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So I read a book recently and I loved some parts of it and other parts…not so much. And I’ve been thinking about it ever since because there was one part of it I just adored but I don’t feel like I could tell anyone to read the book without a big “hey and you should watch out for this” addendum. I’d bounced off a previous book by this author with what was supposed to be grimdark but had a big ol’ weirdly ungrimdark gendered cliché early on that made me think so hard about it that I couldn’t pay attention to the rest of the book, so I was already a little cautious, yet optimistic because I knew the author to be a good writer.

I’ve talked before about reading when the protagonist is markedly not you, and how used to it women — and other members of the vast majority the mainstream media calls Other — become. And this was a good example of a very young, very male, very heterosexual book. Which God knows I’m not opposed to. I remain a huge fan of the Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir Destroyer series and Doc Savage was a big influence on me, growing up.

So why did this book hit me so hard in an unhappy place? Because it was so smart and funny and beautifully written and involved connected stories about a favorite city and magic, which are three of my favorite things. And because it had a chapter that was one of the best short stories about addiction that I’ve read, and that left me thinking about it in a way that will probably shape at least one future story.

And yet. And yet. And yet. Women were either powerful and unfuckable for one reason or another or else fell into the category marked “women the protagonist sleeps with”, who usually didn’t even get a name. Moments of homophobic rape humor, marked by a repeated insistence on the sanctity of the hero’s anus, and a scene in which he embraces being thought gay in order to save himself from a terrible fate, ha ha, isn’t that amusing. And I’m like…jesus, there is so much to love about this book but it’s like the author reaches out and slaps me away once a chapter or so.

One place recent culture wars have been being played out has been the virtual space occupied by Twitter and its adjacent social media. Examining a particular hashtag or recurring phrase often provides insight into what the topic of the moment is, as well as what tropes and memes are being deployed.

A common adjective in many of the more conservative, alt-right, and other theater-of-outrage rants I’ve seen in the past couple of years is “rainbow-haired,” never in a positive sense. It’s usually paired with some form of “social justice warrior,” and often accompanied by an emotional catch-phrase or verbiage like “feels” or “drinking the tears.” There’s a lot of interesting stuff built into that particular fixation. So let’s dig around to find what’s contained in the phrase and its use in this pejorative sense.

The rainbow itself has plenty going on, symbology-wise. In many mythologies, it’s the bridge between heaven and earth, used by gods, heroes, and shamans. In the Christian allegory of Noah, it’s the sign of God’s covenant with humanity. Leprechauns hide their gold at the rainbow’s foot, Indra uses it for his bow, and in the Australian Dreaming, it adorns the scales of the Rainbow Serpent who created the world. It’s also got a maxim built into it: something positive that cannot appear without something negative happening first. There are no rainbows without rain, at least a little of which must fall into every life.

In 1978, this metaphor for something containing a multitude of variations became associated with gay pride and diversity, through the efforts of artist/drag queen Gilbert Baker, who said of it: “We needed something beautiful, something from us. The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things. Plus, it’s a natural flag””it’s from the sky! And even though the rainbow has been used in other ways in vexilography, this use has now far eclipsed any other use that it had.”

And we should not forget Skittles and the slogan “verb the rainbow.”

What happens when it becomes hair color that makes it particularly hate-worthy for dour conservatives? It’s something I’m fairly familiar with, since I started dying my hair with streaks of pink in 2006 when I found Loreal’s Color Rays on a Bartell’s shelf. The dye requires no pre-bleaching; it is alarmingly, wonderfully bright when it first goes on, and fades over the course of the next couple of months. While it only comes in three colors rather the multitudes other lines hold. I have yet to find another dye that lasts as long and well. I’ve tried plenty over the years, including Manic Panic, Ion, Arctic Fox, and Vibes. I wrote at length about the (over a decade-long now) experience in The Pink Hair Manifesto so I’ll avoid saying anything other than it’s something I anticipate continuing to do, particularly since it’s become part of my authorial brand.

Let’s ground the recent phenomenon of chemically-colored hair plumage historically, since it happened a few decades earlier than my decision. Fabulous colors required science to make it possible, but the earliest adopters were the punks, particularly Cyndi Lauper. This was considered pretty shocking; I can remember a girl at my high school dying a small patch of hers blue and having her father threaten to kick her out of the house as a result.

