Category Archives: feminism

Less Than / More Than – My complicated thoughts on reproductive rights & feminist discussions

101, bodies, class issues, feminism, intersectionality, introspective, justice, reproductive justice, resistance, social attitudes, , , , , , ,

When I’m not being a student, I typically get temp jobs working in a variety of offices. Once things get settled, and folks realise I am married, they often start asking about kids. “Do you have kids? No? When are you having kids? It’s not too late, you know!”

This may seem like an opening for a post about being child-free, but it’s not.

I often put these questions off with flippancy or a shrug or just saying we’re not interested in having kids. In my experience, this will often have people leave the issue be.

Sometimes, though, people will hound and hound and hound.

“Oh, it’s different when they’re yours. But what about Don, what does he think of all of this? What about your parents? What about– what about– what about?” [1. Everything in quotation marks in this post is a paraphrase.]

Do you want to know the secret way of getting people to never again ask why you’re not having children?

At some point, drop into a conversation that your husband’s disability is genetic.

Without fail, that has stopped every single person who has asked and asked and asked about children, even when the “genetic” bomb isn’t dropped in a conversation about having children.

One of the reasons why the focus of abortion! abortion! abortion! whenever talking about reproductive rights really bothers me (and a lot of others) is because of the assumption that people like Don & I shouldn’t have children (because – oh no! – the child likely will have Marfan’s just like Don! And everyone knows people like Don are a burden on the system/have miserable lives/are never happy/can never be married/are all the same/should be stopped/are just an example for the rest of us). When people focus on reproductive rights only involving abortion, they neglect that, for people like us, the pushback is to not have children. Don’t burden the system. Think of the children – and don’t have any.

I’ve seen similar conversations play out around the feminist blogosphere. [1. I have decided not to link to specific examples, because it’s a general attitude I’m talking about here. And also, who wants to start a blog-war? Not I, said the Anna.] When older women have children, there is always a sudden upswing in “BUT THE CHILD MIGHT HAVE A DISABILITY!” (Yes, the child might. And the child might fall out of a tree and land wrong. Or the child might grow up to be the next Stephen Harper and prorogue Canadian government. WHO KNOWS!) “Think of the children!”

The same fears are reflected when discussing women with disabilities having children (with bonus “but how will she care for the child?”), or when parents forcibly sterilize their disabled daughters.

This pains me, perhaps especially as someone who doesn’t want children. It pains many other women who, for a variety of reasons, are discouraged or outright prevented from having children they want. That, in North America, these women are overwhelmingly women of colour, lower class, disabled, queer – that they’re often women who have been institutionalised in some way, be it a “medical” institution or a “criminal” one – is not a coincidence.

In my experience, marginalized voices who speak out about this disparity between on-line feminist discussions of abortion and on-line feminist discussions from a broader reproductive justice framework [1. FREE Halifax: Feminists for Reproductive Justice & Equality. We meet every other Tuesday for teach-ins & movies about Reproductive Justice. Look for us on Facebook.] are often shouted down, or ignored. We’re told our issues are “special circumstances”, or “pet projects” or “in the minority” or “don’t apply to as many people” or … Well, basically everything feminists in general are told when they talk about issues that are “special circumstances” that don’t apply to enough people (read: men) to count.

Frankly, I end up not knowing where to go from here. Do we, who are limited on spoons or forks or energy or time, keep trying to push for more mainstream feminist discussion on these issues? Do we form our own spaces, our own groups, and have our own discussions? Do we write blog posts that seem to dwindle down, rather than lead us all into the future?

I don’t know. I know and respect people who have made each of those choices, and still others that I haven’t mentioned. But I don’t know what the right one is.

Maybe they all are.

Subtitles in Assassin’s Creed II and Ubisoft’s Pledge

accessibility, feminism, intersectionality, media and pop culture, social attitudes, , , ,

I am somewhat of a gamer. I am not by any means an avid gamer or someone you should call up with questions. If you want a review of how easy a game is to play or how not confusing your controls are, I am your girl*.

