Yesterday I stumbled upon this short over at Sociological Images:

Girls suck at video games / Les filles sont nulles aux jeux vidéo from Stéphanie Mercier on Vimeo.

What do you think?

President Obama has declared the month of June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

“As Americans, it is our birthright that all people are created equal and deserve the same rights, privileges, and opportunities.  Since our earliest days of independence, our Nation has striven to fulfill that promise.  An important chapter in our great, unfinished story is the movement for fairness and equality on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.  This month, as we recognize the immeasurable contributions of LGBT Americans, we renew our commitment to the struggle for equal rights for LGBT Americans and to ending prejudice and injustice wherever it exists.”

The announcement from the White House lists a number of the administration’s accomplishments in terms of LGBT visibility and equality, including:

• Signing into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which strengthens Federal protections against crimes based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
• Renewing the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides life saving medical services and support to Americans living with HIV/AIDS, and finally eliminated the HIV entry ban.
• Signing a Presidential Memorandum directing hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds to give LGBT patients the ability to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions.
• The creation of a National Resource Center for LGBT Elders by the Department of Health and Human Services.

But there’s clearly still work to do.  Progress is being made on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and there is occasional lip service paid to marriage equality and the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Some of this feels a little like Obama tooting his own horn.  Sometimes it feels like he’s throwing bones to a significant group that worked hard for his election and believed that he would follow through on some big promises.  But, this also draws attention to the improvements that have been made, especially in comparison to the previous administration and the discrimination it supported over its 8-year run.

You can read the whole announcement from the White House.  I invite you to celebrate the gains you’ve seen and discuss the next steps you’d like to see in the comments.

Between her portrayal of Det. Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU and her own humanitarian work on the behalf of survivors of rape and domestic violence, Mariska Hargitay is consistently rocking my world.

“They [untested rape kits] must all be tested. We are consciously letting criminals walk again.”

Transcript at cbs.com.

Last night, I saw the most beautiful woman in the world.  I have loved Ani DiFranco since about the 9th grade.  I picked up the album Dilate at a used record shop, popped it in my walkman + car tape-deck adapter, and dove in head first.  With my mom.  Who kind of liked it, but didn’t “know about all this F%$# You business.”

Then there was the time I headed off to camp for the summer as a volunteer junior counselor and my mystery bunk-mate had an extensive Ani collection, guaranteeing me that we would be BFFs (which we are).  Ani posters have accompanied me from home to home, dorm to rental, state to state.  I’ve driven hundreds of miles to see her.  I’ve driven tens of miles to see her.  And I think I’m up to about… 7? shows now.  Last night was one of the greatest.

I’ve never fallen in love with Ani’s new material as quickly as I did last night at her show in SLC.  Like this one (which is not a video that I took, and which is not the best video quality, but listen to it for the song anyway – you won’t regret it):

I was especially impressed with the way that she introduced this song in such a conservative state.  She prefaced it with how hard it is to write political songs, since they aren’t very romantic or emotional or pretty, but that she felt it was time to get down to business.  She added that not everyone was going to agree with what she had to say in the song, but that that’s okay, and “welcome so much” to her point of view.  And (although I’m admittedly biased in her favor) I honestly liked her political stuff better than her personal stuff last night.

Ani has always tapped in poignantly to the human experience: pleasure, pain, suffering, longing, desire, dreams, hope, anger, power…  We love her because she puts to words and music what we feel.  And humans love that dark, suffering, angsty stuff.  Last night Ani was happy and busted out some love songs and celebrations of how far she’s come, her new marriage, and her new outlook on life as a mother.  It’s not what Ani fans are used to (although we’ve been slowly acclimating to it over the past few albums), but Ani’s music isn’t for us.  It’s for her.  And she has every right to celebrate her joy.  She certainly deserves it.

Plus she’s still totally righteous.

Released in 1999, I had never seen The Cider House Rules until a few weeks ago.  I’m not usually into period pieces or Tobey Maguire, so I didn’t expect much.  However, there were some powerful lines about the importance of a woman’s right to choose and to have safe medical treatments available to her once she’s made her choice.  Furthermore, there were some powerful examples of times that removing that choice is truly cruel, regardless of your political beliefs on the matter.

