birdlord

[birdlord]

This brings us to the most troubling suggestion made by the natural childbirth movement: that giving birth is what women are for—their bodily destiny, their logical purpose, and in some sense their highest reason for being. It is here, in its rapturous faith in women’s reproductive role, that the movement begins to sound like the anti-choice zealots whose regressive and sexist ideas about pregnancy and childbirth now carry the force of law. As Yarrow asserts in a chapter called “Childbearing Hips,” women “[need] more stories that acknowledge the truth: we were born to birth.” Although Yarrow is pro-choice, how different is this contention from the one offered by the anti-choice extremist Laura Strietmann, who argued that pregnancy is not really dangerous even for little girls impregnated as the result of rape, because “a woman’s body is designed to carry life”? Women are not “designed” objects; they are not mere vessels for the reproduction of humanity or animals marching toward their natural destiny. They are people—thinking, feeling, and intelligent human beings, even while they give birth. The natural childbirth movement is responding to a real concern: the justified distrust of the medical establishment by women and their reasonable discomfort with many of the ways that labor and delivery are—and historically have been—mismanaged and misunderstood. But practitioners like Dick-Read and Gaskin do not alleviate the suffering of women in labor. They simply deny it, burying it under layers of romanticizing naturalization, like so many paisley scarves.

[birdlord]

The trap waits for even the wary: start as a dissenter, develop into a crank, end up a dupe. One day you're Christopher Hitchens castigating the folly of the Vietnam War, the next, you're Christopher Hitchens praising the muscular daring of the Iraq invasion. It's hard to consistently stand against tyranny while people keep obfuscating the question of who is tyrannizing whom. Power, under criticism, has long since learned the trick of declaring itself the real victim of oppression. Arguing that rich people deserve more money than poor people, or that the police must have a free hand to arrest or shoot people without facing discipline, or that workers need no protection from a pandemic before going back to work—these may be existing, repressive power arrangements, but if you advocate for them, you can successfully package yourself as a contrarian.

TrustNo1

[birdlord]

One of the ways that influencers influence us is by giving us these affective scripts — think of the wine-mom staggering through Target cracking jokes, or the breastfeeding mama’s conscientiousness, or the “boy mom” (I struggle with that one, since I “am one”) who’s always game for anything. These scripts are thin and boring, but they are what we have. Success on Instagram’s algorithm does not readily afford more nuanced scripts than this. There is no gram-ready affective script for the mom who shares the work of raising kids with five other people, who is in fact not exhausted, who leaves the family for periods of work or rest without feeling guilty.

KILLER momfluencer analysis at Mothers Under the Influence. 

[birdlord]

“Let’s admit that there is something a little off about the scale on some of these huge ones. I’m wondering, as they’re being eaten, is someone continually refreshing them? (The company I spoke to does not “replenish”, but often home hosts will.) Do they ever get picked-over to the point of looking a little sparse? And if not, what happens to all that leftover food? There is a kind of party food that is meant to be demolished — I’m thinking of fondues, dips, platters of wings. It’s a sign of a dish’s success when you’re greedily scraping the last of the sauce from the platter with the bony edge of the last wing. The mark of a successful grazing table is the way it looks before it’s eaten.

I spoke to the owner of a Texas-based charcuterie company who remarked that charcuterie is “all about the way it looks.” The flavours, in her view, are secondary to the visual effect.The experience of abundance can have nuance, but grazing tables are bugle blasts of plenty. Something about how the food is arranged with great care so that everyone can approach it individually, as opposed to sharing it deliberately among themselves, makes the abundance feel static — even a bit dead.“

Loving this take on charcuterie boards’ popularity on instagram. And HOW MUCH do I want to read that History of Crop Art and Dairy Sculpture book?!

