Genevieve Valentine - Dealing With It

I read a blog post today that resonated with me so strongly that I just want to link it here and encourage basically everyone to read it. If you are on my wavelength with the various feminist-leaning posts I write, you'll grok this. If you're not, though, I encourage you to read anyway, since hopefully you'll get a better idea of what "microaggressions" are and why they're important.

Here's a teaser:

Background noise:
An offensive joke told by two men in front of you in line at the post office. “Bitch,” said about someone else. Loud phone calls on the street, as he hopes his fucking ex died or got fat. Women’s representation in any given movie. Hearing a woman’s spent too much money on her appearance. Reading that women who ask for raises are perceived as impossibly pushy, greedy. The man who asks why women wear makeup; he likes women to look natural. A guy saying something cutting to his date. Steubenville. Rihanna jokes. Reports about Charles Saatchi publicly strangling Nigella Lawson, calling it an argument. No one is looking at you, just now. You don’t have to say anything. You can give yourself the luxury of not responding. You can pretend.

Things you deal with:
A man touching your shoulder when you’re ahead of him in line, to nudge you forward. A man moving to stand in your spot in an otherwise-empty elevator. (The man who uses this opportunity to ask you a question he wouldn’t ask in public.) A man seeing you kneel to pick up a paperclip and saying, “A woman on her knees gives a man ideas.” A man shouting at his girlfriend as she looks around for help. A group of teenage boys catcalling on the street. “Bitch,” said about you. The offensive joke a male co-worker tells you. The male co-worker who repeats you and gets the credit. The man who won’t stop asking you if you want a drink. The man who ducks around the line to cut in front of you. “Smile, sweetheart.” The man at the rush-hour bus stop who asks every woman to look at a picture of his perineum. The man who says you’re too angry for him to take seriously; if you want him to listen, be calmer.

These are not the assaults, the beatings, the rapes. These are not the traumas. These are small things, mostly; they happen a hundred times a day, you have to deal with them all. To ignore these is to know they’re collecting little victories of privilege, and to wait for “baby” to turn to “bitch” when you don’t answer. To respond almost always risks escalation, telescoping the amount of time you’ll have to deal with it. Either can be dangerous, if the man has a mind.

And here's the link to the rest.

Thoughts on a scene from Skyfall.

I saw this image on Tumblr today, with a nice little thesis about the significance of the scene in the context of the film and our societal expectations of masculinity. I don't have too much to add to the statement, since I think it's pretty spot-on and reads the intentions of the scene perfectly. The post did make me think, though, of my experience in the theater during this scene, which was quite interesting.

When it first became apparent that Silva was kind of putting the moves on Bond, there was an instant palpable tension in the theater -- like, holy shit, is this happening to James Bond? I can't claim to be inside the minds of my fellow audience members, so I don't know for sure what everyone was thinking, but I can state definitively that the theater was collectively uncomfortable during this scene in a way that I haven't noticed when this kind of interaction happens between men and women.

When Bond quips that it might not be "[his] first time," there was an audible sigh of relief, and laughter. It was the perfect response to diffuse the tension. It made me think, optimistically, that it wasn't so much that the audience was afraid of Bond having to do "gay stuff," but that he would be actually in a powerless position in a new and uncomfortable way. Like the pictured comment says, we are so used to Bond being in control and doing and getting what he wants that maybe it was really just that we don't like seeing this character who we know and love so well being threatened with sexual assault. Maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that he is a man and his aggressor was also a man. Maybe.

Book review: The Fat Years by Koonchung Chan

Amazon: “Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one could care less—except for a small circle of friends, who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that have possessed the Chinese nation. When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn—not only about their leaders, but also about their own people—stuns them to the core. It is a message that will astound the world.
A kind of Brave New World reflecting the China of our times, The Fat Years is a complex novel of ideas that reveals all too chillingly the machinations of the postmodern totalitarian state, and sets in sharp relief the importance of remembering the past to protect the future.”

This book is allegedly banned in China, and no wonder: it’s a chilling story that blends fiction and reality to construct an image of modern China, and if not China of exactly today, then the China of ~5 years from now. The novel introduces several characters with a range of lifestyles, motivations, and adaptations to the realpolitik of the Communist Party. The protagonist is not himself prone to revolutionary ideas, but he finds himself “taking the red pill” when he chooses to pursue a woman who has gone into hiding out of protection from the Party. He is one of those who has “forgotten” the lost month, but the woman he loves and a few other friends from the past remember vividly the crackdowns and fear that the government appears to have completely erased. When he falls in with them, he doesn’t begin to remember with complete clarity what happened, as they do, but he better understands his periodic feelings of unease and disillusionment with the seeming happiness and naiveté around him.

As a psuedo-documentary, this book works really well. The characters are fictional, and the specific conflict in the story (alleged government orchestration of an entire month being erased from public consciousness and history) is also fictional. However, the suggestions of power hierarchies and international political maneuvering are 100% believable, if not based in literal truth — and they might very well be, but I can’t consider myself suitably well-informed on  the interactions of the Party and middle-class Chinese to know for sure.

