Retiring Your Old Bras…For a Good Cause

After my post about Brallelujah bras—in which I confessed I’d be ditching my tired old bras—I got an e-mail from a reader, Jennifer, telling me that if I hadn’t tossed the bras already, she’d be happy to have them for Quilts for the Homeless, which recycles old bras. I pledged to send a bunch of my cast-off titslings and asked for the details, just in case y’all might like to donate some of your own. Jennifer says:

We use old bras (amongst other things) in the making of the quilts. We cut the bras into pieces that we use to fashion handles for the quilts and also keep them rolled up when not being used. We are always in need of old bras for our project and since they are cut up into pieces we can use the condition of them does not matter. We feel it is a great way to reuse/recycle something that would otherwise end up in a landfill into a worthwhile cause.

We would be very gratefull to have any old bras that you no longer want. Since we cut them up into pieces we can use the condition of the bras does not matter. We even prefer that you take a pair of scissors or a knife and make a cut between the cups of any bras that you send to us. We have had a woman in the past express concern that we would take donated bras and sell them, this eliminates any concern of this nature as the bras are no longer in a condition to wear again. It can also be a great stress reliever after a day of being poked in the ribs by an underwire with a mind of its own! The colder months are upon us and we are so short on old bras to use for the quilts that we have had to omit the handles on some of the quilts that we have made.

I didn’t want to post Jennifer’s address, but if you’re interested in donating too, contact her at Quilts4Homeless@yahoo.com and she’ll give you the address where you can send them. Mine get shipped out this week!

Poetry Saturdays: Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova was a Russian modernist poet. Born during the czarist era, she was widely admired in both the USSR and the West, although her later work was condemned and censored by Stalinist authorities and she was under constant scrutiny and forced to burn or suppress some of her work to guarantee her safety.

I Taught Myself To Live Simply

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life’s decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

Friday Fun Thread: What’s In A Name?

From MSN I picked up a thought-provoking blogpost based on an article that originally ran in the Daily Mail (your reliable source of “news”, confessionals, fluff, and not-so-subtle misogyny). But this one caught my eye because we’ve talked about our names and naming trends before, and everyone had something to say.

From the blogpost:

Researchers at Humboldt University in Berlin sent email messages containing only names, ages and zipcodes (no pictures) to 47,000 British online dating members and found that certain names were much more likely to receive clicks than others. According to the study’s leader, Jochen Gebauer, “Mails sent from an Alexander were clicked on 102 percent more times than those from a Kevin.”

“Single people would seem to prefer to remain alone than meet up with someone called Kevin or Chantal,” he added. Yikes.

As I look at it, there are two major caveats: First, this study was conducted in the UK where names tend to have stronger class associations. Two, the way that dating sites are set up, you don’t usually know the person’s name until after the first initial contact. This study looks at given names, not usernames. Regardless, maybe there is something to the way we subconsciously react to names?

To recap, here are the names you should name your children if you want them to find love online: Jacob, Alexander, Charlotte, Emma, Hannah, Max, Marie, Peter, Mark. Here are the names you shouldn’t name you children if you want them to be accepted on British dating sites: Kevin, Justin, Marvin, Dennis, Mandy, Celina, Chantal, Jacqueline.

I’m sure this probably holds true somewhat in the US, too. Names can wave a red flag to racists; just ask someone named Latoya or Jamal. And I’d argue that there are still some prejudices about names that don’t sound “classy,” like Kandi or Tammy or Shawn. Even religion comes into play: I once had a friend meet a dude on-line who when he discovered her name—Christine—said he could never date her because he was Jewish and “couldn’t be with a woman who was named for Jesus Christ.” (Yeah, we rolled our eyes at that, too.)

What do you think? Are some names turn-ons or turn-offs? Have you ever been rejected outright for having the wrong name? Would a name turn you on or off someone, sight unseen? Is there a name that the man or woman of your dreams just couldn’t have? (Adolf would probably do it for me. Or Newt.)

Help Me Harpies!: What Would a Pro-Choice Candidate Look Like?

On the last Tuesday Teasers, I encouraged folks to participate in Blog For Choice 2012, the theme of which is  “What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?” Commenter Jenn_smithson wrote in response:

The chosen theme this year has irritated me because in response I ask WHAT prochoice candidates?!! I don’t believe there are ANY for national office. You basically have whack-a-do extremist “prolife” candidates on the right and spineless wish-washy candidates on the left, Seriously, our rights are going to continue being slammed unless someone takes a legitimate, strong stand and who isn’t ashamed to do so. I get so sick and tired of allegedly progressive democrats looking at the ground, pulling at their collars, and/or only able to articulate support of those rights in the case their daughter(s) have an “accident” because they don’t want to help raise any spring break bastard babies.

I think Jenn has just given me the kernel of my own response to this year’s question, which will be putting forward what a true pro-choice candidate would look like.

