When "Sorry" isn't nearly enough: a reading response

(reading response to Baghdad Burning readings)

I feel like a horrible person for wanting to say that I viewed the lives of most Iraqis as less advanced than the average American. I wanted to believe that the tiniest bit of good had come out of the US presence. In reading

I think that's why blogs like Riverbend's are so crucial. So many people assume so many things. We let the Mainstream Media (known as the MSM in some blog circles) tell us what to think and give us hand picked facts. As much as I <3 href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/">Rachel Maddow I know that she has editorial control over the facts and quotes being used.

That's the magic of the internet. suddenly people are able to go to the original sources, to see the tables and studies, to read the documents, and to draw their own conclusions from them. We are able to read accounts from people on the ground so we can gain new perspectives. We can see what it's like for a regular Iraqi woman but they're not the only people trying to survive. I think the flipside of this blog is something like "My War: Killing Time in Iraq" which is the war from an Army grunt's point of view.


I have a friend on the ground in Iraq right now. Some thirty miles outside of Baghdad he works his ass off every day and I'm proud of him for having the balls to willingly sign up to try to make things better in Iraq, his honest intent in joining. I'm not conservative but I have a problem with people who blame the guys on the ground just trying to stay alive.

I'm sorry that things are the way they are. I'm genuinely sorry to all parties who are suffering for it, the people of Iraq, the soldiers who have been wounded, the soldiers who are serving multiple tours, the people who have died on both sides of the conflict. I'm sorry that war has gone the way it has. I'm sorry that we invaded for empty lies. I'm sorry that we've started to build a wall to divide the city. I'm genuinely sorry for all of this but I can't help feeling that someone, somewhere in Iraq is better for Saddam not being in power.

That's why blogs like this are important: we are forced to view the war as not just two nebulous entities fighting in a way only visible on paper but as a person to person conflict. These are real people who are fighting for their lives. The world needs to realize that. The army isn't just GI Joes in straight lines firing their guns with no emotion or remorse at generic stereotypical Iraqi citizens dressed in traditional arab garb, toting rocket launchers. We need to stop missing the human element.



Stay safe Eric. I owe you a beer when you get home and you'd damn well better make it back to drink it with me.

Susan Boyle, the average person, and media cynicism: A blog response

I find it mildly amusing that I'm responding to a blog post from a blog in our class.
Liz posted on her blog, Women with Pants, about YouTube sensation Susan Boyle and her famous Britan's Got Talent audition.

I was planning on commenting directly on her blog but as I was writing it began to get out of hand and I decided to give my response it's own post over here on my blog.


I know we all enjoy the schadenfreude of watching Simon Cowell rip a less than amazing contestant but Piers Morgan can be just as horrible if not worse than Simon. I think that she should be so admired for having such courage and resolve in the face of such ugly cynicism.

Auditions are brutal no matter who you are and the fact that we enjoy the public humiliation of those who aren't wildy successful is somewhat sickening. I've worked in theatre and everyone willing to stand up on the stage and audition is braver than me. I have done some acting in high school but I never had the courage to audition for anything.

I genuinely wish the media would leave her alone in some ways. She strikes me as a particularly simple and practical woman. It drives me nuts that the media is pulling in every direction and wants more from her. They want the next level of awesome or awful. I dread that with so much exposure to the media people will start feeling more comfortable lobbing harsh criticism and outright insult at her.

What is it about our society that we require more and more?

What is it about us that we like The Starry Night better if someone takes a print, punches holes in the sky portion of the painting, and then backlights it so it's like a carnival! (I have seen it but I couldn't find it on the internet)
WTF?!

Why are we not content to just enjoy that people are generally remarkable whether we expect them to be or not and why are we only happy when they are remarkable in very specific ways?



I find it somewhat ironic that she chose to sing "I Dreamed a Dream". To be honest, it was the strongest I've ever heard it sung.

ManPants: the project that ate my life

So I finished my project about spending a day dressed as a man. Holy Cheese it took me over 10 hours to finish editing the video and I did a pretty shoddy job of it and then wrote one of the worst papers I've ever written. It was one of those wow-this-doesn't-make-a-lot-of-sense-but-I-don't-have-time papers. Awesome.

Here's hoping that 20% of my grade didn't just vanish into nothing.

To be honest the project became half for my soc class and half for this class looking at gender and how it's constructed and how it relates to me. It was incredibly important to me to take it seriously and give it everything I could.

