Ibis3 will be our curator for an examination of news, media, arts, culture, politics, social media & the internet, women’s issues, and everyday life through a feminist lens.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Oh good! I was hoping someone would do this! I’ll help out as I can Ibis3.
Applause. Needed at this blog.
Relevant to this discussion. Video explains everything I think about when this thread came up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GI8mNU5Sg
JC #3, why should I look at video, when you could explain yourself in a few sentences?
Nerd @4:
I think it would have been helpful for you to word that differently. Personally, I’d have said something along the lines of
“Jeremy Claywell, what is the video about and how does it pertain to this thread?”
Speaking of the video, the YouTube page describes it thusly:
****
Jeremy Claywell @2:
I think it would have been helpful for you to include some sort of synopsis of what the video is about, or a statement on your part about why you appreciate this thread. I say this bc this blog and many of the FtB blogs have been attacked over the years by anti-feminists and MRA’s. Many of them have dropped into comments sections and left comments with links and no explanations similar to yours. I’ll admit I had the same knee-jerk reaction that Nerd did, but I thought it healthy to give you the benefit of the doubt and I’m glad I did. Thanks for that video.
Jeremy @ 3:
I can’t view the video right now (wireless is sucking), but going by Tony’s description, I will watch when I am able, and I think this would be good in the Art thread, too, especially as I brought up the prevalence of works in which women are objectified and mutilated.
Thanks, Tony. The offer is most appreciated.
@ All
In case you missed my proto-proposal in the comments on the tyrant thread, here are some examples of what I’m expecting to be discussed here:
* news about abortion rights and efforts to quash them
* news concerning violence against women (e.g. cases of sexual assault or harassment; local stories of uxoricide, issues like the current call in Canada for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, terrorism against women)
* news about feminist protests and activism
* updates about online harassment of feminists and other prominent or not so prominent women and about misogynist groups online
*sexism in popular culture and the arts, including advertising, news media, sports, books, television shows of today and yesteryear
*discussion about sexism in the workplace (including fields traditionally dominated by men) and academic environments
*rape culture in militaries and on campuses
*sexism/misogyny faced by readers/commenters in their day to day lives
That can all get pretty disheartening, so I’m also hoping that it will be a place to talk about successes and progress and examples of businesses/politicians/media and individuals doing things right.
I come across stuff I want to talk about all the time but haven’t really had a place to do so (excepting the preaching I do to the choir of one who is my feminist 72 year old mum), so I’m really looking forward to this. I strongly encourage others to contribute so we end up with a very diverse and vibrant range of topics and viewpoints. I myself am Canadian so I’m sure you’ll see quite a number of the topics I bring up will reflect that.
——–
I’m heading off for the night but I figure I should at least start out by dropping one or two stories here before I go.
It’s been a couple of hot weeks here in Ontario and in BC too. Hot weather means some women will choose to go topless (officially legal in both provinces and unofficially in the rest of the country), and some cops and/or citizens will harass them for it. Today there was a well-attended topless rights rally, with well-behaved police who thanked the city of Kitchener-Waterloo for being respectful of demonstrators. Hopefully, it will eventually sink in. The Gwen Jacobs case was only 24 years ago.
Police are investigating yet another incident of someone yelling FHRITP at a reporter (who happened to be talking about the great performance of women athletes at the Pan-Am Games at the time — double whammy). They don’t know if they can/will be charging the guy even if they find him.
Only 9 people apparently showed up to watch the premiere of
shameless cash graber, anti-feminist flick The Sarkeesian Effect.I’ve been rewatching Star Trek, TOS. It’s fascinating to see how much of the sexism is actually under the surface in addition to the horrible blatant sexism. And yet, and yet once in a while a slightly progressive glimmer. Look forward to occasional comments from me about different episodes as I go through them.
Ibis3 @ 7:
I’ve recently re-watched the first and second seasons, while working. The sexism often made me cringe. One particular bit of sexism fairly screamed and grated my nerves – any time there’s a discussion, you hear “Gentlemen…”, even when there are women in the room, and involved in the discussion.
I just watched the first 5 minutes of Jeremy Claywell’s linked video. Promises to be very interesting. I agree with Caine about it being of interest in the Art thread too.
Caine @ #8
Yes! I guess if you’re in a micro-skirt you don’t need to be addressed. (ack just realized that could be a pun if one were so inclined to read it that way)
Okay. Now I’m really off to bed.
Does this story belong here?
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.3171015/top-sports-court-lifts-ban-on-female-sprinter-with-naturally-high-testosterone-1.3171023
It has racism, too.
Slightly progressive glimmers? Can you give a few examples? I’m not aware of any.
I’ve been watching the voyager series for the first time. Its refreshing to have Katherine Janeway as the captain, and B’Lanna Torres as the chief engineer. Seven of Nine is also a good female character, but I am bothered that she has a skintight catsuit for clothing instead of a starfleet uniform. I remember a particular episode of TOS that I found offensively sexist, but it also had some dialog from Eve and Kirk about only being valued for ones appearance. The episode is Mudd’s Women.
I submit this as the most rabidly anti-female episode of TOS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnabout_Intruder
This isn’t exactly news, seeing as we’re already in August, but it’s a nice reminder that women do, from time to time, get the recognition they deserve. This year every single one of the recipients of the Australian of the Year awards was a woman. (I was reminded of this by a completely unrelated news item today.)
Rosie Batty, AOTY, for advocating against family violence
Jackie French, Senior AOTY, author of 140 children’s books and advocate for literacy teaching. (Apparently she’s so dyslexic herself she can’t read direction signs in car parks.)
Drisana Levitzke-Gray, Young AOTY, advocating for deaf people, she’s completely deaf herself.
Juliette Wright, Australia’s Local Hero. Wanted to donate needed items for babies, discovered that babies in poor families needed steel-toed boots for their fathers – to get a job – much more than clothes or blankets for themselves. Now runs a matching service for people offering goods and services and people needing them.
http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/2015-award-recipients/ for more details about each individual.
This is the first time ever that the winners of all categories were women. Nobody knew that this would happen before the award ceremony, so it was a real highlight when all four award winners eventually lined up. (The only sour note was that they also had to have a group photo with our Minister for Women’s Affairs, none other than dear ol’ Toxic Tony the Prime Minister.)
Just a little warm thought to nurture in the background when the avalanche of horrible seems overwhelming.
The sponsored picture ads on this comment page at this moment include a Russian woman in a bikini, teenage girls in lingerie, a woman in a bikini on a stingray bike, women wearing practically naked dresses, and a woman’s butt implant exploding. I don’t mind ads but why do they have to be these?
What are the arguments, from a feminist perspective, against genital mutilation? I ask because I’ve talked to multiple women who have a pro-mutilation stance, and despite my conversations with them about the long-term sexual and psychological harms of genital cutting, they decided to mutilate their children anyway. They see the issue as one of parental rights, and avoid thinking about the issue from the perspective of the victims.
Unfortunately, forced child genital cutting is a common practice in my country. Ultimately, my goal is to pass legislation that would protect the right to bodily integrity for all children by requiring fully informed consent from patients before they may receive elective surgery. But for now I am focusing on reaching mothers, especially first-time or expectant mothers.
I am hoping that employing feminist rhetoric will help people appreciate the intensity of the emotional pain that many victims feel. And also help them to recognize instances of emotional instability (anger, shame, guilt, fear, etc) as evidence of psychological harm rather than as irrationality, hysteria, or attention seeking behavior that should be dismissed or ignored. Thank you and have a blessed day.
imback@16
The advertising images I’m seeing now are of products (car, loudspeakers, hotel room) and of a man hugging a boy (“Take time to be a dad today”, no idea what they’re selling) and a dog licking their chops (selling some kind of entertainment system). Time of day? Geography?
Or are you talking about the click bait? I.e. the ads for other websites? Right now the pics aren’t so bad, only one image of a woman unaccountably lying on a floor, but fully dressed. But the titles, e.g. “10 African countries with the most beautiful women” manages to be racist and sexist at the same time (and yes, it’s the same one with the image).
Seems to me, maybe advertisers have grasped that sex doesn’t necessarily sell products, but apparently it still makes people click, and thats all the click-bait sites want for their ad revenue.
Will trans and gender issues be considered on-topic?
Loving the picture. I may end up cross-posting stuff between here and the racism thread, as a lot of issues that affect black women would fit in this category. I hope that’s okay!
[seeing examples]
And I see Ibis3 has a great welcoming statement, and I think I’ll have to lay one out for the racism thread with Tony (later, Tony, see FB!). Just so things are clear.
[/seeing examples]
On that note, I’ll just recommend the Reality Cast podcast, with Amanda Marcotte. It’s a weekly (more or less) podcast dealing with news in reproductive health. Usually features an interview with some relevant individual working in that field. It’s a really handy way to keep up to date with the shenanigans of the anti-choice brigade and get some sane commentary on these issues.
sindi @17
The point that genital mutilation is mutilation seems like a good place to start. It’s also irreversible, a violation of the victims’ human rights, has no health benefits for girls or women, and like any surgical procedure has risks of complications including hemorrhage, severe pain, sepsis and open sores. Long term effects can include urine retention, cysts and infertility. That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure google can lead you to other arguments against female genital mutilation.
Al Dente
I believe sindi may not be talking (only?) about girls or women.
… Though your points about irreversible, a violation of human rights, and with no health benefits still stand.
sindi, I’m sure that plenty of people here can do a better job than I can of setting out how damaging FGM is – in many cases condemning girls and women to a lifetime of pain, incontinence, increased danger in any future childbirth and of course partly or wholly eliminating the ability to experience orgasm, the whole point being to control and confine women by way of controling and confining their experience of their own sexuality.
But I would just like to point out that certainly most and very probably all of us are also opposed to circumcision. Just as we are opposed to any modification of a person’s body without their consent and without any medical need.
However, if (and only if) your careful wording is intended to oh-so-cleverly hide the fact that you are actually talking about circumcision only and not FGM at all, please note that attempting to pull the wool is not appreciated.
Absolutely. 100% applicable to all babies/infants/children at risk of GM.
rq @23 and opposablethumbs @25
A more careful reading of @17 shows you may be right. sindi isn’t specific about which type of genital mutilation xe is referring to.
opposablethumbs @25
I should have mentioned more of the social and psychological effects of FGM as well as listing some of the physical arguments against it. Thank you for bringing this up.
***Curator Q&A***
chigau #11: Does this story [about lifting of ban against women with naturally high levels of testosterone] belong here?
Yes.
AMM #19: Will trans and gender issues be considered on-topic?
If someone wanted to curate a thread specifically about trans and gender issues (or Crip Dyke wants to branch out her Gender Workshop) or, say, one that encompassed gender identity, sexual orientation, and LGBT rights I wouldn’t want to stand in their way. Unless/until that happens, on the other hand, I’ll warmly welcome such comments & consider them to be on topic for this thread. Also, I imagine that many such topics would be appropriate for crossposting here even if a separate gender/trans/ or LGBT discussion thread were to happen.
rq #20 Loving the picture.
Me too.
I may end up cross-posting stuff between here and the racism thread, as a lot of issues that affect black women would fit in this category. I hope that’s okay!
Yes! I’m all for intersectionality. I’ll probably be crossposting some of my own links in the racism thread too. :)
Sindi:
The reasons to be against FGM are myriad, so I’ll focus on what I think is the very rotten foundation of the practice – treating women as things. When you stop seeing people as human beings, any wrong is permissible. It’s also good to keep in mind just how much women internalize sexism. Happens to us all.
***curator mode***
@sindi #17
Your comment reads to me like a passive-aggressive test to see if we’ll assume that only genital mutilation of girls is bad enough to warrant being actually called “mutilation”. If you actually want to have a discussion in good faith please straight up ask what arguments feminists would use to persuade parents or specifically mothers not to circumcise their infants assigned male at birth. Thanks.
***end curator***
The discussions I’m seeing here betray themselves as being almost entirely Western, and particularly North American.
It’s well to remember that most of the world doesn’t have our ferociously individualistic focus. When discussion dwells entirely on the individual’s rights, it ignores that much of the world reveres social conformity and ritual and dislikes as much individual decision-making as we exhibit. Until that huge gap is appreciated, we wind up simply berating other cultures rather than understanding them.
Genital mutilation isn’t done for the girl, but for the family and society at large. Don’t mistake this for an apologia – I’m thoroughly Westernized and find the practice repugnant. However, there is no way that mutilating societies will ever give up the practice until the society itself thinks of it as wrong, and that will happen only when individual liberty becomes a stronger force than it currently is. Observe how long our Western society consigned women to being helpless incubators by banning both contraception and discussion about it, and how quickly we seem able to backslide into that status with abortion bans. Those laws changed only when the society around them changed, and we are still pushing forward to maintain them. I can still remember parental outrage over teenagers using the Pill back in the 60s. We still have many school systems that won’t discuss anything but abstinence. We have little cause to lecture those cultures that take the insistence on socially recognized purity to a gruesome extreme. When a girl’s marital prospects are slim to none without having had the mutilation, mutilation will never die.
I collect links to feminist resources and good reads that I come across for my blog’s library, and I would be happy to post them here too if others would find them of interest. By way of example, here are three I’ve come across recently:
bayes 31:
[emphasis added.]
Citation needed for the bolded claim. I apologize if I am reading you incorrectly, but this set off my l*bertarian dogma meter. Laws, economic sanctions at the level of the state and/or the individual, and exposure to different cultural norms (via media or direct social contact) can affect enormous cultural shifts in astonishingly short periods of time. See e.g. the same-sex marriage movement over the past two decades.
This promises to be an interesting thread, I’ll certainly follow it. Quietly, for the most part.
Just briefly regarding Star Trek:
After (endlessly) rewatching the series (including TOS in pogress) I have become somewhat disillusioned myself. Star Trek may have tried to be progressive and inclusive and may, at the time,* been just that. But on the whole it still relied heavily on tokenism in all its installments. (Voyager, at a guess, was probably the most diverse and equally balanced, if that’s the word)
The fact that Star Trek was, to my mind, trying to get away from all that makes the failure all the more grating. The main cast often consisted mainly of the token woman / person of colour / alien / …, sometimes rolled together. The rest, especially background characters still seem to consist mainly of (human) white males.
If you really want to see this in action, consider the noble redshirt. Given the turnover you would have expected to see at least one non-human redshirt in three seasons of TOS. Likewise the one or two female redshirts were only there because a woman was needed for that particular role. So it’s just not feminism in Star Trek, it’s everything. That said, I still find it entertaining, I just cringe a lot more than I used to.
*I’m a tad too young to have seen TOS way back when…
And finally I’d like to nominate I, Mudd for the worst TOS episode for feminists.
[spoiler] of a 50-year-old TV series. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
———————————————-
Mudd, a scoundrel to boot, finds himself in charge of a planet populated by androids. They won’t let him leave but otherwise serve him unconditionally; he even gets to decide on their design. So naturally he ends up with a colony of young women (all white, naturally) in the usual TOS stylings (lightly dressed, Standard Issue Hair), repilcated endlessly.
Far worse, Mudd is married and his wife is the most overblown stereotype of “Nagging Housewife” ever to grace the screen. He keeps a replica in a window box and perdiocally switches her on just to tell her to shut up when she starts her nagging – something he couldn’t do with the original.
Even worse, after clashing with Kirk and being bested by him, the latter puts the androids in charge of themselves. He leaves Mudd behind on the planet and to punish him has literally a thousand wife replicas built to follow Mudd around and nag him wherever he may go. [/spoiler]
I hope part of the blatant sexism was intended to underline how terrible a person Mudd is, but even if so, it all falls apart because of the ‘ironic punishment’. I’m sure at the time someone thought all that must have been hilarious. (Based on a story by Roddenberry himself, according to google) Nope, the joke certainly didn’t work for me. Parts of TOS have aged very poorly indeed.
@32. There’s a cut and paste error: The comics panel anchor links the the Lauren Southern reply.
bayes, #31
Well, this can only be decided by the victims of the conformity and ritual. How do they feel about it? Do they revere it?
Of course societies with a dominant class exerting its control over marginalized individuals give off the vibe that all is a-okay. Ask the individuals who are getting the short end of the stick of this conformity.
Morality is about well-being and suffering at the individual level. Societies, countries, communities are abstract and don’t have feelings. In fact going by how societies as a whole are doing is a horrible way to address social justice issues because the superficial happiness of oppressive societies mask the injustices being done to the marginalized groups under the surface. For example, look at how progressive societies appear to the outside world yet still have marginalized groups being bullied on a daily basis.
Thanks woozy 35—sorry about that. Try this one:
@34 I, Mudd. Was pretty bad but the introduction of the Mudd character was in Mudd’s Women was equally bad. Mudd’s delivering stunningly beautiful (distractingly so) mail order brides to a miner colony but he’s engaging in fraud because the women aren’t naturally beautiful. Their beauty is the effect of a narcotic that the naturally plain women are addicted to and … well, where can a premise such as that go but down.
But I’m with chiagu. The worst episode is Turnabout Intruder.
So, um, where are these supposed progressive glimmers in Star Trek: TOS? My feeling is when it came to women’s issues TOS simply dropped the ball and let it roll into the sewers.
Actually one thing that always bugged me was a “comedic” scene in which Kirk was struggling with a computer’s AI. The feminine computer was flirty, purry, petulant, and pouty much to the irritation of masculine Kirk who wanted the computer to be straight-forward. Spock points out that the computer is from a planet with a female-centric hierarchy so most of the computer scientists were women and they gave their AIs personalities to match.
Soooo… PROGRESS! It’s perfectly possible for women to become scientists, doctors, computer programmers, or any other traditionally male occupation. But if they do they will still always have flighty, irrational, irritating, petulant female personalities and ways of thinking because that’s fundamentally just the way women are.
Oh… and remember the energy creature that imprisons/cares for Pike (it was Pike, wasn’t it?) and the big surprise that universal translater translated the voice as female, not as an arbitrary random choice, but because there are universally recognized characteristics and the entity was female because it thought like a female (if you can consider that sort of brain activity thinking)?
Okay, I’m getting a bit disgusting and it’s still early in the day…
komarov @ 34
I’d probably agree about that in general. They did fall off the wagon pretty spectacularly with the way they handled the 7 of 9 character though.
TNG has it’s jaw-droppingly sexist moments too. There is an episode in (I think) the 2nd season where they encounter two very early earth colonies. One had reproduced via cloning and was reaching a point where they could no longer do so safely and there were so few discrete individuals that they couldn’t go back to reproducing normally either. The other had been founded by a group seeking to leave all technology behind. They were thriving but their planet was endangered in some fashion. The problem was solved by the male colony leaders getting together with Captain Picard and deciding that the 2nd colony would move to the 1st colony’s planet and that all the women from the 2nd colony would bear at least 3 children apiece with men from the 1st colony, preferably each with a different father. When the daughter of the 2nd colony’s leader turned out to not be very enthusiastic about this, she was informed that her other option would be abandonment at the nearest space station.
