Julianne Hing: Raquel Nelson and the Aggressive Prosecutions of Black Mothers. I'm not even going to excerpt it; it really just needs to be read in full.
[H/T to @GarlandGrey.]
Showing posts with label Today in Misogyny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Today in Misogyny. Show all posts
Why, Tim Gunn, Why?
[Trigger warning for transmisogyny, gender policing, body policing.]
Fucking hell:
(Yes, expecting Hillary Clinton to give a fuck about "sending a message about American fashion" while meeting with foreign dignitaries is outrageous, or the word has lost all meaning.)
I could spend the rest of the day debunking the heaping shitloads of garbage embedded within Gunn's and Lopez's exchange (of which there is video at the link, if you're inclined to protract the agony), but I wouldn't say anything I haven't said a thousand times before. Fuck it.
I will instead just note that when a woman stands up and says, "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all," and then says, fifteen years later, "Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights," thus allying herself with a ginormous swath of the fashion industry in a fight for recognition of our basic personhood, anyone who gives a flying flunderton if she wears a goddamn potato sack for the rest of her days, no less sneers at her cankles in a fit of misogynistic and objectifying and dehumanizing pique, is an asshole of epic proportions.
And, seriously, if you look at this AP photo of Clinton with other foreign ministers and officials at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bali last Saturday—
—and its most important aspect to you is how her suit fits, you have lost the plot.
Fucking hell:
Apparently, it never gets old to mock Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "cankles" and pantsuits, at least if you're Tim Gunn and George Lopez, who took the sexist trash-talking to the next level on Lopez's show last night.1. That is not in the job description of the Secretary of State. 2. This is the exact reason why it's bullshit when ostensibly progressive publications lay into female candidates for spending money on their appearance: The expectations on women in the public sphere are outrageous.
...After paying lip service to Clinton's actual accomplishments, Gunn demanded, "Why must she dress that way? I think she's confused about her gender!" He added, "No, I'm really serious, she wears pantsuits that are unflattering." Then it went on to "cankles."
Gunn finished, "I have great respect for her intellect and her tenacity and for what she does for our country in her governmental role. I just wish she could send a stronger message about American fashion."
(Yes, expecting Hillary Clinton to give a fuck about "sending a message about American fashion" while meeting with foreign dignitaries is outrageous, or the word has lost all meaning.)
I could spend the rest of the day debunking the heaping shitloads of garbage embedded within Gunn's and Lopez's exchange (of which there is video at the link, if you're inclined to protract the agony), but I wouldn't say anything I haven't said a thousand times before. Fuck it.
I will instead just note that when a woman stands up and says, "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all," and then says, fifteen years later, "Human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights," thus allying herself with a ginormous swath of the fashion industry in a fight for recognition of our basic personhood, anyone who gives a flying flunderton if she wears a goddamn potato sack for the rest of her days, no less sneers at her cankles in a fit of misogynistic and objectifying and dehumanizing pique, is an asshole of epic proportions.
And, seriously, if you look at this AP photo of Clinton with other foreign ministers and officials at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bali last Saturday—
—and its most important aspect to you is how her suit fits, you have lost the plot.
The Global Echo of Violent Misogyny
by David Futrelle
[Trigger warning for violence, terrorism, eliminationism, misogyny, racism, Islamophobia.]
We all know that Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed dozens of people in attacks last Friday, was motivated by a toxic m̩lange of far-right ideology largely revolving around his intense hatred of Islam. The 1500-page "manifesto" he posted to the internet Рa grab-bag of his own writing and material cut and pasted from assorted right-wing sites and even the Unabomber's manifesto Рcrackles with denunciations of Muslims, "Marxists" and the assorted other bogeymen that haunt right-wing dreams.
But what has yet to be fully appreciated is the degree to which he was also motivated by a deep hatred of women.
I've spent much of the past year seeking out and exposing (and often simply mocking) online misogyny for my blog Man Boobz. I find much of it in what some have taken to calling the "manosphere" – a loose collection of interlinked sites devoted to Men's Rights Activism, pickup artistry, and a strange separatist movement of sorts called Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). The overwhelming majority of these sites – the most popular of which include The Spearhead, A Voice for Men, In Mala Fide and MGTOWforums.com (to which I won't be providing direct links, but they're easy enough to find, if you're so inclined)– are steeped in misogyny (and in some cases racism). I've become very familiar with their standard misogynist "arguments" and rhetorical tropes.
After a blog reader alerted me to the misogyny in Breivik's manifesto, I read through those sections of the sprawling work that dealt specifically with feminism. I was struck again and again by how utterly familiar it all sounded. Much of it could have been taken word-for-word from the manosphere blogs I read every day. (Not to mention from some of the misogynist trolls who regularly comment on my site.) The ideology is the same, the language is the same, even the specific obsessions are the same – from no-fault divorce to the evils of "Sex and the City."
Here's one typical passage, which appears to have been written by Breivik himself:
Large chunks of the manifesto consist of cut-and-pasted blog posts from an anonymous far-right Norwegian blogger known as Fjordman. (See my post here for an extensive number of quotes from Fjordman that Breivik included in his manifesto.) Like Breivik's own writings, many of Fjordman's writings could be lifted virtually word for word from "manosphere" blogs.
One internet prankster conducted a little experiment that proved pretty clearly just how unexceptional this sort of rhetoric is in the manosphere, posting an assortment of misogynist quotes from Breivik's manifesto (all of them taken originally from Fjordman) to Reddit's Men's Rights forum – without identifying them as being from Breivik.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the blatant misogyny, the post initially received numerous upvotes and some positive comments ("Nice post man") from the regulars. Once it was revealed that the quotes had come from Breivik's manifesto, the downvotes and critical comments began to stack up. (I wrote about the incident here.)
But Reddit's Men's Rights subreddit is actually one of the most moderate and least misogynistic Men's Rights hangout online. Others in the manosphere have stepped up to defend Breivik's manifesto (if not his actions) plainly and explicitly, in full knowledge of just whose ideas they are endorsing.
On In Mala Fide, blogger Ferdinand Bardamu praises Breivik's "lucidity," and blames his murderous actions on the evils of a too-liberal society:
Meanwhile, Chuck of Gucci Little Piggy offers what appears to be a somewhat more restrained, if ultimately more puzzling, defense of Breivik's manifesto – or at least that portion of the manifesto that Breivik borrowed from the writings of far-right blogger Fjordman.
After first complaining, incorrectly, that feminists are "try[ing] to blame Breivik on MRAs" (he cites me and Hugo Schwyzer as examples), Chuck goes on to endorse Breivik's (and Fjordman's) notion that feminism "grease[s]the wheels to allow Islam into his country," as Chuck summarizes the argument. The rest of Chuck's post elaborates on, and endorses, Breivik's/Fjordman's theories, arguing that feminism's "emasculation of Western men has taken the organic policing mechanism out of the hands of men in society" and thus rendered Western society helpless before the Islamic cultural invaders. (More on Bardamu and Gucci Little Piggy's arguments here.)
But the strangest response I've seen so far to the massacre in Norway comes from Sofiastry, an antifeminist blog that seems to be broadly sympathetic to the "alt" (that is, the "intellectually" racist) right. Apparently taking her cue from Bardamu, Sofia offers an appreciation of sorts for Breivik's repellant manifesto:
And then it just gets, well, weird:
I can't speak for every feminist, but for me, it's more the murdering, and the misogyny, and the racism. But mostly the murdering. (For more on Sofia, see here.)
Despite the many undeniable similarities between Breivik's repellent misogyny and misogynist beliefs that are widespread in the "manosphere," some MRAs profess to be shocked –shocked! – that anyone would connect the dots. MRA bloviator Bernard Chapin, for example, responded to my first piece on Breivik with an angry, incoherent ten minute YouTube diatribe expressing his outrage that I would possibly suggest any connection between MRA thought and a "psychopath" like Breivik. It's a classic case of someone protesting too much. The connections are clear to anyone willing to see them.
No, Breivik is not an MRA. No, he didn't take his marching orders from The Spearhead or In Mala Fide. But he is steeped in the same kind of hatred that is prevalent on those sites, and many of his repugnant beliefs about feminism and women in general are virtually identical to beliefs widespread in the misogynistic manosphere – a fact that a few in the manosphere are already willing to acknowledge out loud, as we saw above.
No, not every misogynist is going to pick up a gun. But ideas do have consequences. Vile, hateful ideas have vile, hateful consequences.
PS: For more on Breivik's misogyny, see Michelle Goldberg's Norway Killer's Hatred of Women in TheDailyBeast.
[Trigger warning for violence, terrorism, eliminationism, misogyny, racism, Islamophobia.]
