Continuing on the end of last week's theme... What is your favorite album released in the 1980s?
(Yes, re-releases and best-of collections totally count.)
Question of the Day
That Is QUITE a Line-Up
The Conservative Political Action Conference, aka CPAC, which is the annual conference of the American Conservative Union, is happening this week, and, as per usual, they're doing a straw poll to see who the leading contenders are for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Here are the 15 names on listed on CPAC's presidential straw poll: Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour, Herman Cain, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and John Thune.
What a pitiful collection of dinguses.
In order: Barf, barf, who?, yawn, hell to the no, megabarf, eyeroll, barf, barf, good luck with that, lol, barf, barf, wow, and fart.
I do love that John McCain doesn't even make the list anymore lulz.
Number of the Day
83. The percentage of Kentuckians who believe gays should not be discriminated against, according to a survey released today by the state's Fairness Coalition. That's Kentucky, mind you, not one of those heathen states like California.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud distributors of the blog Shakesville. Which is about a raft. That we're all on together.
Recommended Reading:
Lisa: Injustice at Every Turn [TW for transphobia and other intersectional bigotries]
Kai: One Question on Black AIDS Day: Do We Care Enough to End It? [TW for racism]
crunkashell: Living Single
Andy: Indiana GOP Begin Renewed Push for Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment
Fannie: Internet
Deeky: The Worst Action Figure Ever
Leave your links in comments...
Cultural Corner
Liss,
I know you're not a big fan of people telling you how to run your life, but I'm pretty sure you need to go to this.
I totes can't wait to get into a girlfight about who gets to make out with Donny Danny Herbarium Wahlberg.
Inglés! Anglais! Английски язык!
A couple days ago I came to a stop at a light behind a truck that had this bumper sticker:
Uh-huh.
Huckleberry Finn would like YOU to learn about RAFTING!
Taylor County Journal
In light of the Green Bay Packers' once again being the WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!! of American (but not Canadian) football, I think it's important to share a celebratory recipe.
Before I get to the pineapple cheese salad recipe I found in a 1973 cookbook published by Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Whittlesey, Wisconsin (duh), I thought I'd indulge in a bit of aimless pontification on culture. It's like how my favorite cookbook (a tome on Texas cooking that some company in Cambridge, MA published) tells me that the people who put beans in chili are the ones who shot JR. (spoiler alert!)
That pontification shit is what sells cookbooks, BTW. It's a shame that folks at Our Lady of Perpetual Help didn't know that.
Even though I'm a Minnesotan, I've got deep roots in Wisconsin. (I've also got ties to Pittsburgh, which that made choosing sides in yesterday's ballsport contest a bit stressful.) And yes, for the record, Minnesota and Wisconsin, are, in fact, two different places. Indeed, they're two different places that each contain a multitude of non-identical places (set theory, bitchez!). For example, Milwaukee is not Madison, which in turn is most certainly not Waupaca.
My people, as the kids say, are God-acknowledging German-Wisconsinites from Taylor County (it's up north, right above Clark county). I remember making the three-hour (really, that was it?) trip to visit my great grandmother, always making the turn off at the strip club at 94 and US-53, always passing the brewery in Chippewa Falls.
Taylor County is in the heart of German-Wisconsinite logging country. Granted, I'm not so sure how much logging the German immigrants used to do. By the time I was visiting, not only was the logging gone, but the Germans' descendants had gone on to do great things, running window factories, selling frozen pizzas, real American dream kinda stuff.
My ancestors were certainly no exception. My late great grandfather (Herman Jacobs; go ahead, try to find a more Germanic name-- I dare you.) was an important businessman in the county. Well, I assume he was. It's a small county, so presumably all the businessmen were important. During the Depression, he ran the local sweet shop with help from my grandmother and and great-uncle. They were well enough off to not really notice the not-so-greatness of the depression; not that I blame them. If I grew up with a dad who sold ice cream (dairy FTW!), I'd probably not pay so much attention to global economic crises, either.
Herman was also the local postmaster. Well, he was until FDR took office and appointed one of his cronies to the spot. I'm assuming FDR didn't actually know anyone in Taylor County, but I'm also pretty sure that part of my family tree voted Republican for decades because of this grave slight.
A while back, someone opened a logging-camp themed restaurant on the site of the old logging camp, cluttered with local memorabilia, including the letter appointing some guy, through no fault of his own, to replace my great grandfather as postmaster. If that plus a rusty circular saw blade doesn't say kitsch, I don't know what does. The whole place is sorta like Applebee's, only with more coffee and less margarine.
After Herman died, my great grandmother (Mildred) eventually remarried a local banker. All I know about their union is that one of my relatives briefly contemplated wearing a red dress to the ceremony, which deeply offended my great grandma and her conviction that the devil was both real and interested in fashion. My step great grandfather (or as I like to call him, my great grandpa) was the kinda guy who 1) loved sports (mercifully, he passed away shortly before his Brewers lost the World Series) and 2) bought a ginormous Oldsmobile every three years.
I like to think that Oldsmobile part is telling. He didn't go in for the Buick or Cadillac (quite possibly for financial reasons). His last purchase wasn't even a Delta 98-- he went with the 88. Perhaps that too says something about being a success in Northern Wisconsin. When one is a success in the region that brought the world McCarthy, it's best to be low key. My great grandfather's 88 was my first car, BTW-- I drove that thing for years.
Anyhow, Northern Wisconsin is the sort of place where they still play polka on public radio and the world runs on hotdish. Mildred knew hotdish, BTW. She was a cook for the Taylor County School District.
I managed to inherit one of her cookbooks, this one from a local Catholic church, which perhaps says something about where I sit in the family hierarchy. In any case, it's all the same-- my people are all sisters in Jell-o.
In preparing for a Super Bowl party (which I ultimately ended up staying home from-- sniffles), I wanted to make something suitable for my fellow Packer fans. But what? Five spice casserole? (That's oregano, garlic powder, thyme, a bay leaf, and salt, if you're playing at home.) Easy chili? Mexicali chili? (It's also pretty easy, and includes chili power “to taste.”)
In the end, I decided to go with the green-and-gold colored pineapple cheese salad. To make it, you'll need to grab the following ingredients from the IGA:
[I ate all of these things-- at the same time!]
1 pkg. Lime Jell-o
1 C. crushed pineapple
1/2 C. “nuts”
2 C. small marshmallows
1 C. cottage cheese
1 C. whipped cream
As you can see, Jell-o is sorta the universal culinary solvent of rural Wisconsin. Basically, (actually, exactly) what you do is mix up the Jell-o with a cup of boiling water, and stick it in the fridge until it starts to get syrupy (maybe about an hour). Then you mix in the other things. If you're planning something fancy, like a wedding or a funeral, you can dump the whole mess into a mold. If it's just a PTA meeting, you can probably get away with tupperware.
You should end up with something like this:
[Ghostbusters: great movie, or the greatest movie?]
It's delicious in it's own nostalgic way, BTW. Okay, I admit it, I liked it. I'll probably make it again, especially since my daughter seems to like it. As much of a foodie as I am, there really is space in my world for my cultural heritage, no matter how bland it is.
