What's in a [last] name? NOT THAT MUCH. So get over it.

There's been lots of hullabaloo lately about "feminists" getting married, and changing their last name to the Evil Evil Man's last name, and how this MUST MEAN that these feminists are NOT feminists -- THEY ARE IMPOSTORS!!! They are SARAH PALIN!!! RABID PANIC!!!!

Seriously, people?  THIS is what we need to fight about? A freakin' last name?

Feminism's treatment of non-cis, not-heterosexual, non-white women is not stellar. That's a big strike against it. Some feminists are working to correct that, learning to check their privilege and actively work to help those that need it most.

But then... other "feminists"... pull this crap : Can I be an Appendage to a Man But Still Call Myself a Feminist? 

Really? Just because a woman decides to get married, she can't be a feminist? Just because she decides to change her last name, she's not a feminist? Just because she does the dishes while her partner is working 12-14 hour shifts at work, she's not a feminist?

If that's what "the cool feminists" do, then no thanks, dude.

Maybe I'm the one who's all backwards. I mean, here I thought "feminism" was about women breaking free of the roles imposed on them by outside parties (otherwise known as the kyriarchy), and pursuing their own happiness, their own dreams and ambitions, instead of someone else's.

Apparently, "feminism" is being part of the FemBorg. It's all about teh manhatingz. And if you break the rules, even just a little bit... YOU'RE SARAH PALIN!!!!

Now, since social equality is all about doing the dishes, does that mean I'm the patriarchy? Because Freddy's the one who does the dishes at home (his and mine). And the laundry (his and mine). And the cooking -- his and mine, even though I'm the vegetarian who requires special meals.

Is there a Feminist Handbook where I can look this stuff up? The rules are starting to get confusing.

I make Freddy do all the household chores (because I'm a lazy bum, and I spend all my time blogging and tweeting). But... I like pink. And I wear dresses. And I shave my legs (er... most of the time). And my armpits (slightly more often than my legs). 

Can I still be a feminist if I wore a pink dress at our wedding?

Can I still be a feminist if I got married?

Now, if you're going to tell me that I'm a bad feminist for getting married when same-sex couples and couples where one or both partners is trans can't, then I'm going to agree with you. Getting married was a selfish move on my part, very self-centered. If you want to take away my feminist card for that, then I'll agree with you, and hand it over.

But if you're going to tell me I'm a bad feminist because I got married in a dress and had a party, I'm going to laugh in your face.

And the name thing? Are you bleepin' serious?

My last name was "Cox." Have you ever taught high school with the last name "Cox"?

You should try it. It's fun.

You don't even have to teach high school -- an ex-boyfriend's friends thought it was HILARIOUS to ask me, "What's your middle name, Sucks?"

Freddy's last name is WAY COOLER than "Cox." First of all, there are a bazillion Coxes around. (And I'm not related to any of them.) Freddy's last name? Totally unique. And pretty.

When I get an email address assigned at work, I don't have to have numbers or anything weird after my username -- it can just be "firstinitiallastname" because THERE ARE NOT SEVENTEEN BILLION OTHER PEOPLE WITH THE SAME LAST NAME IN THE DISTRICT.

That's pretty nifty, I think.

Had I had Freddy's last name when I graduated college, I bet the university would have sent me MY diploma in the mail, instead of Renee Marie Cox's diploma. (There were 5 of us with the same last name in the College of Liberal Arts that semester, if I recall correctly.)

You know what else has ALWAYS bugged me? That my last name (Cox) was shorter than my first name (Cristina). I HATED that as a kid. I wished I could have gone by my mom's last name, Donovan, because THAT one was a decent length.

Freddy's last name? LONGER THAN THREE LETTERS.

So I changed my last name when I got married.

OF COURSE THIS MUST MEAN I HAVE NO PERSONALITY OR SENSE OF SELF OUTSIDE MY HUBAND WAAAHHHHH!!!!!

I am "an appendage."

Meh. Good to know.

Come on, people... Don't we have bigger fish to fry than last names? 

Women are bullied into unwanted and unnecessary C-sections daily, and our maternal mortality rate has risen thanks to this. Doesn't WOMEN DYING rank a bit higher than their chosen last name? 

