State of the Union? War, Likely

If Trump remains in office for a full term, I think it is very likely that he will manufacture a war or crisis in order to bump up his approval ratings and pressure Congress to stop investigate his ties to Russia.

Via PBS:

"Trump spoke about creating a more united country during a lunch with a number of television news anchors. Trump said the United States has long been divided, including during the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton. Trump also said that Americans usually come together during times of suffering.

'I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity,' Trump said. 'Without a major event where people pull together, that’s hard to do. But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing.'"

Trump pays lip service to not wanting a "major event" to occur, but he is also a well-documented liar and thus not reliable narrator of his own beliefs or reality.

As I've noted before, Trump regularly tweets references to nuclear war with North Korea not just because he seems obsessed with holding the power to obliterate billions of human beings, but because he's also an abuser who enjoys keeping the people of the US and in other countries living in terror.

His more recent language about "major events" that might unify the nation is a similar sort of signal.

As I noted over at Shakesville, in August 2017:

"At least some of the lingering unrest about the electoral process [due to the US Supreme Court handing George W. Bush the presidency], from what I remember, seemed to be quelled after 9/11, when the American public rallied behind George W. Bush. Before the attacks, Bush's approval rating hovered in the mid-50s. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, his approval ballooned to the high point of his two terms at 90%.

That is, 9/11 seems to have bolstered the legitimacy of George W. Bush's presidency, at least inasmuch as legitimacy is derived from the approval of the populace. Although, by the end of his second term he had become one of the most unpopular presidents in US history, in part because he squandered his legitimacy by leading the nation to war on the basis of lies.

A lesson from George W. Bush's presidency, then, is that a security crisis can confer legitimacy to a President who begins his term lacking it. And, the people will hunker down and rally behind an undeserving leader during a scary time, out of a sense of fear, loyalty, and nationalism. History shows that bad leaders will squander this trust, rather than accepting it with responsibility and grace.

For these reasons, my first point today is that we ought to be gravely concerned that the man who holds this office today is historically unpopular, obsessed with his popularity, and is widely seen as illegitimate.

It's coming.

As for Donald's State of the Union speech last night, I didn't watch the artifice. But, I'm sure I speak for everyone when I express my hope that the well-off white guys are still having lots of fun with all this.

"Breaking News": Donald's Not a Feminist

Less than a week after women led millions of people in massive protests against him, Donald Trump surprised absolutely no one by publicly acknowledging that he's not a feminist, in an interview with Pier Morgan.

He said, "No, I wouldn't say I'm a feminist. I mean, I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I'm for women, I'm for men, I'm for everyone'."

Mind you, even if we were to believe that Trump had this sort of "I don't even see gender" mentality, and I don't think he does given that he's an admitted sexual predator, what that mentality means 99.9% of the time is that the person actually means is, "I don't even see sexism against women."

The other thing I want to note about this, in light of the upcoming State of the Union address to be given by this man, is what I noted on Twitter:

The real story isn't that "Trump isn't a feminist." It's how many mainstream pundits and journalists are going to slobber all over him anyway, after his State of the Union, despite his admission to opposing equality for half of the country.

— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) January 29, 2018

A man doesn't have to actually be for women's equality in order to be either a US President or perceived as "presidential" by the mainstream pundit class. In fact, given the number of misogynists and predators in the US, it's probably better for his chances of winning if he's not.

Quote of the Day: The Female Price of Male Pleasure

Lili Loufbourow at The Week has written a piece that masterfully taps into, I believe, the female anger that is revitalizing the women's movement.

In the piece, she posits that while critics of anti-rape advocates claim that we simply don't acknowledge male biology, predominate narratives about rape and male-female sex are actually driven by almost nothing but. Within this framework, women are trained to ignore our own pain and discomfort in service of male pleasure. Female pleasure and libido is rendered invisible, non-existent, and unimportant.

Loufbourow writes:

"Women have spent decades politely ignoring their own discomfort and pain to give men maximal pleasure. They've gamely pursued love and sexual fulfillment despite tearing and bleeding and other symptoms of "bad sex." They've worked in industries where their objectification and harassment was normalized, and chased love and sexual fulfillment despite painful conditions no one, especially not their doctors, took seriously. Meanwhile, the gender for whom bad sex sometimes means being a little bored during orgasm, the gender whose sexual needs the medical community rushes to fulfill, the gender that walks around in sartorial comfort, with an entire society ordered so as to maximize his aesthetic and sexual pleasure — that gender, reeling from the revelation that women don't always feel quite as good as they've been pressured to pretend they do, and would appreciate some checking in — is telling women they're hypersensitive and overreacting to discomfort? Men's biological realities are insufficiently appreciated?

