Dreaming Abalone

Heroification and Silencing

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:01:26 -0500

“Teachers have held up Helen Keller, the blind and deaf girl who overcame her physical handicaps, as an inspiration to generations of schoolchildren. Every fifth grader knows the scene in which Anne Sullivan spells water into young Helen’s hand at the pump. At least a dozen movies and filmstrips have been made on Keller’s life. Each yields its version of the same cliche. A McGraw-Hill educational film concludes: “The gift of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan to the world is to constantly remind us of the wonder of the world around us and how much we owe those though taught us what it means, for there is no person that is unworthy or incapable of being helped, and the greatest service any person can make is to help another reach true potential.”

To draw such a bland maxim from the life of Helen Keller, historians and filmmakers have disregarded her actual biography and left out the lessons she specifically asked us to learn from it. Keller, who struggled so valiantly to learn to speak, has been made mute by history…Keller, who was born in 1880, graduated from Radcliffe in 1904 and died in 1968. To ignore the sixty-four years of her adult life or to encapsulate them with the single word humanitarian is to lie by omission.

The truth is that Helen Keller was a radical socialist. She joined the Socialist Party of Massachusetts in 1909…Keller’s commitment to socialism stemmed from her experience as a disabled person and from her sympathy for others with handicaps. She began by working to simplify the alphabet for the blind, but soon came to realise that to deal solely with blindness was to treat symptom, not cause. Through research she learned that blindness was not distributed randomly throughout the population but was concentrated in the lower class. Men who were poor might be blinded in industrial accidents or by inadequate medical care; poor women who became prostitutes faced the additional danger of syphilitic blindness. Thus Keller learned how the social class system controls people’s opportunities in life, sometimes determining even whether they can see. Keller’s research was not just book learning: ”I have visited sweatshops, factories, crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it.”

At the time Keller became a socialist, she was one of the most famous women on the planet. She soon became the most notorious. Her conversion to socialism caused a new storm of publicity—this time outraged….Typical was the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, who wrote that Keller’s “mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her developement.”

Keller recalled having met this editor: ”At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence in the years since I met him.” She went on, “Oh ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent.”

Keller, who devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind, never wavered in her belief that our society needed radical change. Having herself fought so hard to speak, she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union to fight for the free speech of others. She sent $100 to the NAACP with a letter of support that appeared in its magazine The Crisis—a radical act for a white person from Alabama in the 1920s. She supported Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate, in each of his compaigns for the presidency. She composed essays on the women’s movement, on politics, on economics…

One may not agree with Helen Keller’s positions. Her praise of the USSR now seems naive, embarrassing, even treasonous. But she was a radical—a fact few Americans know, because our schooling and our mass media left it out.`

-Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W. Loewen, 2007

The Racist Myth of MSG and 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome'

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:01:40 -0500

fromonesurvivortoanother:

zuky:

This is the story of a racist myth that began with a light-hearted letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 and subsequently exploded in North American culture — in direct opposition to every shred of scientific evidence — becoming so prevalent that credulous eaters buy into it to the point of experiencing its effects on a purely psychosomatic basis.

It’s often been called “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” and its premise is that MSG in Chinese food results in unpleasant allergic reactions. Interestingly enough, higher quantities of MSG in non-Chinese foods are not reported to have the same effects. MSG is a naturally occurring amino acid, and some of the highest levels of MSG a North American consumer is likely to ingest come in vine-ripened tomatoes, aged cheese, and dry-aged steak — yet there is no reported medical phenomenon known as “Italian Food Syndrome” or “American Steakhouse Syndrome”.

Monosodium glutamate was first isolated from the seaweed kombu, commonly used in the Japanese broth dashi, by biochemist Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1908. He named its taste umami because it differed from the five conventional flavours of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and spicy. Ikeda patented his discovery and MSG became commercially available in 1909. It was found to enhance flavours with one third of the amount of sodium as traditional salt, i.e. sodium chloride. In this sense, monosodium glutamate is probably healthier than sodium chloride because it achieves flavour with reduced sodium levels.

