socialjustice (original) (raw)

While doing research for my thesis, I’ve come across a book called The Alphabet versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain. It’s only marginally related to my topic, which is a shame, because my fingers are itching to give this book a well-deserved bashing. And since I won’t be able to do that in my thesis, I’m going to do it here. I suffered through over 400 pages of this book, so now I’m going to make you all suffer by making you listen to me complain about it. Hah!

There were tons of things I found annoying in the book, a lot of which are things that probably nobody but myself is going to care about. But here I’m going to focus on mostly the feminist-related gripes I had with it, delving a little into ableism as well, since that’s also something that strikes rather close to home for me. Also, you know, intersectionality.

( Cut for length - TW: Some mention of rape and pornography. I also make a not-very-funny joke about my own disability.Collapse )

x-posted to my own journal

How does everyone feel about singe-sex schools? (And do you feel the same way about all girls schools as you do about all boys schools?) Are they sexist? Transphobic? If they are either or both of those things, is it a problem that can be fixed, or is the sexism/transphobia built into the whole system? Would you ever send your child to a private single-sex school? What about a coed school with single-sex classrooms? (Would your answer depend on the sex of your child?) What would you do if your local public school/the school your child was attending wanted to switch to single-sex classrooms?

I'd post my own opinion, but I'm not sure how I feel about this issue.

Current Mood: contemplative

YouTube Video of Internalized Misogynistic and Pseudo-Intellectual Doom. No really. It's a woman who is talking about how feminism is going to end the world. Seriously. And she must be right because she's using historical "facts" and evolution to back up her argument! Trigger warning: Rape being played off as no big thing *so much rage*

A friend of mine sent this to me and asked if I agreed or disagreed. I'm a little confused since he's a friend who talks to me a lot about sexism and racism. I'm guessing it was just early so he worded things badly and he's in the middle of a brawl concerning the video and wanted the input (or consolation) from someone who has a vested interest in the discussion.

So I got about a quarter of the way through it before I had to turn it off (For those who don't know me, I've been going through some severely stressful stuff in my life and it's actually affected my heart which is why I haven't finished a lot of threads and videos that piss me off) but essentially her argument boils down to the "fact" that (stop me if you've heard this one, ladies) since cis-women are biologically capable of having children we've just essentially been sitting around taking care of babies until the rise of (I'm guessing) second wave feminism. She explains to all of us lying feminists (wait, we tell "half truths") that marriage was an economic agreement and women bring their sexual assets to the table while men bring their strength. So women are sex slaves to their husbands and their husbands are beasts of burden. (Here is where she's essentially making a case for why rape culture was ok historically. Awesome, huh?)

I stopped about there because I just couldn't deal with it. I am so freaking tired of this bs lie that historically all women have contributed to the evolution of our species and the assorted cultures of the world have been our wombs and our childcare services. And no, I'm not just talking about cases of an individual anomaly or the few matriarchal societies we know did or do exist. No, I'm talking about in good old patriarchal, joint human history.

The problem is that the moment you set that delusion up against true historic fact it evaporates. Everyone was a beast of burden up until the point that we started cultivating crops. ( Annoyed rambling about history, REAL history***, and the roles women played in cultures throughout the agesCollapse )

So fuck that noise that men got to own women because they earned it with their hard work and sweat. What did women get for their hard work and sweat? The opportunity to have their entire life tied up in someone else. With very, very, very, very few exceptions women could not leave their husbands. If they did life would be very hard for them. Chances are her husband got to keep her kids and he had every right to punish her for leaving him. If he didn't society did by giving her very few resources or opportunities to earn them. But a man could leave his family with very little consequence. Fuck, the man frequently credited as the most famous writer in the history of the English language left his family and look at where he ended up.

But let's step away from history for now (for now, I'll probably return to something historical at some point), let's look at what feminists want:

Feminists want an egalitarian society. This usually manifests as fighting against rape culture, fighting for equal pay and treatment at work, equal treatment - at least comparatively - in most other aspects of life, the opportunity to own our sexuality, and fighting against mass objectification. (some of these are probably redundant) ... None of this hurts the economy and if men and women who have internalized misogyny stopped and thought about it they would see that feminism benefits men too.

Of course the most damning piece of evidence? Some of the most egalitarian societies in the world at the moment are constantly listed as the most successful and possessing the happiest populaces. So if feminism is really the harbinger of doom shouldn't those countries start teetering and toppling any day now?

Oh. Sorry. That would take stepping out of our US-centric vision and realizing that we're not the most awesomest place ever to have awesomed and our entire fucking country is quickly circling the toilet. And that is not the fault of feminists.