I wish we lived in a world that encouraged women to attend to their bodies' pain signals instead of powering through like endurance champs. It would be grand if women (and men) were taught to consider a woman's pain abnormal; better still if we understood a woman's discomfort to be reason enough to cut a man's pleasure short."

Read the whole thing. Really.

Ursula Le Guin

With Dolores, and now Ursula Le Guin, that's the loss of two of my heroes in the same month.

Over the years, I've written a number of posts about Le Guin's work, beginning with my 2008 review of The Left Hand of Darkness. While it seems that many folks are familiar with that work, they are less familiar with her short story, "The Matter of Seggrei." In many ways, I find this latter short work the more interesting.

Rather than positing a genderless world, "Seggrei" envisions a world in which men possess the traits ascribed to them by gender essentialists - that men, by their nature, are brutes who only care about sex. Except, she flips it around so that what on our world is a "reason" for men's dominance becomes a liability. Women use this "truth" about men's nature to greatly restrict men's role in the world to sports and sexual servitude, while women run society.

Le Guin had a gift for both world-building and social commentary that seem to have been derived from her observations about some of the dominant narratives in our culture. Through reversals and slight changes from our world, her works inspire us to interrogate some of the"truths" we take as self-evident, particularly about gender, which is why her work has long resonated with me.

In her final collection of essays, Words Are My Matter, she wrote, prophetically:

"Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We'll need writers who can remember freedom - poets, visionaries - realists of a larger reality."

In our current state of sociopathic, lie-idolizing, bot-saturated, cynical, abusive, too-cool-to-care discourse that dominates on social media, I relate hard to the path Le Guin suggests is our way out of this hellscape.

It's on us now.

Recap: Legends of Tomorrow 3.8 "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 4"

The final installment of the "Crisis on Earth" crossover begins with Stein being wounded pretty badly while opening the portal off of Earth-X. The heroes get him to the Wave Rider, hoping that Gideon can fix his wounds. (Side note: in my head, I always hear "Gilead" instead of "Gideon." Apocalypse Problems)

Because of their Firestorm connection, Stein's wounds also harm Jax, while Jax is essentially what's keeping Stein alive. Apparently, Stein's injuries are too severe for Gideon to fix and will eventually kill both Stein and Jax. Soooo, Stein has Jax give him a vial of solution that will separate their bond, so that Jax can live, while he himself dies.

As much as I have a problem with how Stein drugged Jax into joining the Legends, it's too bad that the show killed off one of its few (only?) older characters. The CW DC-verse, like many shows and movies in this genre, have few main characters over the age of 40, particularly woen. Eliza Danvers, in fact, is the only older "matriarch" character that comes to my mind, and she's just a recurring side character. Other older women are either dead (Barry, Iris, and Kara's moms) or both dead and evil (Kara's aunt Astra; Oliver's mom).

There are literally more irritating man-baby Wells characters than older women in all of the CW DC-verse shows combined.

(See also, shitty men run the media world.)

I beg of you, Hollywood: Please give us more older female heroes. We need more than General Organa.

Meanwhile, Miniature Ray saves Kara, before Doppelganger Wells can cut out her heart and give it to Doppelganger Kara. So, that's good, I guess. I'm not sure how Supergirl would have continued without its titular character, but you never know, maybe the powers-that-be are itching to make Supergirl entirely about Mon-El or whatever.

Also meanwhile, a Doppelganger Wave Rider and a bunch of Nazis are now terrorizing Earth-One. So, the heroes take to the streets to battle them whilst being led by a queer woman (just as it should be).

A buncha fighting then ensues, Felicity and Iris do some important geek stuff, Doppelganger Supergirl explodes, and Oliver kills his doppelganger. Yikes. But, after three episodes, the heroes have won (too easily? shrug). Many Nazis were punched. That's what matters.

Sadly, it's also time for Alex and Sara to say goodbye, although I don't see why it has to be that way. I feel like as Captain of the Wave Rider, Sara Lance could pop in and out of National City quite easily if they really wanted to make it work.

ANYway, Barry and Iris then get married in a low-key, impulsive ceremony officiated by Diggle, which gets interrupted by Felicity and Oliver also deciding to get married right then and there. LOL In conclusion, straight people are strange.

