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

Month: March 2007

Circles

(I hate looking up these stories. Google “transgender murder san francisco” and, whoops, the first several links are for the wrong people.)

Daphne Gottlieb wrote this post about Ruby Rodriguez (Ordenana), the transwoman who was murdered in my hometown several days ago. (Here’s a much better article.) (Her death has already been covered by Pam over at pandagon.)

sometimes language does not connote life, just the conditions which likely abetted death, make disappearance somehow make sense, lessen the loss, as if we all understand that of course transgender sex worker immigrants hooked on drugs die. as if we all understand violence. as if violence was as simple as a word, as a diagram. as if hate was.

Key Largo

(S0 Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican wrote this brilliant post about racist definitions of whiteness and their requirements. I’m writing about a different kind of pressure, and don’t want to conflate the two. Still, his post helped me clarify some of my thoughts about either/or and both/and, and I’m indebted to him for it.)

I lost my gender.

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Snow Day

Now that I’ve charged up my camera AND located the cord I need to download photos, here are a couple of Junebug from our recent St. Patrick’s snowstorm.

Join me in shedding a tear for Ann Althouse

Because her character has been assassinated, justassassinated by a factually accurate and non-pejorative statement about a controversy she ignited. Poor Ann. These liberals are really out to get her! And the only appropriate response is to completely freak out on camera.

You’ve probably already seen the video of Ann Althouse’s incredibly bizarre behavior on her Bloggingheads show, but in case you’ve missed it, do go watch.

Ann is speaking with The American Prospect’s Garance Franke-Ruta about blogging. Ann is complaining about the meanies in the lefty blogosphere, and says to Garance, “So why don’t you ask some of them why they treat me so badly, and come back and tell me what the problem is?”

Garance, who makes it relatively clear that she isn’t representative of the lefty blogosphere, responds, “I’m not really aware of anything until this whole Jessica Valenti breast controversy, um … so, I know that there was some grudges and hostility that came out of that …”

Which is one of the reasons that I don’t like Ann Althouse, so I don’t think Garance was all that far off. Well, Ann did not like that answer, and proceeds to completely flip her shit. You really have to watch it to understand. She starts yelling at Garance and shaking her finger, and tells her that “I don’t accept your saying the Jessica Valenti breast controversy. I consider that an insult. — You know, I’m on the verge of hanging up with you for bringing it up that way.”

The look on Garance’s face is priceless. It’s the same look that I probably had when a little girl I was nannying for decided to pee on the floor to get my attention.

Ann then says that “It was character assassinating to talk about it like that.” Now, maybe I’m slow, but as far as I remember, Ann wrote a post about about Jessica’s breasts. The post was entitled “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.” In the post, she refers to Feministing as a “breast blog.” Lots of comments ensued. Lots of other blogs picked up the post, and many were critical of Althouse. In other words, there was a controversy.

Garance is very poised in her response, after getting over the initial shock at having someone scream at you for making a totally innocent reference to a factual event. I kind of can’t blame Ann for being so pissed off — if I had written the kind of mean-spirited, vapid things that she posted about Jessica, I’d be embarrassed to have it brought up, too.

But the kicker is when Ann says, “I don’t want to bring up old flame wars. It’s not as if I attacked them.”

She’s right. It was actually Jessica who, after the Clinton lunch, put up a post on Feministing saying, “Ann Althouse is dumb and purposely sticks her tits out in front of the President because she writes a breast blog.” Right?

But Ann isn’t exactly known for her firm grip on reality. In “Althousiana,” sexualized insults and comments about stalking and sexually assaulting your fellow students is a right to be defended to the death, but when Ann is on the receiving end of sexualized insults, she wonders where all the feminists are, because the comments about her are “egregiously sexist” and need to be discussed. And her sexualized insults, like comparing a feminist blogger to Monica Lewinsky and strongly implying that she’s unattractive, are totally fine. She also says that she supports the “free speech” rights of anonymous internet posters when that right is used to defame and attack female law students, and thinks they should just be flattered to be called pretty, but considers it “character assassination” for Garance to bring up and neutrally characterize Ann’s own posts in an interview. And she calls readers “fools,” routinely characterizes the progressive blogosphere as “vicious” and “ugly,” goes after liberal bloggers like Jessica on the basis of their physical appearance, and then whines that they hate her.

