[Video Description: Olivia sings a little song while I scratch her back.]
It's never stopped being Fundamental
Back in April of 2008, I wrote a post about how Reading is Fundamental (RIF) was in trouble: the Bush administration had planned to eliminate all funding for it. A few weeks later, Spud updated with the good news that the letter writing campaign to save RIF worked.
RIF is facing elimination again.
The Republican House leadership has released their proposed FY2011 Continuing Resolution which eliminates the funding for Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) and its nationwide services. Without this federal funding, over 4.4 million children and families will not receive free books or reading encouragement from RIF programs at nearly 17,000 locations throughout the U.S.RIF has created an easy way to contact your congressperson and urge them to save this much needed program. Please do so!
Unless Congress maintains a presence for RIF in the FY11 budget, RIF will not be able to distribute 15 million books annually to the nation’s children at greatest risk for academic failure. RIF programs in schools, community centers, hospitals, military bases, and other locations serve children from low-income families, children with disabilities, homeless children, and children without adequate access to libraries. The Inexpensive Book Distribution program is authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (SEC.5451 Inexpensive Book Distribution Program for Reading Motivation); it has been funded by Congress and six Administrations without interruption since 1975.
Last fall RIF released a report from Learning Point Associates, an affiliate of the American Institutes for Research, noting the results of a meta-analysis of 44 studies classified as rigorous of the 108 examined in the overall review commissioned by RIF. The study found that access to print materials:
- Improves children’s reading performance
- Is instrumental in helping children learn the basics of reading
- Causes children to read more and for longer lengths of time
- Produces improved attitudes toward reading and learning among children
Since its founding in 1966, RIF has played a critical role in improving literacy in this country by providing new, free books for children to keep and build home libraries. Access to books and the power of choice ignite children’s hunger for knowledge and a passion for learning.
[Related reading: It's Fundamental, It's Still Fundamental]
I Can't Wait To See This!
[Video Paraphrase by Liss: White people. Trains. Conspiracies between white people who sound like they're reading leftover dialogue from The Overton Window. Skyscrapers. Limos. These white people are rich, yo. And they hate taxes. But they love trains. Trainwreck! Metal. Trains. Metal. Trains. Mansion. Limo. Taxes bad. Profit good. Government is the enemy; you can tell because this big fat politician who is definitely a Democrat is smoking a cigar. White people. Scheming. Trains. JOHN GALT!!! Yelling. Champagne. Trains. "If you double-cross me, I will destroy you." White people. Champagne. "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1." Part One? Ugh. Liss Barfed, Part Fart.]
On Lara Logan
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, victim-blaming, rape apologia, sexism, racism.]
Lara Logan is a CBS correspondent who was gang-raped and beaten during the celebrations in Tahrir Square last Friday after former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned.
In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently home recovering.Since this story was reported yesterday, there has been a tremendous amount of reaction, much of it absolutely horrifying in all the expected ways.
I had no desire whatsoever to write anything about this story, in no small part because I haven't even been able to ascertain whether Logan gave her permission to CBS to even report the story, and all its details, in the first place. But I'm getting lots of email about it, so here's the entirety of what I have to say:
1. I wish Lara Logan a speedy recovery from her physical injuries, and I wish her strength and peace.
2. If your first inclination, upon hearing of the sustained gang rape of a woman, is to suggest it was inevitable, because she was doing a job women shouldn't be doing, or because of the ethnicity and/or religion of her attackers (especially when the people who rescued her were the same fucking ethnicity and/or religion), then you are a fuckneck of epic proportions.
Discussion Thread: What I Was Taught About Rape
[Trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence, rape apologia, victim-blaming.]
In 2006, I asked: What were you taught about rape? The most common answer was nothing. Or: Nothing formal, anyway.
Lots of people were taught their first lessons about sexual violence when they were victimized by its perpetrators. Men were implicitly taught that rape was something swarthy strangers in bushes do, not Nice Guys like them and everyone they knew. Women were implicitly taught that rape prevention was exclusively their responsibility. Everyone was implicitly taught all the narratives of victim-blaming and rape apologia.
Vanishingly few respondents had ever been in a formal setting where the subject of sexual violence had been broached. Virtually no one had discussed rape in school in sex education courses, nor in the workplace in harassment seminars. The most likely place for people to have run into a formal discussion of sexual violence for the first time was a women's studies class at university.
Almost no one had discussed sexual violence with their parents, unless it was a daughter hearing some variation of "don't get yourself raped."