MSG was immediately popular in Asia and became common in the North American food industry after World War II, used in baby food, canned soup, vegetable juice, frozen food, as well as seasoning mix brands such as Accent. Yet somehow in the 1960s, this popular food additive became associated with Chinese food and deemed a health hazard. Why? Because Chinese people, culture, and food have been targeted by widespread and effective racist hate campaigns in North America since the 19th century, buttressed by wild claims that the Chinese are “unclean”, carry diseases, are sexually-deviant opium addicts, inscrutable and sneaky, a Yellow Peril.

The 1968 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine which solidified the myth of MSG was actually written by a Chinese immigrant named Robert Ho Man Kwok, who described “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitation” after eating in American Chinese restaurants. The letter opened the floodgates to a barage of letters and related articles complaining of headaches, dizziness, paralysis of the throat, tingling in the temples, tightness of the jaw, irregular heartbeat, depression, hyperactivity, and all manner of digestive ailments.

Given this preponderance of anecdotal evidence, numerous scientific studies have been performed since then attempting to identify this “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. The funny thing is that no study has ever been able to do so. When people don’t know that they’re consuming MSG, they don’t suffer adverse reactions. All national and international food safety bodies have concluded that MSG is perfectly safe. People in Japan eat MSG every single day and the Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the world.

Fear of MSG is a racist remnant of the Chinese Exclusion era which exists only in North America and has been thoroughly debunked by science. Yet racist socialization is so powerful that people actually experience physical effects such as headaches, depression, and indigestion based solely on their indoctrinated fear of Chinese people and Chinese food. Think it over next time you eat parmesan cheese or a vine-ripened tomato.

guess what also gives people headaches? eating foods with high sodium content without drinking any liquids

US: Philadelphia Mayor to sign landmark LGBT protection bill into law

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:01:08 -0500

US: Philadelphia Mayor to sign landmark LGBT protection bill into law:

isincerelyhatetheinternet:

“The Mayor of the US city of Philadelphia is to sign a city-wide ordinance offering protections, and benefits for LGBT citizens into law, in a ceremony on Thursday.”

Go read the whole article

It’s not just focusing on gay and lesbian partnership rights anymore

I mean look at this

“It will make city forms gender neutral, and makes it easier for transgender residents to request gender markers on some records, and name changes. Gender-neutral bathrooms are also required in city-controlled buildings, as well as access to buildings based on gender identity.

“Healthcare discrimination against non-union transgender city employees will also be banned, and the legislation ensures that employees in Philadelphia will be able to dress in accordance with their gender identity.”

No one’s ever cared before and now it is just like “here is a windfall of unexpectedly amazing things now go live your life in happiness”

Esoterica: hamburgerjack: the beggar and the king: Medusa wasn’t always a...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:01:39 -0500

Esoterica: hamburgerjack: the beggar and the king: Medusa wasn’t always a...:

TW: discussion of rape in mythology

hamburgerjack:

the beggar and the king: Medusa wasn’t always a monster.

thebeggarandtheking:

queennubian:

She was once the a beautiful virgin shadow maiden of Athean. After Poseidon rapes Medusa in Athena’s temple, Athena punishes Medusa….making her the embodiement of death and damning her to a life of solitude.

What does this say about society then, and now?

Well, the myth that tells Medusa’s metamorphosis into a monster as a punishment by Athena is the patriarchal Roman version. The ancient Greek myth, which has closer ties to its progenitor, the Egyptian tale of Wadjet, tells us that Athena gifted Medusa with ugliness and the power to turn men to stone as a way of protecting her from further violations of her person. Even so, her ugliness was emphasized in the Roman retelling as a way to further demonize and disenfranchise Medusa (i.e. she only lashed out on men because she was too ugly to be loved by them, her ugliness forced her into seclusion from men, ugly women are bad, etc. ((I am ironically using abbreviations for Latin words here yes)).). As the original myth tells it, she lived in solitude because she did not wish to be around men after what Poseidon had done. And Athena gave her the power to never be at the mercy of a male again. So originally, Athena was pissed at Poseidon, not Medusa. And then, of course, the Romans took it one step further and had Perseus behead her (yay the vindictive old hag is dead) and give it to Athena for her shield.

