The Extreme Self-Centeredness of the Anti-LGBT

My title doesn't reference a clinical diagnosis, but rather a sort of cultural narcissism that would seem unbelievable perhaps to anyone not familiar with the LGBT "culture wars" in the US.

I'm referring today to anti-LGBT Christian Rod Dreher turning the worst terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11, one in which LGBT people primarily of color were specifically targeted, all about.... you guessed it... the oppression of anti-LGBT Christians. His concern seems to be that Christianity-motivated hate speech and laws against LGBT equality will no longer be as tolerated in the US after this attack. Thusly, does he rally his brave, oppressed Christian soldiers:

"Now we will see the price individual Christians are willing to pay to remain faithful. Now we will see how many Christians have the inner strength to obey Jesus’s command: 'But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you.'

When I talk about the need for the Benedict Option, this is part of what I mean: the need for orthodox Christians to come together in thick communities to keep our faith, to help each other through things like what’s to come, and to remind one another that no matter what, we cannot return hatred for hatred. That is forbidden to us."

He Godwin-labels his post "Orlando: The Reichstag Fire," suggesting that the Orlando attack will be the precipitating event that turns the US into Nazi Germany, with anti-LGBT Christians being the equivalent of Jews under Nazi Germany.

This absurd, histrionic view, of course, is the very belief that enables homophobe oppressors to mistakenly believe they are victimized underdogs which is what, cyclically, many anti-LGBTs use to justify their oppression of LGBTs.

What else can you say, really to such a despicable, self-centered view. Except maybe, Rod Dreher, how dare you? How fucking dare you co-opt this tragedy to further your own anti-LGBT agenda. You are part of the problem.

A homophobe living in a homophobic society just killed 49 people at a gay club and Rod Dreher takes a moment to navel-gaze about the harmful impact the shooting could have on religious bigots.

Like I said in my original post about the incident:

"[M]ost of all, what those who utter [anti-LGBT] rhetoric know with 100% certainty is that any harm LGBT people experience is 100% not their fault.

Well, I see you, bigots. I've seen you for years. You don't fool me and you don't fool many other people.

To the LGBT community: I stand with you. In fear, anger, pride, courage, and determination, we grieve and we vow to carry on."

Not in spite of people like Dreher, but because of them.

Our Leader Has Spoken

This clip is being widely circulated, but it demonstrates pretty well why I have so much respect for Ellen DeGeneres. She's consistently funny without being mean about it.  In the clip, she addresses one anti-gay Christian writer's contempt of her marriage and her purported Lesbian Agenda. I highly recommend watching it, if you're able.

Meanwhile, most anti-LGBT individuals that I have experienced, particularly those who dedicate to their livelihoods to opposing LGBT equality, are consistently both cruel and absolutely humorless.  It's probably a matter of time until some anti-LGBT group photoshops the above image and presents it as Ellen's sincere effort to recruit young girls into a life of lesbianism.

Remember, oppressors are often the reverse of what they claim to be, with their accusations of their opponents largely being psychological projections.

The views of bigots who refer to same-sex marriages as "marriages" and who continue to sprout Anita Bryant-era rhetoric are being increasingly marginalized, both morally and legally, as they should be.

Using her large platform, and unlike many anti-LGBT individuals, Ellen's response demonstrates both grace and humor.  That, fundamentally, is one of the largest failings of the anti-LGBT movement in the US. This is very "pop evidence," but when people post Buzzfeed-style articles about The Year's Most Movement Moments In Pictures, often included are same-sex couples, legally married for the first time in various states.

Do such photo arrays ever include opponents of equality rejoicing, holding these moments up as profound, touching statements on the human experience? Not that I've seen. With their corny anti-equality "party kits" and traveling hate buses seeking "crazy" photos of gay people, and underneath its narratives of how "Christians" are being oppressed by the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, the anti-equality movement is, simply put, unhip. Cruel. Humorless. Utterly lacking in self-awareness, thinking it can convince Americans that theirs is the real message of love and justice.

What An Anti-Feminist Looks Like

“She has a problem with the fact that I said that she had a serious health incident and that I thought that would be a bigger part of her personal calculation than most people anticipate. [...] She is antagonistic toward the press, and has a very thin skin. She will abide no criticism. It’s one of the least attractive things we see in Hillary Clinton,” [Karl Rove] continued.

This quote perfectly captures how sexist men treat women in the public arena.

First, note his use of the words "least" "attractive." Sure Rove might say he was "just" referring to a non-physical trait of Clinton's, but in both dictionary and common usage, "attractive" is generally used to suggest something along the lines of sexually or romantically pleasing, or appealing to the senses. Here, Rove notes that her alleged inability to receive criticism is the "least" attractive thing about her - that is, just one of many not attractive things about Clinton.

While reasonable people should agree that a person's appearance is irrelevant to their competence in politics, the sexist man holds himself out as objective arbiter of female attractiveness, while himself usually benefitting from the reality that male politicians have less of a history of their appearances being impediments to their careers. Rove himself being a good example of that.

Second, Hillary Clinton receives more vitriol, more hatred, more misogyny, more attacks - by virtue of being a liberal public female figure - than most women (and men) do.  I reckon she has developed a pretty thick skin, actually, contrary to Rove's mansplainy declaration otherwise and, especially as of late, often uses humor to re-direct and counter the misogyny.

When rape threats are the new "normal" for some feminist bloggers, many feminist women are not, actually, the hypersensitive emotional hysterics that sexist men portray us as. Such men know little to nothing about our lives and experiences.

Oftentimes, in fact, reality is the reverse of what sexist men say it is.

Studies show that every time a man claims that a woman has "very thin skin," there are at least 150 men on the Internet taking Very Serious Offense to a woman gently telling them that something they said was "problematic" (that oft-used word we sometimes use to trivialize -isms because it makes oh-so-sensitive privileged folks feel less threatened in conversations).

I mean, it strikes me as pretty thin-skinned that so many men cannot participate in conversations about gender with women without  falsely suggesting they're being clobbered, killed, and attacked by women who are merely disagreeing with them.  

They can abide no criticism. Especially not from women.

Public Discourse Promotes Anti-Equality "Primer"

Back in June, I took note of a creepy "primer" purporting to give marriage equality opponents tips on how to better frame the marriage debate.

As I noted back then, key takeaways from this propaganda manual, er, "primer" include "elevat[ing] as spokesmen" gay people who oppose same-sex marriage, "telling bigger stories" that reverse who the victims and victimizers are, and subverting the "marriage equality" meme with "stickier" anti-equality memes.

So, basically more of the same "winning" strategies the anti-gay movement has been using for years all jotted down in one handy-dandy document which I hope will be in the appendix of a future history book as actual proof of there being an actual anti-equality agenda.  Because really, I'm starting to wonder if many anti-equality folks are so insular and insulated from opposing views that they maybe don't get that it's the reliance on these very strategies, strategies that gaslight LGBT people's lived experiences and aim to divide and drive wedges between marginalized populations, that many people find hateful.

Brian Brown (who doesn't seem to be the same guy from the National Organization for Marriage), has written a piece at the Public Discourse, promoting this new "primer" and discussing its key concepts. Funnily enough, his article's title is a sarcastic admission of sorts, "Now That We're All Haters..."