As a fictional novel, the pacing and structure are a little lacking. The “big reveal” when the characters kidnap the Party leader takes place as an enormous infodump that spans close to twenty pages (I don’t remember the exact number, but it’s quite a lot,) and though it’s effective in the “pseudo-documentary” format I mentioned above, as a climax to the story it’s too overwhelming in scope to be punchy and effective. The characters do get the answer to their question, and then essentially the novel ends, but when “the answer to the question” reads like a senior thesis on contemporary Chinese politics, the effect on me at the end of the book was like “What just happened?”

Overall, I’d recommend this book as it was absolutely interesting and revealing. Be prepared for the quick shift from fiction to (alleged) nonfiction at the end, though.

Of course I believe in gender equality, but I'm not one of "those feminists"

I like to take every opportunity I can to point out that feminism is not a scary thing, and feminists are not scary people (as a general rule.)

This post from a blog I read regularly (and you should too, if you are interested in skepticism, anti-racism, and anti-sexism) is a great collection of thoughts, both from the blog author and via the inclusion of a video from Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency called "The Straw Feminist." A play on the logical fallacy "strawman," the Straw Feminist is the stereotypical militant scary feminist that people always seem to think of whenever feminism is mentioned.

From the post:

As I’ve said before, my feminism (like my anti-racism) is simply one expression of my general skepticism. You could call it ‘gender skepticism’ if you wanted to. It’s a philosophical and methodological approach to evaluating claims made about differences between sexes and the social constructs built around them. Are women more nurturing? Are men more naturally assertive? Is gender a binary state? How does biology inform a gender role?

These are questions about which evidence can be gathered and appraised, and in the absence of which it is reasonable to assume the ‘null hypothesis’ (i.e., that women and men are equal). We can reject ‘tradition’ or ‘common sense’ or assurances that “it’s obvious” as persuasive arguments and demand something better. We can observe systematic forces and recognize their influence. We can find reasonable rubrics by which to measure inequality. And when anti-feminists (or simply those who think that the whole exercise is unimportant or ‘overemphasized’) trot out their creationist-like claims, we can reach into our bag of common refutations.

Can you spot the militant radicalism? No? Cool, because I can't either.

And, you know, I get it. A lot of people will be turned off from feminism, regardless of how level-headed or well-reasoned some of these arguments can be, simply because it pushes back on the status quo, and that makes people uncomfortable.

Book Review: Animal Farm by George Orwell

I decided to re-read Orwell’s allegorical anti-Stalinist satire since I was way too young to understand it the first time I read it. (Aside: an ambitious young reader, I saw the title and must have thought to myself, “Yay, animals!” Alas, these were not the cuddly animals I was accustomed to from the likes of James Herriot.)

So, yeah, this made a lot more sense to me this time — I’m not going to recap in depth because I’m going to assume most people have read this one. Essentially it’s the tale of a revolution gone wrong thanks to government corruption, except here you’ve got pigs = the government, and the rest of the farm = the populace.

It’s a pretty great book, and a short read. Orwell is great at creating a sense of dread and foreboding that carries through the entire novel, and he pulls no punches in sacrificing some of the more prominent and beloved “characters” in order to demonstrate the brutality of the regime. Even today, with communism less of an overt “threat” to the US, there are valuable messages here about power and corruption in the leading/ruling class.

Book Review: Passing by Nella Larsen

Passing is a thought-provoking short novel originally written in 1929, and Nella Larsen is today considered to be one of the premier novelists to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. The story follows two biracial women who can both “pass” as white despite being legally Black (h/t Plessy v Ferguson.) The main protagonist, Irene Redfield, is an olive-skinned woman who has chosen to remain part of the Black community; she is married to a darker-skinned (“copper” is the descriptor) man, and one of her two sons is dark-skinned as well. The second lead character is Clare Kendry, an old childhood friend of Irene’s; the two reconnect on a hot afternoon when Irene passes as white to gain entry to an upscale Chicago hotel. Clare, described as pale and fair-haired,  has married a wealthy white man and passes as white full-time.

Years later, now living in Harlem, Irene receives a letter from Clare, who is feeling isolated from her Black heritage. Her racist husband has no idea of her racial background, and as such, she has been unable to stay connected to her past for fear of revealing herself. While he travels, Clare hopes to see Irene and other members of the Black community in Harlem and revisit her roots. Irene has reservations about Clare’s re-integration into the community, but Clare’s persistence eventually sees her into the many social events that Irene is involved in.

As one might expect, the social commentary in this novel is insightful and important. In addition to exploring the biracial experience from several angles, Larsen has also decided to focus on the middle-class Black experience, which is an often ignored segment of society even today. Therefore, in addition to racial themes, there are also implications about class privilege as well. I think this is an important book for pretty much anyone to read. The specific racism discussed is that of a very early-20th century overt nature, but the themes of “passing” and feeling “othered” by both racial groups of a biracial person’s background are still very relevant today.

It’s a short book, and very well-written: Larsen’s language is rich and engrossing. I read it in a few hours and definitely recommend it. It’s a very small time investment for such a poignant story.

Book review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Ah, this one was so good, you guys!

