From Eschaton:
The Gay Menace
Kudos to Feingold for supporting gay marriage. It’s the right thing to do, and we’re the party of the gay anyway so we might as well be right on the morality. It’s not as if we’re gonna capture the hate the gay vote anyway, so it’s time we had some political leaders who, you know, lead.
The endless waffling on these issues trying to find some incoherent middle ground makes politicians look bad.
Good on ya, Atrios.
So I had the misfortune to read “Sadly No” this morning. There was a post up called “Are Y’all Read for Some DERANGED LUNACY??? Damn Right You Are,” the point of which was to castigate a right-winger for the odious column he wrote about the Duke lacrosse player rape allegations, in the context of which, Brad referred to “Frontpagemag” as “D-Ho’s Crack Den.”
So, stupidly, because I should know better than go anywhere near purportedly lefty “comedy” sites like “Sadly No,” I commented as follows:
While I mostly agree with you on the merits here, do you not see how referring to Frontpage as “D-Ho’s Crack Den” is a little racist and sexist in its own right?
Well, here are some of the replies that generated (you can see the whole thread at Sadly No): I’ve cleaned up some of the typos, especially mine:
By Brad (original poster): “I don’t get it. I’m saying that a bunch of silly white guys who write moronic columns for David Horowitz (or “D-Ho,” as we affectionately call him) are essentially on crack. If anything, it’s an insult to the crack addicts.”
By me: “D-Ho is not supposed to be a dialected pronounciation of “the whore”? Really?”
By Brad: “Well, yes and no. It’s also a play on David Horowitz’ name, the sort that is popularized by names like “J-Lo” (Jennifer Lopez) and “A-Rod” (Alex Rodriguez). The fact that shortening Horowitz’ name in this manner makes him “D-Ho” is just a hilarious coincidence.”
By me: “Hilarious to you, perhaps. In this context especially, to me, not so much.”
By Gavin (another blogger at Sadly No): “I can’t believe this. Ann Bartow comes by and says, ‘That’s not funny.’ It’s like you’re sitting in a bar, and a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk in.”
Because I’m a joke, obviously. Now here is some input from pseudonymous commenters as well:
By “Mal de Mer”: “Wow. Talk about wielding self-centredness and silly bourgeois sensibilities as a way of completely deflecting from the main fucking point. Sorry to break it to you, Ann (Althouse, is it?) but this post isn’t about you.”
Because it is self-centered of me to tepidly point out sexism and racism and I therefore must be called “Ann Althouse” for some reason.
By Gavin: “That is not funny. I am offended.”
By “Mal de Mer”: “What a coincidence….I’m running a workshop on exactly this issue this afternoon. You’re welcome to join. Bring a small hand-mirror.”
Gee, nothing sexist there.
By “Gratis“: “Hey, Ann, ever hear of man whores? What, you didn’t know they exist? I think I saw a movie once…. And if that’s the most offensive thing you find on this post then you really need to look in the mirror. For the love of Isis, get that PC bug out of your ass. That prick “D-Ho” (and as a woman I find that completely fucking hilarious) could and should be called a lot worse.”
By me: “So calling people “ho” is funny, but suggesting maybe calling people “ho” in the context of a discussion about racially charged rape accusations is less than ideal is self-centered? Oh, I’ll take any concern expressed here for the woman very seriously now…if there is any.”
By Retardo (who is another Sadly No blogger; very classy name, huh?): “No, no Brad. We’re the racists. Get it straight.”
By Spencer: “Oh, it’s hilarious to me too. But then, I’m not always trying to contextualize everything, which may be why I don’t see the comment as the same grave threat to human decency that you do.”
By me (shaking with anger, so there were lots of typos): “No, you’re absolutely perfect. Any woman who comes here and reads this will be delighted by the caring and sensitivity. “D-Ho’s Crack Den” will have them rolling in the aisles. Why is it that the criminal justice system treats crack so much more harshly than corollary drugs like cocaine? Because it is viewed as a “black” drug. Oh the peals of laughter that inspires! And when you say “D-Ho” just like Amos and Andy might – heelarious. Truly, what could be funnier. Oh, and calling someone a “ho” in a discussion about rape, where the woman is poor and black and the accused are white and privileged. Why they may well have called her a “ho” while they were attacking her, so it’s true comedy gold. But of course this is so very BOURGEOIS of me. Sorry to interrupt. By all means continue congratulating yourselves for being so morally superior to the wing nuts.”
By “Lucy”: “Let this be a lesson to you all not to say anything that your commenters might misconstrue through the lens of their own carefully cultivated hypersensitivity. Because once they get offended by a joke that had a completely different provenance and point than they think it did, they won’t believe anything else you have to say. Obviously you were joking cruelly at the expense of the woman, using a painstaking point-by-point “J’accuse” as the cover for your dirty, evil, racist, sexist screed. Oh, yeah, I forget, you’re also “spewing hate.” –Where’s my check, Hindrocket?”
And many other “shut up and go away” comments. Because, you know, censorship is wrong!
Late entry from “Spence“: “Ann Bartow. Hmmm…. A-Ho, anyone? And you thought the humorless liberal scold was a figment of Rush Limbaugh’s imagination!”
And another from “Jerry Brown”: “How about Ann BARTho. She works the trains in the Bay Area. Why do you even read Sadly No.”
And still more from good old Brad, here. Because even rather mildly (at least initially) raising a concern deserves nothing less than utter vilification.
And from Guiness Guy: “What a frigid bi- er… lady? No, uhhh… how about gender-nonspecific fellow human? There we are: She’s a frigid-ass gender-nonspecific fellow human.I think, nonetheless, Brad, that you should hack off your penis to avoid further angering ol’ Ann.”
What a relief that these folks are purported leftists; I’d hate to think of all that warm-hearted goodness in the service of the right.
–Ann Bartow
Lots of great links at This Ain’t Livin’ about weight, beauty, body image, dancing, art, food, eating, not eating, all kinds of things.
From Ampersand at Alas, A Blog:
From Slate editor Jacob Weisberg’s slam of the latest Kevin Phillips book:
“…While Karl Rove’s pander-to-the base strategy got Bush narrowly re-elected, the entente hasn’t truly served Bush or the religious right. The appearance of extremism on issues of church-state separation and stem-cell research has helped dig a deep hole for the president and his party, alienating secular and libertarian Republicans uncomfortable with the revival-tent atmosphere. And evangelical power appears to have peaked. Since the Terri Schiavo debacle, the religious right has mainly embarrassed itself by battling evolutionary theory.”
Oh, is that all the religious right has done? Silly me. I thought they were pushing for dozens of new anti-queer laws, many of which will pass (have already passed); and attacking reproductive rights throughout the country with a degree of success never before seen; not to mention vetting the President’s Supreme Court choices.Queers and women really are invisible to many liberal guys, aren’t they? It’s like a superpower or something. I bet a pregnant lesbian could walk right into Weisberg’s home, while he was home, open up his wallet and take all the cash and cards while he was standing right there, and he wouldn’t see a blessed thing.
It’s about time. NYT story here.
Available at Written World!