The ellipses are in the original title, for dramatic effect I suppose?, but *spoiler alert* his punchline isn't a conciliatory and apologetic "Sorry for the harm we've caused gay people, let's see how can come to a better understanding and try to temper this culture war a little."

Nope.

Now that opponents of marriage equality think that everyone else thinks they're haters (but do we, really?)... the new goal seems to be to try to not look like haters whilst still opposing equality for same-sex couples while parroting superficial platitudes and sound-bites that don't embiggen the discourse.  

Because yes yes, we know. Whether or not people think marriage defenders are hateful bigots is the single most pressing concern in this entire culture war, a concern that must be centered in all conversations, especially mixed-company ones. Because god forbid we just not magically accept as benign the notion that "true marriage is more diverse" unlike "mono-gendered" marriage, and pretend that a catchphrase like that is not rooted in some serious sexist, supremacist, and shallow bullshit thinking about gender and sexuality.

Fun fact: The Public Discourse is hosted by The Witherspoon Institute, the "think tank" that recruited Mark Regnerus to run "his" widely-critiqued study on parenting that was timed to be available before the US Supreme Court issued its marriage equality opinions.

Gender Traditionalist Misandry, Again

[Content note: sexual violence]

So says anti-feminist Phylis Schlafly, on women in combat:

"Military women are already complaining about increased sexual assaults, and of course those problems will skyrocket. Only men will be deemed at fault because it is feminist ideology that men are innately batterers and women are victims."

There's a lot to unpack here and, what do you know, I'm up for it today!

Here, Schlafly claims that more women in the military will result in a great increase in sexual assaults of women in the military. If you read nothing else in this post, I encourage you to at least notice how this conclusion only works if an underlying premise is that men are innately predatory.

Relatedly, it's curious that Schlafly conflates "rapists" with "batterers" here but, I believe, it's mostly just evidence of her sloppy thinking that seems to place people in monolithic groups. As though, in her mind, there's no relevant distinction between rapists and batterers, just as there are no relevant distinctions between any types of "feminist ideology."

Anyway, my larger point is that, like many MRA/gender traditionalist types, Schlafly doesn't seem to pick up on the fact that she's projecting her own misandry onto her usual villains, the feminists.

Nor does she seem to notice that she's intellectually stuck in 1972, responding to a handful of radical second-wave feminists, and that the rest of the world and, certainly feminism, has progressed, moved on, and adapted its thinking. Many of today's feminists, for instance, rather than viewing men as innate "batterers," predators, or rapists, recognize that women, too, can assault and sexually assault people, including men- a recognition that logically precludes the holder of such views from seeing men as innately predatory and women as innate victims.

But, let's take a moment to ponder how Schlafly would respond to that revelation...

Denial?

Ridicule of men for becoming "weak" and "feminized"?

More blaming of feminism for, now, supposedly making women violent or for "turning women into men"?

The more I see gender traditionalists and gender complementarists opining on gender, often with the help of their un-scientific religious or pseudo-scientified evopsych beliefs, the more I see that of course gender traditionalists think men are innate predators.

They just don't tend recognize their own misandry because they also quite often believe that men are entitled to be predatory, violent, and aggressive because they also often think that male violence, when Properly Channeled, serves the important function of protecting women, children, and society.

To them, the world is often divided into two classes of men, Good Protector Men and Evil Violent Men, failing to recognize that some men can be protective of "their" women while violent toward others, or other variations of people not being completely, 100% Good or Evil.

So, when members of the so-called protector class of, say, male soldiers rape people, they invisibilize the men who commit the crime and, instead, blame women (usually) for going and getting themselves raped. Or they blame male-on-male sexual assault entirely on the class of men they deem to be inauthentic men- gay men. (Nevermind that, in the military, it's actually often heterosexual men who assault and sexually assault and harass non-heterosexual men).

After all, these gender traditionalists implicitly argue, violent is just what Real Men are. That's why, as Schlafly alludes, it's not really men's fault if they rape people- it's the fault of feminists for putting women in these situations where men can't help but rape them.

Of all the times it is most appropriate to center men in any given conversation, it is in instances where men engage in violence. Yet, these instances are often precisely the moment that anti-feminists and MRAs step back and instead center feminism as the core explanation for men's misbehavior.

Rather than expecting men to change, the gender traditionalist expects society and women to adapt to the reality of male violence and predation. If we think otherwise, that men should adapt to civil society, we're being So Mean to men.  It's, to them, evidence of how feminists are So Man-Hating.

And so it goes that MRA/gender traditionalists' working definition of a misandrist is a person who argues not that all men are violent rapists, but that society should stop granting men entitlement to engage in violence.

A Creepy Anti-Choice/Anti-Gay Thought Experiment

[Content note: Homobigotry, eliminationist fantasies]

Recently, over at Family Scholars Blog, commenter Greg somewhat randomly opined:

"The pro-life movement may one day be responsible for the existence of homosexuals. After all, if homsexuality is, indeed, genetic, there will, one day, be a test for it. If that happens, the only people who will be having gay children are the pro-lifers. 

In that day, homosexuality will experience the same level of genocide currently reserved for Down’s Syndrome children."

When doing a little background research on this self-evident-to-Greg claim for which he provided absolutely no supporting evidence, I observed that more prominent men with *cough*... problematic views on homosexuality have also come to this conclusion. 

Bill Donohue.  

Bryan Fischer. 

Rush Limbaugh.

What I want to point to today is how the conclusion only works if one believes that the vast majority of Americans (or, as Greg claims, everyone who is pro-choice) believes that homosexuality is a genetic flaw.  

Yet, that premise is not a self-evident given, right?

So, in a response to Greg, I invited him to check his unsupported premise, and provided some evidence of my own.

"I also conducted the following appalling google search 

'Would you abort a gay baby*, poll'

One poll found that more than 80% of respondents would not abort a fetus that had a 'gay gene' and that they would in fact support the resulting child. 

Another (bizarre) poll found a similar result of 83%. (Bizarre, because it asks whether the respondent would 'abort a baby if you knew it would grow up to be gay or Muslim.' 

Sure, my methods aren’t super-scientific and I did this all in a matter of like 3 minutes. But, it’s certainly more evidence than what Greg has provided. 

In fact, I think sweeping claims like his might say more about him than they do about 'most people.'”

Greg did not respond.

I wish he would have, because I'm curious what's going on here. 

In my opinion, this "thought experiment" is flawed by both self-centered fauxbjectivity and homobigotry.  People who make this assertion seem to mistakenly believe that just because they personally believe homosexuality is an obvious genetic flaw then almost everyone else does as well.  It's as though their own opinions and homobigotry are the sun around which all people's opinions revolve. It's like they think they Are Just Telling It Like It Is, Folks! and everyone openly agrees or secretly agrees but is just too "PC" to admit it.

I will also note that, as a gay person, I find this "thought experiment" to be incredibly creepy. 

Not only because of the weird convergence between anti-choice advocacy and anti-gay bigotry (and the attempt to drive a wedge between pro-choice and pro-gay causes), but because it kind of comes off as a sick fantasy.  Like, if the Westboro Baptist Church had the equivalent of a Penthouse Forum, this "thought experiment" would definitely be in the Top 5.

[*Yes, I realize fetuses in the uterus are not "babies." I conducted the search I did because, sadly, I know that many people don't make the distinction, even in polls.]

