The Sunday Times has published an article by Eleanor Mills a few days ago, one that was most probably meant to be a scathing and intelligent critique of feminism, but about the only thing it achieved was making me irritated.

The title already suggests what we should expect: “Learning to be left on the shelf”. Left on the shelf, ladies. Like George Clooney for instance, he’s left on the shelf. And so is Daniel Craig, and Gerard Butler. Those barren spinsters.

The friend Mills is writing about seems a bit odd. “I really don’t know if I could have coped with being childless: I’d always thought I would be a mum. [...] I always thought I wanted an exotic man who would open up a whole new kind of life for me. But then, having lived abroad, I realised I had the life I wanted already. So I found a nice man who wanted kids – the kind I had always avoided before – and it all worked out.” So Mills’s friend who wanted to be a mum only sought men who didn’t want kids? That’s a bit… unusual.

Further in the article we find that due to feminism poor Eleanor has never learned how to be a wife and mother. “My mother bought my brothers dolls (which they used as guns) and me an early computer.” THAT IS JUST HORRIBLE. “No one, not my family or my teachers, ever said, “Oh yes, and by the way you might want to be a wife and mother too.” They were so determined we would follow a new, egalitarian, modern path that the historic ambitions of generations of women – to get married and raise a family – were intentionally airbrushed from their vision of our future.” How surprising that Eleanor has managed to land herself a husband and kids somehow! Even though she didn’t know how to do that at all due to her awful family and teachers forcing her to play with computers rather than dolls! “As they stare into a barren future, many singletons wish they’d put some of the focus and drive that has furnished them with sparkling careers, worn-out passports and glamorous social lives into the more mundane business of having a family.” That passage could have come straight from “Bridget Jones’s Diary”, except it would be funny in a self-mocking way. Here it’s just… odd. Barren future, dear? Singletons with glamorous social lives? Lay down the Chardonnay.

Truth is, there are exactly three things that REALLY separate women from men: men can’t get pregnant, they can’t give birth and they can’t breastfeed. Everything else men can do as well as women, and women as well as men. There are no biological differences that make it impossible for men to clean up, cook and change nappies. So when I am reading an article written by a woman that claims “we are realising that no job will ever love you back; that the graveyards are full of important executives; that the only people you are ever irreplaceable to are your family”, all I want to ask: how exactly is that different for men? Men don’t die, their jobs love them back and they don’t need families?

What Mills doesn’t seem to understand is that feminism has given women a choice — be it career or kids, it hasn’t expanded the day to 40 hours, forced women to become Fortune 500 CEOs or changed the biological limitations. The point of being a modern woman is not to be “a wife and mother” who cooks, cleans up, does the laundry, changes diapers, runs the errands and in addition to that all plops a 10 hour a day executive job on top, then emerges in the bathroom relaxed and pretty and ready for sex with her husband who Brought Home The Bacon (bacon makes one fat, by the way). It is instead having a choice: eat your cake, or keep it in the fridge, or sell it and buy something nice with the cash. Be a wife and mom, or be a professional, or try and balance both. The very same choice that men have more or less always had. It is, of course, not very sensible for a woman to get to the age of 45 dating only men who don’t want kids, then complain about being childless. But then, it is also not very sensible for a man to date only waitresses and models and complain about lack of intellectual stimulation. Feminism is not to blame for unrealistic expectations, ignorance or plain stupidity. Also, Mills met her husband backpacking in India — not something that most conservative moms would advice their daughters to do in order to become better wives and mothers — so perhaps the feministic idea that she could travel to foreign countries with a backpack wasn’t so man-repellent after all?

I have recently found a website the author of which was looking for intellectual, smart critique of modern feminism, and she was rather upset not to find any. This article isn’t it either. It’s conservative sexism pretending to be something better; a bit like Sarah Palin giving parenting advice, it might look pretty (especially as it’s written by a woman) and sound like it makes sense, but ultimately you’re better off without it.

(photo: Wikipedia)

Do you know what victim mentality is?

A person with victim mentality loves to lose, because they get a reason to rub it into everybody’s faces. “Pity me,” demands the victim. “I have been, as always, mistreated by fate.” Every day, every hour the victim finds a reason to pity themselves: they have a cold, the weather is bad, their diamond shoes too tight.