No. The path of evolution and our collective history is not a good reason for continued oppression and does not prove that women are bad for the global economy. I want to think up a clever analogy but I've been writing this too long and I'm too upset and too tired. Evolution is a constant. We've been evolving this whole time, both as a species and as a culture. That's how evolution works. What we needed 200,000 years ago (or whatever) is not what we need now. Yes, I understand. We're animals and it's good to keep that in mind and it's good to look at where a lot of our behaviors originated in our collective pasts but that IS NOT how we should rule our lives now. We might just be animals but we're animals capable of logic, compassion, and change.

*incoherent screaming*

Is feminism perfect? No. It is blind to a lot of things. But those things are not related to the way men are treated. Feminism is frequently blind to the specific burdens of being a WoC, being a WwD, being a queer woman, being a poor woman, being a fat woman or being a thin woman or pretty much the pain of women who are members of another marginalized class. But that does not mean it's the downfall of society. That does not mean that men are being oppressed by it. That does not mean we need to fall back into subservient roles or shut up about the oppression we are still facing. It just means that the feminist movement needs to look at how it relates to a more diverse base of women. It does not mean that misogynists, both men and women are right.

(***Disclaimer: All history in here vague and overly simplified for time and because I'm mad and because you probably don't want to read it all)

Current Mood: infuriated

Warning: the following link is both horrifying, disgusting, and more than a tad dehumanizing.

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/03/18/more-urinals/

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

It can keep getting lower.

According to a lot of liberal sources (no, I don't want to check conservative sources and see the evil, malicious glee that their misinformation is finally working) Colorado (yes, that same Colorado with all the crunchy hippies that travel back and forth between the PNW and that state) passed a law that makes abortion, and in some case (supposedly) the morning after pill, a first degree murder.

I first saw it n The Daily Kos but all searches are turning up that blurb and nothing else. I'm going to do some more looking (though I really want to avoid sources too conservative) because I want to see what this bill looks like and how much of this is true and how much of it is spin.

... But if it's as that blurb says? Holy crap. Just holy crap.

ETA: Shortly after posting this I found this article by the Denver Post that this less panicky. (But with a quote from a Republican - male - representative who said that this has nothing do with being "anti-woman" and tried to frame it as the Democrats being for abuse. But the Democrats say it's essentially a personhood amendment. But it gave me the name of the bill which I looked up (

a summary

the bill can be found here. The summary is confusingly worded saying both that "The bill excludes from prosecution medical care for which the mother provided consent" and "The penalty for criminal abortion in which the woman does not die is increased from a class 4 felony to a class 3 felony." ?)

I'm going to look

for

at the full bill

if I can find it.

ETA2: (TW: Rape)
So the bill specifically says that the pregnant woman can't be prosecuted. But the doctor will be. (There's a lot of talk about someone who causes a car accident that causes a woman to loose her baby while on drugs or alcohol gets a murder charge :/ I'm not sure what I think about that)

So. I did not see anything to indication the morning after pill would be included in this. But I might have missed something. However? The fact that doctors who preform "non-life saving" abortions are murders? Yeah. Fuck you, Mr. "This isn't Anti-Woman." ... And this looks like if you're raped and get pregnant? You have to keep the baby.

Pardon me while I cry.

Yet another depressing political post. This one is the most horrifying yet, at least to me.

Republican male senators are giving opposition the the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. Yes, it is only men. From what I've read several female Republican Senators have specifically come out in favor of the Act.

What, pray tell, are the protesting against? The inclusion of lesbians and immigrants in the Act. Which, ug. Even apart from the fact that their views on both those things are disgusting, the fact that they find making a scene over those issues more important than protecting victims and the fact that they don't consider immigrants and lesbians worthy of protection is just so horrifying.

This one made me literally sick. I hope my suspicion that they are shooting themselves in the foot proves true. Because otherwise, I'm not sure I want to live in this country anymore.

One source is here:
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-15/politics/politics_senate-vawa-accusations_1_domestic-violence-vawa-undocumented-immigrants?_s=PM:POLITICS

Many news sources covered this, though, thankfully.

Lets talk about characters.

I'm so irritated by the fact that with female characters, everything is judged and yet male characters do horrible things and are still considered awesome.

Buffy fandom, I'm looking at you. The hate that Buffy gets (and other female characters like Willow) really irritates me. And so much of it comes from a really sexist place.

On the other hand, we have Xander Harris. I got into a discussion this morning where I mentioned why I dislike Xander and find him a problematic character from a feminist standpoint. Several people jumped on me. One realized that he does bad things but still wanted to say he was a mostly decent guy who doesn't deserve hate. Okay, I disagree there, but that didn't irritate me so much. But then someone comments and says that Xander is a good guy because he doesn't rape or abuse anyone. What the hell? When is that the standard by which we judge people? So they act with some level of basic human decency, so that means they are awesome and we shouldn't point out sexism?

And I think this viewpoint bleeds a lot into how people discuss other people as well. All men have to do is to be basically decent, and even if they aren't they are still excused. Women, on the other hand, are judged if they make one little mistake and even if they do everything right. We just can't win.

