Mythfest!

It’s all just a myth, unless it’s your own story! A bloodthirsty warrior leads her people to near extinction. A woman who has lost everything prepares to execute her final act of
vengeance. The most beautiful woman in the world finally speaks her mind. This mini myth feast packs a Trojan wallop, exploring the bonds of friendship, the complexity of vengeance, and the universal nature of the things we do when pushed to our limits. Three new plays based on Greek myth by local playwrights, woven together in a ritual offering to gods long forgotten. Be careful what you wish for… 

March 7, 14, and 21 at Seattle Creative Arts Center  http://thepocket.org/upcoming-shows/

the whole ‘strong woman’ thing is a kind of decoy...

a conversation that keeps us busy but doesn’t actually achieve anything.

The conversation is framed in a way that underscores and reinforces the idea that men are men and women are….not.
It also denies the fact that women have always been strong, birthed babies and held dying children and endured oppression and fought for the rights of others (and sometimes even themselves) and waited for husbands and sons to come back from wars and managed households and worked in factories and lived in the streets and nursed the sick and dying and worked the fields and kept families together and survived domestic violence and sexual violence and started businesses and reinvented themselves and carried water for miles and so on and so on: they saw work that needed to be done and they did it, and they continue to do it.
But that kind of female strength isn’t glamorous or even all that visible or acknowledged. These are not the tasks that win prizes or promotions or partnerships. Meanwhile, slaying vampires and kicking werewolf ass — while wearing tight leather pants – is supposed to be ‘empowering’, in the same way that the strong stoic bare-chested pirate confessing his innermost feelings to some virginal thing who has changed his nature forever is supposed to be ‘romantic’. It’s a very pretty story but it’s a sidestep of reality. It’s a play at feeling powerful without the work and risk and cost involved.

Game of Criticism

I'm looking forward to "Game of Thrones" on HBO.  I'm actually behind the game; I hadn't even heard of the books until the news about HBO's production, but it seems to be my "teacup."  I love political intrigue (see "Shogun") unusual use of language (see "Justified," "Deadwood," "Brick"), and swords and shields (see "Spartacus" Or don't-many find it overblown and gory).
So it's interesting to me to see that according to the NYT reviewer, as a Vaginal-American, I'm not supposed to like it.  I guess some bedhopping was thrown in there because I'm not supposed to like any of the things listed above.

In addition, there was a truly bizarro review at Slate (in which I'm disappointed-I usually love Troy Patterson's writing) that I'm not sure I even really understood.  It was more of an exercise in writing on a meta level about how fantasy is perceived, or something.  I think I can see what he was aiming for, but missed.  Actually, that's a bit strong, I can't know what he was aiming for.  But neither can he, the reviewer who admits he doesn't watch/enjoy fantasy, claim to know what the production was aiming for, either.  There's a way to critique outside of your comfort zone by identifying those elements that are off-putting.  (I find the violence disturbing, the language opaque, the huge cast of characters confusing, whatever it is.) But Patterson keeps going back to an adolescent motif, perhaps his code word for fanboy.  Full of sex and violence, but not for grownups?  Again, I'm confused.

So critics, by all means, give me reasons why I might like a production or not, but do not tell me I won't like it because I'm developmentally delayed or a woman. (Or both.)  That angers me.

And Matt Zoller Seitz, evidently.

Until the Violence Stops

Remember the Run for Congo Women?  Well, the VaWa Sisterhood is embarking on its flagship event this weekend-performing "The Vagina Monologues" by Eve Ensler at Renton Civic Theater.  There are two shows: tomorrow, March 18th and Saturday March 19th, both at 8pm.  The tickets are available here, and are $15.  Proceeds go to KCSARC, the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.  See me and other local luminaries Natalie Moe, Cheryl Platz, Jeannine Clarke, and many more in a show that everybody should see at least once.  Even if you've seen it before, see ours-there's always something new and exciting.

