Purple NoiZe

Leela

This is an atrocity against all nerd-kind.

THEY’VE CANCELLED FUTURAMA! AGAIN!

Futurama is the best and funniest animated TV-show ever made. With its absurd characters and story lines it has managed to cover a number of social issues in their time as well as just being entertaining. Remember when Bender was drifting through space and a civilisation grew on his body and he became a god? Or when Farnsworth was stuffed away in an institution for old people, in a space station called the Near-Death Star? Or the abuse of the Marsian natives. Well, they were arguably pushing the lines of making fun of Native Americans there. Which leads to the fact that they didn’t always succeed in addressing social issues well. In another show Bender had a “sex change”. Although they made some good points there, they also pushed a lot of bullshit stereotypes.

But then, Bender is about as politically incorrect as it’s humanly robotically possible to be. His sexism, and not to mention Zapp Brannigan’s, gives plenty of room for feminist ass-kicking by Leela. His greed also lets us explore the consequences of selfishness. Times one million, but still.

And of course there’s completely messed up time-travel episodes with paradoxes and everything. Just the way I love my Sci-Fi to be. Oh, and the first movie, Bender’s Game, it’s awesome.

Anyway. Maybe I need to rewatch the show now. There’s another half season left, starting in June I think.

Or maybe they will un-cancel it again? Or what do you think? Hypnotoad?

A good video discussing disclosure of one’s trans status to partners and when to do it.

A transgender woman from Idaho in the US was banned from a grocery store because she was using the women’s restroom. The local police captain explained:

The store security officer said he had been dealing with a problem over a couple days with the person going into the women’s restroom and urinating while standing up.

Apparently this made other female customers feel “very uncomfortable”.

Firstly, I don’t think that is a problem. Breaking discriminatory normative standards often makes people feel uncomfortable. Great. I say fuck normativity anyway. The question is still though: was this necessary? or even helpful? Maybe it helps to get these issues talked about in a small conservative community, but also maybe it makes it harder to be trans* in that area. I’m not going to make any judgement on that as I have no idea how things are around there.

However this story has caused a bit of a split among trans* people too. A lot of trans* people do like to enforce a certain level of normativity, i.e. enforce traditional gender roles on some level. Like in this instance: “women don’t pee standing up.” Which is of course not true, as you can pee standing up without a penis. I have no idea how people with various medical conditions that involves peeing through a bag or tube does this, but I assume that’s one way it can be done. In any case, the normative argument is still bullshit because most people with a vagina and people with a penis pee in the way that makes it most practical for them to do so. It really has nothing to do with gender, but with plumbing. I personally think everyone should sit and pee because it is less messy, and apparently there are some medical benefits. I don’t know. The messy reason is good enough for me.

The issue here is really a different one though. To these other women, the act of peeing while standing, and I assume that was determined either by an open stall door, or the sound of splashing, clearly indicated to them the presence of a penis. Everyone knows that penises are dangerous. They have a mind of their own you see. Ok, rape is a serious issue, so is stalking women in a private environment, and hypothetically a creepy man could dress like a woman to sneak into a women’s restroom for sinister purposes; but for that matter, creepy women could be there for the exact same reasons. Theoretically. However there is no reason to believe that trans women, or trans men for that matter, do that any more then cis people do. As the vast majority of people of the non-creepy kind, we go to the restroom for the obvious reason: when nature calls.

Then why can’t trans women just use the men’s restroom and trans men the women’s? Well, for the same reason cis women use the women’s and cis men use the men’s, trans women use the women’s and trans men use the men’s. If you want to argue that point without getting into discrimination, you’re basically arguing for unisex restrooms; which you sometimes find around here at least, and they work pretty well too. Except that I find, from my experience at least, that women’s restrooms are generally less messy than men’s. Both from having cleaned restrooms as an evening job in my early 20s, and from being transsexual and having gone from using one kind to the other kind on a daily basis.

Also, if we truly were to address this issue from a safety perspective, a trans woman in the men’s restroom is probably the most risky situations of all considered here. Risky for the woman that is. Although I’ve seen plenty of women entering men’s restrooms in pubs and clubs simply because there’s a shorter queue. Which has never been a big deal when I’ve seen it. It’s actually a little refreshing when people let go a little and stop being so damn anal about everything.

It has been a while since last time I posted a Caturday post, so here comes another one!

My birthday was two days ago, and today a few people are coming over to celebrate with me and some of the people I share house with. Yay :)

A new piercing!

