Fannie's Room

Salon Piece on Maggie Gallagher

2012-02-13T09:00:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting, humanizing portrait of Maggie Gallagher, perhaps the most active and well-known opponent of same-sex marriage.

In Mark Oppenheimer's framing of Gallagher, her early pregnancy, followed by abandonment by the father, contributed to not only her opposition to same-sex marriage but also to her anti-feminism. He writes:

"Gallagher was years ahead of her time in arguing, as writers like Kay Hymowitz do today, that contemporary society has left men without a role. 'We will never find a solution to the New Man shortage, unless we jettison gender neutrality,' Gallagher writes. 'Men need a role in the family. What men need, loath though we are to utter the word, is a sex role.'”

In all, I found it to be a glum read.

Gallagher's pessimistic thesis is that men are naturally hard-wired to impregnate women and then abandon them and the resulting children. It is a view that sees non-heterosexual men, and men who stick around without the carrot/stick of Traditional Male Supremacist Gender Roles In Marriage, as aberrations- as people motivated by "ideology" rather than their True Male Nature.

So, even while Oppenheimer makes a note of stating that Gallagher doesn't "seem" motivated by anti-gay animus, the subtext of the piece, whether accurate or not, invites the reader to infer that Maggie Gallagher is basically a nice person but because she had an out-of-wedlock child with a man who left her, other women, feminists, and gay, bisexual, and lesbian people must pay. Basically, I can't marry my partner because all men who have sex with women are essentially deadbeat dads, and when same-sex marriage is legal men, who are apparently very easily confused, start thinking that it's extra okay to abandon their children.

In any event, it is interesting that Oppenheimer explores Gallagher's alleged Un-Bigotedness. Gallagher utters the word bigot more than practically any LGBT advocate I've ever met or heard. And, it often comes when she's accusing LGBT advocates of "defaming" opponents of same-sex marriage with the label.

Not being privy to her thoughts, I don't know if she's a bigot or if she hates LGBT people.

From what I've read of her various NOM fundraising appeals, blog posts, and letters, she doesn't actually appear to think much about us at all. Our rights, human dignity, and needs to protect our families just doesn't seem to be a concern of hers, let alone a factor in weighing the competing interests of "marriage defenders" and same-sex couples.

The sad truth, though, is that most people in Western societies do have biases against homosexuality and LGBT people. Even many of us LGBT people have these biases. It is the result of living in a heterocentric/heterosupremacist society that regularly and pervasively communicates to us that heterosexuality is the default normal and best way of being human.

It actually takes a lot of work and thought to overcome these biases, and even with that work it doesn't appear that all people can completely overcome these biases.

So, I guess what I'm left thinking is, if I harbor some anti-LGBT animus and I'm a lesbian who supports marriage equality, affirms the equal human dignity of LGBT people, and I regularly work to counter the biases against LGBT people, why on Earth would I ever assume or believe that Maggie Gallagher, or any opponent of same-sex marriage for that matter, doesn't harbor some anti-LGBT animus?

Unfortunately, that's exactly what this conservative politically-correct "don't you dare call us bigots" culture asks from us. As long as some people push the animus deep enough inside of themselves so much that they don't ever have to think or talk about the people on the receiving end of their policy positions, I guess it's all good. No need to re-think things. No need to actually talk to LGBT people about our human dignity. Because really, the important thing is that people don't get called bigots.

What the What Now?

2012-02-10T09:00:00.001-06:00

[Content/trigger warning: Gender policing]

Gender traditionalist/Christian/Upholder Of Real American Values/Watergate Obstructor Of Justice/Former Prisoner/Townhall columnist Chuck Colson does not seem happy about a London toy store's decision to de-pink and de-blue its store.

Blah blah blah usual ignorant tripe about how ALL boys and ALL girls just essentially and inherently prefer to play differently and with different toys from the "opposite" sex, blah blah blah without taking into account how these preferences are, or even might be, shaped by social environments and conditioning.

For me, the big clue that allows me to dismiss dude's entire piece on accounta obvious-feminist-bashing-agenda, was this:

"[Feminists] believe that women aren’t pursuing these opportunities because they still buy into traditional ideas about gender differences. The venom directed at stay-at-home mothers is but one example of this thinking.

More recently, this thinking has manifested itself in a backlash against prominent women who are considered too feminine. Actress Zooey Deschanel is a favorite target of feminists who consider her too 'girly' and, as such, a bad example for young women."

A-what?

I read Feminist Internet every day and....did I miss something...big?

LOL.

Seriously. Hearing it from this dudely Notable Expert On Feminism, the entire feminist movement is basically a ginormous burn book pontificating upon the suckiness of Zooey Deschanel.

Sure, Chuck.

You just have to love anti-feminist dudes who try to provoke women into fighting, resenting, and competing with each other. How gossipy and conniving these patriarchs are. If you listen closely, you can almost hear their pasty lips whispering, hey ladies, didja hear what the feminists are saying about you and femininity and women, hmmmmmm? Just hang with us, kiddo, and we'll make sure you're fine. Sure you have to act in accordance with your Proper Gender Role and, if you get pregnant, we'll dictate what you do with your body, but trust us, it's really THE FEMINISTS who totally hate you.

Now, sure, I have seen some intra-feminist criticisms and debates about Deschanel's supposed presentation of an infantilized version of womanhood, but (a) these critiques hardly represent some sort of feminist consensus about her as a person and (b) Colson seems like a man who might still call women "girls" and thus probably couldn't fathom why some feminists might find it problematic when adults act, dress, and talk like young girls.

Not that Deschanel necessarily does any of that. I honestly don't know or care. I think I've seen her in, like, one episode of a TV show that didn't really hold my attention. If anything, she gets points in my book for being Tempe Brennan's sister.

Anyway, gotta run.

Those "~~Zooey Deschanel sucks~~ Sexist anti-feminist men often utilize shit-stirring tactics to divide women" posts aren't going to write themselves!

Re-Visiting the Glass Escalator

2012-02-09T09:00:00.000-06:00

Despite women's long history of being denied equality in admissions to universities and graduate programs, one of the earliest and most famous US Supreme Court cases regarding the right for state schools to discriminate on the basis of sex in admissions was brought (and won) by a man.

In Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, the male-dominated US Supreme Court decided in his favor 5-4 in an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She wrote:

"The facts are not in dispute. In 1884, the Mississippi Legislature created the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls of the State of Mississippi, now the oldest state-supported all-female college in the United States. 1884 Miss. Gen. Laws, Ch. 30, 6. The school, known today as Mississippi University for Women (MUW), has from its inception limited its enrollment to women."

Seems like they also limited enrollment, at least for a time, to white women, er, "girls."

O'Connor continues:

"In 1971, MUW established a School of Nursing, initially offering a 2-year associate degree. Three years later, the school instituted a 4-year baccalaureate program in nursing and today also offers a graduate program. The School of Nursing has its own faculty and administrative officers and establishes its own criteria for admission.

Respondent, Joe Hogan, is a registered nurse but does not hold a baccalaureate degree in nursing. Since 1974, he has worked as a nursing supervisor in a medical center in Columbus, the city in which MUW is located."

Of course he has.

The Supreme Court handed down this opinion in 1981, and 15 years later, delivered the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) opinion striking down the VMI's exclusion of women.

This is all old news, of course, from a legal and political standpoint.

However, the facts of the two cases really illustrate how state discrimination toward men and women is, oftentimes, not at all equivalent. And, I think some people forget that. In their zeal to make feminism, "gender egalitarianism," and/or gender studies appealing to men, I sometimes see this "men and women have/had things just as bad, except in opposite ways" meme perpetuated, and I think that's a pretty historically-ignorant claim to make.

In MUW, thanks at least in part to the glass escalator whereby men in traditionally "feminine" occupations advance much more quickly and easily than women, the male victim of discrimination was already a licensed nurse and was already in a leadership position in that occupation despite not having a bachelor's degree.

He also had opportunities to earn a bachelor's degree in Mississippi at non-sex-segregated universities. The barriers that men faced in entering the field of nursing were, for the most part, ones of having to endure social disapproval, shame, and being marked with the "taint" of feminine inferiority for choosing a "womanly" profession. Yet, just like in the fields of cooking, fashion design, and hair-styling, we see that many of the men who enter those professions often rise to the top for, what can look like on the surface, no other reason than their alleged Inherent Superior Male Competence At Stuff.

Sure, it might not be easy for men to deal with the shame of working in these professions, but there often are not the same structural barriers to entry in those professions as there were for women who historically tried to enter male-dominated professions where licenses were, literally, denied to them on the basis of sex. For instance, in 1872, when Myra Bradwell went all the way to the Supreme Court to try to get her law license, the men on the Supreme Court denied her request because "God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action." Far from being a supervisor who was already-licensed in hir chosen profession, as the MUW guy was, Bradwell was legally restricted from entering that profession in the first place.

Similarly, in VMI, the women were seeking entry into a prestigious military school that provided an experience that could be had at no other institution in the state, and few institutions elsewhere in the US. Unlike MUW, where the assumption was that men maybe shouldn't be nurses but that they of course had the competence to be nurses if they wanted to be, the state's assumption in VMI was that women shouldn't be VMI cadets and of course they lacked the competence and suitability to be VMI cadets.

The different treatment of men and women seeking to enter non-gender-conforming professions seems to follow an unspoken rule of "anything professional a woman can do, a man can do better."

9th Circuit Rules Prop 8 Unconstitutional

2012-02-08T09:00:00.001-06:00

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially re-classify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." -Judge Reinhardt, Perry v. Brown

Yesterday, as you might have heard, the 9th Circuit held that Prop 8 violates the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

An important take-away of this decision is that it is a narrow one. The Court asked, to paraphrase, "Was it constitutional for California to extend the status of marriage to same-sex couples and then later take that status away?" That is an interesting way for the Court to have framed the issue. Framing is everything in a court case and, while it is certainly true that the State took away same-sex couples' right to marry, the Court could have just as well framed the issue as "Is it constitutionally permissible for voters to deny same-sex couples the right to marry?"