Men as the default “important people” in US society is so deeply ingrained that many people are unaware of our culture’s bias in favor of men. One black woman has had enough:
My lived experience is not up for debate:
I wonder if there are any female rap artists who ‘discuss the intracacies and emotions of their first time’. Surely there are (I don’t listen to rap, so I have no clue).
Black men need to make room-equal room-for the ideas and experiences of black women in African-American culture. Again, male is not the default.
SMH. Women get ‘moments’. Men get their entire lives.
I agree with her. Her complaints are not the problem. The institutions that push men, men, men and ignore women are the problem. So too is the culture which does not push back against the pro-male bias to a sufficient degree.
Are there quick-n-easy answers/rebuttals? Should there be? Can a soundbite accurately convey all the basic, relevant information?
I agree with her once again. Men won’t know what it’s like to have the concerns of their gender overlooked, diminished, or marginalized.
Those people who claim to be unable to see themselves in the shoes of others often don’t try hard enough. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t have much of a problem attempting to view things through lens of people who I am not like (e.g. women, trans people, people with mental or physical disabilities). I won’t be able to fully understand their experiences, but I think on the whole, I am able to imagine (up to a point) what it might be like to experience life through the lens of other people. And so often, it becomes apparent that the experiences of others include suffering that is just vile and completely unjust.
Yes. ^^This.
(followed by a clip of her saying “So get off my areola!”)
QFT.
@Delft #18,
Yes I meant the click-bait off-site ads. They cycle every time I refresh, and now there are no bikinis, mostly dubious miracle cures in fact. I don’t at this time pay to get FTB ad-free, so in reading free content I have little right to complain. But many of these ads do seem pretty ill suited for a skeptical feminist site.
@40..
I always got the impression that episode was written as kind of a “meta” episode. There seem to be two contradictory prevailing themes in science fiction: one, that we shouldn’t impose or judgement upon other cultures and two, Human (aka American) Yankee individualism with it’s cowboy diplomacy and emotional affinity to nuance is always a better option then cold oppressive logic that aliens must have, is always a philosophically better and solution. This episode turns the idea that if we really shouldn’t judge we should recognize that our values might be the wrong ones for a situation. The result is lose-lose mess where no-body can possible like the outcome yet by the rules of science-fiction writing it should seem valid even though it’s revolting on all levels.
Or, I’m overthinking it. But it did almost seem a mock-up parody of a typial TOS episode complete with Ryker playing a passively womanizing Kirk. The daughter you mention comes on to Ryker complete with “don’t you like girls” line but she’s ultimately, despite her rebelious passion for social justice, is ultimately a spoiled brat who gets dumped uncerimoniously in utter defeat at the end as was typical of TOS.
It *was* an unpleasant episode.
imback @42:
One thing you may be unaware is that FtB does not control the ads. They pay a third-party site to regulate the ads. It is completely out of the control of anyone at FtB.
woozy @ 43
Even if you’re right that the point was that it’s just a lose-lose situation where nobody can possibly be happy with the outcome, the women were still completely excluded from the decision.
Yes, I avoid mention of gender on purpose. I guess I will elaborate on why I have done this. I am not interested in trans-exclusive, male-exclusive, or intersex-exclusive arguments. I want to protect all children from involuntary genital cutting including any form of male, female, or intersex circumcision, infibulation, or sex-reassignment.
Earlier this week I read the perspective of a transman who considers his “clitoris” to be his penis, and his prepuce aka clitoral hood to be his foreskin. After all, he says, it all develop from the same tissue before hormones kick in and cause sexual differentiation, so it is largely arbitrary to use different words for essentially the same parts. As a matter of fact, the most common form of genital cutting, for children designated either male and female, is the removal of the the prepuce alone. (Yes, the term FGM is an category of multiple kinds of mutilation some of which are much more extreme.) From an ethical standpoint, there is no reason to create distinctions between different kinds of genital cutting unless one is interested is justifying some forms as being morally permissible. My focus of ending unnecessary forced genital cutting for all children (of all genders and all sexes) using strong, universal feminist principles.
Let’s consider the case of intersex children, who are all too often neglected when it comes to the topic of genital mutilation. As we all know, many parents and doctors are so uncomfortable with their child’s natural genitalia that they force them to undergo involuntary sex reassignment. It seems this discomfort comes from society’s rigid notions of binary sex and gender. Parents assume their children will be ashamed of their genitalia, and believe that surgically altering their genitalia is sparing them from painful humiliation. So, it seems to me the first hurdle is getting parents to discard gender binary and see intersex genitalia as normal, healthy, natural, beautiful, and sexy rather than an ugly, ridiculous, disgusting, aberrant deformity or defect. That in itself is a huge challenge.
Because forcing elective genital surgery on children is seen as ethically permissible in some cases, it makes it much easier for parents to view sex-reassignment surgery as beneficial and ethically permissible. Within the medical community, adopting a strong ethical principle that only the patient themself can consent to elective surgery would go a long way to preventing.
Many people believe that male genital cutting is beneficial and without psychological harm while believing female genital cutting is without benefit and may cause significant long-term psychological distress. (Unfortunately, I have seen these sexist sentiments repeated here.) This creates a lot of confusion for parents of intersex children. How are they to decide whether removal of prepuce of their intersex child is good circumcision or bad circumcision?
The best argument I am familiar with is that all forms of involuntary child genital cutting (including sex-reassignment, female circumcision in all its forms, and male circumcision in all of its forms) are medically unnecessary (i.e. elective rather than therapeutic), may cause long-term psychological harm (i.e. a sense of betrayal, sense of unwholeness, reduced capacity to experience sexual pleasure), and violate the child’s right to bodily integrity (whose body? whose choice?).
Again, I am looking for strong, effective, universal feminist arguments against all forms of forced child genital cutting, rather than arguments against just one type of genital mutilation.
@45
Very true.
It’s really a hard episode to justify on any level. I think it works best as a “Hey, you said you wanted classic Star Trek flavor; well, *this* is the crap that classic Star Trek was” but then I’m probably just making excuses.
When I first saw it, I was concerned that basically the “solution”, as well as having no choice, effectively ended both of the colonies’ motives for starting the colonies in the first place. (“Colony A: you can no longer be clones and isolated. Colony B: you can no longer be self-determining. Tough shit for both of you”.) If you can’t pursue the ideal of the colony in the first place, *and* you lose all choice in the matter what’s the point of even continuing the colony anyway. I felt a more satisfying, but still a failure, resolution would be to just tell the colonists to all just give up and go back to earth…. Which I guess the *did* say when they told the daughter she could be abandoned on the nest space station.
In reference to comments up-thread about black women, about experiences of empathy (or of a lack of empathy), and about feminism among African American women, I’m still learning.
I live in the USA and am speaking mostly about day-to-day experience here in the “wild west.” As most Pharyngulites already know, I read a lot from a broad range of sources. I still seem to be ill-informed.
To my frequent surprise, there are effective artists, leaders, etc. that I don’t hear about. Where the hell am I supposed to read about/hear about these black females, and the organizations that nurture them? I often feel invisible because I’m a woman, and an older woman at that … but there are entire subsets of other women that are hidden from me, women I admire when I do get one of those surprises that shouldn’t be a surprise. There are women who are subjected to the invisibility syndrome more than I am.
One example from the many powerful organizations that nurture black female leaders:
Yes. Holy crap, yes. We are still fighting for voting rights.
Much more at the link. This is fascinating history, as well as important present-day political and social dynamics. Black women who wanted to participate in the early suffrage marches were sometimes hampered by their white counterparts. That’s history. Recently, a female CNN anchor, Erin Burnett, mistook black female activists from Zeta Phi Beta for gang members during protests in Baltimore. That’s present-day.
A few names of black female leaders about whom I’m currently reading:
Barbara Jordan
Mary McLeod Bethune
Dorothy Height
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Attorney General Loretta Lynch
@woozy
When I said glimmers of progress that’s exactly the dynamic I was thinking of: the pushing of boundaries as they were when the show was made: Uhura, not only a receptionist, but she gets under the counter and does some rewiring, and in an emergency takes over piloting the ship–it happened only for a couple of minutes, but it happened–and those were skills she was expected to have. Women as programmers, historians, archaeologists, engineers (and outranking a man!), JAG lawyers, Federation diplomats. How awesome is that when most television was pretty much showing women as mothers, teachers, nurses, and secretaries, here were women as professional experts in fields that were exclusively the province of men in real life? But yes, much of that promise was stifled by the countervailing sexist treatment that came along with it.
Zefram Cochrane. This was the episode (“Metamorphosis”) I was just about to bring up in answer to komarov. Stay tuned, it’s a bit long and I’m going to have to go back to the show to get some quotations right instead of from memory. Short version: I found this episode to be quite as quietly sexist as “I, Mudd” was blatantly sexist.
re 7/9:
Please, when discussing the shortfalls of ST:Voyager, in terms of feminism; i.e. examples of the lack thereof. Let’s stop highlighting 7 of 9’s catsuit. I remember Jeri Ryan being asked about the overtones of such a costume, which she acknowledged, and claimed the costume as her choice, when she had been given the option of choosing something different. I agree that it was somewhat misogynistic to initially put her in such a costume; however, it must be recognized that they gave her the choice and she stuck with the initial costume (claiming it to have been far more comfortable than the uniforms of the rest of the cast, who claimed them to be pinchy and stiff, etc.) Let’s discuss more scriptbound issues than just the eyecandy of Jeri’s costume.
In ST:V’s defense, (to be Cpt. Obvious) having the Captain be a female tough was pretty groundbreaking [pun]. TOS was far behind; highlighting more relevant political issues of race & coldwar & hippies & prostitution (Mudd). TOS was overwhelmed and cut short.
Suicide spike boosts oversight of California women’s prison:
@sindi #46
Thanks for the clarification.
Passengers on Porter flight clash when male ultra-Orthodox Jew refuses to sit next to woman:
Ibis3 #28 said that LGBT news are also accepted, so:
16-year-old stabbed in Jerusalem pride parade succumbs to wounds:
____________________________
Re: Star Trek:
ST, all of it, was sexist by design. I remind you that Gene Roddenberry invented the pon farr (a once-in-a-seven-years period in which male Vulcans become violent unless they have sex with a woman, willing or not), wrote the Ferengi so that in their society all women are naked slaves, and created the character Tasha Yar, who is supposed to be a rape survivor from a planet like Mad Max, but who tries to have sex with everyone on the crew in the second/third episode of TNG (The Naked Now) and in the next episode (Code of Honor) secretly wants to have sex with her kidnapper.
If that wasn’t bad enough, here is what was going on behind the scenes of Star Trek. A very abridged tale because it doesn’t include the many actress who played Kirk’s woman-interest-of-the-week and said they were harassed by William Shatner. Or the reason why Gates McFadden left the set for a year (rumored to have been harassed by Maurice Hurley, Gene’s right-hand man and the chief writer and showrunner for early TNG).
That show was fucked up as all hell.
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woozy #43
Very much so. “Up the Long Ladder” was written by Melinda M. Snodgrass (who also gave us “The Measure of a Man”). She tried to make an episode that explores the intricacies of culture, reproduction and human cloning. That is until the aforementioned Maurice Hurley saw the script and decided that this calls for a comedy episode, populated with everything he found amusing – Irish stereotypes and implied rape!
Re Star Trek (Woozy and Seven #38, #39, #40, #43, #45)
First off, I’ll have to skip ahead in my rerun to Turnabout Intrude. I shall brace myself.
Mind you, it wasn’t me who said anything about glimmers of hope in TOS. :)
I’d give Star Trek a good, well, positive rating in progressiveness in general, not for feminism in particular. As far as gender goes they really did not do that well. They fell for – or happily followed – many tropes and stereotypes for men and women. Extreme examples could be Troi (Empath, emotional, sensitive, caring —> female) and Worf (Emotional yet restrained, aggressive plus Klingon Strength and Honour —> male). If they really wanted to break preconceptions they should have reversed the genders. They even kind of did with the Tasha Yar … experiment (?) which ended quickly and pointlessly (her death being pointless was the very point of that episode). Whoops, there goes your strong female survivor type character, just because I can *splat*
The TNG episode with the cloners and the decidedly Irish farmers was rather bad. Aside from Picard’s charming ultimatum there is also the woman effectively leading the farmers. She was basically just another version of Mudd’s wife, the nag. And she went right for that ‘bossy women’ stereotype, bellowing orders, yelling, shouting and inspiring universal dread in the men – farmers, cloners, and starfleet alike. Because apparently that’s the only way a woman in charge can be like.
But Star Trek did get better at this. Both Janeway and Torres did were good characters I thought. Both occupied leadership roles, were good at it and, as a bonus, were technically minded, with Janeway being the scientist and Torres the engineer. Despite being in charge they steered clear of the bossy trope.
I’m not sure where to put Seven of Nine. She changed a lot over the course of the show and given the character’s background I’d struggle to differentiate between ‘female character gone wrong’ and a ‘feature of liberated Borg with literally no human experience whatsoever’. One thing I do remember reading is that the actress playing her apparently fainted repeatedly because of the skintight suit. That ought to have told the producers / writers / whoever* that this was a terrible choice of wardrobe. They could have put her in a uniform or virtually anything imaginable, but nope, it had to be the suspiciously curve-emphasising outfit.
*That and common sense, creative pride and higher standards for oneself for being involved in Star Trek. Bloody hell.
P.S.: Thanks for making me think all this through again. Makes me feel even more miserable about Star Trek. Damn!
Re: slithey tove #50
Sorry, your post wasn’t up when I started mine. I’d be happy to ignore the wardrobe from here on in. Incidentally, I wasn’t aware it was her choice, I just remembered an interview somewhere where she mentioned that she’d occasionally faint wearing it. It seems odd, but if it was her choice I’m not inclined to argue with it.
Re: Star Trek TOS,
I was in my teens when TOS started. I loved it of course. People have mentioned the sexism that is rampant on the show and I certainly agree, but I would like to point out that in those days, having a woman on the bridge of a military vessel, even as just a technician, was considered very daring. Yeah, I know, but it was. There was a lot of discussion about it. I heard people my parents’ age talking about how “unrealistic” that was. It was a huge deal at the time. An utterly competent, cool and collected professional woman working around all those men without behaving like a strumpet was unheard of unless she was 45, fat, and ugly. Watch any other TV show from that period and you will see what I mean. And to top it all off, she was black, too. I’m not sure, but I think she was the first black second-tier character (one step down from the main stars) who was not a maid. I Spy, the first American TV show with a black main character, was not until 2 year later (and CURSE that rotten bastard for tainting that achievement so horrifically).
Younger people see the “hints” of progressive ideology in it. It actually pushed some old, evil boundaries very hard. The consensus was that they could get away with it because it was “the future”. I know the mini-skirts and the confinement of women to largely traditional working roles of secretaries and nurses rankles, and it should, but it was a commercial venture in a culture of rampant sexism and it actually tried to reach past that a little bit. Again, yes, sexist as hell, but please give them a little credit for moving in the right direction.
komarov #54
She left the show on her volition. The way her death was portrayed was more due to the incompetence of the writers. Here is how she described her role (and why she left):
To the credit of later TNG writers they (*major spoilers*) wrote her a better death and brought the actress back in a different role.
slithey tove @ 50
First, I didn’t actually bring up 7s catsuit. Second, do you have a source for Jeri Ryan claiming the catsuit as her choice? Third, I don’t much care if it was Ryan’s choice. Having a character in a skin tight suit and extremely high-heeled shoes is obviously a sop to the male gaze.
Also with regard to the suit, Jeri Taylor, who famously insisted that Deanna Troi be given a proper uniform also has made feeble excuses for not also pressing for Seven to have a proper uniform. The argument was that Troi, being the ship’s counselor, needed to be respectable and so got to wear real clothes. Seven, because she wasn’t in a position of taking care of anyone, apparently wasn’t entitled to respect.
But it wasn’t really the suit I was talking about, or at least not only the suit. Seven was made to live in a damn cargo bay through the entire series. A room that literally anyone could walk into. She had exactly zero space on the ship that was hers.
komarov @ 54
The problem was actually the full blown Borg gear. There was a piece at her neck that pressed on her carotid artery when she turned her head a certain way. I don’t think she every actually passed out but it made her lightheaded. Once they realized what was happening they modified the suit.
Another thing about Yar was that she was always letting her emotions run away with her.
Roddenberry’s original concept for Betazoids (Deanna Troi’s race) involved them having 4 breasts. Thankfully he was at least talked out of that one.
And then ruined it again by making her the captive of the Romulans, rape victim, and unwilling mother of Sela.
Speaking of implied rape, the Voyager episode Retrospect.
It involved Seven suddenly having a viscerally negative reaction to a weapons dealer the ship encountered and having a panic attack when she was confined in the biobed in sickbay. After some prodding by the Doctor, Seven remembers having been accidentally shot by one of the weapons they were looking at and waking up on an examination table and hearing people talking about harvesting nanoprobes from her to sell. It’s pretty obviously meant to be analogous to rape.
Kovin, the weapon dealer insists that no such thing happened, but there’s an investigation. The Doctor gets very caught up in it and convinces Seven to be angry about it. He tries talking to her about dealing with her resentment etc. and her initial reaction is “what resentment”. Then the Doctor talks about what a terrible violation Kovin committed and Seven eventually becomes angry about it and decides she wants to see Kovin pay. The Doctor turns it into something of a personal crusade.
The initial idea is that the evidence at hand is consistent with Seven’s story but not Kovin’s but, once they research it a little further, it turns out that the evidence doesn’t support either story more than the other. Kovin ends up running away and when Voyager catches up to him (having discovered that they’re no longer so certain of his guilt) he doesn’t trust them and attacks. His weapons overload and his ship blows up.
The episode ends with Seven shouldering just as much of the blame for the whole fiasco as the Doctor even though he’d had been extremely leading when he was trying to get her to remember what happened and, by his own admission, knew nothing about her psychology. At the moment where Kovin’s ship explodes, Janeway turns to fix Seven with an extremely stern look.
I was really squicked by it because it plays into the whole idea of women frivolously accusing innocent men of rape and the men’s lives being ruined, etc.
sindi #46
I have to agree with previous replies: Any genital mutilation is wrong because the parents don’t own the child. The child, nor is any human being, a property – they are people with the right to bodily autonomy. Parents are custodians of their children and must act to protect their children’s rights, not to infringe them.
If anyone inquires the answer is no – parents can, and should, take care of their children. This includes telling them (not) to go to certain places or do certain thing, because those things can be harmful for the children, even if the child may not be aware of the danger or dislike being restricted by their parent. Nevertheless, the important issue is the child’s well-being – children are told to take unpleasant medications because that will benefit their health. In what way does genital mutilation protects the child?! If it doesn’t then it’s a needless, painful, surgical intervention that is completely unnecessary. If the answer is then the answer is that society must change, and you can point to many other societies that don’t practice genital mutilation, or even other Muslim societies that don’t practice FGM.
