by Shaker knitmeapony
[Trigger warning for stalking, misogyny, racism, dehumanization, and general assholery.]
So, there's this fella named Joel Johnson. He's an editor and author on high-profile, popular techy blogs like Gizmodo and BoingBoing. Recently, he decided he wanted to broaden his horizons, after he read that Twitter was popular with black people, but "realized most of my Twitter friends are like me: white dorks."
On Wednesday, Johnson wrote a post about the horizon-broadening experience he'd undertaken. An article called, I shit you not, "Why I Stalk a Sexy Black Woman on Twitter (And Why You Should, Too)."
In it, he imparts his wisdom to the masses: he has decided the best way to open his mind is to just stare at someone from a distance. He breathlessly describes his descent into exoticism: how exciting of him to have followed, unsolicited, a black woman on Twitter. Great Maude in the morning! She's Christian! She likes sex! She's fiscally responsible!
He helpfully diagnoses her psychological issues ("She seems to have some problems trusting men, but she's not afraid of them, either.") in the same paragraph that he is ogling her "faux modeling shots" and "mall fashion".
He publicizes her life, her 'childish' and 'charming' faith; aspects of her sexuality she might never have expected to be public beyond the followers who she knows well.
There's so much that has been said about this article, I think I can leave the description alone in its sleezy glory and give you the quick blogaround:
Salon: Gizmodo stalks a black woman
Deanna Zandt: Privileged Voyeurism
Postbourgie: The Odd Habits and Foibles of Sexy Black Women on the Internet
Channing Kennedy: Shut up, dude.
Ann at Feministing: How to win "black" friends and influence people on the internet
Suffice it to say, he's being called out on his racism, sexism, colonialism, marginalization of sexual violence (stalking: not a happy fun time activity, dude), and privilege.
After this all blew up, he went to his Twitter feed, where he tried to understand why people are pissed about the article. To his credit, he has attempted to engage the criticism there, at least, in a cool-headed if very shallow way. Unfortunately, he had to write about that, too: It gets even worse in his follow up: So This Hipster Tech Douche Stalks a Sexy Black Woman On Twitter... Let's let him speak for himself:If I have any regret about the piece, it's that I didn't title it "Why I Stalk A Sexy Black Christian Woman from Detroit (etc.)"…
...really.
…There's been a lot of talk about me "othering" this woman. Frankly? Duh.…
…Which leads to another denunciation levied: that if I really wanted to get to know this woman, I should have interacted with her instead of just voyeuristically following her Twitter stream. That's fair—but only if you presume that I actually wanted to befriend her. I didn't….
…Sorry to disappoint, but I copped to nothing of the sort. It may be a cliched, horndog thing to say, but if I have a fetish, it's a woman fetish. There's nothing the least bit "privileged" about looking at a picture that someone's put online and saying, "Yup. She's hot."…
…[On Stalking] While I believe that absolutely nothing on earth is off limits for a joke, I can understand how, if you only read the title of the post, you might not get the irony.
My psychic prediction: Next week, Gizmodo once again laments that tech & programming culture have a dearth of women and people of color. I will definitely get that irony. Sigh.
Learning Fail
Quote of the Day
"So it comes down to this. Republicans believe they can turn bullshit into gold." - The opening of a brilliant post by Jon Perr, who explains how the Republicans are doubling down on the fallacy that cutting taxes actually brings in more revenue.
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning for sexual assault and victim-blaming.]
Lynette Taylor, wife of NFL Hall-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor—who was indicted last month on charges of third-degree rape, patronizing a prostitute, and endangering the welfare of a child, after paying a 16-year-old girl (who was assaulted and brought to his room against her will by another man) $300 to "have sex with him"—took to the airwaves last night to defend her husband. She told Larry King (emphasis mine):
He should have told her to get the heck out of his room. But I cannot explain why men do what they do. I don't understand why we're destroying the Earth to get to Jupiter. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand why we're fighting a war, spending billions of dollars fighting a war over oil, instead of spending that money on stuff that we don't need oil. I don't understand why men do what they do.Ah, the old rape is for nice girls argument: Sex workers can't be raped, because they exist in a perpetual state of consent by virtue of their occupation—and don't even have the right to say no to anything, as long as they get paid afterwards.
And when no one's looking, well, they will try to get away with whatever. I can't say that. But here's the problem. When I say this was an extortion plot that went awry, because what it was to go, did you know that girl was 16, but he didn't have sex with. OK?