Thank you Amazon: A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a theocratic revolution, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has become one of the most powerful and most widely read novels of our time.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She may go out once a day to markets whose signs are now pictures because women are not allowed to read. She must pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, for in a time of declining birthrates her value lies in her fertility, and failure means exile to the dangerously polluted Colonies. Offred can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name. Now she navigates the intimate secrets of those who control her every move, risking her life in breaking the rules. 

Margaret Atwood has said of this book, initially published in 1985, that she did not include anything that wasn’t happening somewhere in the world. And it’s the truth; we only need recent memories and present knowledge of current events to connect Atwood’s details to their inspiration. It’s therefore fascinating how criticism of this novel often claims that the ideas here are too radical, and that this would never happen, and that putting forth these ideas is dangerous and intellectually dishonest. I don’t have much of a desire to get into political specifics here in a book review, but in light of such criticism, it becomes even more remarkable how some of the liberties lost in The Handmaid’s Tale (again: published in 1985) seem plucked right out of Supreme Court discussions from 2012. Have we really progressed so little? Are we regressing?

Putting aside feminist themes for a moment, I also want to talk a little bit about Atwood’s writing and voice, which are both at their very strongest in this novel. The struggle of her protagonist, Offred, felt immediately urgent and engrossing, and her inner dialogue did honestly evoke the turmoil, anger, numbness, and myriad other emotions that a woman would feel when she experiences what Offred has endured. The strength of the writing and story were perfectly matched here; The Handmaid’s Tale is compelling, well paced, and full of characters who, even if we only meet them for a short time, are treated with respect and given humanity.

(And now I’m giggling a little to myself, because if my review is to be believed, if we treated each other like Atwood treats her characters, The Handmaid’s Tale probably wouldn’t ring so true as a cautionary tale!)

Book review: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This one is tagged as “Gilman’s version of a feminist utopia.” I was intrigued. There’s not much of a plot, but here are the basics: a trio of male adventurers are stranded in Herland, a country in our world that has evolved to be reproductively viable despite being only inhabited by women. Yes — it’s women-only. The story is told by one of the male protagonists, and it’s his impressions of the country and the women. Gilman uses his voice to contrast his societal expectations of women with the starkly different women of Herland, who exist in a non-patriarchal society.

This is all very promising, and Gilman does make some poignant statements, all without entirely berating her male protagonist(s). I don’t personally agree with her vision of what a world of women would look like. Essentially, Herland is perfect. The country is clean, organized impeccably, and beautiful; there is no crime, and the women function as a loving collective. The supreme unified calling of all of these women is motherhood. As each of them can become pregnant individually, the women don’t feel individual possession over their children and raise Herland youth as a community. Motherhood is their purpose, their religion, and their strength.

The men posit that their (male-dominated) world is as fractured and adversarial as it is because of the “sex imperative” and without that, these women have no need to fight. It’s hard to say whether or not Gilman actually believed that this is how a world of only women would be, or if she was just presenting an alternative viewpoint for human living in general. I found it unrealistic and oversimplified. It’s also a bit judgmental, particularly where the narrator mentions that not all women in his society want to have children, and that some of them choose to abort (though he doesn’t use that word) — the woman that he is speaking to becomes physically ill and is repulsed. It seemed to me that in Herland, Gilman simply trades in one doctrine for another: in one society, women are subjugated, while in the other, women are an ultra-maternal hive mind who love babies. The latter society is described as the utopia here, but is it really, for everyone? That’s why I wonder what Gilman’s motivation was in selecting this as her vision. It’s forward-thinking in a lot of ways, and as I mentioned, there are a lot of truths and insightful revelations scattered throughout the narrator’s memoirs. As a whole, though, I found the conceit difficult to stomach.

Book review: Harmony by Project Itoh

I have mixed feelings about this book. It’s about a young woman, Tuan Kirie, in her society set about 50-60 years in our future. Sometime around 2020ish (the dates are not exact, but that’s about when it seems) our world self-destructs and we begin launching nukes at each other, a time of chaos referred to as the “Maelstrom.” Billions of people are killed, and the survivors develop a strong instinct for the collective protection of humanity. Remaining society quickly shifts toward a humanist, “lifeist” perspective, fostering the philosophy that every body is public, and the maintenance of life in good health is a public good. Adult “civilized” humans install WatchMe, a nano-program that monitors every aspect of the body: metabolism, the endocrine system, mental/emotional state, etc… the list goes on. If something off-kilter is detected, an immediate remedy and/or counseling can be prescribed.

In the present, Tuan is grown, but much of the novel is retrospective. She presents memories from when her and two friends were younger, and the actions that led up to them trying to kill themselves as a way to rebel against the system. Those memories are interspersed with a present-day crisis in which, out of nowhere, six thousand people across the globe (intended to be a significant number given the reduced population) simultaneously attempt suicide. Tuan is tasked with getting to the bottom of what happened.

The premise is interesting enough, and as the story developed I got more into the novel. However, there were a lot of problematic elements for me in this book. One of these things is very minor, but I can’t help but mention it. Littered throughout the retrospectives are declarations from the girls that their bodies are theirs, not public (an idea that is pretty topical at the moment!) I take issue, unfortunately, with the way the male author chooses to express this:

<*list:item>
<*i: our bodies>
<*i: our tits>
<*i: our pussies>
<*i: our uteruses>
<*/list>
“These things are ours. That’s what we’ll tell them.”