[birdlord]

“I can see you're disappointed,” she begins, “By the way you look at me/ And I'm sorry that I'm not/ The woman you thought I'd be/Yes, I've made my mistakes/ But listen and understand/ My mistakes are no worse than yours/Just because I'm a woman” The type of womanhood Dolly is describing is the kind I always operated from when thinking about feminism. It understands that the limitations of womanhood are structural, not biological, not bound in any sort of essential nature, and that womanhood is not any more exalted or morally righteous or smarter or kinder or empathetic or better smelling than any other gender. The barriers and detriments around it come from expectations—from societies, social groups, other people, oneself—and are not an inherent part of being a woman. In Dolly’s song, being a woman means freely makes mistakes, sleeping around, actually wants to have sex and claiming the right to talk about all of it even if the wider world does not want to listen. But there is a whole strain of feminism that understands womanhood primarily as a wound—that the most authentic experience of womanhood is injury, and a very specific type of pain. [...] In this version of feminism, womanhood is a prize to be held up and valuable because of who it excludes. It’s wound as outerwear—womanhood is akin to a grievance, but a grievance only certain kinds of women are allowed to express directly. And it’s believed that the grievances of upper class womanhood stand in for the grievances of all womanhood.

 A great piece that starts with Dolly Parton, proceeds through Valerie Solanas, and ends with Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí’s understanding of womanhood.

[birdlord]

very cool how the gender binary in the emerging trad terf synthesis is like, there are two genders, the one that does bad things and the one that bad things are done to. the only thing in the world is immorality and it flows from unexperiencing agents to unacting experiencers.

[birdlord]

It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with rightwing attacks on gender. The anti-gender ideology movement is not opposing a specific account of gender, but seeking to eradicate “gender” as a concept or discourse, a field of study, an approach to social power. Sometimes they claim that “sex” alone has scientific standing, but other times they appeal to divine mandates for masculine domination and difference. They don’t seem to mind contradicting themselves. The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact (such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, EM Hammonds or Anne Fausto-Sterling) in favor of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism. So they will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times. So the Terfs will not be part of the contemporary struggle against fascism, one that requires a coalition guided by struggles against racism, nationalism, xenophobia and carceral violence, one that is mindful of the high rates of femicide throughout the world, which include high rates of attacks on trans and genderqueer people.

The OG Judith Butler always makes me feel calm and supported, her work and the work of the other theorists that she quotes above provide such a solid background to work against TERF ideology. Her second paragraph here makes a great point linking all social justice movements together.  (via birdlord)

LOL FOREVER that the Guardian removed this whole question & answer from the interview, way to stick by your principles!

[birdlord]

It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with rightwing attacks on gender. The anti-gender ideology movement is not opposing a specific account of gender, but seeking to eradicate “gender” as a concept or discourse, a field of study, an approach to social power. Sometimes they claim that “sex” alone has scientific standing, but other times they appeal to divine mandates for masculine domination and difference. They don’t seem to mind contradicting themselves. The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact (such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, EM Hammonds or Anne Fausto-Sterling) in favor of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism. So they will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times. So the Terfs will not be part of the contemporary struggle against fascism, one that requires a coalition guided by struggles against racism, nationalism, xenophobia and carceral violence, one that is mindful of the high rates of femicide throughout the world, which include high rates of attacks on trans and genderqueer people.

The OG Judith Butler always makes me feel calm and supported, her work and the work of the other theorists that she quotes above provide such a solid background to work against TERF ideology. Her second paragraph here makes a great point linking all social justice movements together. 

[birdlord]

Most people who care think that Franzen refused to appear on Oprah to promote The Corrections, but what actually happened was worse. The novel was anointed a book club pick (an honor that, when the show was on network television, could conservatively increase book sales by a factor of 10), and preparatory B-roll was shot in Franzen’s hometown of St. Louis. Then, in a preceding Fresh Air interview, he said, “I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience, and I’ve heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say, ‘If I hadn’t heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it.’ Those are male readers speaking.” Oprah’s response: “Jonathan Franzen will not be on the Oprah Winfrey show because he is seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection. It is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or cause anyone conflict.” No one has ever been told to fuck off and die more politely. In that Fresh Air interview, Franzen said the quiet part out loud: Serious novels were by—and for—men like him.

