Yeah, I’m back, apologies for the sloth. I’ll try and stick to the other six next time.
Or:
Yeah, I’m back, apologies for the sloth. I don’t know how he got in here, but he chewed up my internet connection pretty good and then fell asleep on top of the router. There was no shifting him, and the tech support guy wouldn’t touch it until I’d got him out the way.
Anyway. Here are some things.
– I didn’t realise that Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was a thing until too late, but luckily I did happen to include a likeness of the sacred prophet in my last post anyway, just for the hell of it.
– But that was last week. Today is the day that Boobquake is upon us. This one merits a little background, if you’re not familiar. An Iranian cleric made some waves recently by claiming that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes. Or, the impure thoughts that women give men by dressing revealingly is what causes an increase in tectonic activity. Something stupid like that, anyway.
This is obviously some pretty sexist bullshit, so one intrepid blogging bosom-owner decided to take action. Her suggestion was that for one day – today – women deliberately wear more revealing and immodest clothes than normal, and see how the plates of the Earth’s crust respond. Could the might of female indecorousness truly provoke a boobquake?
It’s a fairly light-hearted bit of fun, but some people don’t like it, even if they’re not demented Muslim clerics. I’m not going to get into the debate about the scientific rigour or feminist implications of this right now, but Maymay has some good ideas. I think trying to get together a whole new movement on the same day was possibly a tactical mistake, but a Femquake sounds like something I could get behind.
Of course, I also had to spend way too much of my work day on Twitter earlier trying to come up with names for what the male equivalent of such an event as a Boobquake would be. The best I could do at short notice was Ballcano.
Also, the Skepchicks talk about breasts.
– There are no inconsistencies in the Bible. And, there are lots of inconsistencies in the Bible. I’m both right!
– Hey, you remember how loads of Catholic priests raped hundreds of children, and the Pope was among those who covered it up? And did you hear about this jokey memo circulated among the British Foreign Office recently, regarding the Pope’s upcoming UK visit, which made some silly suggestions of ways he might like to spend his time here, such as opening an abortion clinic, or performing a duet with the Queen? Those two things, they’re not quite on the same scale, are they? I mean, one of those is proportionately far worse than the other, right? Between the child rape conspiracy and the list of jokes?
Well, Melanie Phillips agrees with you. Um… sort of.
– And lastly, if you don’t want to read an article titled The Truth About Cocaine Vaginas, then I don’t even know you, man.
– Last-minute addendum: I know at least one person reading this was expecting to read something outrageous about interior design. I hope you learned something today about setting your sights too high.
I don’t see why Femquake has to start and end today. After all, today is simply the first day of the rest of our lives. :)
Femquake is an idea, a celebration of unity and an attempt at “more speech” as a solution to negative speech. That idea, and that kind of “more speech” behavior, doesn’t need to be confined to today.
I think the feminist sex debates, which many say ended back in the 80s or 90s but which I see crop up every single day, are worthwhile. I also think they are needlessly inflammatory and incredibly hurtful to women, men, and anyone else who wants gender justice to be a reality and doesn’t want to feel ashamed of sex.
So, y’know, the Earthquakes may be hypothetical, but the aftershocks throughout the divisive feminist debates could be real! Femquake it up!
Oh, this certainly doesn’t need to be the end of the Femquake saga. Trying to turn it into a meme so quickly to coincide with today’s Boobquake might have been optimistic, but there’s definitely time to make it a recurring feature. More speech is pretty much always good.
Excuse me, what am I supposed to have learned? Are you being heightist?
I think you’re just supposed to have learned not to expect me to be able to live up to even moderate challenges, like “write something amusing”. I apologise to you and your heighted brethren and sistren for any offence caused by my insensitive choice of words; you are of course welcome to set your sights wherever you choose.
Recheck the date on the Draw Mohammad day. Specifically, check what month it is. :P
Femquake… had a very quick look and it just seems like the usual call for equality? How’s that different from, y’know, feminism or good ole humanism? Why is it that every time someone comes up with an idea, like arresting the pope or showing some cleavage, someone else who is ostensibly on the same side has to go off whining about it? Grumble.
Ooh. How lucky, apparently I’m very stupid. There’s still time!
I think the Femquake was supposed to be some sort of middle ground between Boobquake, and whatever that other thing was which was spun off from Boobquake by the people who thought it was anti-feminist and wanted women to flaunt their brains rather than their tits. The idea behind Femquake, as I understand it, is more about celebrating that women are sexy and intelligent (which is itself sexy).
But yeah, there’s a lot more internal wrangling within some aspects of feminism than is probably useful. We’re all working towards the same good stuff, though, in principle. If we can just all remember that.
[...] hoped it would. Of course, not everyone was so enthused. In a comment on one such blog post, Melliferax said: Femquake… had a very quick look and it just seems like the usual call for equality? How’s that [...]