The US Supreme Court, shall this case eventually make it there, should then in theory limit its ruling to the narrowly-framed issue as articulated by the 9th Circuit. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Supreme Court also decided to frame the issue differently. At least several different legitimate ways usually exist to frame a constitutional issue.

So, in answer the narrow issue, the 9th Circuit recounted the facts of Prop 8. In short, before Prop 8 passed, 18,000 same-sex couples were legally married in the state of California and given all of the state-level rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marriage. After Prop 8 passed, same-sex couples alone then lost the right to designation of "marriage," while still maintaining the state-level rights, benefits, responsibilities of marriage.

Yes, I can already hear opponents of same-sex marriage questioning how it could possibly hurt same-sex couples to take away the word "marriage" from same-sex couples if such couples still received the same rights under a different designation. I would suggest that such people become familiar with the word "stigma." Or, as the 9th Circuit explained:

"...[W]e emphasize the extraordinary significance of the official designation of 'marriage.' The official designation is important because 'marriage' is the name that society gives to the relationship that matters most between two adults. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a lifelong committed relationship, a marriage by the name 'registered domestic partnership' does not."

I have said before that I have complicated, conflicting thoughts about assimilating same-sex couples into the Cool Kids' Marriage Club and how that might, in turn, stigmatize other forms of relationships between adults and create new hierarchies. On a practical level, I also think that allowing same-sex couples to marry will decrease the stigma associated with same-sex relationships and homosexuality. And so to answer my own criticism, I don't see marriage equality for same-sex couples as the ultimate end goal of the LGBT/feminist/progressive movement that I want to be a part of, I see it as a step in the right direction.

Continuing on with the opinion, the 9th Circuit then asked whether California had a legitimate reason for taking away the designation "marriage" from same-sex couples.

Perhaps explaining why the Court framed the issue as it did, the 9th Circuit articulated that it is much different, and suggestive of a more sinister purpose, to take away a right from a disliked minority group than to merely leave alone a status quo of "man woman marriage." In this way, by extending same-sex couples the right to marry and then taking away that right, this case is analogous to Romer v. Evans, where local ordinances first banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and then, later, voters repealed all laws in the state that protected people on the basis of sexual orientation.

As a notable fact, Justice Kennedy is widely believed to be the swing vote in any Supreme Court same-sex marriage opinion. He wrote the majority pro-equality opinion in Romer. It is an interesting approach for the 9th Circuit to have made the Prop 8/Romer comparison so explicitly here. I would be surprised if that were a coincidence and I hope that bodes well for Team Equality.

The 9th Circuit then addressed the reasons put forth for enacting Prop 8:

1) Prop 8 "advances California's interest in responsible procreation and childrearing" (I have addressed this argument here and explained why it's not a legit reason for discrimination): The Court held that Prop 8 was not rationally-related to these interests because Prop 8 did not restrict the right of same-sex couples to adopt or raise children. A law that was actually aimed to promote man-woman child-rearing would have sought to restrict same-sex parenting.

2) There is no point to same-sex marriage because same-sex couples can't accidentally procreate: The Court claimed that it is no justification to take something away to say that it should have never been given in the first place. Prop 8 proponents would have had to argue, and demonstrate, that same-sex marriage would make it more likely for man-woman couples to procreate "accidentally or irresponsibly" upon the legalization of same-sex marriage. They failed to do so.

3. Prop 8 justifies the state's interest in proceeding cautiously in changing the definition of marriage: The Court aptly noted that, in short, an absolute ban of unlimited duration on same-sex marriage in the state Constitution was not merely proceeding with caution, it is a fundamental barrier. It is therefore not rational to think that Prop 8 was enacted for purposes of acting cautiously.

To end, the 9th Circuit concluded that absent a rational relationship to any purported government interest in passing Prop 8, the voters of California enacted Prop 8 out of animosity or, more likely, "mere disapproval" of gays and lesbians- which is not a legitimate government interest. In making this conclusion, the Court observed that, as in Romer, the pro-Prop 8 ads often relied on stereotypes about the inferiority of same-sex relationships, stated that homosexuality and gays/lesbians are inferior, and that children need to be protected from learning about homosexuality and gay people.

[Cross-posted: Alas]

Lady Flips Off Camera For Milisecond, Violence Profiteers Very Offended

2012-02-07T09:00:00.005-06:00

What a strange society we live in.

During the halftime show of a violent sport that often has lifelong negative health repercussions on the heads and bodies of its participants and in which its male athletes often engage in public, celebratory dances involving humping the air and taunting opponents, and in which TV networks receive money to air commercials that present scantily-clad women as the sex class for hetero men, a woman spontaneously flips off a TV camera for a fraction of a second and NBC and the NFL suddenly fall over themselves to condemn and apologize for that gesture.

Seriously?! That's the thing you fall ass-over-heals onto your fainting couch about?

FFS.

Exaggerating and condemning female misbehavior while ~~ignoring~~ celebrating male aggression and misbehavior is how rape culture works to entitle men to violence and aggression.

Speaking of Republican Primary Season

2012-02-06T09:00:00.001-06:00

Wanna hear the most annoying song in the world?

I think it's pretty funny, I don't know why. Possibly because (a) someone actually put semi-scientific thought into how they could come up with the most annoying song ever and (b) that children singing was high on the list of disliked sounds.

LOLOLOL.

I know we're all supposed to think that children are So Cute when they sing, but a lot of the time, it sounds to me like they're basically just yelling. Good to know I'm not alone there.

[Description for those unable to hear the music: The 20-minute-plus song includes "holiday music, bagpipes, pipe organ, a children’s chorus...Wal-Mart, cowboys, political jingoism, George Stephanopoulos, Coca Cola, bossanova synths, banjo ferocity, harp glissandos, oompah-ing tubas," and a woman rapping in opera, which have been found to be people's least favorite sounds.]

9th Circuit: Prop 8 Tapes To Remain Sealed

2012-02-03T09:00:00.005-06:00

The Prop 8 saga continues!

Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held (PDF) that a lower court abused its discretion in ordering the unsealing of tapes of the Prop 8 trial.

I'm not happy with the decision, but I agree with it. Here's why:

If you remember, the legal defenders of Prop 8 opposed plans to broadcast the trial live. In a pre-trial brief, they claimed:

"The record is already replete with evidence showing that any publicizing of support for Prop 8 has inevitably led to harassment, economic reprisal, threats, and even physical violence. In this atmosphere, witnesses are understandably quite distressed at the prospect of their testimony being broadcast worldwide on YouTube."

The issue of broadcasting the trial went all the way to the Supreme Court. There, without explanation, the Court disallowed the trial to be broadcast.

The judge in the Prop 8 trial, Judge Walker, then continued to allow the trial to be recorded because, as the 9th Circuit opinion cites, Judge Walker asserted that the recordings would only be used for purposes of helping him reach a decision and would not be publicly broadcast. Later, "a different federal judge ordered that the recordings be unsealed because "no compelling reason" existed for keeping them from the public.

And so we come to the 9th Circuit opinion.

Let's talk here about what the opinion is definitely not saying. What this opinion says, if you read it, is not that the recordings must remain sealed because the witnesses in support of Prop 8 are so very scared of same-sex marriage supporters.

Indeed, as key Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn admitted to me in conversation at Family Scholars Blog, he "never felt physically threatened" because of his testimony and he didn't even seem to be aware that the Prop 8 legal team was putting forth the narrative that witnesses like him were Too Scared To Testify. (Fun Fact: Check out Page 18 of The American Foundation for Equal Rights' brief! (PDF) I love that part of a blog conversation that I provoked is part of the official Prop 8 record! #bragging).

What the 9th Circuit opinion says, if you read it, is that Judge Walker said that he was only going to use the recordings in his own chambers and that he should therefore be held to that. To not hold Judge Walker to his assurance would, in fact, harm the integrity of the judiciary.

What do I think?

I think the tapes should have never been sealed in the first place, and that the US Supreme Court erred in saying that the trial could not be broadcast live, because I strongly question the accuracy and truthfulness of the claim that the broadcast had to be hidden from the public in order to somehow protect the Prop 8 witnesses, who were already relatively-public figures in the anti-SSM movement. I also think many professional opponents of same-sex marriage are petrified of the recordings going viral, mostly because their arguments, witnesses, and substantive points were pretty well walloped by the pro-equality attorneys and experts.

However, given that Judge Walker stated that the recordings would only be used in his chambers, and would not be broadcast to the public, I also think the 9th Circuit makes a compelling argument that it would harm the integrity of the judiciary to not hold Walker to his word regarding the release of the recordings.

The 9th Circuit will soon be issuing a ruling on the merits of the Prop 8 decision. I'm far more interested in that outcome, quite honestly.

[Cross-posted: Alas]

On "the Core" of Marriage

2012-02-02T09:00:00.003-06:00

In the comment threads over at Family Scholars Blog there has been a fair amount of discussion about what constitutes the core of marriage. By "core," it seems as though people are referring to the essence of marriage, or to its defining features and/or purpose.

Supporters of same-sex marriage (SSM) are sometimes challenged to identify this core of marriage, since it is us (supporters of SSM, that is) who argue that marriage is something that two people of the same sex can have.

Why I view this challenge as problematic is because I contend that it is inaccurate to speak of marriage as though it has, or should have, one "core" that is universally-accepted by all in a society, much less across all societies that have ever existed. For one, it is a demonstrable statement of fact that people have differing beliefs as to what constitutes the, or even a, core of marriage. To some, the core of marriage is "one man and one woman." To some, it is "two adults in a romantic and mutually-supportive relationship." To some, it is "one man and one woman (and this same man and another woman, and this same man and possibly another woman)." To some, it is "a group of people who are all married to each other." Further variations exist.

Two, a related point, marriage is a human construct and, as such, is given meaning by the humans who utilize it, recognize it, and speak of it.

Sure, some argue that marriage is not a human construct and that it instead comes from, say, God or is just a fact of nature. But, that argument is unconvincing. How does one prove that marriage comes from God? How does one recognize a marriage in nature, in the way that, say, we would recognize a tree or a flower?

