You might want to check out the Feminist Friday post at Part Time Monster tomorrow.

Diana’s issued a personal Facebook invitation for people to join in the Feminist Friday discussion tomorrow. Here’s a quote from her invitation.

Looking at the Google search results for the Monster often reminds me of why we need feminism—“monster rape girl,” “funny boko haram” “funny#bringbackourgirls,” “monster rape.”

Friday, we’ll be talking about feminism at the blog. If you’re interested in feminism, in discussing feminist issues, I encourage you to read and participate.

This is one of those weeks you want to read it, whether you feel up to commenting or not.

If you’re just joining us, you’re welcome at the Monster tomorrow. You should be aware of the fact that we’ve done these discussions every week since late March, with only two off-weeks. We have an archive to prove it. Our friends help us out by hosting them sometimes and commenting when they are able. Sometimes the threads are still alive on Monday morning.

This week might be the best one yet.

We’re open to ideas for the Feminist Friday discussion

Most of you know by now we host a Feminist Friday discussion almost every week someplace in the blogosphere. Diana and I are planning for this week. Before we decide to host it at Part Time Monster, I just want to poll the regular participants and supporters. I know several of you have ideas for posts and some of you are open to hosting. Would you like to write the post or host this week?

If so, I need to know by 7 p.m. EDT (U.S., New York time) tomorrow, so we can either make plans to announce the venue and get the word out or brainstorm a Friday post at the Monster.

An Unavoidably Political Post, and Don’t Forget about Feminist Friday!

First things first. Diana will have the Feminist Friday post at Part Time Monster this week. We took last weekend off, so we’re hoping for a good discussion this week.

I haven’t been around on the social media this week very much because I’ve been doing a lot of writing.  I briefed a Supreme Court case that deals with religious liberties and contraception yesterday. I added my opinion at the end. That didn’t get a lot of looks, and it’s not surprising. You can only expect so much out of a legal brief on a pop culture blog, and when that legal brief mentions both religion and politics, well. You know. The number of views doesn’t matter, though. A few people read it. It was something that had to be written and had to be published, by me, this week.

I followed up with a discussion of the consequences of the decision and further developments today. That one did better, and that makes sense, too, because it’s newsy. Newsy posts always do better than legal analysis unless your audience happens to be full of attorneys. Sadly, comments on that post were accidentally disabled all day. So I have no idea whether anyone wanted to comment or not. Comments are enabled now, though.

Even though those aren’t the two most popular posts I’ve ever written, I’m glad I published them, and here’s why. They helped me connect some dots. As many of you know, I’ve been writing about the need for LGBTQ people to have full equality in the U.S. roughly every two weeks now for about 4 months. I’ve also started, with the help of many friends, a Feminist Friday discussion which has been hosted on several blogs and has managed to survive for 13 weeks or so. Both of those issues are issues of inequality. I’ve been trying to find a way to connect them in a way that isn’t forced and doesn’t offend anyone who’s actually with me on the issues. I’ve had a bit of a personal breakthrough on that.

I’ve identified cultural, political, and legal mechanisms that allow people to discriminate against all the groups encompassed by “LGBTQ” and “women.” Even if I haven’t spoken clearly enough for anyone else to see them yet, they exist, and I see them.

Breakthrough.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

A Mississippi Love Story

Jackson, MS premier of #amississippilovestory will be June 27 6:30-8:30 at Mississippi Museum of Art. Free admission.

— MSlovestory (@MSlovestoryfilm) June 19, 2014

I can’t tell you how happy I was last Thursday to find this in my Twitter feed. I hope it reaches a wide audience.

Here’s the trailer:

The description: A short documentary that takes a poignant glimpse into the lives, relationships and politics of life-partners Eddie Outlaw and Justin McPherson, at a time when citizens in Mississippi and across the nation were watching and waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Defense of Marriage Act case. The time to leave Mississippi has passed for Eddie and Justin. They are committed to staying and making Jackson a thriving place for the gay community to live and, hopefully, in which to marry. @MSlovestoryfilm

If you are close enough to Jackson, MS, and interested enough to drive there and see it for free this weekend, you can find the address of the Mississippi Museum of Art here.

Here are a few more details, which I hope it is ok to share:

Cinematographer Lauren Cioffi spent months, beginning in March 2013, documenting the day-to-day lives of Eddie Outlaw and his partner Justin McPherson Outlaw.

A second unit team captured footage in Washington, D.C. as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on California’s Proposition 8 and on the Defense of Marriage Act.  Editor Azod Abedikichi employed an upbeat and whimsical style, which included animating original illustrations by Joy Abedikichi, to capture the essence and spirit of the subjects. Composer Chris Gibbons’ simple and beautiful Red Tango reflects the energetic and optimistic disposition of Eddie and Justin.

Sounds cool, doesn’t it? You don’t want to miss it!

Film Credits:

Director/ Cinematographer: Lauren Cioffi
Producer: Robbie Fisher
Editor: Azod Abedikichi