Or what about the women who will die because of lack of access to a safe abortion? 

Or 13-year-old girls being arrested for prostitution, when they're not even old enough to consent to sex until they're at least 14? 

Or what about the legalized discrimination against trans women? Denying protection to our most vulnerable sisters, which will inevitably result in (even more of) their deaths.... but that's NOT NEARLY AS IMPORTANT as your last name!!!

Dunno... seems like there are better things on which to spend "feminist" blog space than petty name-calling. No?

A bad day to be a Texan...

Today was not good. It's like all the bad news came out all at once today, and aimed its missiles at Texas.

It actually started last night (but I wasn't fully online last night, so I'm calling it "very early this morning"), when Marcy posted a link to this blog. Go read it -- see it with your own eyes -- then come back.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The Texas State Board of Education has banned -- BANNED -- a children's book. A BOARD BOOK. You know what they call them "board books"? Because they're made out of cardboard, instead of paper. Because the target audience is too young for paper. The necessary motor skills to turn pages have not yet developed in children of that age.

BUT THE BOOK IS MARXIST!!

Bill Martin, Jr. wrote children's books. He wrote BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE. He died in 2004.

Bill Martin wrote some Marxist book. In 2008.

Obviously, this is an elaborate communist conspiracy to indoctrinate our children, and the Texas State Board of Education is the only entity smart and brave enough to see it and stand up against it.

Need more proof this is "socialist indoctrination"? See for yourself:

Exactly.

Oh, but that's not all of it.

Later on, via Twitter (how I get all my news, for serious) I discovered Props 4 and 5 (scroll to the bottom of page 4): [emphasis mine]

Prop 4: "The use of the word 'God', prayers, and the Ten Commandments should be allowed at public gatherings and public educational institutions, as well as be permitted on government buildings and property."

Prop 5: "The Texas Legislature should enact legislation requiring a sonogram be performed and shown to each mother about to undergo a medically unnecessary, elective abortion."

Need I say more?

I thought this was a free country, with separation of church and state. Isn't that what our Founding Fathers wanted?

I also thought doctors were the ones who should deem what is and is not "medically necessary" or "medically unnecessary." So if I request an elective tonsillectomy, do I have to watch a video of the procedure before the doctor will allow me to go into the OR?

This is just too insulting for words. I can't give it any.

But you know what takes the cake? This.

I can't comment on that last one. I really can't. The only thing that comes to mind is cuss words, and I try not to use those out loud (or typing). I can't believe I live in a state that has such a f*cked up legal system where something like that could even potentially happen.

The first two links are annoying, but, sadly, predictable. And, in the grand scheme of things, mostly harmless (those propositions are NOT going to pass, are they?) But this last one?

Day 14: From The Onion: New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

When I first saw this tweet, I almost passed out -- until I saw "via @TheOnion." Then I felt a little better.

I watched the video, which I'm embedding below, and while part of me wanted to share it, part of me didn't (and I'm still not entirely sure I'm going to publish this). I know The Onion is doing it's social-commentary-through-satire and that they are pointing out the ridiculousness of all the many, many laws mandating what a pregnant person* must do before being allowed to get an abortion (viewing a sonogram, mandatory waiting periods, and other crap I don't want to bother remembering).

The problem is that when in reality we do have such preposterous laws (or proposed laws; the most ridiculous ones have thankfully been defeated), the joke walks a fine line. "Crisis pregnancy centers" send you home with diapers and baby booties and onesies so you can "think over" what you're going to do with your unplanned pregnancy. So how far off are we really from painting a nursery?

I also hesitate to post it because of the language used (which is the language anti-choicers use all the time). We all know that a fetus has the potential to develop into a baby, but the fetus is not a baby. And it's not an "unborn baby," any more than I am an undead corpse; it is a developing fetus, one that could develop complications (or maybe already has). It is a parasite.

A baby is a living, breathing, autonomous human being (dependent, but autonomous -- it breathes on its own, eats and digests on its own. It can't hold the bottle, but it sucks and swallows and digests all on its own. For the purposes of this specific situation, that's an autonomous being); a baby has already been born and it is no longer part of the "incubator," no longer attached to them and dependent solely on them for survival -- a baby is dependent on someone, but since it is not attached to any one person's uterus, any other person, besides the person from whose uterus it came, can assume the caretaker role.

