On the Perils of Being a Cool Girl

[Content note: Sexual assault, misogyny]


"From father's house to husband's house to a grave that still might not be her own, a woman acquiesces to male authority in order to gain some protection from male violence. She conforms, in order to be as safe as she can be." - Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women (1983)

Dworkin, above, theorized that some women are anti-feminist/conservative because acquiescing to conservatism offers women protection from male violence. Men, this model of conservatism paradoxically teaches, are said to be naturally barbaric except to women with whom they are bonded by a parental or marital relationship. So, under this model, male protection is thought to come from, first, a woman's father and, second, her husband via marriage (once her ownership is transferred from dad to hubby). 

The system is implicitly upheld by conservative men who, purportedly, respect the boundaries of another man's property-female. Not for the woman's sake, mind you, but because to do otherwise would be a grave insult to the male-owner.

This model stands in contrast to, as Dworkin characterized, liberalism's promise of sexual access to all women all the time. To paraphrase, in order to be a cool liberal girl, a woman had to be sexually available at the whim of their enlightened liberal comrades. She further contrasted both models with feminism's constraint that sexual access actually ought to be dependent upon consent and reproductive freedom.

Bringing things to the present, we see that Trump, the nominee of the conservative/anti-feminist party in the US, represents a break in the bargain that some conservative women thought they had made with conservative men. In him, we have a man who on tape admitted to sexually assaulting women, whom women have come forward with allegations that Trump has assaulted them, and is being sued for allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl (is it weird that that isn't bigger news?).

And yet, conservative man after man after man has stood by Trump. His campaign appeals to and condones the basest misogynistic impulses of his supporters. And, at least some conservative women are rightly angry, as Amanda Carpenter writes in an oft-cited piece:

"Over the course of the GOP primary, it became clear that too many Republicans felt it was too politically risky to do anything that would offend the types of voters Trump was attracting in droves — the types who showed up at rallies wearing T-shirts that said, 'Trump that b—-' and 'She’s a c—, vote for Trump.'

Somehow, in some amorphous but unambiguous way, it was decided that appealing to those voters was more important than appealing to women.

....But not all men think this way. We’ve heard over and over again how privately anguished GOP leaders were, although not anguished enough to take any concrete steps to stop it."

It can be an odd position to be in, to be a progressive feminist woman who is sympathetic to the way conservative women - women are sometimes anti-choice, anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant - are treated. Like, why didn't they listen to us, feminists, that the men they ally themselves with are clusterfuck catastrophes of misogyny? Why now? Why does the misogyny matter to them now? Is it because they are just now realizing that while it is true that "their" men love chivalry, such men love male power even more?

And, despite our differences, I think many women could agree that when we are mistreated as women, in misogynistic ways, it's not acceptable and it harms all women. And, in such treatment, we have commonality. 

Lastly, I'm reminded of the cost of trying to play the "cool, exceptional girl" game. And by that I mean the girl or woman who's a liberal or conservative and who's also an avowed, loud-and-proud NON-FEMINIST who, you know, doesn't care that the guys in her fantasy football league threaten to "rape" their opponent each week or who take a certain pride in "not being friends with other women."

Such a woman might gain some temporary protection or points with guys, but it usually ends with a huge blow to the dignity. When you surround yourself with men who need you to play the cool girl game  because their masculinity so fragile, they'll eventually retreat to their boys-only locker room and remind you that there's a certain type of male bonding that is predicated on diminishing women and girls.

That will, in turn, remind you that yup, you may be cool, but you are, in fact, still a woman. Just a woman.

Quote of the Day: On Benevolently Sexist Laws

"Amici are historians of the United States, whose research focuses on the lives of women. This brief, based on decades of study and research by amici, aims to provide accurate historical perspective on laws claiming to protect women. From their vantage point as historians, amici wish to point out the constraints on women’s liberty and equality in laws that purport to protect women, by sketching the long history of such laws and showing that intentions to protect had the effect of restricting women’s choices and undermining their dignity as full citizens."

- via the Brief (PDF) submitted by historians in Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt, contesting a Texas law designed to shut down most health clinics that provide abortion services in the state. 

If you have time to read it all, it's a worthwhile account of the US legal system's history of paternalistic "benevolent sexism" toward women. Examples cited include coverture, by which a woman's legal identity was incorporated into her husband's, and women's exclusion from political and occupational spheres.... for their own benefit.

Such laws often relied on arguments that stated, in various ways, that women (weak, dependent, intellectually incompetent) were as a class "opposite" of men (strong, autonomous, intellectually competent). This framing of the genders was taken, as it is still often is, as a commonsense truth that barely required proof.

Similarly, the Texas law at issue in the above case purports to protect the health and welfare of women seeking abortions in the state, and recounting the history of such paternalism, the brief ultimately argues that such laws ought to be carefully scrutinized "to assess whether its ostensibly protective function actually serves to deny liberty and equal citizenship to women."

Quotes of the Day

An conversation between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Gloria Steinem?  Yes, please.

Just try to mostly ignore the male moderator.  At one point he references the blatant discrimination Ginsburg faced when law firms refused to hire her after she graduated from law school at Columbia first in her class. He says:

"You remind me of my grandmother’s line: Rejection is the best thing that can happen. It pushes us. There might not be a Ms. magazine or Notorious R.B.G. without it."

Hmmm, categorizing systemic discrimination against millions of women as simple "rejection" that "pushes us" to do better?  Gloria Steinem for the win:

"But there might not be a need for a woman’s magazine, and there might be a court that actually looks like the country. There’s no virtue in injustice."

