#beyondthebirdcage

[wiseshots]

A Feminists Lament

My good friend beyondthebirdcage wrote this AMAZING feminist parody to the guys and doll’s song Adelaide’s Lament...

Listen and enjoy

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Please reflect and pray on this today.  MLK day does not serve as a one-day civil rights intensive to let you off the hook for the other 364.  Continue to think.  Think about the privileges you hold and about the advantages your sisters and brothers lack.  Remind yourself that there are human beings who are not awarded a voice in this society & remaining silent with the one you were given is more damaging than any slur, insult, or degradation.  If you have power, use it.  If you have a voice, speak.  If you have love in your heart, give it.  Apathy is oppression.

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

Why I Don't Go To The Movies (Volume 1)

"My Least Favorite Trope (and this post will include spoilers for The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Matrix, Western Civilization, and—cod help me—Bulletproof Monk*.) is the thing where there’s an awesome, smart, wonderful, powerful female character who by all rights ought to be the Chosen One and the hero of the movie, who is tasked with taking care of some generally ineffectual male character who is, for reasons of wish fulfillment, actually the person the film focuses on. She mentors him, she teaches him, and she inevitably becomes his girlfriend… and he gets the job she wanted: he gets to be the Chosen One even though she’s obviously far more qualified. And all he has to do to get it and deserve it is Man Up and Take Responsibility.

And that’s it. Every god-damned time. The mere fact of naming the films above and naming the trope gives away the entire plot and character arc of every single movie."

-Elizabeth Bear Full Post Here

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

Fun Feminist Links to start your week!

Happy Monday, Feminists!

As you can tell from the sudden lack of posts - I'm quite busy.  So, I've compiled a bunch of links to satirical articles, music videos, and skits to remind you that you're not alone.  There are women (and some men) all over who are on your side.  You're not the only one who thinks all this nonsense is absurd.  Enjoy these and if you feel so inclined - Join the ranks!  Post an article, video, song.

Maddie & Tae wrote a country song about how girls are portrayed in country videos nowadays.  Over-sexualized and without agency.  This video is clever, hilarious, and so true.

http://www.sunnyskyz.com/happy-videos/927/These-Girls-Wrote-A-Clever-Song-Making-Fun-Of-How-Women-Are-Portrayed-In-Every-Country-Music-Video#plSU6iB4gPWYzikR.01

This article is not satirical - Satanists are using the recent Hobby Lobby ruling to exempt women from Anti-Abortion laws based on their belief that people are entitled to make their own health decisions based on pure scientific fact and free of propaganda.  They're providing an exemption form for Satanists and simply logical women alike.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/28/satanists-want-to-use-hobby-lobby-decision-to-exempt-women-from-anti-abortion-laws/

This article IS a satire.  However - It shines a big old light on what it means to give religious freedom rights to businesses (as if they were civilians).  It's also a great look at what it takes for people to pay attention.  Sure, a bunch of American moderates can rationalize a business with rights if it swings toward Christianity.  But, whoa whoa whoa, religious rights would also apply to other religions?  Maybe we don't like that so much.  Religious freedom is amazing.  For people.  With religious beliefs.  Google isn't a Christian.  It's a website.

http://dailycurrant.com/2014/07/22/muslim-company-forcing-christian-employees-to-wear-headscarfs/

This is called Adult Wednesday Adams.  In this short episode, Wednesday gets intercepted by a radical conservative on her way to her "Planned Parenthood-type" clinic appointment.  She hysterically makes some great points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z2iKNqTIBc

Go on and enjoy!  And please share your favorite feminist links with me!

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

Feminist Illustrations!

A friend shared this link with me and I thought I’d share it with all of you.  It’s a set of illustrations that beautifully remind women that they are the only authority on their bodies.

http://mic.com/articles/92651/18-empowering-illustrations-to-remind-everyone-who-s-really-in-charge-of-women-s-bodies

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

Things You Should Be Pissed About (Episode 1)

LINK TO ARTICLE HERE!

"Supreme Court Rules In Hobby Lobby Case, Dealing Blow To Birth Control Coverage"

Happy Monday, Feminists!  Today we've learned that the Supreme Court has sided with conservative Christian company "Hobby Lobby" on its refusal to comply with the new Obamacare mandate to provide birth control to female employees.

They claim that not allowing for-profit companies to exercise religion "flies in the face of modern corporate law."  However, the separation of Church and State is a well known intent and function of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of our constitution's own First Amendment.

They claim that "the HHS mandate demands that they engage in conduct that seriously violates their religious beliefs."  However, the religious CEO's of Hobby Lobby are not being mandated to TAKE birth control.  They are not being mandated to go to the pharmacy and buy birth control to hand out to their female employees.  They're not being mandated to have pre-marital sex.  They are being mandated as a for-profit U.S. company to provide comprehensive healthcare that, for women, includes access to birth control.

I don't know how many times we can say this - We're not telling you how to practice your religion, so stop telling us how to practice our health.

Rulings like this are widespread and dangerous.  If hell isn't raised, other companies will follow suit.  

This is something to be pissed about.

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

About the "Birdcage"

The name of this blog, "Beyond the Birdcage," is a reference to an incredibly important essay by Feminist theoriest, Marilyn Frye.  While this essay (and all of her work) is celebrated within the academic Feminist community - It's left almost completely under the radar to the average person.

Here's the excerpt:

Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere. Furthermore, even if, one day at a time, you myopically inspected each wire, you still could not see why a bird would have trouble going past the wires to get anywhere. There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.

Oppression - The Politics of Reality - Marilyn Frye

Reading this for the first time in college brought me the first of many "sighs of relief" that other women felt what I did.   

Each roadblock, each inequality, each legal barrier, each societal pressure, each guy on the street, each bleached out and shrunken magazine model, each real threat of rape and violence, each slight at our intelligence...

Individually, they may appear to be freak occurrences that in no way could single-handedly keep women subordinate.  But when you step back and consider them all, it's very clear.  Women as a whole are kept in a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.

[beyondthebirdcage-blog]

Welcome to Feminism!

Yesterday, a post about slut shaming got quite a bit of attention from my Facebook community.  This confirmed what I've suspected for quite some time - There are a lot of closet Feminists out there.  

By "closet" Feminist, I mean women (and men) who know that things aren't right, aren't fair, and when it comes down to it - hurts them on a basic level.  However, many of us grew up in a society considered "post-feminist" because we were lucky enough to come after first and second wave feminism (more on those later) that gave us a lot of basic rights.  But, the fight is far from over.  

We owe it to our mothers, ourselves, and our daughters-to-come to continue the fight.  But, we can't do it without the knowledge to back us up.  That's why I'm starting this blog.  For whoever is out there, whoever is listening, whoever thinks "I know I have a right to be angry, I know I'm not crazy" but can't explain why, this is for you.  I'll share any and all knowledge I can to help us stand up and say "No, not anymore."

Welcome to Feminism.