It Got Real Mean This Morning

On Tuesday-Friday, during my morning make breakfast/clean kitchen/deal with dogs routine, I'll watch the previous night's Late Night with Seth Meyers. I love that show. He seems like such a good guy; never leering or creepy; happy to elevate his women writers, smart and engaged, and angry about all the right things. His Closer Look segments are an invaluable tool for staying informed in these parlous times without being dispirited. And Jokes Seth Can't Tell is somehow simultaneously the most hilarious, most radical and most adorable 5 minutes of comedy. I just love him.

But I can't watch it on Monday mornings because there's no show on Sunday. Bummer. On Mondays I go local and hang out with the fun and charmingly punchy WGN morning crew.

This morning the Around Town with Ana Beleval segment went to the Old Joliet Prison which is now a park or some shit like that. This would have been sort of great because a park is better than a prison, but during the segment there was this exchange, paraphrased:

Joliet Prison Tour Guide: When the prison was active, prisoners could get their GED or, for a while, even a full college degree

Ana Beleval: Wow! That's great

Joliet Prison Tour Guide: Well, they stopped the college program because as a judge said 'Steal a car and get a free college education,' so they just went back to the GED program.

And then Ana and the tour guy giggled over that clever judicial assessment.

Y'all - we live in a country where the idea of a kid going to prison in order to get a college education is a laughable (laughable!) scam. Let me say that again: a person goes to jail (to jail!) because they can't afford to go to college and we laugh (laugh!) at that.

And, obviously, there's not a man born of woman who goes out, steals a car, does years (YEARS!) in Joliet prison, gets their prison issued college diploma, walks out a felon (FELON!) with all the commensurate lack of rights that entails and goes:

This is a total fiction that this judge came up with in order to screw over prisoners who were already pretty screwed over on account of that they were in JOLIET PRISON! Do you know what Joliet Prison looks like? It looks like this:

Yes! I think I'll sacrifice my freedom in order to live in this cheerful place for several years in order to scam Illinois out of a free college education (WHICH SHOULD BE FREE TO ANYONE WHO WANTS ONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!)

I just really want to live in a country that's not so mean. I am shook (I think that's what the kids say) at the blithe laughter that followed that incredibly mean exchange. I wish we, as Americans, had a national, civic inclination to kindness. But the "Screw him! I got mine!" voice just seems increasingly loud, increasingly influential in the way we legislate and politick and live. It's gross.

I read this quote about Jane Addams years ago which I can't remember exactly. I have googled and googled and I can't find the quote - but I'm sure that it was said of Jane Addams by a woman who worked with her and I think in an interview with the late, great Studs Terkel: Miss Addams never judged anyone because she knew what life could do to a person.

I love that quote (which I've totally gotten wrong, only I'm sure the spirit of it is right). Jane Addams understood that her lived experiences and her strength were different than other people and so she showed them kindness, helped them on a path away from whatever desolation and misery their lives had brought them to. 

But I guess it's childish to expect the country to grow up into the kind of empathy that people who've lived life with open eyes and open hearts can have. And I guess the adult in me knows that rather than judge other people for their meanness, I should redouble my own efforts to kindness.

But I'm judging you a little, mean Joliet tour guide and Ana Beleval. Just a little. As penance, have a Jokes Seth Can't Tell. Seriously, it's like a tonic for mean.

A Tale of Two Feminists and Their Hair

Here's a neat interview with the marvelous Lena Waithe, whom I think is just the cat's pajamas:

.@LenaWaithe explains why she cut her hair: "I felt like I was holding onto a piece of femininity that would make the world feel comfortable with who I am" #HFPA pic.twitter.com/GTlxZJ11uO

— Variety (@Variety) August 10, 2018

Next up, here's the story of a lady who stopped coloring her hair and the incredibly rude people who commented disparagingly on her decision. I found myself thinking a few times in the course of this story that she must have made up some of these anecdotes, but I also know the things people have felt at liberty to say to me and that there are some rude motherfuckers out there. Folks, don't make rude personal comments to people. I shouldn't have to tell you that. God!

These stories are similar, right? One woman cut off her hair, one woman stopped dying her hair.  I'd be lying if I didn't say I preferred the Lena story to the InStyle story (not a big fan of the "here's how I been done treated wrong by the world" rhetorical device). But I will note that both are about changes that a woman made and not about Changes Women Need to Make.

