Today in Labor History April 27, 1759: Mary Wollstonecraft, was born. She was an English philosopher, historian, and early feminist who advocated for women’s rights. In her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she argued that women are not naturally inferior to men, but only appeared to be because they lacked education. She married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the first modern proponents of anarchism. She was also the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein.
’Slut’ is attacking women for their right to say yes. ‘Friend Zone’ is attacking women for their right to say no, and “bitch” is attacking women for their right to call you on it.
Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism, by Sheila Jeffreys
The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, by Janice Raymond
I haven’t read Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier just yet but it’s on my list.
See, unlike radfems who refuse to read trans-positive literature and who refuse to read intersectional feminist books that (gasp) defend men, I am not afraid to read books by people I disagree with.
It’s why I’m able to debate radfems so well – I’ve read their literature. They haven’t read mine, and are often completely unaware of the criticisms of the history of their own movement.
If you would like to read some trans-positive books and intersectional feminism, check out these books:
The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love by bell hooks
On Intersectionality: Essential Writings, by Kimberlé Crenshaw
Stone Butch Blues, by Leslie Feinberg
And, one book that isn’t specifically under the umbrella of intentional intersectional feminism. I include this one because it was so influential on me as a young teen when I read it:
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
If anyone has additional trans-positive or intersectional feminism books they recommend, please put them in the comments below!
To believe all males oppress all females, you have to believe sex is the most powerful axis of privilege and that it overrides all other forms of privilege.
In radical feminism, the belief is that sex is the single most powerful axis of oppression. They think every male, no matter how marginalized, has power over every female, no matter how privileged.
I don’t believe that is true, and many modern (intersectional) feminists don’t. That is the major point of disagreement in radfem vs intersectional theory.
"We need to stop teaching young women that divorce is the last option. Run at the absolute first sign of violent/manipulative/ controlling behaviour. Fuck the divorce rate"
This is important to anyone of any gender/sex, if you are being abused GET OUT
(I know that it can be difficult, I have even needed to become homeless to escape abuse)
I had a weird experience in a previous job. As it is long in the past, I thought now was a good time to blog about it. I worked in a hip office. Everyone was trendy and right-on. It was a heavily female dominated industry and the office politics were biased towards intersectional feminism. Which […]
Und auch deshalb ist die Digitalisierung, die früher oder später unweigerlich auf eine Post-Privacy-Gesellschaft herausläuft, in erster Linie eine Dystopie:
"As abortion bans across the nation are implemented and enforced, law enforcement is turning to social media platforms to build cases to prosecute women seeking abortions or abortion-inducing medication – and online platforms like Google and Facebook are helping. "
Google und Facebook/Meta geben Nutzer:innendaten an die US-amerikanische Polizei weiter, damit diese Menschen verfolgen kann, die Informationen zu Abtreibungen suchen.
Und das ist nur ein Beispiel. Morgen kann schon illegal sein, was heute noch legal ist und etwaige Datenschutzgesetze können auch in Europa gelockert werden, während die Überwachungsinfrastruktur, Digitalzwänge/Abhängigkeiten und der Zugriff auf Gesundheitsdaten immer invasiver werden.
The biopolitical surveillance regime - friendly sponsered by Twitter's official partners
U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr
"Twitter’s “official partner” monitored the precise time and location of post-Roe demonstrations, internal emails show.
Dataminr, an “official partner” of Twitter, alerted a federal law enforcement agency to pro-abortion protests and rallies in the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, according to documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request."
Fuck off #Google!
Don't let Google & co. take over our lives and spaces!
"Google steals and exploits our #data for profit and turned this behaviour into a norm. It also colonizes our physical spaces. Google canceled its plan for a ‘Google Campus’ in Kreuzberg, Berlin under pressure by the neighborhood; yet it continues its expansion worldwide.
As a decentralized network of people, we want to keep our lives and spaces free from this law- and tax-evading company and its peers, and oppose the dystopian future they offer.
More on our wiki....." https://wiki.fuckoffgoogle.de/index.php?title=Main_Page
I see there are multiple TV/streaming adaptations of Liu Cixin's #ThreeBodyProblem. I found the first novel fascinating and disturbing just like so many, and worthy of the awards and praise.
But I don't see people talk enough about the sexism and homophobia in the two sequels, where compassion is equated with femininity and "too much" compassion is ultimately the downfall of humanity. As the story progresses, embracing gender diversity and alternatives to traditional roles is depicted as a sign of decadence and decay in the human species. It's a grim, individualistic, and patriarchal view of the future in many ways. I hope the TV shows (especially the Netflix adaptation if it goes past the first book) do better.
I'm overdue for an #introduction, especially with all you new followers…so here goes.
I'm a software engineer with a degree in Anthropology. I highly recommend the combo.
