Gay Woman wins Houston mayoral race !

check out the article!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34399468/ns/politics-more_politics/

Last night ( December 12, 2009) Annise Parker, who is openly a lesbian, defeated Gene Locke ( former city attorney) in Houston's mayor election. This is not only a huge story in terms of the fact that Parker is making history for being elected as a homosexual- but a homosexual WOMAN as well. These are two factors today that are looked upon as deviant in our society. Parker is acting an inspiration for all minorities. I think this story would have been looked upon under as less significant even if it was representing a gay man who won the mayor election. Needless to say, the city of Houston is mostly democratic, which illustrates more liberal perspectives. Do you think this had something to do with it? I think that had a large part do to with the factor that Parker won the election. Houston also has a large Black, Hispanic, and Gay population. Did the amount of diversity effect this election? I think so. Diversity enables people to think " outside the box", and it also emphasizes the idea of acceptance. The more diverse an area is, the more likely the " norm" will be pushed aside. It is inevitable. Do you think that this election will start a trend and help lesbians gain status in our society? I think it is a start of more acceptance, but I still think our society has a long way to go in general of fully accepting what is different.

Corduroy Skirts Are A Sin

I personally don't care if SU is undefeated in basketball. It's protests like these that truly make me proud of my campus.

This protest happened about a month ago on Waverly Avenue. When I read about it the day after, I was so upset that I hadn't been on campus that day. Now it is getting national attention and I couldn't be more proud. Read the story and join the facebook group with the same name!

Go Orange!

YES WE CAN!

Senate narrowly rejects abortion coverage! Yay for equality!

Read the story from The Washington Post

The Lady and the Tiger

OP Ed Columnist Maureen Dowd expressed her opinion on the Tiger Woods scandal by parallelling it to Desiree Roger's, the White House social secretary who purported to stand on constitutional principle as she refused to talk to Congress about the White House gate-crashers.
Down more so criticized Desiree Roger's actions of dealing with public admittance and Congress, rather than the actual culprit himself: Tiger Woods. How Rogers situation parallels Woods I do not know.

It's so ironic to me that when most men are caught cheating on their wives (i.e Bill Clinton and half of our past presidency), the mistress is always the central focus. Here, another "mistress," if even an appropriate choice is victimized up against Woods, who committed a moral sin. God forbid we could put down Woods for once without comparing him to someone else.

Dowd argues that, "The smart thing would have been for Desiree to sail up to Congress, wearing designer sackcloth and pearls of remorse, apologize for the oversight at her first state dinner and promise it wouldn’t happen again." Coming from Maureen Dowd, a female journalist, I find it hypocritical for her to perpetuate her own stereotype of the female gender Why is it necessary to use designer clothes and pearls of remorse (which is a dumb metaphor if you ask me?)

The the column switches back to Tiger's affair and a whole load of bullshit on how athletes are not meant to be role models.

"Both Tiger and Desiree hid and stayed silent because they mistakenly thought they were protecting the Brand. But despite their marketing savvy, these two controlling players spiraled out of control. They made the same colossal error in opposite ways."

In my opinion, this is beyond false. Obama is not a brand. He is a lading figure in our history. Woods' actions within his personal life will not affect Nike and other ads he promotes such as AMEX and general mills. We associate Tiger Woods with golf, not with relationships, as argued by most media. People won't protest Nike sneakers or AMEX just because of Tiger Woods. People have been buying clothes for centuries that are made by child labor abuse in third world countries. If that doesn't stop them, a man who committed adultry sure won't-- let's be real.

Dowd also calls Roger's weak for not RSVPing to the Homeland Security dinner and refusing to take blame to the public for her actions; however, Tiger's faults toward his family, is merely labeled as an amateur adult with a puffed up ego. Weak and amateur or two very different adjectives; not surprising, the more demeaning one is geared towards the woman in this article.

