In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: December 2005

Solomon Goes on Trial

This case is an interesting one. The Solomon Amendment requires that colleges and universities allow military recruiters on campus in order to receive federal funding. The problem, though, is that many schools — including NYU Law — have anti-discrimination measures which bar discriminatory employers from recruiting on campus. So, for example, if a particular law firm had a policy of only hiring whites, they wouldn’t be allowed to come and recruit.

The JAG Corps, which recruit law students, operate under the same discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as the rest of the U.S. armed forces. This policy clearly violates NYU’s anti-discrimination standards, the same way a law firm that had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for non-Christians would be in violation.

NYU has been at the heart of this issue for decades, as it was the first law school to include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination policy. A decade later, the Association of American Law Schools required that this policy be applied at all accredited institutions. Now, an NYU alum is one of the people arguing Rumsfeld v. FAIR, the case against the Solomon Amendment, and NYU Law is one of the only FAIR-participating schools that is willing to be publicly named (other schools joined on anonymously; still others joined under “faculty of,” so that the university itself isn’t responsible).

Some argue that if a university’s anti-discrimination values are so strong, they should simply waive the federal funds and keep recruiters off campus. But it’s not that simple. When the Solomon issue first came up, NYU Law made the decision to forgo the federal money in order to continue their policy of non-discrimination. But the amendment was then expanded so that if one branch of a particular university barred recruiters, the entire university lost federal funding — so if the law school didn’t accept the federal funds, the entire university would miss out. This, obviously, is a problem at a school like NYU, where the law school is better funded by directed alumni donations than the rest of the university. And we aren’t talking about pocket change here — Harvard and Yale, for example, would each lose $300 million if they didn’t comply with Solomon.

Others would say that the school should leave it up to individual students to decide which organizations they interview with. But by allowing a group to recruit on campus, the school is tacitly approving it. Should we allow “whites-only” companies to recruit here, and let students make up their own minds? I would argue that a consistent anti-discrimination policy sends a tough message to employers that discrimination will cost them — indeed, anti-discrimination policies were key in integrating women and people of color into the workforce (although it’s worth noting that law firms, especially the big ones, are still run primarily by white guys).

The military claims that they’re desperate for recruits, and interviewing on campus is key to their survival. That’s all fine and good, but if you’re so in need of good employees, stop discriminating against gays and lesbians. You’ll have a whole new pool of people to recruit from, and you won’t have to deal with progressive universities shutting you out, or students protesting your presence on campus (last year, when the JAG recruiters came, OUT-LAW members and other law students protested so loudly that the recruiters left early).

But this is all just background. The real issue in the case is the First Amendment rights of universities, specifically freedom of speech and association. And unfortunately, it looks like it’s a losing one. The government is making the argument that raising a military is a compelling Constitutional interest, and that raising a military requires recruitment. They say that universities are welcome to use their right to free speech and association by barring recruiters from campus; they aren’t being required to have the military there, they just stand to lose federal funds if they don’t. The FAIR attorneys argue that, when we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that the university needs, the policy is deeply coercive — particularly since the entire university loses funding if even a single, generally separate branch like the law or medical school refuses recruiters. But from the Supreme Court justices’ responses so far, it doesn’t look like this argument is getting very far — and it’s being argued that it could set a dangerous precedent for other accept-it-or-lose-funding federal rules, like No Child Left Behind and Title IX.

I’m obviously hoping that law schools will retain the right to reject discriminatory recruiters, without financially punishing the entire university. We’ll see what happens. I’ll be writing more about this in the coming days.

WSJ, SCOTUSblog, the blog of the American Constitution Society, and Law Dork have more.

Congrats…

To my dear friend and favorite DJ Dave H, who has just been crowned the 2005 Mr. East Coast Rubber. I had the great pleasure of serving with Dave as an NYU undergraduate orientation leader, and he was kind enough to DJ at my graduation party. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this high honor, and I’m proud to say that I knew him when.