Can I ever get a reprieve from women being defined by our sex characteristics? PLEASE? Outside of this motif (and yes, it was repeated several times) there was no attention paid to sex in this book, so it just seemed bizarre to shoehorn in this faux-empowerment message by listing their female body parts, rather than every other part of the body that was also under public control.

Okay, so that was one thing. Another was that this book really was rife with a lot of new-age psychobabble about philosophy and consciousness, and it grew very trite and contrived after awhile. Ultimately, I suppose my assessment would be that the bare-bones plotline was interesting, and that if offered some choice thoughts about a direction in society that, quite frankly, we wouldn’t find too difficult to move in. Otherwise, some of the writing choices did turn me off.

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In other words: you know what the first amendment does NOT cover? Your right to be an asshole on the internet. I love seeing the "free speech" argument pop up to defend someone who has said something offensive or asinine.

No, random internet moron, the first amendment does NOT mean that the owner of a private blog is obligated to post your opinion if s/he doesn't want to.
No, bearer of obtuse ideas, you shouldn't spout off bigoted shit just because you won't get arrested and prosecuted for doing so.
No, brave anonymous person, I can't imagine that your parents would be proud that you somehow managed to escape their lessons on decency and common sense.
No, fool who thinks your hegemonic ideas are somehow radical, I don't think I'll pay attention to your drivel any longer now that you've outed yourself as being both offensive and cliche (the two often do go hand in hand.)

Book review: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

 X-posted at Cannonball Read IV

Here we have the story of two worlds: Urras and Anarres. Urras is meant to be an analog of our Earth, and Anarres is described as its habitable moon, albeit harboring some pretty tough conditions. The main plotline is constructed in parallel around the protagonist Shevek, a theoretical physicist, mathematician, and Anarresti. He grows to feel the necessity of traveling to Urras in order to progress further in his field, an action that is welcomed by Urras and abhorred by his fellow Anarresti.

Anarres was founded as a refuge for a colony of what may best be described as uber-communists or collectivists, based on our language. The title “The Dispossessed” refers to their extreme disavowing of anything insinuating personal possession: a blanket that I usually sleep with is not “my blanket” but “the blanket,” and an offer to share the blanket is not “Would you like to share my blanket?” but “Would you like to use the blanket that I use?” They are anarchistic and accept no government or currency, and they volunteer to perform work where it is needed, sometimes based on special interest or talent, and sometimes not. Shevek describes Anarres (I am paraphrasing here) as a place where it is not easy to live, but it is rewarding.

And if Anarres is the most extreme form of communism, then on Urras we are treated to the most extreme form of capitalism. As a capitalistic society that tends to pontificate often about our bitter end, we have a better idea about what that may look like: class warfare, feuding nations, and some totalitarianism thrown in for good measure.

For obvious reasons, the two societies don’t understand each other, but the Urrasti are portrayed as having more of a curiosity about Anarres, while Anarresti find even the neutral mention of Urras to be distasteful and can’t fathom the appeal whatsoever of such a place.

The Dispossessed explores politics, economics, religion, and of course  — it is Le Guin! — gender issues. It’s beautifully constructed around all of the aforementioned social issues, but also around Time, the focus of Shevek’s study. Shevek spends the majority of the novel developing his “Simultaneity Principle,” which is essentially a new way of explaining Time that incorporates physics, philosophy, and mathematics, and does not subscribe to the linear model of time we are familiar with. As such, the novel doesn’t progress in a strictly linear fashion. The chapters alternate between taking place on Urras and Anarres, with what are undoubtedly different periods of time in Shevek’s life unfolding simultaneously. Le Guin is a master at these “fish out of water” stories that result from the meeting of people from such starkly different backgrounds. It’s a pretty dense read and something that will take several sittings to get through, but regardless I wholeheartedly recommend it. The Dispossessed, for me, is poignant, provocative, and above all engaging.

Book review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

X-posted to Cannonball Read IV

Genly Ai is visiting the planet Gethen, also known as Winter, as an envoy for the interplanetary council known as the Ekumen of Known Worlds. His mission is to convince Gethen to join the Ekumen, an action which Gethen has refused in the past. A native of planet Terra (Earth,) Genly is struck by stark differences in the political and social customs of Gethenians from those employed elsewhere among communicating planets. He finds a guide and companion of sorts in Estraven, a native Gethenian with an emotional backstory.

Gethenians, as a matter of fact, are sexless, genderless individuals. Once a month, they enter “kemmer,” a time during which they develop sex characteristics unique to one traditional gender, and they mate in what appears to be a pansexual fashion with no steadfast hereto/homosexual preferences. The immediate consequence of this is that gender politics as they are known to us (and to Genly) do not play a role on Gethen, and thus their society is constructed entirely differently from others in the Ekumen. Confounding this misunderstanding is the fact that every envoy sent to Gethen is fundamentally different from Gethenians, both physically and in social understanding. Gethenians who do not cycle through kemmer normally and retain the physical attributes of one distinct sex are their society’s perverts; therefore, though Genly is not ostracized, he resembles Gethen’s perverts and is often referred to as such.

