Not Anonymous

I wrote many tweets about Sinead O'Connor's Open Letter to Miley Cyrus, that looking back should have been a proper post.

Here are the tweets I wrote regarding this whole sordid affair.

The more I read Sinead's letter to Miley, the more I see that Sinead is talking specifically about her own personal experience & pain. 1:44pm - 4th of Oct 2013

I don't like what she wrote all that much. I'm pretty sure Miley Cyrus is incredibly isolated & thinks she's revolutionary & edgy. 1:45pm - 4th of Oct 2013

I think Sinead is protective to a fault when it comes to women artists & is blinkered regarding the way public sexual expression doesn't - 1:46pm - 4th of Oct 2013

- have to mean sexual exploitation. Sinead herself has always done what she wanted when it came to sexuality, candidly so. 1:47pm - 4th of Oct 2013

I also think Sinead herself was/is very vulnerable in a way that Miley perhaps isn't. Miley doesn't do anything rebellious. 1:50pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Miley is provocative in the titillating sense, her representation of femininity and beauty are extraordinarily conservative. 1:51pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Add to that her appropriation & objectification of black women's bodies, you have a whole lot of white supremacist entitlement. 1:55pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Sinead could have worded her open letter better than she did. I think Miley Cyrus proves she's an entitled brat. 1:58pm - 4th of Oct 2013

What surprised me the most about Sinead's letter is the fact that there was no mention of Miley's racism. 2:01pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Considering Sinead herself has spoken against racism multiple times in her music & in interviews. 2:01pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Sinead's slut shaming and whorephobia of Miley is wrong. And that lives side by side with Sinead's other points. 2:07pm - 4th of Oct 2013

It's obvious that I love Sinead & disdain Miley. I'm okay with that, I've always loved problematic things & I'll always disdain racists. 2:14pm - 4th of Oct 2013

Not to mention racists who think mocking someone's mental health is fucking hilarious. [TW] Miley Cyrus Mocks Sinead O'Connor: 'Before Amanda Bynes There Was...' 2:15 - 4th of Oct 2013

And that's what I tweeted. Amanda Palmer also wrote an open letter to Sinead about Miley Cyrus, to which I tweeted:

Read Sinead's letter, read Amanda's letter. Still haven't read any white woman "Open Lettering" Miley to quit with her racist shenanigans. 12:45am - 4th of Oct 2013

Why is Miley Cyrus the hub of contention at this point in pop culture? What's she done, other than grow up isolated and entitled to deserve this kind of attention? I resent that I know so much about Cyrus when I have no interest in her music and persona, I really do.

She shouldn't be slut shamed, and Sinead's whorephobia should be accounted for, it disappoints me that Sinead can't find room for sex work and sex workers in her feminist point of view. I also don't think Miley Cyrus represents any kind of real feminism.

Her performance in the VMA awards really brought to a head her callous use of black women's bodies as props and as property, and it also brought to a head that she performs mainly for white women, utterly eschewing a persona that is in any way viable for the (white) male gaze, because if you look at the white men and boys in the audience of that performance, they are incredibly uncomfortable, while the white women and girls are chair dancing to her performance.

Her "sexual awakening" is a cultural moment, the same way Brittany Spears shaving her head was, white girls taking ownership of their bodies and their sexuality in a way that rocks a very unsteady boat of white women's agency in culture.

I think Sinead's own experience and her past railing against the music industry blinker her to the fact that Miley Cyrus is doing whatever the hell she wants in a way that may or may not be harmful to Cyrus, but is harmful to black women.

Miley Cyrus' reaction was heinous and disgusting, mocking Sinead's mental health and breakdown in 2012 is not something I feel is an appropriate reaction to anything.

Both Sinead and Cyrus are problematic is different ways, I don't much care about Cyrus, as she seems not to have a care in the world. I don't really care how she decides to express herself and while Sinead's policing is misguided and wrong, Sinead has been burned badly by an industry she views as evil. Does that excuse Sinead's slut shaming and whorephobia, no it most certainly does not, but I don't think that that position negates the work she's done previously and the care she has with regards to women and the way they are represented in the media.

More and more it seems that other white women are overly concerned with policing Cyrus' sexual expression, whether it's by slut shaming or by saying she has the right to express herself anyway she damn well pleases.

