It recently occurred to me that patriarchy does not actually define people as “men” and “women.” it defines people as “men” and “not-men.” Of course, the most obvious and prevalent not-men in patriarchy have always been women, and in many ways patriarchy can be seen as an attempt to controlContinue Reading
Note: I originally started writing this post in October 2014, shortly after attending my first GeekGirlCon. But I didn’t post it then. Why not? I’m not sure. I think I might have not had a conclusion until a couple of months later, and by then it no longer seemed relevant.Continue Reading
When I climbed on a plane to Scandinavia a few weeks ago, everybody was rolling their eyes about something I’m going to call the Googlebro Manifesto, written and sent around to his co-workers by a male software engineer who work(ed) at Google and was feeling all peevish about the existenceContinue Reading
Peggy Noonan, a Reagan-era conservative, recently wrote an essay criticizing Donald Trump for being “Woody Allen Without the Humor.” It delivers some truth about Trump’s own character flaws. He is indeed “whiny, weepy and self-pitying” and possessed of a “mad, blubbery petulance.” But it also hits heavy with eye-rolling traditionalContinue Reading
The 2017 Clarion West Write-a-thon is happening now! You can sponsor me, or sponsor another writer. By special request! I declare a snark battle with that dumb National Review essay comparing women to cowboys. But first, I do want to acknowledge something. It must be hard styling yourself as aContinue Reading
When I was younger, I used to assume that ridiculous anti-feminist articles like this one were persuasive pieces aimed at feminist women like me. They were scary stories, cautionary tales, intended to undermine my confidence in my own values. Their message was: ladies, I know you think you’re happy pursuingContinue Reading
Say, did you know millions of people worldwide marched for women’s rights and against Trumpism last Saturday? (Samantha Bee had a nice summation.) I was among them. My husband was among them. My parents were among them. My mother — who isn’t quite as addicted to online media as her Gen-X daughterContinue Reading
Greetings from the Wrangler Bar & Grill, Lewiston, Idaho. See the image up there on top of this blog entry? That’s their logo, as depicted on the mirror behind the bar. The bar itself is nice, a classic wooden style from, probably, the early 20th century, somewhat retrofitted for itsContinue Reading
It’s fitting that I wrote this series in 2016, the year that Donald Trump is running for President of the United States against our first-ever female candidate, Hillary Clinton. It’s a current event so loaded with metaphorical significance it’s hard to believe it’s really happening. Trump is a distillation ofContinue Reading
One thing that has puzzled me since I was a child and watched Phyllis Schlafly seemingly single-handedly defeat the Equal Rights Amendment: why do they do it? Anti-feminists, I mean? I can sort of see why people didn’t want to change in the first place, because people resist change. AndContinue Reading
Christian patriarchy is obviously offensive to feminists, no matter their religion. But it should be just as offensive to Christians, because it’s such a distortion from what Jesus actually taught. It’s as different from basic Christian theology as the teachings of Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yet followers of the patriarchyContinue Reading
In June, Pride Parade day in Seattle came and went. The parade featured expressions of solidarity with the victims and survivors of the Orlando nightclub shooting. There was one telling moment of juxtaposition: an Episcopalian church marching in the parade, with signs that told everyone they were loved, and freeContinue Reading
A couple of years ago, a young man identifying himself as an “incel” (involuntarily celibate, which normal people call “single”) went on a killing spree, because, according to his video manifesto, he was fed up with women dating “obnoxious men” instead of him, the “supreme gentleman” and he was goingContinue Reading