This blogaround brought to you from Shaxco, currently located at the bottom of a snow mountain.
Recommended Reading:
Sady: #DearJohn: Taking It Big [TW for rape] Related: Listen to Jaclyn Friedman on the Rick Smith Show last night here.
Rachel: Photo of the Day
Arturo: Top Gear Goes From Zero to Racist in Under Two Minutes [TW for racism and violence] Melissa has contact info here.
Suzie: Spying on the UN
Andy: Abandoned Cars in Snow on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive
CTJen: Fatties Run Around Outside and Have Fun
Renee: Snowmageddon Has Closed Everything Down
Leave your links in comments...
Wednesday Blogaround
Questionable Standards
After I read Liss' post on Coded Misogyny and Institutional Prejudice, I had a million and one thoughts bouncing around in my head about how her insights could be applied to financial systems (Capitalism/Masculine Socialism/Feminine), national defense strategies (Imperialism/Masculine Nationalism/Feminine), politics (Conservative Daddies and Liberal Mommies), and many, many other arenas -- then something popped out at me.
In systems where kyriarchal assumptions become the default standard against which everything else is measured, there seems to me to be a consistent feature:
The standard doesn't have to be met by its own adherents -- only those challenging the standard have to meet or exceed it.
An example:
STANDARD: Functional financial systems produce escalating wealth and opportunity in a way that is sustainable long term, and everyone knows that USofA-style free-market Capitalism is the Best! Possible! Financial System! In the World!!! Everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps!!
Don't you just know this is true? I hear it all the time -- from adherents of the kyriarchy.
Never mind that the original U.S financial system was not a true free-market capitalist system -- that it was initially made possible by a massive theft/co-option of property and developed through slave labor.
Never mind that, in its entire history, the longest period that the U.S. has been without a financial panic, recession, or depression is 10 years (and that's fairly recent, between 1991 and 2001 -- the average time between any panic/recession/depression in U.S. history is just 2 years and 8 months).
In the 236 years that the USofA has been a nation, it's spent a full third of that time -- 77.5 years -- in varying states of economic panic, recession or depression.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that Capitalism is the worst economic system, or even necessarily a “bad” system -- but if you bought a car that was advertised as the Best! Possible! Car! in the World!!! -- and every third day it would only drive in reverse -- wouldn't you begin to question the quality claims?
So, why aren't we allowed to rationally assess the real sustainability and efficacy of Capitalism without being demonized as Anarchists, Socialists, or Communists?
Because the kyriarchy doesn't have to prove itself to you -- you have to prove yourself to it.
Another example:
STANDARD: According to the Daddy Party, traditional family values are very, very important, fiscal conservatism is a must, and corruption in government has to go!
[Insert here myriad stories of Daddy Party members engaging in anti-family-values activities such as hiring prostitutes, having (and conspiring to cover up) extra-marital affairs, expanding the deficit every time they've been in power since 1980, and being found guilty of money-laundering, conspiracy, voter fraud, etc. -- all without being kicked out of the party that espouses the values listed above.]
In fact, the one thing that seemingly will get you kicked out of the Daddy Party is acting too much like a member of the Mommy Party -- then you become a RINO.
So why aren't we allowed to objectively assess, and call to account, the chasm between statement and practice vis-a-vis conservative values without being accused of being dangerous, radical liberals?
Because the kyriarchy doesn't have to prove itself to you -- you have to prove yourself to it.
Another example:
STANDARD: Single-paired heterosexuality is "natural" and "normal". All other forms of sexuality are not normal.
Despite the fact that recorded human history is full of people who were not heterosexual -- despite the fact that the vast majority of those who identify as heterosexual are not single-paired for a lifetime in terms of sexual interactions -- despite the fact that queers of all varieties have been shown again and again to be "normal" in other respects (not that I consider that a good thing, necessarily, given what passes for normal in this society) -- being queer is still considered, well . . . queer. Abnormal. Deviant -- in all its shades of meaning, from the purely statistical to the moral/judgmental.
