links for 2011-07-27

  • If you don't like gay marriage, blame straight people. They're the ones who keep having gay babies.
  • Bonobos are as closely related to us as chimpanzees are since we shared a common ancestor with both between four and six million years ago and the two species later diverged from each other only about a million years ago. There has never been an observed case of male sexual coercion in this species despite the fact that males are still somewhat larger than females. A unique aspect of bonobo society is that they are a female-dominated species thanks to the network of support that exists between bonobo females. Chimpanzee females are largely isolated from one another, but bonobo females come to one another’s aid. While there may be genetic differences that account for the lack of sexual coercion in bonobos, one important factor is the different environment that promotes these cooperative networks and limits the usefulness of male coercion.
  • Too many of his female friends engage in sexual activity. Wah wah wah. Misogynist asshole. I like this paragraph: "Women are too powerful, everyone's too slutty, let's go back to the 1950's and take away the birth control and abortions and kick the Muslims out. Reading the Norway terrorist's manifesto is like being inside a Young Republicans meeting!"
Continue Readinglinks for 2011-07-27

Do you have the right kind of wife for it?

Volkswagen Bus Ad
Volkswagen Bus Ad

Ad Copy:

Can your wife bake her own bread?
Can she get a kid’s leg stitched and not phone you at the office until it’s all over?
Find something to talk about when the TV set goes on the blink?
Does she worry about the Bomb?
Make your neighbor’s children wish she were their mother?
Will she say “Yes” to a camping trip after 50 straight weeks worth of cooking?
Let your daughter keep a pet snake in the back yard?
Invite 13 people to dinner even though she only has service for 12?
Name a cat “Rover?”
Live another year without furniture and take a trip to Europe instead?
Let you give up your job with a smile?
And mean it?
Congratulations

Wow, I don’t even know where to begin with this shit – If you can’t hold your job, why should she get your kid stitches without calling you, or cook for you for 50 weeks in a row? Maybe she has her own job and you should consider baking the bread, fella. Maybe she doesn’t want to be a mom, let alone the mother figure for the neighbor’s kids, too.

This just proves that even liberal hippie dudes were total douche-bags back in the 1960s.

Props on the bitchin’ ride, though; that rocks. And the “daughter with a snake” thing, and the cat name Rover. That’s all cool.

Continue ReadingDo you have the right kind of wife for it?

links for 2010-04-16

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Predator Theory and Rape

Predatory Theory is a very detailed and interesting post on Feministe by Thomas, discussing two detailed recent studies of rapists and violence directed at women.

Lots of new information here that explodes general society ideas about rapists and their methods and motivations. Most rapists go after acquaintances rather than strangers, and most of them are repeat offenders. Most of them are “undetected” and not incarcerated.Instead of attending top outpatient rehab in New Jersey most of them tend to use alcohol and get addicted other intoxicants to disable their intended victims, in a pre-meditated event. They plan and think out their crimes, rather than acting on opportunity or impulse. Many of them consciously try to limit their use of force during a rape if they can to avoid prosecution, but at the same time, these rapists are also responsible for a large chunk of domestic violence and child abuse. Detecting and incarcerating these repeat rapists would drastically reduce the incidents of violence towards women and children in addition to reducing rape.

And it’s not difficult to tell who these men are because their political and cultural beliefs shine a spotlight directly on them:

Many of the motivational factors that were identified in incarcerated rapists have been shown to apply equally to undetected rapists. When compared to men who do not rape, these undetected rapists are measurably more angry at women, more motivated by the need to dominate and control women, more impulsive and disinhibited in their behavior, more hyper-masculine in their beliefs and attitudes, less empathic and more antisocial.

and

Guys with rigid views of gender roles and an axe to grind against women in general are overrepresented among rapists… Guys who seem to hate women … do. If they sound like they don’t like or respect women and see women as impediments to be overcome … they’re telling the truth. That’s what they think, and they will abuse if they think they can get away with it.

The notion that “date rape” occurs because men get a little to inebriated and don’t communicate well is largely untrue.

