false sense of security based on a stupid pair of overpriced pants fitting, I marched to Purdy’s and bought four chocolates, eating them defiantly, silently daring someone to say something, or look at me the wrong way. 

I continued to march all the way to H&M where I was left alone to ransack the over-stuffed clothing racks. No one asked how it was going in the change room that someone’s body odour lingered in. I managed to find three items, all size 14, that fit better than the clothing at Banana Republic, and all told cost me less than half of what the pants would’ve. Despite quality spared for quantity, I left feeling richer and wiser, despite being numerically too fat to function, as far as Banana Republic was concerned.

It’s stupid how much I care about these quantitative measures of ultimately qualitative things, though. I had been feeling ok about my body that morning, but had the pants at Banana Republic not fit, it would have ruined my day. I wouldn’t have continued shopping, I wouldn’t have bought myself chocolate, and I likely would’ve gone home and felt sorry for myself, having a crappy salad and some carrots later, letting my blood sugar dip into “this can only end in tears” territory, too clued out to possibly write the last 18 pages of the thesis that’s been hanging over my head for 6 months now. I wouldn’t have felt it was worth it to go buy new clothes to cram my shitty, soft, fallible body in, despite legitimately needing them. 

It’s the same body that managed to get me to the meeting to sign the contract that guaranteed work faster than transit could’ve due to a train getting in the way. It’s the same body that manages to not fall apart despite the lack of nutrient rich food and exercise I give it, and despite spending 18 hours a day hunched over a laptop writing endless pages of resumes, cover letters and thesis chapters, broken up only by stints spent coiled in a couch corner reading yet another theory text. It still managed to climb a mountain a month previous. It carried my groceries home after all of the previously detailed nonsense was said and done. It’s the same body that’s got me to here, that I’ve always had, and that I’ve nonetheless spent the last 16 years perfecting my hatred for. Honestly, I can’t remember a day where I haven’t thought something along the lines of “ugh” towards myself at least once regardless of how happy I was the remainder of the time. 

TW: Violence against women 

Twenty-five years ago today, Marc Lépine shot 28 people and himself at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. In his suicide note, he blamed feminists for ruining his life and, while a few men were casualties, his targets and most of his victims were women. December 6 also happens to be the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, making this a time of reflection on where we stand on taking action on violence against women. 2014 has been a tough year, the year of Bill Cosby, Jian Ghomeshi, Elliot Rodgers, Bill C36—among many other high profile news stories. It is a quarter of a decade after the massacre at the École Polytechnique and things are supposed to have improved by now—but have they?

Earlier this year, Elliot Rodgers killed six people and injured thirteen others, before killing himself. He left behind the terrifying “My Twisted World,” a video and transcribed manifesto outlining his childhood and his failure to get the interest of women. He outlined his “war on women,” a retribution for “starving [him] of sex.” And yet, in the disbelief that followed such a horrific event, many tried to explain it by derailing the real conversation, making it solely about gun control or mental illness and denying that this was a dangerous act of misogyny. Some or all of these may very well have been at play in this situation, yes, but it is first and foremost an undeniable reminder that women are not safe from violence and that little has been done to change things since the Montreal Massacre. Twenty-five years after the mass murder of these women, the world was subjected to a similar tragedy and the response has remained the same: mere days before the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay told the House of Commons that "we may never understand ... why these women were singled out for this horrific act of violence." As opposition leader Tom Mulcair so aptly put in response: "It's because they were women."   

The news is filled with violence against women. A lot of it generates buzz and a lot of people say a lot of things, but very few take action, and once the public buzz dies down, all goes back to normal. One example is Woody Allen, who has faced criticism for decades for his relationship with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon Yi, and he was again under fire after his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow wrote an open letter outlining molestation allegations against Allen in February of this year. Public opinion was divided, with many supporting Farrow and many others maintaining that Allen was innocent until proven guilty. There was lots of internet yelling from both sides but eventually, this all died down and Woody Allen still received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the same year, and a catalogue of his works was added to Netflix. His career did not suffer.

Last week, Ray Rice—the football player whose brutal beating of his wife was caught on camera—won his appeal on a technicality due to the amateurish handling of the whole thing,  and he will be playing again, after what was basically a time out. The message that I got from this whole thing was that men who beat women get a vacation; they get some bad publicity and they lay low until it passes, and then they can go on with their lives.

