The Disenchanted World

These Other Blogs of Mine

2011-01-30T14:50:00.000-08:00

It's come to my attention that I haven't been posting much at all over the last few months. I'm still trying to decide whether I'd like to keep this blog around or not, but in the meantime, you may wish to add my Tumblr to your bookmarks. It's not all (or even mostly) thinky stuff like this blog, and the format -- heavy on "reblogging" other people's content -- can be a little hard to get used to, but the design is in many ways quite elegant.*

You might also want to check out another project that I recently started about the intersections of style/clothing/fashion and identity.

*There are issues, of course. One that immediately springs to mind is the lack of a dedicated commenting feature, which is one reason why reblogging is so common -- it's often the only way to have a conversation of sorts going between blogs

Inclusion, Disruption, and First-Person Shooters

2010-11-09T21:52:00.001-08:00

Over at The Border House, author Gunthera1 writes about an ad for the new video game "Call of Duty: Black Ops."

The commercial portrays a war in which a variety of people are the soldiers. The commercial includes people of color, men, women, people of various body types, and even a number of professions. All of these people are portrayed as equal soldiers in this war. This commercial implies that this first person shooter game welcomes adult players from a variety of backgrounds and is not simply a toy for men aged 18-25. I cannot speak to the plot or inclusiveness of the game itself, but this commercial is a great example of an advertising agency portraying all gamers. I applaud this ad and hope to see more in the future that feature an asortment of gamers. There are many of us in the community, but it is nice to see a company recognize that fact.

On the one hand, I reservedly agree with the author's sentiments about the recognition of diversity. On the other hand, my first thoughts when I came across this ad the other day were much less positive. Perhaps it was the way in which it seemed to be taking the "war is a game" imagery to a whole new level. In this ad, war seems to become a game for the entire family to participate in.

I think my doubts here are influenced by my uneasy relationship to the idea of inclusion. To illustrate: at PAX Prime earlier this year, I heard a few panelists talk about how "women want to shoot things just as much as guys." Now, I certainly don't want to place the burden of challenging problematic representations and themes in gaming on those who have been and continue to be excluded from the "gamer" category (such as women). Neither do I want to say that nobody can or should ever enjoy playing a game like Call of Duty. With that said, I found myself at the time making connections between the panel's message and that of mainstream gay rights organizations (e.g. HRC) lobbying for marriage and inclusion in armed services: "we're just like you -- we're normal." I wondered whether this message (that including women wouldn't require any fundamental changes to the industry) would be more palatable to some of the attendees than a more disruptive approach. It almost seemed like the disruptive, critical approach was not a possibility: women could be seen as either a niche market or else be incorporated into the general market for games like Call of Duty.

In a later panel, I heard speakers challenge the unproblematic desire for inclusion into dominant genres and fantasies that I'd heard voiced earlier. So there was definitely some discussion that weekend of disrupting dominant narratives and representations in gaming (indeed, even a little organized discussion of cripping gaming). And there is, of course, a great deal of amazing, critical work being done in progressive gaming communities (like The Border House!). The inclusion/normal narrative still looms large from my perspective, though, and when it's adopted by large firms like Activision, I wonder to what extent this is an attempt at neutralization of non-traditional gamer communities and a normalization of the dominant content and genres of the medium.

Political Identity Versus Policy Preferences

2010-10-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

NYT: As G.O.P. Seeks Spending Cuts, Details Are Scarce

...which, you know, isn't all that surprising according to James Stimson's book "Tides of Consent." I have some issues with the book as a whole, but one interesting bit of information arises when Stimson talks about people's policy preferences versus their self-identifications. As it turns out, Americans generally prefer to identify as "conservative" rather than "liberal", but prefer "liberal" policies (expansion of government services) to "conservative" ones.* Thus, the GOP emphasizes symbols of conservatism while downplaying actual policy details, while Democrats avoid the the symbol "liberal" while emphasizing what they're actually going to do. Hence the phenomenon documented in the linked article: Republican candidates emphasizing cuts to "bloat", "waste", "overspending", and so forth, without any real explanation of what these cuts will entail.

*The lack of real investigation into why this is the case is one of my problems. Stimson seems to attribute it to the more positive meaning of "conservative" as opposed to "liberal" in nonpolitical settings. I would have wanted to see some consideration of "liberal" as a stigmatized identity in the US, especially after the era of McCarthyism, but that's just me.

A Nice Guy State of Mind

2010-09-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

For a while now, I've been very interested in the phenomenon of the Nice Guy. No doubt part of the reason is that I'm a something of a recovering Nice Guy myself.

To wit: in high school, I wrote a song called "The Chauvinist." The song was inspired by a guy I knew at the time who projected a very masculine leftist/anti-authoritarian image. Inspired by an incident in which this guy hooked up with a friend of mine whom I had developed a Massive Teen Crush on, I penned the song as a bit of revenge (though I doubt he ever realized it was about him). At the time, I thought he was being unethical and exploitative of my friend, since he did not frame his desires in any kind of romantic narrative. Of course, looking back now, it's all too easy for me to pick apart the intensely problematic aspects of my thinking and the song that it produced: the idea that someone can be "stolen" away, the fetishization of a kind of chivalric romantic love, and so forth. It took me a long time to realize that these sentiments were not tremendously helpful to anyone (and were indeed quite damaging), but I'm sure that at the time I felt greatly superior to the swaggering target of my ire.

However, I think there was a tiny seed of protofeminist thought present in the song as well, in that it involved attacking the kinds of dominant attitudes towards women that I saw around me at the time. And that's one thing that's interesting to me about the Nice Guy train of thought: it starts with a recognition of some issues of gender inequality, then comes to vastly different (and intensely problematic) conclusions than feminist analyses do. For example, it seems to get stuck at a stage of blaming individual women and men (but mainly women) for perpetuating the state of gender relations, rather than moving on to a consideration of the bigger systems of oppression at play.

I wonder if this incipient sense that something is wrong with gender relations can somehow be nursed into a recognition of the existence of systematic sexism. Unfortunately, insofar as the Nice Guy complex is found amongst geeks, I think that any such effort is going to be met with strong resistance due to the tendency of some straight white geek men to equate their experiences of subordination (especially in high school environments) with the experiences of socially marginalized groups. This leads, in my experience, to a resistance to identity politics. Getting people past an individualized approach to sexism is hard enough most of the time -- it's that much harder when the people in question believe that they, too, have been persecuted (as "beta males") and thus know just as much about the topic as women. Let me be clear: geek men often do suffer by virtue of failing to live up to hegemonic masculinity. However, they are nonetheless still men with all of the privilege this entails, even if their patriarchal dividend is slightly smaller than that of some other men.

I started off this post with the admission that I'm a recovering Nice Guy. I say "recovering" because it seems like those same thought processes that inspire Nice Guy-ism can creep back in the most insidious ways. For example, whenever I try to distance myself from problematic expressions of desire for women on the part of men, I am effectively saying: "I am different from those men. I am not like them. We are fundamentally different and their desires are morally worse than mine." I don't believe that this is a particularly productive way of thinking, but it's easy to fall into. I'm all too familiar with it, because these kinds of categorical distinctions between Good and Bad people are at the core of Nice Guy thought.

On the Men Can Stop Rape Poster Campaign

2010-08-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

This composite image of several ads from a campaign by Men Can Stop Rape has been going around Tumblr lately. On the one hand, I'm an enthusiastic supporter of anti-rape ads like these, which are targeted specifically at men (for another example, see here). On the other, a couple of things about them bothered me. The tones of "cookies for basic human decency", for one. As X put it:

Woman: "Thank you for not raping me! *swoon*"

Dude: Oh yeah, I'm awesome for not raping you

I also have a more generalized discomfort towards the idea of rebranding masculine strength as a tactic. I know it's about expediency, but my knowledge of the history of men's movements makes me nervous about these kinds of attempts, which seem to risk reinforcing gender differences (men = strong, women not) rather than really questioning or deconstructing them.

That said, I do really like these posters and want to see more like them.

Masculinity as Competence

2010-07-16T00:11:00.000-07:00

Recently failed at a simple task: hammering some nails into a bookcase. Got somewhat upset. My father later remarked that different people have different skills and jobs, and that if someone asked him to write a paper on some subject, it'd take him ages. Partly I was just annoyed at myself for my lack of competence at what ought to be a relatively easy action, but my failure got wrapped up in gendered notions about what a man "ought" to be able to do that I thought I was more or less past by now. Evidently not.

Technical competence (in terms of craftswork, tool use, etc.) is not my thing, and never really has been. Thus, when I went and subscribed to MAKE magazine recently, I found myself asking why I was doing it. True, I'd like to expose myself to a wider range of hobbies and communities and DIY sounds fun. But I also wonder whether part of me might not be hoping to gain just a bit of masculine cred by building up some competence in this milieu.

Teaching about Oppression: Asshole/Daifugō

2010-06-20T17:08:00.001-07:00

Two things I like: games and youth-focused anti-oppression education. So when I was playing the card game Asshole (you may know it as President) the other day, it struck me that the game could be used as a valuable teaching tool.

If you've never played before, then you might want to get a sense of the rules here (Asshole, according to Wikipedia, is an Americanized version of Daifugō, a Japanese card game, and that page explains it more thoroughly than that for Asshole/President.). The most important thing to know is that the game is played over a series of rounds with a single deck of cards. During the first round, the distribution of card values between players is totally random. Thus, controlling for skill levels, each player has even odds of coming in first place. After this first round, however, standings in the previous round determine a player's rank in the next. The first player is "president" for the next round, while the lowest-ranked player is the "asshole". In a five-person game, the president is allowed to trade two of hir worst cards for two of the asshole's best, the "vice-president" trades hir worst for the "vice-asshole's" best, and the "neutral" player trades nothing.

In the basic set-up, there is no cumulative advantage, because the game only tracks how well you did in the last round. It doesn't matter whether you've been president for one round or five, you still only get that two-card trade. That said, the president has an advantage that makes it much easier to remain president, while the asshole has a large disadvantage (from a random hand, having two of hir best cards replaced by two of the president's worst) that requires some skill and a great deal of luck to overcome.

As it is, I think the game could be a valuable tool for illustrating how historical oppression works in a very simple, visceral way. Anyone who has played the game has probably encountered a situation where a bad first hand has locked them into a position from which it's very difficult to escape -- one is more or less at the mercy of luck. I wonder, though, whether by modifying the game to incorporate a sort of positive feedback structure whereby advantages and disadvantages accumulate, it might work even better as a demonstration of how historical processes work. I'm envisioning this as a simple tool for explaining these kinds of things to children, because there's a very visceral and immediate sense of unfairness when regardless of one's knowledge of the rules and strategy of the game, one is unable to succeed due to an initially unfavourable hand.

Of course, this is all quite rough, but the game seems so well-suited to explaining these systems (one alternate name for the game is actually Capitalism) that I'm surprised I haven't heard of this before. Has anyone read about or else actually used this game or something similar in this kind of capacity?

What is Inequality?

2010-05-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

Great post today over at SocImages, which I wanted to mention briefly for the question gwen raises at the end:

Does equality mean simply that men and women make up about half of those in any given institution? What about the continuing differences in the types of majors men and women choose, with women particularly underrepresented in engineering and the natural sciences? Or that female college graduates still make less than male college graduates? Even among men, attendance rates vary greatly by race and class.

This is a question I've been interested in for a while, because it seems that how you define equality in any aspect of social life has some pretty massive implications. For example, if you've got a very narrow definition of inequality that more or less comes down to pay inequity or occupational segregation, then as women and men approach parity on these issues, you might believe that feminism is no longer necessary (and I expect many readers will have heard this refrain in the past).

