Pitting: myself against the system

Today at work I sweat so profusely that the sodden cotton of my work shirt started chaffing against my armpits.

Usually I arrive to work sweaty (from the bike ride). With only five minutes to change before clock in, I peel off my street clothes with a relief I'll quickly smother under my "uniform". I'd like to say that putting fresh clothes onto my sweaty body is my least favorite part of the workday. But I'd be lying. There's something about being paid poorly to work that makes each slightly unpleasant task seem like it's the worst thing you do. It's a negative meditation technique I think. Keeps my body sharp and my mind off the numbing crawl of time spent on the clock.

I'm a sweaty person by nature. And I swear that I am just getting sweatier and sweatier as the years go by. But usually once I've been working for a half hour most of my bikesweat has dried. And I just sweat a bit throughout the day from doing my customer service work. That sweat accumulates throughout an 8 hr shift and by the time I clock out I'm grateful to change into my still slightly moist-pitted street clothes. Which I proceed to make even sweatier with a quick-as-I-can-make-it ride home.

This morning a customer and I went through an extremely stressful transaction before I was even able to hit the 30 minute mark (a cascade of system/equipment errors were mostly at fault) and my sweat glands got kicked into high gear. Which is where they stayed for the rest of the day. Today was an anomaly. But I pretty much sweat my way through two shirts on a workday anyhow.

Now I know I could probably avoid so thoroughly dirtying as many garments as I do on a workday by riding more slowly. But riding slower goes counter to my style. And its means spending 10 more (unpaid) minutes doing stuff related to work. And at just a scrape above minimum wage, they ain't paying me enough to smell like roses or do work off the clock. It's pretty fucking lazy, but I see my pitting as a quiet, revolting yet beautiful sort of resistance.

Human = Human

Today I read this heartbreaking and fantastically honest article about poverty, disability, and value. Seriously you should read it!

Every op ed piece I read defending food stamps or other benefits bend over backwards to point out the majority of recipients are employed. The majority are good people. Good people work.
But I do not work. I am autistic, and being the autistic I am means I am real world, social model disabled. I do not work because I cannot. There are a dozen hypothetical ‘what if…’ or ‘should be…’ scenarios in which I could hold down a job, but that is not my reality.

Work and the willingness/ability to work is a shitty metric for how to value a human being. Actually scratch that, trying to ascribe value to humanity is fraught and dehumanizing.

But we do it every day in examples just like Bridget cites above. We do it every time we try to figure out if someone is a good/bad person. No one, however different or amoral they seem to be acting, can ever fail at being a person. I admit that there're people who's humanities I have trouble relating to because of my personal ethics and energy levels. But my failure to recognize their humanity doesn't mean they're not still very human.

Value and humanity have nothing to do with each other. A human is no more or less a human because of what they can or can't produce or do. When we treat people's capacity for productivity as a metric for value, we dehumanize and erase people who produce less.  Treating productive people as if they are more valuable is how we get the idea that so called geniuses are allowed to be assholes, or the notion that famous artists (like  Roman Polanski) should be absolved for their abuse & dehumanization others; as if the value of what they produce in some sick calculation, outweighs the humanity of those the abuse/dehumanize.

I've written about the falseness of work's supposed dignity-bestowing qualities. Reading Bridget's article today really hit home to me how misguided it is to think that "jobs, jobs, jobs" is the best and only answer to the problems of poverty.

Financial independence through "honest work" is too simple and inappropriate a goal for feminism or any other anti-oppression efforts. It throws people like Bridget under the bus completely and ignores unpaid forms of labor (like parenting). It also devalues community and family interdependence which have long been an invaluable survival resource for many poor people.

Jobs are not the (only) answers to the disempowerment of women (or any group). Employment fails to address the complexity of concerns faced by people who are unable or even unwilling to "work" in the traditional sense.

I'm personally at the intersection between sick and difficult to employ. I don't have the physical energy to work most jobs full time. Specifically I don't have the energy to work in most forms of education, direct action politics, social work, or customer service which are the only things I am qualified for/interested in. In addition to the problem of energy I also don't want to work full time on someone else's dream, even if it is a dream I believe in and want to collaborate on.

I have a regular commitment to and faith in my creative process as a writer. Writing is one of the few things I do consistently have energy for. I am sick today and still working on it. But it is work, albeit work not currently ascribed much value by our society.