As for FGM as a sub-set of genital mutilation: The purpose of all FGM is to curtail the woman’s sex drive so that she’ll be a “better” wife. This means that at the woman’s infancy/childhood the nebulous desires of her yet to be determined husband are put above her own – she is a means to an end, becoming the “perfect” wife, societies dictates are put above her humanity – she has no right to choose whether to undergo the FGM or not, and finally her husband’s desires are put above her own – both because that’s the real reason behind FGM, and because in societies that practice FGM the woman is owned by her husband.
In short, FGM is the complete objectification of women at every stage of their life. It’s a central part of showing that women are less than human, their bodies are controlled by others for the benefit of others (be that their future husbands or society’s traditions).
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Seven of Mine #59
Oh, I forgot about that one. He also wanted the Ferengi to wear huge codpieces to cover their enormous dicks, as well as wanting their their culture to have twenty unique sexual positions which he was happy to elaborate on.
Good that was vetoed by the other execs.
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Ibis3 #60
Yes. They wanted Crosby back and that was their “brilliant” way of doing so – the daughter of a raped and later murdered Yarr.
Seven of Mine #61
Don’t forget “Blood Fever” where Vorik fights Torres because he’s undergoing pon farr and needs to rape her. Or “Body and Soul” where The Doctor takes over Seven’s mind and body and runs around doing “antics”, which include having Seven strip naked for him.
Star Trek was fucked up, period.
There are sort of factions of Voyager fans aligned along axes of which characters they “shipped”. Most people really hoped Janeway and Chakotay (known as J/C in fanfic lingo) would end up together. There are some people who are very appreciative of the Chakoty/Seven (C/7) pairing, me included. Then, occasionally you’ll encounter D/7 (Doctor/Seven) fans. Which is just gross because pretty much all of them, IME, cite My Fair Lady as the reason why. Seven is Eliza Doolittle to The Doctor’s Henry Higgins. The Doctor just deserves her because he made her suitable for decent company despite the fact that Seven makes it quite plain that she feels no physical attraction toward him.
I could go off on a huge tangent about how much I dislike The Doctor character but it’s mostly not a feminist thing.
slithey tove
Incorrect. ;) Jeri Ryan chose to work, she did not get to decide what costume she was wearing. It may be an old topic to you, but the Voyager series is brand new to me. Watching multiple seasons in a short time highlights the various issues with her evolving costume. The silver catsuit is commonly credited with a 60% rise in viewership, which in itself is an example of sexist bias. Seven of Nine does indeed have an amazing body, but IMO the series became more interesting and enjoyable after her character was introduced, and it is Jeri Ryan and better writing which should get credit for the increase.. There are excellent reviews of the various Star Treks on the geek twins, including Troi’s cleavage and 5 horrifying facts about Seven of Nines costumes The borg costume cut off blood flow to her brain. Not mentioned is the glaring obvious logic issue. Why would the Borg give her enormous Barbie boob armor in the first place? Borg do not reproduce sexually or breastfeed, so breasts would be irrelevant.
sindi @46
Most of my reply @22 applies to any genital mutilation. It’s irreversible, violates the victim’s rights, has no health benefits, and can have detrimental or hazardous side effects. AlexanderZ’s comments @62 are also germane. A parent is responsible for a child, the parent doesn’t own that child. AlexanderZ’s last comment about FGM is particularly good:
There are some medical conditions, such as paraphimosis or balanitis xerotica obliterans, which may require circumcision. But there are no good reasons why a medically healthy infant or child should undergo genital mutilation. “Because my culture approves of genital mutilation” is not a good reason.
Regarding 7 of 9—It wasn’t a “catsuit.” It wasn’t merely “skin tight.” It was a heavily corseted suit that squeezed the body into an unnatural shape. Take it off and you wouldn’t have the same body shape—that’s what corsets do.
We’re not talking about a suit that just happens to be merely “form-fitting.”
New Ghostbusters cast visits children’s hospital, attracts trolls:
But misogynistic and sexist comments would be ok, huh Facebook?
Can I put in a shout for Deep Space 9 as the most successfully feminist Star Trek franchise? Sure, it’s not without its flaws (to say the least), but it does have (IMHO) the two most fully developed female characters (Jadzia Dax and Kira Nerys), the best portrayal of a genuinely equal friendship between a man and a woman (Sisco and Dax), and even tackled some explicitly feminist themes – although those episodes were very badly hampered by the whole “comedy Ferengi” thing. I’d argue ’til I’m blue in the face that Dax and Kira were far better developed characters than either Janeway or Torres. Heck, even Leeta had some depth to her (sociologist, math whizz, union organiser), despite the fan service…
Dunc @69
Sure you can. Personally I think the two best TV SF series were DS9 and Babylon 5, both about people at space stations. Babylon 5 had some good, strong female characters, particularly Delenn and Susan Ivanova.
Reading the posts on the subject over at Butterflies and Wheels, I was wondering if there’s any consensus here regarding the controversy over Amnesty International’s proposal that sex work should be decriminalized?
Here are the two articles that Ophelia posted and commented on:
An article opposing the plan at The Guardian
One supporting it in the Independent
Many feminist organizations and activists oppose Amnesty on this, and instead support the Nordic model, which focuses on ending demand for prostitution. But of course there are plenty of others who view complete decriminalization as the liberal and progressive policy. There don’t seem to be many topics that divide otherwise likeminded feminists/progressives to quite the same extent.
Personally I’m skeptical that “abolishing prostitution” is truly achievable, and find the evidence that sex work encourages rape and harms all women to be quite weak, but I’m not sure that complete decriminalization (without strong regulation) is the answer either, considering the exploitation and abuse that goes on…
Josh
The corset was actually a separate article of clothing that was worn under the silver catsuit. It is pictured in my link at 65. Your comment started me thinking about catsuits in general. Though wiki claims that they were known in the 40’s, other more reliable sources show this term as coming into use in the 60’s, I assume as the name of the outfit worn by Catwoman and also Batgirl in the Batman tv show, but I can’t find anything to confirm my assumption. I am struck by how Batmans costume is never described as a catsuit, even though it is. To bring the catsuit subject full circle back to Star Trek, TOS, I also learned this trivia. Yvonne Craig, the actress who portrayed Barbara Gordon / Batgirl was also the green skinned alien woman Marta in episode #69 Whom Gods Destroy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Peel
This isn’t exclusive to female circumcision actually. Male circumcision was thought to cure masturbation and decrease male libido. Another common myth is that male circumcision delays ejaculation and thereby makes them better sex partners/husbands. It is also often claimed that circumcision makes the penis more sexually attractive to women due to aesthetic preference or an inherent grossness of the foreskin. Many men express gratitude for being circumcised because they believe that women would not want to have sex with them, especially oral sex, otherwise. Likewise, many women who are circumcised express gratitude, because they believe that if they are were uncircumcised they would be unmarriable and unattractive to men. Both men and women who are circumcised believe that their genitals are cleaner and improved. It is interesting that survivors of different forms of circumcision cope with living in a pro-mutilation culture in similar ways. Often by desperately searching for benefits and rationalizations to justify what was done, and minimizing, explaining away, or dismissing any harm. Unfortunately, this plays into the cycle of mutilation. When the survivors become parents themselves, they reason that “it happened to me, and I’m fine. therefore there is no reason why I shouldn’t do it to my child also.” Meanwhile onlookers within society hear “it happened to me, and I’m fine” and use such statements to shame and silence survivors who summon great courage to speak out about their anguish and suffering. Of course, we know that this is nothing more than victim blaming. This ignoring and dismissal is a way for the culture to become complicit in perpetuation the sexual abuse of children, because acknowledging the reality of the scale of cruelty is truly overwhelming. It is much easier to distract ourselves or deflect attention using “Dear Muslima” or oppression olympics derailment.
I’ve watched every ST episode, but was mostly bored to tears and/or appaled by most of TOS. With the exception of a few clever ideas and some actors being charming.
But is there any scifi from the 60s that wasn’t steeped in sexism? The most progressive work I can think of is The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). But just like all Le Guine’s books from the 60s it reeks of sexism. It was an important stepping stone towards her becoming the best author ever, but she still had a long way to go. She talks about some of her failures in the super fascinating dual self commentary Is Gender Necessary Redux.
@Tony #44,
Thanks for the inside info. I suppose in order to make the ad themes friendlier, FTB could still shop for a more responsive third-party site to regulate them. But I guess we beggars can’t be choosers.
@ Stephen #71
I’m in the “decriminalize and strongly regulate” camp, myself. It’s happening anyway and there’s no real way to stop it, so our goal ought to be making it safer for all involved. Criminalisation makes it more dangerous, particularly for the prostitutes themselves.
Hm, I do feel rather bad for us flooding this thread with Star Trek when other people are gathering all manner of intersting sources and things to read and discuss.
Still, on topic, I am not at all happy to learn about the toxic background to Star Trek. I try not to look behind the scenes in general because I rarely like what I see. Hollywood is not a nice place, methinks. Was Star Trek particularly bad in this regard or is / was (hah!) Hollywood generally at that level or worse?
Beside cursory glances I also avoided at looking too closely at Roddenberry himself, but I’m not surprised he had a hand in some of the most egregious … slip-ups such as the four-breasted Betazoids. (News to me) Nor would I be suprised either if the argument made against those was something along the lines of “Think how complicated the costumes and makeup would be” rather than anything sensible.
But to be fair to Star Trek (lore, not production), a lot of repair work was done over time, undoing or at least improving on things they had gotten wrong before.
Consider the first Klingon woman, clicked onto the TNG bridge by Q during the pilot. Essentially a bondage slave girl they managed to ‘overlook’ this manifestation, making later Klingon females into strong and independent (and fully clothed*) characters with their own agenda. In DS9 they also started to show up as regular crew on Klingon vessels, implying more equality for Klingon women (although DS9 lore also restricted their rights in some areas, e.g. cannot lead a house)
*Yes, I know, cleavage. But otherwise pretty much on par with their male counterparts, including weaponry.
The Ferengi are another example. In TNG they were all over the place but in DS9 they did manage to condense all those traits into something that actually worked and was an interesting pardoy of the unfettered capitalist.* Considering the constraints from TNG lore that was quite a feat.
Despite largely being for comic relief, the equality and social justice themes in some of the Ferengi-heavy episodes were still done very well in my opinion. By the end of the show Rom ends up in charge of the Ferengi Alliance. Meanwhile Ishka had already quietly been pulling strings to set change in motion. And Zek was her willing accomplice who understood the purpose of reform when he might just as easily have been portrayed as someone who was being manipulated by a ‘wiley female’.
That is a huge turn-around from the original Ferengi who didn’t have a fixed role and were – my impression – just used as a handy villain that could be ‘evil’ in whatever manner was needed during a given episode.
*Over the years they have started to look less and less like a parody…
Dunc, the women from DS9 are excellent examples, too, for all the reasons you list. The friendship between Sisko and Dax is actually a very good example I hadn’t conciously noticed before. It’s a shame that Hollywood in general seems to think that Woman + Man = sexual tension that will be explored on the show eventually. Usually at length, much to my annoyance.
Finally, I think all shows (except TOS, which was just episodes rather than a ‘series’) needed an extraordinarily long time to ‘develop’. I haven’t noticed this in any other Non-ST show, but the first season or two always struggle along. The writers and actors seem to know what they have to work with / who they are supposed to be but noone is quite sure what it all means.
Watching them in succession I think most people will notice the huge difference in ‘feel’ between first and last season of any show. By comparison other shows are almost constant, give or take some general character and storyline development here and there. With that in mind I’d like to think that even the characters that didn’t make it, e.g. Yar, could have turned out to be very interesting. But from what you tell me Crosby was right to get out of there.
Yeah, I mean, to be fair to Star Trek, they’re way ahead of the diversity game by virtue of even trying and they deserve credit for that. But they’re human beings immersed in the same bigoted culture as the rest of us. I think it’s good to keep it in perspective.
@ Stephen #71
I’d entirely decriminalize sex work, as many countries have. They tend to discourage brothels, but taking up the life of an escort is not unlawful in many advanced countries. And rightly so. So long as the woman is of age and free to make her own choices, she should be able to do so. I must admit to having known some escorts, and the vast majority are not drug addicts or sex trafficked victims. They are intelligent women, many with college degrees, and quite capable of taking care of themselves. Many have been in the business for years.
If nothing else, “feminism” confers the right to dictate one’s world for oneself. It is not, in my mind, a license to replace one set of restrictions with another set, no matter how well-meaning. If women are to have maximum freedom, they must be given tough choices to make, and allowed to make them unhindered. I have little patience with “feminists” who present themselves as rescuers and other women as victims. They are little better than the paternalists of centuries past. To me, “feminism” is a call for equality – in pay, in jobs, in life choices. Escorts (as most practitioners beyond streetwalkers prefer to be called today) are not perpetrators nor victims, but merely people earning a living.
Thumper
That’S actually two different things, but I admit that I only learned about the differentce between “decriminalise” and “legalise” last week myself.
“Decriminalise” means that you simply remove all laws that forbid consensual prostitution, “legalise” means you regulate, which can effectively criminalise sex workers again.
Germany is currently debating a change in law that would make sex workers have to:
-register with the police
-endure counselling
-carry secific “sex worker ID”
Of course there are many reasons why one wouldn’t want to do that, and it would effectively give abusive pimps and corrupt police leverage against sex workers again.
“End demand” is bullshit. Demand for prostitution isn’t that much affected by prostitution but by the rest of society. Criminalising either end, supply or demand, does nothing but to make sex workers pay the price.
Even if I believed that all sex workers are poor abused creatures who are forced into prostitution and who just need help to leave the industry, how could I logically demand that their lives be made worse, that they be turned into criminals?
Oh, and Brianna Wuget s a call from a Gamergater
No threats, but slurs.
After the depressing display of gamergate slime, here is something lighter:
SMBC: “If men continue to be socially unable to enjoy anything considered “girly” …http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3764
gah! Should be http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3764
Giliell:
I haven’t thought much about what would constitute a reasonable set of regulations, but it’s certainly not necessary (although it’s possible) that legalization would be bad for them. For instance, it could be about ensuring it is a safe and healthy working environment, or generally that they have all the same protections as any other workers do. And like everyone else, these people and businesses should be paying taxes (along with getting benefits associated with that). Simply revoking laws against it wouldn’t be setting up any systems like that.
Also, something might be “decriminalized” but there would still be fines or penalties or whatever. The idea is just that it’s not counted as a criminal offense, which requires something more than (say) a fine. It won’t go on certain public records, say, but that leaves a lot of room for harassment and abuse. A lot of the reason for giving people traffic tickets, seizing property, etc., is putting money into the coffers of the city or the police department — and having the opportunity to do that can also give them reasons to detain you, search you, generate suspicion about actual crimes you might have done, and so forth.
What are the arguments, from a feminist perspective, against genital mutilation? I ask because I’ve talked to multiple women who have a pro-mutilation stance…
Were those women you talked to feminists? Judging by your description, they don’t sound feminist at all.
And you certainly don’t need a “feminist perspective” to argue against any acts of mutilation of non-consenting children’s bodies, male or female, that are known to cause lots of verifiable damage and no medical benefit. Call me old-school (I plead at least half guilty), but I don’t see that as a “feminist” issue, because I learned about the idea of “not hurting innocent people without good reason” separately from the idea of equal rights for women. From my perspective, the only reason this seems like a “feminist issue” is that feminists seem to be talking about it more than their opponents.
I haven’t thought much about what would constitute a reasonable set of regulations, but it’s certainly not necessary (although it’s possible) that legalization would be bad for them. For instance, it could be about ensuring it is a safe and healthy working environment, or generally that they have all the same protections as any other workers do.
Arguments for legalization of such things as alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc., are mostly based on the idea that legalization will bring the activity in question “out in the open,” because people will be able, and willing, to engage in such activity without having to worry about the consequences of exposure. This does not apply to sex work, because sex is still a private activity (except for a few exhibitionists), and the people who pay for sex will still have good reason to avoid doing it “in the open:” they’re married, they have kinks they don’t want others to know about, or they just don’t want to be seen pursuing sex, etc. And for this reason, legalization will not bring anywhere near the same benefits to sex work as it brings to, say, the alcohol or weed trade. Even without the draconian phony “protection” rules cited @85 above, most johns will be repelled from areas of “open” sex-work activity, not necessarily because they’re sleazeballs, but because they just don’t want to be seen when they’re engaging in that type of activity.
I’m all in favor of legalizing and de-stigmatizing sex work; but we should not have too many illusions about how much good we can do in this area.
I’m actually just commenting for the sake of the email updates to the thread, but there is a thing I want to actually comment on as well.
Star Trek definitely falls short of its progressive aims. I think the original series was… less terrible than might have been expected for the time – on one hand, Uhura was a glorified space receptionist, but she was also 4th (I think 4th… maybe 5th?) in command of the Enterprise… of course that’s mostly subtext. I think she does actually take command once, but that’s it. But there are definitely too many “oh-ho-ho, women and their ways” things thrown in. I’m tempted to cite the existence of the female Romulan commander as well, but unlike deep-cover Sarek’s first appearance, she was defeated by seduction and misdirection rather than military guile. (I like to believe that, if we’d seen more Romulans in TOS, we would’ve seen a lot more women in command positions, and they would’ve been legitimate military and diplomatic adversaries, though this might be more a matter of wishful thinking than anything else.) There an awful lot of almost doing a good job, but it keeps on failing. I wonder how progressive it actually was at the time, though? I guess it’s worth remembering that, no matter how radically feminist they may have wanted to go, it still had to get put on tv… not that I think they had shining, perfect ideals that were torn apart by the networks (I mean… Spock’s Brain) but they certainly had to work within the limitations of what networks were willing to show… of course, I doubt they had a sexism quota to meet so… yeah, disappointing.
TNG has some good moments, some seriously shining brilliance, but the bad really does sour the rest of it. If you ever loved Star Trek, I beg of you, do not watch “Code of Honor.” That was… not good. So much space racism.
(Not that I don’t want to comment on genital mutilation or the legalisation of sex work, I just have much less to say that hasn’t already been said.)
That topless protest noted above in KW – Her Ex-Cellency went, and got to hug and talk to the immortal Gwen Jacob. She said there were a fair number of men there taking pictures and video, but rather more of them just being supportive.
I couldn’t take part, as my hip has been so bad for the last few days I’m basically bedridden. :/
Enjoying the discussion!
Raging Bee:
I don’t understand why their privacy couldn’t be legally protected in some way, since it’s a legal activity. I mean, nobody’s saying every legal activity has to be done with your doors open and published in the newspaper. So, along with having the possibility for some legal measures that protect customers (and workers) from disease and violence like I already mentioned, it could (if done right) make the whole thing less susceptible to blackmail and so forth too. Why not? Our doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, pastors, etc., are doing legal activities, and they’re expected to ensure some reasonable level of privacy. Correct me on this, lawyers: whatever rights to privacy a person (or *shudder* corporation) has is still an open question, at least in the US, but as it is those are enforced somehow to some extent, through contracts or regulatory schemes or whatever it might be. Honestly, the whole subject is very murky to me. But however it ought to be, I don’t see why that couldn’t or shouldn’t apply here as well.
re: sex work
What would be reasonable regulations? I don’t know.