That is, the heart piercing at the top of my ear. Done by the skilled and awesome people at Pinpoint Piercing in Oslo.

I’ve also fallen in love with magnetic nail polishes. Currently I’m wearing this one:

They’re by IsaDora, and they have a selection of nice colours that this effect works well for. I’ve bought three so far, and I’ll get two more just so I can wear one colour on each nail! Perfect for a physicist :)

It has been a while since I did one of these, so about time for another!

Trans Issues

The media is full of transphobia. The recent transphobic writings by UK writer Julie Burchill started yet another shitstorm. The media does not take these issues seriously at all and fucking it up is pretty much the rule. Here’s an example of the consequences of the irresponsibility of the media:

• Her Name was Lucy Meadows: the consequences of transphobic press monstering – The F-Word

It doesn’t help, either, when complaints aren’t taken seriously:

• Comment: Julie Burchill – the message she is sending to trans people and aspiring writers – PinkNews
  

As for the original shitstorm from January, here’s a summary:

• Transphobia Is a Goddamn Embarrassment to Us All – Jezebel
  

Trigger warnings all over the place …

Feminism

Many may have heard about the conviction of two teenage boys for the rape of a teenage girl at a party last summer. You may also have noticed how the focus of the media have been on the two “promising young boys” tragically convicted of rape. No one seems to give the girl much thought in all this. The boys were such promising football players!

• Steubenville, Victim-Blaming, and Solutions to Rape – Fem2.0
• Steubenville & the Cult of Consequence-Free Forgiveness – Skepchick

Also, the anti-choice kooks in the US are getting oppressive laws passed:

• North Dakota Senate Passes ‘Personhood’ Amendment, Forgets Women Are People – Jezebel

Media

A great article on women in movies:

• Womern in Science Fiction: Only Okay When You Pretend to Be a Man – Feminspire

Science

I also want to point out my own post on Skepchick about yet another person, this time someone who should know better, making all sorts of bullshit claims about the Higgs boson.

• The Misunderstood Particle? – Skepchick

One common theme of this Worth Reading is: Fuck the media.

The Norwegian Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion released a proposition for a new anti-discrimination law today. The main inclusion that caught my eye (not that I read it all) was:

Departementet har sendt på høring et forslag til likelydende bestemmelser om opplysningsplikt i alle diskrimineringslovene. Høringsforslaget betyr at arbeidsgivere får opplysningsplikt ved mistanke om lønnsdiskriminering på grunn av kjønn, etnisitet, religion, livssyn, nedsatt funksjonsevne, seksuell orientering, kjønnsidentitet og kjønnsuttrykk.

Which translates roughly into English:

The Ministry has circulated a proposal for identical policies of disclosure for all discrimination laws. The proposal means that employers will provide information on suspected pay discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, religion, creed, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

Which means, if approved, that discriminating against people based on gender identity and expression is explicitly illegal as opposed to the vague protection we have today under the same laws.

Cool.

So the fucking catholic patriarchy of bigots and molesters got another bonehead leader.

OK. Good for you. Let me know when you’re ready to exit the middle ages, update your wardrobe, and join the 21st century.

As last time when I posted about the his Holiness Bonehead the Previous, I have only this to add:

Awesome video blogger Anita Sarkeesian has finally released the first video of her much anticipated series about women in computer games.

This video explores how the Damsel in Distress became one of the most widely used gendered cliché in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself. As a trope the Damsel in Distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must then be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonist’s quest.

Stay tuned for more awesomeness at feministfrequency.com!

I’ve been quite busy lately with the launch of the Norwegian Skepchick blog, the latest addition to the now long list of blogs in the Skepchick Network. I am the administrator of the Norwegian blog, and will probably post on the main blog too from time to time. The downside to this is that I write in Norwegian for the Norwegian blog, and in English for this one and for the main Skepchick blog. It is a lot of work translating posts back and forth. Mainly because the languages flow differently, and you pretty much have to re-write them to make them sound good in both languages. I’ll do it from time to time though.

In any case, here is my opening post for the Norwegian blog:

• Skepchick.no er her! – Skepchick.no

and my introduction post on the main blog:

• The Norwegian Skepchicks Have Landed! – Skepchick

Today I also posted my first proper blogpost on the new site, and it’s about being a skeptic:

• Hvorfor skeptiker: Etablerte sannheter – Skepchick.no [Google Translate]