But yeah, renderings of Medusa’s head appeared in the doorways of many women’s shelters in ancient Greece because she was a symbol of female empowerment, not a monster feared by men and women alike.

This brings me to my awkward segue into a cool essay on the subject: The Laugh of the Medusa by Helene Cixous actually touches on the system of misogynistic fear behind the Romanized version, but most importantly why women need to write their stories because this is the shit that happens when dudebros get ahold of them. It’s also an awesome overture to queer theories of writing. If you can read French, I highly suggest getting your hands on the essay as it was originally written, because Cixous’ voice is just incredibly inspiring when you read it as she intended it to be read. Also, the essay itself is worthy of criticism as it is not as intersectional as it absolutely needs to be. I feel I should add that before someone thinks I advocate the problematic things she says.

But now that I’ve totally digressed from my original point: It’s important that we’re always mindful to question the credibility of those telling us not only history, but also legend.

(I became absolutely exhausted halfway through this so forgive me if the connection I’m making between the original post and this essay is more arbitrary than I think it is at the moment)

"How they must bleed for us. In 2012, the world’s 100 richest people became $241 billion richer. They..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:01:20 -0500

“

How they must bleed for us. In 2012, the world’s 100 richest people became $241 billion richer. They are now worth $1.9 trillion: just a little less than the entire output of the United Kingdom.

This is not the result of chance. The rise in the fortunes of the super-rich is the direct result of policies. Here are a few: the reduction of tax rates and tax enforcement; governments’ refusal to recoup a decent share of revenues from minerals and land; the privatisation of public assets and the creation of a toll-booth economy; wage liberalisation and the destruction of collective bargaining.

The policies that made the global monarchs so rich are the policies squeezing everyone else. This is not what the theory predicted. Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their disciples – in a thousand business schools, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and just about every modern government – have argued that the less governments tax the rich, defend workers and redistribute wealth, the more prosperous everyone will be. Any attempt to reduce inequality would damage the efficiency of the market, impeding the rising tide that lifts all boats. The apostles have conducted a 30-year global experiment, and the results are now in. Total failure.

[…]

As I say, I have no dog in this race, except a belief that no one, in this sea of riches, should have to be poor. But staring dumbfounded at the lessons unlearned in Britain, Europe and the US, it strikes me that the entire structure of neoliberal thought is a fraud. The demands of the ultra-rich have been dressed up as sophisticated economic theory and applied regardless of the outcome. The complete failure of this world-scale experiment is no impediment to its repetition. This has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with power.

”

- If you think we’re done with neoliberalism, think again | The Guardian | George Monbiot (via america-wakiewakie)

This is what makes me so mad about Obama’s proposed budget. It cuts from the wealthy and the poor as though the two are equal. As though the rich haven’t gotten exponentially richer while the poor and middle class have made almost zero gains in wages in the past few decades. As though our current economic situation wasn’t the result of bankers, mortgage lenders, and stockbrokers. As though everyone has to bleed equally, even though the 99% has been bleeding continually for years and years and years. Fiscal austerity doesn’t work. It’s never worked, anywhere. Cutting from the poor will only make things worse.

(via stfuconservatives)

TW: discussion of rape culture, sexism silvysartfulness: “If you think that the nice guy ranting...

