Good Piece!

Politics and Misogyny


By BOB HERBERT
Published: January 15, 2008

With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s win in New Hampshire, gender issues are suddenly in the news. Where has everybody been?
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If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America. Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.

Little attention is being paid to the toll that misogyny takes on society in general, and women and girls in particular.

Its forms are limitless. Hard-core pornography is a multibillion-dollar business, having spread far beyond the stereotyped raincoat crowd to anyone with a laptop and a password. Crowds of crazed photographers risk life and limb to get shots of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears without their underwear. At New York Jets home games, men regularly gather at Gate D to urge female fans to expose themselves.

In its grimmest aspects, misogyny manifests itself in hideous violence — from brutal beatings and rape to outright torture and murder. Fifteen months ago, a gunman invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five.

The cable news channels revel in stories about women (almost always young and attractive) who come to a gruesome end at the hands of violent men. The stories seldom, if ever, raise the issue of misogyny, which permeates not just the crimes themselves, but the coverage as well.

The latest of these obsessively covered stories concerned a pregnant marine, Maria Frances Lauterbach, who had complained to authorities that she had been raped by a fellow marine. Her body was found last week buried in a backyard fire pit in North Carolina.

It just so happens that the Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning this week in the misogyny capital of America: Nevada. It’s a perfect place to bring up the way women are viewed and treated in this society, but don’t hold your breath. Presidential wannabes are hardly in the habit of insulting the locals.

Prostitution is legal in much of Nevada and heavily promoted even where it’s not. In Las Vegas, where prostitution is illegal but flourishes nevertheless, Mayor Oscar Goodman has said that creating a series of legal, “magnificent” brothels would be a great development tool for his city.

The fundamental problem in all of this is that women and girls are dehumanized, opening the floodgates to every kind of mistreatment. “Once you dehumanize somebody, everything else is possible,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the women’s advocacy group Equality Now.

A grotesque exercise in the dehumanization of women is carried out routinely at Sheri’s Ranch, a legal brothel about an hour’s ride outside of Vegas. There the women have to respond like Pavlov’s dog to an electronic bell that might ring at any hour of the day or night. At the sound of the bell, the prostitutes have five minutes to get to an assembly area where they line up, virtually naked, and submit to a humiliating inspection by any prospective customer who has happened to drop by.

If you don’t think this is an issue worthy of a presidential campaign, consider the scandalous way that women are treated in the military and the fact that the winner of this election will become the commander in chief.

The sexual mistreatment of women in the military is widespread. The Defense Department financed a study in 2003 of female veterans seeking health assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Nearly a third of those surveyed said they had been the victim of a rape or attempted rape during their service.

The Associated Press reported in 2006 that more than 80 military recruiters had been disciplined over the course of a year because of sexual misconduct with young women and girls who had considered joining the military.

There continue to be widespread complaints from women about rape and other forms of sexual attacks in the military, and about a culture that tends to protect the attackers.

To what extent are the candidates of either party concerned about these matters? Do they have any sense of how extensive and debilitating the mistreatment of women and girls really is?

We’ve become so used to the disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous and even violent treatment of women that we hardly notice it. Staggering amounts of violence are unleashed against women and girls every day. Fashionable ads in mainstream publications play off of that violence, exploiting themes of death and dismemberment, female submissiveness and child pornography.

If we’ve opened the door to the issue of sexism in the presidential campaign, then let’s have at it. It’s a big and important issue that deserves much more than lip service.

WAHAHA

HUBERT: “No. The reality is that teens are resonating with the message of abstinence education in increasing numbers. There’s trends data to show that more and more teens are abstaining.”

ABRAMS: “That’s not what the studies show! You’re losing on the studies.”

HUBER: “No, that’s not true. In fact, a recent study just released –“

ABRAMS: “From who?”

HUBER: “Virginia’s abstinence education program.”

and later...

MADDOW: “Whenever I evaluate myself, I turn out to be doing awesome.”

Although Knocked Up Was Sexist...