I’d defer to sex workers to argue what does and doesn’t benefit them and listen to their arguments. I know they aren’t a homogenous group and naturally I agree with some opinions more than with others (for example I don’t buy “no condom-enforcement because people should be able to negotiate this freely” That stinks of the worst of Libertarianism and doesn’t take power imbalences into account.)
I think one of the things that needs to be established first is what is and isn’t sex work. UN Aid workers demanding sex in exchange for goods those very people are entitled to isn’t sex work. The boss demanding a blow job so you can keep your jobi sn’t sex work. The landlord demanding sex so you’Re not evicted isn’t sex work.
Offering sexual services so you can make the rent? Sex work.
All of this doesn’t even touch the problematic areas.
Many women only choose sex work because they have no other opportunities. And the potential to be harmed is exceptionally high. And this allows men to buy sex cheap*.
This is both a result, a reflection, and a consequence of the patriarchal inequalities. Guess what, so is cleaning. Women who have few other opportunities clean away men’s shit, and othen you have a racist angle as well.
We don’t try to change this by taking away the opportunities of jaintors, we try to change this by offering women more opportunities.
To cut a long argument short, I see many problems and problematic aspects of sex work, but I don#T see how any of this is solved by putting the burden on sex workers.
*Sex work is heavily male-centred. There are not many non-female sewx workers and even fewer non-male clients.
I think sex work should be a legal and honorable profession. Prohibition and the resulting black market does nothing to diminish sex work, and deprives the sex-worker of any legal recourse. When you let criminals run an industry, it should not be a surprise that the majority of people who benefit from sex work are traffickers and drug lords. I’ve recommended this documentary many times. It really made me think hard about the issues involved. It was written, and produced by actual sex workers. Their stories are varied, but many have a common theme. All of them are very open about the hazards (serial killers, violent johns and pimps, drugs) and the rewards of their chosen career. When the women are in control of their own product, it can be a beneficial and healthy experience for everyone involved. The film is American Courtesans and it is available free on Hulu.
I don’t understand why their privacy couldn’t be legally protected in some way, since it’s a legal activity.
In theory, yes, their privacy could be protected. In practice, however, sex workers would still have to identify themselves to the cops to report any criminal or harmful actions (and they’d probably have to name any clients involved as well); their clients would have to do the same if they were victims of crimes; and the very real and ever-present possibility of some bigot or other asshole misusing that information, or abusing the reporting party’s dependence on them, would have a strong deterrent effect on anyone actually using any of the recourse the law gives them. (Note that legalizing sex work probably won’t change male cops’ well-known hatred of sex workers.)
Just for something a little lighter. I stumbled upon this, I forget where, and have been enjoying it. http://archiveofourown.org/series/149352
It’s a gender swap of Harry Potter. He is now a she, Harriet, and Ron is now Ronnie. Hermione is still a woman. This is all fan fic, so its free to read. The author is currently writing book 4.
What I love about it, is it just isn’t a story about young women, it also touches on LBGT, racism, and sexism, which I really like seeing. There is a whole bunch more lore in these too. The US appears, there’s a civil war between native american mages and other mages. There are more various, magical creatures that play big roles, rather than just accidental characters. The friend group is also bigger than the 3 mains.. there’s a whole team of them, boys and girls. And I like that, because I don’t see that a lot. It’s always boys 2 or 3 and girl 1, and everyone else isn’t involved in whats going on beyond the ways they need saving. This actually lets minor characters be characters.
I love it. I’ve stayed up way too many nights in a row reading, just like I did the original. It is a real eye opener to the difference of telling more than one woman’s story at a time. So many authors think the key to writing a good woman character is to shove everything they think is ‘woman’ into one character and try to tell all the stories through one person. It never works and never feels right, because they all end up the same woman character, telling the exact same story, in only slightly different ways. (Which tends to boil down to, woman who is always only slightly less successful than the male hero, because the male hero has a special connection to the world. But, if she becomes the love interest to the male hero and follows him, then she’ll become a better person and will find that connection too, but only through him).
Tethys @ 93:
Aye, me too. I think sex workers should be able to unionize, too.
@Tony et al
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t usually comment but I couldn’t help posting in this thread with that video. Next time all add more of a description instead of just dropping links willy nilly
Regarding Original Trek I’m surprised no one has mentioned the first pilot, “The Cage,” which featured the character Number One, played by future Nurse Chapel(and Roddenberry’s girlfriend) Majel Barrett. Given her name she was apparently the second in command of the Enterprise, and behaved in a relatively emotionless manner that was incorporated into Spock when “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was written. Roddenberry claimed that NBC balked on the idea of a female in such a high position, but Star Trek producer Herbert Solow claimed in his book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, that NBC didn’t want a unknown actress getting the role just because she was involved with Roddenberry. Otherwise, according to Solow, they didn’t have a problem with the character. William Shatner has claimed that the character didn’t test well with female viewers of the pilot, which unfortunately might very well have been true given the era.
Whatever might have happened with the Number One character if she had remained the character of Nurse Chapel wasn’t much of a consolation prize. What do most people remember her for? Having a crush on Mr. Spock.
Senate blocks Planned Parenthood defunding measure
Caine, #99
Whew (for now).
That’s still pretty scary. Only 7% more of the Senate for it and it would have moved forward…
————————
Kate Mara has to sit through sexist (and racist) interview (looks more like an interrogation setting) regarding her role in Fantastic Four.
Article
re: Sex Work
I think it would be useful to quote the actual Amnesty paper on the issue, since both of the links in Stephen #71 (not blaming you) were biased and misinformed in their own way (pdf):
They further explain how sex work should be regulated:
The point about stigma is particularly important because in New Zealand, the country with one of the most liberal prostitution laws, sex workers complain that while they technically have legal rights, the enduring stigma prevents them from exercising those rights.
This is what they think of so-called Norwegian Approach:
However, the study they cite supports their conclusion (pdf):
Nevertheless, the law does have positive outcomes that aren’t represented in the Amnesty report:
It needs to be said that Amnesty conducted their own research on Norway (as well as other countries with various models of criminalization) with damning testimonials, but the full paper is only available to Amnesty personnel. For example, there is this from Norway:
Back to Amnesty:
Regarding the organization of sex work:
Leaving sex work:
Finally, they have this to say about the claims that supposedly nearly all sex workers are forced to do it:
____________________
All in all, I think the Amnesty proposal is well based on evidence and morality. I think anyone objecting to it must produce equally strong evidence (the Amnesty paper mas many solid references which I didn’t quote here) if their objection is to be considered.
Wow, that was a long comment. I hope that’s OK with you, Ibis3.
My own thoughts re: Sex Work:
I share Amnesty’s goal of harm reduction. It was already said that sex work is non-monolithic, but I think we can sort it into three classes – relatively privileged citizens who choose sex work, citizens who are forced into prostitution due to extreme poverty, abuse, addiction and the like (many LGBT people fall into this category), and immigrants who are used as sex slaves.
It seems that there is consensus that the latter two categories outnumber the first category in most countries. Also, it’s obvious that the people in those categories require immediate aid. However, those are also the categories that are least affected by any legislation. While many countries with wildly different approaches to sex work claim to have reduced street prostitution and women trafficking, their reports are contradicted by others, or are partial. The most vulnerable people in prostitution already exist outside the law and the same is often true of their “clients”.
It seems that only vast changes in the way society approaches homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and economic inequality between nations can help those people and that’s not something that can be done by one law.
So what’s left? The first group. They’re not the most in need, but their well-being also matters and they most likely to benefit from legislative change. However, even they claim that legislation is only the beginning of change.
New Zealand’s prostitution reform (pdf) are very close to Amnesty’s proposal (curiously, the NZ report also shows a reduction in prostitution) and many sex workers in NZ welcomed it. However, they’ve said that the main problem they face is social stigma, which effectively nullifies many of the laws achievements.
If stigma is a major problem then any criminalization is wrong, including the relatively benign Norwegian model.
_____________________
Giliell #92
Tethys #93
Caine #96
All of that has been tried in Holland and failed miserably. The result was huge increases in women trafficking, criminals taking control of previously non-criminal areas of cities, and the decrease in well-being of all sex workers – citizens and non-citizens alike.
I know that this seems to contradict everything I wrote previously, but we can’t discard the Dutch Reform if we wish to change sex workers’ lives for the better (strangely enough, Amnesty’s paper never mentions Holland). It would appear that too much legalization is just as bad as criminalization, if not worse. It’s a good thing that Amnesty’s paper stresses the importance of certain regulation, because this looks like one of those issues that requires a two-pronged approach – both legalization and very strong monitoring and regulation.
_____________________
Athywren #88
You can click “subscribe” in the “You can also subscribe without commenting.” line below the comment box.
One final thing – Greta Christina had a post about sex workers’ experiences which I think is relevant. Read the comments section.
***Curator Q&A***
@AlexanderZ #102 Wow, that was a long comment. I hope that’s OK with you, Ibis3.
Yes. :)
Caine, #99
That’s good news. The downside, I expect, is it will encourage the forced birthers to go out and vote in the next election?
More good news on the same front this week: RU486 has finally been approved by Health Canada. Which will hopefully have the side effect of helping to disenchant Canadian forced birthers about voting for Harper again.
And check out this story I just found when looking for the link above. Women on the Waves’ new project: delivering RU-486 via drone into Poland.
Submitted before pasting the link. Here it is. http://metronews.ca/news/world/1407955/abortion-pills-being-delivered-to-poland-by-drone/
Alexander Z
Has it, or is that just “what everybody knows”? Because I know that there were similar debates in Germany after the very liberal prostituion law did not yield the wanted results (for example, sex workers can have “sex worker” as their legal profession, pay and receive social security, but to this day less than 10 people actually did so). And there were claims of a massive increase in forced prostitution and trafficking. It was claimed that before the world cup half a million women were forced into prostitution, but there’s no actual evidence for that.
I am interested in reducing trafficking, poverty prostitution and rape. But often the problems cannot be addressed by adjusting the “prostitution” levers.
If a woman has no other option than sex work to pay her rent and is harmed by this, no change in the laws regarding sex work will help her. If an Eastern European woman is tricked into coming to Germany for “domestic work” and forced into prostitution with the nice hint that it would be really bad if someting happened to her old mum and little brother, how can laws about prostitution help her? I mean, sure, the traffickers and pimps should be prosecuted, but she will hardly go to the police and tell them, will she?
I agree that sex work is different from most other lines of work, which is why we cannot simply take what’S working there and apply it. Stigma is a huge point, so is “casual” part time sex work, something that’s hardly possible in any other line of work. According to sex worker associations in Germany, a significant part of sex workers is part time on and off, often women who hardly make ends meet and who decide to do sex work for a few days when something unexpected happens like a broken washing machine. There are clearly other methods needed to address this than there are for waiters and jaintors.
That sounds more like a problem of Holland being unprepared to deal with those other crimes than with legal prostitution itself. Of course if prostitution becomes legal, those who would engage in human trafficking and other abuses are going to be drawn to that place because they can’t get busted specifically for prostitution. It makes a convenient front for the other shit they’re doing. But that doesn’t mean prostitution itself is the problem. People always seem to forget that human trafficking, abuse, rape, assault and theft are crimes in their own right when the subject is sex work.
I can only speculate about the Holland example, but I wonder if sex workers had any input? The documentary I recommended has several excellent suggestions, and since Kristen DiAngelo was lucky enough to survive all sorts of criminals including a serial killer I think her suggestions would be far more effective than anything a bunch of politicians came up with. Speaking of Ms DiAngelo, her twitter feed is an excellent resource on the subject and the source for this link What’s the right Way to Protect Sex Workers?
Another link to an excellent article, with praise for Australia’s policy, and data from New Zealand’s study. These 3 Graphs Could Change Your Mind About Legalizing Sex Work
The cover image of New York magazine is kind of amazing, powerful, and unsettling. ‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen Dare I hope that some of the sexism battles we’ve been fighting for the past few years are starting to actually create social change?
Bad news this morning…
Announcing the shutdown of the Ada Initiative
@ Caine
Saw that on my twitter feed a bit ago. I has a sad. :(
Seven of Mine @ 112:
Yeah, got an email about it this morning. They did such great work, necessary work. I wish this wasn’t happening.
When I followed Tethys’ link in #110, the sidebar also sent me to this very short article:
Huckabee Floats Plan To Deploy U.S. Troops To Stop Women From Getting Abortions (Their reference is a bit more detailed)
(Emphasis mine)
From the original source:
Not knowing that much about US politics I’d assume this is campaign bluster more than anything else. But even for a bluster its an odd thing to say and Huckabee must have thought it would score him some points, which is rather telling of the right-wing attitude to women. On the other hand I should think the promise to use armed forces on US soil against US citizens wouldn’t play well even with extreme right-wingers even if they are quite happy to indulge in double standards.
If a candidate wanted to take inspiration from Jefferson and Lincoln I’d recommend calligraphy and stove-pipe hats. Practically no chance to alienate voters that way and it would certainly set them apart from the competition.
Satirical sketch by Amy Schumer about access to birth control. Wait for the bonus punchline at the end.
This is a followup, sort of, to Caine’s link at 99.
Some Republicans are finding other ways to cut funding for Planned Parenthood:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jindal-louisiana-planned-parenthood-medicaid
Just occurred to me to throw in one of my favourite good news resources: http://www.amightygirl.com/ – they have a particular focus on bringing up children, and try to cater for as many interests as possible, plus brilliant book recommendations. I follow their Facebook feed and their long posts are always worth reading through. I know there’s plenty of bad news out there too, but when I want something that celebrates the achievement of women, and encourages future generations to emulate that, this site never fails to make me smile.
Concerning Planned Parenthood and women’s reproductive rights, Hillary Clinton had what I think is the best analysis of the recent hullabaloo:
Politico link
Elizabeth Warren also made some great points during the discussion about the Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood:
Salon link
Another link for the speech by Elizabeth Warren.
I have a hard time coming to grips with the idea of building a society that considers buying sex an acceptable thing to do. How can a sex buyer ever be sure of consent? Even ignoring trafficking and forced prostitution, how could anyone ever be sure of consent in a situation where there is such a huge power imbalance? To me, a sex buyer is someone who knows they may be raping someone but just doesn’t care. Or am I just being ignorant?
I agree that protecting sex workers, who obviously aren’t doing anything wrong, should be the main priority. But there must be a better way than giving sex buyers a pass and a pat on the back? Right?
In today’s world, escorts do not get surprised much. They can vet a prospect before a date is arranged through email and online sites. No escort is ever expected to schedule a date that bothers her in any way. Reasons are irrelevant – the client may simply remind her of an ex, or set off her spidey sense. Many are in the business for years and have a wide stable of regulars. She arranges for other security measures too that I won’t go into. But there is little power imbalance. A client who mishandles an escort will never again get scheduled with anyone who frequents the same sites – there are warning forums and other alarm methods that instantly take him off the “see him” list. She also has her “menu” of acts she will perform, and woe betide the client who insists on going “off menu”. Again, he will lock himself out of the community for quite some time. If he schedules and does not show, again he will be blacklisted. If he refuses to accommodate to her security measures, he likewise will be reported and will go unsatisfied.
It’s a common misconception that the client has all the power. In some circumstances, that’s true. But the vast majority of working escorts have as much or more power in the transaction as the client. Today’s escort community is well organized. Some will not see newbies; some will after vetting him. Ladies who do not follow these processes are spurned by the more businesslike ones, because they endanger all.
Under no circumstances do regular clients or ladies tolerate the possibility of rape. Ditto underage practitioners. Law enforcement may wink at regular escort services, but underage or trafficked women will set off huge attention, and the community loathes being spotlighted, as you might imagine.
I really hope everything you’re saying is true and representative. But even if that’s the case, there are more factors regarding power. I’m talking about economic factors. How would a sex buyer know if the escort is happy about selling sex or just feel like they have no other choice?
Daniel Dunér @ 121
I mean if your neighbor offers to paint your house because they need to earn money fast to cover some unexpected expense, do you worry that you’ve coerced them? I’m not following why you think consent would necessarily be unclear.
The choices of literally everyone on this planet are limited by circumstance. If we avoided certain transactions unless we were certain that the person involved was really happy with their work, nothing would ever get done.
Also, if it wasn’t clear, I wasn’t talking about rape in the sense of forcing sex via violence. But rather having sex with someone who isn’t in a position to properly consent.
I didn’t think you meant using violence to force sex.
But if you’re excluding trafficking and forced prostitution, that leaves you with people who have chosen prostitution as a means to keep a roof over their head. We don’t apply this standard of “but are they really happy with it” to anything other than sex work.
The idea of equating every type of “service exchange” is a very foreign (libertarian (?)) idea to me. Not all actions or “services” are equal. Sexuality is special in many ways, which most people seem happy to accept in almost any other discussions. We usually don’t equate coercing someone into sex with coercing someone into something else they don’t want to do (like painting a house)… except when money is the means of coercion?
But why is sexuality special? The fact that it’s taken as self-evident by most people doesn’t mean it is. I’m asking you to justify why it’s coercion by default just because it’s sex. I mean the hypothetical person painting your house would probably rather be spending their Saturday doing just about anything else, but they’d also rather keep a roof over their head than not paint your house. Why is sex work different?
Or phrased another way: why are sex workers in particular not in a position to consent to that difficult choice?
It’s another unfortunate myth that escorts are desperate women. Again, there is a distinction of hierarchy. Some streetwalkers are indeed desperate and addicted. But that’s the case with any profession. As Thoreau noted, most of us live as quietly desperate people. True professionals in the sex trade are often doing it part-time, and may well have degrees – in some cases advanced degrees. The ones I know are uniformly smart, funny, accomplished, and leave no doubt that they’re willing participants.
For all of that, how do you know that ANY woman is not being coerced in some fashion, when they’re so skilled at hiding that from men? Is she doing it just to calm him down? To make him tractable and willing to do something for her? The escort clientele has a saying that you pay for sex whether it’s monogamous or with a sex worker. The difference is that you always know the professional’s price and you pay it precisely once. And by the way, it’s considered extremely bad form to haggle over the price. A good client either accepts her rate, or moves on.
There are some sources you can consult. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and The Commerce of Sex by Elizabeth Bernstein; Paying for It by Greta Christina; Sex Secrets of Escorts: Tips from a Pro by Veronica Monet. And these are only three. The latter’s title is very misleading. The book is not about sex, but about Veronica’s experiences. She points out that a great many clients at her level don’t actually want sex per se, but a companion. She relates how she’s participated in their hobbies and listened to their troubles.