Still, I do not see the parallel of Woods with Rogers. What's worst of all is that she ends her column by of course focusing on the dominant male figure, stating: "But once he served up the fairy tale wedding with the Swedish beauty and had two kids, his value was in family and his projection of family values. Now all we have left to look up to is Derek Jeter."

Derek Jeter?? I'm sorry but what happened to the millions of women role models out there. Are there no women's sports players, actors, singers, olympic medalists, and even congress women? So now is Jeter happens to have a personal life slip up, our world is left with no one to admire, as implied by this narrow-minded columnist. What a joke! And the "Swedish beauty", Elin Woods has a name and a personality.

Dowd tries to compare two of society's figures in the worst way possible, arguing against both, yet still ends her piece with praise for a single MALE sports figure. Why?

Although she fails in making any sense whatsoever in the article, she does succeed at further demeaning women and continues to put male athletes on an unjust pedestal for the world to gravitate toward. Thus proving, both men and women are responsible for a stereotypical society in a patriarchal dominant world.

What's the deal with sexting?

I'm not surprised that this is happening. There are ups and downs to all technologies, but I think that sexting is just a side effect. Sexting is a new trend that is emerging in our culture where people send via text message and e-mail naked pictures of themselves.

A recent poll done by MTV found that a quarter of our youth have been involved with texting in one way or another. This story from The Associated Press has been circulated all over the internet. But what is the big deal? Is it the actual naked texts or the fact that we live in a society that views nudity as shameful? From the AP story, I believe it has a lot to do with how society views young people expressing sexuality.

It's not just teens that are doing it, you know. AARP also says that senior citizens are getting their groove on through text.

For teenagers, the results can be deadly--literally. As the story shows, some teens have commited suicided over leaked pictures of themselves. And there are of course issues on the legality of sexting. We are still not sure if having minors texting naked pictures of themselves qualifies as child pornography. Personally, I believe a teen leaking a naked picture of a schoolmate doesn't do it with the same mentality as an adult who does it to get off of or profit from it.

But what is wrong with sexting, exactly? Is it that they are not aware of what they are doing? Because if that is the case, there is a lot of 65 year-old in that AARP story that have not gotten wiser with age. Is it that the pictures are getting into the wrong hands? Or is it that they are doing it in the first place?

What do you think? Would you ever send a naked picture of yourself?

Stopping Stupak!

So! As you can see from the picture post yesterday, a bunch of us went down to DC for the National Day of Action against the Stupak Amendment on Wednesday. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and one of the most empowering days I've ever had. You can read all about my experience at Sex.Justice.Change, the blog for Planned Parenthood Rochester/Syracuse.

But here on this blog, I'll just raise a few issues that have been on my mind regarding the day.

• When we first got to DC, we were waiting to cross a street, and I noticed the man standing next to me was an official, in a uniform (I'm not sure what, some kind of security guard or something). I said hello, and he asked if we needed any help with directions (which were helpful). He then asked us where we were from, and welcomed us to the city. He then said "It's always nice to have beautiful ladies in the city."

We all looked at one another, not knowing whether or not to burst out laughing. We didn't really respond, but we were all thinking the same thing: We aren't here for you to ogle, Mr. We're here to freaking protest and rally and lobby and make change and save the world. We aren't just your eye candy, and we don't appreciate that kind of objectification. We're not here for you to feel like the city is nicer just due to our presence - we're here to start trouble! It was pretty ironic, considering we were feeling so empowered and excited, carrying our signs and walking toward the Senate building…

• Then, at the Rally, a bunch of girls from Syracuse were standing directly behind the podium, which was awesome. They got to be on TV - I could see Andrea (another CM blogger!) the entire time from the overflow room we were watching in. But apparently, there was some tension about the signs people were holding. I noticed in the beginning, a sign that read "Immigrants are not the Enemy." It's pretty relevant - the Stupak amendment would unfairly affect lower class women, a disproportionate number of which are immigrants. A latina woman even spoke at the rally about how Latinas would be affected by it. But apparently, the woman holding that sign was asked to switch it out for a more generic one - one of the ones printed by Planned Parenthood. When she refused, and insisted on holding her sign, I understand that someone was told to stand in front of her, blocking her sign with an ever bigger one. Our group didn't agree on whether or not that was fair. Was it just about good PR, representing the organization's goals? Or was it because were in a federal building? Or was it an infringement of first amendment rights? If its the latter, it kind of adds insult to injury when you think about how we were sticking up for our rights just by being there.