Why doesn't the collective presence of queers throughout history, the presence of verifiable clinical data, and the evidence of our own experience make a bigger dent in this standard?
Well -- you know . . .
I could go on and on with these examples, but . . . . enough already.
I want to draw attention to something in that last bit, though -- about the evidence of our own experience.
How many times have you found yourself bumping up against internalized oppression based on these standards, and subjugating yourself to them, despite your own experience that they were inaccurate or flawed?
As a person who is fat, I experience the health and strength of my portly form directly -- I have a visceral, intimate sense of my own vitality every single day, and have verifiable physical evidence that I’ve enjoyed far better health at my current weight than when I was thin -- but within me, I know I still harbor voices that tell me that I am wrong/bad for being fat.
I've spent a lot of time and energy arguing with those voices, and I wonder why I still sometimes allow them to trump my own actual life experience as an authority.
I think this may be one of the most insidious thing about kyriarchal standards -- their potential to get inside our heads and encourage us to stop thinking and feeling for ourselves.
These are the assumptions that we're soaking in, and challenging them is considered dangerous by adherents of the kyriarchy.
My experience has been that I assume that it's dangerous to challenge them, too, at some level.
I notice that, usually, as I muster up my courage to confront sexism, or racism, or homophobia, or ableism, or fat-phobia, or, or, or . . . . my palms get sweaty and the butterflies start up in my stomach.
In most cases, I also find myself assessing the person(s) I'm about to confront -- "Will it make any difference? Are they simply unconscious, but still teachable? How entrenched are they in the standard I'm about to challenge?"
Essentially, I'm asking myself: "Is it worth the risk of speaking up?" -- and that tells me that I have been successfully programmed to the concept that confronting the kyriarchy is risky.
The baffling thing is that, while many (if not most) of these standards can't hold up to the light of objective examination, and so many of them prove untrue in our direct personal and collective experience (turns out letting queers wed doesn't undermine the institution of marriage, and the human race did not die out because women stopped having children when they got the vote), the kyriarchy seems completely unembarrassed about having been so spectacularly wrong.
How often have you seen the kyriarchy successfully challenged on its own terms – with evidence and studies that adhere to the male-coded qualities of rational, scientific research – only to have the kyriarchy wave it away dismissively or simply skim to a new rationalization/justification to defend the standard?
[TW for discussion of rape culture]
Here’s a glaring example: The statistic that 1 out of every 6 women is a survivor of an attempted or completed rape at some point in their lives is not some magical claim that flew out of a unicorn’s butt – it comes from an agency within the kyriarchy itself: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/172837.htm
(My personal experience, and the experience of the women I know, tells me that this statistic is probably very conservative – but for the moment, let’s just go with their figures.)
Now -- think about how many times you’ve argued with a rape-culture denier – when you’ve pointed out these figures, or highlighted that this statistic is about rape only and doesn’t even touch on other forms of sexual threat and harassment towards women – and then you’ve received responses like these:
• Well, those are subjective reports! (dismissal relying on another assumption/standard -- women can’t be trusted)
• But men are more often victims of murder! (skim away)
• Hey! Men are raped too! (straw-person attempt at justification/skim away)
• Women can just accuse someone! (see #1)
• Yes, there are some bad apples, but there is no such thing as a rape culture. (dismissal)
(As a side note: I think that one of the reasons that the denial of rape culture is so strong is that it’s a key strand in a particularly complex and nasty basket – if you pull on that one, all sorts of other cultural tropes -- about men as the noble protectors of delicate womanhood, and equal opportunity, and shared power, and a host of other assumptions and standards -- begin to come unraveled.)
And yet another example (honestly, sometimes I wish these weren’t so easy to find):
When a person who fits the preferred kyriarchal profile of straight, white, male becomes wealthy, powerful, or popular, it’s assumed that their success is due to how well the various systems and standards of the kyriarchy work.