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:01:30 -0500

TW: discussion of rape culture, sexism

silvysartfulness:

“If you think that the nice guy ranting only happens on the internet, you’ve never had to deal with your thoroughly drunken friend shouting about how no girls would go out with a nice guy like him, even though he’s surrounded by single women he ignores because they aren’t attractive enough for him. If you think guys getting pissy and escalating matters because you told people to stop making sex jokes is a feature of the internet, well, you’ve never asked anyone to stop making jokes that make you uncomfortable. If you think that inappropriate comments and requests for sex are an internet thing, you’ve never tried to stop a coworker or boss from hitting on you repeatedly, or a head of security, or the guy at the convenience store across the street. If you think that being shouted at and asked to show people your tits just because you present as a woman only happens in chat rooms and online games, you’ve never walked past a frat house, or, unfortunately, through the main thoroughfares of either university I’ve attended. If you think unasked for commentary on a woman’s looks only happens because girls post pictures on internet forums (which probably means they’re asking for it), you’ve never been at a bus stop, or the city square, or a mall, or… well, anywhere, really. If you think insecure men trying to drive women out of activism only happens in online male-dominated communities, you’ve never paid attention politics. Or Fox. Or CNN, sadly. If you think the reaction to rape victims is bad on twitter, try sharing that experience in person. Or try even standing up for a rape victim. Count how many minutes until someone points out “but men can be falsely accused! The woman just changed her mind! You just can’t believe those drunk *insert varying level of insulting reference to gender*!””

—

It’s Not Just the Internet. It Never Has Been.

(via loveyourrebellion)

Society and the Creation of Misogyny and Misandry

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:01:34 -0500

TW: discussion of rape and rape culture

Society: Were you wearing revealing clothing when you were raped?
In other words: Men, it is ok to rape a woman if she is wearing revealing clothing.
In other words: It is ok to ridicule a woman for wearing revealing clothing.
In other words: The bodies of women are innately sexual and need to be covered up.
In other words: Women wearing revealing clothing could not possibly be dressing for the weather, they are merely asking for sex.
In other words: Women, you are not allowed to wear whatever you want.
Society: Were you alone when you were raped?
In other words: Men, it is ok to rape a woman if she is alone.
In other words: Women, you are only safe from men if you are in a group.
Society: Were you drunk when you were raped?
In other words: Men, it is ok to rape a woman if she is drunk.
In other words: Women, it is unsafe to be drunk. Ever.
Society: Did you fight back when you were raped?
In other words: Men, if a woman is too scared to fight back, it is ok to rape her.
In other words: Women, fear is not an excuse for not fighting back.
In other words: Women, only violence will show a man that you truly mean "no I do not want to have sex".
Society: Bitch, Cunt, pussy, whore, and slut are all socially acceptable insults.
In other words: It is an insult to be feminine, and/or have feminine genitalia.
In other words: It is not ok for women to be promiscuous.
Society: When a girl gets raped and there is a picture taken, it is perfectly natural to call her a slut.
In other words: It is a girl's fault if she gets raped.
In other words: Boys, you will gain notoriety if you rape a girl.
In other words: Ridiculing a victim of sexual assault is a societal norm and you are stupid if you do not join in.
Society: If a girl is raped, she must have provoked it somehow.
In other words: Men cannot be held accountable for their own actions.
In other words: Men are like wild animals that cannot stop themselves.
Society: Nice ass, you look sexy, etc. are all acceptable compliments to a woman.
In other words: There is no such thing as sexual harrassment.
In other words: Women should be gratified that men want to have sex with them.
In other words: A man being interested in a woman automatically means she is obliged to be interested back.
Society: Beautiful, pretty, sexy, fuckable etc. are the best compliments a woman can get.
In other words: Women have no value except in their physical appearance.
In other words: Women should not be measured by their intelligence or actual skills.
In other words: Women exist to be physically desirable to men.
Society: It is natural for men to wolf-whistle and call "compliments" after a woman, slap her ass, etc.
In other words: Women, all men are pigs and there is nothing you can do about it.
In other words: Women, you must grin and bear sexual harrassment.
In other words: Men, to be a true man you must sexually harrass women.
Society: There is nothing wrong with the wage gap.
In other words: Women are inherently worth less than men.
In other words: It is wrong for a woman to want equal pay.
In other words: Women are not as suitable for work as men are.
In other words: Men, women are worth less than you and it is ok to ridicule them because they do not matter.
Society: It is not ok to protest sexism.
In other words: Sexism does not exist.
In other words: Equality does not apply to women.
In other words: Feminists must be kept in line by a backlash of hate.
In other words: Feminists are automatically man-haters
In other words: Feminists are threatening to men.
In other words: Men, it is not ok to support equal rights for women.
Feminism: This is not an ok society to live in.