Ladyhaters of the Day: Coach House Bar

A woman was kicked out of a bar for being pregnant.  Not for being drunk, or even drunk and pregnant (she was drinking water), just pregnant.  The bouncer told her to leave, and said, "If anything happened to you here, we would be responsible."  She complied, thinking there might be some sort of law, but there's not.  The bar just took it upon themselves to misuse the whole "right to refuse service" concept.  Wonder why they didn't assume that she's capable of assessing her own risk and responsibilities?  Oh, right.

I hope she sues.

Run for Congo Women Update

Hey-we finally got some notification of how the event went in terms of fundraising.  At the run in October, they said they were expecting about 50 runners and walkers.  They got 600.  So the final tally is:

$18,232.42


That's a lot of meals and basic medical care.  I'm so proud to have been a part of it.  Thanks again to those who donated to our team.

LadyHaters of the Day: Hospitals

Yet another horrific story from the world of medical care.  A new mother's child was taken from her because she tested positive for opiates after a drug test was administered without her consent, and before she was even notified of the positive result of the unauthorized test.  Women continue to be considered the place of residence of their offspring, rather than full human beings with agency.

This particular article focuses on the extraordinarily low threshold for the positive drug test result (her breakfast bagel had poppy seeds), but I'm more worried about the hospital's SOP of drug testing obstetric patients whether or not there is any social or medical indication.

DeMint DeBigot: LadyHaters of the Day

Today's LadyHater has a name, and it's Senator DeMint.  He has not only given a speech saying that gays and sexually active unmarried women are unfit to teach in American classrooms, he's not doing the surface backpedaling that most politicians do to "clarify" their comments.  A spokesperson says that DeMint was trying to make a point about the media attacking people who hold a moral opinion.  Um, okay.  I think bigoted white men should be banned from being elected Senator, that's my moral opinion.

Anyway, whatever this says about politics, or morality, or anything else, the point I want to make is that he specifically singles out females.

From Salon:

DeMint's remarks at a church rally last week were reported by the Spartanburg Herald Journal: "DeMint said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn't be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who's sleeping with her boyfriend -- she shouldn't be in the classroom."

What about sexually active unmarried MALE teachers?  Do they get a (hall) pass?  Or does DeMint think they don't exist?  If the latter, then he's not just bigoted, he's got a case of teh stupid.

A Different Kind of Test: LadyHaters of the Day

The headline is wrong-they mean "Councilors mull GIRLS' virginity as criteria for enrollment"

Of course on its face this is awful, but another level of awful is that the spokesman in opposition who says it violates human rights hedges that it should be "further studied."

Just Keep Running...

I used to be a runner.  Well, not really.  What a cold open-let me try again.  I ran cross country in middle school and track in high school.  I was only highly mediocre, so I was on the teams but I never broke any records or scored major points for my schools.  Looking back, I realize now that I didn't know how to push myself.  I mean really exert and flat RUN!  (The main thing that helped me understand was childbirth-I discovered that throughout my entire athletic career I had never really pushed myself to the limit.)

I run now, too.  Well, not really.  I'll try that again, too.  I jog.  It helps with keeping healthy, you know, and there are fun runs all year long all around the country. I ran the 5K for Children's Hospital back in 2005 with my brother.  More accurately stated--I ran behind my brother by about 5 minutes.  It was fun, though, and I clocked a decent time.

I'm running (jogging) again these days, and I have a purpose.  Perhaps you've heard of the situation in Congo.  More specifically, the plight of women in the Congo.  Rape is used, today, right now, as a systematic tactic of war.   

On October 16th, I will be running 5K in the Run/Walk for Congo Women.  Funds raised will go to Women for Women International  to provide basics like food, clothing, medicine, education, victim support, and more.  If you have a couple of dollars to spare, would you donate here?  My team has set a very modest goal, but a little goes a long way in the Congo.  It's hard to train, and hard to run a race, but comparing my very mild exertion to what these women do to live is no contest.  It really is the very least I can do.  I hope you'll help me make an impact. 

Mommy and Daddy Advertising: LadyHaters of the Day

So women are good for buying fabric softener, that's the LadyHater part, but the equally skrinched-nose producing thing here is the limitation these ads put on men.  I noticed this because last night I made some crack about my 8yo making his own dinner.  He replied that "moms make dinner."  I fired back that absolutely dads make dinner too.  His response was that okay, but USUALLY moms make dinner.  I explained to him that at our house, yes, I usually make dinner, but ONLY because dad gets home so late we'd be really hungry.  I think he was a bit shocked at the energy I put into this conversation, but he's a budding skeptic, so I think it's okay to encourage him to examine all claims. 