Conclusion: Ann is either not the brightest crayon in the box, or she’s a massive hypocrite. I’m thinking it’s the latter. But this isn’t necessarily an either/or situation.

My question for Ann is why she isn’t just laughing all of this off. After all, that’s what she said law school women should do in response to the AutoAdmit controversy.* Ann has also asserted that “laughing it off” is what Jessica should have done: “You know what? If you breastblog and someone calls you on it, just laugh. If you try to deny it, people will laugh at you.”

Kind of like how people are laughing at her right now, yeah? At least she’s gained a more illustrative example of her point.

*Is Ann going to wag her finger at me and lose her shit because I called it a “controversy”?

Male attorneys: Totally victimized.

Prepare for your head to explode (and if you value your sanity, don’t read the comments):

Bryan Cave sponsored a “shoe event” in Manhattan recently for its female lawyers and female clients, described in great detail in a WSJ column yesterday. Earlier this month, Skadden Arps hosted its ninth annual Skadden Women’s retreat at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Fla., attended by some 60 women partners and 135 women clients. The same weekend, Akin Gump held a similar event in Washington, D.C., for all of its female attorneys.

These types of women-only networking events are proliferating. “There are spa retreats, conferences at resorts, evenings at art galleries and cooking demonstrations, all organized by women who want to network and socialize with clients in their own way — at least some of the time,” writes the WSJ.

These confabs raise some complicated issues. What about the male clients of female lawyers? And the female lawyers of male clients? Some women think these events perpetuates stereotypes. And some men wonder, “With all the equality women have achieved, why do they continue to have these separate events?”

Yes, it’s women who are purposely segregating themselves in law firms. They’re totally equal, right? So why the separate events?

Maybe because women only make up something like 16% of partners, despite having graduated from law school in equal numbers as men for a pretty long time now. There are many reasons for this, including inflexible workplace policies and the “second shift” phenomenon, but networking is a major problem for women in law firms. Many of the networking events are male-oriented, and male associates are often able to bond more easily with male partners over a game of golf or a Knicks game or at one of the Old Boys’ bars. These kinds of events are not explicitly segregated, but they do effectively exclude women. But because men are organizing them, these networking events are “normal” and standard fare at firms.

But when events are targeted at a more stereotypically female audience — going to bars with fancy cocktails, spa retreats, cooking classes — they raise eyebrows and offend the male attorneys who are being “left out.” Funny how that works.

Now, we can certainly take issue with the stereotyping that goes on in the female-friendly events. There are undoubtedly plenty of women who would take courtside Knicks tickets over a spa retreat. But I’m not sure I see the issue of expanding networking events to include activities which, stereotypical as they may be, will often hold greater appeal to women. The examples given on the WSJ law blog — spa retreats, conferences at resorts, evenings at art galleries and cooking demonstrations — certainly don’t require vagina ownership. They may not appeal to all male lawyers, but I wouldn’t have an issue with using them as general networking options. Let men go to some activities that they may not love or know how to do if they want to network with partners and clients. Women in law firms have been doing it for a couple of decades — the guys can take their turn.

That said, I think the women-only events also serve an important purpose. The male-oriented events are effectively exclusive, and have long played a role in making it harder for women to achieve higher positions. It’s no big secret that, in mixed groups, men tend to dominate conversation and women tend to take a back seat. Forging relationships with female partners and clients, and having a chance to commiserate and discuss shared experiences, is valuable. But, while I don’t speak for all women, I’d certainly rather do it over a steak dinner or at a rock-climbing class than at a “shoe event.”