Okay everybody ignore this just settling a bet with the roommate.

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:12:31 -0500

Okay everybody ignore this just settling a bet with the roommate.

Daily Prompt #14

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:23:35 -0500

TW: discussion of sex work in fiction

fuckyeahworldbuilding:

How does your society view prostitution? Is it legal or illegal? Would outlawing it even cross people’s minds? Is it looked down on? Is it seen as just another profession?

Real life examples: I’m drawing a blank here. Does anyone have some knowledge to share?

Real life examples: temple prostitutes whose trade was part of the worship of the gods, societies where a distinction was drawn between ‘common/dirty’ street prostitutes and high class courtesans, and differing opinions on prostitutes based on class within a society (Victorian England, as mentioned in limyaael’s fantasy rant on whores).

Also might be worth thinking about how your culture’s gender issues intersect. In our world, there have always been male prostitutes, but in most cultures they’re vastly outnumbered by female ones due to patriarchy.

Two things. Not the same.

Sat, 11 May 2013 08:01:14 -0500

girljanitor:

blackraincloud:

I hate talking with teachers about Student’s behavior and how best to facilitate interaction between him and other students.

It always goes something like this:

Teacher: “Student started helping a classmate with a problem, but when the classmate still made a mistake, Student yelled at them that they were lazy and must not care!”

Me: “Ok. That happens because Student doesn’t have an intuitive knowledge that what he’s thinking and experiencing is not what someone else is thinking and experiencing. It’s extremely difficult for him to put himself in someone else’s shoes.”

Teacher: “Oh, right. See that’s the compassion thing I was talking about—”

Me: “NO. Student has compassion, we see that in his eagerness to help others.”

Teacher: “Yeah, but the empathy just isn’t—”

Me: “NO. It’s not empathy he’s lacking. He just has a shaky understanding of other people’s consciences, can’t accurately guess what others are thinking, and therefor tends to assume others know what he knows.”

Teacher: o_O

Me: “So, in the situation you’re talking about, Student noticed someone struggling and thought he would give them his knowledge so they would know what to do and not have to struggle. But once he told them what he knew, he assumed they now had the same understanding he had. So when they then make more mistakes, he assumes they’re doing it on purpose or refusing to listen to him.” So, you see he cares, he just gets frustrated and misreads others’ motivations due to his disability.”

Teacher: ….

Teacher: ……..

Teacher: “So how can you get him to care about other people?”

Me: *self-immolates*

This is a perfect illustration of why a lot of Autistic adults like myself maintain that it seems to be Allistics, not Autistics, who have difficulty “caring about other people”.

Jeebus fricken crapapple.

"You know they call corn-on-the-cob “corn-on-the-cob,” right? But that’s how it comes out of the..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:01:17 -0500

“You know they call corn-on-the-cob “corn-on-the-cob,” right? But that’s how it comes out of the ground, man. They should call that “corn”, and they should call every other version “corn-off-the-cob.” It’s not like if you cut off my arm you would call my arm “Mitch”, but then reattach it and call it “Mitch-all-together.””

- Mitch Hedberg (via fromonesurvivortoanother)

brought to you by rereading old chat logs

Tue, 07 May 2013 08:01:07 -0500

guinevak:

guinevak: (“Thuvia was lifted to the least fractious thoat” so many things amuse me about this statement)
nangoat: I KNOW RIGHT.
nangoat: ahahahahaha
nangoat: “least fractious thoat” is a great phrase, just to start with.
guinevak: So true.
guinevak: thoats do not come in “gentle” or even “even-tempered”, they come in “less fractious”, “more fractious”, “really goddamn fractious” and “bloodthirsty maniac”
nangoat: Yeeeeeeeees.
guinevak: also: this is Thuvia, Banth Whisperer.
guinevak: c’mon, you guys.

