Cheap Signals

What Rush hath wrought

2012-03-06T15:55:00.001-06:00

On the Daily Show clip in my previous post, Jon Stewart begins (after introducing the show) by noting that Rush Limbaugh's profession is to be a loathsome human being. It's just a matter of fact-- he's good at it, and has done it for over two decades with considerable success. But it's easy to forget that there are people who think otherwise. People who actually take him seriously. People who think that he has things of value to say. People who pass such messages on to their children. Who then pass them on to other children.

A Daily Kos member going by the name "beantown mom" posted an account entitled "I've spent the past two days trying to convince my 16 y/o she is not a slut." Long story short: her daughter had to go on hormonal birth control due to menorrhagia and secondary dysmenorrhea. Her daughter then went to a five day camp for band members, during which any prescription medicine had to be kept by supervisors and distributed at the beginning of each day to those who required it. Pretty standard procedure, right? Here's what happened next:

Thursday, my daughter came home from school and seemed to be a little out of sorts. I chalked it up to being tired and trying to get caught up on homework and such; however, I did ask her if everything was alright and she said yes, she thought so- it was just that at lunch there were some girls whispering and pointing at her in lunch and then they would break out into little fits of laughter. She couldn't figure out why they were singling her out but admitted that a couple of the girls were ones she had once had a problem with. They were the "popular" girls, 2 of whom were cheerleaders, and last year they had singled her out calling her names and such when they got bored and, in my daughter's words, "ran out of girls to harass and make fun of in lunch". I gave it no further consideration- we went on about our business of getting homework done, etc. Friday morning, I took my kids to school and headed off to my mother's to do some errands and such for my family. With the impending storms and bad weather bearing down on us, I sent my daughter a text that I would pick her up from school. My son had baseball so I only had to worry about her getting home.

I pulled into the parking lot and saw that she was standing inside the doors at school, her head down and shoulders shaking- I thought she was laughing at something someone said or was looking at her phone reading something funny. I honked and waived [sic] to motion her out, not sure if she saw me. She never looked up, just pushed open the door and practically ran to the car. She flung open the door and I started to say something about the wind and rain, but stopped mid sentence because of the look on my child's face! She was sobbing, face streaked with tears, cheeks red and eyes so swollen I could hardly see her beautiful brown eyes- I slammed the car into park right in the middle of the parking lot and asked her what was wrong.
Apparently I'm a slut- a whore- a bitch who is screwing every guy in school!

She was speaking but it wasn't making sense- who said this? What are you talking about? For a minute we were talking over each other and finally I said just get in the car and tell me what is going on! She handed me a wrinkled piece of paper. I could tell it had been opened and closed, folded and unfolded wadded up and straightened out so many times it almost looked like it was going to fall apart in my hands.

Little miss innocent, huh? Whatever slut- you take birth control pills so you can f*&# every guy in school! What a joke- u are nothin but a whore! Pretty bad when some guy on the radio who isn't afraid to tell the truth has to break it down for everybody- if u on the Pill u are nothing but a skank ass ho! My mom said girls on the pill are tramps who just wanna get laid and don't care about nothin- is that how u are?
I thought I was going to throw up! I was crying- crying for my sweet daughter who was in a puddle on the front seat of my car, crying because I was so angry I didn't know what to do first! I drove home with one arm around my daughter and one hand on the wheel; I was saying things but for the life of me I can't remember any of what I said now. I just wanted to take the pain away from my child! I wanted to make her stop crying, wanted to erase all the horrible pain that she was feeling.

I read about this at Pandagon, where Amanda Marcotte has a pointed and optimistic essay about the ridiculous effort to portray the vast majority of American women as somehow shameful because they have or will rely on birth control at some point in their lives. That group which, statistically speaking, almost certainly includes both the bully who wrote the note above and her mother. Amanda describes such shaming as "backsliding" in a culture where hormonal birth control has been a realistic option for three generations:

These kinds of attacks on individual women---in this case, a 16-year-old girl in high school---are only effective in an environment where the bullies can imply that using contraception and/or being sexually active is deviant. The idea is to isolate the victim, make them feel weird and different, and terrify them for it. But when you have the President in the White House talking about contraception as a normal part of health care for pretty much all women, it becomes clear that being sexually active and using contraception is the national norm, as wholesome and American as apple pie. The high levels of support for the HHS mandate suggests that most Americans are already there. This panic reaction is the last gasp of the old order trying to turn back the clock, to a time where it was scandalous for people to live together without being married, to when women who have sex with their boyfriends worry about their reputation, and when contraception was seen as embarrassing, and so some people tried their luck without getting any, and usually failed.

The thing is, as this example above shows, backsliding is possible. (If anyone in my high school was bullied for using contraception, I don't remember it.) Which is why it's more important than ever to talk about sex, and specifically how normal it is, how universal it is, what the benefits are, and to shame anyone who would say otherwise. We have the numbers on our side. We just need the courage. Remember, the people who think there's something bad about women just because they fuck are the weirdoes [sic] here. Don't be afraid to really believe that and act on it.

Hear, hear. The word that keeps coming up for me is "irrelevant." Birth control is normal, uncontroversial, and necessary for men and women, married and unmarried, with children or without, young and old. People who try to pretend otherwise in the name of sexual propriety and are attempting to use this issue as a means to shame American women in general (and specifically) are badly out of touch, have nothing of value to say on this vital topic, and have shown themselves to be truly...irrelevant.

If you still need some levity after the above (I sure do), check out the Mother Jones "Are You A Slut" flow chart. It's ridiculous in its accuracy and accurate in its ridiculousness.

The Daily Show rips on right wing reactions to Limbaugh

2012-03-06T14:28:00.000-06:00

Technically this doesn't count as me saying something, because it's Jon Stewart saying something...right? A lot of things. A lot of very funny things, regarding Limbaugh but specifically regarding Republican presidential candidates' and Fox News' reactions to his shenanigans:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

On what's relevant if you're female

2012-03-05T19:56:00.000-06:00

1. At Camels With Hammers today, Daniel Fincke takes an admirable crack at a topic people have danced around quite a lot in discussing Rush Limbaugh's ridiculous portrayal of why women want birth control: not only does it have nothing to do with promiscuity, but you don't get to just assume there is something wrong with promiscuity regardless. That's not something on which we're all in agreement, okay? Never mind how difficult it is to define what counts as a "promiscuous" sex life as compared to a regular one, the problem with slut-shaming at its foundation is that it assumes there's something wrong with being (whatever you define as) a slut! So Fincke's post, No, You Can't Call People Sluts, bluntly points out that "slut" is to begin with a term meant to cast shame on something not only nebulous but (surprise!) not necessarily shame-worthy:

In no way, shape, or form do I take promiscuity to be, in itself, an immoral thing. So, no, I don’t think there is any word that you can use that I would find morally acceptable. You call that controlling your thought by not allowing you whatever insult you want? Sorry, that’s morality. It controls some things. You don’t want to be subject to my moral standards? Well, I don’t want consensual, responsible, promiscuous people who do not harm anyone to be subject to yours. I have a lot of good moral reasons to think they don’t deserve derision and that such treatment of yours towards them is unfair and worth calling out. So I’m not allowing that any abusive word aimed at men or women over their promiscuity is copacetic. I don’t have to acknowledge your moral right to use insults to bully people who are not doing anything morally wrong. Legally, you may say whatever you want that does not cross the line into actionable harassment, threats, or libel, etc. But morally if I allow you to call people sluts as perfectly acceptable, then I’m approving your value judgment as perfectly acceptable. You’re entitled morally to argue for the wrongness of promiscuity if you like.

Your “distaste” is not an argument and nor is it a justification for dictating to others or for denigrating them.

2. At her blog, Greta Christina talks about how last when when she was speaking at the University of Chicago on the topic of atheism and sexuality, someone defaced a promotional poster for the event by writing next to a photo of her that she is "the ugliest of all atheists!" Because....somehow, that's relevant. Note: she admonishes readers not to attempt to reassure her that she's not ugly (which is true-- had to say that) because that undermines the point that it is, actually, not at all relevant. It's not relevant to how well she writes, how well she speaks, how qualified or educated she is, whether what she has to say is well-reasoned or compelling or humorous or insightful or timely or fun or....anything. But because she's female, people (both male and female) tend to think otherwise:

I’m reminded of something Tina Fey said in the New Yorker about show business. “I know older men in comedy who can barely feed and clean themselves, and they still work. The women though, they’re all crazy. I have a suspicion — and hear me out, because this is a rough one — that the definition of crazy in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.”

It’s not just show business. The definition of crazy is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore. Or, indeed, a woman who keeps talking even if the person she’s addressing doesn’t want to fuck her. A woman who keeps talking even if the person reading the poster advertising the talk doesn’t want to fuck her.

If it's not a battle, why make it one?

2012-03-05T16:06:00.002-06:00

The ever-controversial American Atheists have erected billboards in Paterson, New Jersey (large Muslim population) and Brooklyn, New York (large Jewish population), respectively, with the following two messages:

Even though the CNN Belief Blog notes that AA president Dave Silverman says that the billboards are intended to reach atheists in these communities who feel pressured by those around them to conform to religious beliefs and customs, their title for the piece still claims that "Atheist group targets Muslims, Jews with 'myth' billboards in Arabic and Hebrew" and portrays the billboards as taking a step further in the "battle between atheists and believers." Because that's more exciting, I guess. Quote from Silverman:

“Those communities are designed to keep atheists in the ranks,” he says. “If there are atheists in those communities, we are reaching out to them. We are letting them know that we see them, we acknowledge them and they don't have to live that way if they don’t want to.”

Hence writing the text both in English and in these languages. Reactions from Muslim and Jewish figures in these communities hover around irritation, amusement, and disdain, as you might expect:

Mohamed Elfilali, executive director of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, laughed when he learned the Arabic billboard would go up in the same town as his office. He says he’s surprised that someone is spending money on such a sign.

“It is not the first and won’t be the last time people have said things about God or religion,” Elfilali says. “I respect people’s opinion about God; obviously they are entitled to it. I don’t think God is a myth, but that doesn’t exclude people to have a different opinion.”

But Elfilali bemoaned the billboards as another example of a hyper-polarized world.

“Sadly, there is a need to polarize society as opposed to build bridges,” he says. “That is the century that we live in. It is very polarized, very politicized.”

The Brooklyn billboard is likely to raise eyebrows among Jews, in part because Orthodox Jews don't write out the name of God, as the billboard does.

“It is an emotional word, there will be an emotional response," said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, dean of Yeshiva University's Center for the Jewish Future. "People will look at it in a bizarre way. People won’t understand why someone needed to write that out.”

Except that the billboards aren't intended for observant Jews and Muslims (ostensibly). They're intended for atheists living in neighborhoods dominated by such people who are probably visibly indistinguishable from those who are observant, because they are afraid of backlash. I get it. In theory, at least, these are intended to be advertisements to give such people the message that they are not alone; that there are others out there who have seen fit to question and even abandon their religious faith. One major thing a lot of people wrestle with in this process is the feeling of having to give up the support structure that a religious community provides, and this is probably doubly, triply, a concern when your religion is a minority one. And, you know, when you live smack dab inside one of its enclaves. This is something that appears to have flown right by Elfilali and Brander, who can only interpret the billboards as directed toward the entire body of Muslims/Jews.

...Not that I can blame them, exactly, when the billboards say "You know it's a myth." I think that if the intent of the billboards is, as Silverman says, to reach out to specific people who have abandoned or are abandoning their faiths, the message would be made drastically more clear-- and drastically less obnoxious-- if it read "If you believe it's a myth." Here's why:

1. It's presumptuous, but more importantly often dishonest, to tell other people what they know. If you haven't heard a prior statement from them claiming such, or witnessed them facing evidence that directly contradicts their belief, then you have no idea what they know regarding it. And even if you have been exposed to such things, you can't quite be sure. Knowledge is justified, true belief. If people do not believe a thing, they cannot know it. If there is a possibility that a person is ignorant or mistaken, it is erroneous to claim that they know. People sometimes claim to believe what they know to be false, but to suggest that to an entire community simply because you believe (or even know) what they believe is false is an error. And an offensive one, because it accuses them of dishonesty in addition to ignorance/mistakenness.

2. "If you believe it's a myth" sacrifices nothing in terms of epistemological grounding, and gains everything in terms of clarity and consideration. It doesn't entail that the speaker loses any knowledge of whether the religion in question is a myth, but acknowledges that the listener (reader, in this case) may or may not believe it to be a myth. Indeed, that's what determines whether the billboard is speaking to that particular individual or not. A person who does not believe that his/her religion is a myth might have use for an atheist organization according to the atheist organization, but probably not according to him/herself, so can safely ignore the message and-- more importantly-- need not be offended by it. After all, for every religious doctrine out there, there is someone who considers it mythological in the sense of not being true. A person who is offended by this fact would be just as offended by the existence of a billboard advertising for any other religion besides his/her own.

"If you believe it's a myth" does not entail that a person can't also know it's a myth. After all, all of those who know also believe. But the use of the words "if" and "believe" would enable the billboard to more effectively pick out the members of these communities to whom it is ostensibly directed, and do so far less offensively without sacrificing its own viewpoint. Win-win, I'd say. And they should keep "And you have a choice," because presumably that choice is about what to do regarding this view that the religion which predominates in one's community is a myth. You believe it's a myth; now what? Well, I guess you go to www.atheists.org and proceed from there, on your way to becoming a well-adjusted atheist.

JT Eberhard has a post up today saying that the billboards are an answer to "fatwa envy." "Fatwa envy" is a term for the resentment some Christians voice when atheists are insufficiently (in the Christian's view) critical of Islam, suggesting that the reason is that atheists refrain from such because they fear Muslims but not Christians. It's masked as a complaint about inconsistency, but in this particular form is really a case of the Christian making the complaint ruing the fact that they aren't as scary-- that they can't say "I'll make you shut up" and have anything with which to back up that threat (whether that means Christian terrorists or laws against blasphemy, or both).

Sure, the billboards count as equal opportunity pissing off of religious people. I just don't see any particular reason to piss them off in this case, view it to be a matter of incoherence of message and failure in logic, as well as counter-productive. Four counts against it, and none for it (at least, if you count this as an argument for altering the message rather than silencing it, which is the intent).

Eberhard then posts a couple of pro-religion billboards, one which depicts a boy with a gun aimed at you (the viewer) which reads "If God doesn't matter to him, do you?"; the other simply asks "Where are you going? Heaven or Hell" with an enormous phone number underneath: 855-FIND-TRUTH (you can dial that; I sure am not going to). Yes, those are offensive-- strangely enough, for much the same reason that the American Atheist billboards are. They all make unfounded, presumptuous assumptions about both the person reading the billboards and the beliefs (or lack of beliefs) they attempt to depict. There is no evidence whatsoever that if God doesn't matter to a person, people don't. None. Fail on that one, for a crap argument which offensively suggests that a person's lack of belief makes them violent. The second billboard compounds the error of assuming what the reader knows with an outright (and ironically vague) threat: heaven or hell? You're going to one of them, for some reason, and we're not saying why but we're sure you know it! Or maybe I'm reading it wrong, and it's a one-question quiz: Where are you going? A) Heaven, or B) Hell? That, I suppose, would make the acronym in the phone number at bottom make a lot more sense. However, in that case it assumes that you don't know your eternal destination whereas whoever/whatever answers the phone can tell you.

So ultimately, bringing up those billboards amounts to a tu quoque: they're doing it, so why shouldn't we? The answer can be expected: Because two wrongs don't make a right. Because not all offense is created equal. Some people are offended simply by being told that their beliefs are false, sure-- the more important the beliefs are to them, the more offense is likely. But the A/A billboard claims that not only are religions myths, but that the person reading those words-- who is more likely to be an actual observant Jew/Muslim than anything else-- knows it. That's justifiably offensive for reasons that I have already explained, and what's more completely unnecessary. No better than telling someone they know that they are going to Hell, another version of asserting someone's beliefs for them. Not nearly as bad as telling someone they're likely to be a murderer because they don't share your beliefs, or telling other people falsely that they are, I'll grant. But still offensive, and pointlessly, counter-productively so. What's to be gained from that, I really don't know.

The last I hope to say on this is...

2012-03-05T12:19:00.000-06:00

...That you really should go read Ken at Popehat's entire commentary on the discourse regarding Limbaugh/Fluke. I have nothing to add, and couldn't agree more.

Why no women? Well...

2012-03-05T12:12:00.000-06:00

Byron York at the Washington Examiner reports that Sandra Fluke's testimony for the Democratic Steering Committee and the necessity for having it was a bit...manufactured. House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa says that the Democrats originally waited for days before suggesting witnesses for the hearing before the Oversight and Reform Committee until the afternoon before the hearing, and then proposed Rev. Barry Lynn (head of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State) and Fluke. The Republicans invited Lynn; the Democrats said "No, wait!" but it was too late, so they disinvited Lynn, then complained that there were no women present at the hearing which occurred.

Dear Dems....why? Barry Lynn would have given great testimony; I'm sure. But was there such a paucity of female witnesses to invite that you couldn't have picked two of them? Assuming, that is, that having a woman testify is so important (and I agree that it is)? That would have prevented the indignity of having to call up someone you specifically selected to present testimony and say "Oh wait, never mind" because it would mean that you couldn't moan about the lack of women later after having been given the option to hand pick one and botched it.

None of which is Sandra Fluke's fault, of course. Nor is it her fault that this happened:

Issa explained that Democrats had requested Barry Lynn, that Lynn was invited, and that Democrats then retracted the Lynn request. As for Fluke, Issa said Republicans had never heard of the Democrats' last-minute choice. "I asked our staff what is her background, what has she done," Issa said at the hearing. "They did the usual that we do when we're not provided the three days and the forms to go with it. They did a Google search. They looked and found that she was, in fact, and is a college student who appears to have become energized over this issue and participated in approximately a 45-minute press conference…I cannot and will not arbitrarily take a majority or minority witness if they do not have the appropriate credentials, both for a hearing at the full committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and if we cannot vet them in a timely fashion." (Fluke is in fact a 30 year-old law student with an extensive history of activism in leftist causes.)

Extensive history of activism or not, she was not as easy to verify as Barry Lynn with a quick Google search (which was only necessary because proper notice and forms had not been submitted), so Issa went with Lynn. If this is all true, I can't blame him for that. Maybe there's a good reason I don't know of why the Democrats were so slow in getting their proposed witnesses in. But as it stands, it doesn't seem like the Republicans are entirely to blame for that hearing being composed exclusively of men.

Weekend web readin'

2012-03-04T13:58:00.000-06:00

From Amnesty International News, Amnesty International Urges Stricter Limits on Police Taser Use As U.S. Death Toll Reaches 500
Money quote:

On Monday, Johnnie Kamahi Warren was the latest to die after a police officer in Dothan, Al. deployed a Taser on him at least twice. The 43-year-old, who was unarmed and allegedly intoxicated, reportedly stopped breathing shortly after being shocked and was pronounced dead in a hospital less than two hours later.

"Of the hundreds who have died following police use of Tasers in the United States, dozens and possibly scores of deaths can be traced to unnecessary force being used," said Susan Lee, Americas program director at Amnesty International. "This is unacceptable, and stricter guidelines for their use are now imperative."

Strict national guidelines on police use of Tasers and similar stun weapons – also known as Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) – would effectively replace thousands of individual policies now followed by state and local agencies.

From Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, International Sex Worker Rights Day
Money quote:

Saturday, March 3rd, is International Sex Worker Rights Day, which is being celebrated around the world by groups and individuals who seek to recognize and defend the rights of sex workers.
According to Woodhull’s Executive Director, Ricci Levy:
“Research has demonstrated that the criminalization of sex work is associated with violence against sex workers, decreased access to health care, barriers to reporting human rights abuses, and disempowerment in condom negotiation (whether a sex worker’s wishes regarding condom use are respected). Governments should recognize and address the relationship between laws criminalizing sex work and the human rights violations that result from these laws.

We see the affirmation and defense of the rights of sex workers as an integral part of our work to affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. International Sex Workers Rights Day isn’t just about securing the rights of sex workers; it’s about securing human rights.”

From Dr. X's Free Associations, Jim Hoft is shocked! Stunned!
Money quote:

Always slow to process the world around him, Hoft also seems to believe that some sort of trick was played on him because Fluke is a law student and reproductive rights advocate rather than a 'coed.' It was just assumed in the conservative blog world that "Georgetown student" means "coed," which is, by the way, an anachronistic term that hasn't been used in decades except by conservative values voters, porn producers and horny frat boy types.

Of course, there was never any deception involved. From the beginning, Fluke was identified in the mainstream media as "a third-year student at Georgetown Law and past president of the school’s Students for Reproductive Justice group." That was reported 15 days before Hoft was stunned by the news that Ms. Fluke wasn't a character from a movie entitled D.C. Coed Sluts.

From Dispatches From the Culture Wars, Politician Stands Up for Church/State Separation
Money quote:

We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral.
Who said that? Known communist Ronald Reagan.

Marks of the cross that don't rub off

2012-03-03T22:26:00.003-06:00

Tattoo representing the Fourth Station: Jesus
meeting his mother

As mentioned previously, I'm a tattooed person. Not heavily so, but I've got 'em. I also have, after quite a lot of observation of other people's tattoos and their explanations of why they got them, developed a schema regarding the central elements of getting a tattoo:

1) Placement: where does it go on your body, and how is it aligned?
2) Significance: what is its meaning, and how well is that conveyed?
3) Aesthetics: how good does it look, in the end?

These are weighted differently for different people, but they're all important. Discount any one of those three, and you're on your way to a bad tattoo. A highly meaningful, beautiful tattoo will very likely still be regretted if you get it in a place where you might later want to hide it but can't, or it doesn't work with your body. A beautiful tattoo in a good place that means nothing to you might be just fine if you're already covered with other tattoos, but if it's your only one or one of just a few, you might later wonder why you bothered getting it. A tattoo which is very important to you and in a good place but looks bad will leave you regretting that you didn't choose to represent such a significant thought better.

With regard to meaning, it's cliche that you shouldn't get the name of a significant other tattooed on you. It's tempting fate, practically foretelling the end of what was previously considered a rock solid, everlasting case of true love. I would even say that in most cases it's probably not a good idea to get text tattooed on yourself, though there are exceptions. The name of a deceased relative or your child is probably pretty safe-- the deceased relative is gone and cannot change (though I suppose you could discover something horrible about them posthumously, the likelihood of that seems small) and whatever happens with your child, he/she is still your child.

What about....your religion?

In a hip, artsy, area of Houston, a hip, artsy pastor is taking an unorthodox approach to Lent.
Standing in front of his congregation at Ecclesia Church, a congregation he admits is different - more diverse, more urban - than many evangelical churches - Chris Seay encouraged them to do so something he said combines the ideas of sacrifice and devotion that mark the Lenten season, the 40-day lead up to Easter.

He asked them to get tattoos. Specifically, he asked congregants to get a tattoo corresponding with one of the Stations of the Cross, the collection of images that depict scenes in Jesus’ journey to his crucifixion.

“The tendency we have as Christians is to skip past Jesus’ suffering,” Seay said in an interview. “Not only do tattoos come with a bit of suffering, they are also an art form that has not fully been embraced.”

To help with the project, Seay enlisted Scott Erickson, artist-in-residence at his church. Erickson designed 10 distinct Stations of the Cross tattoos, leaving out four stations that Seay said changed in context when you are asking someone to get something permanently drawn on their body.

So, not just religious tattoos (though those are numerous, in most religions you can think of as well as plenty more). Tattoos encouraged by your pastor, within specific parameters, applied by your church's artist-in-residence. The article doesn't say which four stations of the original 12 Stations of the Cross were left out because they change in context as tattoos, but I'm guessing "Jesus is stripped of his garments" is one of them.

It's up to them, of course, but it doesn't sound like the best idea to me. First, because people have been known to change religions, or deconvert entirely. Second, because even if they don't change religion, they might leave this church. And if they do, they would leave it bearing a very specific mark that ties them to every other member of the congregation who likewise decided to participate in this. Third, because that's a whole lot of constraint on the design and aesthetic quality of the tattoo that they might not have chosen for themselves otherwise. Individuals opt to get tattooed ritually-- that is, to make a religious ritual out of the experience of getting tattooed itself-- all of the time. But to make a proposition of such to a congregation on the occasion of Lent seems...well, pushy. Like some people might feel encouraged to get a permanent mark etched on their skin as a signal to pastor and/or congregation of their commitment, rather than as a signifier to themselves as individuals of the meaning of Jesus' sentencing, suffering, death, and resurrection.

Other people can argue about whether getting a tattoo in the first place is fundamentally irreligious. I don't believe it is. It seems to me that if people do something for the sake of religion, it can't be irreligious by definition. I also don't care to play No True Christian and take a side on whether it's doctrinally appropriate for believers of the Bible to get tattoos (though there are comments on that in the article itself if you wish to play). The pastor (Seay) says he has dissuaded some congregants from getting tattoos after announcing the idea, though the article doesn't discuss why.

The standard objection to tattoos is "How is that going to look when you're old?" I'd say a much more important concern is "How are you going to think about that if/when you become a different person, or when others do?"

"I'm sorry I did what I clearly meant to do and don't regret in the slightest"

2012-03-03T17:41:00.003-06:00

Rush Limbaugh issued a double backflip notpology today for his slut/prostitute/sex tape remarks about Sandra Fluke, saying first that he didn't mean to attack her personally (err...how do you say that someone is a slut who needs to learn how to have sex less on accident?), and then continuing to misrepresent the content of and reason for her testimony at the Democratic hearing, portraying it as "discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress." Sorry Rush, but no. It did not amount to a verbal rendition of a Penthouse letter. In fact, it did not address Fluke's personal sex life at all. He then went on to say that it is not our business to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom, which a) is an odd statement for someone who just got done demanding sex tapes from someone, and b) a complaint better directed toward someone like Rick Santorum who is actually advocating that bedroom activities are the government's business. Not Fluke, and not Pelosi, and not anyone who wants birth control to be covered by insurance.