On Politically Correct, Again

I sometimes talk on this blog about that vague, overused phrase "politically correct."

Often, it's used by defenders of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other -isms to justify an oppressive status quo, and it's usually combined with words like "agenda" and "hypersensitive." Those who use it often do so to imply that someone rendering a critique is getting worked up over something that is so trivial it's not worth seriously discussing.

A couple weeks ago, a woman wrote an article about the movie The Hobbit, noting that very few female characters are in it (much like Tolkien's entire Lord of the Ring series), saying:

"I did not read The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child, and I have always felt a bit alienated from the fandom surrounding them. Now I think I know why: Tolkien seems to have wiped women off the face of Middle-earth."

Now, I've actually read them all and felt a similar sense of alienation. So, no need to "inform" me about the female characters who do exist, thanks!

Tolkien's fictional world always seemed to me to be not only largely devoid of women, but also inhabited by men who don't even notice, much less care, about the absence of women. With few exceptions, it's a gender traditionalist's wet dream of male homosociality where men do all the stuff that's worth noting and the women do.... well.... whatever it is that women do.

So, it was with much amusement that the vast majority of comments critical of this woman's criticism, and there were many, were not actual substantive, civil engagements with her thesis, but rather, were condescending, mansplainy, angry, hyper-emotional personal attacks on her and her so-called PC agenda.

The reactions were disproportionately more aggressive than the woman's relatively tepid statement that she always felt alienated from Tolkien's works and I think that speaks to a real sense of privilege and entitlement.

Of course, there were a few token, "As a female, can I just say I'm not offended" head-pat seekers in the crowd, but many of the male commenters seemed to really be operating with that sense of self-centered illusory superiority that makes them think that just because they personally see nothing wrong with a work then no one else can ever be reasonably justified in feeling alienated or offended by it. Because of course, they as men are the neutral arbiters of all that is funny, smart, offensive, alienating, and entertaining!

To me, these strongly negative reactions to this woman's critique really speak to how the term "politically correct" is a massive use of projection. The truth is not that people who think critically about how entertainment reinforces stereotypes and oppressions just go around getting all offended at stuff without even thinking about it, reacting solely on how our self-centered, solipsistic emotions react. The truth is that that's exactly what uncritical fanboy fonts of unexamined privilege do whenever they're told their favorite things might be alienating or offensive to other people.

Okay Then

 [Content note: Homobigotry, reference to child abuse]

Anti-gay advocates, professional and amateur alike, can often be found making up their own strange, scary-sounding lingo in order to advance their cause of opposing anything and everything gay.

Writing at the Americans For Truth [sic] About Homosexuality (AFTAH) blog*, Matt Barber writes about how he's not a happy camper about recent efforts to ban the "conversion therapy" that purports to turn gay, bisexual, and lesbian people into heterosexuals:

"Recently, on our nationally syndicated radio program 'Faith & Freedom,' Mat Staver and I discussed the degree to which such bans, or 'Sandusky Laws,' come between counselor and client, hurt children, and trample the rights of religious freedom and sexual self-determination.

Despite intense, politically motivated denials from many on the left, research has established the astonishing frequency to which a 'gay identity' or 'sexual orientation' stems from childhood sexual abuse.  Sandusky Laws abuse these children all over again." [emphasis added]

Oh ree-hee-heeally. Sandusky Laws, eh? We're calling that a thing now, are we?

Sure.

"Sandusky Law" seems to be a moniker that Team Homobigot has invented in order to associate bans on "conversion therapy" with convicted child molestor Jerry Sandusky. Mat Staver "explains" in the AFTAH article:

"'Under SB 1172, a young boy sexually molested by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky who develops an identity crisis, emotional stress and who begins to experience unwanted same-sex attractions will be further hurt by a law that deprives him and his family of the option of receiving counsel that aligns with their religious and moral beliefs.'"

Barber goes ahead and drops the term "Sandusky Law" into the article several more times, like if it's repeated enough times people might start to think of bans on "conversion therapy" as a Really Bad Thing.

Just to refresh everyone's memory, as I wrote about last week, here is what happens at "conversion therapy":

"The [Southern Poverty Law Center's] complaint, which can be found here (PDF), details the bases of conversion therapy and methods purported to prevent and cure homosexuality including having boys shower with their fathers, having boys beat a pillow 'meant to represent the patient's mother,' having clients removing their clothing during individual and group therapy sessions, cuddling others of the same sex, and being 'subjected to ridicule as 'faggots' and 'homos' in mock locker room and gym class scenarios.'"

Gosh, it's almost like, well, given the descriptions of the abusive and psychologically damaging methods of "conversion therapy," it seems like if anything warrants being associated with Sandusky that something is "conversion therapy."

But alas, Matt Barber, proponent of "conversion therapy" and Acclaimed Definitely Not A Bigot, doesn't seem to get it. He asks:

"What kind of person politicizes the lives of children, treating them as throwaway pawns in a cynical game of political chess?"

 What kind indeed.


*Note: I'm purposefully not linking to AFTAH's odious website, but the article in question can be easily found by copying and pasting the quotes I've provided into an Internet search engine.

Today's Fun Facts

 [Content note: heterosupremacy]

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

"DeGeneres' popularity among those Middle America viewers (many of whom likely voted for McCain) is not without irony. In fact, this is precisely the viewership affiliates feared a homosexual comedian would offend, if not altogether alienate, when Warner Bros. executives pitched Ellen 10 years ago. To persuade those skittish station managers, DeGeneres crisscrossed the country, making stops in each of their markets with Jim Paratore, the late president of Telepictures Productions. 'They were always shocked. They'd be like, 'She didn't curse,' as though cursing were a characteristic of gay people,' says DeGeneres, reflecting on the draining process of schmoozing a cadre of people fearful of who she was and, worse, what she might do with it on air.

These stations really thought she'd have a gay agenda. 'It was the hardest show we've ever had to launch in the history of our company,' says McLoughlin, recalling the subsequent test interviews she did prelaunch with stars including Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt and singer Alanis Morissette to show affiliates she was capable of having compelling conversations with those outside of the gay community. 'I had to show them that I know how to talk to people -- like how hard is it to talk to people? -- and still a lot of them didn't want to hire me,' adds DeGeneres, who confesses over iced teas at West Hollywood's Soho House in August that being on this end of an interview is the only time she is uncomfortable talking. (It is for that reason that DeGeneres, more serious in person than she is on her show, gives them so infrequently.)"

 Yep, it's true.

Just like some of the Normal People, some lesbians can speak without cursing and can talk to people.

Seriously, reading this story about the 10-year anniversary of Ellen's successful TV show reminds me why I bristle at  homophobes who bleat about Hollywood's Gay Agenda and how LGBT characters. Coming out was not easy for Ellen, it is still not easy for many people, and it almost cost her her career.

Sure, we have shows like Glee and Modern Family that at least acknowledge, however imperfectly, the reality that non-heterosexuals exist, but we also still have bigots who refer to the representation of non-heterosexual characters on television as an "infection" that should be stopped. We still have people who think it's offensive or PC (whatever the hell that ever means) to acknowledge the fact that not all families are "traditional" heternormative families and that not all people in the world are cis or heterosexual.

And, I think that's largely due to the ignorance and misperceptions they have of non-heterosexuals. So, I thank Ellen for changing some of those perceptions. She's not perfect. No one is. But, she's done a lot to humanize that caricatured picture of LeSbIaNs that many people apparently had in their heads.


