Chunky Monkey Mind

Redefining Rape--A list of resources related to the #DearJohn campaign

2011-01-29T22:17:00.122-05:00

Here's the basics: certain members of congress are trying to pass a bill that will redefine rape, ostensibly to prevent taxpayers from funding "unnecessary" abortions. They want to allow public funds only in case of forced rape, and exclude womyn, transmen and intersexed individuals who have been drugged, or coerced, or are underage, or are mentally incapacitated, or cannot, in whatever way, prove that they were violently beaten as they were sexually assaulted.

Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and #MooreandMe fame has begun another Twitter campaign to draw attention to this sick state of affairs. People are posting a lot of useful links, and I wanted to gather them together. So this post will probably get longer as I find more links. Feel free to suggest links in the comments. Or if there's another site keeping track of the links, post that.

I recommend starting at Tiger Beatdown's explanation of the twitter campaign: #DearJohn: For When Boehner Decides Your Rape Just Wasn’t Enough.

Sady has posted an update on how things are going on the campaign.
Sady's latest update.
Sady's latest update.

Here's the text of the actual bill. Here's the text of the new bill.

UDPATE: The GOP is taking "forcible rape" out of the bill. But the fight isn't over. This bill will still affect insurance premiums and taxes, and prevent women from receiving abortions.

UPDATE: HR3 has been amended again. It will now allow hospitals to refuse to give abortions even when the life of the mother is at stake.

How to take action:

How to take action in the Twitter campaign.
How to find your representative
How to find out if your representative co-sponsored the bill.
Here's a list of progressives who are more likely to vote against the bill.
Email the head smelly cheese himself, John Boehner.
The Democrats who support HR3 and how to contact them.
Sign the petition to repeal the Hyde Amendment.
Here's a list of the bill's co-sponsors who are on twitter.
If you want to add silent visibility to your repertoire, you can join the silver ribbon campaign.
Send a letter to Nancy Pelosi, urging her to take action against HR3.
There's a Facebook page now.
Sign the petition to stop HR3.
Shakesville has some anti-HR3 stickers you can add to your blog/site.
There's another petition at MoveOn.org.
Ms. has a petition, now, as well.
Are you new to twitter? Deanna Zandt explains how to join and use #DearJohn. And Sady has posted resources for the digital activist.
NARAL has a form letter, urging your rep to stop Stupak on Steroids.
Fund Abortion Now has a form letter up to send to your representative.
Here's a form to email John Boehner.
There's a form letter up for Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado who is co-sponsoring the bill.
Sady has her own petition up at Tiger Beatdown to reach the Ways and Means Committee, whose members will be the first to evaluate this bill.
Planned Parenthood has a form letter that goes to your representative.
Jewish Women International has a form letter that goes to your representative.
The DCCC wants to pin this bill on Republicans. Let them know we're holding the Dems accountable for supporting it.
If you're in the Chicago area, join the Walk for Choice.
RH Reality Check has a list of the co-sponsors for the new "let the mother die" bill.
Credo Action has a petition to stop the bill as it currently stands.

When I call/write to my rep, what do I say?

Michael David Harper's thoughtful instructions on how to contact your representative. Sady's got a script for calling the democrats who support HR3.
Rabbleprochoice has posted another letter you can use.
Andrea Grimes has posted another letter you can use.
Katie Stack has posted another letter (inspired by Andrea Grimes) that you can use.
The American Humanist Association has a form letter to send to your representative. I've also posted it below.
Katie Breslin's letter to Nancy Pelosi.
Dominic Haman's letter to Nancy Pelosi.
Brigid at O, Pioneers! has posted a letter to her congresswoman. She also has a link to instructions on writing business letters.

I like writing to members of congress, but I'm looking for someone to give my money to:

Where to Donate (at your own risk):

Fund Abortion Now will be happy to pass your money along to women in need. They also have a list of other ways to take action regarding abortion.
Planned Parenthood will also take your money and your time if you'd like to volunteer.
The National Abortion Federation is working to keep abortion safe, legal, and accessible.
The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) will use your money to help male and female victims (though there is some question as to whether they support trans* victims).
The DC Abortion Fund is a non-profit that will help women in the DC area with abortions.
Donate to Boehner's America (set up by Emily's List) to help elect women to office who will fight for women's rights.

News Sources:

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones covers the story pretty thoroughly.
Nathan Diebenow at The Raw Story quotes Baumann and adds that most of the Republican base is against the bill.
Big Think has a succinct summary of the situation.
Evan McMorris-Santoro at Talking Points Memo mentions how the bill will affect insurance coverage of abortions.
Rep James Lankford makes a boneheaded and easily refuted speech in favor of the bill, as reported by Town Hall.
The New York Times Opinion Page calls this what it is: a highly intrusive Federal Bill. Seriously, how did the Republicans get a reputation for wanting less government?
How bad is this bill? Fox News won't even report on it.
Media Matters for America reports that the WSJ supports the bill and discusses why they are so, so wrong.
The Atlantic Wire is under the erroneous impression that only liberals are outraged by HR3. Prepare to rage at James Joyner's spewage.
Mike Vilensky at New York magazine reports that the bill's sponsors plan for "forcible rape" to be defined on an as-needed basis.
Michelle Goldberg at The Daily Beast discusses the message this bill sends to women regardless of whether it passes.
Yahoo! News reports on Dan Lipinski insisting that HR3 does not redefine rape.
Asher Smith at HuffPo reports on the bill and mentions the Clothesline Project.
Gawker on how the Republicans have wasted no time engaging in assholery.
TPM: Is the right-wing crowd embarrassed by HR 3? Or are they hoping we just won't notice it? They've been avoiding the whole topic.
Good news Florida! You have a representative you can still respect. Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls HR3 a violent act against women. Courtesy of The Raw Story.
Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post wonders what "forcible" rape means.
San Fransisco Chronicle makes no bones about the repulsiveness of this bill.
The Washington Post dutifully reports both sides of the issue. TW for rage inducing comment from pro-birther who thinks girls seeking abortions after statutory rape don't deserve help.
#DearJohn gets a shout-out at The Media Consortium.
Lori Adelman at The Grio pinpoints the real motivation for HR3: a petty desire to curry favor with the far-right wingnut base.
HR3 is just the tip of the iceberg. AlterNet lists nine more new laws in the GOP's war on women.
Abigail Barefoot at Iowa State Daily thinks pro- and anti- choicers should both be against HR3 because redefining rape has implications beyond abortion.
Emily Mills at Isthmus: The Daily Page shares some statistics on women experiencing lag time before they can get abortions.
Politico reports on GOP dropping rape redefinition. They're going back to the original language in the Hyde Amendment. Yay . . . sob. TPM has a similar report. As does HuffPo. And Mother Jones.
Timesuion.com calls out Tea Party on hypocrisy.
TPM points out that with the new bill, hospitals won't even have to transfer women to another facility to receive life-saving abortions.
Watch Sady discuss HR3 on GritTV.
Renee Loth at boston.com sums up both the old and new problems with the bill.

Blog Commentaries:

Yes Means Yes has a good analysis of what the bill would mean on a legal level.
Jennifer Dalven at the ACLU's Blog of Rights considers how then bill impacts women's rights.
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville (and if you aren't already reading her, what are you doing?) talks about the effect on the rape culture.
Lidiya at something gives a very impassioned response to John Boehner and anyone who supports the bill.
Only Anarchists are Pretty tackles the question of why the world is so invested in devaluing women.
Dennis G at Balloon Juice tackles the hypocrisy of the forced birth movement.
Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon (again, this should not be new to you, people) explains the inherent misogyny behind the bill.
Sady on why the term "forcibly raped" is functionally useless.
More from Amanda Marcotte on how the bill's effect is mainly symbolic but is still a gaping black hole of suck.
Sady on the two issues with the bill (rape and abortion) and why #DearJohn is focusing on the rape part.
Daily Kos on how HR3 will extend the Hyde Amendment, and is an example of blatant classism.
A Hart Research poll finds that approximately three quarters of US Americans are in favor of basic reproductive rights.
Roofer on Fire offers some thoughts on the connection between anti-choicers and the religious patriarchy movement.
Brigid at O, Pioneers! ponders how the bill effects ALL womyn and discusses the effectiveness of a twitter campaign.
Jezebel has a brief but impassioned call to participate in the #DearJohn campaign.
1000 Girlfriends examines whether "forcible rape" is an oxymoron.
The Apathy and the Apoplexy has an infographic depicting who exactly is making these decisions in behalf of those of us who have uteri.
Liza at A Little Bit of What has written a letter to her representative and posted it.
Ouyang Dan at Random Babble talks about the ~~difficulties~~ impossibilities faced by women in the military who need abortions.
Dana Hunter at En Tequila Es Verdad pours out the outrage and highlights one of the hidden dangers of the bill: suicide.
Think Boehner's and Smith's priorities are out of whack? So does Sin City Siren.
Conservative Feminist Meme breaks down the problems with HR3 in easily digestible form.
Amanda Marcotte debates the anti-choice position and talks about why it's important to direct our attention to democrats in preventing HR3.
Remember #mooreandme? Bryce at Where is Your Line? reminisces about the effectiveness of the twitter campaign and applies it to #dearjohn.
Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky attempts to explain why 173 representatives would choose to co-sponsor this bill even though it's probably doomed.
Jill at Feministe explains the bill.
Hugo Schwyzer discusses the regressive nature of the bill.
Feministing on what you can do to stop HR3.
Hilary Nachem has written a stirring open letter to the GOP at Emily's List.
Borderless Thinking has another wonderful thought experiment, comparing HR3's legislation of rape to robbery.
MenstrualPoetry.com lays out what you need to know about HR3 and tells you how to make your voice heard.
TW for graphic description of rape: Michelle tells her story of a brutal rape that would not be counted by the GOP.
Sady's got a piece up at Salon.
RMuse at PoliticusUSA has a great explanation of how HR3 will affect people's ability to pay for abortions even without federal funds.
NARAL: What happens when pro-choice allies get voted out and we have a majority anti-choice congress? House committee schedules hearing on HR3.
Mislabeled reminds us that one of our weapons in this fight is word of mouth.
Amy Sullivan at Time.com shreds the myth of false rape claims for abortion funds.
More from Random Babble on how HR3 will affect women in the military.
Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia explains that HR3 affects more people than just women.
Blue Hampshire is holding their representatives responsible. Don't miss scrolling down to Hannah's comment.
TW for Newscoma's list of heartbreaking rape stories of women who would receive no help under HR3.
Third Wave Foundation has posted a call to action against HR3.
Amanda Hess at TBD on how HR3 would screw over DC area women worse than any other district.
Jamil Smith at The Maddow Blog comments on the bill.
Champagne Candy makes a case for why the fight against HR3 should be focused on as more of a class issue than a feminist issue.
ADI at Women's Glib tells you how you can be involved in activism.
Abigail Collazo at Fem2.0 considers why rape is such a difficult term to define in the first place.
Lucky_duck_hula has written a very personal letter to John Boehner. TW for rape story.
Digby at Hullabaloo on why HR3 is a red herring, and we should put our attention on nixing the Hyde Amendment.
Thomas at Yes Means Yes! speaks to Boehner in his own language: how HR3 hurts small business owners.
Dr. Kathleen Young explains why this issue should be important to all of us.
Addicting Info examines the GOP's track record regarding their treatment of women.
Sanity watchers gives a shout-out to Rep. Jan Schakowsky for opposing HR3.
Leah Anthony at HuffPo says that regulations are necessary to aid safe abortions, and as long as abortion is a legal procedure, they should not be used as a political tool.
Jonathan Capehart condemns the dodginess of HR3's creators with their lack of definitions.
Lola at Lost Together calls this a civil rights issue and an Orwellian attempt to make some lives more equal than others.
Emma at Views Across the Pond reports on the HR3 situation.
Check out The Daily Show segment where Jon Stewart makes fun of the GOP for trying to redefine rape.TW for making light of rape, but to make a point.
Jezebel mentions how post-rape-redefinition HR3 will still have a hugely negative effect on insurance and tax deductions--making abortions nigh impossible.
Jeanette Friedman's piece includes the story of her rape, some insights into how Judaism views abortion, and a sad, but unsurprising statistic on the number of rapes in the US.
Popvox has a poll to see how many people support or oppose HR3.
Shakesville calls on us to keep fighting HR3.
Hello Ladies takes a look at statistics on pregnancy-related deaths, and wonders why the GOP doesn't seem to care about those lives.
Sandy Hingston at The Philly Post on why women should speak out about abortions.
Debcoop at Open Left explains why changing only the rape exception is not a win. We've got to repeal Hyde.
Sady explains the culture of reproductive violence that we live in.
Feministe: Now the woman can die with the fetus. Because pro-life!
Ms. Reports on dropping "forcible" rape.
Peter Daou contrasts the progress in the middle east with regression in the US.
LeftAction calls out Rep Pitts on attempts to redefine "pro-life".
Ophelia at Halcyonsdays explains why the constitution protects women, Scalia's opinions notwithstanding.
Echidne of the Snakes tackles the lie that reproductive choices harm women.
ShoutOut! JMU has a brief summary of the bill as it stands.
HuffPo: Senator Richard Blumenthal will fight for us! Listen to him say all the things you want to hear.
If Jen Sorensen's comic about the bill doesn't make you laugh, the butt scratch joke surely will.