In the course of 20 years of interviewing these undetected rapists, in both research and forensic settings, it has been possible for me to distill some of the common characteristics of the modus operandi of these sex offenders. These undetected rapists:

  • are extremely adept at identifying “likely” victims, and testing prospective victims’ boundaries;
  • plan and premeditate their attacks, using sophisticated strategies to groom their victims for attack, and to isolate them physically;
  • use “instrumental” not gratuitous violence; they exhibit strong impulse control and use only as much violence as is needed to terrify and coerce their victims into submission;
  • use psychological weapons – power, control, manipulation, and threats – backed up by physical force, and almost never resort to weapons such as knives or guns;
  • use alcohol deliberately to render victims more vulnerable to attack, or completely unconscious.

Thomas has some great suggestions for how to better prevent rape than simply giving women a list of places and behaviors to avoid:

With that in mind, here’s what I think we can do:

(1) Men who inhabit cis- and het- identified social spaces need to listen to women. The women we know will tell us when the men they thought they could trust assaulted them; if and only if they know we won’t stonewall, deny, blame or judge. We need to listen without defending that guy. That guy is more likely than not a recidivist. He has probably done it before. He will probably do it again.

(2) The same men need to listen to other men. The men who rape will all but declare themselves. The guy who says he sees a woman too drunk to know where she is as an opportunity is not joking. Men who rape look for assurance that their social license to operate is in effect; they look for little confirmations that if he takes home the drunkest woman at the party and she says the next day that she said no, that she’ll be blamed and not believed. Choosing not to be part of a rape-supportive environment actually tells the rapist that his behavior has risks, and not everyone will take his side against an accuser.

(3) We need to change the culture of discourse about rape (and I mean all of us). Rapists know that the right combination of factors — alcohol and sex shame, mostly — will keep their victims quiet. Otherwise, they would be identified earlier and have a harder time finding victims. Women need social permission to talk frankly about sexual assault, because the more women can say what happened to them, the more difficult it is for the same man to rape six women without facing legal or even social consequences.

(4) Because the rapists have a fairly well-developed modus operandi, is is possible to spot it and interrupt it. We can look for the tactics and interrupt the routine. We can spot the rapist deliberately getting the woman drunk or angling to get the drunk woman alone in an unfamiliar place, and intervene. A guy offering a drunk woman a ride home may just be offering a ride, but if he is insistent when someone else offers a ride, this ought to raise a flag. If a guy is antagonistic towards women and places a lot of emphasis on sex as scoring or conquest, and he’s violating a woman’s boundaries and trying to end up with her drunk and alone, we don’t have to be sure what he’s doing to be concerned, and to start trying to give her exit ramps from his predatory slide.

Continue ReadingPredator Theory and Rape

links for 2010-02-16

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links for 2010-02-06

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links for 2010-01-27

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links for 2009-09-20

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Using the Sexism on the Left

Zuzu has an interesting post at Shakesville about how the choice of Palin may be an attempt to use the unchecked sexism within the Democratic Party against it:

Right on cue, the sexist attacks against Palin began on the left– which the McCain people were undoubtedly counting on.

Let’s look at how McCain’s selection of Palin fits in to the Rovian playbook. Already, feminists on the left are asking whether McCain thinks that women vote with their vaginas — but that only allows the GOP to turn that back on the Dems and ask why feminists think that Palin was chosen only because she’s a woman. Same with all the “what kind of mother” talk — aren’t Democrats the ones who are supposed to be all for working mothers?

Then there’s all the “Governor Barbie,” bimbo, golddigger, VPILF, CUNTRY, etc. crap. Oh, the Republicans will undoubtedly say, look how much the Democrats value women. All that unity business was a steaming pile of bullshit; they don’t value you when the chips are down.

And what the Republicans will do that the Democrats will not is call out the misogyny against their candidate. I’ve said it before — the Republicans would never, in a million years, stand by and let the media and the party rank-and-file treat one of their female candidates the way that Clinton got treated during the primary.
Thus, they turn a Democratic strength into a weakness. Or, rather, expose it as a weakness.

Now, as to why I don’t think that McCain actually thinks that disaffected Democratic women will flock to him just because he picked a wingnut gun-nut creationist woman with some ethical problems as a running mate: because he doesn’t have to get them to vote for him. He has to get them to stay home in swing states.

And what better way to get them to stay home than pick a running mate who not only helps him with his own base, but whose very physical presence he knows will bring out the misogynist bully boys who made Hillary’s life (and those of her supporters) such hell? The ones who never tire of making it perfectly clear that women who want attention paid to their issues in this election are not welcome in the Democratic Party?