Later, when talking about gender roles and marriage, Ginsburg makes a salient point about marriage equality's legacy to the women's rights movement:

"It’s a facet of the gay rights movement that people don’t think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn’t until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana’s 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house. Marriage was a relationship between the dominant, breadwinning husband and the subordinate, child-rearing wife. What lesbian or gay man would want that?"

In all, the interaction between Ginsburg and Steinem during the conversation is great, as they build each other up and compliment one another throughout.

Early on, the moderator asks Ginsburg if she was a Ms. reader, after which she responded, " I certainly was. From the first issue. I thought it was wonderful."  Later, Ginsburg mentions working on a book about civil procedure in Sweden, and Steinem chimes in: "For which she learned Swedish. Is that not incredible?"

Judge Disrupts Home Life of Child in Foster Care, Because Heterosexism

Can we get a big, loud *slow clap* for Team Bigotry?

According to Utah's Division of Child and Family Services (via Deseret News), a judge has ordered the removal of a 1-year-old child from the home of her lesbian foster parents.  

Rather than basing his decision on the content of the couple's parenting skills, the judge, Scott Johansen, purportedly based his decision on their sexual orientation.  In so doing, the various news accounts I've read claim that he referenced, but did not specifically cite, "studies" allegedly showing that heterosexual parents were "better" than same-sex parents (scare quotes mine). 

(Hmm, I wonder if Johansen had read the widely-discredited Regnerus study?)

The two women had the support of the child's biological mother to be foster parents, and Utah DCFS director Brent Platt is quoted in the Deseret article as follows:

"'There weren't any concerns about the family and no concerns about the placement, it sounds like [the judge] has concerns overall with same-sex couples being foster parents.'

Hoagland and Peirce have met every DCFS requirement to become licensed foster parents, including routine reviews with the division while they have been caring for the child, according to Platt. If the girl would have become eligible for adoption and the couple had expressed interest in taking her, the division intended to support them, he noted.

'It's my understanding they have a couple of older children, these are experienced parents," Platt said. 'As far as we're concerned, it was an appropriate placement. It was a placement that worked for the kid and worked for the family, so we were surprised the judge issued that order.'"

The child has been living with the couple for 3 months, and the judge has ordered her removal within a week to an as-yet-unidentified family.  Thus further disrupting the child's life. You know, because outcomes.

From her much-lauded 2014 dissent to the 6th Circuit opinion that upheld same-sex marriage bans, Judge Martha Daughtry's quote regarding the illogic of anti-gay advocacy seems apt:

"How ironic that irresponsible, unmarried, opposite-sex couples in the Sixth Circuit who produce unwanted offspring must be 'channeled' into marriage and thus rewarded with its many psychological and financial benefits, while same-sex couples who become model parents are punished for their responsible behavior by being denied the right to marry."

And, apparently, the ability to be foster parents. (Although I want to be careful to note that in this particular case, we do not know the circumstances of the biological parents. Unlike the "pro-family" crowd, I think people put their children up for adoption for a myriad of reasons, only one of which might be "irresponsibility.")

The facts about "pro-family" actually being pro-family speak for themselves.

Whether they're promoting fraudulent "ex-gay therapy" that does more harm than good, ripping children from stable homes, or running dehumanizing smear campaigns to deny trans* people access to bathrooms, Traditional Family Warriors ("TFWs"- let's make it a thing) so often prioritize their own selfish bigotries and prejudices over the actual best interests of children.

Christian School Denies Entry to Child of Same-Sex Couple

A Christian school in San Diego is not allowing a 5-year-old girl to attend kindergarten because she has two moms.

Via MSN:

"When asked by the news team if it was discrimination to stop the child from attending because of her mothers, a woman who described herself as the school's director, said, 'The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. We don't condone any sinful lifestyles.' 

KGTV got a copy of the school's parent and student handbook which was revised over the summer. Under the school's statement of nondiscrimination, the handbook declared the school's right to "refuse admission of an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student." 

'This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, living in, condoning or supporting sexual immorality; practicing homosexual lifestyle or alternative gender identity; promoting such practices; or otherwise having the inability to support the moral principles of the school,' the handbook continued, according to the news station."

I have two items of note here.

One, I highlight how the conservative National Review frames the situation only because it's indicative of a mindset held by many anti-LGBTs. There, David French asks, in a piece entitled, "Lesbian Parents Try to Force a Christian School to Educate Their Child":

"Here’s a question for the secular left — when religious liberty collides with the desires of LGBT citizens, is there any case where religious freedom should prevail? How about when a lesbian couple tries to force a private Christian school to educate their child?" (emphasis added)

Ah, note the use of the phrase "desires of LGBT citizens," a word that, oh, maybe suggests that a lesbian couples' simple, decent wish for their daughter to attend school is in some way related to sex.

But, more pertinently, notice how French centers the beliefs (and prejudices) of adults in this scenario when, in fact, it is the child who is actually most profoundly impacted by the discrimination. How different does it sound when we ask:

Here's a question for all - when religious "freedom to discriminate" collides with the rights of children to attend school, when should religious freedom to discriminate prevail?

This case isn't one of Christians v. LGBTs, or even the Christian right v. the secular left.  It's one of Christian anti-LGBTs v. children who happen to have same-sex parents. That is, grown-ass adults punishing a child because they disagree with the "lifestyle" of her parents.

Two, notice the moral code in the handbook which specifically calls out homosexuality.  Yet, does the school also prohibit children of divorced, adulterous, or single parents from attending the school?

Of course not. Nor should it.

But that's how it so often is with the Christian bigot crowd, isn't it?

In the debates about marriage, many opponents of allowing same-sex couples to marry held that marriage was about "procreation," yet they had no issue with allowing infertile heterosexuals to marry. It's LGBTs and same-sex couples who these sorts of folks so often single out for their special brand of entitled, discriminatory treatment that they rarely reserve for other groups.