…brb, going to reread my John Carter books now.

BECAUSE THOATS.

There is Dignity in the Loss

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:01:23 -0500

There is Dignity in the Loss:

queerability:

Something that’s talked about a lot in special education circles is dignity of risk. Basically, that means that everyone must be allowed to make choices—good or bad—within safety limits of course. For example, a child with a full-time school aide one day decides to go to the cafeteria instead of going to class. Should the aide let him?

The correct answer is yes. The child needs to learn that there are good and bad decisions, and that our decisions all have consequences. Any other child would have been punished. The punishment for children with differing abilities should be no different. That’s dignity of risk.

A similar thought occurred to me recently as I watched a video that had gone viral. During the final game of the season, a Texas high school basketball player passed the ball to an intellectually challenged player on the opposing team. People were inspired by this act and left comments in support of both teams. No one seemed to see anything wrong with it—except nearly every disabled person I talked to.

I’m sure that player had good intentions. But that’s not how the game works, and to completely abandon the structure of the game just so a disabled player can score smacks of ableism. The message I took away from the video was that the disabled player isn’t a real player worthy of competition. If that athlete had passed the ball to a nondisabled member of the other team, he would have been a laughingstock. Why is it different when the receiver is disabled?

There were certainly alternatives. He could’ve treated the boy on the other team just like any other opposing athlete. He could’ve even taken it a step further and offered to teach the boy some basketball techniques after the game. That would’ve demonstrated a quiet respect. It wouldn’t have been blaring from the headlines. It shouldn’t be. Acceptance should not be noisy. It should happen naturally, without fanfare.

Kids with disabilities need to learn that sometimes they will lose. And there will be things they will not be able to do because of their particular abilities.

I understand that I will never be an Olympic figure skater, and that’s OK. I know where my strengths lie. So maybe basketball isn’t that kid’s strength. I’m positive that he has other areas where he shines. And if that kid really wants to play basketball, don’t just let him play on a team because he wants to. Teach him how to play. Have him practice until one day he might be good enough to play competitively. Treat him like a true member of the team.

People with disabilities, parents and professionals alike need to learn a new term that I’m inventing—dignity of loss. Just as you need to let people make their own mistakes, you also need to let them lose—or win—their own games. Let them earn their own victories. Success is so much sweeter when it’s earned.

Image is a baby pig sitting on grass and smiling happily while...

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:01:17 -0500

Image is a baby pig sitting on grass and smiling happily while getting gently rinsed with a hose extension.

HAPPY PIG IS HAPPY. So cute.

selchieproductions: moclachanbhernard: Limpet pits,...

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:01:28 -0500

selchieproductions:

moclachanbhernard:

Limpet pits, Lochboisdale, South Uist 1953. (Werner Kissling)

Sooo, I found this photo on the Vintage Postcards Western Isles fb page and it reminded me of a story my father told me about his best friend.

A group of scientists of some sort (my father just called them ‘scientists’) were wanting to go over to Mingulay and therefore requested the man to take them over in his fishing boat. He took them over and when they arrived they found these little dips in the rock around the coastline. Puzzled, they spent the entirety of their time coming up with different hypotheses and theories as to what they were and how they were made. They were along the lines of something to do with a sea god, or an offering to the ocean for good weather or good fishing.

After spending the whole day there on the shoreline, not making it any further onto the island my father’s friend piped up ‘None of those ideas are what these are for. Do you want me to tell you?’ The scientists were rather snooty and disbelieving that a local fisherman would know anything, but condescendingly agreed. He picked up some winkles (limpets are feckin’ hard to get off a rock quickly) and put them in one of the dips, got a rock, smashed them up, then threw the mush out into the water. He turned round and said ‘It’s for when your fishing to try and attract the fish.’

