Childfree

In the egl community on livejournal a childfree lolita community was announced. I like lolita, and I don’t really plan on having children (I think I would be a terrible mother.) So I thought I’d join.
But really - I don’t/didn’t know much about what the term “childfree” entails. It’s meant to be a big ol’ community thing. I thought I’d look into it.

I’ve been reading this website for the past ages:
http://www.happilychildfree.com/

Now, there are things this person was talking about that I don’t agree with. A general mocking of people on welfare as well as what appears to be a good dose of classism, but I put that down to the person writing the blog. They even say that not everyone in community agrees about these things. So, this childfree person says some things that I disagree with, but I’m not going to take that as a representation of the whole community.

At one point they say something like all the seeming misogyny in childfree communities can be put down to the fact that a lot of the people who bother them about their lifechoices are mommies.
Some red flags go up.

I read this page:
http://happilychildfree.com/glossary.htm

Warning bells go up more. This is meant to be a page with commonly used lingo in the community. The number of gender specific insults against women seems… uhhh… high. I’m going to list all of the gender specific glossary terms, first listing terms for/about women, and then listing terms for/about men.
For a bit of background reading about gendered words and the power of words, I suggest checking out these articles by Laurelin.
http://laurelin.wordpress.com/2006/10/08/the-terrorism-of-words/#comments
http://laurelin.wordpress.com/2007/01/17/the-power-of-words-i/
http://laurelin.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/the-power-of-words-ii/
http://laurelin.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/the-power-of-words-iii/#comments

In fact, just go read her entire damned blog already!
*note to self, add her blog to your blogroll already.

Anyway, on with the list.

——————

Bint — A British term meaning a woman with no class. Often used on Childfree boards to describe trashy breeder women.

Entitlemoo — Entitlement-minded mother who thinks everyone should worship the ground she walks on and give her everything she wants and make her life as easy as possible because she’s convinced that giving birth earns her the right to be treated like a queen.

Lowing — Female breeders whining and bitching. Also known as “mooing.”

Martyr Mommy Brigade — This new breed of mommys who crave attention and sympathy so much that they’ll go to any lengths to get it.

Mombie — Combination of the words Mommy and Zombie. Occasionally used to describe a woman with placenta brain — she’s turned into a “mombie”.

Mommy — Any woman with kids that you just can’t take seriously. I prefer this to the word “moo.” They think of themselves as nothing more than “mommies” so I think we should think of them as nothing more than mommies. They aren’t grown women, they aren’t ladies, they are JUST mommies. They don’t even like the term “housewife” because they don’t consider themselves wifes — just mommies.
I use this to show how little respect I have for women who consider themselves no more than “mommies”. I’d rather use this than the word “moo” to describe them. She’s not a grown woman, she’s not a lady, she’s JUST a mommy.

Mommy Identity — When a woman’s entire identity is wrapped up in being a mother. She’ll go to great lengths to make her kids totally dependent on her for as long as possible to secure that identity out of fear she’ll have to get a new identity and/or get a job.

Mommy Voice — The voice some breeder women use when they talk to you in a snotty, superior tone as if they were speaking to one of their children. Makes you feel sorry for their kids.

Mommyism — A form of feminism that focuses on getting special rights for mommies and screwing over childfree women and men in the process. Example: Mommies want flextime in the office, but don’t think anyone but them should get it.

Moo — Usually stands for “Mother Obsessed with Offspring” or “Mother Oblivious to Offspring” although sometimes it just means a breeder woman.

Mooing — Female breeders whining and bitching. Also known as “lowing.”

Oblivamoo — Combination of “oblivious” and “moo” …a clueless mother who is either totally ignoring her child’s bad behavior or is just totally clueless about how to be a parent.

Placenta Brain — this describes the disease that happens to many women when they have children. Can also happen to men with children. Symptoms of the disease include: talking about nothing but their pregnancy and/or child(ren), losing all hobbies outside of their children, inability to hire a babysitter, lack of consideration for other people, saying really stupid things, and generally just being an idiot. In some cases, this condition clears up when the children all enter school, but in many cases they never recover.

SAHM, SAHMoo — Stands for “Stay at Home Mommy” (or “Stay at Home Moo”) In other words, unemployed mommy or what used to be called a “housewife”. Sometimes pronounced as “Sham”.

SHAM, Sham — Just a mocking term for “Stay at Home Mommy” (or “Stay at Home Moo”). In other words, unemployed mommy or what used to be called a “housewife”.

SMUM — Smart, Middle-Class, Uninvolved Mother. Basically, the yuppie, suburbanite mothers.

Stork Parking — Any parking that is reserved for pregnant women or women with children. You know, anything that encourages them to get as little exercise as possible. We wouldn’t want our young mothers to be HEALTHY, would we?

Tit Nazi — Overzealous breeders who are obsessed with breastfeeding in public, and yelling and screaming at people about how “breast is best,” bullying other women into breastfeeding, and bullying businesses into relaxing their public decency laws to allow them to whip their tits out in public. Beware of the tit-nazis – they are a very angry bunch with too much time on their hands.

THJITW– Stands for “The Hardest Job in the World” – Mantra of the Stay-at-home-mommies to make themselves feel less insecure about not working. If they weren’t so insecure, they wouldn’t have to claim they are superior to everyone else. Personally, I can think of a lot harder jobs than sitting at home with your own kids – like watching someone else’s bratty kids that you don’t like and aren’t allowed to discipline or scold in any way. So apparently there ARE harder jobs in the world – like being a day-care provider.

TMIJITW — Stands for “The Most Important Job in the World”. Mantra of Stay-at-home-mommies to make themselves feel less insecure about not working. If they weren’t so insecure, they wouldn’t have to claim they are superior to everyone else. Most of these women couldn’t last a day without disposable diapers, DVD players and their monster-sized strollers, so apparently there ARE more important jobs in the world – like the people making disposable diapers, DVD players and strollers.

Womban — Technically, any woman who has at least one kid, although more specifically used to describe gals with kids that want “special rights” to go along with that. Basically, this term is used when you don’t want to malign the whole female gender — just the ones who are the problem. The plural is “Womben”.

Yup Moo — Yuppie or middle class mommies who think they and their kids are superior to all the “peons” in the world. Their children truly are nothing but accessories and they take the kids everywhere to show them off, and they overschedule them with lots of extracurricular activites to show off their “unique” talents. Yup Moos love tell you about all the things THEY would never lower themselves to do, to prove they are far suprior to others. You’ll need a barf bag to be in the same room as one.

——————

Dud — Loser male breeder.

Duh — Slack-jawed, clueless male breeder.

Golden Boy — This is the son born to some sexist jerk who thinks he MUST have a son, and no daughter will be good enough, and then when he finally gets the son, he spoils him rotten.

Sperm Donor — The father. Sometimes used to describe a man who didn’t want to actually RAISE kids, he just had them for the Kodak moments or to please the wife. Also used to describe how some women only use men (even their husbands) for their sperm.

Wallet — Usually used to describe the husband of a SAHM. She uses him as nothing more than a paycheck. Also could be used to describe someone paying child support.

——————

Ouch. If I counted right, there were 76 words in that list. 22 of them were specifically relating to women (pretty much all of them insults/slurs.)
5 of them were related to men, and two of those five can be used to describe terrible behaviors of women.

Ooooh~

*suspicious*

Blogs as consciousness raisers.

I wanted to write this on the end of my last entry, but I think the wii’s textbox has a word / character limit. Fucking wii internet <3333

If silly words have raised consciousness to ideas such as ‘male as default’ (womyn) and ‘well behaved women rarely make history’ (herstory) and that these concepts upset/concern feminists then the action of using these words is powerful right?
Well, these words raised consciousness, but so many people dismiss/ed them as stupid or silly. I used to. O.O

It’s blogs that really brought these concepts home for me. Reading blogs is how I got my conscienceness raised to the importance of feminism and feminist issues.
‘member when BB first closed her blog down, how many people said in comments that they learned from her, that she opened their eyes?
She sure as hell opened my eyes. Apparently the Ms Boards used to do that to people. (I think.)

These online communities… they might seem silly, or like a waste of time, or just a hobby, but they’re important in the same way ‘herstory’ is, these here blogs - our rantings, ravings and musings, they raise conscientiousness. The networks we’re building and the feeling of not being alone is great too.
(amongst other benefits)

I guess I’m saying this because of the trolls who are trying to shut down blogs, forums etc.
If we lose all the blogs/forums we lose our networks and communities, and other women like I used to be might never have their eyes opened where they might have.

I think e-feminism is pretty powerful stuff.

Womyn, herstory and other ’silly’ words.

I’ve been reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. Just thought I’d share something on pages 115-116

“It was the feminists who raised my consciousness to the power of consciousness raising. ‘herstory’ is obviously ridiculous, if only because the ‘his’ in ‘history’ has no etymological connection with the masculine pronoun. It is as etymologically silly as the sacking in 1999 of a Washington official whose use of ‘niggardly’ was held to give racial offense. But even daft examples like ‘niggardly’ or ‘herstory’ succeed in raising consciousness.
Once we have smoothed our philological hackels and stopped laughing, herstory shows us history from a different view.
Gendered pronouns notoriously are the frontline of such conscience-raising. He or she must ask himself or herself whether his or her sense of style could ever allow himself or herself to write like this. But if we can just allow ourselves to get over the cluncking infelicity of the language, it raises our consciousness to the sensitivities of half the human race. Man, mankind, all men are created equal, one man one vote - English too often seems to exclude women. When I was young, it never occured to me that women might feel slighted by phrases like ‘the future of man.’ During the intervening decade we have all had our consciences raised. Even those who still use ‘man’ instead of ‘human’ so so with an air of self-conscious apology or truculence, taking a stand for traditional language, or even to rile feminists. All participants in the Zeitgeist have had their conscienceness raised, even those who choose to respond negatively by digging in their heels and redoubling the offense.
Feminism shows us the power of conscience raising. “

This was the first time that the ’silly words’ I’ve heard mocked (and have likely mocked myself in the past.) have a real and tangible purpose, so I thought I’d share it for other newbie feminists.

The power of consciousness ey? Sounds like knowledge _is_ power

Argh! You know how ages ago I was annoyed because I got in this big old fight with a friend who told me that the image from 300 of the white guy kicking the black guy down the well with the phrase “go back to Africa” on it wasn’t racist, because it was just taking the sentiment from the movie, and wasn’t intended to be a racist phrase?

Well, today he told me the term “bitch” isn’t sexist, because you can call men and women bitch.

Geez…

"Yellow Rage"

Juat thought I’d share this powerful stuff.

I’m going to write this in full writing, though the words might not come out right, because I’m doing this by ear. Writing it out in text should make it more accesible to people who can’t hear so well.

“Yellow Rage”

Two Asian women are standing on stage. They are speaking at the same time, it is quite hard to make out what they are saying.

Woman on the right: “listen asshole my words were meant to be mentioned in meticulous and “indecipherable word” manner, yet your mispronouncing and manhandling mouth fucks it all up! My meaning is misused for miscommunication. Misconstrued, misinterpereted, mispoken, mistake. Mother fucker. It makes me mad.

Woman on the left: *sentence that I cannot make out* You picked the wrong Asian woman to mess with. Because my tongue is split. It is forked and steel tipped, and it will puncture and bleed you, and if you don’t know, now you know. Asshole.

*speaking seperately now*

Woman on the left: Listen asshole, stop trying to guess what I am.

Both: Stop trying to tell me what I’m not.

Woman on the left: I was born in Seoul which makes me Korean. These slightly slanted eyes aint just for seein’bitch, I see right through you. You expert on me with your:

Both: Fake asian tattoo

Woman on the left: You expert on me with your:

Both: Tae-bo and Kung-fu

Woman on the left: So what you try and *words I can’t make out* on the menu?

Woman on the right: So what you’re a fan of Lucy Liu?

Both: So what, you read the Joy Luck Club too?

Woman on the left: That makes you an expert on how I should look? Fuck you!

Both: What the fuck do you know about being Asian?

Woman on the left: I’m about to put you in your place son! What do you know about:

Both: Napalm and Saigon?

Woman on the left: About Hiroshima and Nagaaki?

Both: About Ghandi?

Woman on the left: What do you know about demilitarized zones zones and No Gun Ri?

Both: About Milai (likely spelled wrong again) and the military?

Woman on the left: What do you know about the killing fields and the signs they wield?

Both: “No Chinese and dogs allowed”

Woman on the left: What do you know about comfort women and geisha girls? About colonization all over the Asia world?

Both: What do you know about the great wall?

Woman on the left: I could school you on each and all, motherfucker I’m about to get raw!

Woman on the right: You picked the wrong Asian woman to mess with!

Woman on the left: “You picked the wrong Asian woman to mess with! Because my tongue is split. It is forked and steel tipped, and it will puncture and bleed you, and if you don’t know, now you know.

Both “Asshole”

Woman on the right: Listen, don’t ask me what I’m saying in my native tongue. You wanna know so badly, so learn it yourself.

Both: Twenty years!

Woman on the right: It took me to perfect the language my mothers and her mothers spoke

Both: Twenty seconds!

Woman on the right: it took you to ask what me and my sister spoke about? If I said I wasn’t talking to you, why don’t you stop bothering me all up in my business?

Both: How dare you step to me!

Woman on the right: Invade my privacy! Waste my time to ask me if I’m able to relay you the contents in my conversation? What nonsense is this?

Both: Do I look like your private translator?

Woman on the right: Nosy motherfucker! You probably though the dialogue was centered around you, and you just wanted to make sure. Is that because you’re paranoid and insecure, or just jealous because my tongue has got more… skills then yours?
So you wanna learn how to say “I love you” and “hello?”

Both: Why you need to know?

Woman on the right: You think of me as some Asian ho? Ready to turn around at your calls of:

Woman on the left:”Hey baby! Anyung Hasaiyo, Anyung Hasaiyo!” (Again, likely spelled wrong due to personal ignorance)

Woman on the right: Or:

Woman on the left: Ni hao ma, I love you china doll.

Woman on the right: Please, your shit doesn’t impress me at all because my words were meant to be mentioned in meticulous and “indecipherable word” manner, yet your mispronouncing and manhandling mouth fucks it all up! My meaning is misused for miscommunication. Misconstrued, misinterpreted, misspoken, mistake. Mother fucker. It makes me mad, so you better have listened to me asshole, and listened well. Don’t talk to me anymore, don’t fuck with me anymore, because I am done talking to you!

SupaNova - Interesting.

I went to SupaNova (a comic and anime convention.)

For the most part, I had a great day. My costume was not ready in time for the event, but that’s cool. I dyed my hair blue (something I have wanted to do for years, but was always afraid of people on the street and such heckling me.)

Later at some point I must post photos, I love it. <3

There was something I found very disappointing, some presenter in an event made a jovial comment about schoolgirl tentacle rape. I wrote an emailed letter of complaint. Here it is if anyone is interested:

—————————

Dear Sir/Madam

I attended the first day of Supanova, and had a good time at the majority of the event, however I have a complaint to make.

I watched the Iron Artists competition hosted by Oztaku. At one point in the presentation one of the presenters mentioned a convention that he’s organizing, which he said is the only anime/geek convention in Australia not ashamed or worried by adult content. Jovially he talked about how at this convention you can buy tentacle rape pornography, with schoolgirls.

I understand that these comics and such do exist, but I feel it was completely inappropriate of the presenters to talk about rape, especially because they were smiling.

This was a family event, and I expect audience members were not expecting such conversation, I understand rape jokes are common in geek spaces, but it was entirely inappropriate for a presenter to conduct himself this way in front of a large audience.
Rape is a delicate subject, it is a crime which leaves the victims traumatized often for many years.
The subject of rape can be triggering, and very upsetting to people who have survived the crime. The presenters did not know the backgrounds of the people in the hall, and did not know if this would be a triggering response for members of their audience.

As a woman who has experienced rape, I must express my disappointment at the insensitivity that was displayed by these men.

I thank you for your time, and sincerely hope nothing like this will happen in future.

Yours Faithfully

(insert real name here)

—————————

I have a friends account of the details as well:

http://rosek.livejournal.com/228367.html

It was otherwise a great day (and the dinner with the four lovely ladies was just great!)

On jokes, and joking.

I’m writing this to preempt anyone who tells me that something which has offended my feminist sensibilities was intended as “just a joke.”

If I send you here, it’s to explain why jokes are more then just jokes, and I’m not being offended for the sake of it, I’m being offended for a legitimate reason. I might also link to this in future posts concerning jokes.

“What we laugh at is bound tightly to particular cultures so that there are not many jokes which travel well and in fact many jokes don’t work outside the social word from which they arose. Many jokes depend for their effect on a shared sense of ridicule for particular individuals and groups and if the values underpinning the joke are not shared then it is more likely to be a source of offense then humor.
We have all heard jokes that were not funny because they touched our values in an offensive way rather then amused us. Racial jokes, ethnic jokes, sexist jokes, political jokes all depend on the joke teller and the joke listener sharing stereotypes and values. It isn’t such a long shot to argue that by telling jokes we invite others to share, and perhaps reinforce those stereotypes and values.
Telling and listening to jokes is not just an amusing way to pass the time: it is an important way by which groups can maintain a shared sense of values.
Marie Emmitt & John Pollock, Language and Learning, Oxford University Press, 1991

If the above is true (I think it is) then jokes are not just jokes at all. They’re not just an amusing way of passing time; they’re an important way of maintaining a shared sense of values. You can’t tell a joke without it being bound to the culture in which the joke was created, so, you cannot tell a racist joke, without it being bound to a racist society. You cannot tell a sexist joke, without it being a reflection of a sexist society.

Sexist, racist, ableist and all other manner of offensive jokes cannot exist in a culture without sexism, racism etc.
For a sexist joke to be funny, both the joke teller, and the joke listener have to have the shared view that sexism is funny. When you tell sexist jokes, you’re reinforcing sexist stereotypes, when you reinforce sexist stereotypes you reinforce sexism.
No matter how well intentioned you may think such jokes are, they reinforce the problem. You cannot tell a sexist joke without reinforcing sexism.

What about irony?

When saying a sexist/racist/etc joke in an ironic fashion, what values are you inviting the joke listeners to share or reinforce? Are you trying to emphasize the stupidity in such statements?

All I can say about this is that if you tell a sexist/racist joke in an ironic fashion, sharing values that are not sexist/racist, you have to be sure that your audience shares the same values. Sexist/racist jokes, ironic or not, can only exist in a culture with sexist and racist values. Sexist and racist jokes reinforce sexism and racism in people who already hold such values.
If you tell a joke in an ironic way, and your listener/s use it to reinforce their sexist/racist values, you’ve helped them to do that.
I’m not saying that you can’t say ironic jokes, just that you should be careful about it. We live in a sexist an racist culture, and people who hold sexist and racist values will reinforce their views with even well intentioned irony.
Because of this, I would shy away from using this kind of irony in the mass media (books, internet etc.) because you never know who will look at it, and then use it to reinforce values that you are intending to ridicule.

Irony is an iffy area though; I’m prone to make statements that are intended to be ironic on the internet. I’ve read these sorts of things from other people who meant to be ironic as well, and I appreciate the irony. Irony is something I’m not so much offended by, as worried by.

Richie over at Crimitism has an article on a certain ‘ironic’ book written by internet celebrity Maddox. It shows that people, who bought the book, also bought non-ironic worrying material. Clearly the people buying the book aren’t taking the book in an ironic fashion, or they think it’s “Just a joke.”

Jokes aren’t “Just jokes” Jokes are a way to share values.

If jokes are a way to share values, and there are jokes with underlying sexist values, I’m going to be offended. You’re not just telling a joke, you’re demeaning me. You’re sharing values which degrade me. You’re inviting others to share, and reinforce values which are inherently degrading, or demeaning to my gender.

**********************************

Edited on September 9th 2007

I just came across this link, and I thought it was relevant to what I was saying here, so I’m just going to share it with you.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/22/EDG5CCS6J71.DTL

Some quote from the article:

“According to Time, Chappelle became unsure about his material for the new season when a white visitor at a taping laughed especially hard and long over a sketch Chappelle performed in blackface. “When he laughed, it made me uncomfortable,” Time quotes Chappelle as saying. His longtime writing partner is quoted as confirming that Chappelle had decided some of his material was not funny but “racist.” “

“It’s one thing for a black comic to perform racially charged material that delights black audiences. A black audience takes it as pure satire or a kind of inside-the-family ribbing; slurs and stereotypes have no power as weapons of mass distortion. But how can you be sure that a white audience doesn’t take the jokes as “proof” of ugly, buried, unacknowledged assumptions?”

"Well I didn’t know he was serious!"

Two of my friends and I were having a conversation, an interesting conversation because feminism actually came up, which is odd as my friends havn’t really looked into feminism at all. I was pleased, fucking pleased to here the guy there express the sentiment that a woman should be able to walk in a bad area, drunk off her face, with her panties half down, and still no one should think her behaviour is a reason that she should be raped. I don’t know, it was pleasing to hear such sentiments in the real world, and not on these here internets.

The bit I wanted to talk more about was one of my friends, saying she left her boyfriend because she couldn’t stand his attitudes towards women. The male in the conversation raised his eye at her and mentioned that her ex had never, ever pretended he wasn’t sexist. He made sexist jokes all the time, and openly scorned women. She looked at him and said “Yeah, but I thought the jokes were just jokes. I didn’t know he was fucking serious, hell, if I ever questioned him about them he’d tell me it was just a joke, but if we were ever arguing he told me it was a matter of time before I cheated on him and behaved like an irrational bitch, because that’s what all women do.”

The bit to focus on there is where she said she didn’t think he was serious. I used to believe the same thing about sexist jokes, I didn’t think they were serious either. ‘The guys are just playing’ I’d think to myself. I’d shrug it off and laugh along with them.

Considering it though, I don’t think I know one boy who makes sexist jokes who is only sexist when they’re joking. I don’t know one guy who says these kinds of things who actually respects women. I guess now that I’ve started looking, I don’t know very many guys at all who seem to genuinely respect women, but that’s another issue.

When a guy makes a sexist joke, he can hide behind it’s joking manner. I don’t know a single guy who says these sorts of things without actually holding misgivings towards women, but oh they can say they don’t! They can tell you they’re just joking, and you’re being uptight in taking offense. They can tell you it isn’t even something to get offended by at all, and your offense is irrational, with the subtext that you’re behaving like an irrational girl.

When a guy tells a sexist joke, not oly is he saying something offensive based on a persons gender, and stereotyping the gender. He also takes the power of women who are offended by his words away, with the sweep of a hand, and the words ‘it’s just a joke.’