pill ill.

i just read this gross article online. it was an article that i stumbled across while signing out of hotmail. the sign out process took me to msn - which i normally try to avoid, because i consider msn gross (sexist, heterosexist, classist, racist, ablebodied-centred, conservative, etc. etc. etc. ) in itself - but today i patiently waited for the page to pop up, etc. etc. because i had seen an article about how blogging is changing or influencing 'our' culture (not quite sure who that means, although i could guess for you if you want me to (hint hint, refer to above parenthesis on 'gross' (as well as my last sentence...) and i thought it might be of interest to gxx. but, alas, no blogging article, but instead what i thought *might* be an interesting read on dun dun dun... the pill. so, i clicked and i read. and then i started skimming and then only simply scrolling down, only stopping as my eye caught yet another awful - gross - point. here are some examples, which are intended to proclaim the awesomeness of the pill:

1. the pill is - at $25 a month - relatively inexpensive.

--- 12 x 25 = $300.00 per year. 300 x 3 (why not?) = $9,000.00. right.

2. according to Dr. DeCherney: "it works -- 100% of the time".

--- bullshit. my friend c was a pill/condom combo baby. capital B, bullshit. also, insurance agencies and chemists/pharmacies don't always match pill users in the strict, self-regulated adherence to timely administration. in other words, sometimes you're due for a new pill packet, and the chemist is out, or your insurance hasn't cleared, because 28 days isn't quite 1 month. starting late means less than a 100% guarantee. automatically. immediately. but, you know, starting on time means paying sans insurance which means paying more. is it worth that extra $5? should i calculate $5 x 12 (x 3)? right.

3. also according to Dr. DeCherney: "side effects are mainly minor - such things as mood changes, fluid retention, acne, and spot bleeding. and the only major risk is death from cardiovascular causes, such as thromboembolism, which are rare."

--- um, these things aren't minor. it takes, on average, a period of 3-4 months for a woman's body to adjust to the new levels of hormones being introduced into her system. 3-4 months of mood changes. and fluid retention? how crap does it feel to change nothing about the way you eat, the way you exercise, the way you do anything, except take one little pill a day, and all of a sudden, not fit into the clothes you're wearing. and combine this, with acne, mood changes, and societal pressure to adhere to a certain criteria of measurements dictating what is and isn't an attractive woman, and who wants to have sex? no to mention the 'spotting', which, by the way, lasted for 2 years straight, in the case of my friend, p.

4. according to Dr. Senikas, "no product on the planet comes without its side effects and complications," she added, but it's often forgotten that pregnancy comes with its own risks."

--- brilliant. so it's a lesser of two evils, and guess what women, you get the sense of agency that comes with determining which one you'll eventually choose!

5. 'hormonal birth control for men - the "male pill" - is tougher. "stopping 200 million sperm a day from being produced is more difficult than shutting off one egg a month," Dr. Schlegel said.

--- true. and astute Dr. he is, he continues:

"Women, who face the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy, are willing to put up with small risks and occasional side effects, he said. "Would a man take a drug that made him not feel well?" asked Dr. DeCherney. "The answer is they don't have to because pregnancy is not an option. I think it will be a long time before we see a male hormonal contraceptive."

--- well, i'm glad that we've gotten as far as understanding that pregnancy, for women, is, in fact, a choice - although you sometimes wouldn't know it, given that the idea is one that is obviously still contentious enough that it causes folks to consider bombing abortion clinics, etc. - but, i'm sorry, this whole 'men don't have to (think about taking a pill that would make him not feel well) because pregnancy is not an option,' um, what?! pregnancy IS an option. as in, guess what? pregnancy happens...which is exactly WHY your girlfriend/wife/partner/friend/lover/etc. etc. that you're having sex with, as well as every single one of the 11.6 million women out there (i'm guessing, just in the US?) is taking the f*cking pill!

what is NOT an option, is the continued ignorance and insensitivity regarding this issue.

and by the way, i'd like to add nausea and IRRITABILITY to the list of 'minor' symptomatic complaints. but, then again, that might not be a side-effect of the pill, rather 'our culture' that surrounds and supports it's administration.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/Pregnancy/tb1/1449?pfc=101&spc=224
(and i do acknowledge that there are good points to this article (as well as the fact that some women take the pill for help in acheiving lighter and more regular periods, etc.), but, their worth is incredibly devalued when sandwhiched between such gross stuff. and i don't see why i should be ok with the gross stuff. why should i be ok with the gross stuff? i mean, if i'm going to start having hetero sex, i'll probably start on the pill. probably. because what are choices? but with this, this i have a choice. and i'm not ok with the side-effects of this kind of sort of hormone. i mean, i'm not ok with the side-effects of any of the hormones. but the connection, the parallel, i'm trying to make, is that regardless of the source, and regardless of whether they are physical or metaphorical, these side-effects, like i said, they're not minor. they're gross.)