It's a double edged sword trying to talk about this, and it irks me that Cyrus is currently at the epicentre of this, because while yes she does have the right to express herself however she damn pleases, there is such a thing called accountability and she doesn't have an ounce of it.

Maybe that's why I'm willing to continue loving Sinead even as I side-eye her. She's went through actions that rocked the boat and was held accountable at the great personal and professional cost, she kicked up and was burned.

Cyrus kicks down. Therein lies the difference.

Tumblr crosspost

This week had been so hellish, I don't even know where to begin.

( So I'll start at the beginning )

That was my week. I'm so glad it's over.

So hey,

Did you guys hear about the Jewish-Israeli guy who created a seditious movie against Muslims, that was the groundwork for a murderous attack in Lybia.

Neither Jewish, nor Israeli, but a Copt Christian.

Jews are excellent scapegoats when it comes to spreading racist Islamophobic bullshit.

When you think about it, it's pretty clever, a Christian pretends to be Jewish in order to incite violence among Muslims, so that Jews get the blame.

Tell me again how religion brings people together?

I don't have an icon happy enough for this review!

Please excuse for incoherence!

( Spoilers and Squees and Meta, oh my! )

Carguments, Banter and Team!Love.

Hello, show. Thank you for coming back.

Where does the time go?

I've barely updated here other than fannish stuff and even then, I feel like I'm forcing myself, I'm just lacking in energy I suppose.

But today I'm feeling good!

The majority of my huge nuclear family came to visit me in my flat far away from their regular abodes and brought with them stuff!

Stuff like food, a carpet (rug, I guess, but I call it a carpet), a bookshelf (along with a bunch of my books!), a mini stereo system that I can connect my little mp3 player to and a red coat hanger! Finally, I can sit on the chair in my room because my bag, jacket, jim-jams and tomorrow's outfit are now hanging up there.

And then we went out to Wadi Nisnas where there's a festival going on and so many are decorating for Christmas! There was music, roasted chestnuts, kanafeh (which my nephews don't seem to like, te mind boggles), crepes and a mish-mash of people, which I love.

My sister commented on how mixed my neighbourhood is and yeah, I like that, even though it's less neighbourly and more everyone being equally racist towards each other, i.e. ignoring each other's existence - except when there is, you know, mandatory interaction like saying "excuse me" in the stairwell.

You have no idea how much this means me!

Oh, and my signed A Study in Emerald now hangs over my bed. Finally, my bedroom is more than a room with a bed.

It actually feels like things are coming together.

Other than, you know, a leak I discovered in our bathroom - I guess two people using it at different intervals wouldn't notice, as the toilet is situated right next to the shower so the floor there is always kind of wet, but with more than ten people using it before heading out for a few hours on the town...

Yeah, there's a leak. I mean, I thought there was before, but wasn't sure and as such didn't call plumbers or my landlady (I try, to no avail, to avoid speaking with her, but she calls, a lot, on a fairly regular basis).

Well, there's always tomorrow. *sigh*

And in other news, I have a job! I work in a book store! Where my fellow workers assume I'm studying for what I'm currently doing; stacking books.

Oh well.

But life, it carries on and I can only keep calm.

I have in mind a meta in two parts.

The first, an outside view approach; in which I will pick apart the disturbing racial and class dynamics and intersections that were huge in this episode. I think that, among other things, will put into perspective why so many of us of feeling the Lori hate in this ep (besides the Mary Sue-ness of the character, that is).

We’ll call it the Doylist approach.

The second, an internal view approach, analysing the character interactions with each other and weaving it all into a coherent and cohesive narrative of what the characters – yeah, I’ll be honest – Steve and Danny - are going though at this first quarter of the season.

For every Doyle there is a Watson.

And just to show I’m not the pretentious arse that may be assumed from the introduction above, I give you the TVTropes Page Watsonian vs Doylist. Click at your own peril, etc.

( First Part )

( Second Part )

This seems a bit of a silly reason to break radio silence - but man, I have to say my piece. My life is so freakin' hectic at the moment, but fandom is a place of rest of relaxation - so what if I'm a *squee*-harsher.

I'm in the midst of writing a fic in the universe of "X-Men: First Class". I am slogging through it because I have a kink for being as historically accurate as possible when it comes to the portrayal of characters - yes, I do love "Mad Men". I haven't finished it yet, but I will.

This post contains very slight spoilers for "X-Men:First Class", you were warned.