Rush Limbaugh is a troll, as Rachel Maddow points out in the video below. Not a mythical creature who lives under a bridge, but someone who gets his jollies--and in this case makes a living-- by being an asshole and pushing people's buttons. I hope people continue to push his advertisers to stop sponsoring a platform on which he can do so.

Obama calling Sandra Fluke to commend her and condemn what Limbaugh said was like the school principal calling you into his office to apologize for the behavior of the school bully. It's a good gesture, but really the other students need to sign on in order for it to have enough significance. Not lend any support to the bully, and certainly not give him a radio show.

Here's Rachel Maddow yesterday...

2012-03-03T13:03:00.000-06:00

...demonstrating why dummies are more dangerous than dicks:

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...and then there was "skank."

2012-03-02T22:08:00.002-06:00

Georgetown University's president, John J. DeGioia, repudiated Rush Limbaugh's slut/prostitute/sex tape diatribe today by not exactly endorsing Sandra Fluke's message, but noting that her testimony had been respectful and sincere while condemning speech such as Limbaugh's as "misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student."

He did this in an email sent to everyone on campus, but it apparently fell on ~~deaf ears~~ blind eyes for fellow Georgetown student Angela Morabito, who published a charming editorial in The College Conservative today declaring that a) Sandra Fluke does not speak for her, and certainly not for Georgetown in general, b) the effort to make birth control covered by insurance is a plot of Nancy Pelosi and the Liberal Media (I capitalize all of that because she did, and also because it amuses me to think of it as a band, which presumably plays jazz or soft rock) and c) Fluke does speak for "skanks who don't want to take responsibility for their own choices."

Also, Morabito apparently shares Limbaugh's mistaken belief that the number of pills you need to take is dependent on how much sex you're having, because she advises Fluke to consider not having so much sex that it puts her in financial peril.

Now, something important to remember-- technically speaking, both condoms and the pill are methods of birth control which are used by men and women, assuming they're using them to have sex with each other and neither party has an interest in transmitting disease or creating a pregnancy. Using condoms and the pill when you have those interests is having sex responsibly, as is using a condom in addition to some other pregnancy prevention device such as an IUD. The condom can prevent both disease and pregnancy, but it's safer to have backup and, as discussed in the previous post, there are all kinds of reasons why women might want to be on the pill apart from that.

So ultimately, both Limbaugh and Morabito are saying that women and men having the kind of sex they want, with the kind of protection they want, with added benefits to a health of a lot of the women in this particular equation is not valuable because it could allow for women to have as much sex as they want. With men, presumably, who get no epithets thrown at them.

Hmmm.

I've taken the pill since I was 16, originally and still for medical reasons though I appreciate the birth control aspect as well, and never once realized that it constitutes grounds for Viagra-popping pundits and moralizing college students to make pronouncements on my sexual habits. The more you know!

ETA: Adam Serwer wrote the following in a piece today titled Dear Rush Limbaugh: Birth Control Doesn't Work Like Viagra:

The "subsidizing-your-sex-life" argument Limbaugh is making is related to, but nevertheless distinct from the religious objection to birth control. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has opposed even allowing insurance companies to foot the bill for contraception for employees of Catholic institutions. However, it has no objection in principle to prescription drug coverage that includes Viagra. Neither, one assumes, does Rush Limbaugh. So if he wants to contend that covering birth control is akin to paying women for sex, let's hear him explain why men who want their insurance to cover their erectile dysfunction pills are not "sluts" or "prostitutes."

You want the blue pill; we'll pay for it. You want the red pill; Rush Limbaugh owns your sex life.

2012-03-01T18:54:00.010-06:00

In Limbaugh Land, consumption of these is
determined not by time but by sluttiness.

I'm a big believer-- and try to be a big practioner-- of giving people the benefit of the doubt in disagreements. Because it's a nice thing to do, yes, but also because it's way too easy to do things like assume the conclusion of a person's position and then attribute that to them as if it's what they have in mind and support ("You support legalization of marijuana, I think that legalization of marijuana means that teenagers will get stoned and run over small children at the drive-through,* therefore you must want teenagers running over kids at the drive-through.") And there's the additional fact that if you interpret what someone says in the best possible light, they are far less likely to complain that you put words in their mouth. In fact, you might even improve on what they were trying to say.

However....it's hard to give Rush Limbaugh any benefits for making the following argument:

1. Women who want health insurance to cover birth control are asking to be paid to have sex.
2. Therefore, they are prostitutes, or at least sluts.
3. And if we're going to pay them to have sex, we should get something out of it.
4. Therefore, they at least owe us video footage. So make with the sex tapes already.

Yes, this is the most charitable possible framing of what Limbaugh said on his radio show regarding the testimony of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke in Congress on the need for contraception coverage.
First:

LIMBAUGH: What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.

Then:

LIMBAUGH: So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.

First of all, Fluke wasn't even talking about herself-- she was talking about a lesbian friend who stopped taking hormonal birth control because it was too expensive, and not covered by her university on religious grounds. She was on the birth control to stop ovarian cysts from forming, and after going off the pill a cyst formed that required surgery to remove the entire ovary.

But let's say Fluke was talking about herself. And let's say she's heterosexual, and just wants to have sex with a man or men with a drastically reduced likelihood of getting pregnant. That seems like a good idea, right? That sounds like being careful. Responsible. And regardless of how much sex she has, and how many men she has it with, she's going to require exactly the same amount of birth control as her lesbian friend (who might be having all kinds of sex herself, but presumably not with men): one packet every month. One pill every day. So the "she's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception" slam is blown out of the water, right there.

What about the claim that having insurance pay for birth control equates to taxpayers being made to pay people like Fluke to have sex? Well, again, people take the pill for a lot of reasons that don't involve preventing pregnancy...like Fluke's friend, who (again) could be having any amount of sex with any number of people. So maybe instead of telling women not to have sex if it requires using birth control, Limbaugh should tell them to become lesbians. But she wanted the pill to prevent cysts. Some women take it to control their menstrual cycle. Some women take it to minimize the symptoms of endometriosis. It is a multi-purpose medication, used for a number of very important purposes just like lots of other medication already covered by insurance. Like, you know, Viagra, which I've never heard of someone taking because he's afraid of losing a testicle.

Additionally, of course, there is the fact that paying people to have sex without getting pregnant is cheaper than paying them to get pregnant, carry out the pregnancy, and give birth to a child they didn't want and can't care for. Limbaugh considers legal abortion a "holocaust" and women who fight for the right to have abortions "feminazis," so it sure seems like he should be all in favor of any preventative measures women can take before conception to make sure that it...well, doesn't happen. Nope. He's a proponent of Santorum-backer Foster Friess's method of aspirin-between-the-knees, which it's hard to believe was funny when the FDA legalized the pill (for menstrual disorders first, note) in 1957. When I'm pretty sure people already knew that it's possible to have sex with your knees together.

Limbaugh's argument is fundamentally not financial; it's moral: birth control is about making it possible for women to have sex without risk of pregnancy, and they shouldn't want this. If they do, it's probably because they're having sex with someone they are not married to and don't want to marry, which makes them sluts. Message to Limbaugh: most Americans by far either have used or will use birth control to avoid pregnancy. Most Americans by far have had or will have sex outside of marriage. Most Americans by far, I am guessing, do not want to risk creating a pregnancy every time they have sex, whether married or unmarried. Limbaugh himself is almost certainly one of these Americans in all three cases.

So why is he arguing so adamantly against this? Because it offers a chance to make a cheap shot at American women. All Americans benefit by having easy and cheap access to birth control, but Sandra Fluke's testimony made for an opportunity to say that women who benefit from that access must be sluts. As Rep. Jackie Speier said today in calling for a boycott of Limbaugh's sponsors, it's flat out misogyny:

“Shame on you for calling the women of this country prostitutes,” Speier said. “Ninety-eight percent of the women in this country at some time in their lives used birth control.”

“So I say to the women in this country, do something about this,” she continued. “I say to the women of this country, ask Century 21, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Sleep Number to stop supporting the hate mongering of Rush Limbaugh and if they do not do that, then I ask them to boycott those companies.”

Yes. Yes to this, but I wish she hadn't appealed specifically to women. It's an issue that should be of interest to everyone, because it affects everyone, and...everyone should consider Rush Limbaugh a hateful moron for saying crap like this. Charitably, of course.

*The actual plot of a PSA that ran on TV for a while.

On perspective-- general versus specific

2012-02-29T12:41:00.000-06:00

I write a lot about very particular things that have happened, and then try to extrapolate a larger significance. This is satisfying to me, but I try to be aware that there is definitely a ratchet in people's brains that rises and lowers according to the specificity of what they encounter, and if the ratchet won't go low enough then they won't be interest in the particular thing in question. When the specific concern is not your concern, your brain says "Nope, not interested," possibly dismisses the person dwelling on it as petty, and moves on.

A person who moves exclusively in the general, by contrast, can seem basic, callous, or inept. Like they have stepped back far enough that all of the details have blurred, and it becomes easy to make general statements that are unoriginal and uninteresting, though trivially true. The generalist wants to make general statements, while the specifist always increases the perspective a few notches lower and points out important features which distinguish this thing from that thing. Imagine focusing in on Google Earth right down to street view, and then pulling back out until you can see almost an entire hemisphere. I don't mean to say that what you have to say about what you're seeing can't be useful to interested parties, but let's just say that not all parties are going to be interested. And they will resent you when you're trying to apply general statements to specific situations.

I'm not going to tie this general observation to a specific incidence today, which is unusual for me. But even though it may seem blurry as a result, I hope it has some relevance.

Two very bad ideas

2012-02-27T16:37:00.000-06:00

1. Inflicting an enormous judicial penalty on someone because what would otherwise be counted as harassment a) resulted in a suicide, and b) might have been based in bigotry:

Dharun Ravi is on trial in New Jersey for spying on his college roommate. Although the Newark Star-Ledger says "Ravi is not charged in connection with [Tyler] Clementi's death," it is doubtful that he would have been charged at all if Clementi had not jumped off the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010. That was three days after Ravi, monitoring their Rutgers University dorm room via a webcam, watched Clementi kiss a male visitor and two days after Ravi tweeted that he "saw my roommate making out with a dude." If Clementi had not killed himself (for reasons that remain unclear), Ravi surely would not be facing the prospect of 10 years in prison for "bias intimidation."

2. Allowing schools in your state to skip sex education, and prohibiting instruction on contraception in classes that continue to be taught, because you are fundamentally opposed to sex outside of marriage and consider safe sex to be "getting away" with something.

A bill to allow Utah schools to drop sex education classes — and prohibit instruction in the use of contraception in those that keep the courses — moved significantly closer to becoming law Wednesday. The House passed HB363 by a 45-28 vote after a late-afternoon debate that centered largely on lawmakers’ differing definitions of morality.

"We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest," said bill sponsor Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden. "Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?"

Hmm. That doesn't sound like honesty to me. Honesty would be refusing to withhold the knowledge that contraception exists, and that it can be very effective when used properly, and here's how to use it properly. Honesty would be acknowledging that not everyone wants to have a baby at all times, and everyone wants to avoid disease, always, and contraception is very good at preventing both of these. A marriage license, not so much.

Defending the female fuck-up

2012-02-27T15:16:00.001-06:00

I really have no place writing this, considering that I have been anything but an avid consumer of new films and TV over, well, the past couple of years. But I really like Amanda Marcotte's treatment of females in comedy productions engaging in behavior that reveals them to be petty, emotional, short-sighted, vindictive....you know, normal.

The recent explosion of prominent women in comedy has brought with it an unfortunate but predictable debate about whether or not the characters that have resulted from all these women scribbling and acting are Good For Women. Of course, the underlying assumption of the question is that women have a bad reputation in the general public and media should therefore portray us in uplifting ways to counter negative stereotypes, which in turn means that the question answers itself: If a female character has flaws, then that is Bad For Women. Indeed, that's been the general consensus of all hand-wringing over this question. Silpa Kovvali, writing at Feministing, denounces Bridesmaids because some of the characters are insecure, some are unhappy, and some indulge at times in petty, vindicative behavior. Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker rounds up similar concerns about the character Liz Lemon on 30 Rock, including Slate's Sam Adams complaining that Liz Lemon has gone the way of Homer Simpson. This parade of female slobs, neurotics, and discontents is setting a lot of teeth on edge. Why can't we have spunky heroines with inconsequential flaws, so we can all look up to them?

Because that's boring is why.

Boring, unrealistic, and unfunny. Insisting that the women we enjoy in comedy be well-behaved is like insisting that they be beautiful. Comedy is about relating to the imperfections that exist in all of us, and it's hard to do any of that relating from atop a pedestal. Looking amazing and doing everything right is the opposite of funny, and insisting that women be such is like a mandate that they never succeed in comedy. Rare-- non-existent actually, I think-- is the family sitcom from the 80's or 90's in which the wife is the one who is ugly, slovenly, and/or messes things up all of the time. That role is for the comedian. That role is for the husband/man.

So even though I could do with some serious education on the shows/films in discussion here, I'm going to say that a feminist take on women in comedy these days should celebrate the female fuck-up, and consider her occurrence a mark of progress.

The wife. The boy.

2012-02-26T22:21:00.001-06:00

One of the stories I mentioned yesterday was Feministe's take on a recent...err, presentation given by Virginia Delegate David Albo to his fellow members of the House on how a romantic evening with his wife Rita had been spoiled when the two of them came upon coverage on the Rachel Maddow show about Virginia's Republican push to require a controversial invasive ultrasound for any woman who wants an abortion.

I wonder if Albo imagined that this light-hearted, laughter-rousing account of being spurned by his wife for a night because of a position on a very serious issue affecting female reproductive freedom would (in addition to the position itself) make national news and be tossed about on the internet. I wonder how much of the story is true, how his wife Rita feels about his having told it, and how it felt to be one of the delegates in that house listening to it. About their family life being portrayed for laughs as though it were a 1950's sitcom.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, read here...especially the comments.

Weekend web readin'

2012-02-25T17:30:00.003-06:00

From The Agitator, Puppycide

Money quote:

A New Mexico woman called the state police to report that she had been the victim of an Internet scam. The police told her they couldn’t come right away. She asked them to call before showing up at her house. They didn’t. Instead, an officer arrived while she wasn’t home, ignored the woman’s “Beware of Dog” sign, hopped the woman’s fence . . . and then killed her dog.

From The New York Times, Branding a Soldier With Personality Disorder
Money quote:

“Her records suggest an attempt by her commander to influence medical professionals,” said Michael J. Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School and director of its Veterans Legal Services Clinic.

Since 2001, the military has discharged at least 31,000 service members because of personality disorder, a family of disorders broadly characterized by inflexible “maladaptive” behavior that can impair performance and relationships.

For years, veterans’ advocates have said that the Pentagon uses the diagnosis to discharge troops because it considers them troublesome or wants to avoid giving them benefits for service-connected injuries. The military considers personality disorder a pre-existing problem that emerges in youth, and as a result, troops given the diagnosis are often administratively discharged without military retirement pay. Some have even been required to repay enlistment bonuses.

By comparison, a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder is usually linked to military service and leads to a medical discharge accompanied by certain benefits.

From Crates and Ribbons, The Clothes That Bind
Money quote:

“For men, the primary erotic effect was a function of the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Women with such deformed feet avoided placing weight on the front of the foot and tended to walk predominantly on their heels. As a result, women who underwent foot-binding walked in a careful, cautious, and unsteady manner.”

Besides the pain and discomfort that such fashions cause women, it can also lead to needless loss of life. A book by Kat Banyard, The Equality Illusion, cites an example. In 1991, when Bangladesh was hit by a cyclone, 90% of the casualties were women. One of the reasons for this was that women were not allowed to leave the house unaccompanied by a male relative. The other reason was that their clothes made it difficult for them to run or swim to safety.

From The Guardian, Is the US the Only Country Where More Men are Raped Than Women?
Money quote:

There are big differences in social conceptions of sexual assault in the prison population versus the general population – even though one in 10 Americans will be imprisoned at some point in their lives, and the US imprisons more people than any other society in the history of the world. Comparing prison assault with non-prison assault is interesting and necessary, but it's important to keep in mind that they operate in very different contexts (which isn't to say that one is better or worse, just that if we're going to discuss them intelligently, it makes sense to address that fact).

One overlap, though, between prison rape of men and non-prison rape of women is the way American society views both as an inevitability. That plays out in different ways, but there's a sense that incarceration must naturally lead to rape (see, eg, "don't drop the soap!" jokes), and that femaleness is inherently sexually tempting and therefore also leads to rape if you're not vigilant about preventing it (see, eg, every rape prevention tactic that focuses on what women should or should not do – don't walk home alone, don't wear revealing clothing, etc). At the same time, inevitability is tempered by the perceived ability to prevent rape if you just do things "right" – don't commit a crime so that you end up in jail, don't break any of the Rape Avoidance Rules For Ladies. It's a convenient way to conceptualise assault – if you just behave yourself, you won't be a victim. For women, "doing things right" requires constant vigilance, and an understanding of oneself as inherently vulnerable; it keeps us fearful, and it inhibits our freedom of movement. For populations with high incarceration rates, "doing things right" also requires constant vigilance, and an understanding of oneself as perceived as inherently criminal; it keeps entire communities fearful, resentful, and unable to seek the protection of the police; and it inhibits freedom of movement and expression and speech.

From Feministe, Virginia Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill Proves Effective at Deterring Sex
Money quote:

Most women seem to find Virginia’s proposed bill requiring transvaginal ultrasound for anyone trying to get an abortion horrifying and intrusive. We’re wrong, of course, because Virigina Delegate David Albo (R-Douchebucket) thinks it’s hilarious. Hilarious enough to stand up and joke about getting cock-blocked by his own bill on the House floor. His fellow delegates laughed and hooted like frat boys as he delivered a tawdry three-minute monologue–complete with slap-bass mood music–about his attempts to romance his wife, which were thwarted by a news clip in which Del. David Englin (D-Total square, amiright?) criticizes the bill.

From Yahoo! Games, Study: World of Warcraft Boosts Brain Functions in Seniors
Money quote:

A new study out of North Carolina State University finds that the massively-multiplayer behemoth can have a beneficial impact on the brains of elderly players.

Researchers examined two groups of seniors between the ages of 60 and 77. One of those groups did nothing, while the other picked a side with the Alliance or the Horde and played WoW for about 14 hours over two weeks. (Not exactly the marathon sessions of some WoW enthusiasts, but still a respectable amount.)

When the two groups were retested, researchers found that the gamers showed a significant increase in cognitive functioning — specifically, spatial ability and focus.

"We chose World of Warcraft because it has attributes we felt may produce benefits — it is a cognitively challenging game in a socially interactive environment that presents users with novel situations," says Dr. Anne McLaughlin, assistant professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of the study's report. "We found there were improvements, but it depended on each participant's baseline cognitive functioning level."

"The people who needed it most — those who performed the worst on the initial testing — saw the most improvement," adds Dr. Jason Allaire, associate professor of psychology at NC State and another co-author of the paper.

Shopping at Penney's has not made me a lesbian

2012-02-05T11:50:00.001-06:00

Sure, this is anecdotal evidence, but take it for what it's worth.

I like to buy jeans at J.C. Penney. They have a decent variety of Levis, usually at a good price. Now, granted, I was never persuaded to shop for jeans there by a spokesperson of any kind. But I also have not seen any sign that my Levis give a damn what kind of family I’m in. Nor has my sexuality changed, so far as I can tell, as a result of my wearing them. There has not been the slightest uptick in my attraction to girls, and no increase in incidences of my having been mistaken for a lesbian. I have neither been ejected from my "traditional family" as daughter for wearing them, nor been refused admission to a "traditional family" as wife. In fact, if my ass looks sufficiently good in those jeans, they might actually aid in the latter endeavor.

So I'm sorry, Penney's. If having Ellen DeGeneres as your spokesperson has all been some kind of nefarious plot to create gays, repel non-gays, convert non-gays into gays, and/or destroy traditional families, it doesn’t seem to be working. At least on me. Please don't listen to the "One Million" Moms. They literally don't know what they're afraid of.

Tempest in a cookie box

2012-02-05T08:23:00.000-06:00

Because a seven year old transgender child tried to be involved in a Girl Scout troop in Colorado, a national campaign has been created to urge us to not to buy any cookies this year, and Girl Scouts themselves to not sell them.

Yes, really:

Three Girl Scout troops in Louisiana won't be hawking Thin Mints this year. They've disbanded in protest after the Girl Scouts of Colorado accepted seven-year-old transgender child Bobby Montoya as a member. Montoya was born a boy but has considered herself a girl since she was two years old, says her mom Felisha Archuleta. In October, Archuleta took her daughter to speak with a Denver troop leader about signing up, and took her daughter away crying after the Scout leader referred to the child as "it" and said "Everyone will know he's a boy." Three weeks later, the statewide Girl Scouts body issued a statement saying, "If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout." When they heard about this reversal, three moms and troop leaders in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana decided to dissolve their troops and leave Girl Scouts.

Now, 95 years after the organization first starting selling cookies, its signature product has once again become a political pawn. Right-wing groups and some conservative parents and scouts have posted to a site called Honest Girl Scouts, YouTube, and Facebook pages—including one called "Make Girl Scouts Clean Again"—urging Girl Scouts everywhere to go on strike from selling cookies, and their parents to stop buying them. They want Girl Scouts USA to officially bans [sic] transgender children from membership, and kick out any known transgender scouts "hiding" in the troops.

Because a transgender kid is dirty. Dishonest. A scourge, hiding in the ranks to prey on legitimately female members of the troop. A parasite on their virtue, apparently. A seven year old. What's the national Girl Scout policy on such matters?

So far, the national Girl Scouts USA has made no official statement about Bobby Montoya's case or what happened in Louisiana. . . Andrea Bastiani Archibald, a development psychologist with Girl Scouts USA, says it's a case-by-case decision. "It depends on the age of the child and other questions: Are they being recognized everywhere (as girls)? Are there policies in place at that child's school? Are they attending a girl's bathroom?" She reiterated that acceptance of transgender girls is not formal Girl Scouts policy, and that the organization takes a position of nondiscrimination rather than radical inclusion. So for all intents and purposes, decisions on who gets included or excluded play out at a local level.

And yet protest against transgender children being involved apparently is not-- it's a national thing. Three troops several states away from Bobby Montoya, who almost certainly have never met her and would never have been aware of her existence if not for the statement from Girl Scouts of Colorado, felt so strongly against her inclusion that they actually disbanded. No more selling cookies, no more earning badges, no more fun camping trips because some kid a thousand miles away who was born male but determined at age two that she was a girl was accepted into a Girl Scout troop. What are they afraid of, exactly? Could there possibly be anyone in this scenario with more at stake than Bobby herself? I first learned of this story from Radley Balko's blog, where he bemoans making a small child the object of ridicule in the name of a culture war, and sighs

It’s a story about why in the world you’d decide to wage a national campaign attacking the Girl Scouts over their decision to accept a kid who think she’s the opposite sex . . . who is seven-years-old.

I mean, even if she’s just going through a phase. Even if the mother should have recognized that. Even if you think it was wrong of the Girl Scouts in that particular part of the country to accept her as such. So what? What is the point of making a big deal out of this? If, 10 years from now, the kid decides he really was boy all along, does it matter? Has it done any harm to you? Hell, even if your kid was in the same troop — which is untrue of 99.999999 % of the people making a huge deal out of this — do you really think this kid is going to disguise his/her sex so he/she can take advantage of your daughter? Again, she’s seven years old.

Exactly. I have nothing to add to that. Except this--

On bumper stickers and "bumper stickers"

2012-02-04T15:48:00.002-06:00

From The Washington Post: Looking to Avoid Aggressive Drivers? Check Those Bumpers:

Watch out for cars with bumper stickers.
That's the surprising conclusion of a recent study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko. Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other "territorial markers" not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage -- by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.
It does not seem to matter whether the messages on the stickers are about peace and love -- "Visualize World Peace," "My Kid Is an Honor Student" -- or angry and in your face -- "Don't Mess With Texas," "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student."
Hey, you clown! This ain't funny! Aggressive driving might be responsible for up to two-thirds of all U.S. traffic accidents that involve injuries.
Szlemko and his colleagues at Fort Collins found that people who personalize their cars acknowledge that they are aggressive drivers, but usually do not realize that they are reporting much higher levels of aggression than people whose cars do not have visible markers on their vehicles.
Drivers who do not personalize their cars get angry, too, Szlemko and his colleagues concluded in a paper they recently published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, but they don't act out their anger. They fume, mentally call the other driver a jerk, and move on.
"The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked," Szlemko said. "Just the presence of territory markers predicts the tendency to be an aggressive driver."

From The Spectrum, independent student publication of the University of Buffalo: Why Put a Bumper Sticker on a Ferrari?:

Ladies, I know you're at least at the legal age of making your own decisions, but before you decide to get a tattoo, allow me to let you in on a little secret. A secret you may have not fully realized yet thus far in your life. What you must understand is, as women, we are – naturally – beautiful creatures.
Seriously, though. Your body literally has the ability to turn heads. Guys drool over us. We hold some serious power in our hands, because – as corny as this sounds – we hold the world's beauty.
But something girls seem to forget nowadays, or maybe have not been taught, is that women hold the world's class and elegance in their hands, as well. So what's more attractive than a girl with a nice body? I'll tell you what: a girl with class. Looks may not last, but class does. And so do tattoos.
An elegant woman does not vandalize the temple she has been blessed with as her body. She appreciates it. She flaunts it. She's not happy with it? She goes to the gym. She dresses it up in lavish, fun, trendy clothes, enjoying trips to the mall with her girlfriends. She accentuates her legs with high heels. She gets her nails done. She enjoys the finer things in life, all with the body she was blessed with.
But marking it up with ink? That's just not necessary.

I have both bumper stickers and tattoos. Draw your own conclusions.

(Hat tip to Dr. X)

What should the bus driver call you?

2012-02-03T14:09:00.004-06:00

How would you feel if this man called you "babe"?