Even outside of the misogynistic world of sports, we see this all the time. Jian Ghomeshi, the CBC’s golden boy, fell from grace recently as countless allegations of violence against women and sexual harassment at work were made public. He was fired, charged with multiple counts of assault, and is now on bail living with his mother while he awaits his trial. We’re still waiting on an outcome, but even the fact that he was fired and criminally charged seems like a good thing—and it is in many ways an improvement. But the more information surfaces, the more we realize that people knew about Ghomeshi for a long time, that people within the CBC who had the power to do something about it had known about this long before these allegations were made public. However, because Ghomeshi brought in the listeners and kept the CBC relevant, these allegations were not important until they were beyond the CBC’s control, until they were being made public and risked the image of the corporation. It was not the violence against women that was important here; it was the image of the company.

Working in transition houses, I’ve seen hundreds of women come through, their entire lives broken by violence. They are forced to leave their homes, often to leave their friends and support systems, sometimes to leave their jobs, their belongings. Not only are they left with the life-long trauma and hurt from their abuse, but they are also left to pick up the pieces of their life that has been shattered by violence—while the abuser often goes on with life as usual. The justice system often fails these women. If their abuser is somebody in a position of power or if they have had previous poor experiences with the system, many women fear even getting the system involved. Others see their abusers released within days or hours, and they once again live in fear. Not to mention all of the factors that may make survivors of abuse hold less value in the eyes of the justice system: race, ability, mental illness, addiction, engagement in sex work, homelessness status.  In fact, just the other day, I saw a couple fighting, the man’s yelling escalating into aggression. A couple of security guards came by, but when the couple walked off, I heard them mutter to each other, “Oh, it’s just one of those street couples”—as if the potentially violent situation has now changed in any way.

We live in a world where women’s lives are not valued—especially the lives of women of colour, women with disabilities, trans* women, homeless women, or any other marginalizing intersection. We live in a world where it is now politically correct to speak against violence against women, but the action is lacking. Of course, violence against women is bad, and many are willing to talk about it and get brownie points for saying “but what if it was your daughter? Your sister?”, but when it comes to personal action that actually may impact or shake their own lives, nobody wants to fire the players, politicians, employees that bring in the money because, as important as fighting violence is, money is more important.

When Emma Watson made her HeForShe speech to the UN recently, the internet was quick to revere her and just as quick to bring up comparisons to Beyoncé and her feminism. Despite vocally identifying as a feminist, despite incorporating the theme into the backdrop of her latest tour and despite having an illustrious career that shows no signs of stopping, I see constant internet debate about whether or not she’s REALLY a feminist. We see this sort of debate all the time, about whether something a woman is doing is “anti-feminist” or oppressive to her. In fact, even within mainstream feminist discourse, I've seen a lot of debates around women's bodies and what they should be doing with them. This attitude extends to other heated topics among feminists: How dare sex workers have a say in how their trade is regulated? How dare women have multiple sexual partners, how dare they oppress their female sexualities by not having sex, how dare they wear short skirts, and how dare they wear hijabs, burkas, or other religious coverings?

The thing is, if you consider yourself a pro-choice feminist, that statement applies to everything. In terms of reproductive rights, being pro-choice isn't pro-abortion, it isn't pro-birth control; it is pro CHOICE. As in pro-women having the rights and resources to choose what they do with their bodies and their lives. You can be pro-choice even if you yourself would never have an abortion. You can support harm reduction, you can support women having that option, you can appreciate that not everybody looks at it like you do and not everybody may have the privilege of choosing what you're choosing.

Being pro-choice isn't about picking when and where women can have choice. It's not about only supporting choice when the choice is one you personally agree with. It's not about deciding what is disempowering or degrading for a woman regardless of what she herself thinks. I should take a moment to clarify that many of these things CAN be oppressive: certainly, women can get forced into the sex trade, or they can get forced by their families to wear religious coverings. But they can also choose to do these things and, really, there are a lot of things women can get forced or coerced into doing that we don’t choose to shame them about. It comes down to the choice.

