This surprises me

I guess I wasn’t aware of how deeply down a people could be held.

In her fearless defense of lynching victims and African Americans’ right to due process, Wells often bucked the backward conventional wisdom of the era. When she began her campaign against lynching in the late 19th century there wasn’t consensus among African Americans that lynching was worthy of a national social justice movement, nor was there agreement about the terroristic sexual politics that motivated white lynch mobs.

There wasn’t a consensus to oppose lynching? It’s a good thing Ida B. Wells was there to fight the fight.

Sadly, it’s International Women’s Day

It’s that day when we’re supposed to celebrate the accomplishment’s of women. I say “sadly,” because unfortunately there are way too many people out there who would rather sneer at and diminish women’s status in the world.

Case in point: on twitter, I ran across this lovely tweet from one of those repugnant slymepitters.

On #IWD remembered the nearly 0 wimmin – Nobels in science, highbrow art, chess GMs, great standups, but 100s of pop-culture hos #ftbullies

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Yes. Let’s remember those women.

Let’s remember Lise Meitner, Hilde Mangold, Chien-Shiung Wu, Rosalind Franklin, and Jocelyn Bell — who were all well-qualified (men won the prizes for work equivalent to what they did, instead) to win a Nobel but didn’t get one.

Rather than 0 women, perhaps we should remember Marie Curie and Maria Goeppert Mayer, who won Nobels in physics; Irène Joliot-Curie, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, and Ada E. Yonath in chemistry; Barbara McClintock, Carol W. Greider, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Gertrude B. Elion, Gerty Cori, Linda B. Buck, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and Rosalyn Yalow, in physiology or medicine. Clearly women are not intrinsically incapable of scientific work at the highest levels. Of those whose work I’m familiar with in detail, I have to tell you that McClintock blows me away with the stunning brilliance of her abstract reasoning — I know of no other male scientist whose work is at all comparable (that of course is a matter of taste!)

The relatively lower frequency of women recieving Nobels is not something any man should take pride in; what it really indicates is that we’ve been shortchanging half the human population, depriving them of opportunities to excel. Wait — we’ve been doing worse than shortchanging women; we’ve been depriving all of humanity of the potential in those minds. This pattern of discrimination against women has hurt us all.

Let’s not forget also all the people, men and women alike, deprived of opportunities because of their race or class — deprived by the kind of endemic bigotry that would, for instance, denigrate an entire group of people as “pop-culture hos”. And it’s not just science — it was good of our petty MRA to remind us that we’ve also lost their contributions to art and theater and games.

That’s what I think of everytime some bigot crows about the absence of some group of people from some field of endeavor — it’s a reminder of all that we’ve lost to selfish stupidity.

The difference between us and them

Liberals and conservatives…let’s first consider what we agree on. Rape is bad, mmm-k? It should be stopped, it would be an uncompromised good if the rates declined. We’re on the same wavelength there.

But now we turn to how to fix the problem, and look what happens. The liberal’s eye focuses on the perpetrator, and they suggest we ought to educate them and modify the culture that enables rape to persist. The conservative focuses on the women, and regards the liberal as crazy for not thinking that the victims need to be fixed.

Here’s a beautiful example: Zerlina Maxwell meets Sean Hannity.

And then read how conservative media responded. Read the comments, or go to the youtube video and read the comments there (no, on second thought, don’t.) They all think Maxwell is moronic, insane, stupid, ridiculous.

I think she’s right.

As is typical, the conservatives have this unimaginative, short-sighted view of what it means to tell someone rape is wrong. They’re all imagining a woman confronted by an attacker who then solemnly tells them that they’re committing an illegal act, and expecting them to simply stop. But that’s not what she’s talking about at all.

We live in a culture where boys grow up to be privileged, entitled little shits who think women are pleasure objects for their benefit. Let’s start there and change that. Let’s say that frat boy antics are not OK. Let’s tell media to wake up and notice that women are autonomous human beings, not convenient plot points and MacGuffins. Let’s wake up and realize that valuing women only for the size of their breasts and the youthfulness of their skin is dehumanizing. She’s talking about taking on the difficult task of changing cultural attitudes.

And perhaps we could also have a little more respect for men, too. Most men are as capable of empathy as most women; if we stopped enabling the promotion of facile juvenile behavior as manly, maybe we’d see more responsibility from would-be rapists than someone like Sean Hannity proposing that women need guns to keep him from assaulting them. That’s a surrender of responsibility. That’s a declaration that men are too selfish and stupid to maintain civilized social behavior without the threat of gunfire to keep them in check.

Seriously, Hannity and you other gun-worshippers. Stop belittling my sex so much.

Damsel in Distress

Anita Sarkeesian has released the first of her series on sexist tropes in video games.

I notice that the comments on the youtube video are disabled. I wonder why?

No, I actually don’t.

Rebecca Watson points out something interesting. In all the noise surrounding Sarkeesian’s initial campaign to raise money (you don’t need that much cash to make youtube videos, it’s a biased project, Sarkeesian is a &$@##$&, etc.), a competing group tried to raise money to produce an alternative series of videos on male tropes in video games…which I think would be an excellent idea, actually. Men are also subject to sexist stereotypes in games.