All in all, this was a good cross-over. I liked seeing the characters from different shows interact with each other and Nazis are particularly-relevant these days, so there's some satisfaction in watching them get their asses kicked by queers and allies.

Deep Thought of the Week: Whenever I hear the name Caitlin Snow, I always at first think they're talking about Caitlin Stark (because Jon Snow is Caitlin Stark's step-son). Crossover idea though: DC heroes take on the White Walkers?

Note: CW/Supergirl Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg has been fired after a sexual harassment investigation. 

Millions Protest Trump, Again

For the second straight year, millions of people in hundreds of cities around the world marched in protest of the Republican Trump Administration as part of the Women's March.

Major cities in the US reported six-figure crowd sizes, possibly eclipsing the turnout from last year's historic protests. I'm not surprised. As I wrote on the year anniversary of the 2016 election, Trump is both cruel and historically unpopular.

True to his delusional, gaslighting, and lying form, Trump himself got on Twitter and pretended that the marches were a celebration of him and his "successes":

Folks, if I ever found myself with nothing to live for, I would find it in me to live only so that when this piece of shit kills masses of people, there will at least be someone other than him to write history.

Donald knows full well that the #WomensMarch2018 isn't a celebration of him or his "successes." Like all misogynists, he thinks he can speak fabrications about women's experiences into reality just by uttering them.

— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) January 20, 2018

The anti-Trump resistance is real, and it's being led by women, just as it should be. Today, I want to share two related observations about the revitalized women's movement:

One, much like the mainstream media largely missed the Trump-Russia story when it was happening in real time during the 2016 election, their coverage of the women's movement is largely inadequate. For instance, on the day after this year's Women's March, Nina Mast at Media Matters noted that "the major Sunday political talk shows were nearly silent on the historic protests, only briefly mentioning the topic across all five shows."

I posit that the mainstream media is largely overlooking this women-led movement in real time, precisely because it's led by women. Men still rule in the media world and they primarily view only other men as leaders of political movements. See also, their endless fascination with Trump voters and the assumption some have that Bernie Sanders is the leader of the resistance.

As I tweeted over the weekend (excuse the typo, ugh):

Of course it is, because it's led by women, while the media is ruled by men who look primarily only view men as leaders of movements. https://t.co/j4nSM8ayWS

— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) January 21, 2018

Secondly, Louisa, on Twitter, had a very good thread about the embedded misogyny that some activists show when mocking women protestors as suffering from a lack of coolness. From time to time, I see people sneering at "soccer moms in pink pussy hats." Like Louisa, I think that while some newer activists might have a lot to learn, we should be embracing the people who show up, are operating in good faith, and who are enthusiastic, rather than ridiculing them and tearing them down.

As a related point, I've seen some commentators say that it's "easy" to show up for a march and that anyone can do it. And, like I said on Twitter, I think that assumption should be interrogated. Protesting is political labor, and it's actually not easy for everyone.

I'll add that we should also interrogate the assumption that showing up to a March is "easy." For many, it's not - eg, if you have a small child, lack transportation, are sick, are disabled, work on weekends, and/or fear police presence.

— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) January 21, 2018

All in all, I'm pleased that the Women's Marches had another huge turnout, even as it remains a tragedy that the marches are necessary at all. Onward, we continue resisting.

And don't forget to register to vote, if you haven't already.

Related: 
Me, at Shakesville last year: Women's Marches Prove Historic

RIP Dolores

Songs by The Cranberries, like Alanis Morissette and Pearl Jam, always instantly take me back to high school.

As a queer kid growing up in Nowhere, Midwest and having few role models, I looked up to Dolores O'Riordan. Back then, I had no idea what her politics were on LGBT rights or what her sexual orientation even was. These were mostly pre-Internet days, after all. This might sound ridiculous if you have no insight into what my childhood was like, but, that she sang the political song "Zombie" at all, let alone the way she did, and had short platinum hair seemed queer enough for her to be a hero to me back then.

Here's one of my favorites, "When You're Gone."

On "Fragility" and Boundaries

I did a quick Twitter thread the other day on the notion that setting boundaries makes a person weak and means they are fragile.

Try setting even the most basic, simple boundary with a stranger. Say, block a shitty person on Twitter. Watch them create multiple accounts so they can come back at you and squeal at you how you setting a boundary "against" them is human rights violation of the first order.