[Tip of the beret: G-A-Y]

Scholars Critique Regnerus Study

A group of 200 scholars has signed a critique of the Mark Regnerus New Family Structure Study.

If you remember, this study used a sketchy method for categorizing parents as "gay" and "lesbian," and households as "same-sex households." Rather than asking respondents if they were raised by two parents of the same sex, the study asked respondents if one of their parents had ever had a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex while the respondent was under the age of 18 and living with the parent. Incredibly, regardless of the duration or commitment-level of the parents' same-sex relationship, those who responded yes were categorized as having been raised in a same-sex household by gay or lesbian parents.

The above-cited statement signed by scholars makes note of this methodology in addition to several other substantive critiques.

If you follow the link to Family Scholars Blog, where Barry Deutsch posted about the critique, you will notice that Maggie Gallagher has shown up in the comment section with a very problematic interpretation of the statement.

Rather than addressing the merits or substance of the critique, she simply asks "Why the attacks?" while also suggesting that the critique was motivated by ideology rather than for a sincere concern about the scientific merits of the study.

It's really unfortunate, but sadly characteristic, that her comment fails to seriously engage the very legitimate critiques that folks have made about the Regnerus study, instead appearing to choose to engage in the propagandistic meme that "marriage defenders" are being forever victimized by the mean, defamatory, bullying same-sex marriage advocates.

SPLC Notes Misogynistic Sites

Via the Spring 2012 Intelligence Report of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC):

"The so-called 'manosphere' is peopled with hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general. Although some of the sites make an attempt at civility and try to back their arguments with facts, they are almost all thick with misogynistic attacks that can be astounding for the guttural hatred they express."

Cited in the report were several MRA sites and other anti-woman/anti-feminist sites, some of whom I've written about before.

I found this report surprising and interesting. On the blogs I read, SPLC is famous/notorious mostly for listing anti-LGBT hate groups. This report is the first I've heard of the organization taking note of sites with alleged misogynistic content.

Also included in the report is a longer piece on the men's and father's rights movement:

"There are literally hundreds of websites, blogs and forums devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones) — the so-called 'manosphere,' which now also includes a tribute page for Tom Ball ('He Died For Our Children'). While some of them voice legitimate and sometimes disturbing complaints about the treatment of men, what is most remarkable is the misogynistic tone that pervades so many. Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed 'manginas'; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers."

Of course, feminist women, who are often on the receiving end of all of this vitriol, have been noting this misogyny for years (men call us things) (although, the SPLC report only cited the male-run "Manboobz" blog as calling these sites out).

Nonetheless, I'm sure this report will provoke a shitstorm of a reaction among MRAs and pick-up artists, with them creating their own "complementary" lists of feminist/misandric "hate sites."

Tales From the Matriarchy

[TW: Misogyny, gender essentialism, male supremacism]

In her collection of critical essays To Write Like A Woman, Joanna Russ articulated that really crappy anti-feminist science fiction is often characterized by an incoherent "collapse of a gynocracy that is both impressively powerful and totally incompetent." The collapse of the gynocracy, she noted of these stories, usually came about after a Traitor Woman found herself seduced by a man possessing a Sacred Phallic Object.

Let's just keep that theme in mind.

I recently stumbled upon a bizarre "Manifesto for Conscious Women" written by the husband-wife team of John Cole and Mary Allen, who seem to run a kind of New Agey life coach site. The manifesto is a reaction to the "Manifesto for Conscious Men," a manifesto also deserving of critique, but which I'm not gong to touch on today.

Anyway, while John apparently wrote the first draft of this "Manifesto For Conscious Women," "together" the duo allegedly "shaped it" into a form that they submitted to The Huffington Post. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why wouldn't a man write a manifesto that is purportedly coming from women? What could possibly go wrong?

Well, HuffPo apparently rejected the manifesto for publication, indicating that stuff might have gone wrong. But don't you worry, dear readers, I ain't afraida no anti-feminism here. For, every time an anti-woman/anti-feminist piece is rejected for being not a good fit at a progressive blog, an anti-feminist becomes further entrenched in the conviction that the PC Police are just too scared of their awesome intellectual ability to Tell It Like It Really Is.

For, John and Mary start:

"We’re now sharing the Manifesto at my Everyday Inner Peace blog, because one of the biggest keys to inner peace is recognizing and acknowledging reality 'as it is.' We may like reality or we may be repulsed by reality. Regardless, 'seeing clearly' is where sanity begins." (emphasis in original)

Below, I've highlighted some of the most...interesting snippets of John's (oh, and Mary's) manifesto from women to men.

You will notice, first, that this manifesto is premised upon the assumption that the class "Woman" is a ginormous, bitchy, powerful, incompetent monolith, meaning that each individual woman is responsible for, and therefore must apologize for, the wrongs that any other woman in the world has ever inflicted upon a man.

Yet, men, too, are also presented as a monolith. A quite awesome one at that, wherein the Great Achievements of some men are a reflection of the greatness of each individual man. Men are incredibly competent, but mysteriously they lack power in our modern-day matriarchy. You'll see what I mean:

"[As a woman to men,] I honor you for giving me a voice in shaping society through the right to vote. I apologize for bringing my instincts for security over freedom into politics and eroding America’s freedom by pushing socialist policies that are bankrupting this country."

LOL. Thanks guys for letting us ladies vote! Sorry that we actually vote.

It continues:

"[As a woman to men,] I honor you for creating millions of jobs through enterprise, ingenuity and hard work. Thank you for inviting me to work beside you. I apologize for disrupting the workplace. I apologize for bringing my hypergamous instincts and provocative dress into the workplace, thereby disordering what was once a well functioning and highly productive male hierarchy. I apologize for introducing sexual harassment policies that destroy workplace cohesion.

What John and Mary call "what was once a well functioning and highly productive male hierarchy," I call a "gigantic affirmative action program for men in white collar and many blue collar professions that was sustained by the stifled potential of women."

Implicit in this complaint is a longing for a return to all-male professional environments where men don't have to compete with women as equals. Also, notice the essentialist assumption that men are incapable of viewing women as anything other than sex objects and are, therefore, entitled to professionally bond with other men over this view of women.

The manifesto continues:

"[As a woman to men,] I acknowledge that boys and girls have different learning styles and we have radically shifted education to support girls. I realize how important men are as teachers and I apologize for driving men out of the teaching industry on fears of pedophilia accusations. I apologize to little boys for subjecting them to a feminized education experience that impedes learning, denigrates men and drives them out of higher education.

[As a woman to men,] I honor you for wanting to fully develop your mind so you can maximize your contribution to humanity. I apologize for watering down the high-stakes, high-abstraction, high difficulty standards boys thrive on in exchange for the low difficulty continuous assessment that favors girls. I apologize for all the boys that would be valedictorians if intelligence mattered rather than the ability to perform mind-numbing tasks....

I appreciate men for creating room for me in higher education. I apologize for squandering society’s scarce higher education resources. I apologize for using affirmative action laws to exclude a better qualified man from the first-rate graduate program and then quitting my 'career' after only a few years in business."

Isn't it funny to watch the "equality means equal opportunity, not equal outcomes" crowd scramble to deal with statistics that show girls have better outcomes than boys at stuff?