I am mostly a computer gamer. I like my World of Warcraft just fine, thank-you. It has a lot of room for critique, and I have some letter writing campaigns to Blizzard in progress. But I like it. I have no love for Warhammer Online, having never played it after being promised by multiple reliable sources that I would be able to play it on my Mac, and after purchasing the Special Edition in order to get into the Beta, was most unpleasantly surprised. Whatthefuckever, I turned that store credit into a Wii Fit, something I actually used. And, no, I don’t care that you can now get it for Mac, they already shat in my Cinnamon Life. I am digressing when I just wanted to say that I prefer computer over console because I tend to find console controls too confusing for me —  all the button combinations are too much to keep track of. I like to set up my buttons in a row and get my “Pew Pew Moar” on. If it is more complicated than original Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., I don’t really enjoy it. I just don’t have the reaction times or memory to figure out all of those buttons (and I don’t need an evo psych lecture on how girls just don’t have those skills, because I have many gamer skills that translate well into the PvP aspects of WoW…I just don’t have it for console gaming).

One thing that endeared me to WoW, however, is that all the dialogue is subtitled. I am not deaf, but I do sometimes have trouble sorting dialogue out from ambient noise, both in game and out. I don’t want to have to miss something in an otherwise mostly enjoyable game because I can’t understand what the NPCs are saying. It doesn’t matter how high you turn the volume, you just can’t get everything. WoW even lets me know when someone is yelling.

Back to console games…

One console game that I did pick up was Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed. There was a lot of excitement over this game, it was anxiously awaited — one of the most anticipated games of the year of its release. There was also a huge deal surrounding one of its lead developers that I will leave you to read up on, — I just am too tired to rehash it — I was thrilled that it didn’t stop Jade Raymond from being a part of ASII’s team (no transcript at the link). Just for a fun exercise, Google “Jade Raymond + Assassin’s Creed II” and see how many search results come up with anything that has to do with how good she is at being a video game developer or producer, and then tell me why more women don’t go into that industry. The team at Ubisoft put in the beginning of the game that it was developed by a team of multi-cultural and religiously sensitive people from many diverse backgrounds. I found the game fantastic. The Guy beat it in just a couple of days (he eats games for breakfast like that), even if the ending did make him want to put it in the freezer, and even though I have only recently tried it, I have really enjoyed it. To me, the controls are really simple, the game play is methodical (note: things that really piss some gamers off appeal to me, as in part of my OC nature really likes the repetitive storyline, and the different things to complete. I *love* that, because it allows me to zone out, clearing my mind.), and the game itself is Really Fucking Beautiful. I love going to all the checkpoints and using the “eagle vision”, just viewing the cities.

One aspect that was missing from this design team, it seems, was someone who had input on accessibility, because one complaint I had, even before I was invested in disability activism to the degree I am now, is that it had no subtitles. Like I said, I often miss dialogue during cut scenes, and even if that does not affect my game play, it affects my gaming experience.

When Assassin’s Creed II came out I read in The Guys Game Informer that they made a lot of changes based on what fans wrote to Ubisoft asking for. Before I was willing to get this for The Guy for X-mas this year, I needed to see two things: 1) That the playable character could not drown in a two fucking inches of water, and 2) subtitles. Well what do you know, this iteration’s assassin can fucking swim, and Assassin’s Creed II includes subtitles for all of the game play.

Rawk.

We have it, and it both translates the Italian and has decent subtitles, although it doesn’t describe non-spoken sounds.

There’s more.

Ubisoft, apparently has made a commitment that they will always include the considerations of deaf and hard-of-hearing gamers in the development phases of their gaming creation. This is exciting news for me, coming from a company that I have come to really like. By like, I mean, has made the first non-Nintendo based console game that I can actually play (this is also because I find the new black controller included w/ the X-Box Elite military appreciation smaller than the original, and fits comfortably in my hands, even on a moderate pain day).

I am looking forward to finishing Assassin’s Creed so that I can move on to ASII, if for no other reason than for the subtitles. I wish they had made this pledge long ago. It is worth noting that I read on a gamer message board somewhere (I can’t find it now) that someone had written them, and they responded, saying they took that complaint very seriously, and now, here they have. This has raised Ubisoft in my mind.

Like it was hard to do at this point.

*I do sometimes call myself girl. I don’t have a problem with this.

More articles on subtitles in video games: Subtitles: Increasing Game Accessibility, Comprehension (Gamasutra)

On Speculation and Boundaries…

disability activism, feminism, justice, media and pop culture, social attitudes, , , , , ,

Brittany Murphy died today.