It is said that Le Guin developed this novel in order to explore the idea of what a society might be like if biological sex/gender was removed from the equation. To parallel this idea, the setting of Gethen is, environmentally, how we imagine our Arctic region: constant winter. Without variation in sex or in weather, the inhabitants of Gethen are stripped down to embody and employ only the most essential aspects of humanity.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. I was drawn to the socio-physiological ruminations penned here, as I’ve in the past found myself jaded by unfortunate and stereotypical portrayals of women in science fiction. I admire Le Guin’s efforts in this and other novels to explore gender relations in the context of new and different worlds. I do think there were some interesting points made on that front here, but overall I was not drawn to the main plotline of Genly’s trials and tribulations as envoy to Gethen. Tension between nations, danger in exile, and tested loyalty — hallmarks of epic drama — were all there, but for me overall the pacing was kind of slow and the exposition a bit more flowery than it needed to be. My assessment on the whole is that if you’re interested in the gender idea here or in feminist science fiction in general, this is worth reading, but it’s not in my personal list of favorites.

My least favorite comments from today's NYT article about US sexual assault survey

Here's the article if you haven't seen it already. Now... onto making fun of people's dumb opinions! (Underlined emphasis is mine.) Oh, and this is just from the first page of comments...

Colin:
"What is a crime unlike any other crime, and worst than any other crime, is a false accusation of rape and the subsequent wrongful conviction of an innocent man."

Really? The WORST crime of all?

-------------------------------------------

Mos:
"It is terrifying how blindly PC America is when it comes to rape and sexual assault. The idea that 20% of women have been raped or have suffered through an attempted rape is ludicrous simply based on numbers.

Just flip that around and say that 20% of the male population are rapists, and yet somehow manage to steer free of any other crime, and presumably do not rape multiple women, and it doesn't even pass the most basic logical questions."

Bro, don't talk about logic and all that shit when you can't do math. Also, most rapists DO rape mulitple women. So again, don't base your argument on what you incorrectly "presume" and then talk like you have the logical upper hand.

------------------------------------------- 

Katherine said:
"I'd wager that there are legions of women who have experienced the grey-area violation that I think of as relentless pursuit. It goes approximately like this:

[extended conversation between a woman and a man, where the woman refuses the man's advances multiple times before finally saying "okay, if I do this one time will you leave me alone?"]

This is not consensual, but some would argue that it's not strictly rape either. It's more like a dog chasing a deer until the deer is so exhausted that it can't run anymore. It's a crappy substitute for courting, but the fine art of gentlemanly conduct isn't well known these days.

It would be helpful it teenage boys were taught that no-means-no-so-quit-asking. Instead they are taught not to take no for an answer. And girls are taught to be accomodating, helpful, and not cause a scene, but maybe they need to learn some self-defense moves that say no in a more physical way if words are insufficient."

MH responded:
"Women who are elusive are more attractive/valued to men. Men who are persistent are more likely to succeed and win over the valued female. This is of course natural selection at its best.

A man trying to win over a woman, either by asking once or 10 times is not a crime, it is life."

What a great life for men, and a shitty life for women! Does that not bother you at all? Do you even pretend to yourself that you're a decent person if you're okay with that?

MT also responded:
"I'm sorry, but in your example, any sexual activity that results from these exchanges is, indeed, consensual. Your own wording makes this plain as day: "if I say okay".

Here's the point: If you in fact say "okay", or imply it through your actions, then you have indeed consented! You cannot later claim that you did not consent. You were not under duress. You were not duped. Regret after the fact, or claiming that you were nagged, does not retroactively negate your consent.

From an individual perspective, no one likes or wants to be nagged, whether a male or a female attempts it. If you are already being nagged (for sex, money, favors, or anything else), the best response is to walk away."

Duress... I do not think that word means what you think it means. And walking away... have you ever tried to do that to someone who is harassing you or physically intimidating you? Try it sometime, and see how it goes.

-------------------------------------------

Paul B.:
"I seriously doubt this number. Nothing to stop women from exagerrating in a survey, or being vindicative, And what do they call rape, a little pressure n the bedroom? Lets count the men who are assaulted verbally by women in their life time, would be 90%, And many men are physically assaulted by women, but dont even count it"

No emphasis needed here -- your entire comment reeks of horrible. People like you are the absolute worst; at least you appear to be forthcoming enough about your hatred of women that none of us are likely to be around you long enough to experience the adverse effects of your proximity.

How much of the 60's do we want back in our lives?

This post was inspired by a comment I left on a thread over at Pajiba. I was so pleased with myself I decided to re-post a more filled-out version over here, apropos of this being my blog and a more appropriate forum for going out on tangents.

