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

Month: December 2006

Grannies Gone Wild

I’m hestitant to wade into the pornography wars, but this article should give all of us more than a little bit to cringe about.

Yes, it’s about the latest “fetish” — women over the age of 40, doin’ it on camera. And, from the way the article reads, doing it for male viewers and to make a whole lot of money for male directors and male-owned production companies. All to the shock and dismay of the people who believe “female” to be synonymous with white, blonde, thin and young.

“It was weird to me,” he said. “She could be my mom. At first I thought it would blow over and that maybe no one would hire her. But then people started hiring her, and then they wanted her for magazines. It’s crazy. This is supposed to be an industry with the youngest, newest, most beautiful girls in the world. Isn’t youth what everyone wants?”

Emphasis on the word “newest.”

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Middle School Girls Gone Wild

It’s hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it’s just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes. The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.

They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. …Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

Oh, the horror.

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Because we’re so fucking enlightened

We invade other countries, prop up a legal charade, and execute their leaders.

I hate Saddam Hussein as much as the next person. He was a dictator and a major human rights abuser, and he deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity. But what better way to promote international human rights than to execute someone, which is entirely contrary to the very basis of universal human rights?

Cases like this test our commitment to human rights ideals. In my gut, I want Saddam Hussein to suffer, like he made so many others suffer. But this is bigger than Saddam Hussein. It’s a question of what kind of ideals we’re exporting, and which policies and norms we want to support. Do we want to support killing people as “justice”? Is depriving someone of their right to life the kind of standard we want to set, the way we want to see justice done? Saddam was most certainly guilty of all the crimes he was accused of, but trying him in a kangaroo court and then killing him achieved what, exactly? As long as we justify execution as an acceptable consequence for committing crimes, no matter how horrible, we can’t feign surprise when others, who lack the institutional backing accorded to the United States military, decide that they too are justified in executing those who do harm to them, or who do harm to their allies, or simply to other people. It sets a pattern in which there are no winners.

Human rights are human rights. State-sanctioned execution is uncivilized, backwards, and contrary to the most basic notions of what we deserve simply by virtue of being human beings. Human rights aren’t doled out according to how virtuous you are. They’re a baseline. And as much as it can frustrate us (and it does frustrate me), a deep commitment to them requires that they be applied to everyone — even to the most vile among us.

No good will come of this. But lots of bloodshed is most certain to follow. And we picked a hell of a day for it.

Friday Random Ten, and Dog-Blogging

1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – O’Malley’s Bar
2. Nina Simone – Just Like a Woman
3. Aphex Twin – Radiator
4. The Smiths – These Things Take Time
5. John Coltrane – Equinox
6. The Cramps – I Was a Teenage Werewolf
7. Portishead – Glory Box
8. Magnetic Fields – Epitaph for my Heart
9. The Fugees – The Mask
10. Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough

Puppies below the fold.

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Posted in Uncategorized

“Science” Confirms: I’m Female

And so is PZ Myers.

This “gendered brain” quiz is making the rounds again (I’ve taken it before), and I score somewhere in the neighborhood of average for women who’ve taken the survey.

Basically, though, it appears to be for crap. Echidne notes the bias in the questions designed to test how emotional you are:

Ready? The idea is to see how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements:

I really enjoy caring for other people.

I find it difficult to read and understand maps.

It is hard for me to see why some things upset people so much.

I find it easy to put myself in somebody else’s shoes.

I find it easy to grasp exactly how odds work in betting.

If anyone asked me if I liked their haircut, I would reply truthfully, even if I didn’t like it.

I find it difficult to learn how to programme video recorders.

I do not enjoy games that involve a high degree of strategy (e.g. chess, Risk, Games Workshop).

Other people tell me I am good at understanding how they are feeling and what they are thinking.

I can remember large amounts of information about a topic that interests me e.g. flags of the world, airline logos.

I am able to make decisions without being influenced by people’s feelings.

People sometimes tell me that I have gone too far with teasing.

I know very little about the different stages of the legislation process in my country.

I usually stay emotionally detached when watching a film.

I can easily visualise how the motorways in my region link up.

I can tell if someone is masking their true emotion.