Other sources abound: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/meet-high-class-escort-who-revealed-5850501
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_de_Jour_%28writer%29
I believe that Daniel is the unwitting victim of his own upbringing. There is a contingent of people who believe that sex is somehow bordering on the spiritual, that it’s so intimate and complex that it must be kept contained somehow. The temptation is to think that women who have happy frequent sex with multiple partners are somehow in need of protection. It’s likely quite unconscious. But if you can strip away the romantic association with sex from sex itself, it’s easy to see why it’s an entire industry.
Other countries do regulate the industry, mostly by banning pimps, brothels, underage participation, and so forth. I think England does a fine job of finding a golden mean. There, a woman may freely ply her trade in sex, so long as she is not pimped or in a brothel. Canada was the same way, but is now starting to succumb to the American insistence on dictating the world’s prudery.
Seven of Mine, since I’m trying to understand your position, I hope it’s OK if I respond with a few questions.
If sex isn’t special, then…
… why do we make such a huge difference when it comes to nagging? Nagging someone into helping me paint my house makes me bad friend. Nagging someone into sex makes me a rapist. Right?
… why do we make a clear difference between sexual assault and other forms of assault? Should we stop doing that?
Also, I’m definitely not saying that all people who choose to sell sex are victims or can’t consent. What I’m asking is how a buyer can be certain that proper consent exists?
I’m happy for escorts who are happy about their work. But that’s hardly the entire picture. To directly quote a woman from the documentary Hot Girls Wanted (about the porn industry):
“That last part I hated. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I could tell him no.“ (my emphasis).
bayes, yeah, sure, I’m actually a spiritual, prude, misogynist who subconsciously pity all my poly/open relationship friends >_>
***Curator mode***
@bayes
Please don’t speculate about the “victimhood” of other commenters’ upbringing. That kind of statement is inviting personal quarrelling. Thanks.
***end curator mode***
Daniel Dunér @ 133
We’re not talking about nagging, though. We’re talking about someone standing on a street corner or working in a brothel, etc. and offering these services to people willing to pay. Just like in my example I used a neighbor offering to paint your house. Nobody is nagging anyone. In the case of sex work, if the prostitute says no to a client and they nag until the prostitute gives in…well, yes that’s rape. But that has nothing to do with sex work.
Because they’re different kinds of assault? I mean we make a distinction between all sorts of different kinds of assault. There’s common assault, there’s assault with a deadly weapon, there’s vehicular assault and there’s sexual assault.
And I’m asking you, if you don’t think people who choose to sell sex are incapable of consent, why do you question that they’re actually consenting when they’re literally the one offering to perform this service? These are not consistent statements.
Minor correction, the quote should have been:
“That last part I hated. I was terrified, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I could tell him no.“
But if someone is saying they don’t feel in a position to say “no” then they’re being forced, which is something you said you were excluding:
From your # 121
Seven of Mine @ 135
I’m asking about nagging, because I’m trying to understand the idea of sex not being special. if sex isn’t special, then why make a difference between nagging about sex and nagging about painting?
I don’t think people selling sex are always and automatically unable to consent. But I believe that there are plenty of circumstances where external pressures does preclude proper consent. Because, well, I do believe sex is special in many cases and for many people, so the default required level of consent has to be much higher than for other things.
Who is making a difference between nagging about sex and nagging about painting?
Seven of Mine @ 137
I meant directly forced, for example via violence, threats of violence etc.
Daniel Duner
You @ 126
Seven of Mine @ 139
Well, plenty of feminist writers I’ve read and the big sex organizations here in Sweden. I haven’t specifically asked them about painting houses, but there is often a big emphasis on nagging regarding sex and how it is rape. “No means no”, etc.
But you don’t consider those types of nagging fundamentally different from an ethical stand point?
How Our Schools Are Failing Black Girls
More at the link.
Seven of Mine @ 141
Yes? I’m not sure if we’re misunderstanding each other. I’m talking about people being in a position where they feel they have to say “yes” (because of non-violent reasons, like economic desperation or social pressure) but actually would want to say “no”.
Daniel Duner @ 144
But again, the neighbor offering to paint your house. They don’t want to spend a weekend out in the sun painting your damn house. There are a million things they’d rather do. But a weekend painting your house is preferable to sleeping under a bridge for the foreseeable future. The woman who is doing sex work out of economic desperation doesn’t want to have sex with that guy but the rent is due and sex with a stranger is preferable to sleeping under a bridge for the foreseeable future. Why do we trust the house painter but not the sex worker to make that choice?
And to be clear, I don’t accept “sex is different because reasons”. I’m not interested in an appeal to the attitudes of society at large about sex. I’m asking for a fact based justification for sticking sex in a whole separate category from any other service one person could perform for another.
Daniel @126:
Both of these things are rape.
@133:
Nagging someone about sex, in and of itself, is not rape. The person doing the nagging is an asshole engaging in sexual harassment. If the nagger attempts to engage in sex, then they become a rapist.
****
Regarding your comments about sex being special-that’s an external value placed upon the activity by humans. It isn’t inherently special. In fact, for some people, sex *isn’t* anything special.
[Sorry for butting in again.]
Compare and contrast:
This White Feminist Loved Her Dreadlocks – Here’s Why She Cut Them Off
and
It Has Begun… Allure Magazine Provides Step-by-Step Instructions for White Girls to Achieve an Afro
I believe the term that Daniel Duner may be looking for is survival sex. Strong social safety nets, and access to education and good paying jobs for women would mitigate women being forced into sex work as a last resort. The courtesan/ escort relationship is then an adult, consensual, mutually beneficial business exchange. There have been many times and cultures in which Courtesans were high status, independent, and valued members of society. New Orleans in the late 1700’s was famous for the beautiful women of the French Quarter. If wiki is accurate, in 1788 there were 1500 free women of color who lived very comfortable and independent lives in the city, and were well compensated by their benefactors. Excerpt on the subject from a very racist book written in 1943.
Seven of Mine @ 145
Because sex is special? Or isn’t? Which is why I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from on that issue. I get the sense that you think I’m trying to “win” the argument in some sneaky way by changing the subject. But I’m honestly trying to understand your position, because I believe you are more knowledgeable than I am. I’m really struggling to understand the idea of sex not being special.
There are other things that I also consider worth banning, even if they are preferable to living under a bridge. For example, getting payed to harm yourself (though I’m not saying they are directly comparable!). Maybe I’m being naive, but I want to believe that there are better solutions than giving rich people a free pass on harming desperate people. No blame can be put on the desperate person, but I don’t find it unreasonable to put limits on what those with power can do to others.
Tony @ 147
Yes, both are rape. But I made the distinction because I’m interested in the ability of sex buyers to know if proper consent exists.
Regarding nagging. Hm, I guess that makes sense. But in that case, is there a difference between rape and successfully nagging someone into painting your house?
Is it really an external value? My understanding is that sex is inherently pretty central in human psychology and it often provokes strong emotional and physical reactions, in a way painting a house generally does not. I’m also fully aware that there are plenty of people who don’t have that connection to sex, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe to assume that everyone feels the same way.
Tethys @ 149
Thanks, survival sex is a big part of it but it doesn’t capture the entirety of what I’m getting at. The quote/video I linked to earlier was from a woman who voluntarily chose to enter porn, but ended up in a situation where she didn’t feel like she could say no.
bayes #131
Now where have I heard something like this before … maybe from people who think all women are essentially parasites and golddiggers out to exploit men, and never independent people who may engage in sex from choice …
The model where sex is always and only a transaction, a transaction where (to a first approximation) men buy and women sell, is – problematic, to say the least.
Daniel @150:
Nagging someone into painting your house is not a violation of an individuals’ bodily autonomy. Rape is awful because it is a violation of an individual’s right to exert control over and dictate what happens to their body.
Crap. Forgot this part.
Daniel @150:
I can accept all of that, but does this demonstrate that sex is special? Important, perhaps. But special?
Daniel Duner
I don’t think you’re being dishonest. Sex work is not my strong point. It’s not something I consider myself knowledgeable about. I just feel like you’re predicating your whole argument on the premise that sex is just magically different because it just is and I’m trying to get you to articulate why. So far you’ve been unable to do it. If you can’t demonstrate that your premises are true, your argument is not sound.
@Daniel
Human psychology is heavily impacted by culture and socialization. Even brain physiology is impacted by your lived experiences. Sex being important to human psychology doesn’t preclude that importance being an external value.
Daniel
If sex work was legal, she would have full access to all the rights accorded to workers. It isn’t consensual if consent can not be revoked at any time. Sex workers currently have little to no legal recourse. They don’t have the luxury of even reporting the crimes committed against them, for fear of being prosecuted.
Maybe I’m being unclear on my position re: sex being “different”.
Nagging someone for sex involves nagging them to give you access to their body. Nagging someone to paint your house does not. In that sense, yes. Sex is different from other kinds of services.
However, when it comes to sex work, if we exclude human trafficking and forced prostitution, we’re not talking about nagging. We’re talking about a person making a choice to stand on a street corner and flag down passing cars to offer sex in exchange for money. Or accepting a position at a brothel or escort service and showing up to work. They may have made this choice because their options were severely limited by circumstance but it is still a choice. Literally every job I’ve ever had is something I would have said “no” to if I’d had better options. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t in a position to properly consent to them. If financial desperation doesn’t mean I can’t properly consent to a job as, say, a portable toilet cleaner, why does it mean I can’t properly consent to sex work?
Tony @ 152, 153
So bodily autonomy is what’s special? That does make sense and I tried to articulate something like that earlier. But I don’t think all violations of bodily autonomy have equally strong effects. I would guess that bodily harm and sex place pretty high on the scale for most people, while hugging or hair cutting can be terrible but generally place lower.
By saying sex is special I don’t mean it’s unique, but that it’s different from painting houses. Maybe the difference between doing stuff you don’t want to do, compared to having stuff done to you that you don’t want to. Where sex is one of the more special/powerful things that can be done to most people.
Seven of Mine @ 154
Yes, I’ve tried to mostly ask you about your position in order to understand it. You’ve tried to make me articulate my position. Which means we’ve sort of been talking past each other. It’s just that I currently don’t really care if my argument is valid, I’m mostly trying to understand your position. So that I can sit back later and properly consider my position. So I haven’t really been interested in elaborating on what I believe.
But I think I’ve at least partly explained why I think sex is special. Most psychological theory I’ve been in contact with seem to treat sex and sexuality as a powerful forces in the human psyche and identity. It evokes strong emotional and physical responses in many people. Being raped or “just” having sex and later figuring out you regret it can have powerful psychological repercussions. While none of these things seem to be generally true about doing boring, menial work–like painting houses.
Seven of Mine @ 155
Sure. But I don’t think it’s mainly external (for example, look at people trying to live up to celibacy ideals or “change” their sexuality). But maybe my data is just biased? I guess we could look up some research on it. But I’m not sure if it’s important. Whatever the reason, if sex is important to the psychology of most humans, then my position isn’t really impacted by the reason why that’s the case.
Tethys @ 156
But the quote was from the porn industry in the USA, which is legal as far as I know. She entered into the porn industry voluntarily and was interviewed after a situation where she felt she couldn’t say no.
Seven of Mine @ 157
I never tried to compare nagging to buying sex, they are two different things. What I wanted to understand was the idea of sex not being “different”, and tried to ask questions which would help me understand your position. Because, as I mentioned earlier in this post, I think there is a difference between feeling forced to do something boring and feeling forced to have your bodily autonomy violated. Where I think it’s reasonable to prevent those with power to violate other’s bodily autonomy. At least for now…. in the long run I naturally want to limit their ability to force others to do stuff more generally.
Daniel @ 158
I really don’t understand why you think those examples represent an internal value human beings naturally place on sex. Celibacy ideals usually come from religion as does the idea that sexuality can be or needs to be changed. These are quite clearly external forces.
Sex work is choosing to allow someone else access to your body even though maybe you’d rather not. Choosing sex work because you’re out of options does not mean your bodily autonomy is being violated. You are making a choice. It may not be an ideal choice; you may wish there was any other way to get the rent paid but it is a choice. Being “forced” to do something out of necessity is not the same as being compelled to do that thing against your will.
Daniel
I am far from an expert on sex work, but I have educated myself on this issue. There are very few places in the US where filming porn is legal. Even if it is legal, the people producing the porn are not exactly law abiding, sex positive feminists, and the police don’t put much priority on protecting the sex-workers. I think you would find the documentary in my #93 very interesting, it addresses those issues in depth.
Seven of Mine @ 159
Exactly, religious attempts to suppress the forces sex and sexuality always seem to fail. My point was that certain aspects of sex and sexuality seem to be inherent/central to humans. The importance of sex isn’t a culturally imposed thing. The way we think about sex certainly is influenced by our culture, but I think many emotional and physical reactions, the need for intimacy and the need for personal space is innate in most humans.
Yes, the person selling sex is making a choice. I don’t see how that fixes the problem with the sex buyer not knowing if proper consent exists. I guess it’s one of those liberal things (“people should be able to do whatever they want”, considered right wing here in Sweden) that’s lost on people like me with more of a socialist leaning (“we must protect people from abuse from those with power”, considered left wing). You’re talking about people selling sex being allowed to make that choice, I’m talking about the responsibility of those with power to not abuse desperate people. I really don’t see how sex buyers can be sure they’re not engaged in acts where others feel forced to have sex against their will.
Do you draw any lines when it comes to people with power exploiting those who “choose” to do things against their will? We both agree that painting houses can be against your will and that we won’t realistically get rid of that dynamic anytime soon. But I also consider the potential harm in doing boring/exhausting stuff negligible compared to having sex against your will. Do you think there are things that cross that line, that should be banned now even if people would be willing to “choose” them?
I’m going to give a few examples that are not meant to be comparisons with prostitutions, again I just want to understand your position.
Do you think it should be legal to pay others to sell their organs, mutilate their bodies, sell themselves into slavery or be submitted to torture?
Tethys @ 160
But if sex work was legalized it would hardly be handled by law abiding, sex positive feminists either. Right? If someone openly being filmed for a documentary has a hard time saying no in porn, how can a sex buyer ever feel sure that an escort feels safe enough to say no behind closed doors?
Daniel @161:
I understand that this is what you believe, but you’ve yet to present evidence to support this belief. Just because you hold this opinion about sex (and emotional or physical reactions, as well as the need for intimacy) does not make it true.
Tony @ 162
I’m not sure how I’d present evidence in a satisfactory way? But I’ll make an attempt to link some sources.
Bodily violation in the form of rape or sexual assault seems to have a greater psychological impact than other traumatic events:
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/ptsd/rape-related-ptsd-issues-and-interventions
Intimacy seems to be a fundamental human need.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/infant-touch/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865952/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2088015
I’m not sure if I need to provide evidence that the body reacts physically to sex.
Daniel
Prohibition didn’t work, and created huge profit streams for crime syndicates. The sex work industry will exist either way, and it is far more likely that decriminalization and strict regulation that empowers the sex worker instead of the crime syndicates will result in sex positive, feminist porn becoming the standard.. Women are being harmed now on a daily basis. The status quo is unacceptable. We do have data and models of what works and what doesn’t work, it seems reasonable to enact them IMO.
Open communication and negotiation before you ever get anywhere near the doors. Strong trade organizations that provide support, mentoring, and education for sex workers so they are aware of common danger signs, or how to enforce their personal boundaries. Please watch the documentary. Listen to the sex workers. They are the best authority on how to make sex work safe for themselves.
Tethys @ 164
My (fairly limited) understanding is that decriminalization hasn’t worked properly, either. I don’t share your optimistic views of feminists magically taking over all sex related industries. Do you have any data on this happening anywhere? If legalization actually is the only workable damage minimizing option, then I guess I would be forced to accept it. But I don’t believe (don’t want to believe?) that other options have been exhausted and evaluated properly.
But my main question in this discussion is a less utilitarian one. Which is the accountability of sex buyers and their ability to make sure they aren’t raping. Or having sex with people who actually don’t want to but have chosen to do so anyway, if we’re not considering that rape.
I can’t watch the documentary on Hulu (I’m not in the US) but I’m looking into other options.
Daniel
Yes. I have links to that data at #109 and #110 in this very thread. There is nothing magical about it. It’s merely a matter of extending the rights and protections of workers to include an extant black market industry. Money is power. Legalization puts that money and power into the hands of the sex worker, rather than sex traffickers and drug cartels.
I would plead that no one use documentaries as evidence for anything. Documentaries are by their very natures propaganda. Few documentary producers are truly even-handed. And even those that strive for fairness are betrayed by need to edit down complex concepts to compelling visual and aural snatches and quotes.
Part of the problem here is that we are paring the question to the bone, yet have placed no rigor around it. What is “consent” anyway? Courts are wrestling with it, and philosophers have argued over it. Is sex consensual when one of the partners is dreaming of that Caribbean vacation that starts the next day? What is “power”? What is “control”? We sling these words with vehemence and assurance, yet never quite get around to defining them. We assume that the others know what we mean, or even what WE mean, when it’s not at all the case. It’s long been said in the dominance part of sex work that the submissive is really in charge, and it’s remarkably true. How can that be? If both partners honor a safe word, is the submissive in control, or not? Definition is the most difficult part of any discussion, but the most essential, because when words are completely defined (which never happens in practice, of course) the argument itself suddenly crystalizes.
Asking for a clear and unmistakable indication of “consent” is asking too much. When I buy something from a homeowner at a yard sale that is obviously old and well used, there is implied consent to its sale by putting it out with a price tag on it, yet there are times when I put down my money I see reluctance and discomfort in the owner’s face. Has consent truly taken place if there is reservation about it? Language is a wonderful thing that simultaneously enlightens and confounds.
Simply the fact that we’re discussing sex work in these terms is somewhat disturbing, actually. It implies, sotto voce, that we have a right to act on our conclusions, and I’m not convinced that we do. In an ideal world, individual choices would be sovereign, but of course in a real world of interlocking social connections we can’t be so cavalier. Some behaviors must be monitored and controlled. A deli owner who sells tainted meat may kill unsuspecting patrons, so we create a Board of Health to prevent as many illnesses and deaths as we can. But the line should be drawn at a demonstrated social problem, not where squeamishness dictates. It’s that gut-level bias that has consigned women to roles in the past because no one ever bothered to do the calculus of rules versus individual cost.
Sex work, of course, is portrayed by its critics as victimizing the perpetrators, a curious position if there ever was one. But it permits the critics to occupy both perches at once, as protectors of the society and protectors of the poor, misguided women. Then they make documentaries to demonstrate the supposedly factual situation. Few ever seem to be angry or indignant about male migrant workers who toil in unbelievably awful conditions for pittances. No one questions their consent. But somehow sex work is deemed different, perhaps because it overwhelmingly involves women and their happy dismissal of chastity.
Economists have a way of slicing through these fogs. They talk about conditions as comparative, with nothing being absolute. If an impoverished and illiterate 15-year-old girl migrates from the farm to the city to work in a sweat shop, it is indeed abhorrent by our standards, but it is very likely somewhat better in her eyes than staying on the farm, where labor is backbreaking and constant and opportunities for any betterment are few. Insisting that our retailers eschew all such manufacturers assumes that we know that working in them is not consensual, when we know nothing of the kind unless we’ve lived among them.
