I take so much for granted.

Today I attended a women-in-business related meeting, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Afterwards, I invited myself into a conversation amongst women about how women in business are perceived, both by men and by other women. There was a consensus about the double standards, and the impossible standards, that women are held to. Some women were surprised that they would be treated differently simply because they were women, and they were not happy about it. If you are one of the women in question, Hello! Thanks for reading my blog! Please leave a comment. :)

As the conversation progressed, one of the women expressed disdain for the sexism involved in some men spreading rumors about women to undermine them. Then within her next sentences she said, "I am anti-feminist".

I don't understand how the words, "I am anti-feminist," could come out of a woman's mouth. I was offended both as a woman and as an out-and-proud feminist. It would be like Senator Obama saying, "I hate that Dr. King and his ilk. He and Malcolm X and Maya Angelou were always causing trouble. There was no need for all that rabble-rousing to make sure that people like me have equal rights. I didn't need any help to get where I am today, even though people still discriminate against me based on my color. Why should anyone fight for the rights of black people? Now I'm going to go deliver another speech that heavily borrows from 'I Have A Dream'. Check you later!"

Since I am young, educated and black, I never have the opportunity to forget where I come from and how hard millions of people before me have worked to allow me to get where I am, both as a black person and as a woman. I often forget that many nonblack women don't have that same awareness and historical perspective. I know who I am and how I am. I also know that other people think they know, but they have no idea. But many other women don't think about how they are perceived in the world until something happens to them. And even then, they don't always recognize it as sexism. Feminists have made it possible for women to live much of their lives without experiencing (relatively) overt sexism. Feminists worked to get women up to that 77 cents of the dollar that our male counterparts make. Feminists continue to fight for human rights every day, including the right for women to be in business in the first place.

To clarify about The F Word: If you believe women should have equal rights, you are a feminist. Period. End of story. Jam done. You can go home now.

You don't have to tell anyone that you're a feminist. You don't have to protest. You don't have to burn the MYTHICAL bra. You can keep it to yourself. You can enjoy professional sports. You can wear skirts. You can have sex with men. It's okay. Please realize that most if not all of the stuff that you have been taught about feminists and feminism is false. I will repeat: If you believe women should have equal rights, you are a feminist.

And, as I have said before, Men? You can be feminists, too. There is no vaginal requirement. For reference, here is my favorite famous feminist man. He's super cute, too!

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WTF, Puma and YouTube?

So I was trying to find a video on YouTube for the post that I am currently writing about sexism and feminism. And here's the Puma ad that greets me on the front page: Batty Shake. Please read the comments underneath the video as well, and remind yourself that it is 2008.

This is what I have to deal with every day of my life, because there is no other image to combat that. No wonder I'm so tired. There is no ad showing an educated black woman working at her computer minding her business. No. Instead there is a black woman's booty shaking in your face for the enjoyment of some random Jamaican male athlete. I don't even know who he is.

All I have to say is every day. In my face. I am livid.

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Bartlet for America

Last night I was watching the "Election Night" episode of The West Wing, and something struck me. When I first started watching the series, I identified myself as an audience member seeking solace from the horror that is the current administration. I soon shifted my focus to Josh, because I liked Bradley Whitford in Masterminds, starring Vincent Kartheiser. (bt-dubs, did anyone see Mad Men last night? That Roger Sterling is causing dra-ma.)

As I continued to rewatch Seasons 1-4 and I learned more about the characters, I moved onto CJ, then Donna, then Sam, and finally to Will. Surprisingly, I never saw myself as a Zoe or a Charlie, although I certainly enjoy their current roles in the above-mentioned Mad Men and Psych, respectively. During my previous viewings of "Election Night", I felt a strong Will and Sam connection, with a bit of Elsie Snuffin thrown in, too. But things changed last night as I watched the following scene (at 3:15 in the clip above):

President Bartlet has just won a second term in the White House. As the crowd cheers, the President and his wife Abbey walk off the balloon-filled stage.

ABBEY
That was wonderful.

BARTLET
That was fun.

ABBEY
How you feeling?

BARTLET
I feel great.

ABBEY
You want a glass of water?

BARTLET
No, I'm fine.

ABBEY
You seem a little dry. Sure you don't want a glass of water?

BARTLET
Yeah.

ABBEY
Maybe I should get you a glass of water, just in case. You could hold it in
your hand.

BARTLET
[beat] How'd you know?

ABBEY
You were off the prompter.