My ability to do writing work consistently doesn't make a me a good person or even a good writer. It demonstrates my commitment and consistency (qualities prized by capitalism and the culture of productivity). And I don't deny that there is an impulse in me that encourages pride such consistency, but consciously, intellectually I know that the amount and quality of work I do has absolutely nothing to do with my worth as a person.

I'm still the same amount of human and that shit is invaluable.

Marketing Feminism: I'm not buying it

So I'm wildly excited about this.

I support this project 100%. I think it is a vitally important development in safety and transportation. The critique this project has inspired has nothing to do with this product or its development (both of which I applaud). It has to do with marketing.

If you watch the promotional video, which is masterfully cut and filmed you'll notice that it and the article I cite lean primarily on the novelty of "women doing science" to sell their product.

I am wildly excited about this helmet as cyclist, science enthusiast, and feminist.

In that order exactly.

I am excited that women in technology are making fantastic products, but honestly I feel pandered to by their marketing strategy. I gives me big sads to realize that the idea of women doing good science is so alien to most people that it's actually considered an unexpected marketing idea. Women have been doing science all over the world for a long time. It's not a novel thing folks.

I appreciate the fact that Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin highlight the ways in which they faced sexist discrimination and I think their stories around it are important. But right now what's important to me for their product launch is their product information.

You know what would excite me more than the 'shocker' that women are doing hard and concretely useful science? Actual specs on how this helmet works. I want to know if and how this helmet protects against neck injury and whiplash (something traditional helmet are notoriously bad at protecting from, but that this inflatable model looks like it might reduce). I'm curious about the tests run on it.

In this case my practical concerns for safety as a cyclist trump my concerns as a feminist. Not everyone viewing this product will share my priorities, but putting the rocket of girl power behind this product's ad campaign implicitly sends the message that it's more important that women like this product than it is that it will save lives. Impracticality is not feminist.

In general and in this case I am opposed to gendered/sexist marketing strategies. If this helmet's primary features are life saving ones (that make it safer/more practical than traditional products on the market) then all cyclists should be marketed to.

Looking cute and girly is a wonderful thing but I'm sure it's not the top concern for all the cyclists who're interested in this helmet.

As I mentioned before I am excited about this product. My irritation at its gendered marketing is only emblematic of my constant irritation with gendered marketing strategies in general.

Since their advent of public relations marketers have been looking to get consumers to buy things through the use of psychology and manipulation. I think there can be ethical marketing strategies, but marketing in the US comes from a long history of such manipulation.

The Hövding helmet's marketing strategy is to stimulate solidarity and support for the women who made it. They are selling the false feminist novelty of women doing science.

I think solidarity & support for women scientists and entrepreneurs is excellent. I think giving women in science and tech fields more visibility is excellent. But neither of these things should be a marketing strategy. The use of feminism as a marketing device is unappealing to me. It limits feminism to those privileged by a capitalist society.

As much of an anti-capitalist as I am, I delight in products that're both useful and considerate of their users in design. The Hövding helmet appears to be exactly that. But no matter how much girl power is pumped into its marketing campaign, buying one will not make me a better feminist. I want the marketing to stop telling me that it will.

Is financial independence the ultimate scapegoat for compromising on feminism?

So I recently read the book Female Chauvinist Pigs. It had some gratingly problematic uses of transphobic, gender-essentialist, & objectifying rhetoric but oh, did it ever get my ears pricked for instances of women spouting gendered oppression.

I wanted to share a depressing instance of what female chauvinism looks like to me. This progressively intentioned project wants to "help" get women into the tech industry and specifically into professional coding field. The problem of course is that much of the advice given and projects proposed enforce gendered stereotypes that do nothing for women as a whole. This approach would only serve to (maybe!) garner success for the individual woman who make those compromises.

Small example : "it’s our job (for now) to be easily integrated into an all-male team, nonthreatening, and hyperskilled"

This might just be lazy or "hip" rhetoric employed by their copy writers which bores me. I really hope they don't mean it. Because this is not feminism or if it is, it's a twisted sort of feminism. And it's a great example of why I have issues with "financial independence" being a feminist goal (identified as such in bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody). It is not surprising to me that when the goals of feminism try to mix with the goals of capitalism it invariably ends up looking like female chauvinism. But this point seems to fall through the cracks (even in Female Chauvinist Pigs) when it comes to other self-professed (successful) feminists.

Am I nuts, or is bowing to capitalism in order to gain financial independence becoming the ultimate scapegoat for compromising on feminist goals? Case and point:
many of the responses to the kerfuffle this project has caused decry that the compromises the Lady Coders project is promoting are necessary and that those dissenting are merely being ideological purists. So I guess personal success is more important than standing for your own boundaries & beliefs about sexism?

