war of extremism

Could we please stop the nonsense that nothing bad and worthy of talking about is happening to women in the United States? The idea that women in the United States are not seeing a war of extremism raged on them simply because the wars raged on women in other parts of the world are far more concrete is absurd.

Case 1, from Richard Dawkins on pharyngula:

Dear Muslima Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with. [...] And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin!

Case 2: Miranda Flint at South Dakota Politics

His version of extremism has nothing to do with car bombs or global terrorism. Nor does it have anything to do with female genital mutilation or the problem of gendercide. It doesn’t even have anything to do with greenhouse gasses.

Case 3: Justin Timberlake, a soldier, and Mila Kunis, at oh, everywhere, just google it.

Denying women access to health care is extremism. The idea that several Presidential candidates not only think this is okay, but seem open to the idea that the progress of women should be reversed, is also extremism. The fact that a woman can make an innocuous request not to be accosted in an elevator and then accused of over-reacting, is extremism. A man putting a woman into a situation where it is impossible for her to say no without severe negative consequences? You guessed it, extremism.

All in different forms, but the notion that extremism only occupies one form - one that is violent and easy to identify, is patently wrong, and the sooner we stop thinking like that, the sooner we stop all forms of extremism.

Not of the colour of wheatfields.

There was something Kate said once, a long time ago, back when we both had some innocence to spare, that I have been searching the internets for, and cannot find. I suppose that is how it goes, sometimes words disappear from the internet. Today has been a long enough, bad enough day, and not even friends could make it better. And the words from Kate that might have offered some comfort have gone and cannot be found. Today is a dark day, and a good day to be missing Kate.

I don't think some of you know the story of Kate, and it would take too much time to tell, but she was the first person I loved unconditionally. She broke my heart.

She still makes my heart ache and yearn and want. Want so badly. She is the colour of raven, the blackness, the void. She is found in the tinniest of corners, corners left black and dark, lonely and forgotten. She is everything that makes my heart race with desire, everything that it means to have the Earth crack and threaten to swallow you whole.

She was mine, a long time ago. And now she is off in the world, belonging to someone or something else. But she is always in the corners, always the colour raven, always the depths of my desire, always always always. Somewhere, deep inside, pieces of her still belong to me. Our adventures and that slow, painful, different sort of coming of age ... those, those are mine.

Say hello, and say goodbye. Tell her something for me, when you find her in that blackness, that void. Tell her I love her, ask her if she loves me, still. When you stumble upon the right sort of colour raven, tell her I am the not quite the fox, I cannot be so brave, but always always always shall I hope.