Shakesville

Check Out the Gall on That Guy

[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]

I've heard some real dandies from rape trials and sentencing hearings before, but this just about takes the cake:

It's a safe bet spectators thought things could not get worse in Ontario Superior Court on Friday, once the two women [raped by 27-year-old Daniel Katsnelson at York University during frosh week in 2007] finished reading out their victim impact statements. But things did get worse when Crown prosecutor Andrew Locke rose to recount the rapist's own words, as recorded by a probation officer in a pre-sentence report.

"[Mr. Katsnelson] states he hopes some day the victim will be able to take away something positive from this, as he has," the report's author wrote. When asked what that might be, Mr. Katsnelson "suggested that now maybe she will know to keep her doors locked, while adding the offence would have been devastating to her."

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

It takes someone really special to be considered an asshole among rapists.

"I am afraid of the dark and always sleep with the TV on," said [one of Katsnelson's victims], an aspiring dancer who added that dating relationships have been difficult to establish. "Rape is like a tattoo; it may fade away with time, but it will never be gone."

The second woman broke down in tears two sentences into her statement. She said she had hoped the incident would be a "bump in the road," but instead described a rough, dark ongoing journey.

"For the past three years, I have spent every day pushing the thoughts of what happened to me out of my head, but it always comes back," she said. "I used to be a little too idealistic in believing everything happens for a reason ... but nothing good has come out of what happened to me."

Katsnelson, who gave his victims a life sentence, was sentenced to eight years.

I don't know that I can say that something good can ever come out of being raped. Not directly, anyway. But I know that it's possible to retroactively give meaning and purpose to an otherwise meaningless, senseless act. And there is some measure of peace in that.

I wish peace to both of these survivors.

[H/T to Shaker Sarah.]

Quote of the Day

[Trigger warning for graphic descriptions of violence. And a spoiler warning re: the plot of Kick-Ass.]

Roger Ebert, in his review of the new film Kick-Ass:

Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find "Kick-Ass" morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let's say you're a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.

…I know, I know. This is a satire. But a satire of what? … There are characters here with walls covered in carefully mounted firearms, ranging from handguns through automatic weapons to bazookas. At the end, when the villain deliciously anticipates blowing a bullet hole in the child's head, he is prevented only because her friend, in the nick of time, shoots him with bazooka shell at 10-foot range and blows him through a skyscraper window and across several city blocks of sky in a projectile of blood, flame and smoke. As I often read on the Internet: Hahahahaha.

Related Reading: Jezebel's Irin on Kick-Ass: Violence and "Cunt" for Fun and Profit.

On Triggers, Continued

So, after her first shot at trigger warnings, Susannah Breslin is back with more, this time explaining why "trigger warnings don't work."

In reality, trigger warnings are unrealistic. They are the dream-child of a fantasy in which the unknown can be labeled, anticipated, and controlled. What trigger warnings promise — protection — does not exist. The world is simply too chaotic, too out-of-control for every trigger to be anticipated, avoided, and defused. Even if every single potentially trigger-inducing blog post could be demarcated as such — a categorical impossibility — what would be the point?

Well, I don't guess I ought to be surprised that someone who describes the feminist movement as "women who promote themselves as victims of a patriarchy that no longer exists" fails utterly to apply even the most basic feminist tenet to her argument: Recognizing and respecting individual agency.

A trigger warning does not promise to protect readers of potentially triggering material, but provide them with the opportunity to decide whether they need to protect themselves. As I said in my last piece (which she links in hers and thus ostensibly read): We provide trigger warnings because they give survivors of various stripes the option to assess whether they're in a state of mind to deal with triggering material before they stumble across it.

Breslin accuses feminist writers of "handing out trigger warnings like party favors at a girl's-only slumber party," which is certainly designed primarily to insult writers like me, but doesn't say much for what she thinks of feminist readers, either. I don't view my readers as children at a party. I respect them as adults, with autonomy, agency, and the ability to consent—their own best decision-makers, their own best advocates, and their own best protectors.

The provision of a trigger warning is not one-sided. It is an exchange. It is a communication: I provide the information, and my readers assess their own immediate capacity to process triggering material and proceed accordingly.

Breslin's argument only works if feminist readers are infantilized, if (primarily) women are treated like gormless, passive babies who can't be trusted to make decisions for themselves. Which is pretty much the founding premise of the entire patriarchy which totes doesn't exist anymore, ahem.

The thing is, Breslin is right when she asserts that "the world is simply too chaotic, too out-of-control for every trigger to be anticipated, avoided, and defused." But this isn't "the world." This is one very specific space in the world which seeks to be different from everything else.