This disparity is on display in a whole series of recent comedies, from School of Rock to High Fidelity. It's also powerfully familiar to anyone who follows the so-called Mommy Wars. In that proliferating literature of family friction, women's lives seem to shrink to a series of pragmatic decisions about achieving balance, while men are concerned with domestic stuff only to the degree that they choose to be. In this regard, Knocked Up is in keeping with the zeitgeist: If, as Heigl delicately put it, the movie is a "little sexist," that is because it is the natural product of a culture evidently sold on the notion that women are so focused on domestic mechanics that they simply don't know how to allow themselves the playful inner lives men do, whether they're free-associating brilliantly with their friends, or lazily absorbed in video games. (The trope cuts both ways, of course: It allows men to be comedic geniuses, but it also means that husbands get portrayed right and left as childish dopes.) Just glance at a book like The Bitch in the House, where female essayists portray their male partners as slouches who don't get the job done until they're given a to-do list.

Stories about boys who have more fun than girls go back to Wendy and Peter Pan. But there was a time when romantic comedies, as Denby points out, were more egalitarian in their assignment of playfulness. These days, romantic comedies routinely depict a loss of some essential autonomy for the man, and a lesson in "balance" for the woman. A culture that assigns all that weight to what "men" and "women" want only makes it more difficult for couples to establish their own fruitful ratio of intimacy to privacy. The best moments in Knocked Up are those that suggest the world doesn't have to be this way—that of course women can possess playful inner lives too. There aren't quite enough of them. You leave feeling that what poor Debbie—and Alison—really wants is not a husband who knows to bring home pink cupcakes for a birthday party, but a culture that grants them the same indulgent latitude their partners get: the luxury of not having to be relentlessly responsible. Slacker, starring a woman. Barring that, of course, there's Juno, the story of a knocked-up girl from her own irreverent perspective—written, as it happens, by a female scriptwriter—now playing in a theater near you.

Enlightenment: that's what I want too. That's why my last serious relationship ended, so long ago, I think. I didn't always want to have to be the responsible one. It's taxing. Now I'm much less responsible (seeming), so others hopefully won't ask me to be constantly on top of things. That's not my job. At work as a lab tech it is, maybe, but if you're at home and have a significant other it should not just be your job. Bollocks to that.

Wiki wiki

I just fixed an article on Wikipedia. I feel good about myself.

Anti-Science has gone meta!!!!

Abstinence Clearinghouse is Sad That Science is Being Misrepresented and Taken Selectively to Thwart Abstinence Only Education

Awwwwwww. Cry me a river, abstinence-only educationalists. Now, it would be one thing if the research ACTUALLY proved that abstinence-only education worked (although that probably wouldn't bode well for the continuance of humankind). But the vast majority of the literature seems to show conclusively that it doesn't work. Abstinence education proponents aren't even bothering to mess with the literature now, as the "global warming is a hoax" and "smoking doesn't kill you" folks have been doing; instead, they are whining that scientists have done so to them. Aw, how unfair!

Thanks to Pandagon for the link.

Oh, You Know

In terms of social interactions I am consistently rated FAIL.

I CAN HAZ REAL FOODZ???

"Food vouchers for women and children overhauled"

This goes in the rare category of news which doesn't just depress the hell out of me.

So W.I.C. has changed the foods it subsidizes to include whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. This is great news! Programs that provide food for low-income people are notorious for providing food which is just plain awful for you - anything from just candy and chips to canned and highly processed foods (Read Nickel and Dimed if you don't believe me, or just look it up on the internets). The idea that we should look out for the health of the people we're providing the food to, and not just the health of the food industry, is long past due a solid revival.

Comparisons to the Nazis? Never OK

You would have thought that more people would have heard of Godwin's Law by now.

Obviously, this idiot hasn't. Jeez, not only is he extremely anti-immigrant, but also either supremely unaware or stupid, or both. Makes you wonder about the people that we elect to represent us (granted, this is in Italy, but I'm fairly confident the situation is even worse here).

Ah, the Y Chromosome

Interesting how some people attribute so much by ways of intelligence to the lilliputian Y chromosome. That poor guy must be packed with all sorts of good shit... the math genes, abstract thinking, self-reliance, ability to be more than sort of a semi-autonomous incubator on legs... my goodness.