So now let's move on to Plan B. Let's just say he raped you and then we can sue him and we'll still get money. All right? This -- this is the most silly, ridiculous thing in the world. And I don't know -- it's like, oh, now she's a prostitute. How in the heck do you rape a prostitute.
She's a run away. Good girls don't run away. I'm sorry. I've been a 16-year-old girl, all right. I've been a 19-year-old girl. I didn't leave my home. That's what happens. That's what I think people need to tell their kids. That's what happens when you run away from home. When you leave the sanctuary of your home and your parents, yes, there are bad people out there. There are pimps waiting at bus stops and stuff things like that. You know what, stop running away. She shouldn't have ran away.
I'm not attacking her, but all I'm saying is, I don't understand how -- it's like, oh, she's only 16. Sixteen is so young. Sixteen- year-olds are driving our cars. Sixteen-year-olds are working in our stores. They're serving our food. They are old enough to have jobs. She was hold enough to, if she wanted to get help, get help. Why did it have to be a rich guy before she decided, oh, I don't want this anymore? It doesn't make sense.
Suffice it to say, this is total bullshit. Of course sex workers can be raped; their consent is required every bit as much as someone who isn't being paid. The exchange of money creates a contract; it doesn't buy a consent exemption.
But the fact that many people believe otherwise means that sex workers are at increased risk of being raped, because rapists know there are always people eminently willing to argue that a sex worker can't be raped at all.
Even when they're trafficked 16-year-olds. For fuck's sake.
And note Taylor's attempt to have it both ways, here: A sex worker can't be raped, but that damn 16-year-old shouldn't have run away, because what did she expect? "That's what happens." What happens to runaway 16-year-olds is that they get trafficked into the sex trade and raped. So she's got no right to complain!
Ugh.
And, as profoundly contemptible as Taylor's rhetoric is, what the fuck is wrong with Larry King that he invites the wife of a man charged with raping a child onto his show to defend him in the first place? No good will come from that—and, without exception, those sorts of interviews turn into spectacles of victim-blaming and heinous rape narratives.
That doesn't serve victims. It wouldn't even serve innocent people wrongly accused. Victim-blaming and rape narratives serve only one master: The rape culture.
Which in turn serves rapists.
[H/T to Shaker Miss_Led.]
Same as it ever was
The UK government is still refusing to issue visas to members of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team. The team has now forfeited a second game.
"Erin Taylor, a spokeswoman at the British Consulate in New York, said by email at 12:36 p.m.: Team members must present travel documents her government considers valid, plus U.S. or Canadian passports."
File under: getting it, you are still not.
Here's the full story from the Syracuse Post-Standard.
An affront to my friends and neighbors is an affront to me.
Speaking as a neighbor, I'll add that Haudenosaunee-American relations aren't looking so hot at the moment, what with state and county governments encroaching on tribal rights. Additional fuckery from the UK is precisely what we do not need at the moment, thank you very much.
Previously: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Swizzle Sticks, now with extra sass!
Recommended Reading:
Ta-Nehisi: The Language Police [TW for discussion of homophobic epithets]
Amie: Women's Groups Respond to Obama's Ban on Abortion Coverage in High-Risk Insurance Pools
Pema: Why Gun Control Laws Are a Feminist Issue [TW for discussion of domestic violence]
Andy: Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach to Pentagon: Throw Out the Troop Survey and Come to Work with Me
Mannion: I don't like being smarter than the President.
Anji: The Twelfth Carnival of Feminist Parenting
Holly: Book Review: Put on Your Crown by Queen Latifah
Leave your links in comments...
David Brooks Still Has a Column in the New York Times
Just when you think it's impossible for David Brooks to ascend to yet higher heights of the imperial assery he calls a career, he takes the elevator to the penthouse of Fuckery Tower, gets out, and constructs three more stories with his bare hands.
In his latest mess, he diagnoses Mel Gibson as clinically narcissistic—I believe he went to the Bill Frist School of Medical Diagnostics—and cites his "favorite piece of sociological data."
In 1950, thousands of teenagers were asked if they considered themselves an "important person." Twelve percent said yes. In the late 1980s, another few thousand were asked. This time, 80 percent of girls and 77 percent of boys said yes.Okay, first of all, someone tell David Brooks that stats from a quarter of a century ago cannot be used as if they're still current, especially when juxtaposed against stats approximately the same distance older, to prove how things can so drastically change in that space of time. Yeesh.
That doesn't make them narcissists in the Gibson mold, but it does suggest that we've entered an era where self-branding is on the ascent and the culture of self-effacement is on the decline.