And then one day there is a real reason for self-pity. They break a leg, develop cancer or their house burns down. And then all self-pitying hell breaks lose. The victim suffers more than anybody has ever suffered, anywhere and anytime, and demands only the best quality pity to be descended upon them.

That’s what Poland has been like for the last nine days. Nine days of national mourning.

*

I have seen an article today with the headline: “During Polish president’s funeral, Obama has been playing golf.” What a horrible, horrible person Obama is! We should retaliate! He should have been watching every second of the horrible events, glued to TV, tears flowing down his face in sadness at the fact that he couldn’t have flown to Poland. Not playing *splutters* GOLF. Something sordid would have been a better choice. He could have perhaps been forgiven for playing bridge, while dressed in all black, in immaculate company of bishops. But NOT GOLF. I mean REALLY.

The Polish media haven’t really written about anything else than the deaths and the funeral for nine days. After two days they finally relented a bit and wrote some small side-line notes about the Icelandic volcano. (Have you heard that it was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes are scattered all over Europe??) The funeral has been transmitted live all over the world — I have seen it personally at my gym of all places? well, I have seen five seconds of it, which was as long as it took me to switch it off.

Russians have not only admitted that it was Stalin who ordered the massacre in Katyn 70 years ago, they have also played the Andrzej Wajda movie on public TV, provided all help, including financial and psychological help to families of the victims, responded positively to all Polish requests, and their prime minister has flown, despite the ash, to witness the funeral. The funeral has taken place in Cracow, hundreds of kilometers from Warsaw, where Kaczynski family lives and where the president spent most of his life. Cracow, you see, has a crypt on Wawel where kings of old have been buried, and so it is the only place respectable enough for Our President.

Thousands of people gathered to say goodbye? or, one could say, to eat a few hamburgers queuing with friends, be photographed with a coffin in the background, then go home and post pictures on Facebook. Polish politicians also gathered, in hopes of welcoming Obama, Sarkozy, Prince Charles and Dimitri Medvedev to the country. The papers printed longer and longer lists of guests, next to bigger and bigger photographs of dead president and his wife. Everything, of course, in tasteful black and white. TV stations cancelled all shows that could possibly be misread as ‘jolly’ and replaced them with priests and commenters discussing the possible repercussions and remembering Our President for the hero he apparently was.

Thing is: Our President will not be remembered positively by history. As a president of Warsaw he has mostly achieved total and utter paralysis of all decisions, stopped a few gay pride parades and had one museum built. As a president of Poland he has mostly kept himself busy with history-based politics, been photographed acting awkward with many foreign politicians and fought with the prime minister when it made sense and when it didn’t. His death in a plane accident has suddenly elevated him from the least popular president ever into a national hero who died for his views.

His death is the greatest thing that happened to Poland since the death of John Paul II. (It is not accidental that Poles keep on remembering JP2’s death anniversary, not the anniversary of his birth or him being elected the Pope.) Poland is, suddenly, front page news again. Not because of our incredible successes (there aren’t any), scientific achievements (there are few) or our pop stars, actors, sports personalities. Because of 96 people dying in a plane crash. Well done everyone, we are on the news. What a bloody shame Obama, Sarkozy and Prince Charles have cancelled. Also, as I have just read in this article, the American media haven’t reported on the tragedy often enough, the politicians haven’t reacted quickly enough and there aren’t enough flowers under the Katyn monuments in the US. Our president has died! And 95 other important people!!! We demand MORE PITY DAMMIT!!!

President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, chief of the president’s chancellery, chief of the National Security Office, National Bank of Poland chairman, deputy speaker of the lower house of Polish parliament, Foreign Ministry’s undersecretary of state, deputy minister of national defence, chief of the General Staff of Polish military have all died in a plane crash this morning. There are in total 96 or 97 (depending on report) victims, most of them highly important politicians or defence staff.

Words fail me when I try to even think of describing an enormous scale of the tragedy, so I won’t attempt to do so. “Shock” doesn’t even begin to tell my feelings right this moment.

May they all rest in peace — and may the country recover from such an unimaginable, enormous loss.

A band called OK Go explains the major mystery of the universe: WHY don’t labels want the videos to be embedded!!!

We?ve been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can’t be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can’t be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we?re sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it?s now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.