Interestingly my parents and my sister literally laughed at me and my efforts and refused to recognize that this was personally emotionally significant for me. As a result I'm still mad at them and they're confused and annoyed. This should be fun.

In case you're wondering I'm very aware that I didn't manage to pass and I look really bizarre in the photo.

I decided to prepare it in the form of a video diary because I can get my thoughts out much faster that way. I was annoyed that youtube made me split it into two parts because of the length. It essentially comes out to 17 minutes of gender based navel gazing but whatever.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "ManPants: A Day as a Dude"!!

Anonymous Bosch: blogging, gender, and my mom.

*a side note: my post on the readings won't be up until at least mid-morning due to my life exploding like a marshmallow in a microwave*

It was an ordinary weekend until I found this video on feministing. It's a documentary about three biological females who identify as genderqueer and their struggles in life. It may seem like no big deal but I remembered seeing part of this documentary with my mom when it first came on LOGO a few years ago.

My mom is great. She's loving and supportive and loves the gay community. When we were watching this documentary together she kept asking me if I was going to end up getting a sex change and that she didn't know if she could handle that. I said I wasn't and I wouldn't. Then I left the room and didn't finish watching the documentary.

This weekend I finished it and now I'm freaking out.

My mom said she read my blog post about my hair and was worried I was going to get a sex change. I told her not to read my blog because it's very personal. If I talk about something personal on my blog chances are I don't want to talk about it in person. Example: my gender identity. Because this is so personal if she's reading it and asking me about it in person I feel angry and betrayed. This is like my journal.

Odds are you haven't met me. You don't have any established ideas about who I am and what I should be. You have no real choice but to accept me as I am or move on. If you make me uncomfortable I can delete your comment or go to a different page or turn off my computer. You aren't going to grill me during a family dinner about the odds of me having male chest reconstruction surgery.


I'm not ready to say anything verbally. I'm just not. It's a coping mechanism: if I don't say it out loud it isn't real. I'm not ready for it to be real. I want to be left alone to sort this one out. This is personal. This is not a family matter.

Seeing that documentary just reminded me about all the stuff with my gender and my mom and the ideas of privacy in a world as public as the internet.

One of the biggest reasons the internet is great for spreading ideas and activism is that it's safe. There is no risk of someone throwing rocks at you or recognizing you from work and threatening to tell someone that you have beliefs others may not agree with. The anonymity of the net allows people to safely be who they really want to be.

Right now I need that.

So Mom, if you're reading this, please stop. Everything I write here is mine. My life, not yours. If it's important enough I will tell you when I'm ready. Right now I'm not ready.




Why is my gender suddenly an epic issue?
I'm gearing up for a major project in my Contemporary Sexualities class. I'm spending a day dressed as a guy.

Holy.Frak.

I'm both psyched and utterly terrified mostly because tomorrow I will not only be observing how the world treats me I will also be observing how I feel about myself presenting a masculine gender. The scary part? I might like it. I might hate it and never want to do it again but I don't know yet. The whole ordeal makes me feel as though I don't know myself. My little box I've lived in for my whole life could potentially be blown to bits. In the words of Stewie Griffin of Family Guy, "I don't like change!!" (I know Family Guy is horrible on a million levels but it makes me laugh and I don't feel like analyzing it right now.)






I'll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck. I could use some moral support right about now.

Genderfork: a blog response

One of the things I enjoy most in the world is peoplewatching. I like imagining myself as an outside observer in the world like Jane Goodall among the chimps or Birute Galdikas among the orangutans, perched with a notebook and pencil. I tend to peoplewatch with an unnerving intensity because I often do not understand how I am "supposed to act" and I never have. I often watch to see how other people interact. I'll try to discern patterns of behavior and understand them. I suppose it's quirks like this that cause my love of more abstract blogs like Genderfork.

Genderfork is mostly photos including images of androgyny and profiles of people who defy gender norms in some way but it also includes quotes from commenters and contributors. These quotes are my favorite parts because they are often thoughtful, thought provoking, insightful and in some ways beautiful. When I found the following quote I nearly cried because I felt suddenly less alone in my somewhat scary and liberating realizations about gender. I think people often underestimate the comfort provided by gender roles.

The small question at the bottom of the quote pushes people to start interacting and asking questions. If you hadn't guessed by now, I firmly believe that opening up a dialogue is one of the best ways we can improve our world in all ways.

My Hair = My Gender Identity

Right about now someone reading this blog is saying wtf? And to be honest I completely understand where they're coming from.

