My #YesAllWomen Tweets

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471156510479773696

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471156759558508544

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471156993323827201

Context on that last: they were Daniel J. Bernstein fans, and he has issues with my husband. My relatives should not be factored into whether or not I get a job. It was an illegal question, and I’ll call out the company: IronPort.

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471158455764410368

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471157246462681088

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471157704484851712

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471158623800815616

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471158967201042432

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471159361771819008

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471159688319365120

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471161182871494656

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471161363973169152

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471161667032981504

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471161885509693440

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471162660998754304

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471162811234533378

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471163351490260992

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471163667191312384

Would a boy have gotten the same response?

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471163940978712576

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471166343123714048

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471170008786030592

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471170275808002048

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471170978941116416

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471175474849120256

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471176357452345344

http://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/471177894438264832

Some other tweets I retweeted:

http://twitter.com/JennMJack/status/471094620848287745

http://twitter.com/Ceilidhann/status/470323434237730817

http://twitter.com/LoriAdorable/status/470679571486883840

http://twitter.com/DrFayeAbood/status/471162133443796992

http://twitter.com/LaurenGracy/status/471162924031942658

http://twitter.com/Jackierball1/status/471145328893521920

http://twitter.com/sparklystuff/status/471130896070750208

http://twitter.com/XtinaHernandez/status/471175147521859584

Not directly related, but timely:

http://twitter.com/BookaliciousPam/status/471154746447769601

Last, this one made me laugh.

http://twitter.com/lmorchard/status/470642608394747904

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.

Vacation vs. Real Experience and Answers vs. Questions

"I'm an expert on Africa because I took a vacation." @cynthia_ward's shorter Bryan Thomas Schmidt on Resnick.

— Nisi Shawl (@NisiShawl) May 28, 2014

(My recollection is that Resnick has been to Africa quite a few times and for fairly long stays for a vacation, but the sentiment is still a valid point.)

I travel all over the place.

I do not confuse that with knowing what it’s actually like to be from those places or being of those peoples.

I don’t travel to feel like I know “all about” something. Yet, I can encapsulate the gist of my experience, while recognizing that experience is from a place of (mostly) privilege.

I travel because it makes me question my assumptions in ways that reading does not. I travel because it makes me think. I travel because going around the world has given me a feel for its size and heft that not traveling did not. It’s about as long a flight from Johannesburg to London as it is from London to San Francisco or Bangkok to Johannesburg. And, for the record, I do not recommend doing them as close together as I did last year on my two-week “Jet Lag World Tour.” (San Francisco – Wellington, NZ – Melbourne, AU – Bangkok, TH – Cape Town, ZA – London – home)

I travel because it raises more questions than it answers.

For me, the single biggest boon to writing is having more questions.

Charles A. Tan wrote about the recent submissions call for stories about Africa.

Would I have felt comfortable submitting to any of the anthologies Tan links to? No. However, I have a feeling I’d have been welcome to submit to the problematic one. Save for, you know, being a feminist and all.

I’ve been to three countries in Africa: Egypt (in 2007), Morocco (in 2011), and South Africa (in 2013). This means that, among white Americans, and especially white American women, I’m probably in the top 1/2 of 1% as far as direct experience with Africa. Maybe even higher up than that.

The problem is that between those three trips, I have a grand total of a week spent on the ground. The first two were two-day cruise stops (with one day spent in one city and one day in another), and the third was part of a 14-day around-the-world trip.

I also haven’t mentioned the cruise stop details before. We were shepherded onto buses, and each bus had an armed guard. The buses traveled together with a police escort. Think about how deep an experience you can have in that context. Even so, the cruise line (NCL) stopped going to Morocco after that because of the complaints about it. I thought it was a fantastic experience and would love to go back. No, it is not Geneva, but I went because it wasn’t Geneva.

For a moment that struck me with wonder: we visited the king’s palace in Rabat, Morocco. As we’re getting off the bus, the call to prayer starts. For smaller mosques, the call to prayer is often a recording. As this particular adhan started, the muezzin’s voice cracked. I don’t know why that moment of realizing it was actually live (not Memorex) sent chills down my spine, but it did.

I also don’t want to give the impression that I’m merely a tourist. I studied Middle Egyptian at Stanford Continuing Studies before I went. I actually wanted to arrive in Egypt understanding something more than what a tour guide would tell me. Unfortunately, arguing with an obnoxious vendor at Giza, I ran out of spoons for visiting the solar barque. Sigh.

In South Africa (Cape Town), I went to visit a friend, one I helped get out of Scientology back in the day. But still I was staying at a hotel. Cape Town has some of the highest disparity between income levels of any place in the world. So, when my iPhone was stolen, I was annoyed, but I couldn’t really feel angry about it.

Maybe it’s my time in Scientology, but I’ve come to mistrust people who seem to have answers, especially if they’re overly comfortable with those answers. And it feels like that call is looking for people with answers.

It bothers me that I’ve probably “interacted with” three cultures enough for that particular submissions call.

Know what I mean?

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.

Support Zoë Keating & Family

Zoë Keating’s husband has had mysterious ailments for several months. As of two weeks ago, that’s no longer mysterious: he has stage 4 lung cancer with mets.

On May 13 an MRI found 20 tumors in my husbands brain. On May 15 he could barely breathe and was in a lot of pain. A CT scan that day revealed he had a softball-sized tumor in his lung, tumors in his other lung, his liver and possibly his bones. On our way home from the imaging center our primary care doc called and told us to turn around and get to the hospital right away. My husband was admitted and they promptly removed more than a pint of fluid from his lungs, which helped him breathe better. We were there for 6 days while they performed a bronchoscopy, did more scans, gave him drugs to stop his brain from swelling and administered emergency chemo.

Anthem Blue Cross has denied coverage.

Hey, @AnthemPR_CA why is the medical reviewer who denied my husband's hospital stay for stage 4 lung cancer an OB-GYN?

— Zoe Keating (@zoecello) May 28, 2014

Zoë’s a pretty amazing cellist. If you’re so inclined, I’m sure buying her music would help her family out right now. If not, spreading the word about her situation, including aiming the Internet Rage Machine at Anthem Blue Cross.

Or, as Zoë asks:

Please, don’t send any condolences. Send strength and love and positive energy, healing vibes, prayers, chants, interpretive dances…all of it.

And since my new album will remain unfinished for a while longer, if you want to help us in ways other than good vibes, you could buy some of my music. Listen to it, give it to a friend and think of us.

Joel Richard tells about seeing her perform.

Wil Wheaton wrote about Anthem’s denial here.

"Coverage denied…doesn't meet criteria for medical necessity". I WOULD CALL SAVING MY HUSBAND'S LIFE A MEDICAL NECESSITY YOU FUCKERS

— Zoe Keating (@zoecello) May 28, 2014

Amen.

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.