Here's a sticky one...or maybe not so sticky. Jo Walters writes in the Guardian about her experience of being called "babe" by a bus driver, and then her experience of how she has been viewed and treated following making a complaint about that:

In the past week I've been to the cinema twice (The Artist, and The Descendants – both fairly good), stocked up my fridge (meatballs and pizza on the menu this week) and arranged to catch up with friends. Oh and I've been called "an irate woman", "a daft woman", a "silly, silly woman" told I "must look like the old back of a bus", to "Get a life!" and that "I need an operation, to remove the chip from [my] shoulder" – all by people I don't know and have never met.

What is my crime? Just politely contacting my local bus company to let them know that I don't like it when their bus drivers use terms such as "love", "darling" and "babe". I pointed out that I generally find their drivers friendly and courteous but that when some of them use that language I find it demeaning. I wasn't angry, I didn't ask to make a formal complaint, I wasn't trying to get anyone into trouble, I'm not trying to get anyone fired, I didn't threaten legal action – I just thought they might like to know how the actions of some of their staff made me feel.

I received a prompt and friendly response agreeing that it wasn't really appropriate language and not something the company would condone. They promised to let drivers know that this sort of language isn't appreciated and I didn't really think much more of it until my local radio station, Brighton's Juice 107.2 mentioned on Facebook that drivers had been asked not to call people babe. From there I spotted it in our local newspaper, the Metro, the Mail Online, found it was discussed on Loose Women and various local radio stations.

The thing I find weird is that I don't really think this is news; I just sent some feedback to a company. It seems that people find the idea that language can affect others a bizarre concept and that it is "just political correctness gone mad" (that gem came up a few times). Much of the coverage and comments paints me as some angry woman who should be grateful for the apparent compliment. I didn't make it a gender issue; the coverage and comments did.
The thing is though, I personally find terms like "babe" coming from men to be overfamiliar, sexist and patronising. I'm allowed to interpret their words in that way, it doesn't make me irrational or oversensitive. It doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humour or that I should be grateful for the attention. It is interesting to note that lots of the critical comments are from men.

I don't think it's that people find the idea that language affects others bizarre-- it's more likely that they either fail to understand the concept of benevolent sexism, fail to recognize benevolent sexism when they see it, or simply don't agree that this counts. Why would anyone but a cold, angry, PC-obsessed woman fail to see being called ________ ("babe," in this case) as flattering, or at least benign? What kind of person is offended by a compliment or a nicety?

Context matters, naturally. In this case the entire discussion is about context, but it's important to point out a cultural difference specifically. I think most Americans would see it as a no-brainer that public servants-- or indeed, anyone who works in customer service-- should not call patrons/customers "babe," but in the UK it's not just kind old ladies in department stores who will refer to you in diminutives; it's everybody. I didn't mind hearing "Ta, love" from a ticket-taker on the train, and in fact found it nice, because I knew it's something practically every ticket-taker says to practically everyone. It would make me sad if "Ta, love" went away, even though I no longer ride trains in the UK. So in that regard I can understand people being miffed about a crackdown on the kind of language bus drivers are allowed to use, except that "babe" seems to me to be fundamentally different (in England) from "love." Here in the states, hearing either one from a male bus driver would probably seem equally inappropriate.

A male bus driver? Yes, because of course it's a gender issue. Being called "honey" or "dear" by the old lady at the department store is a different beast from being called the exact same by a man in the same place, much less for example the DMV (the former being far more elective than the latter). The division between between a nicety and an inappropriate remark depends on who it's coming from as well as where you are. And everyone seems to treat the matter of where that division lies the way Oliver Wendell Holmes famously described identifying pornography: "I know it when I see it." Or in this case, hear it. One commenter on the Guardian article wrote:

I like it when I get called 'bach' which means little but is used like 'pet', by Welsh speakers in my local shops.
Feels like an endearment.
The writer should keep her outrage for the important issues.
If a bus driver calls you a 'ho' then complain by all means, but babe is used in a positive way by many people, girls call other girls babe all the time.
Using words like love, bach, pet, dear all help oil the wheels of social intercourse.
Rebuffing something said with good heart is just downright rude.

I didn't see anything in Walters' piece that sounded like "outrage," but it's not surprising to see her comments portrayed as such. Along with the sexism-specific trope of "You should find it flattering," I wouldn't be surprised if the term "outrage" was used more often to portray complaints of offense as irrational and hysterical (yes, that word used intentionally) than to describe actual reactions to wanton cruelty or gross violations of decency. When reacting to a complaint by someone that something is offensive which you find innocuous, it seems that the immediate response is to magnify the offense far beyond what was originally stated. I'm guilty of doing this myself all of the time, and it's a hard urge to control. Why am I not doing it now? Because I don't see a complaint about being called "babe" as a threat. I see the complaint as legitimate, but even if I didn't it wouldn't threaten my self-image to learn that in this case, someone finds something unacceptable that I don't. Re-examining my assumptions, or examining them for the first time, wouldn't be painful. Being intellectually humble is comparatively easy. It's harder to be humble that way when you, or people you agree with and/or care about, are the source of the offense.

Notice I haven't said that offense can't simply be illegitimate. I certainly think it can, but would point out that our conclusions about such tend to be shaped by the effect the conclusion holds for our self-images. Ethical dissenters-- and by that I mean, people who disagree with the majority for ethical reasons-- are a living, breathing, practicing condemnation of what most people regard as normal or at least uncontroversial, and many find that disturbing. Understandably so, but the problem comes when the next step is to misrepresent the dissenters in order to deflect their grievance. This can be counted on to happen regardless of whether said grievance is legitimate or not. Simply speaking up about it is enough to set the wheels in motion.

A few other tropes from the comments:

Let me give you a tip. You always have a choice to take offence or not to take offence.
I strive never to take offence unless I'm absolutely certain that offence is intended.

AKA "Your offense is your own fault" coupled with "Your offense isn't legitimate unless I'm offended too." The feeling of offense absolutely is not a choice, but the expression of offense is, which the commenter conflates here. He/she has it precisely backwards in suggesting that one shouldn't express offense if none is intended, because people who have been offensive inadvertently are the only ones who would care and want to change their behavior. People who have offended on purpose will be at best unaffected, and at worst gratified by the news that their arrows have hit their mark.

Spot on!
I can see that despite the friendly intentions behind it, the language is totally and utterly degrading.
Oh hang on a second... I can't
You must be so much fun to be around!

AKA "Can't you take a joke?" coupled with another "Intent is all that matters." Certainly intention matters, but again-- that's why we kindly explain to Grandma that it's not the best idea to use the word "negro" anymore, and to Junior that calling his gaming pals "fags" when he bests them in a game isn't cool.

are you seriously expecting generations of people to re think how they speak?
Yes, she is. This is the essence of political correctness; any word that someone, somewhere might find offensive must be eliminated, however harmlessly it was meant.
It's all covered by that maddening word "inappropriate". Inappropriate to whom? Also "unacceptable". Unacceptable to whom?
Some self-righteous prude, that's who.

Merriam-Webster defines a slur as "a: an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo, b: a shaming or degrading effect." I like that this definition includes both intent and effect, and doesn't require that they be coupled. And yes, the process of discovering that certain language has the effect of degrading, dismissing, shaming, or trivializing people-- that is, it amounts to a slur-- and asking that it not be used on that basis is expecting generations of people to rethink how they speak. That's sort of the point. Congratulations first commenter, you have grasped it!

I'm going to make some assumptions about the second commenter, but would bet money that they're true: 1) he's male (okay, his name is "Howard," but I promise I didn't look at that first), 2) white, and 3) straight. The grand trifecta of potential for dedicated ignorance of privilege and griping about political correctness. Which, if I were less of a person, would make me wish that he will be referred to as "babe" by every hulking male bus driver to enter his life forevermore.

But I'm nicer than that.

ETA: Okay, stop dancing for a minute while I clarify: No, I was not saying that white, straight, men are the only people with unexamined privilege, the only people who complain about political correctness, and certainly not the only people who can be prejudiced. Prejudice is, ironically, an equal-opportunity pursuit. I'm saying that the people most ignorant about privilege tend to be the ones who have the most privilege, which means you guys sitting at the top of the privilege pyramid: straight, while, males. I'm actually least certain about race amongst those three traits, since we've seen ample evidence recently of sneering at political correctness by a certain straight black male.

By all means, please resume dancing now.

I'm fine with this rubber spine o' mine

2012-02-01T17:25:00.005-06:00

Really? Because it looks like that...hurts.

As a follow-up to this post, I feel compelled to share these:

Cracked's 5 Most Ridiculously Sexist Superhero Costumes, and

R.K. Milholland's Super Stupor! comic mocking such costumes and poses

Comics are almost certainly the most sexist medium in geekdom. By that I do not mean that a) all comics are sexist, b) all consumers of comics are sexist, c) all creators of comics are sexist, or d) there's something inherent about comics that means they must be sexist. I'm saying that if you're looking for a realm of geekery in which the value of women can be most clearly summed up in terms of T&A, comics-- let's be more specific; superhero comics-- are it. Devoting a column to the most ridiculously sexist superhero costumes must have been hard work...like identifying the five most annoying contestants on Big Brother or the most painful Jackass experiments.

Why would this be the case? My best guess is that it's because comics are about the most "fantasy" that you can get. Sure, other geeky things are fictional-- you can give any amount of hit points to a monster that players must battle. You can dress a character on Star Trek however you want. You can make a character in a video game have breasts like beach balls. But in a comic, the character depicted is both a) visible and b) static. You can see her, but need not be concerned with how her body would move without violating the laws of physics in many directions. I've seen some grossly out of proportion characters in video games, but never one (for example) whose breasts faced the same direction as her backside. But that's so common an occurrence in comic books that it has become cliche (ow ow ow, on that last one especially).

So having the ability to build a fantastic creation from the ground up plus the means to depict it clearly visually plus not being constrained in any way by physics is what makes it possible to dive head first into not only supernormal stimulus, but also fictitious and highly dubious psychology. Comic book women not only lack spines; they lack any concern about not having spines. They are quite happy to fight crime while clad in (sometimes only in) butt floss. Fiction's handy that way-- you can impose any condition on the characters and make them like it, because after all...you're the story-teller.

In comparison, actual pornography seems comforting. At least those are real people (more or less), engaging in real activities that people can do in real life. But cross comics with porn and you get....animated pornography! No, I'm not going to link you to examples of such-- you've got Google, and I don't want to be responsible for introducing such a thing into anyone's life.

(Hat tip to Pharyngula, where the following exchange took place:

P.Z.: I guess there’s a reason I haven’t read any mainstream comics in 30 years, too.
Antiochus Epiphanes: I can think of a better reason. Because you are a grown-up with access to actual books.
We Are Ing: Don’t hold your nose too much higher or you’ll fall over.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Feral Fembeast: Maus? Barefoot Gen? Fun Home? My Cancer Year? Fuck ‘em, they can’t be “actual books” because they have pictures an’ all. Antiochus said so.
Antiochus Epiphanes: To be fair, these are “actual” books, being bound printed matter. And one of them was awarded a Pulitzer prize. So there’s that. And you can read one in less than an hour which is pretty awesome if you don’t like to read.
stringer: To be fair these are actual Scotsmen.

Fair cop. I'd recommend Maus, parts 1 and 2, to anybody.)

Benevolent sexism

2012-02-01T15:53:00.002-06:00

A lot of people seem to have a hard time identifying bigotry when it appears to flatter. After all, isn't bigotry supposed to be about hating members of a certain group? Not really. It's more about forming expectations about individual members of a group, based on a general assumption about the group as a whole. There doesn't need to be anything wrong with enjoying fried chicken and watermelon in order for it to be bigoted to portray those as the favorite food of every black person. The phrase "soft bigotry of low expectations" refers to the act of being pleasantly surprised that people of a certain group are smarter, more well-behaved, more attractive, or otherwise better than you expected them to be, because you defied the low expectations they have for members of your group.

Being told "You're not girly; you're just one of the guys!" is not generally intended as a back-handed compliment-- it just means "You're more like what I'm familiar with and less like what's foreign, and I like that." But once that is actually spelled out, it's easy to see where the problem lies. It's not so much sexism as a subtle xenophobia-- a fear of what's different. Most bigotry probably amounts to that. But Melanie Tannenbaum's recent blog post for Scientific American discusses how such "flattering" comments relate to sexism specifically:

In 1996, Peter Glick and Susan Fiske wrote a paper on the concept of ambivalent sexism, noting that despite common beliefs, there are actually two different kinds of sexist attitudes and behavior. Hostile sexism is what most people think of when they picture “sexism” – angry, explicitly negative attitudes towards women. However, the authors note, there is also something called benevolent sexism:
We define benevolent sexism as a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively positive in feeling tone (for the perceiver) and also tend to elicit behaviors typically categorized as prosocial (e.g., helping) or intimacy-seeking (e.g., self-disclosure) (Glick & Fiske, 1996, p. 491).
[Benevolent sexism is] a subjectively positive orientation of protection, idealization, and affection directed toward women that, like hostile sexism, serves to justify women’s subordinate status to men (Glick et al., 2000, p. 763).
Essentially, there’s now a formal name for all of those comments and stereotypes that can somehow feel both nice and wrong at the same time, such as the belief that women are “delicate flowers” that need to be protected by men, or the notion that women have the special gift of being “more kind and caring” than their male counterparts. And yes, it might sound complimentary, but it still counts as sexism.

Why is Benevolent Sexism a problem?

Admittedly, this research begs an obvious question. If benevolently sexist comments seem like nothing more than compliments, why are they problematic? Is it really “sexism” if the content of the statements appears to be positive towards women?

Well, for one thing, benevolently sexist statements often depict women as weak, sensitive creatures that need to be “protected.” While this may seem positive to some, for others – especially women in male-dominated fields, or those who simply want to be seen as strong – it creates a damaging stereotype. Second of all, by depicting women as homogenously different from men in any way not directly related to chromosomes or genitalia, benevolently sexist statements sometimes justify a climate where opportunities can be withheld from women because they are somehow “different.” Indeed, as Glick and Fiske themselves note in their seminal paper:

We do not consider benevolent sexism a good thing, for despite the positive feelings it may indicate for the perceiver, its underpinnings lie in traditional stereotyping and masculine dominance (e.g., the man as the provider and woman as his dependent), and its consequences are often damaging. Benevolent sexism is not necessarily experienced as benevolent by the recipient. For example, a man’s comment to a female coworker on how ‘cute’ she looks, however well-intentioned, may undermine her feelings of being taken seriously as a professional (Glick & Fiske, 1996, p. 491-492).

In a later paper by Glick and Fiske, they examined levels of hostile and benevolent sexism across 15,000 men and women in 19 different countries. First of all, they found that hostile and benevolent sexism tend to correlate highly across nations. It is not the case that people who endorse hostile sexism don’t tend to endorse benevolent sexism, whereas those who are benevolently sexist look nothing like the hostilely sexist people. On the contrary, those who endorsed benevolent sexism were also very likely to hold explicit, hostile attitudes towards women (although one does not necessarily have to endorse these hostile attitudes in order to engage in benevolent sexism).

Secondly, they discovered that benevolent sexism was a significant predictor of nationwide gender inequality, independent of the effects of hostile sexism. Specifically, in countries where the men were more likely to endorse benevolent sexism, there were also significantly lower female participation rates in politics and the economy, and men generally had longer life expectancies, higher literacy rates, more years of education, and higher purchasing power than women. The warm, fuzzy feelings surrounding benevolently sexist statements come at a cost, and that cost is often actual, objective gender equality.

Rest assured: there is no need to claim that men and women aren't different in any general or specific way in order to counter-act both hostile and benevolent sexism. The problem with benevolent sexism is that it's a dubious kindness that is still based on bigotry. This is a fundamental problem I have with being called a "lady"-- it implies that a certain treatment, often benevolent, is required for a person based on her gender. No thanks, I'd rather just be a person.

Tony Perkins fears the crossing of light sabers

2012-01-30T17:56:00.000-06:00

"Give yourself to the Dark Side...yes,
your thoughts betray you."

From Opposing Views:

On his daily radio broadcast, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins attacked the video game 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' for allowing same-sex relationships: "In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!"

Stephen Reid of Bioware, the game maker, recently announced that players could have “same gender romances with companion characters” as part of “a post-launch feature.”

Nothing in this story is shocking. It's not shocking that SW:TOR is allowing for romantic relationships between your character and same-sex NPCs (non-player characters) because this is Bioware. The same or similar options were available in Mass Effect 2 and 3 and Dragon Age 1 and 2, so if they didn't have it in SW:TOR it would be a surprise.

Similarly, there's nothing shocking about Tony Perkins predicting that homosexuality will be the End of All Things, though he might want to know that in this game (as in the films), the empire are...well, the bad guys. So in a world of ruthless bounty hunters and a rigidly controlling organization intent on dominating the universe, the ultimate threat is a group of people who want to live in same-sex relationships, and those who support their right to do so.

Hmm, that must be how people like Perkins perceive the real world every day.

Jay Leno vs. some angry Sikhs

2012-01-30T17:15:00.004-06:00

From BBC News:

A Leno skit showed the temple as the summer home of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Mr Romney has faced taxation questions over his huge wealth and many Sikhs are angry the temple has been depicted as a place for the rich.

The Sikh community has launched an online petition and an Indian minister called the comments "objectionable".

Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi told reporters: "It is quite unfortunate and quite objectionable that such a comment has been made after showing the Golden Temple."

Mr Ravi said the Indian embassy would take up the matter with the US state department, the Press Trust of India reported.

He said: "The Golden Temple is the Sikh community's most sacred place... The American government should also look at this kind of thing.

"Freedom does not mean hurting the sentiments of others... This is not acceptable to us and we take a very strong objection for such a display."

The Golden Temple is....well, it is what you might expect: an enormous building, literally covered in gold. Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab, India looks like a monument to ostentatiousness. Leno's writers could have done a GIS for "fancy building" and picked the most impressive one that showed up, but part of the joke I'm guessing in choosing to use the Golden Temple as Romney's summer home is to suggest that he is obscenely wealthy. Not just well off, not just private jet rich, but affluent to the extent that it seems offensive. Profane. You know, like the kind of guy who would live in a monument to someone else's religion if he found it sumptuous enough. Here's the bit:

You have to admit, in comparison with the preceding photos of quite nice but not crazily impressive homes belonging to Gingrich and Paul, respectively (which I assume are their actual residences), following it up with what appears to be the fanciest building ever to exist and calling it Romney's "summer" home is pretty funny. It's funny in part because it doesn't remotely even look like a home. Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, pointed out in a statement that Leno's use of the photo is both a) Constitutionally-protected and b) obviously satire. And it was satire of Romney, not of Sikhs. But even if it was making fun of Sikhs, it's still protected. That is because freedom of speech does, in fact, include "hurting the sentiments of others." If it doesn't, well...that hurts my sentiments. Further appreciation to Nuland for saying that the United States government respects India and its citizenry without saying that the it respects Sikhism.

The online petition organised by members of the US Sikh community says Leno has been guilty of derogatory comments on Sikhs before. It adds that "Jay Leno's racist comments need to be stopped right here".

Petition signatory Simran Kaur says: "Jay Leno must apologise and promise not to make any direct or oblique references to Sikhs or their places of worship."

Leno has not yet commented on the matter.

Not being familiar with Leno's show, I have no idea what "derogatory comments" this refers to. But if it's simply making references to Sikhs or their places of worship, acknowledging that they exist, my question would be...why? Surely it would be worse to have your existence ignored?

I also don't know what "objectionable comment has been made after showing the Golden Temple," because so far as I can tell there was no comment after showing it-- simply depicting it was the gag. I can't help but wonder if Ravi and the community who organized this petition actually saw the bit in question and understand it.

ETA: From Ken at Popehat:

First up, we have Dr. Randeep Dhillon! Dr. Dhillon is suing Jay Leno. Is he suing Jay Leno for being a trite, phone-it-in placeholder? NO! There's no California cause of action for that! SAG would never allow it! No, Randeep Dhillon is suing Jay Leno for a lame joke about Mitt Romney suggesting that his vacation home was the Golden Temple of Amritsar, a holy site for Sikhs! Dr. Dhillon says that by making this joke, Leno "exposes plaintiff, other sikhs and their religion to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy because it falsely portrays the holiest place in the Sikh religion as a vacation resort owned by a non-Sikh." He's backed up by an Indian foreign affairs minister who says "freedom does not mean hurting the sentiments of others."

Congrats, Dr. Dhillon! You win a date with California's robust anti-SLAPP statute! You're going to pay Jay Leno's attorney fees in this case, which I will estimate to be $50,000! And because some people will generalize about Sikhs based on the act of one asshole — you — you've just done more to expose Sikhs to hatred, contempt, ridicule, and obloquy than that threadbare hack Leno ever could! Way to go!

Not rape

2012-01-30T11:30:00.000-06:00

A trigger warning is a notice posted at the top of an article that indicates that the subject matter may be disturbing, especially because it may describe abuse, molestation, and/or rape and people who have been victims of such may not want to read or to read with caution, in a place where they won't have to worry about their emotions betraying them.

The Not Rape Epidemic is an article for which trigger warnings might as well have been invented. I don't normally feel as though I need them, but it strikes me as a piece for which pretty much every woman might need one, and not a few men. That makes it important, because it doesn't disturb for kicks but to discuss something painful yet common, and all too real: a pervasive, passively-accepted environment of sexual harassment that might not be rape (hence the title), but certainly marches right up to it and shakes hands.

I dislike the term "rape culture," because I think it connotes a culture in which rape is openly accepted and rampant, which brings to mind Somalia. That's a rape culture, if anything is. But I understand the desire to have a word for both the physical and cultural environment which lends credence to victim-blaming, sexual threats as a particular means of punishing women for disliked behavior or speech, and disdain for or dismissal of anyone who broaches the subject of such as a need for concern. Someone who threatens to rape someone on the internet because of what she had to say may not be a rapist, but they are (obviously) part of "the problem." And the problem has many names. I'm going to stick with "sexism," because it's simple and encompasses a lot of things.

Anyway, go read the piece. If you're feeling stable, and are in a place where it's okay not to be if such a need arises. It aroused a lot of uncomfortable memories for me, and might for you as well. The comments are full of people sharing theirs.

Weekend web readin'

2012-01-28T12:14:00.003-06:00

Female Gaming Characters: Why I Won't Be Playing League of Legends
Money quote:

This only becomes increasingly farcical, with pity being shed on the designers for us pesky feminists wanting to “suppress artists and design content for gender equality”, a seemingly worthless pursuit. Since when was there a suppression here? Implying that your right to see overly-pornified female characters surpasses the needed inclusion of more women in gaming is ridiculous, and suggesting that the designers would be at a loss with their skills if they could not do so is incredibly patronizing and places little faith in their skills, ignoring the intricate and beautiful designs of armour for the ladies in games elsewhere.

Acupuncturist Claims Cervical Cancer is For Prostitutes
Money quote:

Does cervical cancer only happen to certain types of people?

Cervical cancer only affects people who have cervices, so I suppose that’s a type.
What is implied by the “certain type” comment, however, is the association of cervical cancer with infection by sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV). Some types of HPV can infect the cells of the cervix and can cause the cells to behave oddly, which can send them down the path to becoming dysplastic or even cancerous. Of course, only promiscuous women and prostitutes get HPV, right?

Well, barring the outrageous slut shaming which I cannot even begin to discuss here, it’s important to note that 70% of all sexually active Canadians will exposed to HPV over a lifetime. 70%! Even condoms are not fully protective since HPV can spread via any skin-to-skin contact. Plus, HPV infection is almost entirely asymptomatic, and there is no general screening test to look for it. In other words, for most people, until you are diagnosed with cervical cancer, you have absolutely no way of knowing if you or your partner are positive for HPV. Only in a world of strict, puritanical monogamy is this a disease for prostitutes and the promiscuous, and given that 70% of women are exposed, I think it’s fair to say that such an expectation is profoundly unrealistic. Either that, or 70% of Canadian women are whores! What a charming sentiment.

Ahlquist in the NYT
Money quote:

They say that the truth always comes after the “but”. To illustrate that point, here’s a Cranston West senior…
Pat McAssey, a senior who is president of the student council, said the threats were “completely inexcusable”…
But…?
…but added that Jessica had upset some of her classmates by mocking religion online.
“Their frustration kind of came from that,” he said.
Yes, her classmates may have been upset by Jessica mocking religion. So what? Pat should have stopped at calling the threats inexcusable. Frustration is “Awwwwwww, I’m offended.” It’s not “let’s beat her up!”

The Caging of America
Money quote(s):

For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States. . .

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country.

Why serial cheating beats open marriage

2012-01-26T18:23:00.000-06:00

...according to Newt Gingrich: because anything other than one man and one woman is pagan.

Seriously:

It's pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it's a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization.

This man is a historian. But he doesn't know that....

1. There are multiple instances in the Bible of men having more than one wife-- at a time, even-- without any mention of it being wrong.
2. Monogamous relationships between one man and one woman were not invented in the Bible, and certainly existed outside of the historical and geographic contexts it describes.
3. When Jesus addressed the issue, he specially mentioned divorce in order to condemn it.

Wait, who am I kidding? He knows these things. A person could never have read a page of the Bible and known-- or at least, have been able to make an educated guess-- about all of them. There is no coherent sense in which opposite sex monogamous marriage can be described as belonging to the Bible, or to Christianity, and not to "pagans" (whatever Newt imagines those to be), certainly without also such description being compelled to drag along behind it, like a ball on a chain, the fact that Newt's own behavior has been condemned just as explicitly as any other deviation from that standard.

This sin-- the sin of repeated infidelity and divorce, followed by remarriage-- is one to which Newt and his kind are susceptible, so it is ignored. Other sins, the ones that represent minor or no temptation at all, can safely be vilified as pagan, criminal, unAmerican. That's how scoundrels manage to wave Bibles-- by carefully expunging the parts that condemn their own behavior as much as anyone else's.

