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

Month: February 2007

Good News for Harvard

Harvard elected its first female president, Civil War historian Drew Gilpin Faust to replace the lovely Lawrence Summers, who pissed off a whole lot of people at Harvard — and not just because of his remarks that women don’t have what it takes to succeed in math and science.

Summers faced a revolt by faculty members after he suggested that intrinsic aptitude might explain why relatively fewer women reach top academic positions in math and science — comments for which he later apologized.

He was also embroiled in a public feud with the African-American Studies department that erupted shortly after he became president in 2001. The once-vaunted department saw an exodus of top faculty.

Faust is viewed as a consensus-builder, something Summers definitely was not.

The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, said in an editorial that Harvard was now at a cross-roads and managing much-needed reform will be among Faust’s foremost challenges.

“Harvard’s radically decentralized structure overly empowers its faculties and inhibits reform, encouraging wide disparities in funding among schools, and promoting internecine squabbling over major initiatives,” it said.

“Managing this entrenched academic sphere was the puzzle that cost Summers his job,” it added.

Faust will oversee 25,000 employees and a $3 billion budget, compared with a $16 million budget with 81 staff and fewer than 15 faculty members at Radcliffe, the smallest of Harvard’s schools and a former college for women.

Congratulations, Dr. Faust. And congratulations to Harvard.

The Limits of Abnegation as a Political Strategy

What started out as a lovely little thread in which Roxanne asked people to help Lauren out with ideas for her wedding reception turned into a debate about whether progressive straight people ought to get married so long as gay people cannot.

A commenter named Tara said:

Ugh. You know, I might be making a mistake and assuming the poster (Roxanne) and the people she’s writing about are in opposite-sex relationships (and, by marriage, that they’re referring to legally-recognized unions) and that this might not be the case. (I couldn’t tell, at a quick glance, but I think that’s the case.) If so, it’s just so hard for me to have warm and fuzzies (and also not be offended) when you’re taking this action (getting ‘married’), and also asking others to be excited for you, when other people, including some in your audience, can’t have their relationships validated in this same way. ‘Getting married’ is a political act. The institution, and its use to discriminate against sexual others (and, more broadly, subject everyone to its coerciveness — but, that’s a different post), only exists because people — many of whom consider themselves tolerant, even ‘allies’ — still decide to get married and/or perpetuate their being accorded privileges (some physical, some symbolic), even when they know others aren’t being allowed this right. I hope I’m not seen as someone who’s raining on someone else’s parade, but it just seems presumptuous to parade around hetero-privilege. I get offended.

Hilarity ensued.

Tara was pretty much alone in taking this stance. Can’t say I haven’t seen it before, in other contexts: for example, when I first started filing paperwork to emigrate (and, indeed, when a lot of disheartened people were talking about voting with their feet after the 2004 election), there were a lot of people who got very, very angry about it. Some of it was a form of American exceptionalism (i.e., people who didn’t think twice about immigrants moving here got very upset about the idea that Americans would want to leave), but there were others who made the argument that because there were people in the US who didn’t have the choice to emigrate, that I should forgo the opportunity.

Well, I’m not buying that.

Even if I forgo the opportunity, I still have it. Even if I choose not to marry, I still have the choice.* What good does it do to people who don’t have the choice or the opportunity to decline the choice or the opportunity? Wouldn’t it make more sense to fight like hell to expand the privilege?

Indeed, with marriage rights, maybe we should be thinking about challenging some underlying assumptions we have in this country; namely, that marriage should be the source of so many rights and privileges. The main reason that marriage equality is such a hot-button issue is that there are so many rights and privileges and protections that can only be had when one is married. But why should so many of them depend on marital status? Why, for instance, should people feel they have to marry so they can have health insurance?

It’s worth noting that Tara’s argument is rarely applied across the board. For example, perhaps she should abstain from voting until the franchise is extended to all women across the world. Or she should forgo internet access until everyone has it. Or decline to get an education because so many people don’t have the ability to go to school.

But I doubt she does any of that.

_________

* Provided, of course, I find someone I want to marry who is willing to marry me as well. Which is not looking good.

From the Department of Non-Apologies

Close, but no cigar.

