Growing up Feminist with a Sexist Dad II

I'm not going to go into too many details right now, but here's a short summary:

My father is not a good father, sexism aside. He has always treated me differently than he's treated my siblings, and it's not simply that I'm not his favorite. Again, this is the man who used to throw me in the basement when I was little. I'm not saying I was a little angel when I was little (on the contrary, I was so stubborn that even my mom might be at her wit's end; of course, I'm STILL stubborn, so go figure). He never really grew up; dealing with him is like dealing with a self-centered, greedy five-year-old.

When I was seventeen, I stopped talking to him. I didn't talk to him again until I was almost twenty-one. During that time, I looked at colleges, took the SATs, picked Tufts, picked my majors, and developed new passions, feminism in particular. I had been in a long-term sexual relationship, which he had only heard about in passing from my siblings. He had gotten married.

I don't know why I began talking to him again. I think it was because I thought I could deal with him, create my own limits, gain some control over the relationship I would have with him. I was wrong. Sometimes things were better or worse, but he never stopped talking down to me, never stopped trying to control everything. I knew he hadn't changed, but it was becoming harder and harder to have any agency in the relationship.

Recently, I've had a tough car situation. I had asked both parents for help. My mother helped. My father did not. And in the process, he insulted me. About women's studies. I called him out on it in what I consider a very straight-forward, un-angry email.

The response I got was nothing short of astonishing. It was a massive novel-sized email, one that rivals the ones I used to send to my ex (Rob, I doubt you'll ever read this, but my dad's email makes the ones I sent you look like tweets). And the whole thing was about him being in the right, and how he feels.

The best part?

I had told him I was hurt that he had made fun of women's studies (and my classmates) shortly after my graduation. By shortly after, I don't mean a few days. I mean about an hour and a half. He also implied strongly that because I was a WS major, I COULDN'T DO MATH. Here's what he had to say about my hurt feelings:

As for my apparent disrespect for your passions, I am bothered by the overall notion that I am supposed to support your passions. If you were passionate in the same way Osama bin Laden is passionate should I blindly support that? I am allowed to have my own opinions and views just as you are and I am happy that you are a passionate person. But unless you have explained to me that you have come to those views thoughtfully and logically and rationally I am not going to simply support them because you are my daughter. I think the missing link here is that by not communicating with me for more than three years I did not see you grow into these views and passions; instead, they are being presented to me in an apparent final form. Once I understand how you got to where you are now from where you were when I knew you as a teenager, I will be more capable of supporting you in the way you want me to. I am your father, not your cheering section. Regardless of all this explanation, I am sorry that I offended you at lunch after graduation with my comments.

Yeah.

I am planning on sending my dad the following email:

Dad,

No one who truly loves me would ever say the things you've said to me. Don't ever sign a message with "love" again. You are a liar.

Do I care if I get disowned? Not remotely.

LA Fitness Shooting

Last night, 48-year-old George Sodini entered an LA Fitness all-women group workout in Pennsylvania and opened fire before killing himself. He murdered three women and injured nine others.

Globe details can be found here.

Two things about this case infuriate me. Well, the whole thing infuriates me. You know what I mean.

Firstly, Sodini planned this attack. He planned it on a website for nine months. This isn't the first time that a major act of violence had been planned on a public website (Liam Youens, the murderer of Amy Boyer, also had a website).

I'm not going to scream and shout that every last one of us should have known about Sodini's site or his plans. I didn't know about it. But I think someone must have. And I wish that someone had alerted authorities.

Secondly, what on earth was the motivation behind the attacks? Easy.

Sodini was sick of being rejected by women.

And so, because he was tired of rejection, he went and shot up an all-female gym class.

I'm not a psychologist, nor am I a profiler. But I'm guessing that Sodini was furious at women for not paying enough attention to him/dating him/loving him/sleeping with him/treating him the way he thinks men should be treated. And so he had to do something about it.