Only one problem: The men behind the male tropes proposal seem to have absconded with the money, and even apparently photoshopped fake charitable donation receipts. Whoops.

An Australian Football poll

And it’s not about those weird rules! Someone got very upset at those gays flaunting their sexuality at games.

fooball

Lest you think that maybe she’s homophobic, she added this in an interview later:

“I am not homophobic. I know lots of gay people.”

Ah, classic!

Obviously, this issue needs a poll. I would have thought the obvious one would be something about the apparent total lack of women cheerleaders in skimpy outfits at Australian football games, or possibly something expressing incredulity that Australian football players don’t grab each other’s asses when they score a goal, but no…it’s about supporting gay players. And it’s tied.

Should there be a gay pride round in the AFL?

Yes 50%
No 50%

Ooh, I hate to see a tied game. Go break it.

DON’T TELL MY WIFE!

An organization called the Susan B. Anthony List — it’s an adamantly anti-choice group that has neatly named itself after an icon of women’s liberation — has a wonderful president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, who not only opposes abortion, but is dead set against contraception. She argues here that increasing availability of contraception leads to increasing rates of abortion (what?), apparently because all those frisky couples losing their fear of pregnancy will fornicate more, leading to more unwanted pregnancies.

But…but…abortion rates have been going down as pregnancy rates decline. We can’t therefore account for reduced pregnancy rates by claiming they’ve been terminated by abortion, and it seems kind of unlikely that people are having sex less often, so isn’t the correlation the reverse of what Dannenfelser claims?

teen-pregnancy-abortion-rates

Also, I am greatly concerned by the implications of the statement that “to lose the connection between sex and having children leads to problems”. There were precisely 3 periods in my life in which I intentionally had procreative sex, and they were both relatively brief because I married a fertile minx who got knocked up as soon as we both put our minds to it. So, maybe three months where I’ve had sex with reproductive intent, while the other 393 months of my married life I was entirely in frivolous sex-for-fun mode. Furthermore, we have not been the slightest bit interested in having more children for 23 years. Is Dannenfelser trying to suggest that having a monogamous and healthy sex life during those decades should be causing problems because we’ve lost the connection between sex and having children?

Christian hypocrisy…no surprise at all

Here’s a sign of women’s progress: you can’t get fired by a Christian school for getting pregnant anymore. That’s against the law. Unfortunately, you can still be fired for fornicating, along with a few other things.

The way that Christian organizations try to get around the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which bars firing women for pregnancy, is to claim they’re not firing them for the pregnancy, but for the fornicating. San Diego Christian College went another step by making employees sign a pledge requiring employees to abstain from "abusive anger, malice, jealousy, lust, sexually immoral behavior including premarital sex, adultery, pornography and homosexuality, evil desires and prejudice based on race, sex or socioeconomic status." Also, drinking, which means that Jesus would not be able to teach at this college established in his name.

Which does make me wonder how the school would respond if some woman got pregnant via artificial insemination or worse, in vitro fertilization. Test case, anyone?

That doesn’t help Teri James, though. She got fired from SDCC for getting pregnant the old-fashioned way, via <gasp> fornicating with a man. Escape clause met! College has an out and can get rid of the wicked woman!

Except…in a fit of the stupids to which adherents of ridiculous religions are prone, the college turned around and offered the job to a man. The man who fathered Teri James child. Who is, presumably by the symmetry of the act, a fornicator himself.

Unless this is one of those things where it’s IOKIYAM — it’s OK if you are male.

Hey, Glasgow…you can do better than this

It’s shocking but unsurprising that this sort of thing still happens, but women debaters at the Glasgow Union were openly booed — not for doing a bad job, but for their sex. Rebecca Meredith’s facebook page has the story, reproduced here because I know some of you are members of the Facebook Resistance.

Last night the amazing Marlena Valles and I were openly booed by a small number of misogynistic male Glasgow Union debaters and members during the final of the Glasgow Ancients competition for our presence as female speakers. Sexist comments were made about our appearance, and we were told to "get that woman out my my union" by a male member. Our speeches were interrupted by cries of "shame woman" and boos at mention of female equality within the context of the final. Sexism is not just something we talk about – it is something real people experience everyday. After complaining, we were told by several GUU debaters that it was "par for the course" and "to be expected" that female speakers in the Glasgow debating chamber would be booed (though several members including the wonderful John McKee supported us admirably). I have been told as a female debater that I should be careful not to sound "hysterical" as a female speaker, I have been told to defer to my male partner on analysis and economics because male debaters are "more convincing", but never have I been openly disparaged in a final merely for being a woman. I was increadibly proud to be in the final of the LSE Open with the wonderful Freddy Powell, epecially against the likes of Sam Block and Fred Cowell, but was deeply saddened to be informed by several other debaters (well meaningly) that I should be proud to be only the 4th woman to ever get there in the past 5 years. I am not proud, I am sad. Debaters should probably realise that while we all say we care about sexism, incidents like those of last night, the lack of proportionate numbers of females in competitive finals, and (most worryingly) the number of female freshers who report they have abandoned debating due to sexist behaviour or intimidation are not acceptable, and we should probably start doing things to change them.