Rainbow hair, rooted in a counter-culture movement, revels in individuality and a certain DIY spirit (there is no shame in going to the salon for it, but I find it much more fun to do my own). It celebrates one’s appearance, draws the eye rather than shrinking away from it. It is something beautiful that those who don’t fit inside normal standards of beauty can have. It is playful, joyful, delightful at times.

Very recently it has spread like wildfire, and many of the people adopting it are millennials. This gives the anti-rainbow hair sentiment a double-whammy, providing an “oh these kids nowadays” moment while slamming anyone older for acting overly young. (Which implies that’s a bad thing, which isn’t a notion I agree with).

Here’s something that I think also often makes conservative minds bristle: it confuses gender norms. In traditional thinking, men aren’t supposed to care about or celebrate their appearance in the way women are. But rainbow hair appears all over the gender spectrum. Pull in the strand of meaning associated with gay pride, and the objectionability quotient increases.

There’s a reason alt-right and other manifestations of conservative trollish rhetoric so often focuses on appearance, on fat-shaming or fuckability or even how a new Ken-doll wears their hair. It’s a reversion to the schoolyard insult, the way insecure children will be cruel to others in order to try to build their internal self-worth, a behavior many, but sadly not all, outgrow. Worthy of an essay in itself is the fact that it’s also behavior advantageous to advertisers: anxious consumers who want to fit in are willing to spend money in the effort.

This strategy of playground taunts based on a) something most people have little control over and b) a rigid set of norms is curious when we go back to the associated ideas of emotion and “feels” (I do want to talk about what additional stuff is built into the latter, but let me return to that in a second.) Emotion is traditionally seen as the domain of women and children; men keep a stiff upper lip and a silent heart of winter. Often emotionality is built into the verbs used to describe speech: shrill, shriek, and scream are favorites.

Big boys don’t cry. Women and other non-males do, and there is a Smeagol or Renfield-level insistence on the deliciousness of such tears, as with so much of the writing, which depends on mockery of other people’s passions or even what’s portrayed as their rude insistence on co-existing in this world.

It would be nice if pointing out the gender and other biases BS built into such language defused it entirely, but certainly it’s easier to keep it from affecting you if you’re aware of it. Life for many non-mainstream groups is a constant course of avoiding the particular lumps of low-level radiation scattered throughout our daily landscape. I’m aware I’ve got some shielding from that denied others.

So what’s built into “feels” beyond that? It’s a denigration of the memespeak and emoticons of the millennials, as far as I can tell, a curious mockery of Tumblr and lolcat culture. And there’s a reason that they fear that group, which is better (IMO) at seeing through the clouds of Internet argument than some of the other generations.

Literally four decades ago, when I was a kid, we saw football player Rosey Grier singing that it was all right to feel things:

I’m bemused that the people in the world I inhabit remain so wedded to a norm that seems harmful to men and makes them less capable of understanding the world. Maybe the feelz aren’t such a bad thing after all.

Which leads me to my conclusion, which is that it seems like an ineffective and overly dour point to hammer on. Overall, I can’t read any of the negatives being packed into rainbow-haired as actual negatives. Celebrate the rainbow connection, I say, and close accordingly with that.

Who said that wishes would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star?
Someone thought of that and someone believed it.
Look what it’s done so far.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see?
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

To those who have said “wait and see” about the results of the election, I have seen enough events and phenomena to feel that I am sufficiently prepared to venture an opinion on the results of the election. Here are some, listed in random order:

• An effort to compile a blacklist of overly-liberal educators.
• The discussion about creating a registry of Muslims.
• White nationalists cheering for Trump with Nazi salutes.
• Pettiness and an unwillingness to take criticism to a degree that is terrifying in a President.
• Someone who doesn’t believe in evolution being considered for Secretary of Education.
• An announcement that he doesn’t intend to stay in the White House but wants the city of New York to fund police protection for Trump Tower. The cost is over a million dollars a day. It might be noted that during the election, Trump insisted he would rarely leave the White House.
• The appointment of an alt-right thought leader to the position of Chief Strategist.
• Ethics violation after ethics violation, which doesn’t bode well.
• A $25 million pay-off on fraud charges.
• Clear signals he intends to dismantle net neutrality.
• War being declared on journalism.
• An Attorney General pick who is against all forms of gay rights, including marriage and don’t ask, don’t tell.
• A whole lot of ugly behavior by folks doing it in Trump’s name.

I need to stop because the more I look, the more the hits keep on coming. What a bizarre time to live in.