But the reactions went elsewhere. Over at the post where I read the Lena Waithe story, there were many commenters bemoaning how attached some women are to their long hair and how they haven't embraced the liberty that really short hair provides. A friend of mine shared the gray-haired lady's story, saying that women who don't dye their hair are "slaves" to an unfair beauty standard. And then when I objected to that she was thoughtful and kind but also implied that those of us who don't choose to embrace the gray are sacrificing our authority. Ma'am!

Here's a brief list of beauty standards I've heard that women need to stop embracing:

• Short skirts
• High heels
• "Vocal fry"
• Slutty clothes
• Overly modest clothes
• Gym clothes
• Black clothes (confession: this is one I've heard personally many many times)
• Colorful rainboots (confession: I've objected to that one before)
• Visible bra straps
• Bras
• Nylons
• Bare legs
• Losing weight
• Gaining weight
• Walking fast
• Walking slow
• Saying "sorry"
• Saying "like".

Lookit: Men (shoot, PEOPLE) reflexively trust other men in positions of authority more because men have been the sole occupants at seats of authority for the entire history of western civilization. It's not female voices or clothes or style or any other form of female presentation that keeps us from power. It's not because we've sacrificed authority in pursuit of approval. It's because men have held jealously, and thoughtlessly, onto it.

And yet it's we women who are constantly being told that we're presenting ourselves wrong. It's almost like patriarchy reinforces itself by convincing women that patriarchy is our own fault. But here's a hot secret: women, patriarchy isn't because you don't look right. Dress how you like to dress. Wear your hair how you like your hair to look. Wear makeup if you want, or don't if you don't. If you like how you look in heels, wear heels. If you think they're dumb, don't. Shave your legs and your pits or don't. Your voice isn't too high. Your voice isn't too low. You don't need to talk more. You don't need to talk less. You do need to stop telling your sisters that they're woman-ing wrong.

Here's my hair testimony: I wear my hair really long and somewhere between pink and blonde. This is about 75% because I hate getting my hair cut, 15% because pony tails are just so easy and 10% because of vanity (i was always scared to dye my hair crazy colors in my youth, so it's a treat to do it now). It is 0% because I give a shit about youthful beauty standards (my careful skin care regimen is because of that and, men, you should join me! Moisturize!). That said, if you do like to turn a man's head with your sexy hair, you go and get it, girl! 

The wise and wonderful Amy Poehler said, "Here's a motto I want all women to embrace: Good for her! Not for me." 

I'm less wise and wonderful so instead I'll say this: there's no way to be a woman wrong. Feminist respectability politics are bad. And, for the love of Maud, let's embrace femininity as the multi-faceted, rich, abundant bucket of everything it is.

The New Radicals

WARNING: This is a post about healthcare and the execrable Joe Lieberman. If you come at me trying to compare the politics of Hillary Rodham Clinton to Joe Fucking Lieberman, I will get in my car and I will find you and follow you around for the rest of your life hollering that Hillary Clinton was busting her ass trying to get us to universal coverage 25 damn years ago.

I just heard Jon Lovett do an opening rant about Joe Lieberman (who is execrable) on this week's Lovett or Leave It in which he explained how Joe Lieberman, all by his little self, killed the Medicare Buy-In for 55 yr old + Americans. Had he not killed it, people 55 and over wouldn't have to keep killing themselves to hold onto their corporate health insurance and young people would be paying lower premiums as older people cost more to keep healthy, and thus drive premiums up. Joe Lieberman was working for the insurance companies who are, I genuinely believe, more evil that Philip Morris.

Speaking of which, I also read an article this morning over on Splinter about a British woman who was diagnosed with lung cancer and who is on the path to healing due to government-provided health care. She will not end up broke. She won't end up scrabbling to come up with thousands of dollars to pay for life-requiring medicine. She'll just get better.

On the liberal scale, I'm pretty far left. I also believe, though, in incrementalism and that you can get away with being more liberal in New York and Chicago than you can in West Virginia. I think expanding already popular programs is a more practical path towards healthcare-for-all than blowing up what we could get into law despite the nasty little corporate shitheels like Joe Lieberman. I could well be wrong and I'm happy to have that argument. This isn't about that, though. This is about how my party, the Democratic party, has a long history of letting the right intimidate them not into moderating radical leftish positions, but rather into radicalizing moderate positions.

