Denial of Sexism in Gaming

Now that I’m more vocal about pointing out sexism when I come across it, I’m getting a great deal of push back for it.  Commenting on the lack of proper armor for women in game while the same piece of armor completely covers a man, gets me a great deal of protest.

A friend of mine, who is a man in real life, enjoys playing female characters in game and often dresses his main character in clothing that shows off as much skin as possible.  I never use to say anything to him, but recently I’ve realized just how much it bothers me that he plays dress up doll with his character, showing off as much of her skin as possible.  His character often has female lovers as well, which smacks of lesbian fetishism.  After recently commenting to him about how it’s rather frustrating to see a man do such things to a female character his defense was that his other female friends do the same thing with their female characters.

This friend of mine is very young, naive and hates conflict.  When I tried pointing out that he is less likely to get harassment and so forth because he’s a man in real life and thus doesn’t have to live with the reality of sexism, his next defense was that the game is fantasy and an escape.

Coming Out As Bisexual

When I was around thirteen my brother showed me the playboy magazines my father had been getting in the mail. I should have realized then that I was attracted to women. But I was living in a small town with parents who are baby boomers. While my father possibly would have explained sex if I had asked, my mother absolutely ignored that conversation. The only thing she told me was sex was for marriage. Well I already “knew” marriage was between a man and a woman. So, despite me admiring women and other girls and pretending it was envy and not something more, I continued onward and eventually got a boyfriend in college.

After losing that first boyfriend, I decided that maybe it’d be okay if I experimented. It was 2000 and women did that when they were young, right? So I started looking at profiles on yahoo dating and chose one to respond to. The woman had a boyfriend, they were new and town and were looking for a girl they could date together.

That situation ended in my rape. So I shied away from thinking about women once again. It wasn’t until after my divorce eight years ago that I started opening up to the idea that I was attracted to women again.

I have made some very horrible mistakes along my journey. I hurt two friends who are lesbians because I was too stupid and selfish to realize that I really did care about them on a romantic level. I wish I could get back in touch with them and apologize, but I’ve had no luck in doing so.

This Christmas, my 33rd, I finally came out to my brothers. They’re both older than I and they were both accepting. I told them I’m bisexual. It’s possible that at this point I’m a lesbian because the more I think about being with a man again the more scared I become. But I still enjoy hetersexual romances. So who the hell knows anymore.

Just a week ago I told my mother, who had her suspicions because I’d asked my daughter if she’d be upset if I started dating a woman. My daughter said no, she’d be absolutely okay with that. My mother seemed disappointed, but not upset. She still talks to me and likely just ignores that fact when thinking about me. She’s good at separating.

I don’t think I’ll be telling my father anytime soon. He’s a bigot and says a lot of terrible things about people of color and anyone who isn’t hetero and cis.

I’m honestly disappointed in myself for not coming to terms with this sooner. I might have been a lot happier with myself if I had. Of course I’ve led a privileged life being white, cis, able bodied and not living in poverty. As a woman in a STEM field I’ve been lucky as well as far as jobs and pay go. I was probably passed over and ignored a great deal more than I’m aware, but I wasn’t out right discriminated against either.

Coming out now has been a rather quiet affair. I live in a southern state that isn’t all that welcoming to LGBT people so I certainly won’t be announcing to my co workers what I plan on doing with my love life. I’ve always been an advocate, however, so it’s possible no one will be surprised if they do find out.

I still have a long way to go when it comes to advocacy and checking my privilege, but I will continue to do my best. And not because I have a stake in this now. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. And that, more than anything, makes me feel like the worst kind of ally.

Bored Mothers Shouldn’t Have Gotten Pregnant

I came across a post on blue milk, written by a wonderful woman who says smart things about parenting and feminism. The post is titled Parenting is sometimes boring.  It links to another article written by a woman named Penelope Trunk.

Penelope tweeted something about being bored while watching her kids with no nanny or ex-husband to help her out. She got a lot of responses scolding her for being a bad mom, because that’s how the internet works sometimes.  Penelope focuses on one man in her blog post and talks about how she tried to call him at work, at home and then finally responded to him on Twitter.

Neil Gaiman Broke My Rose Tinted Glasses

This is a repost from my Tumblr Account. I’ll be moving most of my original posts from there to here.

Two and a half years ago I followed a tweet from Neil Gaiman to a blog entry of his in which he lamented the fact that some people were angry with him for using the phrase, “He’s not your bitch.”  He was distraught over the loss of a family pet who had recently died of old age and was also suffering from jet lag and whatever else that was going on in his life, so he didn’t really bother to address the issue though I believe he did eventually apologize for using the phrase.