We all know that Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed dozens of people in attacks last Friday, was motivated by a toxic m̩lange of far-right ideology largely revolving around his intense hatred of Islam. The 1500-page "manifesto" he posted to the internet Рa grab-bag of his own writing and material cut and pasted from assorted right-wing sites and even the Unabomber's manifesto Рcrackles with denunciations of Muslims, "Marxists" and the assorted other bogeymen that haunt right-wing dreams.
But what has yet to be fully appreciated is the degree to which he was also motivated by a deep hatred of women.
I've spent much of the past year seeking out and exposing (and often simply mocking) online misogyny for my blog Man Boobz. I find much of it in what some have taken to calling the "manosphere" – a loose collection of interlinked sites devoted to Men's Rights Activism, pickup artistry, and a strange separatist movement of sorts called Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). The overwhelming majority of these sites – the most popular of which include The Spearhead, A Voice for Men, In Mala Fide and MGTOWforums.com (to which I won't be providing direct links, but they're easy enough to find, if you're so inclined)– are steeped in misogyny (and in some cases racism). I've become very familiar with their standard misogynist "arguments" and rhetorical tropes.
After a blog reader alerted me to the misogyny in Breivik's manifesto, I read through those sections of the sprawling work that dealt specifically with feminism. I was struck again and again by how utterly familiar it all sounded. Much of it could have been taken word-for-word from the manosphere blogs I read every day. (Not to mention from some of the misogynist trolls who regularly comment on my site.) The ideology is the same, the language is the same, even the specific obsessions are the same – from no-fault divorce to the evils of "Sex and the City."
Here's one typical passage, which appears to have been written by Breivik himself:
It's the destructive and suicidal "Sex and the City" lifestyle (modern feminism, sexual revolution) which we are taught to revere as the truth. In that setting, men are not men anymore, but metro sexual and emotional beings that are there to serve the purpose as a never-criticising soul mate to the new age feminist woman goddess. The perfect matriarchy has now been fulfilled …Breivik goes on to rant about STDs and no-fault divorce, before moving on to another favorite obsession of manosphere misogynists, the supposed sexual "capital" of manipulative women:
Isolated, "sex and the city lifestyle" is relatively harmless, but if you glorify it and ram it down the throat of mainstream society like we see today it becomes a lethal and destructive societal force as we are witnessing which eventually leads to a complete breakdown of moral/ethics, the nuclear family model and a sustainable fertility rate which again is leading us to the extinction of Europeans.
Females have a significantly higher proportion of erotic capital than males due to biological differences (men have significantly more prevalent sexual urges than females and are thus easily manipulated). The female manipulation of males has been institutionalised during the last decades and is a partial cause of the feminisation of men in Europe. This highly underestimated factor has contributed to the creation and rise of the matriarchal systems which are now dominating Western European countries.Obsessed with the purported danger that Islam will outbreed the West, Breivik offers an assortment of creepy solutions to increase the fertility of Western whites. (It's not altogether clear to me if these are all his own views, but they certainly are consistent with what he says elsewhere in the manifesto.) After suggesting limiting contraception and banning abortion, Breivik offers this idea:
Discourage women in general to strive for full time careers. This will involve certain sexist and discriminating policies but should increase the fertility rate by up to 0,1-0,2 points.That last "side effect" does not seem to be much of a problem for Breivik.
Women should not be encouraged by society/media to take anything above a bachelor's degree but should not be prevented from taking a master or PhD. Males on the other hand should obviously continue to be encouraged to take higher education – bachelor, master and PhD. …
Womens "new role" should be actively illustrated and glorified through series, movies and commercials. …
The end result for implementing the above reforms would be an increase in the fertility rate up from 1,5 to approximately 2,1-2,4 which would be sustainable.
However, this will also involve significant restrictions in women's rights and media rights.
Large chunks of the manifesto consist of cut-and-pasted blog posts from an anonymous far-right Norwegian blogger known as Fjordman. (See my post here for an extensive number of quotes from Fjordman that Breivik included in his manifesto.) Like Breivik's own writings, many of Fjordman's writings could be lifted virtually word for word from "manosphere" blogs.
One internet prankster conducted a little experiment that proved pretty clearly just how unexceptional this sort of rhetoric is in the manosphere, posting an assortment of misogynist quotes from Breivik's manifesto (all of them taken originally from Fjordman) to Reddit's Men's Rights forum – without identifying them as being from Breivik.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the blatant misogyny, the post initially received numerous upvotes and some positive comments ("Nice post man") from the regulars. Once it was revealed that the quotes had come from Breivik's manifesto, the downvotes and critical comments began to stack up. (I wrote about the incident here.)
But Reddit's Men's Rights subreddit is actually one of the most moderate and least misogynistic Men's Rights hangout online. Others in the manosphere have stepped up to defend Breivik's manifesto (if not his actions) plainly and explicitly, in full knowledge of just whose ideas they are endorsing.
On In Mala Fide, blogger Ferdinand Bardamu praises Breivik's "lucidity," and blames his murderous actions on the evils of a too-liberal society:
[A]nother madman with a sensible manifesto. Another completely rational, intelligent man driven to murderous insanity. And once again, society has zero introspection in regards to its profound ability to turn thoughtful men into lunatic butchers.He's not being sarcastic here. He continues:
That makes HOW many rage killers in the past five years alone? And not just transparent headcases like Jared Loughner or George Sodini, but ordinary men like Pekka-Eric Auvinen or Joe Stack who simply weren't going to take it anymore. No one bothers to ask WHY all these men suddenly decide to pick up a gun and start shooting people – they're all written off as crazies. Or the rage killings are blamed on overly permissive gun laws …That final reference to "ethnic self-hatred" seems to be Bardamu's euphemistic way of complaining that not enough white people are white supremacists.
Here's an idea – sick societies produce sick individuals who do sick things. Anders Breivin [sic] murdered nearly a hundred teens (not children, TEENS – they were at a summer camp for young adults) and must pay the price, but the blood of those teens is ultimately on the hands of the society that spat him forth. He is the bastard son of a masochistic, degenerate, rootless world that pisses on its traditions and heritage to elevate perversity, mindless consumerism and ethnic self-hatred to the highest of virtues.
Meanwhile, Chuck of Gucci Little Piggy offers what appears to be a somewhat more restrained, if ultimately more puzzling, defense of Breivik's manifesto – or at least that portion of the manifesto that Breivik borrowed from the writings of far-right blogger Fjordman.
After first complaining, incorrectly, that feminists are "try[ing] to blame Breivik on MRAs" (he cites me and Hugo Schwyzer as examples), Chuck goes on to endorse Breivik's (and Fjordman's) notion that feminism "grease[s]the wheels to allow Islam into his country," as Chuck summarizes the argument. The rest of Chuck's post elaborates on, and endorses, Breivik's/Fjordman's theories, arguing that feminism's "emasculation of Western men has taken the organic policing mechanism out of the hands of men in society" and thus rendered Western society helpless before the Islamic cultural invaders. (More on Bardamu and Gucci Little Piggy's arguments here.)
But the strangest response I've seen so far to the massacre in Norway comes from Sofiastry, an antifeminist blog that seems to be broadly sympathetic to the "alt" (that is, the "intellectually" racist) right. Apparently taking her cue from Bardamu, Sofia offers an appreciation of sorts for Breivik's repellant manifesto:
[A]lthough his actions were cruel beyond belief, and committed by a delusional, psychopath driven by his delusions of political grandeur, there is lucidity and sense in much of what he writes. He never seemed to explicitly advocated [sic] for a genocide of Muslims within Europe, but superficially claimed that he just wanted to sustain European culture.So, let's weigh Breivik's pros and cons here. CON: He murdered dozens of people in cold blood, motivated by a hateful ideology. PRO: He didn't explicitly call for actual genocide?
And then it just gets, well, weird:
I feel that Breivik is being tried for more than his cruelty within the feminist community. The fact that he belongs to the privileged group of the white male makes him hate-worthy along with every other privileged white male who might sympathize with his ideology, even if they don't happen to be psychotic. Breivik exemplifies White Men, even though Osama Bin Laden to the very same liberal ideologues did not represent Every Muslim.Yep, that's right. She thinks we hate Breivik … because he's a white dude.
It's another symptom of our culture that feels it is OK to hold white men to higher standards of political correctness, self-flagellation and martyrdom whilst simultaneously relentlessly berating and mocking them on a cultural level.
I can't speak for every feminist, but for me, it's more the murdering, and the misogyny, and the racism. But mostly the murdering. (For more on Sofia, see here.)
Despite the many undeniable similarities between Breivik's repellent misogyny and misogynist beliefs that are widespread in the "manosphere," some MRAs profess to be shocked –shocked! – that anyone would connect the dots. MRA bloviator Bernard Chapin, for example, responded to my first piece on Breivik with an angry, incoherent ten minute YouTube diatribe expressing his outrage that I would possibly suggest any connection between MRA thought and a "psychopath" like Breivik. It's a classic case of someone protesting too much. The connections are clear to anyone willing to see them.