Newsweek reports that teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to reproductive coercion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has a short video explaining how the Hyde Amendment has impacted abortion funding.
The Guttmacher Institute analyzes Hyde's effectiveness (or lack thereof).
Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains why the Hyde Amendment is unconstitutional.
My letter to a candidate on why reproductive rights ought to be a protected freedom.
To illustrate the wrongness of HR3: under the new bill this 13-year old would be denied abortion coverage.
In Predator Theory, Jill at Feministe discusses statistics on the kinds of rape that are most prevalent (hint: stranger jumps out of the bushes is not the winner).
Marie Anelle at Pursuit of Harpyness on why men don't get a say in choosing abortion.
Amanda Litman at Ms. finds that abortion does not cause mental health problems. You'll never guess what does . . . childbirth! Oh, you did guess.
More from Yes Means Yes. Who commits rape?
Some statistics from The Guttmacher Institute on abortion. Who has them, circumstances, providers, laws, etc.
A moving story of a woman who needed help paying for an abortion and received it from the George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund.
The GOP already has a poor track record of dealing with rape [TW for graphic description of rape].
The Family Violence Prevention Fund explains how partner violence relates to reproductive coercion.
Want to understand how abortion funds work? Fund Abortion Now lays it down for you. They also list some ways to find money for an abortion if you need it.
Ms. Foundation for Women on the consequences of less funding for abortions.
NARAL presents Boehner's anti-womyn voting record.
Dammit Janet! Ponders whether US nuttiness re: abortion will infect Canada.
The aptly named Reproductive Health Reality Check reports that, contrary to right-wing wishful thinking, abortions and demand for abortions does not decrease with lack of access to funding.
A well-written story laying bare the stupidity of blaming rape victims that will make you lolsob.
Jill Richardson at AlterNet: Why women who pick and process your food face daily threat of rape.
HuffPo: Is it hypocritical for John Boehner to expect public funds or insurance to support his LEGAL bad habit, but not pay for LEGAL abortions?
Stephanie Poggi at Center for American Progress on how the rape exception has traditionally not been of much help to poor womyn in the first place.
Want to hear people's stories of rape? Go to We're Telling.
Newsbusters is pretty sure the biased liberal media is unreasonable in suggesting that the GOP is attempting to redefine rape.
You know that link above, about how women in the military have trouble getting abortions? Well the fact that 1/3 of them are getting raped is just the shit icing on that crap cake.
HuffPo: Which increases mental health risks: abortion or childbirth?
Find out which senators have a track record of supporting rape culture.
John Boehner Lies When He Cries. Tumblr page turning a critical eye on the Speaker.
Marissa at This is Hysteria! has an article directed at liberals: Why "she just doesn't want to be pregnant" is sufficient reason for an abortion.
Julie Rovner at NPR talks about how difficult it is for women to get out of carrying nonviable pregnancies to term.
Fat and Not Afraid has a very personal piece on why motherhood should always be a choice.
One survivor is working through her feelings about being raped at A rape survivor's blog.
It's Always Cloudy in Cleveland: Ohio is creating a whole 'nother set of difficulties for women, making it practically impossible to receive an abortion.
Yifat Susskind at myMadre talks about some of the children who have survived rape. TW for obvious reasons.
New England Journal of Medicine publishes official study that abortion does not increase mental health risk.
I wonder when the "right-to-lifers" are going to get around to combating the infant mortality rate.
Think republicans have given up on redefining rape? Georgia Rep Bobby Franklin is no quitter.
Not to be outdone by Georgia, Tennessee is working on legislation that may end up banning abortion altogether.
Mother Jones reports: Do abortions create a nuisance? No, but the protesters sure do! And this nuisance is very effective at preventing practitioners from setting up shop.

Not sure what to say to your representative? Try this sample letter from the AHA:

Last week Congressman Chris Smith (R – N.J.) introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 3), a bill which would severely limit abortion access to those relying solely on government healthcare. Currently, federal law restrictions on government funded abortions include exemptions for rape, incest, and instances in which the mother’s life is in danger. H.R. 3 seeks to restrict its rape exemption to “forcible rape” only.

This vague language not only disregards instances of statutory rape and rape involving drugs, alcohol, and hindered mental capacity, but calls into question the definition of “forcible rape.” Forcible rape, which isn’t defined in the federal criminal code, nor by the bill’s authors, is also undefined by many states, leaving the question of what “forcible rape” is, and what circumstances, if any, qualify.

If enacted, H.R. 3 would also financially target private insurance companies offering abortion coverage, and introduce new taxes for individuals and businesses that purchase insurance policies offering coverage as well.

These restrictions would leave tens of thousands of women across the United States unable to access the assistance they require. Please oppose H.R. 3.

Science--If You Don't Understand It, You Must Be a Dumb Female

2010-12-20T11:31:00.001-05:00

I am so, so sick of this phrase:

Let's make clear exactly what this means. "Bitch" is a misogynist word used to denigrate women by suggesting that they are inferior. It is used to denigrate men by suggesting that they are women (and hence inferior). And it is used in the above context to suggest that those who do not understand science (or choose to put their faith in religion or woo in the place of science) are inferior--and hence, like women.

What boggles the mind is that the people who use this slogan (I'm sure it didn't escape your notice that the above t-shirt wearer is female) are often themselves women or men who know that women can be as brilliant in the sciences as men.

It's equivalent to the recent slew of politicians telling each other to "man up." It's just become so ingrained in our culture that politics and science are the realms of men. Sure, we'll let women into them now, but they'd better "get their man pants on," stop being "bitches," and renounce their stupid femininity to fit in with the men folk.

We write articles complaining that science is a boy's club, and how can we possibly get more wymens interested? Why don't we start by losing this:

Ms. magazine included this as one of their top ten ways to be a feminist:

Stop referring to women as bitches. I am really tired of hearing the b- word used so often, and casually, as if it doesn’t have any meaning at all. Right now, many young, self-described political liberals, who do not use the f- word to refer to queer men because that word is offensive, still use the b- word regularly as a way to refer to the ladies. Why is the word bitch now classified as a slang term, and not as a serious insult? . . .

So, let’s talk about what the word bitch actually means: 1. “a woman,” 2. “a woman who gets angry or disagrees with you,” and 3. “a man who is weak, (like we expect a woman to be.)” In case you hadn’t noticed, the word’s dual, and yes, contradictory meaning functions to criticize men and women alike. Anyone who dares to cross over into enemy territory gets branded with an insulting label, discouraging her or him from ever visiting that territory again. Perhaps this is why people love to use this word so much. Like a particularly good police officer, Officer B does twice the work of any other officer on the streets. Officer B effectively enforces the boundaries between the neighborhoods of men and women. And, if you ever talk back to Officer B, if you ever challenge the authority of that word, that’s the easiest way to get labeled a bitch yourself!

To me, the worst part of people’s constant use of the b- word is that it actually makes women fear they’re going to be labeled the b- word for doing anything outside the norm. This includes, but is not limited to: Women standing up for themselves, women fighting back at the social construction of gender, women getting angry about anything in general, and women asserting themselves.

Let's add "women learning more about science" to this list. This is exactly why I have stopped using the word altogether. Let's get this straight: some people don't understand science. This has exactly zip to do with their sex (in the biological sense, although their gender in the cultural sense may have impeded the accessibility of scientific learning). Some people ignore science; this has exactly zip to do with their sex. Let's stop making it about that, okay?

I would love to have a t-shirt advocating science, but I would never wear that slogan. So let's come up with a new one, one that doesn't rely on "putting women [and women-y men] in their place." I would love to see smart people, people who have a good sense of comic wit, working on this. I'm sure Randall Munroe of xkcd could do a lot better than jumping on the "bitch" bandwagon:

I'm open to suggestions. When I find one I can wear proudly, I'll take it to cafe press and slap it on a t-shirt.

Another 10 Awesome Christmas Songs You Won't Hear on the Radio

2010-12-17T13:58:00.000-05:00

Last year's list is still a great place to start. But here are ten more for your listening pleasure. Links take you to amazon.com where you can hear samples and download songs if you so desire.

Carol of the Bells/What Child is This? by Point of Grace
I'm confounded by the fact that "Carol of the Bells" did not make it onto my original list in some form. It seems I like the song so much that I've got no fewer than five versions of it on my mp3 player and another three thumbed-up on Pandora. Point of Grace does a lovely and lively version mashed with "What Child is This?" sung in an ethereal, feminine chorus.

I Have a Little Dreidel by Barenaked Ladies
Christmas, Chanukah, whatever. This song is so peppy I can't help but smile whenever it comes on. This guy is just so freakin' happy over his dreidel! While BNL is my all time favorite band, this is the only album of theirs that I cannot endorse. There's a few decent songs on it, including "Auld Lang Syne" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (sung with Sarah McLachlan) but the rest are brain-numbingly dull.

You can't purchase happiness. Unless you purchase a dreidel.

I Want an Alien for Christmas by Fountains of Wayne
I can't speak for the rest of this group's repertoire as this is the only song of theirs I've heard, but it's a fun one. Who wouldn't eschew all other gifts in favor of a little green guy about three feet high, with seventeen eyes, who knows how to fly? Or is it just me?

Do You Hear What I Hear? by Third Day
Third Day is a Christian rock band, and though their songs often come up on my Pandora Christmas station, I find them to be a bit slow-paced for my tastes, and they tend to focus on the more strongly religious songs. If you're into that, you will probably like them. This is the one song I whole-heartedly endorse. The powerful vocals are stirring and paint a pretty picture of the nativity myth.

Santa Left a Booger in My Stocking by Aqua Teen Hunger Force f/ Neko Case
Meatwad is pleased to find a booger left in his stocking (so he can complete his snackitivity) and is incredulous that it might have been his own rather than Santa's. If you're not familiar with Cartoon Network's ATHF, this song may just seem gross. If you are familiar with ATHF, it will still be gross, but if you find yourself laughing at it anyway, the whole album will be worth checking out.

Yeah, this is pretty much par for the show.

Whoville Medley (Perfect Christmas Night/Grinch) by Transiberian Orchestra
I know, this group made onto last year's list and here I am bringing them up again. But they have such a range of songs, I'd be remiss in not bringing your attention to this one. Part of the How the Grinch Stole Christmas soundtrack (which has a number of good songs), this is the quintessential decorating song. If you haven't got your tinsel strung yet, you definitely need to download this one before you begin.

Oi to the World by The Vandals
This is more than a song; it's an album. With titles including "Grandpa's last X-Mas," "Hang Myself from the Tree," and "Christmas Time for My Penis," it is not child friendly. But it's a great punk rock album for the times when you're ready to scream "Nothing's Going to Ruin My Holiday!"

The Night Santa Went Crazy by Weird Al Yankovic
Another one that may not be child friendly, unless your tyke finds it amusing that the immensity of delivering gifts across the world in one night (for the pittance of milk and cookies) causes Santa to snap and bomb the workshop, hold elves hostage, and murder and eat the reindeer, until he is taken down by the National Guard and FBI. Yes, Virginia, now Santa's doing time, while Ms. Claus negotiates the movie rights with her lawyer. The absurdity of such a beloved icon perpetrating such heinous crimes is what makes it funny. A nice complement to his "Christmas at Ground Zero."

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch by Tonic Sol-Fa or by Gary Hoey
The first list had Straight No Chaser, and this one would be incomplete without another a cappella band (not counting the tambourine). Tonic Sol-Fa's songs have a little more pep and verve than the former. But if a cappella is not your thing (or if you just appreciate variety) check out Gary Hoey's version of the song. It's an instrumental which makes excellent use of electric guitars. Perfect for rocking out. The rest of his songs are equally good (including the ubiquitous "Carol of the Bells").

I Saw Three Ships by Rivertribe
This one is entirely instrumental, in an indigenous tribal style. The band uses instruments from across the globe including Native American pipes, African drums, and the Australian didgeridoo. The original melody is recognizable, but this sounds nothing like the Christmas music you're used to. Quite beautiful.

And for all who are wondering, this is what a didgeridoo looks like:

Now, if that doesn't say Christmas, I don't know what does.

Letter to the Editor: Who is Don't Ask, Don't Tell protecting?

2010-12-15T10:24:00.000-05:00

First, I called my representative to urge him to repeal DADT. Click here to find out who your representative is. The Human Rights Campaign has a short script you can use. They also have a form that allows you to send a letter to your local newspaper(s). Here's what I had to say:

Who is Don't Ask, Don't Tell protecting?

It protects straight men from the white, gay men who might pursue them, right? Think again. Who is being discharged from the military because of DADT?

Women. And minorities.

45% of troops discharged under DADT were minorities, while minorities were 30% of the service. Women accounted for 34% of the discharges but were 14% of the military. You don't need to be a math genius to see how disproportionate these numbers are.

Who is this protecting? Not the women and men being forced out of the army. Minorities, particularly blacks, enter the army at higher rates, often in an effort to better their lives.

So who is this protecting? Straight men? By removing lesbians?

So who is this protecting? Women? Then we'd better remove all the straight men.

So who is this protecting? A system of racial intolerance, misogyny, and bigotry towards homosexuals? Ah, I think we're on to something.

DADT protects only the small-minded from having to confront their prejudices. I think it high time they lost that privilege in favor of the women and men who risk their lives for a nation of people who treat them like so much refuse.

They recommend keeping it below 200 words to give it greater likelihood of being printed. According to the site

Writing to your local papers is a surefire way to impact the debate in Washington. Every member of Congress reads his or her local papers' reader-submitted letters to the editor, because they all know that the conversation going on in the letters section is also going on around dinner tables all over their districts.

So please, take a moment to write a short letter. You can borrow mine, if you like.

Hitchens and Blair debate--an analysis of Blair's position

2010-12-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

The debate is still on youtube for now. I've linked to it at the bottom of the post.

The theme was on the merits of religion. Hitchens, of course, argued that religion causes more harm than good, while Blair defended religion, or rather, "faith" as being worthwhile in spite of the harm it causes, and in spite of the admitted fact that humanists do just as much good.

In defending the Catholic church, Blair talks about the them forgiving African debt which allowed girls to receive an education. This is a terrible choice of examples because the education of girls is not a tenet of the church. If they allowed for girls' education that was in spite of their beliefs, not because of them.

What Blair doesn't seem to get is that religion is rife with institutional bigotry. When scripture says things like, "I forbid a woman to speak," that's not some bad apple reading it out of context. He thinks the bigots and misogonysts are the ones perverting religion--but to those people, Blair is the one perverting it.

Blair contradicts himself by saying that religious people are not motivated by promise of reward or threat of punishment in the afterlife, but they are motivated by their faith. Well you can't have it both ways. The only difference between faith and humanism when it comes to charity is the idea that a sky fairy is watching and keeping tabs.