With regards to Pan Am and The Playboy Club, I'm fairly certain that the initial feeling of many people, after learning that these shows were to premier this fall, was that they were trying to capitalize on the Mad Men phenomenon. People without extended cable may have never seen Mad Men, but they've surely heard of it winning tons of Emmys and influencing fashion by re-introducing several flourishes reminiscent of the 1960's. My immediate concern was that these shows would capture all of the visual flair of Mad Men without any of the depth or critique of the era. The review of the two shows, appropriately written as one comparative piece, more or less confirms my suspicions but allows Pan Am the distinction of being the better show.

Without having watched the pilots, what strikes me about the descriptions of both shows is how much they give away about their protagonists in the first episode. One thing that I love about Mad Men is how each episode helps to review a new detail about the character, but it's a very small detail. You have to look at the show cumulatively to even come close to understanding him or her. These shows have taken the much more flashy approach of "she's married, but they're both gay!" and "she's a stewardess, but she's actually a spy!" which, though immediately interesting, is ultimately superficial and causes writers to work backwards and fill in details behind the already big reveal.

Ultimately, the popularity of either The Playboy Club or Pan Am could be an interesting case study in what works on American network television. Though anyone who actually brought their brain with them to a remedial high school course analyzing media and/or literature could see that Mad Men is a better show, it wouldn't be in the least surprising if the instant-gratification aspect of the new network shows garners them more immediate success.

That success could, as a feminist and as someone interested in social commentaries, be frustrating or even devastating. It is too early to tell if either The Playboy Club or Pan Am is going to sacrifice the dignity of its female characters and racial/ethnic minority characters by glamorizing an era which was, as we generally understand now, pretty unapologetically shitty to those classes of people. What Mad Men does right is that it allows us the visual pleasure of looking back in time, but it certainly doesn't valorize the social and cultural mores of the time. It's pretty frank in its portrayal of how women and people of color were openly treated as second-class citizens (compared to today, in which explicit racism and sometimes sexism are unacceptable, but insidious forms of both still shape our culture.) I'm unsure that the network shows will be able to be as constructively critical. That they are network is damning enough, as much of network television tends to be superficial and banking on cheap thrills. The fact that both shows are ostensibly set in particularly oppressive fields for women at the time doesn't help matters, even if marketing wants us to believe that the female protagonists are "empowered" despite their subjugated positions in the workforce. Protip: sexualizing your character is not the same as making her "sexual." The former objectifies her; the latter gives her personal agency and generally respects her as a human being. There is time yet to see if these shows can get it right, but in the meantime I won't be holding my breath.

Doublethink

There is a pretty consistent rhetoric that is inexorably present in mass media coverage of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment cases, which is that the "incident" itself is but a moment in time, therefore short-lived and easily brushed aside; meanwhile, the accusation itself of committing such an atrocity follows the unfortunate soul throughout the rest of his/her life, branding them for all of society to scorn and dismiss them at will.

This argument makes no sense.

In order for the latter to be true, that is, that being accused of such a crime carries with it the implication that the person may have done something unforgivable, the former must not be true. In other words, if being raped, or sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed is not a big deal, then being accused of rape, or sexual assault, or sexual harassment should also be not a big deal, because the crime itself is not a big deal.

This is rape culture.

This is the type of cognitive dissonance that we absorb and dispense when we treat victims of these crimes as if they are the true criminals for having the gall to accuse someone of harming them.

Some choice thoughts on the "UCLA Racist"

• Was this blown out of proportion? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that she's inextricably linked to UCLA, and now the university feels the need to defend itself as a whole against the actions of, obviously, one individual. No, because even though UCLA's eating it right now, it's not like she's the only person at UCLA who feels the way she does. She was just the one who was stupid enough to put it on YouTube. People calling her a "bad apple" are really missing the point that there are still a lot of people out there that harbor racist feelings, which is bad, even if those feelings manifest themselves as cringey YouTube videos rather than, say, slavery. Maybe somewhere next to the shock and outrage people are expressing about "How someone could say such things!" they might also be examining themselves and learning why it's not only bad to say such things, but also to feel them, and possibly adjusting their own silent attitudes accordingly.
  
• So... about all of this shock and awe. If there is one thing I know about white people, it's that among even the most socially-conscious of us, there are people who love to get away with telling a racist joke - that is, they're in comfortable enough company to know that their peers know they are just joking, and they're not really racist. But let's think about this a bit. It is exactly that kind of permissive environment that allows people like Wallace to post videos like that and think that it's just a little bit of humor. She lacked the sense to realize that The Internet ≠ Your Private Circle of Friends, but I think more of us with a certain racial privilege (read: white people) should be willing to, in said Private Circle of Friends, be like "Hey man, that's not cool. If you don't really believe that stuff, maybe you shouldn't say it. And if you do believe it, then you should probably accept that you're being a little bit racist and try to work on that."
  
• Asians are kinda bearing the brunt of overt racism right now. There is this idea that Asian Americans are a "model minority" because they don't contribute significantly to the crime or detention rate, and because they are often highly educated and perceived as being very hard working. Most educated white people know have a little bit of liberal guilt at this point about racism toward blacks and Hispanics, and we know better than to say nasty shit about them publicly. This veil of public anti-racism doesn't always extend to Asians because there isn't necessarily a repeated history of the white man holding Asians down, in this country or others. So it seems a little more okay, for some reason, to employ racist humor against Asians. The more you think about this, the less sense it makes.
  