Except WAIT... the Y chromosome is almost entirely composed of second copies of genes needed in two copies also found on the X chromosome, with the majority of its length consisting of non-coding DNA*. There is essentially only one gene, the SRY gene, which is involved in the determination of masculinity and all it entails.

That means the difference between men and women is determined by one gene, and then what? The ENVIRONMENT, you say? What a naughty word. Surely how we are brought up has no influence on our behaviors or our psyche. This would be tantamount to saying that society influences how men and women feel they need to behave. Never, I say. I am programmed by my genes to want to shave my legs and wear dresses, as well as to be bad at chess. No conditioning or lack thereof has caused these behaviors. No siree.



*Ridley, Matt. Genome. Figure out the rest of the citation yourself.

Sadly, I never had any barbies...

That out of the way, this stuff is what has got me so riled up:

Cheerleader Barbie!

As if girls didn't have an unreasonable enough standard to live up to! Woo!

as well as:

Barbie Serves Ken!

ARGH

Swimming was good for one thing, I've discovered. Whenever I used to get really angry (which perhaps was even more than I do these days) I'd just go thrash out a few kilometers in the pool, and even though I hadn't addressed the root cause of my anger, I was at least less aggressive about it.

These days, I get angry, and have to resort to listening to The New Pornographers really loudly (comparatively loudly, I have crappy speakers) and spitting out bile on this blog, if I have the time. I need to work out more perhaps.

I’m Sorry I Destroyed Your Country - from the Dilbert Blog

I’m Sorry I Destroyed Your Country

In life, there are some situations that beg for an apology, but there is no easy way to do it. For example, suppose you are a senior citizen attending a funeral for a friend of the family. You lean over the open casket and your false teeth plop out and clamp on the nose of the deceased. You panic. You don’t think many people saw it happen, so you pluck the teeth off the stiff’s nose and shove them back in your mouth as discreetly as possible. Unbeknownst to you, someone caught the whole thing on video and it becomes a worldwide sensation on Youtube before the deceased is in the ground.

My point is there’s no way to apologize for that situation. For one thing, the guy who most needs the apology is dead. And his widow probably isn’t in the mood for it.

I was thinking about this apology problem in respect to Iraq. Whatever you think about the reasons for invading, everyone seems to agree that we botched the occupation, and the results have been a disaster for the Iraqi civilian population. I feel like I owe them an apology for letting my idiot government screw them so thoroughly.

Your first reaction might be to explain all the rationalizations, and how war is messy, and it was really Saddam’s fault, and blah, blah, blah. But apologies don’t work that way. I could be wrong, but I think the Iraqi people who were minding their own business would like to hear an apology.

But how? My idiot government won’t apologize on my behalf. And if I fire them and get a new idiot government, they won’t do it either, until fifty years are past. That seems too late.

So here’s my public apology to the Iraqi civilians who did nothing to deserve their current situation: I’m sorry I trusted my idiot government to handle things correctly. I should have been watching more closely. To be honest, I never once thought to even ask if there was a post-war plan. That was clearly a mistake on my part. For that, I am sorry.

We’re putting a lot of lives and money into making things right in Iraq, and that’s appropriate. But in addition, and for whatever small comfort it provides, I’m genuinely sorry for my part in allowing things to get this bad.

The Streets Lyrics

The end of the something i did not want to end,
Begining of hard times to come.
But something that was not meant to be is done,
And this is the start of what was.

Awk

This week is apparently "foot in mouth" week for me. Witness:

The confusion of "Palestine" with "Pakistan" - how did this happen???? I must have been drunk.

Telling the boyfriend that he and Sean were now somehow "even" - did this objectify women? I didn't even think about it. That was awkward.

Not being able to physically tell Lucinda about my Halloween party preparations - am I just unbelievably lame? Maybe I didn't want her to think that, but it turned out that way anyway.

Walking in on the roommate and her boyfriend well, not doing anything really awkward, but slightly awkward nonetheless. Argh whyyy.

My Biochem paper being labeled as "Redundant." Well, you know what else is Redundant????? Your face! God already gave you one ass!