Taking it as self-evident statement of truth that male and female humans have vast biological differences with respect to intelligence wherein of course male humans are our intellectual superiors, many anti-feminists and MRAs cannot even fathom that girls might be doing better in school and college because girls are smarter or more competent than boys on average.

Not that that's what I necessarily think. Rather, my point is that it's indicative of some serious male supremacist assumptions when gender essentialists who so readily leap to non-essentialist explanations for when men or boys have negative outcomes, completely reject non-essentialist explanations when girls or women have negative outcomes.

Indeed, here, John/Mary take it as a given that So Many Boys would be valedictorians instead of girls, if only schools measured intelligence instead of a student's so-called ability to perform "mind-numbing tasks," if affirmative action policies didn't favor girls, and if boys didn't have to endure a "feminized education experience."

Given the individual variation that exists within each gender with respect to what types of teaching work best, it would be more helpful to both boys and girls if we stopped stereotyping certain ways of learning and teaching as "masculine" and "feminine." As we see in John/Mary's piece, the "feminine" way of learning and teaching, and girls and women by extension, invariably get denigrated as inferior whenever a comparison is made to "masculinity."

It continues:

"I acknowledge how virtually every show on TV portrays men as bumbling idiots while portraying women as smart, when the facts show much the opposite."

Orly?

Many TV shows do portray men as "bumbling idiots." That's not okay. But John? Mary? Ya lost me when you assert that it's a "fact" that it's actually women who are the "bumbling idiots."

The whole thing is really quite a fantastic reverse projection of what, I believe, many anti-feminists and MRAs believe feminism to be: an assertion of the supremacy of one sex and the denigration of another.

For, the manifesto's ironic parting shot:

"[As a woman to men,] I promise not to confuse honoring women with denigrating men. I promise not to think less of myself for acknowledging men. We all have gifts and strengths and no one deserves preferential worship."

Oh. Okay then.

Joanna Russ, concluded her critique of anti-feminist science fiction by noting, "I think it is clear by now that these stories are not only not written for women; they are not written about women. To quote Michael Korda, in Male Chauvinism: 'Men as a rule don't hate [women]....They just don't want to know anything about them." Women are merely "drafted as a permanent class of worshippers."

Likewise, this manifesto is, literally, not written for women.

It is a document purportedly from women to men. Aside from making tangential appearances as the Extremely Powerful-Yet-Totally-Incompetent Ruiners Of Everything, the document is not really about women either. It is primarily a vehicle in which men can observe women oberving men's amazing, supreme awesomeness.

We the Feminized Men

[TW: Sexual assault, rape culture, misogyny, homophobia]

My Google Alert for feminism sends me the strangest articles. And by strangest I mean the most "bizarre, offensive, and unfunny anti-feminist writings by people who think they are much more funny and clever than they are."

Like this bit of attempted "satire or parody."

The writer, "mikewadestr," apparently drew his satirical inspiration from an announcement by Action Comics that Superman was renouncing his American citizenship. Apparently, that travesty is indicative of Multiculturalism Gone Awry and so, extending the audacity of the world's bestest hero no longer being an American man, mike satirically writes that "Dysfunctional Comics announced the creation of two new American superheroes which they believe will be much more beneficial to today's American society than Superman."

These two heroes, natch, are "Dyke Woman" and "Feminized Man," two figures he mockingly calls "more reflective of the US society." And, by "more reflective" mike means his creations are the most reactionary, stale, uninspired stereotypes of feminist men and women that have been circulating for, like, the past 40 years.

Take Dyke Woman, for instance. Get it? Because all. feminsts. are. lesbians! /farting noise

Anyway, mike's piece is probably low-hanging fruit, but I highlight it because it, perhaps unintentionally, reveals quite an... er... revelation. See, in mike's scenario, Dyke Woman's main superpower is the use of her dildo to "pound" feminism into men in order to de-masculinize them.

This attribute, interestingly and probably unintentionally, is a subversion of "corrective rape" that, in the real world, men use on LGBT and other gender-nonconforming people to police and enforce gender conformity. The phallus, when used in this way, becomes a threat, enforcer, and symbol of power. It threatens "stay in your place, or else." In mike's "satire," he has embued his fake hero, Dyke Woman, with a phallus and, accordingly, the power to police and enforce a particular gender ideology.

When coupled with this theme of This Is What Happens When Feminism Goes Too Far the satire implies that being an agent of corrective rape is most naturally and suitably a male role. That is, a satire of a man who went around raping women in order to "pound" femininity into them wouldn't work, because it is too close to what actually happens in the real world. Mike's subversion, then, rather than challenging rape culture, reinforces it as the Natural Order Of Things.

Dyke Woman's phallus symbolizes feminism and the patriarchalist's biggest fear- the ability to take away men's power in rape culture. Which brings us to mike's second fake hero, Feminized Man (whose wife, naturally, is a "dominatrix"- har har har):

"Feminized Man, on the other hand, has absolutely no super powers what so-ever. He is a stay at home dad who spends his days cleaning the house, taking care of his wife's kids and running errands, all while being dressed in a French Maid's outfit and carrying a feather duster."

Just as many MRAs refer to feminist and/or gender non-conforming men as "manginas," mike figuratively castrates his male feminist hero. Feminism, to mike, seems to mean a total reversal of patriarchal gender roles where women hold all power and men exist as a powerless sex/domestic class.

Notice the costume of Feminized Man: a French Maid's outfit. This choice is the classic presentation of "men who like to parade around in women's clothes" as ridiculous. For, what supposedly makes it so ridiculous (and degrading, unserious, and powerless) is the purported incongruity between a man (masculinity!) and what the French Maid outfit represents- femininity (frivolity, weakness, domesticity, woman!).

Meanwhile, a French Maid outfit is a supposed perfect fit on a woman because there is no similar incongruity. For, a satire of a "powerless" woman who stayed at home wouldn't work. It would be too real, too close to what people think women are naturally like. Mike's satire relies on the self-evident given that it would be ridiculous for a man to waste his talents on Just Staying Home With The Kids.

But wait!

Don't conservative anti-feminists insist that the feminine gender role is merely Equal But Different to the masculine one? Why yes. Yes they do. A lot.

Sure.

Let's re-read mike's mocking description of Feminized Man. Oh, except while replacing the genders:

"Feminized [Woman], on the other hand, has absolutely no super powers what so-ever. [Sh]e is a stay at home [mom] who spends [her] days cleaning the house, taking care of [her husband']s kids and running errands, all while being dressed in a French Maid's outfit and carrying a feather duster."

Because she can't do anything else, goes the subtext. After all, she has "absolutely no super powers." Unlike men.

So, now tell me again that the male and female roles, under the anti-feminist "complementary" gender binary, are still Equal But Different.

We see here that mostly, one role gets to be more equal than the other, although both are sucky when you think about it. See, one is framed as a rapist super-hero and the other is framed as a powerless baby-raising maid. (It's always double-your-offensiveness when it comes to anti-feminism, folks!)

But that's how mike did something unintentionally brilliant here.

With his characters "Dyke Woman" and "Feminized Man," mike simply switched the genders of the two classes of people in the anti-feminist ideologues' gender binary, traditional marriage, and rape culture: Authentic Man and Authentic Woman. And in so doing, he revealed the atrocious nature of these artificial gender roles.