Bigot Kim Davis doesn't deny marriage licenses to people on their third, fourth marriage. No, her hill to die on is same-sex marriage. For special lucky reasons, I guess.

Even as these folks wail that it's LGBT people who constantly seek "special rights," these are the folks who seek both the special right to discriminate against LGBT people without consequence and to in no way face public shaming (or being called a bigot) for doing so.

Rome Hosts Conference on Complementarity

Last week, several offices of the Roman Catholic church held an event in Rome called The Complementarity of Man and Woman: An International Colloquium.

Many American opponents of marriage equality were thrilled by this conference and some, such as Rick Warren, were even speakers.

I guess, if you're looking to better understand what is meant by "gender complementarity" that is at the root of many people's opposition to marriage equality and, oftentimes, anti/non-feminism, the conference site would be good to check out.

What I'm so often struck by is the almost childish, emotional, romanticized way that complementarists talk about "man and woman." And yes, they often use the singular versions of these terms - which speaks to the belief that little variation exists within each gender category.

Anyway, from the conference's Affirmation about marriage and gender:

"See man and woman together. They are not just two people. He is for her, and she for him; it is inscribed in their bodies. Their union will bring life that binds and mingles families, encourages faith to flourish, and brings humankind and the world’s diverse cultures to flower again."

So, it's fine to be emotional about this stuff - but this Disney version of reality shouldn't be the determining basis for whether same-sex families deserve equality rights, protections, and dignity.  And, people are right to call out this thinking as irrational, unfair, and yes bigoted when it's consistently put forth to erase and marginalize non-heterosexual, non-cisgender, and gender non-conforming individuals.

A final note is that complementarists often talk about how "man and woman" are "different but equal."

7 out 32 speakers at this conference were women. Unlike their male counterparts, it is impossible for any of these women to be at the top of the hierarchy within the Roman Catholic church.

Just like within the US anti-equality movement, which is grounded in complementary thinking (at best), male voices, perspectives, and opinions are amplified and prioritized, even as they simultaneously tell us how important both "man and woman" are to life and marriage.

That is what gender complementarist "equality" looks like.

Cross-Gender Convos About Feminist Interactions

Over at Shakesville, Liss has written some helpful tips for how men can communicate more effectively in good faith conversations with women about feminist issues.

I thought I'd share both because it may be helpful to some male readers who may be seeking such advice, and because I think it can also be helpful for many women to see these suggestions articulated.  I know that when I have engaged with men on feminist issues, even if all parties are engaging in good faith and with good intentions, the interactions have still felt hostile.

Yet, like men, many women have internalized the stereotype that men are more objective and rational than women and so sometimes when men are engaging in sexist behavior it can be hard to immediately recognize and name what's going on.

I agree with all of the suggestions Liss makes, and in the comments I added one of my own:

When discussing feminist issues, "joking" about how scared you are "as a man" to be in the conversation is not helpful (eg, "I'm just going to say this and *duck* outta the way!"). These kinds of statements usually precede statements that are hostile to women while simultaneously putting the onus on women to center the man's feelings and ensure that he feels safe and not-too-challenged at all times in the conversation.

Even guys who are generally open to feminist arguments will trot this jokey-joke out. I've gotten, for instance, "Don't kill me for saying this, but Title IX should have never happened." The "joke" has always felt so unfair to me, and it wasn't until relatively recently that I really began to consider and articulate why.  Through the "joke," the man gives himself permission to say something offensive while pre-emptively framing any response that's not 100% appeasing as unduly hostile.

Now, when I see men make this "joke," I recognize them as men who are not adult enough to stand by their positions.  It's the equivalent of if feminists preceded gender conversations with men with, "Don't get pissed about this, but all men should be kicked in the nuts twice a week. Whoa, whoa down boy! You mad?"


Related: 
On Humor and Civility

Anti-Equality Spokesman Warns of Civil War, Because of Course

Welp, the Family Research Council is publishing reliably reasonable statements about the recent marriage equality victories in the US.  Via the agency's blog, authored by Rob Schwarzwalder:

"I’m haunted by the memory of William Seward’s comment, immediately before the Civil War, that strife between North and South over slavery constituted 'an irrepressible conflict.'

Millions of Americans simmer with resentment at the coerced redefinition of marriage the courts are imposing on them, despite referenda in dozens of states where they have affirmed the traditional definition of marriage quite explicitly. 

The Dred Scott decision did not decide the issue of human bondage. The Roe v. Wade decision has not decided the issue of abortion on demand. And the continued federal court confusion over same-sex unions only postpones a day of legal reckoning that could create a measure of civic sundering unwitnessed in our nation for decades.

Even if the Supreme Court has valid reasons for postponing their decision on this issue, postponement is not resolution. I fear that whatever decision the Supremes finally reach will not resolve it, either."

Three observations.

One, from the blogs of the conservative advocacy groups that I read, the "simmering resentment" primarily seems to be that of the dozen or so well-off white Christian heterosexual anti-LGBT men who lead these agencies and who are therefore big-time pissed off that they are publicly losing on the marriage equality front in the US and might have to come up with new strategies to maintain their relevancy and livelihoods.

Two, it's neat how white Christian heterosexual anti-LGBT men so often co-opt historical slavery, which so many of them insist, in other contexts, has had no lingering impact on African-Americans today. If this man were a person of color threatening war and civil uprising, especially a non-Christian, he'd be widely lambasted as an un-American terrorist.

Three, I'm somewhat intrigued by the rightwing "bunker survivalist" mentality.  Like, I watch those shows on Netflix of people who stockpile food rations and, oh yes, guns. Lots of guns and ammo and traps and such. And, it seems like they're almost always featuring white hetero families with a strong patriarchal figure leading the charge, at least when all the guns and militaristic planning is involved.