He admits that some religious people would be charitable even without their faith. Charity is learned, by the religious and secular both. If a person is generous, that is because they have had generosity modeled for them at some point and have taken that lesson to heart. The supernatural aspect is incidental, and in fact, is more likely to impede charity because of institutional bigotry and authoritarianism.

Blair says that in some cases, people of different religions have "reached across the faith divide" to make peace. Hitchens points out the problem in that statement. The very phrase becomes a condemnation of that which Blair seeks to praise. It is faith--religious faith, that is--that divides. It is humans who sometimes manage to be peaceable in spite of the division caused by religion.

Blair points out that after the death of Mohammad, Islam was at the forefront of science and women's rights. So was Christianity in the first century. But the humanist message of reason and respect for marginalized people becomes overshadowed by authoritarian traditions and rules, causing religions like Islam and Christianity to remain mired in the past. What was once progressive is now woefully arrested and it is the belief in an unchanging, supernatural authority that is to blame for that. Ditch the skyfairy, and people can continue to adapt and evolve, improving on existing systems and allowing compassion to hold sway.

Blair thinks that most people want people of faith to be able to "speak in the public sphere, but not dictate." This weird claim completely overlooks the many religious (of various faiths and locales) who very much want to dictate what others do, both in and out of government.

This debate did not remotely touch on the kind of religiosity that prevents gays from marrying, or science from using stem cells. The pro-religion side of the debate was inclined to ignore their existence (or at least, disavow them as genuine religion). If Blair is to be believed, the minority of liberal faithful are the only group to be considered when discussing the merits of religion.

Blair wants the religious to pick and choose when it comes to scripture. "What is the essence of that faith?" he asks. "What is the essence of scripture?" He is asking people to change their views, soften their beliefs, ignore dogma if it contradicts human compassion. How is that different than what humanists are asking people to do? We wouldn't care if people believed in sky fairies, Santa Claus, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if they would abandon the harmful practice of forcing their dogma upon others and claiming an unwarranted monopoly on universal truths.

When asked about the Pope's new ruling on condoms (they're allowed, but only to prevent AIDS), Blair totally dodges the question by professing to be just a lay Catholic, then changes the subject. How can he expect people to examine their faith, to change it for the better, distill it to its "essence," when he is unwilling to question, let alone challenge, the authority of the church to create and enforce doctrine?

Blair was good enough to agree that secularists can moral just as religious people can. In the end, Blair and Hitchens were almost entirely in agreement.

Humanism is good.
Religion contains elements of humanism.
Religion can incite people to be bad.
People can be bad with no religion.

As debates go, there was not much disputed. The one place Blair was unwilling to go with Hitchens is that it's worth encouraging humanism for those religious who may be willing to make the switch.

Hitchens and Blair agree that we won't flat out rid the world of religion. So what is the benefit of touting humanism? The more people turn to humanism, the more religion's credibility will be reduced. As people take it less and less seriously as a whole, it will have less influence oer policy.

As humanism gains acceptance, it will be able to dictate policy. That is in everyone's interest, both religious and secular (unless you're aiming for a theocracy). We can reduce or be rid of policies based on superstitious bigotry and fear.

I think a lot of people left this debate realizing that the differences between the kind of faith that Blair espouces (as opposed to what most religions actually teach and practice) is so minimally different from humansim, that they will be more supportive of, and cooperative with humanism. Hitchens handled it eloquently, and Blair politely floundered in his increasingly weakening position. Conversations like this, while doing nothing to enlighten fundamentalists, are good for raising the consciousness of those who are open to it. I think that's entirely worthwhile.

Did you know liberals are miserable? Don't worry; conservative Dennis Prager will tell us what's wrong with us.

2010-11-24T23:16:00.001-05:00

Are you ready for this?

Why Unhappy People Become Liberals
. . . and why liberalism makes them even unhappier.

That's the title right there. Are you done vomiting yet? Then let's rip this turd apart.

According to polls — Pew Research Center, the National Science Foundation — and studies such as Arthur Brooks’s Gross National Happiness, conservative Americans are happier than liberal Americans.

Liberals respond this way: “If we’re unhappier, it’s because we are more upset than conservatives over the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves.”

Already, the conversation is directed only toward people who are similar to Prager and his fellow conservatives rather than the "less fortunate" that make up a significant portion of liberals.

But common sense and data suggest other explanations.

For one thing, conservatives on the same socioeconomic level as liberals give more charity and volunteer more time than do liberals. And as regards the suffering of non-Americans, for at least half a century conservatives have been far more willing to sacrifice American treasure and American blood (often their own) for other nations’ liberty.

Both of these facts refute the liberals-are-more-concerned-about-others explanation for liberal unhappiness.

So, let’s look at other explanations.

And the fail ship lands. Conservatives—comprised mainly of white, heterosexual, Christian middle-class who favor privileging themselves at the exclusion of others. They give to charities to support . . . other white, heterosexual Christians. Oh, and they fight wars against non-white, non-Christian people. Liberals: comprised of white heterosexual, Christian middle-class AND all those other groups that conservatives hate, like people of color, feminists, atheists, non-Christians, gays, transexuals, the poor and other marginalized groups, who have to battle conservatives just for the right to exist. Apple meet orange.

Put another way, both groups care only about themselves, but liberals are so inclusive, that includes everybody. Whereas the conservatives are so narrow in who becomes the recipients of their concern, that, well, it ends up being only them.

Now that I've debunked Prager's primary thesis, the rest of his article is irrelevant, but let's take a stab at it anyway, shall we? Let me get my pointy stick.

Perhaps we are posing the question backwards when we ask why liberals are less happy than conservatives. The question implies that liberalism causes unhappiness. And while this is true, it may be equally correct to say that unhappy people are more likely to adopt leftist positions.

Take black Americans, for example. It makes perfect sense that a black American who is essentially happy is going to be less attracted to the Left. Anyone who has interacted with black conservatives rarely encounters an angry, unhappy person.

Why?

Because the liberal view on race is that America is a racist society. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, a black American must abandon liberalism in order to be a happy individual. It is very hard, if not impossible, to be a happy person while believing that society is out to hurt you. So, the unhappy black person will gravitate to liberalism and liberalism will in turn make him more unhappy by reinforcing his view that he is a victim.

Hear that, black people? You're not unhappy because you're experiencing racism! You're unhappy because you THINK you're experiencing racism! Just stop thinking about it! Stop asserting your rights to be treated fairly and be happy that you're off the plantation. In fact, if you're good, the conservatives will let you join in their hate campaigns against other marginalized groups, like the gays or atheists. Aren't you glad that Prager was able to whitesplain that to you?

The unhappy gravitate toward the Left for a second reason. Life is hard for liberals and life is hard for conservatives. But conservatives assume that life will always be hard. Liberals, on the other hand, have utopian dreams. At his brother Robert’s funeral, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy recalled his brother saying: “Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’”

Utopians will always be less happy than those who know that suffering is inherent to human existence. The utopian compares America to utopia and finds it terribly wanting. The conservative compares America to every other civilization that has ever existed and walks around wondering how he got so lucky as to be born or naturalized an American.

Life is hard for liberals and life is hard for conservatives. And Prager believes that there is no difference between the hardships faced by middle-class white people who have to find the time to take Billy to boy scouts AND cinch that million dollar deal, and people who can't get a home loan because of their skin color or who are beaten to death because they were born with the wrong set of genitalia. We all have the same problems dontcha know! And by "we", he means not those other people; the less fortunate ones that get liberals all frowny from being concerned about them.

There's actually a hint of Buddhist philosophy in Prager's words. One of the central tenets is that attachment (to material goods, ideals, physical experiences) leads to suffering. The way to end suffering is to let go of attachments and just experience life as it comes. Somebody better warn Prager that he's been tainted with heathen religion.

Of course, he's dead wrong in applying that philosophy to conservatives. These are, after all, the people who generally hold the “utopian” ideal of a Christian nation, in which white, heterosexual men hold all the power. If conservatives are happier, it ain't 'cause they have no utopian fantasy; it's because their idea of utopia is a hell of a lot closer to reality than the one liberals would like to see—you know, the one where all people have agency and are worthy of respect regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability or whatever differentiating marker the conservatives decide to get their panties in a bunch over.

Third, imagine two Americans living in essentially identical socioeconomic conditions. They earn $45,000 a year, they have the same amount of debt on their homes, and both have the same number of dependents. One seeks governmental assistance wherever possible; the other eschews any governmental help. Which one is likely to be the liberal and which one is likely to be the happier individual?

This is not a question only an oracle can answer. The one who yearns for governmental help is the one who is likely to be both liberal and less happy. Conservatism, which demands self-reliance, makes one happier. The more a man or woman feels like captain of his or her ship (as poor as that ship may be), the happier he or she will be.

Seriously people. Each paragraph makes it harder and harder not to start hurling things at the lappy. Or just hurling. Prager is making the typical conservative mistake of assuming that people are all the same: white, abled, middle-class—just like conservatives! You know, except for the poor conservatives that are on well-fare.

It's not like we have a system of institutionalized racism, misogyny, gay hatred, disablism, etc (perpetuated by conservatives) that actively prevents people from marginalized groups from being self-sufficient. Oops! We were supposed to put on big smiles and ignore all that! How about we let people have agency and captain their own ships, rather than protecting policies keep them poor? Or maybe conservatives could stop battling legislation that would help people become self-sufficient.

A fourth explanation for greater unhappiness among liberals is that the more people allow feelings to govern them, the less happy they will be. And the further left one goes, the more importance one attaches to feelings.

It is liberal educators and liberal parents who have clamored for protecting young people from the pain of losing games. The liberal world came up with the idea of giving trophies to kids who lose; they don’t want their children feeling bad. Conservatives, on the other hand, teach their kids how to lose well. They are less worried about their children feeling bad.

That's funny. I'm in school to be a teacher, and my program, which is pretty damned liberal, makes a big deal over how important it is to teach children the value of failure. And let's enjoy the paradox Prager presents: liberals love to feel feelings. Unless they're bad feelings. Then liberals don't want to feel feelings. But of course, liberals actively search out things to feel bad feelings about (like racism—where there isn't any!) . . . my head asplode.

A couple of years ago, I gave a speech on happiness to the students and faculty of a prestigious high school in the Los Angeles area. The subject was the need to act happy even when one isn’t feeling happy — because it is unfair to others to inflict our bad moods on them and because we will never be happy if we allow our feelings to dictate our happiness.

From what I experienced that day and learned later, liberal students and faculty generally loathed my speech; conservative students generally loved it (there were no conservative faculty to speak of). Why? Because conservatives are far more likely to be comfortable with the idea that feelings are not as important as behavior.

Let's rewrite Prager's conclusion:

From what I experienced that day and learned later, liberal students and faculty generally loathed my speech; conservative students generally loved it (there were no conservative faculty to speak of). Why? Because conservatives don't want to hear about the problems of brown people, gays, women, disabled, or anybody who isn't them. Why can't all these people just act happy so poor little conservatives won't have their smiles tugged down by frowny faces?

It's at least as valid as the conclusion he pulled out of his ass, with a lot more basis in reality.

Those who know that feelings must not govern us, but that we must govern our feelings, are far more likely to be happy people.

The upshot of all this? There is an amazingly simple way to defeat the Left: Raise children who are grateful to be American, who don’t complain, who can handle losing, and who are guided by values, not feelings. In other words, teach them how to be happy adults.

Hang-on, another rewrite is in order:

The upshot of all this? There is an amazingly simple way to defeat the Left: Raise children who are white, abled, Christian, cis and straight and slather them in privilege. They can't help but be happy!*

*solution may not apply to persons of color, gays, transexuals, non-Christians, atheists, the disabled or women who don't know their place.

I'd like to draw your attention back to the conclusion drawn in the title: unhappy people become liberals. Not “liberalism is the source of unhappiness” (although Prager suggests it adds to the misery). This is significant. This is beyond significant, and in all his putrid ramblings, Prager didn't manage to address it. Obviously, doing so would not support his bigoted world view.

People often do become liberals because they're unhappy. They're unhappy with the way they're being treated by a world that wants them to, at best, stop being who they are, and at worst, stop being. Either way, that makes life pretty damned miserable.

But liberalism isn't a pity club for people to moan about their problems, although people with similar ideals and/or circumstances will lean on each other for support. Liberalism is a means for accomplishing what needs to be done to fix the problem. It is a focus for political and social change to make the lives of people in marginalized groups significantly better.

If Prager is really interested in helping liberals be happier (hint: he isn't), he can use whatever means are at his disposal to help bring about changes that benefit all people, not just those in his privileged sphere.

I have to go wash my mouth out.

Should the state take a position against certain religious beliefs?

2010-11-01T19:39:00.000-04:00

In America, despite what wackjobs like Christine O'Donnell would have you believe, our first amendment assures us that the state can "make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This is a great foundation of law that basically says: you do what you want, I'll do what I want, and the government will leave us both alone.

The problem comes in when what you believe infringes upon what I believe, or vice versa. Sometimes, not everybody gets what they want. Either you infringe directly on the other person, or the government infringes on you to stop you infringing upon them. So how do we decide who wins and who loses?

I don't know what the laws in the United Kingdom are, but this is an issue they are dealing with now that I wouldn't be surprised to see in the States. A Christian couple want to be foster parents, but they are being denied because:

Mrs Johns said her Christian beliefs would not allow her to tell foster children that being gay is acceptable.

Their lawyer is quoted at guardian.co.uk in regard to the couple:

[T]hey will take any child. Valuing diversity does not mean that you cannot have a disagreement or do not respect a person while not valuing certain lifestyles.

So Mr. and Mrs. Johns could be placed with a budding homosexual child. And Mrs. Johns, because of her religion, would tell that child that his/her feelings are unacceptable. It is very likely that she would share her religious belief that the child was destined for never-ending torment in hell.

Mrs. Johns beliefs regarding homosexuality are wrong. Disgustingly, laughably wrong. We have freedom of religion in America, and people like her are free to believe whatever they want about how their sky fairy views what people decide to do with their genitalia. But that does not give them the freedom to push those beliefs onto others.