Gingrich's serial cheating would make him a strong president...wait, what?

2012-01-23T15:37:00.003-06:00

Cheating for America-- not on it!

The fact that Newt Gingrich is running for president, and actually has supporters for that position, makes my brain hurt and my heart sink. It inspires a despondence that I don't care to dwell in, frankly. But I have to admit that the whole discussion about whether he asked his second wife (whom he married after cheating on the first) for an open marriage before leaving her and marrying the woman he was cheating with who became wife #3-- gosh, it's kind of hard to write that out-- is fascinating to me. Apparently the serial cheating is bad, but not as bad as the notion of his having asked for an "open marriage." And let's be clear, if what former wife Marianne says is true, what Gingrich did wasn't asking for an open marriage exactly. The words "open marriage" might have come out of his mouth, but what he was really asking for was to continue cheating with impunity. Reading those words, I could feel the collective cringing of Americans who are actually in open marriages-- a consenting arrangement in which a couple decides together that each of them may have another partner or partners, with explicit permission-- as their lifestyle's reputation went further down the drain.

Newt has, of course, vehemently denied that he did any such thing. He has complained bitterly about the indignity of even being questioned on the subject, as if he wasn't the same man who found it appropriate to lead impeachment proceedings against Clinton for lying about an affair. As if he isn't the same man, running for the nomination of the same party, which trumpets family values as a reason to deny rights to gays. Apparently those family values allow room for serial cheating, divorce, and re-marriage, but not for things like consenting open relationships or affirmation of government-awarded rights and privileges for relationships between two people of the same sex. I admire the intentions of this suggestion on Yahoo! News that Gingrich could become an unwitting argument for gay marriage if elected president by being the living antithesis of family values, but that would both require Gingrich supporters and other opponents of gay marriage to acknowledge their inconsistency and further entrench the notion of gay marriage as somehow being equivalent to serial infidelity. The former is unlikely; the latter undesirable. And anyway, there are plenty of things that make Gingrich an extremely poor choice for president apart from that. Dan Savage-- sex columnist/podcaster, influential gay rights advocate-- has been having a field day with this issue. On Friday he wrote:

Let me be quite clear: Newt wasn't claiming that the story about his six-year affair with a congressional staffer twenty years his junior was false—the third Mrs. Gingrich was there last night—just the story about Newt asking his ex-wife to agree to an open marriage. That was false. (Callista "Devout Catholic" Gingrich was down with the open marriage: "Callista doesn't care what I do," Newt allegedly told his ex-wife.)

So... Newt Swingrich got a huge round of applause from a GOP debate audience packed with God-fearin', traditional-marriage-lovin', gay-marriage-hatin' social conservatives... for insisting that he cheated on his second ex-wife for six years like a good Christian. He did not ask his second ex-wife for an open marriage. An honest open relationship was never on the table. Newt and Callista's adulterous relationship was grounded in lies and deceit and betrayal from the start and Newt never wavered from that path. Newt never tried to negotiate an agreement—not even a retroactive one—that would have allowed him to sleep around and remain married. Newt did not ask his most recent ex-wife for an open marriage and he won't ask any of his future ex-wives for an open marriage.

Because that would be wrong.

Clap clap clap.

(Who are these friends who knew Newt and his second ex-wife and can "prove" her story is false? Were they present during these conversations between Newt and his second ex-wife?)

...which makes me very curious to hear what Savage thinks about this commentary by a psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, who insists that the "psychological data" of Newt's infidelities would make him a strong president. Seriously. Yes, it's on Fox News...of course. If you don't want to go there, I'll just quote some juicy bits for you:

As I have written before for Fox News Opinion, I don’t think voters belong in a candidate’s bedroom. But the media can’t seem to help itself from trying to castrate candidates for the prurient pleasure of the public.

Yeah, it's the media's fault. For reporting what people (rightly or wrongly) want to hear about, just as they did when it was Clinton's cheating that made headlines. For informing the public, including Ablow, about the thing which Ablow is now going to say presents a good reason to support Gingrich as president.

I will tell you what Mr. Gingrich’s personal history actually means for those of us who want to right the economy, see our neighbors and friends go back to work, promote freedom here and abroad and defeat the growing threat posed by Iran and other evil regimes.

First, one note on what Mr. Gingrich’s married life, including his history of infidelity does not mean: It does not mean that Mr. Gingrich would be unfaithful to the United States of America or the Constitution of the United States.

You can take any moral position you like about men and women who cheat while married, but there simply is no correlation, whatsoever—from a psychological perspective—between whether they can remain true to their wedding vows and whether they can remain true to the Oath of Office.

...whatever "remaining true to the Oath of Office" means. It sure doesn't mean invading Iran, so far as I can tell. I agree that from a psychological perspective-- from any perspective-- cheating on one's spouse doesn't mean that one would be a bad president. It doesn't render a person incapable of working to create jobs, protect freedoms, decrease the deficit, or, you know, legalize gay marriage. Just saying.

I want to be coldly analytical, not moralize, here. I want to tell you what Mr. Gingrich’s behavior could mean for the country, not for the future of his current marriage. So, here’s what one interested in making America stronger can reasonably conclude—psychologically—from Mr. Gingrich’s behavior during his three marriages:

1) Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.

2) Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married.

3 ) One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible.

Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.

My conclusion: Okay, so by that logic Richard Ramirez should be president. The "Night Stalker" who killed thirteen people in 1985 in a campaign of murder, rape, and eye-gouging should be campaigning for president instead, since he receives bags full of mail including marriage proposals at San Quentin where he's been imprisoned for 23 years. Countless women want to "sign on for life" with a serial killer. I'm sure at least some of them are attractive, though I'm not sure why that matters. Ablow seems to think it important. Kissinger famously said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, and that most likely applies to the power to slaughter a dozen or so people with your own hands as well as to (potentially) do so to endless more as president. I'm guessing Ablow is one of those people who likes to complain that "chicks dig jerks" while simultaneously evaluating the worth of every man by the appearance of the women he manages to attract.

4) Two women—Mr. Gingrich’s first two wives—have sat down with him while he delivered to them incredibly painful truths: that he no longer loved them as he did before, that he had fallen in love with other women and that he needed to follow his heart, despite the great price he would pay financially and the risk he would be taking with his reputation.

Conclusion:I can only hope Mr. Gingrich will be as direct and unsparing with the Congress, the American people and our allies. If this nation must now move with conviction in the direction of its heart, Newt Gingrich is obviously no stranger to that journey.

My conclusion: Okay, I suppose lying in a hospital bed counts as "sitting down." But what about the whole part where he wasn't direct and unsparing up until he was? You know, the cheating part? Should we welcome a president who is lying to us up until he tells the truth, because he finally has concluded that he needs to "follow his heart"? Gee, Congress, you know...I guess there aren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And I knew that all along. But I needed to follow my heart, and tell you the truth. I hope you can understand.

5) Mr. Gingrich’s daughters from his first marriage are among his most vigorous supporters. They obviously adore him and respect him and feel grateful for the kind of father he was.

When I want to know who in a marriage (or, for that matter, a series of marriages) is the one who actually was aligned with their best interests, I never dismiss evidence of who the children gravitate toward and admire. In this case, they have judged the father who left their family, then remarried twice. And they judge him 10 out of 10. I only hope my own children love me and respect me as much when they are adults.

They probably will, because they're your children. But they might not back you politically, because despite loving you and being directly related, they can see a distinction between respecting you and supporting you for public office. They might be more like John Huntsman's daughters, or more like Rick Santorum's nephew. They might speak out against you or not, depending on a multitude of convoluted factors beyond how they much they care for you. In short, like every other voter, their decisions are their own and there's no particular reason that anyone else should agree with them.

So, as far as I can tell, judging from the psychological data, we have only one real risk to America from his marital history if Newt Gingrich were to become president: We would need to worry that another nation, perhaps a little younger than ours, would be so taken by Mr. Gingrich that it would seduce him into marrying it and becoming its president. And I think that is exceedingly unlikely.

*blurk*

Yes, I get that that was supposed to be a joke. It earns the envy of lead balloons.

Dr. Keith Ablow, you will not be at all reassured to know, is a forensic, adult, and adolescent psychiatrist as well as head of Dr. Keith Ablow Life Coaching as of May, 2011. One can't help but wonder how successful and happy are the marriages of the people whose lives he coaches, as well as whether Mrs. Ablow does a lot of looking over her shoulder.

ETA: I love this exchange on Dispatches:

Tabby Lavalamp: Shouldn’t Ablow be concerned that during a possible term of President of the United States, Gingrich might want to resign to become President of Paraguay?

eric: Why, does the US have cancer?

Randomfactor: Paraguay is nowhere near pretty enough.

No True Feminist

2012-01-22T16:55:00.002-06:00

Disbelieving Tankard Reist is disbelieving

...is not my favorite game. I really dislike playing it, and not just because it's a variation on an informal fallacy. I'm fully aware that groups need labels, and for the purposes of distinction we need some labels to fit some groups, and other labels to fit other groups. I just don't like arguing about who fits in the Feminist group, because it's not like it's going to stop anyone from calling themselves feminists if they want to.

What am I talking about? The question of whether someone who is pro-life can legitimately be called a feminist. That's what Anne Summers asks in The Age-- or rather what she answers, since she comes down firmly on the side of "No":

Maybe this is a strange question to be asking when we are supposedly living in a post-feminist era, when feminism is still mocked and trivialised by the media and (no coincidence) when young women famously assert, ''I'm not a feminist, but …'', meaning: I want the equality but not the label.

But the question has come up recently in two very different examples. Meryl Streep said on 7.30 recently that former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who she plays so brilliantly in The Iron Lady, ''was a feminist whether she likes it or not''.

You could almost hear the shrieks of disavowal around the Western world: No! No! she's not one of us.

Then last week we had the brouhaha around Melinda Tankard Reist, the Canberra-based campaigner against porn and the sexualisation of girls, who has threatened to sue for defamation a blogger who commented on Tankard Reist's failure to disclose her Christian beliefs in a recent magazine profile. The same article described Tankard Reist as one of several high-profile women who are ''redefining feminism - and making enemies in the process''. Sarah Palin was named as another. What these women have in common is their self-identification as ''pro-life feminists''. They are against abortion.

What makes Summers' argument not actually fallacious in the discussion which follows is that she articulates exactly what constitutes feminism, in her mind: supporting women's ability to be independent. There are two fundamental preconditions of this, she continues, and those are financial security and control over one's fertility. Therefore, women should have the ability to regulate both for themselves:

Some women might choose periods of dependence on a husband or someone else while they raise children or write a book or whatever, but the key is that this is a voluntary state. Some women may abhor abortion and never choose that option themselves but they cannot deny the choice to other women.

On these criteria, Thatcher is a feminist while Tankard Reist is not.

Thatcher supported abortion rights (including, according to Streep, attacking president Ronald Reagan for using abortion as a political tool) and while she never identified with the women's movement, nor it with her, she championed women's economic independence, scorning the idea of women as mere washers of teacups.

Tankard Reist, on the other hand, rails against the abuse of women and girls' bodies through pornography but then sanctions the ultimate assault on a woman's body: requiring her to carry a child she has decided she cannot have.

This is an individualist position based entirely on autonomy, and therefore one I support wholeheartedly. You will not get an argument from me that anything can be more feminist than supporting women's individual freedoms.

The thing is, feminism is also about how women are viewed in society, including how women view themselves. Someone who is passionate about eliminating racism is not just concerned about things like overtly racist laws and disproportionate numbers of minority races being imprisoned, but also whether minorities appear in media and how they are presented when they do. How advertising catering to them depicts and treats them. What people are saying about them, and their role in society. The same is true of people who are passionate about eliminating sexism-- they want to convince the world, either by argument or by ordinance or both, not to be sexist. Tankard Reist no doubt believes that pornography makes the world more sexist, and therefore she is opposed to it. I don't, and even if I did I wouldn't want to fight such a thing using law because that would limit the autonomy of women as well as men. Like Summers, I believe that individual freedom is foundational to feminism. I think that the freedom to both be in and consume porn are part of a woman's autonomy, her ability to be financially secure and retain control over her fertility. Summers may not agree, so I don't want to put words in her mouth. But the point is that individual freedom trumps social perception, a position that Tankard Reist, anti-porn advocate, does not share.

Tankard Reist also does not share the position that abortion is an individual freedom. Or does she? According to another recent article in The Age,

Tankard believes that abortion is a form of "violence against women", one that many find traumatic and laden with regret.

"Abortion is often an excuse not to deal with the structural conditions that compel women to have abortions," she told One Plus One. She draws the line at government regulation, she says, preferring to focus "on those women who would rather not choose abortion. What can we do to make it easier for women who would prefer to make another choice?" (In the '90s, she co-founded Karinya House, an organisation providing support for pregnant women "in crisis".)
But Melbourne-based ethicist and regular sparring partner Leslie Cannold is sceptical. "To get the wide reach she does, she is absolutely dependent on us not knowing the full extent of what she's done in the past," says Cannold.

Tankard Reist worked as a media and bioethics adviser for former Tasmanian senator Brian Harradine for 12 years, during which time he successfully blocked and continued to campaign against the abortion drug RU486. She also personally opposed changes to legislation that would have required pro-life pregnancy-counselling services to disclose their affiliations in their advertising.

For others, the discomfort is more philosophical. As high-profile second-waver Eva Cox puts it, it's about the difference between "a view of feminism in which choices and opportunities are not determined by gender" (a group in which Cox includes herself) and "one that wants to protect women, whether it be from men, from sexuality or something else" – the world view Cox suspects Tankard Reist subscribes to.

Tankard Reist's political activity is the practical manifestation of this difference in philosophy. It takes a paternal, protective disposition to work to ban a product or practice because you don't trust people to choose it for themselves and use it responsibly. I would say the notion that abortion is always foisted on women against their will rather than having been chosen of their own volition is delusional, but then people say the same thing about being in porn. No doubt Tankard Reist is one of them.

But it doesn't seem that she opposes abortion on the grounds that a fetus is a person, which is what pro-life women generally bring up first when they want to claim both the label "pro-life" and "feminist," or what anyone who is pro-life tends to bring up first when charged with sexism. This might be a cultural difference-- Americans are powerfully swayed by the idea of people having rights, dammit, and if a fetus is a person then it stands to reason that it has rights. On the other hand, the idea that abortion (or pornography) is somehow an offense against women which subordinates them seems more likely to carry in Australia, forcing women who want abortions (or porn) to assert that they are capable of handling it.

There is a certain amount of "poor women aren't able to make the decision to have an abortion; they're pressured into it" mentality in American pro-lifers, but their paternalism is firmly right-wing. I doubt Sarah Palin cares a great deal about being considered a feminist, because here it seems like right-wingers of any kind are extremely reluctant to claim that label-- that it belongs to the left. I don't know for certain, but am guessing that in Australia the term "feminist" is rarely used as an epithet. In America, feminists of Tankard Reist's brand and conservatives have banded together in fighting pornography, as noted in Pornography Makes For Strange Bedfellows:

But in the late 70's, some radical feminists, lead by writer Andrea Dworkin and law professor Catherine MacKinnon, began to see pornography not as obscene or immoral but as a means of subordinating women and keeping gender inequality intact. This shall be referred to as the second wave of feminist critiques or the "radical feminist" critique. Moreover, they view pornography as a form of sexual violence, not just the cause of it. They do not make a distinction between erotica and pornography or even art for that matter. They accordingly support the suppression of these works as a way of dissolving gender inequality in society.

The third wave of feminist critiques are a defense of pornography on free speech grounds in response to the preceding two waves of criticism. This diverse group of women contains every one from pioneering feminist Betty Friedan to ACLU president Nadine Strossen to syndicated columnist Molly Ivins to former porn star Annie Sprinkle. What they have in common is their support of pornography as protected speech. These "free expression" feminists don't all agree on the value or harm of pornography to society but they do agree on the harm to free expression that the suppression of pornography would cause. . .

Do the feminist anti-pornography critiques offer something new to the discussion of pornography as protected speech? Or are their arguments a reworking of previous arguments but with feminist terminology? The answer to both of these questions is "yes."

First, let us examine the first question: do the feminist anti-pornography critiques offer something new to the discussion of pornography as protected speech? The advent of the feminist voice to all discussion has been very healthy to the exchange of ideas in this country. The first and second wave anti-pornography feminists have brought a fresh critical eye to the examination of pornography as a social phenomenon. They ask who does the First Amendment protect? Pornographers? But what about the climate pornography fosters for women in our country? Isn't pornography a form of group defamation towards women? Does it not teach men that women are sexual objects who enjoy being the object through which men get their sexual satisfaction.

Second, let us examine the other question: are their arguments a reworking of previous arguments but with feminist terminology? Their criticism of pornography is interesting and healthy for the exchange of ideas but their remedies for it in the case of the second wave, suppression of it, presents more harms than the ones they are seeking to just.

It seems contradictory that the same structures the radical feminists are trying to tear down are the same ones they are seeking to use to attack pornography. The Indianapolis Ordinance for example, a collaboration between conservatives and anti- pornography feminists, would have allowed people who are harmed by pornography to seek civil damages from the distributors and makers of it. But the American Booksellers Association filed a suit against it because its members feared that since they could not review every book they ordered they would have to not sell any books that relate to sexual matters for fee of violating the ordinance. The ordinance was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a summary statement that agreed with lower court decisions.

I'm conflicted in applying this same sort of thinking to Tankard Reist's stance on abortion. On the one hand, it seems that in saying she doesn't deserve to call herself a feminist, Summers is saying that only (what in America would be called) leftists can be feminists, and Tankard Reist's reasoning for being pro-life conforms very much to Dworkin/MacKinnon-style feminism which was leftist. On the other hand, Tankard Reist's reasoning in opposing both pornography and abortion is clearly protection-focused over autonomy-focused, and that undermines what Summers and many other third-wave "sex positive" feminists see as foundational to feminism itself.

So I guess my conclusion is...Tankard Reist is a feminist, as much as Dworkin and MacKinnon were. Protective, paternal (maternal, I suppose), and ultimately so concerned with the representation of women in society that protecting women from themselves seems/seemed like the responsible, pro-woman thing to do. That doesn't mean that autonomy-focused third-wave feminists like Summers (and myself) need to approve of her thinking or what she stands for. We're free to continue pointing out that treating women like children doesn't amount to supporting them, and that the most important thing is to allow them to make their own choices even if they are wrong-headed, self-damaging, or even influenced by nefarious outside sources. In other words, that feminism might just be more about intentions than outcomes. And that's okay.

Nothing is worse than a princess who wants to hang out with you

2012-01-19T16:02:00.001-06:00

On the "women in video games" front, science fiction author John Scalzi retweeted the following comment today:

Naturally, I was curious. So I tweeted back to Valente, who is herself a fantasy/science fiction author, asking for some elaboration. And she linked me to this.

Excerpt:

Zelda cracked me up hardcore, because I, like many of you, I think, remember the Legend of Zelda animated TV show. In which, at the end of every adventure, Link tried to get Princess Zelda to kiss him and Zelda was so not into it. Not so this time! Girls are miserable harpies now, no one wants to kiss them! Ahahaha, ew.

Link has his revenge in Skyward Sword! Link wakes up on the morning of his coming of age ritual (AGAIN) and a letter from Zelda arrives (AGAIN) reminding him that he has to fly his big bird thing in the ritual today, and that he promised to meet her on the roof beforehand. Link makes this face like OH MY GOD YOU GUYS NOTHING IS WORSE THAN A PRINCESS WHO WANTS TO HANG OUT WITH YOU.

At which point he dicks around for awhile before going to the roof and meeting up with Zelda, who is naturally concerned because Link is a lazy shit who hasn’t practiced flying his giant bird even though he has a SUPER SPECIAL ONE and has known he’d have to do this bird flying ritual test for a long time. Zelda tells her father that Link is definitely going to die because he sucks at flying. This is a valid concern! Her father goes on this weird rant about Link’s SPECIAL BIRD ZOMG and how Zelda was so jealous when Link and the bird bonded! LOLZ. He clearly means that Zelda wanted to “bond” with Link, though I prefer to think Zelda was jealous because shitty lazy Link got an AWESOME RED GIANT BIRD and she was stuck with the magical psychic aviary equivalent of a Dodge Dart.

Awesome. Go read the whole thing.

How not to get raped: Always victim-blaming?

2012-01-19T15:03:00.000-06:00

Zerlina Maxwell, writing for Ebony magazine, thinks so. In the bluntly titled "Stop Telling Women How Not To Get Raped," she says:

New rule for 2012: No more ad campaigns and public service announcements targeted at women to teach them how to avoid rape. It’s not effective, it’s offensive, and it’s also a lie. Telling women that they can behave in a certain way to avoid rape creates a false sense of security and it isn’t the most effective way to lower the horrible statistics which show that 1 in 5 women will become victims of a completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. The numbers for African American women are even higher at nearly 1 in 4.

We need anti-rape campaigns that target young men and boys. Campaigns that teach them from a young age how to respect women, and ultimately themselves, and to never ever be rapists. In addition, we should implore our men and boys to call out their friends, relatives, and classmates for inappropriate behavior and create systems of accountability amongst them.

There are a number of men who do not understand what constitutes a “rape”, which is a consequence of the “stranger in the alley” falsehood presented in movies and popular culture. You don’t need a mask and a gun to sexually violate a woman. The truth is that rape can happen with a woman you are dating whom you’ve had sex with previously, in a monogamous relationship, and even in marriage. If one party withdraws consent at any time then it’s rape. Consent can be withdrawn by the words “no “or “stop” and in many states, a woman doesn’t have to say no at all. Consumption of alcohol can prevent a woman from being able to legally offer consent. Therefore, it is important for men and women alike to be very clear about their intentions and prioritize consent over the excitement of getting some.

Our community, much like society-at-large, needs a paradigm shift as it relates to our sexual assault prevention efforts. For so long all of our energy has been directed at women, teaching them to be more “ladylike” and to not be “promiscuous” to not drink too much or to not wear a skirt. Newsflash: men don’t decide to become rapists because they spot a woman dressed like a video vixen or because a girl has been sexually assertive.

How about we teach young men when a woman says stop, they stop? How about we teach young men that when a woman has too much to drink that they should not have sex with her, if for no other reason but to protect themselves from being accused of a crime? How about we teach young men that when they see their friends doing something inappropriate to intervene or to stop being friends? The culture that allows men to violate women will continue to flourish so long as there is no great social consequence for men who do so. And while many men punished for sexual assaults each year, countless others are able to commit rape and other crimes against women because we so often blame the victim instead of the guilty party.

Here's where I agree: a lot of men and boys do not know what rape is, if they think it's all about strangers in back alleys leaping on unsuspecting women. They do not know what rape is, if they think it can't happen within a marriage or established relationship. They do not know what rape is, if they think it has to involve violence. Or if they think that it's not rape if the word "No" or "Stop" hasn't been spoken aloud. They need to learn. They need to be told by women, and also other men so that it doesn't seem like women are the only people who are of an accord about preventing rape from happening.

Here's where I disagree: teaching men not to rape and women how to avoid being raped are not mutually exclusive, and the fact that most rape is of the acquaintance variety does not mean that suggestions about how to protect oneself are absolutely useless and/or only amount to suggesting that a woman is responsible for her own rape if she doesn't employ them. I think we can recognize that there is no fail-safe way to prevent oneself from being raped while simultaneously living a free, un-sheltered adult life, but also that it's a good idea for somebody to know when and where you're going on a date. That it might not be the best idea to bring a date home or go to his home, if you don't know each other very well. That if you're out drinking, it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on your drink at all times and make sure you have a safe way of getting home. A person can recognize value in these precautions without any transference of blame whatsoever.

So yes, let's absolutely hold rapists accountable and tell men and boys (and women and girls!) what rape is in addition to how wrong it is. But I don't think that equates to a moratorium on making suggestions for women on how to be safe. Victim-blaming is absolutely a problem and it needs to stop, but I'm not convinced that refusing to encourage caution is the way to do it.

Booth babes

2012-01-17T16:15:00.002-06:00

Gizmodo takes 'em on:

At CES last week, in addition to all the gear and gadgets, there was something else on display: women. As with many trade shows—especially ones aimed at a male audience—CES was rife with booth babes.

Yet when the BBC ran a story on the practice of hiring scantily-clad models to stand around booths and draw stares from wandering men, it found an interesting defender: Consumer Electronics Association president and CEO Gary Shapiro, the guy who puts on the biggest electronics trade show in the USA.

"Well, sometimes it is a little old school, but it does work," Shapiro tells the BBC. "People naturally want to go towards what they consider pretty. So your effort to try to get a story based on booth babes, which is decreasing rather rapidly in the industry, and say that it's somehow sexism imbalancing, it's cute but it's frankly irrelevant in my view."

Cute? Irrelevant? "Imbalancing?" (Is that even a word?) I'm sorry. Would you care to try again, Gary?

The reason his answer is so bothersome is because as the head of the CEA he is, in a very real sense, speaking for all of us in the technology industry. And that Mad Men bullshit doesn't represent who we are as an industry anymore, and it certainly doesn't represent what we should aspire to. Technology is about the future, and this attitude is from the past.

Shapiro needs to retract those dismissive remarks. And if he's smart, he'll do more than simply that. He'll get ahead of it. He'll become the example of what to do, rather than what not.

There are two issus at play here. First, there's the gender issue. Women are under-represented in the tech sector. And while there are a thousand theories why that is, the one thing that is clear is that they aren't underrepresented in society, and by extension, the marketplace.

The argument that says CES should be geared towards men because men buy the most electronics ignores that women like gadgets too. If the industry keeps ignoring women in order to market towards men, it's going to lose sales. If you can create a gadget that women like just as much as men (hello, iPhone) you have a hit on your hands.

So why would you want to do anything that might discourage women from showing up? (And it's abundantly clear that some women certainly are off-put by booth babes.) Why wouldn't you want to know what a key demographic thinks of your product before it goes on sale?