Where's David Brooks to make a non-sequitur about bootstraps when you need him? Anyways, yes, bootstraps, they taste like cottage cheese and lime jell-o. Which is not to say that the people of Wisconsin should have elected Scott Walker, but merely to point out that if I can be a huge 'mo and still get my Jell-o salad on, perhaps there's hope for all of us yet. There, is that a sufficient moral for the story? 'Cause that's all I got.
News from Sudan
[Trigger warning for violence, genocide, systemic rape.]
Sudan, the two halves of which have been warring for two decades, appears likely to split into two separate nations:
The final results of a Southern Sudan referendum will be announced Monday, organizers said, bringing the largest nation in Africa closer to breaking into two.Twenty-two million people have died in Sudan's civil war, and the Janjaweed has long been using rape as a systematic weapon of ethnic cleansing: Millions of women have been victimized by sexual violence during the course of this conflict.
An overwhelming majority of Southern Sudanese -- nearly 99% -- voted to split from the north, preliminary results show.
The Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, which organized the vote last month, met Monday with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and First Vice President Salva Kiir to present the final results, state TV reported.
...If the preliminary results are validated and no other obstacles emerge, Southern Sudan would become a new nation in July.
And peace is still very far away: Just today, a mutiny led by members of the Sudanese Armed Forces' Joint Integrated Units along the north/south border has resulted in as many as 50 deaths.
This Sudan Q&A by Reuters also notes, quite rightly, that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which currently rules the South, "says it fought for decades against the north for human rights and democracy, but since taking power in the south it has not consistently promoted those values."
A nation, or two nations, do not recover easily from a generation of war.
Oh Dear
Actual Headline: Would America Have Been Better Off Without a Reagan Presidency?
Actual Subhead: "His simple-mindedness had a touch of genius to it."
Oh, Slate. Oh, Christopher Hitchens. Don't ever change.
Via @JamilSmith, who says: "To answer the headline's question, yes." LOL.
News News
AOL is buying the Huffington Post. I suppose that means we can all expect to receive CD-Roms in the mail with free trial subscriptions.
I kid AOL! But seriously, have you heard the new corporate jingle that's been written for the merger? It's really catchy.
Superbowl Open Thread
I didn't care about the game, didn't watch it, don't care about the adverts, didn't watch them, heard some of them were pretty good, heard some of them were pretty awful, if you're one of those zany people who happens to think sexism, whether reducing women to sex objects or reducing men to drooling knuckleheads, isn't totes trenchant comedy fodder.
I also heard Christina Aguilera has been arrested for treason or something...? Well, at least she didn't scandalize the world by showing her boob.
Iain and I have an annual tradition of going on a movie date during the Superbowl, which is so much fun. The streets are like a ghost town, and the theater is virtually empty. It's like we're the only people in the world.
And that's basically my take on the Superbowl: Thanks for leaving the world to us for an afternoon!
My avoidance/indifference is not an implicit criticism of loving the game and/or the adverts; it does, however, leave me manifestly incapable of writing something insightful or even factually accurate about the whole event, lol. So have at it in comments.
Penny Arcade Open Thread II
[Trigger warning for sexual violence and rape apology.]
Last night's thread was getting unwieldy after 1,000+ comments, so here's a fresh thread.
One observation about yesterday's thread: I opened it to give the people piling into my email an opportunity to speak their minds in this space. The people who were sending the really nasty stuff mostly didn't show up in the public thread where I consented to allow them to have at me. Can anyone think of any other action to which is central a lack of consent...?
The other people who show up in my email and not in the thread are the men (self-identified as men in their emails; I'm not assuming) who contact me to talk about how they are on my side, to thank me for speaking up, and/or to tell me that they've really learned something about themselves, the rape culture, whatever during this whole thing. There are a lot of them, which is good! That's why I do this, why I put up with all the bullshit. But they mostly don't want to say it publicly, and certainly not under their real names, the way I blog every day, because they see what happens to people who speak up.
This, then, is the rape culture at work: Men who want to harass me by violating my boundaries, and men who see that retribution taken on me and don't want to experience the same, intimidated into public silence by the jack-booted enforcers of this fucked-up culture.
This, too, is why I do this.
--------------------
Same rules apply: Whatever you've got to say, say it here. Whether you want to explain the comic to me, argue against the existence of the rape culture, confess that you've learned something you didn't expect to learn about rape culture, talk about my impenetrable tone, ask questions, give me a fist-bump of solidarity, accuse me of censorship, pontificate about the First Amendment, express your own contempt for trivializing rape for entertainment, demand to be educated, share what your wife/girlfriend/mom has to say, note how fat and ugly I am, breathe a sigh of relief at having found Shakesville, or anything else that's on your mind, this is the place to do it.
Threats of violence against anyone will not be tolerated in this space.
If you are a first-time commenter, please note that the Commenting Policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
Please be aware this thread will be left unmoderated, so tread with caution.
[Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures, Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape, Offended Is the Worst Thing to Be, and An Observation, My Point, Here It Is, Penny Arcade Open Thread I.]
Penny Arcade Open Thread
[Trigger warning for sexual violence and rape apology.]
Judging by my email, lots of people have a lot of stuff they REALLY NEED TO TELL ME. So this is your big chance. Whether you want to explain the comic to me, argue against the existence of the rape culture, confess that you've learned something you didn't expect to learn about rape culture, talk about my impenetrable tone, ask questions, give me a fist-bump of solidarity, accuse me of censorship, pontificate about the First Amendment, express your own contempt for trivializing rape for entertainment, demand to be educated, share what your wife/girlfriend/mom has to say, note how fat and ugly I am, breathe a sigh of relief at having found Shakesville, or anything else that's on your mind, this is the place to do it.
Threats of violence against anyone will not be tolerated in this space.
So have at it, everyone. Noting the above exception, say whatever the fuck you want to say.
Please be aware this thread will be left unmoderated, so tread with caution.
[Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures, Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape, Offended Is the Worst Thing to Be, and An Observation, My Point, Here It Is.]
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Daily Dose of Cute
I took that picture of Dudley the other day while he was watching Iain. He watches us intently when we move, which is, of course, because he's a dog—and dogs specialize in watching humans to learn our gestures in a way no other species does. I know this fact, but it is still beautiful to observe in practice, this intense looking he does to bond with us.
When one of us moves around the room, he watches—but only if we move in a particular way, as he's learned the difference between getting up to, say, go to the bathroom and getting up with Purposeful Intent to Do Something Important—and watches steadily, trying to discern if there is anything we need or expect or are about to give him. If not, he lies back down, with a great heaving sigh of contentment.
He is such a good dog, such an excellent companion. I cannot believe that once upon a time, he was owned by someone who didn't love him.
End Greyhound Racing.
Obviously
Obviously James Franco "likes to relax with a nice shave and a song before he hosts any award shows," and obviously he would post this video of himself getting a shave while singing along to "Cruisin' For Love" by '70s British country rockers The Kursaal Flyers. Did you think he liked relaxing some other way? This man is about to host the Academy Awards, and he obviously needs to relax with a nice shave and a song. No Doy.
[Via Andy.]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proudly not neutral.
Recommended Reading:
Problem Chylde: Talking about a Revolution...
Kai: Youth, Joblessness and Revolution in Egypt—and America?
Shark-Fu: Witness
Sady: #DearJohn: A Few Notes on Choosing Your Battles Poorly [TW for discussions of rape]
Peter: This Girl Is Your Sister [TW for rape, violence]
Rose: Carol Ann and Laura Stutte Sue Alleged Arsonist [TW for homophobia, violence]
Echidne: Images vs. Words
Leave your links in comments...