Random mostly unrelated observation: What an odd word “twelfth” is. It sounds like a Tolkien character. Here are some posts via the Carnival that are terrific (check out the Carnival site for even more):
“In Which the Oompa Loompas Teach us Poststructuralist Feminism” at Bark/Bite
“Real Breasts” at Women’s Space/The Margins
“Is She or Isn’t She?” at One Hundred Little Dolls
“An African Lesson for American Women” at The Concoction
What is the deal with the use of “orthogonal” anyway? It’s the buzzword du jour of smart, with-it, and just a tad pretentious law profs these days. Here’s one definition: Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used in a generalization of its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, span the entire ‘capability space’ of the system and are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent.” That was edifying, wasn’t it? In any event, here is an observation from Learning Curves:
All Crazy Grading Schemes Are Equal To My Students
Note to self: in the fall, remember to repeatedly explain the grading system to the students multiple times during the semester. Unlike you, they do not study the syllabus with lawyer-like intensity searching for the loopholes that will maximize grades while minimizing effort. No, even if the exams were worth 0% of the grade and the homework worth 100%, they would still study like mad for the exams and neglect to do the homework.
Tuesday, April 11, 6:00 PM
Julius Held Lecture Hall
Room 304 Barnard Hall
“On Tuesday, 11 April, the Center joins the Barnard Department of Biology in welcoming Dr. Helene Gayle, recently appointed President and CEO of CARE, an international poverty-fighting organization, to discuss the global impact of HIV/AIDS. HIV is the most devastating disease humankind has ever faced. Since the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS has killed over 25 million people. Today, it is estimated that over 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Although, HIV continues to affect people throughout the world, the vast majority of new infections are among people in developing countries. And while treatment in countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Cuba now exceeds over 80%, in the majority of developing countries coverage is limited: in Africa, for instance, only 1 in 10 people in need of treatment was receiving it as of mid-2005.
“It is a bleak picture, to be sure, but not one without hope. In addition to giving an overview of the epidemic on a global level, Dr. Gayle will discuss how HIV prevention strategies can reduce the incidence of new infections and be cost-effective in developing countries. The most highly cost-effective strategies for prevention include condom promotion, STD control, voluntary counseling & testing, female condom promotion, injection drug user interventions, screening blood supply, and antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother- to-child transmission.” …
This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to bcrw@barnard.edu The Barnard Center for Research on Women
A short film by Tenaz Dubash that you can watch by clicking this link. Via Culture Kitchen.
By Jessica Valenti of Feministing, it’s called “No Fear,” and accessible here.
You can access the whole thing here. After you get done coloring, see if you can spot any sexism.
You can buy the above tee shirt, or a jacket that says “porn sucks,” or free “accountability software,” or a dvd of a porn documentary called “Missionary Positions” at XXXChurch.com. The site is probably “work safe,” unless you work for Satanists or pornographers.
If you work in the sex industry and are interested in “Christian Outreach,” you can contact JC’s Girls Girls Girls.
If you are interested in Christian-themed sex toys, you can visit Divine Interventions, the home of the Baby Jesus Butt Plug. In case you haven’t already guessed, that site is not “work safe” unless you work from home or for the ACLU. If you already downloaded the “accountability software” from XXXChurch.com, you probably won’t be able to access the site anyway.
From A Gentleman’s C:
Distressed Student: I’ve been having a really rough time lately, and I haven’t been performing as well in this class as I know I can. You see, I have a [really painful condition involving my nether regions] with [unpleasant details].
Angry Professor: []
Distressed Student: I know you probably didn’t want to hear any of that.
Angry Professor: If this is affecting your coursework, you should consider going to [Center For Coordination of Special Dispensations For Students With Issues]. They can contact your professors and tell them that you’re having trouble so that you don’t have to tell each one of them that you’re suffering from a [really painful condition involving your nether regions] with [unpleasant details].
Distressed Student: Oh. Thanks, I’ll do that.
A commonly asked question at social justice events is, “What can I do to get more involved?” This question is usually answered in one of three ways: send money, call politicians, and volunteer. Unfortunately, none of these foster a sense of investment in an issue or offer solutions for how to be personally involved in solving the injustices in the world. It also doesn’t account for the lack of time, money and resources that these three answers require. What if we could just incorporate our politics into our every day lives, particularly into our seemingly apolitical jobs/careers? In fact, that is just what most activists do.
In this anthology, we want to hear from young women from all walks of life who have found creative ways to use their job/career/talent/passion (from writing to banking to computer programming to being a homemaker) as an outlet for social justice activism. We seek to create an anthology that makes activism more accessible and inspire others to use the resources that they have to contribute to social justice. Changing the world won’t happen over night, so let’s share our daily successes and strategies for making all of our visions of a better world possible. Tell us what worked and what didn’t because all experiences are valuable. We want to be sure multiple voices and perspectives are represented in the anthology. Writers of all experience levels are encouraged to submit work. All work must be original and should not be published elsewhere.
Submission Guidelines
* “Young” is about how you self-identify. We do not have age limits.
* We prefer to have submissions sent via email in a Word or Rich Text Format document to mandy_vandeven@yahoo.com with “Doing it in Strange Places” in the subject line. Otherwise, submissions can be mailed to:
Mandy Van Deven
955 Metropolitan Ave, #4R
Brooklyn, NY 11211
* If you would like your submission returned, please include a SASE.
* Word count: 2,500 – 5,000
* All submissions require your name, address, phone number, email address, and a short bio.
Submissions should be received by May 1, 2006. Please direct any questions you may have to mandy_vandeven@yahoo.com
From Full Court Press:
“On March 17, the Sixth Circuit issued a split 2-1 decision allowing the state of Tennessee to discriminate against the political views of some if its citizens. The two Republican appointees (appointed by Reagan and Bush II) in the majority said it was OK for the state to produce “Choose Life” license plates requested by abortion opponents, but to refuse to produce pro-choice license plates requested by reproductive rights supporters.
“This decision is so out-of-step with First Amendment law that even the conservative Fourth Circuit – including J. Harvie Wilkinson and J. Michael Luttig, both on President Bush’s “short list” of Supreme Court nominees – reached the opposite conclusion when the issue came before their court. (Read the Fourth Circuit opinions here and here).
“Tennessee authorizes more than 150 “specialty” license plates requested by private organizations, including the “Choose Life” plate. These plates contain a variety of political and sometimes controversial messages, including one featuring a Confederate flag requested by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Despite its rather permissive approval practices, the Tennessee legislature refused to authorize a request for a pro-choice license plate, despite authorizing the “Choose Life” plate in the same proposed legislation.” …
–Stephanie Farrior
Live Nude Girls Unite!
This week, as part of the annual law and social justice film series I run at USD Law, I am showing the documentary Live Nude Girls Unite! The film is about the efforts, starting at an exotic dance place named”Lusty Lady”in San Francisco but spreading around the country, of women workers in the sex industries to organize and demand compliance with labor protections and safer work conditions. The film documents the events leading up to the formation of the Exotic Dancers Alliance, which to the best of my knowledge is the only successful SEUI sex workers union.
My RA Tammy Lin and I have been searching for post-film developments. Interestingly, the workers of Lusty Lady made the headlines again in 2003 by becoming the first employee-owned strip joint in the country. Led by a stripper/graduate student in English, the women workers bought the club and turned the business into a cooperative. Other recent developments include the Sex Workers Project which provides legal outreach and advocacy for New York City sex workers and the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN) which provides information and advocacy for sex workers in Northern California. Currently, a class action has been initiated against the Gold Club in San Francisco. The Class alleges that Defendants violated California law by treating Class members as independent contractors, when those persons were in fact employees. Unionization in other parts of the world has successfully joined to their respective union groups in their locales In 2002, the Striptease Artists of Australia was formed as a union to represent lap dancers and strippers, while UNITE in New Zealand organizes prostitutes and dancers. Less advanced developments and formations exist in South Africa, Eire, Argentina and Trinidad and Tobago. Any advice on facilitating discussion before and after showing this excellent documentary is most welcome!
