I'm really not feeling that great today. I feel like I'm failing with everything except the poetry part of this month's goals. I always hit a big slump in the middle of the month, so I'm trying to take it with a grain of salt.
I know nobody is really interested in these posts, but maybe someday someone somewhere will find them helpful. Anyway, I don't make them for you fuckers. I make them for me. Because reasons. So, there's that.
Let's start with the easy prompt. The April PAD Challenge prompt asks participants to write a shadow poem.
The NaPoWriMo prompt
asks participants to Begin by reading June Jordan’s (1936 - 2002) “Notes on the Peanut.”
Now, think of a person – real or imagined – who has been held out to you as an example of how to live, but who you have always had doubts about. Write a poem that exaggerates the supposedly admirable qualities of the person in a way that exposes your doubts.
Ms. Jordan wrote an amusing poem about the legend of George Washington Carver. I did not select a person; I selected a supposedly progressive ideology that is, at its core, extremely regressive and has upended much of the hard work accomplished by both second-wave feminists and gay rights activists. My poem is not amusing.
For a long time, I kept my thoughts on this situation to myself. But after gathering four pages of tweets yesterday from people appalled by the advertising choice made by a certain beer company, I know I'm certainly not alone.
These people are not far-right gay-bashing Fundamentalists, mind. Most of them are left-leaning progressives. They are men and women of various races and nationalities with ages ranging from young to elderly. Some are bisexual, some are gay or lesbian, and some are straight.
I am a 58-year-old heterosexual disabled white American woman. I am an agnostic and a feminist. I have been a registered Democrat since 1984. I have always been pro-gay rights. I support same-sex marriage. I've always leaned to the left on most social issues.
This is not about hating anyone. Transsexuals should be afforded the same rights and protections as anyone else. Adults have the right to do what they want with their bodies. Adolescent emotions tend to be hyperbolic. This does not mean that the concerns of adolescents should not be taken seriously, only that the medical community should not be leaping to offer cross-sex hormones and surgeries to gender-nonconforming and gender dysphoric youth.
I have no problem with men who want to wear dresses and makeup. I have a problem with the idea that wearing dresses and makeup makes these men into women. Women are not dresses and makeup. That idea is a stereotype of womanhood. Women range from presenting in a hyperfeminine fashion to presenting in a more stereotypically masculine way. A butch lesbian is as much a woman as a straight woman who looks like Marilyn Monroe.
I have long hair, but I'm not a particularly "feminine" woman. I don't wear makeup or shave my legs. I hate wearing dresses. That doesn't make me a man.
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, there was pushback against regressive sex stereotypes. Men could have long hair and wear makeup and "feminine" clothing. They were still men. Women could have short hair, wear no makeup, and prefer "masculine" attire. They were still women.
My problem with today's #BeKind, pronouns-in-the-bio ideology is the fact that it reinforces the awful sex stereotypes that people fought so hard against. It is not a progressive ideology. It is regressive, misogynistic, and homophobic. Referring to people who are same-sex attracted as "genital fetishists" is disgusting, and I won't stand for it.
These thoughts will probably not make me very popular with the #BeKind crowd, who are, in fact, only kind to those who agree with them 100% on everything. Uppity women who disagree with them are unpersoned and branded with dehumanizing slurs inviting those so inclined to abuse said women.
Meet the new boss. It's the same as the old boss, now with pronouns in the bio and covered in glitter.
Ornery Owl stepped aside for this one. This is 100% Sly Fawkes.
