Why I Blog, Part Wev

Howdy, ducks! In today's exciting installment of The Second Awakening, we learn that I learned how to set up Google news alerts! Fabulous--or is it? See below for the exciting answer.

Starting a blog is an odd thing to do: you have to believe that a) you have something to say, and b) other people will actually give a good god-damn about what you have to say. If you're starting a feminist blog, you have to add c) that you understand feminism well enough to say something about it, and d) that what you're saying hasn't been pummeled to death like a very unlucky horse. But Ghu help you if you're trans and starting a feminist blog: then you have to worry about e-z) who the hell do you think you are to talk about being a woman, let alone feminism.

So I'm quite happy to have several wonderful blogs out there that have helped me learn enough to launch this endeavor, and keep teaching me every day.

For example, Sady over at Tiger Beatdown has this provocative post about Andrea Dworkin and radical feminism that's sparked an excellent discussion--to which, Maude save me, I've actually contributed. (I'll note in passing--for it truly requires a longer post to discuss fully--that I tend to cringe at the words "radical feminism," and probably unfairly; but given that some very, very vocal people who describe them that way have gone out of their way to let people like me know we're not really women.)

Then there's Liss, at Shakesville who offers up this post which might as well be another mission statement for what I want to do here:

Masculinity has defined itself exclusively in contradistinction to the feminine for so long that a serious challenge to the idea of inherent male superiority has left millions of American men floundering—and the best answer most of them have found for the question "What is my role if not a keeper of women?" is "I am a victim of oppression by women." Femininity has become the center-pin around which masculinity pivots—on one side there is dominion; on the other side, subjugation.

What American men are lacking is a vision of equality.

Women had to change the rules, because we were told "You can't," because we had seemingly unnavigable barriers put in our way by people who didn't want us to succeed, because, if we had played by The Rules (as dictated by The Patriarchy), we never would have gotten where are—because The Rules were designed so that we fail. For many of us, the odds have been against us our whole lives; everything we've ever done has been in defiance of the distinct likelihood—and expectation—that we would settle for less than we wanted.

The whole post is really good and a wonderful takedown of yet another Dooood's carping "what about teh menz?'

Wait! Like I said, I finally set up some news readers--basic stuff, one for "feminism" and the other for "transgender." (Understand that this is a work in progress.) And guess what popped up in the transgender feed? Have you guessed? Did you say--transphobia? Because Google sure did! (warning: links are triggery)

Now, do you see why people don't want to see transsexuals and the transgendered covered in laws against discrimination?

Some discrimination needs to happen, if you're business is going to survive. Discrimination at clubs goes on every single day, when pretty girls and celebrities go to the beginning of the line and right into the club, while others wait in line outside. Discrimination and the exclusion of freaks is the club way of life. And there's nothing illegal about it. It's business.

No-one wants a freak poisoning their establishment. No-one sinks their life savings into a business for the sake of social and contra-biological experimentation.

I know! What's better is, I know about this case! helen boyd blogged about it a few months ago--she teaches up in Appleton, Wisconsin; the incident occurred right after she arrived in January.

And just when I thought I'd heard enough--and trust me, that was enough--of this Debbie Schlussel person....you know what's funny? In a hate-filled, oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-it way? She wrote her own post on the article Liss blogged about:

Still, the facts and figures he cites are telling. As America continues its push toward a matriarchy, pushing men out of the way in favor of artificial insemination, single mother households, etc., it is one more step in the way of America's demise and our continuing quest to emulate Europe. As we honor Governors who abandon their families to Mr. Moms, while they pursue political careers and while their own daughters father babies out of wedlock and shut the fathers of their babies out of their kids' lives, we must ask ourselves what are the benefits of that. Why are we applauding those who behave this way?

As men are cast off to the wayside as obsolete, ask yourself if you want America to be the international equivalent of the WNBA or a NOW meeting?

Oh Zbornak! I should have stuck with the New York Post.