I personally wasn’t bothered by the usage but after almost three years of reading up on trigger warnings, sexual assault, rape culture, transphobia, transmisogyny, racism, sexism, ableism and so on, I’ve come to realize why the people who were angry with Neil Gaiman were hurt by what he said.  I can see now, how that kind of speech permeates our culture and makes it clouded with sexism, racism, transphobia and so on.  And being exposed to all of those things and the harm that they do is what broke my rose-tinted glasses.  I can’t put them back on and ignore how hurtful our society has become. How othering and alienating and painful it is for anyone who isn’t white, male, upper class, cis, able-bodied and so forth.

The site that Neil Gaiman linked to that had called him out was Shakesville.  In the comment section of that particular article there was a comment made that was called out for being a Feminism 101 discussion.  I’d never heard the term 101 used quite like that, so I followed a provided link and began learning about feminism. And then I began learning about racism and how it intersects with feminism and then I began to learn about LGBT and Trans* Rights and how everything is intersectional.  And then, oddly enough, I admitted that I am an atheist.

Somehow, these things came crashing in on me and I was no longer allowed to hide behind my rosy view of the world.  (Which wasn’t all that rosy anyway since I’ve suffered from depression for most of my adult life.) I was seeing all of these things I’d never even realized were there. They’re so insidious they creep into everything.  I learned that the word gypped, a word I’d used for decades, is a slur. I was mortified and stopped using it immediately.  I realized I was using the phrase “indian giver” as if there were nothing wrong with it. I stopped that one too.

I’m not perfect, but I am still trying and learning and doing what I can to support the voices that are truly oppressed. (As a fat, bisexual, white woman I’m hardly at all oppressed. Though most who know me in real life don’t know I’m bi nor do they know that I’m an atheist. I just can’t risk it right now with custody for my daughter up for grabs.)  I can’t do much beyond boosting the voices of others, donating where I can and confronting those with privilege like mine so that those who are disadvantaged don’t have to all of the time.

So it all started with Neil Gaiman, my trip down the rabbit hole isn’t complete. I think, however, that this rabbit hole actually leads to a world that I won’t need rose-tinted goggles to look at. It’ll be rosy all on its own. But only if we can built it together so that everyone is included.

Pro-Choice: Pro-Choice vs Anti-Choice

This is a repost from my Tumblr Account. I’ll be moving most of my original posts from there to here.

Let’s talk about choice. I’m pro-choice, if you hadn’t already guessed.  Pro-choice means no one gets to dictate what a woman does with her body.  It is no one’s business what a woman does and any choices made are between the woman and her doctor.

Pro-Choice

See the caption on NARAL’s website:

Being pro-choice means protecting women’s access to safe, legal abortion. It also means working on ways to help reduce the need for abortion, like improving access to birth control. And it means supporting women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term.

According to NARAL we need several things in order to make things easy and safe for women in regards to pregnancy:

1. Access to safe abortions such as those offered by Planned Parenthood.
2. Affordable birth control, again offered by Planned Parenthood. Also try MyCycle or use the HRSA to find a local clinic. Make an appointment, ask about free or reduced price visits and free or discounted birth control. Talk to the medical provider about what’s right for you and what will work for your situation.  Affordable birth control not only ensures there are fewer unwanted pregnancies, but it saves women’s lives.  Maternal death is lower when birth control is available, according to this study.
3. Sex Education helps prevent unwanted pregnancies. Teaching our children to abstain from sex does little to nothing to prevent them from having sex out of wedlock. As cited from this study Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.SUsing the most recent national data (2005) from all U.S. states with information on sex education laws or policies (N = 48), we show that increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth rates. This trend remains significant after accounting for socioeconomic status, teen educational attainment, ethnic composition of the teen population, and availability of Medicaid waivers for family planning services in each state. These data show clearly that abstinence-only education as a state policy is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and may actually be contributing to the high teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S.
4. Healthy Pregnancies are just as important as offering safe abortions.  Many mothers do not have the opportunity or the finances to begin prenatal care in their first trimester.  The longer a woman waits or is forced to wait for prenatal care, the less likely it is she will birth a healthy baby. See this sitefor more info on late or no Prenatal Care:
   

   Mothers who receive late (defined as beginning in the third trimester of pregnancy) or no prenatal care are more likely to have babies with health problems. Mothers who do not receive prenatal care are three times more likely to give birth to a low-weight baby, and their baby is five times more likely to die.4 However, some health researchers have concerns about the value of prenatal care as an indicator. Women who seek prenatal care are more likely to have higher incomes and intended pregnancies, which makes it difficult to measure the unique effects of prenatal care.5 Prenatal care does not always address, and may not be as effective among, women with specific social and medical risks.6 Adequacy of care (defined by the frequency and timing of visits), however, has been correlated with positive outcomes and may also confer benefits such as reduced likelihood of post-partum depression and infant injuries.7

Parenting

This is a repost from my Tumblr Account. I’ll be moving most of my original posts from there to here.