The Morality of Rape

I really didn’t want to post anything about V-x D-y ever again. I stopped reading his blog. I agreed with commenters who said that linking to him only gives him more attention. I won’t write out his whole name — that way, when he googles himself for masturbatory material, hopefully he’ll come up short. I vowed never to link to him again.

Except now he has a column on WorldNet Daily about the same issue, where he spells out his “Christian Libertarian” beliefs even more clearly (and, naturally, they’re even more offensive than you thought):

The Judeo-Christian moral ethic is clear – rape is a sin, a willful pollution of a temple that rightly belongs to God. Neither the Jew nor the Christian need hesitate before asserting the act of rape to be evil and justly holding the rapist accountable. But this ethic does not offer a blanket excuse to victims, near victims and would-be victims either, since the element of consent – which today draws the dividing line between sex and rape – can also provide a contrarian condemnation of the woman’s own actions.

Rape isn’t bad because it’s harmful to people — it’s bad because it pollutes God’s house.

To put it more clearly, if a woman consents to extramarital sex, she is committing a moral offense which is equal to that committed by the man who engages in consensual sex with her, or by the man who, in the absence of such consent, rapes her. Christianity knows no hierarchy of sins. Since only the woman who is not entertaining the possibility of sex with a man and is subsequently raped can truly be considered a wholly innocent victim under this ethic, it is no wonder that women who insist that internal consent is the sole determining factor of a woman’s victimization find traditional Western morality to be inherently distasteful.

And there you have it: Rape is no worse than consensual, but extra-marital, sex. And unless you were hiding in your house, wrapped in clothing from head to toe, and not even thinking about sex, you aren’t wholly innocent if you’re raped.

Oh, plus he’s just flat-out wrong about Christianity. There are, in fact, different kinds of sins, and some are taken more seriously than others. All sins can be forgiven, sure, and we’re all sinners, but all sins are not created equal. Glad my twice-a-year church visits have taught me something that even a Christian Libertarian with a Satanist haircut doesn’t seem to understand.

His basic point is this: Only Christian morality makes rape “bad,” and even then it’s only as bad as any other sin (or, though he doesn’t say this explicitly, perhaps he means it’s only as bad as any other sexual sin). Without Jesus, we have no basis to make moral judgments.

For someone who claims to be a member of Mensa, this seems like a pretty shallow wade into understanding morality — and one has to wonder about a person who truly believes that the only reason something is wrong is because a certain book tells him so.

On the Myth of Inherent Female Bisexuality

Freudian psychoanalysts held that all people, male and female, are born bisexual and like a light switch held between on and off, will usually fall into one of two extremes. Freudians, on the whole, did not consider homosexuality to be an aberration or sickness in and of itself, but that societal pressures would undoubtedly contribute to unhealthy fetishes and sexual behaviors.

Following the light switch analogy, Alfred Kinsey’s famous scale would be like a dial pointing somewhere between homosexuality and heterosexuality: a continuum where the large majority resides very near the heterosexual end.

The twentieth century, with the discovery of a molecular basis for inheritance, saw a sharp rise in the use of terms like “inherent” and “predisposition” in lay discussions of animal behavior. Incidentally, it is of no surprise that discussions of human behavior dwell on human sexuality. Coitus, fornication, fucking, whatever you like to call it, is fun. It’s fun to do; it’s fun to talk about.

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You Like Us, You Really Like Us!

The 2005 Weblog Awards are up, and Feministe has been nominated in the Best Liberal Blog category! Exciting!!

It’s a huge compliment to be grouped with the other nominees — the list includes some of my favorite blogs, and it’s a pretty big ego boost to be placed in the same category as them. Check ’em out, they’re fantastic, and all very worthy of your votes. There are some great blogs nominated in other categories as well, so scroll through the whole thing. And as usual, there are a whole lot of excellent blogs that didn’t get nominated, or didn’t make the final cut — feel free to leave links here of blogs you think we should all check out, and keep them in mind for next year.

