Prayin' as directed.
OK, I want to see the dissection of that column, for sure.
And I would like a nice autumn walk in Edinburgh. Perhaps next year....
ajay @ #49: elise's story reminds me very much of "A Civil Campaign". It's also a great example of invisible privilege.
There's a reason why it reminds you very much of "A Civil Campaign." Lois and I were hanging out after writers' group one day, and I had to take a phone call, and when I came back she was leafing through the book of photographs by Loren Cameron, I think it was. She looked up with this bemused expression and said, "May I borrow this?" That led to a series of conversations, and ultimately to that particular plotline. One of the conversations included the story I told above.
(P.S. There's a line in the book that's nabbed from me. In writers' group, we were kicking around the question of how Barrayaran politics handles questions of gender and inheritance, and I said, "They could just let the prick vote. Lord ______, his mark." And Lois said, "I am stealing that!" I love that plotline the serendipity that led to it.)
Years ago, I took a drag king workshop given by Dianne Torr. It was quite something. I took it partly because I couldn't imagine a successful makeover of myself into a man at that point (I was thinner than I am now, but still quite curvy, and had long blonde hair).
Torr was very good at the transformation thing. I suppose it helped that John Killacky lent me his engineer boots and a leather jacket, and that Juan bought me a Gods of Thunder monster truck rally t-shirt. I was startled to learn that when you do the ace bandage wrapping-of-bazooms thing in order to pass, what you get are killer pecs. Anyhow, long story short, a bunch of us were made over and then sent out to wander around for an hour or so and see how we were treated.
I came back early because I was too blisteringly angry to stay out any long. I had been for a walk on a moderately busy city sidewalk and stopped for a cuppa at a coffeeshop. What made me so angry? People got out of my way, didn't crowd me on the sidewalk like they usually do, and the coffee shop guy gave me immediate service, even anticipating stuff I'd need before I had to ask for it. All I could think of was, "They've been holding out on me! THIS is what it's like?" Sure, I knew from observation that there was a difference in treatment, but to suddenly be moved up to the first-class section? Rage. Utter, utter rage, at how different it REALLY was.
(And then I met up with Mike and we went over to see Pamela, and she thought I was a guy even though she was expecting me at that hour in drag, which was funny; she said she thought, "Who's that fan with Mike? I don't know him." So apparently fannish was readable even when gender was rewritten. I should find those photographs we took, because they're pretty awesome. Though it did weird Juan out, because apparently in drag I look disconcertingly like his brother.)
Anyhow, that longwindedness was to say: yeah. I believe you. And it's only gotten more so as I put on a decade or two. These days, with the walker? I apparently have a repulsor field installed in it; who knew?
There's another (extremely quick) brown gravy flavoring that's vegan, though I know it's not to some people's taste, but I've used it quite successfully when I was either out of meat or out or time or both: make up a little bit of strong brown broth using hot water and some marmite, and use that in the gravy. Be careful not to overdo, though.
No, really: something about the yeast really works, taste-wise.
Sorry to hear it, Jim, if this song is first-person. Hope you feel better soon.
Yup, sounds like my mileage varied a lot. At least at those particular events I attended.
(And I've got some sensitization to those issues of abuse-and-control as well.)
However, later on in the endless cycle of stuff-they-want-to-sell-you, they were pretty hard-sell about it, and I did succeed in getting myself entirely removed from their mailing/calling lists. They were doing some money/prosperity seminar thingie, and the pitch was, "We really hope you'll sign up, because we really think you have important things to add to the event." I thanked them, and told them that if they thought I really had important things to add to the event that I would be happy to consider it, asked them how many hours the event took, and told them what my current hourly wage was. They never called me back. I was deeply amused.
That said, I think that what I got from the whole deal might not have been what they intended. And I did definitely see where various people involved were shading into "true convert out to proselytize everybody" and then into "power-mad leader" mode, and I'm not real thrilled with either of those, and tend to Be Elsewhere Now, if you know what I mean.
Craig R. @ 419 - The point of restricting the bathroom visits was for the seminar organizers to exert more and more control.
Not at the Training I attended, or at any of the subsequent events I took part in. Maybe the one you went to differed.
At the ones I went to, the point of agreeing to stay in the room except at designated bathroom breaks and designated meal breaks was to make clearer exactly what "agreement" was about. In a sense, a lot of it was like this: if you're going to "be here now," then really BE here. There were people to talk to before the event began, if you had any reservations about any part of the agreements; in my experience, they were courteous, and they were pretty clear on the concept that the discussion you were having with them was part of the event, and that the event was something that was, among other things, designed to focus you on exactly what you were agreeing to, what your word was about, and when you would and wouldn't (and quite possibly when you should and shouldn't) agree to things and/or keep those agreements.
I hesitated writing this, because almost always there are people who were never there who know exactly beyond a doubt what was going on, and are glad to tell those of us who were there what the deal really was, but I decided to write it anyway, because Making Light isn't generally so much about that sort of telling-without-experience.