However, when a person of color, or a woman, or a disabled person, or a transperson, or a queer, or, or, or . . . actually succeeds on the kyriarchy’s own terms – say they amass great wealth, or attain a position of power, or develop a widespread audience – how often do you hear criticisms of them that imply that they must have “cheated” in some way?
Obama, born in Hawaii, needs to provide a birth certificate -- but McCain, born in Panama, does not.
Oprah Winfrey’s business acumen has clearly resulted in “success” by kyriarchal standards, but I often see coded misogyny in the criticisms of how she got there – the very fact that her audience and message are coded feminine seems to make her suspect. The coded misogyny seems to extend to men who pitch primarily to women, too. Dr. Phil is the second highest-earning talk-show host after Oprah -- but compare the attitudes you hear expressed about the value of these two shows as compared to what you hear about Letterman (the third highest earner).
Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be where she was unless she’d been married to a U.S. President, right?
Also, it’s often assumed that a person outside the preferred profile has only succeeded because of their difference, rather than in spite of it (just another lovely feature of tokenism).
I bring these examples up because they demonstrate again how the kyriarchy does not seem to feel obliged to adhere to its own standards. The USian myth that anyone can succeed, as long as they follow the formula of Hard Work! Clean Living! Moral Standards! is exploded by its own adherents over and over as they succeed in spite of poor work ethic, libertine behavior, and glaring moral hypocrisy. It’s exploded yet again when outsiders follow the formula but don’t succeed, or succeed and are then discounted.
It’s the old saw: A woman [you could insert any other “other” there] has to be twice as good as a man [insert “straight” “white”, etc.] to go half as far.
All of this is essentially about unearned privilege, and double-standards, yes – but it actually goes beyond just a double-standard, I think – it’s really a one-way standard – one that bristles and growls when you dare to challenge its validity.
So, where am I going with all this?
I’m going here >>> I’m currently using these three features of the Kyriarchy . . .
1. Doesn’t have to live up to its own standards, requires that all others do so.
2. Claims these standards as Universal Truth, despite clinical and experiential evidence to the contrary.
3. Gets cranky and threatening (and often, eliminationist) when standards are challenged.
. . . to examine attitudes and beliefs inside myself for hints of internalized oppression.
An example from my own life – a standard that I absorbed fully and still wrestle with:
Formal Traditional Education=Intelligence
As the daughter of two school teachers, I got the full spa-treatment with this one – it was soaked, scrubbed, and polished into me, at home as well as in the wider world, and I didn’t begin to question it within myself at all until I was well into my thirties.
I knew one of my best friends for nearly ten years before she revealed that she had quit school at fourteen and had no GED. Her mom was pretty much absent for a number of reasons, and there were four young brothers who needed care and supervision. My friend is brilliant – a gifted writer, thinker, and business woman -- and I said something asinine in response, like: “Really? I would never have known that – you’re so smart!” (Oy! It’s one of those moments that makes me want to curl up and die of shame when I think back on it.)
But do you see what happened there?
When the standard I had absorbed was challenged by my direct experience of my dear friend’s rapier wit (which brings me to tearful laughter on a nearly daily basis), penetrating mind (which I have marveled at in long, late conversations on myriad subjects), and success as an entrepreneur, and I experienced that “Zuh?” moment -- I didn’t stop and question the validity of the standard – instead, I dismissed her as an anomaly to it.
Of course, questioning and challenging this internalized entrainment can be a dicey business, according to the kyriarchy – because if Education !=Intelligence, then I begin questioning all sorts of other assumptions about what Intelligence is at all.