Being pro-choice is about realizing that your brand of feminism isn't necessarily everybody's. It's having the humility to acknowledge that you could be wrong or that other people can be equally right. It's acknowledging that being women-centred includes trusting that women are capable of making decisions about their own lives and their own bodies; it is about agency, empowerment and integrity. It's about celebrating the fact that not everyone has a homogenous experience of being a women, nor does everyone agree on what it even means to be a women, and that these things shape our feminism and our behaviours and how we navigate our gender identity and gender expression in a patriarchal and oppressive society. Some women feel empowered by wearing lots of makeup. And who should have the authority to decide that this is less feminist or less empowering than the woman who doesn't even own mascara? Some women feel a deep connection to their Muslim faith and they feel powerful when they are wearing a hijab. Who is to decide that this is inherently oppressive or that this woman is less empowered or less of a woman or feminist than the woman wearing short shorts? Or vice versa? Why does feminism require gatekeepers?

When we begin to decide what women can and can't do, what is empowering and feminist for other women, we are not only taking energy away from bettering ourselves and the world around us, but we are also perpetrating patriarchal ideas. When we disagree with another woman's definition of what it means to her to be a woman, then we really aren't much better than the gender roles we try so hard to fight against. Unless a woman's behaviours are hurting or oppressing somebody else, there is no reason to judge what she is doing or how she is dressing.

I get it. There are deep systemic oppressions that are difficult to deconstruct and are so internalized that many women may very well be doing things that cater to patriarchal expectations of women. But invalidating women's right to choose what they do with their bodies and their lives, constraining women within strict paradigms of what they should be wearing, which jobs they should or shouldn't be doing, and who they should or shouldn't be sleeping with is just as bad. I am not pro-abortion, I am not pro-short skirt or pro-hijab or pro-abstinence or pro-any one behaviour. I am pro-choice, whatever that choice may be.

TW: eating disorders

I am always wary of going to the doctor. I’m a fixer, so I hate when there’s something I can’t fix myself; I also come from a long line of proud Slavs who hate accepting help. But most of all, I hate the experience because finding a doctor who is a good fit is so difficult. When you find the right one, it can be validating and a very helpful experience; but other times, it can be embarrassing and downright frustrating. “Women’s health” usually brings to mind scenarios that are directly specific to women’s bodies: childbirth, menstruation, birth control. There is little argument about these being both women’s and feminist issues. I would, however, go so far as to argue that women’s health in a broader sense is a feminist issue, that women within the medical system is a feminist issue and that finding the right doctor is a feminist issue.

I have had many a doctor invalidate my decision to come seek medical attention, either through their actions or by telling me so. For women, many of whom have been invalidated or gaslighted when they have spoken up throughout their lives, this is a painful experience.  I have had a doctor leave, see another patient, and then come back (multiple times) during a check up, which is a sign that the doctors are overworked but also (as a result) made me feel like I was wasting someone's time. It made me feel stupid  and selfish  just for being in the doctor's office in the first place.

In a more extreme case, I struggled with an eating disorder for a number of years. When my parents finally got me to go to a doctor when I was 16 or 17 to seek help for anorexia, I weighed in at over 10 pounds underweight and 25 pounds under the ideal weight for my height.  The (young, male) doctor then interrogated me as to why I wasn't eating, told me I should just eat more and then, exasperated, said "I don't even know what you're doing here. I mean, it's not like you're skinny enough to have to be hospitalized or anything." FYI: don’t say that to anyone, eating disordered or not.  Mortified that a health professional had told me I wasn't skinny enough (patients with eating disorders are not exactly known for rationality),  I lost a little more weight before my mother took me to see her doctor, a woman who took the situation very seriously, provided me with resources and referrals to support groups, and who never once blamed or shamed me for having gained or lost weight since our last appointment or for the fact that I still didn't feel ready to eat certain foods after several months of sessions.

Eating disorders and disordered eating are huge topics in women's health and in discussions around women's bodies in general. It's rare to find a woman who hasn't at some point gone on a diet, eliminated a food group or wished to change her body. The fact is, however, that it is not discussed nearly as often as it should be. When it is discussed, it’s usually much too late and irreparable damage has often occurred. Food and body issues happen, and we get shamed enough for our bodies without experiencing it in a supposedly objective, clinical setting. It is difficult to engage in a “health at every size” type movement, which takes a social justice approach to discrimination around body size when bodies--especially women’s bodies, disabled bodies, fat bodies--are medicalized and pathologized for existing in the way that they do. These are all issues discussed at length in feminist theory and queer theory, so why would it not translate into being a feminist issue in practice, not just in theory? The medical system exists according to strict paradigms of what is “healthy” and what is not, with little or no consideration to systems of oppression that may be affecting the bodies of their patients. Furthermore, there is little consideration of other barriers (economic, for one) that patients may face in reaching healthy goals.