Backlash Backfire
In August of 2007, the state of Iowa's prohibition on same-sex marriage was ruled unconstitutional. In 2008, the case for marriage equality went to the Iowa Supreme Court, and, in 2009, the Court unanimously ruled in favor of marriage equality, thus making same-sex marriage legal in Iowa.
So of course Republicans in the state House introduced an amendment to the state's constitution to outlaw it again—a futile gesture, since state Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal flatly refuses to allow it to come up for a vote in the Senate. (Rock on.) But there were hearings nonetheless, because homobigots love to hear themselves talk in poorly appointed rooms on shitty microphones.
What they weren't counting on was providing a platform to 19-year-old Iowan Zach Wahls, who was raised by a same-sex couple and whose compelling testimony has gone viral, making a passionate appeal for marriage equality the most talked-about event of their stupid symbolic hearing. Whooooooops!
Take it away, Zach.
[Transcript below. H/T to everyone in the multiverse, and thanks to each and every one of you.]
Good evening, Mr. Chairman. My name is Zach Wahls. I'm a sixth-generation Iowan, an engineering student at the University of Iowa, and I was raised by two women.
My biological mom, Terri, told her grandparents that she was pregnant, that the artificial insemination had worked, and they wouldn't even acknowledge it. It wasn't until I was born and they succumbed to my infantile cuteness that they broke down and told her that they were thrilled to have another grandson. Unfortunately, neither of them lived to see her married to her partner, Jackie, of 15 years, when they wed in 2009.
My younger sister and only sibling was born in 1994; we actually have the same anonymous donor, so we're full siblings, which is really cool for me. Um, you know, and I guess the point is that our family really isn't so different from any other Iowa family—you know, when I'm home, we go to church together, we eat dinner, we go on vacations. But, you know, we have our hard times, too—we get in fights, um, you know, actually, my mom Terri was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000; it is a devastating disease that put her in a wheelchair, so we've had our share of struggles.
But, you know, we're Iowans; we don't expect anyone to solve our problems for us; we'll fight our own battles; we just hope for equal and fair treatment from our government.
Being a student at the University of Iowa, the topic of same-sex marriage comes up quite frequently in classroom discussions. You know, and the question always comes down to, "Well, can gays even raise kids?" And the question, you know, the conversation gets quiet for a moment, because most people don't really have an answer—and then I raise my hand and say, "Actually, I was raised by a gay couple, and I'm doing pretty well."
I scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT; I'm actually an Eagle Scout; I own and operate my own small business. If I were your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I'd make you very proud.
I'm not really so different from any of your children. My family really isn't so different from yours. After all, your family doesn't derive its sense of worth from being told by the state, "You're married—congratulations!" No, the sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other, to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones; it comes from the love that binds us. That's what makes a family.
So what you're voting here isn't to change us. It's not to change our families; it's to change how the law views us, how the law treats us. You are voting for the first time, in the history of our state, to codify discrimination into our constitution—a constitution that, but for the proposed amendment, is the least amended constitution in the United States of America. You are telling Iowans that some among you are second-class citizens who do not have the right to marry the person you love.
So will this vote affect my family? Will it affect yours? Over the next two hours, I'm sure we're going to hear plenty of testimony about how damaging having gay parents is on kids. But in my 19 years, not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple.
And you know why? Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character.
Thank you very much. [applause]
WHAM!
That sound was the sledgehammer:
This morning, the anti-choice leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives decided to modify a provision in the "Stupak on Steroids" agenda that would redefine what constitutes rape.There really are no words that would accurately describe how utterly heinous, how unspeakably vile that is. Truly a horror show in the House of Representatives.
At the same time, these anti-choice politicians opened a new attack on women's health. They added a new provision to H.R. 358, which was introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania. The new H.R. 358 would allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care even when it's necessary to save a woman's life!
My Point, Here It Is
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia, and threats. The background and timeline of the Penny Arcade Dickwolves Debacle, which I will be discussing in this post, is here.]
Since yesterday, when Mike/Gabe declared "Okay That's Enough," once he found himself on the receiving end of the same sorts of threats and violent rhetoric I've been getting from his readers for the past six months—from exhortions to kill myself to threatening emails and comments to a coordinated campaign against me and the blog (to which I won't link, but it's easy enough to find if you're so inclined) which explicitly encourages Penny Arcade readers to stalk and rape me—the amount of email I've been getting has actually increased.
That's not a coincidence.
It is also not a coincidence that many of the people who came into this space to shout at me and stupidly accuse me of censorship and harass/threaten me reacted to having their commenting privileges revoked by sockpuppeting to do an end-run around our security in order to keep commenting and/or treated being banned as an invitation to take up the issue with me personally via email.
When I ask a person not to engage in rape apologia in this space, because it is my space and I have not only not consented to host rape apologia here, but have also explicitly and repeatedly deemed it off-limits, and that person continues to engage in rape apologia nonetheless, without regard for my boundaries or personal autonomy, that's not exactly someone who's demonstrating a commitment to the notions of consent, autonomy, and respect.
That's someone who's leveraging the values of a rape culture to violate my boundaries.
That's someone who's acting like a fucking rapist.
That is what is meant when people talk about a rape culture—not, as it is continually misrepresented, a culture in which one can trace a direct line from every rape joke to an actual act of rape, but a culture in which there is endemic hostility to the notions of consent, autonomy, and respect of individual boundaries, privacy, and dignity.
That endemic hostility is absolutely and demonstrably associated with high rates of sexual violence, and it is also inextricably linked with low rates of conviction for crimes of sexual violence, i.e. institutional support for contempt and/or indifference toward consent. Lower conviction rates means more rapists left free to rape, which underscores the importance of challenging apathy toward consent. And every time someone decides to say "Fuck her/him, I don't have to respect her/his clearly delineated boundaries," and it goes unchallenged, that more deeply entrenches the rape culture and its values.
This shit doesn't happen in a void, and contempt for consent breeds more contempt for consent by normalizing it, by making it a thing so ubiquitous that we begin to believe that's just the way things are.
Rape is inevitable. Subway gropers are inevitable. Stalkers are inevitable. Trolls are inevitable.
We believe those things because we don't accept that they are all part of a continuum which starts with a failure to prioritize respect for consent.
And because we continually reinforce that lack of respect for consent with entertainment—films, television shows, music, books, magazines, comics, video games, sports, advertising—that tells people who don't respect consent that it's okay to hold that belief. Some of those people will be rapists. Some of them will just be people who viciously harass ladies who happen to disagree with their male heroes. Some of them will be self-proclaimed Nice Guys who would never do anything like that, because they don't see their own slightly-too-aggressive, slightly-too-insistent, slightly-too-entitled behavior as part of the same continuum, because it's so easy to react to the evidence of one's participation in the rape culture with knee-jerk revulsion.
It's easier to call me a psycho and accuse me of calling them rapists, than it is to self-reflect on how pernicious the rape culture really is and how maddeningly easy it is to perpetuate it, even if you're not sticking part of your body (or whatever) into someone else's body against hir will.
I have done it. I have perpetuated the rape culture. We have all done it. We were born into it, and we were all socialized to have contempt for consent.