shumi shu

Shumi Wei Lai

Woo- hoo Shumi! Shumi shares this blog with me, and while not quite as blog-crazy as I have been of late, she is a most fabulous part of Rudebarbie. She hasn't posted anything... like... forever (grin) so I'm happy-out at today's post.

PhD (in Women's Studies) anyone?

so, after a *very* long hiatus, i have decided to have another go at the blogging. over the past few weeks (especially the past few weeks) i've had several nuggets of blog-worthy experiences. a run in with some homophobe's, where, while i sat seated on a sofa, one of them exclaimed "oh my god! he's so GAY! they need to get him off the tele!" to which i responded, "that's really homophobic" to which she reponded, "i'm sorry, but i just can't help it. i mean, look at him, he's dressed like a girl!" ; an outdoor theatre production of romeo and juliet, which featured a plus-size woman who was the brunt of all slapstick humour, including being spun around and around in circles by man after man, after man after man, which left her out of breath and dizzy, and, could have easily passed as abusive; a recent visit from a male acquaintance, that left me facing some difficult questions regarding my own position as a feminist, speaking out about women respecting their bodies and their boundaries, yet denying my own; (and, lastly) a reconnecting conversation with an old friend, who confessed to me some unsettling details about her boyfriend's proclivity for talking about their sex life (as well as his imaginary sex life with other women) in a pretty insensitive, immature, indisreet and tactless fashion, with others...as well as his penchant for porn (which he had, up until this point (almost 3 years of dating), suceeded in hiding. oh, the choices!

and i find it interesting that i don't so much want to talk/post about those incidents. i mean, i did want to... to talk, that is. and, i did, eventually, with friends and family and flatmates and coursemates and so on. but i'm more so thinking about my impending start to my PhD studies. because i've been thinking a lot about feminism. and a lot about my feminist position. and how, at times, i feel like i don't have one. or, possibly, don't even want one. i mean, it's feminism, after all, that enabled me to internalise the above scenarios in the ways that i did. it shaped my responses. it triggered the grimace. the consolation. the questioning. and, yet, i've been sitting here, reading all day, about methodology, and feminist research. and although i find comfort in reading about other feminist researchers as they grapple with their own grimace, as they review tapes of women who've undergone hysterectomy, the struggle to find consoling words when they learn that these female patients were, in fact, unlearned, unaware. how to answer questions, "you're beyond childbearing years, should we take out the whole thing, or do you want to keep the ovaries?" (as my friend, p, said last night over curry, "the contrary, well, you don't need your sperm to make babies anymore, might as well chop off those bollocks!") the questioning that comes with being both a nurse as well as an academic, uncertain as to whether she should remain loyal to the male dr's sponsoring her research, or the woman in front of her, who should clearly be filing a lawsuit? comfort, yes. but i also read Black American Barbara Smith's protest:

"Women who teach, research, and publish about women, but who are not involved in any way in making radical social and political change, women who are not involved in making the lives of living, breathing women more viable... If lifting oppression is not a priority to you then it's problematic whether you are part of the actual feminist movement...To me racist white women cannot be said to be actually feminist." ('Racism and Women's Studies', Frontiers, 1980)

and i'm a bit torn. torn between feeling like she's absolutely right. right on. and i all of a sudden feel quite crap about (as gxx said) feeling like i'm standing in a train station, still, with everyone moving around me. active. me: (asside from a daily trip to the gym) unactive. but is the line that separates everyday life and feminist research that bold? or does it only seem unpronounced because of the fact that i try my damn best to live out my feminism? to be intentional. and responsible. and accountable. and compassionate. and so on.