Many people who have an abortion do want children, and love children and babies, but for a wide variety of reasons, cannot carry that pregnancy to term at that point in their life. Therefore the flippant talk of babies and nurseries in the Onion video, as if the fetus were already a baby, can be triggering for those people who had to make a difficult choice -- for their sake and the sake of that potential child.

(This was supposed to be a short, quick blog post, showing you a funny video. Well, so much for that...)

So, if you want to watch it, there it is. The joke is very well done; I just wonder how long it'll take before we see this conversation play out seriously on Fox News.


New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

*First I wrote "woman," but that's an incorrect generalization, as A) I meant cis women, not all women, and B) trans men can also get pregnant.

Dear Biblethumpers: You're doing it wrong. And making the rest of us look bad.

Dear Biblethumpers:

Stop. Please STOP.

You don't get it. You're doing it wrong, and you're making the rest of us look bad.

You're making those of us who were already on (what you claim to be) your side want to jump ship.

So quit it. Stop the hate, stop the intolerance, stop the stupidity.

Thanks,

Criss.

So, apparently, today on Twitter someone started a #nogod hashtag. I saw it this morning; didn't like some of the stuff I saw tweeted, because, since I do believe in God, those insults included me as well.

But then this afternoon I saw this. And, really, how can you argue with that?

When I see stuff like the #nogod hashtag/trending topic, or people defending atheism by condemning Christianity, part of me has to agree with them. I mean, look at what those people were saying? Really?

I know when people attack God and religion and Christianity they are not attacking me, they are not really saying I'm stupid because I believe in a higher power and go to church. They are attacking those who blindly follow a leader who tells them pretty things. And they are attacking those leaders who twist the words they read in the Bible for their own twisted, hateful, small-minded bigotry; those who use the Bible and religion to control.

And so many of the people on Twitter who claim to be "Christians" spew so much hate against anyone who might perhaps think just a little differently than they, and they do it "in God's name." It's hard not to hate them back. I can't blame the people who were using the #nogod hashtag.

I know I'm not the nicest person in the world. I know I have a huge issue with forgiveness -- I don't give it. I spew hate on my blog. But I don't do it "in God's name." I don't condemn you to Hell because God says so. I don't tell you God's going to send you to Hell.

I also have enough faith in my faith, and I believe what I believe strongly enough that some stupid hashtag isn't going to threaten my faith or my beliefs. Do you think God cares about that stupid #nogod hashtag? Puh-leeez! There are several hashtags that probably hurt God, but #nogod wasn't one of them. #lame, #retarded, #gay... I bet God feels a stab or two when he reads those. (And I'd give you more, but frankly I don't look at the trending topics and don't follow hashtags other than #prochoice, #NaNoWriMo... and that's about it.)

Yesterday, one of the students in my tutoring group asked me if it was true that the Bible says piercings are bad.

Dude, I really don't think they had body piercing parlours in Nazareth. Or am I missing something? Did Judas have an eyebrow ring? Was the reason Sara had such a hard time conceiving because she had a belly-button ring? Didn't take it out until she was, like, eighty, and that's when she finally got pregnant?

No, the kid was talking about the Bible saying your body is a temple. So you shouldn't get a piercing or a tattoo.

I tried to explain to the kid that he should be much more worried about what kind of food he eats -- puts in his temple -- than about an earring. But he wasn't paying attention.

An authority figure, his parents, or a priest/preacher, told him the Bible says this and this is what it means. Period, end of story.

"You can't get a piercing or a tattoo, because the Bible says that's bad. God will hate you. And you will go to Hell."

"Oh. Okay."

What about respecting your body? Taking care of yourself? Eating right? Exercising? Loving your body as it is, instead of telling yourself you are too fat? Too tall? Too short? Your body is a gift from God, God made you just the way He/She wanted you to be. Love your body, it was custom-made for you.

No? That part's not important?

Nope, just the "no-piercings" part.

Eat all the high-fructose corn syrup you want, and stay on the couch all day playing your stupid XBox. That's what the Bible says.