The only issue is what we choose to do about that reality.
By all rights, this entire Penny Arcade debacle should be eye-opening for anyone with a baseline capacity for logic. Of course it was always going to go down this way. Of course treating rape a little too flippantly was going to trigger survivors, and of course triggered survivors and their allies who asked for some consideration were going to get attacked, and of course when Mike and Jerry escalated it by mocking anti-rape advocates, those advocates were going be harassed and threatened in an attempt to silence them, and so on and so on until here we are.
It was entirely predictable—and not because, as the jaded cynics of internet battles would have us believe, that's the way the internet works, but because that's the way the rape culture works.
The rape culture is not just about actual and attempted acts of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, but also about all the other ways in which contempt and/or indifference toward other human beings' consent, autonomy, boundaries, and right to halt any unwanted interaction in their personal spaces are violated.
It's about the all the narratives, attitudes, and behaviors that surround the violation of another person's boundaries and sense of personal safety.
It's about the ways in people are targeted with threats (often including threats of rape) in order to intimidate them into silence, especially around discussions of the rape culture.
The act of rape itself is not just about sexual violence; it is also about hostility toward another human being's consent, autonomy, and boundaries—and you don't have to actually be physically violating another person to show hostility toward hir consent, autonomy, and boundaries. And that is the point of the rape culture.
And that is why people like me object to comics (etc.) that, intentionally or not, provide tacit or explicit approval of hostility for consent, even if it's just by treating rape a little too casually, using it a little too flippantly to make a point—because it always turns out this way.
That's not a coincidence. That's the whole goddamn point.
I could never have made as effective an argument for what was wrong with that Penny Arcade comic as the resulting fallout itself has made.
Imagine that—a bunch of dipshits who find a comic about rape funny have no respect for boundaries or consent.
Many people will feel obliged to make the point that there are lots of people who read the comic and didn't act that way. Indeed so. But what they did do is participate in the tacit approval of the rape culture, which empowers the people who are inclined to troll and make threats and engage in general menace.
It's not good enough to say, "Lots of people can laugh at that without hurting anybody," not when laughing along conveys approval of the rape culture, whose vales are embraced by the people who do hurt other people. They aren't formed and they don't exist in a void—and the only responsible position, if you're not inclined to be their ally, is to have a zero tolerance policy on rape as entertainment.
Otherwise, you're just creating opportunities for Bad Guys to have their fucked-up values reaffirmed and for Nice Guys to communicate silent approval.
There is no neutral in the rape culture.
------------------------
Recommended Reading: On Dickwolves, Ethics, and Why I'm Not Attending PAX East.
Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures, Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape, Offended Is the Worst Thing to Be, and An Observation.
Open Thread: Revolution in Egypt
An Egyptian woman reacts to the situation in her homeland during a demonstration against Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak outside the Egyptian embassy in Amman February 4, 2011. [Reuters Pictures]Recommended Reading:
BBC—'Day of departure' rally in Egypt: "Tens of thousands of Egyptians are taking part in a 'day of departure' to try to oust President Hosni Mubarak. ... Our correspondent says the mood is relaxed but it is not quite the carnival atmosphere that existed before Wednesday—when pro-Mubarak gangs attacked anti-government protesters—and people are watchful."
Christiane Amanpour—Mubarak: 'If I Resign Today There Will Be Chaos' [please note if you're at work that a video starts playing when you click this link; it can be muted]: "I've just left the presidential palace in Cairo where I sat down for an exclusive 30-minute interview with President Hosni Mubarak. He told me that he is troubled by the violence we have seen in Tahrir Square over the last few days but that his government is not responsible for it."
New York Times—White House and Egypt Discuss Plan for Mubarak's Exit: "The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday."
Nicholas Kristof—We Are All Egyptians:
At Tahrir Square's field hospital (a mosque in normal times), 150 doctors have volunteered their services, despite the risk to themselves. Maged, a 64-year-old doctor who relies upon a cane to walk, told me that he hadn't been previously involved in the protests, but that when he heard about the government's assault on peaceful pro-democracy protesters, something snapped.CNN—News coverage curbed as journalists are targeted in Cairo: "Journalists attempting to cover unprecedented unrest in Egypt reported being beaten, arrested and harassed by security forces and police for a second day Thursday, leading to sharply limited television coverage of the protests. Various news outlets—including the BBC, Al-Arabiya, ABC News, the Washington Post, Fox News, Al Jazeera and CNN—said members of their staffs had been attacked or otherwise targeted. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also reported that staffers were detained."
So early Thursday morning, he prepared a will and then drove 125 miles to Tahrir Square to volunteer to treat the injured. "I don't care if I don't go back," he told me. "I decided I had to be part of this."
"If I die," he added, "this is for my country."
In the center of Tahrir Square, also known as Liberation Square, I bumped into one of my heroes, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, a leading Arab feminist who for decades has fought female genital mutilation. Dr. Saadawi, who turns 80 this year, is white-haired and frail and full of fiery passion.
"I feel I am born again," she said.
Al Jazeera's daily liveblog is here.
Question of the Day
What is your favorite album released in the 1990s?
(Yes, re-releases and best-of collections totally count.)
Do Tell
A U.S. News & World Report article headlined "Obama Is Emphasizing Ronald Reagan-like Optimism" (LULZ), contains the following unintentionally hilarious passage:
As the nation prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, the question arises: Why has Ronald Reagan retained a hold on the popular imagination? Polls of historians often rate him in the top tier of presidents, and everyday Americans tend to agree.Ya think?
Of course, Reagan did have some failures.
Daily Dose of Cute
Matilda
Olivia
Sophie
Dudley
Four captured moments of classic inimitability: Matilda, curious and cute; Olivia, graceful and distracted; Sophie, in another pose befitting the platonic ideal of catdom, her tail wrapped around the tops of her paws; Dudley, standing in the door of the kitchen, patiently waiting for a treat. Each picture, just so.
Quote of the Day
"When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord, I ask him to give me the strength to do right by our country and our people. And when I go to bed at night, I wait on the Lord and I ask him to forgive me my sins and to look after my family and to make me an instrument of the Lord."—President Barack Obama, at today's National Prayer Breakfast.
Listen, I hate the National Prayer Breakfast, and I hate that our political leaders participate in it, not just because I'm an atheist who isn't a fan of public (meaning government-sanctioned) celebrations of faith, but also because it confers legitimacy on its organizer, The Family, whose agenda is objectionable even to most Christians.
But the reason I'm posting this quote isn't to have that discussion. The reason I'm posting this quote is because I really just want to say: That is one heck of a Jesus-y quote, right there, I mean, that is a man who loves him some Jesus, yo, no kidding, that Barry is a fan of The Jesus like whoa, AND THERE ARE STILL RIGHTWINGERS WHO THINK HE'S A MUSLIM LULZ!!!!!!!eleventy!!!1!
I'll Show YOU, Smarty Pants
Okay, so, apparently Bill O'Reilly is fond of saying "Tide goes in, tide goes out," to prove the existence of God. Or something. I mean, I learned in grade school that the tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon (and the sun), but what the fuck do I know. After all, back then, I thought Spiderman was real. Oh wait, I do know this, Bill O'Reilly can't be arsed to google anything. I also know Bill O'Reilly thinks I'm a pinhead.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this debunking of science by O'Reilly. I know I'm convinced. Flag on the moon... how did it get there?