The fandom for this movie is very sweet, I must say. Everyone is *squeeing*, there are fanmixes galore and the well, these young versions of Magneto and Professor X are very pretty indeed. It helps that the actors seem to enjoy fan service and go out of their way to cater to the subtextual narrative that is on everyone's mind.

And really, it is on everyone's mind. And article that came out yesterday titled Magneto and Professor X Had Sex at the Movies This Summer - Did You See It?, in which the author goes on to lay wide open that which slashers see on an almost automatic level - the homoeroticism as homosexual - the emotional ties as romantic feelings.

It feels nice to have that reading acknowledged by the mainstream. Really it does. The queer and racial narratives of X-Men has existed since they began being published back in the Silver Age's Hey Day of the early 60's. Back then, it was much more subtle and the clues were there to find if you knew how to crack at that code.

Nowadays it seems as though the actors are given carte blanche to play as gay as possible... without any acknowledgement of the fact.
I see it in "White Collar", I see it in "Sherlock" by Moffat and "Sherlock Holmes" by Ritchie and now in "X-Men: First Class".
The queer is part of the narrative, by virtue of many of the main/title characters being set apart from other characters who view them as different and differentiated.
Neal from "White Collar" is outside the law.
Sherlock Holmes is outside human thought.
The mutants are beyond humanity itself.

A queer reading is practically mandatory, but in the way homosexuality is constructed in the media today, plausible deniability, in which the straight viewers reside, is built in.
Homosexual desire is hinted at, allegorised or played up for fan service rather than be showen (rahter than told, no one needs to "say" they are "gay". Okay!?) as genuine desire between people in a mainstream cinematic or television event.

The clues in "X-Men: First Class" can be read, as I mentioned, if you know the code.
"I thought I was alone", Erik says to Charles. So did the majority of queers until they met someone else like them later in life.
The tears the two men share, it is a heart wrenching scene, in which the pleasure of using their powers with each other (their so-called deviancy) and together is palpable.
On their so-called "Divorce" on the beach (a term I find extremely distasteful, considering the state of same-sex marriage around the world, the happy News from NYS notwithstanding, and especially considering the idea of queer sexuality being framed into the structure of marriage), they cry and embrace, but do not kiss, which would have happened between a man and a woman.

It being 1962, that makes sense, because public displays of affection between two men was highly ill advised when not in a specific queer place.
Edited to Add: And it's not as though it's that safe for us these days (these of so progressive days) either. Or that specific queer places are in fact safer than most. they're not (link may be triggering). I'm somewhat shocked at myself for neglecting to say this, but I'll blame it on being focused on media rather than experience.

But the subtext that is being brought to the surface all the time, because it is being played up off-screen by James MacAvoy and Michael Fassbender (much like Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law two years ago) gives the illusion that queer representation in mainstream blockbusters is actually on the rise, when all it is, is badly concealed *wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more* titillation of the idea of gayness.

Say no more indeed.
God forbid that instead of the phallic chess pieces between them, we saw an actual erotic embrace with a PG-13 appropriate fade to black.

But who needs actual gay superheroes?

Oh, and I hated the article linked above.

Yes, that was sarcasm. Now, I'm going back to fixing the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's gonna be a gas!

( Spoilers up to S1E7 You Live or You Die )

This was in lieu of the new "Doctor Who" episode I have yet to see! Tommorow, you'll get my reaction to that. I've already been slightly spoiled, but I'm not sure as to what.

I don't know why, but ever since I saw Caster Semenya run and win that, now, historical 800m track, I've tried to stay on top of the story, which has not been easy because eventually people got bored with speculating whether she is or isn't female.

Note that I use sex rather than gender, because Semenya herself asserted time and again that she is a woman, she was never treated by anyone else as anything other than a woman and it was only during the gender testing she had to undergo was she ever treated as anything other than human.

I can't recommend hard enough the documentary about her time after she was banned from racing: Too Fast To Be a Woman?. To hear her own voice, her own opinion about what had happened after the 2009 World Championships in Berlin was amazing.
She's a very strong person, I regret the fact that my admiration for her comes from anything other than her ability in sports.

One of the things that was really emphasised in the film is the double standard between male and female athletes when it comes to ability. It was really fascinating to hear people who deal in sport talk in dismay about Semenya being singled out, because it wasn't as though she had broken any speed records and her body wasn't any more "freakish" than other athletes.
As is said in the movie:
"All athletes are freaks of nature, it's what makes them good".