Leftist Gender Warrior says, "I couldn't have done it better myself!"

Marinelli: NOM Sought "Crazy" Pictures of Equality Advocates

Last July, in writing about the National Organization for [Heterosexual] Marriage's (NOM) "Marriage Tour," I speculated that a motive of the tour might have been to present "marriage defenders" as victims of aggressive LGBT advocates in order to drum up opposition to same-sex marriage.

After all, it's easier to get people to deny rights to a minority group that is framed as dangerous, monolithic, and evil than if that group is framed as just as human and nuanced as "good, clean, regular everyday folk."

Indeed, soon after the wheels on their bus started turning, NOM began tediously documenting and publicizing every real and imagined slight suffered by its participants and supporters.

For instance, when someone allegedly cut off the NOM bus in traffic and flipped them off, NOM's Brian Brown tweeted "Got tolerance?" (Apparently, only "marriage defenders" ever have run-ins with rude drivers). Then, speaking of equality advocates who showed up to counter-protest NOM, Brown characterized them in a blogpost as "crazy" and "nuts" for shouting "Get your hate out of our state."

Well, almost a year later, NOM defector Louis Marinelli is claiming that Brian Brown sent him an email during the tour instructing:

"I need crazy pictures of our opponents."

According to Marinelli, Brown's request came minutes after Marinelli had sent Brown a photo of "marriage defenders."

If true, Brown's request would be especially ironic coming from Team Don't You Dare Frame Us As Villains.

Indeed, back in 2009, NOM's Maggie Gallagher bemoaned the fact that some marriage equality advocates dared to suggest that "people who see marriage as a male-female union are like slave owners or segregationists" and, in response, Gallagher demanded, "This kind of disrespectful treatment of diverse views on gay marriage really needs to stop. Now. Today."

Wow.

Got projection?

And Another Thing! An Anti-Feminist Rant

Another hater of feminism has succeeeded in exposing, primarily, his ignorance of that which he hates. Calling feminists "now amongst the most obnoxious bigots," Conservative MP Dominic Raab bemoans the plight of men in the UK. His proof of feminist bigotry. One item:

"From the cradle to the grave, men are getting a raw deal. Men work longer hours, die earlier, but retire later than women."

I'm not an expert in UK law or politics, but I'm hardpressed to believe the UK has labor laws mandating longer work hours for men than for women. Gee, could there be any explanations for these facts other than FeMiNiSm? Critical thinking and MRAs: shall the two ever meet?

He continues:

"Then there is the more subtle sexism. Men caused the banking crisis. Men earn more because they are more assertive in pay negotiations."

So, it is women who are primarily in charge of banks, then? So, it's not that men are more assertive in pay negotations, they're actually just more competent than women and, thus, deserving of higher salaries? And, if we don't kowtow to this obvious male competence, we're being subtlely sexist against men?

Not that he's a gender essentialist or anything. Or is he? Who knows. Certainly not him. At this point, he's just throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping enough sticks to make a mess out of feminism:

"You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe in equality or you don’t. If you buy into the whole Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus theory of gender difference – with all its pseudo science - you can’t then complain about inequalities of outcome that flow both ways from those essentially sexist distinctions."

Who is the "you" here? Does he really think it's primarily feminists who buy (and sell) the "whole Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" bullshit?

Gah. As if.

Raab ends by encouraging us to all just get along by "ditching outdated gender warfare and finding practical solutions to the challenges couples go through together."

I'll ditch my "gender warfare" when people like him ditch their implications that were society not rigged for women and girls, men would still be perched atop their natural, god-given thrones being The Best at everything.

For, didn't you know that it's an anti-feminist/MRA truth that boys and girls are inherently different, except when boys prove worse at stuff? Oh yes, I think some people have it both ways all the damn time.

Revelations

A fellow named Dusty has exposed the core values of a certain strain of MRA-ism. Yes, it's true that his strange article purports to explain to his brethren "The Core Values of Feminism," but it is apparent upon inspection that, like many an anti-feminist, patriarchy-serving claim, this article is one ginormous reversal.

Now, were I to suggest that the deficiencies within Dusty's article were attributable to deficiencies within the male brain (as Dusty no doubt would, to women, were our situations reversed), I would be inaccurately and insultingly generalizing the attributes of one specimen of the male sex to all members. Likewise for the MRA movement as a whole. Thus, the criticisms herein are aimed only at Dusty's particular article and the many commenters who evidenced a similar ignorance of feminism who nonetheless popped up to bask in the glow of what they believe to be Dusty's brilliant smackdown of feminism.

Preliminaries out of the way, let us now observe how Dusty makes many claims about feminism, women, and the female brain but does not feel compelled to support these claims with evidence. His article reads like those many MRA commenters who chime in here in Fannie's Room to offer only a "you're wrong" or "you hate men," without offering evidence, as though because a man said it, that settles it, we believe it.

Go ahead. Read.

You will notice as just one example of Dusty's Big Claims About the Sexes:

"The female brain scans differently. When doing both A and B, the female brain lights up over a bigger, more general area. Some would say that women use more of their brains than men. I suggest that this functional ambiguity makes the female brain slightly less decisive. One who is not decisive does not have a tendency to act. This could explain why men took charge of history- that and physical strength. It could also explain why so many women seem to find postmodernist drivel so appealing- with its fuzziness, its hatred of measurement and data and facts, etc."

Here, Dusty makes claims about the inherent nature of the female brain, claims he does not support with a citation to a study, photos of said brain scans, or even a Wikipedia article he might have authored. I guess we'll just take Dusty at his word. He's probably a neuroscientist, what with his male brain and all.

Dusty seems likewise unfamiliar with the concept of Constructing an Argument. As just one example, Dusty says that it's a core feminist value for:

"Men [to be] de facto servants of women. All social customs (such as dating and courtship, clothing, and etiquette) and all laws with regards to marriage, divorce, child custody, child and spousal abuse, reproductive rights, rape, assault, murder, and sexual harassment should reflect this inferior status."

Here, he states a conclusion, that we feminists want the legal system to reflect men's status as servants to women (as if! in my femtopia it will be robots who serve their human overlords). But, Dusty does not provide supporting argumentation as to how feminists want "all laws" having anything to do with family and gender relations to reflect men's inferior status. Indeed, like this example, you will notice that many of his Big Conclusions about feminism's "core values" are structures utterly bereft of building blocks, undercutting his own argument that the male brain is inherently good at discrete, non-rambly tasks.

These flaws are sadly typical of internet discourse. Many MRAs want to believe that they understand feminism well enough to render accurate summaries or critiques of it, but more often than not, they fail miserably in demonstrating even a 101 level understanding of the topic. Unfortunately, it is a rare venue where like-minded fellow travelers point out such glaring flaws in the pieces of their political allies. Indeed, at the MRA site to which Dusty posts, unpopular comments expressing dissenting and/or critical views are quickly and often voted "down" to be rendered less visible to other readers.

However, it's when noting that contradictions and reversals that Dusty's piece becomes, not a sorry observation of unwarranted overconfidence, but genuinely revelatory. In deigning to explain what feminism is, Dusty has unintentionally explained what MRA-ism is, at least to him. Observe.

On the one hand, Dusty claims that one of feminism's core values is marked by "paranoia, belief in conspiracy, and alienation." He later claims:

"Men and women traditionally needed each other in order to have children. A man’s sperm met a woman’s egg, and the process that results in life began. With the advent of cloning, reproduction without sperm (parthenogenesis) will create a situation in which men will need a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, but women won’t need a man’s sperm to become pregnant. Men will need women, but women won’t need men, rendering males obsolete. This is something that feminists are clamoring for."

LMAO. If feminists were so loudly and insistently trying to eradicate men from humanity, one would think Dusty could have pulled up a quote or three of actual feminists "clamoring for" that. But hey, no bigs. It's probably just one of those commonsensical truths about feminism. (Echoed further by one of his blogging brethren in an entire, and frankly really disturbing, article devoted to the FeMiNiSt CoNsPiRaCy here).

Then, he claims, without evidence (did I mention that whole "without evidence" thing is a big recurring theme for Dusty?) that feminists believe "Women are morally, spiritually, psychologically, and biologically superior to men." Yet, he began his piece by asserting:

"Brain scans show that the average male brain is highly compartmentalized when performing certain functions. When doing A, part A lights up. When doing B, part B lights up. It’s as though every part of a man’s brain has its respective job that it does extremely well and that is all it does.

Could this division of labor in the male brain give us clues as to how men came up with science and mathematics? We all know that there are no such things as the number 2 or an inch or a foot, but yet some guy drew an arbitrary line in the dirt somewhere and now we have things such as measurement, physics, mathematics, engineering- oh, and don’t forget civilization!"

OMG, you guys! It's almost like Dusty's saying that men are naturally and inherently superior to women, what with their creation of All Of Civilization with absolutely No Help At All from women. The hilarity continues when Dusty claims, without being intentionally ironical:

"Feminists and women in general are so verbally gifted that they convince others and even themselves that their opinions are literally true."

It's almost like Dusty doesn't know that he's written an entire article, which falls decidedly into the Making Shit Up Bucket of Bozo the Clown's Grand Prize Game, trying to convince himself and his readers that his opinions about feminism, brains, men, and women are literally true. Likewise, he claims:

"If facts don’t motivate women to join their cause, feminists make things up to stoke female anger."

If the inconvenient fact that feminists aren't responsible for the vast majority of what ails MRAs doesn't motivate men to join their cause, it quickly becomes apparent that some MRAs make outrageously insulting claims about feminists and our so-called "core values" to stoke the flames of male anger in order to justify male supremacy and woman-hating.

The Anti-Feminist Deception

[TW: Gender-based violence]

Making its rounds in the MRA/woman-hating circuit is this article by Caroline Glick which deigns to expose feminism as a "fraud." I know the MRA crowd has been figuratively jerking off to this partiuclar article, since roughly a third of the articles I regularly receive via my Google Alert for "feminism" would more accurately be categorized as "anti-feminism."

In this article, Glick first begins by mocking a group of "manly looking women" who "would likely all describe themselves as feminists" who appear on youtube taking a political stand in support of Palestine. It is not clear on what other basis Glick determines that these women are feminists, perhaps because they appear "manly" to her, but she then concludes that "if these anti-Israel female protesters are feminists, then feminism is dead." Glick continues by claiming that Secretary of State Clinton has singled out Israel for its poor treatment of women "while keeping nearly mum on the institutionalized, structural oppression of women and girls throughout the Muslim world."

Now, the media declares feminism dead on pretty much an hourly basis and Glick does nothing new here by observing the actions of a few "feminists" and then naively believing that these "feminists" represent the entirety of feminism, a movement which is, apparently, a monolithic thing.

I've addressed that "why are feminists focusing on x, when there are women in the Middle East who have it so much worse" argumentation before as it's one that is steeped in ignorance. While people who level this charge condemn western feminists for supposedly not caring enough about Muslim women, the only women these folks seem to care about are Muslim ones. It's as though if western feminists are devoting 100% of their time and energy toward solving the plight of Muslim women, the whole entire feminist movement Isn't Doing Any Good At All.

Unlike many rightwing ideologues, many feminists approach Middle Eastern politics with nuance, not particularly eager to replace one patriarchal One True God religion and violent male-dominated theocracy in a region with another. And that, I believe, is why rightwing ideologues hate feminism so much. We see through the concern trolling.

Politics, especially politics that serve male dominance, are often games of projection and reversals, whether intended or not. And so it is that we observe Glick's claim that feminism is a leftwing conspiracy to impose "the Left’s social and political agenda against Western societies." (And yes, by mistaking "the Left" for a feminist movement, Glick shows even more ignorance of modern western feminism).

But I digress.

It's funny that Glick would make this accusation about feminism being a tool of a leftwing plot to conquer the world, because don't you often get the feeling that anti-feminists' criticism of the Muslim Treatment of Women inevitably serves the higher purpose of trying to advance the western Right's social, political, corporate, religious, and sexist agenda against Muslim societies?

As a case in point, I offer the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010, a bill "that would ensure that child marriage is recognized as a human rights violation, and develop comprehensive strategies to prevent such marriages around the world." Child marriage is a problem in the Middle East, including in some Muslim countries.

Only 12 Republicans supported this bill and, therefore, the House of Representatives failed to pass it. Republicans opposed this bill because they thought it was too expensive and, although the language says nothing about abortion, they thought it might still somehow allow girls whose bodies might be torn apart in childbirth to get abortions.

The western Right cares about Muslim women alright. Well, at least they do if western feminists can be demonized or if it's not too expensive to actually do something about the plight of women or if taking action that would help girls doesn't conflict with the right to control a girl's reproduction.

And we're supposed to ally ourselves with these rightwing ideologues?

Please.

And, natch, we'll all wait for the rightwing or MRA criticism and Republicanism-is-dead heralding that is sure to be leveled at the Republicans for this failure to properly defend girls and women.

(Crickets)

Women's Sports and the Lavendar Menace

I was pleased to read this well-done article by Graham Hays at ESPN, of all places, openly discussing the problem of pervasive homophobia in women's sports. The article centers around Olympic and pro softball player Lauren Lappin, who came out before participating in the 2008 Olympics.

Because of the stereotype about the ubiquity of lesbains in athletics, some might assume that lesbians and bisexual women are accepted within the world of women's collegiate and professional sports, and in college softball in particular. Unfortunately, many heterosexual athletic administrators and coaches don't appreciate this Lavendar Menace of women's sports, those women who give all female athletes and coaches a bad name. Thus, as Hays notes:

"As a result, softball can itself paradoxically become a breeding ground of intolerance among those on the inside seeking to assert a place within the supposed normalcy of heterosexuality."

Indeed, during my long athletic career, some of the most homophobic environments I have been in were girls' and women's sports' teams, teams where members enforced compulsory heterosexuality on each other and virulently ridiculed anyone suspected of being gay while coaches looked the other way. It is a homophobia grounded in the insecurity that develops when the larger misogynistic society uses homophobia to denigrate female athletes, but it is a hurtful homophobia nonetheless.

For instance, Hays writes of elite college sports' programs with "de facto bans on gay players," of homophobic recruiting pitches to parents' and athletes that are centered around a rival school's "gay-friendly culture," and players benched or kicked off a team if they come out. Yes, lesbian athletes have been writing about this problem for years, but kudos to a male ESPN writer taking on this subject. Maybe now it will start to be addressed more seriously?