As I've written about before, I believe that this is too restrictive a view of a concept like inequality. For one thing, it totally brushes aside any consideration of intersectionality, and instead assumes that "women" and "men" form homogeneous social categories. For another, it reduces inequality to one dimension of social life and thus ignores continuing cultural sexism. Finally, any train of thought that leads one to believe that feminism is obsolete is probably based on some kind of zero-sum thinking, whereby any gains made by women have to mean corresponding losses for men.

Challenging these narrow conceptions of inequality seems to be the key to getting fauxgressive people on board with feminist projects (a realization which many have come to long before me).

Myths of Virginity

2010-05-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

Talking about virginity in a sexuality seminar earlier this week, and then happened to come across this piece. In particular, I liked the takedown of myth #3:

...heterosexual vaginal intercourse is often privileged above other sexual acts because of its association with reproduction (and because of good old-fashioned heteronormativity and homophobia), and so people often rely on a problematic concept of “virginity” that can exclude, marginalize, and ignore the experiences of queer folk. But yesterday’s panelists noted that it’s important for us to create and reinforce alternatives to this heteronormative penetration-focused view of virginity and how it’s “lost”. What about a female-bodied person whose sexuality does not involve being penetrated? Are her sexual experiences somehow less valid? Part of rethinking virginity has to include incorporating a more nuanced and more queer-friendly concept of sex and virginity that doesn’t serve to devalue the experience of any person or group of people.

I've been thinking about this, as well: obviously, if you define virginity as not having experienced vaginal penetration (and by definition, "sex" as said penetration), then that excludes a lot of people. In response, someone might suggest that we set up different definitions for lesbians, gay men, and straight men and women. Okay, except that's still setting up a hierarchy where vaginal penetration is a gold standard of sorts, and those seen as unable to achieve it are granted honourary (second best) admission into the non-virgin club.

If we start thinking about it seriously, I think we have to either jettison the concept of virginity entirely or else at least give up the idea that some specific act between certain types of people alone constitutes the transition from virgin to non-virgin.

"Male Studies": Old Hat, New Name

2010-04-08T21:50:00.005-07:00

Whenever I tell someone I'm interested in the study of masculinities, I fear that they will think of me as one of the "male studies" advocates in this article.

First thing I noticed here: the unproblematic link made between maleness and XY chromosomes. Second: an emphasis on difference rooted in biology (which is held to be real and all-powerful, or at least the base upon which the superstructure of social life delicately rests). Third: the denigration of feminism and "political correctness". Fourth: use of the term "misandry". Fifth: the claim that schools are failing boys.

Seriously? Sing us another one.

So same old, same old as far as the substance goes. Why the name change? As the website for the Symposium on Male Studies explains: "Male Studies refers to the multidisciplinary study of the male human being, boys and men. Men Studies, by definition, has focused on fully grown men. Male studies will be comprehensive of males of all ages."

I think this has more to do with definitional issues (male vs. men -- the former is taken to be more easily understood and "real", based as it is on "real" biological science) than with some kind of distinction between boys and men as subjects of research, as masculinity theorists have most definitely written about boys.

Elsewhere on that page, in response to whether "male studies" is essentialist, the FAQ explains: "One fundamental question of Male Studies is whether there are essential features of being male. Having a male body is clearly one of them."

But just what is a "male body"? How do we decide who is male and female? Most people don't on the basis of chromosomes, and most people don't even know their own chromosomal makeup. How do you know if you're male, then? Who counts?

As best I can tell, these aren't questions that "male studies" cares to investigate. This is the gender theory of the patriarchy; the defense of the stuff that "everyone knows". In other words, it's the stuff that feminists and critical gender theorists have been challenging for decades, and the stuff that we will go on challenging, no matter what its proponents take to calling it.

Nussbaum on Butler (Old)

2010-03-30T01:17:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to reading this, a 2000 review of Judith Butler's work by Martha Nussbaum (whom I am quickly becoming very enamored with).

I started reading Gender Trouble months ago, and after I got a ways in, I began to wonder what was actually happening. What was I meant to be getting out of this book? I could piece together some general concepts -- performativity, for instance, but I felt lost and greatly out of my league.

You see, when I can't understand the details of a work like this, I tend to assume that it's my own understandings that are deficient, not the author's explication. I haven't read much Foucault, for instance, nor many other French thinkers. Perhaps, I often find myself thinking, if I were more familiar with these philosophical traditions, then I might be capable of understanding someone like Butler a little bit better.

As it is, when I get into work like Butler's I sometimes start wondering to whom it is relevant. This probably sounds haughty or short-sighted, but it's a feeling that I have trouble shaking. I certainly don't share the views of those who see all theory or philosophy as irrelevant or useless. On the contrary, I think that theorizing is something that everyone does and that matters a great deal. I love doing and reading social theory. I just feel the desire to connect it, in some way, to someone's actual experiences. So when I feel that some text doesn't do that, I get discouraged and start to wonder just what the point is.

I suppose the Nussbaum piece sort of cheered me up a bit, then. It's nice to be reminded every once in a while that one can do sophisticated social theory that is nonetheless engaged with and made for actual people. Sometimes, that's all too easy for me to forget.

Social Science and the Conspiracy of the Oppressed

2010-03-04T20:15:00.001-08:00

Many people in the social sciences will be familiar with the injunction against value-driven work -- that it is generally less rigorous than more "objective" research and in some cases isn't even counted as social science. This kind of charge is probably getting harder and harder to maintain given the great inroads that feminist and other critical scholarship has made into the academy. The idea that anybody is an unbiased observer is one that, at least nominally, many would now reject as unrealistic. Still, once in a while you might -- as I have on occasion -- detect at least a note of hostility towards research done for/by marginalized groups. There is a particular strand of this discontent that I call, for lack of a better term, the "conspiracy of the oppressed".

Perhaps you are familiar with the conspiracy -- perhaps you have been implicated in it by someone in the past, or heard others charged with involvement in it. This is a conspiracy of obfuscation -- the goal is to carefully select one's observations and data so as to prove that a particular group really is oppressed. It is perhaps the ultimate form of bias: a blindness* to "inconvenient facts" of the positive variety that indicate that maybe some progress has been made on race or gender issues -- that things are not as bad as they seem. The term conspiracy implies a deliberate act, but whether the conspirators realize that they are doing this or not is really irrelevant -- either way, they are failing to do science properly.

I think this ties into another familiar trope: the idea the marginalized groups are never happy with any progress they happen to make. I recall one professor (years ago) smugly remarking about how he'd once shouted down a student for saying that feminism was still relevant. He explained to this student, he told us, that feminism had made a lot of gains in the last century or so, and maybe we were getting to the point where any remaining gaps just weren't going to go away. In other words: shut up and be happy, you've never had it so good.

More on this in the future, but I've been mulling this on and off for a while and wanted to finally get some of my thoughts down. This idea that "sociologists are allergic to good news" really bothers me, especially for its implicit assumptions about the realities of oppression only being accessible to those without a stake in the situation.

*I am aware of the ableist connotations of using the word in this way and would not do it myself -- but it has been put this way to me in the past (bias as unwillingness to see, "blindness" to the truth), so I reproduce the language here.

From the Google Alert Files

2010-02-01T11:00:00.001-08:00

My Google Alert for "masculinity" comes up with a lot of trash, but sometimes I get somewhat interesting articles like this one: For Tween Boys, Masculinity in a Spray Can. A quote:

Ms. Wiseman, who also wrote “Queen Bees & Wannabes,” a nonfiction book about the social pecking order of tween girls, speaks with students around the country. Even in rural North Dakota, she said, 12-year-old boys were highlighting their hair, a focus on appearance that was almost nonexistent five years ago.

“We consistently look at boys in a position of privilege and power,” she said. “But if you ask a 12-year-old boy if they’re in a position of power, they feel out of control of themselves, their bodies.” She added: “I defy anyone to tell me that an eighth-grade girl doesn’t look like she has more power and control than a boy.”

Yes, boys are increasingly coming under the rubric of branded self-examination and presentation. Yes, boys are often made to feel bad about themselves, about their bodies. Wiseman's comments, though, make me take pause -- I doubt she intended them this way, but they seem just shy of so many arguments that claim that girls "have all the power" in schools, distracting and controlling their male peers.

I think we should be concerned about these kinds of trends in marketing towards younger male audiences and the effects it can have on boys, but that doesn't mean we can ignore girls, as some might want to. Gender dynamics in schools are complicated and too often advocates for helping boys try to turn things into a zero-sum conflict. We need more dialogue about boys that doesn't come from MRAs or anti-feminist alarmists, and that acknowledges that gender dynamics are intertwined -- that we can't look at what's going on with boys in isolation from what's going on with girls.

Feminism and Liberalism: Men's Politics

2010-01-26T02:03:00.001-08:00

Thinking lately about what kinds of topics I might want to consider in my upcoming research, I keep coming back to the question of men's connection to feminism. Over the past year or so, and through a variety of sources (conversations with friends, blogs, academic works) I've been wondering how men come to be engaged with feminism. Given that men don't have the direct experience of sexism that women do, it seems like they have to come to feminism through other means -- family and friends, academic introduction, or political ideals. Of these, the last seems the most fraught with difficulties. The widely-used term "fauxgressive" is relevant here: in my understanding, it refers to self-proclaimed political progressives (not always men) who tend to focus on "universal" liberalism (ideals of freedom and equality) and are not really progressive with regards to issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, and so forth.

It certainly seems likely to me that men who come to share some feminist ideals through political liberalism will come to define sexism mainly in terms of formal, legal arrangements. If this is the case, then this would explain why some men claim to support equal pay for equal work yet don't follow through to the more cultural, interactional aspects of feminism. If you believe that sexism is all about laws, then you can look to the existence of formal equality as an indicator that we've come far enough, and that further feminist movement is "going too far" -- this is a perspective that I've certainly heard before.

The point is that if men mainly come to adhere to some tenets of feminism through a more general liberal ideology of freedom and equality, then we are likely going to hit a wall when we try to get across more wide-ranging concepts of patriarchy or cultural sexism.

So, if this (admittedly hastily sketched) analysis is correct, how might we push for a broader understanding of feminism amongst men? Is it worth understanding how, under what conditions, and to what extent men come to see themselves as feminists or allies? What would be the best way of doing this?

As I said, this is all just a bunch of relatively unpolished background thoughts I've been considering on and off for some time now. I would very much appreciate input on a personal level, as well as suggestions for places to look about this kind of information (blogs, articles, books, etc.) I already have some ideas, and I'm not sure if this will pan out, but it seems like it could be worth pursuing.

A Serious Problem

2010-01-20T13:19:00.002-08:00

This:

No significant body of feminist literature has appeared that addresses boys, that lets them know how they can construct an identity that is not rooted in sexism. Anti-sexist men have done little education for critical consciousness which includes a focus on boyhood, especially the development of adolescent males. As a consequence of this gap, now that discussions about the raising of boys are receiving national attention, feminist perspectives are rarely if ever part of the discussion. Tragically, we are witnessing a resurgence of harmful misogynist assumptions that mothers cannot raise healthy sons, that boys "benefit" from patriarchal militaristic notions of masculinity which emphasize discipline and obedience to authority. Boys need healthy self-esteem. They need love. And a wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children. Patriarchy will not heal them. If that were so they would all be well.

-bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (p. 71) [Emphasis mine]

I tend to agree with Connell in Masculinities when she says that it doesn't make sense to try and model "men's groups" after other liberation movements -- because men, as a group, are not oppressed. This is why so many men's groups that started off with good intentions and pro-feminist ideals gradually transformed into pseudo-spiritual therapeutic movements, or else into vehicles for misogyny and backlash politics. So that's out, I think. Besides, it seems to me that the key issue is getting to boys early, while they're growing up.

