thraenthraen-blog

[thraenthraen-blog]

bizarropurugly:

luvyourselfsomeesteem:

theseriouscynic:

editingatwork:

halfhardtorock:

Straight men who infantilize women’s friendships have no fucking survival instinct. Like my uncle is always making fun of and rolling his eyes at my aunt’s friend lunches and telephone dates with her lady friends, teasing her like she’s a gossipy teenage girl in high school drama. And my aunt just laughs about it but I know for a fact that if it wasn’t for her best friend K, she would have probably set him on fire by now. 

Like straight men are capable of maybe a quarter of the indepth emotional labor and support women do for each other. Like men can literally have one friend named Bob that they go fishing with once a year and still be content for life. Then they think it’s cute and girlish that their wives have these long term, integrated, emotionally intense relationships with women but like…LOL, it’s not because men don’t need those kinds of relationships, it’s just that they get it all from their wives while offering peanuts in return. PEANUTS.

Like if your woman is on the phone for 2 hours with her friend and you think that’s childish of her, just know that she spent half of that time getting the support that you should be giving her (but are incapable of) and the rest lamenting what a giant fucking baby manchild you are.

This is how homophobia and misogyny hurts men: it makes these kinds of in-depth, deeply emotionally invested friendships a feminine thing to do, and therefore unmanly (and un-straight) for men to do. Men are brought up to shy away from cultivating these kinds of deep and platonic friendships with other men. Because, you know, if you talk to your male friends all the time and hang out with them and cry in front of them and hug all the time and lean on each other (emotionally and physically) when you need support, it makes you gay and womanly. Which is, apparently, the worst thing you can be.

I’ve read articles and personal stories about and by men, talking about experiences they’ve had that have shown them how painfully out of touch they are with their own emotions and their own ability to open up and connect with people, including themselves.

I worry about men a lot. I worry about the number of men who find themselves incapable of providing emotional support for their friends, their significant others, and themselves, all because of how they’ve been raised to bury and ignore their more vulnerable emotions and tactile tendencies because they’ve been taught that this kind of closeness has to be stamped out at all costs.

!!!!! So important.

So so so important

Studies have shown that this sort of emotional shallowness is a leading factor in why men are more likely to be violent, to drown their sorrows in drug and alcohol abuse, and to successfully commit suicide.

They throw all their eggs in one basket with a significant other, or at times a parent, and when problems arise in that relationship, because they have no other relationships to speak of, they quickly turn to destruction.

This is why I often give out advice that people need to expand on their relationships. You literally CAN’T have it all hinge on a single person, it is a horrific idea and it will destroy you and the things and people you love. You HAVE to have relationships with other people.

Anyone with any mental health issue can tell you that the inability to talk it out, the lack of having someone to turn to, makes things go careening downhill, faster than we can catch them back.

Somehow this is considered an acceptable way of being for men, and their lashing out is “just how men are”. It’s more masculine to shoot yourself than to take medication. It’s more masculine to beat your partners than to have a conversation with them. It’s more masculine to bottle everything up until it erupts and people die, than it is to simply ask for help.

And people want to blame women and feminism for it, for “making men afraid”, or simply try to list the likelihood of surviving suicide and avoiding drug abuse as “female privilege” or something that is a nature-given trick of “biological sex”, rather than address the very serious issue of toxic masculinity and extreme, self-destructive hatred of being perceived as anything like women.

- mod BP

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let me tell you something: no one is going to look at you, broken and shattered and think - damn, you are beautiful. no one is going to come pick up your broken pieces off the floor and assemble them into a beautiful whole. hell, you won’t even look at yourself and think - I made broken look beautiful. you know why? because all those writers lied to you. yes, all those with their poems of scraped knuckles and blood dripping down chins, pomegranate songs and loves that ripped through you like hurricanes. liars. so you and i, we are going to make a plan. you are not going to romanticize days when your brain tells you to smash that mirror, you are not going to romanticize the lover who doesn’t understand you but still writes about you. here is what you are going to romanticize instead: you are going to romanticize the first day of spring, its gentle hands all over your body, lifting you up until you are as light as a feather. you are going to romanticize the tea and honey kind of love, no hurricanes, but sunshine that builds you up from within, that helps you make it through the worst days. you are going to romanticize gentle hands of a friend in yours, telling you that it is going to be okay. because it is. and don’t trust poets, we’re no good, we love pretending that our jagged edges tantamount to a beautiful disaster, but in reality - there ain’t nothing beautiful about shaky hands holding a cigarette and empty eyes staring at the cracks in the walls. you know what is beautiful, instead? the days when you can look at yourself in the mirror and smile, scars and all. music that makes your soul flow like a river, books that offer comfort, families flocking together like overgrown birds to keep you safe and warm, friends that give you strength when you can find none, lovers who make you laugh through tears. baby, from now on you are going to romanticize healing; honey dripping down your fingertips, August nights that stick to your skin, the day you find your purpose, long car rides and singing so loud that no one can shut you up now. bad news: no one is coming to save you. good news: you can save yourself.