Another issue I have personally had with the medical system is that the majority of doctors I have gone to haven’t listened to what I have to say about my body. Granted, with the rise of WebMD, doctors probably hear a lot of self-diagnosis of cancer, lupus, flesh-eating disease, or whatever else comes up on an online symptom checker. But my experience has usually been that a doctor's appointment ends up being more of a Q and A (in far too many cases, an interrogation) than a discussion. The patient is asked about symptoms (are they present or not?) and prescribed pills. I cannot speak for everybody's experiences, but I have rarely been offered alternatives, nor have I been asked what I think about my symptoms. Most doctors offer little choice or discussion about what kind of approach the patient wants to take, whether they even want pills or not. For women, whose entire lives have been about other people controlling--or trying to control--their bodies, it is radical and empowering to decide what you do with your body, how you do it, when and why. The medical system as it stands is not exactly designed for patient empowerment, which is why finding the right physician is such an important choice. Don’t get me wrong. I have gone to some fantastic doctors who have engaged with me, explained my options, listened to what I had to say, and have been of immense help when I have seeked it. And having these experiences, which are validating, useful and leave me feeling like I worked in collaboration with my doctor to find what’s right for my body, are what makes me believe that the medical system can incorporate an approach that leaves the patient feeling like a participant in their health rather than a subject.  

TW: mental illness and stigma

I was on the bus today when a man sitting across from me started speaking and pointing to someone or something, getting more and more excitable. The only other person on the bus was another man who gave me The Look. The "We're Sane, He's Not, Let's Bond In Our Shared Sanity" Look that I hate so much. It happens anytime someone starts behaving in any way that seems to break the monotony of the commute, anytime someone starts speaking loudly to someone the rest of us can't see. No, scratch that, anytime someone not wearing a suit starts to speak loudly to someone the rest of us can't see. Because obviously the dude in the suit is making important business calls on his Bluetooth and the guy wearing ripped jeans is nuts. That's Assumption #1. Next, it's assumed that because they're CLEARLY homeless, they must CLEARLY have a mental illness and/or be on drugs, which NATURALLY means they are dangerous, aggressive, somehow Other to the rest of us respectable people going to our jobs. And this is why we can all shuffle away from this clearly homeless, clearly crazy, clearly dangerous individual, build silent camaraderie as we exchange The Look, and continue on with our normal, sane days. Here's the thing, though. Say this individual IS really homeless and you  have accurately assessed and diagnosed them with a mental illness because you are a psychiatrist or have an advanced degree in clinical psychology (and have questionable ethical standards). This link between homelessness and mental illness SHOULD be shamed.  But not in the individual living with these barriers. Rather, it is the society that demonizes  and stigmatizes mental illness and provides little preventative support for these individuals that should bear the brunt of these disapproving looks and frowns. 

Last week, Barbara Kay of the National Post wrote an article titled “Rape culture and the delusions of the feminist mind.” I've linked it but I recommend you don't read it if you haven't already. The National Post does not have a trigger warning before this article (though I wrote to them about that and never got a response, go figure), so I'll warn you here. In fact, let that trigger warning be for everything she's written and for the following response to her article. 

And as per usual, don't read the comments. In the name of all that is holy, don't do it.

Okay. Now that that's done, let's dig into this, shall we?  “If the risk of sexual assault on campus were truly one in five – to take the “conservative” estimate – no parent in their right mind would send their daughter to coed universities,” she argues.

First of all, her statement implies certain class and socioeconomic status, that parents “send their daughters” to university, rather than daughters deciding out of their own free will and with their own hard work to attend. Not everyone’s parents were willing or able to save thousands of dollars to send their children anywhere. Not to mention that it completely neglects to address every other space in the world where women and marginalized groups are at risk. If the numbers of sexual assault were really THAT high, parents (and then husbands, you know, once the daughters are married and ownership of her has been legally transferred) would never let their daughters on the street, they would never let them have jobs. In fact, it's probably best that they don't have acquaintances or leave the home. I mean, even then, it's possible, right Barbara? Best of all, if she wasn’t so adamant about campus assaults being a non-issue, she would see the default solution for parents to not send their daughters to university, single-handedly throwing our society back into the Middle Ages. Oh yeah, and this little victim-blaming nugget:

“So relax ladies. Although there should never be sexual assaults on any woman on campus, there is no need to panic. Moreover, it is fair comment to observe that those women students who do not drink to excess, who are prudent about the kind of parties they attend, and who are selective about their sexual partners in general will doubtless reduce their odds much further, down to statistically nugatory levels.”