• In that same vein, one of our girls was holding a sign that read "Erections get insurance, why don't unplanned pregnancies?" (It's true - Viagra is covered almost universally, but birth control often isn't, and if Stupak goes through, abortion never will be covered. Nobody is pushing an amendment through saying we don't want tax dollars funding erections though…hmm). She was asked to switch her sign out, and she obliged. But it raises good questions - Is erection an innaproriate word here? It shouldn't be - we're talking about abortions! And the sign-maker said to us "It's not like I said some word like 'boner;' erection is the clinical term." It raises the same questions as the Immigration sign.

• And then lastly, when we were entering the Senate building to see Senator Gillibrand, we were waiting on the stairs for some of our party to get through security. Two men and a woman walked by toward the elevators, and the woman said "oh look, the crazies are here!" to a girl from our party. Our girl retorted with "yep, that's us!" as the woman got into the elevator, but all of us were appalled that someone would say that to us IN the senate office building. How rude! And I don't know, I really don't feel like the crazy side of this argument. But I'm biased.


Any thoughts? Am I totally in the wrong?

Conscious Media goes to DC

Here is a picture of two of our bloggers (with other SU students) after the Stop Stupak Rally held yesterday in DC.

Closing the Racial Gap

Earlier this semester, we talked about a study that distributed identical resumes to numerous jobs with only one difference between them - One had the name Todd Allen, and one Tyrone Allen. And the disappointing outcome is the one you have begrudgingly learned to expect - this one difference had an impact on the number of callbacks and interviews scheduled.

I'm not sure when that study was conducted, but not a lot has changed. The NY Times printed an article yesterday that said the same thing - there is a racial divide in job hunting, and not even a college degree can level the playing field.

What does this say about the world we live in? I have a lot of responses to an article like this. First of all, if someone gets your resume, and disregards it because your name is "too black," would a black person feel comfortable working there in the first place? That isn't a good answer or argument, because accepting this discrimination tacitly approves of this behavior. The article says that many black men are wiping any racial evidence from their resumes to be sure that any rejections aren't because of race. I don't know what this is like, as someone who benefits from white privilege - if I get turned down from a job, race isn't one of the factors I fear the reasoning was. But I do have a strange connection to this discrimination.

I'm a feminist - a loud, proud feminist. When we made our resumes last semester in graphics, I wasn't sure how to incorporate this into my resume - or if I even should. If anyone balked at my feminism, screw them - I wouldn't want to work for them anyway. But are there some things that shouldn't be mentioned in a professional resume? Aside from the fact there was no real place to put it, no rules about how to show it. I want my feminism to speak through my resume - it's an undeniable part of my identity. I guess that's vaguely comparable to this race argument. On the whole, I shouldn't have to think about being discriminated for my feminism, just as people of color shouldn't have to face discrimination for their race. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

One of the black men quoted said “If they’re going to X me, I’d like to at least get in the door first.” And there's something to be said for that. Nobody wants to be preemptively judged. But whitewashing your resume seems almost equally problematic to me, and this Times article doesn't bring that up. No white people have to alter their resumes in the same way, taking out race to seem more appealing (but I suppose gay people make theirs straighter at times, and disabled people make sure not to allude to their disability, for these same reasons).

This article kinda stresses me out - I wish it addressed larger issues about discrimination and what whitewashing actually says about racism in America. But at least its framed in a way that makes it clear that this isn't right, and that this shouldn't happen. Even though it keeps saying none of this racism is overt - what does that mean? Isn't that just excusing it?

Anyway, I'm headed to DC tomorrow to lobby against the Stupak amendment - so expect a post about that!