That discussion is long gone in the dustbin of a now-defunct commenting system. And the blog is now bigger by several orders of magnitude, so.
What were you taught about rape?
Maya Angelou Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Barack Obama presents a Medal of Freedom to author and poet Maya Angelou during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011. [AP Photo]Yesterday, President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to Maya Angelou and 14 other recipients including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, civil rights activist Sylvia Mendez, and former president George H.W. Bush.
"This is one of the things I most look forward to every year," Obama said, calling the honorees "the best of who we are and who we aspire to be."The other inductees were Holocaust survivor, author, and activist Gerda Weissmann Klein, co-founder of the National Resources Defense Council John H. Adams, former ambassador to Ireland and founder of VSA Jean Kennedy Smith, former president of the AFL-CIO John J. Sweeney, artist Jasper Johns, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, civil rights activist and Congressional Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), investor Warren Buffett, basketballer Bill Russell, baseballer Stan Musial, and and Dr. Tom Little, "an optometrist who was killed while on a humanitarian mission to Afghanistan, whose award was accepted by his wife."
...[Obama] praised Angelou for rising above an abusive childhood to inspire others with her words, saying her voice has "spoken to millions, including my mother, which is why my sister is named Maya."
He quoted Angelou, saying, "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again," and bent down to kiss her cheek as he presented her with the medal.
I've Got Good News, And I've Got Bad News
I've Got Good News, And I've Got Bad News
First, the good: Maryland is on the verge of legalizing gay marriage. Yay!
Two more state senators — Edward J. Kasemeyer and Katherine Klausmeier — announced this week that they will support same-sex marriage legislation, and Sen. James Brochin of Baltimore County said last week that he had switched from opposing the measure to supporting it. Those three Democrats bring the total of announced supporters of the bill up to 23, just one shy of the 24 necessary for passage.
Just one shy. Yay! It seems an inevitability for Maryland. Even an aggressive push back by homobigots might prove counterproductive. "Confronted with the contrast between the alarmist rhetoric of same-sex marriage opponents and the reality of healthy, stable families asking for nothing more than equal rights" Sen. Brochin was moved to support the legislation.
Now the bad news.
The Indiana house of representatives approved a constitutional ban on marriage equality Tuesday evening with a 70-26 vote.
The measure still has to go to the senate, but it is expected to pass there easily. Boo!
Legislation needs to survive another vote in either 2013 or 2014, and then go to the voters to make it into the constitution. Whether that will happen remains to be seen. Indiana lawmakers have made it pretty clear they don't like queers. Especially when you consider that Indiana had already banned gay marriage back in 1997.
But as the ban's author Eric Turner (R-Eprehensible) notes, a constitutional amendment is necessary to keep the state's courts from overturning that law.
Question of the Day
We have done this one before, but not for a while:
Is there a story behind your screen name? Why did you choose your handle?
Mine is just my initials, so I love hearing stories of screen-name inventiveness!
Respect Our Lives
[Trigger warning for disrespect of women's autonomy, violence, and a description of a perineum tear.]
In the context of the Ohio "Heartbeat" Bill, the attack on Planned Parenthood funding, the proposed legislation in South Dakota which would legalize the murder of abortion providers, and everything else Republicans/anti-choicers are doing across the country to turn Roe into a hollow statute, this quote from possible '12 Republican candidate Mike Huckabee is particularly interesting:
"For me this is an issue that - as I've said before - it transcends all of the political issues," Huckabee said at a fundraiser in Tennessee for the Center for Bioethical Reform, an anti-abortion group.Insert contemptuous chortling at the idea that a Republican could lose an election for being too anti-choice.
"I've often said I would gladly lose an election before I would ever yield on the issue of the sanctity of human life," Huckabee added.
Of course, Huckabee didn't say anything about being anti-choice. What he said was that he would never "yield on the issue of the sanctity of human life." By which he means the potential life of fetuses. Which everyone in the media takes as read. And then stops there. And never makes the logical observation about the gaping hole in his reasoning, never asks the logical follow-up questions.
"But, Rev. Huckabee, you do appear to be willing to compromise the sanctity of the lives of pregnant women. Do you not believe that their lives are sacred? Do you not believe their free will is sacred? Do you not believe their right to free of violence done to their bodies is sacred?"
