Friday night open thread awkward dance party

Love love love the welcome package. Thanks so much for pointing me to it and the warm welcome.

The whole Anita thing is one of those issues that just has to be accepted as difference of opinion. Like, I support that woman one hundred percent and then some, but I don’t think she’s without error and I definitely disagree with her about things. And Mad Max is going to be one of them. As in, yes this is a violent film, but to me it expressly portrayed the violence on the part of the pursuers as gross and destructive, the violence on the part of Max as that of survival and not glamorous, and that of the women as self defense. Because while we all know violence is not desirable, sometimes it is necessary, which the biker lady tribe explicitly state. Also, it has some pretty clear testaments to nonviolence countering violence, specifically, when Splendid Angharad puts herself in the line of fire to protect Furiosa. It’s an absolutely stunning image, and I get goosebumps just thinking about it. As for things going boom and high speed car chases, while I think humanity can rise above our violent instincts, we will probably never get past our fondness for excitement and explosions, if roller coasters and the Mythbusters are anything to go by.

As for choice feminism, I think there are two things happening there. On the one hand, you do have a sort of consumer friendly ‘so long as it’s your choice it’s feminist!’ rhetoric which is pretty obviously unproductive as it ignores the stresses placed on women to behave in certain ways, and what happens to us if we don’t. On the other hand, we all have to live in this world, and to use a quote in particularly like ‘everyone is free to navigate their matrix of oppression as they see fit.’ Now does that mean people will make perfect choices? No, and there are definitely occasions where bad choices need calling out. But I also think that in being too critical of other women and their choices we can perpetuate the side of patriarchy which finds fault in literally everything a woman does.

Yaaay. You’re right.

David Quinn, a leading campaigner against gay marriage and director of Catholic think tank the Iona Institute, told national broadcaster RTE it was “obviously a very impressive victory for the ‘Yes’ side”.

He added that early tallies indicated that those in favour of gay marriage had secured a victory “roughly in the region of two to one“.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-23/ireland-no-campaigner-concedes-defeat-in-gay-marriage-vote/6492524

Hi everyone! Hope y’all are having a great weekend :o)

Congrats to Ireland, may the rainbow flag wave high and proud!!!

WWTH – happy birthday!

@Katz, I loved Mad Max! It was brilliantly done. I consider it not only the most feminist movie I have ever seen, but one of the most prescient. This IS what the Earth will look like if things don’t change, and violence WILL continue to be part of everyday life as long as warlords continue to unleash militaristic campaigns of resource hoarding. As long as we have villainous assholes who want to own people, people WILL fight back. Everything the Patriarchy is goes against our egalitarian instincts, IMO. I think humanity’s shrinking brain is proof that we are devolving because of it.

As far as Anita Sarkeesian’s opinion, I also disagree. I don’t think the presence of violence in a feminist movie somehow makes it not-feminist, as pandapool said all our choices are colored by the Patriarchy and as long as it’s in context with that understanding I don’t see a problem. For women and girls to be depicted as fully human, we must be willing to show both the good and the bad with compassion. Compassion doesn’t mean agreeing with what they do. It means understanding why they did it in context with the bigger picture.

With that said, I support Anita 100% in expressing her opinion. I don’t think she has the power to decide what is feminist or what is not (as a whole), so I’m fine with her saying whatever even if I disagree with it. There are so many kinds of feminism and hers is but one of them. As long as we agree that women are human and deserve to be treated with understanding and compassion, I’m happy for her, as I am for everyone else.

@ceebarks, congrats on your masters degree!

The latest news with Josh Duggar is totally stressing me out, and it shouldn’t be.

I’d be kind of worried if it didn’t upset people! This isn’t just about *one boy’s mistake*, this is about a boy who preyed on several of his sisters forcibly and while they slept and apparently continuing to do so for over a year until his dad finally got up off his duff and told a cop who just happened to be a consumer of child porn himself. FFS. The Duggar fans are desperately trying to make this a story of redemption rather than what it really is: a family covering up god knows only how much abuse and sacrificing the health and well being of their daughters so their darling son won’t have to face the consequences of his actions.

I’m trying not to post too much about it here, but it has affected me. It’s sickened me, and I’m about to throw up by typing this: There is a rumor that TLC will continue the show without Josh. That’s right, they might continue broadcasting the victim’s faces to the public so all the sick fans of this sick family can all sit around guess which of the sisters he molested.

The fact that the Duggars have not QUIT the show to save TLC the decision of what to do says volumes about how sorry they really are. Why would they continue to do the show knowing the public, along with pedophiles, are just going to be sitting around watching the daughters for their own sick amusement?

…and these people are pro-family?

These people claim to respect life?

They claim to defend “American Values”?