To be clear, I acknowledge that compromising on one's boundaries & beliefs in order to survive is often a valid and unfortunate necessity. I would not fault anyone for doing something like identifying with a previous and inaccurate gender/name in order to receive unemployment/social services. Their subsistence depends on that compromise. This is fucked up because folks in such situations are at the actual mercy of the social services system. And is completely different from compromising on your boundaries & beliefs to accrue a higher financial and professional status. If you have a skill/attribute that is valued and sought by an industry that you choose you have power. You are not at the mercy of that industry/system in the way that others are.

And, oh yeah, for all those folks defending the project as looking to be "effective" in their compromise and that this will (slowly) make the environment more diverse:

This whole Lady Coders mess comes to me via my partner who is a (cis-male) web dev. He is furious because this means that even though this project will get more women in the room, the level of diversity of ideas and experiences will be discouraged and disparaged by its approach. And coding (by his account) is a creative, knowledge based work. In such work you NEED a diversity of ideas in order to approach the incredibly diverse of problems with appropriate solutions.

It would actually behoove the tech (and other knowledge-based) industries to welcome diversity with open arms. It is risky, but in the long run it stands to make them more successful, competitive, and flexible. The idea that (potential) workers must compromise their identity in order to work in certain places is the oppression of capitalism at work. It alienates workers from their labor & progress which depletes recourses of experience and ideas that business will have to call upon.

This mandated compromise also creates a system of shaming in which women who have compromised and gained success/status express disdain for women who did not. Often saying that if women don't trade on things like their appearance or novelty that they are just "not trying hard enough". The Lady Coders project offers no challenge to this status quo & appears to be a great project for getting big tech companies those token female techies who'll help them look progressive while publicly excoriating those who refuse to compromise their feminist values. 

Not radical ladies, really, just not...

Star Trek vs. Firefly: where would you like to live?

I'd forgotten about writing this. It resurfaced in a file recently and I decided to polish it up a bit. I wrote it during the early days of the OWS protests because I wanted to find a way to discuss capitalism in a fun geeky way. Enjoy.

The driving difference between my two favorite future universes is the ways power is made available to their characters. Firefly is a universe in which capitalist systems of distribution and power are still very much in effect. It is a gritty universe and we feel good watching it and fighting for the underdogs who are trying to escape the boot heal of the Alliance. In the Firefly universe there is a premise accepted by all the main characters as well as the audience that you have to be a little but of a renegade or obedient to the current authorities to survive. Under a capitalist system somebody always has to be oppressed, someone always has to lose. This contributes to the drama and connection we feel with the characters of Firefly. We sympathize with their struggle for survival.

In the Firefly universe you more often usually have dramatic life-and-death dilemmas that are intellectually engaging; survival comes first and philosophy coming importantly second. The struggle to survive comes first in the firefly universe. In the opening sequence it is repeatedly presented, through a back story voice-over (& as a recurring theme), that the crew of Serenity is always looking for some kind of work. In the Star trek universe the complete opposite is true of the main characters.

In the Star Trek(TNG) universe more often than not the drama comes from deeply intellectual and often existential questions or thoughtful riddles about morality and ethics. The potential for mortal danger is occasionally present but is less often the focus of the action and discussion. The time and space to think and philosophize is the setting for the majority of the plot lines in the Star trek universe. People are fighting others and themselves to be ethical, not to survive. Fighting for survival is a novel plot device. It is sometimes employed in Star trek but certainly not in every episode. It is most often used to heighten the drama of a two parter or a season finale. Mortal danger in the Star Trek universe is something so foreign that when it occurs it is much discussed and very clearly upsetting to the entire crew. This runs in stark contrast to the ever present mortal danger under which the characters of Firefly live their everyday lives (they joke about almost dying/barely surviving with great frequency).

Of course there are a few other major features that distinguish Star Trek and Firefly universes from each other. Jean-Luc (others too) often recites (without much provocation) the fact that humans in the 24th century are without poverty and even without the need of a monetary system of exchange. There are also higher intelligences or more advanced beings featured as a sort of deus ex machina in the back story of the Star Trek universe. I find myself inferring, from this back story, in addition to the utopian distribution and availability of resources (replicators) that having contact with more advanced beings (like Vulcans) assisted humans in the abolishing of capitalist systems. In the Firefly universe there is no evidence that any organized race other than humans exists. This contributes to both the feeling of aloneness the crew feels as a theme but also the aloneness one feels when struggling to survive. Mal touts at one point: "you make your own luck". This loneliness makes for some really great dramatic storytelling and also lends to the shows larger commercial appeal (more explosions more people getting shot). 