As I've said before (and will almost certainly have occasion to say many times again, until everyone is yawning about what a goddamn broken record I am), the anti-choice position is inherently violent, no matter how politely it is stated. If anyone else suggested that I should be forced to submit my body against my will to nine months of potential discomfort and pain, followed by an act that might include the skin and muscle between my vagina and anus being torn open, I don't think we'd mince words about whether they were using violent rhetoric. But because we can couch it in the bullshit terminology of "a pro-life position," that's supposed to be evidence of civility.
That's supposed to evidence of an unyielding belief in the sanctity of human life.
LULZ.
I am a human. That does not in any way feel like a respect for the sanctity of my life, or the quality of my life, or the agency over my life to which I am meant to have a public (and, according to Huckabee's own religion, divine) right.
No one can argue, with any honesty or credibility, that they give a fuck about the sanctity of life if they would force a woman to carry to term an unwanted or unviable pregnancy against her will. That is the opposite of a respect for life, if the definition of "life" is to have any meaning at all.
And I really wish the media would start pointing that out.
Feminism 101: Helpful Hints for Dudes, Part 2
Following is a primer for men who are interested in learning more about how to respect women's agency. Most of the information in this piece is, as always, generally applicable—i.e. women shouldn't treat other people's bodies as public property, either—but this has been written to be most accessible for men in keeping with the objective of the series.
[Trigger warning for objectification and dehumanization.]
Most blokes, whether they're trying to be more feminist-minded or not, don't consider themselves to be the sort of guy who disrespect women's agency, and yet there are still myriad ways in which men are socialized to express ownership of women.
Here, I'm going to explore three of the prominent ways in which male ownership of women is expressed (and visit some ways in which they can be avoided): Exceptionalism, Breach of Consent, and Failure to Respect Agency.
Exceptionalism.
Some expressions of ownership are insidious, subtle but dangerous: Exceptionalism, which is singling out one woman as an exception to the rule—that is, saying she defies the stereotypes of womanhood—is a less obvious but no less pernicious expression of ownership.
A man who expresses exceptionalism about his mother, his sister, his wife, his girlfriend, his female friend(s)—"My [woman/women] aren't like those other women!"—is implicitly marking territory around women related to him, the boundary marked by women he is willing to see as individuals, and all other women, who are stripped of their individual humanity to be regarded as a monolith.
It can be difficult for men to accept that exceptionalism, which is often intended as a compliment (and frequently received as such!—because women are socialized to hate women just as much as men are), is, in fact, a profoundly damaging anti-feminist practice. But the flipside of "complimenting" individual women by detaching them from womankind is turning the vast majority of women into an indistinguishable horde with universally contemptible traits.
Exceptionalizing a woman can also, in the long term, serve to undermine her sense of self, as it obliquely encourages her, in a bid to retain her value as an Exceptional Woman, to reject any part of herself that might be seen as stereotypical of women. Even if not so intended, exceptionalism thus becomes a form of control, tacitly encouraging a woman to futilely try to wrench her personhood from her womanhood, which is impossible and thus ultimately breeds self-loathing and/or contempt for the man who exceptionalizes her.
If you find yourself thinking, "This woman is not like other women," consider how much your understanding of "other women" comes from intimate knowledge of multitudinous individual woman vs. cultural narratives about women as a whole. Consider as well whether meeting one woman who bucks those narratives might suggest, in fact, not that she is one in (literally) three billion, but instead that women are more individual than is routinely suggested in vast and diverse ways throughout our culture.
It doesn't undermine the specialness of a woman to regard her as a unique person well-suited to your personality and preferences and idiosyncrasies, as opposed to an Exceptional Woman. Indeed, it is more special to be regarded as a cool woman in a world full of cool women than it is the only cool woman on the planet.
Breach of Consent.
Some of the expressions of ownership are more obvious: Breach of consent is clearly an indication of someone who fails to respect the bodily autonomy of another individual. Generally, we associate breach of consent with sexual violence, but consent is something that ought to be respected in all interactions with another person.
We should always be mindful of the access we've been granted by another person: Just because we can find someone's home address, for example, doesn't mean we can assume consent to show up at hir house uninvited.
There are a variety of circumstances in which women's right of consent is routinely ignored, the most ubiquitous of which is casually touching a woman without her consent, as if her body is public property.
Generally, we collectively recognize the groping and grabbing that happens with alarming frequency on public transportation, for example, as problematic—but many of the men who rightfully disdain this behavior nonetheless engage in casual touching without consent in other contexts.
We euphemize nonconsensual but nonviolent touching as "making a pass" or even, simply, "being friendly." But it is not friendly; it is entitled.