Secondly, I'll just briefly point out that, without the gender breakdown of the teenagers questioned in 1950, noting that 80% of girls and 77% of boys said they considered themselves an important person in the late '80s is meaningless—except, of course, to implicitly suggest that teenage girls are more inclined toward narcissism than teenage boys.
Which is to say nothing of how meaningless is the entire statistic when "important person" is such an ill-defined concept. Objectively important? Comparatively important? I would certainly classify myself as an important person, if I thought the question meant any of the following: Do I have intrinsic worth as a person? Are my needs and opinions of value? Am I entitled to dignity and respect? Am I capable of making a difference? Do I have privileges I should leverage on behalf of marginalized people? Etc.
As opposed to Brooks' definition, which seems to be: Do I think my shit doesn't stink?
Social justice advocates will certainly note that 1950 and ~1985 stand on either side of some pretty important cultural events: the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, Brown v. Board of Ed, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Loving v. Virginia, the emergence of the feminist/womanist movement in mainstream culture, the failure of the ERA, the Roe v. Wade decision, the Pill, the emergence of the LGBTQI movement in mainstream culture, Stonewall, and the emergence of the disability rights movement, which would result in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act by 1990.
Y'know, just to name a few.
Perhaps it wasn't narcissism which led to increased numbers of US teenagers viewing themselves as "important people," but the fact of their county and culture beginning to recognize their inherent worth and acknowledge their basic rights.
I wouldn't expect a privileged wanker like Brooks—who resists authentic self-reflection with an ardor that suggests he believes it might kill him or turn him into something horrible, like a monster, or a lady—to understand this, but for a person denied fundamental equality, the line between "I am an important person" and "I have dignity" is a lot blurrier.
It's not bragging. It's asserting the humanity one has been denied.
To not understand this is to not understand why those silly gays need a pride parade. "What are they so proud about? I'm proud to be straight; you don't see me having a parade!" This will probably be the title of Brooks' next column.
And, naturally, it is not a surprise that someone with such a fundamental misunderstanding of human dignity would get this wrong, but it is still gobsmacking to see him assert, with regard to Gibson's on-tape tirade:
It is striking how morally righteous he is, without ever bothering to explain what exactly she has done wrong.It is clear on the tapes what exactly Grigorieva is supposed to have done wrong, in Gibson's estimation. Over and over Gibson tells his former partner that she did not provide him with sexual gratification as readily as he wanted, that she prioritized sleep over fucking him, that she was not forthcoming enough with oral sex. "You should just smile and fucking blow me!" he bellows.
Did Brooks really just utterly miss that the evident source of Gibson's ire was his unrestrained indignation that he felt entitled to sexual interaction with his female partner? Or does he just share Gibson's sense of entitlement so thoroughly that the exhortation to "just smile and fucking blow me" doesn't even register as a terrible shock to him?
Given Brooks' aforementioned confusion about the basic human dignity of those Not Like Him, I can guess at the answer.
[H/T to Shaker Bonny_Swan.]
Rhetorical Questions
Why do people watch Tosh.0? Does their sense of cultural inclusion conveyed by watching viral internet videos really need to be validated by a television program that exists essentially to say, "All the cool people watch these viral internet videos"? And do they really not see that Tosh 2.0 is essentially just America's Funniest Home Videos for people who think they're totally superior to people who watch America's Funniest Home Videos?
I am confused.
Also: I hate Tosh.0.
Question of the Day
If an army of Steampunk Abortion Robots invaded the Planet of the Apes, at the end of the battle, who would claim victory?
Bonus points if you can detail why one side would be the likely victor over the other.
For the record, my money's on the monkeys.
Number of the Day
$550 million. The penalty that Goldman, Sachs & Co. will pay to the Securities and Exchange Commission "to settle SEC charges that Goldman misled investors in a subprime mortgage product just as the U.S. housing market was starting to collapse."
Daily Dose o' Cute
This is a little video Dudz and I made the other day to encourage his cousin Alfie on his learning-the-stairs journey. Matilda helped by ambling down the stairs in her peculiar way, and Olivia and Sophie helped by eating treats that had fallen on the floor.
[Video Description: Dudz peeks around the couch. Liss whispers, "Whatcha doin'?" and kisses at him. "You goin' upstairs?" Dudz ducks behind the couch. Cut to Dudz walking up the stairs; he stops and sniffs at something, then continues to the top, looking down at Liss to make sure she's paying attention to what a GOOD BOY he is. Cut to Tilsy galumphing down the stairs. Cut to Dudz trotting back down the stairs. He wanders around the couch into the living room, where Livs and Sophs are eating treats. Liss says "Sit!" but he's discovered a treat on the floor and eats it up. "Can you sit?" Dudz lies down next to Livs and looks up at Liss, who says, "Oh, what a good boy."]