The same reason some people might find Star trek boring are the same reasons others might find Firefly too overblown. My love of both of these shows is painful when I think about it critically. Part of me thinks "yeah the Firefly universe is totally an awesome future.” but people (people we love!) die with horrifying frequency & the government doles out large scale oppression over peoples bodies, movements and actions. They employ mercenaries to take out threats to their infrastructure. When I think about the Star Trek universe as a possible future. I find myself heartbrokenly skeptical. Whenever Jean-Luc says "we abolished poverty" the realist in my gut tells me that no, we aren't coming to that, too many humans are still too vehemently and proudly like the hyper-capitalist ferengi. Even those of us who see and feel poverty and hunger and abuses of power are still stupidly hungry for our own pieces of the pie. Honestly, I don't think that, even if there were a Vulcan god machine to descend upon us with a superior and awesome code of ethics, we would be able to relinquish that survival state without our own choosing.

I has been pointed out before that that technology of the replicators presents a solution to the scarcity that causes the fear that drives folks into a survival state. And yes the replicators make the essentials as abundant as needed (and easily distributed). But I'm not convinced that any technology will contribute greatly to the equal distribution of resources. It's failed to happen thus far even though productivity has soared exponentially in the last 40 years. 

Think about the distribution of information and the way that is metered by the availability of access to modern technology. Even if they make it simpler to do so, shiny new devices in and of themselves, will not, and have not compelled us to behave in a more equatable manner. This is evident in the Firefly universe where the unequal distribution of resources is very apparent. It's even one of the driving forces of the action. Think about the fancy accommodations on Ariel in comparison to the way colonists are treated or the "rustic" accommodations on Serenity. There is a well developed separation between the classes in the Firefly universe, despite the existence advanced technologies. Some places  are “flush" with it "other not so much."

The Firefly universe is great for escapism but you wouldn't want to live there. You wouldn't feel safe in that society. You might die, or most likely get shot once every year or two. The Star Trek universe on the other hand, while it's conventionally less exciting, would be comfortable and safe. As a human you'd rarely ever have to fight to survive (unless it is the season finale and you are a captain or first officer). Now I know staunch capitalists & free-market junkies would love to tell me that it'd be lazy or against that natural Darwinist way of things to want this. But even though the struggles represented on Firefly are pretty shiny, I would infinitely prefer living in the non-capitalist less survival-driven future of Star Trek TNG. Cause I really prefer not being shot. How bout you?

Gender Equality in Dependence Shaming

For a while I have wanted to write about dependence and American culture.

I was re-watching and episode Mad Men (prepping for the new season's release) recently when the impetus struck me full in the gut. In the scene (season 1, episode 10) Joan is consoling her roommate Carol who has just been fired so her boss could save face. Carol says to Joan: "I'm going to have to ask for money from my parents". Joan, not missing a single beat says "You shouldn't be ashamed of that, you're a single woman trying to make it in the city." (or something to that effect). To be absolutely clear I do not miss 1960s culture but I do miss the notion Joan expresses in this scene: The notion that a single working woman is entitled to shame-free financial assistance.

This is not about nostalgia. It's about how I'm, on some, level angry at the cultural shifts that have occurred in stingy financial reaction to the gains of gender equality in the work force. I can't expect to be financially supported and have that be acceptable. I do certainly recognize that the privilege Joan is referring to was only available to some (white, attractive, women born to middle-class parents who are expected to marry well). This anger I have is not about resources or privileges being fairly distributed. This anger I feel is about the shame in this culture that is newly (in the past 40 years) associated with being a woman who needs financial assistance.


This status quo affirms the Calvinist tradition in America when it comes to judging those who ask for and need financial assistance. In the past the unquestioned “husband/man as the breadwinner” paradigm, while certainly causing many problems, allowed some women to feel totally okay with a situation of financial dependence. In the last forty years more and more women have challenged this by entering and cementing themselves in the US workforce. Unfortunately along with those jobs came the societal expectations of being an employable individual. There is a pressure to succeed and become independent financially (despite the clear wage and privilege disparities). This is a problem women inherited as we slowly and surely became more vital presences in the workforce.