But the second issue is arguably more important. It's the cluelessness. To demean the concerns about booth babes as "cute" and "irrelevant" shows a huge disconnect with, I dunno... this century. The drumbeat against booth babes grows louder every year. It isn't going away, and will only get bigger. Other trade shows are at least addressing it, and the CEA should do the same before it finds 60 Minutes shoving a camera in Shapiro's mug.

And this is right on the heels of a stereotype-debunking study that suggests women are more avid consumers of technology than men:

Women are more likely than men to purchase tablets, laptops and smartphones – three out of the four top consumer electronics categories, according to a new study.

Parks Associates asked 2,000 consumers, ages 18 and older about their buying habits in the consumer tech space. The study, which was conducted in late 2011, asked men and women which products they intend to buy before January 1, 2012. Retailer HSN announced the findings on Monday at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.

Women expressed more interest in tablets (18%), laptops (20%) and smartphones (20%). Only 15% of men planned to buy a tablet, while 14% sought a laptop and 17% intended to buy a smartphone.

The only category in which men surpassed female interest was flat screen LCD TVs, with men (19%) favoring the sets over women (17%).

“The tech industry has long been dominated by men — even at CES — but women are really the powerhouse in the household driving purchase decisions,” Jill Braff, executive VP of digital commerce for HSN, told Mashable. “Women are highly engaged with the latest and greatest gadgets and technology.”

PAX, the convention organized by Penny Arcade....founders? Authors? Guys? Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, banned booth babes in 2010, while E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo) appears to celebrate them.

Just speaking for myself...there might be more efficient ways to drive me away from wanting to learn more about and possibly buy a product than to have a "spokesmodel" promoting it, but that's surely near the top.

The internet is a sad place, take 2,001

2012-01-15T13:30:00.002-06:00

Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon writes about what she calls "Slut-shaming 2.0," web sites that exist for the sole purpose of identifying and shaming (mostly) women for their sexual behavior:

The content is submitted by scorned exes, former friends and total strangers. A typical post calls out a woman, using her full name and at least one photo, for either having too much sex or for being unattractive. A recent post headlined, “[Redacted] Should Think About Her Decisions In Life,” featured a semi-nude photo of the woman in question, along with this user-submitted gem:
This B*tch right here is [redacted], of Reno. She has been with 7 different guys in the past 2 week and I could not tell you what her total number is. She constantly brags about how drunk she gets a parties and how she sleeps with all these hot guys.
It goes on, but you get the idea.

Some posts name and shame women for allegedly being escorts – or, in the site’s charming vernacular, “porta potties.” Usually, Nik Richie, who runs the site, weighs in with a one-liner pointing out a highly specific physical imperfection — like, “muscular back thighs,” “sperm eyebrows” or “wrinkles in her wrists.” He has zero tolerance for knobby knees, round cheeks or – the horror! — thighs that touch.

She concludes "These are the new slut-shamers of the Internet. What’s most remarkable is that they manage to be both prudish and NSFW, all at once."

I suppose it's remarkable, if the hypocrisy of American prudishness is remarkable. But that hypocrisy is the very thing that makes slut-shaming possible in the first place. It's kind of like being surprised that the girl who has sex in the first part of a horror film is also the first one to die.

Structurally unsound: video game women

2012-01-15T12:42:00.001-06:00

I had a post started about a month ago about women in video games, but never finished so I'm going to revamp it now. I've been a gamer practically since birth, starting with a family-owned Atari 2600 (favorite game: Adventure) and continuing to present day (PC and Xbox). As with comic books, table-top games, and science fiction and fantasy in general (AKA geek culture), the video game genre has been largely produced by and for heterosexual men since...well, forever. There have always been some women involved on both ends and that number is ever-increasing, however. This means that the questions of how women should create games, how they should be presented in them, and how female gamers should be perceived and treated is being debated more and more. As are, in turn, the same questions about queer players of all kinds.

Straight male privilege in video games takes many forms. If you play a specific humanoid character, it will usually be a male and rippling with muscles. If you play a female, she will usually be curvaceous (sometimes impossibly so-- we'll get to that in a minute) and wearing revealing, impractical clothes. Any females depicted, for that matter, will most likely fit that standard. If the game offers opportunities to form relationships with NPCs (non-player characters), they will generally be heterosexual. If the game is online and offers the opportunity for players to chat, the chat will contain sexist innuendo, people calling each other "fag," describing beating an opponent particularly badly as "raping" them, and either fawning over or harassing players discovered to be female. I am not saying these things are ubiquitous-- I'm saying they are general trends that female players must tolerate if they want to play. They can complain, but they will meet resistance from the majority every time. That doesn't mean complaining is futile, just that effecting any change means having to wade through a lot of bullshit along the way. Privilege is, after all, unacknowledged by its nature. The advice blog Dr. Nerdlove observes

Y’see, one of the issues of male privilege as it applies to fandom is the instinctive defensive reaction to any criticism that maybe, just maybe, shit’s a little fucked up, yo. Nobody wants to acknowledge that a one-sided (and one-dimensional) portrayal of women is the dominant paradigm in gaming; the vast majority of female characters are sexual objects. If a girl wants to see herself represented in video games, she better get used to the idea of being the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. If she wants to see herself as a main character, then it’s time to get ready for a parade of candyfloss costumes where nipple slips are only prevented by violating the laws of physics. The number of games with competent female protagonists who wear more than the Victoria’s Secret Angels are few and far between.

The idea that perhaps the way women are portrayed in fandom is a leetle sexist is regularly met with denials, justifications and outright dismissal of the issue. So regularly, in fact, that there’s a Bingo card covering the most common responses. Part of the notion of male privilege in fandom is that nothing is wrong with fandom and that suggestions that it might benefit from some diversity is treated as a threat.

In that post, Dr. Nerdlove goes on to analyze some of the characters in Batman: Arkham City. Here are some other places to see analysis of female characters in video games and video game art:

Escher Girls -- Addresses physically impossible body types and poses depicted
Boobs Don't Work That Way -- Self-explanatory
Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor -- Show examples of female characters in attire that makes sense

Ryan at Mad Art Lab was inspired by the latter blog to make his own post with suggestions about how to dress female fighter characters called Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits, and then another post which was what actually stimulated me to revive and continue this one: Rubber Spines and Bent Space. In it he delves into a possible biological reason why people find images of humans with impossible proportions and posed in impossible (or very unlikely) positions not only comprehensible but attractive. The most important part of the explanation to me is this, which I'll quote at length because frankly he nails it:

2: Supernormal Stimulus
Why is it that artists are consistently and purposefully going to extra effort to put biologically unlikely characters in physically improbable positions? Well, because it’s effective.
I have heard rather a lot of women and a few men say with conviction that these images are not attractive. I will hereby declare that they are incorrect, at least partly. They are wrong, because they are attractive to me. They are attractive to all of the young men that I know who have purchased / sought out these images simply for their titillating qualities. I will concede, though, that them being attractive doesn’t make good rational sense. That is because they’re not appealing to a rational sense.
The poses and figures of women in things like this:

Soulfire, Volume 2, Aspen MLT Inc.

are deliberately attempting to exaggerate the sexual characteristics of the character to elicit a reaction beyond what should be possible with a real human. This effect is called supornormal stimulus. In short, it plays on what we find attractive and then extrapolates beyond what is physically possible. Apparently, you can get geese really excited about volleyballs painted like their eggs because that must be the biggest, healthiest egg that was ever laid. The same thing works for sexual characteristics. We like large perky breasts, so make them defy gravity. We like large eyes, make them too big to fit inside a skull. A narrow waist and round hips are appealing, so remove some of that lower intestine and kidneys and shave off some of that pelvic bone. An arched back is a signal of sexual readiness, so a very arched back must indicate an unprecedented level of randiness. Moreover, given the fact that we will fixate on certain details and happily ignore gaps, they can show all of these features at the same time. If you twist a body in such a way as to show off the eyes, legs, waist, hips, breasts, shoulders and butt, you can get hit all of the arousal points simultaneously.

A human being can’t accomplish these things, of course. Physics and biology put some limits on these attributes so that they never get beyond a certain point. Partly because of that, we’re not trained to easily recognize when they’ve gone beyond the “healthy, youthful” look into the “structurally unsound” area. However, artists are not bound by the constraints of reality and can therefore abuse them for market appeal.

He goes on to describe what he sees as the ramifications:

3: Unforeseen Consequences

What’s the harm in producing these images? The artists are producing something that people are buying. It excites the audience and everyone knows that it’s not real. So is there a problem? I argue that there are a couple of problems.

3.1 Desensitization
As with any stimulus, too much of it and you will numb to the effect somewhat. It’s like walking by a Cinnabon: If you only do it on occasion, the smell is intoxicating. If you do it regularly, you find it satisfying. If you work there, you barely notice it. So too with imagery. The first time you see something erotic, it makes your brain leak out your ears. In order to keep that level of arousal up, the stimulus needs to vary or increase. Anything less will seem bland in comparisson.
So an occasional glimpse at this sort of thing wouldn’t be bad. It would be like an occasional guilty pleasure, like a fine wine or chocolate. But if you’re surrounded by it, then it becomes routine. The supernormal stimulus can become the baseline.

3.2 Personal Image
Humans can’t be comic book characters. However, those characters are presented as an ideal. They’re more human than human, better in every way. However, unlike a well-toned athlete or the hottest kid in school, they’re an impossible goal. Some people will strive to look like those cartoons and that isn’t healthy.

3.3 The Feedback Loop
We are attracted to what we’re used to seeing. We generally like partners who are similar to what we were raised with. Media reacts to that demand and provides it in an exaggerated state to get us interested. When we begin to expect the exaggeration, they have to push beyond that to keep our attention. This push-pull effect can drag the expected, default image of women in impossible directions over time. Troublesome, no?

Video games which allow you to customize your character, usually RPGs (role-playing games) often don't even make it possible to play a female character with a realistic body. And if they do, they also provide options which are so off the charts in terms of supernormal stimulus that they make the more realistic options appear chunky and ugly by comparison. It has been my experience that female gamers typically want to play a character which is attractive. But what happens when they are presented with options including character that are impossibly attractive? They want to play those as well, both because we are of course also susceptible to supernormal stimulus, and because choosing a more realistic option can actually earn negative attention.

Character options for RPGs typically include the chance to choose your class (the kind of powers your character will have) and your race. The former will most likely determine how you dress (melee fighters need armor, of course, whereas magic-wielders can get away with wearing fabrics only and will likely be restricted to such) but the latter will determine your appearance, including body type. In some cases it is literally impossible to make your female character fat and/or small-breasted, not that most people would choose to play such an option. What's interesting though is if you get as close enough to that as possible, achieving a body that would be at least average in real life, females of the race you're playing will be called ugly. If the body of the race you've chosen is muscular rather than slight, females of the race you're playing will be called ugly. Never mind how bizarre would be for someone with a body like Gisele Bundchen (5'11", 125 lbs) to swing an axe with enough force to decapitate a minotaur.

Gamer evaluation: "Nice for a barbarian, I suppose,
but can you make her breasts bigger?"

This creates an interesting quandary for game designers. Male gamers want to be able to play characters who are big and strong. A slight build is acceptable for a mage, but if you're going to play a fighter than piling on the muscles to the point of absurdity is just fine. But for every race, there have to be both male and female counterparts, so there has to be a female option for every barbarian/orc/troll/demon/brute-type creature. Even if no one's going to play her, because nobody wants play a woman who looks large, lumbering and muscle-bound compared to the more dainty-but-physically-impossible options. "Nobody" is of course an exaggeration-- there are some people who are quite happy to do so. They're a distinct minority, and require a thick skin to deal with the ribbing they'll get from other players both in-game and in conversation about the game elsewhere.

My suggestion would be, then, to avoid the supernormal stimulus. Of course if you're going to have distinct races in a game they should differ physically, but please don't give us an option to play Barbie-like characters who literally could not function if they manifested in real life, because that means we're less likely to be penalized for not choosing to play them. That doesn't mean characters can't be sexy-- the real world, after all, is full of people with real-life sexy bodies. Maybe Gisele couldn't battle a yeti, but I bet Gabrielle Reece or Venus Williams could do some damage. Beautiful women who are not, to use Ryan's awesome term, structurally unsound.

Another issue is attire-- please don't dress my badass hunter who needs to scramble through dungeon tunnels, leap over barricades, engage in melee combat, and sneak down hallways in a bustier, thigh-highs, and five inch heels. She doesn't need these things in order to be attractive, and putting them on her anyway makes her ridiculous. Plenty of games either force your character to start out in his/her underwear before acquiring armor or at least make it possible to strip down to that state, but the underwear doesn't need to be Victoria's Secret. It doesn't need to take the form of garments that have the primary purpose of being impractical. Yes, a video game is a fictional world, and a fictional world of supermodels fighting evil would be pretty amusing. Just, you know, call it that. Let us acknowledge that that's what it is, and laugh, and not pretend it's anything else.

I referred to actual behavior between players in-game toward the beginning, but discussion of that will have to wait for other posts. Women in video games is an enormous topic, so this one will have To Be Continued.

Slut-shaming 101

2012-01-12T20:33:00.002-06:00

...as explained quite eloquently by a thirteen-year-old girl. My friend Nick shared this with me, and I'm sharing it with you:

Slut-shaming takes away feminist cred (duh)

2012-01-12T15:32:00.003-06:00

I'm in love with this post by Amanda Marcotte: Smart Girls Wear Short Skirts, Too, or "Why Lisa Belkin is wrong to condemn college girls for dressing sexy." In it, Marcotte agrees wholeheartedly with some of the concerns Belkin voices in a New York Times article titled "After Class, Skimpy Equality." Specifically, about the social environment in college: campus rape, the apparently real perception of some students that female students have too much power because they can legally refuse sex (!), and disappointment in some really disturbing behavior by fraternity members that has been in the news lately. But that's where the agreement ends. "I have one strong desire that carries through life," Marcotte begins her post, "which is that I never become one of those women who self-identifies as a feminist while conflating the problem of inequality with the non-problem of young women being sexual. Should I ever start assuming that young women who have sex are being had, or if I start hyperventilating about young women wearing miniskirts, I hope I at least have the good sense to give up the writing thing and go into real estate."

I share this desire. However concerned feminists may legitimately be about the image of women in society, when it turns into slut-shaming it veers sharply toward the Dark Side. I know this is not a completely black and white issue, but condemning individual women for how they dress and behave sexually (with consenting adults), suggesting that they are somehow bad people and/or that they deserve to be sexually attacked or harassed is the antithesis of feminism. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. Marcotte continues:

Even more distressingly, Belkin conflates the problem of campus rape with the fact that young women like to look sexy, saying that the young women who wore sexy Halloween costumes to a Duke fraternity party "had mothers who attended more than one Take Back the Night March in their college days," as if being opposed to campus rape and being willing to wear sexy clothes are in opposition to each other. But as the organizers of Slutwalk know, that's absolutely false. In fact, you can and should argue that men can look at a woman wearing sexy clothes and think, "She wants to look sexy," and not, "She's asking to be violently assaulted."

To Belkin, the fact that women dance in their underwear at parties is part of the same pattern that caused a fraternity to circulate an email explaining that women aren't actually people, as if women could get their people status back by putting more clothes on. But I think that men are perfectly capable of being turned on by a woman dancing in her underwear while never forgetting that said woman has a family that loves her, a mind of her own, and ambitions that are equal to his. We don't allow men's sexuality to dehumanize them in our eyes. If a young man spends his weekends partying and flirting with women, and spends his time in the classroom pulling down As, we don't see that as a contradiction. The belief that female sexual expression is uniquely dehumanizing is a double standard, no matter how much you dress it up in feminist language. Instead of condemning young women for the length of their skirts, why not use that energy for condemning anyone who would think that a woman is lesser-than because she wears a miniskirt?

Emphasis mine. I think the thing most commonly misunderstood about Slutwalk is that it is essentially a freedom of expression movement. The point was that women should be able to dress and behave as they wish (both means of expression) without being attacked, even if that includes dressing and behaving in ways that some would label as "slutty." Whether or not you think the word "slut" can be reclaimed, or whether you think there's a reason to try, is really beside the issue. I vacillate on that, myself, but it doesn't affect the essential point that the epithet "slut" says nothing about a woman's worth or her right to express herself, sexually or otherwise, in public or private however she chooses if it brings harm to no one. "Slut" was the epithet of choice a Haredi man recently hurled at a young female soldier who chose to sit at the front of the bus in Jerusalem. It was, at its very essence, a word used to degrade a woman for not behaving as though she is inferior.

Sexual attractiveness, performance, and reproduction are functions of women. Reducing women to those functions is what misogynists do, and a collection of functions is not a person. Certainly not in comparison to someone who is capable of all of those but also of things like creativity, invention, logical analysis, will, bravery, authority, athleticism, wit, and eloquence-- traits that are generally admired but whose existence is sometimes denied or ignored in females altogether. Objectification is the act of setting aside those things in order to appreciate appearance or behavior alone, and I don't think it's fundamentally a bad thing. Indeed, I think that people who claim to never objectify others are either lying or lacking in self-awareness. But there's a difference between appreciating those aspects about someone and treating her as though that's all she is, or that that's all women in general are good for. Partial people. Inferiors. It's no accident that an insult with a typically sexual connotation would be used for any woman who acts as though she is worth more than that short list of functions. As Marcotte says, we don't treat men that way no matter how "slutty" they are. To close, she says

Asking something of men seems to be the big taboo in our culture, even sometimes among feminists. In contrast, scolding women about what they wear is easy, even if it's a red herring.

I often think about how counter-productive it is, from the perspective of a straight male who wants women to display their bodies and be available for sex, to punish them for doing so via shame, intimidation, and even outright attack. In reality, "modesty" is often a euphemism for plain old fear. Fear of being judged, by men and women alike. Fear of being treated as though allowing people to see your parts should remove any expectation of being seen as more than the sum of them. Fear of being penalized for acting in ways that no man would be penalized for. Women sometimes show themselves off and act sexually open out of perceived necessity or insecurity, yes....but they also do it when they feel safe. Why would anyone not want women to feel safe? Especially someone who thinks of him/herself as a feminist? And if you want them to feel safe, why not go after the ones shaming and attacking them, rather than the women themselves?

Jen McCreight has not rage quit

2012-01-10T13:25:00.000-06:00

...though she has been tempted. It's easy to see why:

Becoming a board member of a secular non-profit and being invited as a speaker to events has really opened my eyes. You start interacting with a diverse group of people who have been in the movement a long time, and you get a behind-the-scenes glimpse. Some organizations (like the SSA) are truly awesome and run by lovely human beings. Some… boy, if you guys only knew.

The people are the same. Some are the most genuinely lovely individuals I have ever met. But some are manipulative, petty, passive aggressive, selfish, sexist, racist, homophobic, ablist, or just downright mean. Yes, I came to the shocking realization that atheists and skeptics are also human. The problem is that without this insider knowledge, it’s incredibly difficult to distinguish the lovely from the loathsome.

The bigger problem is that I see no real solution, and am stuck cringing silently when someone is unwittingly praising a person who’s really a Giant Fucking Asshole. Because the politics involved between people or between organizations is enormous.

I feel gross staying silent and playing the game, but I often have no choice. This isn’t because I’m afraid of losing readers – contrary to popular belief, I don’t just blog For Teh Hitz, and the money I make off blogging is not enough to float in swimming pools full of hundred dollar bills. This isn’t because I’m afraid of losing a potential writing career – my actual job is as a scientist, remember? It’s because there are people and organizations in the movement I genuinely care about, and stirring certain pots would cause them harm.

I’m not sure why I’m even writing this post other than to get it off my chest. It probably comes off as totally vague and pointless to those of you who aren’t privy to the back stories and insider knowledge. But maybe that’s the message. That when some of us insiders rant and rave, and it comes off as vague and pointless…it’s probably because you’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg, and we forget your view. You can’t see under the water to glimpse the private emails, the angry phone calls, and the years of history. So many people think other bloggers and I do anything for controversy because we’ll occasionally speak up against big names.

What should concern you are the things we can’t talk about.

They do concern me, but not that much. There are ways that significant figures in a movement can be Giant Fucking Assholes that matter in terms of the movement, and ways that don't really. And when they don't really, or when they do and you know but feel like you can't talk about it, it's an unpleasant thing to deal with. But deal with it we must.

Rillion's Law applied

2012-01-09T17:34:00.002-06:00

I have my own law, devised under the screen name Rillion which I've used since about 2000. The law isn't quite that old, but it has existed at least since 2005. Rillion's Law states:

The amount of knowledge a person has about a particular subject is inversely proportional to his or her tendency to make universal, authoritative statements about it.

Yes, I know how pretentious it is to devise your own law-- especially if you're not remotely famous. And doing so is not an indication that I am in any way immune to the phenomenon in question. Quite to the contrary, the law exists in part to remind me to avoid it, and I don't always succeed.

The reason that this phenomenon exists-- generalizing grossly and erroneously with an air of authority about things you don't really understand-- is because people want to have opinions. They want to have a stance to offer when asked, or when they haven't been asked, and lack of knowledge on a subject makes one incredibly susceptible to glossing over important distinctions within it. Generalizing itself is not a bad thing. It's a necessary thing in situations when you need to focus on a small number of salient facts about a group to which other facts are irrelevant. Generalizing is important in science, where these situations are frequent. But it should always be done while ensuring that generalizing is what you're doing, that the facts you consider salient are salient for your purposes but might not be for someone else, and that the facts you're dismissing as irrelevant to the statements you're making are in fact irrelevant. Otherwise you end up grouping things together for bad reasons and disregarding important causal factors. You become an example of Rillion's Law in action. And when the universal, authoritative statements you're making are about people and end up grossly misrepresenting them, those people are not going to be very happy.

Jason Thibeault, who blogs as Lousy Canuck at Freethought Blogs, posted yesterday asking something along these lines: Are universal statements always a problem? His answer: maybe. He says:

It occurs to me that many (“ALL!” “Shh.”) of our problems around these parts viz every new conflagration, from our recent conversation with Mallorie Nasrallah, to thestatement by DJ Grothe that we only blog about controversial topics for hits, to the pushback against a Rebecca Watson blog title as though it meant she hates all atheists, is the fact that we as skeptics seem to have a problem with blanket universals even when they are not intended as universals. They are the quickest single thing you can do to engender hatred amongst your commentariat.

Much of the problem with Mallorie’s open letter to the skeptical community has to do with the universal statement that skeptics “shouldn’t change for anyone”. While she claims she wrote the letter solely for the purpose of expressing her own views of the community, she presented it in the midst of a number of controversies wherein people have been demonstrably misogynistic to bloggers like Greta Christina or new women in the community like the 15 year old Lunam on r/atheism. This caused some outrage in the context of the greater fight we’ve been waging — the fight against entrenched sexism in our communities.

For context, I always use the plural for communities because neither atheism nor skepticism have a single overarching community, much less a greater community for either one. We have a set of loosely allied communities, each manifesting their own sets of values and beliefs. The commenters and bloggers at Freethought Blogs appear to have clustered around beliefs in humanism as well as skepticism and atheism, and will fight a misogynist comment as quickly as a creationist or woo-peddling one. I don’t believe that the levels of sexism in our collective online communities are very different from the background of the internet as a whole, no matter how much of a safe space we’ve carved out here. However, there are three things that are important and mitigating factors to that blanket statement about the levels of sexism.

1: The internet is, as a whole, a far cruder and crasser place than real life, owing largely to anonymity and the Greater Interent Fuckwad Theory.
2: Our real-life meatspace communities are very often being organized via the internet, so there’s a lot of overlap between what goes on in meatspace and what came from the internet to begin with.
3: we have experienced by my estimation a significant amount more pushback than most other communities built around other topics, against the very idea that people shouldn’t use sexist slurs at women, or treat women like they’re just there as dating pool material, because either of those are likely to result in women who might otherwise participate bleeding away from our communities.

DJ Grothe described our fight against this pushback as being solely intended to drive controvery, to drive a wedge in the community, done solely for the hits. What makes this a short-sighted blanket statement is in part the misidentification of the problem, the misidentification of what it is we’re trying to do about it, and the misidentification of what’s actually being said about the community as a whole. Stephanie’s post itemizing the times when he’s exhibited this sort of blind spot for ongoing fights was met with doubling down, and DJ declared that the whole episode served as proof to him that that’s all the feminist bloggers in our community want to do is to tear other communities apart over sexism.

Hasty generalization is, as we know, a basic fallacy. Rillion's Law is really just an observation about what causes people to generalize hastily. And what Nasrallah and Grothe have done, it seems, is hastily generalize about both the problem of sexism in skeptical communities and the people speaking out about it. Greta Christina has a post up today about Grothe, doing her best to be fair and give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's pretty damning nonetheless.

I have two questions for JREF President D.J. Grothe. They’re questions that I find unsettling and upsetting to even consider, questions I wouldn’t have thought I’d have to ask a leader of a major organization in this movement. But I’ve been reading some things Grothe has been saying recently… and apparently, I have to ask.

Question #1: Do you really think there is any context in which making threats of gender-based, sexualized violence — towards a person of any gender, but especially towards a female writer and her readers — can be justified?

Question #2: Do you really think that feminist bloggers in the atheist/ skeptical movements are writing about sexism and misogyny, and pointing out examples of it in our communities, primarily so we can manufacture controversy and draw traffic?

I would like to think that the answers to both questions is an obvious and resounding “No.” D.J. and I have had some differences, but we’ve also had a largely cordial and even friendly professional relationship. I know he thinks of himself as an ally in the effort to make the atheist/ skeptical movements more welcoming to women. And I know that he takes pride — justifiably so — in, among other things, drawing more women to TAM, both as speakers and attendees.

But I’ve been following the discussion on Almost Diamonds about him, and about an apparent pattern he has of defending sexist language and behavior in the atheist/ skeptical communities. I’ve been reading the things he himself has been saying in this conversation. And I am extremely distressed to realize that the answers to both these questions appears to be, “Yes.”