As you?ve no doubt noticed, sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Blahzayblahblah.cn run ads on copyrighted content. Back when Young MC’s second album (the one that didn’t have Bust A Move on it) could go Gold without a second thought, labels would?ve considered these sites primarily promotional partners like they did with MTV, but times have changed. The labels are hurting and they need every penny they can find, so they?ve demanded a piece of the action. They got all huffy a couple years ago and threatened all sorts of legal terror and eventually all four majors struck deals with YouTube which pay them tiny, tiny sums of money every time one of their videos gets played. Seems like a fair enough solution, right? YouTube gets to keep the content, and the labels get some income.

The catch: the software that pays out those tiny sums doesn?t pay if a video is embedded. This means our label doesn?t get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won?t let us be on your blog. And, voilá: four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist?s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we?re ? unbelievably ? stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It?s like the world has gone backwards.

Ha. As for whether EMI make more money selling records or charging YouTube for non-embeddable videos — and whether the goal of being a record label is to extract money off YouTube or sell records — remains the sweet secret of EMI shareholders.

I used to write a dating blog once, which was inspired largely by two people: Rachel Kramer-Bussel and Belle de Jour. Rachel was brave enough to write about sex under her real name, and with photographs; Belle wanted to keep her anonymity, as a high-end call girl who also had a day job. She wrote and published books under her assumed name; a BBC TV series was made, based on her books, starring Billie Piper; not even her agent knew who she was. Until now.

In an interview with Sunday Times, which may or not may be inspired by the fact there is an ex-boyfriend with a big mouth, and Daily Mail might or not have contacted Belle beforehand to try and strike a deal, the identity of the anonymous blogger is revealed, and it is way impressive. “Her name is Dr Brooke Magnanti. Her specialist areas are developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. She has a PhD in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science and is now working at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health. She is part of a team researching the effects of exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos on foetuses and infants.” She worked as a call-girl for 14 months, because she ran out of money while writing her PhD and couldn’t get a job in the field before she completed it.

I remember reading Belle’s blog and being impressed by the quality of writing; by her stories; by her no-nonsense, no-guilt approach to being a sex worker. A lot of people liked to think that, yes, perhaps Belle was a prostitute and didn’t feel guilty about it, but she was fictional; now Dr Magnanti’s revelation means that not only she is real, but also 1) a woman, 2) very attractive, 3) very intelligent and educated — and still she feels no guilt or remorse about having worked as a call girl. People who like to say all prostitutes are drug addicts and/or half-brain-half-biscuit self-hating miserable beings who hate themselves will have a tough time explaining that one.

“How many men has she slept with for money? ?A lot.? Dozens? Hundreds? ?I can?t honestly remember,? she says, laughing. ?Somewhere between dozens and hundreds.? Then India Knight, who conducted the interview, adds: “The laughter isn?t entirely convincing”. Of course it isn’t, India, it would be so disturbing if it was, right? She MUST feel guilty, even if she says she doesn’t. “I scrutinise her face without quite knowing what I?m looking for ? dead eyes, maybe, like in a movie, or something a bit grim and hard around the mouth. But both are perfectly normal; she is, if anything, sweet-faced and gentle-looking.” It would be so much more handy if she was a tough street-wise lady who barks in baritone while shooting around icy cold looks that could kill a cockroach, wouldn’t it?

“No regrets, then? Did she ever feel lonely? ?Sometimes. But, again, because of the writing, not because of the sex. And being anonymous is no fun. No jolly lunches to celebrate the book?s success; I couldn?t even go to my own launch party. On the plus side, I didn?t have to do book tours.? Until now. ?Yes, until now.?

I am not saying being a sex worker is a piece of cake, and/or that every single woman or man who has ever worked in that particular business has enjoyed it thoroughly and feels no remorse. But then, I never claimed to know what every single sex worker feels like — unlike the conservative right, who fight to delegalise prostitution and pornography because it objectifies women, without asking women themselves how they feel about it. I believe that it is this approach — the holier-than-thou “I know what you feel like better than you do” — that really objectifies people. And I am very happy to see that Belle/Brooke will not bow and admit that she feels guilty and unhappy and wishes that sex and liquor never tempted her towards the sinful life.

(Plus, I hope that Belle’s blog will continue.)

(Picture from Rod 2.0.)

I am fascinated and saddened at the same time by Caster Semenya’s story; as everybody and their dog knows, Caster is a South African runner who competed in the 800m women’s race, won it, then became a centre of gender controversy that revealed her (unofficially) to be intersexed with no uterus or ovaries. She is now reportedly on suicide watch and receiving trauma counselling which is hardly surprising considering that she is 18 years old, her world fell into pieces and her face is plastered all over the media for all the wrong reasons.