Children are not property.  Nor are they pets, decorations or items of amusement.  They are small human beings.

As such children require certain things to live, thrive and to grow into adulthood.

I recently came across someone in a comment section of a rather wonderful article regarding Masculism and how some men are oppressed due to toxic masculinity and gender roles.

While the article and many of the comments themselves are wonderful, not so much this commenter and their comments.

The comment said this:

The kid they chose to have is taken away from them and then they still have to pay for stuff for the kid, even though they functionally don’t have a kid anymore.

As a parent who has not seen her child on a regular basis more than once every two weeks for two days, can I just say how very fucked up and wrong this thinking is?

Anger and hurt and a million other negative emotions rage inside of me thinking about the idea that someone could have a child and then decide that it’s okay not to ensure that child gets whatever they need to live and thrive because they no longer have that child as a daily fixture in their life.

Fuck that.  Fuck the very idea that someone could have a kid and then just dismiss them outright because they don’t get the custody they think they deserve.

It’s a child, not a piece of property. You don’t get to own the child when a relationship or marriage doesn’t work out.

And fuck anyone who thinks a child isn’t affected by this kind of attitude and doesn’t know when a parent doesn’t give a fuck about them but just wants their property.

Book Review: The Butterfly and the Flame

This is a repost from my Tumblr Account. I’ll be moving most of my original posts from there to here.

Warning: Mild Spoilers about the first part of the book

I recently finished a book called The Butterfly and the Flame by Dana De Young.  This book is about a teenage trans girl named Emily who is engaged to the son of the owner of her family’s farm.

The story starts out talking about Emily and her everyday life. The struggles her and her family deal with as the time for her wedding draws near.  It’s only after a few chapters that we finally are told that Emily is hiding something from the people in her town. Something that would result in her death if anyone in the town found out.

Emily was considered a boy when she was born. Her family called her Erik and she was treated like a boy for the first six years of her life.  Despite this, Emily always knew she was a girl and knew that things weren’t right.  She had a dream one night about wearing her older sister’s dress and finally felt right. When she woke up, she knew what was wrong and she was going to tell her sister.  Unfortunately for Emily and the rest of the family, Emily’s sister Sarah died.

This event caused a great deal of strife in the family. Everyone was heartbroken.  One day Emily decided to put on her sister’s dress while her family was out and it felt so right she didn’t want to take it off.  She fought her parents for days on end.  Her mother caved first, realizing that Emily was just happier being a girl and was no less her child for being a girl. The father took a great deal longer to come around. And even when he did finally agree to allow Emily to dress and be a girl, he still misgendered her a lot and was constantly doing all he could to avoid her.

The family moved to a new town in order to hide the fact that Emily had been considered a boy.  The problem with them moving was that the area they moved to was hit by a drought and they were struggling to survive with out help from their families.  A wealthy, high class man swoops in to save them, but for a price.  Emily must marry his son once she is of age.

Thus begins the story of a trans* teenager dealing with a world that does not accept her and a family that struggles to stay together while being torn apart by the rules enforced by society.  Over and over the people Emily encounters blame her for her “choice” to be a woman instead of blaming the society that makes her “choice” wrong.  And what’s even worse, her brother Aaron blames her for a long time for ruining his life, which hurts her more than anything else since he ends up being the only one she can count on later in the book.

For Emily, being a girl is all that she can be. It pains her to have a body that doesn’t fit what her mind tells her she is.  She is a girl, a woman, and every day that her body grows, it moves toward a shape that she finds harder and harder to deal with.

This book, more than anything I’ve read before or since, really struck home to me, a cis woman, what it’s like to be a trans* woman.  I’ll never know personally. But the way that De Young describes Emily’s struggles and how she tries to explain what she feels, it really was quite striking.

I cried more than a few times while reading what Emily dealt with and how the controlling society she lived in treated her and her family.

The other part that I loved about this book was that it is set in a dystopian society several hundred years in the future from current day United States.  The aftermath of asteroids demolishing most of the Earth made room for the evangelical Christians to take over and create new laws along with the laws of the bible in order to force people into rigid gender roles once again.  Only men can own property and vote and be counted as true citizens. Only men can work, earn legal wages and hold positions of power.  No “sodomy”, no sex outside of marriage, no drinking or gambling or swearing.  The Dominion, as it is called in the book, rules everything.  Though it is unraveling around the edges as people fight back against this oppression.

My only regret, as an atheist, is that the book is written with a slant toward a kinder Christianity.  I don’t agree with that, but it was only a small annoyance to me because the rest of the book was so well written. And I certainly don’t begrudge anyone their faith as long as they don’t use it to hurt other people.

If you love fiction and you’d like to read one author’s take on what it’s like for a trans* woman to navigate the world, this is an excellent book to read.