In his apology obtained by The Herald, Petroski writes:
“Listen, I wrote the article. I (messed) up. It was a stupid thing to do and a stupid topic to even tread on, and I apologize to everyone I’ve hurt. I wasn’t writing this to try and hurt people though. I was trying to point out that people don’t give a damn about anything in a paper besides something they can rally around. It looks like I succeeded, especially with our front page. That doesn’t excuse what I did. I should have used a much less touchy pseudo-subject to do this with. Like animal rights** or something like that …”

Points for acknowledging you fucked up and not using the “I apologize IF I hurt anyone” formulation, but learn to shut the fuck up once you’ve issued the apology. Because you’ve now just dug yourself deeper into the hole.

Rape is a “pseudo-subject”? For real?

Look, Petroski. I know rape isn’t something you think much about except as a subject of mockery because it’s something you yourself don’t really have to worry about, but it’s in no way a “pseudo-subject.” It’s very real, and very harmful. And it’s a huge problem on college campuses, including yours. It’s something women live with every single day. It’s something many women are re-living because of you and your frat-boy sense of “humor.”

Just because your ass is chapped over the fact that people reacted more strongly to your misogynist hit piece than to an article YOU think is more important (like dollar coins) doesn’t mean that rape is a trivial subject. Just because YOU have made it clear that you think that women are not real people does not mean that their concerns are trivial.

But, again, Petroski at least managed a good apology before fumbling it. Our friend Mark Rowan and his unfortunate facial hair have not quite absorbed the lesson in all this:

The Progressive Student Alliance (PSA), a CCSU student group, held a rally Thursday in outrage to the publication of the article.

Offended students have also protested Petroski’s controversial satire by vandalizing the area outside of the newspaper’s office and stealing property.

“Their rally was laughable,” Rowan said. “They’re uneducated about freedom of speech and unorganized – they’re not channeling their anger in an appropriate manner. We’ve had to call the police several times today.”

Right, because you’re the expert on freedom of speech. So expert you don’t realize that you’re not the only one with freedom of speech, or that the exercise of free speech does not shield you from the consequences of airing your half-baked opinions. Even when those consequences include people telling you what a dumbass you are, demanding your resignation and asking that their student fees not be used to support your half-baked opinions. (The vandalism, not so much.)

And, please. Who are you to sniff about the proper way to channel anger? You still don’t get why people are angry in the first place.

Now, here’s a little surprise: the writer of the piece in the New Britain Herald quoted Chicklet’s comment here:

Internet bloggers let loose their own torrent of abuse Friday at Petroski, Rowan and The Recorder.
One blogger, “a proud CCSU graduate and former Recorder reporter,” wrote: “I am appalled and embarrassed for my alma mater. The school and the newspaper are much better than this, and I hope the editors are lambasted as much as the writer.
“Satire is a challenging genre to write and Petroski fell far short of the mark. To attempt satire on a horrific act and sensitive subject such as rape was incredibly arrogant. Unfortunately, he didn’t confine his attempt to an English paper that any professor would have rightly red-inked into oblivion.”

As I wrote to the reporter and the editor, it’s nice to see that people are reading Feministe, but responsible journalism requires that a) the distinction between commenters and bloggers be respected, and b) that quotes from blogs be attributed.

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** Naive little bugger, isn’t he?

From the Department of Double Standards

Say naughty words and poke fun at the Catholic Church’s anti-woman positions on reproductive rights and sex prior to being employed by a Presidential campaign to run the blog? Bill Donohue will call for your head.

But he’ll have a different response when you’re a powerful advisor to the White House and the RNC and the Bush ’04 campaign on Catholic issues — and, indeed, you’ve set yourself up as the moral arbiter for American Catholics, what with the wafer watch on John Kerry — and it comes out that, oops, 10 years earlier, you’d been forced to resign from your tenured professor job at a Jesuit university because you’d taken a vulnerable freshman out to a bar, gotten her drunk, brought her back to your office at the Jesuit university, performed unspecified sexual acts on one another (but quite likely the same ones you quite publicly excoriated Bill Clinton for engaging in), leading to her dropping out of school:

He’ll make a Virgin Mary joke while defending your sexual predation:

In a press release, Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, minimized the charges against Hudson and attempted a joke at the Virgin Mary’s expense. “Effective today,” Donohue wrote, his organization had “a new requirement for all future employees: all candidates must show proof of being immaculately conceived, that is, they must demonstrate that they were conceived without sin.”

Why does Bill Donohue hate the Virgin Mary?

Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It

asshole

Wow. This op/ed may be the worst college newspaper piece I’ve ever read — and that’s saying a lot. There’s no link to the actual article online, but a kind reader has emailed me the full text. It’s pasted below the fold, and the full spectrum of rape and violence-related trigger warnings apply.