Voting begins Monday December 5th and ends December 15th. You can vote for one blog in each category every 24 hours. Happy voting!*

*(I don’t know why I’ve been using so many exclamation points lately. Annoying, isn’t it? I apologize, and I blame contracts outlining.)

Congrats, America!

As of Friday, you’ve executed 1,000 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Now there’s something to be proud of.

Texas leads the way, accounting for almost 1/3 of these executions (check out this handy visual). In the same time period, 122 people were exonerated, and freed from death row — meaning that for every eight people executed, one death row inmate was found innocent. That isn’t a great track record.

The fact that the death penalty has undoubtedly led to the execution of innocent people is deeply troubling, and a good argument for getting rid of it. But what about people about whose guilt there is no doubt? Suppose Saddam Hussein could be tried in a U.S. court for the crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. There is absolutely no doubt that Hussein was a brutal murderer. Regardless of one’s views on the war, few people actually believe that he’s an innocent man. Are we still against the death penalty when there is no real question of guilt?

I think, as a civilized society, we must be. The death penalty is simply unjustifiable. It’s not a deterrant to crime. It’s not a defense mechanism — it could just as easily be replaced by life in prison without parole, eliminating the possibility of dangerous criminals re-offending. It doesn’t even save money — keeping a prisoner on death row and executing them is more costly than a lifetime jail sentence.

And beyond all that, a government should not have the punitive power to execute its citizens, even the very worst of them.

Bah Humbug

I love Christmas, but the wingnuts are really bringing out the Grinch in me. If I have to read one more article about how Christians are being persecuted by stores wishing them “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” I might just convert to Hinduism and call it a day.

First, why is it offensive to include all the winter holidays in a single greeting, when you’re trying to sell goods to a wide range of consumers? You don’t see Jews getting all pissy about the lack of “Happy Hanukkah” signs at Walgreen’s, or Hindus complaining that there aren’t enough Diwali greetings when they walk into Target. Perhaps this is because, as religious minorities, they recognize that people with different belief systems exist in this country, and including them all under the banner of “Happy Holidays” is the most logical way to go. Why purposely exclude particular groups by only recognizing Christian holidays?

Second, for all the bitching about “putting Christ back in Christmas,” perhaps these religious extremists would be better suited to trying to eliminate Santa Claus or Christmas trees or other secular Christmas symbols. Perhaps they should try and figure out when Jesus was actually born, and change the day we celebrate — after all, we all know that December 25th was chosen as a way to have the Christian holiday line up with Pagan celebrations, to make conversion easier. Or how about rallying against the consumerism that Christmas is so fraught with? Last time I read the Bible, there was no point where God said, “My son is born, now go forth and buy stuff.” If you want to complain about secularization and taking Christ out of Christmas, start with Santa Claus and FAO Schwarz.

Third, with all the problems in the world, wingnut Christians are focusing on this? As Jeremy Cohen wrote in his Times op/ed today:

This campaign – which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio – is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and every state supreme court and legislature, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell “holiday trees.”

But what about “traditional values” and Christmas being an integral part of America? Yup, wrong.

The vast majority of schools and businesses close for Christmas. Christmas themes and decorations (Santa, Christmas trees, green and red) are everywhere. Christmas music plays in most department stores. There is no war on Christmas. But these godbags are making me embarassed to be celebrating it.

However, there does seem to be a war on women’s health, led by zealot pharmacists. Trying to get birth control pills? Uh uh. Female sexuality is evil. Want your herpes medicine? Sorry, no can do — God is punishing you for your sins. But it’s the Christian pharmacists who are the victims when they’re told to do their jobs. Gotta love the logic here.

Also, Grady Hendrix is clearly a Christian persecutor for writing this article, which is a wee bit critical of the “Left Behind” movies. Hilarious. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: World O’Crap also makes the baby Jesus cry. And they are way funnier than I’ll ever be. My favorite part: In response to an Agape Press columnist offering a free Christmas ad that reads, “If this is only the ‘Holiday Season,’ if this is not ‘Christmas,’ then you do not have a Savior! Merry Christmas!”, WOC says:

Not bad. But I think I can come up with something even more offensive. How about, “If you think this is only the ‘Holiday Season,’ then you can eat crap and die! Merry Christmas, you unsaved bastard!”