It took exactly five seconds for the speculation to start up about why she would die of cardiac arrest at the tender age of 32, and not quite double that for the snarky comments to seep out of the woodwork. Because certainly if she had an existing heart condition we all would have known about it, since we have that right to her privacy.

What we have, much like the public consumption we have of celebrities, especially women, is a perceived right to make snap judgments about their lives and their health.

Brittany Murphy’s death is tragic on its own merits. She was talented and only 32.

And if there is any truth to the speculation, then she was sick. If she was indeed sick, then we, despite what we think, do not have a right to flaunt that illness about. She was ill, and she lost. And to me, that means something, on a human, and mortal level. There but for the grace and all of that. When I read the comments that speculate about what illnesses she certainly had or what addictions would be necessary to cause this premature death it is like nails on a chalkboard while chewing tinfoil whilst walking on broken glass but not the fun Annie Lennox version with adorably mistreated Hugh Laurie. If there is any truth to it then she was one of us. She was possibly like me and she lost. That scares me at my core. That was one of us in there and instead of having a moment to appreciate the gravity of that we are ripping her apart and we don’t even know. We Don’t Fucking Know.

Also, last I checked it is bad form to speak ill of the dead. But I suppose I am still an idealistic, silly girl to expect people to treat other people with human dignity. I have spent too much time in social justice for that.

If not, then her death was simply a tragic and random happenstance.

If any information is released, we have to wait for it and presume that it is the truth, and if not, we have to go on with what we have.

And either way, it isn’t our business, really.

She died, and that itself is enough. It should be. She gave us entertainment and amusement. She did what she loved with her life.

We should give her a modicum of respect in death.

May she rest in peace.

For Cereal, Internet?

disability activism, feminism, For Cereal?, justice, language, media and pop culture, mental health, social attitudes, television

A periodic feature in which we highlight some of the more ableist posts and comments in the blogosphere – the things that made us throw up our hands and ask “FOR CEREAL???” *

Today’s edition: a post at Jezebel titled “Woman, Go Take Your Pills!”: Schoolgirls Respond To Samantha Bee’s Christmas Conspiracies. Which, already – are you for cereal, Jezebel? The post reviews a Daily Show segment in which Samantha Bee meets with schoolgirls and, in the tradition of the Daily Show, presents outlandish and absurd positions to them as serious arguments. For example, she tells them that she doesn’t believe that Obama was born in the United States. The humor in the segment is the shocked and outraged responses from the schoolgirls to these positions and arguments.

At one point in the segment, one of the schoolgirls tells Bee “woman, go take your pills.” Which is problematic for a whole slew of reasons – the assumption that irrational or absurd political arguments are a sign of underlying mental illness, the assumption that medication is an appropriate treatment for all mental illnesses, the assumption that bystanders have a right to dictate the treatment a person pursues or receives for a mental illness. But none of these problems seem to have occurred to Anna at Jezebel, who chose the phrase to title the piece.

And the immediate response of commenters wasn’t to push back against this ableism, or to explain why using such a phrase is problematic, but to embrace the phrase as their “new smackdown,” per boobookitteh, or celebrating the “straightforward verbal beatdown these girls delivered so awesomely,” per BillyPilgrimisnotmylover.

So I award a “FOR CEREAL?” to Jezebel for approving of the phrase and using it to title their post, and a second “NO REALLY, FOR CEREAL?!” to the commenters for enthusiastically embracing this offensive phrase as their new go-to insult.

*(Actually, what I say, and what I considered titling this, is “Are You Fucking Kidding Me With This Crap, Internet?” but I’m trying to use less salty language.)

“Bad Activist” moments

activism, disability activism, feminism, gender, identity, mental health, resistance, social attitudes

I read a blog post recently by a woman with muscular dystrophy and her experiences going out to eat in restaurants. The author mentioned how wait staff rarely give her a menu, or give her a children’s menu instead of the standard menu. When this happens, she often just looks on with her mom’s menu rather than asking the wait staff to give her her own adult menu. She described that as a “bad activist moment.” While I enjoyed and appreciated the rest of the post, and marveled at the ableism she routinely experiences – wait staff giving her a sippy cup to use?! – the idea of “bad activist moments” particularly stuck with me.