Thanks to Meredith and Katie for the link.

Drunk women can consent to sex

UPDATE: I’d just like to remind commenters — especially new commenters — that there are many women who read this blog who are sexual assault survivors. Some of these women have been assaulted after drinking, under similar circumstances to the ones presented in the case below. I’m generally pretty lax about comments, but I will not tolerate comments that could potentially add to the grief, stress, or myriad other emotions that sexual assault survivors may experience. This is an important issue to discuss, but I ask that we all please do so respectfully, and remember that we’re talking about the very real experiences of real people. This is not just a hypothetical. Please keep that in mind when posting a comment. If comments become abusive, I will delete them and ban the user who left them.

Red Stapler sends on this article about a recent decision in the UK holding that “where the complainant has voluntarily consumed even substantial quantities of alcohol, but nevertheless remains capable of choosing whether or not to have intercourse, and in drink agrees to do so, this would not be rape.”

I’m really of two minds on this one. I think any standard which says that any alcohol consumption makes it impossible for a woman to give meaningful consent is overly broad and paternalistic. But I do think there’s something to be said for an inability to give meaningful consent if you’re intoxicated.

As far as I can tell from the Telegraph article — and I haven’t read the actual decision, but if someone gets ahold of it I would love to — the judge is saying that a woman can be very drunk and give consent, and that it’s only when she’s drunk enough to not be able to give consent that it’s rape. Which sounds reasonable enough, until you consider the practical application of such a flimsy rule. What counts as “drunk enough not to consent”? Too drunk to talk? Too drunk to fight back? The woman in this case apparently feels that she was too drunk to choose to have sex, and yet the judge says that she did choose, and her consent was meaningful.

So who decides whether she was too drunk to consent? In this case, the woman filed a rape charge — obviously she is under the pretty strong impression that she didn’t consent to sex. She was drunk enough to be throwing up, and only remembers coming to and finding Benjamin Bree having sex with her. Again, I’d need to read a transcript of the trial or at least the actual opinion to get the details, but it sounds like Bree’s argument is that she had indeed given positive consent — that is, she didn’t just stay silent, but actually said yes. Given that, it becomes harder (though certainly not impossible) to argue that he should be convicted of rape. (For the record, I do think anyone who has sex with someone who’s so drunk that they’re puking and passing out cannot reasonably believe that they have consent to sex, and are therefore committing sexual assault. But that’s not a particularly popular or common view).

I’m not very familiar with UK law, but at least in the US there are things other than rape law which require meaningful consent, and where intoxication implies that meaningful consent cannot be given (certain contracts, etc). I think it’s fair to require that, like in contract law, if a reasonable person would have understood the other person to have been too intoxicated to make a fully-informed and voluntary decision, then the consent is not meaningful. It’s not as simple as a black-letter rule that drinking alcohol = no consent, but I think it recognizes the fact that women are not rendered helpless by alcohol consumption, and at the same time may get to a point where they’re so intoxicated that they cannot agree to sex. So it would trust women to make a sexual agreement in the same way that the law trusts people to make (some forms of) more formal contractual agreements, while still punishing those who take advantage of people who are unable to meaningfully consent.

It’s not an ideal model for sure, and it raises some tough questions (like what happens with both partners are so intoxicated that they can’t meaningfully consent), but it would be better than the ruling just handed down. I think. But maybe not. Thoughts?

Why Feminism Is Still Necessary

Because when women speak up and voice their opinions, men feel entitled to do things like this (serious trigger warnings).

The threat of violence, particularly sexualized violence, is a favorite tool for insecure men, usually safely anonymous themselves, for trying to push women out of the public sphere. Women targeted by AutoAdmit found themselves wondering which of the men they knew were posting updates on their locations and making rape threats; last year, Jill missed several days of classes. Melissa McEwan dropped out of the Edwards campaign after receiving increasingly credible threats. Amanda Marcotte’s been threatened. Pretty much every feminist blogger has, at one time or another — and you should see some of the stuff that turns up in our moderation queue.