I just listened a few weeks ago to the Decoder Ring episode that is about this incident and BOY HOWDY did I not remember it correctly! The quote comes from an essay about The Jonathans of Fiction that is worth your time if you were a reader of What We Call Literary Fiction around the turn of the millennium. 

[birdlord]

[birdlord]

A number of international journalists who were covering the invasion moved into the Palestine Hotel on Firdos Square, where Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf held his amusing press conferences. They had been relocated from the Al Rasheed Hotel, closer to the city’s political centre, after much of it had been destroyed by bombing. Though the Palestine Hotel was known to be a media refuge, an American tank fired a shell at it on 8 April, mistaking a camera on a balcony for an Iraqi spotting device. Two journalists were killed, three were injured, and the rest were outraged. It was fortunate, then, that a story would come along to distract them from their anger at the Pentagon the next day, and that it would happen on Firdos Square – right outside their hotel. Fortunate, but not planned by the Pentagon. The story was created spontaneously by American soldiers on the ground. It was spun into a full-blown global event by the international news media.

A deep dive into the destruction of the Saddam Hussein statue that invaded global media in 2003. Turns out the place was lousy with Saddam statues, and lots of them were pulled down without much fanfare at all! I’ve been listening to podcasts about the Iraq war lately, it seems like the post-Trump media is heading back ~ 20 years to reckon with the fallout from the Bush years. 

[birdlord]

It seemed to me that was exactly what was happening on Mumsnet: some of these newly “gender critical” Mumsnetters were relatively privileged women who had never felt marginalized until they gave birth and came to feel isolated in their nuclear households and (rightfully!) outraged at the lack of support for mothers in the U.K. They turned to Mumsnet for solidarity, and somehow became fixated on trans women in the process.

American reporter who worked on pickup artist and Mens Rights Activist online communities moves to the UK in 2018 and discovers very similar tendencies among trans-exclusionary users of a forum called Mumsnet. Forest: unseeable due to abundance of trees!

[birdlord]

And then, when the mortar goes loose, when the roof leaks – when fire strikes – is the cathedral still complete? When we account for maintenance, no project is ever really finished. Even something as binary as a bridge will fall apart or become irrelevant unless it is constantly maintained and improved by the institution behind it. So, why do cathedrals take so long to build? Because the finish line is besides (sic) the point. Cathedrals are so compelling because they make visible the continued commitment that every building, city, and institution requires of their participants if they are to survive. Cathedral building ritualizes construction; they are compelling because they are never finished.

Somehow I thought that cathedrals taking hundreds of years to be built was a thing of the past, but St John the Divine in New York has been under construction for 128 years, and it ain’t done yet. This is a great piece about the relationship between buildings, institutions, and humans.

[birdlord]

Everything I Watched in 2020

We’ll start with movies. The number in parentheses is the year of release, asterisks denote a re-watch, and titles in bold are my favourite watches of the year. Here’s 2019’s list. 

01 Little Women (19)

02 The Post (17) 

03 Molly’s Game (17)

04 * Doctor No (62)

05 Groundhog Day (93)

06 *Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (86)

07 Knives Out (19) My last theatre experience (sob)

08 Professor Marston and his Wonder Women (17)

09 Les Miserables (98)

10 Midsommar (19) I’m not sure how *good* it is, but it does stick in the ol’ brain

11 *Manhattan Murder Mystery (93)

12 Marriage Story (19)

13 Kramer vs Kramer (79)

14 Jojo Rabbit (19)

15 J’ai perdu mon corps (19) a cute animated film about a hand detached from its body!

16 1917 (19)

17 Married to the Mob (88)

18 Klaus (19)

19 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (19) If Little Women made me want to wear a scarf criss-crossed around my torso, this one made me want to wear a cloak