The bottom line is that a player or coach's sexual orientation should be a non-issue in sports but as much as many lesbian and bisexual women would like it to be a non-issue, they often have to endure homophobic witch hunts and go to absurd degrees to hide details of their private lives that heterosexuals can freely flaunt with no fear of retribution.

Which is why I find it incredibly unfortunate that, via AfterEllen, girls' basketball programs like this exist where, in addition to teaching basketball skills, this "Christian" basketball programs "encourag[es] young girls to be proud and secure in not being part of the lesbian and homosexual lifestyle which is so prevalent in woman's/girl's athletics."

Why I find this message so reprehensible is that this message of hetero pride assumes that acceptance of homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuality the deviant, othered status, a reversal that turns the reality of pervasive homophobia and persecution within female athletics on its head. Any narrative positing that it's heterosexual girls who need to learn pride and security in their orientations implies that it is not lesbian and bisexual girls who are persecuted, but heterosexuals. For instance, citing no evidence or even anecdata, coach Jaye Collins opines:

"Many girls, as early as middle school, are being influenced or 'tested', or converted and convinced that if they play sports, specifically basketball, they must be, should be, or need to be gay."

The reality, of course, is that most girls, as early as pre-school, are influenced and convinced that in order to be a real, normal woman they must be, should be, or need to be heterosexual, especially if they play sports.

That anti-gay Christians, a group of people who share a changeable trait and who see it as part of their religious duty to recruit others into their lifestyle, consistently charge that it is gays who possess these traits is always a fun reversal as well.

I Bind You, Patriarchy

Hey look, it's the Malleus Maleficarum, the Catholic-priest written handbook that Catholic Inquisitors used to hunt, torture, and murder (mostly female) "witches" in medieval times. (Thanks Gutenberg!).

Of particular interest to my delicately wicked lady brain is the section explaining "why a greater number of witches is found in the fragile feminine sex than among men."

The witchy ways of woman had come about, basically, because according to various holy men, "All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman," beings who are "feebler both in mind and body" than men. And, because it is womankind who comes from the "broken rib" of mankind (as opposed to the biological reality that all humans actually come from female bodies), women are inherently "an imperfect animal" of a "different nature than men."

Thus, not surprisingly:

"What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted with fair colours!...When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil."

Oh, and natch, a woman is "more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations."

For all of these reasons- stupidity, nagginess, defectiveness, "insatiable" horniness- it was really "no wonder that so great a number of witches exist in this [female] sex."

At this point, I think my feelings can best be expressed by a Whitney gif:



So, um, moving on.

Some historians note that the women most often targeted as "witches" were those living outside of patriarchal norms, such as elderly women and women not living as part of a nuclear family unit. Such women are beings whom patriarchy has no need for. In a society organized around the nuclear family unit in which the man is the head, it was "these women, particularly older women who had never given birth and now were beyond giving birth, [who] comprised the female group most difficult to assimilate."

If a woman exists solely to be a mother and a wife and she is neither of those things, she is nothing but a burden to society. A waste of space in Father's house. A woman taking food from the mouths of real people- men and boys.

With these historical facts in mind, female adherence to the myths of male-female "gender complementarity" and Incredible Inherent Difference becomes somewhat understandable. To some women, the very survival of the female sex depends upon keeping alive the idea that, together, men and women are greater than the sum of their parts. Men and women need each other, some women insist, perhaps hoping in the backs of their minds that their men don't figure out that women need men (not to kill them) just a little bit more than men need them.

On "Ramming the Gay Agenda" Down Throats

[Trigger Warning- Sexual assault language]


"I don’t mind gays. But I don’t want ‘em stuffing it down my throat all the time." -Senator Chris Buttars, Utah (R)

"Mainstream Americans began understanding the urgency of these threats, and ultimately decided that they could not stand idly by while the radical gay agenda was forced down their throats." -James Dobson, on why anti-gay advocacy "galvanized" voters in 2004.

"[The homosexual mafia] will not stop until they force their agenda down your throats." -Michael Savage, syndicated radio host

"The European Union has certainly been infiltrated by homo-fascists. There's just no doubt about it. They are using that body to essentially try to push the international homosexual agenda down the throats of countries that respect traditional values relative to sexual morality." -Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel

No, really, fellas. Tell us what you're really afraid of.

But seriously, let's talk about this.

It is men who most often use sexual assault imagery to describe their opponents' participation in the political process, no? And, while it is used in reference to a variety of political issues, one of the most common ram-it-down-our-throats usages is in reference to LGBT rights, right?

If we accept these proposition as true, this usage of sexual assault language is interesting to contemplate.

First, the statistical. Men are not victims of sexual assault at the rates at which women are. That, for one, perhaps explains why men, and conservative male pundits in particular, carelessly put this language out into the world via the large platforms they have been given. Those who have experienced sexual assault, or who have a genuine concern for not triggering the trauma of those who have, would be more hesitant to inaccurately compare legitimate political action to illegitimate violence.

This lack of concern or awareness that such language can be triggering to survivors evidences a privilege of not having to think all that much about actual sexual assault. Each time this clumsy comparison is made, privileged men leech the impact of sexual assault and direct it instead toward legitimate acts that are not at all like non-consensual oral rape. Just as rape "jokes" normalize and minimize sexual violence, sexual assault metaphors in political rhetoric service and sustain rape culture.

Psychologically speaking, one is led to wonder, is this careless male use of sexual assault imagery a channeling of anxiety about shifting power dynamics in society? For instance, when anti-gay folks use sexual assault imagery to describe LGBT participation in the democratic process, the subtext is that LGBT people's assertion of our common humanity is somehow an unfair, violent violation of the anti-gay individual's boundaries.

Like Average Joe Typical Man who throws his hands in the air and laughingly says "whoa don't kill me" when he finds out a female friend is a feminist, as if it is feminists rather than men who most often inflict gender-based violence in the world, this gay sexual assault language implies that it is LGBT people who regularly inflict violence and injustice upon heterosexuals, rather than the other way around. Whether we insist on marrying our partners like how heterosexuals marry theirs, or on holding our partners' hand in public like how heterosexuals hold their partners' hands, our very beings and our every action are interpreted as a gross violation of the anti-gay person's human rights

At its most symbolic, it evidences an anti-gay male fear of losing that entitlement to be on the dishing-it-out end of the political "ramming." Having lost this entitlement as a result of other people engaging in fair and open procedures, the still-entitled man nonetheless interprets Not Getting His Way as a grave injustice, an infliction of great harm, upon himself. He has not gotten his way, and instead others have gotten their way. He is no longer the rammer of social policies, but the ram-ee.

They have made a woman out of him. They have raped him.

One is led to an extrapolation. Perhaps these folks conceptualize policy positions as extensions of one's phallus. As though the "culture wars" are a swordfight and only he, the anti-gay male, possesses the necessary prowess to compete fairly. The only way he can lose is if someone else beats him unfairly, which is done by "ramming" stuff down his throat without his consent.

If we reverse the scenario and the anti-gay man wins, does he, consciously or not, in some way see himself as some sort of victorious sexual dominator assuming his god-given, rightful place in the world as humper of the little people?

Word choice is important.

There are many ways to say "I think it is unfortunate that LGBT people are winning rights." Likewise, people are free to say whatever they want to say. Perhaps one of the great victories of free speech is when folks reveal the true depths of their entitlement to inflict injustice, dominion, and violence upon others.