Foster care is closely associated in people's minds with adoption. People are allowed to pass their beliefs to their children whether these are biological or adopted. But I think foster care is more closely related to child care (commonly referred to as "day care"). In child care and school settings--environments where, like foster care, the adults in question are not intended to be the child's primary or permanent spiritual/moral teachers--you are not allowed to share your negative attitudes toward marginalized groups. In fact, you are required to teach tolerance toward such groups. And not the "I don't like them but I won't beat the crap out of them" kind of tolerance, but real "These people should be treated with respect just like everyone else" tolerance.

The Johns are going to court over their rights to force other people's children to be subject to their nasty beliefs in exchange for having a roof over their heads and, to no one's surprise, leading bishops in the Church of England are backing them. According to the senior clerics' letter:

“This ‘equality’, however, privileges homosexual rights over those of others, even though the Office for National Statistics has subsequently shown homosexuals to be just one in 66 of the population.”

What an irrelevant factoid to present. As if the size of the minority has anything whatsoever to do with the morality of the situation. That's akin to assuming that, since whites outnumbered blacks in America, slavery should have continued. Why buckle to a minority? Especially since most whites' religious creeds at the time included the belief that they were masters of the earth and all other peoples in it and that slavery was just aces.

This statement, from the lawyer, is baffling in its stupidity:

"The promotion of values is something that the court should be protecting, especially when these religious values are recognised as giving a moral framework to values in our country."

Condemning homosexuality has nothing in common with moral values. It is a piece of dogma. A vile one, that many Christians, among other religions, reject. Society should absolutely protect and encourage the promotion of values, but valueless dogma doesn't fall under that heading. And if the values you're trying to promote are tangled up in harmful dogma, you need to untangle that mess before you can expect anyone else to accept it.

Again from the bishops:

“Research clearly establishes that children flourish best in a family with both a mother and father in a committed relationship."

Let's put this colicky baby to bed already. As Religious Tolerance.org points out:

Those opposed to same-sex marriage (SSM) often point to studies which show that children raised in families headed by a father and mother fare much better, both in childhood and later as adults. But further examination shows that most of these studies are not applicable here, because they compare families with opposite-sex parents to single-parent families, not with those headed by same-sex parents.

Research into, you know, actual gay families has shown that the only difference between kids of gay parents, as opposed to straight parents, is that the former are more likely to be teased because of their family situation. Who are they teased by? Probably by the kids of parents like the Johns who teach children that homosexuality is so horrendously awful that gays deserve to be tortured for eternity.

So let me get out my tiny, tiny violin for the Johns and others like them whose rights are being infringed upon. Because if somebody's gotta lose here, I hope to FSM it's the haters.

Cultural appropriation at Halloween--where's the line?

2010-10-30T17:52:00.003-04:00

I don't believe that anyone has the right to NOT be offended. All of us are offended by somethings at some times. Some of the things that offend us are unique to us while others are shared by the majority of those in our culture. Nothing is inherently offensive. It is we who interpret a given thing as offensive. So I do not think the fact that someone is offended is necessarily enough reason to avoid the thing in question. Sometimes giving offense is a necessary component to talking about serious and unpleasant matters.

At the same time, I ask myself the question "Do I want to add to the aggression in the world?" and I answer "No." I like to avoid giving offense when offending someone would be more detrimental than avoiding the thing in question.

One of the biggest issues I see presented in blogs at this time of year is Halloween costumes as cultural appropriation. Dressing up as an Indian princess, geisha, or hula dancer are considered by many to be racist, inappropriate and/or perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Even men dressing as women has been chided as a form of mockery.

But I am having trouble determining the line between what is and is not inappropriate. Some costumes correlate cultures with negative stereotypes, like a Muslim terrorist or a latina sexpot. But other costumes are neutral toward the culture they represent. Some of the arguments against these costumes just don't apply accross the board.

For instance, Angry Navajo/Indian Girl says Indian costumes are inappropriate because (a) they are historically inaccurate and perpetuate incorrect stereotypes about American Indian customs and apparel and (b) suggest that American Indians are creatures of fantasy rather than real people, because the purpose of Halloween costumes is to dress as things that don't actually exist.

These points are contradictory. If the Indian garb that is typically presented at Halloween (and in mythos such as Peter Pan) is fantastical, then these costumes meet the standard of dressing as fantasy. I guess the harm comes from people assuming that the costumes ARE representative of real people (like Pocahontas). In which case, the ignorance of the masses, and not the costume itself seems to carry the blame.

Should I dress as a witch? This is one of the quintessential Halloween costumes and decorations. Most of us think of witches as creatures of fantasy--but they're not. Witches are real, and they walk among us [cue spooky music]. I have friends who are witches. I don't want to contribute to negative stereotypes about them.

My friends are cuter than that.

There's also the argument that these costumes place American Indians in history, like they no longer exist today. No one makes these arguments about Greek, Egyptian, or German costumes. If one were to dress as a modern American Indian, how would one distinguish this from any other American? Based on this fact, it seems that the focus is not on dressing as an Indian specifically, but in dressing in a type of garb that one finds appealing.

Some would also compare these costumes to dressing in blackface, which most people would not even consider doing. However, I don't think an accurate comparison can be made here. Blackface isn't just a bad idea because it's a form of modern cultural appropriation. Blackface carries with it a deeply cruel history of oppression that cannot be separated from it. Even given the racism against minorities in America such as the Japanese, putting on a kimono and fortune cookie hairdo does not carry the same connotations as donning blackface.

There also seems to be a contention that dressing as another race is a means of mocking them. It is impossible to apply a single motive to all who might choose such a costume and there are certainly other reasons for doing so. Most of us have been exposed to other cultures through school or the media and find other customs and apparels to be quite appealing. We couldn't get away with dressing out of the norm most of the time, but for one day of the year we have the opportunity to dress differently.

Is this evidence of privilege? Absolutely. The fact is that Latinas face huge challenges in America, but I, a white woman, could easily dress as a flamenco dancer for Halloween. But that privilege exists whether I don the costume or not. The costume merely draws attention to it--which is a good thing isn't it? I live in a country where people with naturally brown skin are feared and reviled, but white people still spend lots of money to make their skin brown. We definitely need more conversation about privilege. But being aware of, and even utilizing one's own privilege to experience superficial aspects of another culture, does not seem to me a form of racism--unless it is paired with a belief that by doing so, one has experienced what it is like to be a member of that culture.

I didn't choose the culture I was born in. I didn't choose to be privileged because of my race. I see a lot of beautiful aspects of other cultures that I wish were part of my life, even if only temporarily. I would like to see cultures be able to share and exchange customs. I don't have to follow the religion I was born into. Why do I have to stick to my race's customs? It is important to have an awareness that just dressing like a certain aspect of another culture does not equate to understanding what it's like to be part of that culture. That's something else we should be talking about.

"Whiteness" is considered neutral and cultureless in America. This isn't true, of course. White people do have their own customs and garb which have extended into other cultures whether they want it or not. It's terrible for facets of any culture to be replaced against their will, and we may not be able to discern whether the given culture would have chosen to mesh with white culture without coersion. Perhaps today's American Indians would still be more likely to wear Nikes than moccasins even if they hadn't been forcibly removed from their homes and oppressed by Europeans. When engaged in through choice, I think cultural exchange and adaptation improves societies.

Some costumes raise even more questions. What about the illegal alien in the prison jumpsuit who is actually an alien from another planet? Is that racist or is it satire criticizing anti-immigration policies? It's neither. It's just an alien in a jumpsuit. The interpretation of it is up to the individual. If I want a costume that makes a political point, should I avoid it for the sake of those who may be offended by it, or should I wear it to promote discussion? Yes, it depicts immigrants as less-than or other-than human; but is that a commentary on how the person in the costume views them, or how our society views them?

Or is it a commentary on the government cover-up of space aliens in our midst? Nah, that's just what they want you to think.

I have settled on a pirate costume. It's not historically accurate. It is freakin' awesome. Pirates are not fantastical creatures--except when they are. Real pirates exist today, though I don't think anyone would mind me presenting them negatively. Hell, some people may be angry that I choose to present a positive image of pirates. But I'm not trying to make any kind of statement on modern, or even historical, pirates who have hurt people. I'm dressing as a pirate from fantasy, like Pirates of the Caribbean. Like a Pastafarian (and if Pastafarians can be accused of religious appropriation, so can every other religion on earth).

As I said above, I try to avoid offense where unecessary. I don't think my night of fun is worth alienating people whom I'd like to get along with and fight with for common concerns. But I think it's important to talk about this. I don't ask this question to be combative or to say that people are being too sensitive. People are exactly as sensitive as they need to be. I will avoid certain costumes because I don't want to needlessly upset people. But I want to understand why I am doing so. If a costume is racially or culturally inappropriate to you, what makes it so?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Medical Condition or Social Construct?

2010-10-24T16:26:00.000-04:00

I am skeptical about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). I do not disbelieve that the traits of ADHD exist; I do not disbelieve that these traits can impair children's ability to learn in a traditional classroom. I am skeptical of whether these traits are symptoms of a disorder, as opposed to characteristics of personality. I question whether the learning difficulties experienced by individuals diagnosed with ADHD should be relieved by making changes to the individual, as opposed to the social and educational environment.

The “symptoms” of ADHD are as shallow as they are disparate. Can such behaviors as procrastination, disorganization, or talkativeness, however excessive, be considered a disease as opposed to personality quirks? The fact that ADHD was once termed “defective moral control” is telling. This is a social disease, born of people failing to live up to cultural expectations. We take for granted that these expectations are factual; we view time, attention, and the expenditure of energy, each as having one correct application, from which the individual with ADHD deviates. That professionals used to believe that ADHD disappeared by adulthood, also suggests that this is not a disorder, but an interpretation of behavior in certain contexts.

Another telling trait of this “disorder” is the referral bias against boys (Hallahan, Kauffman, and Pullen, 228). We raise our boys, consciously and unconsciously, to be more aggressive, assertive, and active than we do our girls. It is easy to see how hyperactivity, impulsiveness, or lack of attention to uninteresting subjects, would go hand-in-hand with these mannerisms. Our girls, on the other hand, are bred to be passive, demure, and compliant. Little wonder they are less apt to be diagnosed with ADHD. Perhaps we should examine our schizophrenic expectations of the qualities we expect to see in boys.

The way our culture exalts certain abilities as, not only preferable, but necessary, is unfortunate. In a different cultural context, personality traits such as focused attention or a desire to accomplish tasks well before they're due, might be considered indicative of a disordered mind. In fact, child behavior expert Alfie Kohn has already suggested as much:

Consider a student who always starts her homework the moment it’s assigned. What might look like an admirable display of self-discipline, given that there are other things she’d rather be doing, may actually be due to an acute discomfort with having anything unfinished. She wants—or, more accurately, needs—to get the assignment out of the way in order to stave off anxiety. (“Self-Discipline”)

Similarly, Thomas Armstrong, in his book, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, notes that we ignore the opposite end of the spectrum. He ponders why we do not medicate children who are hypoactive, or offer treatments for children who are too focused (15). Our society rewards the results of those behaviors.

Professor of psychology Alison Gopnik speaks of schools as an experiment in how new environments can change the effects of genes. Tying this into the modern rise of ADHD, she says:

Some people were probably always better than others at paying sustained attention to just one thing. But these variations would have made no difference throughout most of human history—that kind of sustained focused attention isn't especially important for a hunter or a farmer, and it may even be a disadvantage.

However, paying attention makes a very big difference in the environment of a schoolroom. In school, children who are good at paying attention to begin with will develop even more impressively focused attention skills. So the genetic differences become exaggerated, and being bad at attention becomes a problem, even a kind of disease. (173)

Evidence suggests that the characteristics of ADHD may also make one more prone to creativity (Yellin). But our authoritarian society values obedience over ingenuity. Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg asserted that most adults do not ascend beyond conventional morality, a level at which “The person blindly accepts social conventions and rules and believes that if society accepts these rules, they should be maintained to avoid censure” (Parke and Gauvain 512). We relish the thought of children who do whatever they're told, but do we really want to create a nation of adults who are biddable sheep?

I believe it is helpful to think of ADHD individuals as having a particular temperament, personality type, or learning style, rather than a disability. The latter provides an excuse for not making attempts at success, or trying to effect changes in the system. Many young people claim to be ADHD (with or without diagnosis). When they do something others feel is inappropriate or insufficient, they shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, well, I'm ADHD.” (Note the conflation of the person with the disorder.) Whereas it is feared that the label may stigmatize children, among teens and young adults it's almost come to be a rite of membership in youth culture: I'm ADHD, just like everyone else. At a time when they are coming into a concept of self, this becomes woven into their identity.

Many parents appreciate the diagnosis of ADHD because it lets them off the hook—deservingly or otherwise—for children's bratty behavior. However, just because people find a behavior annoying, doesn't mean it's deviant. The public needs to be educated on what behaviors to expect from children. We tend to view children's undesired behavior displays as a manifestation of the moral failings of the parents. We would rather ply the little ones with drugs, than offer social or educational support, because we don't care to be inconvenienced by their children's troublesome behavior. In a culture where we shame people for deficient traits, it is convenient to hang the blame on a disorder, rather than owning our mistakes or unpopular qualities. The fact that we even take this seriously as a disease speaks to our eagerness to divest ourselves of personal responsibility.

In light of the overwhelming lack of evidence that the characteristics of ADHD constitute a genuine disease, it is unconscionable that we so prevalently try to remedy them with drugs. Certainly, such drugs have proven to have the desired effect in improving children's performance (Hallahan, Kauffman, and Pullen 250). To this I say, so what? Is it not hypocritical to deny performance-enhancing drugs to adults, but require them for our children to succeed?

If unacceptable behavior is the fault of a disease, to what do we attribute good behavior? Children, themselves, credit positive behaviors to the effects of ADHD drugs (Armstrong 44). Do we really want to raise children with the idea that they have no control over their behavior—for good or ill? Less than a century ago, we “soothed” infants by plastering them with tranquilizers, liquor, and opiates. I wonder if a century from now, we will look back on ADHD drugs as equally barbaric. Armstrong points out that “By using drugs to treat behavior and attention span problems, we may be substituting chemistry for coping in coming to grips with life's difficulties” (45).