Lana Rafaela (via wordsnquotes)

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Trump made this substantial contribution to Bondi at just the moment when her office was evaluating whether to bring legal action against Trump’s ‘Trump University’ real estate seminar scam. Indeed, Bondi admits she reached out to Trump to solicit the contribution just as the decision was on her desk. She eventually declined to take legal action against Trump, overruling the recommendations of career investigators. A mounting legal case was also underway in Texas, by career investigators under then-Attorney General and now Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott overruled the investigators recommendation for legal action. Shortly thereafter Abbott got $35,000 from Trump. In this case Trump at least mad the contribution without the commingling of nonprofit funds that go them in trouble in Florida.

At the risk of stating the obvious, these facts are textbook examples of the sort of political and prosecutorial corruption journalists are supposed to uncover. Trump used money to buy protection from the consequences of his bad acts from friendly politicians. He then tried to cover up his payment of protection money. And on top of all that he made the either bizarre or incompetent mistake of paying the protection money out of his Foundation - the money from which mostly comes from other people beside Trump.

This is an actual, real, meaningful scandal with two – two! – smoking guns. This is exactly the sort of thing that the New York Times, CNN, and all the biggest names in journalism are looking for as they relentlessly go after the Clinton Foundation, as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton. There is nothing to be uncovered there, because there is no “there” there. The FBI pretty much exonerated the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation of exactly the kind of influence peddling and pay-for-play corruption that Trump is clearly guilty of doing … and there is almost complete and utter silence about Trump’s two successful efforts to buy off politicians – and not just politicians, but the Attorneys General of two different states!

The story the media wants to write about the Clintons exists, but they won’t write it, because it’s about Trump. 

(via wilwheaton)

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Facebook’s Name Policy: a personal account

I have far more first-hand experience with Facebook’s “real” (now called “authentic”) name policy than I ever wished for. The following is an account of my experience.

Dealing with Facebook

It all began a bit over a year ago, August 2015. Someone in a language-learning group was creating a chat off Facebook to practice and stated that everyone must use their “real” name in it. I and others argued against that policy. In response, they reported my name as fake.

Facebook promptly locked me out of my account and demanded that I use my real/authentic name on Facebook and provide ID proving it as such. I (grudgingly) complied and sent in scans of a photo ID and piece of mail both with my name, Thræn Thraen, as per the information they provided me with how to prove my identity. I was let back into my account, though Facebook never responded to the support ticket to confirm my documents had been accepted.

I waited. I hesitantly started using Facebook regularly again, wary that they might lock me out of my account at any moment, not wanting to invest but needing the communities that exist on Facebook. A year passed.

I opened up Messenger Saturday morning to find a message telling me I had to log in on a browser. My stomach dropped. I knew what it meant, but hoped I was wrong. I logged in on a browser and found the familiar message: “Please change your name.” Not even “please confirm your name,” but change. No presumption of innocence. No benefit of the doubt. Change your name. I wanted to shout back that I needed residency for that, that I was an immigrant and my home country wouldn’t let me change my name from abroad, that I couldn’t afford it, that I didn’t even want to change it because my name is already real.

I checked the help page they linked me outlining options for proving my name. I took my “prove my name” documents out of my file (kept on hand because the authenticity of my name is a constant battle I must always be armed to fight), scanned a different photo ID and the same piece of mail, and sent them in. Nothing happened. I tried again. Eventually, I got a confirmation screen, but no confirmation email. When I logged in, I was greeted with the same message: change your name. I submitted again. I waited. I heard nothing and tried again the next day.