So help me Harpies: If you could construct an ideal pro-choice politician, what would the talking points be? What rights would they support and how would they articulate their support for those rights? What sort of vision of women, girls, families, and reproductive justice would they put forth? Brainstorm away, and I’ll do my best to distill the conversation into a final post for January 22nd.

Booknotes: Deviations

find table of contents here

For the past couple of months I’ve been making my way through Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Duke University Press, 2011), an anthology of writings by anthropologist and feminist theorist Gayle S. Rubin whom I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t actually know anything about before I stumbled upon the advance review galleys of this book. Rubin  is a cultural anthropologist whose research delves into the history and culture of urban sexual subcultures, particularly BDSM communities. As a newly-out lesbian in the 1970s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she designed her own Women’s Studies major at the University of Michigan and became active in the Women’s Movement and also the Gay Liberation Movement. In the late 70s and early 80s — in part because of her academic research into BDSM — she drew the ire of anti-porn feminist activists for her insistence that (wait for it) not all pornographic materials are inherently degrading to women. Yeah, I know. The more I read about it, the more it seems like the early 80s must have been a really weird time to be a self-identified feminist. Not to mention one who was also a lesbian and open about her s/M desires and practices.

Deviations is arranged in chronological order, beginning with Rubin’s first attempt to construct a theory of gender relations rooted in anthropological methodology — “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex,” written and revised between the late 60s and early 70s and first published in 1975. It is very much an artifact of its time and to be honest I bogged in this piece for the better part of a month after joyfully burning my way through the eminently readable introduction. Perhaps recognizing the opacity of “Traffic,” Rubin includes a piece reflecting back on the writing and reception of the original piece and includes it in the anthology — something she does several times throughout the book to great effect. After “Traffic” and its contextual essay comes a much more accessible piece on the English author Renee Vivien, originally written as an introduction and afterward to a new edition of Vivien’s A Woman Appeared Before Me, which is a fictionalized account of her tumultuous relationship with fellow author and outspoken lesbian-feminist Natalie Barney.

Fighting Religious Fanaticism With Dance

From Israel, a terrific flash mob of women dancing in Jerusalem’s Beit Shemesh neighborhood. Beit Shemesh has been in the public eye recently after the press picked up the story of girls at an Orthodox religious school being harassed, spat on, and called “prostitutes” by neighborhood men from the radical ultra-Orthodox Sikari community who thought their long-sleeved, long-skirted uniforms were immodest. The Sikarim—their name means “knife men”—are so fanatical that they have been labeled the “Jewish Taliban.” Recently thousands of people protested in Beit Shemesh in what’s come to be called the “modesty wars” over the Sikarim’s continuing harassment of women and efforts to outlaw them singing or dancing in public and walking on certain public streets.

In response, a group of women danced in the public square of Beit Shemesh. The organizer wrote:

On Friday, Jan 6th, 2012, a group of 250 women from Bet Shemesh decided to raise their voices against the exclusion of women from the public domain by holding a mass public dance in the city square. The women, residents of the city from all ages and sectors, religious, traditional and secular, gathered together in a flashmob dance, in the city square and started dancing towards a change.

If you look closely, you can see quite a few of the dancing women are in traditional Orthodox dress (long skirts and sleeves with black tights and head coverings). I particularly like the comment on the YouTube page that “each of these women has more beauty and holiness than the entire Sikarii community.” I bet that Freddie Mercury, of blessed memory, would be thrilled they’re dancing to his music.

Poetry Saturdays (Uh…Sunday): Elizabeth Bishop

Born in New England and raised in Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Bishop was one of America’s greatest 20th century poets. She served as Poet Laureate of the US, and won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for poetry.

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

– Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Thursday Night Trivia: How Many Women Can One Script Sustain?

plus did I mention the steampunk visuals?

On Monday, Hanna, Minerva, and I went to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. It was, like, the first movie we’d seen in the theater in over a year, since most of the shows we’re tempted to see on the big screen these days come out in 3D and hello, migraine! So anyway, the movie theater itself was an experience. As was the wild, glorious, playing-fast-and-loose-with-history, as gay as a handbag full of rainbows, romp that was the film itself. I mean, really. Mr. Downey, Jr. and Mr. Law couldn’t have made the thing more flirty if they’d tried. So really, a good time was had by all.

With one exception: Where the fuck were the women?

See, there were three … let’s call them “female characters with potential” … in the film: Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), Mary Morstan Watson (Kelly Reilly), and a Roma woman, Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace). Regardless of what you think of the casting decisions made, I think we can all agree that all three of these characters are well-positioned to play substantive parts in the action as it unfolds. Even if your OTP is Holmes/Watson — and let’s face it, the film leaves you with little by way of alternatives! — Mary, particularly as played by Kelly Reilly, has enough grit to hold her own, whether you fancy a threesome or just a wife whose sexual interest lies elsewhere. Irene Adler, as a character, has more than enough scope to go toe-to-toe with Holmes, whether with him or against him. And the one original character, Simza, is gutsy and on her game whether it’s in the sewers below the Paris opera house or bedecked with rubies at a peace summit in Switzerland.