Armstrong takes the position that, while ADHD is not a real medical disease, it is still sometimes appropriate to use the medications prescribed for it. I disagree. The evidence his book presents, suggests no good reason for favoring drugs over social/educational adjustments. On the other hand, I get the impression that the main reason Armstrong makes an allowance for drugs is that he fears parents will be unwilling to listen to anything he says without making that concession. Indeed, he offers much criticism of drugging children. Most of his book is dedicated to non-medical solutions for typical behaviors.

I believe that the ideal solution for helping children with ADHD to succeed would mean reexamining cultural norms and overhauling defunct educational practices. If a child is capable—as most children with ADHD are—of focused attention in areas of interest, why is the onus placed on the child for having a deficit of attention, rather than the teacher for failing to make lessons meaningful and interesting? Indeed, Alfie Kohn notes that “the problem may be more one of willingness to comply—especially in performing tasks that the children find boring—than one of a built-in deficit” (“Suffer”).

We know that children respond better to situations in which they are empowered to make choices. Why, then, do we expect them to excel in a system of enforced behaviors and activities? I am being taught, in an accredited, public college, that allowing children to move around, focus on their interests, and partake in hands-on activities gives them a higher chance for educational success. Why, then, are we not implementing this in our public schools? If we devoted half the attention to this question that we've given to ADHD as a medical disorder, we likely could have effected wide-scale changes in our schools by now.

Unwillingness to comply with tasks when one sees no benefit to engaging in them, suggests an aptitude for understanding the relationship between effort and rewards that speaks of these children's intelligence. It is that kind of critical distinction, rather than blind compliance with a faulty system, that I would encourage in our children. I believe it is the responsibility of educators to use differentiated teaching methods, and build upon the interests of the students in a way that allows students of all temperaments, learning styles, and intelligences to succeed in learning.

___________________________________
This was my English 111 research paper.

Works Cited:

Armstrong, Thomas. The Myth of the A.D.D. Child: 50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion. New York: Dutton, 1995. Print.

Gopnik, Alison. The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Print.

Hallahan, Daniel P., James M. Kauffman, and Paige C. Pullen. Exceptional Learners: An Introduction to Special Education. 11th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2009. Print.

Kohn, Alfie. “Suffer the Restless Children.” The Atlantic Monthly 292.2 1989. 81-98. Web. 3 July 2010.

Kohn, Alfie. “Why Self-Discipline is Over-Rated: The (Troubling) Theory and Practice of Control from Within.” Phi Delta Kappan. November, 2008. Web. 3 July 2010.

Parke, Ross D. and Mary Gauvain. Child Psychology: A Contemporary Viewpoint. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2009. Print.

Yellin, Deena. “Harnessing ADHD; More and More Experts Say It Can Be a Gift Rather than a Malady.” The Record. 10 May 2005: F01. Factiva Web. 2 July 2010.

Switching candidates--Please vote, everybody!

2010-10-17T13:36:00.000-04:00

I had read the blurbs for each of the candidates on Project Vote Smart, but somehow I missed that independent candidate Jeff Vanke is in favor of queer rights. Like the other two candidates (libertarian Bain and republican Goodlatte) he's listed as anti-choice, but on his own website, he has this to say:

Jeff personally opposes abortion, but his policy position is for a woman’s right to choose while the fetus is not viable outside the womb, including all cases up to 20 weeks into pregnancy, and late-term abortions after that, when the fetus becomes viable outside the womb, only in cases of danger to the mother’s life. However, where the U.S. House of Representatives has the greatest authority on abortion, Jeff opposes any Federal funding (here or overseas) for any abortions other than those involving rape or danger to the mother’s life.

Now that may be the best I'll get from any candidate.

Project Vote Smart is a good start for finding out who the candidates for your area are and some basics about their platforms, but I recommend doing a little further research. Vanke's major competition is the republican candidate who is anti-choice and anti-queer rights. It is important to vote for what you want. Please take a few minutes to find out who your candidates are, what they stand for, and then vote on November 2nd.

Convincing my candidate that women have rights, too

2010-09-29T18:14:00.004-04:00

There are three candidates running for Congress in my district: a Republican, an Independent and a Libertarian. Thanks to websites like Project Vote Smart, I can see that the Libertarian candidate, Stuart Bain, has the most in common with me on the issues. I even met Mr. Bain recently at a Pride event.

Unfortunately, none of the candidates are with me on a very important issue: women's right to terminate a pregnancy. So I wrote a letter to Mr. Bain, explaining (to a Libertarian!) why this is such an important right:

Dear Mr. Bain,

It was a pleasure to shake your hand at the Pride in the Park event in Roanoke. Some politicians would pay lip service to supporting LGBTQ issues while avoiding being so visually associated with that community. I respect that you are openly supportive of us.

I also appreciate that you were willing to honestly answer the twelve position questions posed by Project Vote Smart. But I was surprised and dismayed to see that you do not support women's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. I am perplexed as to how you can reconcile such a position with libertarian values.

Imagine for a moment, that a child is dying. His only chance to live is to be connected to you to receive a continuous blood transfusion. For the better part of the next year, you would be attached to this child. You would have to alter what you do, what you eat, where you go, your future plans. If you are having any financial, relational, or health difficulties, they will make this task all the more difficult, if not impossible. If you chose to take on this burden, you would be hailed as a hero.

Now imagine that you are forced to do this against your will. You would fight for the right of any man to live free of such drastically life-altering servitude, even if it meant the life of a self-aware child. Yet, you would force women to endure it for the sake of something that is not even capable of conscious thought. You will notice that the women who do choose to endure this (as opposed to the women who consciously choose to become pregnant) are viewed as victims of their own poor choices rather than heroes.

Women are not incubators; they are human beings who deserve the same freedom of body and agency that men do. Abortion is not about terminating a life; it is about terminating a pregnancy. No human being should be enslaved to keeping another human alive. Choosing to do so is a laudable act. But choosing not to is a fundamental right of agency. Even if a fetus can be said to have a right to life, it does not have the right to usurp the body of another human being.

There are many circumstances under which a woman might find herself pregnant against her will (regardless of whether she consented to sex) and in which allowing the pregnancy to continue will result in more harm to life than aborting it. For one thing, pregnancy is not without risk of complications. Women can and do still die giving birth. No one is obligated to risk their lives to save another—except pregnant women, apparently.

Children may also be adversely affected physically, mentally, and/or emotionally by the circumstances of the mother's pregnancy. Arbitrarily bringing all conceived life into the world is no more moral than it is sensible.

The human embryo does not deserve more consideration than the life of the mother. It does not even merit equal consideration. Yes, it has the potential to grow into a fully formed human. If every embryo has a right to life, than so do every sperm and egg—making the use of birth control, masturbation, and even abstinence from sex, equivalent to murder.

The term “pro-life” is a misnomer. To be pro-choice IS to be in favor of life. Abortion is no more a desirable goal than an organ removal or an amputation. But it is a necessary option.

I hope that you will reconsider your position on this matter.

The Pro-Choice Action Network has an excellent article that goes into more detail on the fallacies of the anti-choice position.

UPDATE: I received a response:

Thank you for emailing me. I support Dr. Ron Paul's Sanctity of Life act. In a nutshell, it says this:

1) Technically, life begins at conception.

2) Life is worthy of protection.

3) It is not up to the federal government, but rather up to the states, to decide if and how they choose to protect that life.

As for some of the unique cases you mention (rape, incest, protect the life of the mother), you will see that I answered "Yes, it should be legal."

I hope that clarifies some of my answers.

In liberty,

-- Stuart Bain

This is obviously a form response. It doesn't address the issues I brought up, and addresses some I didn't. He quotes Ron Paul's opinion on the beginning of life like it has any authority or basis in fact. The hell of it is, there's no other candidate in my region that is pro-choice. And Bain is the only one who supports LGBTQ rights. Politics: the art of getting screwed by the least unsavory person.

DADT still in place

2010-09-21T15:52:00.000-04:00

Don't Ask Don't Tell has STILL not been torn down, shot and burned with fire.

Break out the violin--thin women are being marginalized

2010-09-09T22:09:00.005-04:00

You know how, in American society, fat women are revered as the ideal standard of beauty? How thin women are grossly under-represented in popular culture and can't find clothes or amenities to fit their bodies and are constantly ridiculed for being too stupid and lazy to take care of their bodies?

I don't think I need to belabor that point any further.

Obviously, fat women (and fat people in general) are the hated class. We are treated as subhuman, especially on the good ol' interwebz. Finding fat-positive news is like finding a $10 bill on the ground--surprising and delightful.

Unfortunately, in their efforts to boost the image and self-esteem of such women, such articles and advertisements often use an offensive and imprecise turn of phrase: "real women." This is nothing new. Plus size women of all ages have grown accustomed to shopping in the "women's" section of department stores, while their smaller friends perused the "misses" or even "juniors." It is insulting and flat-out untrue to claim that body size--larger or smaller--is a factor in whether someone has achieved adult or personhood status.

Jamie Keiles at Teenagerie just posted on this very topic. She feels degraded by Lane Bryant's "real woman dollars" advertisements. She does make a good point:

In the pursuit of body acceptance, I think it is important that we, as people, try to distance ourselves from this sort of "othering" language. Just because we are going to welcome larger women into the idea of beauty, it does not mean we need to ostracize smaller women in the process.

First, notice her apropos choice of words: "Just because we are going to welcome larger women into the idea of beauty." This statement is sad on account of its accuracy. Thin women own beauty. They may choose to welcome larger women into this magical place (if we behave ourselves by not getting uppity?) but we are damned lucky they're being so sporting about it.

I agree that this sort of "othering" language is a poor choice of words. But while I think that the department store scenario presented above is problematic, I find Lane Bryant's use of the term to be less so. The very fact that Lane Bryant caters solely to plus sizes indicates that they consider all of their customers real women. This does not necessarily mean that women who are not their customer base are not also real women. It could be taken as an implied also: Fat women are also real women, despite the fact that our society considers them subhuman.

Demotivationals represent the cream of humanity.

I adore Jamie and do not begrudge her this topic, because it's a worthy one for discussion. But Jamie is not the only one with this complaint. New York Fashion Week is doing their first ever fashion show. Notice the comments at the article. After the first three "finally!"s (which I would like to echo) the complaints roll in:

I don't understand why they so often use the term "real" women when referring to plus size women. While I do feel that we should embrace our bodies regardless of what size they are, plus size statistically means not healthy.

Because no discussion of fat women is complete unless we point out (inaccurately) that despite the fact that we're being nice by letting them have some pretty clothes, they really don't deserve it because they're OMGZ UNHEALTHY!!11!

There is nothing more annoying than plus-size women calling themselves 'real' women. Not all of us are overweight, nor do we desire to be. Find another term to describe yourselves. Not everyone is fat.

Seriously? Let's examine the facts:

Fat women have been marginalized, ridiculed, and abused by society at large.

Some people are stepping up and saying that fat women are worthy of being treated with respect and consideration as people and consumers.

Sometimes their phrasing could be taken to suggest that fat women's size makes them more worthy than smaller women.

This whole argument strikes me as similar to the way white people get upset that they are not socially permitted to say a certain slur that black people can freely use. Oh, those oppressed white people!

You want to get your panties in a twist over the inference (and I do mean inference, not implication) that thin women are somehow lesser than fat women? Maybe you could take that as a taste, just a teeny, tiny nibble of the banquet of negativity that fat women are presented with in every facet of their lives. And then feel free to celebrate the fact that your fat sisters are finally getting some of the attention and respect that is normally lavished upon thin women. It's not always about you.

This is an example of thin privilege. Thin women are constantly being told that they are the real women--but it doesn't have to be stated explicitly because the message is saturated in every aspect of our culture. The same message has to be spelled out for fat women because we won't receive it any way. That takes anything away from thin women. If you are thin, your womanhood is not, never has been, in question. It is very much in question for fat women and we are asserting the answer ourselves: damn right, we are real women.

UPDATE: I made a link to this post at Teenagerie and received this comment, which makes a good point:

Palaverer, I read a bit of your blog entry, and in the first couple lines you pointed out that plus-size women have trouble finding clothes, whereas it is easy for thin women to find clothing that fits them. I strongly disagree with this statement. I am extremely thin (about size 0-2) and I can never find clothing, especially pants or shorts, that fit me correctly. I wear t-shirts just about everyday because those are the only tops that fit me really well. I had to go about 2 hours away from where I live to find a clothing store, Forever 21, that had at least some clothes in my size, and even still many of their clothing in "small" was too baggy or didn't fit me correctly. I also feel that you don't truly understand what it's like to be asked if you have an eating disorder once a week, or sit in a class where a teacher says that she would never want to be your size and doesn't understand how men could ever be attracted to someone your size. I have experienced that and I'm sure other thin women have too, so don't you dare try to say that our complaints unwarranted. And my "womanhood" has definitely been mocked and put into question, like when people say thin women have "the body of a twelve year old boy". I think you need to look at things from a different perspective and realize that thin women can be hurt by mean weight comments as well.

My response:

Chelsea, you are right, and I apologize for not taking that point of view into account. I did not say that it is easy for all thin women to find clothing, but I did use sarcasm to imply that non-plus size women do, which did not exclude the smallest range of sizes. You are right that thin women put up with a lot of crap, too, which is what feminism in general is fighting against. All women are constantly judged based on their looks and how well they conform to certain standards; even when they conform to those standards, they can never be good enough. Thin women are very often positively represented in popular culture (while fat women are almost never presented, let alone positively), but in practice, they may not be appreciated for their conformance (I mean that in the physical sense) to beauty and "health" standards.

That's why I agree that using "real women" as a description is problematic. Because one can interpret it as excluding certain females, and I think dividing women that way is just another means to conquer them. But I do not think that it is meant that way, and I would like to see thin women get the real point: it is not about lowering thin women to a lesser status, but raising fat women to a higher one.

Let us bemoan the tough life of the single male

2010-08-29T21:51:00.001-04:00

Being a single guy is just so hard, ya know?*

Click for larger image.

First there's the ugly women you have to put up with. Instead of enjoying one night stands, you wake up next to a woman with bad skin. Which is still apparently a one night stand, but not with the hottie you deserve. Then there's all the sleeping with dirty hookers. Oh, the things men must put up with! If only those bitch hotties realized what a catch you are so you wouldn't have to seek sex from fugly prostitutes.

The other bitches in your life include your nagging mother (who probably has the gall to point out your faults--as if you had any!) and your evil ex who either didn't realize what a prize she had in you and dumped you, or you dumped her, yet continue to use her for sex whenever hookers and ugly chicks aren't available.

And really, how could any woman not want you? What with how well you take care of yourself (binges of doritos and beer), that bangin' crib (er, shithole), and promising career (underage porn? Seriously?)

Of course you're such a loser for having balanced interests and hobbies such as watching rom-coms and figure skating or making model airplanes instead of doing something manly like racing cars or, I don't know, punching babies or something. At least you don't have to waste your time caring about other human beings by shopping for presents or putting the seat down.

Of course, you've learned that women only want what they can't have; which apparently means a guy who respects women, takes care of his body and home, and applies himself to his work. Like she could ever get that! She's just a gold digger, missing out on a chance to be with a Nice Guy like you.

I'm not sure which part of the pictograph guys should be more offended by: the theory or the reality. Either way you're expected to be a mediocre, self-obsessed, and immature jerk. And people think feminists assume the worst of men!

*NOTE: I realize that this pictograph is a joke. I have no issue with MadAtoms for posting this content. My post is in regard to the narcissistic males who identify with it.

Domestic violence in entertainment--constructive or destructive?

2010-08-27T11:51:00.002-04:00

There's been a lot of blogging lately about Eminem and Rhianna's song, "Love the way you lie." Some people think it's a valuable treatise on how domestic violence actually goes down. Others believe it's presenting domestic violence as acceptable at best, glorifying it at worst. The song is hardly alone. Allison Iraheta has one out right now with a similar theme, and it's been done before.

Flip flopping joy posted about the song a couple of weeks ago. This post is kind of rambling, but it did make an excellent point that needed to be brought to my attention. Let me distill it for you:

We have a narrative in our culture that any woman who stays with a man who abuses her, deserves whatever she gets. If she wants to stop the abuse, she needs to Leave. Him. Period. What could be more logical than that?

What I didn't recognize is the privilege inherent in this narrative. I was raised with the concept that you don't accept physical abuse from a mate. My father tried to kill my mother. She walked out on him that day. Finito. Her philosophy is to not stick around where she's not treated with respect and she ingrained that in her kids. She also had something to leave to--loving parents that took her back in and helped provide and care for her and her daughter.

But not everyone grew up with my mom. Some people's mom's were getting beaten, molested, or screamed at every night. They see their friends and family living with abuse and it is normal. And some 30-second PSA isn't going to change that perception. There are not enough resources for women who grow up in violent conditions to (a) understand that abuse is not an inherent component of relationships and (b) give them the means to support themselves and their children if they do manage to get away from the abuser.

So in a way, the Eminen/Rhianna colaberation is a means to draw attention to domestic violence as it exists in reality, rather than in the imaginations of those of us privileged enough not to have experienced it. And since the song is out there, I hope it does that job adequately.

But I do not think the song was a good idea. First off, I know Rhianna and Eminem have both experienced abuse in their lives, and that creating art about it can be a way of dealing with their emotions. But this is not a journal. It is not a self-reflective piece that is shared with the family or a therapy group--this has been shared with the world.

It's been released to a world full of people who don't know or particularly care about the internal struggles the singers may be dealing with. It's a world full of people who find the song catchy, romantic, and even worthy of imitation. For all the people who live with violence, who see it everywhere and experience it as normal--especially teenage girls--how does this song help them? It seems like just one more piece of evidence that violence is normal and acceptable.

Presenting the woman as remaining with the abuser may be realistic, but it reinforces the notion that there is no other choice. If it's unrealistic to present women as being capable of escaping domestic violence, then let's explore that. Who better than an artist to imagine some creative alternatives?

I don't dispute the artists' right to make this song, nor anyone's right to listen to it. But is it beneficial? I don't think so. I think the world would have been better off without it.

Women succumbing to patriarchy--how should other women respond?

2010-08-26T13:16:00.002-04:00

Pandagon just posted an excellent discussion of sexism related to women's footwear. What I found particularly interesting are two of the comments:

I feel like feminist discussions about uncomfortable footwear fall into the same patterns that we tend to get into with other body and appearance issues like shaving and dieting. Most feminist women can recognize that the pressure to be thin/hairless/high-heeled comes from the patriarchy and we object to it on principle, but every woman has her limits as far as how much personal sacrifice she is willing to make out there in the real world in order to make a principled stand against those unfair pressures.

I find that my life is more pleasant when I make certain compromises with the patriarchy and I think my fellow feminists should be understanding about that. Yes, I diet because being a size 12 instead of a size 18 makes my life easier in a number of ways. I will talk to anybody who will listen about body acceptance and health at every size, but up until I manage to change the world (I still hold out hope that I can do it) I have to live in the world as it is, and I don’t think that makes me a traitor to my fellow fat people. I also shave my legs and wear reasonably high heels for similar reasons. I wish women could refrain from getting on eachothers’ case about stuff like that because none of us is at fault for what the larger culture still expects of us and not everyone can be a martyr for the cause.
Comment #58: GumbyAnne

And this response:

GumbyAnne—no one raindrop thinks it’s responsible for the flood.

When we do things like shave, wear heels, put on makeup, etc, it’s not enough to understand that in doing so we capitulate to the standards of the patriarchy. We also have to understand that by doing so, we make it that much harder for women to break free of those expectations.
Comment #61: Mighty Ponygirl

So which is it? Should we respect the rights of women (or any other marginalized group) to willingly surrender to oppressive rules of the kyriarchy? Or should we speak up when we see them engaging in behaviors that makes it more difficult for others to change the system?

I think both.

We all have to temper our ideals to our environment to some extent. Each of us is trying to make the best of what we're given to work with. Calling women out as traitors to the cause, shows no respect or empathy to the struggle they personally face in their lives. It alienates and divides, and ultimately increases our burden.

But we're not always aware of the ways in which we've internalized our culture's backwards values. I think it is appropriate to respectfully and tactfully communicate this when we see it happening. It should be done in a way that, rather than judging, is consciousness-raising and offers support and alternatives. The more we communicate the success we've had as individuals (I've stopped shaving my legs and it's going great), the more we can inspire others to stand up for their rights to make personal choices about appearance.

EDIT: I want to add that a friend of mine did an informal survey of the women she worked with in regard to eschewing leg-shaving. The responses were all negative and ran the gamut from, "It's wrong to have hairy legs because our culture says so," to "That's so disgusting I can't even think about it."

Not everyone engages in activities like leg-shaving because they feel like they have to--but plenty of women do. Those of us who can stand up an any issue (not all issues, necessarily, but even one helps) and say, "I don't perform that behavior; women don't have to perform that behavior," makes it easier for other women to recognize that they have a choice.

On Subjective Morality Part III

2010-08-12T14:32:00.000-04:00

I often have conversations of a philosophical nature with my friend Stone Taggart. I find his musings so entertaining and thought-provoking that I wanted to share them with you. Our last conversation turned into an candid interview and the results of that are below.

Palaverer: So social law is what the focus is here? It's only immoral if it's breaking the law?

Stone Taggart: Morality is defined by society. It's just that, if it's not my society, then obviously I'm going to interpret it as morally wrong. If I suddenly went to a society where the moral option is to make sure that one person dies instead of the five, I'm probably still going to disagree, because I grew up in a different society. I've had a long time to think about this. That society may kill me for it, because I'm not adhering to their principles, I'm not meshing with their system, but that is just simply who and what I am.

P: So when you disagree with society on a point of morality, which one of you is immoral?

ST: Neither one. It's because it's the same problem as the physics problem. You've got two objects in space, and they're moving away from each other, and the only thing you can determine is that they're moving away from each other, you can't really say which one is stationary or not. There is no such thing as an objective morality, unfortunately. I wish it were that simple.

P: So when it comes to the five lives from the original trolley problem, the fact that you have saved five lives that otherwise would have died is not a counterweight to the responsibility for ending a life that wouldn't have otherwise died?

ST: Right. I hate to say it, but yeah. I am not in a position where I can decide what one man's life is worth in reference to the lives of several other people.

P: So you believe that morality has more to do with not hurting, than it does with helping.

ST: It will have as much to do with helping as long as your helping doesn't involve hurting. Or if there is hurting, it has to be to someone who deserves it. But how do you determine if they deserve it? It depends on if they are part of how you've been programmed to perceive morality. It doesn't sound very good to say, but it's kind of how we've been operating all along. I'm hoping that someday we might be able to evolve past it but we haven't yet. To give a more direct answer to your question, yeah. It is about first not doing any direct harm.

Honestly, if I switched that trolley track to kill the one instead of the five in the first place, it would be my moral imperative to switch it back to where it was at the one. However, if the trolley was, if I had, accidentally for instance to the one instead of the five, then I wouldn't be able to switch it back to the five, because I'm already culpable, my hands are already dirty. If I'm already guilty of something, then I'm going to aim for the least guilty, doing the least harm. If I've already done something that is going to harm, then yes, it is a focus on doing the least harm first, and then seeing how you can help.

P: What if there's a sort of Schrödinger's cat of harm, where your action could result in benefit or harm and you don't know which way it's going to go? Say for instance, you see someone that needs CPR and you think you sort of half remember it. And if you try it you could save their life or you could also end up breaking their neck or somehow making the situation worse.

ST: All right. To answer in reference of the context of my philosophy here, don't touch him. Do not touch him. If someone breaks their leg, don't move them. Wait for a medical professional. Even if it's going to kill them. Even if they're going to die from blood loss, don't touch them. Because chances are you are going to make it worse. It is going to be a make-it-worse situation and that's written down in first-aid manuals everywhere.

But in my case? Personally because I've been studying this for a very long time, I would say that I have an affinity toward chance. That isn't to say that I'm treated better by chance. I don't think that chance plays favorites. But if I can inject chance into a situation, usually I will choose to. If it is a Schrödinger's cat where it's as likely as not that I'll be able to help or harm, I personally, I would jump at that chance and I would go and do it. But that's only me. I can't speak for a group. And that is actually converse to where I think humanity's headed. So I don't belong in my own future.

P: Speaking of the present, you say that in order for morals to change, people who believe something different from the main society have to come together and form a new society. Now, modern day, present America, how would you say, that should happen in a society like ours? How would we affect moral change like that?

ST: Well, it's already kind of happening. The current generation that we have has been uniting through the Internet in droves. Our mutual friend Diven calls us Generation M, the Media Generation, because in 24 hours we can actually absorb, process and actually extract meaningful data from about five days worth of data. Five days worth of input in the period of one day. That's pretty amazing.

Right now, though, it seems like all we're waiting for is for everybody who isn't part of that generation to die. All the people who are immoral and close-minded and trying to hamper progress, they're all just getting old and dropping dead. It's just part of nature. It's already happening. In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard a song about it, not too long ago—it was a few years ago—where the singer was explaining that a lot of today's elders perceive that our generation is lazy and that we don't care, but the truth is we do care, we care very much, but we know that there isn't a damn thing we can do, until all the people who are holding us back simply die of old age. Or just otherwise become too obsolete to handle the offices that they're in and make way for newer people with more integrated ideas to come into the picture.

I mean, look at our president. No one has utilized the Internet to the capacity that Barack Obama has. And I'm not really trying to say this as a kind of praise of the man. Right now my only appreciation of him is mostly in that he—like I normally prefer to do—has injected a bunch of chaos into a stale system. Not as much chaos as I would have preferred, but he sure has done it. And he did it through communication and bringing all of these disparate groups together, or all of these individuals who couldn't find their society, to a place where they could find it, through the Internet.

I think that's really the key to it. We already have—to reiterate in my personal philosophy—we have the pressures built up in various areas and suddenly the Internet appears and it provides a channel for those pressures to balance and come into contact with each other. That is where I think everything is going to come from.

On Subjective Morality Part II

2010-08-12T14:22:00.003-04:00

I often have conversations of a philosophical nature with my friend Stone Taggart. I find his musings so entertaining and thought-provoking that I wanted to share them with you. Our last conversation turned into a candid interview and the results of that are below.

Palaverer: Do you think that it's possible/improbable/likely that at some time in the future, humanity will ever have more of a cohesive sense of morality, or that there will always be numerous groups?

Stone Taggart: I don't think it's ever going to be possible, nor is it ever going to be particularly beneficial to iron out the various groups. Because diversity is an integral part of progress. You have to be trying different things in order to find out which is going to work, but I do believe that over all, we are eventually going to have a much more cohesive sense of what morality is.

So we are going to have a basic code that we all adhere to. In fact, most of us already do. As I was saying before, do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not cheat, and it just goes down the list of things that, while helpful to you, are harmful to others. I think that as a whole we are going to find a balance of good for the individual balanced against good for everybody. I mean, you can't have a moral code that is good for everybody more than it is for the individual because that's another form of imbalance. Your individuals will start suffering, and through that, everybody's going to be equally miserable.

But if you have the right balance, then everybody will be able to express the kind of freedom that they need in order to pursue what they want to do and sort of fulfill the niches in society that are best suited for them. I mean, there are all kinds of people who desperately want to do something in particular with their life. And while these goals are not strictly humanitarian in nature—I mean, they don't want to become a charity, doing it for free—but it's something they'd be happier doing, than anyone else would be happier in their place, doing, and something they'd be happier doing than any other task.

As long as we've got this kind of—I hate to go back into the chaos thing—but as long as we've got paths of least resistance to balance out the pressures of everybody's lives and make it so that people who want to contribute in a certain way then have a channel through which to express that, that will be for the best. And I think that we are definitely on our way to that. We are heading toward a balance between diversity and conformity. Conformity has such terrible connotations. It's just that we're used to conformity in a context where it's conformity that squashes diversity. But the kind of conformity that I'm seeing in this is a system that allows for diversity to coexist.

P: Many people espouse the moral code that you said was pretty standard (don't kill, don't lie), and yet they do those things anyway. How do you close up the gap between what people believe in as a moral code, but actually practice?

ST: See, in all things you can kind of measure potential energy, sort of like you can in physics. You can see the pressures in their life that led them to make those decisions. I guess they are wrong to make those decisions but it's important to consider what made them think that was a good idea to begin with. And that's really the part of the problem that we should be attacking. Yes, there are definitely going to be flawed individuals in society that no matter what you do, they are going to do terrible things. But like I said, there is a balance.

We can't have a “thou shalt not kill” that is completely universal and unquestionable in every way, or else when someone goes around killing, you can't stop them because you're not allowed to kill them. If you have a balance, though, perhaps in directly tossing out that value that they claim to espouse, they're giving up their right to the receiving half of that. I think that would make short work of unsavory elements.

If you have someone who's going around killing and stealing and raping and lying and cheating and all of the terrible things that we know to be terrible, then they kind of don't have a right to say that those things can't be done to them any more. They were the first ones to—I hate to put this in immature terms—but they started it. They brought it upon themselves. They chose to reject those values after they, in the very first place, claimed they were going to support them. They've basically proven themselves to not be capable of being part of society. And what do we do with people who aren't part of society? Well, what does every society do to members that don't mesh well? Those members are removed.

I think it's important to note that there is really, although we are going to have a kind of agreement between the majority of people, there really isn't going to be any ideal one perfect human being. It isn't going to be possible to have a system that you'd call perfect. Perfection, in my opinion, doesn't even exist. It's something that you move toward, but it's nowhere that you actually get to. As long as we're moving toward perfection, then we're fine, we're good. That's the way that we should be going. But we're never going to have a system where nobody ever dies and nobody ever steals and nobody is ever wronged in some way. Again, it's all about balance.

P: Are you familiar with the trolley problem?

ST: Trolley problem . . . oh, I think I know! Where there are a bunch of situations where there's a trolley rolling down the tracks and there are people who are going to die unless you do something and sometimes that thing that you can do may have bad moral implications.

I've thought long and hard about these problems. To me, the moment there is bad on both sides of the equation, it stops being so much of a moral question. Because, if you switch the track to kill the one and spare the five, you're still responsible for killing someone directly through your own action. Whereas, if you're just standing there, and things are the way they are, and you just let it happen, it's a lot harder to blame someone for inaction than it is to blame someone for action.

Now, a lot of people will immediately jump to the conclusion, oh, well kill the one guy and we'll spare the five. The moment that you have a situation that's laid out like that already . . . to say that there's anything like fate—I don't think fate even comes into it at all. But sometimes it's just not any of your business. If it is the way it is, you're only sticking your neck out if you try to change it. I mean, that's a really cynical way to look at things, but really the individual at fault is the person—well, okay, no person would be at fault, per se, for having the people stuck there on the track, or the other guy stuck on the track. But the people who built the track? They're going to be held liable. I know I'm dancing around the point here.

P: I think the story is that some villain has tied people to the track. Twirling his mustache all the while. There's also the one where you're a doctor and you have five patients that need organ transplants. Someone rolls into town who has no family, has nothing particular to live for, you could easily kill him, no one would ever know, take his organs and save those five lives.

ST: That still involves direct action and at that point, that guy has not done anything to revoke his right to have organs. Just because other people are in a bad situation does not revoke the rights of an individual to not be in an equally bad situation. I guess that's what I meant by balance.

You go into a society where the rights of the individual are worthless compared to the rights of the whole, you're going to make all the individuals miserable. There's a line to be drawn. And there are going corrective mechanisms, like if five people keep dying in trolley crashes, over and over and over again, society is going to adjust its morality to a point where it's going to actually be written down as law that if you switch the track so that it only kills one person instead of five, that you're not accountable. But that hasn't happened.

Part III

On Subjective Morality Part I

2010-08-12T14:13:00.001-04:00

I often have conversations of a philosophical nature with my friend Stone Taggart. I find his musings so entertaining and thought-provoking that I wanted to share them with you. Our last conversation turned into a candid interview and the results of that are below.

Due to the length, I have broken this into three posts. The views expressed below are the sole property of Mr. Taggart and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by myself. This is the first of three installments. I didn't capture the very beginning of it, but he started by pontificating on morality and where humans derive it from.

Stone Taggart: Organisms—generation upon generation upon generation—they live long enough so that even if the individual organisms are not aware of the shortfall of the environment that they're in, the society as a whole is. And there are enough people to see the pressures, even if they're not consciously aware of them. Sort of like how an individual organism has its own balancing mechanisms for when you're trying to walk. You may not be concentrating on keeping yourself upright, but the rest of you is. And if you're pushed, you're not just going to go *boom* flat on your face; you're going to stumble forward a bit, because you've got instincts there, subconscious instincts to help you figure out what you need to do in order to maintain that balance.

Success in the short term is not success in the long term. And I think that on some level, societies as a whole, all societies all together, realize this, even if the members don't. That's basically what I was trying to say. But it's society that sets the moral tone, and when an individual deviates from society, society tends to react violently to that. It's sort of like our morality is an identification mechanism. The set of moral codes that we each carry can flag us as either part of or foreign to the society and whenever somebody who's too off the plane shows up, well, they get put in mental institutions, they're otherwise marginalized, they can't keep a job and sustain themselves. Or sometimes, they'll even actually be physically attacked and killed by members of the society they don't fit in on.

Thankfully humanity has enough in common—I mean, each strain of humanity, or most strains of humanity—have enough in common with each other that we're not just going to kill each other at first sight. But there are different strains of humanity that if they do catch sight of each other, they are definitely going to identify each other as foreign and they will go to war. Right off the bat. Although usually that's with cultures that have been isolated for tens of thousands of years and don't interact on a regular basis with other cultures.

I think that modern technology as a whole has sort of given us the ability to communicate with people that we just wouldn't be able to even comprehend on a moral level otherwise. The Internet, for instance, allows us to sort of filter it, so that when there's something objectionable about the person that we're talking to, that would otherwise end the conversation right there, we can ignore it more easily and focus on the things that we do find in common.

But the longer these individual cultures are separate from the rest of the cultures, the more distant they're going to grow. So if you take . . . if there are any indigenous people left in Siberia, for instance, you know, akin to the Eskimos, and you transport them to a place where they're going to meet native South Americans, from the deep jungle, they may have two completely different moral codes, and the moment they see each other . . . first of all, the language barrier's not going to help. And second of all, if their customs are too different, it's inevitable that one of these people is going to do something that the other group as a whole, finds as blasphemous.

I think it's rather unfortunate, but kind of inevitable to acknowledge that the prototype transmission system for our moral code has been religion. It was necessary. It was a way by which people could teach each other how to associate with the group. And it was more advanced than, say, individual scent-markings than we have with group animals, like wolves or lions. Because other humans can be taught it. But I think it's not the end-all, be-all; it's more of a step in the chain. And, ever more frequently, we're coming up with new ways, better ways, to sort of synchronize ourselves with the world, in general, so that all societies may eventually come to grasp—I mean we've already come to grasp several things that we basically all agree on. Murder is bad. Rape, in most countries, in most cultures, is also bad, though you will find some cultures where it's not only sanctioned, but the right thing to do. Heck, there are even some cultures out there where murder's not even a big thing.

And then you've got moral codes that are about completely arbitrary things, like what you're allowed to eat and when you're allowed to eat or . . . strange customs that people carry out throughout the day. Not to call the Muslim tradition strange, but if you're an outsider looking in, if you're like an alien from space that came to earth and you saw all these people, all at once, unanimously getting down on their knees facing toward one particular geographic region on their planet and start murmuring to themselves and bowing over and over and over for an hour, you'd think, “that's really strange and I don't see how that contributes to the society as a whole.” Really, that was just an identifying marker of one set of moral code.

I'm really going all over the place with this, but nowadays, there are a lot of things that we can agree on and synchronize with, without have to adopt really inconvenient and pointless traditions. And it's getting easier, I think. That's why I think that it is, not only really easy, but practically inevitable that everybody's going to be able to determine what right and wrong are, with a god or without a god. And at some point, I'm also pretty sure that it's going to be easier for people who don't have some sort of spiritual, imaginary authority figure telling them what's right or wrong. I'm going to have a better sense of what's right or wrong than someone who does have that authority figure.

Palaverer: Do you think that there are some things that can be absolutely defined as moral or immoral? Or is everything dependent upon context?

ST: If you don't have a context, you don't really have anything at all. Everything, even physics, requires a context. If you are trying to gauge the motion of an object through space, if you don't have another object to measure it against, a context, then that object really, for all intents and purposes, has no motion. Now, if you are a being in space, trying to measure the motion of that object and it is moving to you, or away from you, then that's just it in the context of you, the observer. But even in that situation, there's no real way to say which of the two are fixed, or which of the two is actually drifting. Or if you're sharing some velocity with that object, so that you're both shooting off in one direction, it's just that, that one is drifting a little to the side . . . or you are. It's just the same in Einstein's special relativity, that all motion in space is dependent on the position of all other objects in space. In fact, that's what inertia is. That's the tug of the entire universe resisting you accelerating. That's what mass is.

Yes, in that case, morals—much like everything else—are entirely bound by context. And to go even on a simpler level than that without jumping through all these metaphysical hoops, or trying to associate it with areas of science that are not directly attached to morality, is it moral to kill? Well, generally speaking, no, but what does that mean? Well, in general, is someone trying to kill you? Probably not. But if that person is trying to kill you, if someone is trying to destroy you or the people that you care about or your livelihood or just make it impossible for you to survive, is it still as immoral to kill them? No, not really. Especially if you can't stop them any other way. If it's kill or be killed than every being that exists kind of has . . . it's kind of imperative to kill before you can be killed. Hopefully, though we're going to be living in a society where that's no longer a question that needs to be asked on a daily basis.

Part II

Part III

Some responses on racism and allies

2010-08-11T19:01:00.001-04:00

The Hathor Legacy has posted its weekly Links of Great Interest which I am honored to be included among. One of the links goes to a blog post titled White People are Stupid by haddayr. haddayr responds to a news link about a town that bars the local government from translating official city actions and documents into other languages, even though no one had ever asked them to. She has also blocked viewers from commenting on her post, but I've got something to say about it.

I agree with the gist of her post. Immigrants generally do the best they can in learning English and we need to respect that and have some patience. I also recognize that there is a general fear among white people of losing their privilege to persons of color. What I disagree with is this:

And it's only been an issue since the immigrants became brown. There are towns in this state that STILL have German street signs. So don't you try to tell me this isn't about race.

My grandfather was from Germany, and I've got a good mix of German heritage in me. I took German in high school and even remember how to speak some of it. I have absolutely nothing against German language speakers, who often have the same skin color as me. I would still be as weirded out if every commercial phone number I dialed made me listen to instructions in German before moving on to this country's official language. There may be a few German street signs in her area, but there is nothing in any language in any area I've lived in that could even remotely rival Spanish.

In other words, I think the issue most people have is not with Spanish per se, or the color of the people who speak it, but the prevalence of it. Their concerns may be misplaced, but it is inaccurate to assume that the issue is based solely on race.

Why is it important to make this distinction? Because if the goal is to raise white people's consciousness, it's important to understand where their consciousness already is. Being antagonistic and whipping out accusations of racism, particularly where undeserved, will not accomplish this.

We know that privilege creates a shroud of ignorance. It sucks, but ignorant people need others to point out their ignorance. Done with lucidity and respect, you can pull reasonable people out of ignorance. Or you can assume the worst of everyone and just push away potential allies.

There's another matter listed among Hathor's links: is the term ally worth using? Guage of Radical Masculinity contends that it is not. First, I had to copy and paste the content of this post into a word document, because I find the white print on black background virtually impossible to read. I wish bloggers would take this into account when planning the aesthetics of their blog. If anyone has difficulty reading my colors, please let me know, all right?

Anyway, some of the reasons for eschewing ally include:

It presupposes that you are performing the duties of an ally admirably.
It assumes that you expect some sort of cookies for being so enlightened.
It draws attention to yourself and away from the group you're supposed to be supporting.
It builds an identity based on others' oppression.

While I think these points are worth discussing and individuals ought to be careful that they do not apply in their case, I disagree that ally should be thrown out as a useful term. After all, it is not the term itself that leads to any of the above; it is the attitude of the person who is attempting, however sincerely, to support an oppressed group. Exchanging ally for the suggested term “solidarity work” does nothing to alleviate potential pitfalls.

The first two reasons above, again, are something that individuals will have to ask themselves if they are doing (or perhaps have pointed out to them by others). As for the third one I've listed, I do not believe that to be the case. In fact, I believe the opposite to be true. If one announces oneself to be an ally of a particular cause in a situation where the needs of the cause are not being met, one has drawn attention to that cause. Win. If one announces oneself to be an ally amidst members of the oppressed group, the members can enjoy the pleasant feeling of solidarity and work with the allies to further the cause. Also win. Speaking as a woman, I am pleased to find men willing to speak up as allies of feminism, so long as they are not in breach of reasons one and two (if they are, I will point this out to them).

I completely disagree with reason four. Getting back to this blog's Buddhist roots: there is no self. We are a set of constantly flowing thoughts and experiences. We define ourselves at any given moment in relation to others. If I call myself sister, that in no means that I define myself as a person based on the existence and experiences of my brother. It is merely an expression of my relationship to another being.

Calling oneself an ally is an acknowledgment of the experiences of other beings and one's chosen relationship to them, no more, no less. It is not a permanent identity or definition of self. If their oppression ceased to be, who I am as a person would not cease to be. Relationships shift, like everything else in life. The best we can do is find words to express them as they are in the moment, and I think ally does a perfectly adequate job of that.