We should be hesitant to airily apply our learned standards, biases, and hastily acquired partial and distant knowledge to those who actually make daily decisions. It’s a fallacy that our legislators have never adequately overcome. The sex workers I’ve come to know are like everyone else, driven by impulses and needs and making daily decisions. The ones who plan to exit the profession are no more victims than are underpaid mall store retail clerks or frustrated artists in law firms. Sex slavery is miniscule on the ground, and is scant real reason to condemn all sex work. And not all sex workers are delighted with the profession’s demands. But then, most people I’ve known in my life have pursued multiple careers looking for greater satisfaction. That sex workers would dream of it is little reason to assume that they are somehow specially in need of protection.
seven of mine
Yes, actually that means it is special to most people. It does not mean it must stay special. It is a cruel thing to play hyper rational and dismiss the harm people suffer as simply “false consciousness”. There are obviously sex workers who are OK with offering access to their bodies and there are those who are greatly harmed by it, despite all of them having started sex work from similar positions.
Tethys
That’s the whole point IMO. Discourses about sexuality and sex work are needed, but when the question is “what can we do now to make sex workers safer?”, they’re irrelevant.
This is exactly what I meant. Clearly I haven’t been expressing myself well. I’m sorry I sounded like I was being dismissive of real harm. I only meant to argue that whatever harm is caused is not necessarily an inevitable outcome of engaging in sex work. Much of the harm is caused by culturally unhealthy attitudes about sex in general and sex work/workers in particular. Criminalizing sex work doesn’t do anything to address those attitudes or help people who end up doing sex work out of desperation avoid exploitation, etc. Criminalizing it clearly hasn’t stopped it being a thing. It’s just a lot less safe for people who do find themselves in that position because of stigma and having no legal recourse when crimes are committed against them.
Criminalizing sex work seems like a band-aid that doesn’t begin to address the real problem of people resorting to it out of financial desperation. If we want that not to happen, the answer is to help people avoid that financial desperation in the first place, not to throw them in jail for trying to make a living the only way they perceive they can.
Seven of Mine
Agreed completely
MAybe there is someting intrinsically special about sexuality for some people, maybe there isn’t, but we currently cannot know.
Since we’re on the topic of sex work, I wanted to discuss something that I’m having a hard time thinking through. I’m no expert on this topic at all so maybe I’m missing something very fundamental.
If sex work was completely and fully normalized as an occupation (which it should), then we could have sex workers working for legal and legitimate companies (because if it’s a normalized occupation, why would people only freelance?) which would be subject to the various labor rules and regulations, just like a painter, to go with your example, Seven of Mine.
My question is if in this context sex is being regarded as “normal and not special” as painting someone’s house in exchange for payment, then will that employee working for that company face penalties for backing out of a contract at the last minute? What happens if I’m a sex worker and my employer has signed a deal to have sex with a customer next week at a specific time. And then when we meet on that day, I decide “no, this isn’t something I want to do”. Wouldn’t it be considered unjust and abusive for that company to put pressure on me for doing this? Would it be right for me to lose my job (and my means of feeding myself and my family) over exercising what is fully my right as a human (not having sex with someone I don’t want to at any given moment)?
So it seems like we have a bit of a dilemma here. Sex work should be completely normal without issues of coercion like painting a house. But then the notion of bodily autonomy enters into the picture and does make the specifics and logistics of the occupation quite tricky. Or are there other services and jobs where such a dynamic exists? I’m trying to think of examples from currently normalized professions. Can a massage therapist working for a clinic refuse to give a customer a massage solely because they don’t feel like it at the last minute and not be penalized or lose their means of income for it? I think I’m picking massage here because that seems close to something that involves bodily autonomy.
For practical reasons, sex work, even if legalized, would not be brought under the same economic conditions as house painters. For one thing, the specter of sex slavery has caused even those countries that legalize individual practice to ban brothels and pimps. It’s a reasonable place to draw the line, I think. You lose economies of scale, but gain a measure of assurance that the lady is indeed in it for her own reasons. In places like England there are essentially “pimps” but they don’t conform to the common stereotype. Rather, they’re usually older women who engage escorts as contractors and arranges for their appointments. Most authorities leave them alone unless there’s reason to step in. Belle used such an intermediary.
There is also the problem of stigma. Few escorts admit to the whole world what they do, because they know what the trolls will likely do. Like cats, they rely on cover to maintain security. Even family members often don’t know. I know of one escort who was a “traveler”, meaning she ventured to different cities in her region and set up appointments ahead of time there. She had years in the trade and a regular string of willing clients in each location. But her son had no idea what she was actually doing. Interestingly, she traveled with her beloved little dog.
Many escorts just prefer to be entrepreneurs. The modern Web makes it possible. I’ve been mightily impressed with how well the ladies run their businesses. There are spats, inefficiencies, and so forth, just as there are with any businesses, but on the whole there are few problems compared to the number of appointments. These appointments take place constantly, all day and all night, in every urban and suburban area. I’d bet that there is one happening right now within 50 miles of just about every contributor here. The sheer numbers are enormous, but vastly underestimated by the “civvies”.
bayes @167:
Consent is not hard to understand. People obtain consent all the time for all manner of things:
“May I borrow your phone to call someone?”
“Can I use your laptop to check my email real quick?”
“Since you’ll be at work all day, would you mind if I used your car for some errands?”
No. It is not. In the case of sexual activity, it is absolutely vital in ensuring that both parties are willing to engage in a particular sex act. The type of language you’re using is, quite frankly, scaring me.
****
There has been another shooting:
I think it is relevant to this thread because of the movie he went to. Fury Road is a movie with a strong feminist message.
@Alexander Z
Thanks for the links. I’d read Greta’s post a year or so ago, but lost the link.
I agree with Giliell that sex is special today for many (most?) people, but we don’t know if it needs to stay that way. I don’t think we’ve found evidence of that in monkeys generally (or has anyone heard of such findings?). We do live in a culture of shame, particularly body shame and sexual shame, so that probably contributes a lot.
As for improving the position of sex-workers, I think (moral) destigmatisation is probably as important as legalisation. I’ve never understood how doing something for money should be morally wrong / contemptible, if paying someone to do it isn’t.
A group of 10-year-old kids were kicked out of a basketball tournament because there was one girl on their team.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2015/08/05/3688390/basketball-team-girls-disqualified/
bayes
Clearly you have not watched American Courtesans. It is written and produced by sex workers. Their stories are directly relevant to this discussion I am quite sure that the opinions and experience of sex workers constitute evidence. For anyone who wants to understand how the industry operates or why women would choose to be a sex worker, it is very enlightening.
@Tethys
The reason I have little faith in documentaries is that most documentarians do not pursue a truth, but attempt to argue for an a priori position. I have much more faith in academics, books, and the like by those who have cause to know. It tends to be more reasoned and balanced. First-hand knowledge is good, supplemented by research by qualified individuals. American Courtesans may be balanced, but most documentaries are not. That’s why academics don’t cite or rely on them. Witness the horrendous ones produced to discredit Acorn. If one can watch a documentary and retain the base skepticism of “Well, that’s one person’s opinion”, then they likely do little harm. But it’s possible to rely on them far too much. When a student once insisted that I watch Waiting for Superman, I responded that I didn’t need to – I was familiar with the literature and knew the material already. He wasn’t satisfied with that answer, because he wanted me engaged emotionally too. That’s the danger of documentaries, the substitution of emotion for sober truth.
As to the issue of consent, assuming too much freight in a word is a sure way to foster misunderstanding. A definition of a word should include whether the user means an absolute or a relative meaning. In the case of consent, how can anyone be sure that any “consent” is truly pristine and pure? If I ask to borrow a cell phone from a friend, how can I be certain that the friend is not complying only to placate me, and not because he is truly sanguine about surrendering his phone? It’s not hard to imagine degrees of consent, ranging from grimacing reluctance to joyous compliance, although it might be hard to tell which end of the spectrum is active at any given request. That’s why I still maintain that an overt behavior cannot convey the degree of consent. That is a state of mind. If a woman sighs and turns to the bed, saying “Let’s get this over with!” she is arguably consenting, but only a narcissist would conclude that she’s happy about it. In such a case, has she “consented” in spirit as well as behavior? Her behavior is beyond question but her state of mind has likely not yet reached what most of us would accept as real consent. Consent is such a view is not a binary condition, but a range of shades of conditions.
This is why I contend that asking for “consent” as an unmistakable signal is asking too much. We act on what little we observe, and that must be enough. Human communication is enormously noisy. A firm “No” is unmistakable, but “Oh hell, I guess!” is in the middle somewhere. She may have just consented legally, but from a relationship standpoint, the consent is not so easily inferred. A lawyer would doubtless see this scenario differently than would a therapist.
Re: Lynna OM #175:
Waiting to disqualify the team until after they had played several games and were moving towards the finals amplifies the apparent pettiness by a factor of 10.
Make that 100. Because once something is contaminated with ‘girl’ there is no scrubbing it clean.
———————
And for a change of pace, something a little more lighthearted: Feminists in the wild
(Video linked via WeHuntedTheMammoth because that’s where I got it from and because I don’t want to bungle up youtube links and accidentally embed something)
Consent is easy. I hope what I am about to say doesn’t violate PZ’s new discussion thread policy, but several comments by Bayes have set off all my Bayesian priors. “Warning, warning, this person is not to be trusted.” , though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me until I read his opinions of what is consent at #177. (ugh…no)
Coupled with the rambling at 177, it seems clear that Bayes is a male dom who frequents sex workers. it is also clear that he is all about trying to push their boundaries for his own gratification. I would never get behind closed doors with this person, even if you paid me. I also really don’t like the squicked out reaction I am having to his comments, but that just might be me.
Tethys @179:
No. It’s not just you. I’ve cringed several times reading their comments, bc I’ve seen the ‘consent is too difficult to obtain’ “argument” too many times. In my experience, there’s a certain group of people who make those claims. I don’t like those people at all.
***Curator mode***
@Tethys #179
These are the rules: “The idea is to simply inform. Share ideas. No fighting.” If ” it gets gossipy or turns to arguments between participants” PZ will be shutting it down. To that end, I’m going to try to keep discussions from getting derailed by discussions about commenters, their motives, or their characters.
If you want to discuss the definition of consent or critique bayes’ framing of it or how what they’ve said makes you feel, please go ahead. If you want to ask them about their sexual behaviours I don’t see a problem. Let them speak for themselves, or not, as the case may be. But don’t speculate about another commenter’s trustworthiness, gender identity, sex life, or attitudes toward their intimate partners. Thanks.
***Curator mode off***
Perhaps this is a good time to dust off the CCC once again.
CCC (Crystal Clear Consent)
* First of all: Understand that if you go forward with initiating sexual activity not knowing if consent exists, you may or may not be raping someone, but you have proved beyond a shadow of doubt that you are willing to rape someone. Black areas make you a rapist, grey areas make you willing to rape.
* Making absolutely sure that consent is obtained and mutually agreed on. This does not include trying for consent when a person is not in condition to grant consent.
* No doubts as to whether consent was obtained.
* No guesses as to whether consent was obtained.
* No assumptions as to whether consent was obtained.
* No doubt as to whether any partner was capable of giving consent at the time.
Crystal Clear Consent includes Fully Informed Consent. Consent granted under deception is not CCC, it is manufactured consent.
* If you use deception to gain sex–impersonating another person, lying about contraceptive use, failing to disclose STDs–you are denying your partner the right to fully informed consent.
* If you are not sure whether or not you have an STD, disclose this uncertainty. If consent is granted, take responsibility and use protection. Just because you didn’t know for sure is not a defense.
* If you whine and wheedle about using protection a/o contraception, you are not in CCC territory. You are willing to rape.
* Lying about or withholding information that, if known, would’ve resulted in dissent is rape.
* If you consent to X activity under Y conditions and the other party changes those conditions to Z, then you have not consented to what is happening.
Crystal Clear Consent Practices:
* Understanding that consent may be withdrawn, by any involved party, at any time. Initial consent does not mean you get to carry on if consent has been withdrawn. In other words, people are allowed to change their mind at any point.
* If you have not had sex with a given person before, mutually understood language with confirmation is the best way to attain Crystal Clear Consent. Relying on body language or assuming consent without clarification is nearly always insufficient with a new partner. As you get to know your partner(s) better, you will get better at reading nonverbal / nonlingual cues, but clear communication is still absolutely necessary. It is important to remember that rape can still be committed within the confines of a relationship, at any stage. Consent that is not communicated is not CCC.
* If your partner is communicating something, do not assume that it has nothing to do with consent.
* If you initiate or offer and are declined in the context of a specifically romantic, sexual, or flirtations setting, do not initiate or offer again until one of the following four occur:
1. the other party has taken a turn initiating/offering and been declined by you.
2. the other party has taken a turn initiating/offering, was accepted by you, but after the activity lapsed you wish to restart.
3. it is an entirely new romantic, sexual, or flirtatious setting.
4. An amount of time has passed that is inverse to the number of times they have accepted your offer before. While it may be acceptable when dating to offer again in a week or in a closer relationship to initiate again after, say, one day [or whatever is the negotiated norm in said relationship] it’s not acceptable to ask someone again if you’ve just met them.
* If you initiate or offer and are declined in a context that is not specifically romantic, sexual, or flirtatious, do not initiate or offer again. Seriously.
* If you’re beginning a new relationship or going for a casual hookup, enthusiasm is key! Your new partner should be enthusiastically and happily involved with you. If no enthusiasm is present, it’s best to go for more communication and put off sex for a while.
* A person who wants consensual sex doesn’t want to commit or experience rape, and a person who rapes does. Whether a given rapist wants their victim(s) drugged, unconscious, frightened, intimidated, trapped, manipulated or tricked, or just pestered until they give in, the rapist wants the end result to be that a rape happens. That includes being forced to penetrate someone else.
* Contrary to what is often thought, consent is not difficult. If you still aren’t clear at this point, read this: http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2011/09/20/consent-is-hard/ and this: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/06/if-consent-was-really-that-hard-whiny-dudes-would-fail-at-every-aspect-of-life/
* Don’t want to listen to us? How about MIT:
Effective Consent is:
– informed;
– freely and actively given;
– mutually understandable words or actions;
– which indicate a willingness to participate in
– mutually agreed upon sexual activity.
@Tethys #179
I interpret your comments as inviting a response. And the fact is that you are mistaken on both personal counts. But even if I were engaged in such behaviors, it would not affect the point I’m making.
Humans feel compelled to do things for reasons other than intimidation. This complicates the very idea of consent. A very good book on the subject is “Influence” by Cialdini. For example, there is the effect of consistency, in which we strive not to appear “flaky” to people whose opinions we care about, so we act consistently even when such consistency is inconvenient. For example, a mother who has let her child play with her cell phone for years may feel reluctant to let that child play with her new one, but be mindful of the howl the child may issue at what seems like inconsistency and consequent unfairness. Many times, we do things just because refusing is deemed more trouble than it’s worth. Is this coercion? Possibly. Is it true consent? Arguable.
This is why I said, above, that consent may mean something radically different to a prosecutor and a therapist. A woman throwing up her hands and saying “Okay, if that’s what you want, fine!” might satisfy a legal definition of consent, because she did not say “no”. But a therapist might well see that statement as lacking true consent, because emotional agreement seems absent. Consent, like any other state of mind, is ripe for endless interpretation and fine distinction. Ask any long-suffering prosecutor who has been called upon hundreds of times to determine whether the facts in a case justify a charge. Only a small percentage are so egregious and obvious that charges are a no-brainer.
By the way, the dynamics of BDSM are psychologically fascinating. Here’s a rather interesting blog entry by a professional dom exploring whether the statement that the sub has the power in the relationship is accurate: http://67.159.222.79/sadiescolumns/sub/subincharge.htm. You can find yet more about it by reading authors like Greta Christina. There is now a surprisingly large literature on all forms of sex work.
To sum up all of my statements to a single point: It is no one’s business what a woman chooses to do with her body, whether to preserve it eternally sexless, or use it to make money. It is no one’s business who sells sexual services, and who buys them. These absolutes come with the expected exceptions: no coercion, no underage participation. The woman must be a free agent. I recognize that these states have gradations – all distinctions do. But they will suffice for the time and place. And I recognize that this is a Western viewpoint, not shared by a vast number of those not raised in my society.
Ibis
I apologize for speculating, I did not mean to cast aspersions. Let me rephrase. I find bayes comments about how consent is difficult and fuzzy to be immensely triggering. I reasoned that others were having the same reaction.
Thank you.
I scrolled down before I read most of your response, and I truly do not care what activities consenting adults engage in. Your posts about consent depict harassing/pressuring a partner into grudging compliance. I fail to see how they are relevant to a discussion about legalization of sex work, and really don’t wish to discuss it further at this time.
@Caine #182
What you’ve listed is a fine attempt, but it doesn’t suffice for understanding. Nor do any of the policies promulgated by MIT or any other institution (MIT, by the way, is not the final word on as many things as is commonly believed). Writing more words doesn’t necessarily improve focus.
The problem is that all words have vagueness. If you want a sorry slog of proof, read case law, especially at the high federal levels. It’s astonishing how much can turn on an interpretation of a word that most would swear is all but impossible to misunderstand. And “consent” is one that’s gotten batted about more often than a cat toy. Words like those from https://medical.mit.edu/community/violence-prevention/consent, such as “informed” and “enthusiastic”, can be traps as easily as declarations. How is one “informed”? To what degree? How does one determine enthusiasm? Insisting on stolid sobriety before accepting consent will entangle a vast number of otherwise consensual occasions.
This may seem like pedantry, but anyone responsible for enforcing such policies knows that it is not. No lawyer would believe so. This is a problem known to researchers as well, who encounter the need to “operationalize”, or make concepts visible and to differentiate. Machine learning has the same problem. It occurs everywhere in all forms of investigation and practice. Every such attempt inevitably concludes that exercises in policy interpretation are like any other form of test, populated with true positives, false positives, true negatives, and false negatives. Thousands of lawyers earn their daily bread by debating interpretations of language, even language that’s meant to be strict, as much of legal language is intended to be. Want more exhibits? Look at the Everest of case law around the simple concept of acceptance in contract law, which is roughly equivalent to “consent”.
A policy is generally desirable, but simply having one, or listing one, is but one step in a journey of a thousand tentative, delicate steps.
bayes @ 185:
There were a number of collaborators on the CCC, it’s not some sort of attempt, special for you. As for not sufficing in regard to understanding, well, that’s pure bullshit. I’d recommend you stop attempting to clothe yourself in wordy obscurity, in favour of simply stating whether or not you think consent should always be obtained and observed. Contrary to many of the cries heard over consent, it’s not at all complicated.
An anti-choice group is sending out their propaganda via Canada Post as our federal election campaign started up this past Sunday and the two major opposition parties are definitively in the pro-choice camp. Some mail carriers are upset and refusing to deliver it.