Most recently I was tech lead for Scaled Human Review at Meta. I worked in the Integrity Foundation (what other companies call "Trust and Safety") on Better Engineering initiatives and #Metaverse integration, with the teams that build human review software for the 30-40K external reviewers. I'd sworn I’d never work at Facebook, but I decided to see if I could make a difference. I couldn’t. And it wasn't a good fit for either of us. But I learned a lot about how the sausages are made and why they have such a hard time with #contentmoderation.
I've been on #socialmedia for four decades (seriously, I saw someone catfished in chat in 1978—this stuff isn't new), and virtually everyone I know I met online somewhere—many I've still never met in person. Needless to say, that's made me pretty passionate about making online communities safe for everyone, and especially marginalized groups.
I'm now a freelance #consultant, working on my own projects (I'll write more on that later), and with my wife's #consulting company (see below). I'm planning to do a lot more writing about #society and #technology (as well some #SFF), and to travel more.
I tend to write long posts (like this one). They may get shorter once my blog is back up. I don't stick to one topic, but I'll try to tag them so you can filter. I post about tech stuff (recent, as well as old geeky #Unix stuff), #social issues, #LGBTQ issues (especially the T), pretty #photos, and random personal anecdotes. When I boost, it's because I think it's something that might be interesting to someone, or some group, that follows me. Those tend to include all the above topics, plus SF&F-related things, and cool science stuff.
I'm #pan, #poly, #nonbinary (or #genderqueer, if you prefer). I prefer "they" for pronouns, but "he" is fine. I spent most of my life thinking I really was a straight cis man who just happened to be a bit quirky and a passionate and tearful ally, so I'm not too picky about how you refer to me. I'm also more than happy to answer any questions about all that, public or private.
I grew up mostly in #Maine and then lived in Massachusetts for a long time, but I now live on sovereign #Swinomish land in #WashingtonState (US), on the edge of the San Juan islands. Despite my first name (that's a story) and current location, I'm not Native American, although I focus a lot on Native American rights. My parents were both active in that area, and that was my introduction to civil rights in general.
I've been a #software engineer at various levels (from programmer to CTO to company founder) for 40+ years. I learned BASIC in high school, taught myself Pascal, FORTRAN and PL/1 in college, learned C as an intern at Bell Labs (Murray Hill, one floor up from the Unix crew), and went on from there. In college, I majored in #Anthropology with a concentration in #Psychology, and that's influenced the way I look at software ever since. Software is designed for people. Software systems build communities (whether intended or not). Anyone who does that damn well better understand how people and #communities work.
I've worked for Bell Labs (psych stats), Sperry Research (window systems, UX design), Apollo/HP (programmable shell, windowing systems, Unix porting, UX design), Bright Ideas (cookbook, educational games), OSF (windowing standards), Alfalfa (multimedia email - SMTP and X.400 :)), Wildfire (phone-based voice assistant), Utopia/USWeb (web and security consulting), Saroca (small boats), Messagefire (anti- #spam software), MessageGate (corporate compliance software), Somewhere (software consulting), ZeeVee (web video aggregation, metadata scraping), TiVo (video content correlation, #metadata pipelines), and Meta. Plus a few others.
I've been with my wife, Dr. Mollie Pepper, for over a decade. She's a #sociologist with a focus on #refugee migration, #gender, and violence; the kind of work that gives you PTSD. She did her dissertation on women's roles in the (now extremely defunct) peace process in #Myanmar (aka #Burma). A year ago she was at a military base frantically processing thousands of Afghan refugees and managing translators. She has a consulting company that specializes in evaluating and designing refugee service and placement programs. You can find her at https://carlsonpepper.com/. Everything I know about #feminism, #intersectionality, #queer theory, #CRT, and #racism I either learned from her, or she gave me the theoretical underpinnings to understand them properly.
I have two grown daughters from my first marriage with Nassim Fotouhi; a kick-ass software engineer/engineering manager who came to the States just before the Iranian revolution.
Shadi Fotouhi is an artist (see my profile background photo, go look up the drug codes and compare them to the mermaids' behavior) turned software engineer; building dynamic room installations will do that to you. She worked in QA at a gaming company, and then at Jibo; a robotics startup. Now she's a senior software engineer at Wayfair--Kubernetes, release configuration, and all that fun stuff.
Shireen Hinckley is a documentarian, digital image technician, video editor, and co-founder of Somewhere Films (https://www.somewherefilms.com/shireen-hinckley); a womxn's filmmaking collective. She works for #Beyoncé at Parkwood Entertainment, where she's an editor and post-production supervisor for all of their video releases. She worked on "Black is King" and just about every video since then, whether it's for Instagram, Times Square, Tiffany's, the Oscars, or Chloe x Halle. No, I can't tell you when the Renaissance visual album will be out—but it will be amazing.
I'm incredibly honored to have those wonderful women in my life. I wouldn't be who I am without them.
A couple other things that may come up, especially in my photos. My mother is an artist who lives in Maine in a round house she designed, and the family built, when I was in high school. And I'm part owner of a #lighthouse on Cape Cod.