Harmless Insanity

Given these blatant class and race-biases, there is something profoundly illiberal - and fundamentally incongruous - in the re-envisioning of liberated womanhood as a reorientation of affect and as a better balancing act. US women do not need to change their attitude; they need, first, job security, good childcare, livable wages for the work they do, and physical security.

If Sheryl Sandberg is serious about sparking a conversation, then perhaps she should start by asking who the cleaning women at Facebook are and how much money they take home every month. Do they have a viable pension plan? Do they receive paid holidays? And what kind of childcare services does Facebook offer them?

Indeed, it is extremely disturbing that for these high-powered women the “woman problem” is no longer about social justice, equity and women’s emancipation - as if these have already been achieved - but about affect, behaviour modification and well-roundedness.

Articulated at a time when Western liberal democracies are loudly decrying women’s lack of freedom in the Muslim world while lionising gender equality in their own societies, it actually makes a kind of cultural sense to shift the conversation away from the gendered division of labour and profound social injustices upon which US liberalism itself is constituted.

The turn to the language of balance, internalising the revolution and a happiness project, in other words, puts the burden of unhappiness, failure and disequilibrium once again on the shoulders of individual women while diverting attention away from US self-scrutiny with respect to its own “woman problem”.

— Hijacking feminism - Catherine Rottenberg

Posted 1 month ago from bookmarklet

Your ethics requirements become a problem when they are a barrier to studying an entire group of people (ie people with a diagnosis of depression). Is it ethical to completely silence the voices of the people that you claim to treat? You put them in little diagnostic boxes, but when I want to ask them questions about what it feels like to be put in those boxes, you won’t let me because you see them as too ‘fragile’ to be able to describe their experiences. (And let’s be real, you don’t actually care about their well being, you just want to protect yourselves from legal liability.)

Posted 1 month ago 2 notes

Black Lesbian district attorney chained to a jailhouse wall and denied medication after writing a check tellers thought was fake →

crackerhell:

aragorn-sass:

iphisquandary:

aragorn-sass:

iphisquandary:

Sharon Henry, a Black lesbian district attorney of San Mateo, walked into a Bank of America and attempted to deposit a check for $27,000 from her domestic partner’s account into hers and withdraw $1,000. The teller looked up a listing for the partner’s name—Kathleen Wilkinson—but it was a different Kathleen Wilkinson than Henry’s partner, and the listing lacked the notation that Sharon Henry was allowed to make the transaction.

The teller called Wilkinson’s family, who stated they didn’t know Henry and the teller called the police. The police, failing to follow protocol, did not call the phone number on the check, and refused to let Henry make the call, put her under arrest. They locked her up and took away her phone and diabetes medication.

Finally, Henry was released two hours later after her partner arrived at the bank wondering where she had gone.

Henry, a prosecutor, has decided to sue Bank of America for negligence, stating that the bank acted the way it did largely because she was African American. The judge has ruled in BofA’s favor, stating that Henry’s suit is an “unjustified” attempt to violate Bank of America’s free speech. Not only that, but the judge ordered Henry to pay BofA’s $50,000 attorney fees.

Sharon Henry is considering an appeal.

Wow, look, black lesbians exist and they experience a unique reality of homophobia and racism. AKA fuck racism, fuck racism apologists, and fuck erasure. I’m glad she won, and I can’t say if she would have been able to if she didn’t already have her own resources as an attorney. Correction: She didn’t win! I got the names and abbreviations confused.

This racism is the norm, never forget that.

No, she didn’t win. She lost. In fact, the judge sentenced her to pay 50,000 dollars to BofA for infringing upon THEIR “right to free speech” (their freedom to wrongfully report her to the police). It’s all kinds of fucked up. She’s hoping to appeal, perhaps.

It’s hard to imagine anyone winning against BofA, let along a Black lesbian woman in a racist, homophobic country like ours.

Thanks for the correction! I got the names and abbreviations mixed. And now, re-reading it… Just… Even worse. Even. Worse.

vomiting

Reblogged 1 month ago from queerandpresentdanger (Originally from iphisquandary) 3,038 notes