She frames that as delusional. Well, okay. But I call it being the change I want to see.

Tomato. Tomahto.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

The Beatles: "Taxman"

Actual Headline

New York Times: Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated.

Which, by the way, is true. A New York Times/CBS News poll did indeed find that "Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public."

But it also found that: "The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45."

Which means that a more accurate headline would be: Poll Finds Tea Party Backers More Privileged.

Digby's got a comprehensive review of the poll findings that will underline why that distinction is actually rather important. [SPOILER WARNING: They're racist.]

Open Thread

Hosted by this lobster.

Question of the Day

What turn of phrase makes your teeth grind every time you hear it?

For the purposes of this question, we'll take all inherently offensive phrases (e.g. those with racist origins, or containing a gendered slur, etc.) out of contention. And it's not a question about a phrase that people frequently get grammatically wrong (e.g. "should have went" instead of "should have gone"), either.

It's about clichés, idioms, aphorisms, slivers of so-called conventional wisdom, and assorted one-liners of various stripes that just get on your nerves, either for no real reason other than you just bloody hate them or because they communicate an idea or attitude you can't abide.

My answer is: "Life isn't fair."

While it's aggravating when someone uses the phrase in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to be commiserative about something that either needs a better display of empathy or the wisdom of silence (like, say, when you've just lost a good friend suddenly at a young age), it's when those three horrid little words are offered up flippantly in response to a genuine injustice that I go all SET PHASERS TO FUCK OFF.

Extra bonus rage points earned by the even more excruciating "Nobody ever said life was fair."

I am not a violent person, Shakers, but when some privileged wankstain meets a legitimate grievance of the marginalized with a chorus of life ain't fair, I want to punch things.

Sure, We Do

Women 'have inbuilt fear of being fat'. If by "inbuilt," you mean "built-in by a fat-hating patriarchy."

Quote of the Day

"This week was a bit of a mixed bag for the journalistic ethics of Fox News. On the upside, we confirmed that News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is familiar with the idea of journalistic standards. On the downside, Murdoch appears to be completely unaware that his news network doesn't have any."—Media Matters' Ben Dimiero.

Creative Office Design

I just read an interesting article online, linked somewhere (I opened the tab for later, but now don't remember who showed it to me), about creative office spaces in use around the world.

I was flipping down through the pictures, and at first was thinking, hey, those are really kind of attractive, some of them. But as I scrolled down, I had a growing sense of unease.

I went back and looked again, to see if I could spot what it was. Can you? There are too many of relevance for me to want to re-post them all here, but the site is work-safe, and has no obvious triggers of which I'm aware (as ever, if I'm wrong, I will gladly apologize and seek to educate myself further).

Answer below...

Did you notice how many of them are nightmares of inaccessibility? If not - and I mean this gently but firmly - perhaps it's time to re-examine some privilege you might be looking with.

Notice how many of these celebrated designs would be horrid for someone using a wheelchair? Or a person with severe visual impairment? Or even trying to negotiate the cluttered and narrow halls with a cane, as I do. See how many chairs - especially in waiting areas, worst of all! - are utterly appalling for anyone with serious back issues? For anyone with limited mobility?

And even when it's only parts of the area which are inaccessible, like the otherwise lovely little cabins shown in a few of the pictures, making any part of your office inaccessible can make it inaccessible completely to an employee who doesn't have the privilege which is shown here to those with free mobility or all their senses (as in sight and/or hearing, I mean).

What does it say to your fellow employee that your office is inaccessible to them?

What does it say to a client or visitor that you set aside not one chair in your waiting area that takes into account that not everyone is physically able to sit vertically without support?

I can read off the defences people would make about this, were I posting it elsewhere: they have accommodations for their employed PWD elsewhere, they would make ramps into fellow employees' workstations available on-demand, they don't have anyone like that working there now, et c., et c..

I trust I don't need to explain to a Shakesville crowd how these clearly represent both question and answer, that each is a form of "othering" which serves to make it harder for non-TAB employees; that the lack of said employees is both a cause and an effect.

These are the little ways in which the message goes out: we want you to work, just not here.

Daily Kitteh

The lovely Ms. Sophie.

Part Three in a series. Part One. Part Two.

Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman and a biracial queerbait telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

We Live in a Fucked-Up Culture, Part Wev in an Infinite Series

I (still) have no opinion on Sandra Bullock's and Jesse James's marriage, or its collapse, or its survival, or any of the incidents that have led to a rumored divorce—and I will continue to have no opinion on these subjects.

However, I am interested in the way it's being covered.