That echoed in my mind for a long time, because take Michael Phelps, the record breaking Olympic Swimmer. His feet are enormous. His arms and legs are longer than is proportional to his torso. No one said he had an unfair advantage over his competitors, on the contrary, he was said to have been "built for swimming".
Or Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive. No one speculated whether he was too fast for a man.

But women, ah, women. They can't be too good, otherwise they're simply not suitable for competing with other (not as freakish?) women.

It drives me up the fucking wall.

There is no limit to what men should be able to do. In fact, the faster, the higher, the more challenging, the better.

No, women, who have an "unfair" biological advantage (like more than average androgen hormones flowing) need to be controlled. They can't be too good, because then, well, what makes them so different from the men we admire so much.

There needs to be enough arbitrary difference so that women who are females with hyperandrogenism can be curtailed and not threaten the status quo of femininity on the field.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) have published new regulations to deal with the issue of hyperandrpgenism.
The article linked above says:

Hyperandrogenism causes abnormally high levels of androgens [testosterone] and a female athlete with the condition could, under the previous regulations, be prevented from competing, as was the case with Semenya.

She has since returned to competition, but the episode lead to the IAAF Council commissioning a review which has taken 18 months to complete.

It's nice that they call the singling out, media frenzy and utter disaster in treating a female athlete with respect, an "episode".
The problems with implicating that there are "abnormally" high levels of testosterone in women are myriad, starting from the fact that it is hormones that dictate ability, rather than be a part of the body-machine. As well as the implication that these hormones dictate gender and thus the differences of gender.
Also, the only time androgens are too high, is when there is a life threatening issue of hormone regulation like with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (one of the better known cases of intersexuality).

But okay, some female athletes have higher levels of testostorone than the, say, non-athletic woman, why this insistence on doing a comparison to men?

Testing levels for men and women differ because males naturally produce more androgens. A female athlete will be permitted to compete in women's competition if their androgen levels are below the male range.

I'm pretty sure, though please correct me if I'm wrong, that male athletes will most likely have on average, higher levels of testosterone than non-athletic men.

As I said, women will be tested for hormone levels, to make sure they're not, you know, too "masculine", or on the contrary, just "feminine enough". While men will continue on their hyper-masculine merry way.

If a female athlete has androgen levels within the male range, they may compete if they have an androgen resistance, which would reduce any competitive advantage.

Remember "ladies", if you're too close to male level athleticism, you're too good to compete.

Suck on that.

In Alphabetical order and a tiny bit of commentary:

Algeria: Defying a ban, protesters demonstrate in heavily policed Algiers. The demonstrations in Algeria in early January due to food shortages, but really, the poverty level in a country that is very rich in natural resources (and a long term dictator) showed it was a matter of time.

Bahrain: Bahrain mourner killed in clashes during another protester's funeral. The violence coming from the government in response to the protests has been overwhelming.

Iran: Police confirm protest death. The Reformists demonstrations never stopped, it just wasn't reported with the same fervor as when it started, but now that fire is sweeping through the region, it makes sense that the demo's are gathering greater numbers and are being suppressed with more violence.

Israel: While the region begins it's slow slog towards something resembling democratic process, we continue to dig our heels is and write out racist legislation like a Bill proposes discount in tuition fees for soldiers - meaning that higher education will become even more inaccessible than it already is to the working class - it is racist and ethnically based because the only ones drafted are Jews and the Druze (only men in this case) meaning that those who do not serve (i.e. Arabs, who also happen to be the most economically disenfranchised) will find it very hard to study at university, creating an even greater disparity between classes that (miraculously) coincide with ethnic and religious groups.

Palestine: Palestinian government resigns in hope of fresh start. Allow me to be more scathing than usual. The PA is so scared of what's happening in the region, the fact that just a few days about Saeb Ereakat resigned because of the Palestine Papers that they'll do anything to make appearnces of appeasement, while they suppress anti-PA demonstrations. Hamas, by the way, will not be running in these elections as it rejects Fatah authority. Like this schism is anything new.

Syria: Schoolgirl blogger jailed. A week after Syria opens their internet up for Twitter and Facebook. The Asad regime is in survival mode, it has been for years now.

Yemen: Yemen protests enter fifth day. The numbers are small, and there isn't a huge presence of women in Sanaa, but following reports on Twitter informs me that there was sizable female presence in Taizz.

That's what I got.