Blog Update

Ok, I’ll admit it: I haven’t been posting because of election burn-out. Hardcore. Tired of the arguments, tired of the negativity, tired of even thinking about Important Stuff. But it’s over now. The man I voted for won the presidency. That’s good. That’s Important Stuff. A lot of other Good, Important Things happened during the election also. I’m feeling a cautious optimism and I’m starting to get my fighting energy back.

What I’m trying to say is, I’m still here, and I’ll be posting regularly again soon. For real this time.

Randomly Scheduled Shout-Outs

I’m working on a couple of longer posts, but it might still be a few days (shoulder pain, kid wrangling, trying to type them on a touch screen because my husband and daughter have taken over the desktop to play Minecraft…). In the meantime, here’s some stuff I”ve been reading. As always, feel free to self-promote or link anything of interest in the comments.

Two really good posts over at Brute Reason (which I <3):

I Miss You, Blog

I haven’t posted for quite awhile. I miss it. The kids and I had the flu, my husband hurt his knee, I hurt my shoulder (so not conductive to typing long posts), and I’ve been frantically busy doing some home organization. But things are settling down over here and I’ll be back soon.

Randomly Scheduled Shout-Outs

…because I’m too ridiculously busy right now to compose a proper post. Please feel free to post links to your own writing or anything else of interest on the interwebz in the comments!

A reaction to a Gawker article about pedophiles : The Ethics of Writing About Sexual Abuse:Gawker and Cord Jefferson

Melissa at Shakesville takes on the Romney video : Mitt Romney:Garbage Nightmare

Derailing and domestic violence : Stop Concern-Trolling Victims

A rather appalling travesty of justice : PA to Execute Man Who Killed His Sexual Abuser

We Just Can’t Win (Because of Rape Culture)

(content note: I’m going to discuss rape and sexual assault.  Also, I’m feeling ranty and sinus-y, so I’ll probably say something offensive…)

I took a few days off from getting angry at the news because I had to pull off my daughter’s birthday party (Planning! Organizing! Shopping! Cleaning! 10 other little kids in my house!), and I planned to continue my short posting break due to my raging sinus headache and lack of Sudafed. But I was just happy-assing around online and I saw this. Oh, hell no.  So I wanted to post about it, and I wanted to explore some ideas about rape culture.

Randomly Scheduled Shout-Outs

Because my period is kicking my ass today and I don’t want to do anything. As always, please feel free to self-promote or link to any interesting reads in the comments.

Rick Perry Is Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater

*By “bathwater,” I mean safe, legal abortion. And by “baby,” I mean babies (and women).

I Hope I’m Raising a Gamer

Gamer culture, like practically every other culture and sub-culture, has a misogyny problem. And if my blog had even a little bit larger audience, I would be expecting a raging shitstorm of disagreement just for that first sentence. (Hell, I won’t be surprised if I get a shitstorm now, and I have maybe 12 regular readers). I kind of understand why: For a lot of people, gamer/nerd culture is a place where they finally feel like they belong; it can help people form strong, tight-knit friendships; gaming is something that people do for fun and they don’t want to deal with troubling social issues in that space. It’s rough when other people attack something that so many feel is a really positive part of their lives. But all of that is no excuse to turn one’s back when a problem becomes evident.

A Quick Shout-Out (Because I Have Writer’s Block)

I’ve been trying to write a post about Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) for over a week, but I haven’t quite thought out all my thinks on that properly yet. It might to on the backburner for a little while. So, while I think of my next post, you can get your fill of someone mocking the hilarious/awful world of MRAs over at Manboobz.

Victim Blaming At Its Worst (and a Very Personal Story)

(Content note: This post is about childhood sexual abuse, both in the Catholic church and my personal experience. So, strong trigger warning on this one. I’m putting the whole post after the cut. Also, this post might be a bit ramble-y; the topic is a pretty big trigger for me, too.)