The part of the quote I emphasized is critical because nowadays, MRAs love to claim that feminism hurts boys, especially in the classroom. This is a fiction, but it's one that keeps getting repeated. Anti-sexist men need to challenge this claim and reply: it's patriarchy that hurts boys, not feminism. Aside from that, we need to actually address boys. We need to show them there is another way; that there is a better way to grow up and live. How we can best do this, I'm not so sure -- which is kind of an unsatisfying conclusion, I suppose. I'm still working on it.

Boys Playing Women: One Story*

2010-01-10T16:48:00.001-08:00

When I was younger (around 10 or so), a lot of console and PC games didn't let you choose an avatar or character to play as. Some did, however -- and these were usually the multiplayer type, where having players choose an avatar served a practical purpose of differentiating between them in-game. In games like this, I had a strong tendency to pick female characters. When Goldeneye was first released for the Nintendo 64, I habitually played as the character Xenia. When I got to play Jedi Knight at a friend's house, I usually picked the Dark Jedi Sariss.

I never really knew why I was doing this -- and I didn't see it as wrong or strange, until I was told otherwise. On a few occasions, I was chided for my choices. Why was I playing as a girl? From the least judgemental, this question was more or less an open inquiry. Still, that it could be asked at all made me uncomfortable -- it made me aware that I was doing something out of the ordinary, maybe even something bad. Coming from those acting in less than good faith, the question came through as a mixture of disbelief and disgust. I don't recall accusations of gayness coming alongside -- that particular form of gender policing didn't arrive until a few years later.

By the time the spiritual successor to Goldeneye -- Perfect Dark -- was released in 2000, things had changed. I remember playing as male characters almost exclusively, a change that began in Goldeneye when I traded in my previous choice for the uniformed General Arkady Ourumov. I learned that playing as female characters invited questions and harassment that I didn't want to deal with, and that playing a male character meant that all of this would go away.

It seemed really easy. After all, it was such a small thing -- hardly worth being hassled over. Besides, I never really knew why I was so attached to the idea in the first place. Better to just play the way that others wanted me to.

I got started thinking about all this the other day when I purchased Phantasy Star Zero, and almost without thinking created a female character. When I realized what I'd done, memories started coming back to me. Had I gotten over the injunction to not do this? I'm not so sure. Certainly, it seems unlikely that I'll be playing that particular game with anyone I know personally. If I were, would I feel as comfortable playing a woman, or would I just take the easier route of avoidance by having a male character available as well?

This raises a tricky point: I'm hesitant to impose my current theoretical thinking on that ten-year-old boy who wasn't sure why he was doing what he was doing, or why it might be wrong. I can think now about why I might choose a female avatar in some cases but not others: I can compare my situation to the complexities of gender in online RPGs, for instance. I can think about gender presentation, expression, and interaction. But I'm wary of looking back on my own life and smoothing the past into any coherent narrative that somehow leads to the present state.

*There are other stories to be told, here: for instance, how the same boys who policed gender boundaries so dutifully then turned around and played female characters in pen-and-paper RPGs -- and asked the DM to narrate and describe sexual encounters between their female character and another male player's male character.

CBC and the Headless Fatty

2010-01-06T21:05:00.000-08:00

CBC, I thought you were better than this (although I'm not sure why): "Obesity's disease burden worse than smoking".

It is never enough to publish the results of a study on the "obesity epidemic". Such reports require the ever-present image of the "headless fatty" (as seen at the top of the article) to reinforce the feelings of disgust we are meant to experience upon reading about how fat people are a burden on society.

The message delivered by the story and image is this: fat people are failed people (to the extent that they are actually people at all) who, through their personal weaknesses, are not merely damning themselves, but threatening us all. Lovely.

It likely goes without saying, but I cannot recommend enough that you do not read the comments section of the article. I do think, though, that the depth of popular resentment and fear towards fatness -- as the comments on this piece exemplify -- points to a role for social science research.

Sociologists talk all the time about how many health issues are "socially constructed". That is, bodily phenomena are subject to processes of claims-making. I cannot think of a better site for the application of this framework than fatness, since the alleged negative effects of weight are often taken for granted. For one example of work that delves into the political and social issues involved in the war on fat, I suggest this piece. If anyone has any other examples, I would love to hear about them.

Pre-Flight Fluff

2010-01-02T19:12:00.001-08:00

Returning to the West Coast shortly, as the holidays are nearing their end. Managed to read through Connell's Masculinities in my time off, and I've since been ruminating on that.

For now, here's something I have been listening to lately:

Los Campesinos -- My Year in Lists

On Change

2009-12-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

Playing a board game with a few friends the other night. We'd just finished one round and a fifth player arrives: he's going to be using the last remaining colour, which happens to be purple. One of my friends exclaims:

"Ha, man, you get to be purple, the gay colour!"

I glance at him.

He gets defensive: "Hey man, I was just joking!"

"Really?" I ask. "I don't get it, then. What's the joke?"

He's not having any of it: "Man, we all know how you feel about the gays."

I'm a little incredulous, now: "Really? How's that?"

At this point he's getting exasperated: "You never used to be like this, professor."

I fire back: "This isn't about getting a PhD, it's about being a good person."

He lets it go: "Whatever." I don't push the issue any further. We get on with the game.

In a way, he was right: I have changed. It's not that I wouldn't have disagreed with his comments in the past, I just wouldn't have challenged or vocally questioned them in even the incredibly minor way I did this time.

So yes, I have changed -- and I certainly hope I will continue to.

In Which I Compare My Friends to Scottish, Spacefaring Pterodactyls

2009-12-19T21:26:00.000-08:00

Chatting with Tlönista over coffee the other day and the inevitable question comes up: how did I go, in two years, from neo-atheist student organizer to picking fights with MRAs?*

Honestly, I'm still not sure -- it's a story I'll have to unravel sometime. For now, all I can suggest is that I'm where I'm at now with regards to feminism is in large part because of some incredibly patient and fantastic friends.

Much like the Yehat uplifted the Shofixti and introduced them to interstellar travel, these folks really made me aware of a lot of issues I had never given serious thought to. I owe them a great deal, and I hope they will look past my questionable metaphor to see the underlying sentiment.

*Not to say that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive, it just worked out that way in my case.

"Masculine Geeky"

2009-12-15T18:39:00.000-08:00

Huh, you're saying it's not that women just don't like math and science, it's that they're turned off by the overwhelmingly masculine and sexist state of these fields? Who would have thought?

I think "masculine geeky" is an alright term for what this article describes -- although it might be thought of more technically as a type of "subordinate masculinity" which pretends to be different from, but really emulates the more mainstream hegemonic form of masculinity.

Men Who Buy Sex

2009-12-02T23:00:00.000-08:00

Over at Border Thinking, Laura Agustín links to an article on the clients of sex workers. It is an information-packed and short read, and describes Canadian research on the topic -- so of course I recommend checking it out.

On the topic of clients, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think it's all too easy to think of the clients of sex workers (also known as johns or kerb crawlers depending on your side of the Atlantic) as monstrous or in some way "different" from other men. Even some who recognize that laws against sex workers themselves (that is, against selling) are counter-productive and absurd may want to criminalize the demand end of the equation. Taken to the extreme, we get shaming campaigns and the existence of "John schools" which can amount to little more than ill-informed "lessons" and diversion from prison time.

It's gotten more difficult lately for me to think coherently about sex work and especially clients, given that my views on feminism and gender relations have changed substantially in the time since I first became interested in the topic. Yet I still don't think that these extreme reactions to clients are helpful to anybody: clients, sex workers, or the communities in which both live and work.

Race and Gender in Heroes Revisited

2009-12-01T23:17:00.001-08:00

I stopped watching Heroes after the second season, but if you differ from me in this regard then you may find this image over at SocImages interesting.

On a related note, I wrote about gender and race in Heroes a bit over a year ago here. That site isn't monitored anymore, so if you have any comments on that piece, please leave them here.

A further caution: my views on the topics discussed have changed in the year since that piece was written -- I think I would probably be far less forgiving were I to write it now -- but the general claims made therein still seem sound.

Now that I think about it, I never did end up watching Heroes again after writing that post. The letter to Tim Kring accompanying the image at Racialicious seems to indicate that things have not improved since then.

UPDATE 02/12/09: Reading my old post at RBF more carefully reveals some pretty fucking awful ablist language. I considered taking this post down when I realized this, but I'm going to leave it up for now as a testament to my mistakes. Certainly I don't think I had anywhere near my current (admittedly still not good enough) level of awareness of ableism when I wrote the piece last year. I apologize for that part of the post -- I fucked up.

Two Quotes on Social Theory

2009-11-22T22:56:00.003-08:00

Ashley and Orenstein in Sociological Theory (1998):

"Theory" (as in "social theory") often seems remote, abstruse, abstract, and irrelevant, not to mention pretentious, confusing, and self-contradictory.

We already seen, of course, that, for human beings, theory cannot just be abstract and irrelevant. Theory is an essential part of human experience precisely because our relationships with constraining environments and with each other are symbolically mediated. The men discussed herein were not engaged in an activity that is peculiar or singular, and you should not think of their endeavors as removed from yours. You might find that their ideas were more sophisticated, or more absurd, better grounded, or less well-grounded, than the ideas you have, but you should not assume that theory merely is something that is found in books or is something that is of academic interest only. This is an important point because it illustrates that theorizing is a basic and unavoidable human pursuit.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006; film)*

Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?

Andy Sachs: No, no, nothing. Y'know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y'know, I'm still learning about all this stuff.

Miranda Priestly: This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

* I owe the association between this quote and social theory (originally philosophy) to a comment on a post by Tlönista here.

Poverty: Not One of the "Most Important Issues", Say Christian Leaders

2009-11-19T23:28:00.001-08:00

This is...well, read it for yourself:

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

More than that, though, it looks like a calculated appropriation of a historical figure for political purposes. Which isn't particularly uncommon, but using a deceased civil rights leader to support an movement against civil rights strikes me as extremely bold and disrespectful, to put it politely.

But this statement isn't just about pressing dead legends of social justice into service to promote homophobia. Certainly not. There is a broader message here:

They [the manifesto signers] say they also want to speak to younger Christians who have become engaged in issues like climate change and global poverty, and who are more accepting of homosexuality than their elders. They say they want to remind them that abortion, homosexuality and religious freedom are still paramount issues.

“We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues,” said Charles Colson, a prominent evangelical who founded Prison Fellowship after serving time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. “A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.”

See, the problem with the youth is that they think global poverty is a more pressing issue -- more important to Christianity -- than homosexuality. All Colson wants them to understand is that Christianity isn't about helping the poor or preserving the environment for future generations.

Colson's view of The Serious Issues probably looks a little more like this:

STEP 1: Control wimminz
STEP 2: Hate gays
STEP 3: Maintain freedom to do numbers 1 and 2
STEP 4: ???
STEP 5: PROFIT (high-five Jesus?)

Can we pinpoint the moment at which disliking the gays exploded into apparently one of the three most important issues for certain strands of US evangelicalism? At which point did social justice (fighting global poverty, say) become a distraction from the more pressing topic of gay folks getting married or women having access to abortions?

Meet Mark. Mark is a Douchebag.

2009-11-10T17:13:00.002-08:00

In case you needed a single ad to sum up what is wrong with the way gamer men treat gamer women, here's Mark:

Of course, being treated as a novelty who shouldn't be able to compete with a "serious player" (a man) isn't the whole story. I mean, to even get to the point of being marked as inferior for one's gender requires a belief on the part of men playing that one is, indeed, a woman. Only once that has occurred (which, from my discussions with female gamer friends, is rare enough) can the process of systematic harassment and derision begin.