Today comes the news that Jesse James reportedly had a predilection for the flagrant use of homophobic slurs, after someone released an email with text that included use of the word f****t and references to cocksucking to insult two men who (it seems) had been in his employ.

[Note to Jesse James: Using f****t and references to cocksucking to demean other men is not acceptable, it is not morally neutral, it is not funny or edgy, and it is not justifiable because you were angry. It's juvenile, hateful, and thoroughly contemptible. Just FYI.]

The thing that strikes me about all this BREAKING! news about James is that the people who are only leaking this shit now aren't exactly covering themselves in glory, given that they were evidently willing to conceal James' abject bigotry until his infidelity gave them the opportunity to sell the evidence to the highest bidder.

That goes double to the bidders, who may well have turned away some of this stuff previously because it seems no one wants to break the news that a famous guy—a real Man's Man, with a reputation for being such a good guy, dude!—is a raging bigot, but everyone's happy to join the pile-on once he gets caught with his pants down.

Either we care about holding people to account for demonstrable hatred, or we don't. Our concern (leaving aside the feigned concern masking gleeful vengeance) shouldn't be contingent on whether they've fucked around on America's Sweetheart.

(Who, by the way, has maintained radio silence throughout all of this, with a single exception: To deny rumors of the existence of a sex tape. I note the exception not to suggest that Bullock is obliged to comment on anything, but because "the reputation of America's Sweetheart can survive having shared a bed with a white supremacist and a homophobe, but not being a SLUT!" [not that I think making a sex tape with one's partner makes one a slut, but large swaths of the population disagree with me] is an interesting—and I'm not sure entirely incorrect—calculation. And that says something pretty fucked-up about our culture, too.)

There were lots (and lots) of people, certainly, who worked with James on one or both of his two television series, or his guest spot on The Celebrity Apprentice, and were aware of his bigotry, given his eminent willingness to photograph it and broadcast it in emails. But if the age of the viral celebrity scandal has taught us anything, it's that there are plenty of people willing to protect celebrities from the "embarrassment" of being held accountable for bigotry, until it's time to knock over the latest pedestal.

And if there's anything else we've learned, the same people smashing James' pedestal into dust at the moment are already writing the stories of his comeback. Because although we hate bigotry (BOO!), we like comebacks even better (YAY!). And second chances don't have to be earned, when there's advertising space to be sold.

[Commenting Guidelines: This post is about media coverage and how it reflects our cultural priorities and shapes the nature of celebrity. It's not about picking apart the private lives of Jesse James and Sandra Bullock, nor about their marriage. Comments that seek to imagine whether "Sandra knew" or wonder "what she was doing with him" or variations thereof will be considered off-topic.]

More Weak Sauce from the "Weird News" Section

by Shaker Vanshar

You can almost hear the frustration: The divorce of a prominent couple proceeding in a civil manner, even with a fantastic amount of money involved? Shucks. What's a yellow journalist to write about?

I'm referring to the divorce of Steve Wynn, a prominent Las Vegas casino owner and developer, and his wife and business partner Elaine Wynn, treated with delightful (for some value of "delightful") weird-newsyness here. Aside from the author's minor incredulousness that a divorce can proceed civilly, what I find really irritating is the immediate reinforcement of a sad trope in the popular media: That divorce is all about a woman stealing a man's hard-earned money.

As far as I can tell, we have here a very successful married couple who also happen to be business partners, who got a divorce and split up their combined shares in a company in which they are both very highly ranked (Steve is the Chairman of Wynn Resorts Ltd; Elaine was and remains a director of the company). It's PAINFULLY obvious that in this case they both worked hard to gain those assets, and are amicably splitting them up, as, I dunno, grownups might be expected to do.

But the whole thing is framed as a loss for HIM. HE'S paying her off, rather than receiving his share while she receives hers. If this article hadn't mentioned that Elaine Wynn was a director of Wynn Resorts and had been involved in its growth, her value to the company outlined and praised by her ex-husband, you'd have no idea from reading the surrounding text that she had anything to do with the business.

By talking about "the most expensive divorce ever," the implication is that she's a gold-digger—and you see this narrative all the time when divorce is discussed in the media. ANY woman getting her share of the marital assets in a divorce is somehow "taking" something from her husband, regardless of what she contributed in terms of time, support, or even direct earnings. Not only is there the implication that she has somehow not earned it, but there's the implication that she didn't really share ownership in the first place; a married couple's assets are really the husband's, apparently, and only by leaving him and taking from him does she have any ownership herself.