Moral of the story: rather than thinking you know best because of your education and where you come from, ask about for local knowledge and you can spend your time actually doing something worthwhile rather than standing around discussing the religious symbolism of a limpet pit.

Reblogging because of the highlighted truth.

selchieproductions: biomedicalephemera: kidsneedscience: Born...

Sun, 05 May 2013 08:01:17 -0500

selchieproductions:

biomedicalephemera:

kidsneedscience:

Born in 1707, Carl Linnaeus would rise to such a level of greatness that the philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau once said “Tell him I know no greater man on earth,” and was heralded by many of his contemporaries and apostles as Princeps botanicorum - the Prince of Botany.

[…]

Portrait of Carl Linneaus by Hendrik Hollander, 1853, in the public domain.

Image from Haeckel’s Tree of Life in the public domain.

Guest post for Kids Need Science.

Taxonomy and Nomenclature 101

Can we talk about the fact that this Linnæus is wearing a South Saami traditional dress from the borders between Westrobothnia and Iemptia and that he would have died if he hadn’t been helped by my ancestors as he was travelling around Sápmi?

Can we talk about the fact that he acquired Saami clothes and religious artefacts to show them off as exotic party tricks in the Netherlands, where he was working for three years?

Can we talk about the fact that he probably didn’t know a lot about the Saami, despite pretending to do so, based on the fact that in this picture he’s wearing the hat of a married South Saami woman, popular until the early 19th century?

Can we talk about the fact that Linnæus saw the Saami as a primitive people, and that he loved to talk about the Saami as the Noble Savages of Sweden - savages whose ‘naïve’ life style he would love to share, because the Saami - if we’re to believe Linnæus - didn’t care about worrying about the future or feel sorry about the past?

Can we talk about the fact that he’s carrying a sacred gievrie - drum - that Saami men and women were prosecuted and sometimes sentenced to death for owning? He got away with making a mockery of our pre-Christian religion by showing it off to European academics, and my ancestors got burnt at the stake or put in prison for owning one. Fair.

The actual law used to prosecute these men and women was the following one:

“Om någon med Förbindelse til Sathan, Skrift- eller Munteligen sig försyndar, så skal then, lijka som för Träldom, straffas til Lijfwet: Men all Widskepelse med Signerij, Spådom, Löfjerij och allehanda fördömeliga Konster, så wäl som ock alt offrande wid Trä, Siö och Källor, skal, med Penningar, eller med Häktelse wid Watn och Bröd, eller med Gatulopp, eller med Rijsslij tände, afstraffas, alt som Brottet och Personen är til; Hwar wid hwars och ens Ålder och Förstånd bör ansees, om han har warit förförd, och om han en eller flere gångor, slika Synder bedrifwit, hwarefter Straffet antingen lindras eller skarpes.”

Linnæus’ trip to Sápmi happened in 1732. Ten years earlier, 1722 11 Saami men and women were brought in front of the court in Liksjoe - my current home town - and sentenced to a number of days, weeks or months in prison for owning drums, and some 30 years before Linnæus acquired his drum an Ume Saami man from Árjepluovve was beheaded and burnt at the stake together with his gievrie, accused of wizardry.

Can we also talk about the fact that the actual drum Linnæus is holding in this picture belonged to the Ume Saami man Anders Nilsson Pont, who, had he not died of an illness in 1723, would have had to spend a minimum of 8 days in prison without food or water and then publicly renounce his Saami faith, lest he’d be sentenced to death, only for owning this drum? For those of you who are wondering what drum I’m referring to, here’s a copy of the entire painting:

The drum, who was miraculously not destroyed by the police at the time was later given to Linnæus, who most likely had never seen one being used in real life, seeing as he used two drumsticks to play it when he was showing it to academics in the Netherlands.