In essence, Greta Christina is saying "I think you're making some universal authoritative statements without being aware of the ignorance that enables you to make them. Or at least, I hope you are, because it's better than the alternative. And I'm giving you the opportunity to look around, understand, and amend your position on that new understanding." That's a charitable reading. No doubt she's extending it because Grothe has a reputation for being an understanding, charitable guy himself. Perhaps to a fault, and in the wrong direction, in this case.

It's not fun for female bloggers, scientists, and activists to keep talking about the sexism thing, trust me. It's a pain in the ass, in large part because it means getting dismissed as a mere attention-seeker in precisely the way Grothe appears to be doing. But the existence of sexism in communities that presume to be so rational and fair-minded in the first place is a roadblock to even being comfortable to participate in the first place, and-- sorry-- people who aren't confronted with that on a regular basis can find it easy to forget, and dismiss as complainers people who do have to deal with it and speak up about it.

*removes needle from the broken record*

ETA: Grothe's reply

The boy's club

2012-01-03T13:48:00.006-06:00

And here's Jen McCreight's take on both the Twitter argument last night (I had a resolution against taking part in those, and of course broke it. Good thing it wasn't a New Year's resolution) and the article itself. Jen takes more time to work through the straw men (or straw women) in the article than I did, and points out something very important: the "I made it into the boy's club" argument. Mallorie says:

I did not enter this relationship with the intention of changing you all. I am enough of a grownup to know that is a terrible idea. I entered because I love science, truth, questioning, and curiosity. I love candor, and occasionally rough humor, I love the ingroup demeanor we have with each other. And I have stayed because you never insisted on seeing me as a girl.

And Jen responds:

And there’s the first part of a declaration of being part of the boy’s club. “Thanks for not seeing me as an icky girl.”

Mallorie says:

I came because I love what we are about, and I love you guys too. Don’t ever adulterate yourselves in an attempt to try to lure more vagina possessing patrons. I can think of nothing more tragic and disingenuous.

Keep joking with me, keeping being open and awesome and curious and funny, keep trying to fuck me, because I cant think of any reason why I would rather fuck someone else, we are after all human. I assure you I’ll return the favor.

Jen replies:

And there’s part two: “Keep trying to fuck me.” That statement effectively communicates “I put out, unlike those sexless naggers, so you should keep me around.” It’s a straw man in itself, since no one is telling men to stop flirting or trying to get laid. We’re asking that you respect the boundaries that we clearly state, understand when no means no, and time your advances for appropriate social situations. Flirt with us in the pub night following the group discussion, not while we’re organizing a campaign to fight the anti-vax movement.

And I’m not sure how this logically flows with her insistence that guys don’t see her gender or treat her differently. Unless the whole skeptical community that she’s addressing is bisexual, and she’s the only one in on that secret.

I would think it a bit rude to attribute the sentiment "Keep trying to fuck me" to Mallorie except that it's right there in the text.

Here's the thing: whenever there are some women complaining about sexual harassment or misogyny in a group or movement, there will be a certain number of other women who claim that it doesn't exist because a) they don't see it, or b) they don't have a problem with it, or both. And the latter group is not necessarily wrong-- there's certainly no shortage of people willing to make a stink over nothing. I have a pretty dark sense of humor, and Jen describes herself as "the skeptical movement's fucking patron saint of boob jokes." She's probably right about that. There are certainly jokes that would outrage others that both of us would find funny. But the actual complaint isn't about jokes that went too far. It's not even about jokes. It was about harassment and attacks that were clearly intended as such, and you'd never know from Mallorie's article and Penn's enthusiastic support of it that either of them are even aware of that. So the comments, addressed (again) to the entire skeptical community, amount to "You people who are accused of it should just go on harassing and attacking women because you're not doing it to me, and I want to fuck you, so I'm ingratiating myself to you by taking your side against those complainers."

That's the "boy's club" argument...such as it is.

Jen asks:

It’s salt in our wounds that Penn felt the need to promote this. Has someone so involved in the skeptical movement really not been listening to what we’ve been saying?

Very possibly. I can see why someone who has spent so much of his career (as Penn has) fighting prudes and blowhards could take this article written by a friend at face value, and assume that it's just that sort of people making mountains out of molehills. He seemed genuinely baffled last night by the reaction. But that doesn't excuse the kind of myopia at play here. I can only see that as just not paying attention.

ETA: Mallorie's reply is priceless. A couple of people said to her "You know, if you had just written to say that even though some women have felt attacked in the skeptical community, you don't, no one would have cared." They're right. It would have been an accurate and non-straw-man statement, but no one would have cared.

ETA #2: You know, speaking up about prejudice sucks. It's really not more fun to be someone like Jen than someone like Mallorie, in large part because of attacks from people like Mallorie. Being a killjoy is not enjoyable, but bashing on killjoys absolutely is.

ETA #3: It appears Mallorie knew full well what the topics of contention were, but misrepresented them and those presenting them anyway. Go figure.

The straw man boxing match

2012-01-02T23:24:00.003-06:00

I love Penn Jillette. I do, very much. But he does tend to carry the denouncement of prudes and blowhards so far that it gets to the point of practically denying that authentic assholes exist. Let me explain.

Earlier this evening, Penn tweeted a link to this letter addressed openly to the "skeptical community from a fellow atheist, who just so happens to be female," Mallorie Nasrallah. In it, Nasrallah describes herself as having been a member of this community for a very long time and having been welcomed, and now finds herself "distressed" to see that some people are raising the question of how to be more welcoming to women. She asks "Who made you think you weren't?" The answers, one might suggest, can be found in incidents like this, this, this, this, and this...if one is even half-heartedly keeping up to date on the situation. Nasrallah, it seems, is not. Ignorance of such is the charitable explanation I can come up with for her having declared to the skeptical community at large,

With all my heart I beg you to not make monsters of your gender. I like your jokes. I like your humor. I like the casualness and ease that no gender distinction has allowed us all over the years.

You have never hurt or insulted me, you have brought me years of joy, wonderful debate, and stimulating conversation. By forgetting to see me as a woman, you have treated me as an equal, as a comrade, as a friend.

If your jokes or teasing manner offend some people, so the fuck what? Someone will always be offended by jokes, never let them make you believe that you are guilty of something worse simply because of your gender. If you want to make boob jokes thats fine by me, you have after all been making dick jokes since you were old enough to make jokes. Plus they are funny as hell. If you want to go free and uncensored among a group of like minded people, if you want to try to acquire sex from a like minded person, awesome, do it, sex and friendship are amazing. You are not a monster for wanting these things. You are not a monster for attempting to acquire them.

I type this with all of the warmth and sorrow of someone entangled in the most beautiful of bromances. I love you guys. And I'd like to slap the silly assholes who have given you the idea that you have mistreated me.

Because, you see....it's all about how Nasrallah personally has been treated, and how she sees herself as having been treated. Her perception and interests are the only things that matter. Jenn McCreight and I'm sure many others joined in pointing this out.

Never mind that most of the people concerned about misogyny in skepticism are not saying anything like that

jokes and teasing are bad
boob and dick jokes are bad
people are guilty of something because of their gender
people who don't like boob and dick jokes are trying to censor people
people who make boob and dick jokes are monsters
people who want sex from the like-minded are monsters

Rather, they're saying things more like "Not cool," in response to things like "Go fuck yourself with a knife you irrational cunt." Which, I believe, does not generally fall into any of the above categories.

What's funny is that this is a reminder (among other things, needless to say) not to treat skeptical women as somehow different. Guys who love skeptical women, guys who are our "bros," will feel comfortable to relax and make baudy jokes without assuming that the only point in having those women around is to sleep with them and/or or joke about how worthwhile it might or might not be to sleep with them. Or, you know, rape them. So here's my open letter:

Hi Mallorie,

The people complaining about misogyny in skepticism clearly are not objecting to the treatment that you have received. It seems that you have been treated graciously, which is fortunate. That is not everyone's experience. Please do not disparage their complaints about that experience by expressing a desire to "slap" them, or by misrepresenting the basis of their issues. If you see people making irrational complaints, try and identify them specifically so that people like Penn do not tweet about how right you are, because you're his friend, while failing to acknowledge that the reality of conflict going on isn't restricted to your personal experience. I'm not even saying that the bully is still a bully even if he treats you nicely. I'm saying that the fact that some people who sort of resemble the bully but treat you nicely exist doesn't mean that the bully doesn't exist. That's a lot more nuanced and therefore convoluted, but the truth always is.

And Penn, I'm saying that you need to look at the bigger picture before jumping behind someone's decree to an entire community based on her personal experience.

For added reading: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/01/02/pennjillette-your-friend-is-wrong/

The power of "Not cool"

2012-01-02T15:00:00.001-06:00

"Dude, we don't want to see that shit. Here, have a sip of
Douche-Be-Gone so you'll stop being so...you know."

Concerning the topic of online sexual harassment against women, atheist and otherwise, and what to do about it, Stephanie Zvan defends the use of social disapproval:

I’ve even seen a couple of people say things like, “Social disapproval is a technique used against atheists by theists. We shouldn’t be doing that ourselves.” All told, the consensus among those feeling challenged for doing nothing is that doing something is dangerously repressive–when that doing something is registering that one simply does not approve.

They’re even a tiny bit right. Social disapproval is indeed a potent force. It strongly shapes our societies and our interactions with each other. Being outcast presents a form of stress that is bad for us all on its own.

However, where these folks are a tiny bit right, they’re also a whole heaping lot wrong. The problem with this sort of social pressure isn’t that it is inherently wrong. As I mentioned, this is a big part of how we add order and structure to our societies. The problem is when we use to enforce pointless conformity, when we shame or cast out those who are doing nothing wrong, nothing that will harm our society.

For the record, sexism, misogyny, objectification, normalizing rape through nudge-nudge-wink-wink humor, threats to bodily autonomy–these are all doing something wrong. They all hurt a substantial portion of our society, and I don’t just mean women. This is not comparable to not believing in a god.

Those behaviors are all also prevalent in our society, though less than they used to be before we started confronting them. They are being held in place by a narrative that, while it can no longer claim that nobody at all is concerned by this behavior, the only people who are concerned are “thin-skinned pussies” and “irrational cunts.” That means that if you–yes, you–don’t speak up when something like this happens right in front of you, you feed that narrative. This is what “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” means.

The only thing that can really cut through that narrative is more voices that come from within the groups where this behavior happens. No bullying or questing for bad behavior required. You don’t have to be any more eloquent than “Dude, don’t go there” or “It’s only a joke if it’s funny” or “I’m with X on this” to back up someone else already taking the heat for standing up. Or you can just use the brilliant line that should become a meme as of yesterday: “I am also the internet and I don’t want to see that shit.”

Absolutely right. There is nothing intrinsic to social disapproval that makes it a bad thing. It can be a very good thing when it comes to dissuading people from treating each other terribly, even in an atmosphere like the internet where people are often allowed to be anonymous or anonymous-but-trackable (using screen names). The problem with social disapproval of atheists isn't the what but the why-- the shaming and alienation of people for something about them which has nothing to do with their actual worth or moral standing. When what you are is a troll and/or a jerk, however, your moral standing goes down and calling you on it is entirely appropriate. Social pressure can simply be what happens when a bunch of people call you on it, and it works.

Online communities can and usually do also have systems of moderation in place, automated or warm-blooded, whose job it is to regulate and prevent obnoxious and hateful speech. But the most likely message someone who is being arsey gets from being penalized from one of these is "The Man is keeping me down! Violation of freedom of speech!" Which is bollocks, of course-- no private community has an obligation to protect the dissemination of odious speech if the owners/ruling powers do not desire it. Still, I think if possible it's always better to rely on the community at large to make it highly uncomfortable to express nasty sentiments, so that the perpetrators know that the negative reaction isn't just from one person or a few who happen to be on a power trip or have it out for them personally.

The corollary to the rule of using social pressure to combat internet douchiness is, of course, that those employing it should be able to explain what's wrong with the speech to which they're objecting so strenuously. A Picard facepalm might seem sufficient:

...but if not (and usually not), you should be able to articulate the problem, no matter how obvious it appears to you. For one thing, it makes the group disapproval amount to more than "There are a bunch of us who frown on that sort of thing" and create an opportunity for the jerk to comprehend the reason for the perception of his/her jerkiness.

This, in turn, creates an opportunity for him/her to correct the behavior. To maybe even apologize. It does happen! And when it does, that's the cue to stop with the social disapproval. If the "Dude, that's messed up"-ing doesn't end even after the behavior has stopped and admitted fault, the message sent will instead be that he/she can't do anything right, at least from now on, thereby negating any positive consequence of all of the disapproval. It will probably even counter-productively convey the impression that the disapproving crowd are irrational blowhards and there's no point in listening to their exclamations. Our jerk in question may even nurse a messiah complex for him/herself as a result, thus becoming further bolstered against any future accusations of jerkiness. With great power comes great responsibility-- so it is with the power of "not cool."

One further thing to note is that online as well as in RL, the most effective social disapproval is likely to come from peers-- the people most familiar and similar to the jerk. Yes, pro-active peer pressure! Don't make the target of the jerkiness and his/her peers the only ones to speak up about it. It might not feel like the best thing, but the thoughts of people who are more like the jerk yet are willing to stick their necks out on the target's behalf are probably going to carry more weight with the jerk, because they can't be as easily dismissed as "whiners" or "killjoys" (or "thin-skinned pussies" or "irrational cunts"). Yeah, that's not rational, but jerks often aren't-- that's why they're jerks. It's also not rational to suddenly start listening to complaints about your behavior just because they start coming from someone you otherwise admire (even if they're not exactly a peer), but damned if that doesn't work pretty well too.

I do understand the complaint about misogyny being especially vexing to see in the atheist/skeptical community because they're supposed to be so...well, skeptical. But though the same thing which makes a person mistrusting of stories about ghosts or Bigfoot should also make them doubt the premise that the most important thing about women is their appearance and general fuckability, justifying turning every internet discussion to that topic, all too often it doesn't. As we have seen. So it's high time to start calling out the people who pride themselves on rejecting the former but practice the latter as though it's going out of style. And if you've been doing the calling out, the socially disapproving, all along...my hat's off to you. Keep it up, please.

Bachmann does bioethics

2011-12-31T19:40:00.002-06:00

Pictured: a human whose dignity is highly questionable

Said Michele Bachmann to members of Personhood USA on Tuesday night:

I want everyone to know that I recognize and respect the dignity of every human life from conception until natural death. This is not a check the box thing for me; this is the core of my conviction, this is what I would literally die for. We have a moral obligation to defend other people and the reason for that is because each human being is made in the image of likeness of a holy God.

Dignity, I think we can agree, is a state of being which makes an entity deserving of respect and ethical treatment. For Bachmann, this affordance is based on a fundamental belief about our relationship with and similarity to God. Every human was made by God and is in some way very like God, therefore it is wrong to end the life of one.

But...God created other creatures, and we end their lives all of the time. Yes, but those creatures were not "made in the image of likeness of a holy God."

But...Bachmann is opposed to gay marriage, and telling people that they cannot marry the consenting adult of their choice denies their dignity, as surely does indefinite detention and torture. Yes, but defending the dignity of humans does not extend to protecting them from the consequences of immoral acts.

This is because for Bachmann, dignity is not a state that individual humans reach. It is something they are all afforded-- whether they want it or not-- by virtue of being members of a race specifically created by God to carry out his will. Killing people as punishment or in war is one thing, but in general the ending of a human life either in the womb or on the physician's table is violating the will of God. It's a violation of a covenant held with him, not with other humans. A human's conduct can render it permissible to put him to death and subject to God's judgment, but it cannot justify dignity-- that comes from the fact of being God's creation.

When the word "dignity" is invoked in conservative politics, you can bet the underlying message is a concern about messing with God's product. This can take many manifestations, including abortion and euthanasia, but also stem cell research, cloning, and contraception. It has been a particular sticking point for former chair of the President's Council on Bioethics Leon Kass, who famously cited sheer repugnance as an appropriate foundation for moral opposition to such things. In "Ew, gross! The prissy bioethics of Leon Kass," Garance Franke-Ruta writes:

Man, to use Kass's favored term, possesses a fundamental and irreducible dignity based on "the godlikeness of human beings" It is from this, he argues, that "the sanctity of human life" derives.

But it is the impact of the "dehumanizing challenges of the brave new biology" and technology on "ways of life" that concerns Kass, rather than the impact on living individuals: "We need to understand that there is more at stake in the biological revolution than just saving life or avoiding death and suffering. We must also strive to protect and preserve human dignity and the ideas and practices that keep us human," he writes. The goal of bioethics should not simply be to solve technical problems involving specific procedures via the issuance of rules, but "concern for the moral health of our entire community." Consequently, it is humane ideals, not just human individuals, that must be protected and defended "[i]n a world whose once-given natural boundaries are blurred by technological change and whose moral boundaries are seemingly up for grabs."

Those boundaries have, he argues, been damaged by three decades' worth of advocacy by feminists, relativists, liberals (and liberationists and libertarians of all stripes), and gays and lesbians. Abortion, the sexual revolution, contraception, and "the extramarital use of the Pill"--all these changes have threatened our ability to understand natural relationships, and hence have led to the easy acceptance of technological interventions, particularly in the reproductive sphere, that make us increasingly unnatural, "post-human" beings.

When humankind takes control of its biological destiny in a way that gives someone like Bachmann or Kass moral qualms, you can count on the accusation of "playing God" to come up. As a rather heavily modified person myself (extensive dental work, LASIK surgery, a fervent dedication to birth control), I find this to be a head-scratcher. Would they prefer that we go without, for example, vaccines? In the case of the HPV vaccine almost certainly yes, because like the "extramarital use of the Pill" (I guess marital use of it is okay) it's a means of manipulating the body to protect it from deleterious health effects resulting from immoral conduct, and hence undignified. Presumably people getting the MMR or shingles vaccine need not worry too much about being unnatural and post-human.

Patrick Lee and Robert P. George (the latter of which served on the President's Council on Bioethics with Kass) presented a slightly more nuanced view of things in their essay The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity, while still relying on "nature" as their justification:

The dignity of a person is that whereby a person excels other beings, especially other animals, and merits respect or consideration from other persons. We will argue that what distinguishes human beings from other animals, what makes human beings persons rather than things, is their rational nature. Human beings are rational creatures by virtue of possessing natural capacities for conceptual thought, deliberation, and free choice, that is, the natural capacity to shape their own lives.

These basic, natural capacities to reason and make free choices are possessed by every human being, even those who cannot immediately exercise them. Being a person thus derives from the kind of substantial entity one is, a substantial entity with a rational nature—and this is the ground for dignity in the most important sense. Because personhood is based on the kind of being one is—a substantial entity whose nature is a rational nature—one cannot lose one’s fundamental personal dignity as long as one exists as a human being.

So, what makes one worthy of dignity is rationality, and humans (and humans alone) have dignity because they are the kind of beings whose nature is rational, even if the specific human in question is not rational at all either permanently or at the time of consideration. He/she belongs to the rational community by virtue of being of the right species, and that's good enough. This consideration, as Lee and George later note in their essay, is to make clear that it can't become permissible to abuse the dignity of the mentally disabled, which is admirable enough. They clarify that

While membership in the species Homo sapiens is sufficient for full moral worth, it is not in any direct sense the criterion for moral worth. If we discovered extra-terrestrial beings of a rational nature, or learned that some terrestrial species have a rational nature, then we would owe such beings full moral respect. Still, all members of the human species do have full moral worth because all of them do have a rational nature, though many of them are not able immediately to exercise basic capacities.

So if one of us should happen upon a rational chicken one day, it apparently renders the entire species dignified because that would show that it is the "nature" of chickens to be rational, even if many of them (i.e., every single other chicken) are not able immediately to exercise basic capacities. Goodbye, KFC.

That's not a very realistic consideration, however. What's more realistic is that humans, like every other species we have encountered, are closer to a "rational nature" at some points of their lives than others. That is, they are differently capable depending on the point in their ontogeny, their development. Lee and George are prepared to declare that this period of a human's life decides humanity's "nature," and therefore its dignity. But why? Are we any less human at those points in life when we have not yet become rational, or when we've left rationality behind, or if we never really were in the first place? How can something be your "nature" if it's not even a trait that can accurately be attributed to you? Even traits that will eventually apply to every single one of us sound frankly bizarre to describe as our nature-- we all will, for example, die. Is it then our nature to be dead? They reply:

I have understood that the one nature, subject to death, is entailed by the other nature, composite living being, and from that knowledge I then advert to the thought of the individuals which possess those natures.

Then would it not be more fitting to describe the nature of humans regarding reason as subject to being rational? It sounds a lot more tenuous that way, but it's certainly more truthful.

Lee and George use all of the buzz words and rhetoric one would employ if one wanted to argue that there is something essential to humans which separates them from other species as deserving moral consideration, regardless of what kind of human a specific individual is-- a soul. A soul which, again, does not really belong to us but is actually on loan from God, which explains why the intentional death of a fetus which has not developed the cognitive capacity to understand what "dignity" is, and the intentional death of a human in a mentally vegetative state who has long since permanently lost the capacity to understand the same are both nevertheless affronts to their dignity, whereas the natural death of either is not. This also explains why although a rational nature (whether you are actually rational, or not) makes one a person and therefore in possession of full moral worth and dignity, exerting that rational nature in order to decide to end one's own life is not permissible. That just wouldn't be dignified.

Do I think that Michele Bachmann has actually read Lee and George, or Kass, or anyone like them, in order to form the foundation of her unshakable defense of the inherent dignity of human life? Nah. But she's read the Cliff's Notes and pulled all of the relevant talking points, and while seeking the office of president but not having served on the President's Council on Bioethics, she comes right out and says it's because we're made in the image of God. In that regard she is not making an argument palpably different from Lee and George or Kass, but one that is a lot less subtle and most likely a good deal more honest.

The daughter test, in Egypt

2011-12-29T19:12:00.002-06:00

From the Huffington Post's list of 2011's Most Absurd Quotes About Women-- And Who Said Them:

An anonymous Egyptian general spoke to CNN about why female protestors arrested during anti-Mubarak demonstrations were strip-searched and forced to submit to virginity tests. "The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine. These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and [drugs]...We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place. None of them were."

Misogyny and changing the subject

2011-12-29T14:54:00.001-06:00

Greta Christina preaches it:

It's depressingly predictable. When an instance of misogyny gets pointed out on the Internet, in a forum big enough to garner more than a couple dozen comments, you’re almost guaranteed to see some or all of these types of comments. It’s happening now. In case you haven’t heard, there was a recent incident on Reddit/ atheism, in which a 15-year-old girl posted a photo of herself holding a copy of Carl Sagan’s Demon-haunted World that her mother had given her for Christmas… and was almost immediately targeted with a barrage of sexualized, dehumanizing, increasingly violent and brutal comments. Including, “Well 15 is legal in many places, including my country, so I’ll only have to deal with abduction charges.” “Relax your anus, it hurts less that way.” “Blood is mother nature’s lubricant.” “Tears, natures lubricant.” “BITE THE PILLOW, IM GOIN’ IN DRY!” And including comments blaming the girl for posting a picture of herself in the first place.

Rebecca Watson and others — including Stephanie Zvan, Ed Brayton, Jason Thibeault,Jen McCreight, John Loftus, and Ophelia Benson — have been pointing out how revoltingly misogynistic this is and why. And the “Yes, but…”s have been coming thick and fast.

It’s depressingly predictable. And it’s depressing that anyone should have to explain why this is a problem. It seems totally obvious to me. But apparently, it’s not so obvious. So I’m going to spell it out.

When the topic of misogyny comes up, and men change the subject, it trivializes misogyny.

When the topic of misogyny comes up, and men change the subject, it conveys the message that whatever men want to talk about is more important than misogyny.

When the topic of misogyny comes up, and men change the subject to something that’s about them, it conveys the message that men are the ones who really matter, and that any harm done to men is always more important than misogyny.

And when the topic of misogyny comes up, and men change the subject, it comes across as excusing misogyny.

Reddit makes Rebecca hate atheists and Ed hate men

2011-12-28T14:13:00.002-06:00

Reddit thread here, if you're interested

These discussions, while useful, take a toll. Sometimes they just seem...tiring. I admire people who are willing to run the "sexism on the internet/in skepticism/atheism" treadmill, but can't help but wonder how they manage to remain sane. Especially while being attacked endlessly for their efforts, as Rebecca Watson has been. As she has shown, all you need do provoke the misogynistic ire of the internet is mention its existence disapprovingly. I really don't think it has much to do with atheism/skepticism.

Sexism on the internet is a problem, and atheism/skepticism are predominant on the internet. So "sexism is a problem for atheism/skepticism," because the internet is a primary conduit of interaction for such people. The internet helps people around the world who feel isolated come into contact with others of their kind, yes...and it also creates the impression that those who take advantage of this opportunity speak for everyone in their minority group. When, for example, PZ Myers and Greta Christina disagree, who should we listen to? Who is the representative of all atheist-kind? Well, neither of them, obviously. Atheists and skeptics have no popes, no bishops, no chain of command, because-- this is important-- atheism and skepticism are not belief systems. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, and skepticism is a tool, an epistemological approach. Nevertheless prominent atheists can influence the beliefs of others, and lacking churches and being in disparate locations, they often do so on the internet. People want to group together with others of their kind, and when they do they like to have authorities. People outside of groups like for those groups to have authorities to speak for them, to encapsulate what they're all about. It makes things easier, but in this case also distorts the picture grossly.

Bottom line: sexism is an internet problem. A world problem. The fact that atheists and skeptics on the internet are discussing its existence within their own ranks does not betray that atheism/skepticism "has a sexism problem." It means that there are vocal people who are concerned enough about this ubiquitous problem to address it, and that quite naturally leads to a widespread ongoing discussion. It's amazing how much easier it is to avoid having a "problem" with something when your community is either homogeneous, or the community is homogeneously in agreement on it (perhaps by silencing or just not listening to dissidents). Atheists/skeptics on the internet are willing and able to speak up, therefore they're the ones with the problem. Hmm, not buying it.

Dramatic generalizations incoming. Ready? Here we go.

