For those who think feminism should be over.

I haven't posted in five days. Sorry: five very busy days.
Yesterday night, I got into some sort of discussion on Facebook: a guy I knew in college posted a pretty unethical news story and a friend and I spend some time making jokes around it, my friend blaming journalism for all the evil in the world and me trying to justify my vocation by saying that female journalists are different. We were joking, but there was someone else who never got it: after some sort of defense of crappy journalism with cliches like "journalism is more than getting a quote," this random dude jumped onto my claim against the lack of women running newsrooms.That, I didn't find funny. He said "I know some women who are editors, and I don't think this is an issue of genre, I think it is an issue of criteria and the editorial positions predominant in each media outlet."

O.K. More than silly arguments, I hate silly arguments that actually prove the exact opposite to what they are trying to go for. He is denying sexism in the newsroom and then actually admitting it but changing its name. He is saying that some newsrooms just prefer not to hire female editors and this is their "editorial position." There are more precise ways to put it: misogynistic human resources departments prevent women to achieve powerful positions in the media industry. It is so dangerous when journalists fail at seeing reality. Where did Random Dude on Facebook go to journalism school?

This fight is not over, and here in the U.S there are blogs and columnists who make sure we don't forget that. Being the President of Chile a woman, I have to admit that I forgot about it a little bit.

Aiden has a say on this. I'm editing, and I found this clip. There is just no one with more authority than Aiden to prove my point. An important note about it, though, just so we are in the same page: Aiden, as he also says, has little or no authority to speak about how a woman feels, because he wasn't feeling things the way girls do. This is why he transitioned; he felt and perceived things like a man. He never felt 100% girl, then it's not like he can understand how we feel. BUT he looked like us: what he does know very well is about socially being seen and treated like a girl. As sexism and feminism are about socially being a woman, Aiden has an interesting insight on it. Here you can hear a word or two from an expert. Random dude on Facebook: watch this and then go read some sociology.

PS: The clip has a noise. Could you please be comprehensive with someone who is getting started on this? I'm working on  getting rid of that noise. That's actually why I found the clip.

Peter Burke, mi amor!

A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering about transgender people´s presence in literature and especially, in history. I mentioned the Victorians and I wasn´t so lost: I found this great blog in Spanish where the issue is covered.  He is pointing to plays of the XVII century in Europe, and to the carnival. The carnival, of course! I forgot about it, duh! The blog´s author is quoting a lot of Spanish literature: Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Guillén de Castro. And Boccaccio´s The Decameron!
He also says travestism during the carnival gets talked about in Peter Burke´s "Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe." I read it, but I can´t remember what he said about this topic especifically.This is a good one, folks: if you want to read history during the winter break and you like European history,this is your guy. Trust me.
OH BOY I can´t wait to be on vacation to check some of these titles out! I´m curious: was it a matter of "erotica," or something even deeper? Were there folks who would be consistently gender non-conforming?
(Wait: I read the book´s description at Amazon...ha! it says "Long neglected by historians, the concept of cultural history....blablabla." I´m into cultural history, cultural journalism, cultural-cultural everything :S)

A bit scared

Something is going on with my face, something that I can´t decipher, and I´m totally blaming this project for it: I have a muscle that feels weird. It feel like it wants to curl or something. It seems to be a stress thing: when I laugh, I start laughing with both sides of my mouth like every other human being, but then I have to relax the right side of my face because it feels like the muscle is going to get curled forever. I´m scared! It began in the editing room on Saturday, all the area sorrounding the eyes felt really, really tired. That is normal, that always happens to me during finals, the problem is that it is going a step further this time: the muscle (or whatever it is, ok!) that connects your jaw with your face feels really weird.  I am officially scared. On Sat, I had to go home early because I felt something could happen to me otherwise while driving, so I thought the sooner I drove back to Maryland, the better. Sunday morning it was still acting weird, though not as bad as on Sat. I told my dad and he said some people´s face paralyze when they are stressed out: that must not happen to me! How am I gonna interview Aiden this week with a paralyzed face! So I am working hard on relaxing, but now my face is again doing the "I´m going to curl" thing and I HAD to share it somehow! What can I do? I want to cry, this is scary!

Maybe this is why they ask me if I knew Aiden before doing the story...

Mixing the two important conversations I had this weekend, maybe now I know why people ask me if I knew Aiden before reporting the story. It isn´t pretty.
Manu is Colombian, I am Chilean. I´m having problems figuring out how my cultural background might affect my approach to this story, so I asked Manu for her opinion.
We spoke about how Latinos just allow themselves to discriminate. They see a gay couple and they have no problem with saying out loud "qué asco!" (how repulsive). They have no problem with looking down at African Americans. "An American just doesn´t do that," I said to Manu, "when they ´feel like´ discriminating, they work on it and stop themselves. It is socially unaccepted to discriminate, it goes against social rules." Manu said that yes, that´s true, but that we also need to consider American´s double standards. When they say one thing, but mean another. Manu said something like "maybe they say they accept it and they act like they don´t gossip about these things, but we would need to see how things go in their private space. Inside their houses. Maybe they say things just like Latinos do, but they act publicly as if they don´t, because of the double standards that rule here for everything." She has a point.

Manu: "He knows how we like it."

On Wednesday, after submitting my first cut of the project, my body completely shut down. I burned my disc at 5 pm, and then went to class: as I was sitting there, I could feel how my body was saying "Farewell, cruel world, farewell" (do people even say this in Eng? "Adiós, mundo cruel, adiós?")
Whatever: so it shut down, but before that I made sure to check out a camera. On Thursday evening, I met my friend Manu and showed her the first cut of the film. My plan is, from the reactions I get to this cut, work on the final one. I can turn in this first cut as my capstone project, that´s fine, I´m thinking beyond that: maybe the short documentary I want to have on my resume is not the same one that I´m turning in as a graduation project....aja! see where I´m going? I´m using my capstone project as a step towards the project I really want to produce.
So I showed her my capstone. Her thoughts will help me visualize where to go now. We talked for an hour and a half, but I selected the best 10 minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen: Manu´s reactions.
(BTW: Can subtitles be more annoying? Jesus! Someone should PLEASE improve Final Cut! It took me 8 hours just to subtitle this thing! and then an hour of rendering! and then, compressing! too much!)

My best recipe

"Maite, it is so hard to take you out of your own world!" he texted. Or something on the lines, but gramatically correct. My own world? Call it my recipe for happiness: lots reading, writing and editing--in that order. Caffeine, sometimes chocolate. Cuban, British, and Argentinean music in the background. That´s all I need in life. Dating you is not on the list.

I feel a 100% better now

Two days ago, I highlighted my timeline and hit "delete." Yep, I intentionally erased my whole project. I couldn´t stand the cut, I just hated it. Yesterday night, a long brainstorming night, I discovered Susannah Breslin´s amazing blog: today´s post is about how she just threw away a novel she had been working on for 2 years. I say that two strangers with the same insane reaction in a 30 hours frame is enough to declare this a normal behavior. 

This weekend is going to be an interesting one, tough: my project is due exactly six days from now. In case you were wondering, I wasn´t on drugs when I hit the delete key.

( Isn´t the pic a piece of gold? It´s from 1910, there is this great Canadian pic archive)