Is another friend whose grammar sucks (according to the standard), but who is able to instantly see connections that I miss, more “intelligent” than I am? Does my friend who simply says “I don’t read”, but who takes photographs of astounding beauty and fucking invents and builds impossibly weird, complex, and gorgeous stringed instruments, “intelligent”? Is my friend’s autistic, nonverbal son being “intelligent” when he’s effortlessly cutting a perfect freehand spiral from a sheet of paper in seconds?
This is why the kyriarchy hates being confronted. This is how the basket unravels.
I believe that we must unravel it, because the stereotypes arise from the institutional standards, not the other way around.
I often find that there is much more support for the confrontation of individual stereotypes than for thorough assessment and critique of the nasty basket from which they spring, even within communities of self-identified social justice activists.
Write a blogpost descrying a specific comment that accuses the unemployed of being lazy, and you’re likely to get a pat on the back and big huzzah – write one about how frequent swings in employment levels may indicate that Capitalism itself is an inherently-flawed economic system? – you are ZOMG RADICAL!!11!!1!!
Pen an article about the injustice of a specific rape case where “she was asking for it” tropes are trotted out, and at least some other progressives will applaud you – begin a series about how rape is institutionalized as Rape Culture, and point out how individual “jokes” and acceptance of those “jokes” promotes this institutionalized oppression, and you may find that those very same people tell you that you are being HYSTERICAL!!, and alarmist, and looking for trouble where it doesn’t exist – especially if you type that series with hands that happen to be attached to a woman’s body.
If you’re a queer speaking out about the false standard of hetero-normity, or a person of color speaking out about the false standard of white supremacy, or person with a disability speaking out about the false standard of able-mind/bodiedness – well, of course you’d speak out that way – you have an agenda. If you’re not a member of the marginalized group, but you speak out about these things, you’re being “politically correct”, or you’re “brain-washed” or part of an “echo chamber”.
The kyriarchy has a bazillion and one strategies to discourage true inquest into its baseline assumptions and standards -- that’s a feature, not a bug.
The one time I was absolutely believed that I was at real risk during an interaction with police was stimulated by the bumper sticker on a friend’s van. The cop who was pointing a gun at me even nodded toward it when I asked why he was treating us the way he was.
The bumper-sticker read: “Question Authority”.
I recommend it highly.
Open Thread: Unrest in Egypt
General view during anti-government clashes with supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 2, 2011. Egypt's army denied firing any shots in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where pro- and anti-government protesters were clashing, state television said on Wednesday. [Reuters Pictures]Recommended Feeds: Follow Shaker @scatx and my friend and former editor @RichardA on Twitter, who are both providing excellent minute-to-minute coverage. And @AndersonCooper, who has witnessed molotov cocktails being thrown in the streets of Cairo and got roughed up himself earlier today, is, as always, great, too.
The Guardian has live updates here.
Al Jazeera has live updates here.
Recommended Reading:
CNN—Volatile scene unfolds in Cairo as opposing sides clash.
New York Times—Clashes Erupt in Cairo Between Mubarak's Allies and Foes:
President Obama's calls for a rapid transition to a new order in Egypt seemed eclipsed on Wednesday as a choreographed surge of thousands of people chanting support for the Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak fought running battles with a larger number of antigovernment protesters in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square.WaPo—Obama presses Mubarak to move 'now': "President Obama, clearly frustrated by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's intention to retain his hold on power until elections later this year, said Tuesday evening that he has told Mubarak that a transition to representative government 'must begin now'."
The mayhem and chaos — with riders on horses and camels thundering through the central square — offered a complete contrast to the scenes only 24 hours earlier when hundreds of thousands of antigovernment protesters turned it into a place of jubilant celebration, believing that they were close to overthrowing a leader who has survived longer than any other in modern Egypt.
A transcript of the President's statement is here.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to leave additional links and recommendations in comments.
Offended Is the Worst Thing to Be
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia.]