• Finally, in regards to the "feedback" Wallace has received. I'm very interested in the responses to the video, and in the responses to those responses. (It all gets very meta.) There are the "appropriate" responses, which address the content of the video. The "inappropriate" responses, in my mind, are the ones that address her rather than the content of the video. These responses include the death threats and the "ur a slut" and the "typical blonde bimbo." Neither of these epithets may be as damaging as, say, racial discrimination, but they do succeed in bringing the focus away from what she did, which we know for certain and we can discuss with certainty, and directing it toward who she is, which the majority of us don't know and can't talk about with any authority at all. That weakens our position. Doing your hair and makeup and wearing a low-cut top may mean you want to look nice (to someone's standards) in your video, but it doesn't under any circumstances automatically mean she's a whore. Interestingly, even amongst feminist circles, there seems to be little condemnation of the "who she is" conversation, and even some suggestions of happiness and satisfaction that she is receiving death threats. I mean look, I have no sympathy for this girl, but let's be clear about one thing - violence, and threats of violence, are never okay. Furthermore, I can't exactly understand the anger toward people who are calling out some of the more unsavory feedback. There was an interesting article on Feministing, back when Chris Brown beat up Rhianna, that though what he did was absolutely inexcusable, it's worth examining how his race might be flavoring the particular nature of the discussion around the incident. There was a lot of anger about that article, a sense of "Why are we making this about race when we should be talking about gender?" -- or more specifically: "Race isn't what matters here - it's that a man beat up a woman." In their personal relationship, no, race did not matter. But in the larger societal context, it is obvious to any who pay attention that black men get, on average, a whole lot more flack for their crimes in the media than white men get for their equivalent crimes. So the consensus was, at the end of that discussion, that acknowledging that Brown might be in for a larger world of shit than a white guy in a similar situation isn't the same as giving him a pass for it; likewise, acknowledging that a lot of the specific commentary directed at Wallace has to do with her being a busty blonde lady isn't the same as being sympathetic toward her. That's why I steadfastly disagree with the "Why are you making this about gender when it's really about race" people. As a society with limitless access to the tomfoolery of individuals and the ability to comment (often anonymously) to our heart's content on those things, we should be aware of how our contributions to the discussion shape the discussion. In this case, a sexist contribution, even against someone who has done a repugnant thing, is detrimental and moves the discussion backwards. Fighting one -ism with another doesn't work toward anyone's equality.

I'm smarter than most people in general, so I'm definitely smarter than everyone else who has seen this movie.

I read a (possibly made up) statistic once that something like 75% of surveyed Americans believed that they were smarter than the average American. Now certainly, perhaps the sample group for this survey was in fact composed of above-average Americans. But generally speaking, this is impossible, if we accept that the "average" represents middle value of the data set. If 75% of people were on one side, and 25% on the other, then "average" wouldn't be a true middle.

Knowing what I know about people, and observing time and time again interactions with strangers where it's not just that someone makes a mistake -- it's that s/he is a MORON -- this kind of illuminating survey doesn't surprise me at all.

I think about that idea of most people thinking they're smarter than most other people almost every time I read pop culture critiques. I tend to see a lot of comments like "Well, of course we (the readers of this sophisticated critical review blog) understand that it is satire, but I'm worried that it will send the wrong message to the majority of viewers, who aren't likely to understand what the director/author/playwright/musician is really trying to say." It's the elitist assumption that you are smart enough to get it, but most other slackjawed Americans aren't. The irony of course is that I read this kind of thing often enough that it is no longer a select group of legitimately brainy critics declaring their analytical superiority. It is truly a rather cliche viewpoint among many, many media consumers that they (individually) are privy to the true interpretation (thanks to their huge-ass brains,) but we're all stuck with feeble minds that can't process what we just took in.

Some days I'm cynical and feel like most people are idiots. Some days I'm depressive and feel like I'm the biggest idiot in the room. I've met people who look stupid but are smart, and I've met people who act smart but are actually kind of ignorant, and I've met people who say really bone-headed things but actually kick ass in school. And all of that probably depends on the day I catch them on, too.

OMG Yes.

There is a peculiar notion that pervades Social Justice activism, and it is that the task of upholding the level of discourse rests solely on our shoulders, and we are somehow failing at it. Everyone else – the trolls, the privileged assholes, the evo-psych “men are attracted to women because x and if you aren’t doing x why are you even alive” guys – they all get passes on upholding the discourse. Because the logic goes that we can’t possibly expect them to treat us any differently. We must be constantly defending our right to exist, our right to have discussions that aren’t taken over by people who don’t want there to be a discussion, and our right to set the terms of the discussion. And whenever we stop responding, stop defending our right to speak, the other side declares that our position must be indefensible. Because when they debate, they are representing their own views and opinions, but when we debate, we are supposed to be the sole representative of the movement at large.

(A Very Special Episode of Grey Areas: Privilege Denying Dude Edition)

Why I won't be paying to see The Social Network - Part 3: A synthesis.

This is the last bit, continued from part 2.