The fact is, most tough-talking "politically incorrect" white guys would crumple if they had to spend even one day as a prominent feminist/person of color on Twitter.

I'm here to interrogate the assumption that it makes someone "fragile" to set boundaries. Communicating even the most basic, simple boundaries is often not received well. People who set boundaries know that it usually entails receiving pushback and escalation of rude behavior.

— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) January 6, 2018

The Hell That Misogyny Has Wrought

Hey, have you heard somewhere from someone that the #MeToo movement has gone too far? Of course you have, because rape culture is terrible.

Welp, I'm here to tell you that those people are wrong. We haven't even begun.

I wrote about this over at Shakesville: The Hell That Misoygny Has Wrought

Quote of the Day: Believe Anyone Who Smells Gas

This one's from Jane Dykema, writing in general about the massive refusal to simply believe women:

"One night we had a thrilling summer storm, bright and crashing, wind and rain blowing into the house from every direction. I wanted to open all the doors and windows wider and run around, but it was better for the house, the wood, to close them tight. We hadn’t been in the house long, and it was the first time in this house we’d had to close all the windows. In the morning I smelled gas, strong, unmistakable. 'I smell gas,' I said to my husband. 'I don’t smell it,' he said. He had a friend come over. 'Why are you having a friend come over,' I asked, 'when it doesn’t matter if he can smell it or not, and none of us can fix it?' His friend didn’t smell it, either. I called the gas company. The gas company employee didn’t smell it, either. He waved his reader around and it blasted off in three places, substantial leaks behind the stove and in the basement. 'Always trust a woman’s nose,' the gas company employee said.

Yes, I thought, believe us.

Then, No, I thought, I’m not a fucking witch. Believe anyone who smells gas. If someone smells gas, believe them."

It's good advice.

Recap: The Flash 4.8 "Crisis On Earth-X, Part Three"

The saga of Agent Canary continues,with Part Three of the major DC crossover "Crisis on Earth-X" taking place in Season Four of the The Flash.

When we rejoin our heroes, most of them are in a concentration camp on Earth-X. They are also wearing collars that dampen their powers. It also turns out that Alt-Captain-Lance, Sara's dad, is a Nazi. He encounters Sara in the camp, notes that she has blond hair and blue eyes, and asks why she's there. She says she's bisexual and he gets disgusted, implying that he killed Alt-Sara for that reason.

The heroes at first try to escape using meaningful eye contact and discreet hand signals with each other, but Alt-Captain-Lance is on to them and he lines them up to execute them. Just when it appears they're going to die, Alt-Snart comes in with his cold gun and shoots the Nazis. It turns out Alt-Snart has a boyfriend, a hero called The Ray, who is imprisoned in the camp.

Alt-Snart takes them to some sort of queer resistance headquarters (my interpretation), and tells the heroes that there's a portal thingy back to Earth One, which is guarded by Nazis. It turns out that Alt-Winn is the General of the resistance. We know he's counter-culture because he has a scruffy beard and is wearing a quasi-military jacket and fingerless gloves. Anyway, he had been developing a plan to destroy the portal, which would prevent the heroes from returning home.

General Winn, however, refuses to help the heroes. Sara then calls him "Fingerless Gloves," which doesn't help the situation, and Alex talks to him privately, but even she's unable to convince him not to destroy the portal.

Alex is upset because Supergirl, meanwhile, is tenderizing under a red lamp on Earth One. Alt-Wells is prepping her for heart surgery, because apparently he can do heart transplants.

We get a solid Agent Canary scene this episode. I really like Alex as a character. I have always liked Sara too, but with the cast of Legends of Tomorrow being more ensemble than Supergirl, we've gotten fewer glimpses into Sara Lance's personality. In this episode, however, I think Sara and Alex work really well together, both being strong, yet thoughtful, people. Alex and Sara are both leaders in their own right, but there's no hokey power struggle between them. And, Sara seems to acknowledge Alex's ambivalence about where she's at, internally, with Maggie and gives her space.

In other queer news, Snart convinced his boyfriend to help him convince General Winn to let the heroes go through the portal thingy before he blows it up. More importantly, Snart, Snart's big fluffy coat, and Snart's boyfriend gay kiss:

How many homophobic-nerd-rager heads exploded at that?

Back on Earth One, Iris and Felicity are still basically the only ones in the group who haven't been captured. They're crawling around in some air vents at Star Labs, trying to come up with a plan. I can't help it, I really want them to be the ones to save the day.