Finally, I received a canned response from Facebook simply asking me to send in ID—in direct response to a support ticket which showed FOUR previous attempts at sending in my ID. Apparently, those simply didn’t exist. I sent in my IDs again with a short message explaining that I had already gone through this process a year ago.

I then received a canned reply from “Ben” (apparently, I am expected to believe this is Ben’s “authentic” name despite an utter lack of any sort of ID from Ben) which stated that my documents did not meet their requirements. The help page asked, under Option 2, for two IDs from their list, one with photo OR date of birth. “Ben” asked for ID with both (though “Ben” also linked me directly to the page which says OR). Frustrated, I replied pointing out the discrepancy, and I attached the previous two IDs and a third document from the same university my ID was from which stated my date of birth and which listed my address matching the piece of mail.

The next response came from “Alan” (again, without ID, how can I know it was truly Alan??) who sent a canned response asking for ID. Yes, the same message I had already received and responded to multiple times, without any acknowledgment that I had already sent in documentation six times in the past week at that point. I vented to friends. I cooled down, reminded myself that “Ben” and “Alan” didn’t make the policy and likely have just as little say in it as I do. I replied, explaining again that I have sent in my documentation many times and attached the same three documents as before.

Finally, after nearly a week of this, I was let back into my account and received the following message from “Alan”:

We’ve reviewed your report, and it looks like this is no longer an issue. If this happens again, please reply to this email with details, and we’ll do our best to help. Sorry for any inconvenience that this has caused.

So perhaps it is all over. For me, for now.

Being Cut Off

In the midst of all the stress of dealing with Facebook and of the violation of being targeted for officially sanctioned harassment, I was cut off from the vast majority of my communities and support. I live in a very rural area with poor transportation, so my access to support and to my closest friends depends on my access to social media. Even so, I am very far from the most vulnerable person targeted by this policy: my mental health is pretty good, and I have a lot of access to support independent of Facebook.

Because I went through this a year ago, I had more backup contact information than last time and managed to avoid being completely cut off from everyone. My friends moved our group chat to Google instead of Facebook. I told people what was happening on Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube. My friends put it on Facebook for me to help spread the word to people I wasn’t reaching. I had support from friends elsewhere. I had a friend with a friend at Facebook making sure my case was dealt with.

I still felt cut off. Entire communities cannot move overnight, and I had been suddenly, unexpectedly, unjustifiably, and violently cut off from communities that are important to me. I couldn’t go to my favourite group of nonbinary folks to share my pain and frustration and fear over being targeted. I couldn’t go to my favourite spoonie (see: Spoon Theory, disability) group to commiserate on how exhausting the process was. I couldn’t go to the Wizards in Space Writing Community and read fantastic haikus to distract myself or share my recent writings. I couldn’t share my friends’ insightful or funny posts. I couldn’t read the discussion about WB wanting to do a Cursed Child film trilogy with Dan Rad in the GeekyCon group or participate in so many of the little things that are so hard to explain the value of and yet add up to something huge.

I lost all of that in an instant because a stranger didn’t like my name, because Facebook gave them that power.

Going Forward

I would like to say I’m just quitting Facebook immediately. Unfortunately, Facebook holds too many valuable relationships for me to simply quit, and I am more concerned for those with far fewer resources than me who have to deal with this policy than I am with whether I can withstand going through it again. Facebook is the best tool I have for community organising at this point, so I am going to use it as best I can to keep pushing this issue.

Facebook should never demand ID from anyone. I have friends who use alternative names for literal safety—from stalkers, from violent abusers—and Facebook’s name policy makes absolutely no room for them to do so without risking their account being suddenly shut down like mine. Facebook revised their policy after outcry and accusations of racism and cissexism, but the revisions do not address the core issue: Facebook has actively created a tool that allows bigots and abusers to target vulnerable people for harassment and completely, unexpectedly shut them off from their support systems. That is psychological violence. For someone with less support and poorer mental health, what I went through could mean death. The policy must go. Completely. Remove users for abuse, not names.