But instead of examining his own attitudes and behaviors ("I wonder if there's something I'm doing, without really thinking about it, that impacts my interactions with women," or "Hm, I haven't been on a date in a while. Maybe I'll see if there are any good dating sites I could try"), he placed blame. He didn't just put blame on the individual women who had rejected him (I have a feeling he did place blame on them, just not just them); he placed blame on all women. It's the fault of women that Sodini was lonely. It's the fault of women that Sodini hadn't been on a date in a while, or had sex in even longer.

I don't believe that it would be remotely just to blame a person for not being interested in another person romantically or sexually. Sodini's blaming habits alone are inappropriate enough. But the problem here isn't just that he blames, but that he blames generally and indiscriminately. If you can blame all women because some women rejected you, and you blame all women for not having relationships/sex/dates ... then I think you don't treat women like people.

In fact, you might even think it's okay to murder some of them as punishment for humiliating you.

I consider this crime to be a hate crime and an act of terrorism.

Fun Pastimes

Looking at what people are reading as I walk to the front of the train. Sometimes, people read books. Other times, they're reading newspapers. I like when they're doing work; it's fun to see what work people do.

And this is how I know that one of the men who rides the train with me is reading Redwall.

Home late D:

My ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) won't be finished until about 5:30/5:45 so I have to stay till 6. Poor Loki. He was sad last night when I wouldn't let him share jam crackers* with me. SAD BIRDEH.

I need to learn how to draw because I think a cartoon of Loki snuggling with my laptop would be the coolest thing ever. He's all, "Mmmmmmmrrr, I wuvs you ... mmmmmrrrr so waaaarm ...." And then I'll need to hit backspace, and he'll be all, "WHAT, no, you're in my personal space!"

* Jam crackers, a term I learned from the show Friends, refers to when you take Graham crackers and put jelly on them. They are marvelous.

How would you define "racist," then?

Okay, so, many of you are familiar with the whole Gates' arrest controversey that isn't quite dying down. Black Harvard prof has trouble getting into his house after a trip. He and his black driver try to get inside. Neighbor is worried that someone might be breaking in, but isn't sure. Calls police. White officer shows up; black prof is already in his house. Black prof proves identity and residence, but gets angry when he's asked to go outside. White officer arrests black prof for his conduct. Everyone goes nuts.

Some quick thoughts:
- I'm actually glad that the neighbor called police. Too often, we see something potentially dangerous, and we don't do anything about it. We say to ourselves, "You know, it must be that the guy is having trouble getting into his own house." Or, for those of you who know a thing or two about rape culture, "You know, I'm sure that guy is just helping his drunk girlfriend to a bed upstairs where he will take care of her and keep her safe." Just checking is important, and that's what the neighbor was doing.

- Racial profiling, being illegal, isn't something that happens consciously. White society might view one behavior as normal in a white person, but risky/dangerous/suspicious in a person of color. We must point out when this happens. That's how you stop it. In this case, Gates became very frustrated and angry. I do not think he would have been arrested had he been white. I think his anger and frustration were seen as somehow dangerous because of his skin color.

- Just because a black cop said that he approved of the arrest does not negate race from the equation. Plenty of white people don't approve of the arrest; does that mean that NO white person should? That's like saying, "My joke wasn't sexist because another woman laughed."

Now, we're seemingly at the point where we can keep the incident in mind, but make jokes about it (as seen here and here). But it's not over.

An Officer Barrett, a Boston police officer, sent an incredibly racist, sexist, and insulting letter to Globe writer Yvonne Abrahams (don't read it unless you want to be shocked by the kind of people we let onto the police force). He was suspended, pending termination. Mayor Menino is nothing short of enraged:

“I was angry about the incident when the commissioner spoke to me [Tuesday] night,’’ Menino said. “I said, ‘He has no place in this department, and we have to take his badge away.’ That stuff doesn’t belong in our city, and we’re not going to tolerate it.’’

The mayor said he has not seen the e-mail and while the officer is not officially terminated, he might as well be. “He’s gone - g-o-n-e. I don’t care, it’s like cancer, you don’t keep those cancers around.’’