For those who can't watch video, still images are below the fold.
Dudzy.
Sophie.
Livsy.
Tilsy.
The Bird Heard Round the World
by Shaker Abra
Hey, Shakers! If you're having a bad day, maybe this will cheer you up.
Three years ago, I got something I didn't order: it was this weird wooden bird thing with feathers attached. When we pulled it out of the box, both of us said, "Oh my GOD. What the fuck IS it?!"
So then I asked some internet friends what I should do with this thing. Responses ranged all over the map, but the consensus was, "let's mail it around to each other, take pics, and post them on a website".
So we did. And here is the result. So far, anyway.
The bird's going to Canada, Finland, and Australia next. The bird will continue to fly.
I hope this puts a smile on your face. We're not perfect, but it sure makes us happy!
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 (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Chip, Chip, Chip...
They're chipping away at Roe in Missouri:
Missouri abortion clinics will face new mandates to offer women ultrasound images and heartbeats of their fetuses as a result of legislation allowed to become law Wednesday by Gov. Jay Nixon.There's the vigorous defense of women's autonomy we've come to expect from the Democratic Party!
The Democratic governor, facing his first decision on an abortion bill, sidestepped a direct endorsement of the new requirements by citing a Missouri constitutional provision allowing bills to become law without the governor's signature.
Me, during the last election, once of a zillion times making the same point:
Using Roe as a cudgel to batter feminists/womanists (FWs) into line is becoming increasingly futile because the Democrats have been weak on protecting choice—and, hence, women's autonomy—for years. Yes, Roe is still in place, but the GOP has successfully chipped away at abortion rights on the federal and state levels for two decades. The point is, certainly the Democrats will nominate and approve justices who will protect Roe, but if they aren't willing to protect it from being rendered an impotent and largely symbolic statute because it's been hollowed out by "partial-birth abortion bans" and "parental consent laws" and state legislatures that refuse to fund clinics offering abortions, what does it really matter if they protect Roe?Last month, the New York Times ran a piece titled "Abortion Foes Advance Cause at State Level," which began: "At least 11 states have passed laws this year regulating or restricting abortion, giving opponents of abortion what partisans on both sides of the issue say is an unusually high number of victories. In four additional states, bills have passed at least one house of the legislature."
FWs who are paying attention to what's happened to practical choice in this country know that the Roe card is already functionally meaningless at this point in large swaths of the country—and that's about the national Democratic Party as a whole, not just about its nominee in this election. The Dems are falling down on the job of serving their FW constituents in general and women specifically.
And the argument about appointing pro-Roe justices is designed, in part, to mask that failure. Not all of the restrictions on abortion rights have been decided in the court; many (if not most) are proposed and passed in state legislatures—and only those challenged n court depend on judicial appointments. Federal, state, and local funding of clinics has nothing to do with whom Democrats appoint to the bench. Fights over zoning laws and gifted property to build new clinics may also find their way to court, but oftentimes never make it that far. Anyone who still thinks that every encroachment on reproductive rights is being decided in a courtroom has some catching up to do.
A lot of progressives treat legal abortion like an on-off switch, but it's not remotely that simple. Legal abortion is only worth as much as the number of women who have reasonable and affordable and unencumbered access to it. That number is dwindling; IIRC, as of the year 2000, less than a third of the incorporated counties in the US had abortion clinics. That's not just inconvenience—between travel expenses and time off work along, the cost of securing an abortion can become an undue burden.
Realistically, if you're a woman who already has to drive three hours and across state lines to get an abortion, how much is "we'll protect Roe" actually supposed to mean to you?
Those making the Roe argument seriously need to consider what it sounds like to one of those women when she's told how her right to choose is best supported by someone who treats Roe as a magical abortion access password.
This is happening in the United States, a country where abortion is meant to be legal and women are meant to be equal citizens with bodily autonomy and agency over their medical care, while a Democratic president sits in the White House saying absolutely nothing about the unrelenting assault on choice.
A president who was elected on the votes of women who were promised he would "protect Roe," who now instead silently oversees its slow subversion by a thousand legislative cuts.
I'm surprised (ahem) at the cavernous void of outrage across the progressive blogosphere at this affront to women. One might imagine the male-authored blogs at which protecting Roe is such a huge issue during elections would be prominently featuring coverage of this assault on women's basic bodily autonomy. One would think they'd be angry at the president who made them look like fools, after they caterwauled endlessly about how he was going to be the Great Protector of Roe, but now cannot be moved even to issue a critical statement of those who would hollow it out to its empty husk.