While quitting Facebook is not an option or the goal for me at this point, I am ready to move any and all parts of my life away from it that I can. It’s time to build community elsewhere, and I hope, as my friends did ten years ago when I joined Facebook and urged them to join me, y'all will help me. I don’t mean just having an account elsewhere, but in fact actively creating community. I’m on most sites as @thraenthraen. (I’m also on WhatsApp, but obviously not posting my phone number here. Message me privately for it.) I quite like Peach (peach.cool), which launched just this year, so if you’re up for trying out new social media sites, join me there. Let’s get talking about community and how we can shift ourselves away from a site that actively targets vulnerable and marginalised people for harassment and towards ones that, er, just ignore it? (Ugh, Twitter.) I don’t know; it’s a work in progress.

EDIT: Okay, some folks have asked about specific actions, so we're going to set up a small committee/task force to start planning and organising. Hit me up on whatever social media you prefer if you're interested, even if you just want to amplify actions once we solidify them; I'm @thraenthraen pretty much everywhere. Let's take down this awful policy.

[thraenthraen-blog]

Here’s some spicy discourse: the aro/ace movement’s obsession with taxonomizing sexuality is very much a white supremacist holdover from colonialism.

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#FandomChat: Race in Media

Hello! The third weekly #fandomchat will be this Saturday, 14 May at 12PM (noon) PT/3PM ET/8PM UK/9PM CET on Twitter! What is #fandomchat? #fandomchat is Twitter chat made for fan communities. Basically, a bunch of us get on Twitter at the same time and talk about all kinds of topics related to fandom and our communities. More detailed explanation later. Cool! How do I join? Just come on Twitter at the scheduled time and search for #fandomchat to see what others are saying. Discussion prompts will be posted by @thraenthraen and are also available below. These will all begin like Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. (short for question 1, 2, 3, etc.) To respond, you should begin your tweet with A1, A2, A3, etc. (answer 1, 2, 3, etc.) and be sure to include #fandomchat somewhere in your tweet. For example, if the prompt is: Q4 What is your favourite colour? #fandomchat You could respond: A4 obviously it's orange #fandomchat If that doesn't make much sense, it's okay! It's probably easier to understand when you see the chat! In order to keep our chat accessible, please remember to use image descriptions if you include an image in your tweet: https://blog.twitter.com/2016/accessible-images-for-everyone This week’s topic: Race in Media Today we'll be talking about #StarringJohnCho, #BlackPanther, #AgentCarter and race in media. Background information is all linked in this thread: Since I know some people like to have more time to think about the prompts, here is what we have coming up. Please keep in mind that this is just our starting point, and there will likely be more questions based on responses. Welcome to #FandomChat! Our topic today is Diversity in Media. There's some background reading/viewing in this thread: https://twitter.com/thraenthraen/status/731444553824141312 Please remember to include #FandomChat in your tweet and A1, A2, A3, etc. so it’s easy to see what you’re responding to! Let’s jump in! Q1 #StarringJohnCho highlights the lack of representation of Asian-Americans in media. (cont) #FandomChat Q1 (cont) Besides tweeting, what else can we as fans do to push for more Asian-American leads? #StarringJohnCho #FandomChat Q2 What shows or films with Asian-American leads already exist? Have you watched them? #StarringJohnCho #FandomChat Q3 Have you seen the casting news for #BlackPanther? And the ensuring reactions on #BlackPantherSoLit? (cont) #FandomChat Q3 (cont) What does the reaction say about the representation of black characters in media? How can we act as allies here? #FandomChat Q4 Finally, #AgentCarter was cancelled this week. How do you feel? #FandomChat Q5 Over a year ago, #AgentCarter was accused of being whitewashed; Do you think this hurt the show? #FandomChat Q6 Some fans are asking for #NetflixSaveAgentCarter. Do you support this? And if so, how do we address the whitewashing? #FandomChat Q7 Thank you to all of our participants! What sort of topics would you like to talk about next weekend or in the future? #FandomChat

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#FandomChat: Scripts: Fantastic Trend or Beast?

Hello! The second weekly #fandomchat will be this Saturday, 30 April at 1.30PM PT/4.30PM ET/9.30PM UK/10.30PM CET on Twitter! Our topic this week is “Scripts: Fantastic Trend or Beast?” as we discuss the news that the Fantastic Beasts script will be published the day after the film release.