Err... fleeing the Halloween party. At least twice. A solicitous Jamelle thereafter asking whether the Jeffsoc crowd was too big. Nice, but I'd rather handle my own awkwardness lest it become even more embarrassing/intolerable.

Rata is rather neurotic.

Song Lyrics

Because I will be your ambulance if you will be my accident
And I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast
And I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance


Oh sweet tree, fall with me
Fall fast, fall free, fall with me

Irresponsible (Awesome) Weekend Plans

I love my life! Only it leaves precious little time for studying, which may prove to be a problem come Monday.

Thursday:
Class
Teatime - free food and good company
Throw a frisbee around outside the IRC
Run for 45 min
Eat dinner/study for a tiny bit w/ Jamelle
Visit Grey's Anatomy for free food and get sucked into two hours of Guitar Hero (I'm so irresponsible)...
More studying?

Friday:
Class
Work
The Week that Was
Watson Suite Reunion
Soccer game?
Perhaps studying, but that seems exceedingly unlikely. More plausibly, hanging out with awesome IRC people.

Saturday:
Farmer's Market?
Vegetarian Festival
Jeff Soc Tailgate
Random movies are most likely, although perhaps studying (yeah right)

Sunday:
Run
Study like whoa

Global Warming Pt 1

The Disgruntled Chemist, on talking about Global Warming, makes an excellent point here:

"One more thing: perhaps there are some of you sitting there now saying "this guy's an alarmist! No way will it be this bad". Well, maybe you're right. But think about this: on almost every issue, the scientific community has one outlook and the general public has another. On almost every issue (GM crops and microwave ovens come to mind), the scientists are less alarmed about potential problems than are the public. In the case of global warming, the people who most closely study the situation are the most alarmed, and the public is telling them not to worry. Why is that? It's because the government tells us not to worry about it, without giving one shred of scientific evidence to back themselves up. Well, I'll go with the evidence, and with the scientific community. If that makes me sound alarmist to you, then maybe I am. And maybe you should be alarmed too."

I may have said this before, but this is a freaking excellent point. On all of these other issues, the scientists aren't alarmed. We don't cry wolf. The public may be alarmed, but scientists are still looking at the evidence.

But for Global Warming, scientists are very alarmed. Shouldn't this signify something to you?? Let's make a diagram:

Scientists think something will have mostly positive consequences (i.e. microwave ovens) -----> Public doesn't care.

Scientists think something new won't have positive or negative consequences (will just be a new tool, such as perhaps GMOs) -----> Public freaks out and decides all consequences will be bad.

Scientists think something will have potentially devastating consequences -----> Shouldn't the public be running for the hills?

Or is there no correlation here?

It was only a matter of time

Giant ads set for world's busiest runways

Waa, ads in one of the last ad-free spaces. How appalling.

Come On, Guys, Free Speech is Still OK

F**k Bush! (like this is really news)

Why is his resignation neccessary here? Why is it that, if someone spouts an opinion in a paper that the majority doesn't like, we suddenly get all of this clamoring for that person to resign from their post? Limiting what people are allowed to say simply because we don't like what they're saying is censorship. Soon we'll be editing old movies to remove people's cigarettes (:-P) and shortening Hamlet to a 10 word soliloquy simply because someone thinks it contains subversive material.

To be clear, if someone wrote an article stating F**k Gore! or F**k Obama! instead, I think I would be more angry about this. Still, they have a right to express this sentiment. It endangers no one (except, apparently, the writer themselves) and so, while offensive, it should be ALLOWED.

Transparency, Please

I'm convinced. We need transparency today, in every endeavor possible. Only when there is transparency in the government will people discover, and change, the corruption inherent in that institution. Only when people can, say, see into the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) and kill floors will the meat industry change itself into something less inherently cruel, and based less mindlessly on the bottom line.

I don't see a future in which no one eats meat. However, I do see a future where everyone is forced to think about where their food comes from. We're increasingly entering into an age in which ignorance is not an excuse, nor a viable defense. Many people now have the ability (financially and otherwise) to take accountability for their decisions. You can afford the farmer's market tomatoes; you can splurge on the free-range eggs. You can find out all the information you need to make a moral (?) decision. So, Homework Assignment: Think about where your food comes from.