–Orly Lobel
Responses welcome in comments, or via e-mail: lobel@sandiego.edu
“On Wilding (or ‘My social studies teacher was right’)” at Black Feminism.org
“Obscuring the Male Gaze” at Official Shrub.com
“Where Are the Influential Advertising Women?” at the Huffington Post
“No Room in the Big Tent” at Alternet
“I Hate Prudence” at My Amusement Park
A NY Sun article explains:
A New York congresswoman’s proposal to have the federal government regulate advertising for abortion counseling services has won the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, despite warnings from other civil libertarians that the measure is unconstitutional and unwise.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat who represents parts of Manhattan and Queens, introduced legislation yesterday aimed at cracking down on so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which are operated by anti-abortion groups and encourage pregnant women to consider other options.
The article also notes:
…A law professor who specializes in First Amendment issues, Eugene Volokh, said he was surprised by the ACLU’s stance in favor of the bill. “It’s pretty striking to see the ACLU, which stands for very, very broad free speech protection, actually backing a new speech restriction,” the professor said. “Proposing a new restriction on misleading, non-commercial speech is a big step.” …
…Told of the ACLU’s stance on the bill, a former member of the organization’s board, Nat Hentoff, exclaimed, “My God, what about the First Amendment?”
Mr. Hentoff, who is anti-abortion, said the Federal Trade Commission should not wade into the perilous waters of the abortion debate. “When you have the state, with its power, deciding what is deceptive on something as thoroughly controversial as this, it goes against the very core, it seems to me, of the First Amendment,” he said. …
…Two constitutional scholars contacted by the Sun, Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke University and Burt Neuborne of New York University, said they thought the bill was constitutional. However, Mr. Neuborne, said he feared the legislation could cause more problems than its authors realize. “I would counsel against it. It’s just not a good idea,” he said. “When the government regulates speech, it screws it up.” …
…A Boston attorney active in the ACLU, Harvey Silverglate, said he feared how the Bush Administration might enforce such a rule. “It is just as easy to have a government hostile to abortion as it is to have a government truly interested in keeping it legal and keeping it safe,” he said. …
It sure would have been nice if the author had found a few female constitutional law experts to interview, but in any event, the full article is available here. Representative Maloney’s statement about the proposed legislation is available here, and the text of the bill itself, called the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women’s Services Act (SDAWS), is accessible here.
(Thanks to law prof Eileen Kane of Penn State Dickinson for the article link.)
I’m the director of Stop Family Violence – an online grassroots activist org – just discovered your fabulous blog! Can you please help get the word out about this to your networks?
Many thanks
Irene Weiser
Stop Family Violence
Congress’ unanimous reauthorization of the expanded Violence Against Women Act this past December was cause for celebration. Now, however, VAWA’s in trouble and we need your help. For the 5th year in a row, President Bush has not requested full funding for VAWA programs in his budget proposal.What’s more, because VAWA wasn’t passed until late last year – after the President had already drafted his budget request – no funding at all has been proposed for new VAWA programs!
TAKE ACTION NOW at http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/241
Congress authorized spending $1 billion per year so that VAWA’s effective programs could continue and expand. Unfortunately, the President’s budget only requests $546 million in funding for continuing and new programs – just over half of what he could have requested.
The following are some of the new VAWA programs that have not received any funding in the President’s 2007 Budget Request:
The following are some of the continuing VAWA programs that have not received full funding in the President’s Budget request
Over the next few weeks, Congress will be making decisions about how to appropriate money for fiscal year 2007. Please make sure they hear from you so that victims don’t have to wait another year for these lifesaving services!
Go to http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/241
to learn more and to send a free message to your legislators telling them to provide full funding for all VAWA programs.
There is an interesting article in today’s NYT by Adam Liptak entitled “Prosecution of Midwife Casts Light on Home Births.” It is fairly simple to make connections between the regulation of midwifery and home birthing with other reproductive freedom issues like abortion, though the article does not do this. The article also fails to address one of the reasons that women opt for home births: lack of health insurance.
There is a fairly good novel called “Midwives” by Chris Bohjalian that dramatizes some of the issues that home birthing can raise. The women I know who used midwives, either for home births or in the context of a hospital birth, did so either for financial reasons or because they did not fully trust their doctors. That second part sounds terrible, but in my experience, women who have given birth who did not feel like their physicians paid adequate attention to them, or respected their views about childbirth and their own bodies, are fairly common. So are stories about doctors who used chemicals to induce or speed up labor, or tongs or vacuum extractors, or even caesarean sections for reasons related to the convenience of the doctor rather than the health and safety of the birthing woman. And then there are the anecdotes about doctors who didn’t even manage to show up in time for a birth, leaving the job solely to nurses, but still charged the patients thousands of dollars for the alleged service. This tends to be described with great hilarity by people who have good health insurance, but is not funny at all for women who have to pay birthing charges out of pocket, and are forced to enter into pitched battles with ruthless hospital billing departments. This may make it sound like I harbor huge grudges against the medical profession, which isn’t the case at all, but I definitely come down hard on the side of giving women the freedom to make their own birthing choices.
–Ann Bartow
This post is so perfect it has been supercopied exactly from its site of origination, A Brooklyn Bridge:
“During an address to law students at the University of Freiberg, Scalia made an interesting observation:
“Question comes up: is there a constitutional right to homosexual conduct? Not a hard question for me. It’s absolutely clear that nobody ever thought when the Bill of Rights was adopted that it gave a right to homosexual conduct. Homosexual conduct was criminal for 200 years in every state. Easy question.”
“Women and African Americans may want to mull that over a bit.”
It would be a pretty cheap shot to invoke “Vaffanculo” again, right?
If you either like yoga, or like making fun of yoga, you might enjoy Yogabeans! Disclaimer: None of the plastic action figures seen on this site are certified yoga instructors.
From the Guerilla Girls website:
We took Kong, gave him a sex change and a designer gown, and set her up in Hollywood, just a few blocks from where the Oscars [were] awarded March 5, 2006.
Why? To reveal the sordid but True Hollywood Story about the lack of women and people of color behind the scenes in the film industry:
Only 7% of 2005’s 200 top-grossing films were directed by women.
Only 3 women have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Direction (Lina Wertmuller (1976), Jane Campion (1982) and Sofia Coppola (2003). None has won.
More embarrassing Hollywood statistics:
Of 2004’s top-grossing films:*
5% had female directors
12% had female writers
3% had female cinematographers
16% had female editors
Only 8 people of color have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Direction. None has won.
Hollywood guilds are 80 to 90% white.
Only 3% of the Oscars for acting have been won by people of color.
In the 21st century, low, low, low numbers like this HAVE to be the result of discrimination, unconscious, conscious or both. Hollywood likes to think of itself as cool, edgy and ahead of its time, but it actually lags way behind the rest of society in employing women and people of color in top positions.