What is #fandomchat?

#fandomchat is Twitter chat made for fan communities. Basically, a bunch of us get on Twitter at the same time and talk about all kinds of topics related to fandom and our communities. Check out our last chat here.

Cool! How do I join?

Just come on Twitter at the scheduled time and search for #fandomchat to see what others are saying. Discussion prompts will be posted by @thraenthraen and are also available below. These will all begin like Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. (short for question 1, 2, 3, etc.) To respond, you should begin your tweet with A1, A2, A3, etc. (answer 1, 2, 3, etc.) and be sure to include #fandomchat somewhere in your tweet. For example, if the prompt is:

Q4 What is your favourite colour? #fandomchat

You might respond:

A4: obviously it’s orange #fandomchat

If that doesn’t make much sense, it’s okay! It’s probably easier to understand when you see the chat!

In order to keep our chat accessible, please remember to use image descriptions if you include an image in your tweet.

Scripts: Fantastic Trend or Beast?

Since I know some people like to have more time to think about the prompts, here is what we have coming up. Please keep in mind that these are tentative and subject to change:

Welcome to #fandomchat! Our topic today is Scripts: Fantastic Trend or Beast? We’ll be discussing this news: https://www.pottermore.com/news/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-screenplay-announcement

Please remember to include #fandomchat in your tweet and A1, A2, A3, etc. so it’s easy to see what you’re responding to! Let’s jump in!

Q1 What are your first thoughts on the news that the #FantasticBeasts script will be published the day after the film release? #fandomchat

After WB split the final Harry Potter book into two parts, Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, & the Hobbit have all followed. #fandomchat

Q2 Do you think the Potter franchise will set another precedent & we will see other film franchises pushing script releases? #fandomchat

Q3 How do you think fan communities will respond to this script and (potentially) others? Will they buy it? Will they pirate it? #fandomchat

Q4 How might the #FantasticBeasts, #CursedChild, or other future scripts impact who has access to canon and fandom? #fandomchat

Franchises with film-to-book adaptations often have elements of gatekeeping and hierarchies where “real fans” read the book/s. #fandomchat

Q5 Do you think similar dynamics will occur with film franchises publishing scripts? What can we do to address or prevent that? #fandomchat

Q6 Thank you to all of our participants! What sort of topics would you like to talk about next weekend or in the future? #fandomchat

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#fandomchat: Fandom and Fan Communities

Hello! This post is a quick info sheet for the first #fandomchat happening today (Saturday, 23 April) at 12 noon PT/3PM ET/8PM UK/9PM CET on Twitter! What is #fandomchat? #fandomchat is Twitter chat made for fan communities. Basically, a bunch of us get on Twitter at the same time and talk about all kinds of topics related to fandom and our communities. More detailed explanation when I have time to write one up. Cool! How do I join? Just come on Twitter at the scheduled time and search for #fandomchat to see what others are saying. Discussion prompts will be posted by @thraenthraen and are also available below. These will all begin like Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. (short for question 1, 2, 3, etc.) To respond, you should begin your tweet with A1, A2, A3, etc. (answer 1, 2, 3, etc.) and be sure to include #fandomchat somewhere in your tweet. For example, if the prompt is: Q4 What is your favourite colour? #fandomchat You could respond: A4: obviously it's orange #fandomchat If that doesn't make much sense, it's okay! It's probably easier to understand when you see the chat! In order to keep our chat accessible, please remember to use image descriptions if you include an image in your tweet: https://blog.twitter.com/2016/accessible-images-for-everyone Today’s prompts Since I know some people like to have more time to think about the prompts, here is what we have coming up today. Please keep in mind that this is just our starting point, and there will likely be more questions based on responses. Welcome to #fandomchat! Our topic today is Fandom & Fan Communities. We'll be talking about what it means to be in fandom & why we do it. Q1 Let's start off with a bit about you: name, where you're from (optional), & what are your top fandoms right now? For the following questions, you can answer generally, about specific fandoms, or do both! #fandomchat There are a lot of ways to be in fandom, from making transformative works to giving kudos on AO3 to live tweeting yr fave shows. #fandomchat Q2 What ways are you involved in fandom? What ways do you want to be? #fandomchat Q3 Lots of people read/watch our favourite stories but don't join fandom. Why did you join fandom? #fandomchat Q4 Why do you come back to fandom? What is it about the community that makes you continue to participate? #fandomchat Q5 No community is perfect though. What things push you or others away from fandom? What problems do you see? #fandomchat Q6 What can be done to address those problems? Is anyone already working on any of them? Are you? #fandomchat Q7 Finally, how do we take fandom and the things we love about it beyond fandom? #fandomchat Q8 Thanks for participating! What sort of topics would you like to talk about in the future?