The case poses a lot of questions. First, how to give Semenya justice? She has won the race she has partaken in, but as an intersexed person she supposedly shouldn’t compete against women, because that gives her an unfair advantage. But then, should she compete against men? Why? That would result in an unfair disadvantage.

Should her medal be revoked? Semenya herself did not know about the possible gender test results, but it has been now widely published that the president of Athletics South Africa, Leonard Chuene, knew — and decided not to share the test results with anyone, including Semenya. It would seem a major injustice to revoke her trophy… well, it would seem so to everyone but the girl who took the second place. And third. And fourth. (I recall reading somewhere that the jury was considering awarding two golden medals. That is a solution of some sorts, but doesn’t it devalue both runners’ achievements in a certain way?) Isn’t it extreme cruelty to subject the runner to this kind of media scrutiny by letting her compete despite knowing that media will devour her if she wins? Was Chuene hoping for her to take fourth place and remain relatively unknown?

How will Semenya’s life continue? Apart from her career, this is a young woman aged 18 who has been just told (together with entire world) that she has internal testes, no uterus or ovaries. There aren’t exactly crowds of role models she could refer to at this point, nor does her treatment so far strike me as entirely humane and helpful. Will she forever remain a “South African freak” or will she find a way to lead a fulfilling life? Involving, perhaps, being a runner? How does one overcome this kind of stress?

I am also not jealous of the team that has been tasked with determining her gender. How does one REALLY determine someone’s gender? Was Michael Jackson the same gender as Mike Tyson? What testosterone level decides whether one is a man or a woman? How would the sports world treat a transsexual runner that is undergoing hormone treatment but hasn’t had surgery yet? Or one that has?

I have thought of myself as transsexual when I was 12 — before I discovered what gay people were and I went, in my head, very relieved, “ooooh THAT is what I am! How handy to know!” — and it wasn’t easy at all. Was I the same gender as all other boys who seemed to like nothing more than football, getting dirty and shooting guns? I wanted a Barbie, hated football and the only sports I was happy to do were hopscotch and badminton. After growing up in Poland it has taken me two years of therapy to find relative happiness and peace with myself and learn to accept myself for what I am. Is there enough time in the world to provide the same happy ending to Caster Semenya? If I was religious, I would pray for her to find a way to live a happy life. Since I am not, all I can do is hope.

(Pissed Off Apocalypse via Joe. My. God.)

• Not much writing in this one, but the comment “At some point it must be easier to go out and find a partner” cracks me every time.
• I know it’s wrong but I find this guy quite hot in a Gerard Butler kind of way.
• Badger badger badger… but where’s the mushroom? (Thanks Trekski.)
• “This is what will happen to ALL gays” read the note left at the scene of the strangling murder of John Terry, the British honorary consul to Jamaica.” Jamaica, sadly, isn’t anymore in my top 10 dream holidays list.
• “Fact: Every divorce starts with the death of a traditional marriage.” Ha. You want to defend the traditional marriage? Stop the EVIL divorces.
• Polish only: Taniec to ZUOOOO…

“Before Salt n? Peppa were pushin? it and Lil? Kim was blowing your mind with her dirty bird lyrics, Roxanne Shante was blowing up the airwaves with her single, ?Roxanne?s Revenge.? She was just 14 at the time (it was 1984), and even though the song was a hit and her future looked promising, she didn?t achieve the same fame and fortune as the female hip-hoppers that followed in her footsteps. After some shady business (lying, stealing her royalties, the usual) with her record label, Warner Brothers, she realized that they were slippery bastards. By 19, she was a bitter has-been?a broke teenage mother living in the projects. But Roxanne decided to truly get revenge when she found a life-saving clause in her contract, which stated that the record label would fund her education for life.

Guess they thought a young, poor mother would never want an education? Wrong! Roxanne not only went to college, she went on to get her PhD in Psychology from Cornell, and sent the $217,000 bill to Warner Brothers.“

The best story of the decade, possibly! Congratulations to Roxanne Shante, and one more proof (because we totally needed another) that record labels, as far as legit businesses go, are up there with the mafia.

As some of you perhaps happen to know, I am a graphic designer coming from Poland.