A “bad activist moment,” if I understand it correctly, is a potential opportunity to highlight ableism, educate TABs on the abilities of a PWD, and instruct people on the correct way to interact with a PWD. It could also apply in other contexts – the opportunity to highlight and correct patriarchal or sexist behavior, or racist behavior, or ageist behavior, or any number of other discriminatory and oppressive behaviors. In this context, the person experiencing or observing the problematic behavior is a member of the class negatively affected by such behavior, but it could also, for example, extend to me as a white woman observing behavior that discriminates against Latinos.

I definitely think this idea has value and recognize that the term “bad activist moment” is likely shorthand for “an identifiable moment of opportunity for direct personal activism that I didn’t take” rather than a judgment on whether the person is actually at heart a good or bad activist. But I’m concerned that framing it as a “bad activist moment” suggests that to be a good activist, we must speak up and speak out Every Single Time we observe negative behavior, not just that affecting PWDs, but that affecting or oppressing any minority group or marginalized class. I know that I do not do this and if I did, I would likely suffer significant consequences. I feel I’m already on the edge of being characterized (and thus dismissed) as the girl who has a problem with everything and is hyper-sensitive on these issues and cannot in any way ever take a joke ever – and that’s with me pointing out about 1 in ever 10 problems I see. I worry that if I devoted more time and energy to those issues, I’d be pigeonholed as “politically correct girl” and nothing I said would be taken seriously or considered.

More seriously, though, it is infinitely more risky to raise issues of discrimination and oppression when you are part of the group that is being discriminated against or oppressed. Not only might this require someone who is “passing” to identify and out themselves, but explicitly claiming membership in the targeted group can lead to further discrimination and marginalization. In the racial context, it’s often characterized (and thus dismissed) as someone “playing the race card.” I’m not aware of a similar term in the disability context, but the trope of an “uppity” activist who “thinks they’re entitled to something” extends to all oppressed or marginalized groups. Identifying as such opens a person up to further attacks and discrimination and even physical violence.

Even without these very real risks, I believe that we should all allow ourselves the option to pass up potential opportunities for activism while still considering ourselves to be good and powerful activists. Even if all we did was live our lives as PWDs, that in itself would be an activist act, demonstrating that PWDs have interests, passions, relationships, emotions, LIVES. We would qualify as activists even if we passed up every single potential opportunity to do affirmative activism work.

My ultra-wise co-contributor Chally once told me that taking care of myself was a feminist act. Placing myself at the top of my priorities – even though I am a woman and “should” prioritize caring for others or building a family, even though I am a PWD and thus “have minimal value or worth to society” – is an act of activism. Can I do more than that? Yes, and I do, but I always try to keep in mind that my activism is and should be secondary to my own well being. In part because I’m not going to be able to do any activism at all if I burn out or hurt myself physically or mentally doing activism work. But also because the simple act of prioritizing myself is, in itself, activism.

So take the opportunities for activism that you feel you can. And let the others go by. And remind yourself at the end of each day that you were a good activist that day.

No, Actually, “Eat a Sandwich” is Not “Feminist Activism”…

bodies, feminism, intersectionality, language, mental health, shaming, Uncategorized,

…and I’m going to tell you why.

Because the policing of women’s bodies, whether you are being cheeky, or saying it to a plastic doll, is not cool. It’s hurtful and not useful, and has no place in feminist discourse. Can we move past that point? Huh? That’s a pretty Kindy thing, IMNSFHO.

‘Kay.

Moving on.

*The rest of this post is going to use some harsh language that describes my experiences/anger/frustration with Anorexia and Bulimia. I am direct and vulgar and sometimes a little flippant with how I describe my past behavior, and that is how I survived it. This may be triggering to some people. I also swear. A lot.*

There is a point when you are struggling* with an eating disorder that you might find yourself thin. Perhaps painfully thin. Maybe dangerously thin. You know this. You are aware. You haven’t avoided solids for this long, or barfed up all of that dinner you were pretending to enjoy without realizing what this means to your body. You might have some misunderstandings about what your body is actually needing…but you pretty much know.

In fact, everyone knows. All anyone can fucking talk about is how good you look now that you are so skinny…but wait…you just passed so good and have moved into too skinny…(because there is never good enough…too fat or too thin you will never be in)

Seriously, girl, eat a damned burger.