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This is my favourite new meme why is this not everywhere

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Hello, friends! Do you write and/or make visual art? Well, did you know you can get that sweet stuff published in a snazzy new literary magazine called Wizards in Space? AND you'll get paid for it because this is a dang cool lit mag that appreciates the value of your work? I know, amazing. Check the link for submission guidelines and then get on that and send in your magical work. And for those of you who just checked it out but maybe aren't sure if you're "in fandom"? You probably are. To many people, I'm like super "in" fandom and I still often don't feel like I'm *really* in fandom because there's always someone more "in" fandom to compare myself to. If you're into something—a book, movie, TV show, YouTube channel, comic, game, musical, play, band—you're a fan. Fandom is just what happens when fans get together—even just a small group of friends—and share the things we love. The only requirement for being in fandom is that you want to be. So get on that submission, yo.

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It's Autism "Awareness" Month again, so time to bring this back, I guess.

Autism Awareness Failed Me

I was aware of autism five years before I even started to consider that I could be autistic. It was six years of that awareness before I was diagnosed by a doctor who knew autism is a lot more complicated and varied than what fits neatly into “autism awareness” campaigns. I was never like the poster children for autism, who are white, cisgender boys (never adults) from (upper)middle-class families. I didn’t think I could be autistic until I found what actual autistic people had to say about autism.

Autism awareness, at least as it currently exists, fails a large segment of the autistic population. Most people aren’t white, cisgender boys. We need awareness that includes atypical autism traits. If I or my family had read that list of traits when I was fifteen, I might have realised I’m autistic a lot sooner and found the resources and support I need much sooner, too.

My autistic traits are atypical, and they’re full of contradiction. I’m intelligent and even good at language, even metaphorical and idiomatic language, but sometimes I can’t remember how to form sentences or forget words for everyday things like chairs or my own native language just starts to sound like complete gibberish. I struggle to answer “how are you?” but I’m often complimented on my self-awareness and understanding of both my own and other’s emotions. The tiniest sounds can distract me or give me a headache, but sometimes I can’t even hear someone shouting my name. Autism is inconsistent. It’s complicated.

If you want to know what autism looks like, if you want to spread real awareness, then you need to listen to the people who know autism best: autistic people. Maybe this “Autism Awareness Month,” instead of wearing blue, walking to raise money for a dangerous organisation, sharing stories meant to incite fear or pity, or putting blue ribbons on everything out of the irrational belief that ribbons solve everything (seriously, stop it; ribbons don’t cure cancer either)–instead of spreading unhelpful awareness created by non-autistic people, you can help spread and deepen awareness of what autism actually is by reading and sharing the accounts of actual autistic people.

I’m starting by picking up a copy of Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking, written and published by autistic people (autisticadvocacy, to be more specific). Click here to find it at an independent bookshop near you on IndieBound. Or see if a library near you has it.

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Y'all, this project is so close to funded and is so worth your support. I am very careful about where I give my money because it's a form of power, it can be abused, and I only have so much to give. A dollar/pound to an okay project or org is a dollar/pound I can't give to a great project or org, after all. This project though? I have absolutely zero hesitation throwing all my support behind it. It's the right project, in the hands of the right people, at the right time. If you can, please donate. If you can't, please at least share.

Wizards in Space Literary Magazine, a space for wizard writers is 70% funded and needs your support! 

So, this lit mag…it’s not really about actual wizards in space. It’s about creating a space for wizard writers. It’s about celebrating stories we haven’t heard yet. It’s about hearing voices we haven’t heard yet. It’s about creating a new platform for our talented fandom members to shine.