Poor Mars. All lonely out there.
Text Onscreen: "BILLOREILLY.COM Backstage Conversation."
(Transcript below the fold, thanks to Liss for the transcript. H/T to Shaker MMC.)
O'Reilly [sitting in his office, reading an email/letter, the text of which appears onscreen]: David, Beverley Hills, Florida—"What do you mean when you refer to the tides when you are asked about the existence of god? Science explains the tides…the moon's gravity pulls on the oceans." Okay, how'd the moon get there? [cut back to O'Reilly in office, looking directly at camera] How'd the moon get there? Look, you pinheads who attack me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd the moon get there? How'd the sun get there? How'd it get there? Can you explain that to me? How come we have that, and Mars doesn't have it? Venus doesn't have it—how come? Why not? How'd it get here? How did that little amoeba get here, crawl out there? [waggles fingers to mime an amoeba crawling out of the primordial ooze, I guess] How'd it do it? Come on.
You have order in this universe; you have an order in the universe. Tide comes in; tide goes out. Okay, yeah, the moon does it. Fine. How'd the moon get there? Who put it there? Did it just happen? Okay, if we have existence, if we have life on Earth, how come they don't have it on the other planets? Were we just lucky? Some meteor do this? [waves hand like exploding meteor] BOOM. Come on.
You know, I see this stuff—it's desperate. As I've said many times, it takes more faith to not believe and to think that this was all luck, all this human body, the intricacies of it and everything else—all luck!—then it does to believe in a deity. There you go.
Text Onscreen: "Become a BILLOREILLY.COM PREMIUM MEMBER for more weekly insights from Bill!"
Yeah....no.
Apparently in Shelby County, TN, teen pregnancy is "a problem". One minister, Ralph White of the Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church, thinks that abstinence isn't the only message young people should get--they should hear about "responsible sexual behavior" and that more programs in churches need to address pregnancy prevention. Well, ok. That sounds all right on the face of it, doesn't it?
However, Pastor White has come up with a, let's call it, not-so-all-right solution:
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - A Memphis pastor is taking a stand, refusing to baptize a baby unless the child's parents are married.Soooo...shame is the method here, eh? "You aren't married, so you cannot have your baby baptized in church!" Because shame works so well, amirite?! Just when did "not being married" = "man doesn't care for his partner and child"? Will Pastor White make an exception for rape survivors who may not know her attacker, become pregnant, decide to continue a pregnancy, and keep the child? Single parents are just SOL, it seems. Also SOL: parents who cannot get married because retrofuck jackholes in their state have made it illegal. Great solution you have there, Pastor White. I think we should call it a "bullshit solution".
Reverend Ralph White, the pastor of Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church in Memphis, is trying to set a precedent when it comes to teen pregnancies.
"We will do it, but not in the church setting," he said. "We'll go to the home or if they want to have an event somewhere, we'll go there and do it."
White said he hopes to send a message to young fathers: step up and provide for your family.
"Biblically speaking, a man who doesn't take care of his children or family is worst than an infidel," he said.
There are congregations who address these issues the right way. You might want to try some learning yourself, Pastor White, instead of trying to teach unmarried parents a lesson via shame from your propped up high horse.
Scenes from the Snowpocalypse
This morning, the sun came out, and the snow-covered world is just unimaginably beautiful, despite being inconvenient and dangerous. There is nowhere to safely walk Dudley—the snow in the backyard is knee-deep, the sidewalks are buried, and the roads are unsafe; when I was out walking him this morning, after strapping on his purple balloon boats and coat, we had to run out of the way of a fishtailing car and saw a big collision at the intersection near our house, when a car slid through the stop sign and plowed into an SUV, pushing it into a telephone pole. We're going to have to try to clear a path in the backyard tonight.
And we're fortunate that that's our biggest problem. We haven't lost electricity, we've had no injuries from the snow or ice (touch wood), and we've got a roof over our heads. Others are not so lucky.
So the snow is really no fun. But it does look beautiful.
A bit of snow-covered holly, poking through the slats of the front porch.
A bright red cardinal, who likes to hang out in the vines outside my office window.
He flitted around for ages, his red a stark splash of color in the winter landscape.
Icicles already beginning to melt in the sunshine.
Snow-covered vines.
The snow has created some beautiful shapes on rooftops in the area.
This is a particularly lovely formation over our garage.
Shadow of a tree in the snow covering our front yard.
Sophie sitting on the back of the couch, checking out the results of the storm.
Olivia and Matilda looking out the front door.
Matilda is not impressed.
A shot I took yesterday, on a grayer day, of the humongous amounts of snow.
Another one from yesterday, looking down the length of our driveway.
Our back porch, decorated by the storm.
Iain putting on his boots; Dudley looks worried. "You're not making me go out there, are you?"
Nope—Iain was just going out to shovel.
Livs and Sophs at the front door, with reflection of wintry landscape.
My reflection in our dirty window, taking pictures.
An Observation
Troll Logic:
1. It is censorship to criticize something with which you disagree.
2. It is not censorship to tell me to STFU.
For the record, neither of these things are censorship. (Nor, as an aside, is prohibiting certain types of content on one's personal blog.) I just find it interesting that if I say, "I object to this thing," I am a censor and enemy of the First Amendment. But if a troll says, "I object to your objection," which is frequently couched in silencing or overtly eliminationist language, they are champions of Free Speech.
All of this happens without a trace of irony.
#dearjohn: No On 3
The good news: Republicans have stripped the "forcible rape" language out of the bill. We've made enough noise to stop their redefinition of rape.
The bad news: The rest of the bill still "contains numerous provisions that appear to dramatically expand federal limits on abortion funding, including a clause that limits the incest exemption to girls under the age of 18 and language that makes it tougher for women to obtain abortion coverage through their private insurers."
Even stripped of its attack on survivors of rape, the legislation remains an attack on people who need to terminate a pregnancy, particularly people in marginalized and/or vulnerable populations. Young women, poor women, trans men, and others, who are disproportionately targeted by reproductive coercion and/or sexual violence, and thus are most likely to be in need of government assistance to terminate unwanted pregnancies, are now under attack from the Republican Party in yet another way. As are all people who can get pregnant and quite reasonably expect that their private insurers pay for legal healthcare services.
So keep up the pressure. Keep calling, keep emailing, and keep making noise so we can stop this reprehensible assault on reproductive rights in its tracks.
Top Chef Open Thread
[Image from season seven: Marcel. In a bandana. We* miss you, Marcel!]
Last night's episode will be discussed in detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
* I don't miss Marcel.
Open Thread: Revolution in Egypt
A group of soldiers pass by anti-government protestors just outside Cairo's main square, Egypt, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011. Egypt's prime minister apologized for the attack by regime supporters on anti-government protesters in central Cairo, vowing to investigate who was behind it. The protesters accuse the regime of sending a force of paid thugs and policemen in civilian clothes to attack them with rocks, sticks and firebombs to crush their movement to oust President Hosni Mubarak. [AP Photo]The Guardian—Egypt's revolution turns ugly as Mubarak fights back:
Egypt's pro-democracy revolution descended into violence and bloodshed overnight as President Hosni Mubarak's regime launched a co-ordinated bid to wrest back control of city streets, crush the popular uprising, and reassert its authority.Al Jazeera's liveblog is here. Christiane Amanpour reports frome Egypt here. A sampling of other coverage:
Bursts of heavy gunfire rained into Tahir square just before dawn today and there were reports that three more people had been killed. Protest organiser Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance, while another witness spoke of 15 people being wounded.