@Tethys #184
Thanks.
CCC isn’t sufficient for understanding what, precisely, Bayes?
Because CCC isn’t a definition of consent. It’s not there to help anyone, much less any one particular special snowflake, understand consent.
Rather it’s a statement of why consent is important and some suggestions about how one might obtain it IF one actively seeks the goal of not hurting others, not violating others, putting a point just-fine-enough on it, not to rape others.
Of course there are misunderstandings about consent. Of COURSE there are different definitions of consent that apply to different contexts, even to different sexual contexts.
The conclusion one is to draw from that is not that
Let me quote from the CCC:
You’re not actually fighting over definitions. You know what consent is. You simply don’t know if it exists in certain cases. To wit:
If you honestly can’t tell if your sex partner is consenting, then you have several options. But let’s just focus on one. Imagine not knowing if your sex partner is consenting to a particular act, but choosing to go forward with that act or not.
Now regardless of your confusion, your sex partner either is or isn’t consenting. So in choosing to go forward with the particular act in question, you are either raping someone, or you are not, and you don’t know which.
If you choose to do something which may or may not constitute rape, and you are aware that it may or may not constitute rape (as you are aware of the ambiguities in whether or not a person has consented), then the choice to do that thing fundamentally requires a willingness to rape.
You can certainly be willing to rape if you want; I prefer my partners to be unwilling to rape. So do many other people. Thus the CCC provides tools for thinking about not-so-much about what consent is (though there is a little of that) but why it is important and what to do when one is not certain of another’s consent.
The fact that you believe that it’s “asking too much” that people clearly indicate consent is strong evidence that you believe people shouldn’t ask their partners to be unwilling to rape.
That’s fucking frightening.
Chicago Blackhawks player Patrick Kane is being investigated for possible sexual assault.
Canada Post worked out a deal with the union and other mail carriers have agreed to do delivery of those anti-choice pamphlets.
Giliell @ 81
Actually no, decrimininalisation means that the activity is no longer a criminal offince. It does not mean that there are no regulations. The Prostitution Reform Act 2003 in NZ specifically states:
In addition to the basic framework of rights and requirements the Act creates, Local Government Authorities can (and do) set by-laws around areas in which brothels may be established, the size and nature of the brothels, signage and whether street walking is forbidden. In theory a Council could try to ban prostitution completely within their territory, but in practice our planning laws would make that impossible. Note, they could not make the act of prostitution illegal, just the operation of a brothel. however, the only Council I am aware of that stated the intention to do so backed down after getting legal advice.
CD @ #189
Well said. I’d Q the whold thing FFT but that it’s a bit long for that.
I also think that bayes‘ #131
is problematic in that it seems to me to imply uncritical acceptance of the notion that in all het encounters the man is essentially buying sex and the woman is essentially selling it. This is a belief that inevitably muddies thinking both about actual commercal transactions in actual sex work, and about sex which is not a commercial transaction (as well as implying that sex as a mutually consensual activity between equals simply doesn’t exist, and that women cannot and do not ever enjoy sex but only engage in it for ulterior motives; again, problematic to say the least).
Anti-feminist misogynist and rape advocate, Roosh Valizadeh is in Canada, a petition having failed to keep him out of the country. The local media seems to be doing some decent pushback.
—
A Montreal woman, Cheryl Bau-Tremblay, was killed this past week. Her boyfriend has been charged with first degree murder. She was five months pregnant.
Target stores to end gender-based signage
Re Saad’s comment #194, good. That’s one small step for Target. I wish other stores would follow suit.
In other news, a Catholic hospital in Illinois is causing big problems for women who want control over their reproductive rights:
https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/mom-denied-procedure-during-c-section-sparks-125525974617.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/a-risk-of-harm-catholic-hospitals-ban-on-tube-tying/383903/
What You MUST Know About Planned Parenthood and Black Women, and how the attack on Planned Parenthood is important.
More points at the link.
An update on the protest against Roosh V in Montreal. Denis Coderre, the mayor of Montreal made a series of tweets denouncing him.
It was bound to happen. FHRITP type sexual harassment has escalated into assault. Megan Batchelor, a CBC reporter while reporting live from a music festival in BC was approached from behind and kissed on the cheek by a man who took a selfie of it. She’s reported the incident to the RCMP. Hopefully this won’t catch on.
Re #198:
Just watched the clip and ‘what the hell!?’ springs to mind. Batchelor carried herself extremely well, though I’m not quite sure if this was professionalism and will power or if maybe she herself was too surprised to actually react in the moment.
As for this not catching on, assume the worst. The clip is already on youtube and it’s the sort of thing that will probably ‘go viral’. And the FHRITP-crowd will think it’s awesome. So brace yourself for copy-cats and worse.
The following excerpt is from an article about Ronda Rousey, arguably the greatest fighter in the world:
You know the little tag line they put on the screen when they do reports on the news? The CBC coverage of the incident is calling this “CBC Reporter Rattled On Live TV”. Otherwise, the coverage seems to be taking the incident very seriously so that’s good, but I gotta say I’m not pleased by that. It seems to be trivializing to me. Also, I’m thinking that it sets up the future harassers and assaulters of women journalists with a great name for what they’re doing.
Ibis3, it looked to me like the man harassing the female reporter was arrogant, young and stupid.
@ Lynna
Yes. I agree. It’s a troubling trend and I expect it will escalate fast.
A man in Huston, Texas apparently shot and killed his girlfriend/ex/mistress(?) , her husband(?) and her 6 children. He’s been charged with murder.
Remembering Dr. Claudia J. Alexander:
Now that she dared to question some of Donald Trump’s misogynist comments, Megyn Kelly has been the target of attacks from Trump (including more misogyny), and she is being attacked by other right-wingers.
Right Wing Watch link
What amazes me about this additional commentary from the right is that they invariably focus on Kelly’s appearance, and then they disparage her appearance.
Virginia Wesleyan College is being sued by a rape victim over their falsification of the academic record of the man who drugged her. Now the school “Demands Rape Victim’s Entire Sexual History, claiming those details will help establish her credibility.
—
A man in Dubai has been charged after letting his daughter drown because he didn’t want her being touched by strange men, viz. the lifeguards.
Ibis3 @207, I certainly hope that rape victim has someone in her corner to fight that ridiculous demand for her entire sexual history.
Only 13 states in the USA require that sex education be medically accurate. There are no standards. John Oliver addressed this issue:
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/08/10/john_oliver_is_totally_flabbergasted_by_american_sex_education_that_is_some_incredible_misinformation/"Salon link
Scroll down for video.
Bad or non-existent sex education classes in middle school and high school is particularly bad for females.
WTF
http://www.kltv.com/story/29721876/judge-sentences-east-texas-man-to-get-married-or-face-jail-time
Ex BF disses woman. Current BF gives beats him. Judge order woman and current BF to marry within 30 days or he goes to jail. Oh, and he has to copy out bible verses.
I mean WTF!
Toronto’s mayor, John Tory, has tweeted his own denunciation of Roosh V as has Mississauga mayor, Bonnie Crombie.
Good on Daniel Davies who apologised for his assault on Megan Batchelor. A real, sincere, thoughtful apology. He’s done at 17 what many guys twice his age would balk at doing.
I just hope the harassment Batchelor’s received since reporting the incident will die down. Her twitter feed is full of assholes.
My boss, who is an odd mix of liberal and conservative, referred to and addressed colleagues (fellow loan officers) as “girls” during a meeting this morning. And I don’t feel comfortable bringing it up to him because of the negative response I’ve gotten from other managers (some of them women) at the same employer when I brought it up to them in the past. I know banking is a conservative field and upper management is primarily men, but at least 2/3 of the employees are women. I wish we were beyond this.
In the Are You Fucking Kidding Me Department, Bic thinks it’s still 1955 as demonstrated by their ad for Women’s Day in South Africa:
Everyone on my Twitter feed was talking about that Bic image. Some of the comments on the FB page are pretty great. There response was basically “we meant it to be empowering so it is”.
@Yellow Thursday
That’s a very tricky situation. How’s your relationship with your boss?
@Ibis3
Apparently, my relationship with my boss is better than I thought. I worked up the courage and mentioned it to him in private, and he completely agreed that he shouldn’t have said it. I told him that I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but I had noticed how he addressed the other loan officers as “girls.” He said he hadn’t realized he’d said that, but that he was glad I’d brought it to his attention because he shouldn’t say things like that. He didn’t quite apologize, but as long as he changes his behavior, that’s what’s important.
So it turned out to be a good experience.
Yellow Thursday @217:
Glad that turned out fairly well for you.
****
South African women speak honestly on sex in new web series:
@Tony!
I’m taking you up on your offer to help, if you can. I’m away all day tomorrow, so I’m wondering if you could you keep an eye on things? I don’t expect a fight to break out (especially as no controversial discussions seem to be currently ongoing), but you never know…
Ibis3 @219:
Sure. I can do that.
Hey, I have important news to share! We’re done with the patriarchy, everyone! The Microbiome Destroyed It (along with the ego and vaccines). Witness the destruction:
Oh, wait. This is actually a guy using a bit of microbiome overhype to lecture women on the correct ways to have babies, and on how having them via a C-section and then daring to vaccinate them is so so so bad that it’s like the poor kids are not even human anymore. How do you dare, women. Tell your OB to fuck off and let the anti-vaxxer idiot manage your birth experience instead!
Sure, this has something to do with the patriarchy. But “destroying” isn’t quite the word here, is it?
, but need to be supported by men to , because that’s the . He calls this feminism. Or rather “Birth Feminism”. Except this is not feminism at all. It’s sexism dressed as woo.
As a woman, as a feminist, and as a microbiologist, I feel all around disgusted.
Nightjar #221
That is an … interesting … article.
Full of ducks.
May the Source be with you!
Fascinating. So apparently “genetic density” is an important factor. A rotten can of corned beef probably hosts just as much genetic density as the – any – microbiome. I’m not sure what the implications of that are but they are sure to be as profound as any of the author’s musings on the microbiome and the patriarchy.
But I’m glad to see he managed that sharp turn from the microbiome through pregnancy to the evils of GMOs and industrialised agriculture, fitting it all into a single article. It saves me reading another one.
chigau,
:)
***
komarov,
Someone should probably inform him that if the genes of our microbes are going to be taken into account for species definition purposes, it’s not just the humans that are born through C-sections that are going to be classified as a different species. It’s practically everyone. Soon enough you would have 7 billion species of former Homo sapiens on Earth. It’s complete nonsense.
Yeah, I’m not entirely sure how GMOs ended up there. I don’t even know how the vaccines got in there.
The C-section stuff I get. It’s undeniable that the microbiome of babies born via C-sections is radically different from that of babies born through the birth canal. The former start off with their gut flora resembling their mother’s skin flora, the latter start off with it resembling mother’s vaginal flora. And yes, it is very likely indeed that this has important consequences for their health and that the vaginal-flora babies are better off.
But going from this to “women should all give birth at home, endure as much pain and risk as possible, otherwise their kids are a DIFFERENT SPECIES and they will never experience SOURCE nor be offered a a window into the ‘IN BETWEEN’!!! Well. That’s just. I don’t even.
The reasonable thing to do, of course, is to look for solutions. Reasonable solutions. Like manually inoculating C-section delivered babies with vaginal bacteria. There is some research being done into this already. C-sections aren’t going away, no matter how much this guy wants it to happen. Neither is the spiritual experience-denying epidural (another thing that I’m not sure what the microbiome has to do with it).
This guy is basically using some cool discoveries about our gut flora to try to lend some credibility to a) his anti-vaxxer idiocy and b) his view that women must necessarily suffer during delivery, otherwise it’s cheating. Needless to say, it doesn’t work.
Big trigger warning for rape.
An article in the NY Times looks at the theology of rape promulgated by ISIS.
New York Times link
Trigger warning for rape.
See comment #225 for the beginning of the discussion of ISIS and the theology of rape.
More on the organized nature of the sex trade started by ISIS
A comic takes a look at online harassment:
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/wicked-divine-online-harassment/
Egad, holobionts? That article has multiple head desk scale errors, but this line really stood out for it’s sheer density of wrong.
Huh, I have given birth three times, and died once. I found the two experiences completely opposite, and I have never heard anyone describe giving birth as deathlike. Dying was completely painless. Labor and delivery redefined the word pain, but it was also kind of amazing and empowering.
Parents file lawsuit against doctors for performing “corrective” surgery on their intersex child
Saad, #229:
I really don’t like the way they decided to end that article…
Because in all of the history of humanity, no intersex children were born up until the age of modern medicine and surgical intervention. None. Not even one. Therefore not mutilating children could be awful for them!
Rowan,
Exactly. I also wonder what these awful, unpredictable risks are that will show up when the kid’s a teenager. I’m afraid they may be related to the existence of bigots and fears about how the kid will deal with discrimination. And it really bothers me that some people think the solution for that is to mutilate children so that they won’t upset the bigots and their cherished binary thinking. Instead of going after the bigots they go after the kids. It’s so fucked up.
***
On a different note, a friend just pointed me to this Pitchfork article on the unequal treatment of male and female artists by the media: Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and the Gendering of Martyrdom
Trollolololo
I reported a problem
Don’t know what the troll said, but whatever it was, thanks for keeping on top of things, Giliell.
You’re on the nose, but not quite at the tip.
This, in general, is indeed the justification doctors use for these surgeries. It is this frame that leads them to call the existence of an intersex child a “psychosocial emergency” – note: not a medical emergency – and that then doctors employ with each other to feel better about hacking off genitals that aren’t theirs.
However, that is by far not the worst of it.
At one SSSS conference, a doctor who performs (or, at least, at the time was a doctor who was performing) clitoridectomies on intersex kids for social reasons attempted to convince people skeptical of his approach that he was the good guy in the scenario.
How?
>>>[PARENT OF ALL TRIGGER WARNINGS]<<<
He related the story of a child whose father tried to hack off the clitoris of his own child. (I don't remember the age, but young enough to be entirely subject to his power and old enough to be horrifyingly aware of the violence, maybe 4, certainly thereabouts. This wasn't a neonate.)
With scissors.
That's right, with scissors.
In his deranged, violent mind, he was "partially successful".
"Partially successful" is how the doctor also described this violence.
If you need an 11th vomit bucket, please grab it now. And maybe three more.
The doctor went on to say that he had – when the child came in for medical attention because repeatedly closing the scissors on the child's clitoris left the poor kid maimed, bleeding, and screaming but not entirely without a visible genital appendage – surgically completed the clitoridectomy.
He did this to “prevent abuse” to the child in the future.
Nowhere in the records that I could find did the doctor describe reporting the violent horror to state children’s services. Nor did he describe his dogged efforts to remove that raging, evil man’s parental rights. Nor did he describe the prosecution of this father, nor even the length of the resulting sentence for this attack that is so overwhelmingly horrible even though I haven’t read the original account in at least 10 years, and even though I have lots of experiences talking about just this – I’ve been paid to talk about just this as a professional consultant – I’m crying and shaking as I type this.
Nope.
The “happy ending” is that when the father wanted to sexually mutilate his child, there was a doctor on hand to help the father complete the intended sexual mutilation.
I’d like to think that the doctors who perform these surgeries today wouldn’t think that the surgery could possibly be justified on the basis of parents’ violent abuse.
But I don’t trust them farther than they’d penetrate the floor of the Grand Canyon if I pushed them off the edge.
Oh, also?
Catholic hospitals frequently have policies banning the use of their medical facilities by their employees or even doctors with hospital privileges for the purpose of vaginoplasties on adults.
They also always or nearly always have policies banning the use of their facilities for abortion, because a fetus can feel pain, dont’cha know?
When I was researching it at the time, I called about a dozen Catholic hospitals, maybe 15. Most were in the metro areas of Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 2, I remember, were in NY. 1 other one was east coast somewhere – I don’t remember at this point.
Not only did none of them have policies in place against the mutilation of children’s genitals for social reasons, several of the people that I talked to thought I was a crank for even asking – like it was a big gotcha and of course nobody has those policies and I was a fringe nutcase who was going to paint them negatively without any evidence at all that such was justified.
Which is wrong.
Which is why they don’t paint persons negatively without any evidence at all that such is justified.
No, they just hack off individuals’ genitals without any evidence at all that such is justified.
Clearly I’m on the ethical fringe.
Crip Dyke,
Damn. That’s beyond horrifying. I.. don’t even know what to say. Of course I was thinking of the “psychosocial emergency” kind of justifications. “Let’s mutilate kids to protect them form cold-blooded mutilation” wouldn’t even have crossed my mind if you didn’t share that horrible story.
I’m even angrier now at the way the author of that article decided to end it. It’s like they just had to remind the reader that, hey, these parents think the rights of their child were violated, but what do they know, here’s an actual doctor saying it’s totally okay to mutilate intersex kids for their own good. Couldn’t risk having their readers empathize too much with the kid’s story and conclude the parents are right, apparently.
I think I’m going to cry myself to sleep now. I’m already beginning to cry anyway.
After enduring mounting displeasure the overlord has dissolved the lounge and thunderdome. Instead we now have ‘custom made’ threads like this one, although the topics aren’t necessarily all that narrow. If you want to discuss misogyny among atheists this is still the place, I should think. Read Ibis3’s post (#7) as an introduction for this thread.
Political film made by women about women brought to life after 40 years:
Why Sheneque Proctor is NOT the Female Eric Gardner
Kentucky high school student sent home because her collarbone showed in her outfit
There’s a picture of Stephanie in the offending clothing there.
I think I saw a picture of the chaste young lady in the news earlier today. I said to myself “what is the problem??????????”
It might be easier to just issue blindfolds to all the boys.
Amy Poehler’s brand of feminism just urinated on black women worldwide
El Paso abortion clinic will be first to reopen in Texas:
“We are an afterthought” says one black Mormon woman:
Littleton model claims bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her:
****
2 more women accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault and drugging:
That fucker got away with hurting a lot of women and at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the numbers reach 75 or 100.
Here’s a Storify–The ‘Genderbread’ plagiarist:
from DailyKos:
A very non-argumentative response to such a “leading” question.
regarding the controv of Target removing gender labels from their toy aisles:
Is he saying that gender disphoria can be prevented with constant reinforcement of binary gender labels on everything?
I for one see no problem in presenting kids with the ability to choose the toy they like, without labels that tend to tip the decision process. In fact, I see that as the first step to teach kids to think rationally, and experiment through the decision process. Case, where they think they might like a toy, but play with it a while and then decide, “no, not for me”. Where they may get into sharing, “I don’t like this toy. here, you wanna tryit?” what’s the problem?
ohh, so since people are not “gender neutral”, nothing should be. Everythings got to me labelled either “boy” or “girl”, to maintain the rigid status of Womenz workin 4 Menz.
then again, my opinion don’t matter. in my youth, the “girl” label on things made them the “forbidden fruit” and roused my curiosity. So I’m imagining how my youth might have been, if those curiosities weren’t distracting me so much.
re 254:
Linky
Did anyone else see this from Facebook today?