The Penny Arcade Dickwolves Debacle rages on, with some of the most remarkably insensitive minimization of sexual violence and some of the most callous ridicule of survivors I have ever seen. (Which is really saying something.) I don't even know where to begin in describing the Twitter war, so, suffice it to say, at one point Gabe (one of the creators of the comic) tweeted at Shaker Mod Scott Madin: "#sigh if you don't understand humor I can't help you. There's no point arguing this. We disagree at very fundamental levels."
"Yeah, Scott, why are you so humorless?" I tweeted. "And I'm sure @cwgabriel is just using the silencing tropes of rape apologia IRONICALLY. #geez"
Which pretty much sums it up, I guess. Someone using the fundamental tools of rape apologia ("you're just humorless; you're oversensitive; you just don't get it") to argue he is not a rape apologist.
And make no mistake: Someone who defends rape jokes, which are the the primary means by which rape is normalized and its gravity diminished to make rape acceptable—so acceptable, in fact, that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be victimized by sexual violence at least once in their lifetimes, the vast majority of whom will never see justice for those crimes against them—is indeed a rape apologist.
To defend a rape joke that serves the rape culture, at which a rapist is more likely to laugh than a survivor, at which a rapist can laugh at all, is to defend what that joke exists in service to, intentionally or not.
But somehow, it's still worse to be offended than to offend anti-rape advocates and trigger survivors.
Leaving aside the reality that many of the people who object to this shit are not offended, but contemptuous, I just love (where love = disdain with the fiery passion of 10,000 suns) the idea that to be dismayed by trivializing rape and mocking survivors is evidence of moral failure but telling and defending rape jokes makes you some kind of fucking hero.
And let us all stop to appreciate, for just a moment, the narrative that someone offended by and/or contemptuous of rape jokes, and publicly says so under their real names despite knowing it will bring an onslaught of vicious ugliness upon them, is weak, but the anonymous mob who descends upon hir making threats and, without a trace of irony, admonishes hir to ignore stuff zie doesn't like, are Brave Champions of Reasonable Debate or whatever.
Everything is just totally fucking backwards. It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.
This whole ghastly affair comes down to this: Gabe and Tycho were insensitive. It's not that survivors and their allies were being too sensitive, but that Gabe and Tycho weren't being sensitive enough. And lots of people who afforded them the good faith presumption of decency asked them to be a little more considerate. That's it.
And they said fuck you and we're putting it on a t-shirt and wearing that shit to our convention because fuck you more.
That's what happened here.
But still the primary narrative, as it always is, is that some EASILY OFFENDED HYSTERICS just looking for things to get mad about got their panties in a bunch because they don't understand humor.
Easily Offended Hysterics is certainly more digestible than Triggered Rape Survivors, but it's not honest. Of course, honesty makes it much more difficult to marginalize concerns of people who can be easily dismissed if they're mendaciously cast as thin-skinned reactionaries, since we all know that Offended is the worst thing anyone can be.
[Previously: Rape Is Hilarious, Survivors Are So Sensitive, Quote of the Day, Troll Math and Teaspoons, T-Shirts and Teaspoons and Mythical Creatures, Taking a Brave Stance Against Survivors of Rape.]
The Overton Window: Chapter Thirty-Three
Part three, of course, means new characters. We get two this chapter. One is Ellen Davenport ("of the East Hampton Davenports"), the other "an older woman, frail and thin as dry reeds." The second woman has no name. Yet! Or maybe she won't get one. Who knows? Who cares? No, seriously, who cares? Anyone?
The chapter opens with Noah in a cab (of course), heading to the hospital. On the way he calls his childhood "friend who was a girl," Ellen, and asks her to meet him at Lenox Hill Hospital.
As he walked down the hallway of the ward Noah saw three things: the crowd of people overflowing from the double doorway of the floor's small chapel, a smaller knot of visitors waiting outside a single room down near the end, and Dr. Ellen Davenport, still in her wrinkled scrubs, waving to him from an alcove near the elevators.