No, Breivik is not an MRA. No, he didn't take his marching orders from The Spearhead or In Mala Fide. But he is steeped in the same kind of hatred that is prevalent on those sites, and many of his repugnant beliefs about feminism and women in general are virtually identical to beliefs widespread in the misogynistic manosphere – a fact that a few in the manosphere are already willing to acknowledge out loud, as we saw above.
No, not every misogynist is going to pick up a gun. But ideas do have consequences. Vile, hateful ideas have vile, hateful consequences.
PS: For more on Breivik's misogyny, see Michelle Goldberg's Norway Killer's Hatred of Women in TheDailyBeast.
OFFS
Michele Bachmann's $4,700 Hair and Makeup Bill: "Considering Rep. Michele Bachmann's crusade against government spending and her demand that America live within its means, you wouldn't figure her for a conspicuous spender. But after launching her bid for the White House, Bachmann has broken with her usual frugality and shelled out some serious cash on a stylist in what could be seen as her own John-Edwards'-$400-haircut moment. According to Bachmann's latest campaign finance filings, her campaign spent nearly $4,700 on hair and makeup in the weeks after she entered the presidential race on June 13."
Seriously, Mother Jones?
Do we really have to do this EVERY FUCKING ELECTION? Or just the elections in which women are candidates?
Ahem.
$5,000 is an eminently reasonable amount of money for a woman running for national office to spend on a professional makeover. That's the same amount of money spent on just the clothes on an episode of What Not to Wear.
Do I think it's bullshit that Michele Bachmann, or any female candidate, should have to spend five grand in order to be considered presentable by the unfathomably rigid standards of our youth-, fashion-, and appearance-obsessed culture? Yes. Is that a commentary on Michele Bachmann? No.
That's a commentary on what a profoundly misogynist and body-policing garbage culture it is in which we live.
Holding an individual woman responsible for her conformance to standards created by a systemic oppression is bullshit. And that is not how feminism works.
STOP MAKING ME DEFEND MICHELE BACHMANN.
Seriously, Mother Jones?
Do we really have to do this EVERY FUCKING ELECTION? Or just the elections in which women are candidates?
Ahem.
$5,000 is an eminently reasonable amount of money for a woman running for national office to spend on a professional makeover. That's the same amount of money spent on just the clothes on an episode of What Not to Wear.
Do I think it's bullshit that Michele Bachmann, or any female candidate, should have to spend five grand in order to be considered presentable by the unfathomably rigid standards of our youth-, fashion-, and appearance-obsessed culture? Yes. Is that a commentary on Michele Bachmann? No.
That's a commentary on what a profoundly misogynist and body-policing garbage culture it is in which we live.
Holding an individual woman responsible for her conformance to standards created by a systemic oppression is bullshit. And that is not how feminism works.
STOP MAKING ME DEFEND MICHELE BACHMANN.
Film Corner!
Below, the trailer for the new Justin Timberlake vehicle, In Time, which, as you will soon discover, is a very clever pun. (No it's not. Clever, I mean. It is definitely a pun.) The writer and director of this movie is Andrew Niccol, who wrote and directed some films I liked very much (Gattaca; The Truman Show) but also came up with the story for The Terminal, that garbage film in which Tom Hanks plays a Latka Gravas who lives at the airport, so it could really go either way.
Anyhoo, IMDb informs me that In Time is about a future in which "people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life." Meanwhile, the trailer informs me it is also about a future in which women retain the timeless choice between dude prop or dude trophy.
Once again, I will observe the bitter hilarity of a mind that can conceive of a concept in which a digital life clock counts down on every person's arm, but can't conceive of a concept in which women, and men of color, aren't marginalized supporting cast for a graduate of the Mickey Mouse Club.
To the trailer!
Text Onscreen: "In the late 21st Century, time has replaced money as the unit of currency." ("Time is money!"—My Dad, telling me to get busy dusting the living room if I want my $2 allowance, 1984.) More Text Onscreen: "At 25 years old, aging stops, and each person is given one more year to live." ("What is this shit?"—My Dad, if and when he sees this trailer, 2011.) More Text Onscreen: "Unless you replenish your clock, you die." I originally read this as "Unless you replenish your COCK," which I'm pretty sure is a concept developed by S. Freud.
Cue the action thriller music. Justin Timberlake's clock is ticking down. He wants more time. He is OUTRAGED that it costs four minutes for a cup of coffee when yesterday it cost three. He doesn't get paid as much time at work as he expected; he met the quota but OH SHIT the quota has gone up since last week.
He and his friend Roseanne Conner's Son-in-Law meet a dude at a bar who has a CENTURY in his clock. Everyone oohs and ahhs at the guy with the huge clock. Some other asshole wants the guy's clock. Justin Timberlake helps the white dude with the huge clock escape the white dude with the smaller clock through the bathroom window. No, I am not making this up.
They go back to the dude with the huge clock's apartment, where he tells Justin Timberlake that he is 105 years old, but he's had enough. He exposits some stuff about how there wouldn't be room for everyone if everyone had a clock as big as his: "How else could there be men with a million years, while most live day-to-day?"
I realize the clock is supposed to be a metaphor for money/power/influence, but the absence of women in this trailer, combined with the fact that the acquisition and exhibition of wealth in a patriarchal system is itself often a metaphorical dick-measuring contest, is severely undermining my appreciation of the profound existential and justice commentary to which I'm supposed to be paying attention, because all I can think is that this film should not have been called In Time but In My Pants.
Anyway!
Justin Timberlake tells the dude with the huge clock that he "sure as hell wouldn't waste it" if he had a huge clock, so, after Justin Timberlake falls asleep, the dude gives his huge clock to him. Justin Timberlake wakes up to find himself with a huge clock, and a message scrawled in the grime on the window of the loft: "Don't waste my time." MORE PUNS PLEASE!
Blah blah blah now people, namely Cillian Murphy, are after Justin Timberlake's huge clock. JT is meanwhile using his new huge clock to get access to fancy limos and dress-up parties in "New Greenwich." I think he sleeps with a call girl, but only realizes it when he sees that there's less time on his huge clock…? He gets introduced to some very clock-rich white dude's mother-in-law, wife, and daughter, who all look the same age and very much alike.
Eww.
Cillian Murphy shows up to nab JT. It's not clear why, exactly, Cillian Murphy wants to get him, except, I guess, for how we're supposed to infer that the government (or WHOEVER) always wants to crush any threat to their power, but if there are truly white dudes running around with million-year clocks, is a hundred-year clock really that threatening? I'm sure all will become clear IN TIME!
Justin Timberlake punches people and gets his huge clock the heck out of there by taking lookalike daughter played by Amanda Seyfried hostage. She wants to go home, but he won't let her, because she's his insurance policy blah blah blah. This kidnapping is obviously justified because he has a feeling they'll find him guilty whether they can prove it or not. Not only am I convinced, so is she! Cue the running while holding hands and the making out!
Montagery. A collection of random but suuuuuuuuuuuper trite quotes: "If you can buy loyalty, you can buy their trail." "For you to be immortal, many must die." "No one should be immortal, if even one person has to die." "How can you live with yourself watching people die right next to you?" "You don't watch; you close your eyes." "I'm going to make them pay; I'm going to take them for everything they've got."
Ah, okay. This is a treatise on privilege and is, in fact, just a retelling of Robin Hood. JT breaks into a time-bank (lulz) and steals a bunch of time, which he and Amanda Seyfried then hand out to people. "Take the time! It's free!"
More montagery. Evil white dudes with huge clocks say things about time getting into the wrong hands and upsetting the system. To underline that point, we get a scene of a poor black mother turning time over in her hands. Oof your racist symbolism.
THANK HEAVENS THAT NICE WHITE BOY WITH THE HUGE CLOCK IS GONNA SAVE EVERYONE.
"His crime," says someone who cares in voiceover, "wasn't taking time; it was giving it away."
Okay, player.
Anyhoo, IMDb informs me that In Time is about a future in which "people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life." Meanwhile, the trailer informs me it is also about a future in which women retain the timeless choice between dude prop or dude trophy.
Once again, I will observe the bitter hilarity of a mind that can conceive of a concept in which a digital life clock counts down on every person's arm, but can't conceive of a concept in which women, and men of color, aren't marginalized supporting cast for a graduate of the Mickey Mouse Club.
To the trailer!
