onomatoblog

Note: this text is a little long for me, and very very rambly. It has been crossposted from my private private blog, and I am less strict with my writing there. Apologies.

Star Trek. In some ways, it becomes necessary for me to see it from three points of view: as a (sci-fi) movie among others, as Star Trek, and from a feminist point of view.

As a movie? It rocked. I am so weak for space, for things blowing up, for goodlooking fights and grunge-and-smoothness mixed up, love it. That being said, it was a bit… I am not sure choppy is the right word, but around the beginning and the end, it felt like they were trying to squeeze in more things than there was room for, and the narration suffered for it. Explain red matter? (of course not, mister Abrams) Show, not tell, Spock Prime’ story? Perhaps narrate Kirk’s personal background a little better than that inane wee!Kirk’s car scene? Ten more minutes could have given a lot.) Still a lovely, beautiful, otherwise well paced and terribly captivating story about a bunch of very interesting individuals. I could certainly be seen non-Trekkies who are open to scifi (do they exist?) like it, although the space element the time travels element obviously would scare off the rest. I would love the make my mother watch this on DVD, but then I would be annoying as hell to hear her commentary.

And as Trek? I honestly only have one complaint: explanation. I know people have had opinions about the “feel”; i.e. smoothness, effects/location, the changed transporter look… essentially everything that didn’t look just like TOS and the movies, and I honestly can’t care. It worked. Granted, I haven’t watched TOS in a few years, but it seemed obvious from the start that Abrams was going to try to catch a non-trekkie audience, and I think he managed to make it general enough without playing too fast and loose with the source material. It looked good. It felt good. It felt mostly Trek, with one exception: explain to me what is going on! Give me made up technobabble to explain things that couldn’t possibly work! My coworker Joe had opinions about both the Red Matter and the ejecting-the-antimatter scenario, arguing that an explosions couldn’t provide anything else than thrust, and thus couldn’t possibly outwarp warp. I argue that an uncontrolled antimatter explosion could very well warp space time more effectively than an engine, but that’s not the point. The point is: tell me how. Trek is the goddamned poster child for Science Fiction as the Idea that the World Can Be Understood; tell me how it works, even though the laws of proper physics don’t apply. It just need to follow its own laws. This, mister Abrams, is no time to be mystical, much as I know you love it. Trek is a lot of things, but mysticism was never a part of it.

Oh, also? the water scene? Loved it but it wasn’t Trek. Skip Scotty’s sidekick, save time for narration.

As for the casting… I was unspoiled, but because I mind spoilers (I don’t, I relish in them), but because I hadn’t realized how soon the movie was coming. I knew exactly this: some dude from Heroes (that I had never, at that point, watched) was playing Spock, and this made a lot of people upset, and Simon Pegg was playing Scotty, which made Lucas (my SO) really happy and excited. I was honestly half-thrown out of my seat when I realized Karl Urban was Bones (obviously, as long as there are geeks of any kind, he’ll never have to worry about getting laid Ever Again), but the summary can pretty much be I loved [x] as [y]. Seriously. Zachary Quinto was spot on as a almost-but-not-quite-solidified-Spock, and I actually didn’t want to strangle Chris Pine’s Kirk (unlike Shatner’s) (mainly because other people did it for me, perhaps? Can we rename this movie “James T. Kirk hangs off ledges and gets strangled a lot“?) or perhaps because he was more fucked up, got sat on more. I liked it.
But the feeling was there. The optimism, the thrill, the grandness and good fun combined. And the chemistries, even when not yet fully evolved to series levels; I can see how this universe came to be the one to result in slash (I am not ignoring Spock/Uhura, I am just assuming it will peter out slowly. So there.) “subverting our cultural icons with complete disregard for decency and the law” indeed. Love it. Maybe I’ll go download Amok Time now.