This tends to be a point of contention for straight/bisexual men who can't imagine how it's possible to meet, date, flirt with, and eventually become sexually intimate with a woman without ever touching her without her consent. The worry tends to be expressed as, "It won't be sexy or smooth if I ask," but that's not true. Asking a woman, "May I take your arm?" or "May I kiss you?" is actually quite likely to be considered both sexy and smooth, with the additional bonus of being respectful.
What's decidedly not sexy and smooth, however, is making a woman feel uncomfortable, or even triggering her, if she's a trauma survivor, by touching her without her consent.
Communication about consent and boundaries does not have to be stilted and awkward. It just takes practice. In a moment when you think, "I want to touch her; I think she wants me to touch her; I'm going to go ahead and touch her and see what happens," instead of guessing what she wants, and instead of communicating what you want by doing it, try looking deep into her eyes and saying aloud, "I want to touch you; would that be all right?" If it is, asking isn't going to change her mind.
But not asking just might.
Asking, and really listening to the answer, is a key part of treating a woman as your equal and respecting her individual humanity and autonomy. Or: Treating her as though she owns herself.
Failure to Respect Agency.
Men's socialization includes strong disincentives against asking and listening, and strong incentives to reflexively prioritize their own judgment and perspective, which many narratives in our culture exist to (wrongly) assure them is Objective Truth. That is one of the grandest lies that privilege tells any of us—your perspective as a person of privilege is not subjective; you are better capable of assessing truth than anyone compromised by their marginalization.
But, as I said in Part One, institutional bias compromises all of us, whether we stand to benefit from or be marginalized by it.
This lie of objectivity causes many privileged people to disregard the value of asking and listening. Instead, sure of their own flawless capacity for discerning Objective Truth, they substitute their own assumptions for concrete knowledge of a marginalized person's opinions, experience, intentions, etc.
Thus, a man who does not ask his wife, for example, what she wants, what she needs, what she believes, what she is thinking, what she is feeling, but instead merely assumes what she wants, needs, believes, thinks, and feels, is robbing her of her autonomy.
Straight/bisexual men who engage in presumptive behavior will frequently find themselves in vicious fights with female partners, unable to understand what they view as their partner's disproportional fury over a simple misunderstanding. But it is not a simple misunderstanding to substitute your (erroneous, or even correct) assumptions for a good-faith acquisition of your partner's actual thoughts and desires. It is an implicit assertion that you know better and/or that don't respect your partner as an equal, self-governed, rights-bearing individual human.
To substitute your own assumptions for straightforward communication is to subvert her agency. And that is a very serious offense.
An offense which can only but easily be avoided by asking and listening, and then respecting what you hear.
Another grave breach of agency, which is related to the failure to acknowledge consent, boundaries, and autonomy, is telling a woman how to behave. One of the most common complaints among feminist women regarding failures to respect their agency is being told to smile.
(Or cheer up. Or be happy. Or some variation on that theme.)
Exhorting a woman to "Smile!" on demand simultaneously suggests ownership—that her existence is only to please you, to do what you want—and robs her entirely of agency. A woman who is not smiling has, as does every human being, reason to not be smiling. To bark a command, no matter how "charming," that she should ignore her own life experience and emotions in order to please like a performing pony, is just an absolute clusterfuck of contempt for agency by someone who, intentionally or not, positions himself as her master.
* * *
I frequently invoke the phrase "My rights end where yours begin" when discussing social justice and civil rights, particularly surrounding issues of choice—reproductive, marriage, or otherwise.
It is a simple phrase to remind myself that my rights extend only as far as they encroach on someone else's. I have a right, for example, to be an atheist; I do not have the right to force anyone else to share my belief. (Not that I would.)
It's a good guiding principle for progressives. (And ought to be for conservatives, but that's a whole other post.)
Similarly, "My agency ends where yours begins" is a good guiding principle for interactions with other people. That means I treat my partner as an individual—which is not to say I don't acknowledge his socialization as a man, but he is Iain first, man second.
It also means I respect his humanity, his dignity, and his right to consent at all times. We've been together almost 10 years, and we have a well-practiced shorthand, as all couples do. But shorthand is not a synonym for "implicit consent." There is no such thing. Our communication has been streamlined over time, but consent is always explicit, the right to say no is always respected, and there is never, ever any cajoling or coercion. Respecting each other's agency means respecting boundaries, and not pressuring one another to move those boundaries.