Being able to demand obedience from strangers on something that is at such a basic biological level is very dis-empowering for those being controlled -- and a large component, it seems, is that they are agreeing to the abuse.
It would indeed be disempowering to have someone demand such obedience from me. I wouldn't have gone forward with the event, had that been the case. I am a very stubborn one.
For what it's worth, the meal breaks thing was adjusted for people with blood sugar and medical issues; it wasn't adjusted for people who decided they needed to go have a beer or some coffee or a doughnut while the group was in the middle of grappling with an issue that was perhaps a little too personally applicable. I was given the impression pretty strongly by the people I talked to that if a person needed suddenly to go to the bathroom as a matter of biological urgency, that we'd deal with it sensibly, not stupidly. The whole thing, though, did focus a great deal of attention on what an agreement was, on what holdbacks people put on things in their mind, and on what reservations to full participation we might have had. As a setting in which to examine that kind of thing, a hotel ballroom with rest rooms just outside seems preferable to me to a lot of other settings.
No, I don't still do those kinds of seminars. Yes, the ones I did actually did change -- no, let me be clear: when I took those, *I* changed my life.
A lot of it is about agency. If anything, those experiences made me the kind of person who is less likely to unquestioningly follow an order that seems to me to be harmful.
One year. Wow.
*shakes head*
Seems both longer and shorter.
Commenting slightly out of order here...
Terry @ 112: There's a whole history of the usage of "politically correct" that is specific to the U.S./Canadian lesbian/women's/wimmin's/womyn's communities; it shares roots with some other usages, but it's got its own rich herstory, as it were, and the usage was served with a side of irony sauce pretty much from the get-go, while still being seen as a useful tool for self- and community-examination.
Xopher @ 110: If, like the woman I spoke of, you liked feminine clothes, you were complicit in the patriarchal oppression of women—excuse me, wimmin, and every real womon would ostracize you...except the ones who were secretly attracted to femmes, but they were ashamed of their unrighteousness.
Heh. I remember those days. You think that one's a difficult path, well, try being a femme who likes femmes! That was definitely too queer for some folks.
And Goddess Forbid you slept with men from time to time; that meant you were "draining energy from the wimmin's community" and giving it to the enemy.
Stop givin' me flashbacks, man. I'm gonna have to dig out my Alix Dobkin records again.
I was just talking with the folks at my physical therapy clinic about the woman who designs and manufactures the burquinis. She's got plans for a line of sportswear, and as soon as she puts them up on the website, I need to tell the PT folks, because we have a significant number of observant (in dress, anyhow) Muslim women who come in for PT, and modern-fabric lightweight sportswear that met these women's standards for acceptable dress would be very useful.
Doing PT in even the lightest of streetwear-type Muslim women's apparel is more work than it otherwise might be, I'm betting.
I'd better go check the site and see if they've got those up yet, because I have another PT appointment tomorrow.
(We have a pretty big Muslim population here in Minneapolis/St. Paul.)
This whole Michael Schwartz thing reminds me of the term "absexuality." Absexuals include people whose sexual orientation is centered around lovingly and obsessively fulminating about the evils of pornography.
"... one of the roots from which I drew inspiration in developing the theory of absexuality, the idea that some anti-sex people actually are turned on by the porn, sodomy, and other wild and crazy stuff they purport to hate: that, in fact, this is their sexual orientation. Betty Dodson, my partner Robert, and I sat around trying to figure out what Dworkin and Jesse Helms had in common, and absexuality, in my view, is it. ("Ab" is a Latin prefix meaning "away from"; absexuals push sex away, but they stay in contact with it, always fulminating, unlike garden-variety folks who, when they see sex-related stuff that makes them uncomfortable, simply turn away.)"
- from Carol Queen's website at http://www.carolqueen.com/pages/interviews/Susie-Bright.htm
Serge @ 39: Oh, I am so glad you quoted the snails and oysters bit. I am one hundred percent sure that if Mike had still been here, he would have quoted it immediately.
Greg @ 380: This is also true of soup cans. When I buy a can of tomato soup, and the first can I pick up has a big dent in it, I know that this dent does not really affect the soup.
What you think you know there is not true.
When I worked for a canning company, part of our ongoing effort to reduce the amount of CD (concealed damage) being accidentally shipped out was an education campaign about how dents weakened the seams and seals that keep canned goods safe.
You can take the dented can if you like. Me, I remember when it was my job to notice the differences between the dented and the undented can, because I was informed that the dented can wasn't a fit specimen to give to customers who were buying our product in good faith, because of the risks the dent caused -- and I'll take the undented can every time.
Your Allegories May Vary, but the information I'm giving is quite true.