Text Onscreen: "In the late 21st Century, time has replaced money as the unit of currency." ("Time is money!"—My Dad, telling me to get busy dusting the living room if I want my $2 allowance, 1984.) More Text Onscreen: "At 25 years old, aging stops, and each person is given one more year to live." ("What is this shit?"—My Dad, if and when he sees this trailer, 2011.) More Text Onscreen: "Unless you replenish your clock, you die." I originally read this as "Unless you replenish your COCK," which I'm pretty sure is a concept developed by S. Freud.
Cue the action thriller music. Justin Timberlake's clock is ticking down. He wants more time. He is OUTRAGED that it costs four minutes for a cup of coffee when yesterday it cost three. He doesn't get paid as much time at work as he expected; he met the quota but OH SHIT the quota has gone up since last week.
He and his friend Roseanne Conner's Son-in-Law meet a dude at a bar who has a CENTURY in his clock. Everyone oohs and ahhs at the guy with the huge clock. Some other asshole wants the guy's clock. Justin Timberlake helps the white dude with the huge clock escape the white dude with the smaller clock through the bathroom window. No, I am not making this up.
They go back to the dude with the huge clock's apartment, where he tells Justin Timberlake that he is 105 years old, but he's had enough. He exposits some stuff about how there wouldn't be room for everyone if everyone had a clock as big as his: "How else could there be men with a million years, while most live day-to-day?"
I realize the clock is supposed to be a metaphor for money/power/influence, but the absence of women in this trailer, combined with the fact that the acquisition and exhibition of wealth in a patriarchal system is itself often a metaphorical dick-measuring contest, is severely undermining my appreciation of the profound existential and justice commentary to which I'm supposed to be paying attention, because all I can think is that this film should not have been called In Time but In My Pants.
Anyway!
Justin Timberlake tells the dude with the huge clock that he "sure as hell wouldn't waste it" if he had a huge clock, so, after Justin Timberlake falls asleep, the dude gives his huge clock to him. Justin Timberlake wakes up to find himself with a huge clock, and a message scrawled in the grime on the window of the loft: "Don't waste my time." MORE PUNS PLEASE!
Blah blah blah now people, namely Cillian Murphy, are after Justin Timberlake's huge clock. JT is meanwhile using his new huge clock to get access to fancy limos and dress-up parties in "New Greenwich." I think he sleeps with a call girl, but only realizes it when he sees that there's less time on his huge clock…? He gets introduced to some very clock-rich white dude's mother-in-law, wife, and daughter, who all look the same age and very much alike.
Eww.
Cillian Murphy shows up to nab JT. It's not clear why, exactly, Cillian Murphy wants to get him, except, I guess, for how we're supposed to infer that the government (or WHOEVER) always wants to crush any threat to their power, but if there are truly white dudes running around with million-year clocks, is a hundred-year clock really that threatening? I'm sure all will become clear IN TIME!
Justin Timberlake punches people and gets his huge clock the heck out of there by taking lookalike daughter played by Amanda Seyfried hostage. She wants to go home, but he won't let her, because she's his insurance policy blah blah blah. This kidnapping is obviously justified because he has a feeling they'll find him guilty whether they can prove it or not. Not only am I convinced, so is she! Cue the running while holding hands and the making out!
Montagery. A collection of random but suuuuuuuuuuuper trite quotes: "If you can buy loyalty, you can buy their trail." "For you to be immortal, many must die." "No one should be immortal, if even one person has to die." "How can you live with yourself watching people die right next to you?" "You don't watch; you close your eyes." "I'm going to make them pay; I'm going to take them for everything they've got."
Ah, okay. This is a treatise on privilege and is, in fact, just a retelling of Robin Hood. JT breaks into a time-bank (lulz) and steals a bunch of time, which he and Amanda Seyfried then hand out to people. "Take the time! It's free!"
More montagery. Evil white dudes with huge clocks say things about time getting into the wrong hands and upsetting the system. To underline that point, we get a scene of a poor black mother turning time over in her hands. Oof your racist symbolism.
THANK HEAVENS THAT NICE WHITE BOY WITH THE HUGE CLOCK IS GONNA SAVE EVERYONE.
"His crime," says someone who cares in voiceover, "wasn't taking time; it was giving it away."
Okay, player.
Dispatches from ComicCon
[Trigger warning for misogyny and rape culture.]
As per usual, there's been no shortage of misogyny and rape culture at ComicCon.
1. A woman dressed as Batgirl and her tween daughter dressed as Spoiler bravely challenged the lack female characters in the Justice League line and the dearth of female creators. Naturally, she received a hostile response from panelists and crowd, who don't like having their fun ruined etc.
2. At the Game of Thrones panel, actor Jason Momoa, who plays Khal Drogo (and whose rape of Daenerys Targaryen was much discussed here), said his favorite thing about working on Game of Thrones is that fantasy shows let him "rip someone's throat out and rape beautiful women."
3. At the True Blood panel, executive producer Alan Ball said
That is not a comprehensive list. Consider this a general thread to share links and discuss the various goings-on (and naturally, discussion need not be limited to sex- and gender-related oppressions).
As per usual, there's been no shortage of misogyny and rape culture at ComicCon.
1. A woman dressed as Batgirl and her tween daughter dressed as Spoiler bravely challenged the lack female characters in the Justice League line and the dearth of female creators. Naturally, she received a hostile response from panelists and crowd, who don't like having their fun ruined etc.
2. At the Game of Thrones panel, actor Jason Momoa, who plays Khal Drogo (and whose rape of Daenerys Targaryen was much discussed here), said his favorite thing about working on Game of Thrones is that fantasy shows let him "rip someone's throat out and rape beautiful women."
3. At the True Blood panel, executive producer Alan Ball said
his favorite moment of the current fourth season was the "ritualistic gang rape of Jason Stackhouse" by werepanther women.So. Fucking. Gross.
"There was actually a sense of enjoyment in that for me as well," joked Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason.
That is not a comprehensive list. Consider this a general thread to share links and discuss the various goings-on (and naturally, discussion need not be limited to sex- and gender-related oppressions).
In Which I Utterly Refuse to Credit as Ignorance What Is Manifest Dishonesty
[This started out as a comment in response to Shaker schumannhertz, and it got really long, so.]
In the comments thread of my earlier "Be Nice" piece, Shaker schumannhertz noted that zie knows" a lot of guys who [THINK they] understand the difference between the nice guy and the not-so-nice guy. The problem is: They think they're in the former category when they're in the latter." And that's a really common assertion (so I'm certainly not intending to negatively single out Shaker schumannhertz here, who just happened to be the person who left the comment this time); it's absolutely something I would have said myself once upon a time—but I wouldn't say that anymore.
In fact, I think that dismantling the idea that men can't intuit internalized prejudice against women is an important part of feminist thought.
(And I happen to know quite a few men who agree with me—men who find the notion that men lack this particular self-awareness incredibly demeaning.)
I genuinely don't believe that men don't understand the difference between "the nice guy and the not-so-nice guy." After nearly seven years of doing this, and dealing with dudes ranging from totes clueless to totally enlightened, and genuinely naive to genuinely nasty with a serious agenda, I think a man who doesn't, on some level, intuitively understand the difference between treating a woman as less than and treating her as a person, his equal, is a virtual unicorn.
It's not that I assume bad faith: It's just that my every experience, with myself and with other people, prescribes an expectation of awareness.
And then there's this: If 99% of the man who professed cluelessness in defense of their misogyny were actually just clueless, 99% of the "garsh, misogyny?!" conversations would dénouement with a grateful thank you for feminist enlightenment, instead of snarling flounces punctuated with accusations of man-hating and grievances about unwelcoming tones.
One of the rare points on which anti-feminists and I agree is that I'm not fucking special. There is nothing about me that makes me uniquely capable of intuiting the difference between my own humanizing and dehumanizing behavior toward other people. I may have the language to put that feeling into words, but I didn't need to have the language to have the feeling, to have the unarticulated knowledge of prejudice within myself.
One doesn't need to be actively trying to examine privilege to be aware of internalized bias.
I mean, hell, we've all got memories of learning about racial prejudice; we can all share stories of hearing a relative or friend or schoolmate introduce us to some piece of racial prejudice against another race (or our own).
Most of us, when we think about it, have memories of learning about sex prejudice, too. It's just that those sorts of discussions are rarer, especially in terms of men discussing the memorable events of their patriarchal indoctrination, because we take as read that men are from Mars and women are from Venus or whatever.
We use the "conventional wisdom" of intrinsic difference and unnavigable separateness to create a space in which men can tell the lie that they are unaware of their bias toward women.
And it absolutely infuriates me, because it is SUCH BULLSHIT.
When a man comes in here giving me this blinking, wide-eyed, oh-em-gee I just can't figure out how to treat women so as not to be creepy, because it's soooooo confusing, I just want to barf nine thousand times.
And if men want to get pissed at someone for my exasperation with this rubbish, then they can direct their ire at the men for whom the honesty about knowing is more important than the fraudulence of not knowing in defense of continued misogyny.
I'm just done with playing that game. I just don't have the patience for it, anymore. I refuse to indulge it, because it's horseshit. I am a human being, and I am a privileged human being, and I know how to recognize the presence of bias within myself, and so does That Guy.
All I got anymore for That Guy is this: Don't tell me you don't fucking know. Don't try to claim, with a straight fucking face, that you don't know the difference between treating a woman as an individual person and treating her as part of some ladyperson monolith whose contours are drawn in demeaning narratives by seething oppressors. Don't even feign that infuriating haplessness in which you profess to be unacquainted with the cavernous divide between treating women as your equal and treating them like garbage.
You want me to trust you're an intelligent and decent guy who believes me to be his equal for whom he has some modicum of respect? Then you can start by jettisoning the aw-shucks routine and give me the respect of truth. Tell me you do indeed know that you view women differently, treat women differently, hold women to different standards than you do men.
Then we can have an honest goddamn conversation about how to fix that.
But I'm not having one more dishonest conversation about your supposed cluelessness. Not anymore. Because we both know it's just the sad-ass anthem of the Dude Who Doesn't Want to Fix It.
To the dudes who do, I give you the gift of expecting more, which, although it may not feel that way, is an act of generosity and good faith. I am a better person than I once was because people gave me the gift of expecting more of me, of setting a higher standard and encouraging me to reach for it, of challenging me not to settle into the well-tread grooves of my socialization, of admonishing me to reject the vast and varied prejudices and myths with which I'd been indoctrinated, of urging me expect more of myself and persuading me to believe I could be the change I want to see.
Not perfection. Just more.
Perfection is an unattainable goal and an unreasonable expectation. More, on the other hand, is eminently reasonable.
And it is a kindness, extended by someone who wants to be your equal.
In the comments thread of my earlier "Be Nice" piece, Shaker schumannhertz noted that zie knows" a lot of guys who [THINK they] understand the difference between the nice guy and the not-so-nice guy. The problem is: They think they're in the former category when they're in the latter." And that's a really common assertion (so I'm certainly not intending to negatively single out Shaker schumannhertz here, who just happened to be the person who left the comment this time); it's absolutely something I would have said myself once upon a time—but I wouldn't say that anymore.
In fact, I think that dismantling the idea that men can't intuit internalized prejudice against women is an important part of feminist thought.
(And I happen to know quite a few men who agree with me—men who find the notion that men lack this particular self-awareness incredibly demeaning.)
I genuinely don't believe that men don't understand the difference between "the nice guy and the not-so-nice guy." After nearly seven years of doing this, and dealing with dudes ranging from totes clueless to totally enlightened, and genuinely naive to genuinely nasty with a serious agenda, I think a man who doesn't, on some level, intuitively understand the difference between treating a woman as less than and treating her as a person, his equal, is a virtual unicorn.
It's not that I assume bad faith: It's just that my every experience, with myself and with other people, prescribes an expectation of awareness.
And then there's this: If 99% of the man who professed cluelessness in defense of their misogyny were actually just clueless, 99% of the "garsh, misogyny?!" conversations would dénouement with a grateful thank you for feminist enlightenment, instead of snarling flounces punctuated with accusations of man-hating and grievances about unwelcoming tones.
One of the rare points on which anti-feminists and I agree is that I'm not fucking special. There is nothing about me that makes me uniquely capable of intuiting the difference between my own humanizing and dehumanizing behavior toward other people. I may have the language to put that feeling into words, but I didn't need to have the language to have the feeling, to have the unarticulated knowledge of prejudice within myself.
One doesn't need to be actively trying to examine privilege to be aware of internalized bias.
I mean, hell, we've all got memories of learning about racial prejudice; we can all share stories of hearing a relative or friend or schoolmate introduce us to some piece of racial prejudice against another race (or our own).
Most of us, when we think about it, have memories of learning about sex prejudice, too. It's just that those sorts of discussions are rarer, especially in terms of men discussing the memorable events of their patriarchal indoctrination, because we take as read that men are from Mars and women are from Venus or whatever.
We use the "conventional wisdom" of intrinsic difference and unnavigable separateness to create a space in which men can tell the lie that they are unaware of their bias toward women.
And it absolutely infuriates me, because it is SUCH BULLSHIT.
When a man comes in here giving me this blinking, wide-eyed, oh-em-gee I just can't figure out how to treat women so as not to be creepy, because it's soooooo confusing, I just want to barf nine thousand times.
And if men want to get pissed at someone for my exasperation with this rubbish, then they can direct their ire at the men for whom the honesty about knowing is more important than the fraudulence of not knowing in defense of continued misogyny.
I'm just done with playing that game. I just don't have the patience for it, anymore. I refuse to indulge it, because it's horseshit. I am a human being, and I am a privileged human being, and I know how to recognize the presence of bias within myself, and so does That Guy.
All I got anymore for That Guy is this: Don't tell me you don't fucking know. Don't try to claim, with a straight fucking face, that you don't know the difference between treating a woman as an individual person and treating her as part of some ladyperson monolith whose contours are drawn in demeaning narratives by seething oppressors. Don't even feign that infuriating haplessness in which you profess to be unacquainted with the cavernous divide between treating women as your equal and treating them like garbage.
You want me to trust you're an intelligent and decent guy who believes me to be his equal for whom he has some modicum of respect? Then you can start by jettisoning the aw-shucks routine and give me the respect of truth. Tell me you do indeed know that you view women differently, treat women differently, hold women to different standards than you do men.
Then we can have an honest goddamn conversation about how to fix that.
But I'm not having one more dishonest conversation about your supposed cluelessness. Not anymore. Because we both know it's just the sad-ass anthem of the Dude Who Doesn't Want to Fix It.
To the dudes who do, I give you the gift of expecting more, which, although it may not feel that way, is an act of generosity and good faith. I am a better person than I once was because people gave me the gift of expecting more of me, of setting a higher standard and encouraging me to reach for it, of challenging me not to settle into the well-tread grooves of my socialization, of admonishing me to reject the vast and varied prejudices and myths with which I'd been indoctrinated, of urging me expect more of myself and persuading me to believe I could be the change I want to see.
Not perfection. Just more.
Perfection is an unattainable goal and an unreasonable expectation. More, on the other hand, is eminently reasonable.
And it is a kindness, extended by someone who wants to be your equal.
Recommended Reading
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment, assault, violence, and rape culture.]
For background on "the Elevator Incident," which has precipitated all sorts of discussion about misogyny and rape culture within the atheist, skeptic, and/or scientific community/ies, go here.
First, read Jennifer Ouellette's "Is It Cold in Here?"
Then, read Zuska's "What Constitutes Blatant Sexism of the Most Egregious Sort?"
Finally, read Eric Michael Johnson's "The Science of Sexism: Primate Behavior and the Culture of Sexual Coercion." Shaker Erica passed on this last one, and she notes that the author "doesn't just make the comparison (apes use coersive sexual behavior and so do humans, surprise!) and leave it at that—he goes on to not only emphasize that 'biology is not destiny' but also to make case studies of primate societies that don't display that behavior (yay for bonobos, once again!). ... And he ends the whole thing with a call for societal change that left me embarrassingly teary-eyed at work. In particular, he stresses that, 'While specific policies that protect women from coercion and exploitation remain important, what we're ultimately after is social change'." It is a remarkable piece.
For background on "the Elevator Incident," which has precipitated all sorts of discussion about misogyny and rape culture within the atheist, skeptic, and/or scientific community/ies, go here.
First, read Jennifer Ouellette's "Is It Cold in Here?"
Then, read Zuska's "What Constitutes Blatant Sexism of the Most Egregious Sort?"
Finally, read Eric Michael Johnson's "The Science of Sexism: Primate Behavior and the Culture of Sexual Coercion." Shaker Erica passed on this last one, and she notes that the author "doesn't just make the comparison (apes use coersive sexual behavior and so do humans, surprise!) and leave it at that—he goes on to not only emphasize that 'biology is not destiny' but also to make case studies of primate societies that don't display that behavior (yay for bonobos, once again!). ... And he ends the whole thing with a call for societal change that left me embarrassingly teary-eyed at work. In particular, he stresses that, 'While specific policies that protect women from coercion and exploitation remain important, what we're ultimately after is social change'." It is a remarkable piece.
Of Course
Actual Headline: Chris Brown Cast in Romantic Comedy Based on Advice Book.
Immediately, I knew exactly which "advice book" it would be, and my intuition was soon confirmed:
Let's keep our fingers crossed there's a role for Charlie Sheen in this forthcoming cinematic masterpiece!
[Related Reading: Steve Harvey is back with more of his wisdom about men and women and relationships.]