I don't doubt that some of what many of these people do is genuine concern about civil unrest and survival.  I mean, I have a plan - do you?  If you see something, say something!

But,  and perhaps it's due to that way they talk about their armaments, I always get this inkling that, like, maybe some of these people want the civil unrest to happen? I don't know because maybe they're unhappy with the current societal structure and set of rules, but if something BIG happened, they would finally get to be like, BA-BAM and shoot shit up without consequence. Like, all the planning, all the warning maybe is a bit of a hopeful fantasy for some people?

Anyway, my point is that of all the harms to society that bigots tell us will result from same-sex marriage, the suggestion that it will cause civil war is just so fucking absurd that I start questioning what else is going on behind such a suggestion.

Sommers Critiques Critics of Video Game Misogyny

I think probably the best things about professional anti-feminist Christina Hoff Sommers' recent video mocking the hoards of "hipsters with degrees in cultural studies" who take issue with misogyny in video game culture are (a) the part at the beginning where she says the last time she played a video game was in the 1980s, when she played Pac-Man in a bar, and (b) the part at the end where she just knows critics of misogyny are making a big deal out of nothing because she herself spent several weeks looking at this issue.

Both of which obviously render her qualified to discuss current video game culture because reasons.

Frustratingly, Sommers throws around a lot of [citation needed] claims, which is pretty easy for one to do when one's arguments are already playing into what's thought of as common sense truths about differences between "males" and "females."  These sorts of ignorant reactionary pieces take hours for thoughtful people to transcribe and then to rebut each and every claim she asserts.

And the worst of it is that, in many ways, it's as though she isn't even speaking to prominent critics of video game culture, let alone about them in ways that accurately represent them or their arguments. That's evident from the way she ridicule and caricatures her "hipster" ideological opponents to the way she deigns, fucking deigns, to speak authoritatively about video game culture from her measly several weeks experience thinking about it.

Basically, the entire video is just one more bit of evidence misogynistic dudebro gamers need to hear to further justify their entitlement to have all things within video game culture centered around their needs, desires, attractions, biases, and prejudices.

Female Pitcher Leads Team to Little League World Series

Via ESPNW,13-year-old baseball player Mo'ne Davis threw a 3-hitter to help get her Philadelphia team to the Little League World Series.  She had 6 strikeouts in the game.

Congratulations to her and her team!

Of course, in the comments to the article some grown-ass adult man had to immediately chime in and say, "I know I'll get blasted here, but I still say it isn't right. She took the spot of another male player....". Which, I'm not sure what's more sad, this guy's entitlement and sexism, or his inability to state his position without pre-emptively framing any critique of his position as aggression against him.  In which case, he doesn't deserve to be taken seriously so here's some Dottie Hinson action:



Relatedly, ESPNW also ran a decent story on the history of girls in Little League and how incredibly hard Little League and lots of grown-ass adults fought to keep it a super special boys-only entitlement.  Although girls in the US are now largely channeled into the sport of softball rather than baseball, Little League has allowed girls to participate since 1974 as a result of lawsuits brought by girls wanting to play.

Writer Concerned That Folks Just Don't Understand Traditionalists Well Enough

Inspired by yesterday's post, today I want to pull out a bit from Damon Linker's (NOM-approved) column urging us to re-consider traditional sexual morality.

Specifically, he writes:

"Welcome to sexual modernity — a world in which the dense web of moral judgments and expectations that used to surround and hem in our sex lives has been almost completely dissolved, replaced by a single moral judgment or consideration: individual consent. As long as everyone involved in a sexual act has chosen to take part in it — from teenagers fumbling through their first act of intercourse to a roomful of leather-clad men and women at a BDSM orgy — anything and everything goes....

...Is the ethic of individual consent sufficient to keep people (mostly men) from acting violently on their sexual desires?"

Note two things here.

One, the assumption that there is something essential to male sexual desire that's inherently violent and that, therefore, social forces need to tame and keep in check. The ethic of individual consent is not enough because, Linker suggestively asks, can men really take no for answer?

MRAs and feminist critics, meet Damon Linker because *ding ding ding* we have a MISANDRY ALERT!   I'm sure the anti-feminists will take their shit up with him ASAP. Oh. No, wait. They'll probably find this post eventually and finagle some way to frame me, the feminist, as the Real Misandrist.

Two, his concern trollish question suggests that the thing needed to keep men's violent sexual desires in check is traditional morality, which has some serious stuff to teach "us." As though, back in the good old days, the fear of "god" was enough to keep people from raping people.

When, no.

Back in the good old days of traditional morality in the US, men were more often allowed to rape - their slaves, their women, their wives - without consequence.  The thing about "trends" is that once we finally start naming events for what they are, it sometimes looks like those events are increasing in frequency.

The sad thing about his article is that some of the questions he raises are serious and many progressives, feminists, and liberals are actually thinking seriously about them, a fact which Linker seems oblivious to.  As he tries to explain what's really up with the traditionalists and admonishes us to "respect" those traditionalists who are "troubled" by these issues of modern-day sexuality he barely concedes that traditionalists so often, themselves, refuse to respect, understand, or listen to us.

We're largely met by ridicule of LGBT identities and fingers-in-ears whinging about "political correctness." We encounter irrational religious tangents about "sin" and slippery slope arguments about the "decay of society."

Linker quotes social conservative Rod Dreher, who practically every day at his blog writes a post mocking transgender people and/or whinging about how LGBT equality is oppressing him as a Christian.  Like here, where he mocks the "freaky-deakiness" of the dispute between some strains of radical feminism and transgenderism, ultimately predicting that the debate itself is "a sign" that our "decadent society" isn't going to "end well."