FFFFFFFFFFFF

*flounces glitter*

Happy birthdays WWTH and contrapangloss!

Watching the Eurovision Song Contest, and snarking with a Fb friend or three. Too little rock!

@Snork: no, of course not, lol. Naturally, plenty of these people have divorces and blended families and kids conceived out of wedlock, but Jesus forgives and it was the crazy ex’s and/or Satan’s fault, anyway. Abortion, ‘course, is murder and LGBT people, while fundamentally disordered, can be grudgingly tolerated, as long as they stay in the closet and don’t cause the kids to ask difficult questions: we prefer our children not know anything about sex for as long as humanly possible, because purity, and having to even think about explaining gay sex is just beyond the pale.

anyway, obvs, I bite my tongue a lot, which isn’t helping. There is no sense arguing with people about religion, is there? Part of me wonders if part of the problem here is that SO MUCH normal, relatively healthy sexual behavior is *also* considered sin– if masturbation is sin and premarital sex and divorce/remarriage is sin and even just thinking sexual thoughts is sin etc… then we’re pretty much all just sinners, and hey, lookie, Joshie-boy is just a sinner like the rest of us!

At least it’s enough of a figleaf to cover the cognitive dissonance involved in finding out one of your idols is a straight up whited sepulchre. I have a hard time deciding how much of this really is just cognitive dissonance/denial and how much of it is that they think molestation is not really a big deal.

Truly hope it’s the former, because “I can’t even” with the latter.

I’m horrified that the abuse was SO inadequately handled at the time it occurred, then blatantly– BLATANTLY– swept under the rug for $$$ and political influence, and now everyone’s supposed to just be like, “oh, the family ‘handled it’ years ago and Jesus forgives, so let’s get back to babies and weddings on TV, yay! Everything is awesome!”

WTF! So, SO irresponsible!

@nameless wonder, yeah, I had worried that TLC would just put them back on the air sans Josh, like nothing ever happened. There’s clearly a sizable audience for it, unfortunately.

I’m glad about Ireland’s marriage law, though! It made me happy to hear it on the radio this morning. I’m not European nor very Irish in origin (maybe a little bit; my background’s of the “mostly white mishmash” variety) but I took a course on Irish literature from a prof. who put a strong focus on LGBTQ fiction. So yay! 🙂

Thinking about that leads me to something personal and likely wordy to explain. Okay. My parents are going across the country to this General Assembly thing of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and one of the big issues is whether they’ll allow clergy to do same-sex marriages. Many ministers in their circle say the best thing to do is delay the whole business to prevent a big church split-up, The other options that I know of are b) all clergy will have to perform same-sex marriage, c) the church will affirm it’s against it and no clergy will be able to do it officially, or d) clergy will have the option to do it.

I’m in favour of the last one, since it’ll give people the most freedom. Personally, I don’t think there’s a good reason in religion or out of it to deny people the right to marry (any appeal to “natural law” would favour the LGBTQ side, in my opinion) but my parents, otherwise not that conservative, don’t think doing gay stuff is right. They just don’t. Because Genesis, etc.

Well, when I can’t argue from a logical place, I try arguing from an emotional one, and this is kind of emotional for me since I am, as I like to joke, approximately half gay. And I said some mean things to my mother, saying she was “always intolerant” and that isn’t true.

My angsty teenage life, in summary: “Oh noes, I am a lesbian, this is bad” and then when I had a crush on a boy, “Oh, okay, I’m not gay, phew,” and then, at 15, “Oh, this word called ‘bisexual’ exists, cool.” Except I also had a violent temper and treated my parents badly, even hitting them when I was angry, and domestic abuse is horrible coming from anybody, including teenagers. I don’t hit anybody now, and I am more or less an adult (in years, I turn 27 soon) but I’m still struggling with how to disagree without losing my temper and saying things that’ll make them feel bad. I owe them a lot, given how they’ve put up with me and supported me in other things.

And happy birthdays all around, to contrapangloss and anyone else to whom it applies.

@epitome, I personally believe that marriage as an institution should be abolished. It was a way to establish women as property to men, and to force them into a role of domestic servant, breeding machine, and/or farmhand.

Now that we’re in the 21st century (yippee!), all partnerships should be recognized under the law as civil unions, and then people can do whatever religious thingamiwhatsits they want with the ceremonial aspect.

Since the state doesn’t have the power to decide under which religious banner these events happen, then holy books should be kept out of legal partnerships in the first place. The only role of the state should be to allot assets and/or determine child custody in the event of dissolution. The rest is none of their business as long as all parties are consenting adults.

I find it’s easier to argue from a legal standpoint than it is to try to appeal to people’s tolerance (it either doesn’t exist or can’t be relied upon).

Crud, sorry about that. Here ya go.

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