i don't like sitting on my arse, reading all day. i don't. i read really, really slowly. i'm so *not* a fast reader. and i have a really creative mind, and i'd, in many ways, much rather be taking photos, or designing, or thinking about colour theory, etc. you know i used to write music? for the piano? when i was like 12? and i'm much, much better at supporting and motivating others than doing whatever the hell it is that *i* need to do. and so, for me, this is hard work. it takes a ton of discipline and focus. and i have to find something that i'm tuly and whole-heartedly invested in, or else i won't be able to pull through. and, perhaps, even more so, i'm gonna need to hold on to my faith. because, in those moments of questioning, consoling, grimacing...well, that's all i've got. faith. because even though this is hard for me, i think that Barbara's right. it's way harder out there, and you can't call yourself a feminist and not acknowledge that. so this arse-sitting...it's just me, biding my time. because i can't wait to get out there and raise hell. that's where i want to be. what i want to be doing. but, first, i've got to get my PhD. and figure out a way to do it from within the academy. because it's really messed up in there, too. and since i'm teetering between 'out there' and 'in here' anyways, always, i'm just gonna go ahead and embrace it. at least for the next 3 years. :-)

If I was a rich girl...

Or if I had any spare cash at all...I would order these for my dad. And perhaps another set for myself. Tee-hee!

Ecosystem

I've registered myself on The Truth Laid Bear's ecosystem. At the moment I'm a Crunchy Crustacean and am led to aspire towards life as a Lowly Insect. TTLB organizes its rankings on the basis of incoming links from other blogs on the ecosystem list. It also lists blog positions according to reader-traffic on its ecotraffic page. I plan to remove myself from the ecosystem once my dissertation is complete. My purpose in signing myself up is really to experience what effect the registration and evolution of my ranking has on my blogging. Will I be motivated to promote my blog in order to increase my ranking? Will I remain uncomfortable with the idea of this ranking system (or any ranking system for blogs for that matter) or will I find myself buying into it? Will I simply forget it's there? I'm interested to see.

The morning after The Morning After

Following a citation in one of the texts I was reading a few months ago, I finally picked up a copy of Katie Roiphe's The Morning After in the library last week. And, taking a day to look at some non-blog-related (at least not directly) texts on Saturday, I found myself going cover to cover on this particular book. While it didn't take me so long to read it, it's been sitting in my cerebral colon since, proving somewhat more difficult to digest. Bear in mind that my primary motivation for reading this text was that I believed it spoke about the experience for women within the academy, and this is one of my core areas of interest. One of the issues Roiphe takes up is that of sexual harassment (between male and female faculty, though she focuses on male faculty/female students). Roiphe's presentation suggests that the result of a slew of sexual-harassment charges has led male faculty to become over-wary in their relationships with female students, resulting in actual discrimination against female students as their male teachers are reluctant to extend extra curricular advice/support to them for fear of the consequences.
First, there's an assumption of heterosexuality here.
Secondly, I think it's interesting that the idea of cozy chats with faculty behind closed doors (Roiphe does not find the open office door conducive to productive discussion) should be so advantageous for a student's academic career. Is the university such an old-boy's-network that excellent references find their way only to those who engage in after-hours over-coffee repartee with their professors? Indeed, Roiphe seems to think this central to the academic experience

The flexible hours combined with the intensity of the academic world would appear to be fertile ground for connections, arguments over coffee

connections with faculty that are

intellectually as well as professionally important

While I have learned a lot from the faculty at the institution where I study, and while I value every insight and suggestion I have been offered and enjoy my supervision sessions very much, I just don't have time for lengthy meetings outside of that. I work a part-time job, I have errands to run, meals to cook, reading and writing to get busy with. I hope that I have earned decent references through my participation in classes and the written work I produce. It might be nice to have a coffee with my supervisor sometime, but I wouldn't ever like to think of it as some kind of networking. To me, that brings to mind golf-with-the-boss schmoozing. My reading of this part of Roiphe's text seemed to suggest that in order to get ahead in academia it was wise not to play oneself out of this game.
It is important to recognize Roiphe's perspective as privileged and white, speaking from an Ivy-league American institution. I realise that the academic location of Roiphe is probably very different from those of my own experience, and do not deny her truth-claims with regard to the edginess in faculty/student relationships, though I have not experienced it myself. However, I feel really umcomfortable with the simple acceptance of an academic institution as one where perhaps 'who you know' is as valuable as 'what you know' and where jostling for position and favour (competing with your fellow students) are part of the status quo, from my point of view it would appear to be more useful to challenge this status quo than to chastise women for the spanner their activism has thrown in its works.