There may be women heading studios these days, but what are they doing for women and people of color? Why do they keep the white male film director stereotype alive? Here’s an easy way to change things: open up that boys’ club and hire more women and people of color. It worked in medicine, business and law. It worked in the art world. Now it’s Hollywood’s turn. Rattle that cage, break those chains! LET WOMEN DIRECT!
Via Rachel’s Spot, which I found via Feministing. Now here’s a “small world” moment: I went to college with Rachel (“Rachel’s Spot”) Raimist’s eldest brother. Got to know her whole family a little because I grew up near where the Raimists lived, and got invited over a few times for various functions. What cool stuff she’s doing!
–Ann Bartow
I saw an article that was posted at Mad, Melancholic Feminista on April 1st and I was sure it had to be an April Fool’s prank. Titled “Scientists find new disease: motivational deficiency disorder,” it contained this paragraph:
The condition is claimed to affect up to one in five Australians and is characterised by overwhelming and debilitating apathy. Neuroscientists at the University of Newcastle in Australia say that in severe cases motivational deficiency disorder can be fatal, because the condition reduces the motivation to breathe.
And this:
David Henry, a clinical pharmacologist at the University of Newcastle and long time critic of pharmaceutical marketing strategies, says that although he appreciates that some people with severe motivational deficiency disorder may need treatment, he is concerned that the prevalence estimates of one in five are inflated and that ordinary laziness is being medicalised. “Indolebant may bring some relief to those with a debilitating form of MoDeD, but common laziness is not a disease. People have an absolute right to just sit there.”
I thought surely the whole thing had to be a joke. Motivational deficency disorder? This time of year, especially on a sunny day, that pretty much defines third year law students. Then I saw a link to something called the “Inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering,”
and I quickly clicked upon it, certain that more blogular satiric hilarity would ensue. Except not only does the conference seem to be real, it actually sounds pretty darn interesting, and worthy as well. Here is an excerpt from the program:
A Provocative Symposium on the Selling of Sickness
The ascendancy of market logic has both expanded and legitimised the commercialisation of medicine. In the pharmaceutical sector, competitive enterprise dominates not only the development of drugs -and increasingly their diffusion – but also the very definitions of the illnesses they are used to treat.
Industry capacity for innovation, essential for sustaining high profitability, has arguably extended beyond the invention of novel products to the creation of new illnesses, disorders and dysfunction, and the expansion of old ones. Using informal alliances with physician and patient groups, and with the assistance of public relations experts, drug companies now ‘brand’ conditions just as they brand medicines.
Contentiously characterised as ‘disease-mongering’ by the late Lynn Payer many marketing strategies appear to be about selling sickness in order to sell drugs. Examples of disorders that have been represented in this way are as diverse as male and female erectile dysfunction, social anxiety disorder, alopecia, and irritable bowl. No-one questions that some individuals suffering from these ‘conditions’ experience genuine morbidity. The ‘disorders’ are also difficult to define and quantify, tend to be chronic and in some cases seem to represent normal human variation or the predictable but undesired effects of ageing.
In the lead up to this global symposium we are commissioning a series of thoughtful academic and accessible discussion papers that will assay the role of marketing in contemporary medical practice, and attempt to understand and challenge the phenomenon of disease-mongering.
Check out the abstracts here. If this actually is a joke, someone please advise me quickly, so that I can go lay down for a while.
–Ann Bartow
In my academic writing I am developing a thesis I call “the pretend war over pornography.” My position in part is that many right wingers love invoking the spector of poronography against liberals so much that they really don’t want to see it censored or controlled to any significant degree. Below is an example of Chapman law professor Hugh Hewitt making my case for me, via Crooks and Liars:
Hewitt, who lost most of his credibility in the previous segment, when he called George Bush the Republicans’ best asset in 2006, lost the rest of it during this one. “That’s an accurate representation. It does not go to name-calling. It goes to the facts of the Democratic left.” He claimed “a strain” has taken over the blogosphere on the left and ruined the Democratic Party. Colmes responded that the right is very guilty of accusing the left of being anti-religious, hateful and bigoted.
Hewitt, in another fit of “not name-calling,” went on to refer to the Daily Kos blog as “vulgar and profane.” When Colmes defended Kos as one that he likes and one that is the most popular, Hewitt said, “So has Larry Flynt got a lot of readership… They are the same line of rhetoric.”
By equating the proprietor of Daily Kos with Larry Flynt, Hewitt reminds everyone that Democrats are the party of porn and indecency, to deflect attention away from the political performance of the Republicans. Would social conservatives ever want to lose the ability to do this? I don’t think so. Porn makes a great media-friendly bludgeon.
And now a few related observations about the way “womanly” and “feminine” get invoked as pejoratives: Note that a certain award winning “liberal” blogger attacks Hewitt here on his remarks above by labeling him a member of the “He Man Women Haters Club.” Lest you think this some sort of feminist critique, though, note that he also refers to Hewitt as a “a simpering twat” and as “Busty McHewitt” and if you click on the “Busty McHewitt” link you see that Hewitt is mocked for having breasts with the phrase, “Wishes his tits were brains.” Later in the post an admittedly very mean and stupid commentator is described as “Don Imus’s manslave and former coffee fetcher” with “nineteen years of experience as Imus’s bitch.” Yet another is taken to task (via the “slap his dick” link) for his “leisurely life of bloggin’ whilst breast-feeding and doing JELL-O ® shots underneath his kid’s crib,” and at the orginal post for his “comfortable existence, eating figs, wearing fine silks, sitting around watching Oprah all day.” Many “liberals” apparently find stuff like this hilarious.
–Ann Bartow
According to this Guardian article: “A recent estimate put the number of feminist blogs at 240,000, but, given that this posited the number of “active” worldwide blogs at 4m (some figures put it as high as 27.2m), and the proportion of women who are self-described feminists at 10% (a British survey this month produced a figure of 29%) the true figure could be much higher.” That’s really wonderful. And this is not an April Fool’s joke… But this is! And so is this. This too.
Update: Back to not joking. Echidne of the Snakes has some interesting observations about the entire article the quote was pulled from which can be read here.
The Aphrodite Project: Platforms, by Norene Leddy
…One of the main concerns of contemporary urban sex workers, even in areas where prostitution is legal, is violence. Each sandal will have an audible alarm system, which emits a piercing noise to scare off attackers. The shoes are also outfitted with a built in GPS receiver and an emergency button that relays both the prostitute’s location and a silent alarm signal to public emergency services. Where there are problematic relations with law enforcement, i.e. most places, the shoes will relay the signal to sex workers’ rights groups, such as PONY in New York, COYOTE in Los Angeles, or SWEAT in South Africa. …
…The shoes come with video artwork that features pink roses, rock doves, the Cypriot landscape and other imagery related to Aphrodite. These videos can later be personalized by the wearer. A video overlay with a phone number, email address, and other customizable graphics is included for promotion.
The shoe also has a speaker in the back of the heel, which plays audio tracks of environmental phenomena associated with Aphrodite: the sound of the ocean at Petra tou Romiou (Aphrodite’s birthplace), the waterfall from the Baths of Aphrodite in Cyprus, the cooing of pigeons and other birds. Audio and visual media, such as new heel tones, will be downloaded from the Platforms website, in a similar manner to downloading cell phone ring tones. …
Information continues to come in [about “ALDA”]. This is a right wing rump group of deans, a combination of deans of elite law schools who do not want to meet diversity requirements and barely accredited law schools who don’t want to meet any requirements. They first surfaced about fifteen years ago supporting the anti-trust action against the American Bar Associations accreditation efforts. It is not yet clear how many deans are in this group, but they are purporting to speak for the entire 110 membership of ALDA. The requirement of long-term contracts for clinical and legal writing faculty seems to have provided the impetus for this new effort.