(As an aside, although the above sounds like I'm referring exclusively to sex, I am referring to any issue on which a partner might be inclined to badger another beyond the drawing of a firm boundary—whether it's spending money, having a child, getting a picture taken, or anything else.)
Finally, "My agency ends where yours begins" means I don't assume that I know more or better about my partner and his wants/needs than he does, and I don't believe I have ownership of his body, thoughts, or emotions.
And it begins with this thought: He is my equal.
Ohio "Heartbeat" Bill
A new bill in Ohio, one that is expected to pass both House and Senate, would ban abortion after the heartbeat is detected. Note: a heartbeat does not mean a viable fetus.
Anyway:
COLUMBUS -- Lawmakers against abortion rights are preparing to go for the legislative equivalent of a Hail Mary, the toughest anti-abortion rights law in the nation, at a time when some in the movement argue it's too much too soon.A bit more on this:
With the GOP in control of both chambers of the General Assembly and the governor's office, a series of bills is being proposed for added steps to restrict abortion rights.
A group of legislators vowed Wednesday to forge ahead with a proposed law that would close the window during which a legal abortion may be performed in Ohio to within weeks of conception. Backers say nearly half of the members of the House of Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors a week before the bill formally will be introduced. Except in situations where the health of the mother is in danger, an abortion would be illegal once the heartbeat of a fetus is detected. The bill would require the doctor to find that heartbeat using "standard medical practice," a term not defined.
A doctor who violates the law could be found guilty of a fifth-degree felony, punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. The mother could not be charged.
The controversial legislation is one of the most stringent anti-abortion plans to be introduced in a state legislature to date.GOP: Pro-Fetus; Pro-Forced Birth; Anti-Woman, Anti-Family, Anti-Decency.
It clearly challenges the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade mandate, under which a woman has the right to abort a fetus until it is "viable," meaning that it's "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid." It's only at the point of viability -- "usually placed at about seven months" -- that states can restrict abortion.
"There are clearly fetuses that are not yet viable but have heartbeats," said Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional scholar and professor at Harvard Law School. "What they're doing is trying to push the point at which the woman's rights are subordinated to those of the unborn to a much earlier point in pregnancy. ... It's clearly a frontal challenge to Roe v. Wade."
The bill, one of five abortion-related pieces of legislation introduced within a week in the Ohio legislature, has a strong chance of passage. Republicans control all branches of Ohio's state government -- the House, the Senate and governorship and the state Supreme Court.
Supporters of the bill argue that it sets a new precedent that's grounded in science and that they're ready to fight it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We don't bury people with beating hearts, because the heartbeat is a sign of life," said Janet Folger Porter, president of Faith2Action, who helped craft the bill's language. "We are just applying that same measurement to this end of life and I believe the court is going to recognize -- just like it does with life at the other end of the spectrum -- it's going to recognize this line of life early on."
Similar bills are also being considered by legislators in Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma, and being discussed in Kansas and Arizona, Porter said.
Abortion rights groups say the move by Ohio Republicans is merely a political one that unfairly intervenes in the relationship doctors have with patients.
"They are making decisions for women in banning abortion basically before some women even know they are pregnant," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro Choice. "Technology can give us information but it can't make the decision for us."
Quote of the Day
The consequences of passing this bill are clear — and they would be devastating. More women would have unintended pregnancies. Cancer would develop, undiagnosed, in countless women. There is no doubt: cutting off millions of women from care they have no other way to afford places them at risk of sickness and death.
-- Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, on the current provision to strip all federal funding from Planned Parenthood.
Woot! I Am Empowered!
The 1-2 hour electrical/cable project outside my house, which actually took more than 5 hours (whooooooops!) is now complete, and I am back online!
And, more importantly, the heat is back on. YOWZA.
Thanks very much to Deeks for keeping things hopping, and, of course, to all the other contributors/mods who were down one without me.
DOG BUTT!
(Dudley stands on the couch, watching the work going on outside.)
South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
[Trigger warning for all kinds of fucked up shit.]
Mother Jones reports: A bill under consideration in the Mount Rushmore State would make preventing harm to a fetus a "justifiable homicide" in many cases.
Read. Discuss.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Pet Shop Boys: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)"
Blog Note
Liss is currently without power. Yay for infrastructure improvements. Boo for ten minutes notice. She'll be online as soon as they're done completing their work. (Whomever they are.)
In the meantime, enjoy this image of David Bowie as Nikola Tesla:
