Feminist infighting is sexy. Fiscal responsibility? Not so much

From Jezebel.com poster SarayuFisher:

NOW's utterly irrelevant at this point. (Though I'd missed the Lifetime protest; I'm sorry, but that's just self-parody. Jeez.) I am however content to leave the NOW grannies and the PUMA crowd to crawl up their own elderly-white-lady assholes while the rest of us roll up our sleeves and get to work. There's plenty to go around.

Wow. Her profile doesn't reveal much more about her, particularly what "work" she does when she's not posting comments on Jezebel. I'm not implying that ALL she does is snark, but when one smears the National Organization for Women whilst implying that oneself is doing better for feminism, one had better back that shit up.

I am not singling out this post and poster because her comment is the most offensive on Jezebel's "Was NOW Presidency Hijacked by Anti-Choice Palin Supporters?" thread. I'm picking on it because this comment is what Jezebel's editors printed instead of mine. I should have saved my comment to reprint here, but silly me, I assumed that it would show up on the site. Oopsie!

I'm not the only one whose snarkless comment was not approved. I should have realized that my suggestion to practice real journalism and seek out the tattered financials of NOW to argue that Latifa Lyles lost because she was Kim Gandy's protegee, and Gandy has run this ship straight into an iceberg. Who wants to write about a 40-year-old activist organization's money troubles? Booooo-oring. it's much easier to color the fighting as young/old, black/white, choice/anti-choice.

I like the blog Viva La Feminista. I do. It deserves a wide readership, but not for this. Its author, Veronica, suggested that PUMAs & Palinistas swung this election for Terry O'Neill. I wasn't there, so I have no idea how much sway they really had. It's certainly possible, but I suspect that her original blog post was written with a very heavy heart, as Veronica made clear before the conference happened that she was a strong Latifa Lyles supporter. As I wrote before, had Erin's slate lost I would be just as heartbroken.

Here's where I start getting annoyed. In her blog, Veronica wrote an opinion that other sites have taken as fact. "...apparently, from what I gather, Kim Gandy was asked about a handout that was circulating that showed NOW's finances plummeting," Veronica wrote. "[Kim] said that it was a product of Sarah Palin followers." The image of a bunch of lipsticked pit bulls disseminating lies about Gandy is a delightful one, so there's no wonder Jezebel repeated it, with Salon continuing the meme that Palinistas and other old white ladies were trying to prevent the change that Lyles' candidacy suggested.

I know the Jezebels are not reporters, but this irritates me nonetheless. Back in December 2008, the State Presidents Listserv was discussing the cold hard fact that NOW, Inc. is flat fucking broke. This discussion occurred long before Terry O'Neill (old, white) declared her candidacy. This happened before Olga Vives (not white, but old!) was planning to throw her hat in the ring, but didn't because she wanted to avoid the young/old meme that is currently playing out.

National NOW is broke. Small state chapters like mine are withering and dying. Under Gandy, the organization changed from bottom-up to top-down. This very boring to anyone outside of the group.

I guess it was too much to expect that the site I turn to for feminist snark would not apply the same standards to this NOW election. I love it when Jezebel gets its claws into folks like Linda Hirshman, shredding her as badly as any scratching post. I delight in it! But good golly, it hurts when SarayuFisher and her buddies snark about us, about my colleagues, about my friends, about me.

But really, is Jezebel writing something I don't already know? That NOW has an image problem? That cosmopolitan drinkers don't think they need anyone to fight for women's rights because they can get abortions and decent jobs, should they need them? And the hell with everyone else?

What can we do to change the debate?

Don't mess with my little sister.

The implication that Erin won her election because of a bunch of Palinistas is starting to really get my panties in a knot. First I dismissed it as typical post-election disappointment from the side that lost. Hell, if Erin's ticket had lost I'd dream up a few theories of my own around the counter at the airport Starbucks on the way home. And I wasn't there to see a whole lotta lady-yellin' at the podium. Go crazy, feminists! I love you!

But this is getting too much for me to take. Now this is threatening to diminish something that Erin fought like hell for, something that she's really been working towards since I met her in the basement of the Women's Building in St. Paul over six years ago. No other person on earth has her intelligence and drive, so am I going to sit back and let the online commentariat imply that she owes this opportunity to a bunch of pro-life, mavericky nutballs?

If you thought that PUMAs were a tough lot, try a pissed-off big sister. Better get outta my way.

Gutted

I screamed with joy when I read the press release from National NOW that announced that Erin's slate emerged victorious in the leadership elections.

Then I cried like a baby. For many logistical and financial reasons I could not be in Indianapolis to cast my vote for her. I grieve that I'm not there now to celebrate with her.

I cried some more when I thought about how hard she has worked for this moment, and how much she deserves it. I am so proud of her, and so incredibly lucky to know her.

I cried even harder when it hit me that she will move to DC later this summer and will be living there for the next four years.

Then I laughed, because when she leaves town I will be Minnesota NOW's state president again.

I imagine I will going back and forth like this all day.

Now in the news.....NOW!

When was the last time the media talked about NOW as if it mattered?

...frankly, I have no idea. But the National NOW Conference that starts tomorrow has provided fertile ground for musings on The future of the feminist movement.

Slate.com: Change feminists can believe in?
AP: Future of feminism an issue in NOW leadership vote

Latifa Lyles' candidacy makes a great story, I agree--she's a young, bright, African-American woman who sure as hell looks like a good candidate to pull our ailing movement back from the jaws of death. I am on the side of those who argue that NOW has a terrible image problem, and Lyles has a great image. I spent a training weekend with her and other National NOW officers in DC in 2007, and I found her just as smart and cool as everyone says.

But even feminists need to think critically about their own.

Lyles is the hand-picked successor of current two-term President Kim Gandy, whom many hold responsible for NOW's slide into financial ruin and cultural irrelevance. The AP article above repeats the national office's claim that we have 500,000 members, and that the dip in membership revenue is "modest." These are lies. National NOW is hemhorraging money and members as badly as any other 40-year-old non-profit, if not worse.

Would it kill Kim Gandy to admit this? Apparently, it would. Discussion of NOW's dire straits has been shut down at every opportunity, and why? To present a fictional united front, or to save someone's imagined legacy? I don't know for sure, but I have a few guesses.

I've already printed here that I endorsed the NOW leadership ticket with Terry O'Neill at the top, not because I desperately believe that NOW ought to be lead by a 56-year-old white woman. If I had my druthers, my dear friend Erin Matson (29 years old, also white) would be running for the top spot, but I have to settle for her on the ticket as Action Vice President. For me, it's personal. I would pick Erin over anybody, over any feminist you got. Hillary? Gloria? bell hooks? Jessica Valenti? The staff at Bust? Kim Possible? Forget it. Erin is my girl.

But even if Erin weren't running, I could not in good conscience give a member of the current national leadership my vote. The Gandy administration, with Lyles on board, has allowed this venerable organization to wither and die. It's not for nothing that the mainstream media seems amused that NOW still exists, much less is having an election. They are happy enough to use this weekend's conference as another chance to ponder if feminism is dead.

If it's dead, it was a suicide.

Bad mommy.

Ok, pop culture nuts. Here is the clip of Kate "Reverse Mullet" Gosselin in action that's got the blogosphere abuzz.


I have never seen this program, but it has captured my imagination along with the rest of the country because it seems to encapsulate so much about what is wrong with America today. You know the usual suspects: fame, greed, infertility treatments, reverse mullets, the works. With this clip we can now add the age-old "is she a good mother?" obsession to the mix. The commenters on Gawker, where I first saw this clip, made a variety of excuses for how annoying whining children can be, so in their opinion Kate deserves the benefit of the doubt. I have a different take.

I am something of an expert on difficult children, never more than when summer vacation is underway. I can see myself in Kate's shoes here, grinding my teeth with rage after a long day of being harassed by a gaggle of little brats. One strategy is to keep the jaw wired shut and ignore them, which Kate is doing here. One could also explain to Mady calmly that it's almost time for the interview, and Mommy will get her a drink once it's over. A truly wonderful Mom of the Year might ask the Access Hollywood staff if they could delay the interview so all eight of the kiddos could get a drink, but it could be argued that Moms of the Year do not have reality television programs that get them into these situations in the first place.

One thing you NEVER, EVER do? Get yourself a water bottle and drink it while your thirsty kid cries. Parents are constantly challenged to balance what their children need with what the parent wants. It's a push-pull that happens to every adult with a small person in her care. This is a good example of how the parent's want takes precedence, with disastrous results. To hear Mady Gosselin plaintively wail "you're really really mean...you drank right in front of my face!" is to witness the effect of emotional abuse on a 8-year-old child. It's a disgusting power trip and it makes me sick. I can only hope the backlash will lead to this show's cancellation.

I feel terrible for all of Kate' children, but I also feel better for my two. Summer vacation might not be so bad after all.

"It's not accidental that the crazies are turning violent now."

From the trusted smarties at Gawker, of course. Why am I not reading the connections between Scott Roeder and James Von Brunn in the New York Times? Huh?

Three—three!—political shootings by right-wing extremists does actually make a trend, mostly because it's not accidental that the crazies are turning violent now. Right-wing domestic terror, weirdly, spikes when the right-wing media step up the intensity and violence of their rhetoric—which they happen to do when Democrats are in charge. Hey, remember Oklahoma City? Guess what: now we don't just have a regular Democrat president, we have a black man who is a secret Muslim! Sean Hannity and Dick Cheney and Bill O'Reilly tell the nuts that the nation is literally in danger because a terrorist has stolen the White House. So what happens then?

Gawker: The Rise of Right-Wing Violence

Obama FAIL

Look, I like our new President as much as anybody. But today he's gone too far and I'm fucking sick of it.