Or a bacon sandwich.

Eat something.

Because, you know, it’s that easy.

In fact (shifting voices), the only thing that anyone said to me that wasn’t so fucking insulting that I didn’t want to scream was “I am not going to insult you by saying how much harm you are doing to yourself because you are a smart girl and I know you know, when you are ready, I’ll be here”.

I watched all the shockudrama’s that were meant to scare me because ZOMG my STOMACH could RUPTURE and I was DOING THIS to MYSELF!

*for shame*

I saw Tracy Gold and the mom from Family Ties and countless others on the after school specials during school and I fucking knew.

How could I not? I knew what the result was…that was the damned point.

And I knew I was sick.

I. Didn’t. Care.

And that was scarier than anything…that I felt helpless inside my own body to stop it.

Eat a fucking sandwich.

As if I wouldn’t just throw it back up.

As if that bottle of ipecac wasn’t in my glove box.

As if I wasn’t really good at tearing it into pieces to make you think I was actually eating it only to drop some and crumble some and throw the rest away…

No, I wasn’t embarrassed of letting you hear me pee…the water running was a cover for something else…

Eat a fucking sandwich.

Tumbling around inside my head…as if it never occurred to me to do.

As if I had the power to just eat that fucking sandwich.

The hurt and the denial and the lies…and shit yelling at me just didn’t help…

Because who the fuck carries sugar packets in their purse?

And do you know when that shit started?

When I was a teenager.

We shouldn’t infantilize teenagers by saying “b-b-but they don’t get that this message isn’t aimed at real people”.

Bullshit.

Teenagers are people…with feelings…

And if anyone can tell you about what it feels like to hurt because you sit outside the socially accepted norm of appearance, it is another teenager…

being told to just eat a sandwich isn’t that funny if you are dealing with body issues

and burning yourself with a curling iron because you don’t know what else to do…

Eat. A. Damn. Sandwich.

It’s not funny or witty or clever or great new empowering activism.

It’s awful.

It’s hurtful.

It’s waking up in your own bile.

And it is possibly terrifying the hell out of someone.

Unpack that one.

*I don’t like to use “struggle” any longer when discussing disability. My experience with EDs was a struggle. There is no other word in my vocabulary, which spans a few languages, to explain it. I struggled, fought, and am still not sure I have won this one.

This is something I avoid thinking about

feminism, gender, life changes, social attitudes

As a single lady with a disability, I have lots of complicated and tangled thoughts about romantic relationships. While there’s a lot to say there (my therapist can attest to that), it all boils down to my belief about myself (which I want to make very clear is how I think about me, not something I think applies to any other person with a disability in the entire world ever) that my disability makes me too much of a handful, too much work, too much effort, too much pain in the ass, to be worth loving.

This is of course demonstrably untrue – I have friends and family who love me dearly and demonstrate that daily. I have been in romantic relationships in the past as a person with a disability, relationships that ended for reasons not at all related to my disability.  And so most of the time, this fear is a tiny tiny voice in the far back of my head that only comes out when things get especially dark.

But then there are actual studies like this: Men Leave: Separation And Divorce Far More Common When The Wife Is The Patient. Some findings:

A woman is six times more likely to be separated or divorced soon after a diagnosis of cancer or multiple sclerosis than if a man in the relationship is the patient. Researchers were surprised by the difference in separation and divorce rates by gender. The rate when the woman was the patient was 20.8 percent compared to 2.9 percent when the man was the patient. “Female gender was the strongest predictor of separation or divorce in each of the patient groups we studied,” said Marc Chamberlain, M.D., a co-corresponding author and director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA).

The study was relatively limited – it examined only patients diagnosed with either multiple sclerosis or significant brain tumors. And it did find that longer marriages were much less likely to result in separation or divorce. But overall, I found this pretty disheartening.

Power and Responsibility

bodies, feminism, shaming, social attitudes, , , , , , , , , ,

An earlier version of this post was published in July, 2009.

When I mention that Don has a homecare worker, and explain what that job is, I often get this question:

“Why don’t you do all that stuff for him?”