In 'Sisters of the Yam: Feminist Opportunism of Commitment to Struggle', bell hooks detects the competitive edge in the author's writing describing

Roiphe's construction of a feminist arena where the chosen (young, white, and privileged) don their boxing gloves to see who is the better feminist

Do read bell hooks' piece here, it offers an excellent critique of Roiphe's text, focusing on her failure to acknowledge the constructive contributions to dissent by many feminists other than herself and her omission of any acknowledgement of class or race differences.

To Read

Yesterday I ordered from the library:

Publishing a Blog with Blogger. Elizabeth Castro
Blog: Understanding the Information Reinformation that's Changing your World. Hugh Hewitt
The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs. Viviane Serfaty

I'm excited, though also overwhelmed - so much to read and think over and then write about!
Any comments on the above texts appreciated.

The 'r' word

Retarded. Retard. I hate it when people use those words. It can be difficult because even people close to me, people I like and respect, come out with it when I'm least expecting it. I sometimes wonder if I physically flinch - I'm not sure, but I certainly do mentally. I think a lot of people with mental disability in their family (for me, my younger sister) have the same reaction. I'm not a confrontational person either, which adds to it because the pain is doubled when I hate myself for not speaking up. These words are just so accepted as pejoratives, I think people throw them around a lot more casually than they do homophobic/racist language, yet to me, it's just as offensive.
Below is an excerpt from a critical review of Nuts and Zoo Weekly magazines. I agree with the most of the sentiment of the review and enjoy the F Word blog but this irked me:

I've never, ever got 'Lad' 'Culture' - why subscribe to a school of thought that encourages you at act like a complete retard?

Thing is - I don't think that Lad Culture encourages its subscribers to act like disabled people. I think it encourages its subscribers to act like beer-swilling, offensive-joke-telling, sexist loudmouths. To suggest that mentally disabled people act like 'Lads' is blatently a ridiculous conflation as it assumes that a)all mentally disabled people behave the same way and are not individuals and b)that the defining features of this behavior (so 'typical' of the mentally disabled) are to drink a lot of beer, make offensive jokes and comments, and belittle and demean women. Grrr.

The second time I got slapped with the 'r' word this week was when I was reading one of my favourite blogs, one I read daily and whose writers I admire greatly. So I suppose it is ironic that a comment on a piece about rhetorical mishaps reads like this

If you want to get your hide really tanned for rhetorical mishaps have a gander at Chris Clarke's awesome post taking people to task for slurring the red states as if we were one monolithical mass of retarded.

I suspect the sentiment here is possibly 'backward' which is often given as 'what I really meant' when this subject comes up. It's just that, for me at least, it is very difficult to divorce the word from the image of a mentally disabled person and so the negative connotations pile up. It's interesting that I feel really guilty for writing this post, kind of like how I used to feel for criticising language that I thought was anti-woman. It makes me realise that I'm still afraid of appearing to be 'difficult'. I'm working on it...

I used to love them...

Lauren at Feministe shared her Guns n' Roses connection yesterday. Memories galore for me on that one - I was a serious fan in my teens and saw them play at Slane Castle in Ireland on their Use Your Illusion tour in 1992 (the only show I ever queued overnight to buy tickets for). While I don't have my homemade 'I Love You Slash' t-shirt anymore, Appetite for Destruction will always be up there in terms of my perfect albums and 'Rocket Queen' is simply just one of those songs. Axel does look a little like he's been hitting the chemical peels a little heavy these days but it's nice to see that Slash is still rockin' it as cool as ever with Velvet Revolver (he is always destined to be so much better than the vocalists he works with).

Some Questions

1. Is a blog still a blog if at least some of its posts do not include links to other blogs/online articles of interest?
2. If it is unethical to quote a discussion board posting in an academic paper without either a)getting permission from the poster b)changing identifying details to make them anonymous, is then also unethical to link from a blog (specifically a blog used at least in part as a research tool) to a discussion board without getting permission from the board members (given that in using a link you cannot change identifying details)?
Some things I have been pondering.

'Blogging Thoughts'

I'm reading 'Blogging Thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool' by Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker and it's a fantastic piece. It's given me plenty of ideas, especially with regard to the potenital of Blogging to really make some changes, or at least offer alternatives, to academic conventions.