What most people tell you the Bible says is rarely ever what it does say. Too many people take one line, one verse, and tell you the Bible says THIS. They ignore the pages upon pages of Jesus telling them to "love one another, as I have loved you."

That's what the Bible says. That's what religion faith is. That's what I believe in.

And I wish others would stop ruining it for me, dammit.

Some thoughts and clarifications on yesterday's post; race v. racism

I want to make sure this is clear, because I want to make sure I don't imply the wrong message: how we classify "race" and "ethnicity" on forms, how people choose to classify themselves, is arbitrary. There are no clear "rules" or guidelines to say who is what, and so many people are mixed races anyway, the whole thing is rather silly.

However, racism is, sadly, very real. I did not mean to imply, when I was talking about race being arbitrary and construed, that racism was not a real problem. We have certainly taken giant leaps, but few still have far, far to go. Yes, we elected a black President. But we're carrying assault rifles to town hall meetings were said President will speak -- would we do that if he were white? I think this Tweet asks a very valid question.

Racism is about what you look like. Most of the time, especially now, you can't really tell what a person "is" by looking at him or her; you can tell if the person is "different" -- non-white -- but how often are people of Hispanic and Middle Eastern backgrounds taken to be the other? But racism doesn't bother with those details anyway, as long as you're "different" you're fair game.

Race and ethnicity are about where you come from. How you grew up. While we can come up with a few general guidelines, there are no rules for this, because we are people not robots and we're all different. So, what you put in those boxes? Arbitrary and contrued.

First of all, "Hispanic/Latino" is not a race, it's an ethnicity. Which is why you can have Hispanics/Latinos of all colors, as Danine pointed out in yesterday's comments. They finally started updating the boxes, where you are black (non-Hispanic) or white (non-Hispanic) or Asian (non-Hispanic), but we still don't have enough boxes to fit everybody.

Then there's all the mixed races (which, I guess, technically, is what I am -- Chilean dad, USian mom, so I grew up with both cultures). Some people look more "mixed" than others, but here's where we stop talking about race or ethnicity as background/your personal history and start getting into... not necessarily racism, but the side effects of it. The mentality it had bequeathed us. (I know racism isn't dead, but think of it as a living will. Or wishful thinking.)

If you "look" black, then we're going to call you black. Because that's what we see. Even if your mom's white. If you look, shall we say, "less" black, then we'll call you bi-racial. Or mixed. Or something.

Hopefully we're moving into an era where we're all going to be so mixed up, we're going to stop worrying about all this junk, and just be "people," and comment on skin color the same way we comment on hair or eye color: just something that's there. Neither good, nor bad, just there.

For further reading, let me direct you to Raising My Boychick's post on sexual orientation and gender v. race.

(Part 2 of yesterday's rambling thoughts to come tomorrow. Or thereabouts.)

Some thoughts on race, ethnicity, and what I am

A few weeks ago, I saw this video on Literanista's blog:

Last year (and the spring semester before that) I taught at a high school that was over 50% Hispanic. The six years before that, I had been teaching in the rich white kids' schools.

One of the first things a student said to me, when I was being presented to the Spanish classes at the mostly-minority school, was "What's up with all the white Spanish teachers?" Which was a valid question -- the three other Spanish teachers in the school were white (this kid was in the Spanish IV AP class, where everyone but the teacher was Hispanic).

The kids later found out I was a little weird. Because I spoke Spanish without an accent; I was from Chile, so I was "Hispanic." But I looked "white." This was cause for great confusion from the students: "Miss, what are you? How come you're Hispanic, but you're white?"

Being in an environment where white was the minority (at least when it came to students) was definitely a new experience for me. In the other schools where I'd taught, we didn't talk about race. Because if you talk about race, it means you notice it. And if you notice race, well, that means you're a racist.

But at my last school, the kids talked about race. It was there. It was part of their lives because it was right there -- if you didn't notice it, then you were stupid. It wasn't generally qualified; it wasn't "good" or "bad," it was just there.

I don't have anything else to say about that. I just found it different. Something that stood out to me, and I thought I'd share it.