So, who thinks Beverly Emerson will be cured by The Power of Prayer? Or do you think she'll die holding Noah's hand, maybe after revealing some profound Truth to him? Or, back to my early question: Who cares?
Ellen gave him a hug when he reached her, and then held him away at arm’s length and frowned. "You look like hell, Gardner."
Oh, those old friends! What cut-ups! Ha ha ha. Bleh. Here, have some backstory:
Noah and Ellen both also seemed to realize that dating each other was the last thing they should ever do. They'd actually tried it once just to be sure, and the discomfort of that terrible evening was matched only by its comic potential when the story was retold by the two of them in later years.
Wow. That's just like When Harry Met Sally. But in two sentences instead of 90 minutes. Wow, this book isn't even trying anymore. Just pretend that was a charming moment between two old friends. If it's helpful, go ahead and imagine Meg Ryan as Ellen. (Link!)
So, blah blah blah, except not blah blah blah because this whole chapter is a page and a half long and there isn't exactly a superfluity of words spilling out of the pages here. But short story even shorter, Ellen tells Noah the pills he is taking is methadone (whatever) and Noah asks Ellen to get a good doctor for Beverly.
And somewhere in all that is this:
Noah was preoccupied, looking over the people milling through the hall, every bit as afraid that he might see Molly as that he might never see her again.Whatever.
Noah was interrupted by the approach of a stranger. It was an older woman, frail and thin as dry reeds, and from the corner of his eye he'd seen her come from the direction of that room near the end of the hall. The woman nodded her respect to Ellen, turned to him, and then spoke with a gentle gravity in her voice that said more than the words (Link!) themselves would convey.
"She's awake now. Somebody told her you were here, and she says she wants to talk to you."
Whatever.
The chapter, of course, ends on that dramatic note. I think the author went to the Soap Opera School of Dramatic Writing. Ominous dialogue + Moody close up of smoldering eyes + music sting = Tension. Okay then. Cut to commercial. (Link!)
And for the record, chapter thirty-four picks up right where thirty-three leaves off, so the break serves no purpose outside of some misguided attempt to create suspense with page breaks.
Whatever.
Question of the Day
What was your last positive personal milestone?
It could be anything that's important to your life: Graduating college, having a commitment ceremony of some description, getting a promotion, having an important surgery, learning a new skill, turning a meaningful age, coming out, getting divorced, becoming a parent, whatever you regard as a notable marker in your journey.
SnOMG
We're supposed to get two more feet of snow tonight. I dearly hope that is INCORRECT.
Open Thread: Unrest in Egypt
There's a lot going on today, so here's a place to discuss. Below is some recommended reading, and, as always, feel free to add links in comments.
Protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on 1 February 2011. Photograph: Jim Hollander/EPAThe Guardian—Egypt's protesters refuse to leave the streets until Mubarak steps down: "Ten days ago 50 people demonstrating on a Cairo student campus would have been regarded as an event out of the ordinary, something to be quickly crushed by the Egyptian police. That was then. Today hundreds of thousands of people crammed themselves into Cairo's central Tahrir Square to call for an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three decades in power—and the government security forces were nowhere to be seen."
USA Today—Mubarak: 'I have spent enough time serving Egypt': "Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak indicated in a 10-minute televised speech Tuesday that he will not seek re-election, after eight days of protests over his 30-year rule."
The Guardian—Egypt protests: parties reject talks and try to restore credibility: "Egypt's fractured opposition movement has rallied together to emphatically reject talks with the ruling National Democratic party on political reform, insisting that Hosni Mubarak must stand down before any dialogue can begin. Whether Mubarak promising to step down at the next election, as was reported tonight, will satisfy them remains to be seen."
Reuters: Egypt tries to calm investors and get food to people.
Max Strasser: Beside Boys on the Street: Women and the Egyptian Protests
Stellaa: A Guide: How Not to Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt
Real Mature
Melissa and I were just watching this together on the phone and laughing ourselves into tears. Because we're five years old.