BARTLET
Just for a minute at the end. I couldn't see it.

ABBEY
It's all right. There are going to be more days like this. It starts now. It's going to be harder this time.

BARTLET
Yeah, I know. We can still have tonight, though, right?

ABBEY
You got lots of nights. Smart people who love you are going to have your back.

BARTLET
All right.

Now I am President Bartlet. Or I will be very soon. Maybe I have always been President Bartlet, but I didn't realize it. I am no longer the person who will write someone else's speeches or deliver someone else's news. I will be the person whose news gets delivered. Though I will probably write my own speeches. I am going to have "people who would walk into fire" if I told them to. People who will show up to lead. People who will show up to fight. It scares me. Because with great power comes great responsibility. Apparently I am also Spider-Man. Talk about a gift and a curse.

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Water, water everywhere

and not a drop to drink.

When you have gone through a drought for over a year, you initially welcome a rainstorm. Water for everyone! However, after a seven-week downpour, you get sick of everything constantly being wet. Your stuff smells like mildew. You can't even drink most of the water because it belongs to someone else. And much of the water you could drink looks like it tastes funky, and not in a good way.

Maybe I need to import some bottled water, because although I love the rain, it is not currently fulfilling all of my wants. Plus, bottled water does taste different.

Was this just an excuse to post another video involving Stephen Colbert and pop sensation Rain? You be the judge.

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Seriously, CW?

The CW's New Shows Are Lacking In Color, Jezebel via Racialicious.

'Privileged': The kids are all white, and kind of shallow, too, USA Today.

Bring it on...It's already been broughton!, Stephanie's Soap Box.

The first two links are self-explanatory. In the third one, Stephanie laments that she didn't see the murder of "Q" (the troublemaker with a heart of gold) coming on One Tree Hill. Coincidentally, Q is one of the only nonwhite people on One Tree Hill. I haven't watched an entire episode since Season Two, but I think Skills is still there. So now there is one left.

What can I say that I haven't said before? Oh yes. As I think back to the old 90210, glaringly white though it may have been, in retrospect, the original series looks inspired compared to this latest rip-off of The OC.

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Next debate, please.

Last night's Obama/McCain debate did not deliver many laughs or surprises. I am eagerly awaiting the vice presidential debate this Thursday, October 2. It will be quite a show. How will these two kooky VP candidates further embarrass their respective parties? Will Sarah Palin carry a loaded shotgun, just in case she spots any animals ripe for huntin' ? Will Joe Biden make the entire viewing audience uncomfortable when he inevitably insults moderator Gwen Ifill on her race, or when he insults her on her gender? Will Senator Obama and Senator McCain sit behind the stage in the green room, holding each other and weeping as they wonder why they selected these jokers to be their running mates?

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"Joe, we've decided to send you instead."

Bush invites McCain, Obama to White House meeting, by Jennifer Loven, AP via Yahoo! News.

With extraordinary stakes on the line, President Bush invited both men vying to succeed him and key congressional leaders to a White House meeting to hammer out a massive financial rescue plan. The president also was appealing directly to Americans in a prime-time address Wednesday to help push his tough-sell bailout into reality . . .

. . . not long before his planned 12-minute address to the nation from the grand East Room, Bush took the unusual step of calling Democrat Barack Obama to invite him to the White House for the meeting on Thursday, said presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino. The White House said the presidential invitation was also extended to Republican John McCain and to Republican and Democratic leaders from Capitol Hill.

I can only imagine getting that card in the mail, and then pondering how to RSVP. Considering the lengths that the Republican party has taken over the past two years to distance George W. Bush from the 2008 Presidential campaign, this public invitation must be causing John McCain to poop his pants.
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Nobody puts Baby in the corner . . .

. . . unless you're John McCain's allegedly black baby.

On a recent People magazine cover, Bridget McCain is literally in the bottom corner of the photo, underneath every other paler member of her family. If you see the cover in a grocery store check-out line, the magazine holder blocks Bridget, and Beyoncé, from view.

Do I need to explain this one, too? Okey doke. If you're white and male, you get prominence in the top third of the cover. If you're white and female, you get the middle third. If you're a dark woman, Bangladeshi or otherwise, you're lucky to be on any cover of any American magazine at all.

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I did not know all of this.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege, by Tim Wise at Red Room.

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."

However, I did know that Alaska is next to Russia. Alaska is also next to Canada, but I haven't heard any media commentators or Vice Presidential candidates point that out. It's called geography, people.
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It's not over.

Wall Street awakes to 2 storied firms falling, by Joe Bel Bruno, Christopher S. Rugaber and Martin Crutsinger, AP via Yahoo! News.

Lehman Brothers, burdened by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after attempts to rescue the 158-year-old firm failed. Bank of America Corp. said it is snapping up Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in a $50 billion all-stock transaction.

The demise of the independent Wall Street institutions came as shock waves from the 14-month-old credit crisis roiled the U.S. financial system six months after the collapse of Bear Stearns.

The world's largest insurance company, American International Group Inc., also was forced into a restructuring.

And a global consortium of banks, working with government officials in New York, announced a $70 billion pool of funds to lend to troubled financial companies.

The aim, according to participants who spoke to The Associated Press, was to prevent a worldwide panic on stock and other financial exchanges.

This is not good. I would venture to say "bad" even.

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I liked Baby Mama, too!

The movie makes a great gift. Winky wink.

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I give other people very good advice

but I very seldom follow it myself. Case in point: How to Look Good Naked on Lifetime. I love this show. It features women who are clearly wonderful, beautiful people. But because they don't look how they think they are supposed to look, they feel bad about their bodies and their lives. During every episode, I yell at the TV screen, "You look great! Stop obsessing over your alleged imperfections. Go out and enjoy your life!" Then I go to the mirror, poke at my pudgy tummy, and pout.

It reminds of episode 4.11 of Designing Women, entitled "They Shoot Fat Women, Don't They?" Suzanne is feeling bad about herself because she has "put on more than a few pounds". Her sister Julia tells her, "there are a whole lot of people who love you for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with your looks." I tell myself that. Which undermines the point of How to Look Good Naked, but it makes me feel happy anyway. :)

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When was the last time you cried?

This afternoon. Darn you, classic Nike ad.

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Practically perfect in every way

The two videos below make me incredibly happy. I sit and smile and giggle and sing along with the music.

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What's wrong with this show?

No, the answer is not "It's on ABC Family."

I could list the reasons why it took me less than 10 seconds to roll my eyes at this "Special Event". But I won't. Instead, I would like to hear from you readers. What strikes you about this commercial?

I'll get you all started:

1. The star is Jamie Chung, best known as one of the few castmates from The Real World: San Diego who did not get arrested on camera during their season.

Update, 9/21/2008. Angry Asian Man explains the racism of the show in his Racialicious article, Samurai Girl premieres. I'll explain the sexism with this rhetorical question: Isn't it convenient that the eponymous Samurai Girl has to learn martial arts from a white American man who calls her "ten different kinds of stupid" before asserting his authority over her, and then they magically fall in love? Because I know when a guy insult me and then tells me what to do in a condescending manner, I Can Hear The Bells.

Also, "I thought you were the dead chick from The Grudge"? Really?
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But I don't want to marry Colin Firth.

Hilarious! Also, can't birth control simply focus on controlling potential births instead of giving women fewer periods? "What if getting fewer periods and taking hormones will turn me into a mutant?"

"What?! There's a black guy?!"

With the announcement of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, the 2008 U. S. Presidential election continues to resemble "Star-Spangled Banter", episode 4.08 of Will & Grace. It's surprisingly relevant. And funny! If you have the ability and the link is working, you can watch the episode here. For the rest of you, the relevant dialogue is below:

[WILL ENTERS HIS APARTMENT. GRACE IS SITTING ON THE COUCH READING A MAGAZINE.]

GRACE: You know, Sarah Michelle Gellar is really smart. I mean, at the beginning of this interview, she's just talkin' about stuff, like where she gets her highlights, but then she starts in on foreign affairs and campaign finance reform. I'm gonna say it... She's a genius.

WILL: Let me see that. [WILL FLIPS THROUGH THE MAGAZINE] Hmm... Interesting. Yeah. See? these pages are stuck together. You've been reading an interview with John McCain. Here's the rest of Sarah Michelle.

GRACE: [READING] "And even after all these years, limos are way cool." Yeah. I probably should've figured it out when she started talking about her time in a P.O.W. camp.

WILL: Ooh, uh, before I forget, I need you to write me a check. There's this guy, Ted Bowers. He's running for city council. I really think we should support him.

GRACE: Well, what do we know about him?

WILL: He's gay.

GRACE: And?

WILL: And... he's gay.

GRACE: But what's he for? I mean, you know, where does he stand on the issues?

WILL: What do you care? You thought Buffy was in a prisoner of war camp.

GRACE: I'm just wondering, what are his positions?

WILL: I don't know. I think he's a top. Come on. Write a check already. You should support gay men. Gay men support you.

~ ~ ~

SCENE III: Will's Apartment Building
(GRACE is doing down in the elevator when it stops and MRS. FRIEDMAN [played by Anne Meara!] enters.)

[MRS. FRIEDMAN ENTERS.]

GRACE: Hey, Mrs. Friedman, how are things on the eighth floor?

MRS FRIEDMAN: I'm not talking to you, Grace Adler, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

GRACE: I swear, the elevator smelled like this before I got on.

MRS FRIEDMAN: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about your button. I can't believe you're supporting that man.

GRACE: Ted Bowers happens to be an excellent candidate.

MRS FRIEDMAN: [SPITTING] Ptewey! Your candidate sucks my rain boots.

GRACE: Hey, I like Ted Bowers, and he's gay, and I think it's high time we had gay representation on the city council, especially in a society that still undervalues the rights of gay people.

MRS FRIEDMAN: Fine. Do what you want. Me, I'm voting for the Jewish woman.

GRACE: There's a Jewish woman running?

~ ~ ~

SCENE V: Will's Apartment
(WILL and GRACE are home.)

GRACE: Uh... So, listen, I need a check.

WILL: What for?

GRACE: Judy Green. She's running for city council, and I think we should support her.

WILL: But we're backing Ted Bowers.

GRACE: Well, I found out a few things about him that makes me think I should support the other candidate.

WILL: Like what?

GRACE: Like he's running against a woman.

WILL: So? Who is she? What do we know about her?

GRACE: She's a woman.

WILL: And?

GRACE: And she's Jewish.

WILL: And?

GRACE: And she's a woman.

WILL: So what? What are her positions?

GRACE: I don't know. She's Jewish. She probably just lays there. Come on. Write the check!

WILL: I am not gonna write you a check. That would just cancel out the check you wrote me.

GRACE: I know. That's why I've already stopped payment on mine. Now, come on. Make it payable to "Judy Green for City Council."

WILL: All right. Is a zillion dollars enough?

GRACE: Come on! Women need a voice on the city council. I mean, 50% of the population is women.

WILL: So, one could argue that 80% of the population is gay. [BEAT] They just don't know it yet. Anyway, this is not about statistics. This is about who has the better candidate.

GRACE: Well, what makes you think that you have the better candidate?

WILL: Grace, he's gay.

GRACE: Well, mine's a woman and Jewish. That makes two victims to your one.

WILL: Since when are you so Jewish anyway? You're about as Jewish as Melanie Griffith in A Stranger Among Us.

GRACE: Well, you're about as gay as Tom Sellick in In and Out.

WILL: I am plenty gay.

GRACE: When was the last time you had same-sex sex?

WILL: I'm choosy!

GRACE: Ha! You're straight! Go watch a basketball game!

WILL: Yeah? Well, you're barely a woman. You pee standing up!

GRACE: Hey! There are a lot of diseases you can get from a toilet seat!

WILL: Our own?! [POINTING TOWARDS THE BATHROOM.]

GRACE: Well, I never thought that I would hear this from you! You hate women!

WILL: Well, you hate gays!

~ ~ ~

SCENE VIII: Will's Apartment
(WILL and GRACE are hosting their simultaneous fundraisers for Ted Bowers and Judy Green.)

TED: Good evening, everybody. A lot of candidates in this race wanna tell you that there's an easy solution to our city's problems. Well, I'm here to tell you, there's not.

[WILL APPLAUDS. HE'S THE ONLY ONE.]

WILL: [EMBARASSED] Was that not an applause line? 'Cause it felt like one.

TED: For instance... Homelessness. Now, this is an awful, awful problem, and one solution that I advocate is give them a hot meal.

WILL: Mm-hmm.

TED: Give them a shower.

WILL: Uh-huh.

TED: Put them on a bus and get them the hell out of our city.

WILL: A-- What?

[CUT TO A BIT LATER.]

TED: So, in conclusion, women in the home, force those foreigners to speak our language, and if God didn't want some people to be poor, he'd give them money.

MR ZAMIR: He is very good.

GRACE: And now... Let's hear from a real candidate. Ladies and gentlemen, Judy Green.

JUDY: Thank you, Grace. Let me start by saying how gratifying it is to see so many white faces here tonight.

GRACE: Goh!

~ ~ ~

SCENE X: Will's Apartment
(The fundraisers are over. WILL and GRACE are relaxing on the sofa.)

GRACE: Remember when Election Day used to be fun? Passing out leaflets, knocking on doors, ripping our bell-bottoms and running from the fuzz?

WILL: That wasn't us. That was Linc and Julie from "The Mod Squad."

JACK: [ENTERING] Well, I've just pulled the lever for democracy. Oh, and I also voted. Ah-ha ha ha ha! What are you two sad lovers doin'?

WILL: Nothin'.

JACK: So, did you vote?

WILL: We don't deserve to.

GRACE: We just didn't think it was right to vote for someone without finding out what they stand for.

WILL: Who'd you vote for?

JACK: The black guy.

Both: What?! There's a black guy?!

[WILL AND GRACE BOTH JUMP OFF THE COUCH AND RUN OUT OF THE APARTMENT.]

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So much to say, so little time.

Why Soldiers Rape, by Helen Benedict, In These Times via Feministing.

[ . . . ] Rape in civilian life is already unacceptably common. One in six women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should be considered an epidemic.

In the military, however, the situation is even worse. Rape is almost twice as frequent as it is among civilians, especially in wartime. Soldiers are taught to regard one another as family, so military rape resembles incest. And most of the soldiers who rape are older and of higher rank than their victims, so are taking advantage of their authority to attack the very people they are supposed to protect.

Department of Defense reports show that nearly 90 percent of rape victims in the Army are junior-ranking women, whose average age is 21, while most of the assailants are non-commissioned officers or junior men, whose average age is 28. [ . . . ]

[ . . . ] [Duke University Law Professor Madeline Morris and University of California professor and folklorist Carol Burke] both show that military language reveals this "unabashed hatred of women" all the time. Even with a force that is now 14 percent female, and with rules that prohibit drill instructors from using racial epithets and curses, those same instructors still routinely denigrate recruits by calling them "pussy," "girl," "bitch," "lady" and "dyke." The everyday speech of soldiers is still riddled with sexist insults. [ . . . ]

There's more!

[ . . . ] The message in all these insults is that women have no business trying to be soldiers. In 2007, Sgt. Sarah Scully of the Army’s 8th Military Police Brigade wrote to me in an e-mail from Kuwait, where she was serving: "In the Army, any sign that you are a woman means you are automatically ridiculed and treated as inferior."

Army Spc. Mickiela Montoya, who was in Iraq for 11 months from 2005-2006, put it another way: "There are only three things the guys let you be if you’re a girl in the military: a bitch, a ho or a dyke. [I know which one I am! Hint: we get things done.] One guy told me he thinks the military sends women over to give the guys eye candy to keep them sane. He told me in Vietnam they had prostitutes, but they don’t have those in Iraq, so they have women soldiers instead." [ . . . ]

Now for some statistics, which you may have seen before:

• A 2004 study of veterans from Vietnam and all wars since, conducted by psychotherapist Maureen Murdoch and published in the journal Military Medicine, found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving.

• In 2003, a survey of female veterans from Vietnam through the first Gulf War by psychologist Anne Sadler and her colleagues, published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military.

• And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, also conducted by Murdoch and published in Archives of Family Medicine, reported that 90 percent had been sexually harassed, which means anything from being pressured for sex to being relentlessly teased and stared at.

• A 2007 survey by the Department of Veterans Affairs found that homelessness among female veterans is rapidly increasing as women soldiers come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Forty percent of these homeless female veterans say they were sexually abused while in the service.

In addition to perpetuating the culture of rape, how can our government send soldiers to war, and then--if and when these soldiers make their way back home--allow them to be homeless?

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So that happened.

Obama has choice words for McCain, by Foon Rhee, Boston Globe.

"John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell -- but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives."

Ha! That speechwriter belongs on The Colbert Report.

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In other news, McCain picks Sarah Palin as running mate.

Who?

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When your running mate has deemed you

the pro-woman candidate in hopes to win over his former opponent's supporters, do not then make a joke about your wife:

Ladies and gentlemen, my wife Jill, who you'll meet soon, is drop dead gorgeous. My wife Jill, who you'll meet soon, she also has her doctorate degree, which is a problem. But all kidding aside . . .

It is heartwarming to discover what Joe Biden values in his woman. Attractiveness, yes. Higher education, no. Keep that patriarchy alive and kicking, Joe.

I think this will play out slightly better than the time Senator Biden called a certain Senator from Illinois "clean" and "articulate".

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