In Chile we didn't talk about these things either. When my mom and siblings moved to the US, my brother and I filled out our own school forms while my mom worked on my sisters' stuff. Name, address, phone number, date of birth...

"Mom, what 'race' are we?"

Because we looked white, but we were fresh off the boat plane from Latin America.

After thinking about it for a second, my mom said, "Put Hispanic/Latino. That way you'll be eligible for more scholarships."

Seriously.

At fourteen, I didn't take notice of this. Enough to remember the conversation, so my subconscious must have known this was something I'd want to blog about later. (I'm not one of those people who remembers details of her youth. At all. I can give you the names of maybe a whopping two of my elementary school teachers. That's it. So, me remembering this convo? Significant.)

Maybe this situation started me on the path that finds race classification (on government forms) so arbitrary and construed. When I taught third grade, the first year students take the almighty Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, we had to go through our class rosters and make sure each student's race/ethnicity was entered properly. I wondered how I was supposed to know each student's race and/or ethnicity, since I was not each student's parent and therefore did not know each student's genetic history. Also, what about the two girls who'd been adopted from China? Were they Asian, because they looked it? Were they White, because they's grown up in white, upper-middle-class US suburbia?

(And, while I'm at it: race and ethinicity are not interchangeable, they are two different things. But those forms treat both words as if they were synonyms, which is further proof that these classifications are arbitrary and construed and the people making these forms and trying to classify us into checkboxes have no clue what they are doing.)

When I was in college, my mother's words came back to haunt me. Because I realized that my not-impressive SAT scores and my not-impressing GPA were not likely to be the reasons why I'd made it into the prestigious and overcrowded University of Texas at Austin: my status as a Hispanic female, a subgroup that needed me to fill its quota, was much more likely to be the culprit.

This royally ticked me off, on several levels.

• I am a person of my own, I am not a checkbox. There is a lot more to me than my ethnicity and/or gender.
• I had no reason to be in college. My first semester I made four Fs, a C and a D. And two of those Fs were in dance classes. I had not meet the entrance requirements, and my performance proved I did not deserve to be there. I was taking a hard-working, non-minority student's seat, just because of the box I'd checked.
• Affirmative action by race ignores the current problems: race no longer automatically designates socio-economic status or presence/absence of priviledge.

I grew up in a Latin American country. I am fluent in Spanish, and I can dance to salsa music.

But I'm white. With freckles. I sunburn like the dickens. (No, I'm not sure what that expression means either, but you get the point.)

I went to a private school. I've been upper-middle-class my whole life. I've never been rich, but I've never wanted for anything. No, I didn't get a brand-new truck for my sixteenth birthday (and complain to my parents they the truck didn't have a CD player... but I'm not talking about my drill-teammates...), but we always had what we needed.

I don't have an accent. The faint accent I had when we first moved to the US faded within the year, but even that, I was told, was "cute," "interesting," "sexy."

I'm tall, thin, and pretty.

I've lived a life of priviledge. I've never had the minority experience. So can I really call myself "Latina"? Can I claim that? I don't have any of the life experiences that most Latinas growing up in the US face. The only thing I share with the brown-skinned girls in my classes is that we can both sing along to Mana's songs and don't need to turn on the subtitles when we watch Almodóvar films. (See my point? None of those girls watched Almodóvar films!)

I'm going to be working with minority students again this year (different job, but similar student population). I want to be a role model for them, but I know my looks are working against me. I want them to see me as one of them, but not only do I not look it, I'm not it.

(Yes, I know -- poor little white girl, troubled by her life of priviledge. Boo-hoo.)

More on this tomorrow, because this post has gotten long enough as it is.

Adendum to Calls for #agentfail, and other thoughts

(Yes, I do like to kick dead horses. Why do you ask?)

Alright, so the whining bugs me. The "helplessness" bugs me, too.

The other day Marcy Tweeted that she was teaching little D problem-solving skills: if you walk around the chair, you can reach your toy. It's amazing how many adults cannot follow this same thought process.

The #agentfail martyrs fall into this category.