It’s about taking that cool stuff you’ve written on your google drive, and putting it in people’s hands. Actual printed words, with a spine, and page numbers, and artwork, and readers feeling the things you feel too.  

It’s about paying fandom writers for their original work. 

If you have the means, I hope you’ll help us. And in return, you’ll get a super cool perk, and your hands on a printed literary magazine. Made and curated by all of us.

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Ever since I mentioned it, I’ve received a bunch of questions about what I mean by “NGO-ization.”

To answer them all at once: the term “NGO-ization” is used to describe the ways in which radical social movements, in the era of neoliberalism and its modernization projects, have been straitjacketed and hijacked by NGOs with very limiting rights-based and victim-centric legal frameworks (that are all too expedient for repressive security states and foreign meddling.) There’s a growing literature on this, but here are just a few titles that I find helpful and interesting (book reviews included for texts I couldn’t find for free online):

Watch:

1. The NGO-ization of Resistance by Arundhati Roy (2004) *

Read:

2. The NGO-isation of Arab Women’s Movements by Islah Jad *

3. Introduction: Reclaiming Feminism: Gender and Neoliberalism by Andrea Cornwall, Jasmine Gideon and Kalpana Wilson

Donor funding for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on a massive scale has led to women’s movements and organisations in many countries undergoing a process of depoliticising ‘NGOisation’ (Alvarez 1998) – with damaging consequences for the mobilisation of women, as Islah Jad (this IDS Bulletin) shows. This has contributed to a lack of political muscle, as once-active feminist organisations become (or are displaced by) increasingly depoliticised service providers, reliant on contracts from the state or grants from the development industry. As the ‘invited spaces’ of neoliberal governmentality have come to displace and be used to delegitimise the ‘invented spaces’ (Miraftab 2004) of social mobilisation, ‘empowerment’ has come to be associated with individual self improvement and donor interventions rather than collective struggle (Sardenberg, this IDS Bulletin).

4. The Indian Women’s Movement: Within and Beyond NGOization by Srila Roy

5. A book review of Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism by Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal

6. Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out? *

Paul Amar offers a brilliant critique of how an “innovative mobilizing framework was confronted by the backlash of internationally-linked anti-harassment NGOs in Egypt who deployed a more standard middle-class, law enforcement-centered rescue–protection framework.”

7. A research paper summarizing Lila Abu-Lughod’s, “Dialects of Women’s Empowerment: The International Circuitry of the Arab Human Development Report 2005.” *

8. A book review of NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects by Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor

Choudry and Kapoor, in the introductory chapter, seek to move beyond dominant “civil society” concepts of politics and action by critical analyses of NGOization to reconceptualize resistance against capitalism and colonialism. The editors show the limitations of building NGO typologies as well as of analyzing their relationship with governments and the private sector. Importantly, they demonstrate the widespread NGO commitment to economic and foreign policies strategies of democratization by building civil society by professionalization and depoliticization of community-based organizations. Those processes include, for example, displacing, destroying, or neutralizing social movements by NGOs, lobbying of governments or international institutions, and privatization of the notion of public interest. Choudry and Kapoor show that an important challenge is to move beyond the dichotomy between NGOs and social movements. The authors describe several critiques of NGOs: analyzing them as agents of capitalist colonization of material space, as the professionalization of dissent, and as knowledge colonization for capital. Those strategies are more or less reflected in further case study chapters.

9. Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development by Ananya Roy (I haven’t read this in a few years but I remember enjoying it.)

10. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony by Jean and John Comaroff (on the broader limits of fetishizing legality in “modernization” projects in post-colonies.)

* = favorite

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Hamilton as 2016 Presidential Race

I was thinking like, "What if in 200 years someone made a musical about our current political situation?" and then I couldn't resist comparing Hamilton characters (not the actual historical figures; they're similar, but I'm just thinking about the musical), so this happened. Please don't take it seriously. Hamilton: Bernie Sanders. Burr: Hillary Clinton. Washington: Obama. Adams: Martin O'Malley. King George: Donald Trump. Seabury: Sarah Palin. What about the other characters? Agree? Disagree?

[thraenthraen-blog]

This fic makes me so happy.

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“Are you boy or girl?” How can I explain gender to a young child?

“I simply am not.” A shrug, then a new question: “Play this game with me?”