But. How about the feminist perspective?
Okay, let’s just say that the problems there can come from two directions: from the original, and from the new writers. Some things that irked feminist reviewers are the very reasons I don’t watch TOS; the uniforms, the lack of female officers. I honestly think the writers did what they could there; switching out more would have fucked with the fans too much. Uhura was given a personalty and a reason to be on the bridge other than that of a glorified secretary. They could have done a genderswitch a la BSG, but that wouldn’t have gone over well, plus messed with the time-travel idea. Still, I would have loved to see Uhura actually throw a couple of good punches in the bar brawl; I don’t particularly care who she’d hit.
But… the underwear scenes? The two cases of refrigeration? (from “the woman in the refrigerator”; killing off a female character for the sole reason of eliciting a reaction from a male character; in this case Amanda Grayson and Nero’s unnamed pregnant dead wife.) The fact that Winona Ryder six years older than Quinto and plays his mother? Rotten, you guys. Why not bother with giving Amanda a personality, or bother having her say something insightful about the value of emotions other than “yadayada I’m so proud of you always yadayada”? Why not bother showing Kirk’s mother doing something else in life in giving birth to him? Supposedly she’s an officer in this universe, why not give her a title and a throwaway reference from Pike? If Romulans had female military, why not female miners? I know it’s based in a rotten sort of time period, but the revamp people made it worse in some respects, and that bothers me.

That’s all I can think of right now.

I don’t know if this chemistry.com thing is any better, but this commercial is awesome

Nå, så gick det åt helvete. Det fick väl i och för sig något bra med sig, i och med att Persson avgår som sossarnas partiordförande, men det var väl å andra sidan väntat.

Men helvete! Vad är det för fel på människor i det här landet? Hej då feminism och jämställdhet, hej vårdnadsbidrag, hemmafruar och sänkta kvinnolöner (som en indirekt effekt av de sistnämnda; det är så det funkar.) Hej då skälig levnadsstandard för arbetslösa (vad tror ni en arbetslös ensamstående trebarnsmamma får göra för att kunna försörja sina barn om tre år? Horar? Å, just det, kd sitter ju med, och eftersom barn BEHÖVER två föräldrar med cementerade, diametralt motsatta kön, så blir det väl kriminaliserat att vara ensamstående förälder.) Hej då arbetssäkerhet för alla under tjugosex, var beredd på att bli sparkad om du är obekväm (till exempel genom att påpeka att din chef tafsar eller vadfansomhelst) eftersom du snart kan sägas upp utan anledning. Icke-hetero? Ha! Ge dig, kd sitter i regeringen. Glöm att en att sådana basic rättigheter som att äktenskap ska heta äktenskap faktiskt ska gälla dig.

Är folk dumma? TROR de att Moderaterna är nya? Tror de att lägre a-kassa kan ge fler jobb? Tror de, allvarligt talat, att en enda stökig unge bryr sig om ordningsbetyg? Och tror de att det gynnar NÅGON ANNAN än den övre medelklassen när vi ska betala för att andra (högutbildade invandrare?) ska ta hand om deras skit? Har dom GLÖMT hur käpprätt åt helvete det gick förra gången?

Liza Marklund skrev en bra krönika.

Jag är mest irriterad över moddarna och Kristdemokraterna – och kd gick som tur var tillbaka. Men jag förstår inte hur folk tänker. Ta sen trängelskatten. Stockholmarna röstar ja, och sen går kranskommunerna och röstar emot. Jag förstår att det är jobbigt och ha sändare på bilen (OMG! The pain!) och betala för att resa in till huvudstaden (eller, jag förstår om låginkomsttagare tycker det. Jag skiter i om alla med över 25000 efter skatt så gnäller i trehundra år) men det är ju Stockholmarnas miljö vi pratar om, och i förlängningen även alla andras. Varför tänker folk så kortsiktigt?

Men det är ju sant. Rättvisa kommer från vänster.

A breif summary:

But in summary, we’re all gonna be fucked, and I am glad I am leaving.

A few years back, I kept a debate blog before those existed. No, really. At that time, I was deeply impressed by columnists, all columnists, and wanted to be just like them. Thus, a blog. Although I didn’t call it that. I parked a journal at diaryland.com, called it ‘annaweekly’ and went about my business. I am not sure if anyone other than my friend Debbie enjoyed it (I am going to assume she did, because she kept telling me to update. And she had to tell me – the name ought to have been anna-about-once-every-thee-months) but I enjoyed having it, and when I abandoned diaryland in early 2003, I took my rants to the real world. Besides, my infatuation with columnists was over, and a realistic view of my own writing abilities had been established.