One addition to my earlier memo, the AALS found out when a reporter called Carl Monk, Executive Director, for comment. The ABA and the AALS are gearing up to respond. I believe there is a network of law deans forming to disown this group.
We are dealing with the Bush Department of Education, and they would love to eliminate or severely limit tenure and totally eliminate long-term contracts. This is part of a broadly based, organized attack on faculty independence that has been going on for at least fifteen years. This new threat must be taken seriously.
The good news is that this move seems to have provided the impetus for an alliance between tenurial and contract faculty. Part of the long-term strategy against faculty independence was to divide and conquer.
–Marina Angel
“News” story about middle school administrator who is distracted by eighth grader’s hair here. It contains all the usual plot points: She is “a straight-A student,” which apparently is somehow supposed to make her more of a victim of repressive forces than she would have been if her academic record was below average. She feels that the school’s policy against “distracting” hair styles compromises her individuality. Her father, a local police chief, supports her against the forces of squareness because he does not feel that her hair is “out of control.” Someone, I’m guessing dear old dad, alerts television “reporters,” who compliantly film and broadcast the controversy, with plenty of close-ups of pretty, oppressed Kristen, who “didn’t expect the highlights to be so strong and … plans to tone it down as soon as possible.” Massive press coverage follows. Will media attention lead to a modeling or acting gig for the beautiful and photogenic but persecuted teen? Stay tuned. Or don’t. I pretty much won’t.
Update: My point here is I very much suspect the situation has been manipulated in a way that exploits the girl, and viewers like us. Many public schools have very stupid, repressive rules about appearance conformity. Courts usually support school admnistrators’ draconian rule enforcement because it”promotes discipline.”I don’t defend this, but it would certainly be well known to a police chief. I’d imagine that the dispute could have been resolved quickly and informally if there wasn’t an ulterior agenda at issue.
Update two: The school district apparently caved right away, as well they should have, and it sounds like Kristen missed less than a day of school. Of course dear old dad still had to trot her out to a local school board candidate’s forum, where the press was sure to be, so she could get still more media attention.
–Ann Bartow
And 613 is how many photos appear in”The Playmate Book: Six Decades of Centerfolds,”by Gretchen Edgren, according to this article in the New Yorker entitled “The Girls Next Door,” by Joan Acocella, in which one learns:
In January of 1958, the magazine had published a centerfold of a sixteen-year-old girl, with the result that Hefner was hauled into court for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. (The case was dismissed. Miss January had written permission from her mother.) After that, he made a rule that Playboy would never again publish a photograph of an unclothed woman under eighteen, but in the following years he did everything in his power to make the centerfold models look like jailbait. Two of the sixties Playmates have pigtails, tied with bows. One is reading the funny papers. Most of them have chubby cheeks, and flash us sweet smiles. At the same time, many of these nice little girls are fantastically large-breasted.
How did these women wind up on the pages of Playboy? According to Acocella:
When they were offered the centerfold, some were posing for calendars; others were waitressing at Hooters or working in hair salons. Several were single mothers. And though a few tell of having to change their names so as not to embarrass the folks back home, others report that their families urged them to seize this opportunity. Miss March 1968 got into Playboy because her grandmother wrote to the magazine,”My granddaughter is much better looking and much bustier than any of the girls you’ve been shooting.”
While I am generally exuberantly in favor of stereotype-defying, especially with respect to older women and their relationships to sex and sexuality, that last sentence made me a bit queasy, as did an Esquire editor’s observation that”Playboy out-titted us.” And how “empowering” was the long term effect of being a Playboy centerfold?
Not surprisingly … many of the Playmates, once they passed their twenties, fell back into regular life. One is a dental hygienist for dogs and cats, two are cops, one taught creative writing at the City University of New York. Several have become artists. Miss September 1998 is a”traditional Aztec dancer”; Judy Tyler, Miss January 1966, creates”Fronds by Judea:original art from palm trees.”Miss July 1999 is making”hip-hop action sports videos”with her boyfriend.”I want to be taken seriously,”she says,”because I intend to be a good producer one day.”Quite a few of the ex-Playmates, in keeping with the book’s insistent claim of normality, list their families as their sole and beloved project. At the same time, the text is very forthcoming about how many divorces these women have had, and how a number of them are no longer eager to have a man in the house. Several Playmates have found God. Debra Jo Fondren, the gorgeous Miss September 1977, who now does temporary secretarial work, reports that she finally stopped participating in Playboy promotions. There was”too much emphasis on sex,”she explains.
I offer this as part of a project to explore the feminist divide over “raunch” and pornography. I admit I can’t find anything feminist or pro-feminst about Playboy, but anyone is welcome to point out in a comment or e-mail (feministlawprof@yahoo.com) what it is that I am missing, and I will post same here if it is expressed in a cogent and civil manner.
–Ann Bartow
From the official “Initiative to Educate Afghan Women” website:
The Initiative was founded three years ago by Paula Nirschel, after she learned how Afghan women were kept hidden and denied education for the seven years of the Taliban’s reign over the country of Afghanistan.
Afghan women receive full four-year scholarships at American universities around the country. They are a very close group of students who, with the director and supporters, are brought together during semester intersessions to tour the US and bond as an organization.
All of the students return home together every summer to work for reconstruction and to help support their families.
The students are chosen for their high academic standards and keen English skills. They are dedicated to returning home after graduation to use their education to improve life for all in Afghanistan.
This WSJ article reports that though supposedly liberal schools like Yale refused to enroll the women, ten schools agreed to participate:
Duke University, N.C.
Juniata College, Pa.
Kennesaw State University, Ga.
Middlebury College, Vt.
Montclair State University, N.J.
Mount Holyoke College, Mass.
Roger Williams University, R.I.
Simmons College, Mass.
University of Montana, Missoula
University of Richmond, Va.
Kudos to them! I will see what I can do to add the University of South Carolina to this list. The same WSJ article notes: “These women require no remedial classes, by the way. They come prepared, many having huddled in basements secretly imbibing what information they could from male relatives or having lived in Pakistani refugee camps to gain access to schools. Not one of them has a GPA below 3.5.”
And remember what President Bush said when he was in Afghanistan in early March: “One of the messages I want to say to the people of Afghanistan is it’s our country’s pleasure and honor to be involved with the future of this country. We like stories of young girls going to school for the first time so they can realize their potential.”
And these stories are even better when they have the added benefit of being true!
–Ann Bartow
Photo from a vigil held outside the house where the lacrosse players lived and “partied.”
Overview and links at Alas, A Blog. See also NYT coverage.
And to him I say, “Same to you!”
The Boston Herald story is here. Yes, a million other blogs are running this (see e.g. Eschaton or Pandagon) but he was so horrid to Sandra Day O’Connor at times I just couldn’t resist piling on.
–Ann Bartow
This statement [Download file] to the U.S. Department of Education was sent by the Board of Directors of ALDA, purporting to speak on behalf of the organization. So far I’ve determined:
1. The statement was probably sent in early March;
2. The Board took no vote of their membership;
3. The ABA was not copied and did not know until I called this morning;
4. The AALS was not copied and did not know until last night;
5. It is not clear who is on the ALDA Board or who the members are.
We need to organize quickly to counter this effort with counterstatements and with organizing to get our most eloquent spokespersons to the June Department of Education hearing.
The deans who signed need to be called to task by their faculties. All of the deans who did not sign need to be energized to voice opposition.
Please move ASAP as individuals and organizations.
–Marina Angel
NB: Here is an excerpt from the statement that should encourage the reader to download and process the entire file (see link above) to see what is being asserted by the ALDA:
…”Generally, ALDA objects to the ABA using its power as an accrediting body recognized by the Secretary to seek to enforce upon its accredited institutions terms and conditions of employment that are extrinsic to educational quality. Specifically, we wish to call to the Committee’s attention to Standards 205(c), the entirety of Standard 405 and 603(d), which, respectively, essentially define the terms of employment of the law school dean, faculty (including those who supervise clinical programs), legal writing instructors and the director of the institution’s law library. The referenced ABA Standards either state, or have been interpreted in the course of accreditation actions to mean, that compliance requires either the granting of tenure or incorporating a tenure-like equivalent in Personnel policies. At a minimum, it is a short step from requiring long-term contracts to mandating tenure.
“It is certainly true that many, indeed most, law schools, as a matter of choice have systems of tenure for their instructional faculty and other classes of their professional personnel. Many have also chosen to establish “tenure-like” models that provide for assured employment for a term of years. However, these are domestic decisions made through the established processes of the institution, not models imposed upon them as a condition of acceptance among the brethren of ABA-accredited law schools.
“It is certainly true that many, indeed most, law schools, as a matter of choice have systems of tenure for their instructional faculty and other classes of their professional personnel. Many have also chosen to establish “tenure-like” models that provide for assured employment for a term of years. However, these are domestic decisions made through the established processes of the institution, not models imposed upon them as a condition of acceptance among the brethren of ABA-accredited law schools.
“If mandating a tenure or tenure-like system is not necessary to protect academic freedom, what is its purpose? It is a condition of employment, a choice that should be a matter of institutional autonomy. If, as we believe is the case, an accrediting agency should not be setting terms and conditions of employment, none of the employment requirements embedded in the ABA Standards stand up to close scrutiny. This includes Standard 405, which presupposes that a law school faculty will be employed under the terms of a system of tenure or a “tenure-like” alternative. We most strongly believe that such requirements have no place in the standards of a voluntary accrediting organization. Indeed, this Committee is well acquainted with the historic abandonment of tenure requirements by each of the regional accrediting bodies, which accompanied the transition of those agencies from a focus on rigid input measures to an examination of academic processes and institutional outputs. The retention by the ABA of such an anachronistic requirement flies in the face of the entire evolution of the American accreditation process, an evolution that has been guided in significant measure by this Committee.” …
I wish I’d known about the Women’s and Gender Studies Newsletter compiled by The College of New Jersey sooner. Check out the amazing list of events upcoming all over the country!
A man named Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a book about the Democratic Party, originally titled “The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life,” but after a teeny tiny bit of criticism, he changed this to “The Party of Death: The Assault on The Sanctity of Life.” Nothing anyone could possibly interpret as polemical about that, of course, but just in case, he tactfully explained: “The book does have quite a bit to say about the Democrats, and it’s tough on them. But the book is about more than that, and the title isn’t meant as a pejorative term for the Democrats.”
Delicate, shrinking flower Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake noted in response: “…just for the record: when I publish my upcoming book, “The Party of Right-Wing War-Mongering Evangelical Bush-Worshipping Cocksuckers,” please be aware that it is not about the Republican party. My book does have quite a lot to say about Republicans, and I’m kind of tough on them, but the title does NOT refer to them. Not at all.”
Echidne of the Snakes theororizes that Jane Hamsher is a reincarnation of Dorothy Parker. All I know is that I’d like her on my side when the fisticuffular adverbiage starts flying.
–Ann Bartow
A satirical blog. You may or may not be amused by Fake Gay News items like this:
Christian Meteorologists Declare War on Rainbows
“A group of conservative Christian meteorologists today announced plans to eliminate rainbows from the earth’s atmosphere. At a press conference following a White House luncheon with President Bush, lead scientist Bret Banger told reporters that his organization, Climatologists For Christ, had declared open season on the multi-colored spectrums of light as part of their commitment to eradicating”the homosexual lifestyle and all weather patterns that reflect it.”
“The rainbow flag was adopted by gay rights activists to represent diversity in the gay community during the early 1980s, when gays and lesbians were too busy battling the Reagan Administration’s homophobia and discriminatory AIDS policies to come with a better idea.
“Because rainbows are composed of curved spectrums of light that become visibile only when the sun’s light passes through prism-like raindrops during a rain shower, Climatologists for Christ are focusing their efforts on ending all forms of rain.
“When reporters questioned how the earth would survive without rainfall, Banger fired back,”The love of God will keep us moist!”
“In a show of support, President Bush has introduced the Heterosexual Hemispheres Act, which would ban the use of rainbow flags, the chasing of rainbows, as well as the possibility of it ever raining men.
“The Weather Girls could not be reached for comment.”
If that made you laugh, go here. If it didn’t, mail in unused portion and proof of purchase for a full refund.
Femicide On the Rise in Latin America, by Kent Paterson – 3/10/2006, via the Women’s United Nations Report Program & Network:
On the eve of International Women’s Day 2006, a delegation of Latin American women made a historic journey to Washington, DC. Rather than celebrating the gains women have made through their many struggles, the group arrived at the headquarters of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States with an alarming message: Femicide, the murder of women, is spreading.
“(Femicide) is not only present in Ciudad Juarez and most of Mexico, it’s a regional problem,” warns Marimar Monroy, a representative of the non-governmental Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights and one of the delegates to the IACHR.
Joined by grassroots delegates from Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, and other nations, Monroy presented a report to the IACHR commissioners that sketched widespread violence against women from multiple causes, rampant failures in the procurement of justice for victims and relatives, the prevalence of impunity, and the absence of standard statistical gathering and record-keeping methods to document gender violence. Monroy and her Latin American colleagues delivered their femicide report as one piece of a campaign aimed at making “the problem more visible in the region.”
Incomplete murder rates cited in the NGO report mention 373 murders of women in Bolivia from 2003 to 2004, 143 in Peru during 2003, and more than 2,000 in Guatemala. In Colombia , a woman is reportedly killed every 6 days by her partner or ex-partner. Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Mexico , two cities where the femicide trend was first widely noticed, have suffered the murder of more than 500 women from multiple causes since 1993, according to press and other sources. Dozens more remain missing.
Latin American women’s organizations contend that member nations of the Organization of American States are in widespread violation of international treaties and declarations that protect the rights of women, including the American Convention on Human Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Belem do Para Convention, and others. Appealing to the IACHR to follow-up on previous recommendations the human rights institution has made about eradicating femicide, delegation representatives considered the Washington hearing a positive step. …
The entire article is available here.
–Stephanie Farrior
The Scholar and Feminist XXXI at the Barnard Center for Research on Women presents “Engendering Justice: Prisons, Activism and Change”
Friday, 7 April, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Saturday, 8 April, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
The rate of imprisonment in the United States has been rising at exponential rates. In the last two decades alone, the population of incarcerated women has increased by 400 percent. At the heart of these numbers we find not only a certain philosophy of crime and punishment, but also complex and largely unexamined attitudes toward those we imprison.
This April, building on an ongoing conversation that the Barnard Center for Research on Women has facilitated through its Women Seeking Justice lecture series, we host a daylong conference to investigate the causes and consequences of women’s imprisonment both domestically and abroad. Whether you’re just entering this dialogue or already strongly committed to prison activism, “Engendering Justice” promises to be an excellent opportunity not only to share information, strategize and network, but also to consider the ways in which incarceration is ultimately and inextricably linked to such issues as race, class, education, national identity, and gender conformity. The emerging conversations will provide the most innovative and exciting ideas for bringing about a more just, more humane society. In these troubled times, they are conversations none of us can afford to miss.
Registration is required. Please visit the conference website to reserve a spot.
This post on men’s reproductive rights over at Prawfsblog illustrates an interesting phenomenon there: a discussion of women’s reproductive rights, with little or no input by women. Why aren’t more women, particularly feminists, taking time to comment–whether we agree or not? Is it not worth the effort as a matter of ideology? We won’t make a difference, because of the audience or agenda of the blog? Prawfsblog doesn’t purport to be solely a pr vehicle for a single ideology–the postings invite comments, and there is a pretty diverse community of participants who have at some point blogged. The point of the blog is, at least in part, to provide reasoned debate on a variety of issues. Are we paralyzed by the overwhelming number of potential responses and so we don’t bother? Is the issue more a function of blogging? In other words, is it simply that we don’t have enough time as it is to do all of the things that we need to do to compete as academics? Do we have our plates full already just managing our sanity in a male dominated profession? Is it too much to ask of us to take responsibility for educating the world? Does the world not need our views? Is it some kind of anti-narcissism–a lack of a need to weigh in on every debate anywhere it occurs?
I know my own motivations vary and have at times encompassed each of these things. For me, that’s going to change, though. One of the problems, it seems, facing the feminist movement today is that not enough people are publicly identifying as feminist and not enough discuss these issues where they arise. It’s important to discuss issues in groups that are likely to have a common interest (although not viewpoint), but it’s also important to take on those issues with people who don’t share a common frame of reference. To do otherwise helps us seem invisible, which tells the public at large that feminists are simply some small group, well outside of the mainstream.
–Marcia L. McCormick
Rachel S. at Alas, A Blog brought this story to my attention. It may have been mentioned in my local newspaper and/or otherwise in the local media and I missed it, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t getting much coverage around here. Duke University is a big deal around these parts, as it is largely viewed as the Harvard of the South, the school that the wealthy, well-connected, smart South Carolinians often attend. For those reasons, I’d expect more press attention, but I guess I’m not terribly surprised by its absence either. Here are a couple of other links that provide information: DNA Tests Ordered For Duke Athletes, 15 Duke Lacross Players Had Prior Charges and Lacrosse Players Could Be Charged For Not Stopping Attack.
Update: Via Pinko Feminist Hellcat I learned about this blog, which seems to be dedicated to providing information about this issue.
–Ann Bartow
So it turns out that a seemingly pointless “national survey” of exceedingly questionable methodology has ascertained that “firefighters” have the “sexiest” form of employment. Could this be related to their intimacy with hoses? Second place went to “flight attendants” because next to putting out fires, what could possibly be hotter than pointing out emergency exits, dispensing softdrinks, enforcing safety regulations and wrestling suitcases into overhead compartment bins. “Law professors,” inexplicably enough, are not listed at all (nor “Bloggers” either), but “Lawyers” register at the number ten spot, immediately below doctors, but a slot above veterinarians, possibly because lawyers only *figuratively* castrate other beings? The sheer stupidity of the “survey” becomes apparent when it is discussed in this article at Firehouse.com, which finds it necessary to insipidly report:
Some experts, like evolutionary psychologist David Buss, believe that what we imagine to be sexy today is the result of eons of human history. Back in prehistoric times, our female ancestors figured out that attractive mates were men who could protect the family from danger and put that wooly mammoth on the table. Men wanted women who could bear them healthy children and take care of things back at the cave.
And despite all our claims of enlightened, politically correct, liberated 21st century ways, surveys such as the sexiest jobs poll reveal that what we find most appealing in the opposite sex probably hasn’t changed all that much over the millennia.
So women are attracted to firefighters as a primal need for protection from fire, despite the existence of fire extinguishers and 911 emergency response teams, not to mention electric and gas heat and the general lack of open flames in our everyday lives, scented candles notwithstanding. And men are attacted to flight attendants based on urges to procreate in orderly caves, with clubs and slingshots safely beneath the stalactites in front of them and stone tablets stowed in a upright postion during takeoff and landing of what, exactly?
–Ann Bartow
Ariel Levy wrote a book called Female Chauvinist Pigs, which received the following review from Publisher’s Weekly:
What does sexy mean today? Levy, smartly expanding on reporting for an article in New York magazine, argues that the term is defined by a pervasive raunch culture wherein women make sex objects of other women and of ourselves. The voracious search for what’s sexy, she writes, has reincarnated a day when Playboy Bunnies (and airbrushed and surgically altered nudity) epitomized female beauty. It has elevated porn above sexual pleasure. Most insidiously, it has usurped the keywords of the women’s movement (liberation, empowerment) to serve as buzzwords for a female sexuality that denies passion (in all its forms) and embraces consumerism. To understand how this happened, Levy examines the women’s movement, identifying the residue of divisive, unresolved issues about women’s relationship to men and sex. The resulting raunch feminism, she writes, is a garbled attempt at continuing the work of the women’s movement and asks, how is resurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeavored to banish good for women? Why is laboring to look like Pamela Anderson empowering? Levy’s insightful reporting and analysis chill the hype of what’s hot. It will create many aha! moments for readers who have been wondering how porn got to be pop and why feminism is such a dirty word.
Not every self-defined feminist agrees with Levy, though; not even close. The Guardian recently published an essay by Kate Taylor entitled: “Today’s Ultimate Feminists are the Chicks in Crop Tops” with the subtitle: “Raunch culture is not about liberation gone wrong; it’s about rediscovering the joy of being loved for your body.” Here is an excerpt:
… Instead of desperately longing for the right to be seen as human beings, today’s girls are playing with the old-fashioned notion of being seen as sex objects.
This is not terrible news. In fact, to me, this is the ultimate feminist ideal, which Levy would realise if she stopped shouting at MTV for a moment and thought about it. She proclaims that boob jobs and crop tops “don’t bring us any closer to the fundamental feminist project of allowing every woman to be her own, specific self”. But what if a woman’s “own, specific self” is a thong-wearing, Playboy-T-shirted specific self who thinks lap-dancing is a laugh and likes getting wolf-whistled at by builders? What if a woman spends hours in the gym to create a body she is proud of? Is that a waste of time, time she should have spent in a university library? No.
Levy is not alone in raging against raunch. The f word, a British feminist website, last month launched a tirade against lads’ magazines such as Loaded, Zoo and Nuts; they “relentlessly promote the message that women exist solely for the sexual gratification of men and boys”, argued Rachel Bell. “By internalising this one-dimensional male construct of sexuality, both sexes are losing out; but it is girls and women who will pay the heavier price.”
I’ve worked for GQ and the Sun, and in neither place did I see women being exploited. Does Bell have any idea how much money women make when they take their clothes off? How much freedom and independence these girls can earn in an hour? Abi Titmuss and the new breed of totty generally own the copyright to their naughtiest photos, so with each publication they rake it in. Look at lads’ mags from a different perspective and you see that what’s being exploited are men’s sexual responses, to give money to women.
It has always been like this, and it always will be, because men’s achilles heel is that they go to pieces when a woman drops her top. Old-style feminists never understood this, but their way is not the only way to achieve equality with men. The world is different now, and we should follow the trends instead of waving the banners of 20 years ago. …
In turn, blogger Laurelin in the Rain had strong reactions to Taylor’s essay, retorting in pertinent part:
…Feminism seeks to tell the truth about femininity, and Ms Taylor has missed Feminist Lesson No.1- female and feminine are not the damn same. One is biological, one is cultural. It’s not rocket science.
This ridiculous article completely ignores the very exploitative, violent and callous base upon which FHM and its ilk are built. Taylor is blind to the women suffering from the denigration of the female to a despised sex object and the behaviour of men who enjoy degrading them. Abi Titmuss registers with her; the rape survivor does not. She clearly either knows nothing about the treatment of women as a result of this patriarchal ethic, or she does not care. But then again, she’s not likely to want to piss off the pornographers who pay her salary.
Obviously these issues are emotional laden and difficult for the feminist community. I can’t offer any useful suggestions for bridging this divide here, but it seems better to acknowledge the conflict, rather than ignore it, and it is in that spirit that I offer this post. Update: below is a apropos quote I found at “Fetch Me My Axe“:
“I find myself continuing to wonder how our lives might be different if we were not constantly subjected to the fear and contempt of being sexually different, sexually dangerous, sexually endangered. What kind of women might we be if we did not have to worry about being too sexual, or not sexual enough, or the wrong kind of sexual for the company we keep, the convictions we hold?”
–Dorothy Allison, “Public Silence, Private Terror,” from Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature, 1993.
–Ann Bartow
Below are excerpts from an article entited “Who’s Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors,” posted three years ago by George Mason U’s History News Network:
… In 1971 the National Chamber of Commerce circulated a memo by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell among business leaders which claimed that “the American economic system” of business and free markets was “under broad attack” by “Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic.” Powell argued that those engaged in this attack come from “the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.”
According to the Powell memo, the key to solving this problem was to get business people to “confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management” by building organizations that will use “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing only available in joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.” It helped immeasurably, Powell noted, that the boards of trustees of universities “overwhelmingly are composed of men and women who are leaders in the system,” and that most of the media “are owned and theoretically controlled by corporations which depend upon profits, and the free enterprise system to survive.”
Powell wrote that these organizations should employ a “faculty of scholars” to publish in journals, write “books, paperbacks and pamphlets,” with speakers and a speaker’s bureau, as well as develop organizations to evaluate textbooks, and engage in a “long range effort” to correct the purported imbalances in campus faculties. “The television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance.” Powell said that this effort must also target the judicial system.
The “Four Sisters” [NB: Why right wing foundations established and run largely by men are called “The Four Sisters” is a very subsidiary but perplexing question.]
In 1973, in response to the Powell memo, Joseph Coors and Christian-right leader Paul Weyrich founded the Heritage Foundation. Coors told Lee Edwards, historian of the Heritage Foundation, that the Powell memo persuaded him that American business was “ignoring a crisis.” In response, Coors decided to help provide the seed funding for the creation of what was to become the Heritage Foundation, giving $250,000.(1)
Subsequently, the Olin Foundation, under the direction of its president, former Treasury Secretary William Simon (author of the influential 1979 book A Time for Truth), began funding similar organizations in concert with “the Four Sisters“–Richard Mellon Scaife’s various foundations, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Olin Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation–along with Coors’s foundations, foundations associated with the Koch oil family, and a group of large corporations. (In this article, I will refer to this group of funders as the “Four Sisters Funding Group” or FSFG.)
Following Powell’s long-term plan to “build a movement,” FSFG has funded and built a network of think tanks, advocacy organizations, and expanded into media, lobbying, and other areas. The work was slow but effective. As Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, told a group of conservative business people, “things take time. It takes at least 10 years for a radical new idea to emerge from obscurity.”
Creating “Conventional Wisdom”
Now, after 30 years of effort, this core FSFG has built a comprehensive ideological infrastructure. There are now over 500 organizations, with the Heritage Foundation at the hub, all funded by this core group. David Callahan’s 1999 study, $1 Billion for Ideas: Conservative Think Tanks in the 1990s, found that just the top 20 of the organizations spent over $1 billion on this ideological effort in the 1990s.
The right-wing movement’s messages are orchestrated and amplified to sound like a mass “movement” consisting of many “voices.” Using “messaging”–communication techniques from the fields of marketing, public relations, and corporate image-management–the movement appeals to people’s deeper feelings and values. Messages are repeated until they become “conventional wisdom.” Examples include lines like “Social Security is going broke” and “public schools are failing.” Both statements are questionable, yet both have been firmly embedded in the “public mind” by purposeful repetition through multiple channels. This orchestration has been referred to as a “Mighty Wurlitzer, “ a CIA term that refers to propaganda that is repeated over and over again in numerous places until the public believes what it’s hearing must be true. …
… So how does all this relate to the attack on academic freedom which Foner and Gilmore complained about?
It turns out that many of the most important attacks are part of a campaign organized by conservative foundations, as a study by report by the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) found. In a section entitled, “Targeting the Academy” the report discusses right-wing attacks on academia, including “political correctness” campaigns, efforts to use alumni contributions to advance a conservative agenda, efforts to take over or de-fund the National Endowment for the Humanities and to de-fund the National Endowment for the Arts. These attacks follow the pattern outlined in the Powell memo — attack the patriotism of liberals and attempt to convince trustees of colleges and universities to remove them, replacing them with ideological “conservatives.”
The FSFG supports organizations like Accuracy in Academia, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the Madison Center for Educational Affairs (their “Collegiate Network” links over 70 student newspapers), the Institute for Educational Affairs and others. These organizations work to transform academia toward the right’s ideological agenda. …
Someone set up a blog, “Classroom Justice,” to solicit comments about law profs at the University of North Carolina. The stated purpose of the blog is as follows:
This blog is dedicated to highlighting any unethihcal personal biases shown by professors at UNC Law. Anonymous, but honest, posts are encouraged by students who feel a professor has tried to unfairly influence them with a political bias or who feel the freedom to share their honest opinion in classroom, or on an exam, is jeapordized by the conduct of a professor. In addition, feel free to share if there is anything positive or questionable about a professor’s teaching or conduct in general.
One law professor drew this comment:
“Edwards just says some things, every now and then, that make me suspect that his political tendencies lean to the left. I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s a Democrat, and I’ve occasionally heard him voice not-so-subtle disapproval of the President of the United States. What kind of message is that supposed to send to us students (not to mention what kind of message it sends to our troops)?”
I find this hilarious, because the Professor Edwards in question is … John Edwards.
By Lucyrain:
“Whoever decided on the name and resultant acronym of the Tenure and Promotion System (TAPS) has absolutely no sympathy for tenure-track faculty–or, has an evil sense of humor.”