Otter B @ 289 and Xopher at 294: No, that scene in Civil Campaign is intended to be excruciating. It's not comedy for either Miles or Ekaterin... or for many of the other people around the table. (Can't vouch for Ivan, or Lord Dono, but... well, that's a longer discussion. And I'm reasonably confident of my position here, because I was in a writing group with Lois when she wrote it. P.S. The line I contributed to the book was "Lord Dono, his mark." I made Lois laugh with it during a discussion of Barrayaran inheritance law, whereupon she announced she was stealing it.)
Lee @ 302: Ah, yes, Ivan sets it up for himself -- and then he learns something, and applies it. Notice what happens in subsequent chapters between Ivan and Dono.
dcb @ 317: Yes, he's set himself up for this; it's still painful to watch. Miles's choices about how he went about this were wrong - but it's his own insecurities that lead him to this - Ekaterin is the first woman who has shown an interest in Miles Vorkosigan, not Admiral Naismith, and he's frightened of losing her; he cannot believe himself worthy of Ekaterin, he can't believe she won't prefer someone taller, more conventionally desirable, so he can't bring himself to wait to start courting her, even though he knows, on another level, that he should. I think it's that resonance with personal insecurities which makes me (and maybe others posting here?) feel for him so much and that makes that scene so difficult to read.
Ah, but this is directly pertinent to the discussion here. This is one of the instances (and the whole book is full of them) where Miles is starting to learn that the behaviors and assumptions that he developed when he was powerless are no longer appropriate. They may have been survival skills then... but he's survived, and because he's survived, he has changed. He now has some power and concomitant responsibility for choosing how he uses it, and for cleaning up after himself when he does something wrong.
The reason I think it's directly pertinent to the discussion here is this: sometimes, some of us "hit back" really hard verbally... only to find out that the person we thought was "hitting" us verbally first was actually doing no such thing. We have survival skills, a whole arsenal of them -- and part of the process of survival, if we make it that far, is to realize that not everything is fight-or-flight, and not everything merits an all-out crazed-wolverine-style reaction as a first line of defense. (Even if the wolverine's a verbal wolverine rather than a physical one.)
That's a painful thing to have to learn. It was painful for me, anyway. But it was a huge important thing. My reflexes and reactions come out of some horrific history where I really was pretty much powerless -- but I'm not any more, and I have to realize that, if I'm going to be fit company for other people, and if I'm going to behave honorably.
Note that I'm not talking about accidentally pushing people's buttons. I'm talking about launching a diatribe that I, at the time, feel is completely justified.... and then later, not so much. I would like to think that the "later, not so much" phase is progress towards not launching in the first place.
Because some of the times I launched, I was at the very least being an asshole, if not a bully.
It's a wonderful thing to get to the point where those survival skills are no longer the best choice of current behavior. Realizing it is a huge thing. Doing something about it even huger. And it's not easy. But it might be part of the price of admission into a lot of conversations and gathering where I want to be.
Huh. You want to know somebody who really learned it? Mike. He had every reason in the world to be bitter and defensive and mean. What was he instead, in many many discussions? Generous. Kind. Yeah, he could have filleted people six ways to Sunday when he disagreed. He didn't, though. Well, hardly ever.
Evan @ 61: I was teased and bullied horribly in school, and I think back now to it and feel anger that my teachers didn't do anything about it at the time. But, I guess my question is could they have done anything?
I was teased and bullied pretty badly in grade school (came home with bruises all over my arms pretty regularly, was "teased" repeatedly about suicide and "jokingly" encouraged to commit it, et cetera), and my teachers did confront it. They talked to the whole class (well, the whole section-of-the-school, three classes worth, which was a total of 21 kids, because it was a tiny parochial) about it very seriously. (As I read the blog post that Kevin Marks linked to in #22, I was very strongly reminded of it.)
The bullying got worse then. Or, at least, it didn't let up, and there was absolutely no chance from then on of anyone being kind to me in front of other classmates.
Sometimes just living through something is the victory, I guess. Wasn't easy.
I don't know what people can do about it. I do think that being called on it by an authority figure who is not a peer is different from being called on it by a peer who may also have authority/respect/status, though. At least, it seems to have different outcome a significant part of the time. There's probably something in there about the way that being peers involves shared stuff, but I am not coherent about that at the moment, alas.
DDB @ 60: As several people said, the degree to which 'things' are open to debate varies more than my initial statement really said. Things close to the topic and relevant to the current discussion are very open to debate. Other things are harder to bring into scope; it has to look profitable, it has to look like the challenger brings something new worth examining, and so forth. Nothing is irretrievably excluded from debate, but in practice going off after random irrelevant things doesn't work very well.
Are you describing how you do it, or are you describing the social contract you wish other people shared with you?
Also: Flushing Remonstrance. Cool! This bit
"The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, "
makes me think of the book JEWISH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, which goes into detail about such things and how they affected the colonization of the New World. (Also, I gotta love a book with chapters about a pirate rabbi.)
Speaking of Manna Hatta, have folks seen The MannaHatta Project? (If you want to go directly to the map that lets you pick a block in NYC and move the slider until you see what it looked like in 1609, and learn about the topography and animals, skip to this link.
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