But I had something. At one time or another in 2001 (at the tender age of eighteen), I wrote an entry called “And what if I don’t want a thong?” about the underwear fashion at the time. It was, to put it lightly, a horrendous experience to try and find undergarments in those days. Hours and hours spent hunting for something in between old-lady-pants and porn thongs. So I ranted, and no one listened.

But today I would like to do the opposite. I would like to say Thank you! undergarment industry. Thank you for making boy shorts trendy. Thank you for realizing that although some people like thongs, not everyone do. Thank you for realizing that discreet can be sexy, that sexy in itself isn’t a requirement, and that pr0ny texts are not needed for panties to be wearable. Today, I can go into a store and find everything the porniest red lace to the most grandmotherlike beige cotton, and everything in between (like green cotton boy shorts with black stripes), and it makes me a happy camper. Such a little thing, it might seem, but it makes my world a happier place to be in.

This is going to be a text about how Lucas is fantastic.

(For new readers, Lucas is my boyfriend of almost four years, fiancé of almost three, and come September 20th, hopefully my husband. It depends a little on whether immigrations have finished their paperwork by then.)

Now, he really is fantastic. I’ve often been told by friend (and acquaintances of both me and him) what a catch I’ve made, and I have. The guy is fantastic. If not for other reasons, for putting up with me and my somewhat confusing and chaotic existence and prickly personality.
I am what one would call high maintenance. I am very emotional, I pout when I don’t get 100% of people’s attentions, and while I don’t have diagnosable anxiety attacks, it’s pretty damn close. Of course, I am not exactly sure what it is to be ‘low maintenance’; I associate the expression with someone who leaves her boyfriend alone with a beer and Monday night football, gives him his weekly fuck and a few blow jobs, cooks his dinner, otherwise leaving him alone. That’s not the girlfriend I’d want to be, and nothing could make me, barring a lobotomy. But as a rather rabid feminist, I have set the requirements for a good partner rather high, and yet Lucas manages to fulfil them. He isn’t into porn (for, I think, the same reasons I am not) and he washes his own socks. Granted, he was about as spoilt as I was when he started college, bringing his dirty laundry home when he visited over Thanksgivings, but I think it was less due to laziness and more in order to save those magic quarter. During our almost four years, I have washed for him twice. Both times because I was doing laundry anyway. Both times he thanked me for it. I don’t imagine that it will stay that way once we live together, as it would be ridiculous to keep separate laundry piles, but it’s a good sign. Four years of doing his own laundry will hopefully save me from the forty years of slave labor I see my mother perform.
When he was in high school, during a trip to Seattle, most of the guys in his group went to a striptease club. Lucas and another guy decided that they weren’t interested (I can’t remember what they did instead, but I imagine it had to do with video games.) He told me about this in the beginning of our relationship, and I can’t explain how many points he won there. Fantastic.
Three years ago, I went on the birth control pill. However, I got off of it fairly soon, and it fucked my body up quite bad. Most of my mucus membranes were damaged, and I couldn’t sit properly for half a year. Sex was completely out of the question for almost a full year, and still has to be limited; in fact, the psychological consequences of the pain still leaves me with issues. I only just recently could start wearing tight pants. If this would have happened now, I would have been less surprised by Lucas’ resilience, but it was when had only been together for a year. He could have ditched me within a month; how many twenty year old guys stay with a girlfriend from whom they’re getting no sex (if they don’t have religio-ideological reasons)? Not many.
I spend hours and hours at the computer, reading and writing blogs, talking to people, and reloading my LiveJournal friends list. Checking email. Designing something. Reloading my livejournal friends list. Lucas puts up with it, even when it annoys him. After he has spent five more minutes than I’d like on a video game, I pout (I should mention that we most often manage to cooperate on this; he plays his video games while I am online, and they don’t often collide.)
I fangirl, and squee, and freak out over ridiculous, geeky thing. He thinks it’s cute. I’ve never heard him loudly proclaim that some chick is hot, or caught him giving anyone a once-over while we’ve been out.