Yet, if we listen to Linker, progressives are supposed to turn around, respect traditionalists like Dreher, and take his opinions more seriously just because he's super concerned that modern sexual ethics will destroy society.

Okay! /sarcastic thumbs up sign/  Because we haven't been hearing that for years!

Look. I have considered, truly considered traditional values, and for the most part I reject them.  Where this idea comes from that progressives and liberals just haven't given enough thought to traditional values, I have no idea.  These conversations and debates among traditionalists and more tolerant folks have been going on for at least decades and are well-documented in journals, blogposts, articles, media, books, and court cases.

Speaking for myself, about half the blogs I regularly read are blogs written by those with whom I radically disagree.  While I sometimes find areas of agreement, I'm often not impressed with either their arguments or their understandings of the ideologies they disagree with, which they often write about in vague and caricatured ways.

What I could get on board with would be a column saying, "Hey, why don't all people involved in heated debate and conversation try to understand the other side a bit better, yeah?"

I certainly don't need concern troll "translators" trying their best to make either traditional or Christian views more palatable to me by suggesting that it's progressives who just don't understand where traditionalists are coming from.

Dude Writers Pissy About Newfangled Non-Male, Non-Straight Characters

Where many feminists rightly critique the media for producing content that excludes female characters or that excludes female audiences, some men of privilege critique the media for producing content that features female characters or that was created to appeal to audiences members who are people other than straight white men.

The latter instance, judging by some men's reactions to being de-centered,  is interpreted as an appalling attack on straight white men, morally equal to (and probably worse than) women being systemically excluded from representation. Because they are used to being the default protagonists of life, TV shows, movies, comic books, and video games, they snark, mock, and ridicule representations that do not center them, their life experiences, and their desires.

Lacking the desire or ability to understand what it's like to not be centered, they do not or cannot concede that people might have good motives for creating characters other than straight white men, or trying to appeal to audiences other than people like themselves. Such is their entitlement. What they have no need or desire for, they think everyone else in the world has no need or desire for.

As one of two recent examples, conservative author John C. Wright has a tantrum over Marvel making comic book character Thor a woman. In a post titled, grossly, "Thor Cropped of his Male Member," he bemoans, what else, but political correctness gone awry™:

"I have recovered my powers of speech and can comment further. Is Marvel Comics out of its collective ever-lovin’ mind? 

Do they not care if they lose 80% of their few remaining readers? 

Does Marvel actually think fangirls want to read about girls acting macho and kicking ass? 

And if you wanted to do a Norse Goddess ass-kicker superheroine, what in the name of Nastrond is wrong with Sif, or Valkyrie, or any other established Marvel Norse heroine? 

Is there anything wrong with either of these Nordic she-soldiers. 

Ah, but the point of Political Correctness is not to tell a story and make it good, but to take a good story and ruin it.

Fanboys, I know, like looking at woman warriors that are leggy and busty and dress in skintight black leather."

Note the condescension, the cocksure certainty that he, a man, just knows what "fangirls" want from "girl" superheroes and "she-soldiers." Observe the lazy, self-centered use of the phrase political correctness to assume that Marvel made this decision solely to hurt people like him by destroying something he thought was cool!  Note the way he places himself as objective arbiter of what is and isn't a good story.

As a second recent example, conservative blogger Rod Dreher clutches his pearls about comic book character Archie (*spoiler alert if people even read Archie still*) dying in an anti-gay hate crime incident. Dreher mocks:

"Seriously, this happens today in the comic universe.... [quotes description of Archie's demise]

Nope, nothing overtly political here. Hey, since I was last in Riverdale, they’ve got teen lesbians, one of whom is a 'fierce Latina.'

Seems like everybody is gay in pop culture today."

I guess it's quaint-funny that Dreher thinks an incident like a hate crime, a character who's a fierce Latina lesbian, or a story being political are Totally Out There in comic book world.  Like, has he read a comic book, ever?  Or, does he only object to representations that don't jive with his seemingly ideal world of straight white guys staying at the center of all things and political content he disagrees with being marginalized? And, for that matter, does he live in the real world, you know, the one that actually consists of Latina lesbians?

And yes, the Archie plot might be heavy-handed which, it seems, is part of what Dreher is objecting to, but his commentary also shows some huffy pouting about gay people and allies being represented at all, in the media.

Dudes can accept a character being bitten by a radioactive spider and hence developing exaggerated super powers of spiders, characters from fairy tales somehow living under the radar in New York City, and thousands of comic book characters seemingly never aging throughout the years, but they draw the line at representations of a hate crime or a female Thor?

It's hard for me to think that something other than shitloads of unexamined privilege, entitlement, and self-centeredness can explain that.


Related: 
Atlantic Writer: Women's Prison Show Should be More About Men

"Well, he's young"

This "explanation" is sometimes offered to me as a reasonable justification for why some young men are oblivious to their privilege, are acting aggressively, and/or are being rude to women.

Once, when I was guest blogging at a conservative site, I gently took issue with one "fresh from undergrad" young man's, ahem, problematic behavior, and an older man associated with the site privately emailed me to request that I give the young guy a break because he's just a young guy, visibly upset by the encounter, and so forth.  (Men acting problematically often have very delicate feelings, you see, even as they mock feminists for being over-sensitive. Hence, the dance we often have to play with the word "problematic.")

Another time, I was on a project with a young guy, new to working, who was hyper-defensive about even the minutest of critiques and suggestions to his work. He strutted into the workplace both assuming he had lots to teach everyone else, especially the women, and believed that much of the work in his job description was "beneath" him. He was the Big Picture Guy, or so he thought.