Immediately, I knew exactly which "advice book" it would be, and my intuition was soon confirmed:
The singer-actor's rep tells Us Weekly that Brown, 22, will play a role in the upcoming comedy Think Like a Man. The highly-anticipated film is an adaptation of Steve Harvey's New York Times best-selling book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.Perfect.
Let's keep our fingers crossed there's a role for Charlie Sheen in this forthcoming cinematic masterpiece!
[Related Reading: Steve Harvey is back with more of his wisdom about men and women and relationships.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Actual Headline: Tim Pawlenty's secret weapon: his wife, Mary.
Actual Passage from the Article:
Fun Fact: Tim Pawlenty once said at a campaign event: "I'm very thankful for my red-hot smoking wife, the first lady of Minnesota."
I've heard that weaponizing a woman can make her red-hot and smoking.
Actual Passage from the Article:
Usually, Pawlenty explains away his wife's absence on the campaign trail with this quip about her parenting obligations back home in Eagan, Minn.: "I have two teenage daughters. One is 18 and one is 14. They both like boys and one of them drives."Barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrf.
The line always draws a laugh, and Pawlenty always follows up with a promise to bring Mary along next time.
Fun Fact: Tim Pawlenty once said at a campaign event: "I'm very thankful for my red-hot smoking wife, the first lady of Minnesota."
I've heard that weaponizing a woman can make her red-hot and smoking.
Assvertising
Well, more like vagvertising.
[Trigger warning for racism, misogyny, body policing, and sexual violence.]
Behold, the latest ad, "Hail to the V," from the misogynist body-policers at Summer's Eve (and, yes, I realize there are some women who find value in their products, and my contempt for Summer's Eve does not extend to their consumers; my contempt is firmly rooted in their perpetual sales pitch that all women need their products because our bodies stink):
There are so many things wrong with this ad, I hardly know where to begin, so I'll just leave you to deconstruct its every nefarious nuance in comments.
I will, however, just quickly note that the ad is, ironically, the best argument against the product: Millennia before there were products designed to make women feel ashamed about the smell of our vulvas and/or vaginas, they were still pretty popular.
[H/T to Shaker Elizabeth.]
[Trigger warning for racism, misogyny, body policing, and sexual violence.]
Behold, the latest ad, "Hail to the V," from the misogynist body-policers at Summer's Eve (and, yes, I realize there are some women who find value in their products, and my contempt for Summer's Eve does not extend to their consumers; my contempt is firmly rooted in their perpetual sales pitch that all women need their products because our bodies stink):
A woman of color in an animal skin dress holds up a baby swaddled in hide against the backdrop of the aurora borealis in a night-scape on a mountainside as "primitive" drums play. "It's the cradle of life," says a female voiceover. The music takes on a male chorus as the scene changes to a Cleopatra-like character lifting her arms into a V atop a pyramid over a cheering crowd. "It's the cradle of civilization," says the voiceover. The music takes on an action beat as the scene switches to a fight between two Asian men in a bamboo forest, as a mysterious Asian woman watches them. "Over the ages and throughout the world, men have fought for it," says the voiceover, as the scene segues to a jousting match in Merry Olde England as a princess gazes on, "battled for it, even died for it." One knight knocks the other off his horse, then raises his faceguard to look at the princess, who smiles at him. "One might say, it's the most powerful thing on Earth." The music crescendos, then immediately dies to muzak as the scene cuts to a grocery store, where a modern woman of color is standing in an aisle, holding a Summer's Eve product in her hand. "Hmm!" she says, as if it's a revelatory new product, looking at the bottle, then putting it in her cart. "So, come on, ladies," says the voiceover, now in a conversational tone. "Show it a little love!"Well, that's a real douching of history, right there. Women's vulvas/vaginas are powerful because men throughout history have fought and died for them. Yeah, somehow killing other men for the right to rape "their" women doesn't strike me as evidence of the all-powerfulness of the "V."
Cut to a screen showing the products, labeled "Hail to the V." "Cleansing wash and cloths, from Summer's Eve," says the voiceover. "Hail to the V!"
There are so many things wrong with this ad, I hardly know where to begin, so I'll just leave you to deconstruct its every nefarious nuance in comments.
I will, however, just quickly note that the ad is, ironically, the best argument against the product: Millennia before there were products designed to make women feel ashamed about the smell of our vulvas and/or vaginas, they were still pretty popular.
[H/T to Shaker Elizabeth.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
This WaPo profile [trigger warning for virulent gay hatred and misogyny] of GOP presidential wannabe Michele Bachmann (R-Etchinducing) and her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, Professional Gay-Hater, is one of the most depressing things I've ever read.
They are terrible people with miserable lives who make other people's lives a misery because of their intensely stupid and exhaustively compassionless belief system.
If they weren't such influential assholes, I'd feel sorry for them.
They are terrible people with miserable lives who make other people's lives a misery because of their intensely stupid and exhaustively compassionless belief system.
If they weren't such influential assholes, I'd feel sorry for them.
Quote of the Day
"I am a feminist, because skeptics and atheists made me one."—Rebecca Watson, continuing this discussion at her place. Please note that the post contains discussion of various aspects of the rape culture, as well as violent imagery, which may be triggering.
The Point, You Are Proving It
[Trigger warning for misogyny, rape culture, violent imagery, anti-Islamism.]
Rebecca Watson of the skeptics blog Skepchick recently posted a video in which she speaks, in part, about being on a panel in an atheist conference in Dublin during which she spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. The video, with transcript for the relevant section, is at the bottom of the post. (If the video does not automatically start playing at 2:20, skip ahead.) She then describes how the discussion continued at the hotel bar late into the night, and how a man who purported to be interested in what she was saying followed her into the hotel elevator and propositioned her. Missing the point award.
PZ Myers wrote a post in which the video was mentioned, largely making another point about naming people with whom one disagrees, but acquiescing that perhaps hitting on women and backing off when they signal disinterest possibly is not enough: "Maybe we should also recognize that applying unwanted pressure, no matter how politely phrased, is inappropriate behavior. Maybe we should recognize that when we interact with equals there are different, expected patterns of behavior that many men casually disregard when meeting with women, and it is those subtle signs that let them know what you think of them that really righteously pisses feminist women off."
I almost can't conceive of a more innocuous, virtually noncommittal ("maybe") expression of support for the idea that it's pretty gross to creepily pursue a woman who has said she is going to bed in order to invite her back to your hotel room to further discuss an idea she had introduced in a professional capacity, no less when the idea is not sexualizing women.
And yet, totally predictably, the thread erupted in a hideous gushing explosion of misogyny, anti-feminism, and rape apologia, not only proving Rebecca Watson's point, but illustrating precisely why it is that, despite being an atheist and online activist, I don't touch movement atheism with a 10-foot pole. Were it a place merely hostile to feminist women and outspoken survivors of sexual assault, well, so is the rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't passionately advocate against ignorance, only to feign it when asked to examine its privilege.
Anyway, among the many comments in the thread was one left by the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who had also sat on the panel at which Rebecca Watson spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. Given Dawkins' history of doing things like making anti-Muslim rape jokes and reckoning that a child is "arguably" better off repeatedly raped than raised religious, his comment (which Myers has confirmed is indeed the real Dawkins) is not surprising, but it is nonetheless appalling.
I love those things almost as much as I love the embedded premise that the marginalization of women is a series of unrelated injustices that exist in competition with one another for attention and concern, as opposed to a spectrum of injustices on which exists both women being creeped on in elevators by strangers and female genital cutting.
That is a silencing mechanism.
The implication is that women with relative privilege have no reason or right to "complain" as long as there are women who are experiencing something worse somewhere in the world—a truly despicable position given that it creates a justification for continued brutalization of women across the globe. Feminist scolds like Dawkins, who fancy themselves enlightened, recoil with horror at the suggestion that they support the violent oppression of women, and yet they nonetheless reference it at every opportunity they have in order to defend their lack of concern about injustices done to relatively privileged women in their own communities.
The abject suffering of the world's most vulnerable women is thus used as rhetorical weapon to silence feminists—and feminism is treated as some sort of finite resource that is meant to be kept under glass, broken only in case of a "real" and "serious" emergency, as determined by men who want to silence feminists.
Men who police feminism and feminists, and judge the worthiness of feminist complaints on a sliding scale, don't recognize oppressive acts as interwoven strands of the same rope, and they don't respect the reality that most feminists can multi-task: I can write about a sexist t-shirt being sold to little girls at Wev-Mart, and I write about the rape epidemic in DR Congo in the same day. And do, frequently.
Commenters in the thread made variations on the same argument I am making now, reasonably concluding that Dawkins was arguing that "since worse things are happening somewhere else, we have no right to try to fix things closer to home." But Dawkins left a second comment, insisting that was not his meaning:
Of course, I don't guess this is the sort of stuff that really matters to a man so privileged that he can, with a straight fucking face, assert an equivalency between being followed to an elevator and propositioned by a strange man and having to share an elevator with someone who is chewing gum. Yiiiiiiikes.
