Feminist gaming blog with a heaping dash of science and politics
So something’s been really stickin in my craw lately. Enough to get me out of my posting hibernation even!
I really, really hate seeing female action characters running around in heels. It screams objectification to me and really just turns up the “HEY LADIES YOU CAN BE STRONG AND STUFF, BUT FIRST YOU GOTS TO BE SEXAY” message to 11. And it’s freaking everywhere right now.
Black Widow in the latest Cap Movie went into multiple situations where it was known before hand that the likelihood of seeing some action was very high. AND SHE STILL WORE HIGH HEELED BOOTS.
This is during the long action sequence in which she literally jumps off a bridge.
The last few days I have been nigh on obsessively watching this. It’s an amazing, pitch perfect parody of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance that celebrates the Woman’s Suffrage movement and its perfectly timed for International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. Frankly, though, I think the reason I keep coming back to it, aside from it’s catchy lyrics (“I wanna wear pants!”), is that during this horrific political zeitgeist we’ve got right now, I really do need to see something that is joyously and wholeheartedly celebrating women’s fight for their rights and freedoms.
Let’s face it, the US political system is a little shoddy. Shady, even. Especially when it comes to electing presidents. Really, when it comes down to it, the Presidential elections turn into pissing contests between only two nominees that may or may not have been chosen by their constituents to represent their party and who are elected to lead our country by some shadowy, not-well-understood group who may or may not follow the will of the people and elect the rightful winner of the popular vote. It can, at times, honestly seem like these elections aren’t about the weighing of the pros and cons of individual candidates but are instead a forced choice to put in charge the lesser of the two evils the nebulous entities known as the Republican and Democratic Parties have foisted onto us through the magic of politics.
Unsurprisingly, the citizenry is getting a little sick of all of this politicking and out of this zietigiest Americans Elect was born. They say they’re a new way to do politics. Vote for a canidate not a party is their battle cry, but is this organization really that revolutionary? Are they really shaking up the political scene as much as they claim to be or is it the same ol’ same ol’ just under different management?
What the hell is Brown Thursday you ask? And why are we flipping birds at it? Well, my friend, Brown Thursday is the horribly named* phenomena of big box retailers pushing their Black Friday doorbuster sales earlier and earlier until they actually start taking over Thanksgiving Day itself. The last few years have seen a gradual increase in midnight Black Friday sales and late night Brown Thrusday sales, but this year is the first time that the two super retailers Walmart and Target started getting in on this abysmal practice.
There are a lot of things wrong with the whole idea of Black Friday, but an often overlooked part is the impact it has on employees of the stores.
Final Update: Thankfully the Personhood Amendment was defeated in Mississippi by a vote of 58% to 42%. It’s a narrow margin, but it is the result of the hard work and sweat of the grassroots activist and local women that turned the tide. They were up against PersonhoodUSA and its rich backers who poured outside funds into the state to try to get this bill passed. The local activists had scant few weeks to break through PersonhoodUSA’s flood of misinformation and propaganda, but they did it. And in doing so they protected not just the rights of women and pregnant people in Mississippi, but in the rest of the US as well. We can’t relax just yet though, PersonhoodUSA has got similar Fetal Personhood bills working their way onto the 2012 ballots in California, Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Florida. And to add insult to injury, Republicans in US House of Representatives are trying to introduce and pass Fetal Personhood bills as well. We won this fight, but the War on Women still rages on.
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No, seriously, it does. These “Fetal Personhood” bills are terrifying.They’ve been introduced in Ohio, Colorado, Louisiana, and other states, but they have all, thankfully, been voted down by the populace. This year, however, there is one being introduced to the Mississippi ballot and it is expected to pass. Let me repeat that, this horrible, terrifying piece of legislation is expected to pass. And once it’s passed, the bill’s sponsors expect it to be challenged in court and for it to go all the way up to the US Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade, overturning nearly 40 years of feminist progress. This bill is terrifying to me. However this may seem like no big deal or maybe even a good thing for those of you out there who don’t know what Fetal Personhood bills are or who have only heard the anti-abortion rhetoric that glosses over the real ramifications of these types of bills. Please believe me when I say that this is indeed a big deal and that it is also most definitely not a good thing. Allow me to explain:
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