He doesn’t bring me flowers. He gives me teddy bats, DVDs and action figures. I’ve never ever received a generic present from Lucas. Well, he has given me flowers twice; two black silk roses in Valentine’s Day, and a bouquet of white lilies as a welcome-back present my third fall in the US. But never, ever, anything generic. When I was doing volunteering for a class, and got home around 1 p.m., tired and cranky, he had been to the mall to pick up a t-shirt I had been coveting for quite some time. He feeds me skittles. He calls me his lady Stardust. I tell you, he’s fantastic.

I haven’t updated the software this thing is running in… forever. Well, ever. Once I deleted the entire thing and put it back up, though. But that was long ago. I am not great with databases, and the whole back-up process confuses me.

On another topic, WHY is it so hard to write this project report? It’s on my absolute pet topic, how housewives have never really existed. And still I have to force myself to write.

Oh yeah. It’s sunny. As hell.

I bought a pretty, pretty shirt. It made me happy. I might be a girl. The thought is scary.

I suppose it is time to keep you updated again? I am delightfully bad at keeping this thing up, I ought to engage a little more in public debate. This time, I don’t even have the excuse of school work, it’s been very medium-leveled of late.

The good news: I am returning to my parents’ house the 20th of May. I will stay there over the summer, while (hopefully – I don’t know it for 100% yet) working at an eldercare just across the street. Towards the end of August I will fly back to Washington, and Lucas will have spent the summer looking for an apartment in Seattle. It’s all very yay, especially as Lucas’ parents are informed about the upcoming mawwiage and there’s no reason to be sneaky about it (my parents? mum didn’t have to be told, she sort of just looked at me and knew.) Thus, my current worries include the visa application process (temporary visa with the intention of bringing an alien fiancé/e to the United States for marriage) and getting the job.

FYI, the filling out of forms has had Lucas start calling me “Miss Alien Martian from the Moon.”

Aside from that, I have to ethnology projects left this semester, a project report and a paper (the paper will be turned in via email and I’ll go back down here and present it on June 7th.) I must say it’s been a good semester academics-wise; I’ve been able to bring the gender aspect into basically all of my project, and will in the final paper also. I might not be outta here with a Master’s, but I’ll know more, a lot more, than I did when I came.

(oh, and I should probably warn you: as soon as I get going with this project, there will with all probability be an entry that bitches about people’s lack of knowledge in relation to the housewife ideal and “working women”. Heh.)

I am still alive! Who’d have thunk, eh?

I would like to once again point out that no, I didn’t design this. I have a design, but I haven’t applied it yet.

I have a place to live! I am currently living in a house in Bjärred, outside of Lund. There are six of (OK, I scared Mr. German Dude, but at least he got the point when I told him not to open the window. It’s freezing!) us living here, three swedes and three Germans. It’s alright, 20 minutes by bus from Lund, nice house, all that. Internet just started working. But I am about *this* close to getting a corridor room in Lund, and I might take it. The move will be awkward, but it’d be closer and I’d save a few hundred bucks by the end of the year. We’ll see.

Today is Joker Day! It’s the special day! It’s the annalucas day! Today, three years ago, Lucas and I got together (kind of.) Today, two years ago we got engaged. Which, yes, is a little soon. But this -being far away from each other for a prolonged amount of time- is why.

… which leads me to: I am coming back. In a year. When I’ve finished my year here, I will work through the summer and go back to the US in the fall. And Lucas and Anna will get married and live happily ever after, or at least after having acquired a cat. No one’s life is complete without a cat.

I am writing a paper. It’s the equiv of a Master’s thesis (yes, already. But it’s not due until February)… I already said this, didn’t I? Sucks to be me. Anyway, today was the first day of the Higher Seminar in Applied Philosophy, which is mainly for PhD students and profs, but where Master’s student are somewhat expected to participate. I was nervous, but it was as expected. A bunch of guys (literally. There were 15 of us, and I was the only female) discussing and nitpicking semi-interesting things. Today’s paper was on meta-ethics, so I was moderately amused. Next week, however, is on speciesism. Mmm, interesting.

It is hard to get used to the not-Erinness of Lund. I am used to gender and philosophy being closely connected, and here, it’s… not. I still haven’t been at the centre for gender studies, but it’s generally looked down on a little by the guys up at Kungshuset (the philosophy building. Or so it seems anyway. It’s a little… “Fem… what? postmodern French people, eh? Lit is over there, begone!” over it. I miss Erin. I ought to email her. I ought to email a lot of people now that I can.