20 The Last Black Man in San Francisco (19)

21 *Lawrence of Arabia (62)

22 Gone With the Wind (39)

23 Kiss Me Deadly (55)

24 Dredd (12)

25 Heartburn (86) heard a bunch about this one in the Blank Check series on Nora Ephron, sadly after I’d watched it

26 The Long Shot (19)

27 Out of Africa (85)

28 King Kong (46)

29 *Johnny Mnemonic (95)

30 Knocked Up (07)

31 Collateral (04)

32 Bird on a Wire (90)

33 The Black Dahlia (05)

34 Long Time Running (17)

35 *Magic Mike (12)

36 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (07)

37 Cold War (18)

38 *Kramer Vs Kramer (79) yes I watched this a few months before! This was a pandemic friend group co-watch.

39 *Burn After Reading (08)

40 Last Holiday (50)

41 Fly Away Home (96)

42 *Moneyball (11) I’m sure I watch this every two years, at most??

43 Last Holiday (06) the Queen Latifah version of the 1950 movie above, lacking, of course, the brutal “poor people don’t deserve anything good” ending

44 *Safe (95)

45 Gimme Shelter (70)

46 The Daytrippers (96)

47 Experiment in Terror (62)

48 Tucker: The Man and His Dream (88)

49 My Brilliant Career (79) one of the salvations of 2020 was watching movies “with” friends. Our usual method was to video chat before the movie, sync our streaming services, and text-chat while the movie was on. 

50 Divorce Italian Style (61)

51 *Gosford Park (01) another classic comfort watch, fuck I love a G. Park

52 Hopscotch (80)

53 Brief Encounter (45)

54 Hud (63)

55 Ocean’s 8 (18)

56 *Beverly Hills Cop (84)

57 Blow the Man Down (19)

58 Constantine (05)

59 The Report (19) maddening!! How are people so consistently terrible to one another!

60 Everyday People (04)

61 Anatomy of a Murder (58)

62 Spiderman: Homecoming (17)

63 *To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (95) Of the 90s drag road movies, Priscilla is more visually striking, but this has its moments.

64 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (92)

65 *The Truman Show (98)

66 Mona Lisa (86)

67 The Blob (58)

68 The Guard (11)

69 *Waiting for Guffman (96) RIP Fred Willard

70 Rocketman (19)

71 Outside In (18)

72 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (08) how strange to see a movie that you have known the premise for, but no details of, for over a decade

73 *Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (91)

74 The Reader (08)

75 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (19) This was fine until it VERY MUCH WAS NOT FINE

76 The End of the Affair (99) you try to watch a fun little romp about infidelity during the Blitz, and Graham Greene can’t help but shoehorn in a friggin crisis of religious faith

77 Must Love Dogs (05) barely any dog content, where are the dogs at

78 The Rainmaker (97)

79 *Batman & Robin (97)

80 National Lampoon’s Vacation (83) Never seen any of the non-xmas Vacations, didn’t realize the children are totally different, not just actors but ages! Also, this one is blatantly racist!

81 *Mystic Pizza (88)

82 Funny Girl (68)

83 The Sons of Katie Elder (65)

84 *Knives Out (19) another re-watch within the same year!! How does this keep happening??

85 *Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (10) a real I-just-moved-away-from-Toronto nostalgia watch

86 Canadian Bacon (92) vividly recall this VHS at the video store, but I never saw it til 2020

87 *Blood Simple (85)

88 Brittany Runs a Marathon (19)

89 The Accidental Tourist (88)

90 August Osage County (13) MELO-DRAMA!!

91 Appaloosa (08)

92 The Firm (93) Feeling good about how many iconic 80s/90s video store stalwarts I watched in 2020

93 *Almost Famous (00)

94 Whisper of the Heart (95)

95 Da 5 Bloods (20)

96 Rain Man (88)

97 True Stories (86)

98 *Risky Business (83) It’s not about what you think it’s about! It never was!