Clashes had continued into the early hours even though the pro-Mubarak supporters had been pushed back to the edge of the square and explosions – possibly from gas canisters – echoed around the area.
There were extraordinary scenes in the centre of Cairo as anti-government demonstrators fought running battles with organised cohorts of Mubarak supporters, exchanging blows with iron bars, sticks and rocks.
At one point pro-Mubarak forces rode camels and horses into central Tahrir Square, scattering opponents. At least three people were killed yesterday and up to 1,500 injured according to medical sources.
George Soros in the WaPo: Why Obama has to get Egypt right.
New York Times: Protesters Clash Again on Cairo's Streets.
Wall Street Journal: New Premier Apologizes as Violence Escalates.
CNN: Who are the pro-Mubarak demonstrators?
LA Times: President Obama meets with John McCain at White House. Let me be probably not remotely the first person to say I really don't give a fuck what John McCain thinks about how we should approach Egypt.
NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers New Planetary System
This is my new desktop image:
Six planets orbiting a single sun-like star. Here is the full-size version from NASA.
From NASA's website:
Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth.
"The Kepler-11 planetary system is amazing," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and a Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "It’s amazingly compact, it’s amazingly flat, there’s an amazingly large number of big planets orbiting close to their star - we didn’t know such systems could even exist."
In other words, Kepler-11 has the fullest, most compact planetary system yet discovered beyond our own.
SnOMG, Part 3
Shakes Manor, an hour or so ago.
Photo by Iain, who continues to marvel at the snowfall. It's the most snow he's ever seen.
Quote of the Day
"I would like to think that fixing [the debt] and saving our kids' future could be a unifying moment for our country and we wouldn't stop our disagreements or our passionate belief in these other [issues like abortion and gay marriage], we just sort of mute them for a little while, while we try to come together on the thing that menaces us all."—My garbage nightmare of a governor, Mitch Daniels, who is a strong contender for the 2012 Republican nomination.
I just can't get enough of highly privileged straight white cis men telling me what the REALLY important issues are, i.e. the ones that effect them.
And, seriously, advertising you can't multitask or hold multiple thoughts in your head at the same time isn't a great pitch for the presidency. Personally, I can be concerned about abortion and marriage equality and the economy ALL AT THE SAME TIME. In fact, I don't even regard them as mutually exclusive subjects.
Daily Dose of Cute
Video Description: Olivia investigates the snow on the porch first thing this morning and is fairly unthrilled with it. But she did leave ridiculously adorable kitteh prints behind.
Dudley in his boots. Oh the humanity!
SnOMG, Part 2
Scenes from earlier today. We've had about three more inches since, and it's coming down hard again. Iain is out shoveling for the fourth time in 24 hours; I asked him if he'd rather be at work, and he just laughed and said indeed he would.
[this morning, over scenes of piles of snow] We officially have a fuckload of snow. In fact, it may be several fuckloads of snow. Um, all I can hear is the sound of people running their snowblowers in the distance, and sirens on a regular basis, 'cause I think there are probably a lot of car accidents right now. We've had about 10 inches of snow, and it's still coming down, so we will probably have some more.
[edit; later] Now it's coming down pretty hard again; here comes some more plows. It's really blustery, is the problem. Everything's getting blown around on top of there being more snow.
[edit; later] There's our neighbor, out snowblowing. Iain shoveled our whole driveway, uh, by hand with a shovel, because we don't have a snowblower! [laughs] And his back hurts, and I'm gonna give him a backrub later, because that's the least I can do since he did all the shoveling. Snowmageddon. Snowmygod.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you from Shaxco, currently located at the bottom of a snow mountain.
Recommended Reading:
Sady: #DearJohn: Taking It Big [TW for rape] Related: Listen to Jaclyn Friedman on the Rick Smith Show last night here.
Rachel: Photo of the Day
Arturo: Top Gear Goes From Zero to Racist in Under Two Minutes [TW for racism and violence] Melissa has contact info here.
Suzie: Spying on the UN
Andy: Abandoned Cars in Snow on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive
CTJen: Fatties Run Around Outside and Have Fun
Renee: Snowmageddon Has Closed Everything Down
Leave your links in comments...
Questionable Standards
After I read Liss' post on Coded Misogyny and Institutional Prejudice, I had a million and one thoughts bouncing around in my head about how her insights could be applied to financial systems (Capitalism/Masculine Socialism/Feminine), national defense strategies (Imperialism/Masculine Nationalism/Feminine), politics (Conservative Daddies and Liberal Mommies), and many, many other arenas -- then something popped out at me.
In systems where kyriarchal assumptions become the default standard against which everything else is measured, there seems to me to be a consistent feature:
The standard doesn't have to be met by its own adherents -- only those challenging the standard have to meet or exceed it.
An example:
STANDARD: Functional financial systems produce escalating wealth and opportunity in a way that is sustainable long term, and everyone knows that USofA-style free-market Capitalism is the Best! Possible! Financial System! In the World!!! Everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps!!
Don't you just know this is true? I hear it all the time -- from adherents of the kyriarchy.
Never mind that the original U.S financial system was not a true free-market capitalist system -- that it was initially made possible by a massive theft/co-option of property and developed through slave labor.
Never mind that, in its entire history, the longest period that the U.S. has been without a financial panic, recession, or depression is 10 years (and that's fairly recent, between 1991 and 2001 -- the average time between any panic/recession/depression in U.S. history is just 2 years and 8 months).
In the 236 years that the USofA has been a nation, it's spent a full third of that time -- 77.5 years -- in varying states of economic panic, recession or depression.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that Capitalism is the worst economic system, or even necessarily a “bad” system -- but if you bought a car that was advertised as the Best! Possible! Car! in the World!!! -- and every third day it would only drive in reverse -- wouldn't you begin to question the quality claims?
So, why aren't we allowed to rationally assess the real sustainability and efficacy of Capitalism without being demonized as Anarchists, Socialists, or Communists?
Because the kyriarchy doesn't have to prove itself to you -- you have to prove yourself to it.
Another example:
STANDARD: According to the Daddy Party, traditional family values are very, very important, fiscal conservatism is a must, and corruption in government has to go!
[Insert here myriad stories of Daddy Party members engaging in anti-family-values activities such as hiring prostitutes, having (and conspiring to cover up) extra-marital affairs, expanding the deficit every time they've been in power since 1980, and being found guilty of money-laundering, conspiracy, voter fraud, etc. -- all without being kicked out of the party that espouses the values listed above.]
In fact, the one thing that seemingly will get you kicked out of the Daddy Party is acting too much like a member of the Mommy Party -- then you become a RINO.
So why aren't we allowed to objectively assess, and call to account, the chasm between statement and practice vis-a-vis conservative values without being accused of being dangerous, radical liberals?
Because the kyriarchy doesn't have to prove itself to you -- you have to prove yourself to it.
Another example:
STANDARD: Single-paired heterosexuality is "natural" and "normal". All other forms of sexuality are not normal.