This video is just brief clips from The Empire Strikes Back, with fart sound effects included. If you don't like fart jokes, this won't be your cup of farts.
It's all about the reaction shots. And the AT-AT.
p.s. Fart.
Actual Headline
[Trigger warning for fat hatred.]
Actual Headline: Obesity a big barrier for getting a mammogram.
A "big barrier." I see what you did there. Har har.
Actual Opening Paragraphs:
Women are less likely to be screened for breast cancer if they are obese, according to a new study in the Journal of Women's Health. Despite having insurance and receiving reminders to get screened, "...a significant portion of the population is not getting screened," according to the study.Physical pain is what they're talking about here. But is that what fat women are talking about? Or are they really talking about the emotional/psychological pain of being a fat patient in a healthcare system that hates fat people...? These are questions the article never bothers to ask.
The reasons women gave for skipping mammograms are clear-cut, but the solutions are not. Among obese patients, the main reason cited for skipping mammograms was that the test is too painful, yet many women who are not obese also cite pain as a reason for avoiding the test.
"Two Days in the Life of Fatty Fatastrophe" is all else I've got to say on the matter.
[H/Ts to Shaker Hatilda and Eastsidekate.]
Obviously
Of course James Franco is going to teach a class about himself. What—did you think James Franco WASN'T going to teach a class about himself? You're so weird.
#dearjohn: No On 3
To embed the above on your own website/blog, copy and paste this code:
Today's Items:
Sady's got a piece in Salon here.
NARAL's got a very easy form to contact your representatives here.
MoveOn has started a petition against H.R.3, which you can read and sign here.
Deanna Zandt has posted a helpful How To Guide re: the #DearJohn campaign here. There are so many easy ways to get involved, even if it's just retweeting the items you like under the #DearJohn hashtag.
Jonathan Capehart: What is 'forcible rape' exactly?
Evan McMorris-Santoro: Radio Silence On Rape-Redefining Abortion Bill From The Right.
Michelle Goldberg: GOP Abortion Bill Redefines Rape.
Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave other links or suggestions for teaspooning in comments.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
"I consider the proposal of this bill a violent act against women. It really is—to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself."—Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), four-term member of Congress and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, on H.R.3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act."
[Note: Although most people treat "women" and "people who can get pregnant" as synonymous terms, they are not. This is, in fact, a violent act against people who can get pregnant, and, in its redefinition of rape, a violent act against all survivors.]
A Challenge
[Trigger warning for transphobia, transmisogyny, objectification.]
So, this past weekend, Saturday Night Live aired one of their fauxmercials for a fake product called Estro-Maxxx, a "once-daily" estrogen supplement for trans women on the go who don't have time "for five estrogen supplements a day." It was a standard SNL fauxmercial for an imaginary drug—except that the male actors playing the transitioning women sported facial hair, body hair, and men's haircuts. It was your basic dude-in-a-dress shtick, with a gag about airport scans and a side effect warning that "Men taking estrogen may develop an interest in TLC's Say Yes to the Dress." Such an absolute clusterfuck of fail, the entire punchline (such as it is) of which is: Trans ladies are funny! A man wanting to be a lady is weird! Ladies are stupid!
The video is viewable here at GLAAD's site, where there is also a teaspooning opportunity.
That the SNL piece is insensitive, dehumanizing, marginalizing, and contemptible is so self-evident to anyone with a shred of decency or an infinitesimal trace of a social conscience, I won't belabor outlining in this space why it is hateful garbage. What I want to point out is this: It's so blatantly hateful garbage that its creators cannot have been expecting anything less than for trans* people and their allies to react with outrage.
In the age of viral video, it seems deliberately designed to provoke controversy. And that is more shameful than ignorance.