Every conversation with him was a battle in which his sole objective was to "win" everyone over to his viewpoint.  He had no capacity to understand that maybe, just maybe, he didn't automatically warrant an immediate CEO position. He didn't get why people didn't just do what he said, just because it was him saying the things.

"Well, he's young," some people would say.

But, the thing is, I know many young people, men and women alike, and not all of them are assholes.  Many of them are kind, aware, and humble. Many of them believe they have things to learn from other people - about work, about privilege, about other people's life experiences.

I do not deem "Well, he's young" to be a sufficient reason to explain away a young guy's assholery. When I hear it, I hear a phrase that enables young men to their entitlement to be fonts of unexamined privilege and illusory superiority.

Civility, Safety, and Harassment Links

Here's some stuff I've been reading lately pertaining to one of my fave topics of Internet harassment, civility, and threats:

1) Geek Feminism has a Code of Conduct.  I think it's a good idea for, especially, larger group blogs and sites to have explicit codes like this, although content may vary.  As I've written before, I've been a guest blogger in environments without explicit guidelines on comment moderation, conduct, and harassment, and my volunteer writing in those spaces is an experience I would not want to repeat.

2) Here's an interesting article about the strategies some feminist bloggers have used to resist trolls and harassers on Internet.  Particularly, I appreciated the framing of such strategies as "collective labor" to be apt, as yes, it takes actual work to make a site safe.  It doesn't just happen.

3) Over at Cyborgology, robinjames writes about being perceived online as male, due to her name, and how that might result in her receiving less harassment online than women with more "feminine"-(my scare quotes)-seeming names.

4) The other day, National Organization for [Heterosexual] Marriage (NOM) posted a braggy video on its blog purportedly showing how kind, loving, and civil opponents of marriage equality were while attending NOM's recent march in DC.  These interviews of march attendees show, according to NOM, how the Liberal Homosexualist Media unfairly portrays equality opponents as So Mean, when look right here at how nice these people are being at their "historic" (my scare quotes) march against equality:

Here's the first person interviewed, speaking in response to a "reporter's" question on why she attended the March: "I feel like it's my duty to do it. I don't want my children to ask 'Why did you not fight for me, Mom?'"

The second person interviewed explained, "God made us that way. He made a male and a female to come together as one."

That's about as a far as I got because, yeah no.  Not only are those "reasons" for opposing marriage equality nonsensical and irrational, they are also not civil.  Same-sex marriage will not hurt your bigoted non-existent future kid, lady. And, a person's neat-o religious beliefs about "males" and "females" should have no bearing on my equal rights.

But.... nice try.

Obvious News: Female Construction Workers Harassed, MRAs Do Nothing

Men's rights activists (MRAs) often claim that men are "more naturally drawn to" more dangerous, more labor-intensive employment than women are, often citing the construction industry as an example.

Oftentimes, this claim is made in support of two conclusions: (1) Therefore, they claim, men "deserve" higher pay than women (if the MRA can even admit that a wage gap exists); and (2) Therefore, men make up the majority of reported workplace injuries and deaths, with either explicit or implicit argument that, somehow, this higher rate of male injury/death in the workplace is the fault of feminists.  Because logic-reasons. Or, sometimes, the argument is that feminists are "hypocrites" for  purportedly "not caring" about these statistics, or for not taking "enough action," to solve this dangerous situation for men.

Recently, ThinkProgress ran an interesting, and surprising to no one, piece about the pervasive harassment that women experience in the construction industry. Recounting the story of one woman, who studied civil engineering and had hopes of going into construction management:

"Those hopes were dashed on the very first day. She went to the construction site along with another young woman and two young men. The first construction manager who came to get them 'literally split us down gender lines,' she said. 'He grabbed the two boys and said, ‘Come with me.’' As an excuse, he told the two women, 'Sorry, I don’t work with women in this job, it’s nothing personal.'

It got worse from there. 

'These men I worked with asked me out on dates, which was totally inappropriate, commented on my body, commented on my abilities,' she said. That was the hardest part. 'What bothered me the most was the sexual harassment and feeling intimidated.'
Even the work she was assigned fell down gendered lines. She was given administrative tasks like making lists, taking pictures, and checking to see if others’ tasks were completed. 'They would tell me all the time, ‘Honey, stay here, this is really dangerous,’' she said. 

She also wasn’t getting the training she had come for. 'Nobody explained things to me, nobody cared whether I was learning or not,” she said. The boys, on the other hand, were invited to meetings and given in-depth explanations of how things were done. 

Valoy represents many women in her industry. The Department of Labor found that 88 percent of women in construction said they had experienced sexual harassment at work, compared to 25 percent of women in the workforce generally. And, according to NWLC, they 'are more likely to be concentrated in office positions…and least likely to be found in more labor intensive positions,' but those office positions pay less."

This situation of men sexually harassing women in order to keep construction a boys' club might help explain why more men than women are in this industry and, thus, experience both higher wages and higher workplace injuries/deaths, yeah?

And yet, what are men's rights activists doing to help stop men from harassing and excluding women from male-dominated jobs like construction?

Absolutely fucking nothing, of course.  

It's feminists who fight for an end to harassment, gender-based stereotypes, and benevolent sexism on the job that all serve to keep women out of male-dominated industries, while MRAs fight us every step of the way, thereby contributing to the very problems about which they whinge and add to their ready-made lists of "proof" that men are the ones who are really oppressed.

And really, what do MRAs even do, tangibly, to make workplaces safer for men, or anyone, really?

#NotAllMen: Conservative Academic Edition

Brad Wilcox and Robin Frewell Wilson have a gross, notorious piece in the Washington Post about violence and marriage.