And if there are complaints, there’s always someone who accuses the targets of being oversensitive, imagining things, not having a sense of humor, not being tough enough to take it in the blogosphere.

In Kathy Sierra’s case, threats of sexualized violence, not only at her blog but at tech blogs run by people she respected, led to her withdrawal from a workshop she was scheduled to give at the ETech conference in San Diego. Not to mention disgust with a blogosphere that condones the kind of posting even as it wonders why women don’t participate more in the tech world:

I do not want to be part of a culture–the Blogosphere–where this is considered acceptable. Where the price for being a blogger is kevlar-coated skin and daughters who are tough enough to not have their “widdy biddy sensibilities offended” when they see their own mother Photoshopped into nothing more than an objectified sexual orifice, possibly suffocated as part of some sexual fetish. (And of course all coming on the heels of more explicit threats)

I do not want to be part of a culture where this is done not by some random person, but by some of the most respected people in the tech blogging world. People linked to by A-listers like Doc Searls, a co-author of Chris Locke. I do not want to be part of a culture of such hypocrisy where Jeneane Sessum can be a prominent member of blogher, a speaker at industry conferences, an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, and at the same time celebrate and encourage a site like meankids — where objectification of women is taken to a level that makes plain old porn seem quaintly sweet.

(Of course, Frank and Jeneane are among the people who make outraged posts about the lack of female speakers at tech conferences. If THIS is what a woman has to put up with for having visibility in the tech world…)

And as we know, it doesn’t even take threats of violence to push women to the margins. All it takes is refusing to let them participate in substantive discussions, whether by discussing their fuckability, or shouting over them, or asking disingenuous questions, or demanding that their concerns be addressed before anything else is discussed.

Dr. Violet Socks has more. As Violet says, I’m not sure that there’s much we can do other than leave a supportive comment at Kathy’s blog. But if anyone more plugged into the tech world has any further ideas, they’re more than welcome.

H/T Lindsay, and Stephanie in comments.

Warning: Patriarchy is Bad for Your Health

My parents used to always warn me that if I kept rolling my eyes so dramatically, they’d get stuck in the back of my head. But if this article didn’t do the trick, I think I’ll be ok.

The title — Warning: Feminism is bad for your health — is bad enough. Here’s the thesis:

Researchers in Sweden, arguably one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, have found that equality could be associated with poorer health for both men and women.

In the study, published in Social Science and Medicine, the researchers compared data from all of Sweden’s 290 municipalities. They used nine indicators of equality in both the private and public sectors, ranging from the proportion of men and women in management jobs to average income. These were related to local life expectancy, disability and absence from work through illness.

The results showed a strong link between gender equality and levels of sickness and disability for both men and women. One of the findings was that equal financial resources between the sexes was associated with higher levels of sickness and disability.

For both sexes, gender equality in managerial positions was associated with lower life expectancy.

Fascinating. It shouldn’t surprise us that even in countries with gender-egalitarian laws, patriarchal practices continue and place stress on both women and men. Many studies have shown that, world-wide, women who work outside the home take on a “second shift” domestically and end up putting in far more unpaid working hours per week than a parter who works the same number of paid hours. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that women are sick more often. It also shouldn’t surprise us that when men aren’t being universally catered to, they’re slightly less healthy. I’d probably be a lot more healthy if I had free in-house labor to cook for me, clean up after me and generally look after my health and well-being.

But don’t listen to me — check out what the author of this piece admits the scientists who conducted this study said:

The scientists said possible explanations for the correlation is that men’s health may be adversely affected by a loss of what had been seen as traditional male privileges. Women’s health, meanwhile, could be being damaged by greater opportunities for risky behaviour as a result of increased income, along with stress from longer working hours.

Another suggestion was that gender equality has not yet been fully achieved, and that the effects being seen are just transitional.

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