Most of us understand how babies are made but, in nature, absent the existence of a marriage license, how do we know that a marriage exists? Is it every man-woman pair that engages in sexual intercourse? Is it only the ones who say they're married? Is it any man-woman pair that has children, even if they don't plan on staying together for life?

My point with these rhetorical questions is that marriage is not a universal, readily-recognizable entity in the way that tangible, natural phenomena are.

Abstractions aside, what matters to many same-sex couples isn't where marriage supposedly comes from or what its "One True Core" is. Many do not view this conversation as an esoteric debating exercise. What matters are the rights, benefits, obligations, and privileges that flow from a state which grants some partnerships the legal status of marriage.

In legal terms, in the US, marriage has multiple meanings or "cores." In New Hampshire, for instance, "[m]arriage is the legally recognized union of 2 people. Any person who otherwise meets the eligibility requirements of this chapter may marry any other eligible person regardless of gender." The core of marriage is two people, of any gender, who meet certain requirements.
But, in Nevada, the state's Constitution reads, "[o]nly a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state." There, the core of marriage is between two people, one of the male sex and the other of the female sex, who meet certain requirements.

From a religious standpoint, Catholicism defines marriage as a "covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. [It] has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptised."

Other religious groups, such as the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), Unitarian Universalists, and some rabbis in the Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism movements view both mixed-sex and same-sex couples as capable of comprising the core of marriage.

In light of this definitional diversity, perhaps marriage doesn't have to mean the same thing for everyone across all secular, societal, and religious contexts. Perhaps it is an institution that never can mean the same thing to all in a society. Certainly not in a society that is increasingly accepting of the equal dignity of non-heteronormative relationships and their needs to protect their families via the legal system.

If it involves consenting adults, I generally support the right of private organizations and individuals to define marriage as they deem fit. The Catholic Church doesn't want to perform same-sex weddings? Fine. I don't want a wedding in a Catholic Church anyway. (I recognize that some people might want that who cannot have it, but I would support that progressive change to come from within the church, rather than through the state forcing the church to solemnize same-sex marriages).

To me, those who make arguments about what marriage supposedly is are refusing to participate in the more relevant debate that needs to take place in a democratic society. When very real benefits, rights, obligations, and privileges are accorded to those who possess the status "married," the only debate is what should the core of marriage, from a civil, legal standpoint, be?

Under Equal Protection doctrine in the US, we generally strive to treat "likes alike" and "unalikes unalike." To continue being very general, it is okay for the state to discriminate, but it must have good enough reasons to do so. That is, those being discriminated against must be different in a manner that is relevant to why they are being discriminated against.

To get out of the realm of abstractions, I will note a core of marriage as articulated by Elizabeth Marquardt,at Family Scholars Blog:

"Rather, a core purpose of marriage is to channel the reality that heterosexual sex quite often makes babies into a stable (most likely to be found in a marital) union of the baby’s own mother and father, for the sake of the babies and the mothers and father."

Here, an important core of marriage, according to Elizabeth, is for children to know and be raised by both of their biological parents. Thus, using this core of marriage, it would be acceptable to not allow same-sex couples to marry because they do not fulfill this core. There would be, it seems, no point to their marriage if marriage is about a man and a woman creating children together and then raising those children together.

And yet, we can easily think of other couples, couples who are allowed to marry, who similarly fail to fulfill this core of marriage:

1. A childless, post-menopausal woman who marries a man
2. A man and a woman who are fertile with other partners, but not with one another*
3. A man who lacks testicles who marries a woman
4. A woman who has had a hysterectomy who marries a man

I could continue.

These examples are not "gotchas." I want to be very clear about that.

See, the only thing our legal system cares about in asking whether whether state discrimination is the acceptable kind of discrimination is whether a legitimate enough reason exists for that discrimination. And, on that front, if the purpose of marriage is to channel heterosexual sex into procreation that results in children being raised by their biological parents, couples 1-4 are just like same-sex couples: Any children they raise will not be both of their biological offspring.

And so, from an Equal Protection standpoint, the legal system should be treating likes alike. But, in most US states, it's not. Most states grant marital status to some mixed-sex couples who haven't "earned" it via reproduction and child-rearing, while denying that status to same-sex couples precisely because they haven't "earned" it in that way.

Why observing this reality isn't a "gotcha" is because I contend that, if the "core" of marriage is what Elizabeth says it is, then it degrades that core of marriage and confuses people about what that core is, when we allow couples 1-4 into marriage. Allowing such couples into marriage is to grant them a special privilege that is denied to those with whom they are similarly-situated.

Indeed, to many LGBT people and allies, it looks like couples 1-4 are granted marriage licenses not so they can fulfill the core purpose of marriage, indeed they cannot, but to give them a nod, a wink, and a pass because they look a lot like members of the Super Special Heterosexual Procreators' Club. (And that's before we even start looking at possible anti-gay/bigotry-related motivations that some harbor).

So, when we start thinking about whether or not discrimination against same-sex couples is the acceptable kind of discrimination in light of what marriage is purportedly all about, it begins looking less and less acceptable due to the overbroad nature of many marriage laws.

Now, I am not, of course, actually arguing that couples who cannot procreate degrade the institution of marriage. But, rather, that we seem to have a societal incoherence in talking about marriage, with those on all sides of the issue claiming that they alone possess its one true definition. (And here it is worth noting that Elizabeth said that she was stating "a" core of marriage, which suggests one of many possible cores, rather than "the" core of marriage).

Our overbroad (or is it underinclusive?) marriage laws are reflective not only of this incoherence, but of the reality that marriage simply means different things to different people.

Maybe we need to do a better job of becoming okay with that.

*In about 10% of infertility cases, a couple's infertility arises from a combination of both of their individuals make-ups. They may be fertile with other people, but they cannot conceive with one another. Such a couple is a particularly apt comparison to same-sex couples.

Since they are failing to fulfill the purported core of marriage, I wonder, if marriage rights were denied to them on that basis, would people tell them they could simply choose to marry other people? Or would that be readily-recognized as cruel?

[Cross-posted: Family Scholars Blog]

This Is What An Anti-Feminist Looks Like

2012-02-01T09:00:00.002-06:00

[TW: Accidental death, mass casualty, gender policing, misandry, misogyny]

Some MRAs seem to think that it is modern-day feminists who, perhaps through the use of time travel, are single-handedly responsible for the "women and children first" policy on the Titanic.

The voices they completely let off the hook for such sexist (toward both men and women) policies are traditionalists who believe that it is women's One True Authentic Role to be protected and men's One True Authentic Role to protect.

Take a recent column at conservative Christian forum LifeSite news, where Hilary White takes the opportunity to capitalize upon the Costa Concordia disaster for purposes of bashing feminism. (Note: MRAs, meet Hilary White. Hilary white, meet MRAs). She writes:

"What kind of man sneaks away under cover of darkness from his own sinking ship, leaving nearly 4200 passengers and crew to fend for themselves? What kind of men knock aside old ladies, little girls and young mothers to get to lifeboats first? Why, modern men, sexually emancipated men who have been raised on the tenets of feminism and our 'contemporary' mores."

Did you catch that?

Notice what White's view, a very traditional view on gender, asks of men. It asks them to view the lives of "old ladies, little girls, and young mothers" as more valuable, more worthy of being saved, than their own lives. Notice too the implication: It has been feminism that has given men the radical notion that they don't have to sacrifice their own lives, on sole account of their sex, for the lives of women and children.

And then notice that she takes it for granted that prior to feminism, all men were self-sacrificial knights-in-shining-armor who would never harm women.

LOL sure.

She continues:

"What can an expression like 'women and children first' mean to modern men who have been taught all their lives that women are nothing more precious than sexual playthings, and children nothing more than a disposable burden?"

The line about children being "nothing more than a disposable burden" is, of course, a cheap jab at pro-choice beliefs. We are apparently to believe that men are utterly incapable of valuing children as human beings now that women have some abortion rights in some countries.

As you can see, the traditionalist does not think highly of men.

Most amusingly, though, is her implication that first came feminism, then came men's view that women are nothing but "sexual playthings," therefore, feminism teaches men that women are nothing but "sexual playthings."

So.

It's always good, before reading the rest of an anti-feminist's article, to know up-front that they're basically ignorant of much of feminism, and apparently have never heard of radical anti-pornography feminism. Indeed, like many ignorant anti-feminists are wont to do, she mistakes the sexual revolution for a feminist one. For instance, she charmingly calls the sexual revolution feminism's "strumpet daughter," as though feminism's motto is and always has been "Women: We admit it, we really are nothing but sexual playthings for men!".

She continues blathering on about our apparent femi-topia:

"In one video, [some Catholic dude] mentioned the type of men who are approved by the feminist-controlled media: weak, stupid and ineffectual, who need to be ruled over by strong, hip, intelligent women."

I just- what? Are you kidding me? The "feminist-controlled media"? Oh I can't even. I mean, come on Hilary White, you're not even trying here. The Bechdel Test has been a thing on Internet for at least 5 years, which is like 20 years in real world time.

Please.

But alas, she continues:

"In the last 50 years, the Catholic institution has followed the world in adopting the feminist model. That ideal, Voris says, has driven strong men out of the Church and out of family life, pushing them to find a channel for their masculinity in unhealthy avenues like criminality and the objectification of women."

I would call the Catholic Church many things. "Too feminist" is for sure not one of them.

The whole piece is really something.

In White's version of reality, feminism is at once all-powerful and yet, mysteriously, totally nonsensical. But, I see three important take-aways from her piece.

First, it's she, not feminists, who is implying that men have no free will and bear no adult responsibility for their development as human beings. Men These Days, according to White, have failed to "grow up" and have failed to value women.

Why? Feminism, natch:

"Instead of insisting that men grow up, marry a woman and protect and care for their children, it has offered men women as toys while offering women the Pill, abortion and family court as the back-up plan."

Here we learn that men need their mommy-wives, who somehow are capable of becoming fully-formed adults, to teach them how to be responsible. And yes, It is a strange incoherence of gender traditionalism that men are, by virtue of their sex, perpetual babies and yet, mysteriously, the sex best suited to Rule The World.