Note anything funny? Notice how the emotional questions are left mostly vague but the systematizing questions have very specific examples, examples which all have to do with male roles in the society? For example, we are gently steered to think about odds in the sense of BETTING (still largely a male hobby). Then we are told to think about the ability to remember large amounts of information and the examples are FLAGS OF THE WORLD, AIRLINE LOGOS. Then there is stuff about MOTORWAYS. And references to very specific games of risk.

It would be fairly astonishing not to find the answers biased by sex even if systematizing was an equally likely characteristic of both sexes. Now think about how those questions could be changed to make the test less biased. Why not add examples which apply to hobbies women have? For example, in the statement about remembering large amounts of information, why not add an example to collections of Barbi dolls or 1930s jewelry or embroideries? And in the empathizing questions, why not give some specific examples that might apply not only to women’s traditional societal roles? Something about what a man might do when coaching children in sports, for example?

I was also annoyed to find that the tests don’t pay any attention to cultural aspects in general. For example, the little summaries one gets after completing a part of the test tell us what we should believe based on evolutionary psychology theories only.

Oh, one of those summaries? Repeats the claim that women use 15,000 words and men only use 7,000. Which has been shown to be crap, but keeps getting endlessly vomited up even by social researchers because it just sounds so right. You know, because women just can’t shut up. ‘Strue! Studies Have Shown. It’s truthy.

BTW, British readers: am I imagining things, or is the British press — in particular the Daily Mail, but also the BBC, and to a lesser extent, the Guardian — just obsessed with the gender essentialism lately?

Okay.

So several people whom I appreciate a great deal have written about this post–or, rather, the development of its comments thread. They’ve already dealt with the categorization of some comments as hate speech, and the ways in which they are hateful, and I’m tired–so I’ll simply link their incisive analyses.

But I have some questions, hopefully questions that you’re all interested in discussing.

This debate comes up a lot related to various groups of people and various blogs and kinds of blogs. We’ve had discussions here at feministe, many of them intense, about the responsibility of blog hosts and commenters to complain about hate speech and bigoted speech when it occurs, and to refuse to be nice to the people who use it.

What, as far as you’re concerned, constitutes hate speech? Why do you characterize hate speech that way? Has your definition changed or crystallized over the course of blogging or commenting on blogs? What do you, members of the hive mind, think about the responsibility of these communities to police this issue, or at least to make it into an open problem rather than a transparent one?

(If you need to open up old blog battles, however apocalyptic, feel free. I’m not sure how this discussion could even occur without leeway on that issue. I am also aware that one commenter’s vicious waste of words is another commenter’s blogpotheosis. Just, you know, I mean…oh, fuck it. The trainwreck will occur if it occurs. I trust all of you to make something of it in any case. Happy holidays and a wonderful year to all of you!)

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

From Sara Robinson at Orcinus: it may take a few years but the country is waking up to just how extreme the religious right is, and turning away in disgust. They’re no longer hiding their agenda — you might have noticed that they’re openly advocating making birth control illegal and wishing women didn’t have the right to vote. This is a good sign, believe it or not — the thrashing means that they know they’re losing, but being authoritarian and on The One True Path, they can’t admit defeat. So they just redouble the crazy.

From Tula Connell of the AFL-CIO (Via):

Since it was created in 2003, [Working America] has signed up more than 1.5 million members—and has done so by sending canvassers door to door, day after day in middle- and working-class neighborhoods where people are hungry to become part of a dynamic movement in which they can take action and make a difference.

Working America enables workers who do not have the benefit of a union on the job to join forces with 9 million union members in the AFL-CIO to work for good jobs, health care, retirement security and more.

The majority of Working America members identify themselves as politically moderate (54 percent), and 32 percent own guns. But when Working America canvassers come to their doors and discuss how the policies of the Bush administration affect them and their families, they make the connection—and divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage that may have impacted their vote fade when compared with the benefits of voting your pocketbook.

Emphasis mine.

From a recent study: 95 % of Americans engage in premarital sex, and have for generations.

From survey after survey: 98% of American women will use some form of contraception during their lifetimes.

From the Alan Guttmacher Institute: 24% of all pregnancies in the United States that do not end in miscarriage end in abortion.

From the Pew Center: Americans overwhelmingly favor keeping abortion legal, and they’re in favor of some form of legal union for same-sex couples.

From Digby and Amanda: The Democrats are getting ready to throw women and abortion rights (and most likely gays as well) under the bus in order to chase the wingnut vote.