Or, On buying a car while female.

I bought a new car last month—a sweet little hybrid Ford C-Max to replace the less-efficient SUV I’ve driven for the past 12 years. My husband and I communicated openly about the financial elements of the process, but as I was to be the primary driver, I did my own market research, test drove several vehicles, decided exactly what I wanted and how much I wanted to pay for it. I went in alone to make the purchase, feeling supremely confident that the experience would be relatively quick and painless, as thoroughly prepared as I was.

Hours of facile sales psychology and a heavy dose of sexism later, I had what I wanted, but at considerable cost to my delusions of equality. The sales associate persisted in trying to guide me toward a particular car based on color rather than the more substantial features I knew I wanted, even after I told him repeatedly that I didn’t care what color it was as long as it wasn’t white. [Read more…]

News from our ally Saudi Arabia: another woman nabbed for driving a horseless carriage.

Saudi police on Saturday pulled over a woman minutes after she got behind the wheel in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after activists called for a new challenge to a driving ban.

“Only 10 minutes after Tamador al-Yami got behind the wheel police stopped her,” activist Eman al-Nafjan told AFP, adding that Yami carries an international driving licence and was with another woman who was filming her in the car.

Tamador’s husband was called to the scene and she was forced to sign a pledge not to drive again without a Saudi licence, said Nafjan on her Twitter account. [Read more…]

An update on that outrage-sparking post I did the other day about the putative similarity (or identity) between racism and “Islamophobia” which in the comments became also a discussion of the hijab. An update because a trackback just came in from a post by my noisiest critic, Sarah Jones, who has been being my noisiest critic on Twitter ever since I published the post. An update because she gets some things wrong, and also because I don’t disagree with her about 100% of all of everything.

From her post:

When a ruling class targets a minority class, it’s never just about religion. Religious and racial prejudice have historically walked hand in hand. I’ve been repeatedly accused of trying to argue that we can never criticize religion, and I want to make it clear that this is not a thing I have ever or will ever argue. Rather, I’m arguing that our critiques need to be historically informed. We need to understand and acknowledge that religious prejudice exists and that it is linked to racial prejudice.

Certainly. That’s why I said, in the post,

It’s getting to be a boring trope to point out that Islam is not a race, but all the same, it’s not, even though it’s true that Muslims are often treated as a despised racial group. Islam is not a race and “White” is not a religion.

Ok but one gets what she means. Islam is not in fact a race but Muslims are mostly de facto non-white; a Muslim who is white is usually a convert or possibly a child of converts; there are social and political issues one can talk about.  [Read more…]

An observation (inspired partly by JoshS’s musings on Twitter just now) about how symbols work. They work via shared meaning.

There can be exceptions, to be sure. We can have our own personal symbols that we make up.

But what we can’t do is take symbols that already have a meaning, and deploy them in public, and expect the rest of the world to give them our own personal meaning instead of the existing, public meaning.

That’s especially true of symbols that are contested or political.

Like the US flag, for instance. That has a lot of meanings, but one prominent one in the past (I think it’s mostly faded away now) was an in-your-face love-it-or-leave-it brand of patriotism. The Chris Noth character on the original Law and Order always wore a flag as a lapel pin, and I took that as a hint that he was that kind of character. I could have taken it to mean something else, or nothing, but the obvious meaning seemed the most likely one.

It’s a simple point enough.

Kenan Malik is another who is not impressed by the surface “liberalism” of the new pope, and, happily, he is not impressed by it in the NY Times, where he will reach many people.

Francis may be transforming the perception of the church and its mission, but not its core doctrines. He has called for a church more welcoming to gay people and women, but he will not challenge the idea that homosexual acts are sinful, refuses to embrace the possibility of same-sex marriage and insists that the ordination of women as priests is not “open to discussion.”

Oh oh oh but he mentions The Poor. He doesn’t wear the red shoes. He lives in a couple of rooms and goes places on the bus. Surely that’s good enough! Surely gestures are all anybody could possibly want. [Read more…]

My Turkish friend Torcant tells me that a lot of secular Muslims in Turkey celebrate the new year with trees, presents, celebrations, sometimes mixing the new year and Xmas in a cheerful hybrid mashup. But this year the Islamists decided to open a front in The War On Christmas.

Translation: No to Christmas and new year celebrations!

Pow!!

 

So how is your trans-species present-shopping list doing? Natalie Angier has tips.

For the female scorpionfly: an extremely large, glittering, nutrient-laced ball of spit, equivalent to 5 percent to 10 percent of a male fly’s body mass. Gentlemen: Too worn down by the holidays to cough up such an expensive package? Try giving her a dead insect instead. You can always steal it back later.

For the male Zeus bug: a monthlong excursion aboard the luxury liner that is the much larger female’s back, with its scooped-out seat tailored to his dimensions and a pair of dorsal glands to supply the passenger with all the proteinaceous wax he can swallow.

For the bonobo you’ve just met: half your food, at least. Just shovel it over. Sharing is fun!

Oh look, half a cheesecake with half a cross in it. Yum.

We’ve been hearing more and more nonsense about how marvelous the new pope is, in particular from James Carroll in the New Yorker and on Fresh Air. Carroll takes the new pope’s talk about poor people with immense seriousness. He’s been depressed about the church for decades, ever since John 23 did some good things which were reversed the instant he popped his clogs.

Wouldn’t you think that would tell him something? Even if a comparatively not-so-fascist pope gets in somehow and says some nice things…the next one will throw them all out the window. The church isn’t a thing that can reform reliably, because it’s not set up that way.

Anyway…about that marvelous new pope. I was looking at something else so I missed this item last September. [Read more…]

Drop everything! A couple in Arizona have spotted a cross on their cheesecake, so obviously it’s A Message.

A suburban Phoenix family says their Christmas cheesecake sent them the message of a holiday miracle.

The Arizona Republic reports that when the family in Scottsdale, Ariz., pulled their dessert out of the oven, it cracked as it cooled and formed a crucifix.

The family members, who have not given their names publicly, say the crucifix is a message.

They say they won’t be eating the cheesecake. Instead, they plan to sell it and donate the money to a local charity or church.

But that’s the end of the story. They forgot something. What’s the message?

It could be that the family that pulled their dessert out of the oven doesn’t know how to make a cheesecake.

But anyway, whatever it is, you would think that’s part of the story. Strange that they didn’t tell us.

Shall we try to guess?

It’s cold here?

Cut me a slice?

Go to church?

I’m vegan?

Put some berries on top?

Repent?

I died for your sins and now I’m doing guest spots on cheesecakes?

Does this make my butt look big?

Wait, there’s been a mixup, I’m Mohammed?

H/t Leonie Hilliard.