The narrator's ridicule of Mark's defeat follows from this. He was defeated by a woman, so he becomes lesser. Of course, he is required to develop a counter-narrative (a story) to ensure that his credibility is maintained -- he was AFK (away from keyboard), it wasn't a fair fight, and so on. Perhaps too, he needs this narrative to maintain the integrity of his own internalized belief that he is superior (at least in this realm) to women.

(In case you haven't, check the large version of the picture. The young man depicted (Mark) has this look of utmost dejection and resignation as a result of his virtual decapitation (by a woman!) -- it's really quite something.)

UPDATE: Sorry, should have mentioned this in the original post. The ad is for a game called Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

On Political Correctness

2009-11-08T17:07:00.000-08:00

Something about me: I hate the term "PC". When someone tells me that they are "not politically correct", I make a mental note to watch this person and expect the worst. Usually, this is a pretty good heuristic to determine how much bullshit is going to come out of someone's mouth. That's because for me, "non-PC" or "politically incorrect" is a disclaimer in the vein of "I'm not a racist, but..." Somehow, some people think that making these kinds of statements before saying something offensive or racist absolves them of any responsibility for their speech.

That said, I'm surprised I haven't come across this piece sooner. As I understand it, it's something of a classic in some circles, and for good reason. Kai (the author) makes some excellent points about "PC" as cultural propaganda, the origins of the term, and the power relations involved:

Underlying every complaint of "PC" is the absurd notion that members of dominant mainstream society have been victimized by an arbitrarily hypersensitive prohibition against linguistic and cultural constructions that are considered historical manifestations of bigotry. [...]

In this context, the conceit that "political correctness" constitutes a violation of free speech is particularly zany; as though society's marginalized groups wield oppressive power over the dominant mainstream. Actually, as far as I'm concerned you're free to call me "chink" and I'm free to call you "moronic racist loser" (and more if necessary, but I'll leave that aside for now in the interest of false civility). Free speech is the straw man of choice for intellectual bums of all stripes too fragile and vacuous for critical engagement. Calling someone who says or does bigoted things "a bigot" isn't censorious, it's descriptively accurate, like calling a bad movie "a bad movie", even if the bigot didn't intend to come off as bigoted and the movie didn't intend to come off as bad.

It's an extremely eloquent and persuasive piece, and I'm sure most people who've been involved in these issues longer than I have are familiar with it -- but if you aren't, then I highly recommend it.

The Carceral Society: Canadian Edition

2009-11-02T14:43:00.002-08:00

Huh, imagine that:

Canada's ombudsman for prisons is expected to deliver harsh criticism of the country's correctional service when he tables his annual report in Parliament on Monday.

Observers say Canada's prisons are tense places these days because of the government's get-tough-on-crime approach, which has resulted in overcrowding. With more people going into prison and fewer getting out, there's a shortage of jobs for inmates inside and a lack of rehabilitation programs.

"When you start squeezing people, they're going to push back," said Rick Sauve of Lifeline, a group that works with prisoners who are serving life sentences. "It's the pressure cooker that keeps building and building and building. It gets one little leak and, poof, it goes off, and my fear is that may start happening."

Of course, the populist-conservative response to troubles with prisons is usually "we don't have enough of them". I won't be surprised if Stephen Harper responds dismissively to any criticisms in the report, or else vows to build more prisons to deal with the problems, thus following the highly successful penal model of Canada's neighbours to the south.

No Special Rights for Bigots

2009-11-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

The Washington state elections are on Tuesday, and there's been a lot of talk about the issues around releasing the names of the people who signed the petition to put Referendum 71 on the ballot. This NYT article, for example, describes the Very Real Fears of some such folks:

James Bopp Jr., the lead lawyer for the group [Protect Marriage Washington], filed affidavits from people who said they felt threatened for taking their position on the issue. Larry Stickney, the campaign manager of Protect Marriage Washington, has also complained of feeling threatened, he said.

“He has his children sleep in the hall of the middle of the house so they won’t be exposed to the street,” Mr. Bopp said.

This is an absolute joke. Consider the history: how prevalent has anti-gay violence been compared to anti-anti-gay violence in the US? Attempting to claim the status of marginalization here (see: everybody who thinks being called out on homophobia is unfair or "bigoted" itself) is patently absurd. Such a tactic also serves to conceal the real violence that LGBT people in the US continue to face.

Stephen Colbert talked about this last Tuesday. Here's one of my favourite lines, when Colbert concludes what needs to done to protect those who signed the petition:

COLBERT: Folks, we need to protect this persecuted minority. And the only way I can see to do that is for Washington residents to vote in favour of gay domestic partnerships. Because then, no one will care who signed the petition, and these people can stay in the closet that the gay people have abandoned.

Full clip here.

Sexism in Games: Too Much, or Just Enough?

2009-10-26T11:00:00.002-07:00

If you didn't know, GameFAQs is a popular videogaming site which offers user-created content and discussion forums. I check the Poll of the Day pretty habitually -- it's usually a simple question dealing with some aspect of gaming. When I saw today's question I rolled my eyes, since the gaming industry is notoriously sexist and gamers (that is, the target gamer audience, straight white dudes), unfortunately, are often pretty willing to go along for the ride.

It took me a while to really recognize what the question was asking -- that is, how it was phrased. So I ask you, go back, take a second look.

Yes, it's asking if the respondent thinks that video games are too sexist against women. One of the answers is "no, I don't think games are sexist at all" (predictably, as of this writing a sizable percentage had chosen this option). But the next option up is "not really, they're just as sexist as TV or movies". This was the modal choice as of this writing.

So was this just a colossal mistake, or do the majority of people who responded to the poll think that TV, movies, and games are just sexist enough? I'm guessing it's the former, especially because the first option doesn't really make sense if the question was supposed to include "too".* Still, I wonder how many gamers gave the question a second thought before jumping onto either of the last two choices.

*The first option is interesting: "Very, today's games are practically misogynistic". This looks hilarious when contrasted with "Not really, they're just as sexist as TV or movies", because clearly we are meant to infer that not only are games not actually misogynistic (only "practically") but neither are TV/movies.

A Word on Censorship

2009-10-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

Lately, in a few different situations, I've found myself opposing those who argue for untrammeled free speech in non-public spaces. My feelings on this have changed over time, but they are simple: moderating participation can contribute to the proliferation of discussions that might not otherwise have taken place. This is why I get pissed off when individuals whip out the "thought police" attack; this is why I don't think such spaces need "opposing views" to "keep them honest". Or, in other words:

The argument goes, and I've heard it a million times before, that disallowing unfettered free speech lessens the quality of debate. This? Is not true. And it's why there are amazingly clever, insightful, vibrant, hilarious, and often contentious (the echo chamber bit is really such bullshit) threads at Shakesville, and almost nothing but flamewars fueled by the misspelled, hate-filled, garbled rantings of the tragically stupid in "free speech zones" like the comments section of YouTube.

[...]

Further yet is the deeply amusing argument that my denying their "right" to engage in bulling and silencing makes me the enemy of free speech, with seemingly not a hint of awareness of the irony that they're demanding the ability to bully and silence other people under the auspices of "free speech." They're arguing for carte blance to quiet the voices they don't like, but mad at me for doing the same.

I do not think this is difficult to understand. Still, I've been accused of wanting to impose these rules where they shouldn't exist -- say, in a general sociology blog. My issue is that these rules do more to keep everyone on the same page than no rules at all do, because we don't all come at different issues from the same angle. It is incredibly easy for a liberal white dude like myself to want to talk about everything in a open, detached manner. Needless to say, this is not a universal experience. That's why I don't think it's appropriate to allow bigoted talk in a place discussing sociological issues, no matter how formally it is presented or how intellectual it sounds -- it makes it harder for certain people to participate.

Even if the stated goal of a discussion space is not a feminist one, if we want the most participation possible and want that participation to stay on track, then enforcing certain rules is the best way to do this. If people feel like they've got to be on the defensive just to engage in discussion, then the outcomes will be derailed conversations or a silencing of anyone who lacks the privilege to deal with the issues in a "rational" manner befitting of an objective gentleman.

A Bad Argument for All-Boys Schools

2009-10-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say something real quick about this boys-only grade school proposal in Toronto. I'm sure the proponents of the idea have some well-reasoned claims about the whole concept (or maybe I'm giving them too much credit), but I'm going to pick on a defense of the idea that I noticed in the comments on the story, one that I've heard in general form before.

It goes something like this. Boys, as we all know, are rambunctious and easily distracted. There comes a time when this distraction is directed in a particular way by puberty, towards sexual desires. And, as we all know, boys are sexually attracted to girls, and with the way those girls dress these days, why, it's no surprise that boys have trouble concentrating on math! Solution: remove the temptation.

Not only does this line of reasoning perpetuate the idea that males are ruled by their sexual urges (and implicitly denies that females experience such drives at all) but it completely erases queer boys from the picture. If the goal is really to separate out boys from what's distracting them, then shouldn't the queer and straight boys be separated, too? Or are we to assume that queer boys are "like" girls, in that they don't have sexual interests (at least not that we'd like to talk about). More likely, this argument ignores these questions because it assumes that queer kids don't even exist.

Like I said, this line of argument is probably more common among those who'd like to see this proposal extended up into later years of education, but I think it's worth really interrogating it nonetheless.

Michael Chabon: Manhood for Amateurs

2009-10-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

My Google News Alert for "masculinity" netted me this CBC interview with Michael Chabon today. I haven't read any of his work except for an essay about childhood (which I thought was quite good and you can find here) that seems to be included in his new book "Manhood for Amateurs". Anyway, I thought his responses to the questions Sarah Liss was asking him were pretty interesting. For example, when asked whether he thinks his boys have it better or worse than he did growing up, he says, in part:

...if you're asking about how there's been some criticism of, say, the educational system that expects boys to be more like girls or treats boys as though they are girls in a classroom setting, in terms of the demands on their attention or the time period they're expected to focus on a particular activity before going on to another activity — well, there's probably some merit in that.

What I don't hear so much anymore is that it would be better for boys if they were allowed to be more like girls, that they'd be happier if they were permitted to act in terms of what's traditionally considered to be girl-like. I get the sense maybe it's better for us, for the institution, if boys are more like girls: we want them to be quiet and pay attention. Maybe that's the problem.

There is a lot going on here. On the one hand, it's hard not to see Chabon as agreeing with the classic MRA refrain about the "feminizing" effect of education -- boys do badly because education is not addressing their innate or primordial characteristics or needs in some way. Boys, you see, simply don't have the attention spans to be sitting in a classroom setting for such long stretches of time without acting out.

But the second paragraph presents a different idea -- that boys would be happier if they were allowed to act in "traditionally" feminine ways, the obvious implication being that they currently are not. I'm reading this as an argument about the rigidity of gender roles and the harm such an arrangement can cause to children -- Chabon goes on to talk about the continued "aggressive segregation" of toys by gender, so I think his views on this are pretty clear. The point about it being better for the institution of education for boys to be more like girls is a little odd -- where are these characteristics of girls coming from? It's a little confusing, too, because following from the previous statement, it seems that we want boys to be "like girls" in some respects (docility) in some settings (the classroom) but not in others (at play).

Like I said, there's a lot going on here. I'd recommend reading the interview and the essay I linked earlier, though not necessarily for the same reasons.

Women as Objects: Secondhand Books

2009-10-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I was turned on to the New York Review of Books by a friend and former professor of mine. Being an undergraduate student with plentiful Internet access and browsing skills, I started at their website, reading what articles of interest I could find, of those available online. Now, I've subscribed to the NYRB on my Google Reader account, and I try to read as much content there as I can.

Recently, I started receiving not just full article updates but short blog posts on my RSS feed, under the title of "NYRblog". I read one such post today, a brief lament by author Charles Rosen on "the lost pleasure of browsing" -- browsing books, that is, prior to purchase. Rosen contrasts the "seductive", tacile experience of holding a book with the practice of mail order (online) shopping.