This touches on something that I’ve referred to a few times, and that’s the idea that it’s totally okay (admirable, even!) that services for people with disabilities be offered by volunteers. It gets into a lot of complicated stuff.

For example, Don’s homecare worker does things like makes sure he is clean-shaven once a week, washes his hair carefully, and does some of the stuff he needs done for his back, which suffers from a lot of sitting/lying related issues, like heat rashes and sores. She’s there for about an hour or so.

What she does for Don is a huge deal in terms of his personal hygiene. All those little things that allow him to be “acceptable” to our neighbours take energy, such as having clean hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Before homecare, Don would often go weeks, if not months, without a proper shave, and look very scruffy and unkempt. But it would be a decision for him – does he shave today, or does he make a meal? There wasn’t enough energy or concentration to do both.

The question of why I don’t do these things has a few assumptions under it. First, it implies that, because I’m his spouse, I should be in the caretaker role. I should be making sure all his personal hygiene needs are taken care of. There’s a power imbalance there that makes me uncomfortable. It puts me in role as adult, and Don in role of child, and this is just not acceptable.

The other thing is part of why this volunteer thing bothers me. Don’s personal level of comfort should not depend on my energy levels. It shouldn’t depend on my mood. It shouldn’t depend on whether or not I’m angry at him today, or I’m too busy, or if I’m home.

Right now, it depends on whether the woman who is paid to come to our home and do these things shows up. If she calls in sick, there is someone else who will come in. I know she has a degree in nursing, focusing on homecare for people with disabilities. I know she’s a professional, who has been taught the issues around disability and privacy, around personal autonomy, and around sexuality and disability. I know the process we will go through if either she or Don does something sexually inappropriate. I know the appeals process if she threatens him or he threatens her. I know what will happen to Don’s care in those situations. More importantly, Don knows what will happen in those situations. He has personal autonomy.

Don’s health needs shouldn’t be dependent on me in any way, because that’s not safe for Don.

In my experience, Feminism tends to have discussions about caregiving focusing around the fact that caregiving roles fall predominately on women, and lead to things like “the second shift”, or caregiver fatigue, or even directly impact women’s abilities in the workplace. (“I can’t work late because I need to get home now.”) I think this is an important thing to discuss, but I don’t think it’s the only part of the caregiving equation. I think we, as feminists, need to also talk about the power inbalance that comes in when one is a caregiver for a spouse or parent that has a disability.

As well, we rarely talk about what happens when the role of caregiver falls on women with disabilities? What happens to that allotment of spoons then? What view do we have of women with disabilities if their children aren’t “properly” cared for? If some other loved one isn’t getting everything they need? What happens to the caregiver/second shift issues then?

I think feminist discussions about caregiving and responsibility need to broaden out to include these complicated issues.

Keiko Fukuda: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful

biography, feminism, history

Olde-tyme Hoydenizens may remember that I wrote about Keiko Fukuda back in 2007, in the Friday Hoyden feature. Fukuda is probably the most knowledgeable and accomplished judoka alive, the last living student of Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo.

Geekfeminism has an update on Fukuda Sensei, with a snippet of film from documentary “Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful“. Ju-do means, very roughly translated, “gentle way”; judo’s key principle is to use minimal movements to turn the attacker’s strength back against her. The film’s name derives from an attempt to explain the essence of “ju” – “soft, gentle, flexible, adaptable”. Filmmakers Flying Carp are currently fundraising to complete the film.

In this excerpt, Fukuda talks about how she was ‘frozen’ at fifth dan (fifth degree black belt), for no other reason than that she was a woman. She was finally promoted to ninth dan at the age of 8893. She talks, emotionally, about having had to choose between marriage and judo. Fukuda still teaches judo in San Francisco at the age of 96, clearly much loved and much respected, and there is rather delightful film of her dispensing wisdom and rising from her wheelchair to demonstrate an armlock on a much larger student.

Transcript/description to follow now available, courtesy of Quixotess!

Continue reading Keiko Fukuda: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful →

Quoted: Barbara Smith

feminism, Quotations,

“Feminism is the political theory and practice that struggles to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, disabled women, Jewish women, lesbians, old women–as well as white, economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this vision of total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement.”

–Barbara Smith, “Racism and Women’s Studies,” 1979 (text is available at JSTOR; unfortunately, it’s subscription-only)