Sunday Night Kind of Link-a-palooza
Posted: June 23, 2013 Filed under: just because | Tags: feminism 32 Comments
I am a proud feminist killjoy! Unrepentant, unapologetic, and frickin’ hilarious 🙂
Good evening, newsjunkies!
Mona here with some food for thought tonight, since I was absent from my soapbox on Saturday.
First off I want to start off with this blog piece entitled, “My Mom Was An Underground Railroad For Abused Women: What She Taught Me About Feminism And Fear“… I’m going to quote an excerpt, which is brilliant in its own right but really needs to be read in context to appreciate it fully. (if you click over be sure to bring your kleenex if you’re the feminist-verklempt type like me):
As her daughter, it took me nearly 20 years not to pity my mother’s “otherness.” She stopped pitying it herself a long time ago.
It’s taken me longer, still — until writing these words, actually — to develop admiration for the way she turned her seclusion and separation into not just a tool, but a blueprint for that tool; there were other women out there, who also didn’t have anyone to go to, and so she would use her resources to help them.
When I asked my husband to read over my notes, his response was, “Well. Your construction of ‘otherness’ is utterly overwhelmed by the narrative of how awesome your mom is. Is that intentional?”
I didn’t know if it was intentional — and then, suddenly, I did know.
That’s exactly what her life has done: let her personal actions, her very humanity, quietly absorb and subvert any narrative of “other.”
I wasn’t taught the ideas of “sisterhood” and “coalition” and the cognitive dissonance between the two until college, along with a whole host of other academic theory.
And even then, I soaked it up but it didn’t distill and crystallize until I developed a truly adult relationship with my mother — who herself says, “I didn’t even know there was a feminist movement; it just marched right past my front door.”
That wasn’t any real matter to her, the fact that she didn’t know the name for what she was doing; she just went right on doing it anyway.
Oh, the turning of xenophobic fear-of-the-oogadah-boogadah-other on its head! I really cannot recommend reading this one in its entirety *highly enough.* Go. Read. Now. (and don’t forget your tissues, my kindred feminist killjoys!)
Next up is the video I meant to showcase in my last post. Some of you may have already seen me post it in the comments subsequently, but it really deserves a spot on the frontpage…it’s also another one where I cannot do it justice by teasing or describing, though I will say Holly McNish and her inspired practice of the art of the spoken word, in concert with her unabashed feminist voice, is just a an absolute delight to behold… she is a true talent and gem. Her message in this youtube says so much about the ways in which women and girls are routinely socialized to see themselves from a warped perspective… and to live in an ever-dehumanizing world where women are just supposed to exist as playthings first and foremost, not as thinking, living, breathing human beings with appetites, desires, and prerogatives all their own:
…perhaps somewhere out there in the space-time continuum, Sylvia Plath–beloved wordsmith word-seamstress–smiles!
Now for my Sunday art pick…. the official trailer of the documentary Finding Vivian Maier:
I cannot wait to see this. I absolutely adore Vivian Maier’s photography (let’s be honest, it’s hard not to, as her work is visually arresting!) and the story behind her is absolutely fascinating. What a truly delicious enigma!
Finally, I’ll leave you with this:
Isn’t it fantastic? My favorite line: “Now set the foundation with the powdered ashes of Susan B. Anthony.”
Alright, Sky Dancers. Your turn! Open Evening thread.
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Sky Dancing 
Reblogged this on Let Them Listen.
feminist-verklempt
You have a way with coming up with the best phrases.
Holly McNish!!! Fuck yeah, great video!
Great linkage! Thank you! Must agree with the grinworthiness of
“set the foundation with the powdered ashes of Susan B. Anthony.”
🙂
Hiya cygnus, glad you liked 🙂
Power to the powder………….what was the name of that red lipstick, and the black cat eyes really took the lid off……………..that was some advanced kickass instructables, and so exciting.
Well, tonight is the last episode of Mad Men. Ugh…I can’t help myself. With all the crap on TV there is only a couple of shows I watch that is not on TCM, and this is one of them.
So y’all have a good night. See ya around later on. And Mona, sending a big kiss your way babe…with a huge hug to go with it. oxoxox
Just an observation, but the mother in this situation was black. Mother booked with second-degree murder after self-inflicted gunshot wound leaves 5-year-old dead | NOLA.com
Still need to look into the investigation but they are quick to arrest compared to all the other situation when a white kid shoots themselves or someone else recently…just saying. I mean, I don’t want to get into it now. With mad men and all, but it sure does look strange to me.
Maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut. I don’t know.
Not ever 🙂
Not at all. I think you make an excellent point.
You have an excellent point. Obviously handled differently from others I’ve heard about. Of course they’ll say it’s not about race, except it’s really almost always about race.
It just got me upset that an arrest was made so quickly when all the other shootings occurred I don’t think there was any arrest at all.
Then you don’t want to read this story….I actually meant to include this in my post, but in typical absentminded fashion forgot…
Black Woman Gets 20 Years for Firing Shot at Wall; White Man Gets 0 Years for Shooting Man in the Back 3 Times, Killing Him
http://www.alternet.org/stand-your-ground-double-standard
Breaking from the NYT: The Chinese government made the call for Snowden to fly to Moscow without a passport.
And they really appreciated all the information Snowden gave them.
You’ve been right BB………..traitor from the get go.
Ralph caught on before I did.
Five minutes after I read the original story I know something was hinky about it. It didn’t make logical sense from a technical standpoint.
Snowden decided to leave Hong Kong almost on the spur of the moment, because he “feared losing his internet connection.”
ROFLOL!!
Such hardship. Meanwhile Bradley Manning has been in jail for years.
Is Snowden for real? He is the weirdest ( self-proclaimed) “whistleblower” ever….
what a spoiled douchenozzle! something else we shouldn’t believe. setting up communications with ambassadors and making amnesty requests don’t happen in minutes.
it does make him appear to be a lone ranger though instead of a doofus with a support group of Greenwald, Wikileaks, and who knows what kind of bots behind him.
According to the NYT article I posted above, the Chinese government had likely drained his four laptops and had no further use for him. They wanted him out of town to avoid a long drawn out battle w/ the US.
And he left without his passport? It is crazy stupid, doofus is right.
No, the U.S. Government revoked his passport.
Just saw on Twitter that Snowden isn’t at the Moscow airport anymore, the Ecuador ambassador left, and no one knows what happened to Snowden or if he was really there. Some Russian person tweeted that he’s probably be interrogate by the Russians.
The Russians want what’s on those laptops just like the Chinese.
On his asylum in Ecuador, Freedom House lists Ecuador as “partly free,” Ecuador’s press as “not free,” and says this:
Not exactly North Korea but not Holland either.
If he’s been taken to Lubyanka, he may not have a nice day.
He might even lose his internet connection!
Lol
🙂
Ya think he may eventually find himself in the same resting place as Jimmy Hoffa?