I think there is something to be said for his argument here. Certainly some might find irony in his publishing such a (broadly speaking) anti-digital view on a blog, of all places, but putting aside the issue of media experience, I was left scratching my head at Rosen's next point:

Of course, a century ago and even less, ranchers in sparsely settled sections of the West used to get mail-order brides. That seems to me similar to buying books online, and equally likely to lead to customer dissatisfaction. Buying a secondhand or used book without having seen and examined it first is difficult for me to accept. By now secondhand bookstores are disappearing rapidly all over the world.

What is the message here? Women are like books, you have to hold them in your hands and let them seduce you before "making the purchase", so to speak? The bit about secondhand books just raises even more questions about the comparison -- what does one need to know, to have "seen and examined" about a "secondhand" woman before one is satisfied and accepts her?

I'm not familiar with Rosen or his work so I can't speak to this in any broader sense than in the short piece itself. It seems that the replies, as of this writing, have focused mostly on the broader question of whether Rosen is being a technological alarmist or not.

So, perhaps my focus here speaks more to my own recent theoretical alignments more than anything else. Had I read this post back when I first started poking around at the NYRB, I doubt I would have considered it in the same way.

So what, then? Well, for one thing it's interesting for me to look back and see how my personal theoretical viewpoints have shifted. More generally though, I think this is a good example of how theories work to sensitize us to certain concepts and aspects of social life, aspects that we might have otherwise ignored or deemed unimportant.

Cisgender Privilege Checklist

2009-10-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

A bit over a week ago, I attended the first meeting of my intro statistics seminar. As is customary in these things, the professor started off pretty simple, talking about different levels of measurement. When he got to nominal variables, he provided sex as an example of -- since the two possible values, male and female, not only cover every possible case, but are mutually exclusive. I'm sure I've heard this many times before, but I'd never thought to challenge it until then. Not much came of it, and whether he was really interested in my objection I'm not totally sure.

Really, this story just serves as a lead-in for the Cisgender Privilege Checklist I spotted over at Shakesville a few days ago, courtesy of guest blogger TheDeviantE. Some people don't like checklists, but I believe that they get people thinking about things they wouldn't otherwise take notice of. Like, for instance, casual upholding of the gender binary in a stats class.

Schrödinger's Rapist

2009-10-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Over at Shapely Prose today, there's a guest post titled "Schrödinger's Rapist", a term that seems to have sprung up in the comments on Sweet Machine's take on the XKCD strip a few days back. For me, the phrase gets right to the core of the issues:

When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.

The post deals with the issues I've been trying to talk about lately, but does it in a far better and more eloquent way than I have been able to. To wit:

Now, you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public. The first thing you need to understand is that women are dealing with a set of challenges and concerns that are strange to you, a man. To begin with, we would rather not be killed or otherwise violently assaulted.

“But wait! I don’t want that, either!”

Well, no. But do you think about it all the time? Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones? Because, for women, it is. When I go on a date, I always leave the man’s full name and contact information written next to my computer monitor. This is so the cops can find my body if I go missing. My best friend will call or e-mail me the next morning, and I must answer that call or e-mail before noon-ish, or she begins to worry. If she doesn’t hear from me by three or so, she’ll call the police. My activities after dark are curtailed. Unless I am in a densely-occupied, well-lit space, I won’t go out alone. Even then, I prefer to have a friend or two, or my dogs, with me. Do you follow rules like these?

So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me?

I don't think I've gotten this across well enough, so I would urge you to read the whole post. In a nutshell, this is why I've been arguing that men and women are coming at the issues of public interaction from different places. This is why so many men just "don't see" the insidious side to the "nerd on a train" XKCD comic.

And this is why it's so important that men read the whole thing, linked again for emphasis.

Puzzling, Ill-Conceived, and Contributing to Violence: Canada's Sex Work Laws

2009-10-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a more comprehensive article on the challenge to Canada's sex work laws. For those of you just tuning in, this is a key point:

The three women involved in the case are calling for prostitution to be decriminalized.

Scott told CBC News in interview there's a distinction between legalization and decriminalization.

"Legalization views prostitution as a vice that needs to be heavily contained and controlled whereas decriminalization sees prostitution as a legitimate and necessary business," she said.

This is an important distinction -- legalization often ends up bringing with it restrictive and invasive government involvement in the industry.

The morality argument from REAL Women of Canada is such a joke that I almost hesitate to address it. Aside from the obvious contentions about legislating morality in cases of private transactions between consenting adults, here's another big problem with it: sex work is already legal.

I mean, from the brief quote in the article, it doesn't even sound like the organization is going for the popular anti-sex work approach of focusing moral disapproval on buyers while wanting to "rescue" workers. Instead, it seems like they're arguing for a maintenance of the status quo -- one that hurts workers and particularly women.

Then again, if this is the best that the opposition can muster, then maybe this thing has a pretty good shot.

Fighting Canada's Laws on Sex Work

2009-10-05T18:31:00.002-07:00

Second post on sex work in a row, but this one is far from my new place of residence in Seattle -- all the way back to Toronto, Ontario, where Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott, and Amy Lebovitch are challenging Canada's laws against sex work. Now, we run into a bit of difficulty here because Canada doesn't have a law specifically prohibiting the actual exchange of sex for money. However, it does have legal restrictions surrounding the transaction, where workers are allowed to do business, and so forth.

I heard Valerie Scott speak on this issue at a conference on sex work at the University of Toronto back in the Spring. She made a pretty compelling case that having specific laws against "pimping" was ridiculous. As she explained it, we have forcible confinement laws, we have kidnapping and coercion laws -- so if that is what is happening in a particular situation, then apply those laws. Laws against "living off the proceeds of prostitution" are too specific and restrictive to be of much use. Scott used two semi-serious examples to explain. First, she cited an occasion on which she fed a reporter banana bread that she had baked with ingredients bought with the proceeds of her own work, and then told him that he was "profiting from the avails of prostitution". Next, she handed out small folded papers to the audience, each containing a single nickel. Before she had even told us the point of the exercise, some people had realized what her message was -- by Canada's laws, she jokingly remarked, we were now all pimps.

These examples, of course, are not serious and aren't intended to gloss over the very real cases of abuse and terror that sex workers sometimes experience on the job. The point is, we have laws that apply to these cases -- the problem is in the policing. Laws that apply specifically to sex work in this way don't improve workers' safety, and instead make their work more difficult and dangerous. As well --and I forget who said it -- laws of the type that exist in Canada make sex work totally different from any other occupation. In what other line of work are you forbidden to have a boss or co-workers, or to communicate with your clients?

I will be very interested to see where this case goes, because it has the potential to dramatically change the landscape of the sex industry in Canada. Here's hoping that Bedford, Scott, and Lebovitch's arguments are taken seriously by the Crown.

When Prostitution Isn't

2009-10-01T00:49:00.003-07:00

Did I miss something? When did "young women dancing around, wearing pasties and underwear" become prostitution, which is traditionally defined as sex acts for money? The article quotes some concerned citizens:

"I have a right not to see women bare-breasted, licking whipped cream off each other's breasts and private parts, and men standing up and watching it," said Kris McLeod.

"I do not walk around my house naked for my boy and their friends to see. And I do not, will not tolerate that in my neighborhood," said Jennifer Lindell.

"This is drifting into my home territory now. I don't want it. I want this to have stricter guidelines. Please protect our children, our neighborhoods," said Michelle Hills.

In other words: the "quiet enjoyment" of residents is at risk. In this case, that means not having one's delicate sensibilities offended. In other words, I don't think most of those involved in this moral panic are seriously considering the issue from the standpoint of objectification and the commodification of women's bodies. It's a moral, prescriptive issue that, I'll say it, I believe comes from a fear of sexuality.

I'm used to seeing this sort of response to sex work, particularly street work. It's a kind of populist "not in my backyard" (NIMBYism) outrage that builds up in certain communities for particular reasons. The quotes in the article certainly make it sound like the residents are concerned about street sex work. You've even got the classic fears of johns (kerb crawlers) trolling the area: "A growing concern for neighbors is the possible presence of prostitution near their homes, and strange men hanging around the coffee stands."

Not to say that there isn't a certain amount of validity to the complaints residents sometimes have about street sex work. These concerns, in my opinion, are best resolved through mediated communication between residents and workers. But this isn't prostitution as the law defines it. Depending on your definition of sex work, it might be included under that umbrella, but it still strikes me as absurd to arrest women for prostitution here given the legal situation -- money has not changed hands in exchange for sexual services.

So what does Everett plan to do to combat this menace, aside from the newly-minted lewd behaviour ordinance?

The next step will target what the women wearing, or in some cases, not wearing. Pasties and G-strings could become illegal in a place of business, outside a actual strip club.

With luck, these draconian measures will succeed in driving out this small espresso stand, and residents can go back to living their lives of quiet enjoyment -- until a neighbouring area enacts tougher ordinances on some vice, driving it back to Everett.

Nerd Assertiveness and Insensitivity to Privilege (UPDATE: Oct 4, 2009)

2009-09-28T10:53:00.001-07:00

UPDATE (October 4, 2009): This piece was originally titled "Nerd Assertiveness and Blindness to Privilege." It was pointed out to me, when this piece appeared on Sociological Images, that my use of the term "blindness" as metaphor in the title constituted a pretty powerful expression of able-bodied privilege. I've changed the title to reflect this, and thank the commenter for calling me on this. The original title remains over at SI.

Today's XKCD strip bothers me, a little. It reminds me of the discussion about assertiveness amongst nerd guys brought up when Gabe and Tycho at Penny Arcade were talking about "pick-up artists" (PUAs) a while back.

Here's my issue: I get that a lot of straight guys (and women, but I want to primarily talk about men here) who identify as nerds (or don't, for that matter) have confidence issues, especially around romantic or sexual interests*. But I also think that messages like the XKCD strip really reinforce that idea of isolation and make the world out to be filled with potential mates -- if only you'd just talk to them! There's some truth here, in that it's pretty hard to meet people if you find it hard to talk to communicate with others. But the more insidious, unintended message I'm seeing is one that just feeds into the PUA logic -- given enough confidence and skills, all women are yours for the taking.

I know some people are probably going to think I'm reaching here, and are going to say that it's just a comic, and maybe just meant to make a cute little statement about how everyone just wants to make a connection. Sure, and I think there's something to be said for nerd guys shedding the whole Nice Guy complex and acting assertively. The problem is that there's a fine line between that and the PUA viewpoint I described earlier. That woman next to you might not want to talk about her netbook. She might not be interested in you, specifically. She might not be interested in men, generally. She probably wouldn't have the same reaction as in the strip, because society teaches women that they should expect male attention, and calling it out isn't usually looked too kindly upon.

So this is the crux of the issue for me: nerds really are members of a subordinated masculinity, and from within that viewpoint it's easy to dismiss anything which says that you are privileged and not downtrodden. Once you're in that space, it's really easy to start thinking in a certain way that says you're not privileged just because you're a man -- and I think things like this XKCD strip can contribute to that way of thinking.

Of course, any man who falls farther from the pinnacle of hegemonic masculinity is less privileged than his more "masculine" counterparts, but he's still a man. Nerd discourses sometimes let us forget that, and let us think we operate outside the system, because we're not like those other, sexist guys -- but it's a fantasy. We can be better than that, but it means telling ourselves the truth, and not pretending that our interactions with women -- even a simple conversation on a train -- aren't influenced and structured by the patriarchy.