But the HBT group has a thing I am going to tomorrow! Yay!

It’s late. There is another book on pragmatism waiting for me in my room. I ought to get to bed,

I wrote the stuff below for my eljay in April, but figured I’d share it here. It is obviously by Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods and the character Sam. Like she did, I list what I believe.

I decided to, like Lucas did a few months ago, do a Sam. It might be long, it might be short. Whatever.

I believe that there are no gods or ‘higher power’, I believe that there is nothing beyond the material, but that that isn’t as pitiful as it sounds, I believe that humanity will cause its own extinction in the near future, and that this isn’t a bad thing. I believe that we’ll also cause death of most other things on this planet, and that’s worse. I believe that with time, it will heal. I believe that time is relative and that we are small and pity creatures. I believe that this is somewhat precious, in an ironic way.

I believe that it is never true freedom to be able to enslave others. I believe that a woman’s body is her own and that a the father should never be able to overrule a (affirmative or negative) abortion decision because he is not the one doing the work, feeling the physical pain. I believe that there is no need for a ’special (exclusive) connection’ between mother and child after birth if the father participates equally in nurturing. I believe that modern GYN exams and mammograms are the products of misogyny and will looks different if society changes. I believe that most people consider gender to be fixed because they don’t think or know enough about the world.

I believe that most ‘conservative’ opinions are caused by lack of information or misinformation. Or maybe lack of empathy.

I believe emotional empathy to be strong, but overrated as a ground for action, as people have different amounts of it. I believe that rationality is nonexistent. I believe there to be no good reason for decision making whatsoever. I find it amazing how some people still manage to make good decisions. I believe that relativism is morally unjustifiable, and that absolutism is an illusion.

I believe that love is simple, but not necessarily kind. I believe that the world has only formal qualities -it just is, not good or bad.

I believe that some things that are considered sexually deviant are just parts of sexuality most people suppress. I believe that other things considered sexually deviant are ills caused by the culture we live in. I believe ‘culture’ as source of qualities is underrated because it is underestimated. Everything we do other than eat, drink, sleep, talk and walk upright is culture.

I believe that every form of violence and oppression are interconnected systems and that unless we notice that we’ll get nowhere solving anything. I believe that it’s hard work but must be done. I believe that Aristotle and Paul respectively are more responsible for more of this development that any other individuals we know of.

I believe that stupidity and ignorance are unrelated but that one of them tend to invite the other. I believe that 98% of the world population are fundamentally stupid. I believe that there are equal amounts of stupid people in every culture, sexual orientation, sex, religion, and country.

I believe that although men are also oppressed by western patriarchy, they fundamentally gain from it and most of them will not let go unless forced to. I believe forcing them is a fundamental part of getting equality – not changing the inequality from one group to another. Privilege needs to go away. I believe that education can go far, but only so far.

I believe that the human world is a lot more plastic and capable of change than people think. I believe because humans think is is, it becomes static. I believe that if a time machine would ever be invented, so universe would in an instant become nothing; it never will have existed. I believe the universe to be impossible, and that exists anyway.

I believe that one day, people will worship David Bowie as a god. I believe that music has deteriorated in the west the last 15 years due to music videos. I believe that beauty ideals have always been unattainable by 95% of all people, that they are fundamentally bad but will never go away. I believe I will never be able to shop wishing I was 100 lbs.

I believe that sports and entertainment media are indeed a part of manufacturing consent.

I believe in the cuteness of kittens, the beauty of ravens and my own sense of melodrama

I was reading an article (a column, actually) in a Swedish newspaper… I am not sure why I even bothered. Anyway. It was re: International Women’s Day, and the title was “I am tired of all feminists”. Not written, mind you, by a middle aged man who lost his job/a prestigious debate/ the right to insult his secretary because of a young woman with feminist beliefs. Nope. Just a women in her forties. Who can’t, in my belief, have anything to lose to feminism. Her problem?