What did Barrett say?

“I did not mean to offend anyone,’’ he said. “The words were being used to characterize behavior, not describe anyone . . . I didn’t mean it in a racist way. I treat everyone with dignity and respect.’’

Uh, no. Oh, and now he's suing. Yeah.

According to the lawsuit, the mayor and commissioner’s actions caused Barrett pain and suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, posttraumatic stress, sleeplessness, indignities and embarrassment, degradation, injury to reputation, and restrictions on personal freedom.

Barrett, on the police force for two years, requested that they be enjoined from decreasing, terminating, or withholding any wages. He also asked for money damages to compensate for the emotional and physical pain he suffered, attorney’s fees, and punitive damages.

Here's what I don't, and will never understand:

How can you possibly say something so obviously racist and offensive? And sexist and offensive? And then think that you treat everyone with dignity and respect?

How can you say that this is not about race when you used racial slurs? How can you say you're not racist when you used racial slurs and expressed racist sentiments?

Unless, of course, you don't think your letter was racist. Which makes sense. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said those things because you would have known and understood that they were racist.

The city of Boston doesn't deserve the punishment of having this awful, awful person on its police force.

Happy Pants Day!

Happy Pants Day!

What, you might find yourself asking, is Pants Day anyway? A fine, fine question.

Pants Day is the day that occurs about once every year where I've been working hard to get healthier, and a pair of pants that I purchased around last Pants Day fit again.

Last year, after jogging on a regular basis for about a month, I'd slimmed down some, and I bought a cute pair of capri pants (Happy Pants Day 2008!). When I tried to wear them after this winter ended, it just didn't happen (Sad Pants Day 2009). Up to about two months ago, I still couldn't get the capris past the tops of my thighs. Lovely.

After 3 solid weeks of gymming, and a different approach to eating (eating every 2-3 hours, eating more protein), I can celebrate Pants Day (the happy one)!. I'm wearing my capris to work today.

They are tighter than when I bought them. Shit happens. But it's nice to know that the gym is working (you'd never know it based on how I look and feel while there; when I showed up at my mom's apartment after a workout, she laughed pretty hard).

So, happy Pants Day as I continue to take steps to become a fat chick stuck in a skinny chick stuck in a fat chick!

Lulz, humorless feminist!

I have a not-that-close friend with whom I communicate on Facebook every so often. We usually just comment on each other's statuses and notes, and so on. Yesterday, this was one of his status updates:

"Ugly code is like a fat chick. Every programmer has done it at some point, we just hope no one ever finds out about it."

Of course, the comments that followed were from people who all thought this was HILARIOUS, and several people had clicked "Like."

I commented: "Dislike."

He replied: "Just appreciate the humor and let it go. It doesn't apply to me, I just thought it was too funny to let my CS buddies miss out on - and from the looks of it, it seems they like it."

I replied: "I'm not being humorless. It's just not funny."

He replied: "Then ignore it... ? Because clearly it is pretty funny. Just look at all the programmers who love it (but will never love a woman)."

Someone else replied: "Philosopher, thespian, and comedian, Daniel Lawrence Whitney has said it best, 'I don't care who ya are, that's funny right there'."

Is this quotation funny? No. First off, as an overweight woman, it's insulting for a friend of mine to make a joke about how men will sleep with fat chicks for the hell of it, but then be ashamed of it. I'm sorry, I'm something to be ashamed of? A guy would only do me for sex, not because he cared about me, or (even worse) was attracted to me?

Secondly, there are female programmers. So you're insulting them by creating a joke that excludes them while at the same time insulting them.

And yet when I say that it's not funny, I'm told to just find it funny anyway, admit that it's funny (because clearly it's impossible that I didn't find it hilarious), or to just shut up and stop ruining everyone's fun.

No one has explained to me why this is supposed to be funny. I already know why it's not funny. "Shut up or laugh" is not a convincing argument to get me to feel differently.