For some brief background on Wilcox, Sarah Posner has a round-up of some choice quotes of his promotion of traditional gender roles in marriage. And, I've previously noted his ethically-questionable involvement in the tainted Regnerus study conservative use to denigrate same-sex marriage and parenting. Meanwhile, Wilson is a conservative law professor, not a sociologist, who has also published hand-wringing pieces about "religious liberties" in the wake of same-sex marriage.

In this latest piece, Wilcox and Wison riff off the #YesAllWomen hashtag many women used in response to the UCSB shooting to communicate their experiences living in a world in which men commit the vast majority of violent crimes, threats, and acts.

Giving feeeeeeeeemales some pro Safety Tips, Wilcox and Wilson opine:

"Marriage is no panacea when it comes to male violence. But married fathers are much less likely to resort to violence than men who are not tied by marriage or biology to a female*. And, most fundamentally, for the girls and women in their lives, married fathers provide direct protection by watching out for the physical welfare of their wives and daughters, and indirect protection by increasing the odds they live in safe homes and are not exposed to men likely to pose a threat. 

So, women: if you’re the product of a good marriage, and feel safer as a consequence, lift a glass to dear old dad this Sunday."

As Echidne notes, the authors fail to acknowledge, let alone address, causality and its direction: "Which comes first, domestic violence or the dissolution of marriage (or the decision not to marry someone who is violent in the first place)?" Or, other causes: maybe violent men are less likely to marry. Maybe women who are married are less likely to report their spouse for violence than are unmarried women. Maybe the criminal justice system is more lenient on married men than unmarried men.

My point here is that we see once again how gender traditionalists like neat, easy-peasy solutions for real-world problems, starting with the original URL of this article, which barked at women to get married if they don't want to get themselves attacked. It's a worldview that accepts "females" as the victim class and "males" as the murderer-rapist-abuser class, and commands women to work within that framework to marry men, tame the "beasts," and limit our behavior and movement in the world because Men Cannot Be Trusted and, meanwhile, the low bar of human decency for men is set at "don't rape, attack, or kill someone unless you have a good enough reason" (and man oh man authority has thought of lots of ways to give men what it deems good, justifiable reason for these things, yeah?)

Meanwhile, real-worl reality has a lot going on in it that the gender traditionalist narrative doesn't account for. To them,  and we largely see this perspective in the article above, the world is divided into two classes of men: Good Protector Men and Evil Violent Men. It's a narrative that fails to recognize that some men can be protective of "their" women while violent toward others.  It fails to acknowledge that people are not binary either 100% Good or 100% Evil.

So-called "Men's Rights Activists," of course, rarely if ever take issue with this gender traditionalist worldview of men, which of course underscores that movement's true motivation: putting uppity women back in their/our place. So, on that note, I've answered my own question on my why MRAs rarely critique gender traditionalists. They're mostly on the same wavelength.

(*Note too, of course, the authors' use of "females" as a noun as though it's the proper analog to the term "men.")

This Is What Dehumanization Looks Like

I saw a popular anti-LGBT writer approvingly promote this silly, self-important, fear-mongering piece by Michael Hanby.

The TL;DR version of this post is that, like many anti-equality pieces, this one's an academic version of National Organization for [Heterosexual] Marriage's (NOM) ridiculous "A Gathering Storm" ad about the grave harms we are to experience as a society that accepts same-sex marriage.

You can tell right off because Hanby, or his editor, calls his piece "The Brave New World of Same-Sex Marriage."

Which, first off, as an avid sci-fi fan, I find that many conservatives love using Huxley's work as their handy, super profound dystopian reference, no matter how tiny a connection exists between that and whatever it is they happen to be writing about.  It's as though some people are like, "Stuff I think is scary is happening now, and scary future stuff happened in Brave New World too, therefore it's exactly the same."

Hanby starts with some... fun premises:

"Just as feminism has as its practical outworking, if not its theoretical core, the technological conquest of the female body—'biology is not destiny,' so the saying goes—so too same-sex marriage has as its condition of possibility the technological mastery of procreation, without which it would have remained permanently unimaginable."

Hanby's reference to feminism here may seem irrelevant but, for many, being anti-feminist and being anti-LGBT go hand in hand.  Poke a homobigot even a little bit, get them into a conversation about gender, and yep, as NOM claims:

"Men and women make unique, irreplaceable, contributions to parenting. Both genders are needed for human flourishing."

Both progressive feminism and pro-LGBT advocacy threaten this allegedly "natural" world in which all of humanity can be simply and easily reduced to two,and only two, gender complementarist and essential roles (with men on top, of course).  Gay people, trans people, "masculine" women, "feminine" men, intersex individuals, bisexuals - we're all aberrations that, to those invested in "natural law," don't even cause a blip on the radar of what it means to be a true, authentic human being.  Our experiences that deviate from the "nuclear family norm" are, to them, artificial social constructs.

In addition to Hanby's bizarre (macho?) framing of feminism as "the technological conquest of the female body," he makes quite the claim in concluding, without argument, that same-sex marriage would have been unimagineable without the existence of alternative reproductive technologies. That claim, to me, belies an ignorance of the most prominent reasons put forth for same-sex marriage as well as the reasons for its increasing acceptance - none of which are dependent upon the argument, "Well, same-sex couples can use egg/sperm donors, therefore, they too can get married."

Hanby continues:

"To accept same-sex unions as ‘marriage’ is thus to commit officially to the proposition that there is no meaningful difference between a married man and woman conceiving a child naturally, two women conceiving a child with the aid of donor semen and IVF, or two men employing a surrogate to have a child together, though in the latter cases only one of the legally recognized parents can (presently) contribute to the child’s hereditary endowment and hope for a family resemblance."

