CARYATID

Fall Concert Lineup!

How serendipitous! All of my favorite people are playing DC in the next few months. They all must have received my fan mail. Or, in the case of Colin Meloy, my love letters. Here's my lineup thus far:

• M.I.A. 9/21
• The Decemberists 10/02
• Liz Phair 10/12 (although I will walk out of the room when she plays the Why Can't I Breathe song... you know, the song that was mandated by Hollywood to play in the trailer for every romantic comedy produced in 2004). 
• Andrew Bird 11/17

If anyone would like to join me during my adventures in indieland, drop a line.

Excuses, Excuses

Hrm, well, since I haven't posted in a while, I should at least have a good excuse, right? I've been on hiatus for the past two weeks because I'm in transition between jobs and living arrangements, and it has eaten up all of my time, mental energy, and probably my soul as well. It turns out doing two jobs at once doesn't leave you much time to breathe, let alone contemplate the universe. When I stop working nonstop (including working overtime with no pay, wheee!) at the end of this week, I'll get back to my useless rambling.

Bisous!

Satire from a Master Debater (har har)

To all of you who did Parli debate in APDAland: this is frackin' hilarious.  Way to pull out all the stops, lil' bro.

I'm totally going to have to create a new blog post category called "T-Shirts"

I WANT IT.

Sent to me by my dear friend Helen, via Ambigutrex.

Schroer will always have more figurative balls than the idiot hiring manager at LOC

If for some ca-razy reason you still aren't convinced that certain pockets in the Beltway think homophobia and transphobia are perfectly good excuses for putting our country at risk for attack, here's another charming piece of evidence: the Library of Congress rescinded a job offer for a position as a senior terrorism analyst from a decorated veteran with 25 years of Army service and seemingly endless anti-terrorism and national security experience after finding out that she was in the process of transitioning from male to female. Diane Schroer, the applicant in question, and the ACLU have filed a sex discrimination suit against the Library of Congress in the DC District Court.

Julian Sanchez does a downright stellar job of discussing the issues surrounding the case in his recent article in Reason.

Super Men

Jessica at Feministing links to an article announcing the appointment of the first man to head the Women's Studies department at the University of Washington since the department's founding. The thought of having a man head a Woman's Studies department when women are underrepresented in department chair positions across the board has a lot of people in a tizzy; I'll admit, this was my knee-jerk reaction when I first read this. But once I got past the initial discomfort of the thought of having a white man preside over a department that is overwhelmingly women of various ethnicities, I realized this might not be  such a bad move for the field of Women's Studies and the feminist movement as a whole.

The main objection to the principle of having male professors of Women's Studies seems to be that, as men, they can only know so much about women's collective experiences and are therefore inherently limited in their capacity to truly be experts in the field [for one shining example of how this isn't true, just read the remarkably insightful comments of (male) Gender  Studies Prof Hugo Schwyzer]. But what the critics who say that David Allen can only know so much about women somehow fail to acknowledge is that Women's Studies is an academic endeavor, and academia is among the last places anecdotal evidence should be present. If we're going to claim that Women's Studies practices the same sound, academic methodology as other fields, we shouldn't want to encourage professors in this field to draw on their personal experiences. The women who are Women's Studies professors should be using the same objective methods and drawing from the same objective materials as male Women's Studies professors. At that point, the gender of the person doing the research and teaching the material shouldn't matter nearly as much as the rigor of their research and the extent of their knowledge.

On top of that, there is something to be said about the symbolism of having a member of a group not included in the population to which he's devoting his academic career in a relatively high-profile position. It demonstrates that issues that are thought to affect only a subset of a population indeed affect the whole population, and that this fact is important enough to people outside the subset that they will work hard to obtain positions of influence in order to promote the social progress of that subset. As Allen says, "I do think men ought to be committed to supporting feminism, just like whites should be committed to supporting anti-racism." And if the attention Allen gets from this new position of power happens to encourage a few more men to support feminism and that in turn furthers the goals of feminism, then I'm all for it.