99 *The Big Chill (83)

100 The Way We Were (73)

101 Safety Last (23) It’s getting so that I might have to add the first two digits to my dates...not that I watch THAT many movies from the 1920s...

102 Phantasm (79)

103 The Burrowers (08)

104 New Jack City (91)

105 The Vanishing (88)

106 Sisters (72)

107 Puberty Blues (81) Little Aussie cinema theme, here

108 Elevator to the Gallows (58)

109 Les Diaboliques (55)

110 House (77) haha WHAT no really W H A T

111 Death Line (72)

112 Cranes are Flying (57)

113 Holes (03)

114 *Lady Vengeance (05)

115 Long Weekend (78)

116 Body Double (84)

117 The Crazies (73) I love that Romero shows the utter confusion that would no doubt reign in the case of any kind of disaster. Things fall apart.

118 Waterlilies (07)

119 *You’re Next (11)

120 Event Horizon (97)

121 Venom (18) I liked it, guys, way more than most superhero fare. Has a real sense of place and the place ISN’T New York!

122 Under the Silver Lake (18) RIP Night Call

123 *Blade Runner (82)

124 *The Birds (62) interesting to see now that I’ve read the story it came from

125 *28 Days Later (02) hits REAL FUCKIN’ DIFFERENT in a pandemic

126 Life is Sweet (90)

127 *So I Married an Axe Murderer (93) find me a more 90s movie, I dare you (it’s not possible)

128 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (67)

129 The Pelican Brief (93) 90s thrillers continue!

130 Dick Johnston is Dead (20)

131 The Bridges of Madison County (95)

132 Earth Girls are Easy (88) Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum are so hot in this movie, no wonder they got married 

133 Better Watch Out (16)

134 Drowning Mona (00) trying for something like the Coen bros and not getting there

135 Au Revoir Les Enfants (87)

136 *Chasing Amy (97) Affleck is the least alluring movie lead...ever? I also think I gave Joey Lauren Adams’ character short shrift in my memory of the movie. It’s not good, but she’s more complicated than I recalled. 

137 Blackkklansman (18)

138 Being Frank (19)

139 Kiki’s Delivery Service (89)

140 Uncle Frank (20) why so many FRANKS

141 *National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (89) watching with pals (virtually) made it so much more fun than the usual yearly watch!

142 Half Baked (98) another, more secret Toronto nostalgia pic - RC Harris water filtration plant as a prison!

143 We’re the Millers (13)

144 All is Bright (13)

145 Defending Your Life (91)

146 Christmas Chronicles (18) I maintain that most new xmas movies are terrible, particularly now that Netflix churns them out like eggnog every year. 

147 Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse (18)

148 Reindeer Games (00) what did I say about Affleck??!? WHAT DID I SAY

149 Palm Springs (20)

150 Happiest Season (20)

151 *Metropolitan (90) it’s definitely a Christmas movie

152 Black Christmas (74)

THEATRE:HOME - 2:150 (thanks pandemic)

I usually separate out docs and fiction, but I watched almost no documentaries this year (with the exception of Dick Johnston). Reality is real enough. 

TV Series

01 - BoJack Horseman (final season) - Pretty damned poignant finish to the show, replete with actual consequences for our reformed bad boy protagonist (which is more than you can say for most antiheroes of Peak TV).

02 - *Hello Ladies - I enjoy the pure awkwardness of seeing Stephen Merchant try to perform being a Regular Person, but ultimately this show tips him too far towards a nasty, Ricky Gervais-lite sort of persona. Perhaps he was always best as a cameo appearance, or lip synching with wild eyes while Chrissy Teigen giggles?

03 - Olive Kittredge - a rough watch by times. I read the book as well, later in the year. Frances Mcdormand was the best, possibly the only, casting option for the flinty lead. One episode tips into thriller territory, which is a shock. 