The splitting of assets in a hetero divorce, even in cases when one spouse earns substantially more than the other, is rooted in the idea that a marriage is a (legally recognized) partnership, and that both spouses, regardless of monetary earning potential, share the risks and rewards. And yet we are consistently told that only the man's contributions count, even unto completely disappearing the literal, financial contributions of a woman to her partnership's wealth, painting her as a parasite.

And if it is so easy to dismiss the contributions of a woman who is otherwise quite privileged (white, cisgender, straight, and wealthy) to a marriage that is ending on amicable terms, is it any wonder that the marginalized find precious little voice?

Chip, Chip, Chip

That's how I'd describe what the state legislature is doing to abortion access in Nebraska:

Nebraska lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to a first-of-its-kind measure requiring women to be screened for possible mental and physical problems before having abortions.
[snip]
The bill requires a doctor or other health professional to screen women to determine whether they were pressured into having abortions. The screenings also would assess whether women have risk factors that could lead to mental or physical problems after an abortion.

I read that article just before reading this one about Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's decision to again declare April "Abortion Recovery Month":

The proclamation... “encourages and promotes healing opportunities and raises awareness of the aftermath of abortion experienced by individuals and families,” according to the document signed by the Republican governor and Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

Despite claims to the contrary, the bill and the proclamation are not about caring for women and their mental and physical health. They are about politics.

I am convinced of that, especially in the aftermath of recent studies which found

There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women

and

Recent studies that have been used to assert a causal connection between abortion and subsequent mental disorders are marked by methodological problems [example here] that include, but not limited to: poor sample and comparison group selection; inadequate conceptualization and control of relevant variables; poor quality and lack of clinical significance of outcome measures; inappropriateness of statistical analyses; and errors of interpretation, including misattribution of causal effects. By way of contrast, we review some recent major studies that avoid these methodological errors. The most consistent predictor of mental disorders after abortion remains preexisting disorders

My point is not that no woman ever experiences depression or guilt after having an abortion, but that evidence points to co-occuring factors, not abortion, as causal. For example, in my case, any guilt I felt was about not feeling guilty as everyone had told me women who have abortions should. About the abortion itself, I felt relief, and I thought, "Wow, does that mean something is wrong with me?"

My case exemplifies what potential laws and proclamations like this do--they foster the notion that abortion has to be traumatic and guilt-inducing, even when studies and women themselves counter that idea.

I say these actions are about politics, too, for at least two other reasons. First, the goal is to scare women into not having abortions. Having one's doctor say, "You can have this procedure, but you are at risk for serious difficulties if you do," is frightening and, as I'm sure anti-choice folk are hoping, quite the deterrent.

Second, I don't see as much concern for screening women who decide not to terminate their pregnancies. We know that women can have physical and mental health issues after spontaneous miscarriage and childbirth--why no push for intensive screening and "warning" or recovery proclamations for those cases?

The other major question circulating in my mind is, what do laws like the potential Nebraska one mean, with regards to the way we frame choice, for women who are determined by their doctors to have mental or physical health "risks?"

Today In Baby News!

Everyone knows I love babies, right? That's why I am bringing you the latest and greatest in baby, toddler, and infant-related news stories. Check this out! Know what's a hot new name for kids now?

Atreyu!

That's right:

Also hot this year: Sookie (*shrug*), Dashiell, and Piper. Just FYI, I'm going to name at least two of my babies Dashielle. More names here.

p.s. bonus Atreyu action:

[Cross-posted, with a tip of the bonnet to IQB.]

That Still Leaves One Step Backwards.

[Trigger warning for clergy abuse and virulent homophobia.]

One Step Forward: "In an attempt to prove that the Vatican is heeding criticism of its handling of paedophile priests, the Holy See today issued detailed instructions to its bishops on how to report abuse to the police. ... Francis X Rocca, Vatican correspondent for Religion News Service, said: 'This is a new and notable public emphasis on the need to follow local laws'." Um, good job? Yeesh.

Two Steps Back: "Gay rights groups have expressed outrage over comments made by a senior Vatican official linking homosexuality to child abuse. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who also serves as the Vatican's Secretary of State, made the comment during a news conference while on an official visit to Chile. 'Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and pedophilia but many others have demonstrated, I was told recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia,' he said."

Maybe you should stop having conversations with know-nothing bigoted dipshits then, Cardinal.

[The hat tip for the second story goes to Shaker koach, who quite rightly notes that CNN frames the story "as if gay folks are the only ones angry when the Catholic Church blames pedophilia on homosexuality!" Get it together, CNN.]

NQDTR Discussion Thread – W100414

Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!

This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.

The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report – W100414

Time for another Teaspoon Report!

Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.

If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.

Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.

Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!

ô,ôP

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Loretta Lynn: "Coal Miner's Daughter"