Also, taking Jesus out of Christmas is right up there with the homos, the cloners and the baby-killers in causing the Asian tsunami.

UPDATE 2: It’s Hitchens v. Christmas on Scarborough Country. Hi-larious. He refers to Jerry Falwell “the fat-faced revered,”and tells Joe Scarborough that he has no interest in hearing him speak (“I came here to talk, not to listen to you. You invited me on for my opinions, not to listen to yours.”). Money quote:

HITCHENS: … as in Washington, D.C., there are large numbers of public buildings, lavishly financed, usually, in fact, invariably, tax exempt, sometimes even government subsidized by the—what do we call it, faith-based program.

They are called churches. People can go there if they want to have religious ceremony. They can put up hoardings on their land which say it’s Jesus’ birthday or Christ has risen, if it’s Easter, anything like that. You can’t stop them. They do it all the time, and they are very welcome.

I would like, however, to be able to go to Union Station and not be told that I am a Christian over the loud speaker all the time, or, indeed, to Wal-Mart or Target or 7/Eleven and not have an incessant one-party state month of permanent Christian music and propaganda. I think that’s annoying and offensive, and also […] I promise only one thing. I promise you, I would say that if I was a Christian. I am not. But if I was one, I would not want it imposed on other people. […] And certainly not in this ugly—not in this ugly, vulgar, boring way?

SCARBOROUGH: It’s ugly? What is ugly and vulgar and boring, Christmas trees?

HITCHENS: Don’t you find the tinsel and the incessant stuff on the radio and the TV, don’t you find it gets you down? Don’t you find it’s cheap and tinselly? I certainly do.

Don’t Just Blame the Victim; Prosecute Her

A judge files a false rape report against teen girl because she wasn’t traumatized enough to be credible in her testimony against her attackers.

After a day-and-a-half trial, Municipal Judge Peter A. Ackerman on Friday convicted the woman of filing a false police report, a class-C misdemeanor. Ackerman explained his decision, saying there were many inconsistencies in the stories of the four, but that he found the young men to be more credible. He also said he relied on the testimony of a Beaverton police detective and the woman’s friends who said she did not act traumatized in the days following the incident.

Kevin Hayden of The American Street, who was at the trial last week, has more on the story:

It was especially interesting that the prosecutor kept referring to the three men involved as ‘boys’, when they were fully grown men. The woman was 17.

The judge found inconsistencies in all of the stories, thus establishing reasonable doubt in every story. Yet he convicted the victim. ‘Boys’ will be ‘boys’.

The young woman’s friends were a classmate at high school and her mother. The mother a) has always been seen with an alcoholic beverage or high on prescription pills by all who know her, b) provided the 17-year old with the alcohol she’d had that evening, which she stole from the store she cashiers at and c) was awaiting her boyfriend’s return to her home within two months of the rape. That boyfriend was in prison for molesting his own daughter. That’s hardly a credible witness with any sympathy for victims of sexual assault. But none of this could be introduced into evidence. Only the 17 year old’s sexual history could be exposed.

Additionally, the two ‘friends’ were the ones who convinced the 17 year old that she should report it to the police. So if the young woman is guilty, the instigating accessories to her ‘crime’ are considered credible experts about how a rape victim should act.

This is particularly disappointing for him since he has known the girl since she was an infant.

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Loosening Abortion Laws in Latin America

A must-read article in the Times about the growing progressive forces in Latin America, and how women’s rights groups are mobilizing for basic reproductive freedoms. It’s certainly informative; read it if only as a reminder of how much we have to lose.

In this tradition-bound Roman Catholic town one day in April, two young women did what many here consider unthinkable: pregnant and scared, they took a cheap ulcer medication known to induce abortions. When the drug left them bleeding, they were treated at a local emergency room – then promptly arrested.

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