*Note: I realize that I don't mention queer nerds here. I don't have a lot of experience with the topic, besides an understanding that nerd communities can be just as homophobic as more mainstream groups. Also, most of the discussions I've seen around nerd shyness have been in terms of male shyness towards women -- summed up in the Nice Guy trope. I think this definitely speaks to the silencing of queer nerds in certain communities, but it also leads me to believe that this phenomenon is primarily an issue for a certain type of (self-identified) heterosexual masculinity.

The Sociological Imagination and Fat Acceptance

2009-09-27T14:24:00.002-07:00

Kate Harding today writes about the "fat gap", a term used to describe the alleged inability of obese people to identify that they are, in fact, obese. It's an excellent read, even if you're familiar with the topic -- to paraphrase Kate, she intended for it to be the definitive post on the subject.

What always surprises me about discussions of fat and obesity is that people who might be willing to take a critical eye to other similar phenomena will sometimes revert to an individualistic, blaming paradigm when the topic comes up. For some reason, some people just seem to have a hard time getting over that, even though you hardly have to scratch the surface of the obesity "epidemic" to find a ton of sociological issues at play -- labelling, medicalization, and the creation of a moral panic, to name a few.

Taking a sociological view of fat does not mean, as some might think, that we're stripping the individual of agency and explaining all hir outcomes as the result of vaguely defined social forces. Rather, it means recognizing the complexity of the issue -- for example, realizing that there are powerful interests at work, interests who benefit from the presentation of obesity as a disease curable through drugs or treatments.

Introduction sociology courses often present drug use in this manner, pointing out the inconsistencies in the conventional view that legal drugs (tobacco, alcohol, caffeine) are less harmful than their illegal counterparts, particularly marihuana. If introduction classes are about really shaking up students' world views and getting them to develop a sociological imagination, then I think talking about fat might be an even better way of doing that. If handled properly, perhaps with an outstanding guest lecturer like Kate, such discussions could have other benefits in terms of advancing fat acceptance, as well.

Some Thoughts on Anti-Evolution Folks

2009-09-23T18:07:00.006-07:00

If you haven't seen Kirk Cameron's latest, Shakesville's got it here -- and it is a knee-slapper.

As someone with slightly more than a passing interest in evolutionary theory, and a tiny bit of experience in the trenches of the Science Wars, this kind of stuff can sometimes rile me up. One of my biggest concerns is that people like Cameron have been allowed to set the tone of the conflict -- indeed, they've made it into the conflict that it is. I'm not saying that the scientific establishment hasn't often been combatative and hostile to religion, but I think a lot of that is in response to a perceived threat (which of course, doesn't exonerate being an asshole).

In a strange way, though, I feel like Cameron is right about the threat evolution poses to religious belief. One of the most important lessons of evolutionary theory, for me, is that human beings are animals like any other. We are a part of life, not separate from it, not imbued with some divine spark. In this sense, evolutionary theory is inimical to some interpretations of some religions, which hold that we are Different. That, I think, is what some people are afraid of. They can, perhaps, accept that animals breed and change over time -- but draw the line when it comes to humanity, which is really missing the point entirely. To be fair, some evolutionary scientists have made this mistake in the past, too -- but for entirely different reasons.

"All Pornography is Homosexual"

2009-09-21T16:00:00.003-07:00

Dan Savage sums up the "porn makes you gay" comments by Senator Tom Coburn's chief of staff quite well. I'd just like to add a couple of things:

1. On the immutability argument: I know that most anti-gay people will argue that "it's a choice", but that's not the real issue here, is it? The real question is whether any action or behaviour or characteristic is harmful or not, and the unspoken assumption here is that being gay (sorry, "homosexual behaviour") is just that. If you accept that homosexuality isn't a problem, then it doesn't matter whether it's inborn or not. The nightmare scenario for me here is that somebody conclusively finds a "gay gene", because I don't believe for a second that conservatives will back down, shuffle away, and say, "Well darn, sure didn't think it was natural. Heck of a gene, that is." Instead, they'll turn to modern science (as they do when it suits them) and say, "Okay, let's screen it out." Sure, some might argue that the gene is proof of God's intent, but I don't think they'll be in the majority.

2. Someone else said this, but doesn't it seem like this is just hairy palms and blindness updated for a brave new homophobic world?

Re: Obama's Dilemma

2009-09-18T21:31:00.002-07:00

Obama has made the following statement:

“Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I’m sure there are,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not the overriding issue here.”

“I think there are people who are anti-government,” Mr. Obama said, referring to the people who have been demonstrating against his policies. “I think there’s been a longstanding debate in this country – that is usually that much more fierce during times of transition or when presidents are trying to bring about big changes.”

Of course, much of the protests on the Obama administration and health care in particular are centered around some broadly anti-government concepts. Still, I don't see how anyone can deny the racially-motivated character of many of the personal attacks on the president. As Melissa McEwan said today in this great post on a terrible AP story about the word "racism" itself:

I've not seen anyone anywhere actually accuse all healthcare protesters of being racist. Certainly, plenty of people have quite rightly noted that the protests have had incidents of overt racism, and that the intensity of the protests, the violent hatred of the president, is disproportionate, quite obviously because of his race. To deny that evident reality is to deny a 200+ year national history of white mob violence against "uppity" blacks. Of course there are people who object to Obama's policies for reasons other than his being black; but there are also people who object to Obama's policies because he is black, or object to them in a manner they would not if he weren't black. The only people saying, "All healthcare protesters are racists!" are rightwingers who are deliberately misconstruing a legitimate argument about the relationship between incendiary/violent rhetoric and racial animosity.

I think that Obama's statement, hinting that perhaps maybe there might be a few outspoken racists still left somewhere out in the far corners of America, comes as close to vocalizing these sentiments as he knows he can get at the moment.

Obama's Dilemma

2009-09-16T18:21:00.005-07:00

Robert Gibbs today, responding to former president Jimmy Carter's statement that much criticism of Obama is based on underlying racism:

Well, let’s take a look at what former President Carter said. The answer that I’m going to give is the same answer that I gave on Sunday, when I was asked this question. The president does not believe that that criticism comes based on the color of his skin. We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by both this administration and previous administrations to stabilize our financial system, to ensure viability of our domestic auto industry.

Whether or not people believe that criticism of the president comes based on the colour of his skin (and some of it most certainly does) seems somewhat irrelevant here. What matters is the reaction he would get if he called it out -- and I think he knows all too well what that reaction would be.

That is, it's a different thing for Jimmy Carter, a white ex-president, to talk about racism than it is for Barack Obama, the current black president, to do so. In the bizarro world we seem to find ourselves in, if Obama discusses racism or brings up race in nearly any capacity, he's likely to be attacked as "playing the race card" and perhaps even thought of by conservatives as racist against whites ("reverse racism"). In fact, we've already seen what happens when Obama tries to talk about racism, earlier this summer -- he was criticized by police organizations and pundits.

I would not be surprised if that event gave the administration a better idea of the real racial climate of the country -- a state of denial where pointing out racism brands one as oversensitive, or else as the true perpetrator of racist ideology. In other words, we're living with the "just don't look" model of racism -- don't pay it any attention and hopefully it'll go away. Carter will take some heat from the right, but nowhere near the level he would if he weren't white. I don't think Obama can afford to do the same.

Transgendering: A New Dan Brown Mystery

2009-09-16T15:37:00.004-07:00

I wasn't going to read Dan Brown's latest anyway, having never really been a fan of the genre. Furthermore, I wouldn't say that this little snippet (as noted by Sarah Liss in her 12-hour speed-run through the book) ensures that I never will, but it certainly doesn't improve my opinion of the author:

The act of tattooing one’s skin was a transformative declaration of power, an announcement to the world: I am in control of my own flesh. The intoxicating feeling of control derived from physical transformation had addicted millions to flesh-altering practices … cosmetic surgery, body piercing, bodybuilding, and steroids … even bulimia and transgendering.

I'll admit -- I don't have context on this, and Liss doesn't provide any in the piece. Someone will probably argue that this is the voice of a character and not the author, or that his intent wasn't to compare trans people to those with eating disorders. Still, a lot of people are going to read this thing, and if there's no further explanation in the text, then some of those people are probably going to go away with an associated between the two.

And fuck, transgendering? Is that even a word, Dan Brown? I will happily be corrected on this if I'm wrong, but the term I'm familiar with is transitioning.

An SOS, Sent Out Telepathically

2009-09-15T15:20:00.002-07:00

Operation Rescue is on the verge of financial collapse and may shut down completely, sending out one last "desperate plea" for donations. The group, of course, no longer enjoys tax-exempt status.

What more is there to say, besides: fuck you, Randall Terry.

On the Impossibility of Conservative Studies

2009-09-15T13:11:00.002-07:00

I'm trying to really understand this, but I'm having difficulty. I've taken a course on right-wing movements before, and I've known professors who study them. I think though, what the author of the original piece wants is some kind of "conservative studies" which is equivalent to a queer studies or women's studies program. I don't believe that this is possible.

No, I don't deny that there is a rich historical background to conservative thought. Studying the history of right movements is an illuminating endeavour, one that shows how such movements have come and gone throughout history. So yes, I think there certainly is a place for the study of conservatism and right movements, and I doubt many in academia would disagree with me on this point. There is no "banned list" of conservative texts that are off-limits. Indeed, anyone doing research on, to use an English example, Enoch Powell, without having read the "Rivers of Blood" speech is probably not going to be taken too seriously.

What I don't think is possible or desirable is a kind of conservative studies which seeks to defend or promote conservative thought. Conservatism is not an identity in the same way as being gay or being black or being a woman is an identity. Furthermore, despite the cries of right-wing Christians everywhere, conservatives are not -- and have not been -- oppressed in the same way as these groups, if at all.

Calls for a conservative studies program remind me of calls for free speech and balance, and accusations of censorship, mostly from white dudes on feminist blogs. The problem is that if you are a conservative, things have pretty much been going your way for a while now. Certainly you do not have claim to the kind of historical realities that faced minority groups, who, you know, actually have been barred from scholarly pursuits. College, to my mind, is supposed to be about exposing students to views they might not otherwise have encountered. Do we really need another place repeating the traditional, conservative message we can hear in so many other places?

On Anger

2009-09-12T16:49:00.002-07:00

Still settling into the new digs. In the meantime, here's an old post on anger from Shakesville. I link it here because this is something that I have had trouble grasping in the past, and I think it is a tremendously important lesson for those looking to be allies in any capacity. The closer you come to being a white, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied (read: privileged) dude, the more important this is, and likely the more difficult this will be to grasp. A brief quote:

Here's the other thing: If you are a genuine ally to feminists/womanists, you will never, ever, criticize a feminist/womanist's tone for being "too angry."

And you will never do this because, if you are a genuine ally, not only will you have internalized an understanding of the perfect rationality of the anger expressed by feminists/womanists, but you will also share that anger.

From the Sidelines: Ref 71

2009-09-10T22:47:00.004-07:00

Have successfully moved to Seattle. As a non-citizen, I can't vote on the extremely confusing Referendum 71. From the Wikipedia page:

Since the Washington State law mandates that when an existing law is put up for a referendum, voters must either "approved" to confirm the law or "rejected" to oppose it.
Therefore, the movement to allow the bill to be enacted WITHOUT a referendum was called "Decline to Sign" and urged people to oppose Referendum 71, by NOT signing the petition. Hence, at that time, people who wanted to repeal the law were 'pro-71' and those who wanted the law to stand where 'anti-71'.

However, once the petition to place Referendum 71 on the ballot was found to be valid, the labeling becomes confusing. The ballot wording is such that voters vote in the affirmative to approve the law to approve domestic partnership or in the negative to reject the referendum (and domestic partnership).

It's been said before, by many, but I'll say it again. This is an indefensible referendum which goes beyond the common argument about the sanctity of marriage to attempt to take away civil partnerships from gay and lesbian couples. There is no hiding behind twisted logic or bizarre principles here: this is an outright, undisguised assault on existing progress. I will try to do what I can and spread the word. I can't vote, but I hope those who can make the right choice.