It's hair. It grows. You cut it. Other than styling it to look one way or another what possible effect could your hair have on your life?

I can't speak for other people but for me it turned out to be a huge piece of who I am and my gender identity. I didn't realize just how huge until today when I was having difficulty coming up with a good way to style my hair so my sister recommended that I style it a certain way which feels particularly femme: the front half of my hair plastered down and the back a little spiky and teased. It's still short and still too butch for my mom (but what isn't?) but it felt wrong.

My hair felt wrong and it bothered me all day. I felt physically uncomfortable because my hair didn't match how I feel about myself, about my gender, about my sexuality, about how I feel about how I look.

I've spent a lot of time over the past few months thinking about my gender and who I am. This is probably because I'm in a Contemporary Sexualities class that addresses gender within sexuality but there have been a lot of other things. Needless to say I've been looking for resources to help me sort out exactly who I am or come to terms with not knowing the answer.

In this quest I have come across two invaluable tools.

• The first is the gender pioneer Kate Bornstein who authored the amazing "My Gender Workbook" which I feel should be required reading for the world. It pushes people to completely re-evaluate the way the gender dichotomy works and how we exist within it. I consider that to be somewhat profound.
  
  As I learned about Bornstein I wanted to read more of hir work and sought hir out on the internet and discovered ze has a blog! It's updated sporadically but the observations ze makes are well worth the wait. http://katebornstein.typepad.com/
  

• The second resource I discovered was a random blog I found through a Google search, The Sugarbutch Chronicles. Authored by Sinclair Sexsmith, the observations about gender from the perspective of a butch lesbian versus someone who is transgender or non-gendered are a brilliant reference. I will warn that gender is not her only focus. The blog can be very sexually explicit and involves reviews and discussion of sexual topics. It's definitely an 18+ blog but that doesn't detract from it's brilliance.

Without these two blogs I would undoubtedly be wandering around with my hair in an uncomfortable ponytail not knowing why I was unhappy with the world.

It turns out it starts with my hair.

Infinity and beyond

The way the web is built completely blows me away every time I try to really wrap my head around it. It's like trying to think about the size of the universe and then something beyond that.

I'm going to throw down a HUGE g33k reference now and invoke the japanime films and cartoon series "Ghost in the Shell" based on the manga of the same name. One of my favorite aspects of the GitS (Ghost in the Shell) universe is their conceptualization of the future of the web. It's all very sci-fi and bizarre but the gist is everyone has the capability to link directly to a massive net via a neural implant referred to as a cyberbrain. There is a visualization of the net that is shown in multiple episodes and consists of many linked minds sharing ideas and information. As a complete G33K I find these images strangely moving and beautiful. My real point in bringing up something as bizarre and obscure as GitS is that we have no tangible proof that the web exists, that it connects people across continents. It just does.

Think about that for a second. There is something that is a near living entity as it depends entirely on living beings to create and update and change it. It connects millions of people around the world and it just works. It is never the same from instant to instant. It is music and visual art and movies and arguments and manifestos of every variation and breaking news. That little icon on your desktop gives you access to almost the entire world. This may not seem like much but when you're someone in need of a community to belong to and be accepted into then it is everything.

I am Bipolar II. It's the less severe sibling of what people normally think of when they hear the word "Bipolar." Interestingly I had more issues coming to terms with being Bipolar than I did coming to terms with being a lesbian. I spent a years struggling with mental health and then my diagnosis. It wasn't until I discovered a web community known as "The Icarus Project" dedicated to providing people with Bipolar Disorder resources about treatment options, outlets for creativity, support in difficult times, and information in general. It was through this community that I came to understand that having Bipolar Disorder doesn't mean you become a disheveled homeless person screaming at a trash can outside of McDonald's the minute you have a manic or depressed episode. It gave me the confidence enough to own my illness and start doing something about it. And the community is still there anytime I need them.

It's not just me. It's women who've had abortions or transgender kids or activists or women who are pregnant or transgender individuals who are pregnant or people living in Gaza.

One of the reasons I enjoy the term "the net" is because if you fall a net will catch you and many times the internet provides the information and resources to help you save yourself. Not always, but often.

In using the web and blogs in particular people aren't limited to sharing a message or an idea with just the people in their community or people they call or the people they can get to read a pamplet or news article in a paper. People have the means to organize movements across countries and around the world using just an idea and some web savvy.

How crazy is that?