And, back on characterization, as much as I love Joss, it irritates me that he calls himself feminist and thinks that a character like Xander Harris is a feminist character. Xander is the typical nice guy. And it worries me that he is never called on it and that we are supposed to think he is awesome. And the fact that he was written by an author who is supposed to be feminist frustrates me. If this is the best even a man who identifies as feminist can come up with, what hope do we have?

And also, does anyone else find it irritating how Joss expects praise just for mentioning he is feminist. Like, you have to back it up first. And sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. But when he speaks anywhere, he always talks as if the fact that he calls himself a male feminist, the fact that his protagonists are mainly females who can defend themselves, means that he deserves praise regardless of how successful he actually is. And this seems a very male trait to me. Expecting praise for even basic tasks and things that anyone would do. Don't get me wrong, I love the man, and I do think he has accomplished some things. But it still irritates me.

Remember when I posted about that bill in Wisconsin that essentially blames since parents for child abuse?

If anyone doubted that has anything to do with women why don't we take a look at what the bill's sponsors have to say about it?

Grothman (the guy from before?) says "There's been a huge change over the last 30 years, and a lot of that change has been the choice of women."

(I am sure there are probably people out there, some of them probably women, who will say that's not sexist. I will argue that's because those people are misogynists.)

The bill's other sponsor, a man named Don Pridemore, says, "If they can refind those reasons and get back to why they got married in the first place it might help."

(I know we've been hearing that from judges and other public officials but this guy makes the laws!)

He also told a reporter that "he thinks a single woman can take care of a family in some situations -- but he thinks fathers are usually the disciplinarians and without that, 'kids tend to go astray.'"

(I'm sure I don't need to tell you that there are tons of layers of sexism here. Or that the statement about disciplinarians sounds a little terrifying coming from someone who is supposedly supporting this bill to protect children from child abuse. I know there are lots of forms of discipline but still. It raises concerns.)

And when faced with a health professional (what do they know?) saying that unhappy relations are more strongly linked to child abuse and neglect than whether or not parents are married? They (shockingly) stand by their bill.

So yeah. Awesome. Great time to be a woman. :/

Edited to Add
Since I already made one political themed post today I figured I would just tag this on here.
New image on Facebook. Supposedly in "support" of women's rights. But blames women for the whole political war on women.

( Click for a raised heart rateCollapse )

So yeah. Just so we're clear? Unmarried women made up 25% percent of the vote in 2010. 25% Let's think about that here. What category would they count unmarried women in? Probably the same category in which they count married women, married men, and unmarried men. This is one place where you can't mash married couples together, people have to counted on their own So that's what? Four categories? And women made up 25% of the vote? Sorry to break to you, Dude Who Posted This, but that's one fourth of the vote.

And why does it matter how unmarried women voted? About about married women? These policies actually affect them too. And what about married men? And unmarried men? Presumably they know some women.

And of course there's the second chart that points out that only 24% of those unmarried women voted. 39% weren't registered, 37% were registered but didn't vote.

But let's not bother to shame the liberal men who didn't vote. Nope. Let's place all of this on women. Better yet? Let's place it on those Jezebels who are all having sex outside of marriage. I mean if it weren't for them we wouldn't even be in this mess! Let's not worry about the fact that during the 2010 elections many Republican candidates were making promises that they would focus only on employment and that women's rights wouldn't be an issue, they weren't going to mess with them. Yeah, let's just forget that a lot of the Republicans that got voted into swing districts and previously liberal districts and states made promises that they broke. Let's blame women instead. Because that's easier.

*much cursing here*

Current Mood: irritated

I am so pissed off right now. All I can say is that Rush Limbaugh needs to sit on a rusty tent peg. I don't think I've felt this much rage at anyone in a long time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/krystal-ball/rush-limbaugh-sandra-fluke_b_1315805.html

Basically, Limbaugh slut shames a woman, says that any woman who uses contraceptives is both a slut and a prostitute (because getting birth control=being paid for sex in his twisted little mind), and tells said woman that she should provide sex tapes as compensation for being given birth control. And of course, he throws in a few insults at feminists along the way.

It isn't that I'm surprise or anything. But everything he said is just so rage inducing I don't even know where to begin.

Really, this whole thing just needs to go away. Freedom of religion is not the same as restricting the rights of others. Your freedom of religion ends where mine begins. You don't have the right to control my body or my choices. You don't personally have to prescribe the contraceptives, but you do have to make sure the option is available and not stop women from using the option. And that is the difference. Contraceptives are a health issue and should therefore be provided by health insurance.

And not that it matters, but some of us are on contraceptives for reasons other than to prevent pregnancy. Some of us actually need them to regulate things. So fuck you, Limbaugh and the rest of you men who think you have the right to control and judge women no matter what they do.