If your “feminism” appears never wavering from a tunnel-visioned perspective that cannot even acknowledge that people exist on the margins, let alone give a moment’s thought of their lives, if it inculcates divisions by suggesting that those people’s needs can be addressed later, or by someone else, or in some other framework than whatever advocacy you call yourself doing, then it isn’t any feminism I can recognize.

If your “feminism” isn’t about uniting people in a group effort to push aside oppression, and instead further balkanizes people based upon a dogma you unveil piecemeal, in order to further your own brand and gain personal recognition, then it isn’t any feminism I can recognize.

If your “feminism” isn’t about cultural critique (unto cultural demolition) or policy analysis and instead focuses on individuals’ (typically cis women of privilege unless you’re talking about — and over — poor people) behaviors rather than the hierarchies and systems which confine individuals and falsely constrains their behavior, then it isn’t any feminism I can recognize.

If your “feminism” isn’t vital, dynamic, inclusive, intersectional, focused on both meeting instrumental needs and addressing systems of oppression which leave marginalized people wanting, then it not only isn’t any feminism I can recognize, it’s as akin to any feminism I know as a lollipop is to a bullet.

_{(Thank you to the always edifying T.F. Charlton [@graceishuman] for some of the language that helped me clarify my thoughts on this matter. And as always: “My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.” – Flavia Dzodan)}

Do you have any kick-ass well-reasoned unassailable critiqus of the “women shouldn’t invite rape with attire/behaviour” thing?

I told her that I didn’t have links to any, I’m sure they’ve been written, but I prefer a single sentence response: clothing is not consent, even nudity does not confer it.

Of course, I’m not disposed toward rape apologia, so for me that’s enough. But I recognize that it’s not that simple. So when Jenny asked if I had anything more, to counter the (offensive and dehumanizing) example that is the most common refrain of casual slut-shaming rape apologia: “I wouldn’t wear an expensive watch in a dark alley in the wrong part of town.” And I went off on a bit of rant toward the guys saying that. And it went something like this:

People are raped wearing burkas, in pajamas in their own beds, in nuns’ habits and jeans and t-shirts. People aren’t often raped on beaches in bikinis. This is because rape isn’t about clothing. Rapists aren’t tempted into rape by “available” flesh on display, they’re tempted by opportunity. And many opportunities arise while their victims are simply engaging in activities of everyday living, in every day clothing. But you’re speaking primarily of stranger rape, built on an idea of some guy in the shadows who sees some uncovered woman and can’t stop himself, leaping out and overcoming her. That’s not what the vast majority of rape is. It’s a date who won’t hear “no.” It’s a coworker who fixates and stalks. It’s friends, boyfriends and husbands who don’t need their victims to be in tiny skirts or baring cleavage because their victims trust them. And they violate that trust and their victims’ bodies not because of their victims’ clothing or naivete or because of opportunity, but because they can, because they want to hurt, to teach a lesson or most often, to take what they think they’re entitled to. And that is their fault, and their fault alone.

But even for victims of stranger rape, once we start talking about what they might have done differently, start critiquing their dress and behavior or start trying to concoct a cautionary tale, what you’re saying is that sometimes rape is the fault of someone other than rapists. You’re suggesting some idea of shared liability, as if rape is like a car accident with both parties sharing some level of blame. And that idea is not morally, ethically or legally valid. It’s the perpetuation of a myth, the shaming and slandering of victims and, worse, the insulation of perpetrators from the responsibility of rape in order to obfuscate who does it, where they do it, and when. It’s to cover up the times you and your friends have been fuzzy about the consent of your partners. It’s to further a culture in which you haven’t been taught about what consent is (the presence of yes, not just the absence of no) but you have been taught, often and well, about “sluts” and what they “deserve.”

Think on that, and then explain how a short skirt says something more meaningful or understandable than the “no” of the person wearing it.

It’s not a well-reasoned critique, but it is a heartfelt one.

At Market District, a woman who checked out beside me bought $650+ of food, including a piece of lamb that was about $80, and I saw her loading her ~two dozen bags into a BMW SUV. At Bottom Dollar, an elderly woman was crying in the parking lot because her battery on her old beater van was dead and no one (including me) had jumper cables, and a young mother ahead of me in line, soaked to the skin because she’d walked to the market in the pouring rain, couldn’t buy the tiny $6 chicken she was hoping could be Christmas dinner because there wasn’t enough money left on her SNAP card.

I’m entirely sure that the lady with the BMW could stand to have more chicken dinners rather than lamb, if she’d even have to make that sacrifice in order to pay a little more in taxes so that a young mom on SNAP wouldn’t have to make meals out of generic mac and cheese and tuna for her and her little girl in the last week of the month. Maybe all of the luxury cars I saw in the Market District lot will have to be kept another year before they’re traded in, their owners making that sacrifice, so that a woman with a van that’s falling apart won’t have to sacrifice some discounted groceries in order to buy a new battery. (Or at least a set of jumper cables.)

But maybe I’m failing to see some larger picture…

No, I’m almost entirely certain that I’m not.

Back in my favorite spot again, on a cold, drizzly, grey and dismal morning. At least the breakfast was good. (Greek yogurt and charoset. Mmm mmm.)

Snow is falling. Isn’t it April?

Younger me spent the better part of a decade in this little grey building on top of a hill.

Book of Muppet postage stamps, various business cards, a notepad from a Best Western (when did I stay at a Best Western?!?!), my Kaufmann’s credit card (Macy’s bought them out, I still miss them), and about three dozen fortune cookie fortunes. (I may have a slight fortune hoarding problem.)

My mom’s co-worker made a tiny little Easter basket for everyone in their office. Mini candies, a tiny box of pretzels, a little bag of cookies, a snack pack of crackers and a tiny egg filled with M&Ms. I got the mini Snickers, whoo hoo.

Catching up on the meme… All the junk mail and catalogs that come in to our house end up dumped into the ugly, uncomfortable gold chair of doom where no one sits, until they get scooped up every other week to go into the recycling bag. We’re about to get rid of the chair of doom, though, so I’m not sure where the junk mail will be dumped.

I am not ashamed that some (most) of my favorite people in this world “live” in my computer.

Today’s #aprilphotoaday

Can you see me? (This is how a secret agent shows herself, in shadow and reflection, refraction and duplication. You can never be sure what you’re seeing.)

In the middle of the night, police banged on his door until he was roused from sleep, demanded entry, when he refused (because he was not ill) they broke down the door, tasered him, then inexplicably shot him.

The official police story is that he came at them with a hatchet, then that was amended to a knife. Within hours they were reporting this as a justified shooting.

This occurred last November, a grand jury is just now being empaneled to investigate this shooting and the name of the officer (and his duty status) has never been released to the public.

The entire encounter was recorded by the medical pendant company, and there is video from the taser. White Plains, NY police are going to have a lot of explaining to do when this gets before a jury.