Well, I should be tolerant and all that shit. But since the main part of her rather pathetic argument (I am not saying this to be mean, normally she makes great arguments, although I have yet to find myself agreeing with any of her point) was against lesbians having kids and she ended the text with proposing a national day for heteronormativity and “boring, married women who like men,” I can only guess that she felt threatened by increased rights for gay people and people in same-sex relationships.* Which is understandable. I am convinced that people prefer the status quo at all times, and that, as the early pragmatists said, knowledge spreads like a grease stain in fabric -slowly, unwillingly. And to be honest, gay rights and the gender debate is a big topic in Sweden right now. We don’t have as much of a history, but we are doing way better than the US at this point.

This is not what pisses me off. The KJ in me, or at least the Anna that has taken far too many anthropology classes for someone who claims she doesn’t like them, knows enough about family structures around the globe to say that it is if not idiotic, then at least very naive, to prefer the Western nuclear family. In addition, the definition of a nuclear family (within anthropology) is rapidly changing, and has come to mean only a woman and her offspring, not mommy-daddy-kids. Not because anyone dislikes men, or because they are not considered important, but because there are multiple societies where fathers are not present as a part of the constant nucleus at all, for economic, religious, or just plain cultural reasons (think polygynous society: a man has multiple kids with multiple wives. Where is the nucleus if not with every woman and her offspring? Or in a matrifocal society like the Garifuna, where the sire of the children participate only by sending money every so often, because he is working in the few places where there are jobs?) Does anyone seriously believe that these kids grow up with gross personality problems because of lack of father figures? Please, please please people, stop referring to the importance of parents of both sexes without knowing the facts. Maybe the reason kids with divorced ‘rents who grew up without a father are messed up to a larger degree than those with two parents is that they have to live with the knowledge that they were abandoned by one of the people who created them?

That was number one. The second issue I have is with her phrase “… who like men.” Because only straight non-feminist women like men. All lesbian hate men. All feminists hate men. Why do people think that just because you don’t support the general dominance of one group, you dislike all the individuals within it? I don’t understand how she can see this, and still not notice the underlying misogyny that is everywhere. Beer ads. Reality teevee. Rape trials. Book reviews. It is one thing to be the privileged group and talk about violence against a non-privileged group (please don’t argue with me on this point: we live in a patriarchy. I will be okay with you arguing with anything else, or with the value judgement of it, but this is a fact. Patriarchy is defined as a system that privileged the interest of men as a group over that of other groups. I think we fill the definition; we have yet to see a female prime minister, you have yet to see a female president.) It is completely different for a non-privileged group (namely, women) to talk about violence against the privileged group (namely men) because the will have less of an opportunity to carry it out, and because it means something else coming from another angle. To hit downwards and to hit upwards are two entirely different things. A drunk frat guy hating girls because one wouldn’t sleep with him once is different from women with lives full of mistreatment, discrimination and maybe even rapes making jokes about making it even. That’s what makes S.C.U.M funny. In addition, the way western patriarchy has tied its power and prestige to the phallus to the extent that it is now suffering from collective castration anxiety is *really* amusing.

Point three. In the same paragraph, she talks about men being not only the main perpetrators, but also main victims, of violence, and of her being tired of the gender debate. Excuse me? Maybe the fact that this situation exists to begin with is a sign that there is something fucked up about how men are trained to be, well, men? Maybe they’d be less of both perpetrators and victims if the debate was kept alive, if the functions of gender were investigated.

Four. The passive-aggressiveness about just being a boring straight women. BS- it’s the belief that other people’s sexuality being OK would suddenly make one’s own invalid. In a situation where no one’s sexuality is ’special’, no one’s sexuality is boring, either.

Five. We don’t have heteronomative day because every day is. Because a straight married woman is as high status in the eyes of society as it goes. She has daycare for her kids. (well, in Sweden she does) She goes to the GYN and the right assumptions are made.

Feminist is needed because women are afraid, and rightfully so. Because even in “the world’s most equal country” 50/50 salaries are not always the case, because raped women are asked what they were wearing and robbed men aren’t, because fewer women are CEOs, professors, and ministers. Because a boy can still be beaten up for wearing eye-liner, and a girl for not. Because we still wear those ridiculous shoes.

* Basically, the same thing that happened with the marriage amendments in the US.