That drawing doesn’t go with the text above it.
Seriously, I can’t even begin. Female Attractiveness Linked To Lower Body Fat, because it’s all about the looks and the titties. Plus they didn’t control for a bunch of things, and I bet they didn’t control for what people actually thought was attractive versus what they thought they were supposed to define as attractive (whether consciously or unconsciously). I still don’t really understand the point of the article except to tell women how they can please the male gaze.
Qatar Airways will no longer sack cabin crew who become pregnant or marry:
I have no idea if any male employees have to notify the company before getting married. Or, for that matter, if it really is as regressive (albeit not as bad as before) as it sounds — there’s often adjustments to insurance / coverage arrangements and other such matters, so it’s quite(?) common to let the HR people know about marriage.
I would love to watch what the “husband” in a lesbian relationship picking up her partner…
I have no idea who owns Qatar Airways.
In Qatar itself, there has been a long-standing issue of near-slave-condition “employment”, and high death rates, of the many thousands of workers (mostly east Asian, as I recall) who are building the arenas, hotels, etc., for a forthcoming soccer World Cup. The Qatar monarchy (“government”) has been dragging its feet over doing anything about the abuse, hiding behind FIFA’s seeming lack-of-interest in anything except additional bribes.
Cuttlefish has a very good poem
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2015/08/28/behold-the-invisible-woman/#comments
Bucking trend, Ohio doctor opens clinic that provides abortion services:
I hope that he and his staff are able to remain safe. I am almost certain they’ll face threats to themselves as well as the clinic itself.
This woman’s views about abortion and bodily autonomy are wretched:
http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2015/08/feminism-includes-pro-life-beliefs
Right now, I have two of the three comments in that thread.
While arguing with an antivax person a little while ago, I found a ‘fun’ statistic. They were arguing that parents didn’t want to risk severe reactions such as anaphylaxis (trying to avoid the omg autism claim, this person was). So I looked up the stats on the MMR vaccine with regards to anaphylaxis. 1 in 100,000. Then, out of curiousity I looked up the united states maternal death rate. 28 in 100,000. I’m 28 times more likely to die from pregnancy related complications than I am to have an allergic reaction to a vaccine. That number, by the way, translates down to 1 in 3600, which is a terrifying number to me. Other countries have far scarier numbers (1 in 10) but that 1:3600 is still far too frequent. No one should be *forced* to face those odds. They can chose to, and should be supported. But to be *forced* to face that risk? Oh HELL no.
To make this even scarier, the number of car related fatalities in the united states is 11.6 in every 100,000. I’m twice as likely to die from a pregnancy related complication than I am to die from a car accident.
Rowan vet-tech, I haven’t looked-up the numbers and so am relying entirely on memory (always a worrisome sign), but as I recall, USAbsymalian has one of, if not the, highest infant mortality (and, I think, related, such as birth complications) death rates in the developed world. That was pre-ACA, and whilst ACA may be changing that, if my memory is correct, my speculation is it’s still quite bad.
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On a totally different subject, from the UK, ITV apologises for poll asking if rape is ‘ever a woman’s fault’:
I would add to that the UK goons are not too great at investigating reports (although I don’t think there is a backlog of uninvestigated “rape kits”), and when they do stumble across a suspect, the usual problems happen and if there is even a trial, it frequently is the victim who is tried.
The shame of sweetness as “girly
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/08/lost-genius-the-other-mozart-sister-nannerl
xposted to Art thread.
Giliell (in #265),
Ah, so that’s the phenomenon.
I know cocktails are considered “girly” , but when I was celebrating my birthday at work I noticed most guys wouldn’t touch the cake. I think just one ate it (and went for seconds and thirds and we all love him that way). Now that I think about it, when a couple of colleagues and I (all women) used to have a public stash of chocolate, none of the men ever took it and if we discussed what we would buy it was always “girls and their chocolate”.
How strange.
I probably never noticed that before because my dad has a sweet tooth so I never saw such behaviour at home.
beatrice
Cupcakes!
They’re probably the most girly thing ever, and one of my specialities is strawberry cupcakes. Many boys won’t even touch them because the frosting is pink because that’s what you get if you mix vanilla buttercream with strawberries.
Most of my friends and family seem immune to this when it comes to food, but “girly drinks” are something else (except for Mr.)
The backside is that if you honestly like things like Single Malt you’re being accused of just playing cool.
Giliell,
Well, sexist stereotypes are no fun if they don’t screw all sides.
NC Law: Teens who take nude selfie photos face adult sex charges
Actually I just didn’t know where else to put this. I recently posted an article about a young boy facing charges, also for having his own nude selfie on his own phone. I’m just flabbergasted at the implications that you, yourself, are not allowed to own naked photos of your own naked body. It’s like a revocation of ownership. Or something. Should I be throwing out all my baby photos, if I ever plan to move to the US (not in the works)?
What’S next, outlawing mirrors cause you could look at yourself?
Making masturbation a crime because you haven’t reached the age of consent yet and are now the victim and perpetrator of statuary rape or child abuse all by yourself?
Feminists are often accused of hurting “real” victims of sexual violence by “calling everything rape”, which is n’t true, of curse, but if there ever was such a case, it’s this.
I’m sorry for the victims of this ridiculous war on sexuality.
This is my little niece in a short inspirational video for kids.
Saad
She’s adorable. I hope she will always remember what she said back when she was 5(?)
I hope so too. :)
(Pretty close. She’s just over four years old.)
Re: #270
By that logic every home video and family photograph could be classified as illegal surveillance.* The whole family could be charged, including small children for ‘aiding and abetting’ their criminal parents.
Wild guess on my part but the same people usually crying about small government and limited interference are presumably either silent on the issue or supporting the long, prying arm of the law.
More seriously, if someone can be charged and convicted for having nude pictures of themselves, then the resulting precedent might be used to hammer down medical practitioners as well. Just one ‘lewd’ picture of a patient in some medical file and the staff and facility could be in trouble. It’s no more insane than these teenagers being charged in the first place. And it’s just the thing certain groups would use to shut down abortion clinics and any other health services they don’t like.
*The irony of being charged with illegal surveillance by the US government would be delicious. But not worth it.
Alicia Keys ‘A revelation’:
I’m happy that she’s at the point where she feels comfortable being herself and living life on her own terms.
Fuck
Spain has restricted abortion.
Not as drastically as planned at first (only in cases of rape and life of the pregnant person), but underage people need parental approval. So they can “counsel and guide their daughter”.
Because a kid might never have some sensible reasons as to why they need an abortion but cannot tell their parents. Like having been raped by their father. Or coming from a very religious family. Or ….
@Giliell: Yeah,trying to force underage girls to tell their parents that they want an abortion, even in the absence of abuse, always works out so well. Just ask Becky Bell’s parents.
If someone is considered old enough to carry a pregnancy to term (if her parents decide that for her) , then she’s old enough to choose who she wants to inform and make her own decision about keeping the pregnancy.
Gotta love Serena Williams
Hey guys, I have something that I want to ask.
Feminism is another one of those issues that I’m sympathetic to, and I think I should know more about, but don’t have much information on. I’m okay when it comes to noticing flaws in the reasoning of antifeminists that blame rape victims for getting raped, or other similar arguments that rely on rationalization more than empirical evidence. However, I’m significantly less capable of challenging claims made by antifeminists that involve empirical evidence or lack thereof. I don’t have enough of an understanding of biology to judge the merits of evolutionary psychology, I don’t know enough about the statistics on rape to evaluate claims that most rape victims are lying, and I haven’t done enough research to understand gender disparities in employment.
I wish that I could “learn how to learn” about these subjects so I can make informed judgements about them. How can I do that?
emergence @282:
Regarding statistics about rape victims, check out RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network. That link is a good place to start. They have a wealth of resources. Many of which are in image form which can be easier to grasp and digest.
emergence @282,
One thing you can do is to always ask for evidence and specific citations when people assert things, and then simply go have a look at that evidence and those citations and see if they back up what the person said. You don’t necessarily need to even offer counter arguments; just checking to see if the other person is reporting the facts accurately will carry you a long way. Not surprisingly, you’ll find that the person has got it wrong in many cases, whether they are cherry picking and leaving out relevant information that contradicts their assertions, or they genuinely misunderstand, or they are outright lying.
No matter if you discover the person was right or wrong, and no matter if you ever manage to convince them when they are wrong, in any case you’ll always learn more about the topic in the process and at the same time you’ll become more familiar with your interlocutors’ most often cited sources.
This typically doesn’t require extensive research either. It’s just checking to confirm that what someone claims is actually supported by the sources they cite. If they can’t back up their assertions without some form of evidence, then what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Just watched Emmys.
A major winner was Amazon’s Transparent which personally I have never seen, nor ever even heard of. It seems the title is a portmanteau of “trans” & “parent”; being a comedy series about a parent (played by Jeffery Tambor) who is a trans and finally comes out to his family, and begins transitioning. The story (presumably)concerns all the obstacles (s)he overcomes with their sense of humor.
The acceptance speech by creator Jill Soloway, for Directing, noted that in many states, a landlord would be legally allowed to deny tenancy status to her Moppa (being a trans):
Jeffrey Tambor’s acceptance speech thanked the trans community for their courage:
*bravo*, to both
Colleges revoke Bill Cosby’s honorary degrees
California kindergarten student kicked out of Christian school because she has two moms
Men dominate news coverage in the US by a factor of 5 to 1 over women:
Ugh. Another Gamergate comic on Cheezburger. This one claims that feminists are trying to shut down anyone who disagrees with a woman, and that they use 1984 as an instruction manual. 69 likes, 57 dislikes at the time of this post. Commence Pharyngulation!
Okay, this is odd:
I now have 3 reasons to use the identity “Crip Dyke” in grant proposals. The most recent being an idea by a fellow Pharyngulite who is interested in collaborative research. I could use another identity for that research, but then I couldn’t share it here…and would even be a bit uncomfortable with the other party sharing this research here, even though the idea is fantastic and many here would find the total project interesting as it involves agriculture, psychology, language, feminism, ethics and economics.
The other two are less important to me, so not being able to use Crip Dyke would be less a tragedy, but on the other hand, they are things I don’t need on my CV and arose out of online work and thus are things that I’d **like** to use Crip Dyke for. I’d like using the Crip Dyke identity even more (for these other 2 projects than for the first, bigger one), but need it much less, if that makes sense.
So, yes, Card is a jerk, but he did point out that it’s possible to become a “thought leader” or “public intellectual” or whatnot while being entirely unknown as a human body. On the internet nobody knows you’re Demosthenes, or whatever. (Yes, Demosthenes, fuck that Locke person.)
So what would it mean to start a side-career as Crip Dyke? Can a Crip Dyke be taken seriously in a grant application?
And, more interesting for this thread, this is a specific instance of a more and more common phenomenon. What is the feminist interest in preserving the option of a separate, public (internet) identity? Does it matter that I created the identity 20 years ago when I was routinely getting death threats? Does it matter that I haven’t gotten a credible death threat in a long time now? Does it matter that I have kids now and didn’t then?
Obviously separate public/private spheres is a concept that’s really hurt women in the past. But my work attempts to undermine that division in many contexts. Does that make me a hypocrite?
Should feminists want internet names to have the possibility of lives of their own?
Obviously, I should make clear, we seek a just world in which the pressures that led me to create a separate internet identity do not exist. There is a long tradition of arguing that harm reduction is the enemy of eradication. If you take a simple view that eradication is too important to tolerate harm reduction measures that wouldn’t be necessary in a just world, that’s fine, but I already know that point of view exists.
If you want to make that argument, perhaps you could address the specific case of internet identities and their partial severability from the identity one uses in meatspace? – especially one’s legal identity in meatspace and/or one’s family identity in meatspace.
The Gamergate comic is at 170 likes, 142 dislikes now. I also notice that the critical comment I made about it this morning is still pending, but a comment saying Zoe Quinn looked hot, made by a user with a Nazi emblem as an avatar, was allowed.
Oops! “Never has an advert backfired so spectacularly.” French broadcaster’s anti-sexism advert pulled for being sexist:
I haven’t seen it — or, for that matter, much of France 3 — but wonder if this was a badly-botched attempt at irony?
Excerpts from letter written by Alabama woman who is in jail for “chemical endangerment” of her fetus
Absolutely sickening and rage-inducing.
This is from The Grauniad’s “Brain Flapping” series, which takes a snaky science-based look at various events and whatnots, Breasts: the ultimate weapons:
I might cross-post this to Arts too, as a book recommendation, but this morning I started reading Do It Like A Woman, by Caroline Criado-Perez, and it’s fascinating. She’s interviewed a whole bunch of women in all sorts of different fields who are trying to change the world, and is divided into sections entitled Doing It…, Speaking…, Leading…, Advocating… and Choosing Like A Woman. I’m delighted to be introduced to so many great women doing incredible things, and really loved the section on Afghan women’s poetry groups – I’m intrigued by the 2-line landais they’re writing as a form of rebellion! Not quite read half of it so far, but feel it merits a recommendation anyway. Oh, and if her name rings a bell – she’s the woman who started the campaign a couple of years back to get a woman on British bank notes, and subsequently attracted abuse and threats.
The Sarkeesian hate train rolls on. Anita spoke publicly to developers at Bungie recently, and the dudebros did wail and gnash teeth.
How women’S pain is ignored
I find the double effect “interesting”: We don’t dare to say anything out of fear we come across as “melodramatic*” “typically female” and when we finally speak up, long after we should have said something, we’re still dismissed.
*I totally do that. Don’t cry, don’t complain, just take it.
Giliell @ 297:
Aye, me too. It’s been remarked on a number of times. My favourite was a male doctor, so surprised he blurted out “that makes grown men scream!” Yeah, well, they’re allowed, aren’t they?
Recently, I was assigned an additional person at the pain clinic, a nurse practitioner who is a woman. She was going over my pain meds, I made a murmur now and then, when she said “wait, you don’t have enough to take X a day, do you? I said I did not, and when she enquired as to why I didn’t say anything, I just shrugged and told her that I’ve found it does little good to say anything. At least my meds were increased.
From Feminist Batwoman. Patricia Hill Collins (whose 1992 book Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology reintroduced and helped popularize the concept of intersectionality in the 1990s) was recently asked her opinion on white feminists’ use of intersectionality as feminist theory:
http://qz.com/529980/canadas-new-prime-minister-says-he-is-proud-to-be-a-feminist/
Justin Trudeau labels himself a feminist, consistently. Includes reference to gamergate as being a problem.
Has anyone seen this paper yet?
Women have substantial advantage in STEM faculty hiring, except when competing against more-accomplished men
I’m going to be reading through it as time permits today, but wanted to share it here for others to look at too.
But one of the things I can see right off the bat is that it’s only talking about faculty hiring (and not the various obstacles that come before and after the hirings).
http://jezebel.com/germaine-greer-says-caitlyn-jenner-transgender-women-a-1738550360
An icon of feminism continues her transphobia. Says the usual misconception of “surgery turning a man into a woman”, Disregarding the fact that the surgery is not considered a transformation, but a correction, by those who request it. That is, Caitlyn Jenner (for example) was a woman long before surgery, struggling to masquerade as a man because her body did not conform with her personality. Gender disphoria is not just a euphemistic label for “those (yucky) people”, but a real affliction where one disagrees that one’s body represents them in terms of gender presentation.
I can understand Greer wanting to retain focus on the struggles of all women in misogynistic society, yet it is better to not point at TG’s as “stealing the spotlight”. I’d recommend inclusion rather than exclusion: Recognize that transphobia highlights the issues she’s been discussing all along of women being downtrodden by misogyny.
Arthur Chu writes at the Daily Beast-This is not a game: How SXSW turned Gamergate abuse into a spectator sport.
Whole thing is worth reading. And shows that the behavior of SXSW has been atrocious.
Then go read this piece from Chris Kluwe, who absolutely skewers SXSW.
Laurie Penny on the myth of work-life balance for women
Alright, I read something that disturbed me recently; apparently there was this girl who was drawing Steven Universe fan art that made some of the heavier set characters skinny, made dark-skinned characters fair-skinned, depicted characters of ambiguous gender as conventionally gendered, etc. Apparently, people who disliked this sent her abusive emails and she eventually attempted suicide (although I think she survived).
I’m honestly worried that this might be a rare case of social justice advocates inflicting the exact same sort of abuse on someone that the racist MRA-types usually do. We used to think that it was unlikely for atheists to go on shooting sprees, or harass people online, but that wasn’t exactly correct. I have to wonder if another group that we identify with might have its fair share of assholes too.
As far as I can tell some MRAs seem to be latching onto this as proof that SJWs are evil, as if MRAs have any room to talk after having done this sort of thing multiple times and made excuses for themselves. Nonetheless, I would be very ashamed if it turned out that people who advocate social justice were just as capable of harassment and bullying as people who oppose it.
Has anyone else heard anything about this? Am I missing any important details?
emergence @305:
1. How do you know the people who sent the abusive emails were social justice advocates?
2. It would help assess the situation if you included a link to the story you’re talking about.
Tony @306
You might actually have a point about me jumping to conclusions. The place where I first noticed it was on Know Your Meme, and I haven’t actually checked anywhere else. I suppose it’s more than possible that the article is skewed or misleading. On the other hand, some of the people who work on the show have publicly condemned the people who harassed her, so I don’t really know.
Anyway, here’s a link to the site:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/zamii070-harassment-controversy
Sorry if I brought up something without any real merit.
emergence @307:
There’s no need for an apology. I didn’t say it was without merit. A young girl left a message saying that she was going to commit suicide. That’s serious. The reason why is attributed to her receiving harassment. I dug around a little and didn’t find much more information than what was provided at your link. So at this point, I don’t see *who* harassed her. It could have been advocates of social justice. But I don’t see enough to make that determination yet.
Tony @308:
I just really don’t want this to end up with the social justice side being just as unethical and sadistic as the anti-social justice side. It’s painful to think that someone could have been hurt for the sake of a cause that I value. While I’m really hoping that it isn’t the case, I couldn’t in good conscience ignore it if it was.
emergence @309
I understand. I hope you recognize a few things though:
1-even if SJ advocates were involved, that is on them specifically and does not automatically blemish all other SJWs; they don’t represent “our side”-i.e. all SJ activists (no more than the antifeminist contingent of the atheist movement represents all atheists). This would be a different story if massive numbers of SJ advocates engaged in the harassment.
2-people are complex, and even those fighting for SJ are not perfect. I don’t say this to excuse their actions, but rather to point out that it might be a good idea to keep in the back of your mind that even people with the best of intentions in some areas can fuck up. That’s one of the reasons ‘No gods. No masters. No heroes.’ is a a phrase I agree with.
3-if SJ advocates were involved, that doesn’t invalidate the fight against injustice
Get yer popcorn going now folks. Also, time to sharpen your fangs-Sandra Bullock to lead new all-female Ocean’s 11.