Just as Alt-Wells starts the big "heart transplant," Iris and Felicity cut power, drop down from the vents, and punch some Nazis.

They make a valiant effort, but some sort of Alt-C-3PO robot captures them. And then, on Earth-X, while trying to escape to the portal with the other heroes, it appears that Stein gets shot and killed.

So, by the end of Part Three, the following dramas need to be resolved in the finale:

• Will Alt-Wells do the heart transplant, killing Supergirl?
• Will the other heroes be able to return home to Earth One?
• What will happen to Earth-X? Will the queer resistance take over? 
• What will happen to Iris and Felicity?
• Will Stein live?
• Will the Nazis destroy all the other worlds with their atomic bomb?
• Will Felicity and Oliver break up, since Felicity turned down Oliver's marriage proposal?
• Will Iris and Barry actually get married?
• What will happen with Alex and Sara??

Deep Thought of the Day: This episode was super-queer. I'm not sure I thought I'd ever see something so queer in the CW/DC-verse. I like it.

Note: CW/Supergirl Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg has been fired after a sexual harassment investigation. 

Ellen Page and Emma Portner Marry

Ellen Page announced on Wednesday via Twitter and Instagram that she and dancer Emma Portner have gotten married! Congratulations and best wishes to both of them!

Also, very important side note: I couldn't not mention that Lucy Lawless was quick to offer congrats to the couple:

MAZELTOV, Girls!

— Lucy Lawless (@RealLucyLawless) January 3, 2018

It's the little things that give me joy in life.

Trump the Unqualified Autocrat

Susan Glasser at Politico has written a terrifying summary of Trump's first year of, to put it mildly, lacking foreign diplomacy skills.

To give you an idea, here Glasser is referencing a September 2017 dinner among Trump and leaders of four Latin American countries (emphasis added):

"After the photo op was over and the cameras had left the room, Trump dominated the long table. His vice president, Mike Pence, was to his right; Pence had just spent nearly a week on a conciliatory, well-received tour of the region, the first by a high-ranking administration official since Trump’s inauguration. To Trump’s left was his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. 'Rex tells me you don’t want me to use the military option in Venezuela,' the president told the gathered Latin American leaders, according to an account offered by an attendee soon after the dinner. 'Is that right? Are you sure?' Everyone said they were sure. But they were rattled. War with Venezuela, as absurd as that seemed, was clearly still on Trump’s mind.

 By the time the dinner was over, the leaders were in shock, and not just over the idle talk of armed conflict. No matter how prepared they were, eight months into an American presidency like no other, this was somehow not what they expected. A former senior U.S. official with whom I spoke was briefed by ministers from three of the four countries that attended the dinner. 'Without fail, they just had wide eyes about the entire engagement,' the former official told me. Even if few took his martial bluster about Venezuela seriously, Trump struck them as uninformed about their issues and dangerously unpredictable, asking them to expend political capital on behalf of a U.S. that no longer seemed a reliable partner. 'The word they all used was: ‘This guy is insane.’”"

The portrait painted here is that Trump is, at best, an incompetent front man (as some of his Republican "reassurers" suggest) while more level-headed folks actually run the show and, at worst, he's an incompetent autocrat who can't actually be controlled.

I think it's the latter.

Trump has given no indication that he has even a rudimentary understanding of the US political system or that he is aware of, let alone would respect, checks and balances. I doubt he could even pass a citizenship test. Per former State Department employees, he also rejects expertise in the arena of foreign diplomacy, per Glasser's account, and instead demands that policy be set by his own ignorant "instinct" and/or according to what Presidents Obama and Bush had previously done (in which case he does the opposite).

All of this is likely how he ran his businesses: petty, abusive, unqualified, self-obsessed, imbued with toxic masculinity.

We are in trouble. We may not (at least obviously) see the effects of this dangerous incompetence immediately, but one day, we will. And, his Republican Party, which controls Congress yet heartlessly and recklessly fails to take meaningful action to oppose or remove him, has full complicity.

Who could have predicted that Trump would see the "nuclear button" as an extension of his white dick? (Everyone. Literally everyone. Except, I guess, The New York Times which is super impressed by his Twitter usage).

"President Trump has brought a reality-show accessibility to a once-aloof presidency, invigorating voters who felt alienated by the establishment." - @nytimes tweet, 2 days ago. pic.twitter.com/PbDbXErfba

— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) January 3, 2018

Don't forget, folks: All of this, or a woman! 