Videos About Gay Marriage

2009-09-05T12:40:00.003-07:00

This video, posted over at The Stranger, is fantastic and may make you smirk when you realize the full absurdity of the situation it presents. Perhaps even better is a video posted in the comments, an Australian call for equal rights which had a diametrically opposite effect on me.

Howard League Wants Degrees for UK Prison Guards

2009-09-02T11:18:00.003-07:00

It's probably been proposed before, but I've never seen it: the Howard League thinks that UK prison guards should need degrees. Of course, the idea is being contested by the guard association, and it certainly wouldn't be easy to implement. Indeed, the notion that guards should be understanding and assisting prisoners goes against a lot of what I've heard goes on in prisons, where an us vs. them mentality (not so surprisingly) develops between guards and inmates.

Everything I learned about UK prisons while I was there led me to believe that they are treading dangerous ground, following the American model in some disturbing ways. I'm not certain how far this change would go to address their issues. In fact, I can see one especially daunting obstacle. Unless the profession of prison guard is rebranded and substantially altered, I can't see a tremendous amount of sociology or criminology graduates lining up to apply. Sociological treatments of prisons and penality, especially, tend to focus on their shortcomings and present alternatives to the mainstream liberal (or whig) view of punishment. Will a student who has at least some knowledge of Foucault or Zimbardo really want to be working in a penal facility? Unless the existing popular mentality of prison guards changes, I doubt it.

Attn: Progressive Dudes

2009-08-31T20:03:00.003-07:00

Required reading at Shakesville for dudes who consider themselves progressive, feminists, allies, liberal, etc.

I've heard a theory, and it seems pretty sound to me, that men and women treat feminism differently. Since men don't experience sexism, feminism is simply another abstract ideology or philosophy they can freely engage with at their leisure. Thus, we have the phenomenon of the self-identified liberal man who wants to debate feminist principles in an "objective" fashion, playing devil's advocate, and failing to understand why a woman might take things a bit more personally than he. A fellow male student once challenged me on this point, arguing that men could come to understand sexism through their female partners. But that's just it -- we tend to say we understand, but we can never really experience. If you think of yourself as a progressive guy, you can't afford to play devil's advocate or stay silent when other men are attacking women. As Melissa says:

This is the hard truth for progressive men who care about gender-based inequalities: When you leave the public fight to others, you're leaving it mostly to women—which, I don't guess I need to point out to the intelligent and thoughtful men reading this site, is itself a perpetuation of gender-based inequality.

[...]

If, my esteemed male feminist allies, you don't want to be part of the problem, these fights have got to be your province, too. Giving yourselves the permission to not get publicly involved, or to get publicly involved only when it's convenient and not all that risky and not all that hard, is the ultimate expression of privilege.

How to Write News About Fat People

2009-08-30T09:09:00.003-07:00

When will news outlets tire of making shitty jokes whenever they publish a story about fat people? Probably never. This Seattle Times "article" fulfills many of the requirements newspapers must seemingly complete before publishing such stories:

1. It leads with the delightful: "Have a sandwich, Twiggy. In fact, go ahead and down a 6-foot sub. With cheese." By doing so, it promotes traditional thinking on body shape, like the idea that one can turn a skinny person fat with a simple diet alteration, or vice-versa.

2. The author doesn't back down at any opportunity to make the aforementioned jokes. Aside from the headline, which references "hefty ratings" associated with a variety of TV shows, we have:

"the heftiest hit in Oxygen history"
"'The Biggest Loser' continued to eat into 'American Idol's' ratings"
"why this appetite for fuller-figured personalities?"

Yeah, I get it. Fatties are huge and eat a lot and any reference to them must include a pun based on either of those essential characteristics.

3. Finally, the author attributes the success of these programs to America's "battle with weight issues". Personally, I think there's two distinct reasons. First, there are probably those people who are watching these programs to laugh at the silly fat people who think they deserve love, etc. Second, people might like to see television shows featuring people who look a little something like them for once. Any program which features fat people has the potential to spark discussion about fat beyond the usual discourse.

I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt in cases like this and assume that the author doesn't actually hate fat people, but when I see journalism of this type, I can't help but cringe.

Headline: Conservatives Still Don't Like Gays So Much

2009-08-26T09:07:00.006-07:00

So the city of Bristol gives some lottery fund money (about 400,000 pounds) to a gay youth group. Bristol's local conservatives accuse the government of favouring "politically correct" lobbies:

"Sadly, it seems to be further confirmation that the Big Lottery has long since ceased to impartially distribute lottery cash to worthwhile and respected causes, instead it seems obliged to dole out punters' money to a raft of politically correct lobbies which clearly sit within the Labour Government's priority."

I'm not really sure what "impartial" is meant to mean here. I would think that every government picks and chooses its own priorities, much like the Conservatives once banned the "promotion" of homosexuality by local authorities.

But the real winner in this story is no doubt the "Campaign Against Political Correctness", whose name alone set off alarms in my mind. I don't recommend looking them up, but from what I could gather from their site, they seem to be the type of people who are seriously concerned that equality has just gone too far, and as a result, they will be barred from saying words like "blackboard" or "black coffee". Anyway, their spokeswoman had this to say:

"I'm sure people in the community would rather have funding that would benefit all. Often singling out groups of people for special treatment creates more problems than it solves. Funding that would go to a group involving all people would be more inclusive."

This kind of disingenuous bullshit is what makes me so wary of people who call themselves politically incorrect. Instead of just coming out and saying "no money for gays", they want to prance around and talk about "real equality", or "equalism". Using words like "inclusive" to mean ignoring those that aren't the same as you, and pretending that everyone has exactly the same experiences and chances in life is an incredibly slimy thing to do. The problem, of course, is that people fall for it.

It seems pretty clear from this and other recent stories that the Conservative party still harbours some very anti-gay sentiments. I hope these represent crackpots and no more, but I don't know the full picture and I expect we won't find out for sure until after the elections.

Freakonomics Fail, Or: Making Light of Murder

2009-08-24T13:43:00.003-07:00

Over at Freakonomics today, Stephen Levitt suggests that enabling positive identification of your corpse in the event of severe mutilation by your murderer is "yet another reason to get breast implants." And...I really don't know where to begin, or what else to say about that.

You Keep Using That Word...

2009-08-23T08:35:00.003-07:00

But, Robert Wright, I do not think you know what evolution means. I count several issues with this op-ed piece in the NYT. To my untrained eye, many of these issues seem to stem from the author's view of evolution as almost entirely based on natural selection (sometimes called neo-Darwinianism or hyper-selectionism).

1. The idea that we need to explain the advent of the so-called "moral sense" as an adaptive measure. It's possible that such a sense is only a by-product of our large brains. In the world of Stephen Jay Gould, "Objects designed for definite purposes can, as a result of their structural complexity, perform many other tasks as well." In other words, our brains might have evolved "for" specific purposes, but whatever those purposes are, they do not represent the limit of what we are capable of.

2. There are also, of course, difficulties in determining just how much of our moral faculties are built-in by Darwinian evolution, and how much are influenced by socialization. Since we don't really have any humans in a state of nature to examine, it's hard to say how a human uninfluencd by the Lamarckian process of cultural evolution would behave.

3. Evolution might have resulted in complex life given long enough, as the author notes. What he doesn't note is that the earth is not eternal and hence complex life was not inevitable. Really, the earth need never have evolved complex, intelligent life. Evolution would not occur mostly the same way were we to rewind the tape, and it's quite possible that complex life might not have evolved before our sun became a red giant, swallowing up the earth.

4. Assuming that there are pre-existing moral truths "out there" waiting to be discovered seems to be a reformulation of the preparation hypothesis. In this view, intelligent life was inevitable. Indeed, the world was preparing for our arrival. This is a classic amongst those who want to see humans as special or different from other life. Actually, the view that there are moral truths waiting to be discovered is a particularly anachronistic form of the preparation view. I would venture that few evolutionary biologists now believe what Darwin's contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace did, that the whole purpose of the world was the development of humanity.

5. Evolution does not have purpose, at least not in the way the author seems to want it to. It is, contrary to popular belief, messy, undirected, and wasteful. Thus, any evolutionary narrative that involves a "struggle toward the good, a struggle that even leads to a kind of climax of history" is not an evolutionary narrative at all.

Of course, I am not a trained biologist or expert on evolution by any means, so I would appreciate any input and commentary.

Me: Sexist Conservative Party Chairman. You: Sexy Future Conservative MP?

2009-08-21T21:16:00.007-07:00

In recent news, the UK Conservative Party is proving adept at embarrassing itself. You may recall recent remarks from Conservative member of European parliament Roger Helmer, in which he claimed that homophobia does not exist. Now, we have this:

Alan Scard, the Chairman of Gosport Conservative Association in Hampshire, is selecting a candidate to replace Sir Peter Viggers as the local MP at the next election.

Asked on TV if he was happy to support David Cameron's call to put more women in Parliament, Alan Scard said: "If they are attractive, yeah, I would go for it."

But before you condemn him, take heed -- Mr. Scard was totally not serious!

He later issued a statement saying: "This was a tongue-in-cheek comment and I apologise unreservedly if it's caused any offence.

"As a proud parent of two girls, the last thing I would ever want to do is say something sexist. We will choose the best person to represent Gosport young or old, male or female, entirely on merit."

The Telegraph notes that Scard's comments are "likely to cause embarrassment" for David Cameron. But Scard is not all about to change his "politically incorrect" ways, so it would seem, issuing this threat to Cameron:

"All I would say to him is be very careful ... Unless you take the grassroots with you, you are on a losing streak," he said. "So I would just sort of say just sometimes back off just a little bit."

In other words: plz no wimminz or gays, kthx

D&D as Motive in Attempted Murder

2009-08-19T15:22:00.002-07:00

This is incredibly bizarre. Probably the best response I've heard to this story (of a man violently bashing in another man's head with a hammer) went something to the tune of: "if this happened on a golf course, nobody would be calling it a golf crime."

I doubt any serious moral panics targeting role-playing and specifically Dungeons and Dragons will thrive as they did in bygone years, but it certainly seems like there is at least the potential for some voyeuristic journalism here.

Co-Opting Pro-Choice Language to Sell Cosmetics

2009-08-18T19:01:00.006-07:00

I did a bit of a double-take when I spotted these ads in a Sears store today. To me, the phrase "right to choose" is irrevocably linked to the politics of abortion and a woman's right to exercise control over her own body. I was standing a fair distance away at the time, so I thought it was a statement of alliance and solidarity on behalf of a cosmetics company. Then I noticed the smaller "your gift" bit underneath.

Does this really seem like a coincidence? Note how "the right to choose" is all-caps and much larger than the tiny "your gift" below. In my most cynical reading, this represents a deliberate move to capitalize on the associations between a particular phrase and a particular belief in order to push cosmetics. It's also possible that my association of this phrase with the pro-choice movement is not a universal one, or that this phrase was chosen without knowledge of its connotations.

The above picture, in case you can't read it, notifies shoppers of the right to choose "two weeks supply of plant-based products." I looked online but couldn't find anything to indicate that the campaign is associated with abortion in any way -- except, of course, for my associations with the tagline.

Personally though, I'm glad that we live in a world where women have the right to choose their own two weeks supply of plant-based products. I mean, when you can choose things like that, who needs reproductive rights, am I right ladies?

More Penny Arcade

2009-08-17T11:17:00.003-07:00

Today, Penny Arcade deals with the ThinkB4YouSpeak campaign, which I mentioned recently. For those not familiar with the strip, it's important to note that the characters involved, Gabe and Tycho, aren't really meant to be the creators, Mike and Jerry. Some confusion may arise since Mike and Jerry use the names Tycho and Gabe as their screen names when posting as well.