So. For those of you who either didn’t vote for Trump or did and now are all “I’ve made a huge mistake“, aka the sane and/or informed ones, yeah, buckle up because it’s going to be a rocky ride. At best, a lot of wealthy people are going to skim money from our government while changing laws so they can exploit us even more while at the same time, hatred and intolerance are normalized and neo-Nazis are allowed to try to silence dissent. At worst our rights are stripped away and things go up in flames.

There were election shenanigans, to a point where people should be at a minimum auditing the results. There was documented Russian interference and more than that, there was the result of sedulous gerrymandering on the part of the Republicans for the past decade along with their removal of the Voting Rights Act.

In my opinion. You may disagree, and that’s fine. This is what I think and what’s driving my actions over the next four years. I am going to speak up and object and point things out. I am going to support institutions that help the groups like the homeless, LGBT youth, and others whose voting rights have been stolen and whose already too-scant and under threat resources are being methodically stripped away.

I am going to continue to insist that honesty, tolerance, and a responsibility for one’s own words are part of our proud American heritage, the thing that has often led us along the path where, although there have been plenty of mistakes, there have been actions that advanced the human race, that battled the forces of ignorance and intolerance, and that served as a model for the world. That “liberty and justice for all” are not hollow words, but a lamp lifted to inspire us and light our way in that direction.

I will continue to love in the face of hate, to do what Jesus meant when he said hate the sin while loving the sinner. I will continue to teach, formally and by setting an example of what a leader, a woman, a good human being should do, acknowledging my own imperfections so I can address them and keep growing and getting better at this human existence thing. If I see a fellow being in need, I will act, even if it means moving outside my usual paths.

I will not despair or give way to apathy. And as part of that, I will celebrate the good, point out the wonderful, witness the absurd, the amazing, and even the wryly amusing. I will let my sense of humor buoy me, and I will continue to consider the alt-pantless, sorry, alt-right, petty, pathetic, and laughable. They know that they are. Writing in 1944 about anti-semitism in his essay Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate, Sartre stated things with a prescience that makes his words apply to their theater of outraged outrageousness, in which they prance around with the self-importance of bright preteens who have just discovered death metal and nihilism.

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely aware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.

I will not be intimidated or disconcerted. Feel free to laugh at my naiveté, my over-earnestness, and idealism. I’m going to dance right past you, m-fers, and you will never know what hit you.

Language matters. Truth matters. Even in the face of this sort of thing:

The world is broken. Love isn’t enough to fix it. It will take time and effort and blood and sweat and tears. It will stretch some of us almost to the breaking point and others past it. We must help each other in the struggle, must be patient and kind, and above all hopeful. We must speak out even when we are frightened or sad or weary to the bone.

The millennials, may the universe bless them, are inheriting a shitty world. Those of us from older generations must teach and support and help where we can, realizing that what we do now affects the rest of their lives. We cannot let things slide into any of the nightmarish worlds we see depicted in so much science fiction, but if we do not act, they will. I will not sugarcoat things; it may be too late. But living as though it is not is the only way we’re going to survive.

Act now. Even if it’s just saying hello or smiling at someone that you wouldn’t normally. Start putting some good energy out in the universe to counteract the fog of hate. You’ll be surprised by how much better it makes you feel. Don’t pay attention to the trolls; they’re trying to keep you busy so you won’t act, to discourage you into slumping back onto the couch before you can even take a step out the door.

And here’s a recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies I know. In case you need a little chocolate in your life. We’ve gone through several batches of them in the past week here at Chez Rambo.

Bright blessings on you all,
Cat

Let us begin by acknowledging that this is a rancorous period, full of clashing agendas, bewildered onlookers, and all too many innocents caught in the crossfire (although it is not the first time we’ve seen these storms, nor will it be the last.). And that right now making an eligibility post particularly mentioning Hugo Award categories like Related Work is something that some of us are circling and wondering about.

And my answer is yes. Yes, you should. Why?

Because it helps people discover the work that you’re proud of. You know what you wrote. You know what you want to make sure they see. It’s okay to say, “Hey, if you’re looking to read something by me, I would try this.”

Because it helps people read widely. Every writer in F&SF should — well, I don’t want to make it seem mandatory so I won’t say that you must do this, but you should at least feel free to make eligibility posts. So when someone’s poking around, they can find your stuff and read it.

Because you shouldn’t self-censor out of modesty when talking about your work. You are its best champion. Go ahead and help people find the best examples of it. Be humble and lovable in some other way. (Thank you to Erin M. Hartshorn for the link to the piece of self-effacement.)