Gee, something is missing from this picture. Notice how in all this talk of the brave new world of reproductive technologies, Hanby fails to mention that male-female couples also use these practices.  In his brave new world, and even his current world, it's as though all male-female couples conceive children "naturally" while only same-sex couples use alternative reproductive technologies to have children.  Adoption doesn't occur either, apparently.

These omissions, these double-standards in which a practice is highlighted and denigrated when same-sex couples do it and invisibilized when heterosexuals do it are, to me, always a sure sign of the dreaded b-word. And, indeed, he really gets worked up a bit later, culminating in his overall thesis:

"Underlying the technological conquest of human biology, whether in its gay or feminist form, is a dualism which bi-furcates the person into a meaningless mechanical body made of malleable ‘stuff’ and the affective or technological will that presides over it. 

The person as an integrated whole falls through the chasm. This is the foundation of the now orthodox distinction between ‘sex’ which is ‘merely biological’ and ‘gender’ which is socially constructed, as well as the increasingly pervasive (and relentlessly promoted) idea that freedom means our self-creation of both. Technological dominance over procreation imposes this bi-furcated anthropology upon parents and children alike, and codifying it implicitly makes this anthropology the law of the land. 

To declare same-sex unions marriage and their technological ‘reproduction’ normative is essentially to reconceive the child not as a person but as an artifact. It is to deny that he [sic] is his [sic] own being with inviolable dignity who cannot be manipulated or controlled; since it was a process of manipulation and control that brought him [sic] into being in the first place. 

To declare same-sex unions marriage and their technological ‘reproduction’ normative is essentially to reconceive the child not as a person but as an artifact. It is to deny that he [sic] is essentially the natural fruit of a love inscribed into his [sic] parents’ flesh; since love is now a mere emotion with no bearing on the meaning of the body, which has been relegated to the sub-personal realm of ‘mere biology.’" 

Lot going on there, right?

In a nutshell, his main argument is that same-sex marriage results in the normalization of alternative reproductive technology, which results in the dehumanization of all of us in society. It is the academic speak covering a simplistic argument that, to me, is most infuriating: The notion that it is uniquely same-sex marriage that is the harbinger of this brave new world of, quoting Hanby again, "embryo selection, cryopreservation, ‘baby farming,’ three-parent ‘composite’ babies, defective embryos and chimeras manufactured for research."

Now, as some of you might know, I used to guest write at the conservative-leaning Family Scholars Blog, where I was a progressive lesbian feminist blogger in the midst of those who held views much like Hanby's. I've said it there and I'll say it now, the ethics of ART ought to be explored, debated and discussed (and often are).

However, the biggest failing of many anti-ART voices who are also anti-LGBT is the coupling of their concerns about ART with the almost single-minded blame for all ills associated with it on same-sex couples, same-sex marriage, and (as in Hanby's case) feminism.  I once asked a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage and ART how many same-sex couples used ART compared to heterosexual couples and she honestly couldn't tell me. Yet, from her writing and advocacy, one would be led to assume that she had solid information that millions of same-sex couples, and same-sex couples only, were using these technologies.

To single out same-sex couples and same-sex marriage as harbingers of the dehumanization of human beings is, frankly, sickly, and absurdly, dehumanizing.  But, of course, dehumanization is a key feature of gender complementarist theories and practices that push people into simple "pink" and "blue" categories, that ignore and invisibilize actual human experience and difference while masquerading as absolute truth "natural law" about humanity.

Quote of the Day

I'm reading Joanna Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing.  Here she is, writing on white male fauxbjectivity (my term):

"...[M]en and women, whites and people of color do have very different experiences of life and one would expect such differences to be reflected in their art. I wish to emphasize here that I am not talking (vis a vis sex) about the relatively small area of biology - about this kind of difference in experience, men are often curious and genuinely interested - but about socially-enforced differences.  The trick in the double standard of content is to label one set of experiences as more valuable and important than the other. Thus [to the list of ways women's writing is denigrated] we have added.... She [wrote it], but look what she wrote about."

And so we have terms like "chick lit," "pink" science fiction, "mommy blogs" special segregated sections magazines that are for female interests while the entire rest of the "general" articles are for the regular humans, female characters who are purported "Mary Sues"and more - all standing in contrast to white-male-authored works and characters which are generally classified as more serious, non-gendered, color blind, profound, important, and universal to the human experience.

Welp, That Sounds Fantastic

Earlier this week, a Fox News host blamed feminism for boys purportedly doing worse than girls in school these days:

"On the Fox News show Outnumbered — where four female hosts “outnumber” one male guest host — host Sandra Smith pointed to the fact that most teachers were female as a possible reason that boys could be falling behind."

I was initially going to write once again about that common anti-feminist talking point but, what?, Fox has a show called "Outnumbered - where four female hosts 'outnumber' one male guest host.'"

Let me guess.

Does the poor guy do a lot of "ducking" after he says things?  Is he gonna precede his statements with a joking, "I'm gonna get clobbered for saying this, but"?  Are we going to get lots of yukking it up about "he said, she said," bullshit pop culture "Mars/Venus" divides, and hilarious pretend male fear that's an exaggerated reversal of many women's authentic fear in male-dominated spaces?

And, what do we call the show where all or most of the commentators are men: "Business As Usual"?

Gross.

National Equal Pay Day

Yesterday was National Equal Pay Day in the US.

I don't write much about equal pay myself, so I highly recommend Echidne's roundup of links, which include her own writing on the topic. 

In my opinion, Echidne's writing is among the best on Internet in analyzing the gender gap in earnings, rebutting anti-woman, anti-feminist "explanations" for the gap, and articulating flaws in various studies.