Two, we see how misogyny so often intertwines with misandry within traditionalist gender viewpoints. She writes:

"The effeminate man-child is a plague in Italy; vain, self-important, shallow and self-seeking mamma’s boys who live in their parents’ house into their thirties and forties."

Throughout her piece, she implies that women are more responsible and valuable than men. And yet, the very qualities that apparently make women more responsible and valuable, apparently essential "effeminate" qualities, somehow cause men to remain child-like. This is an incoherence for sure, but it's also a condescending admission about what gender traditionalists really think of women.

Feminists often say that no one wins under traditional gender roles and this is a good illustration of that. Men apparently need women to help them become Real Adult Men, and women, despite having that responsibility, can never actually become full adults because of their essential "effeminacy."

Lastly, it's interesting that White references "feminism's misandry" as though it's such a given that it is doesn't need to be further expounded upon. But let's all remember that it's she, not feminists, who is ordering Real Men to go down on a sinking ship because they are men and that's what men do.

Have fun with that, men.

Gay Rights As a Conservative Movement?

2012-01-31T09:00:00.003-06:00

I've never been big into Ani DiFranco's music. I tend to like my songs a little more.... sung. That being said, though, I do greatly respect her politics and her outspokenness about being a feminist.

Those who are fans, though, might appreciate this interview. In it, she quotes and elaborates upon one of her lyrics:

“'Feminism ain’t for women / That’s not who it is for / It’s about shifting consciousness / It’ll bring an end to war.'

I feel like we need to understand feminism more as a tool to mediate, counteract, to ultimately defeat patriarchy and restore balance to our government, our culture and our ways of thinking and structuring the world. I think we’ve had a very 'masculine' sensibility for a long time, and I think we need to go back to the roots of social imbalance. I think we have to try to right that first, and from there and all these more pressing issues will follow."

This quote brings to mind an issue that I go back and forth about myself.

Namely, is the mainstream LGBT rights' movement push for assimilation into marriage and the military a conservative goal or a radical one?

Both institutions have, historically, been imbued with gender essentialist stereotypes, male dominance, and the oppression of women. And yet, by (arguable) legal necessity, gay rights litigation has traditionally been premised on, to paraphrase, arguments of the "we're just like you and we were born this way" type.

So, rather than pushing to make flawed institutions and flawed ways of thinking about gender and sexual identity better, the push seems to be to keep flawed structures intact while allowing more people into these structures.

Upon the legalization of same-sex marriage and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," will there be or has there been, to use DiFranco's words, a shift in consciousness about our ways of structuring the world?

I think it is reasonable to argue that same-sex marriage subverts some of the gender stereotypes and expectations associated with marriage, but it's not clear what effect, if any, this subversion will have on different-sex marriages.

[Cross posted at Alas]

Inequality As Dominance

2012-01-30T09:00:00.001-06:00

In Meghalaya, a state in India, women- unlike men- cannot become tribal or village chiefs. Nor can they elect the chiefs. Unlike men, they cannot dispose of property on their own, and men are considered the head and master of the family.

Women are framed as the "mistress" of the household and are revered for their capacity to give birth.

This society, however, is also matrilineal and inheritance goes to the youngest daughter. Partly because of this inheritance structure and via the worship of a female god, boy and girl babies are said to be treated equally (unlike in some states where girl babies are seen as burdens).

So, all things considered, why does this BBC article, written by a Western man, frame Meghalaya as some sort of matriachal utopia where women utterly and completely dominate men?

First, note the headline (to be fair, possibly not written by him, but misleading nonetheless):

"Meghalaya, India: Where women rule, and men are suffragettes"

Well, not really.

Is there or has there ever been any state where men have been completely denied the right to vote for state leaders on the sole basis of their sex? Other reasons, such as race, ethnicity, or property-status, yes, but just because they're men? I'm not sure (although, feel free to chime in if anyone knows of any).

Indeed, in Meghalaya, if we take the definition of "suffragette," it is actually the women who are suffragettes rather than the men. Which is the opposite of what dude journalist says.

Thusly I began casting a skeptical eye at the rest of his narrative account of visiting this village:

"It appears that some age-old traditions have been ruffling a few feathers of late, causing the views of a small band of male suffragettes to gain in popularity, reviving some rather outspoken opinions originally started by a small group of intellectuals in the 1960s.

I am sitting across a table from Keith Pariat, President of Syngkhong-Rympei-Thymmai, Meghalaya's very own men's rights movement.

He is quick to assure me that he and his colleagues 'do not want to bring women down,' as he puts it. 'We just want to bring the men up to where the women are.'"

And so we learn that if men are not completely dominant in a society, then it means women are completely dominating them.

My point here is not to say that this men's rights movement doesn't have some legitimate concerns, but rather, it is to suggest that it's a gross oversimplification, an anxious and overzealous interpretation, to frame a matrilineal society in which women lack the right to vote and are revered mostly for baby-making capacities as a society wherein women hold all power.

Seriously, what's with that?

Let's watch the BBC journalist continue to relay his story:

"As we are talking, a praying mantis careers into our hut and slams into the side of my head.

After the laughter dies down, I take the opportunity to break the ice with Alfred by pointing out that female mantises eat their mates after sex, making a gesture with my arms mimicking the insect's claws, an action the Khasi called "takor" and one which turns out to be the gesticular equivalent of sticking two fingers up at someone. There is more laughter at my expense."

You know, when I read that anecdote, I immediately knew the article was written by a man, even before I looked at the journalist's name.

In Right-Wing Women Andrea Dworkin wrote, "In the sorrow of having children there is the recognition that one's humanity is reduced to this, and on this one's survival depends." In a Western context, in societies where women can vote, hold jobs, go to college, and (in theory, if not in fact) become heads of state, I think Dworkin's quote could just as well apply to some "men's rights activists."

This Western male journalist inserted the mantis anecdote for a reason. And, I see it as reflective of male anxiety about the possibility of living in a post-feminist society wherein men are useful only insofar as they are able to impregnate the All-Powerful Matriarchs, after which they will be discarded as useless. Perhaps that explains the need some feel to frame a society in which men are not completely dominant as a society in which men are completely dominated.

Sources:

"Meghalaya: The Matrilineal Society"

"The myth of matriliny in Megahalaya"

"The matrilineal society of the Khasis"

That's Women's Work

2012-01-27T09:00:00.003-06:00

I had a telling conversation with an MRA recently.

Over at Alas, where I cross-posted an article, the conversation in the comments turned to MRAs and their fixation on feminism as the root of all evil. There, I noted:

"...[W]hen some MRAs bring up the statistics of men dying earlier than women, working in more dangerous occupations, etc., they usually do so without any analysis of why those statistics are the way they are. The general point seems to be: Bad Things Happen To Men Too, Therefore Patriarchy/Male Privilege Doesn’t Exist.

Which, you know, fine. Deny the existence of Patriarchy and male privilege. But if they’re not examining the factors that causes men to die earlier, or why men work in more dangerous occupations, or why there’s a 'myth of men not being hot,' those problems aren’t just going to disappear by blaming feminists for them or denying Patriarchy/male privilege.

So, the concern about these issues doesn’t, from my perspective, look sincere when it’s only put forth for those purposes.

It’s like, really? Don’t want men to disproportionately work in dangerous jobs? Push for better safety protection laws. Push for an end to the harassment of women who try to enter those professions. Push for an end to defining certain jobs as 'manly.'”

In response, an MRA defender, Clarence, wrote:

"Men, let alone MRA’s can’t simply 'snap their fingers' and make that happen."

He then proceeded to claim that women, what with our "sexual selectivity" and all, help define what's "manly" and so the onus is on women to change, and feminists to convince women to change.

LOL.

Thusly we learn that because men can't just snap their fingers and fix their plight, it is apparently up to feminist women to advocate, blog, protest, organize, lobby, and basically do all the gritty shitwork to solve the plight of men and if we refuse to prioritize MRA concerns we're so mean and evil and man-hating.

What about teh menz indeed.

It's Not Broken

2012-01-26T09:00:00.001-06:00

[Content/trigger warning: anti-GLB prejudice]

You know how you read the title of something and you know you really shouldn't even bother reading it if you don't want to get pissed off, but then you think, "oh, this is going to be so bad it's good" so you click on it anyway?

That's kind of what I thought when PF passed this story my way. Headline:

"Confessions of a recovering lesbian"

Ohhhhhhh. Really.

Lesbianism is something that requires recovering from? I scoff at you, offensive headline.

The "confession" begins with a citation from an Acclaimed Social Scientific Research Expert on the matter. Or, you know, a Catholic Church catechism. Same dif:

"Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (2357)"

You know, the whole "gay agenda/recruitment tactic" thing is kind of an in-joke among many LGBT advocates, but I have to give some major patriarchy-recruiting props to a male-supremacist institution like the Catholic Church using its authority not to make life easier for LGBT people and heterosexual women, but to declare that the only way one can have a Proper, Moral, And Genuine Sex Life is within the bounds of a heterosexual, "gender complementary" man-on-top marriage. Well played, sirs.

I'm also tempted to say a lot of snarky things about this really offensive confession and the bigotry within it, but I find the story pretty sad.

In it, the writer discusses her 15-year marriage to a man, during which she "struggle[s] daily with same-sex attraction." She talks about how it was difficult being shunned for being gay when she was younger, and of now fighting the urge to go to lesbian bars when she's on work trips. Of being married to a man, she says:

"The sexual attraction to women, however, never went away. I discovered that while I was still attracted to individual men, I was primarily attracted to women as a whole both sexually and emotionally."

And I'm all, "I can totally relate, sister."

Being a young lesbian was hard. And, it is usually in my best interest to avoid lesbian bars while on work trips. (Is it just me or are hangovers after 30 so much worse?). And... I can relate to these things because I am a lesbian.

It's her call, of course, to self-identify however she wants, but I question if she (and her cheerleading Catholic readers who commented) knows what the word "former" means.

Aside from that, the thing about these "confessions of a former gay" narratives is that they demand LGBT people and allies to respect the "former homosexual's" choice to not be gay anymore, but they never suggest that living as an Avowed Lesbian, Bisexual, or Gay is just as valid, legitimate, and moral of a choice as is the choice to be in a heterosexual relationship. Indeed, they actively and explicitly state that it's not, as that is the entire premise upon which their new lifestyle choice is based.

It's like, they assimilate into the cool kids' marriage club and start saying things like:

"It helps, too, to know that what I have with my husband trumps anything I could have had in a homosexual relationship....Naturally, I have profound compassion for those who struggle as I do. But I don’t believe we must indulge same-sex attraction if we experience it. I’m really no different than a straight man who struggles not to objectify women. Or a straight woman who is tempted to fornicate. We’re all broken people, which is why we all need Christ....Does God love His [sic] children who struggle with same-sex attraction? Yes, of course. But He [sic] loves us too much to leave us that way."

Nope.

I find two things (actually more, but I'll only focus on two things right now) really offensive about this. The first is the narrative that people in same-sex relationships are somehow un-disciplined or constantly succumbing to temptation. Well, let me break it to you. Even though I live my life as an Avowed Lesbian, relationships are still hard. My monogamous civil union with my partner, even though it's gaygaygaygayhomolezgay and even though it's really good, actually does still require give-and-take, honesty, discipline, commitment, and struggles.

Some of these anti-gays seem to think that being in a same-sex relationship is an ongoing bacchanalian feast of fleshly delights that is totally unlike their super special, super disciplined relationships.

Two, what especially sends shivers down my spine are the "What a beautiful piece" and "see, we're not gay haters, we just want you to not be broken anymore" head pats many Catholic commenters gave to this "former lesbian" in the comment section.

It's like there's no capacity to recognize that calling people broken when they're not is really hateful, actually, and that calling that odious statement your precious and sacred religious belief doesn't give you magical immunity from having it called such.

All-Women US Navy Team Breaks Records

2012-01-25T09:00:00.007-06:00

Via The Mary Sue, the first all-women US Navy construction team broke some building records in Afghanistan:

"The Seabees were first formed during World War II as a means of employing soldiers who were also skilled at construction. Women first joined the Seabees in 1972 and started serving alongside their male counterparts in 1994. In this particular situation, there simply weren’t a lot of male Seabees around in the middle of November, when the construction was needed. But the women from Naval Base Ventura County were ready to go to work. When they showed up, naturally some less-evolved soldiers 'rolled their eyes' at the sight of an all-female team. But then they went ahead and worked 12-hour days, finishing the barracks in a period of two weeks. Normally, it takes three. They also went ahead and installed electricity and plumbing, then added an operations center and a gym. Since they had the time, you see."

I just finished reading an interesting non-fiction book on women who were nurses, doctors, and women-at-arms in and during World War I (review possibly forthcoming!).

So despite my mixed thoughts on pacifism and the acceptability of military action, I can appreciate that military service was historically a path toward full citizenship rights for women, that women in the military subvert the traditional gender narrative of male-Protectors and female-Protected, and that contrary to ignorant nay-sayers, many women are willing and capable of serving in both combat and non-combat roles.

Maintaining Gender Distinctions

2012-01-24T09:00:00.002-06:00

It is often said that men are considered the default human being whereby the Average Consumer, Average American, or Average [Insert Person In Random Occupation] is assumed to be male and that any deviation from the male sex is some sort of "other" or "atypical" experience.

And indeed, that is true in many instances.

It is not true, however, in all. Take, for instance, the mainstream trend of creating "bromanteaus." As ozy writes at No Seriously What About Teh Menz (NSWATM):

"Think about nurses: we assume that nurses are female, so if there’s a dude who’s a nurse we might describe him as a 'male nurse,' while 'female nurse' sounds bizarrely redundant. The male nurse is a marked case. Bromanteaus embed the marked case in the structure of the word. Women don’t have 'guyliner,' they just have makeup. Women don’t have 'bromances,' they just have best friends. Women don’t have 'mancaves,' they just have rooms."

Recently, I was in a drug store buying lotion. I reached into the basket of lotions on display and the first one I grabbed was a blue and white bottle of fragrance-free lotion with the word "Men's" on it. It was identical to the gender-neutral bottle in every other way, and it contained the exact same ingredients.

The implication was that women were the usual consumer of lotions, which may indeed be the case, and that it was therefore unnecessary to include the word "Women's" on the bottles that did not include a gender. I was also struck by how rare it felt to be looking at a product that treated me, a woman, as the Default Consumer. Unless a product is pink, a cosmetic, baby stuff, or cleaning stuff, this doesn't seem to happen all that much.

Yet, there was another, more problematic, implication working here, and it's one that works in the above "bromanteaus" as well. That implication is that men won't buy things that women usually buy because they don't want to be marked with the taint of femininity and/or feminine inferiority.

Men can't just say they're putting on eyeliner, because that's what women do. So, people make it a little more acceptable by calling it "guyliner." Even if it's the exact same process and product.

Just another interesting way that artificial gender distinctions are created and maintained.

On Hatred and Bigotry, Again

2012-01-23T09:00:00.008-06:00

[Content/trigger warning: Anti-LGBT bigotry]

[Note: This article was also posted at Family Scholars Blog (FSB) and the questions I ask within it are more geared toward that audience, as opposed to regular readers of Fannie's Room who are likely feminists and supports of LGBT equality. Nonetheless, you may still find it interesting, and feel free to share your thoughts here (or at FSB, although please note that it can be an unsafe commenting space for LGBT people at times.)]

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization "dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society."

Unlike some nonprofits, especially those centered around contentious social issues, SPLC publishes its Annual Report, audited financial statements, and Form 990 (which is a nonprofit's "tax return") on its website for public viewing.

Although SPLC engages in a wide variety of progressive activist, anti-racist, and social justice work, it is particularly notorious among those who oppose equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people for its monitoring and labeling of "active anti-gay groups" on its website.

The SPLC's labeling of these organizations as "hate groups" used to be more prominently displayed and explicit on its website. This no longer seems to be the case.

However, in its Winter 2010 Intelligence Report, SPLC listed 13 groups as anti-LGBT hate groups, saying:

"Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups."

That is, according to the SPLC, a belief that homosexuality is wrong or immoral, is not enough to warrant the "hate group" label. Nor is being a religious group that believes homosexuality is wrong enough. What the SPLC looks at, by its own definition, is a group's pattern of spreading falsehoods about LGBT people that have been discredited and engaging in "repeated, groundless name-calling."

Some of the more abhorrent examples the SPLC cites as messaging that contributes to the "hate group" label include:

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association claiming, “[h]omosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and 6 million dead Jews.”

Steven Anderson, the pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, saying, “The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers but not for homosexuals," claimed that "sodomites" recruit through "rape" and "molestation," and told an openly gay interviewer, “If you’re a homosexual, I hope you get brain cancer and die like Ted Kennedy.”

Several groups, including Peter LaBarbera's Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), were included partly for the dissemination of the discredited work of Paul Cameron, who during his career has made many inflammatory and inaccurate claims about "homosexuals." (Just for some "thought food" here, because some FSB readers and bloggers might not be aware of it, in 1986 the American Sociological Association "repudiated any claims that Paul Cameron is a sociologist and condemned his misrepresentation of sociological research" (PDF). Other professional organizations make similar complaints.)

So, it was with much aggravation and disappointment that I heard of this spin:

"Black pastors join pro-family groups to condemn Southern Poverty Law Center for 'bigotry'"

This article (yes, at a conservative Christian news source) discusses a protest of the SPLC that several SPLC-labeled hate groups participated in on Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, such as the Illinois Family Institute, Mass Resistance, Abiding Truth Ministries, and AFTAH. It quotes Matt Barber, a figure prominent in the LGBT "culture wars," as saying:

“The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and Neo Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same ‘hate group’ label. By extension, the SPLC is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as ‘haters,’ simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian sexual ethic."

He then accused the SPLC of engaging in "anti-Christian bigotry."

The relevance of noting the race of the pastors involved in the protest is questionable. The implication seemed to be that (presumably heterosexual) African-American pastors possess moral authority to say what does and doesn't constitute legitimate hatred and bigotry, even against minority groups that they may not be a part of. Yet, what some audiences (predominately anti-LGBT ones) might see as some sort of United Colors of Love, Tolerance, and Christianity, other audiences (predominately pro-LGBT ones) might see as an opportunistic alignment of bigotry.

For instance, one African-American pastor involved in the protest added his two cents:

“I think every African-American ought to be appalled, ought to be angry, and begin to wave their fist in the air and declare black power and say to the homosexual lobbyists, the homosexual groups, how dare you compare your wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior to our beautiful skin color."

Look. People.

We need to have a serious talk about what constitutes civility, hatred, and bigotry.

From my perspective, this protest was deflecting genuine criticism of the tactics some of these SPLC-labeled "hate groups" engage in and was mis-attributing the critiques as being evidence of "anti-Christian bigotry." It is an absurd claim. Not only because SPLC has documented the actions and messaging that they believe constitute hateful behavior, but because if this were a case of bigotry against Christian groups and churches that "merely" oppose homosexuality, the list of "hate groups" would be far more numerous than 13.

Indeed, to those who oppose same-sex marriage, LGBT rights, and/or "the homosexual agenda," look again at the accusations cited above that the SPLC-identified "hate groups" have made about LGBT people. Read the SPLC report for yourself.

Do you find the messaging of these groups to be in any way problematic?

Do you find the messaging to be evidence of hatred? Of ignorance? Of something else?

If a peaceful resolution of these "culture wars" is a goal, and given that the "hater" label can shut down dialogue, what do you think would be a more productive way for LGBT rights advocates to point out the problematic aspects of these accusations and misrepresentations that it call it hate?

Do you feel that some of these groups unfairly give the rest of those who oppose same-sex marriage "a bad name"? How might the fact that prominent opponents of same-sex marriage so rarely call out people on "their" side of bigotry, hatred, or misbehavior impact the perception that supporters of LGBT rights have of you? How might it impact the crusade to save marriage, if some people are giving "all of you" a bad name?

Finally, to all readers, is it "just as mean" or morally equivalent to call someone a hater or bigot who refers to homosexuality as "wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior" as it is to make that reference in the first place?

Feminism, Men, and Redemption

2012-01-20T09:00:00.005-06:00

[Trigger/content warning: Violence]

A couple of people have emailed me asking what I think about the Hugo Schwyzer, erm, Internet Feminist Situation. (See Alas, for a roundup of related links and background.)

(tl;dr version: What role should or can a male feminist play in feminist when, by his own admission, he has had a very problematic history with women but now seeks to make amends?).

My observations are as follows:

First, I have linked to Scwhyzer's work a few times in the past. That being said, I am very troubled by Schwyzer's past and, prior to this incident, I was not aware of the extent of how problematic it was (It ranges from having tried to kill himself and a former girlfriend while being addicted to drugs and alcohol, to having sex with adult students while he was their teacher).

Schwyzer is a relatively Big Name in feminism, he teaches gender-themed courses at a city college (I don't know if he has tenure), he contributes (or contributed to, before recently resigning) to several very prominent feminist and gender issues blogs, he's co-authored a book, and he has a fancy self-promoting website with his photo attached (he's a conventionally attractive white man).

Much of this- the blogs, the gigs, the promotion- I believe is a function of white male privilege.

Not only has he never been arrested for criminal behavior, he recently wrote on his blog of having been given second chances, of having been "urged" to make amends by his colleagues and administrators, and of being handed the opportunity to chair the committee that wrote his college's policy on relationships between students and teachers.

I value the power of forgiveness, amends, and redemption, and I do think Schwyzer is talented, but ... that? That pisses me right off.

Not because I don't think Schwyzer is "deserving" of such treatment, but mostly because I can't see a lesbian feminist woman of any color, a gay man, a trans* person, or a person of color of any sexual orientation being coddled by superiors and colleagues in a similar way and going on to retain hir prominent status within gender studies and the gender blogosphere.

So, I think part of the backlash Schwyzer is now experiencing within the feminist blogosphere can be attributed to that. (Although, of course, many people have raised other valid concerns as well).

Feminist women often say that it takes a man to say what we regularly say for it to be taken seriously, and it feels unbelievably belittling that a man with such a problematic past can be taken more seriously than many, if not most, feminist women writers, bloggers, and thinkers.

And, of course, the cruelness of it is that white men in heterosexual marriages are deemed to be more authoritative objective than the voices of those who are not white men in heterosexual relationships and so Kicking Them Out Of Feminism can be counter-productive if the goal is to be persuasive to mainstream audiences.

Secondly, and relatedly, feminism is relatively marginalized within mainstream political discourse. I think this incident highlights not only the question of the role of men within feminism, but of the role of any person who is not perfect. In what ways does Internet feminism's "call-out culture" further marginalize already-marginalized feminist narratives? Hugo Schwyzer may be a big shot on Feminist Internet, but he doesn't exactly have his own talk show (um... yet?).

Although I don't agree with him about everything, I do think Schwyzer has made some good points about male privilege, entitlement, and sexism against both men and women. I still believe those points are good and valid, much in the way I believe that other feminists who have problematic personal histories or ideologies have made good and valid points about other things.

Is there any other social movement whose members regularly and publicly kick people and all of their ideas out for not being perfectly acceptable to all people all the time?

And what about the voices of non-white men that are regularly kicked out of feminism. For instance, how does it help or hurt feminism to cite Mary Daly's transbigotry, for instance, as a reason to reject her criticisms of the Catholic Church's misogyny? Is there room for feminists to remain critical of problematic aspects of a person or hir theories without rejecting everything ze ever wrote?

Interestingly, Schwyzer mentioned that some of the colleagues who were supportive of him making amends were feminists. I wonder if feminists (myself included) can have a tendency to be So Grateful That A White Man Is An Ally that we overlook issues that we would refuse to overlook in feminists who aren't white men in heterosexual relationships. Many feminists and "gender egalitarians" today won't touch Twisty Faster or an Andrea Dworkin book with a ten-foot pole, but a dude who tried to kill a lady? Go write for Jezebel! Sure, why not?

My last main observation wouldn't be complete without at least mentioning MRAs. Many MRAs seem to absolutely loath Schwyzer. But what they seem to loathe even more is feminist women setting boundaries around the feminist voices they/we want to promote and support. It's all "witch hunt" this and "fascism" that. As though Internet Feminism has institutional power and backing to, like, burn Bad Feminists at the stake. (Oh wait, that was what the Catholic Church did to Bad Women).

Anyway, because much of the conversation has been centered around him and The Role Of Men In Feminism, I hope that the people he has hurt are finding, or have found, peace. I also hope that Schwyzer is finding peace in all of this. He has been honest, in a very public way, about his past.

Redemption is indeed an enduring theme in literature and film. But I'd contend that feminism's primary concern is not, actually, about redeeming male protagonists.

[Cross-posted at Alas]

Believe It Or Not

2012-01-19T09:00:00.005-06:00

But when I'm not on Internet, I'm actually quite introverted.

Which is why I found this article at The New York Times interesting. A snippet:

"Culturally, we’re often so dazzled by charisma that we overlook the quiet part of the creative process. Consider Apple. In the wake of Steve Jobs’s death, we’ve seen a profusion of myths about the company’s success. Most focus on Mr. Jobs’s supernatural magnetism and tend to ignore the other crucial figure in Apple’s creation: a kindly, introverted engineering wizard, Steve Wozniak, who toiled alone on a beloved invention, the personal computer....

Solitude can even help us learn. According to research on expert performance by the psychologist Anders Ericsson, the best way to master a field is to work on the task that’s most demanding for you personally. And often the best way to do this is alone. Only then, Mr. Ericsson told me, can you 'go directly to the part that’s challenging to you. If you want to improve, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class — you’re the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time.'

Conversely, brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity. The brainchild of a charismatic advertising executive named Alex Osborn who believed that groups produced better ideas than individuals, workplace brainstorming sessions came into vogue in the 1950s. 'The quantitative results of group brainstorming are beyond question,' Mr. Osborn wrote. 'One group produced 45 suggestions for a home-appliance promotion, 56 ideas for a money-raising campaign, 124 ideas on how to sell more blankets.'

But decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases."

In both educational and professional settings, I've always loathed "brainstorming sessions."

Not only do I tend to be quiet in groups, but I think best when I have time to process information and ideas by myself before hearing all the extroverts go through their Thinking Out Loud Process. It's like, how do people expect me to have valuable information to share, when I don't even know yet what information I think would be valuable to share?

Really, Internet is my ideal form of interacting with people I don't know well (or at all).

If someone tries to chat with me and I'm busy or don't feel like being social, I can just ignore the chat request (unlike in real life, where if someone approached my desk and asked me a question it would be much more rude to completely ignore them). And, I've been known to just leave chat conversations mid-talk with a quick "BYE," if I get busy with something else, bored, or simply want to leave. That would be totally weird to do in person, but my friends and acquaintances don't seem to hold it against me when I do it on Internet.

On blogs, I can interact with people and debate different issues, but I get to choose which comments, posts, and responses I want to engage with. And, the replies don't have to come immediately. The interaction can be done on my own time.

The Privilege of Oppression Being "Novel"

2012-01-18T09:00:00.003-06:00

In discussing Freshly-Hatched Gynocratic Rage (FHGR), yttik makes a good point:

First, she quotes the alleged "source" of FHGR: "[Taking a women's studies course and discovering] the incredibly pervasive nature of gendered injustice combines the power of novelty with the power of legitimate outrage...."

She then asks a salient question:

"Novelty?? What novelty?! Believe it or not, most women don't 'discover' oppression for the first time in a woman's study class. We've already been there and lived there. Any novelty women might sometimes feel is more about finally realizing they aren't alone, they aren't crazy.

Oppression is not a 'novelty' discovered in a woman's study class."

I agree, and I think the working definition of FHGR is operating on a level of privilege that illustrates how the "men and women experience oppression in equal, opposite, and just-as-bad ways" narrative is a myth.

The definition of FHGR assumes that women haven't already "discovered" gender injustice against women. As though, rather than experiencing it directly, it was something that we have had to learn about from other people.

But, while women's studies may indeed inform women about the oppression women have historically faced, I don't know that the notion of Women Being Oppressed is all that novel to many women.

Learning about the historical oppression of women, gender stereotyping, and sexism against women has always been, for me, an experience of resonance.

It's interesting, though, that claim of "novelty."

I've been in several online conversations with men who have assumed that I was a women's studies major in college. They have made comments, which I'm sure many of you will recognize, like, "I'm just giving you a different view of things than what you learned in women's studies." As though their recitation of uninspired gender stereotypes was more legitimate, more skeptical, and more accurate than my lived experience.

The fact is, I took exactly one women's studies course in college. It wasn't even a theory course, it was a Women In Literature course where I, for once, read books and articles predominately written by women.

Despite this, some men have assumed that what I mostly do is recite "feminist dogma" that I have been "indoctrinated with" instead of speaking from my own long history of living as a woman, and of reading various texts that have resonated with that experience.

In reality, if the women's studies course I took did, in fact, induce any rage in me, it was at the fact that no other course in my entire educational career discussed sexism at all in any context other than a special "women's suffrage" context. Which, you know, can make a young girl feel kind of crazy. Seriously. Crazy. Because that was exactly how Living In A Sexist World That Largely Ignores Sexism And Calls Women Crazy For Talking About That Sexism felt like to me.

When I was girl, my thought process was something like:

"It sure is baloney that they say god is a man and that only boys can raise the flag every morning before school and that the boys get the really nice locker room. But.... no one else seems to think this is weird or wrong... so maybe... there's something wrong with me?"

So yeah.

"Novelty"? Not so much.

I was fully aware that gender injustice against women was pervasive in politics, religion, and sports long before I took my first women's studies class. I just didn't yet have the words or confidence to articulate it.

They Hate Us For Our Government

2012-01-17T09:00:00.001-06:00

I love it when people try to go all rogue libertarian without really thinking it through. Many of them see no need for the things the government does that they completely take for granted or are ignorant of.

Our friend Playful Walrus, who doesn't seem to like democracy, the government, or the US legal system very much, suggests a simple.... very simple.... new legal system of his own. He opines:

"Ideally, our laws would all boil down to:

1. Do not assault or murder.
2. Do not do not steal.
3. Do not damage what someone else owns against their will.
4. Do not be negligent in guardianship over dependents.
5. Do the time if you do the crime.

What am I forgetting?"

I adore that he added that question there at the end. What am I forgetting? Like, he really, really though this new legal system through (for I don't know, maybe 3 whole minutes?), thought it was just as good as any other system, and couldn't foresee any issues on his own. So, naturally, he opened the floor for other people to fill in the missing pieces.

Let me help.

I think my first question would be, well, are these "laws" suggestions or mandates?

For instance, with respect to "do the time if you do the crime," what entity is going to ensure that a criminal does, in fact, "do the time" for the crime? PW's legal scheme creates no police forces, criminal courts, or prosecutors. Is the idea that people will just naturally form vigilante mobs? Can random people just build jails and start imprisoning people?

And, from where would this entity get its authority to restrict other people's liberty? Might makes right?

What about property?

Since PW's legal system didn't establish a government or civil courts (let alone a Patent and Trademark Office), what entity is going to protect people's property rights?

If people's property rights aren't well-defined, how are we going to determine what constitutes "stealing"? Who's going to determine, and punish people, for damaging other people's property "against their will"?

Who's going to build roads, schools, bridges, fire departments, universities, and hospitals- Private individuals? Companies?

Who knows!? Who cares?!

I think what's important here is that PW's system is easy and simple. And importantly, The People will get to work out all the ticky-tacky details as they see fit. What could possibly go wrong?

Ironically, PW seems to think it is primarily progressives, homosexualists, and liberals who want to destroy The American Way Of Life.

What Government Officials Won't Be Quoting Today

2012-01-16T09:00:00.003-06:00

So said Martin Luther King, Jr:

"There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such....

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government."

-From "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"

Don't Touch Their Man Food!

2012-01-13T09:00:00.002-06:00

Apparently, some putrid MRA reddit caught a whiff of my article on Man Food.

In this post, I talked about an annoying, sexist event that I had experienced in relation to food. Namely, that when my partner and I were visiting with a heterosexual couple, the person making the breakfast, a woman, asked only "the men" if they wanted eggs with their pancakes, and proceeded to scoop heaping piles of eggs onto their plates alongside their 2 pancakes. On the women's plates, sat one lonely pancake.

Although a "little thing," it was illustrative of the ways eating and body image are gendered. Men are often encouraged to eat a lot, so they can get "big and strong" and take up space, while women are encouraged to not eat a lot, so we will remain small and dainty (and, although it's not often said, weak).

So how this post of mine was the Worst Thing Ever, I'm not sure. But that didn't stop the aggressive MRA responses to it from being positively brimming with Illusory Superiority of the "feminist wimmin are so dum" variety.

I think the most amusingly-incoherent response went something like, "WTF, it was a woman who offered the men more eggs, why is ths stoopid feminist complaining?!?!?"

As though, I don't know, it's.... hypocritical(?) for a feminist to admit that women too can do sexist things?

What a strange argument.

Think of the blanks one has to fill in regarding this MRA's thought process and visions of straw feminists that must be dancing about in his head. His argument only "works" in the following way:

(a) Feminists think all men are evil and sexist.
(b) Feminists thinks all women are paragons of perfection
(c) Therefore, if a feminist admits that a woman did something sexist, the entirety of feminism collapses under its own hypocrisy.

Sure, dude.

I'll just add that one to my collection of files proving that the vast majority of MRAs don't even understand feminism well enough to be able to render competent critiques of it.

The Trouble With Tobacco-Free Hiring Policies

2012-01-12T09:00:00.005-06:00

[content/trigger warning: This post contains a discussion about fat shaming]

I used to smoke, But I'm Not Self-Righteous About Being a Non-Smoker (tm). (Seriously, I loved to smoke. Loved it. So I totally get why some people can't or won't quit.)

I quit about 6 years ago.

You'll notice I say "about" because, for me, quitting was a gradual process. One day, I ran out of cigarettes and just didn't buy more. I stopped taking smoke breaks. And, even though I wanted to smoke, I began using gum, toothpicks, coffee, tea, exercise, water, and fun energy drinks to fill in the gaps of the time I used to spend smoking.

Naturally, I became that annoying person who borrows cigarettes because she "only smokes when she drinks." And then one day, I stopped doing that too. Now, I'm at the stage where smoking doesn't even sound appealing to me anymore. I tried a cigarette about a year ago at a party and it tasted/felt like what I imagine it must taste/feel like to people who have never smoked. Like smoke (it taste/feels different and better to many smokers, LOL). I think, for me, I had to make quitting not be a Big Thing that I, like, talked about and shared with everyone. It let me live in denial for a little while about the fact that I was quitting something I really liked to do.

So, with that disclaimer noted, I recently came across this article, about how some workplaces are refusing to hire smokers.

The reasoning is that "such tobacco-free hiring policies, [are] designed to promote health and reduce insurance premiums." Within the article, the following statistics are noted:

"Each year, smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke causes 443,000 premature deaths and costs the nation $193 billion in health bills and lost productivity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.....The bottom line will benefit because health care costs for tobacco users are $3,000 to $4,000 more each year than for non-smokers, says Bon Secours' Cindy Stutts."

While I understand employers' concerns about "the bottom line," two issues stand out to me with respect to this hiring policy.

One, I wonder if it will have a disparate impact on certain groups. While I do not believe smokers are, or should be, a "protected class" as is understood in the US legal system, smoking does correlate with socioeconomic status, education level, and sexual orientation*.

For instance, according to the CDC's statistics, 49% of those with a GED reported being smokers, compared to 5% of respondents with a graduate degree. 31% of those living below the poverty line reported being smokers, compared to 19% living above the poverty line. In addition, a (somewhat dated) 2001 study (cited in
this PDF) found that 46% of gay men and 48% of lesbians smoked, a rate double that of their heterosexual counterparts (data on bisexuals was not included).

A blanket policy against hiring smokers is going to disproportionately impact these groups. The assumption seems to be that such a policy will get people to quit smoking, but an argument could also be made that a policy that doesn't take into account why some people tend to smoke more than others might not be an effective anti-smoking program. It might just end up turning many smokers into people who are good at hiding their smoking, while, say, tobacco companies continue to develop
charmingly-named projects aimed at recruiting new groups of ~~undesirables~~ smokers.

My second issue is that if we look at the reasons for the policy in light of the dominant narratives regarding obesity, a policy against hiring fat people could also be developed. No one, to my knowledge, is proposing such a ban (erm... right?), but I think we have reason to be wary of a parallel reasoning process being applied to fat people.

Consider:

The employers' argument is that smokers choose to smoke, smoking has high health and economic costs, therefore, the hiring ban is acceptable. If people want to be hired all they have to do is make different life choices.

Headlines consistently inform us that Obesity Is Overtaking Smoking As the Leading Cause of Preventable Death in the US. The US Surgeon General reports that 300,000 premature deaths per year are attributable to obesity, while the CDC notes that the health costs of obesity are a "staggering" $147 billion dollars per year.

A quote in the smoking article notes that smokers are easy targets, but (as someone who is, or tries to be, a fat acceptance ally), it also seems like fat people are easy targets too. The two words "smoking and obesity" are practically a conjoined phrase in conversations about "preventable" deaths.

Many fat people believe (and I would agree) that being fat and being happy is a radical act given the degree to which fatness and fat people are shamed and demonized. Many non-fat people view being fat similar to how they view smoking, as a bad life choice and an individual you-deserve-what-you-get moral failing, rather than as the result of more systemic, collective issues.

So, to circle back to a point I made earlier, I don't expect policies that only penalize people who fall into certain categories and do not address the reasons why people fall into those categories to be effective public health measures. When employer honchos say things like, "We're not denying smokers their right to tobacco products. We're just choosing not to hire them," I think a lot of people are going to hear:

"We're not denying people disproportionately targeted by tobacco companies the right to their tobacco products, we're just choosing not to hire them"

or:

"We're not denying people who live in food deserts the right to eat their cheap, high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden food, we're just choosing not to hire them."

or, (my personal fave):

"We're not denying people who get fat partly because they work in front of a computer all day the right to work in front of a computer all- oh wait... yes we are. Whoooooops!"

[*Note: Although, the CDC also reports similar smoking prevalence levels among Blacks, Native Americans, and Whites (with lower prevalence levels among Asian-Americans and Hispanics), it also deserves highlighting that tobacco companies have aggressively and disproportionately marketed certain tobacco products to African-Americans and that African-Americans disproportianately suffer from tobacco-related disease.]

A Freshly-Hatched Tone Argument

2012-01-11T09:00:00.003-06:00

If a man who is critical of feminism writes a flippant post at his "menz" blog that plays right into stereotypes about Angry Feminists, it should be a statement of the obvious to say that many feminists will view him as walking on extremely thin ice.

So, it was with trepidation that I read Noah's post at No Seriously, What About Teh Menz (NSWATM) on "Freshly-Hatched Gynocratic Rage." He begins:

"The title of this post, 'freshly-hatched gynocratic rage' ["FHGR"], is a phrase I came across in an issue of Bitch magazine, lo these many years ago, and I apologize for not being able to dig up the name of the author who originally coined it.

She described it, more or less, as the phase every feminist woman goes through where she takes her first women’s studies course, suddenly sees and understands the pervasiveness of the damage and unfairness our society subjects women to, and spends a year or two completely pissed off" (emphasis added).

In explaining this phenomenon of FHGR, Noah suggests:

"Discovery of the incredibly pervasive nature of gendered injustice combines the power of novelty with the power of legitimate outrage at something profoundly wrong, and it’s easy to overshoot."

He then proceeded to invite his audience that is predominately comprised of men (presumably, since it's a men's issues blog), and is certainly dominated by men's voices (since many commenters shared their experiences as men), to share their stories of "gynocratic rage" and how they were able to move beyond this phase of feminism.