Courting the outrage of marginalized people is a swell publicity strategy, but it leaves marginalized people in an untenable position. We are admonished to "get a sense of humor," or "get over it," or "don't let it bother you," or some variation on Not Reacting, but this shit doesn't happen in a void; the dehumanization of trans* people for shits and giggles has real-world consequences for actual trans* people. Urging silence in the sunlight of that knowledge is to urge trans* people to participate in their own marginalization.
On the flipside, to react with the anger that was calculatingly piqued means trans* people and their allies are reactionary and oversensitive, just a bunch of humorless hysterics whose concerns can be dismissed on the basis that we are YAWN boring in our predictability.
Heads they win; tails we lose.
If no one complains, it's proof of concept. If people get mad, hell, that's fucking hilarious, too! HAR HAR hypersensitive weirdos!
Heads they win; tails we lose.
I can signal tacit approval of SNL's transphobia by being silent, or I can get angry about SNL's transphobia and play right into the hands of the deliberate provocateurs, who would like nothing more than a story in a major media outlet pitting the comedians against the hysterics.
Heads they win; tails we lose.
I can marginalize my own voice, or I can raise it and be marginalized with the usual silencing tropes.
Heads they win; tails we lose.
This is an issue beyond the transphobia inherent in the video. It's not just that SNL is being irresponsible and cruel; it's that SNL is actively obliging trans* people and their allies to participate in the marginalization of trans* people, which is flatly unconscionable.
And it renders indefensible the typical argument that no one gets hurt by a comedy sketch.
The actors and writers at SNL (and actors and writers everywhere who do transphobic and transmisogynistic material) are depending on the existence of transphobia to inoculate them against consequences. Transphobia, including all the silencing tropes (humorless, hysterical, oversensitive) used against people who advocate for social justice, ensures that we will always lose this game, as long as it's played by their rules.
So I'm changing the rules. I'm not going to be silent, and I'm not going to detail my valid (and useful) anger.
I'm calling out the unethical and reprehensible use of transphobia as comedy fodder, as a way to court controversy, and as a shield against consequences, and I'm challenging the people who use transphobia in that way to stop.
I challenge you to do better, SNL.
Because I expect more.
Too Bad Facts Don't Deter Anti-Choicers
Because here's yet another piece of information dispatched from Reality that ought to make them question their determination to deny women abortion, but won't:
An authoritative new study from researchers in Denmark, noteworthy for its exceptionally strong methodology, confirms what the best scientific evidence has long shown—that there is no causal link between abortion and mental health problems. The new study, "Induced First-Trimester Abortion and Risk of Mental Disorder," by Trine Munk-Olsen and colleagues, was published in the January 27, 2011, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.The piece notes that this study "succeeds in addressing several critical limitations that have afflicted some other studies that purport to show causation between abortion and subsequent mental health problems" and is "unusually rigorous for this type of research," having used a very large sample size (84,620 women) over 12 years, integrated complete patient medical registries with self-reporting, and had "strong controls for women’s mental health prior to abortion, a critical factor that many other studies do not control for sufficiently, if at all."
These distinctions are critical, because many of the studies (for example) cited as evidence of a causal link between abortion and mental illness are deeply methodologically flawed.
Not all studies on the mental health impact of abortion are created equal. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, methodological flaws are "pervasive in the literature on abortion and mental health." Antiabortion activists often attempt to capitalize on the fact that the public and many policymakers cannot distinguish between studies that allow legitimate conclusions to be drawn about the effects of abortion and those that show only associations between abortion and mental health outcomes.Snicker. *fist-bumps the Guttmacher Institute*
Antiabortion activists have relied on questionable science in their efforts to push inclusion of the concept of "postabortion syndrome" in both clinical practice and law. This latest study strongly confirms the existing body of methodologically sound evidence in clearly refuting the idea that abortion causes harm to women's mental health. The body of evidence is now so robust that researchers should consider shifting their focus to related issues that might be more valuable to explore, such as the factors that cause women to experience mental health problems in the first place.
