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We’re not like other girls…

Join us for our most recent episode as we offer a critical re-evaluation of the figure of the bimbo and deconstruct societal preconceptions of femininity at large through our own cosima bee concordia’s essay “My Official Bimbo Diagnosis”. With our two remaining brain cells we ponder, why does everyone seem to hate femininity so much, and why it is that femininity is seen as a threat to feminism? We argue (to the degree that bimbos can string ideas together) that femmephobia is in part the result of an aesthetic double bind. This double bind normatively expects us all to perform gender while also punishing or shaming those who perform gender “too much”. The “too much” of gender is dangerous because it wrests us from the pervasive myth that gender is natural. In a patriarchal world where the masculine is the neutral ideal, femininity is always “too much” and thus provides a useful scapegoat to perpetuate misogyny in both men who hate women and feminists alike.

In an effort to challenge these totalizing power dynamics we examine the extent to which it is both possible, and necessary -- albeit not without risk -- to take pleasure in gender even though it is gender that oppresses us. In what ways can we re-purpose the too much of gender? How can the BDSM dungeon as seen through Susan Stryker’s “Dungeon Intimacies” be “a technology for the production of (trans)gendered embodiment”? And finally, could it be that the only gender binary that matters is Gender Minimalism vs. Gender Maximalism?

For discussions on all those questions and more, listen to “Bimbo Theory: A Gender Maximalist Guide to Having It All”

Read "My Official Bimbo Diagnosis" by cosima bee concordia

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Intro and outro song is "Bless You" by the Ink Spots

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We are at most only temporarily able-bodied and minded. While we may live our lives more or less aware of our relationship with disability and while we may experience different periods of health and illness, the fact that we are all pre-disabled is an immutable aspect of the human condition. For our second annual Drunk Church Halloween Special we explore the dark and dusty contours of this one undeniable truth. In what ways does this insight effect our ability to create solidarity with one another across different experiences? Given that disability is a fundamental condition to being human, what does it mean to reject notions of cure and instead demand conditions for our own flourishing? Utilizing Susan Sontag's "Illness as a Metaphor" as a point of departure, we lay out our own personal histories of disability to show how our relationship with disability is inextricably linked to our understanding of the self. The lens of disability exposes the urgent need to confront the eugenic specters that loom large over every aspect of our lives in order to truly care for one another.

We asked listeners to share their experience with disability with us by telling us ways that disability has influenced the way they experience the world, and at the end of the episode we share a selection of them with you.

Happy Halloween and god bless all the goth mommies and daddies of the world!

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