Nenya Kanadka

In my lifetime, I've now seen:

* gay marriage legalized nationally across the entire United States of America (and also Canada, before that)
* a Black US president
* a female US vice president (a Black and Indian-American woman, at that)

When I was a kid, they told us the last two of those would happen someday, and I believed it in the vague way that I thought we might someday have humans on Mars, but it seemed pretty distant and vague. When I first started paying attention to LGBTQ+ rights, the first one seemed impossible.

And yet.

I'm thinking too about how every US presidential election since 2008, aside from Obama's reelection in 2012 where I don't even remember who Romney's running mate was (but I know it was a guy), has had at least one woman on the ticket for one of the major parties. Palin, Clinton, now Harris. And this year's Democratic primary had several women in it. It seems like we're at a tipping point where, just like when all of a sudden there was a point where state after state was passing marriage equality, we might start having women nominated all the time now. Then they'll start winning. Then it will be normal to have either a man or a woman leading the US, the way it's not shocking anymore to have a female senator or congressperson.

(Canada, it's time to catch up on female party leaders please!)

And Oklahoma (!!) has elected the first nonbinary state legislator in the US in Mauree Turner, and former Biden staffer Sarah McBride has just been elected to the state senate in Delaware, bringing the number of trans people at state legislature level to five. State senate is what Obama was doing before he got elected to the senate at national level. We're going to hear more from these folks, I think.

And in four years NASA plans to send the first woman to the moon.

2020's been A Year. But even now good things are happening.

Thank fuck. That's a relief. And a victory for all us women, poors, queers, and foreigners. Though it might mean fewer of my excellent American friends moving north to Canada. Alas. (I still hold out hopes for agentrosecotton finally coming home after she graduates college in Tennessee, though.)

I felt great excitement and joy at Obama's first election; this time it's more a sense of deep relief. I could never take Romney seriously as a candidate--he didn't even seem like he wanted the job, as a job, just maybe the power involved--but there was always the outside chance he'd be voted in. Well done, USians.

And now, I'd better get back to writing my femslash12 fic with Written? Kitten! and the various and several B5 fics slowly increasing their wordcount at 750words.com. Gina Torres told me to.

*breaks out the remaining chocolate beer*

"Oh thank God," was my first thought, "something that's not maiden/mother/crone!"

Female Archetypes: Warrior, Healer, Queen

I haven't read the novels hapaxnym is referencing here, but I really like this new triad. The whole maiden/mother/crone thing has always bothered me. I'm pretty sure it works for some people. (There's someone in the comments there saying it works for them!) But for me, "maiden" brings up obsession with virginity and "purity" and slut-shaming. Ick, bleck, ptui. Motherhood doesn't resonate with me at all--I don't want children myself, and would far rather be the awesome aunt or the big sister or the non-family mentor of a younger woman (if I ever get my shit together myself) than have my own kids, bio or adopted. And "crone"? I know that's been reclaimed by some older women, but it doesn't do much for me. Though I could deal with being as badass as Granny Weatherwax, someday. In general, given that I like being female fine but don't derive a great sense of my place in the universe from having a female body, maiden/mother/crone makes me twitch more than it gives me a useful framework.

But Warrior is Eowyn and Susan Ivanova and Kira Nerys and Jago and Nita Callahan and Zoe Washburne and Trinity. And probably my girlfriend. It's strength and protection and being a wall between harm and the innocent. My heart starts pumping a little faster just reading those names. It doesn't have to mean having no heart, or violence for the sake of violence, but it's about being confident in yourself and competent in what you do and willing to use that in service of others who maybe don't have the capabilities you do. I admire warriors.

Female Healers are harder for me to think of in the stories I draw my myths from; female characters are often written as nurturing to the point of losing any independence (as Hapax points out is a failure mode of this type) or interesting plot of their own. So a lot of the healers I draw inspiration from are male (Dr McCoy!) and a lot of the interesting female healers you get are also warriors. But there's Nienna and Estë and Kai Opaka and Martha Jones and Faiza Hussain and Kaylee Frye (she fixes ships, not people) and Beverly Crusher and Deanna Troi. People laugh at Troi for being too emotional, but I loved the idea of empathy as a healing tool. I want to be someone who builds and heals and defuses flamewars. (Personally I'd colour this one blue and green more than orange--but that's because I love blue. :D Though there is the Red Cross.)

And Queen--queens are Galadriel. And Delenn. Varda and Yavanna. The Doctor Donna. Liz X. Haleth in the Silmarillion was a warrior, but she has the qualities of leadership and strength of will that I associate with a queen. Inspiring people. Seeing the bigger picture and being able to communicate that to other people who fight or heal or create or invent. Queens inspire worship, even as they need other people around them to keep them grounded at times.

So, yeah. This is the kind of thing that makes me love being a woman and shows me how to be a good person in the world. I think there's probably room in there for "creator" or "inventor", but maybe that's a subset of the Healer? In any case, lots of food for thought.

This is cool--a slideshow from Salon.com of a number of historic landmarks and important pieces of infrastructure that were built with New Deal/Works Progress Administration money back in the 1930s. This stuff was not only valuable and useful, it's still standing today.

Greatest Achievements of American Socialism

When Obama talks about "infrastructure", he's talking about catching up on back repairs that we've let slide, about building new things we've put off for ages, and about moving into the Century of the Anchovy. All of which needs people to do it, and therefore creates jobs.

Pretty cool. Yet again I'm hit with the thought, "Oh, that makes so much sense!" (Which is what I thought when, at the age of nine, someone explained socialized healthcare to me--damn I miss my BC CareCard.)


(hattip Pandagon)

And because (listening to music from the inaugural concert today), I've just realized that joyful catharsis is as important as angry catharsis, have a video. :D

Everyone looks so happy! I love when they pan over the crowd and it's all these people who all look different from each other but are all jumping up and down and totally thrilled. And then there's Lincoln behind them. Yeah, maybe I feel faintly American at the moment? I don't know, I feel...happily human. :D



Go, go listen to all the songs in that section of YouTube--HAPPY JOY JOY!

\o/ ASDFLKJL; PARTY \o/

It looks like we may have a new CIA director WHO'S ANTI-TORTURE.

OH MY GOD.

If this is really true I will be so, so happy. This was one of my big things in supporting Obama (in supporting ANY Democrat really). Partly because it was bellatrys's coverage of Abu Ghraib back four and a half years ago that made me wake up and start paying attention to politics, but also because of simple humanity, I've been very sad and angry over what the US has been doing with its prisoners during the war on terror.

There are other issues, even other very important issues, but if Obama is listening on civil rights--OH MY GOD. I will *dance*.

So I just got home from lunch with my Episcopalian priest. I don't know where she's getting her information from (we do have a mutual friend who's a poll worker, but I don't know what he's allowed to say), but she says that 45% of our county has already voted.

Forty-five percent.

(Now, I doubt strongly that we'll go for Obama here--we're the reddest corner of Tennessee. But holy frell, that's high voter turnout. O.O People care, this year.)

If a famous American politician were named Benedict Eugene, would he get the same shit for his name as if he were named Barack Hussein?

(They mean the same thing.)