Privilege in atheism

2010-08-03T18:23:00.003-04:00

Too often, it is the religious who enjoy a position of privilege in their particular location. In America, Christianity is the religion of the majority, and considered the default. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins makes two interesting points: (a) While the majority of Americans are theists, the majority of scientists (particularly among the most distinguished) are atheists and (b) religiosity is negatively correlated with education.

Education, of course, is very often dependent upon privilege. So it seems that atheism, while not necessarily dependent upon education, is more attainable for those with the opportunities for more advanced education. Is it any wonder, then, that women and minorities are less often found in the ranks of atheists and skeptics, and more often involved in religion and woo?

I am a woman who was raised in a fundamentalist Bible cult. Everything in the Bible was taken literally, including the rule that women were not to take positions of authority over men in the church. As a young teenager, I started to become aware of the unfairness of this. But I managed to suppress my misgivings, as do millions of women in a variety of misogynistic religions such as Catholicism and Islam.

What are the benefits of loyalty (there's that word again) to such a system? For one thing, you become convinced that, however bad your treatment may seem within the religion, it is far worse on the outside. When you believe the world is full of conniving evil in the hands of the devil, you cling to your religion for dear life. Another reason is that whatever reward the religion promises may seem worth the inconvenience, humiliation or pain required of you in the "short-term" of this life. When you feel that the world unjustly penalizes you for your gender or race, it is comforting to believe that your deity will, at some point, even the score.

And of course, religious groups often form tight-knit communities, within which even women and minorities may develop a certain amount of influence. It is unappealing to relinquish control, however little it may actually be.

While this is no explantion for why people in general are religious, it may explain why women and minorities are more prone to religion than the white men who make up the majority of atheists and skeptics. The latter, with more ubiquitous educational opportunities and fewer emotional attachments to the concept of a great Equalizer, can afford to take a hard look at the likelihood of such a thing and can still conduct reasonably happy lives without one.

Our culture of sexism may also explain the greater involvement of women in woo. We are constantly taught that science is for boys, not girls. Girls are for looking pretty, and only like pretty things, not potentially disgusting things like biology, or difficult concepts like, well, all the sciences. It's no secret that the science/technology field alienates women. Combine that with the way women are conditioned to be focused on emotionality or softness, and it isn't hard to see the appeal of an area they can be authorities in without competing or struggling against the patriarchy, even if it's completely bogus.

Women and minorities have more to lose in giving up the concept of a God and less opportunity to learn facts about the world outside of a biased religious environment. While Christianity enjoys a position of privilege in America due to a majority following, it is atheists who are more likely to be among the privileged white, upper-class males. If atheists want to see more variety in their ranks, I believe it will take more than political organization or spreading of some anti-gospel. I think this will need to go hand-in-hand with combatting the greater problem of overprivilege vs. underprivilege.

UPDATE: Atheists, while making up about 14% of the American population, comprise only .2% of the American prison population (that's point two). I sometimes see this statistic presented to combat the notion that atheists are inherently more prone to crime than the religious. While I agree that this notion is flawed to the point of absurdity, I'm not certain the prison statistics have much to do with it. Rather, it may have more to do with atheism as a privilege, mainly available to middle and upper-class white males, who are far less likely to find themselves behind bars in any circumstance.

Who do we find in prison? You'll notice how non-whites are disproportionately incarcerated. Non-whites, particularly African Americans, are also more likely to be religious. It seems to me that, rather than suggesting that the religous are more likely to be criminal, the evidence merely expresses the not-necessarily-related facts that persons of color are more likely to be religious and more likely to be put in prison.

A more meaningful statstic, in terms of correlating religiosity and criminality, might compare within the same race, i.e. the number of white atheists in prison vs the number of white atheists in the general population.

Indoctrinating children into gender roles

2010-07-29T14:54:00.003-04:00

I often enjoy a bowl of peanut butter Cap'n Crunch in the morning. Today, I opened a new box and saw this on the back:

They're trading cards of Cap'n Crunch characters. Presumably, other boxes have different characters, probably some or all of the ones listed at Topher's Castle.

Let's take a look at the gender message kids are getting, shall we? The first character is a female. She is portrayed with little hearts floating around her head. Her stats read:

Name: Manolia Bulkhead
Age: How old do you think I am?
Height: 5'10
Weight: A woman never tells her weight
Hobbies: Daydreaming of Cap'n Crunch and his delicious cereal
Greatest Adventures: Almost marrying Cap'n and having him all to herself

Compare to the second character's stats:

Name: Smedley
Age: 12 years
Height: 18'
Weight: 2 1/2 tons
Hobbies: Jumping rope and riding bikes
Greatest adventures: Jumping 15 cars on roller skates; escaping elephant hunters

Sigh. Let's start with the most obvious distinction. The female character's greatest adventure is almost marrying the Capn? This is pathetic on so many levels. First, her hobby is daydreaming of Capn Crunch. I guess she has nothing better to do. No action, physical or mental. Just passive fantasy. Girls, take note.

This reminds me of something Jamie Keiles noted in her blog of The Seventeen Magazine Project:

To go with my "Bright Prints" look, I also got my nails done to follow the "Bright Colors" trend that Danielle, age 15, from Minneapolis speaks so highly of. She writes, "Whenever I'm feeling down, I can just look at my nails and feel peppy!" This is bleak. I wish Seventeen would suggest a hobby for Danielle so she didn't have to look to idle nail-gazing as her only source of joy.

This being Magnolia's greatest adventure suggests that any other "adventures" she's experienced have been pretty insipid. Maybe her lesser adventures include shopping for a new purple cap or refinancing her boat. Probably not, as such things would be proactive and apparently Ms. Bulkhead's mind is consumed with a stalkerish obsession with a man. To top that off, she wasn't even successful in her endeavor. And why not? Topher reports:

Magnolia "Maggy" Bulkhead was an early nemesis of Cap'n Crunch. Her "evil intentions" were to marry Cap'n Crunch! Of course, the Cap'n wanted nothing to do with this.

Because we all know that marriage sucks the life blood out of men and they'd be wise to avoid it at all cost. It's not like, after marriage, men are healthier or live longer or do less housework or earn more money or have better sex lives.

So the message to girls is: your life's ambition should be to fall in love and get married! There's nothing else out there for you. And the message to boys: girls will try to trap you into marriage, but this would seriously put the damper on your fun, so be sure to avoid this. If the decision makers of this company are anything like mainstream America, they probably support heteronormativity and marriage as the basis of a family unit. It boggles the mind why they would want to sell boys the message that marriage is bad.

It's a contradictory message, and one Quaker is hardly alone in presenting. This message is deeply immersed in our culture and fed to kids from birth up. What's crazy is that men get so much out of marriage, while reports are conflicting about whether women get comparable returns (unless you count the 7 extra weekly hours of housework we get).

What a racket! Convince women that they want--need--marriage more than anything. Make it seem like it's their idea, their intrinsic nature that impels them toward marriage, and the men--who stand to gain more than we do--can sit back and act like they're doing us the favor. Jezebel reports:

The first lesson of Gender Stereotypes 101 is that all women desperately want to get married, and are engaged in a constant war to force some reluctant man or other to walk down the aisle [. . .] In response to the Pew report, Stephanie Coontz said,

"We've known for some time that men need marriage more than women from the standpoint of physical and mental well-being. Now it is becoming increasingly important to their economic well-being as well."

In a comment on the Times Well blog, Shana adds,

"It's because studies are always framed this way (with a picture of a frou-frou wedding cake) that the notion gets perpetuated that we women should be married in order to be happy. Why not frame it from the MEN'S point of view? They're the ones who actually benefit from marriage, according to numerous statistics - in terms of better health, better income, etc. The wives actually suffer compared with single women."

Wouldn't that turn the wedding industry on its head. Of course, weddings are all about the illusion of female empowerment. She gets to be queen for the day, and ever afterward, she gets to be maid and nanny, while the power reverts to the husband as Head Of The Household. It saddens me that women are so often (and easily) manipulated by this.

It's not my intent to slag marriage; I most definitely am slagging weddings. If we stop encouraging our girls to dream of being princesses for one lousy day, and encourage them to take control and responsibility through their entire lives, we would go a long way to achieving equality of the sexes.

But we're not done with the cereal box. Notice that Ms. Bulkhead refuses to divulge her age or weight, whereas the male character has no problem doing so. Let's make sure our kids understand that women are to be judged based on age and weight and so they must hide these figures if they're in any way unflattering. Men, of course, have a free pass on these scores.

In Quaker's favor, I will say that I like the way the character of Smedley is presented. He's an elephant, an animal associated with fatness. His weight is stated at 2 tons. But look at his hobbies and adventures: he's very physically active and he's used his body to achieve impressive physical feats as well as self-preservation. Although topher reports:

Smedley (1969) can do anything (like rollerskate or ride a bicycle) to get his cereal, but he also usually squashed those things.

I don't think that's the way Smedley is being presented today (though, I could be wrong). I think he presents an image of fat people (and by people, I mean men, of course, because people are men by default and we've already established that it's not acceptable for women to be fat) as being capable of physical fitness, rather than being held back by their weight.

I think that's an excellent image to give kids, but I would rather be giving it to both genders, not just boys. I'm really sick of these stupid, hurtful, untrue and completely unnecessary, gender tropes everywhere in our frickin' culture. And it's especially bleak that we're inundating children with them. Does Quaker think they would make less money if they presented characters that were empowering to girls? Or would the creativity needed to come up with positively modeled gender cost them more in hourly wages? Because it can't possibly take much time to spit out crap like this.

Loyalty--not actually a virtue

2010-07-28T23:57:00.002-04:00

It's hard to define loyalty. Each definition at dictionary.com relies on the word faithful, so I suppose we must first understand what faithful means. Tricky, when one of the definitions is loyal. Other definitions include thoroughness, reliability, and adherence, all of which may be applied to loyalty.

Loyalty seems to be a very fluid concept, defined situationally by the individuals involved. Ergo, one person's definition of loyalty may seem perfectly reasonable to me while another person's definition may be repugnant. When discussing support of a person, concept, or structure out of a sense of gratitude or affection, I can readily accept it. But the words gratitude and affection don't carry with them the same negative connotations as loyalty and so, if they are the motivating forces you wish to indicate, you will be more easily understood by using them rather than the uncertain term loyalty.

Some of my readers may wonder how loyalty can possibly be negative as, culturally, Americans hold it as one of our highest virtues. I'll give you an example: in my public speaking class, one young man told us of how Robert E. Lee did not like the ideas of slavery or seceding from the Union. I have not confirmed this, and whether General Lee did, in fact, hold these views is irrelevent. It is pertinent that the young man expounding upon the subject believed him to hold those opinions. He informed us that, despite Lee's convictions to the contrary, he joined the confederacy out of loyalty to his home state of Virginia. This was presented as a praiseworthy action.

To phrase this more plainly, the young man giving the speech (and possibly Lee himself) believes that it is acceptable to support and partake in actions one deems immoral, so long as one is fond of the party who incites those acts.

Say I know that my brother likes to eat babies. I believe eating babies is a highly immoral act, but, after all, he is my brother, so loyalty would then dictate that I condone his culinary fetish and even help him hunt down a few infants, maybe even join him in a snack.

Tasty baby.

Or to give a more common example, is it loyalty to give your child access to resources when they are a known abuser of drugs, or is it loyalty to turn them away in an effort to force them to take responsibility for their lives? I'll wager that scenarios like this cause people to form very strong and diametrically opposite definitions of loyalty.

Culture plays a huge part in this. In the U.S. we generally value individuality. Some cultures value interdependency. Neither focus is right or wrong, but it can affect your definition of loyalty.

One of the heaviest uses of loyalty is in referring to customers. Businesses bank on our loyalty--yet, most of us would deny that our loyalty is for sale.

So loyalty, as a description, is useless. It can be used to excuse the most heinous of actions and does not adequately describe motivations such as gratitude, affection, or even self-interest (particularly in the sense of doing business). If one is using it to describe positive motivations, one might more accurately portray these by stating them explicitly. If one is referring to the act of adhering to someone or something regardless of morality, than it can hardly be called a virtue.

Who is flawed?

2010-07-21T15:09:00.001-04:00

Women are, of course!

I saw the following headline on Yahoo!'s front page: Fixes for your figure flaws.With absolutely no trace of irony, the article is for and about women. Because, while men are perfect just as they are, women's bodies are riddled with problems. Too curvy, not curvy enough, big boobs, small boobs. Women, no matter what they look like, need to fix themselves. Tell me again, why we're considered the fairer sex when we require so much work just to make ourselves presentable?

Why I support banning the burqa

2010-07-12T23:38:00.004-04:00

Salon.com has posted an interview with Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian-born journalist who calls herself "a liberal, a Muslim and a feminist." She supports France's attempt to ban burqas for women:

I support banning the burqa because I believe it equates piety with the disappearance of women. The closer you are to God, the less I see of you -- and I find that idea extremely dangerous. It comes from an ideology that basically wants to hide women away. What really strikes me is that a lot of people say that they support a woman's right to choose to wear a burqa because it's her natural right. But I often tell them that what they're doing is supporting an ideology that does not believe in a woman's right to do anything. We're talking about women who cannot travel alone, cannot drive, cannot even go into a hospital without a man with them. And yet there is basically one right that we are fighting for these women to have, and that is the right to cover their faces. To tell you the truth, I'm really outraged that people get into these huge fights and say that as a feminist you must support a women's right to do this, because it's basically the only kind of "right" that this ideology wants to give women. Otherwise they get nothing.

This is the best argument I've seen for either side of the argument. It really is a difficult controversy. On the one hand, I don't like the idea of the government telling anyone what they can and cannot wear. On the other hand, these women are already under complete religious tyranny. The fact that many of these women say they choose to wear the burqa is irrelevent.

As someone who was raised under the mind control of a fundamentalist Bible cult, I was prevented from having access to information necessary for true self-determination. Any system that prevents women from becoming educated is wrong and evil. This is not a diatribe against all of Islam. It is a condemnation of those cultures which are abusive to women under the veil of Islam. Banning the burqa may be a first step in lifting that veil.