Linkety-link

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working on the second section of my MA dissertation . I'm trying to put together a piece that gives a brief history of, and contextualises, blogs and blogging. At the end of the section I'm planning to veer more into a focus of blogs within academia to kind of set things up for my case studies. Although I initially thought that I would find this section easy, because it's fairly straightforward in its aims and methods, I've actually been really struggling with it and, while I've done a fair bit of work, I've also been allowing myself to get really distracted: cleaning the flat, watching and reading about Big Brother (which feels like eating a whole bag of something wholly lacking in nutrition and loaded with additives), and generally slouching about. In order to try to reclaim some kind of productivity before the weekend (when my fabulous friends from Edinburgh arrive - woooo-hoooo!) I'm hoping to motivate myself with the list below. The articles here are ones I've found really useful in my preparation to write the above mentioned second section. Most, if not all, of them I filched from the fabulous Kairosnews Weblog webliography which was just too useful for words.

1. A fantastic introduction from the author of the wonderful Rebecca's Pocket blog. 'Weblogs: A History and Perspective.' Rebecca Blood.

2. This article really appealed to me especially as my interests lie particularly with the practice and theory of blogging within the academic community. Here Clancy Ratliff explores, through the example of the Invisible Adjunct blog, the potential for blogs to act as community-building spaces that may "critique institutional practices and propose institutional reform." Read it! 'Making the Adjunct Visible: Normativity in Academia and Subversive Heteroglossia in the Invisible Adjunct Weblog Community.' Clancy Ratliff. Also worth checking out is Clancy Ratliff's wicked (and I mean wicked as in 'brilliant') blog CultureCat.

3. This is an interesting discussion of the development of norms within a blog community, raising particularly interesting issues regarding norms that evolve naturally and those that come about as the result of the creation of more formally organized blogging communities. What grabbed my attention was that Wei's case study is of a Knitting Bloggers webring - a ring that includes some of the very first blogs I came accross when I was surfing for knitting tips online. 'Formation of Norms in a Blog Community.' Carolyn Wei.

4. Another good overview, with great references to other articles on this subject. 'Personal Knowledge Publishing and its Uses in Research.' Sebastien Paquet.

That is just a taster of the writing that's out there on blogging. I suspect that, over the next couple of years, there will be more and more writing on blogging published offline. Right now, however, I'm intensely grateful to the generosity of those both who put their ideas online and who compile collections of writing on this subject, without whom my research would involve a whole lot more stabbing in the dark.

I'm 30! Yay!

On Thursday I finally turned thirty. It was the the best birthday I've had for a very long time for a number of reasons. First, it just feels good to be thirty. I spent my twenties working and travelling and making a lot of mistakes in my personal life. For a long time it really felt that I wasn't learning from those mistakes but was trapped in some very destructive patterns. It took a lot to pull myself out of some of those situations and often I made decisions that were probably not the smartest ones I could have made. If this sounds cryptic, then it's because I don't really want to go into too much detail - let sleeping dogs lie and all that.
Anyhoo...at this point I really do feel that I have learned from those mistakes and value the lessons they have taught me. I believe that I'm making my decisions with more thought and intention than ever before. In a sense, my thirtieth birthday was a wonderful chance for me to reflect upon the period of trial and error that was my twenties, and to celebrate where it has brought me. I spent the day at Uni in the library (am) and at work (pm) and got home to find LJ blowing up Happy 30th Birthday balloons and a stack of cards on the living room table. My father had sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers and my wonderful mum had packed up a jiffy bag with all manner of treats including a Yoga for Women book that I vow not to allow sit and collect dust! LJ presented me with a lovely pair of earrings and then we got ourselves prettied up and went out for dinner and a couple of drinks. At dinner he produced a lovely bracelet from our favourite Fair Trade store and when we got home I had carrot cup cakes and handmade chocolates to devour. It was amazing! Really...the financial constraints of this year have meant that we haven't been able to treat ourselves or eachother so much at all and each birthday surprise was so thoughtful and touching. Add to which the phone was ringing off the hook and I spoke to my aunt, cousin and grandmother who won the prize for best rendition of Happy Birthday (in several different keys!), my lovely mum who I love so much, LJ's grandmother and mom who we are excited to see when we move to Canada, my father, LJ's sister in Bath and finally Shumi herself. There were several messages from those who called while we were out scoffing our calamari and mussels and emails and ecards in my inbox too. It was SO FANTASTIC! Honestly, I've spent so much time bemoaning particular quirks of my life and I really hope to spend my thirties in a state of thankfulness rather than focusing on feelings of resentment and disapointment.
Being thirty rocks!
And...as if that wasn't all great enough...I get to go a feminist conference today and then have dinner with some of my classmates.
Oh...and Al Green is singing his sweet heart out on the radio right now. Happy Saturday!