Look, dude, if you really want a venue for your venting, then walk around the chair. Uh... ever heard of an anonymous blog? Create and "agentFAIL" blog, remain anonymous, and ask people to email you their stories, which will be posted anonymously. They can send their stories to agentfail@hotmail.com; nobody will know who you are, no agents will deploy their flying monkeys to get you. If it REALLY bugs you that much, do something about it. Don't just whine about how you can't whine the way you want to.


In other news, Spring Break Cleaning is going not so well. Because of sickness in the form of nausea. Not enough to be sick-sick, just enough to be annoying because I can't really stand up.

"I'm Sick During Spring Break." I should add that song to No Child Left Behind: The Musical! In the style of "It's Raining on Prom Night," if you were wondering.

Script Frenzy is less than two weeks away. Guess who has not done A THING to get ready? Need to figure out a Kick-Off location...

Calls for #agentfail, and other thoughts

Good grief, are we still talking about this? Seriously?

Okay, so the topic this time is a little different; this is about having an #agentfail day. And why it's so unfair that writers cannot even think about posting any sort of #agentfail because of the terrible repercussions the mean, evil agents will smite them with if they are foolish enough to dare (the whining is in the comments, not the post).

Look, people, this is just like any other job. One person is asking for the job, the other is sifting through all the people asking for jobs and picking out the few that look good. This is not an unfair balance of power; this is the way it always has been, period.

I applied for a job at Borders last summer. They never called me for an interview.

I also applied for a bunch of copyediting jobs when I quit teaching the first time. I was told my degree was in the wrong subject: I majored in Spanish, not English or journalism. The fact that I had TAUGHT English for four years mattered not a whit. Nor did my degree matter when I applied for a bilingual copyeditor position.

I applied for a job as an academic advisor with UTA's College of Education. I received a nice email telling me I was not qualified (despite my experience in education at the secondary and elementary levels, and navigating the uncertain seas of certification).

So, how we don't have an #HRfail Day?

Because that would be stupid.

If given the chance to do any of the above jobs, I would do better than the average Joe.* But these people did not even grant me an interview, did not even give me a chance to begin to tell them how I can do the job better than most, even though, on paper, I don't have the necessary requirements. All they had to do was give me a chance!

But they didn't. And that's how it goes. EVERYWHERE.

These HR departments don't "owe" me anything. I do not deserve an interview simply because I applied. I do not deserve the job simply because I asked for it. And I should not be applying for the job when I don't meet the minimum requirements clearly posted on the website.

Same with the agents. They don't "owe" you a read any more than any employer owes you an interview. They don't owe you a quick reply any more than an employer does -- I interviewed for a job over two weeks ago, and was told I'd hear back in about two weeks. Am I getting my panties in a bunch and hollering #HRfail? No, because that would be stupid and immature. (The job is at a school district. They're remodeling the admin offices over Spring Break, and the two-week mark from the interview was the Tuesday before Spring Break. Did I really expect to hear back from them the week before Spring Break?)

Another whine-fest topic is agents who Twitter when they're behind on reading queries. HOW DARE THEY NOT SPEND EVERY WAKING MINUTE DEVOTING THEIR LIFE TO YOU.

There are 168 hours in a week. The average person only spends 40-50 of those hours working. The average salaried paycheck only pays you for 40 hours. This leaves 118-128 hours for the agent to spend as he or she chooses; if we allot 40-50 of those hours to sleeping, that still leaves 68-88 hours for other stuff. Like Twitter. When, late on a Sunday night, I see an agent take a few seconds to bemoan an inbox of 400+ emails, my first thought is not, "How dare she waste her time like that?" but rather something more along the lines of, "Good golly, she has a much stronger work ethic than I do."

I refuse to grade on weekends. Not anymore. Screw it. My weekends are MINE.

Yes, I know agents work on comission. But that doesn't mean they are not allowed to have a life. Work to live v. live to work, and all that.

You can easily turn the argument around to the writer -- what are you doing on Twitter and writing whiny comments on blogs when you should be working on your writing? Polish that query letter, research more agents, edit that ms, start your next project. Or just grow up and quit whining.

Okay, now I'm done venting. So I can get back to cleaning. And, later, writing.


*And, come on! Freakin' Borders? What, I can't handle shelving books in alphabetical order and pushing buttons in the regster?? I've done it before, dude!