2011-12-24T15:32:00.004-06:00

When it comes to women and political issues, conservatives will generally be the ones to attack women's actions by attacking their appearance. Liberals, however, can be counted upon to respond by defending the woman's appearance rather than her actions.

The corollary is, of course, that when desiring to promote a woman politically conservatives will trumpet the virtues of her appearance, whereupon at least some liberals will respond by attacking it.

IIWAPBK and Privilege 101

2011-12-19T20:24:00.000-06:00

I think Gene Marks has now been thoroughly excoriated for his column "If I Were a Poor Black Kid" on the Forbes web site last week. In his effort to explain how it's still possible for underprivileged kids to succeed, he succeeded only in displaying a shocking lack of empathy. By that I don't mean that he demonstrated a lack of concern for the poor black kids of the world and their needs-- I mean that he literally failed at perspective-taking, in such a spectacular way that it's hard to believe that he was serious (though apparently he was), which has made the column a golden opportunity for mockery. Jenée Desmond-Harris writes in The Root:

Middle-aged, white Forbes contributing writer Gene Marks, in his recent piece, "If I Were a Poor Black Kid," presented some now-infamous ideas for how he would personally rise to success if he suddenly found himself young, African American and poverty-stricken.

Marks would "get technical," learn software," "learn how to write code," "figure out where to learn more online," "become an expert at Google Scholar" and regularly peruse the CIA World Factbook. He would then get himself into a top school, and he would "succeed." The end.

Oh. If only Marks had given out this priceless advice before, we would have eliminated racial inequalities long ago.

Not really.

As a curious side note, it's unclear how this is any different from what he would do if he were a poor white kid. But also, there's no word in the piece on how Marks imagines that he would, as a poor child, suddenly be infused with the perspective and sophistication of a middle-class adult. In addition, he, perhaps unintentionally, admits that his advice is useless to all but a select few gifted, mature and lucky children. (He doesn't have any thoughts on what he would do if he were not a "special kind of kid" who miraculously became aware of the admissions processes of magnet schools and the value of TED talks and the Khan Academy.)

Melanie Tannenbaum, on her blog psysociety, puts it this way:

My immediate reaction was to hate the article. I found it insulting, ignorant, and just plain short-sighted. As I commented in my own link on Facebook, “[To summarize], ‘This is what I would do if I were born into a completely different set of circumstances, a completely different family, a completely different social support system, a completely different school district, a completely different body with a completely different skin tone and a completely different way that people in public respond to me, yet I somehow still retained all of the benefits, knowledge, and access to resources as a middle-aged, middle-class white man.’”

Indeed. Marks' column reads as if he was attempting to describe what would happen if he had body-swapped with a poor black child in a movie...the most boring body-swap movie ever, if what he says he'd do in this different body and environment is true. And, it goes without saying, not terribly useful when it comes to addressing what he was addressing, which are the opportunities available and likely to be utilized by people who are actually born in the bodies and environments in question. Having acknowledged this, however, Tannenbaum the doctoral candidate in psychology studying "the effects of power, status, and social class on attitudes and behavior" goes on to observe the following:

However, upon re-reading the article and giving it a little more thought, I’ve come to realize that the real issue with the article isn’t that the author, Gene Marks, is necessarily racist, or even really ignorant. After all, he acknowledges right off the bat that the system is unfair, and that children from other areas of town have it much harder than his own, privileged children do. Marks clearly has some knowledge of the unfairness of “the system.” So the real question is, how could he then go on to write such a short-sighted article, completely missing any sort of perspective on what it means to actually be a member of the community to which he is proselytizing?

What follows is essentially an unpacking of the psychology of privilege. And privilege, it seems, is what we're talking about here-- specifically, the unconscious ignorance of the ways in which advantage and power affect one's perspective. Tannenbaum goes over two experiments in which subjects were primed with (prompted to have at the front of their minds) notions of self-empowerment, and shows how this actually causes people to assume that others know what they know:

In other words, powerful participants were more likely to overweight the special, privileged information that they had, and they subsequently predicted how other people would (or should) respond to certain situations as if the other people had access to that same, privileged knowledge as well.

Sound familiar?

To be momentarily blunt, powerful people often fail to correct for the fact that other people don’t have the same special knowledge that they do. When they think about how other people should respond to situations, they are significantly more likely to overweight the information that they happen to have (like, say, knowledge about the vast amount of educational technology that is available, assuming one knows where to look for it), and less likely to consider the fact that not everyone else has the same knowledge base.

Well, that's not news, comes the reply from any of the not-so-privileged among us. The most powerful people are often members of the majority, which allows them to make their experience the "norm" which everyone else comes to know whether they want to or not, but there is nothing compelling them to come to know the experiences of minorities. The other important aspect of privilege is that the privileged are not forced by anything in particular to see through anyone else's eyes, to acknowledge that their own experience in life is not universal.

Still, it's one thing to think that what you know and experience is more important than what others know and experience. It's quite another to be unconsciously ignorant of the fact that other people have different knowledge and experiences, which is what the experiments suggest. That's what I mean by "failing at perspective-taking"-- being unable to process that someone who is not you has a different perspective than you do, perhaps a very different one. Most of us have had the experience of talking to someone about our problems and hearing that person say "Well, if it were me, I would..." followed by a description of some course of action that we would never pursue, assuming it is even possible for us. One has to wonder what exactly they believe the benefit of offering such an observation to be. That is basically what Gene Marks did in his column, causing its readers to collectively scratch their heads and wonder what the benefit of that was supposed to be.

There are two fundamental short-cuts to empathy (really understanding things from someone else's point of view) that have proven themselves time and time again: similarity and familiarity. If you're very similar to the person in question, it's not very much of a stretch to see things like they do because after all it's almost how you yourself see things. Alternately, if the person in question is not much like you but you know him/her really well, it's easier to see things from his/her perspective just because you're used to doing so. Privilege means being similar to most people, or at least most powerful people. Never being the "other," the one who is marked as different. But that doesn't mean empathy is impossible-- the moral progress of a society is marked in part by the gradual realization by the privileged that they have this status to begin with, and this is accomplished by becoming familiar enough with the different experience of "others" that it is possible to see through their eyes and recognize how similar they actually are. Where this realization occurs, you will find members of majorities fighting for the rights and interests of minorities. Where it fails, you will find apathy and hostility born of that particular kind of ignorance that privilege conveys.

At the end of her post, Tannanbaum acknowledges the ways in which she herself is privileged. I have my own. One of them-- access to education-- is how I can afford to analyze the mechanisms by which privilege affects perspective in the first place, which might be ironic but hopefully does not invalidate such an analysis. Empathy and sympathy are often conflated for a reason-- the former can lead quite naturally to the latter in the process of understanding allowing for recognition of similarities, and it becomes harder to be angry and blame when you find yourself identifying with the target of such. But we can blame and empathize at the same time. We really can, and both are important for mutual growth-- the blame so that the blamed can recognize their error, and empathy so that accusers don't perceive themselves as errorless. In this way, the conversation can be elevated.

Pareidolia of the-- hey, wait a minute....

2011-12-18T10:51:00.001-06:00

If you're just too impatient to see Jesus or the Virgin Mary's face appearing in bird poo, a cliff face, or a testicular tumor, for just $32 you can see one of them appearing reliably in an easily accessible location-- your toast. Jesus and Virgin Mary toasters are apparently a hot commodity this holiday season, with 50 to 100 of the Jesus variety reportedly being sold daily by Vermont entrepreneur Galen Dively.

Fairly straightforward, huh? I thought the aura around Jesus' head was a nice touch. Turns out the image is formed by an insert that slides into the toaster and can adjust the heat applied to imprint virtually any image on the surface of bread, from happy faces to peace signs (apparently the second most popular design after Jesus) to other religious symbols including the Star of David and the Hindu god Ganesh. I can't help but think that in addition to most Americans not being Hindu, Ganesh doesn't show up more often because it's harder to detect an elephant face in a door or block of concrete than a human one. Hmmm...

Anyway, in CNN's video interviewing people about the Jesus toaster, nobody appears offended by the product. Is that because they don't view the deliberate placing of the face of the holy figure on a slice of toast as a mockery of the "real" incidences of it appearing in such places? Or because they do view it as such, but don't care? I think it's fair to call the toaster irreverent in that regard, but perhaps even more so in that as Ed Brayton points out, "nothing says religious piety like spreading peanut butter over your savior's face."

Don't get me wrong; I love toast. But I think I'll stick with plain ol' boring evenly toasted bread, thanks.

Cycling through symbolism: Nitpicking the Rick Perry ad mockery

2011-12-11T11:59:00.005-06:00

AKA The post about Rick Perry's jacket.

If you somehow have missed seeing Rick Perry's recent campaign ad, now one of the least liked videos on Youtube, here it is:

Yes, that is a real ad produced by a real candidate for president of the United States and long-time governor of the state where I live. It might seem like self-parody, but that didn't stop a number of mocking videos from cropping up all over the place, including this satire which I quite like:

Another which is currently making the rounds:

Upon first seeing this, my reaction was basically "......so?" I still haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, but am pretty sure I've heard every joke about it ever made, because if there's one eternal truth of the universe it is this: People love joking about Brokeback Mountain. And oftentimes when they're doing it, they're using the reference to bring down something else by comparing it to the movie, which is hard to interpret as an endorsement of Brokeback specifically or support of homosexuality in general.

Take this example: Rick Perry is shown in his campaign ad bashing gays while wearing the same jacket as a gay character in a movie. Heehee, homophobe displaying unconscious homoeroticism! But is it, really? Perry is shown doing the George Bush thing, speaking to the heartland while outside enjoying the wilderness...or something...wearing a Carhartt jacket. Carhartt makes sturdy outerwear for sturdy people, and as Michael Heath explains it's not at all an uncommon thing to see worn by pretty much anyone in the area Perry is addressing:

The Brokeback jacket wasn’t a Carhatt. And Carhartt clothing is associated with people who work outside in inclement weather, along with politicians who pander to them (e.g., Sarah Palin, and now Rick Perry). Their line has nothing to do with gays. It’s like politicians wearing John Deere hats or sporting Pabst Blue Ribbon decals . . .

This clothing line is not defined by one mere movie about gays, where it wasn’t even featured. Carhartt is instead defined by its large popularity amongst those who Perry, Palin, Kid Rock, and Hank Williams direct their marketing efforts. I know of no other clothing line which can compete with their market share for outdoor work clothes you’re OK with getting dirty. They’re insulated overalls are especially dominant in my area since we have harsh winters here.

You can make a good argument Perry’s pandering to rural populists by wearing work clothes which he’s never done a lick of work in himself. Most of us who wear this line of clothes are not worried about getting them dirty in a way you can’t launder out – as ZZ Top sang about their blue jeans, “you can tell by the oil and gasoline”. But you only embarrass yourself by pointing to one character in one movie and claiming Perry’s out of touch when in fact it’s those comparing this coat to a similar one worn in a movie who are out of touch, precisely because they validate their ignorance regarding its authentic popularity. This is not a close call.

I would add three comments to this:

Heath Ledger's character in Brokeback Mountain didn't wear that jacket because he's gay, but because he's a cowboy. Duh, right? But this is important because cowboys are conceived as being rugged, tough, traditionally masculine, which is what Perry was going for.
Suggesting that because this style of jacket was worn by a gay character in a movie, we should associate homosexuality with it when it's worn by a political candidate really smacks of a kind of sympathetic magic. When any item of clothing is worn by a gay character, it becomes gay! No straight man should wear it ever again if he doesn't want people to giggle and call him a queer! Is that really the leap that we want to make?
It's true that over the top masculinity is often construed as homoerotic. But Perry isn't dressed as a Tom of Finland illustration here. He's just a guy wearing an outdoorsy jacket. As more and more movies are made featuring gay characters, those characters are eventually going to wear every item of clothing under the sun. Heath Ledger also wore jeans in that movie, but we're not saying "OMG jeans are gay!" because jeans are ubiquitous for most of us. Carhartt jackets are ubiquitous in certain parts of the U.S., and as Heath points out that makes the people who are unaware of that and pointing to Brokeback Mountain look rather ignorant.

One final point, which I alluded to before-- attacking homophobes by suggesting that they're gay is not a compliment to actual gay people. Generally speaking, when people use an attribute that describes you as an insult to others, it doesn't feel that great. There has been some speculation about Perry's sexuality in the past, but if the future contains some revelation that he is actually bi or homosexual, two things will be certain: 1) any ensuing mockery should be for his hypocrisy, not his sexuality, and 2) having worn Carhartt outerwear in a campaign ad sure wasn't a tip-off.

Sometimes, a jacket is just a jacket.

ETA: Two more comments on the topic....

From scorinth:

“why are you all so sure that all liberal think Carhartts are gay jacket?”

Because that’s what the joke is: “Doesn’t Rick Perry look like that gay guy?”

Sure. Maybe. Possibly, he looks like that one gay character from a movie. Why? Because he’s wearing a tan Carhartt jacket in an outdoor setting. I dare you to give me some other reason somebody would make that connection. So what people who make that joke are saying is that Perry looks like that one gay guy from the movie, because of the jacket. So, the jacket makes the faggot, so to speak.

PROTIP: The majority of people who work outdoors in the central and western US wear clothing that’s very similar to that same jacket. That’s not a small number. I’m talking hundreds of thousands. Probably millions. To completely gloss over their existence and jump straight to the gay character is offensive to me both as a gay man and as a Kansan.

From James Hanley:

Conservatives tend to think liberals are out-of-touch with rural American, and lord how liberals are demonstrating it here.

Look, my liberal friends, Rick Perry is a Texas farmer. You might be hard pressed to find a farm in Texas that doesn’t have a Carhartt’s jacket hanging in the mudroom. One Hollywood movie just ain’t sufficient to make Carhartt’s a symbol of gay culture in America.

Grow up. Deal with the offensive content of Perry’s ad. But stop making yourselves look like effete urban pansies to whom flyover country is a foreign land, a place where you need a passport and a series of shots before you travel there. If you want to win America, you’d do well not to openly show your disdain for such a large part of it.

Obama "daughter tests" young women out of sexual privacy and responsibility

2011-12-10T13:00:00.003-06:00

A few months ago I wrote about Freakonomics author Steven Levitt's "daughter test" for legality. Levitt didn't invent the test; he just articulated it: "If I wouldn't want my daughter to do it, I wouldn't mind the government passing a law against it." The inanity and offensiveness of this standard should be plain on its face, but I carefully unpacked it anyway because this rule is applied consciously or unconsciously in the thinking of many otherwise thoughtful, non-authoritarian people. People who just want things to turn out best for their daughters.

Such, I have to assume, was in the mind of President Obama when he used his own daughters as justification for overruling a recent FDA decision to allow the sale of emergency contraception pill Plan B over the counter to women of all ages:

President Barack Obama is defending his administration’s decision to stop plans to allow the Plan B morning-after pill to move onto drugstore shelves next to condoms.

Obama says as a father of two daughters, the government should “apply some common sense” to rules when it comes to over-the-counter medication.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, saying young girls shouldn’t be able to buy the pill on their own.

Obama says Sebelius was concerned a 10- or 11-year-old could get the medication, which could have an adverse effect. Obama says “most parents would probably feel the same way.” For now, Plan B will stay behind pharmacy counters, available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age.

So the FDA lacked "common sense" when they decided that there is no good reason to prohibit Plan B to women younger than that? Should we assume that none of them have daughters? I doubt it. More likely they refused to allow paternalism to affect their conclusions in light of the evidence that there is no legitimate health concern which could justify restricting the drug:

Emergency contraception is already available over the counter to women over 17; in response to a request from the drug’s manufacturer, the FDA researched safety and efficacy of OTC access for women under 17 and found that there is no reason not to lift the age limit. Studies found no adverse health effects with non-prescription use and that younger women were able to understand how to use the product, including, crucially, that it does not protect against sexually transmitted infections.

Here's how you take Plan B: as soon as possible after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, take one pill. A second pill is not necessary. Do not take it more than 72 hours (three days) after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure. That's it. If a ten or eleven year old girl cannot grasp these instructions, we're in trouble.

And of all people who might need an emergency contraceptive most in the world, ten or eleven year girls who might be pregnant seem like the best candidates! But really, they are not the ones most likely to lose out on the opportunity to have this pill when they need it. That honor will more likely go to older girls who are sexually active but not yet 17. As Katha Politt writes in The Nation,

Barack Obama says that as the father of two daughters, he wants the government to “apply common sense” to rules about over the counter medications. Well, I too have a daughter, and so many many pro-choice women. Who died and made Barack Obama daddy in charge of teenage girls? Would he really rather that Sasha and Malia get pregnant rather than buy Plan B One-Step at CVS? And excuse me, Mr. President, thanks to your HHS, acquiring Plan B is prescription-only not just for 11-year-olds but for the 30 percent of teenage girls between 15 and 17 who are sexually active, and is a cumbersome process for all women, who have to ask a pharmacist for it and, as many news stories have reported, be subjected to fundamentalist harangues and objections. Apparently, it’s okay with you if Michelle is treated like a sixth-grader. I’m trying to think if there are any laws or regulations affecting only men in which unfounded fears about middle-school boys deny all men normal adult privileges. Needless to say, no one suggests that underage boys get a prescription if they want to use condoms, or that grown men have to ask the pharmacist for them and maybe get a lecture about the evils of birth control and promiscuity.
This is politics. Pure politics.

It's hard to disagree. If Obama doesn't want to keep Plan B out of the hands of young women because he thinks they don't have a right to sexual privacy and the ability to make their own reproductive decisions, his administration is certainly catering to people who do.

Wait a minute-- a right to sexual privacy? Who says teenage girls should have that? Amanda Marcotte, very convincingly:

The only reason possible that condoms don't come up is pure sexism; Plan B provokes anxiety about female sexuality, and the stereotypical (though not actual) image of who has condoms on their person in high school is male. Fill in jokes about the condom-shaped wear on the leather wallet, etc.

But most of all, the flaw is in assuming that there's intrinsic value to outing a girl who is having sex to her parents, with the exception of abuse. But if you think about this argument, it assumes a lot that is not proved by a long shot. So, let's walk through the standard, non-abuse discovery of sexual activity of a 15- or 16-year-old, which are the ages when the percentages of kids having sex grows rapidly. (Contrary to hysterical assumptions, younger teenagers just aren't doing it that much.) People who are making the parental argument are literally assuming that a tearful girl comes forward to her parents and confesses shamefacedly that she's been having sex with her boyfriend. Yelling, crying, and recriminations ensue. She gets her Plan B, but is perhaps grounded and her parents are very disappointed in her. They may or may not have a conversation about birth control going forward, but at every point in this process, her choice to have sex is considered less than ideal.

What does this solve? How does this standard American situation improve life for anyone involved?

It doesn't. The girl is highly unlikely to give up having sex, though now she may decide to be sneakier about it. She'll probably be defiant and feel her parents don't understand her; she will be right to think this. She may, correctly, see them as hypocrites, because they probably had sex as teenagers (that being what teenagers do), and it worked out well for them, but now they're going to punish her for the same. She's going to start counting the days when she can get out of the house with these unreasonable people and have a place of her own, where she can do what she wants. Meanwhile, the parents also have a worse go of it. If they really have absorbed prudish attitudes, they may think less of their daughter, even though she hasn't actually done anything wrong. Even if they are just typical American hypocrites who remember their own sexual debuts fondly while enacting hostility towards their daughter in the same situation, they're going to feel weird and out of sorts. They'll always feel that there may be something else they should be doing to stop the sexual activity. They may worry that they failed somehow. They may want to offer advice, but it's going to be filtered through the assumption that youthful sex is bad, and so it's probably not going to be good advice.

Kids really do need their privacy, for the same reason that adults do. Even though I'm a grown ass adult and there's no shame or recriminations there, I don't talk about my sex life with my mom as a general rule. Because there's no value in it. Everyone's just happier minding their own damn business. I personally think there's a lot of value in letting teenagers spend their high school years gradually gaining rights and responsibilities---including sexual privacy rights and responsibilities---instead of simply dumping them into adulthood at 18 and expecting them not to get overwhelmed.

In this case, the right is a responsibility. Opponents of reproductive choice complain that it allows women to escape the consequences of their actions. If this really isn't just code for inflicting pregnancy and childbirth as punishment, then it needs to be acknowledged that a young woman who is sexually active and either makes a mistake or experiences an accident (or both) and wants to take Plan B is being responsible. She realizes that something potentially very bad has happened and is facing the consequence of needing to do something about it. And Obama's administration does not want her to-- at least, not on her own. That may seem like "common sense" to him, but playing Father Knows Best to the entire country makes unwilling daughters of us all.

The gay rights paradox

2011-12-06T17:10:00.002-06:00

There's an interesting discussion going on at Dispatches about Michele Bachmann's recent statement to some Iowa high school students about gay marriage:

JANE SCHMIDT: Then, why can’t same-sex couples get married?
BACHMANN: They can get married, but they abide by the same law as everyone else. They can marry a man if they’re a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they’re a man.
JANE SCHMIDT: Why can’t a man marry a man?
BACHMANN: Because that’s not the law of the land.
JANE SCHMIDT: So heterosexual couples have a privilege.
BACHMANN: No, they have the same opportunity under the law. There is no right to same-sex marriage.
JANE SCHMIDT: So you won’t support the LGBT community?
BACHMANN: No, I said that there are no special rights for people based upon your sex practices. There’s no special rights based upon what you do in your sex life. You’re an American citizen first and foremost and that’s it.

Except, of course, that Bachmann fails to note that the "law of the land" allows gay marriage in several states, including Iowa. That's one important flaw in her tautology. The other is, as Schmidt alludes, that if marriage is really about having the opportunity to marry from a select body of people (men for women, women for men), then gay marriage doesn't grant a special right to anyone-- on the contrary, it grants greater rights for everyone. Currently gays can marry opposite sex partners if they want to (though they generally do not), and where same-sex marriage is legal it has become possible for straight people to marry partners of the same sex if they want to (though they generally do not). Nothing "special" about it.

The added irony is, of course, that one definition of "privilege" entails that those who have it are unaware that they have it, and unwilling to acknowledge when it is pointed out. To them, when others who are not privileged ask for something everyone else has, they are demanding a special right. This is because the privileged live in a tiny world where "something everyone else has" literally means everything that privileged person personally has and wants. Not the ability to fulfill a desire that everyone has, but in a different way. "Freedom to do X" means "Freedom to do X how I do it, and that's it." This is how, as a recent article in Slate points out, freedom has been defined by social conservatives as the freedom to obey their religious morality, not to do anything with diverges from it. If that makes your brain hurt, you're not alone. That is very likely how the mortal enemy of social conservatives in America, the Muslim theocrat, defines it as well. It's no wonder that the "freedoms" that they cherish are so remarkably similar to those of people like Michele Bachmann.

"In God We Trust" and the right not to speak

2011-12-05T18:25:00.002-06:00

The state of Georgia is considering a bill which requires that "In God We Trust" be on the license plates of all registered vehicles, unless the owner pays to have the slogan covered up:

Georgia SB 293 would amend current law to mandate that, starting next summer, all plates would be imprinted with the religious declaration. If someone does not wish to exhibit this statement of faith, they would be required to purchase a sticker from the state displaying the name of their county that could be used to cover “In God We Trust.”

The bill text currently available on the legislature’s website really drives home the dramatic change in attitudes by the Assembly, as you can clearly see what has been crossed out and changed. While displaying the county name is the current “default” choice for Georgia drivers and alternatively they may purchase an “In God We Trust” sticker, this bill would directly swap the two, making the religious motto the routine option.

Mandating that individuals pay money to the government in order to not flaunt religious views is absolutely ridiculous. As the website Georgia Politico aptly puts it, “In other words, if you feel the government should not be establishing a religion, you are going to have to pay to prove it.”

...and if you do decide to prove it, it's possible you might be targeting yourself for retaliation by anyone who considers a refusal to display the message to be an offense. Regardless of whether your reason is an actual disagreement with the sentiment or a disapproval of the requirement to display it, observers are invited to form their own interpretations and make judgments on that basis. Being forced to decide whether it's appropriate to take this risk is particularly strange, as Secular News Daily points out, because the "In God We Trust" plate was already one of the options available to Georgia drivers.

Over at Dispatches, chaosof99 notes that even though the statement in question is the nation's motto, a person could make a legitimate (in the eyes of the court) objection to the plates based on a violation of First Amendment rights:

Wooley v. Maynard. Came across that quite by coincidence because for a reason I no longer remember I looked up “Live free or die” on wikipedia.

Anyway, it’s unconstitutional to force people to display an opinion or sentiment against their will. The Wooley v. Maynard case is already a Supreme Court precedent for this, and also pertains to slogans on license plates.

I had not previously heard of Wooley v. Maynard, but it's definitely a story of having courage of one's convictions. A Jehovah's Witness couple (the Maynards) were unwilling to display the New Hampshire state motto on their license plate and opted to cover it up. Since a New Hampshire statute deems it an offense to obscure any figures or letters on a plate, they were cited for it. George Maynard showed up in court in 1974, represented himself, and plead not guilty, citing religious objections to displaying the motto. He was found guilty but a $25 fine was suspended due to "good behavior." The following year when he was cited again, Maynard again showed up in court and plead not guilty. He was fined $50 and given a six month sentence in the Grafton House of Corrections, which was also suspended although the court ordered him to pay $25 for the first offense. Maynard explained that he would not pay either fine as a matter of conscience, whereupon the court sentenced him to fifteen days in jail, which he served.

The following year, the Maynards sued in New Hampshire's district court against enforcement of the original statute under which George had been cited, in response to which the judge issued a temporary restraining order against any further arrest or prosecution of them. Because the couple's suit sought an injunction against the state of New Hampshire on the grounds of unconstitutionality, the case went to the Supreme Court, who agreed with the Maynards in a 6-to-3 decision:

New Hampshire's statute in effect requires that appellees use their private property as a "mobile billboard" for the State's ideological message - or suffer a penalty, as Maynard already has. As a condition to driving an automobile - a virtual necessity for most Americans - the Maynards must display "Live Free or Die" to hundreds of people each day. The fact that most individuals agree with the thrust of New Hampshire's motto is not the test; most Americans also find the flag salute acceptable. The First Amendment protects the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster, in the way New Hampshire commands, an idea they find morally objectionable.

