My roommate watched Harlan County, USA for a class the other day and it reminded me of something I’ve thought about before – the rural working class of Appalachia is largely responsible for the labor movement and the progress it produced and has now almost entirely shifted heavily right-wing. Appalachia has almost universally shifted from a strong Democratic to a Republican stronghold.
Continue readingWHO WOULD WIN?
(like those books – I tried without success to use a font similar to to the one on their covers)
Don’t get me wrong here – I’m grateful as hell not to have a conservative and outwardly bigoted family. I’m thankful that I can (generally) be myself without fear at family gatherings. I have one uncle (married in) who voted for Trump, but he knows better than to cause issues over my being gay.
Unfortunately, though, the blue votes and detest for Donald Trump don’t mean much for their overall views.
I’ve been taken aback before at how readily a different uncle views conservatives as poor, stupid, uneducated, white trash, and plainly said if that makes him classist then he’s classist. Instead of focusing on how poor education is a systemic issue in the South, he just wants to focus on how that turns them into poor, stupid Trumpers.
My Nana likes to flip-flop her views on men and sex as is convenient to her argument. If she wants to argue that men are trash, it’s “You don’t need men, get yourself a vibrator!” If she wants to argue with me about my being a lesbian, it’s “Plastic will never beat the real thing, you’ll see one day…” She’s sure that one day my body will realize how good a real, biological, flesh-and-blood penis feels. Lesbians get more shit from her than gay men, cause at least she can still find gay men sexy. And at least gay men aren’t birthing babies regardless.
Continue readingIt shouldn’t be, really, but it is. I’m reminded of it quite a bit recently. Being incapacitated is embarrassing. Having cooties is embarrassing. Getting cooties is embarrassing. Evidence you touched something unsanitary is embarrassing. Admitting to the urgent care doctor you don’t have a primary care physician is embarrassing. Staying home is embarrassing. Getting behind on obligations is embarrassing. What even is “embarrassing”?
Continue readingIn my ASL lecture this week, we learned the sign for “signing” – a backward twirling of the fingers, sort of. It looks a lot like you’re winding yarn towards you. After our instructor demonstrated the sign and the class followed suit, he turned and wrote on the board.
gender differences
woman
male
He pointed to “male” and repeated the sign as he had signed it before: rapidly moving his fingers in clean circles, with his hands pointing directly at one another and his palms facing the floor. He then pointed to “woman” and began to sign a variation on this – he tilted his hands so that his fingers were in more of a triangle and angled his hands forward so his palms were facing the class. This time, rather than rolling his wrists to spin his hands, he moved his arms using his elbows.
If the “male” sign was a gallop, this was a prance.
He paused and turned back to the board. He added “gay” following woman and “lesbian” following man –
gender differences
woman/gay
male/lesbian
– and repeated his demonstration, while shaking his head and implying “No, not me!” for the “woman/gay” sign and “See, this one!” for the “male/lesbian” one – he put women and gay men in the same bucket, and men and lesbians in another.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this – no other sign we’d learned had been gendered in any way. I’m still not entirely sure what he meant, it’s somewhat difficult to Google ASL questions – I’ll have to ask next week.
It reminded me, though, of the embodiment of “feminine” and “masculine” we discussed, and how they apply to queer people – as well as how that embodiment is perceived by others. It reminded me of how women are expected and conditioned to use their bodies, as opposed to men. The “woman” sign was dainty and cumbersome, the “male” sign was fluid and practical. I was very conscious of his reaction as well – how awful would it be if he used the “woman” version of “signing”? How humiliating.
Unruly Bodies 