Despite the fact that recorded human history is full of people who were not heterosexual -- despite the fact that the vast majority of those who identify as heterosexual are not single-paired for a lifetime in terms of sexual interactions -- despite the fact that queers of all varieties have been shown again and again to be "normal" in other respects (not that I consider that a good thing, necessarily, given what passes for normal in this society) -- being queer is still considered, well . . . queer. Abnormal. Deviant -- in all its shades of meaning, from the purely statistical to the moral/judgmental.
Why doesn't the collective presence of queers throughout history, the presence of verifiable clinical data, and the evidence of our own experience make a bigger dent in this standard?
Well -- you know . . .
I could go on and on with these examples, but . . . . enough already.
I want to draw attention to something in that last bit, though -- about the evidence of our own experience.
How many times have you found yourself bumping up against internalized oppression based on these standards, and subjugating yourself to them, despite your own experience that they were inaccurate or flawed?
As a person who is fat, I experience the health and strength of my portly form directly -- I have a visceral, intimate sense of my own vitality every single day, and have verifiable physical evidence that I’ve enjoyed far better health at my current weight than when I was thin -- but within me, I know I still harbor voices that tell me that I am wrong/bad for being fat.
I've spent a lot of time and energy arguing with those voices, and I wonder why I still sometimes allow them to trump my own actual life experience as an authority.
I think this may be one of the most insidious thing about kyriarchal standards -- their potential to get inside our heads and encourage us to stop thinking and feeling for ourselves.
These are the assumptions that we're soaking in, and challenging them is considered dangerous by adherents of the kyriarchy.
My experience has been that I assume that it's dangerous to challenge them, too, at some level.
I notice that, usually, as I muster up my courage to confront sexism, or racism, or homophobia, or ableism, or fat-phobia, or, or, or . . . . my palms get sweaty and the butterflies start up in my stomach.
In most cases, I also find myself assessing the person(s) I'm about to confront -- "Will it make any difference? Are they simply unconscious, but still teachable? How entrenched are they in the standard I'm about to challenge?"
Essentially, I'm asking myself: "Is it worth the risk of speaking up?" -- and that tells me that I have been successfully programmed to the concept that confronting the kyriarchy is risky.
The baffling thing is that, while many (if not most) of these standards can't hold up to the light of objective examination, and so many of them prove untrue in our direct personal and collective experience (turns out letting queers wed doesn't undermine the institution of marriage, and the human race did not die out because women stopped having children when they got the vote), the kyriarchy seems completely unembarrassed about having been so spectacularly wrong.
How often have you seen the kyriarchy successfully challenged on its own terms – with evidence and studies that adhere to the male-coded qualities of rational, scientific research – only to have the kyriarchy wave it away dismissively or simply skim to a new rationalization/justification to defend the standard?
[TW for discussion of rape culture]
Here’s a glaring example: The statistic that 1 out of every 6 women is a survivor of an attempted or completed rape at some point in their lives is not some magical claim that flew out of a unicorn’s butt – it comes from an agency within the kyriarchy itself: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/172837.htm
(My personal experience, and the experience of the women I know, tells me that this statistic is probably very conservative – but for the moment, let’s just go with their figures.)
Now -- think about how many times you’ve argued with a rape-culture denier – when you’ve pointed out these figures, or highlighted that this statistic is about rape only and doesn’t even touch on other forms of sexual threat and harassment towards women – and then you’ve received responses like these:
• Well, those are subjective reports! (dismissal relying on another assumption/standard -- women can’t be trusted)
• But men are more often victims of murder! (skim away)
• Hey! Men are raped too! (straw-person attempt at justification/skim away)
• Women can just accuse someone! (see #1)
• Yes, there are some bad apples, but there is no such thing as a rape culture. (dismissal)
(As a side note: I think that one of the reasons that the denial of rape culture is so strong is that it’s a key strand in a particularly complex and nasty basket – if you pull on that one, all sorts of other cultural tropes -- about men as the noble protectors of delicate womanhood, and equal opportunity, and shared power, and a host of other assumptions and standards -- begin to come unraveled.)
And yet another example (honestly, sometimes I wish these weren’t so easy to find):
When a person who fits the preferred kyriarchal profile of straight, white, male becomes wealthy, powerful, or popular, it’s assumed that their success is due to how well the various systems and standards of the kyriarchy work.
However, when a person of color, or a woman, or a disabled person, or a transperson, or a queer, or, or, or . . . actually succeeds on the kyriarchy’s own terms – say they amass great wealth, or attain a position of power, or develop a widespread audience – how often do you hear criticisms of them that imply that they must have “cheated” in some way?
Obama, born in Hawaii, needs to provide a birth certificate -- but McCain, born in Panama, does not.
Oprah Winfrey’s business acumen has clearly resulted in “success” by kyriarchal standards, but I often see coded misogyny in the criticisms of how she got there – the very fact that her audience and message are coded feminine seems to make her suspect. The coded misogyny seems to extend to men who pitch primarily to women, too. Dr. Phil is the second highest-earning talk-show host after Oprah -- but compare the attitudes you hear expressed about the value of these two shows as compared to what you hear about Letterman (the third highest earner).
Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be where she was unless she’d been married to a U.S. President, right?
Also, it’s often assumed that a person outside the preferred profile has only succeeded because of their difference, rather than in spite of it (just another lovely feature of tokenism).
I bring these examples up because they demonstrate again how the kyriarchy does not seem to feel obliged to adhere to its own standards. The USian myth that anyone can succeed, as long as they follow the formula of Hard Work! Clean Living! Moral Standards! is exploded by its own adherents over and over as they succeed in spite of poor work ethic, libertine behavior, and glaring moral hypocrisy. It’s exploded yet again when outsiders follow the formula but don’t succeed, or succeed and are then discounted.
It’s the old saw: A woman [you could insert any other “other” there] has to be twice as good as a man [insert “straight” “white”, etc.] to go half as far.
All of this is essentially about unearned privilege, and double-standards, yes – but it actually goes beyond just a double-standard, I think – it’s really a one-way standard – one that bristles and growls when you dare to challenge its validity.
So, where am I going with all this?
I’m going here >>> I’m currently using these three features of the Kyriarchy . . .
1. Doesn’t have to live up to its own standards, requires that all others do so.
2. Claims these standards as Universal Truth, despite clinical and experiential evidence to the contrary.
3. Gets cranky and threatening (and often, eliminationist) when standards are challenged.
. . . to examine attitudes and beliefs inside myself for hints of internalized oppression.
An example from my own life – a standard that I absorbed fully and still wrestle with:
Formal Traditional Education=Intelligence
As the daughter of two school teachers, I got the full spa-treatment with this one – it was soaked, scrubbed, and polished into me, at home as well as in the wider world, and I didn’t begin to question it within myself at all until I was well into my thirties.
I knew one of my best friends for nearly ten years before she revealed that she had quit school at fourteen and had no GED. Her mom was pretty much absent for a number of reasons, and there were four young brothers who needed care and supervision. My friend is brilliant – a gifted writer, thinker, and business woman -- and I said something asinine in response, like: “Really? I would never have known that – you’re so smart!” (Oy! It’s one of those moments that makes me want to curl up and die of shame when I think back on it.)
But do you see what happened there?
