[Linkspam] Monday, November 6

[tim]

Election

• Exit Strategy, by EricaJoy (2016-11-03). "Staying is not a desirable option. Staying leaves me in a country run by a person who can start a war and would probably start one because someone slighted him."
• [CW: sex; sexually explicit images (porn covers)] The Erin Brockovich of Porn, by Jeremy Lybarger for Esquire (2016-11-04). "We almost made it through lunch without mentioning the turkey basters full of cum, which would have been a shame."
• Goodbye to all that: I’m done with Election 2016, by Sady Doyle for Global Comment (2016-11-03).

  I’m tired. I’m tired of debating whether gender plays a role in the election of the potential first female President, whether sexism is affecting media coverage or public sentiment, whether Hillary Clinton’s female supporters are selfish for caring about gender when There Are So Many Other Problems In The World After All, whether sexism itself even qualifies as a problem. I am tired of the lingering hangover of the Democratic primary, tired of what this conversation has shown me about the seemingly well-meaning, “progressive” men in my life. I am tired of seeing the damage that even the mildest, wimpiest, plaid-shirt-clad beardy-bro can do when he’s been given license to stop taking sexism seriously, and therefore stopped worrying that he might get somebody hurt.

• is donald trump a ‘man of peace’?, by leftytgirl (2016-11-03). 'Why do some on the left seem to believe Trump is a ‘man of peace’? What personal traits of his is this based on?'
• What Hillary Clinton's Fans Love About Her, by Chimamanda Adichie (2016-11-03).

  A conservative writer labeled her a congenital liar when she was first lady, and the label stuck because it was repeated over and over—and it was a convenient label to harness misogyny. If she was a liar, then the hostility she engendered could not possibly be because she was a first lady who refused to be still and silent. “Liar’ has re-emerged during this election even though Politifact, a respected source of information about politicians, has certified that she is more honest than most politicians—and certainly more honest than her opponent.

  Because she is already considered guilty in a vague and hazy way, there is a longing for her to be demonstrably guilty of something. Other words have been repeated over and over, with no context, until they have begun to breathe and thrum with life. Especially “emails.” The press coverage of “emails” has become an unclear morass where “emails” must mean something terrible, if only because of how often it is invoked.

• When Truth Falls Apart, by Maria Bustillos for The Awl (2016-11-02). So good:

  "Dismediation is looking to make you never really trust or believe a news story, ever again....

  It’s not that we can’t agree on what the facts are. It’s that we cannot agree on what counts as fact.

  (There's something to be said here about the relationship between what Bustillos calls dismediation -- the propagation of epistemological nihilism -- and the denial of marginalized people's lived experiences that is the substance of gaslighting.)

• His message was that America is fine, by Aaron Bady (2010-11-01). Yes, this article is six years old, but so much of it still rings true: '...by condemning both ideological “sides” equally for the crime of being ideological, he implies or explicitly claims that the truth is to be found in a “Real” that is outside those ideological filters.'

Everything else

• Smashing the Silicon Valley patriarchy: anti-Lean In strategy puts onus on men, by Zoë Corbyn for The Guardian (2016-11-02). My friend Valerie Aurora in the news!
• Why I Glorify Obesity, by Marie Southard Opsina for Bustle (2016-11-01).
• Honest Diversity in Tech Report, by Sarah Cooper (2016-11-02). Finally, some good news!