Government-backed healthcare is not a radical position. It is as practical a position as one can take in American politics. It makes fiscal, moral and political sense. The system we have now is radical. It's breathtakingly expensive and irredeemably cruel. I don't want any Democrat, any liberal or any person trying to tell anyone running for any office, especially if they are running in an already liberal district, that they should not be agitating for it. If you let the nasty little corporate shitheels tell you that a congressional candidate in Queens can cost you an election in West Virginia, you've already conceded a radical argument. Stop it.

Let's all remember that it doesn't matter what a democrat running for office says; the toadies at the GOP propaganda network will lie about it.  For instance: not one democrat is agitating for open borders. The right-wing noise machine (led by our feckless, traitorous president) says they are on the daily. Not one democrat is agitating to ban guns, but likely every member of the NRA believes they are because they are being told they are by rightwing liars.

So let's just stop letting them set the terms for the debate. They are skilled liars and easy manipulators. Fuck 'em. Just say what you really believe and stop giving a shit what Tucker Carlson pretends to get his knickers in a twist over.

Got some Ragrets and some White Feminism

I got some ragrets, you guys, about my sign at the #KeepFamiliesTogether march. Here's what it said:

When I made it, I was feeling good, but there was this little voice in the back of my head going "Meg, are you sure this is a good idea?" And then I answered (as one does) "I don't care about those horrible women!" And then my little voice said, "Well, that's not quite what I meant..." and then I said "shhh, I'm watching TV" (I was watching TV by that point).

When I got to the march, I felt great about my sign because all kinds of folks were asking to take a picture and telling me how great it was and then about 30 or 45 minutes into it, I realized that all the people telling me that it was great and asking to take a picture where also white ladies and my little voice said, "You picking this up yet?" And instead I went to have a beer with my smart friends who did not have problematic signs.

Gurls and boys, I have often said this of myself: I am smart, but I am not quick. It often takes me waaaaay too long to get to understand things. Fr'instance,  it took me until the middle of this week, far too many days after the march, to realize what my little voice was trying to say.

That sign up there? That is some peak white feminism. I carried that message into literally the safest environment I could, and then toted it around so that other white ladies could congratulate me (and by extension, themselves) on how much better we are than Permit Patty and Barbecue Becky. Oof. That sign was so self-serving and I have regerts. My browser keeps trying to autocorrect my misspellings. I am being funny, Autocorrect. You don't know my life!

Anyhoo, my sign had another side. I am not even a little bit craftsy and I was embarrassed at the outset of this side of my sign because I thought it looked a little low-rent and poorly done:

It does look a little low-rent and poorly done. But it also does not have a problematic message. This sign doesn't put me in the middle of the equation and, despite looking as though it were made by a third grader operating under a pretty tight deadline, that makes it a much better message.

I'm trying to be better, folks. But I reckon I'm gonna be traveling this path along the way...

Live and learn, white feminists. We live and we learn and try to get better.

Acting and Reacting

When I was in the UK last week, a male friend of mine asked me what I thought about the new  upskirt photo law making its way through Parliament. I told him I thought it was great and that I hoped all those creepy motherfuckers got ticketed past their ability to pay for their ISP. He shrugged and said "I just don't get why the women don't just give him a slap on the face and walk away."

I'm gonna let The Vixen respond for me. 

I loved that loud messy queen and I loved her especially in the reunion show when all the queens were dissecting her following a fight with Eureka she said "Everyone's telling me how to react and no one's telling her how to act."

Oh, that is concise and well-said, n'est-ce pas?

Before we start instructing someone on how they ought to react, first let's ask ourselves "Do I have the necessary context for an informed opinion?" If it's a matter of groping, catcalling, upskirt photos, etc and you are a man, gurl, trust me: you don't. There are some women who are up to the task of calling it out (like The Vixen!), slapping the groper's hand away and there are some who aren't. Speaking personally, I hate it when men put their hands on me, say gross things to me, etc., and have for almost 40 years (gentlemen, for context, be advised that this tends to start for girls around 10 or 11, or, if they're people of color, earlier). I don't feel secure or strong enough to slap his hand away or call him out. I shrink and disappear into myself and am only eager to get the fuck away.

A story: I was walking down the street with Laney when she was 11 and we were holding hands. A carful of dudes catcalled us because they thought we were a lesbian couple. This happened four years ago and I still wonder if I reacted right.