Well said. Let's hope that, if necessary, the same will apply to people made to display this ideological message.

Oh look, another reason not to patronize Chick-fil-A

2011-12-03T09:12:00.000-06:00

They're suing a t-shirt artist for having the nerve to market shirts that say "Eat more kale":

A folk artist expanding his home business built around the words "eat more kale" says he's ready to fight root-to-feather to protect his phrase from what he sees as an assault by Chick-fil-A, which holds the trademark to the phrase "eat mor chikin."

Bo Muller-Moore uses a hand silkscreen machine to apply his phrase, which he calls an expression of the benefits of local agriculture, on T-shirts and sweatshirts. But his effort to protect his business from copycats drew the attention of Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain that uses ads with images of cows that can't spell displaying their own phrase on message boards.

In a letter, a lawyer for Chick-fil-A said Muller-Moore's effort to expand the use of his "eat more kale" message "is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A's intellectual property and diminishes its value."

Chick-fil-A, which trails only Louisville, Ky.-based KFC in market share in the chicken restaurant chain industry, has a long history of guarding its trademark, and the letter listed 30 examples of attempts by others to co-opt the use of the "eat more" phrase that were withdrawn after Chick-fil-A protested. The Oct. 4 letter ordered Muller-Moore to stop using the phrase and turn over his website, eatmorekale.com, to Chick-fil-A.

Muller-Moore, 38, of Montpelier, says he won't do that.

"Our plan is to not back down. This feels like David versus Goliath. I know what it's like to protect what's yours in business," he said.

So he has enlisted the help of Montpelier lawyer Daniel Richardson and the intellectual property clinic at the University of New Hampshire School of Law's Intellectual Property and Transaction Clinic.

"Bo's is a very different statement. It's more of a philosophical statement about local agriculture and community-supported farmers markets," Richardson said. "At the end of the day, I don't think anyone will step forward and say they bought an 'eat more kale' shirt thinking it was a Chick-fil-A product."

Original reasons not to go to Chick-fil-A here and here.

Muller-Moore's shirts can be found at eatmorekale.com

Hat tip to Dr. X

#heblowsalot update: the fallout

2011-11-30T13:34:00.000-06:00

Both the principal, Karl Krawitz, and Emma Sullivan are receiving all kinds of negative attention as result of the Brownback apology affair. Krawitz has apparently received some death threats from different parts of the country, while Sullivan is being bullied by peers who call her an attention whore, or just a whore, and demand that she be expelled from school

The bullying, much of which is taking place on Twitter, is part of the reason that Sullivan was staying home from school on Tuesday. “They’ve been sending me tweets, calling me an attention whore, saying this is all about fame and that I don’t deserve to be getting any of these interviews,” she said.

A Twitter hashtag set up against her contains numerous expletives, including one user, @PoundShop_Zoe, who calls her a “whore” multiple times. “When Emma Comes back she should be forced to go to north #HopeYourHappy… Whore,” he writes.

“Get Emma Sullivan out of East [Shawnee Mission East High School] please #teamkrawitz,” adds @megmms.

In fact, students have organized a rally Tuesday afternoon in support of her principal, Karl Krawitz, and in opposition to her, said Sullivan.

I'm actually more surprised by this bullying than by the death threats. Death threats from far-off places have become a ubiquitous response to any bad behavior that is published on the internet. There never seems to be a shortage of people with web access who find it appropriate to express their displeasure with someone in the news for doing a bad thing by issuing threats against that person's life, and that's probably all that this is. I assume however that this knowledge, even if Dr. Krawitz has it, is of no particular comfort to him.

The behavior of Sullivan's schoolmates is surprising only because they are easily identifiable and close. I imagine that they are jealous of her limelight, however unintentionally earned, and also convinced that the school principal is someone who must be respected at all costs. They are probably big “school spirit” types who believe that their collective reputation has been tarnished by a student saying rude things about the governor and drawing negative attention to the school as a whole…even though it was actually the principal’s demand for a letter of apology that thrust this situation into the news in the first place.

And they are incapable of recognizing that Krawitz might be a good principal who made a very bad decision, much less that believing he’s a good principal doesn’t require saying that Sullivan is a whore who should be expelled. That requires a level of nuance that appears to be quite beyond them. As is, ironically, an awareness of how public speech on the internet really can be-- something Sullivan will now likely never forget.

If Sam Brownback really wanted to show that he "treasures" freedom of speech, he could send a message directly to these students in support of Sullivan and strongly condemning any harassment of her for her use of and defense of that freedom. Want to make any bets on whether something like that will happen?

#heblowsalot

2011-11-28T15:42:00.002-06:00

Ah, the power of Twitter. It can help organize protests, keep people in contact in the midst of tragedy, spread news like wildfire, and allow governors to become aware of the fact that teenagers are saying mean things about them. And then take action!

Emma Sullivan is an eighteen year old student at Shawnee Mission East high school in Kansas. While making a visit to the state capitol of Topeka as part of a Youth in Government program, she made the following tweet:

"Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."

She didn't actually meet him-- the tweet was a joke with friends. But that wasn't a factor to Brownback staffers, who in scanning social media for mentions of him came across the tweet and proceeded to contact Sullivan's school. The school's principal, Karl Krawitz, called Sullivan into his office and proceeded to berate her for nearly an hour:

"I had no idea what it was about or why I was being called into the office," she said. "I had never been in trouble before."
Sullivan claimed that the principal "told me he needed to do damage control and was really upset."
"He said I was an embarrassment to the school and the school district and that I had been disrespectful," she added.

Krawitz followed this with a demand that Sullivan write a note of apology to Brownback for the tweet, to be turned in on Monday (today). Sullivan had decided by Sunday night, with the support of her parents, that she wasn't going to do it. This became a non-issue today, however, when the school district decided it could not demand an apology:

“The district acknowledges a student’s right to freedom of speech and expression is constitutionally protected. The district has not censored Miss Sullivan nor infringed upon her freedom of speech,” said a statement. “She is not required to write a letter of apology to the Governor. Whether and to whom any apologies are issued will be left to the individuals involved.”

Sam Brownback himself responded by blaming his staff:

A statement issued by Brownback on Monday did not reference Sullivan by name or mention the prospect of any apology letter. He did emphasize his support for "freedom of speech," while thanking "the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum."
"My staff overreacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize," the governor said. "Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms."

Meanwhile Sullivan's Twitter following has jumped from 63 to almost 11,000 (as of now). Brownback's is at about 3,000. And the #heblowsalot hashtag is being used constantly by Sullivan's supporters. A representative tweet:

It's unusual, I think, not to have heard of Brownback before considering that he was a U.S. senator from 1996 until this year, and ran for president in 2008. Still, there's no question that awareness of him is exploding because of this...and doubtless not in a way he would prefer. Like the enormously successful campaign to re-define Rick Santorum's last name, "heblowsalot" might become the phrase that comes to most people's minds when considering Governor Brownback.

Now, here's the question: would that be a good thing? Does Sam Brownback, in fact, blow?

Maybe not literally. But as those of us from Kansas--especially women-- who are not right-wingers are more than aware, figuratively he most certainly does. If you want a quick idea, imagine Rick Perry and take away some reasoning ability and restraint. As Amanda Marcotte notes over at Slate,

I suppose it's not that big a surprise that someone like Brownback, who has a strong belief that women should not be in control of their own ladyparts, would also find the notion that teenage girls have the legal right to make fun of him deeply threatening. First he comes for your abortions, then your contraception, and next any fancy electronic devices that could be used to register displeasure with dudely authority figures. The freakout over a teenage girl having a less-than-flattering opinion of him was also predictable if you look at Brownback's long history with the C Street Family, a religious-political group that specifically promotes patriarchy and disdains the idea of women holding political power. (Though they have been known to make exceptions for the occasional woman who has economic goals in common with them.) To a large extent, Brownback has created a bubble around him that has a pleasing 19th-century cast to it, where young people and women knew their place, and men of privilege are protected from the opinions of those who are most subject to social control. No wonder a juvenile bit of tweetage caused such an oversized reaction.

This is not an exaggeration. Brownback has spent his years in office, both as senator and governor, doing everything he can to restrict reproductive freedom for women. He is also not a fan of state funding for art, having eliminated Kansas' arts commission this year making it the only state without such an agency. He denies evolution and supports the Discovery Institute (intelligent design think tank), is relentlessly pro-war (supporting the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the suspension of habeas corpus rights under the Military Commissions Act of 2007), and is so adamantly opposed to gay marriage that in 2006 he blocked confirmation of federal judicial nominee Janet Neff because she had attended a same-sex commitment ceremony. He believes that the Constitution does not carry any guarantee of a right to privacy. His record on civil rights is rated-- this will shock you-- 20 percent by the ACLU. Pretty dismal. As is, no doubt, the outlook of any Kansan who cares about civil rights since Brownback assumed governorship, which I'm guessing includes Emma Sullivan.

But regardless of why Sullivan thinks Brownback blows, specifically, I think her handling of the issue has been excellent. She seems quite level-headed:

Emma Sullivan said Sunday that she thought the tweet "has turned into a good starting point to open up dialogue about this ... free speech and the power of social media and the power that people my age could potentially have, that people will listen to us."

Indeed, indeed. Although it's unfortunate that this dialogue would not have opened up in the first place had Brownback's staff and Sullivan's principal (any bets on whether she'll get an apology from him?) both not wildly overreacted to something said in that context.

This whole event could result in a bully pulpit for Ms. Sullivan, should she choose to use it. She said that she's interested in getting involved in politics, and judging from the coverage this is getting not only on Twitter but ABC, CNN, HuffPo, and so on, this seems like a good start! I hope she takes advantage of it to go out and do something. Whatever she finds most appropriate to do in terms of combating the many ways in which Sam Brownback sucks. And blows.

Quote of the day

2011-11-27T15:25:00.000-06:00

From Dr. X, discussing whether using "crazy" as a pejorative should be considered offensive to people with mental illnesses and therefore be stricken from the lexicon of a considerate person:

Political correctness most certainly is about passing tests of radicals who are more interested in group identity signifiers than substance and true decency. P.C is a greatly overused accusation by the right, but it’s a concept invented on the left to describe the use of signifiers as shackling rules that, IMO, are bristling with the narcissism of small differences.

Things aren’t much different on the right. Not using the signifier “God” in a Thanksgiving address can “offend” certain Christians. Signifiers divorced from awareness of common usages and context–from intent, from speaker, from audience, time, place, and attitude are really about identity politics. . .

Craziness and madness, one’s own and the insanity of the world, can render the best efforts to bring comforting coherence to our existence absolutely futile sometimes.

So despite not satisfying your club rules on the use of language, I will continue to refer to being driven mad with grief, crazy with rage, nuts, out of my mind with pain and whatever else I feel useful to explain that time in my life and my experience. Those words make flesh and blood out of the reality of a long period of unremitting agony. And I think those very frank words help people to empathize with the depth of suffering and disorientation I experienced. You don’t own those words. They have uses that help people know what the hell we’re talking about sometimes.

We live in a world that is often much more crazy than sane. We deal with people going nuts. We have crackpots in politics. I also won’t apologize for saying someone lacks a conscience or they’re a heartless bastard because it might offend psychopaths. They have a mental disorder too. So let’s not use any language that could offend them; they’re just victims of a brain disorder.

If you actually live an examined life, you’ll notice madness all around, in all the people who are deemed sane. There are no exceptions, only a certain amount of necessary denial to forge ahead in life, but crazy is on a continuum that is part of all humanity.

"Masculine Christianity" and the Penn State scandal

2011-11-16T20:00:00.010-06:00

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This is University of Nebraska Assistant Coach Ron Brown praying on behalf of his football team and that of Penn State prior to their game on November 12th, in the wake of the latter university's scandal regarding former head coach Joe Paterno. Which you already know about if you haven't been living under a rock for the past week and a half, so you don't need any commentary on it from me. But Brown thought that God needed a comment on the matter, specifically regarding manhood and young boys:

There are a lot of little boys around the country, today, who are watching this game. And they’re trying to figure out what the definition of manhood is all about. Father, this is it right here. I pray that this game will be a training ground of what manhood looks like. And we will compete with fierce intensity. With the honor, and the gifts, and the talents that you've given us. And may we be reminded, Lord, as it says in John 1:14, that Jesus is full of grace and truth. May the truth be known!

Indeed-- may the truth be known. And the truth is that a coach from a public university found it appropriate to use a scandal involving child molestation as an opportunity to teach little boys what manhood is, via a football and declarations about Jesus. I saw this, and thought "I can't be the only person believes this to be very, very wrong." And I'm not-- it's just that it's hard to articulate all of the things wrong about it.

Hemant Mehta decided to re-write Brown's statements to be something that is, in Mehta's eyes, more useful:

Here’s what Ron Brown could’ve said to the teams — and the crowd of over 100,000 — that would’ve made a real difference — instead of the worthless tripe that came out instead:

We’ve been through a lot this past week, but it’s nothing compared to what Jerry Sandusky’s victims have been through. We can never let something like this happen again.
If any of you ever sees abuse taking place — on the field, off the field, after you graduate — it doesn’t matter who the abuser is, go to the police immediately.
If you’re ever the victim of such abuse, please tell someone you trust what happened. It doesn’t matter what you think about the person who did it to you, and no one will ever think less of you for turning them in.
If you had nothing to do with the situation but you still want to help, well, we need more people like you. Please encourage your fans, friends, and family members to make a donation to a child abuse prevention organization.
That will do more for these children that our god ever can.

That would’ve taken real courage to say, so I’m not surprised we didn’t hear anything even remotely resembling that before the game.

I suppose it would have taken real courage to say, but only because of the last line-- and that line should be left out. Everything else is not particularly courageous, but it is certainly important. It's what people need to hear and know, valuable information. It doesn't exactly take the place of what Brown said, though, because it's not ceremonial. It doesn't address the communal mood, the event that is about to take place. It's a comment that should be made in addition to something else, and here's the important thing...that "something else" should not be a prayer. This is something overlooked in Sean O'Neil's essay concerning what he calls "muscular Christianity":

John Sandusky is an older man who used his prestige and power to abuse boys. Perhaps, then, Brown’s prayer about a redemptive display of masculinity merely reinforces a truism: that decent men would never abuse anyone. Since lines were transgressed in obviously horrific ways perhaps the boundaries of decency need to be reinforced in just as obvious a fashion. This still raises other questions, though: Who gets to re-draw these borders at such a sensitive time of (national) crisis? Also, what will young boys learn about gender from the dominant religious portrayals of manhood in muscular Christianity?

Muscular Christianity refers to the wedding of traditional conceptions of masculinity—such as bravery, chivalry, and athleticism—with evangelical Christian emphases on personal conversion and biblical devotion. Tim Tebow is perhaps the quintessential muscular Christian, combining religious and athletic vigor on the most visible athletic platform in the country: the National Football League.

Muscular Christianity is also developed in more pedestrian venues, on college campuses among groups such as the Fellowship for Christian Athletes. Evangelicals espousing some form of muscular Christianity (not a term that most would use) tend to interpret the Bible conservatively—especially with regards to sexual norms. Gay sex among consenting adults, for example, is usually labeled sinful in such evangelical contexts. There are few if any progressive religious voices in these settings. . .

If the only religious voices heard on the fields are the most conservative on issues of human sexuality, there may be few opportunities for athletes to combine vigorous athleticism, strong religious commitment, and fidelity to LGBT identities in the same breath.

Hoo boy. If you know me, you know what will be the sticking points here: 1) "traditional conceptions of masculinity" and 2) "religious voices heard on the fields." Bin them both, please.

Why? Let's start with the former. I hate to point out the obvious, but "LGBT identities" often do not conform to "traditional concepts of masculinity." Nor is there any reason why they should, considering that "traditionally masculine" people are often outright phobic or hateful of those who are non-traditional. Just as much or more than being brave, chivalrous (ugh) or athletic, traditional masculinity entails being straight. And so far as I can tell, there is nothing about being non-straight, non-traditionally masculine, that inhibits one's athleticism. So maybe when it comes to football or any other sport, it would be better to call a spade a spade and emphasize that. Those attributes of character that are desirable to have also-- bravery, stalwartness, reliability, foresight, cunning, and so on-- are by no means exclusive to the masculine. Especially not the traditional kind.

(I will also mention, though I hope it's not necessary, the significance of focusing on how to tell/show young boys what it means to be a (traditional) man in the wake of scandal surrounding child rape. Just as with the scandals within the Catholic Church, there are plenty-- perhaps Asst. Coach Brown is one of them-- who interpret such an act as part and parcel of homosexuality. As something that gays just do, or that just gays do. This bigoted belief has no place on the football field or anywhere else.

Let it be emphasized: a decent person would not abuse anyone. Indecent people come in all sorts of gender and sexual configurations.)

As for religious voices on that field...why do we need those? Even disregarding the question of whether it constitutes a church/state violation to have a coach for a public university's football team to deliver a prayer before a game, O'Neil's grievance above illustrates precisely the problem with having a religious invocation in the first place-- it creates a debate about whether it's the right religion. Whose beliefs should prevail. Because for everyone who doesn't worship Jesus and/or doesn't appreciate the treatment of Jesus in the prayer given, the ritual becomes a period of discomfort rather than bolstering. And for many of those to whom the words about Jesus ring pure and true, any other religious message will seem either diluted or outright blasphemous. By all means, don't prevent the players from practicing their faith as they see fit. But leading everyone in a massive group prayer such as this seems designed to be unnecessarily divisive and yet squelch any minority views.

I can't help but wonder how many of those players kneeling around Assistant Coach Ron Brown feel resentful, silly, or confused. How many wish that a message acknowledging the situation but encouraging them to play a good game could be delivered without being wrapped in platitudes about what it means to be a real man and a real believer. How many of that group would never breathe a word about such sentiments, for fear that they would be ridiculed, hated, maybe even attacked by others.

How sad that is. And how completely unnecessary.

Pareidolia of the day: Cliff's note

2011-11-15T13:31:00.001-06:00

This time on a cliff in Ireland, by a pilot called (appropriately) Sandra Clifford:

Clifford, a pilot fron San Francisco, spotted the figure recently while visiting the famous Cliffs of Moher in County Clare with her friend, Fiona Fay.

The two saw what Clifford thought looked like the image of Jesus on the side of one of the cliffs and she immediately snapped a photo on her digital camera.

"I definitely felt a divine presence," Clifford told HuffPost Weird News. "To me, it was definitely a face, but I realize some people may interpret it differently."

Clifford feels her training as a pilot has honed her vision and also taught her to be skeptical about what she sees, which is why she asked the folks around her their opinions of the cliffside Christ.

Clifford proceeded to ask a group of German men if they could see the outline, according to IrishCentral.com, and after looking at it closely, she says they too nodded their heads in agreement, and began taking photos.

"I am glad I asked strangers about what they saw," she told HuffPost Weird News. "I hope they come forward with their pictures as well."

This is interesting to me because how Clifford apparently defines skepticism: confirming that you are not the only person who interprets a thing you saw in a certain way. "I think I saw a face....did you see a face? Then it must have been a face!" Which, being an interpretation dependent on perception, is exactly like saying "I think the cannelloni at this restaurant is good...do you think it's good? Then it must be good!"

The fact that some Germans agreed with her and might "come forward" with their pictures (doesn't it sound like a criminal investigation?) provides corroborating evidence for the assertion "There are some rocks on a cliff in Ireland that look like a face." It could not, however, provide any evidence at all for the assertion "This image indicates a divine presence," Clifford's feelings notwithstanding. I do wish she had asked the Germans if they also felt themselves to be in the presence of the divine, but their answer would not have affected the truth of her statement either way. The face in the rocks might actually have been that of Odin. Or Mohammad. Or Santa Claus. Or no one at all. It might be-- and very likely is-- simply an image that formed in the rocks naturally through erosion, with no intent by anyone to convey an impression of anything face-like. Cool, certainly, but not necessarily divine.

Most of us probably recall staring up at the sky as children, trying to identify shapes in the clouds. For some reason when we become adults, we tend to forget (if we ever realized in the first place) that the perception of the shapes comes from us, and not something inherent about the clouds themselves. Or the wood grain in a door, the gravel on a road, or the rocks in a cliff. Making patterns out of randomness is what humans do, and we're very very good at it.

My favorite quote right now

2011-11-14T16:57:00.000-06:00

TheTweetofGod is the Twitter account of David Javerbaum, author of The Last Testament: A Memoir By God. I follow it because somebody retweeted something hilarious he said one day and I decided that my day could do with some more ongoing hilarity. But he also makes some interesting observations, such as the one above. It seems especially relevant today, in light of this bit from a GQ interview with Herman Cain that everyone seems to be talking about:

Chris Heath: You've said that you find it hard to be politically correct. Why do you find it hard?

Herman Cain: When you learn how to be politically correct, you sound like all of the other politicians. People like my directness and my bluntness. What happens when you become so worried about being politically correct, you find yourself not saying anything. Because you're trying to offend the least number of people. I'm trying to attract the greatest number of people. Different strategy.

Does this count as "bragging"? I'd say so. Because Cain is contrasting himself positively to "all of the other politicians" who, presumably, are dishonest because they're trying not to offend people. Whereas Cain is blunt and direct-- he gives it to you straight, and people like that.

But people also like not being offended, don't they? It sure seems that way. So are politicians who are politically correct mistaken about what will offend people? Or are they aware of what will offend people, but avoiding offending people requires dishonesty so it's better to be direct and blunt?

The answer that most people who pride themselves on not being politically correct would give is: yes. That is precisely what they think. Because every time they are direct and honest, somebody gets offended. And it couldn't be the case that what they're saying is legitimately offensive, so it must be that they're simply politically incorrect. This is how "politically incorrect" as a label of pride has come to be a code word for "asshole." It rests on the assumption that all attempts to avoid offending people are based in dishonesty. That if everybody were honest, everybody would say things that are commonly considered offensive. A person who proclaims that he or she is politically incorrect, "just telling it like it is," is in fact doing so because he/she assumes we're all assholes too...it's just that the rest of us insist on hiding it.

Political incorrectness that isn't legitimately offensive usually takes the form of comedy. Making jokes out of things that would otherwise be considered horrible to say is an art form, and one of the things that makes a comedian excel in this is making it obvious that he or she doesn't mean it. If your audience leaves a performance thinking that you are actually a bigot, they probably won't be your audience again-- unless, of course, they're bigots themselves. I'm sure there are actual racists and homophobes who find Lisa Lampanelli funny, because they enjoy her jokes on a very base, literal, let's just call it "moron" level of comedy comprehension and don't understand that she's actually making fun of them.

Non-comedic political incorrectness that is not legitimately offensive also exists. It must, if illegitimate offense can exist. It will always be tricky to clarify what should count as such and what shouldn't, but it's important to do so in order to avoid allowing people like Cain to claim that everything they say falls into that category. Whatever you might think about the ethics of using the word "niggardly," for example, it shouldn't be placed in the same category as a statement of belief such as branding Muslims in general as terrorists or declaring that a pizza with lots of vegetables on it is a "sissy pizza." I have to use that example because it's from the same interview with Cain quoted above, and it seems to be what people are talking about today. Advocate.com notes:

In an interview with GQ, Cain decries any adherence to political correctness and then uses a term that will probably offend. . .
Over a pizza lunch, Cain offered his take on what makes a "manly" pizza. The use of sausage was high on his list. But vegetables were "sissy" pizza.
"I'm very particular about the pizza that I eat," he explained, saying men want a harmony of "abundance" and "taste."
"What can you tell about a man by the type of pizza that he likes?" asked reporter Chris Heath.
"The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe the more manly he is," Cain declared. "Because the more manly man is not afraid of abundance," he added with a laugh.
"A manly man don't want it piled high with vegetables! He would call that a sissy pizza," Cain said.

Yes, we are talking about a presidential candidate with the sensibilities of a twelve year old boy.* Talking this way isn't just "politically incorrect"; it's offensive and frankly stupid. It is, to return to our initial quote, as sign that the speaker is also dozens of other kinds of incorrect. It is not a state of being of which a person should be proud, nor one for which he deserves respect and admiration except by others who are equally incorrect. Lisa Lampanelli is cleverer, funnier, and less offensive. Maybe she should run for president.

* Apologies to all of the bright, mature twelve year old boys out there who know better and would never say such things.

LGBT news today

2011-11-07T13:21:00.002-06:00

1. Lesbians sent to "forced confinement" clinics in Equador are being tortured. Change.org has a petition to the Ecuadorian Minister of Health to stop the practice.

2. The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality's (NARTH) annual conference this weekend will feature a speaker advocating for the imprisonment of gays around the world.

3. The Family Research Council is apoplectic about Conan O'Brien getting a mail-order ordination and presiding over the same-sex marriage of one of his staff.

Pareidolia of the day: Face of foreboding

2011-11-06T19:23:00.003-06:00

Here's an interesting one: a face in a testicular tumor.

Photo: Chronicle of Higher Education

The image of the man's face, seemingly in some distress, was sent to Urology, the International Society of Urology's official journal, and was published in the journal's September volume.

G. Gregory Roberts and Naji J. Touma, from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, had conducted the ultrasound to examine an unusual mass in the testicle of a 45-year-old patient.

Writing in the journal, they said: "The residents and staff alike were amazed to see the outline of a man’s face staring up out of the image, his mouth agape as if the face seen on the ultrasound scan itself was also experiencing severe epididymo-orchitis,” wrote the authors, referring to an inflammatory condition.

The article notes that no religious significance was attached to the image, as is often the case when faces appear pretty much anywhere else-- doors, underpasses, grilled cheese sandwiches, and so on. I can't help but wonder whether the reason for that might be the unfortunate location of this appearance. What person would want to believe that a higher power deliberately placed the image of a face on something like a tumor? Especially a face with....well, an expression like that?