When the standard I had absorbed was challenged by my direct experience of my dear friend’s rapier wit (which brings me to tearful laughter on a nearly daily basis), penetrating mind (which I have marveled at in long, late conversations on myriad subjects), and success as an entrepreneur, and I experienced that “Zuh?” moment -- I didn’t stop and question the validity of the standard – instead, I dismissed her as an anomaly to it.
Of course, questioning and challenging this internalized entrainment can be a dicey business, according to the kyriarchy – because if Education !=Intelligence, then I begin questioning all sorts of other assumptions about what Intelligence is at all.
Is another friend whose grammar sucks (according to the standard), but who is able to instantly see connections that I miss, more “intelligent” than I am? Does my friend who simply says “I don’t read”, but who takes photographs of astounding beauty and fucking invents and builds impossibly weird, complex, and gorgeous stringed instruments, “intelligent”? Is my friend’s autistic, nonverbal son being “intelligent” when he’s effortlessly cutting a perfect freehand spiral from a sheet of paper in seconds?
This is why the kyriarchy hates being confronted. This is how the basket unravels.
I believe that we must unravel it, because the stereotypes arise from the institutional standards, not the other way around.
I often find that there is much more support for the confrontation of individual stereotypes than for thorough assessment and critique of the nasty basket from which they spring, even within communities of self-identified social justice activists.
Write a blogpost descrying a specific comment that accuses the unemployed of being lazy, and you’re likely to get a pat on the back and big huzzah – write one about how frequent swings in employment levels may indicate that Capitalism itself is an inherently-flawed economic system? – you are ZOMG RADICAL!!11!!1!!
Pen an article about the injustice of a specific rape case where “she was asking for it” tropes are trotted out, and at least some other progressives will applaud you – begin a series about how rape is institutionalized as Rape Culture, and point out how individual “jokes” and acceptance of those “jokes” promotes this institutionalized oppression, and you may find that those very same people tell you that you are being HYSTERICAL!!, and alarmist, and looking for trouble where it doesn’t exist – especially if you type that series with hands that happen to be attached to a woman’s body.
If you’re a queer speaking out about the false standard of hetero-normity, or a person of color speaking out about the false standard of white supremacy, or person with a disability speaking out about the false standard of able-mind/bodiedness – well, of course you’d speak out that way – you have an agenda. If you’re not a member of the marginalized group, but you speak out about these things, you’re being “politically correct”, or you’re “brain-washed” or part of an “echo chamber”.
The kyriarchy has a bazillion and one strategies to discourage true inquest into its baseline assumptions and standards -- that’s a feature, not a bug.
The one time I was absolutely believed that I was at real risk during an interaction with police was stimulated by the bumper sticker on a friend’s van. The cop who was pointing a gun at me even nodded toward it when I asked why he was treating us the way he was.
The bumper-sticker read: “Question Authority”.
I recommend it highly.
Open Thread: Unrest in Egypt
General view during anti-government clashes with supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 2, 2011. Egypt's army denied firing any shots in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where pro- and anti-government protesters were clashing, state television said on Wednesday. [Reuters Pictures]Recommended Feeds: Follow Shaker @scatx and my friend and former editor @RichardA on Twitter, who are both providing excellent minute-to-minute coverage. And @AndersonCooper, who has witnessed molotov cocktails being thrown in the streets of Cairo and got roughed up himself earlier today, is, as always, great, too.
The Guardian has live updates here.
Al Jazeera has live updates here.
Recommended Reading:
CNN—Volatile scene unfolds in Cairo as opposing sides clash.
New York Times—Clashes Erupt in Cairo Between Mubarak's Allies and Foes:
President Obama's calls for a rapid transition to a new order in Egypt seemed eclipsed on Wednesday as a choreographed surge of thousands of people chanting support for the Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak fought running battles with a larger number of antigovernment protesters in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square.WaPo—Obama presses Mubarak to move 'now': "President Obama, clearly frustrated by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's intention to retain his hold on power until elections later this year, said Tuesday evening that he has told Mubarak that a transition to representative government 'must begin now'."
The mayhem and chaos — with riders on horses and camels thundering through the central square — offered a complete contrast to the scenes only 24 hours earlier when hundreds of thousands of antigovernment protesters turned it into a place of jubilant celebration, believing that they were close to overthrowing a leader who has survived longer than any other in modern Egypt.
A transcript of the President's statement is here.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to leave additional links and recommendations in comments.
Offended Is the Worst Thing to Be
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia.]
The Penny Arcade Dickwolves Debacle rages on, with some of the most remarkably insensitive minimization of sexual violence and some of the most callous ridicule of survivors I have ever seen. (Which is really saying something.) I don't even know where to begin in describing the Twitter war, so, suffice it to say, at one point Gabe (one of the creators of the comic) tweeted at Shaker Mod Scott Madin: "#sigh if you don't understand humor I can't help you. There's no point arguing this. We disagree at very fundamental levels."
"Yeah, Scott, why are you so humorless?" I tweeted. "And I'm sure @cwgabriel is just using the silencing tropes of rape apologia IRONICALLY. #geez"
Which pretty much sums it up, I guess. Someone using the fundamental tools of rape apologia ("you're just humorless; you're oversensitive; you just don't get it") to argue he is not a rape apologist.
And make no mistake: Someone who defends rape jokes, which are the the primary means by which rape is normalized and its gravity diminished to make rape acceptable—so acceptable, in fact, that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be victimized by sexual violence at least once in their lifetimes, the vast majority of whom will never see justice for those crimes against them—is indeed a rape apologist.
To defend a rape joke that serves the rape culture, at which a rapist is more likely to laugh than a survivor, at which a rapist can laugh at all, is to defend what that joke exists in service to, intentionally or not.
But somehow, it's still worse to be offended than to offend anti-rape advocates and trigger survivors.
Leaving aside the reality that many of the people who object to this shit are not offended, but contemptuous, I just love (where love = disdain with the fiery passion of 10,000 suns) the idea that to be dismayed by trivializing rape and mocking survivors is evidence of moral failure but telling and defending rape jokes makes you some kind of fucking hero.
And let us all stop to appreciate, for just a moment, the narrative that someone offended by and/or contemptuous of rape jokes, and publicly says so under their real names despite knowing it will bring an onslaught of vicious ugliness upon them, is weak, but the anonymous mob who descends upon hir making threats and, without a trace of irony, admonishes hir to ignore stuff zie doesn't like, are Brave Champions of Reasonable Debate or whatever.
Everything is just totally fucking backwards. It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.
This whole ghastly affair comes down to this: Gabe and Tycho were insensitive. It's not that survivors and their allies were being too sensitive, but that Gabe and Tycho weren't being sensitive enough. And lots of people who afforded them the good faith presumption of decency asked them to be a little more considerate. That's it.
And they said fuck you and we're putting it on a t-shirt and wearing that shit to our convention because fuck you more.
That's what happened here.
But still the primary narrative, as it always is, is that some EASILY OFFENDED HYSTERICS just looking for things to get mad about got their panties in a bunch because they don't understand humor.
Easily Offended Hysterics is certainly more digestible than Triggered Rape Survivors, but it's not honest. Of course, honesty makes it much more difficult to marginalize concerns of people who can be easily dismissed if they're mendaciously cast as thin-skinned reactionaries, since we all know that Offended is the worst thing anyone can be.
[Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures, Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape.]