But you know what, fuck that! My reaction isn't the point - their action is. And that's all I'm willing to discuss anymore.

Because, ladies, we all learned what happens when we pay more attention to our reaction than their actions, right?

[INSERT GIF OF DONALD FUCKING TRUMP DOING OR SAYING SOMETHING SEXIST AND HORRIBLE BUT I'M NOT GOING TO PUT ONE HERE BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND TO SEE HIS STUPID FUCKING FACE]    

Remember, when confronted with bad behavior, let's all concern ourselves more with the ACTION rather than the REACTION. Be like The Vixen. I kind of love her.

I Can't Decide

The hardest thing about being a grown-up is decisions. I have decided that this is the hardest thing. This is the last decision I am capable of making today.

One of my coworkers tells me that his fantasy job is to have a hot dog cart on the beach where the only decisions are ketchup or mustard. I'm a vegetarian and that sounds amazing.

Sometimes my husband and I will be trying to decide what to have for dinner and he'll say "Whatever you want, baby" and that's about the only time when I want to divorce him.

I might ask my daughter what she wants to do on a Saturday and she'll give me a teenage shrug and so I'll make a decision which is then invariably disappointing and that's about the only time I want to run away (That's a lie. I'm living in Trump's America and want to run away literally all of the time).

Throughout my average working day, I'm met with "what do you think about..." or "what should we do about" roughly every 13 seconds. Of late, when I hear that, all I think is "mustard." I prefer mustard to ketchup. Of this I am abidingly certain. I may waffle, though, between spicy brown and yellow. I never say "mustard" aloud, but I am always thinking it.

I was getting a pedicure on Saturday (this is the most first world problems post ever, isn't it?) and the dude poking aggressively at my toe cuticles told me I was too sensitive when I flinched (I should find a better pedicure place but then that's just another decision and also they have a parking lot which makes it so easy) and then he asked if the pedicure was all I wanted.

"Yep," I said.

"Are you sure?" he said. "Something about your eyebrows, maybe?"

(I really should find a better pedicure place.)

Do I have to make decisions about my eyebrows now? I never thought about my eyebrows in the 80s, 90s or 00s. For some reason this decade I'm asked to start paying attention to them and my head is too full and if I agree to do "something about my eyebrows" all I'll be able to think is "mustard" and no one, no matter how gentle they are with toenail cuticles, will know how to translate "mustard" into some eyebrow shape.

I think I'll make one more decision and decide not to give a shit about my eyebrows. I wear spectacles (that's right, I said "spectacles" because I am classy) every day so who can even see my dumb eyebrows?

Mustard is superior to ketchup, tho. And your eyebrows are probably fine.

Internet-ish

A few days ago, I shared this silly internet meme about how to find your British royal name. It was goofy and I mostly shared it because both my grandmothers were named Mary and that is a thing that Irish Americans probably all have in common so that's fun. Three separate people jumped on the comments thread to tell me how I was sharing a thing that gives people the answers to your various security questions (name of your first pet, street where you grew up, etc).

Tip: don't "actually" someone until you've read up the thread, guys! I can only be scolded for the same thing so many times before I get huffy!

Anyhoo, I told all these guys that I felt like those questions were easy enough to find out from anyone and besides, who the hell is asking for a grandparent's first name on a security question?

And then a couple of days later I was signing up for some dumb account and that was the security question they asked.

So, I felt dumb. And I felt dumb in the way that I really hate to feel dumb, because I like to think my Internet IQ is pretty high (unlike my Marvel IQ because I still don't know if Paul Bettany is a mutant or a person or a robot or what) and falling for some dumb phishing thing like that makes me feel old and stupid and out of touch.

I come from a generation that's not particular exercised about privacy. I still remember going full Navin Johnson when I got my first apartment in Chicago - excitedly cracking open the white pages and staring all starry-eyed at my name, address and phone number and feeling like a Real Girl Now! And now I live in a world where I alternately feel like I'm way too worried about privacy and not nearly worried enough and I can feel both of these things at the same time especially since it means I don't have to answer the phone if I don't know who's calling (Seriously! Remember when you had to pick up the phone to find out who was on the other end? That was the worst!)

I don't know. I have no answers. Do you? And, while I'm asking, did we know about those infinity stones the whole time and can't Dr. Strange just send us back in time or something? If you have any questions about rotary phones or dating in the 1990s, send them this way. I would like to feel expert on something again.