The Cider House Rules is the story of Homer, an orphan boy who never made it out of the orphanage, and has been trained as a doctor by his mentor and father figure, Dr. Larch, who runs the orphanage.  In addition to delivering the babies of women giving their children up for adoption, Dr. Larch offers safe medical abortions to any woman who asks for it.  He doesn’t advertise this service (as it is illegal), and he doesn’t suggest it to women no matter how many times he’s delivered their unwanted babies, but he won’t turn away a woman in need.  When Homer accuses him of playing God in this way, Dr. Larch responds:

Dr. Larch: I have been given the opportunity of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. Men and women of conscience should seize those moments when it’s possible to play God. There won’t be many. Do I interfere when absolutely helpless women tell me they simply can’t have an abortion – that they simply must go through with having another and yet another orphan? I do not. I do not even recommend. I just give them what they want.

Read the rest of this entry »

CBS doesn’t want America to think about Choice, so we have to do it virally.  Here are some awesome counterpoints to the anti-choice rhetoric that is being crammed down our throats with Doritos and beer this SuperBowl Sunday, starting with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards explanation of the meaning of Choice:

For a multitude of reasons I will not be watching the SuperBowl today, but welcome any tips on who the winners and losers in advertising are this year.

Obvious Child starring SNL newbie Jenny Slate is kinda like the alternate ending to Juno.  If Juno were a young adult in NY instead of a high schooler in MN.  And her boyfriend was kinda cool instead of Paulie Bleaker.  And she got the abortion.

At only 20 minutes, the short leaves you wishing for more, but it does a lot in that 20 minutes.  Most importantly, it presents abortion as a non-terrifying, non-shameful, individual choice.  Which, you know, legally speaking it is, despite the stigma surrounding it.  The condom broke, and Donna had a choice.  She made it.  And (shock of shocks!!!) her friend supported her, her mom supported her (and shared with her daughter the story of her own abortion), and her partner supported her.

What if instead of shaming issues surrounding sexuality and sexual decision making, from female masturbation and orgasm to the spectrum of sexual attraction to the reality of reproductive health options, we saw them presented non-judgmentally like this on a semi-regular basis?

For other reactions on the short, check out all my faves: Bust, Bitch, Jezebel, and Feministing.

Obvious Child from Gillian Robespierre on Vimeo.

I hope that you were able to take a moment today to think about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and all the other civil rights and peace activists who have made our world so much better at the cost of their own pain, suffering, and sadly untimely deaths.  Feministing has a great list of links to posts about MLK and the importance of his memory, and F-Bomb has a great short bio posted as well.  In case you’d like a refresher, his “I have a dream” speech is below, in it’s entirety.

“There’s a direct connection between a woman’s ability to plan her family, space her pregnancies, and give birth safely, and her ability to get an education, work outside the home, support her family, and participate fully in the life of her community.

When a girl becomes a mother before she becomes literate, when a woman gives birth alone and is left with a permanent disability, when a mother toils daily to feed her large family but cannot convince her husband to agree to contraception, these struggles represent suffering that can and should be avoided. They represent potential that goes unfulfilled. And they also represent an opportunity to extend critical help to women worldwide and the children who depend on them.

Investing in the health of women, adolescents, and girls is not only the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do.”

- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
Remarks on the 15th Anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development

Full transcript here via Jezebel.

“When people think offensive remarks about homosexuals, it offends me. Many are offended …
it may offend their religions … some stick to their religions. What’s behind it is homophobia-
the worry, the fear, the life. It’s a perfectly normal, minority group of people in the world who
should not be discriminated against whatsoever. People don’t get it who have never met a
homosexual person, or read or watch anti-gay people in the media, but when they discover
that maybe their child is gay, there can be the most amazing turnaround. It means that
people have to discuss the situation, and the situation is that there’s no need to make life
miserable for those who contribute to the community and the nation. They should be embraced.”

- Sir Ian McKellan

Sir Ian McKellan is best known by my generation as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings or Magneto in X-men.  As an out gay male, he is an active spokesperson for the rights of sexual minorities.

From BlackBook via Jezebel.