Hoooooly moley. This is in a national publication, folks. First off, she paints this picture like all us "ladies" on campuses across the country are in a state of hysteria. Would somebody please get me my smelling salts? The reality is, there isn't enough being done. As for the "well, just don't drink alcohol, go to parties, don't be a skank, and you probably shouldn't be wearing that skirt" solution to campus sexual assault, I mean, yeah, legally it is considered fair comment, but it's also an ignorant comment.

Then we get this: 

The fact is that “rape culture” is a form of popular mania like so many others before it. It does not exist. Or if it does, nobody has yet brought forward evidence of it. What we have seen is ideology attached to a great deal of personal narrative regarding unwanted or regretted sex. Some of those narratives have been compelling, but unsupported by evidence. Some have been compelling and found to be false allegations. Many of the narratives are based in recollection hazed over by alcoholic smog. And most of them would not stand up for two minutes in a criminal court of law.

Not only does she use scare quotes around “rape culture,” she also argues that rape culture doesn’t exist; rather, that which we delusional feminists foam at the mouth about is a bunch of ramblings from drunk, lying hussies who just regretted a one night stand. Ironic, considering her entire column is seamlessly perpetrating and exemplifying rape culture. It would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.

As for evidence, I can't even believe that the onus is somehow on survivors and anti-rape culture feminists (which I'm assuming is all of them) to bring Barbara Kay evidence that there is dangerous culture of rape and sexual assault. The premise of her article is basically a bunch of numbers from various surveys and studies on sexual assault that she twists around and then trivializes by saying they're not high enough to call it a "culture." There is always more to statistics than numbers. Not only are the numbers pertaining to sexual assault shaky at best due to various factors (under-reporting being a big one), but the idea of rape culture isn't about numbers. It's not about how many girls and women have been assaulted and victimized because one is too many. One girl or woman who goes through life with the trauma of an assault is too many. One girl or woman who blames herself because others blame her is too many. Rape culture isn't about the numbers (which are, regardless, too high); it's about the zeitgeist that blames a victim instead of the perpetrator, that normalizes the use of the word "rape" when referring to a sports game or a difficult test or anything that is not rape. Rape culture is the fact that there are tens of thousands of untested rape kits, it is a gang rape where the ruined futures of perpetrators are lamented while little attention is given to the ruined future of the survivor.  Rape culture is not quantifiable and it is not something to patronize people about by telling "ladies" to "relax."

Heads up that links are mainly NSFW!

So tonight I got the chance to go to a screening of Trans Grrrls: Revolution Porn Style Now which includeda talk and Q&A with Courtney afterwards about sex, gender identity and the importance of porn in terms of figuring these things out on a personal level and expressing them publicly which was AMAZING to say the least. 

The work they do challenges conceptions of gender expression and sexual pairing that a lot of us have, myself (a cis gay woman) included. I was texting Ljudmila through parts of this, and definitely had to check myself a bunch of times in terms of my language and applying it to someone else's body body and person in ways that don't respect their chosen language to describe themselves. It was a good wake up call. These conversations are hard even for those of us literally schooled in it, but they need to happen. Like.. right fucking now. 

Also, coming from where I do in terms of my own research, the legitimization of these kinds of queer performances are so fucking important. Courtney, speaking as a femme-presenting genderqueer person, close reading moments in the porn by offering their own take on what they felt in that moment was so immensely valuable. They said at one point, "I am not a man, but I do have a dick, for sure," which at first seems like a cute enough thing to say, funny because they're this adorable girly being clad in animal print and on-pointe lipstick. But, after getting their reading of their performance, it makes perfect sense on this level beyond how they present and beyond the basics of what is literally happening on screen: a person with a vagina is eating out another person with a vagina, ergo this is lesbian sex becomes something else entirely — a person using their non-penis-having body like a penis to have sex with another person.

The nuances of the way gender gets performed during sex is so important, and frankly these films are more educational re: spectrum, presentation, and bodies than any clothes-on interview or documentary could ever hope to be. And without these kinds of close readings, that's not possible (think I should use this as an example with my students?).