In contrast with last week's issues around seducation artists, I really like the way they both handled the discussion today. Tycho echoed my concerns that the GLSEN ad is a kind of "diffuse scolding", and points out that it unsuccessfully tries to out-jerk the jerks. Gabe's offered lines like this:

I fail to understand how during the course of a round of CTF or even rocket race he would be able to discern my sexual orientation. Not once did I return to the game lobby and make some remark like "I captured that flag like I captured the heart of my male life partner!" or "Riding a mongoose reminds me of having sex with a man, which is something I do frequently because I am gay!"

That kind of head-on response doesn't happen often enough, and I think it's a good way of challenging people's ideas on what they mean when they call something gay or queer as a stand-in for bad.

Derailing for Dummies: CliffsNotes Edition

2009-08-17T00:49:00.006-07:00

Most of Derailing for Dummies summed up in one elegant image from Toothpaste for Dinner:

toothpastefordinner.com

Sports Talk/Guy Talk

2009-08-16T11:13:00.006-07:00

This post on Sociological Images discusses the connections between sports and masculinity. Michael Kimmel devotes an entire chapter of his book "Guyland" to sports. Here's an example of what he has to say about the subject:

Sports talk is the lingua franca of guyland. It is a currency that one can spend in any male arena in the nation. Sports talk enables conversation across race and class, even if it sometimes offers a false sense of racial healing. It enables men to bond in a pure homosocial world, a world free of the taint of women's presence. It offers the solace of masculine purity, and the cement of those bonds. Sports -- and talking about them -- is a way for guys to feel close to each other and still feel like real men, feel closer to their fathers and, perhaps, further separated from their mothers. Sports provide a way for men to have their emotions without feeling like wimps. Sometimes, sports serve as the only way for men to talk, to connect, or the only way they can express their emotions at all. (2008 pg. 142-143)

As I mentioned over at SocImages, I don't think geeks entirely eschew the ideals of sports talk. Instead, they find substitutions -- often in various kinds of gaming, be they role-playing, card games, or video games. Often, these pursuits aren't just about playing a game. Like mainstream sports, they can involve high-level competitive play, theory discussion, and constant news and updates. In this way, I don't think geeks so much subvert traditional masculinity as they redirect it, focusing on other pursuits on which to base their own "pure homosocial world".

Like a Midnight Cowboy?

2009-08-14T18:40:00.003-07:00

A new Ashton Kutcher movie has sparked an article at the Globe and Mail about the gigolo. From my experience, men as workers are usually erased in discussions of sex work. This kind of less explicit relationship as discussed in the article is kind of hard to define, but definitely has a very gendered aspect to it. Men may risk their masculinity in shacking up with an older, more powerful woman -- but observe the stereotype of the gold digger to realize just how much women are reviled for having the "wrong" kind of relationship, whereas the worst men may suffer are playful jabs.

New GLSEN Campaign

2009-08-13T19:16:00.004-07:00

Huh. Not sure what to make of this ad campaign to stop the use of homophobic slurs in schools. I don't know that I like the use of other stereotypes, particularly the "dumb cheerleader." From my experience, a lot of people who use the term "gay" don't mentally attach it to homosexuality. It takes some work to understand that even if a malicious intent isn't there, use of a particular word in a particular way can be hurtful.

A method that I've used before is to use someone's name to demonstrate the similarities. If somebody says to me To wit: "That test was so Matt. But I don't mean you, Matt, I just mean bad, stupid, ugly, wrong -- you know, Matt!" Presenting it like this shows how the gay = bad equation makes an aspect of a person into something shameful and disliked, even if the speaker didn't intend to be homophobic.

So is this campaign going to work? I'm hopeful, but I kind of doubt it. Telling kids that certain words used to mean other things doesn't seem to be the right way of going about it. In fact, I think it would take one hell of a poster to negate years of socialization and experience. It's certainly a step, but I hope for more.

Just Kidding!

2009-08-11T11:28:00.004-07:00

Hey everyone! Gabe was just playing the devil's advocate yesterday! So it's all okay!

Seriously, I hope he looks further into pickup "artistry" and finds out what it's all about. I'm sorry that nerds are ostracized by some people and I'm sorry that so many of us lack confidence and experience such isolation. Learning some bizarre seduction science is not the answer. There are classes on conversation and human interaction that you can take, ones that don't train you to treat all men as potential rivals and all women as the means of scoring in some imaginary competition between you and every other guy out there.

Being a Nice Guy is not a good thing. Being nice is good, being a goddamned decent human being is good, of course. But being a capital "N" Nice Guy is not. Guys, the most important thing is that you like yourself before you start looking for another person. This article might be helpful.

Mansplaining the Mancession

2009-08-10T13:14:00.002-07:00

First of all, "mancession" is a portmanteau that should not exist.

Second, how long do you think it'll take before MRAs start throwing this around?

The Seduction Community and Penny Arcade

2009-08-10T12:49:00.009-07:00

At Penny Arcade today, Tycho stumbles across the seduction community:

I recently had the misfortune of being exposed to some propaganda from the "seduction community," and I've spent the weekend on a kind of data bender that has left me psychologically gutted. I've been trying to navigate away from this page for about an hour now, and I can't do it. That these people are base manipulators should be apparent to any literate person; they've made a cage of language that I can't escape from.

Gabe responds:

I don't know, Love Systems doesn't seem so bad to me. It's really hard to talk to girls, and this is just helping guys with their confidence. Women are terrifying and strange. I don't see anything wrong with getting some advice.

I could see how someone who isn't really familiar with the seduction community to think that it's just some friendly advice between guys and simple confidence-building exercises. The "strange and terrifying" bit is really unfortunate, though.

Tycho fires back:

I'm fairly certain the purpose of this course is to make you a better predator of women. Check out their offers of "in-field training," as though you were going to hunt antelopes from a jeep in the Goddamned Savannah.

And Gabe's reply:

I think you're being overly dramatic. Girls have been using their "feminine wiles" to manipulate men since the beginning of time. Do you really think the mind games girls play on guys are any better or worse than this stuff. The only difference is that this sort of thing comes naturally to women. Guys are in a tight spot because in very real terms, we have nothing they want. They on the other hand, have vaginas. They can make us do pretty much what ever they want. I don't see anything wrong with guys trying to learn some tricks of their own.

I guess I expected more from Gabe. Of course, Penny Arcade is coming out of geekdom -- a world traditionally seen as full of bitter Nice Guys who lament their failure with women, never realizing that perhaps their own flaws have something to do with their situation. I'm not saying Gabe is such a man, but he's definitely a part of that culture, one which I know pretty well.

Anyway, Tycho replies:

This, from the dude who thinks it's okay to have sex with unconscious women. That must be considered the "ultimate" technique, something akin to true mastery.

UPDATE: The posts and counter-posts continue, so it might just be best to check the link for the full discussion. Stealing a quote here though, Tycho pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole seduction artist phenomenon:

I'm not sure the people who espouse these "love systems" or "dating sciences" want much to do with women outside of their role as the variable in some bizarre equation they're endlessly iterating.

The Chino Prison Riot

2009-08-10T12:37:00.003-07:00

In response to a prison riot in Chino in which 250 men were injured and 55 were hospitalized, Barry Krisberg (president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Oakland) had this to say:

There are proposals to eliminate all programs including reducing visiting days for inmates participating in programs [...] But if you isolate these men from their families and cut down even the most basic educational and counseling programs you’re going to create more idleness, and this is what happens.

We really need to get this kind of message out to people who don't realize how prisons really work. The only way I can think to do so is by promoting the public safety aspect and showing how the desire to punish sometimes conflicts with a need for rehabilitation. Taking more away from these men does not seem to be the answer, unless we want prisons to become worse places and thus produce angrier and more violent men who will eventually be released back into society.

Om NOM, Donuts - UPDATE

2009-08-10T10:05:00.004-07:00

Aw, frig, Tim Hortons is allying with NOM in Rhode Island to put on an anti-gay marriage event.

I find their coffee almost undrinkable but I do like a donut from time to time. Here's their feedback form, send them something or give them a call. It might just be one franchise, but if so, then corporate probably hasn't heard about it and if they hear enough about it, might do something.

UPDATE: Tim Hortons responds:

Recently, Tim Hortons was approached in Rhode Island to provide free coffee and products for a local event, as we do thousands of times a year across Canada and the United States.
For 45 years, Tim Hortons and its store owners have practiced a philosophy of giving back to the communities in which we operate. As a company, our primary focus is on helping children and supporting fundraising events for non-profit organizations and registered charities.

For this reason, Tim Hortons has not sponsored those representing religious groups, political affiliates or lobby groups.

It has come to our attention that the Rhode Island event organizer and purpose of the event fall outside of our sponsorship guidelines. As such, Tim Hortons can not provide support at the event.

Tim Hortons and its store owners have always welcomed all families and communities to its restaurants and will continue to do so. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience this may have caused.

That was surprisingly quick.

Sodini: Shame and Misogyny

2009-08-08T12:16:00.002-07:00

Found at Shakesville, Bob Herbert at the NYT says some things which need to be said about George Sodini and the culture in which his violence occurred:

We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.

We would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem, and that the twisted way so many men feel about women, combined with the absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions.

MRAs have been the loudest voices here, some completely excusing his crimes or at the least, adopting a "love the sinner, hate the sin" mentality. But to me, Sodini's actions represent several norms taken to the extreme -- sexism, hegemonic masculinity, and the notions of shame and vengeance which are at the root of so much violence.

Sodini was not just "some whackjob", and until we stop treating cases like him as such, we are never going to be able to address the sexism and toxic masculinity that we still carry around and are at the root of so much violence in the world.

Purity vs. Relevance

2009-08-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

My reaction to this essay by Jonathan Rauch in the National Journal was pretty similar to that of Dan Savage ("[it] made me cry", he says simply).

Comments at Sociological Images

2009-08-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

As you may know, Sociological Images is a Contexts blog where the authors post a variety of interesting and discussion-provoking images. They generally assume that readers are familiar with the basics of sociology -- of course, this is not always the case. It's been common for commenters to complain that the authors and others are "reading too much into things", especially when it comes to issues of gender and sexism. More disturbingly, MRAs seem to flock to such posts, unloading hateful diatribes which have for the most part gone unremoved. For a good example, see the replies to this post.

Recently, a post on the "bumbling husband" stereotype in advertising got out of hand, leading to the removal of several comments and a short note acknowledging their disappearance. Today, gwen wrote about it in more detail, saying, in part:

Overall we are always very pleased with the discussions that occur in the comments and the thoughtfulness of many readers (both those who agree with and critique our posts), so we’ve always taken a fairly “hands-off” approach to the comment threads. We don’t want to interfere with readers’ discussions, but clearly we also cannot allow commenters to be personally threatened or to have personal identifying information made public by those threatening violence. [emphasis mine]

Blogs which are more overtly feminist in their position usually moderate comments to avoid derailing and silence trolls. Whether this signals the beginning of such a policy at SocImages, I don't know. I do know that first of all, I'm fucking terrified of those MRAs who would sink to the level of personal threats, and second, I would heartily welcome any moderation policy that meant not having to deal with anti-feminist trolls on a daily basis.

On the Tel Aviv Shootings

2009-08-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

A Brisbane Times article notes that homophobia remains high in Israel, but is slowly declining. Sharp divisions between ultra-orthodox and secular Jews, as might be expected. Depressing possibility that the actual numbers of people with homophobic views might be concealed because of the timing of the study.

In this essay, Orna Coussin describes her (future) efforts to explain homophobia to her daughter. A pretty fantastic and powerful read that also dips into the issues with the liberal view of the "normative" society.