I supported Hillary in the primaries, and if you don't know why, I'll tell ya: she has a vagina, stupid. Additionally, I had the insight of my brilliant friend Cathy, who was convinced that Obama on the campaign trail was a liberal as he was gonna get. A campaigning Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was as conservative as she was gonna get, and once in office she wouldn't appoint a nutty anti-choice activist to a key position in the Department of Health & Human Services, like President Obama just did.

Today in "Obama FAIL" we have the irritating news that Obama's administration is just gonna sit back and let the embarrassment that is "Don't Ask Don't Tell" remain a part of Pentagon policy. It was bad enough when the nitwit Carrie Prejean said he was her ally against same-sex marriage, and he didn't make a peep. You know that Hillary would not have put up with that kind of crap.

I was wrong about the radical feminist army, too--I think we need one after all. (Erin?)

The Wise "Latina"

Wow. Just.....wow.

This came to my attention courtesy of Gawker.


I'm no religious scholar, but I do know that Siddhartha Gautama, otherwise known as the Buddha, was Indian. Not Native American Indian, mind you, but a person from the Indian subcontinent.

So if the National Review is taking a shot at Sonia Sotomayor for her "wise Latina woman" line when they represent her as the Buddha, why does her face look so.... ummmm.....


How to put this politically correctly?

Oh, dear.


I don't know about you, but I'm getting a distinct Charlie Chan vibe. I'm feeling Mickey Rooney in Japanese drag as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I have a powerful need to.....




Oh yeah, that's it. First I'm gonna buy a bunch of war bonds, then I'm going to make sure that Sotomayor and all others like her are shipped off to internment camps, where they can't harm nice white folks like me.

Or am I just a very sensitive lefty who is so confused by our post-racial, Obamarific society that I'm taking everything out of context?! GOSH! I would hate for that to happen!!!

The culture wars, continued

What started as simple clenching of my jaw over how impossibly sexist and racist people can be in the 21st century has turned into a deeper examination of my own furious impulses.

Specifically, how much I want to join an army of fierce radical feminists who will show Pat Buchanan exactly what it feels like to be oppressed. First we will cripple his self-esteem with a tape loop telling him how dumb and ugly he is, then we will hint that if he doesn't dress a certain way, he'll get raped. This will scare him to pieces and render him a powerless, anxiety-plagued mess. Hee-hee.

But good sense has prevailed, and I will not be forming such an army after all. I think it will make a better comic book. Feminist artists may contact me on this site, anytime.

I picked Pat as my fantasy target because of his rant I posted here several days ago, in which his terror over a Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court is palpable. But it's also infectious. Do you think this old white dude was in his audience that day? Take a look at him. My, he looks crabby. His eyes look defiant. He's even clenching his jaw, poor guy. Poor oppressed minority guy.

While abortion clinics and their staff and patients remain targets of harassment, no one has died in the abortion wars in a decade. Why now? Why did the man in this picture, Scott Roeder, decide to kill Dr. George Tiller? And why now?

Glenn Beck: Sotomayor is a "racist" who is "not that bright."
Rush Limbaugh: Sotomayor is a "reverse racist" and a "hack."
G. Gordon Liddy: Sotomayor is a "racist" who bleeds monthly and doesn't die.
Pat Buchanan: Sotomayor "practices race discrimination against white males."

All of this commentary, mind you, started pouring from the mouths of white men in the days following Sotomayor's nomination on Tuesday, May 26. George Tiller was assassinated in his church on the morning of Sunday, May 31.

Scott Roeder has furious impulses--you can see them written all over his face. What could have set them off?

Overheard at the kids' table

Emma: Eww, gross, Elliott!

Elliott: (shrugging) What can I say? Gross is my middle name.

Emma: (confused) But at the park, you told me that danger was your middle name.

New Women's Press column

I'm going to print this on every social network available to me (and there are many):
I'M NOT A "YUMMY MUMMY"--I'M A MOM WHO'S THE BOMB!

"The Stories Bodies Tell," Minnesota Women's Press, June 2009

One week in the culture wars

The good:
Sonia Sontomayor nominated to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. She would be the first Hispanic justice and the third woman justice in the court's 220 year history.

The bad:
Pat Buchanan gets to talk about the decline and fall of the White Man. He gets ripped to shreds in the video, but it's still worth noting that someone gave him the airtime.


The ugly:
G. Gordon Liddy feels like he can safely say this:

Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

The good:
18,000 same-sex couples in California who wed before Proposition 8 became law can stay married. Congratulation, Captain Sulu and husband!

The bad:
Tough shit for everyone else! Civil marriage discrimination is the law of the land.

The ugly:
Carrie Prejean and NOM NOM NOM feel very smug about this, and smug fundies are a threat to everyone's safety, as we'll see in our next item.

The very bad and very, very ugly:
Late-term abortion provider George Tiller shot to death in Kansas.

The teeny tiny bit of good that may come out of this crime:
The American public will start to understand that religious fundamentalism is dangerous, no matter what religion it is--terrorism is terrorism, whether it is committed in the name of Jesus or Allah. The ongoing fight to secure women's access to reproductive freedom and justice will get a big fat boost, to ensure that Tiller's assassination is not in vain.