Mild spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

Friendship and Feminism: A Discussion

From Harpyness commenter Mackey:

Sociological Images recently had a small segment about the importance of friendships called “Do Friends Matter? A Feminist Defense of Friendship“, I found myself nodding my head a lot as I read it.

The gist of the talk was that within the mainstream American culture, heterosexual kinship and pair bonds are viewed as the “Best EVA” bond to have—hence American society’s strong focus on forming heterosexual relationships and giving primacy to heterosexual pairings; often to the detriment of maintaining friendships outside of the heterosexual pairing. This also creates a misguided idea that friendships between men and women aren’t possible because of the ever-present potential for “sexual chemistry” and pairing. Unfortunately, this also means that friendships between women are often depicted as competitive, undermining, and often involving jealousy and envy, usually over men. And if someone’s gender presentation does not fit within the traditional male-female dichotomy…well, these friendships are practically invisible and not depicted in the mainstream media.

Yet I think friendships are very important, whether they occur face to face, or like  the ones that I have made here on Harpyness. I came late to having fabulous friends, especially of the female variety, ones that help share the great things that happen (successes, birthdays) as well as the not so good things that happen. I really cherish these friendships, and see them as part of my family.

The Sociological Images talk also covered some of the positive health effects of friendships that we might not get from a heterosexual pairing. I found resonance with this, especially as a person currently in a heterosexual pairing: MrMackey is not able to fulfill all my needs, and I think it’s unreasonable to expect this. I NEED MY FRIENDS.

So Harpies, what’s your take on friendship? Is it a feminist act? If so, how does friendship become a feminist act?

Tuesday Teasers: Stuff I’ve Been Reading [#2]

The link list I posted the week before Christmas met with a number of positive reviews, so I thought for the new year (hello 2012!) I’d turn this into a bi-monthly affair. Welcome to Tuesday Teasers #2.

NARAL Pro-Choice America is hosting the seventh annual Blog for Choice action day. The theme this year is “What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?” Sign up here to participate. You can put as much effort into your post as you have time for. The point is to get as many people as possible all writing about reproductive justice on the same day.

Jos @ Feministing | The temp from Chiswick: why I love Donna Noble. I couldn’t resist this tribute to one of my favorite Doctor Who characters. These are only two who might be able to compete with her for spot #1 (aside from 9) in my heart.

Tami Winfrey Harris @ Racialicious | ‘He had the courage to day unpopular things’: No praise for courting controversy. A critique of being controversial for the save of controversy: “Every unaccepted pronouncement isn’t hidden wisdom. And every speaker of provocative things isn’t a genius.”

More below the fold …

Conversations About the Patriarchy: Part 2

I went out with a dude recently who, when we were discussing where we’d go to dinner said straight out, “Just so you know, I’m paying for everything.” I raised an eyebrow—he’s plenty aware of my feminist sensibilities—and he joked: “Consider it reparations for the Patriarchy.” I actually laughed out loud and told him that if I’d known that ahead of time, I would have made us reservations at the most expensive restaurant in town, because the P owed me way more than the low-key dinner I’d planned at a neighborhood restaurant.

When I talked with some of my girlfriends about the date, I asked them: What other reparations should we get from the Patriarchy?

The answers, in no particular order:

• Free health care, especially reproductive health care.
• A lifetime of therapy and/or anti-depressants.
• “Funding my master’s degree, because the Patriarchy is especially harsh on women in science.”
• “Paying for my kids’ education, since sexist employment policies meant taking a salary cut so that I could have a 9 to 5 schedule while raising them.”
• “10 solid minutes of cunnilingus three times a week or more, to make up for all the men who thought their pleasure was more important than mine.”
• “A maid service. With male cleaners. Preferably white ones.”

What would be your ideal form of reparations from the Patriarchy?

Poetry Saturdays: Czesław Miłosz

Czesław Miłosz was born in 1911 in Lithuania and raised in Poland. A poet, essayist, and activist whose work often attacked anti-Semitism and Stalinism, he later became a US citizen and professor at Berkley. He was awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature.

At a Certain Age

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.
White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind
Was too busy visiting sea after sea.
We did not succeed in interesting the animals.
Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,
A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.
A person seemingly very close
Did not care to hear of things long past.
Conversations with friends over vodka or coffee
Ought not be prolonged beyond the first sign of boredom.
It would be humiliating to pay by the hour
A man with a diploma, just for listening.
Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?
That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble
Yet later in our place an ugly toad
Half-opens its thick eyelid
And one sees clearly: “That’s me.”