PZ Myers followed up with another post, attempting to inject some perspective back into the conversation, to no avail. Dawkins continued to insist that Watson had nothing to complain about in the first place:
Eventually, Myers appended this to his post: "[Rebecca Watson] asked for some simple common courtesy, and for that she gets pilloried. Sorry, people, but that sends a very clear signal to women that calm requests for respect will be met with jeers by a significant subset of the atheist community."
And 'round and 'round we go.
[H/T to Shaker Insomniax, who hat-tips Jen.]
----------------------------------------------------
Rebecca Watson of the skeptics blog Skepchick recently posted a video in which she speaks, in part, about being on a panel in an atheist conference in Dublin during which she spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. The video, with transcript for the relevant section, is at the bottom of the post. (If the video does not automatically start playing at 2:20, skip ahead.) She then describes how the discussion continued at the hotel bar late into the night, and how a man who purported to be interested in what she was saying followed her into the hotel elevator and propositioned her. Missing the point award.
PZ Myers wrote a post in which the video was mentioned, largely making another point about naming people with whom one disagrees, but acquiescing that perhaps hitting on women and backing off when they signal disinterest possibly is not enough: "Maybe we should also recognize that applying unwanted pressure, no matter how politely phrased, is inappropriate behavior. Maybe we should recognize that when we interact with equals there are different, expected patterns of behavior that many men casually disregard when meeting with women, and it is those subtle signs that let them know what you think of them that really righteously pisses feminist women off."
I almost can't conceive of a more innocuous, virtually noncommittal ("maybe") expression of support for the idea that it's pretty gross to creepily pursue a woman who has said she is going to bed in order to invite her back to your hotel room to further discuss an idea she had introduced in a professional capacity, no less when the idea is not sexualizing women.
And yet, totally predictably, the thread erupted in a hideous gushing explosion of misogyny, anti-feminism, and rape apologia, not only proving Rebecca Watson's point, but illustrating precisely why it is that, despite being an atheist and online activist, I don't touch movement atheism with a 10-foot pole. Were it a place merely hostile to feminist women and outspoken survivors of sexual assault, well, so is the rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't passionately advocate against ignorance, only to feign it when asked to examine its privilege.
Anyway, among the many comments in the thread was one left by the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who had also sat on the panel at which Rebecca Watson spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. Given Dawkins' history of doing things like making anti-Muslim rape jokes and reckoning that a child is "arguably" better off repeatedly raped than raised religious, his comment (which Myers has confirmed is indeed the real Dawkins) is not surprising, but it is nonetheless appalling.
Dear MuslimaAh, the old there are more Important Things to worry about chestnut. I always love when a man decides what the Important Things feminists should be worried about are for us feminist women. I also love the idea that "Muslim women" and "American women" are mutually exclusive groups, and the idea that there no American women, Muslim or otherwise, whose lives are controlled and whose bodies are violated with impunity. And I love the mendacious misrepresentation of Rebecca Watson's experience—being innocently invited to coffee, as opposed to followed into an elevator at 4am after announcing her intention to go to bed and asked back to a man's room "for coffee" immediately following her public request to not be sexually objectified—and the profoundly disingenuous implication that because Watson had the unmitigated temerity to mention this incident, she is either equating it with other women's suffering or somehow arguing that her experience is more important than other women's.
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
I love those things almost as much as I love the embedded premise that the marginalization of women is a series of unrelated injustices that exist in competition with one another for attention and concern, as opposed to a spectrum of injustices on which exists both women being creeped on in elevators by strangers and female genital cutting.
That is a silencing mechanism.
The implication is that women with relative privilege have no reason or right to "complain" as long as there are women who are experiencing something worse somewhere in the world—a truly despicable position given that it creates a justification for continued brutalization of women across the globe. Feminist scolds like Dawkins, who fancy themselves enlightened, recoil with horror at the suggestion that they support the violent oppression of women, and yet they nonetheless reference it at every opportunity they have in order to defend their lack of concern about injustices done to relatively privileged women in their own communities.
The abject suffering of the world's most vulnerable women is thus used as rhetorical weapon to silence feminists—and feminism is treated as some sort of finite resource that is meant to be kept under glass, broken only in case of a "real" and "serious" emergency, as determined by men who want to silence feminists.
Men who police feminism and feminists, and judge the worthiness of feminist complaints on a sliding scale, don't recognize oppressive acts as interwoven strands of the same rope, and they don't respect the reality that most feminists can multi-task: I can write about a sexist t-shirt being sold to little girls at Wev-Mart, and I write about the rape epidemic in DR Congo in the same day. And do, frequently.
Commenters in the thread made variations on the same argument I am making now, reasonably concluding that Dawkins was arguing that "since worse things are happening somewhere else, we have no right to try to fix things closer to home." But Dawkins left a second comment, insisting that was not his meaning:
No I wasn't making that argument. Here's the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.Again, he implies that "Muslim women" and "American women" are mutually exclusive groups; again, he implies that American women do not "suffer physically from misogyny," nor are their lives "substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny." Certainly, Dawkins and I would disagree on what constitutes "substantial damage," as I suspect his definition would start just beyond what any relatively privileged woman had ever suffered, but suffice it to say I disagree with his contention. As, I imagine, would the many American women who have been sexually abused by religious leaders, without justice. Just for a start.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn't physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they'd have had good reason to complain.
Richard
Of course, I don't guess this is the sort of stuff that really matters to a man so privileged that he can, with a straight fucking face, assert an equivalency between being followed to an elevator and propositioned by a strange man and having to share an elevator with someone who is chewing gum. Yiiiiiiikes.
PZ Myers followed up with another post, attempting to inject some perspective back into the conversation, to no avail. Dawkins continued to insist that Watson had nothing to complain about in the first place:
I sarcastically compared Rebecca's plight with that of women in Muslim countries or families dominated by Muslim men. Somebody made the worthwhile point (reiterated here by PZ) that it is no defence of something slightly bad to point to something worse. We should fight all bad things, the slightly bad as well as the very bad. Fair enough. But my point is that the 'slightly bad thing' suffered by Rebecca was not even slightly bad, it was zero bad. A man asked her back to his room for coffee. She said no. End of story.Spoken like someone who does not understand what it's like to live as a woman in this world and has never even bothered to try.
But not everybody sees it as end of story. OK, let's ask why not? The main reason seems to be that an elevator is a confined space from which there is no escape. This point has been made again and again in this thread, and the other one.
No escape? I am now really puzzled. Here's how you escape from an elevator. You press any one of the buttons conveniently provided. The elevator will obligingly stop at a floor, the door will open and you will no longer be in a confined space but in a well-lit corridor in a crowded hotel in the centre of Dublin.
Eventually, Myers appended this to his post: "[Rebecca Watson] asked for some simple common courtesy, and for that she gets pilloried. Sorry, people, but that sends a very clear signal to women that calm requests for respect will be met with jeers by a significant subset of the atheist community."
And 'round and 'round we go.
[H/T to Shaker Insomniax, who hat-tips Jen.]
----------------------------------------------------
And I was on a panel with AronRa and Richard Dawkins [which] was on 'communicating atheism.' They sort of left it open for us to talk about whatever we wanted, really, within that realm. I was going to talk about blogging and podcasting, but, um, a few hours prior to that panel, there was another panel on women atheist activists, and I disagreed with a lot of what happened on that panel, uh, particularly with something that Paula Kirby had said.Whoooooooooooooooops, Richard Dawkins! Almost everyone else.
Paula Kirby doesn't have a problem with sexism in the atheism community, and, because of that, she assumes that there is no sexism, um, so I thought that I would, during my panel, discuss what it's like to communicate atheism as me, um, as a woman, but from a different perspective from Paula. I don't assume that every woman will have the same experience that I've had, but I think it's worthwhile to publicize the fact that some women will go through this, and, um, that way we can warn women, ahead of time, as to what they might expect, give them the tools they need to fight back, and also give them the support structure they need to, uh, to keep going in the face of blatant misogyny.
So, I was interested in the response to my sort of rambling on that panel, um, which, like this video, was unscripted and rambling, for which I apologize. [grins] But the response was really fascinating. The response at the conference itself was wonderful, um, there were a ton of great feminists there, male and female, and also just open-minded people who had maybe never considered the, um, the way that women are treated in this community, but were interested in learning more.
So, thank you to everyone who was at that conference who, uh, engaged in those discussions outside of that panel, um, you were all fantastic; I loved talking to you guys—um, all of you except for the one man who, um, didn't really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel…? Because, um, at the bar later that night—actually, at four in the morning—um, we were at the hotel bar, 4am, I said, you know, "I've had enough, guys, I'm exhausted, going to bed," uh, so I walked to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me, and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more; would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?"