Recap: Arrow 6.8 "Crisis on Earth-X, Part Two"

The Agent Canary, er I mean the Supergirl crossover fun, continues with Part Two of "Crisis on Earth-X" being featured in season six of Arrow.

Here we learn more about Earth-X and it sounds terrible.

It's an alternate Earth where the Nazis developed the atomic bomb first and won World War II. A few more interesting facts we learn about the doppelgangers is that they're looking for "the prism," Oliver seems to be the ringleader, and he and Supergirl are together. We also know that doppelganger Supergirl is a bitch, I guess, because in addition to being a Nazi, they have her wearing dark red lipstick.

These revelations lead me to further questions. Specifically, where are the Felicity, Mon-El, and Lena doppelgangers?

On the relationship front, Oliver wants to marry Felicity, but she's not keen on the idea. Shrug. I guess the powers-that-be were looking for a reason to make Oliver even more broody than he already is?

Speaking of break-ups, it seems that the Stein half of Firestorm wants to retire, but Jax doesn't want him to. What will become of Firestorm?

In Very Important Agent Canary News, the first (and really only) Alex/Sara interaction of the episode comes as an awkward exchange when they meet at an elevator. Alex is feeling angsty about their one night stand and wondering if she made a mistake in leaving Maggie.

Alex, just no. The answer is no. Breaking up with Maggie was not a mistake. I liked Maggie, but the kids thing is an issue that would have never gone away. Also, see Sara, above.

Back to the doppelgangers, they obtain the prism and we learn that they want to use it to build a bomb so they can rule over this Earth. The heroes go to the doppelganger base and they have a massive Nazi-punching fight that includes witty repartee, dramatic entrances, and general hero posing. Here's our Supergirl, for instance, mid-fight:

Despite everything, the heroes lose this battle, leading "Oliver in the High Castle" to basically call of our heroes weak cucks. Also, Doppelganger Supergirl is sick, apparently, so the Nazis want to cut out our Supergirl's heart and give it to Doppelganger Supergirl.

In conclusion, pretty much everyone gets captured and transported to Earth-X, except for Felicity and Iris. Okay nerds, it's on you.


Deep Thought of the Day: This crossover is finally my opportunity to note how supremely fucked up it was, in season one of Legends of Tomorrow, that Stein drugged Jax to get him to join the Legends against his will.

On top of the drugging, Jax, the only main Black male character on the show, was written to be completely unconcerned by, and forgiving of, the fact that Stein roofied him into joining Rip Hunter's time traveling club. In this episode we further learn that Jax has come to view Stein as a father figure. Coupled with the obvious homoerotic subtext to the Firestorm character, which requires two male characters to "merge" into one, the "predatory homosexual" trope can also be read into Stein's character.

How and why has this plotline been completely glossed over?  What role did an Executive Producer who was later fired after a sexual harassment investigation have in greenlighting and/or advancing this plotline and character development?

Women In Entertainment Launch "Time's Up" Campaign

As I previously referenced in my piece, "Rape Culture Rigs the System Against Women," in November 2017, Latina farmworkers signed a letter of solidarity for those who have experienced gender-based violence in the entertainment industry.

Yesterday, 300 women in the entertainment industry issued a response letter, called Time's Up, expressing gratitude for, and solidarity with, the farmworkers and those in other industries who experience assault and harassment. The letter can be read in its entirety here.

The signatories of the letter have called for an increase of women in leadership positions and have seeded a legal defense fund to help survivors of sexual assault and harassment challenge perpetrators. The fund will be housed and administered by the National Women's Law Center.

I'm glad that women in the entertainment industry responded to the farmworkers' letter and are using their platforms and privilege to take concrete actions around this pervasive issue.

Many people and companies reflexively respond to harassment scandals by suggesting that harassment trainings need to be implemented. Many companies offer "trainings" in order to reduce their corporate liability, to help demonstrate that their workplace is not hostile. However, with research suggesting that harassment trainings don't work, I'm glad to see that this campaign is taking the action of funding legal advocacy and advocacy around women's leadership.

That said, barriers exist to using the legal system to address harassment and assault. Rape culture is so ingrained that we need a multi-faceted approach to account for the myriad experiences and barriers that survivors face.

Time's Up is a good and important step. It will be flawed at times, but I hope its leadership is open to dialogue with different classes of women and survivors.

In the Trump years, the anti-feminist, misogynistic backlash is real. But, as we move into the new year, do not forget this: so is the resistance.

Stronger together.