It's almost like certain gentlemen ostensibly on the Left side of the aisle only care about Roe as a bargaining chip, and not as a fundamental right of women. Huh.
Still. No. Visas.
Yet another quick update: The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team has still not left the United States for the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester. They have already missed their first match. At the moment, the hold up appears to be that the UK refuses to issue visas to holders of Haudenosaunee passports. The Syracuse Post-Standard reports that my U.S. Representative was just on BBC Radio asking British nationals to pressure their government to reverse its position. I'm still not sure what the status is of players and staff who were born north of the U.S./Canada border (last I heard, the U.S. said it would not allow "Canadian born" Haudenosaunee nationals back into the U.S. absent negotiations with Ottawa).
I don't have the time to give much analysis, but I'm sobered by the realization that the outpouring of well-wishes 1) has not appeared to be enough to allow these folks to travel to a sporting event, and 2) might not have occurred at all were this not a large party traveling to play a popular sport at a major tournament in the Global North.
Previously: One, Two, Three.
Stay Classy, Catholic Church
[Trigger warning for clergy abuse and institutional misogyny.]
You just can't make this stuff up:
The Vatican today made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism.So, just to be clear: According to the Catholic Church, ordaining a woman is just as bad as raping a child. Or, if you prefer, raping a child is only as a bad as attempting to ordain a woman.
You got your virulent misogyny in my diminishment of sexual assault!
All I can do is laugh bitterly at this point.
[H/T to Shaker Princess R.]
It's DEATHFAT! It's HEXFAT! It's HOTFAT! It's...
A woman's body shape may play a role in how good her memory is, according to a new study.May play a role. Well, that's certainly good enough to publish under the definitive headlins: "Study: Body shape affects memory in older women." I wonder, despite being apple-shaped myself, if I should be more or less worried about this research than the research which assured me that my fatty-fattitude will SHRINK MY BRAIN!
The more an older woman weighs, the worse her memory, according to research released this week from Northwestern Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
The effect is more pronounced in women who carry excess weight around their hips, known as pear shapes, than women who carry it around their waists, called apple shapes.
The reason pear-shaped women experienced more memory and brain function deterioration than apple-shaped women is likely related to the type of fat deposited around the hips versus the waist. Scientists know that different kinds of fat release different cytokines -- the hormones that can cause inflammation and affect cognition.Can cause. Hmm. Well, even if it's a possibility, we'd better start panicking, right? After all, this isn't called an obesity CRISIS for nothing. Set phasers to shame!
"The study tells us if we have a woman in our office, and we know from her waist-to-hip ratio that she's carrying excess fat on her hips, we might be more aggressive with weight loss," Kerwin said. "We can't change where your fat is located, but having less of it is better."Breaking news from science, everyone: Having less fat is better.
Also better: Having less genetic predisposition toward fatness, having less disability contributing to fatness, having less illness treatable with medications that cause fatness, having less ruined metabolisms from yo-yo dieting or smoking or disordered eating, having less trauma self-medicated with food, having less use for fat as a self-defense mechanism, having less poverty, having fewer food deserts, having fewer green-free urban spaces, having less food insecurity, having less government-subsidized corn farming, having less car-dependent suburban and exurban development, having less medical research and reporting axiomatically treating fat as causation.
The best: Having less fat hatred.
In case my point isn't clear, I'm not suggesting that there should be no investigation into the relationship between fat and brain activity (or heart function, or lung capacity, or tear-duct production, or anything else). My point is that, when correlations are identified, the solution oughtn't immediately be: "AGGRESSIVELY ENCOURAGE WEIGHT LOSS!" as if every fat person has gotten fat via lazy overeating and the solution is thus an individual process, and a simple one at that. Calories in, calories out!
This is a cultural issue, and it's not merely irresponsible and ineffective to say, "Your genetic predisposition to carry weight on your hips plus whatever factors caused you to gain excess weight on your hips has now left your brain vulnerable (we think!), so go sort yourself out, fatty," but is also deeply cruel.
[H/T to Shaker Julia.]
Top Chef Open Thread
[Image from last night's show: Tom Colicchio (center) shares his best Brando impression* with Eric Ripert and Robert Duvall (right). The reaction of an unidentified man in a terrible** jacket is unknown. Padma Lakshmi politely feigns interest.]
Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
* I didn't actually see this ep, so I'm just guessing this is what is happening here.
** I didn't see this ep, but I do know that's a terrible jacket.