Anyway, advertising for the most part still doesn't get that there are families with one dad no mom, two dads no mom, grandma and no mom and dad, etc.  Sure, make your ads speak to your intended customer, but don't imply that others are inept.  Dads are just as competent in the kitchen and with the kids, if not more so, and women are more than the sum of "Moms' Club discounts" and cleaning up messes.

Booty Cheer: LadyHaters of the Day

A cheerleader is kicked off of her cheerleading squad because her mom complained about a cheer using the word "booty."  Here's the rub.  The cheerleader is 6.  The mom said the cheer was "dated and stereotypical."  Rather than bump the cheer, the cheerleading league booted the girl.

The cheer goes: "Our backs ache, our skirts are too tight, we shake our booties from left to right."

Way to go mom, that cheer is so....outdated!

What a loss of opportunity to critique here, and instead focus on all the wrong things. First of all, there are those, including myself, who would rather the girls be playing soccer and basketball, rather than cheering on the boys, but others consider cheer a demanding sport akin to gymnastics, so fine.

I have a bigger problem with the sexualization of "skirts too tight" for 6 year olds.  Beautifully skewered in "Little Miss Sunshine" and to a lesser degree with Sparkle Motion in "Donnie Darko," dancing children in adult costumes and makeup (and in this cheer commenting on it), is squickier than the use of the word "booty." I'm assuming that their skirts aren't too tight because they can't afford new ones?  Just a wild guess.

So I'm not sure what this mom had in mind when she and her daughter signed up for cheer in the first place, but yes, shaking booties from left to right is precisely what they do.  So how is that "outdated?"  I think the more compelling argument is to make sure the cheers are more age appropriate go-team-go than "skirts too tight."

Finally, what's with the league kicking out a 6 year old because mom complained?  That's sportsmanship, innit?   We don't know if this mom has been a problem before, or what their deliberation was like, but this poor little girl has been caught in the middle.  All she knows is that she can't be in her sport any more.

Update:  Another take on it from Ms. Blog

Bridenstein: LadyHaters of the Day

TV contest for brides to win plastic surgery. 

How about the spin off for grooms to win a trip to "Tool Academy?"  Or a graduate degree?  Or better yet, life coaching from The Situation?

Goose, gander, etc.

You Can't Make this Stuff Up

A Baltimore judge, in the process of hearing a domestic violence case, allows the defendant to go down the hall and get a marriage license. He then marries the defendant and the victim, and dismisses the DV case due to spousal privilege.

Who needs David Simon (The Wire) when this stuff just writes itself?
http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/03/18/domestic_abuse_marriage/index.html
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bal-md.judge18mar18,0,2455093.story
http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html

The real kicker is that you don't need vic testimony in DV cases because of the retaliation factor. The judge flat out ignored the police report.

Two Brilliant TV Women

So I was thinking about Denise Richards the other day. No, you're right, shouldn't have wasted the time, but I guess she's on Dancing with the Has Beens or something so she's getting some media. Anyway, what I was thinking about was that she was in a Bond movie in which she played a scientist of some sort, I think. I'm not sure, I never saw the movie, but it struck me as one of those Bad Casting Decisions. Like Tara Reid put on some glasses and a lab coat for some movie or another. Didn't see that one either. So those who don't actually watch can't throw stones, or however the saying goes. But really. Could those ever be Good Casting Decisions? So then I arrived at the question, who really can pull off the smart scientist roles?
For your consideration:
Ravi Nawat as Amita Ramanujan. I heard an interview in which she admits that she doesn't fully understand all the mathematics behind what's going on in Numb3rs, but she looks up all the relevant concepts, just to get a basic idea. Love that! A wise person knows that what they don't know is more than what they know. (Somebody said that better, somewhere). She can deliver her lines credibly, and has enough presence to hang with David Krumholtz, Rob Morrow, and Judd Hirsch, the ostensible powerhouses of the cast. I also love how she is written. At one point the chair of the department, Millie, warns her to have her own career, not Charlie's, and I think she does. She has her own committee responsibilities, but most importantly, she is deferred to. When genius boy says, "I better call Amita, this is really her area of expertise," it is so satisfying.