As more of you perhaps happen to know, there’s a story making rounds in the Internet of Microsoft Poland website featuring a digitally altered image where a black man has been replaced (poorly) with a white man.

A few jobs ago, so to say, I have been in situations like this one. Poland is an almost 100% white country; I would say that while in towns such as Warsaw there are other racial minorities totalling at best 1%, smaller towns and villages are 99.95% white. Most stock photography, though, is produced by Americans for Americans. Almost every time you see a group photograph from, say, Business Stock collection, it will feature, say, 8 white people, one Token Black Person and one Token Asian Person. No tattoos, no piercings, no risky decolletages, freshly pressed suits and shirts. You can almost smell Old Spice.

When my boss a few jobs ago approached me and told me to buy a business stock photo collection, I was faced with a task of finding the “whitest” one available. I honestly didn’t think my boss was being racist when he demanded that I do. And now that I read the comments to this altered photograph I still have a difficulty condemning the act as pure racism.

The purpose of using stock photography is to provide an image that people can identify and identify with. At the same time, it isn’t possible to always stage a photo shoot with actual Microsoft employees or office workers when you need to illustrate a situation. This is why stock photography was created — you go to a search engine, type “business meeting”, 4898 pictures pop out, you choose one, pay for it (that can be a lot of money sometimes) and plop it into your design. And then an intern in Poland gets the same photograph and is told to use it in the design as well.

The intern, or intern’s boss — I’d like to note I have no clue who the person is or who the agency is that does Microsoft Poland’s graphics — sees the photograph and thinks: this is very obviously an American group. It features a Caucasian person, an Asian person and  an African American person. There is no way in hell a Polish person will identify with this group, because there are maybe 100 companies in Poland — out of a million — that could have a meeting like that. Not because Polish companies don’t hire Africans or Asians. But because there are hardly any available in Poland. So the photograph gets doctored and published.

This is a daily occurence in this business. Photographs get doctored ALL THE TIME. Most often the designer, when they look at a photograph, don’t apply their views to it. They analyse it from purely business point of view: does this photograph enable our customer base to identify with it? Will it sell the magazine? Will it make more people visit the website? Will people buy the product? In short: will this do? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. And then it needs to get changed.

It isn’t easy for me to defend an anonymous Polish Photoshop operator and their boss against accusations of racism, because I do believe Poland to be a rather racist country. It’s just that I don’t see racism on this photograph. I see a crap Photoshop job that has probably been completed within 30 minutes because someone decided it would be quicker and cheaper than buying a different stock photograph with, so to say, less races present. In a country with 10% black minority I would interpret that as an act of racism. In a country with less than 1%? I interpret it as a misguided attempt at making the picture easier to identify with.

Microsoft have quickly apologised and replaced the photograph with the original. I believe it was the right thing to do. The offense was unintentional, and once they realised someone was being offended, it was very quickly repaired. There was no fat rep booming “who gives a sh*t about some black people, it’s not like we have any” which would almost be an expected (by me) reaction.

And now, dear readers, if I haven’t bored you to death yet, tell me — do you see my point, or do you think I am simply unaware of my own racist views?

Rod 2.0 reports:

The only billboard in the Central Texas town of Gatesville (pop. approx. 15,000)  has become a lightning rod of controversy. A retired black minister rented the sign on Main Street that reads, “Gay Rights are Not Civil Rights”. The sign owner, Virginia Miller, tells the  Dallas Voice the pastor “wanted to get the message out to black people .. everything they fought for is being hijacked.” [...] Dollins repeats this popular talking point by anti-gay black Christians: “No gays are having to ride on the back of the bus. No gays are being enslaved. No gays are being prosecuted [sic] in any way.”

The Rev. Kevin E. Taylor, New Jersey-based pastor, black gay activist and author, scoffs at the “foolishness of trying to destroy the history and might of the movement.” Rev. Kev adds: “Civil rights are about freedom for all.  Dr. King said so masterfully: ‘Until all of us are free, then none of us are free and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!’

The problem is two-fold. “Gays” and “blacks” are stereotyped as mutually exclusive because black LGBTs are often reluctant to come out?read hundreds of comments here, here or here?and continue to embrace the closets of the anti-gay black churches

So saying “no gays never had to sit on the back of the bus” would be true .. only if you believe all gays are white.

I can’t help feeling sad at this.