And really, can we please talk about how Linnæus is mixing Saami clothes and accessories from different areas? The pewter wire embroidered bag he’s wearing is a traditional tobacco pouch from Vualtjere, where my mother was born; the pattern’s been passed on among families in the area for centuries and is still used. The shoes are most likely Lule Saami, the gapta is from southernmost Sápmi and the drum is Ume Saami.

Can we please talk about the fact that race biology was more or less invented by Linnæus? He claimed that humans were made up of five races, and described them with a number of racist, stereotypical ideas borrowed from both antiquity and contemporary colonial discourses alike. According to Linnæus, humans belonged to the following races, who he described using Hippocrates’ four temperaments:

Europæus albus (white European)

Americanus rubescens (red American),

Asiaticus fuscus (brown Asian)

Africanus niger (black African)

Homo Monstrosus (everyone who didn’t fit into the other categories, i.e. the Chinese and the San people)

So yes, Carolus Linnæus was important, but let’s not forget that he was also problematic as hell.

Gender Neutral/Queer Titles

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:01:29 -0500

Gender Neutral/Queer Titles

bad-dominicana: lately i think so much about how dissolution of romantic and other relationships is...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 08:01:20 -0500

bad-dominicana:

lately i think so much about how dissolution of romantic and other relationships is seen as failure.

why is it seen as failure if you dont remain static and together til the end of the time when thats so highly improbable?

why is it seen as failure if people and circumstances change when thats a fact of life?

why is it seen as failure if things run their natural course and drop off when its no longer fruitful, when thats what should be happening?

and what does this unrealistic expectation to hold on to everything forever lead us to put up with in this abuse culture?

of course this brings me to sticking together for survival purposes in some contexts, but when you can choose and survive alright without hanging on, why do it?

hell, even when people see that you have been miserable or abused or simply imbalanced for umpteen years they will act like they failed for moving the fuck on to greener, more peaceful pastures, and people around you will try to push that on you too. when, really, leaving untenable waters is a victory, not something to be ashamed of.

so you broke up with 98987 people or got divorced coz it wasnt fitting or fruitful or healthy and kept moving on and trying different things….what is wrong about that?

why is it some great shame, burden and tragedy to leave or be left when its just not panning out? when thats the right thing to do.

and how does that cloud how you view relationships, when you think you have to be bound for all eternity to NOT be a failure?

taleth: qbits: thepeoplesrecord: Going beyond the Western...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:01:10 -0500

taleth:

qbits:

thepeoplesrecord:

Going beyond the Western gender binary - unlearning our backward cultural conditioning

In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.

Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.

In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation - our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.

I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.

Who cares? Why it matters.

The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.

But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.

In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.

Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:

Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.

Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.

Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.

Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.

Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”

Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way.Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.

The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale.

In this particular construction of gender:

Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.

Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.

Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine

Waria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.

Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:

Zachar: male

Nekeveh: female

Androgynos: both male and female

Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender

Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people

Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)

Kathoey (often called ‘ladyboys’)
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.

-Robert

Excellent overview of non-binary gender categories. Sadly, Western imperialism has all but extirpated many traditional concepts of non-dualistic sex and gender categories through residential schools and religious indoctrination. -Q

Radical feminists want to destroy the diversity of gender in PoC cultures and communities. This is what they want to kill when they say they want to abolish gender. They are nothing more than white supremacists.

Seizure/Panic Warning!

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 02:00:00 -0500

kosplaybaby:

I’M SORRY SO MANY TEXT POSTS BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT

there’s a post going around of some girl linking to a “picture of her prom dress” when the link leads to a picture of a gif’d mutilated face and screaming. i imagine that this could be very harmful to both people with epilepsy or those with anxiety problems and the like. it happened to alarm me a lot.

please boost so no one gets hurt! we don’t want any seizures or panic attacks!

(Image: screencapped post reading: ‘this is my prom dress idk do you like it’ followed by ‘LINK’)

So if I see this post, do not click. Good to know- I’m a sucker for dresses, I’d have probably clicked…