I've already written about how 1) Hollywood generally treats women like props and objects, and 2) Hollywood doesn't understand the geek experience, and it shows in movies that purport to be about geeks. Since beginning this series of posts, I've had a lot of opportunities to read various viewpoints, rebuttals, and interpretations of this film. This has allowed what I say in this post to more or less be my final say on the matter, such that I feel that I'd really be going around in circles repeating what I've already said if I had to argue any of this further.

The argument of many, including Sorkin himself, was that The Social Network isn't a misogynistic movie - it's a movie about misogyny. I'll give our fair writer and director the benefit of the doubt that their intentions were good, but it does seem that there was no insignificant failure in making this distinction, given that so, so many people have walked away from this feeling so uncomfortable. That discomfort has promoted dialogue, which is never a bad thing, but I think the dialogue would have been a very different one had the film's motives been more clear.

When your movie is in some way a biopic, there is an urge to make your movie through the eyes of that protagonist. That, it seems, is what Sorkin and Fincher have done here - the world of Harvard and geek life are being viewed as how proto-Zuckerberg saw it, which is and of itself part reality and part fantasy. It makes sense then, on this level, that if proto-Zuckerberg is a misogynist, the women on the screen seen through his eyes would not be portrayed in the most favorable light.

Now, the whole movie, basically, is more or less about how this version of Zuckerberg is a dick. So there certainly is the interpretation that, much in the way that the audience isn't really supposed to agree with anything that Eric Cartman says or does on South Park, the audience here is supposed to read proto-Zuckerberg's views on women and humanity as deplorable. I'd allow that, except that in the past few weeks I've read a frightening number of comments that claim (I'm paraphrasing) "Well, the movie is just telling the truth. College girls are like that - they show up to parties slutty and just want to get laid by powerful or good-looking men."

Obviously, a problematic viewpoint. But the thing is, that's not really a radical reading - it doesn't seem that the movie does much to actually prove otherwise. There are two women in it who are meant to be respectable: first, there is the girlfriend in the beginning, Erica, who dumps Zuckerberg because "[he's] an asshole"; secondly, there is Zuckerberg's lawyer, played by Rashida Jones. Sorkin has used Erica as evidence that there are classy women in the movie, but rather, I feel that she is a very cliched exception to the rule. Jones' character, despite being smart and a good lawyer, is still by requirement sympathetic to Zuckerberg, so truly, Erica is the only woman in the film who blatantly points out to Zuckerberg that he's a bad dude. She's the only woman who stands up to him, and she's in the movie for less than 20 minutes. The rest are all his rewards, his prizes, and his protection. That's just not realistic, but rather than take the opportunity to prove the heralded Erica right by including more women like her, The Social Network glorifies Zuckerberg's sexist fantasy.

This gets into the whole point of "affirmative action" in movies: when is it necessary, if ever, to make sure that every type of person - in "Sesame Street" rainbow fashion - is represented fairly and equally in every single movie? That's one argument that seems to come up every time a complaint is made about the treatment of a certain social group in a film. "This movie is about one man and his world. It doesn't make sense to add women. It would make for some really cumbersome movies to do this all the time," the argument goes. I think this argument is kind of a straw man. No one has suggested that every single movie needs to be this way; rather, if more movies were made that weren't primarily about white men, then the film industry as a whole would be more inclusive.

That said, there is something interesting at play with The Social Network, namely, that this is allegedly somewhat biographical. So yes, this is a movie that is unequivocally about one man. However, in real life, there isn't anything to suggest that Mark Zuckerberg was this much of a hateful misogynist. Moreover, the complaint about unnecessarily adding women to this film is ironic and off-base, because the fact is that there were real women erased from Zuckerberg's life to create this film. The real Mark Zuckerberg was in a serious, committed relationship with a woman throughout the whole time frame represented in this movie. They probably had a lot to talk about after watching movie Zuckerberg get blowjobs in the bathroom at parties! Also, people who claim to have known Zuckerberg during this time say that he was very close to his sister, and that she was very involved in the creation of Facebook at the consultant level. Finally, in real life, though she wasn't around during the representative time period, Zuckerberg became very close friends with Sheryl Sandberg, who is now the COO of Facebook.

This really doesn't seem to be the same guy who hates and can't relate to women.

Would the real-life events involved in the creation of Facebook have been as interesting to watch onscreen? Perhaps not. But the invention of this misogynistic character to apparently make a point about misogyny amongst nerds seems disingenuous when you realize that real, smart, savvy women were ablated from the screenplay and the story in favor of two-dimensional party-favor women who only exist to further proto-Zuckerberg's fantasy. The omission, to me, seems completely unnecessary. We already have enough movies where women are treated this way - why did this movie have to join their ranks, when there is compelling evidence to suggest that it didn't have to be this way?

Today I don't have to think about...

I came across a pretty awesome blog post this morning about privilege, which I wrote about before at length.

Here's the post, with one commenter adding a nice, concise summary:

Patrick Nielsen Hayden: Spot on. The essence of privilege isn’t wearing a top hat and cackling yar har har while lighting expensive cigars with $100 bills. The essence of privilege is not having to worry about the crap that the unprivileged do.