Next up, Abby Sciuto as played by Pauley Perrette. This may be a cheater, because Pauley actually studied forensic science before becoming an actor. So when she says that her mass spectrometer is acting up, she can do it unironically. She rules the roost in her lab, and does so in her own way. Of course she's goth girl, but what does it mean for the writing? It means that Abby can be exactly who she is because she is so incredibly talented. No need to make nice here, although she's a sweet thing. She's too valuable to mess with. Not only can she handle trace evidence, she's a techie, too, so she handles all kinds of science. Much love for the interdisciplines.


So that's my shout out to the tv scientrixes, may they live forever in reruns.

History Boys and Battlestar Galactica

So here's the thing. I read Juliet Lapidos' critique of Battlestar as a feminist show at Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2213006/
I had a number of problems with it, not the least of which are smaller things, as in using the word "hybrid" loosely, when it has a very specific meaning on the show, and making assumptions about things (such as the nature of Starbuck) that are by no means clear.

But I was having a hard time nailing down why I disagreed with her main theme. I couldn't really define for myself why she was wrong, so in a wise move, I refrained from commenting. But I've still been noodling it over.
I think part of it is that she's trying to refute the claim that Battlestar is the most feminist show EVER or that it has reached feminist perfection. That's setting the bar high, to say the least, so that any argument one can find is an effective one. "See, Cally froze when they launched the mission, Battlestar's not feminist perfection after all!"

Then after I wrote my review for The History Boys at ArtsWest I looked around at other reviews to see how horribly wrong I got it. (I'm usually right on, I guess I'm paranoid.) I found two interesting things. One, it seems I've scooped the Seattle premiere. Two, I found a blogger who wrote quite a bit about the play, including an analysis of the literary references that Bennett put in the play and why some worked and some didn't. I didn't get a lot of the references, so what the blogger was talking about still can be found 2-3 inches above my head. But this is what the writer says about Miss Lintott's rant:

Mrs Lintott herself is, as she puts it, gender neutral: she is a comic figure who pops up sardonically to point out her own marginality, the fact that in order to exist in this world, she must forget that she is a woman. In her major speech she rails at the boys, asking them to consider how depressing she finds it to teach "five centuries of masculine ineptitude". This outburst presents an interesting revision of feminist protest. Mrs Lintott's complaint is that of the exasperated housewife: she is tired of being one of a long line of women who have historically followed men of action, "cleaning up their mess". The feminist argument is actually rather different: it claims that history has routinely erased the fact that women have contributed to the mess themselves.
http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2007/04/review-history-boys.html

That's where Battlestar works as feminist art. Starbuck is the best of the best of the best, sir! ...as well as deeply flawed who makes bad decisions, good decisions for the wrong reasons, bad decisions for the right reasons, but ultimately affects what is happening. Same is true of Laura Roslin, Helena Cain, Caprica Six, Boomer, Athena, and on down the line. They are making history. That's why I'm not interested in counting if Jamie Bamber's floating in a river topless or losing his towel in the officer's quarters counteracts against the cylon resurrection bathtubs where women show up naked.

I think this show is beyond that. Feminist perfection? Of course not. But we still are looking at a difference in kind, not degree.

Did I Tip or Not?

I sent a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article to a feminist blog (Broadsheet, on Salon.com), and today there's a post about it! ...but no hat tip to venetianblond. Maybe they already had it on an RSS feed, but if they got it from me, I want credit! I am a Leo, after all...
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/?last_story=/mwt/broadsheet/2009/03/05/abstinence_washington/

New catch phrase

There's a new phrase that's gaining some traction that I just love. According to Feministing and Broadsheet (on Salon), we're starting to hear "have the skirt for that" as in "cojones". I love it!
Do you have the skirt to use it?
:o)
Also, Donors Choose now has projects in all 50 states. There are many under $100.