Feminist Tuesday, March 20

It starts early.

Good morning, y'all. I'm feeling clear-headed and energetic due to the removal of 75% of the head bees. The other 25% will be evicted in a couple of weeks--just in case the minor surgery impacts the blog. (Which, come on, we both know it will.) Anyway, here goes!

​Today's Videos:

Literature/Entertainment: Black Panther’s Badass Female Warriors Are Getting Their Own Spin-Off. YES! YES! YES! I have to say that Black Panther's Dora Milaje had more impact on me than even Wonder Woman on an intellectual level. The main reason why is because they totally escaped the "relationships with men come before everything" trope. Even though Wonder Woman is the central character, Steve Trevor weighs the whole story in his favor. It's still about him. Even the big emotional scene is about him when it should be about her.[2] None of this happens in Black Panther--and the women aren't even the title characters. I adored that so much. Never once did I get the feeling that any of these women were holding themselves back for the men in their lives. Not. Once. And yet, they had full, rewarding relationships with men. They had relationships with women too. [gasp] And Yay! Nnedi Okorafor! “Mother of Invention” A new short story by the author of Marvel’s Black Panther: Long Live the King. And African Women inspire comic book heroes. And this next one pisses me off. How white nationalists are trying to co-opt ‘Black Panther’. The final frontier: how female directors broke into sci-fi, and 6 YA Books to Read After You’ve Seen Love, Simon. Lastly, I Don’t Want to F*** Him, I Want to BE Him.

General: This is disturbing. Hillary Clinton’s name vanishes from State Department fellowship. Menstruation is a taboo subject and really shouldn't be. When women live in a culture where periods are not discussed and are hidden their health is directly effected. They're too embarrassed to ask questions. They don't have ready and free access to reputable medical information. Not to mention, we end up with grown men in our government who don't understand how birth control, abortion, or even how female anatomy works.[1] Suffice it to say, I feel this is a good thing, and it's even better that the subject is seen in relationship to other genders. TRANSGENDER MALE MODEL FRONTS NEW PERIOD CAMPAIGN. Next up,  The Last Jim Crow Generation. There are things I agree with and things I don't. I firmly disagree that racism is the responsibility of older generations and that the moment they die out humanity will be miraculously free of racism. That's bullshit. Look at the photographs of Dylan Roof and Morgan Roof. Now, look at the images of any recent White Supremacist rally. Almost none of these people are Baby Boomers. Denying that fact will only insure that racism continues on. This sentiment is just another form of "Just wait. It'll go away on its own. Give it time." Every marginalized group is told to wait like this in ways tailored to their situation, and that's bullshit. Racism has had enough time to fade away. In two hundred plus years it hasn't vanished on its own in the US. It's way past time to kill it dead. Okay, this next one is pretty stupid in that it ignores the obvious. Thus, I'll file it under "'Tis a mystery!" Men are less empathetic than women. But it’s not genetic. Well, no shit. I'll go farther and say that they're probably talking about white men specifically--just as I believe the women in the equation are probably white. Look, when your entire environment reflects only people who look like you, you have no reason to think of anyone else. You have zero connection to the concept that anyone who isn't like you is a person. So, we have stories like this one: White Men Challenge Workplace Diversity Efforts. This is also why boys need to read stories about girls. It's why we need Black Panther, A Wrinkle in Time and other POC created media. And now, Women Arrested After Trespassing at Arizona Mosque and Mocking Islam. Thank goodness. Next, 'America's dirty little secret': the Texas town that has been without running water for decades, and Immigration Advocates Warn ICE Is Retaliating For Activism. ICE needs disbanding. It's abuse of power is completely out of hand. Add to this Big Money As Private Immigrant Jails Boom. Yes, that's right. It's the Prison Industrial Complex and its "Prisoners with jobs" problem again. Meet The Activist Who Uncovered The Russian Troll Factory Named In The Mueller Probe. Gasp, they're a woman. Okay, add me to the list of people who weren't aware of this: American Indian teens head to Vatican, hoping to overturn historic papal decrees. Oh, North Carolina. [sigh] North Carolina Teen Pulled Off of School Bus, Left at School Alone for Showing Too Much Shoulder. And Tennessee. Tennessee Has Fined Residents Nearly $100,000, Just For Braiding Hair. This is disturbing. Millions of Students Are Quietly Being Taught the Koch Brothers’ Whitewashed Version of Black History. Suddenly, I'm no longer sad about National Geographic's fate. 'National Geographic' Reckons With Its Past: 'For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist'. The only time I had anything to do with the magazine was for art projects. My profs would have crates of the magazines available for painting class and collage creation. 

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​[1] Ultimately, I blame the fact that in the United States boys are separated from girls during elementary school chat about periods. Sex and reproduction in relationship to menstruation is discussed in detail at that point--or was when I was a kid. For most of my life, I couldn't figure out how misinformation about pregnancy proliferated in school. Didn't everyone get the talk out of the way in 5th grade? I was told that boys got a similar talk. It wasn't until I was having this conversation with a close male friend of mine that I heard the truth. No. Boys weren't told shit. Nothing. Nada. They had free time while the whole rest of the school was being educated.
[2] I totally want to see a comparison of the number of spoken lines. I bet we'd discover that Steve Trevor got more lines than Wonder Woman.