Marlene Valles also has an account.

This weekend was Glasgow University Union’s annual Ancients competition. For those who don’t know what happened, during mine and my partner’s speeches, in opening government, we were “shame”-d and booed by members of the audience whenever we spoke about how the motion ‘This House Regrets the Centralization of Religion’ affected women (My partner spoke about Leila Ahmed and female clergy and I spoke about dogmatic opposition to contraception and Catholics who identified as pro-choice). We both realised why we were being booed: it was because we were advocating for women’s rights, speaking in the GUU. It was only when one of the men making the misogynistic comments and interruptions had the nerve to stand up in the floor debate and very sarcastically say, “The GUU has been proudly admitting women for thirty three years and we are committed to equality” when a member of the audience bravely stood up and responded in a rousing five-minute floor speech telling the entire chamber that the men who were booing us were whispering *women* after shouting “shame” at all of our points and making patronizing comments about our dresses. Her brilliant speech called them out and received a standing ovation from a large majority of the chamber and is without a doubt, the most inspiring thing I have seen in debating.

I understand the way that the GUU “bear pit” chamber works, I have spoken in outrounds at Ancients since my first year and last year, was a guest speaker for the Facist party at one of the Union’s famous Parliamentaries. I am fine with speaking to the gallery and having audience members clap when they like a point and even say “shame” when they don’t. What I’m not okay with is people interrupting speeches to be misogynistic. It is difficult to speak confidently to an audience that is booing you for the sole reason that you are a woman in a dress talking about women’s rights, especially when you are the only girls in the final (which is depressingly often the case on the Scottish debating circuit). I realize that it was only a few men who don’t usually debate competitively that were involved with the heckling. The problem was that it was the entire Union that seemed to be weirdly proud of its misogynistic roots throughout the competition. The social Friday night was a pub quiz which included the question, “In 1980 the GUU had a vote to allow women into the Union. There is an annual dinner to honour the men who voted against the motion– how many men were there?” and the two GUU teams participating in the quiz whooped and banged their hands on the table in support of the voters against.

After the final, I had six separate members of the GUU, many of whom I have been friends with for years, approach me and give the exact same apologist speech – “I’m sorry that they did that, but they aren’t bad guys and it’s just how it is here and how they are. They are only joking”. We were told that that was the GUU and that it was “part of the course” and our fault for calling ourselves QMU A. My partner and I were a composite team, as Ancients is an Open, and Ancients has a policy of only allowing serious sounding team names. QMU was Glasgow University’s women’s union and as an all-female team (one of four at a twenty-eight team competition) the description fit. Later, as I was getting a drink, one of the men who was booing us said quite audibly “Get that woman out of my chamber” as his GUU friends, who had minutes ago apologised for his behaviour, laughed along.

This is my question: Members of the GUU clearly knew that this was something that happened. They knew that certain members would boo women if they spoke about women’s rights. Why on earth were they allowed to come to observe the final and why were they not asked to leave after or at the very least, issue a genuine apology to the speakers that they had rudely interrupted with their misogyny?

The reason that I am writing this post is because at Ancients, nothing has changed over the last three years. I remember when I was a first year, in 2011, the opening PowerPoint read “Proudly admitting women since 1980” with the word ‘proudly’ crossed out. I feel so sorry for the women that debate in that Union, especially because the reasoning for why none of them stand up against it as told to me by three senior GUU women was that that is just how things are done and “If you can’t beat them, join them” which is intolerable. The sexism of the GUU isn’t quaint and it is not a tradition to be jokingly celebrated. I appreciate the efforts of members within the GUU to make it better and maybe that incident needed to happen because we were told by many senior GUU female members that they couldn’t do anything about it without being laughed down. Until this is genuinely dealt with, as the director of training for the Edinburgh University Debates Union, I would be incredibly wary of sending female first years to Ancients next year and will certainly not be attending in the future unless there is assurance that this won’t happen again.

This controversy has been more frustrating than anything I have ever encountered in debating. I have spoken on motions that I thought were beyond the pale and I’ve had people say quite rude things to me in debates but I have never seen such an abysmal response from a Union for something so clearly sexist. I cannot imagine that if the same situation happened but audience members in a large final were shouting out racist or homophobic interjections the response from the hosting institution would be “That is just how it is done here” or “You provoked them with your team name”.

I would like to thank the CA’s Pam Cohn and John Beechnoir as well as the equity officer, John McKee, for making it exceptionally clear that these comments should not be tolerated. If only the GUU would do the same.

As is clear from the comments, this behavior is not universal — it seems to be a small obnoxious minority that are doing their damnedest to create an uncomfortable environment for women, while the majority approve of greater participation by everyone. But as we’ve learned on the internet as well, assholes everywhere are really good at cloaking themselves in the defensive armor of “Free Speech!” and doing their best to create a chilly atmosphere for genuinely open communication.