Um. Just a word to the wise here, guys: Uhhhh, don't do that. Um, you know. [laughs] Uh, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4am, in a hotel elevator with you, just you, and—don't invite me back to your hotel room, right after I've finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.
So, yeah. But everybody else seemed to really get it.
In Which Scatx and I Talk About Some Stuff
[Trigger warning for misogyny and violence. Emails in which we discuss media reactions to the new book by Mara Hvistendahl, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, have been shared with Scatx's permission.]
Scatx: I'm sure you are all over this like peanut butter on toast, but just in case: Ross Douthat's newest column, "160 Million and Counting." Why, New York Times, do you pay this man? WHY? Best part: The bottom where it says, "Paul Krugman is off today." I think we can ALL see that.
Liss: Have you seen this one? Jonathan Last in the Wall Street Journal: "The War Against Girls." Very interesting (by which I mean NOT INTERESTING AT ALL) that there are dudes using this book (which is purportedly NOT anti-choice) to make anti-choice arguments. Anyway, I hope men keep talking about this, so they can tell us ladies what to do!
Scatx: Wow—I can't even bring myself to read all of that. Skimming made me want to barf on my shoes. I feel for the author of the book—the WSJ guy makes it clear that she knows that her writing about this will be used by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Also: The colonialism of this whole thing is so problematic. The blatant disregard for systemic misogyny (which is, you know, a product of systemic misogyny). Seeing abortion as the problem instead of a symptom of larger inequalities and prejudices. I just don't even know how to think through all the elements at play. Of course, there was that new Gallup poll showing that, here in the US, we still love having baby boys more than we love having baby girls, just like in 1941 (when abortion was illegal). I'm sure that won't get the same level of press from anti-choice advocates that they love to give to India and China. GAH!
Liss: There's an article by Ujala Sehgal at The Atlantic that makes the point about cultural double-standards pretty well. And then there's the issue of infanticide, which is being conveniently left out of some of the posts who want to attribute "unnatural selection" exclusively to the West "exporting abortion technology." P.S. Here's another dude talking about it! Wheeeeeeeeeee!
Scatx: I was wondering about infanticide (I have written on it as a historian of the colonial period and remember studying it back when I was going to be a classicist). I just went to a huge women's history conference and was on a panel about it. It was interesting because there is (and always has been) so much infanticide in societies where contraception is limited or unavailable and slut-shaming and/or "bastard"-shaming is rampant. It is obvious to me that even if we were suddenly to all agree that abortion is morally wrong, it will NEVER stop. Nothing in history ever has shown that making abortion illegal will stop it. Nothing. Ever. Not paying attention to that kind of history, that overwhelming and in-your-face reality that we can see across millennia, boggles my brain to no end. The only way to end the boys-over-girls problem is for people to stop thinking that there is something better about boys. That's it.
Liss: Absolutely. And, of course, for us—the collective us, the global us—to stop actually providing material benefits to being a boy or having a boy. Plus all the other stuff that's wrapped up in the gender binary, and in the heterocentrism that hears "it's a boy" and axiomatically thinks "he'll have a wife," and in the poverty and lack of education and void of female role models and religiosity that feed gender prejudices and and and… I see why it's easy to say "damn feminists and their abortion exporting!" becomes such an easy refrain in lieu of embracing a vast challenge with such a complicated array of interrelated solutions.
Scatx: Plus, this bullshit of "we are against abortion to protect GIRLS" is so infuriating. Grown women literally can't be less of this story. Is there ANY other way for them to write pregnant ADULTS out?
Liss: Probably.
[H/T to Shaker Bonny_Swan for the WSJ piece.]
Scatx: I'm sure you are all over this like peanut butter on toast, but just in case: Ross Douthat's newest column, "160 Million and Counting." Why, New York Times, do you pay this man? WHY? Best part: The bottom where it says, "Paul Krugman is off today." I think we can ALL see that.
Liss: Have you seen this one? Jonathan Last in the Wall Street Journal: "The War Against Girls." Very interesting (by which I mean NOT INTERESTING AT ALL) that there are dudes using this book (which is purportedly NOT anti-choice) to make anti-choice arguments. Anyway, I hope men keep talking about this, so they can tell us ladies what to do!
Scatx: Wow—I can't even bring myself to read all of that. Skimming made me want to barf on my shoes. I feel for the author of the book—the WSJ guy makes it clear that she knows that her writing about this will be used by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Also: The colonialism of this whole thing is so problematic. The blatant disregard for systemic misogyny (which is, you know, a product of systemic misogyny). Seeing abortion as the problem instead of a symptom of larger inequalities and prejudices. I just don't even know how to think through all the elements at play. Of course, there was that new Gallup poll showing that, here in the US, we still love having baby boys more than we love having baby girls, just like in 1941 (when abortion was illegal). I'm sure that won't get the same level of press from anti-choice advocates that they love to give to India and China. GAH!
Liss: There's an article by Ujala Sehgal at The Atlantic that makes the point about cultural double-standards pretty well. And then there's the issue of infanticide, which is being conveniently left out of some of the posts who want to attribute "unnatural selection" exclusively to the West "exporting abortion technology." P.S. Here's another dude talking about it! Wheeeeeeeeeee!
Scatx: I was wondering about infanticide (I have written on it as a historian of the colonial period and remember studying it back when I was going to be a classicist). I just went to a huge women's history conference and was on a panel about it. It was interesting because there is (and always has been) so much infanticide in societies where contraception is limited or unavailable and slut-shaming and/or "bastard"-shaming is rampant. It is obvious to me that even if we were suddenly to all agree that abortion is morally wrong, it will NEVER stop. Nothing in history ever has shown that making abortion illegal will stop it. Nothing. Ever. Not paying attention to that kind of history, that overwhelming and in-your-face reality that we can see across millennia, boggles my brain to no end. The only way to end the boys-over-girls problem is for people to stop thinking that there is something better about boys. That's it.
Liss: Absolutely. And, of course, for us—the collective us, the global us—to stop actually providing material benefits to being a boy or having a boy. Plus all the other stuff that's wrapped up in the gender binary, and in the heterocentrism that hears "it's a boy" and axiomatically thinks "he'll have a wife," and in the poverty and lack of education and void of female role models and religiosity that feed gender prejudices and and and… I see why it's easy to say "damn feminists and their abortion exporting!" becomes such an easy refrain in lieu of embracing a vast challenge with such a complicated array of interrelated solutions.
Scatx: Plus, this bullshit of "we are against abortion to protect GIRLS" is so infuriating. Grown women literally can't be less of this story. Is there ANY other way for them to write pregnant ADULTS out?
Liss: Probably.
[H/T to Shaker Bonny_Swan for the WSJ piece.]
Quote of the Day
"I know, we know, every employer knows, that many women suffer terribly. Most take tablets for it and don't take two or three days off monthly, but it happens."—Alasdair Thompson, head of New Zealand's Employers and Manufacturers Association, digging in after receiving criticism for his assertion that female workers are paid an average of 12% less than their male colleagues because "once a month they have a sick problem."
Well, it's like I always say: If only businesses would build out menstruation huts for the ladies, our bosses wouldn't need to worry about our monthly sickness!
I have worked with a lot of women in my life, many of whom don't even have periods for various reasons, and none of them have taken several days off every month. I'm sure, however, that there are women in the world who do, and I imagine that's evidence of one of several health issues specific to cis women which generally don't qualify as disability, for all the usual reasons.
Anyway, one thing I really love about this quote from the head of the Employers and Manufacturers Association is how it effectively sets up "every employer" and "women" as mutually exclusive groups. Nice.
[H/T to Richard.]
Well, it's like I always say: If only businesses would build out menstruation huts for the ladies, our bosses wouldn't need to worry about our monthly sickness!
I have worked with a lot of women in my life, many of whom don't even have periods for various reasons, and none of them have taken several days off every month. I'm sure, however, that there are women in the world who do, and I imagine that's evidence of one of several health issues specific to cis women which generally don't qualify as disability, for all the usual reasons.
Anyway, one thing I really love about this quote from the head of the Employers and Manufacturers Association is how it effectively sets up "every employer" and "women" as mutually exclusive groups. Nice.
[H/T to Richard.]
Quote of the Day
"We have discussed it with the tours and we believe it is helpful to reduce the amount of grunting."—Ian Ritchie, chief executive of the All England Lawn and Tennis Club, who's fed up with all the lady grunters in tennis these days.
Just the ladies. Obviously.
[H/T to Shaker Whitney.]
Just the ladies. Obviously.
[H/T to Shaker Whitney.]