Read More…Read More…

Braless No More

I start my new job Monday. Probably will have limited posting time, but fortunately, Jill’s pretty damn prolific these days.

I’ll be doing essentially the same thing I was doing before, but downtown (so a much shorter commute) and with actual opportunities for advancement.

In the meantime, I’m allegedly getting my final paycheck, two weeks late. We’ll see.

Women: No Matter What You Accomplish, You’re Still Worthless

I mean, that’s the lesson we should be taking from the whole Lisa Nowak astronaut love triangle debacle, isn’t it?

Certainly, Andrea Peyser thinks so:

ON EARTH, Lisa Nowak masqueraded as a brilliant rocket scientist, wife and mother of three.

But the diaper-wearing wacko-naut went into orbit – transforming into a scary, yet strangely familiar, creature.

She is the Amy Fisher of the space program.

This widely accomplished space lady, nicknamed “Robochick” for her skill at handling the space shut tle’s robotic arm, turns out to be just another sexually needy, fiercely aggressive wild child. Only this wack job was armed with pep per spray and – for reasons too icky to contemplate – a rubber hose.

Because she couldn’t actually BE a brilliant rocket scientist and crack pilot. She was just masquerading as one until her true, Long Island Lolita nature came out.

This astronaut thing? Just an act.

It makes you wonder if NASA should channel Dr. Freud. Or maybe Oprah. Because Lisa Nowak proves two things beyond doubt.

No matter how educated and accomplished a woman is, down below, there can live a murderous teen, equipped with a wicked jealous streak and a hair-trigger temper.

Well, gosh, Andrea. It’s not like there’s ever been an educated and accomplished man who’s ever snapped over a love affair gone wrong. Like, say, Sol Wachtler, former Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, who pled guilty to harrassing his former mistress and her daughter and was imprisoned and disbarred. Or, Jesus, Rudy Giuliani, who wanted to move his mistress into Gracie Mansion while his wife and kids were still living there.

It’s not like being highly educated and accomplished cannot be accompanied by serious mental illness. In fact, there are many, many people suffering from serious mental disorders who are bright, even brilliant, and accomplished. Lisa Nowak may have kept it all under control while she was training for her shuttle mission and then lost it when it was over. Or she may have started losing it when three of her close friends died on the Columbia.

Last July, Lisa flew to the International Space Station aboard the shuttle Discovery, becoming one of just a few women to visit outer space. But it took a random guy, fellow astronaut Bill Oefelein, to play Joey Buttafuoco to her Amy.

Interestingly, Bill Oefelein is one of the few men to visit outer space. Both Nowak and Oefelein are among the few people to visit outer space. While there have been fewer female astronauts than male ones, it’s not like a male astronaut could be in any sense be “a random guy.” Jesus, how many astronauts does Peyser think there are? Joey Buttafuoco was truly a “random guy” in Amy Fisher’s life: she met him when she took her car to his shop for repairs. But you don’t just meet an astronaut like that.

So why would a lady toss away everything to don a wig and trench coat, pack a rubber hose, large knife, a mallet and pepper spray, strap on a Depends and drive 950 miles, allegedly to try to kill a woman who was her rival in love?

The answer is as obvious as the insane expression on Lisa’s face when caught.

She was crazy in heat. How very sad.

Peyser really thinks that being “in heat” explains it. And that any woman — no matter how successful or accomplished — is just one heartbreak away from the wig and the rubber hoses and the space diapers. Because women, poor dears, are emotional creatures and can’t be getting above themselves by thinking they belong in the space program or anywhere but the home.

Well, no. I know I poked some fun at this story for the sheer weirdness of it all, but it does appear that Lisa Nowak suffered some kind of mental breakdown at some point, and that her employer — which, after all, entrusts her to fly in a very expensive tin can through space — doesn’t get into the “private lives” of its employees. Meaning, that unless there’s some disaster, they rely on the initial psych screening from, say, 10 years earlier when the astronaut was admitted to the program. The astronaut who was at her side upon her return to Houston for arraignment — a man who lost his wife on the Columbia — has said that psychological services are available to astronauts, but that they are discouraged from making use of them. And if a man whose wife was killed doing the same job and flying the same equipment he does gets the impression that he’s going to be penalized for taking advantage of the officially-available services even in his time of grief, just how welcome do you think that an astronaut who lost only friends and coworkers would feel to discuss her own psychological issues?