04 - *The Wire S3, S4, S5 - lockdown culture! It was interesting to rewatch this, then a few months later go through an enormous, culture-level reappraisal of cop-centred narratives. 

05 - Forever - a Maya Rudolph/Fred Armisen joint that coasts on the charm of its leads. The premise is OK, but I wasn’t left wanting any more at the end. 

06 - *Catastrophe - a rewatch when my partner decided he wanted to see it, too!

07 - Red Oak - resolutely “OK” steaming dramedy, relied heavily on some pretty obvious cues to get across its 1980s setting. 

08 - Little Fires Everywhere - gulped this one down while in 14-day isolation, delicious! Every 90s suburban mom had that SUV, but not all of them had the requisite **secrets**

09 - The Great - fun historical comedy/drama! Costumes: lush. Actors: amusing. Race-blind casting: refreshing!

10 - The Crown S4 - this is the season everyone lost their everloving shit for, since it’s finally recent enough history that a fair chunk of the viewing audience is liable to recall it happening. 

11 - Ted Lasso - we resisted this one for a while (thought I did enjoy the ad campaign for NBC sports (!!) that it was based on). My view is that its best point was the comfort that the men on the show have (or develop, throughout the season) with the acknowledgement and sharing of their own feelings. Masculinity redux. 

12 - Moonbase 8 - Goodnatured in a way that makes you certain they will be crushed. 

13 - The Good Lord Bird - Ethan Hawke is really aging into the character actor we always hoped he would be! 

14 - Hollywood - frothy wish-fulfillment alternate history. I think the show would have been improved immeasurably by skipping the final episode.

[birdlord]

this story fucks me RIGHT UP

The Last Documented Widow of a Civil War Veteran Has Died

On December 16, 2020, Helen Viola Jackson died in Marshfield, Missouri at the age of 101. She was the last known widow of a Civil War veteran, marrying 93-year-old James Bolin in 1936 at the age of 17.

James Bolin was a 93-year-old widower when Jackson’s father volunteered her to stop by his house each day and assist him with chores as she headed home from school.

Bolin, who was a private in the 14th Missouri Cavalry and served until the end of the war in Co. F, did not believe in accepting charity and after a lengthy period of time asked Jackson for her hand in marriage as a way to provide for her future.

“He said that he would leave me his Union pension,” Jackson explained in an interview with Historian Hamilton C. Clark. “It was during the depression and times were hard. He said that it might be my only way of leaving the farm.”

Jackson didn’t talk publicly about her marriage until the last few years and never applied for the pension – the last person receiving a Civil War pension from the US government died in mid-2020. As I wrote then, about the Great Span:

This is a great example of the Great Span, the link across large periods of history by individual humans. But it’s also a reminder that, as William Faulkner wrote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Until this week, US taxpayers were literally and directly paying for the Civil War, a conflict whose origins stretch back to the earliest days of the American colonies and continues today on the streets of our cities and towns.

(via @jerometenk)

[birdlord]

What the polished posts don’t mention is that those perfectly charred tacos and fast weeknight meals come at a steep price: Gas stoves expose tens of millions of people in the United States to levels of pollution so high that they would be considered illegal outdoors. Counting on the allure of Instagram stars to help fend off alternatives backed by environmentalists, the gas industry doesn’t want you to realize how much its paid marketing has influenced public thinking that gas stoves are stylish, innocuous, and necessary home appliances. To the contrary, lifestyle bloggers are building their healthy, clean-living brands on one of the most dangerous home appliances on the market.

This is a great little story about the gas industry using influencers to promote cooking on gas stoves. I’ve only rarely had one at home, but it sounds like for indoor-pollution and for greenhouse gas reasons (natural gas is cleaner than some fuels, but if you are advocating for green electricity in your area or installing it at your house, you’d best be cooking and heating with said electricity) it’s best to avoid them. It hurts me a little, though I wonder how much of that enjoyment has been constructed by the industry. NOW YOU’RE COOKING WITH GAS & so on

[birdlord]