Aside from the problematically vague diagnosis criteria for FHGR, notice how the author who coined the term did so in the context of women discussing their own anger upon perceiving the vast nature of gendered oppression against women.

Let me share a story.

In June of 2010, I posted the following quote from Sarah Sentilles, a feminist scholar of religion:

"It was only when I heard a prayer that said 'she' instead of 'he,' when I heard God called 'mother' instead of 'father,' that I realized how much translating I had to do when I sat in church, how much energy I spent wondering if I was included, how much I longed for theological language I could see myself in."

No matter how allied, sympathetic, feminist, or gender-egalitarian a man is, I'm not sure an experience like that is going to resonate with him in the way it resonates with many women. Now consider a man who is predisposed to be critical of feminism or is not allied or sympathetic, and well, I can quickly imagine him minimizing women's anger at religious institution's alienating us from god.

Some Zen Buddhists say that in order to really know something, one has to experience it.

Along with that idea, even if men may have their own experiences of oppression as men, I'm not sure the sense of alienation that many women feel within male-centric religions, and the consequent anger at how such religions dominate many societies, is something many men can truly fathom. I think it is, in fact, understandable for many men not to be as angry as women might be upon first learning about feminism and first hearing the oppression of women articulated.

Indeed, my point here isn't to spark a conversation about male-centric religions, for that is but one example among many, but rather to question an assumption Noah seemed to be relying on in opening the floor to his audience predominately comprised of men: that they would have experienced FHGR at all upon first learning about feminism.

While some commenters did seem to discuss their own experiences, others... not so much. Instead of sharing their own experiences of having gone through FHGR themselves, some interpreted the post as a call to talk about how feminists with FHGR have Turned Them Away From Feminism (aka- The trusty "They'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar" excuse for not taking feminism seriously).

A sample:

"When I first discovered feminism, I felt very guilty about the bad things men have done."

"I was expressly told that as an egalitarian, I had no part in feminism. For the most part 99% of feminists I meet are pure shit, but hey isn’t that a law somewhere?"

"I’d had my fair share of crazies screaming at me for being a man, but they were just that: crazy. After reading a lot of feminist material on the internet, however, I started to feel really bad about the whole patriarchy thing."

My issue with the above commentary, aside from a suspect and ableist interpretation of feminist "crazies," the above commentary wasn't FHGR at all, but rather, a sharing of Freshly-Hatched Male-Centric Guilt and Defensiveness.

See, a qualification of having had FHGR, is that a person has, at some point discovered the pervasive nature of gendered injustice against women, has had that injustice resonate, and has consequently felt angry about it. The above comments seemed to have missed basically all of those components.

The thing is, many men won't feel the same sense of "ragey"-ness about the oppression of women, because they simply don't experience the oppression of women in the way that women do. And because they're not going to understand feminist anger, they're going to be more likely to trivialize it, exaggerate it, or use it as a reason to not take feminism and feminist women seriously.

If men are the beneficiaries of certain institutions and belief systems that are sexist against women, I would garner that some of them might even see a vested interest in not understanding or appreciating the legitimacy of a woman's anger about such systems. In fact, some men might see their own defensiveness and guilt as more legitimate, important, and central than women's oppression.

And that's the crux of my criticism of Noah's piece, really.

Is there really a shortage of people who think feminism and feminist women have an anger problem? Is there a shortage of male "allies" or "egalitarians" who will only support feminism if their hands are held, their defensiveness coddled, and we assure them that we know, we really really know, that they're not personally responsible for every bad thing men have ever done?

[Note: Cross-posted at Alas, A Blog, where, I am happy to report, I'm now a guest blogger.]

Recognizing Abuse In Internet Conversations

2012-01-10T09:00:00.004-06:00

[Trigger/content warning: this post contains examples of misogynistic and homophobic slurs, and a discussion of abusive behavior]

A wise woman once told me that sometimes the most valuable gift I could give to myself was the gift of peace. Today, I want to talk about that advice in the context of Internet civility.

Over the years, I have had countless Internet interactions with people of varying backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints. In general, I enjoy this interaction. I enjoy debate as well as friendly banter. Like many people, I don't enjoy hostility. For me, being on the receiving end of hostility has given me a greater appreciation for not wanting to engage in hostility.

I've made mistakes. I've been hostile. And, even when it hasn't been my intent, I have offended people. But, I do continually strive toward patience and civility, which I would define as treating other people how I would like to be treated, even when treated with hostility in return.

There is, however, only so much hostility a person can take.

That threshold varies for everyone. My threshold happens to be pretty high, but lots of good reasons exist why people might have lower thresholds for tolerating hostility.

My threshold is reached primarily when dealing with a certain type of abusive person, at which point I have to walk away. This might seem counter-intuitive, but I find it easier to deal with people who will just outright call me a bitch, a cunt, or a dyke. When those slurs are uttered, many (though certainly not all) reasonable people readily recognize that incivility has occurred. The interactions I find to be more problematic, and more difficult for me to recognize as abusive, are as follows:

People who post incredibly inflammatory articles and yet- no matter how civil, kind, and peaceful my intentions, no matter how reasoned or logical my arguments in return- refuses to believe that I am participating in the conversation in good faith, instead insisting that my sole purpose on Internet is to attack hir. And then, based on this belief that ze is under attack, this type of person then feels justified in making a barrage of unwarranted and false accusations about my intentions, character, and motivations.

These people are smart enough not to say "dyke," but they also often feel that questions like "is homosexuality normal?" or "is homosexuality a moral error?" are still, like, legitimate questions to ask or that articles like "TV shows are being infested by gays!!" constitute a legitimate "other side" to conversations about LGBT rights. As though there's just so much acceptance of LGBT people in the world that they just have to "balance" out the scales a little more toward the side of intolerance. Because, hey, that's only fair.

Now, I know that we are capable of hurting people even if we do not intend to hurt people, but I'm not talking about that situation. I'm talking about people who will hurt you and then when you defend yourself will then back up with their hands in the air and frame your self-defense as an attack against them. I'm talking about people who post problematic pieces and yet who are unable to participate in a debate about those pieces without interpreting every. single. bit. of civil disagreement as a gross violation of their human rights.

I have engaged with several people like this on Internet. If you participate on Internet at all in "un-safe" spaces, you probably have too.

I find it incredibly frustrating that such people insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite my every protestation, that my sole purpose on Internet is to hurt people like them, rather than to defend people like myself (from people like them).

I have learned to walk away from such people. Even though it feels like "failing." After all, walking away often means that these people dig in their heels, become even more entrenched in their beliefs, and continue to post really problematic pieces.

And yep, I know I'm being vague here about who specifically I'm referring to, and that's purposeful. The mere existence of this post in which I am expressing my experience and viewpoint, rather than centering their delicate abuser feelings, would be, to them, akin to waterboarding. It would be further proof as to how very persecuted they are.

I'm not even going to try to delve into the psychology of why these people are the way they are. I think, for me, the most important thing to remember is that it is not healthy or productive for me to engage with such people and that a good first step in dealing with these people is to recognize when I am, in fact, engaging with such people.

In my experience, if these people have comment moderation privileges, they exercise them with a power-trippy "I'm going to delete your civil commentary and respond to it anyway as though you've just unleashed a string of threats and obscenities at me, and then I'm going to tell you what a horrible, abusive person you are" approach to deleting comments and interacting with you, even if you've been incredibly polite in the face of their outright problematic-ness.

So, suddenly we're not talking about an article's homophobia or sexism or trans*bigotry or racism at all anymore, we're talking about, placating, and soothing the hurt feelings of the person who is only capable of hearing "BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT" and who is therefore shutting down and threatening to end the conversation because ze feels that ze is UNDER. ATTACK.

Meanwhile, these same people will continue to be found discussing the horrible awfulness of, say, the Homosexual Agenda with like-minded thinkers, as though that's a totally civil thing to do, especially when ze isn't even allowing lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to engage in that conversation. As though that conversation is of no concern to actual lesbian, gay, or bisexual people.

Their whole approach to Internet "conversation" is akin to the "it's sad when black people experience racism, but what's even sadder is when white people get accused of being racist" approach of talking about social issues. Except these people don't even make the pretense of being allies.

And so, I have swallowed shit and made concessions and have publicly and privately held people's hands and told them things like, "Now, I don't think you're a bigot or anything but hey, can we talk about that article?" But people like this will take and take and take from a conversation and never give a single concession in return or even one tiny acknowledgement that some people actually are bigots and haters against LGBT people or feminists or people of color, and if they can at all squeak that admission out it always comes with some sort of "both sides are just as bad" statement, after which they fall ass over heels onto their fainting couches feeling all ACCUSED of bigotry.

And, the sad truth is that I recognize that this Tone Argument crap is the reality we have to navigate as people interested in social justice, and I keep doing it anyway. Because, if we are at all interested in dialogue with people who have opposing viewpoints, these are the issues we have to navigate.

I don't have any big revelations about how to deal with people like this, I just know that I have this experience enough that I thought it might resonate with others.

My partner hammerpants, who is not as active as I am on Internet, recently jumped into a conversation in a very civil manner with a person who opposes same-sex marriage. Now, my partner doesn't have a mean bone her body, and she certainly didn't say anything out of line, and yet the blogger gave her this unwarranted "you are being SO MEAN TO ME! GO AWAY!!" treatment.

My partner didn't really know how to react, but I saw her begin to doubt herself, her morality, her basic goodness, and her own intentions.

And I told her, "Don't."

"It's hir, not you."

Some people are really invested in seeing us as monsters who ACCUSE THEM OF THINGS FOR NO REASON AT ALL!

I think it's important to be critical of ourselves and mindful of hostility we might be putting out there. But, I've seen too many good people with valid, legitimate, and reasoned things to say silence themselves because abusive, self-centered people whose HURT FEELINGS and bruised egos are the sun around which all important conversations must revolve have accused them of being abusive.

Recognize that it is a common tactic of abusers to plant seeds of doubt in good-hearted people's minds and accuse the people they abuse of abuse. Recognize that abusers often frame self-defense as abuse.

Recognize that it's not you. It's them.

It really is.