Allen's appointment is also a sign of progress for Women's Studies as a whole (which I've always thought should be called Gender Studies anyway, since that term expresses more accurately what it is). Priti Ramamurthy, an associate professor at UW, nails this one on the head:

"It marks changes in the field of women's studies. The idea that women's studies is only for and about women is no longer the case," she said. "It's moved to a focus on social construction, not just of women but also of masculinity, and the changing relationships between men and women, women and women, and men and men."

Neurosis to a Tee

Doesn't everyone have some (or many... or most) of these neuroses? So then why is it necessary to broadcast them on a T-shirt? Although I was briefly tempted to buy the "i love freedom" one before I realized that a) that's not neurotic, damn it! and b) they're, well, not talking about the same kind of freedom I am.

Most importantly, why on G-d's green Earth is the "emotionally unavailable men rock" T-shirt sold out??

Good news for people who like good news

• I got a wicked promotion at work. This means I'll be sticking around the District for at least another year. I'm tres psyched.
• I'm leaving for Florida today to see the bajillion or so people on the Irish Catholic side of my family.  Hurrah for being part of a litter!!
• There's apparently a bullet function on TypePad. I cannot express in words how excited I am about this.

On NPR this morning, Frank DeFord threw out an interesting argument about women who compete in men's sports events, although I had to fight the urge to turn my radio dial to C-SPAN (the horror!) when he opened with:

"Michelle Wie, I do wish you would stick to playing against your own kind."

Wow, Frank. I do wish you would hold off on offending your listeners until after you’ve made your argument.

Anyway, in his segment, DeFord argued that by competing alongside men at men's golf tournaments, Wie is doing great harm to women’s sports because she is drawing fans’ attention away from women’s tournaments. He concludes that Wie would have the greatest impact on women’s sports if she limited her competition to women’s events.

DeFord correctly points out that the reason women’s sports currently don’t get as much coverage as men’s sports is because most sports fanatics are men, as are most professional athletes, and sports magazines and TV shows will give their viewers what they want to see. But even most women who are truly into sports aren't focused on the sex of the athletes they're watching. Ask any native Bostonienne who is passionate about baseball. To her, the Red Sox are the Red Sox. I can assure you that the fact that they also happen to be 30 or so persons with one Y chromosome wasn't in any female sports fan’s mind when they broke the curse of the Bambino. The truth is, in the world of sports, people just want to watch the best athletes. Period.

DeFord focuses so much on Wie’s gender that he ignores that by qualifying to compete in men’s events, Wie has demonstrated that she IS one of the best golfers; she’s just one who just happens to be a woman. And because of this, Wie has probably brought more attention to women's golf because people recognize her as such. Golf fans who wouldn’t have otherwise watched an LPGA tournament now will if Wie plays in it simply because they enjoy watching a talented athlete perform. But the reason those fans were able to recognize her talent in the first place was because by competing in men’s-only events, she was no longer considered a lady golfer; she was suddenly just a damn good golfer.

Where Wie can break ground for women is not with regards to "women’s sports" as defined as women’s professional sporting associations and women’s sporting events, but with regards to the potential of individual women athletes. Her performance suggests that even in sports, where their lack of testosterone is supposed to hinder them the most, women can achieve a level of performance beyond the limitations of the leagues they’re relegated to.

And if enough talented females are enticed by the prospect of entering professional sports to compete to be the best period, then perhaps someday we may not even need separate men’s and women’s leagues for some professional sports. Golfers might simply be able to compete against other golfers without all the hubbub. Now that’s equality.

Chastity Belt now comes in 100% Cotton T-Shirt Form!

As I was making the mad dash to the Metro after work today to make it to my volunteer gig in Alexandria on time, I ran past a girl who was wearing a black t-shirt with screaming magenta letters that said, "PRIVATE PROPERTY". Thinking this was a pretty freakin' rad political message of some kind, I slowed down enough to read the tiny print inscribed underneath this proclaimation. To my deepest chagrin, it read: "This means that I'm taken."

Awww, renouncing your right to own your own body as a woman when you're in love is so cute!!

Alright, I know all women have the right to express their affection to their S.O. however they want, and but... argh... why with that message??

Excuse me while I implode from inner conflict.