A shitty economy deepens the blame and shame that we are encouraged to feel. The job market is so dilapidated as to only offer me few opportunities to do work that is physically and emotionally draining and pays me 2/3 of what I think I should be getting paid for the work I want to do. I am angry at the paradigm of jobs. I am angry at America's disdain for my financial dependence. I should not feel such sharp pains of shame when it comes to receiving financial support from those that love me. But I do. I experience so much shame when I think about asking my parents or anybody else for financial help. 


In the past I have felt wracked with guilt and felt myself to be begging when and if I applied for scholarships. I avoided financial aid office at school. I planned out defenses for every possible question they might have about my needs. I knew I would not just be battling the paperwork. I would be battling something else. I didn't know it then but I was battling the ingrained shame that Americans are supposed to feel when they ask for financial help. This is why I am angry, and why I find myself longing for Joan to tell me that it is okay that I need to ask for financial help sometimes.

the Dignity of Work

Lately I've been thinking about the phrase "the dignity of work." It has been flying around a lot lately in the media. Most often in the mouths of people talking about welfare and work programs. Newt Gingrich brought it to light quite famously back in November when he repeatedly made the ridiculous spit-ball of of a statement about "giving"  poor young (presumably black) school kids “the dignity of work” by making them part-time janitors for the school grounds. He went on later to make a special point of the fact that these kids (the presumably black ones) in urban neighborhoods "where nobody has worked and nobody has any habit of work"

More recently though, it has come from the mouth of our presumed presidential republican candidate, Mitt Romney in what could be called the "mommy" battle the media recently went on a giant frenzy about (I won’t go into it but man is THAT a can of worms in and of itself).
Romney wants mothers to have “dignity of work”. But what does that really mean? The term itself has been sloshed around so much and has been used as if it has a nearly iconic power. According to the ol reliable wiki the phrase originates in Catholic teachings.

“Employers must not ‘look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but ... respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character’."

Now don’t get me wrong, employers respecting their employees sound great, but notice that the initial definition is includes only men and relates only to those in an employer-employee relationships. It was originally only used to refer to and include only the transactional definition of workers and work.
After researching the actual historical context of this phrase I’ve sussed out my previously ambiguous squicky feelings about the modern use of the phrase “dignity of work”.
Its original establishment as well as the current use of the phrase "dignity of work" is rooted in an employer-employee relationship. It actually has very little to do with personal or communal sweat, progress, or projects (which I personally believe constitute work). The classic and current definition of this type of “dignity” denies and excludes any non-paid work a person might do.

Transactional (paid) work is something we do privilege in this country. We honor respect and ideologically legitimize the work a person does for pay. This assumption exists in the common introductory question"What do you do?" The implied actual question being asked is "What work are you paid to do?"

I have written previously about how our culture propagates, in many pervasive ways, the idea that folks without money don’t matter or that money is the equivalent of moral or philosophical value. The phrase "the dignity of work" is just one more divisive way that this is being done. It is especially effective because the semantics of this phrase really does resonate. I believe in the semantic meaning of the dignity of work. Working hard and investing in your own progress as well as the progress of those with whom you work is really awesome amazing and powerful. It is something I believe everyone deserves to feel.

However, when Romney says these words so iconically it or Newt says it or even when the Catholic church said it all the way back then, they sure as hell did not mean non-transactional labor. They do not mean babysitting your younger siblings because your mother can’t afford a sitter, or taking care of your grandparents/parents as their physical health deteriorates with age. They certainly don’t mean changing your own baby's diapers, or helping out with the community pea patch. These thing are not covered by the phrase “dignity of work”. What they actually is mean going out to someone else’s business and committing hours of work to an employer who has more privileged that you. They mean being paid to do alienated labor.

"The dignity of work" historically as well as currently is being used to legitimize work within pre-existing structures of capitalism. "The dignity of work” means “the dignity of participating in our current paradigm of jobs.” It means submission to a punch-clock, salaried, or hourly system of pay. "The dignity of work" actually means the submission the the current hierarchies and relationships of capitalism. “The dignity of work” as Newt and Romney talk about it is about putting your faith in capitalist systems as a mode of feeling dignity.

Anyone who has been unemployed (there’s 8.2% of us right?) or felt cheated by the system know that this is the opposite of empowering. It is, in fact, and a great display of magical semantics, asking  oppressed folks to accept their role in capitalist hierarchies. Whenever I hear someone in the media using the words “dignity” and “work” I am going to be suspicious of possible capitalist and/or Catholic idealism about transactional work. Although, I will be listening hopefully for signs of actual human dignity; for faith in commitments to actual personal and collective progress.