TSA Screws Up Again

It is no accident that the blog Feministe is down. Blog editor Jill Filipovic received national news coverage today after posting about a creepy note in "Filipovic's suitcase to "GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL."



Filipovic was interviewed by Boing Boing about the incident. There was a personal female item in Jill's luggage. Making comments about a woman's (very) personal item qualifies as sexual harassment. We have discovered TSA saving nude body scan images. Breast cancer survivor Cathy Bossi was forced by TSA to take off her bra. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a history of sexual harassment. I hope Jill files a complaint.

Update: I asked Jill if she was sexually harassed in any other way. She was gracious enough to emailed me this reply.

No, I wasn't harassed going through the screening -- the vibrator was in a checked bag, so I didn't interact with the agents who screened it.

Open Thread: How to Raise a Child to be a Feminist

A reader of Feministe posed the question, "How does a father teach his daughter about feminism?" Here is my answer:

There seem to be a trend with both young men and women in their mid-twenties to be overly-reliant on their parents. I was never close to my parents and couldn’t wait to leave home. So, it’s hard for me to relate to. Parents need to teach their son and daughters to be self-dependent. Young men and women are going to have a problems if they’re 29 years-old and their parents are still paying their bills. I met these people and their development is arrested. I wonder what happens when they make their own way and pay bills.

As far as feminism, I say have children volunteer for worthy causes and let them try different things. It let’s children have a better understanding of the world.

Let children get beyond worrying about failing activities. Explain that they never learn anything if they don’t try and encourage them.

Teach children the importance of tolerance. Explain to them that they don’t like it when other kids pick on them. They shouldn’t act the same way.

Most important thing: keep kids away from Ann Althouse’s blog.

There are several great comments in the Feministe thread worth checking out.

Readers, how do you raise your children to be respectful to the rights of women? Sadly, many parents do not raise their children to be tolerant and open-minded. The comment section is your's. Fire away.

Vote For Feministe

Feministe is up for the 2007 Weblog awards. They are nominated for bestof the top 251 - 500. Vote for them now.

Troll Contest

Jill is running a contest at Feministe for best troll.

I say this since I'm a blogging pal of Jill's. She put up with a lot of unneeded shit. Knock it off people. Seriously. It's not like she bothers you at your port-o-let cleaning job. She's not interrupting you when you're at the movies. Give an A-List blogger a break and do something useful like volunteering in your community.

MJA: Michael Jackson Anonymous

I see I'm slowly weening Jill off the evil known as Michael Jackson. She gives Lorna Bracewell a well-deserved shout out.

Confession: I have a soft spot for the Jacko song Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough. I admitted my Iron Maiden addiction. I mind as well come clean about my favorite Jacko song.

How Blogging Gets Sidetracked

Jill has come to the defense of Jessica Valenti and her book Full Frontal Feminism. I don't know all the details of the feminist blogging controversy with the book. I did leave this comment.

The debate about the book seems to take away from feminism as a way to make the lives of women better. Equal rights, pay, sexual respect in the workplace. etc. I haven't read Jessica Valenti's book. (I can't find it in a bookstore in Tampa.) My fellow blogger Litbrit was to review it.

Jill made an interesting remark in the post.

Jessica is also criticized for ignoring issues of non-white, non-middle-class women — and when I read those criticisms, I have to wonder if the commenters have read the book. Because Jessica recognizes the racism within the feminist movement.

My response.

Many of these women Jill mentioned will not have the opportunity to go to college. They won't read Virginia Woolf. They will wait tables and work two jobs to support their children. How can their lives be made better is a question not asked enough.

These women need health care, grants for schooling, daycare, transportation to work, quality housing and a laundry list of other things. Do these women even relate to feminism? It's hard to imagine grad school feminism arguments are something they would care about. They are living check to check. It has no bearing on their day to day lives.

Telling women about empowerment is one thing. Putting empowerment within their reach is what needs to be done. I'm not schooled in feminist theory. I don't claim to have the answers. We often lose (sight) of why we started blogging to begin with. We should be trying to make a positive impact on people's lives.

It is interesting how the inside-blogging-stuff distracts the left from making change. I'm as guilty of it as anyone else. We should take pause as progressives and ask ourselves why we started blogging to begin with.

Internet Stalking Is Real

Jill at Feministe has experienced online harrassment from members of AutoAdmit.com.

This article in the Washington Post and this post by Ann Althouse, both of which are about students on law school message boards posting pictures and nasty comments about female classmates, struck a nerve — because I’m one of the women they’re talking about, and my pictures have been posted on their site.

The WaPo article is about AutoAdmit, a law-school-oriented message board that is, essentially, a massive toilet of racism and sexism (not linking to the site — google if you’re interested). I’ve written about AutoAdmit before, when I found out that they were posting numerous pictures of me, making comments about raping and hate-fucking me, and debating whether or not I was fuckable or a stupid fat bitch. I’m hardly the only person they’ve gone after. While many of the threads on the message board are about law-school-related issues, they’re mostly obnoxious in some way or another. There’s an obsession with “prestige,” and commenters regularly disparage lower-tier schools, and use the term “TTT” to denote anything they consider not good enough.

The Ann Althouse post is the usual stupidity I have come to expect from her.

Too beautiful to appear in public? Too hot to be hired? Come on! What rational employer would deny you a job because idiots chatted about you on line in a way that made if obvious that the only thing you did was look good?

It goes further than that. I got permission from Jill to blog this. She has been stalked online.

Wants to learn about girl, but is social outcast, so have to stalk her on internet.

That is not what a young woman wants to see published about her on the internet. Althouse has a history of going after attractive young female bloggers. Case in point is the Clinton photo-op where Althouse took a mean-spirited swipe at Jessica. The irony is Althouse takes great offense when someone disagrees with her.

ADDED: Lindsay Beyerstein is more upset than I am about the fact that there is a lot of loose talk about people on the internet -- though presumably not about the dumb, loose talk about me on her own site. She fails to reveal what repressive remedies she has in mind to keep the internet from chattering. But I hope she'll at least do that "more speech" thing and condemn that blog where they impersonate me all the time -- or does she think I deserve it?

Let me get this straight. Althouse can make uncivil remarks about another woman's breasts and laugh off the concerns of women having sexist comments about them posted on the internet. But God forbid someone use their first amendment right to disagree with her. Thou does protest too much!

We have heard plenty of internet horror stories of people getting stalked. The issue must be dealt with seriously so women and children are secure. While not infringing on free speech. I have no idea how that will be done. I am certain it won't be the Ann Althouse remedy of laughing off everyone's privacy except her own.