Making it all the more perfect is the fact that Obama is boxed in — if he fails to rein in the football hooligans who comprise his rabid fan base, he will be (rightly) accused of supporting the misogynistic attacks against Palin, but if he publicly reins them in, he will be (rightly) accused of failing to do the same when those attacks were directed against Clinton, which will allow the Republicans to question the legitimacy of the process that put him over the top on the delegate count.

That genie isn’t going back into the bottle, not now.

And all those football hooligan fanboys who’ve turned their unleashed ids onto Palin now that Hillary’s out of the race and in the fold? They’re doing Karl Rove’s work for him. And so are the astroturfers and concern trolls.

I supposed Rove is enough of a snake to think that strategy all the way through — and to see the sexism of the Left/Democrats for what it really is; a dangerous, handy tool to be used against them. Whether he picked the right woman to place in the VP slot is another story, but the idea is plausible.

Continue ReadingUsing the Sexism on the Left

Sarah Palin and John McCain’s Judgment and Health

For progressives and Democrats, there’s lots to dislike about the GOP VP choice Sarah Palin.
As Melissa McEwan notes:

For the record, there is plenty about which to criticize Palin that has absolutely fuck-all to do with her sex. She’s anti-choice, against marriage equality, pro-death penalty, pro-guns, and loves Big Business. (In other words, she’s a Republican.)

Now for me the pro-death penalty and pro-gun stances aren’t a concern, but the rest is, and those two issues are core Democratic platform stances. Much as I dislike the folks at the DailyKos – many items on the list of 45+ Problems for McCain’s VP in just 35 Hours is worth a look.

Palin’s also got some pretty serious ethical problems, the surface of which is Troopergate as Doug Masson explains:

Palin’s sister apparently did not exercise great judgment in choosing her husband, Mike Wooten, a State Trooper. She filed for divorce, and things got ugly. No real political problem there. Messy divorce proceedings aren’t exactly uncommon.

But then, while the divorce was pending, Sarah Palin got elected governor and she and her family began pressuring the State police chief to fire Wooten. The police chief wouldn’t do it, and she fired him. Then she denied that she and her family had been involved in pressuring for Wooten’s termination.

Now she is backtracking on her denial that she pressured for Wooten’s termination, and an investigation has been launched into whether the police chief’s termination was improper.

There are some other ethical questions waiting in the wings to come to light as well that list of 45 problems covers the beginnings of them. I haven’t even begun to read through all those links yet.

Palin also has very little experience governing, and as Paul Begala notes on CNN, that’s a dangerous choice for VP:

Palin a first-term governor of a state with more reindeer than people, will have to put on a few pounds just to be a lightweight. Her personal story is impressive: former fisherman, mother of five. But that hardly qualifies her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

For a man who is 72 years old and has had four bouts with cancer to have chosen someone so completely unqualified to become president is shockingly irresponsible. Suddenly, McCain’s age and health become central issues in the campaign, as does his judgment.

Emphasis mine. Steve Benen echos that concern:

Palin’s qualifications are, to a very real degree, secondary to the issue at hand. What matters most right now is John McCain’s comically dangerous sense of judgment. He picked a running mate he met once for 15 minutes, who’s been the governor of a small state for a year and a half, and who is in the midst of an abuse-of-power investigation in which she appears to have lied rather blatantly. She has no obvious expertise in any area, and no record of any kind of federal issues. McCain doesn’t care.

Sensible people of sound mind and character simply don’t do things like this. Leaders don’t do things like this. It’s the height of arrogance. It’s manifestly unserious. It’s reckless and irresponsible. It mocks the political process. Faced with a major presidential test, McCain thought it wise to tell an imprudent joke of lasting consequence.

That may sound like a flippant question, but it deserves a serious answer. Is there something wrong with him? Might this be evidence of some kind of impulse problem, as reflected in his shoot-first, think-second approach to foreign policy?

When I think about the respect that John McCain had worked so hard to develop, the stature he’d taken years to cultivate, and the reputation he’d built his career on, it’s breathtaking to see him throw it all away. If there’s a more complete collapse in modern political times, from hero to clown, I can’t think of it.

We’re poised to learn a great deal about Sarah Palin, but we’ve just learned even more about John McCain. He’s fundamentally unsuited for the presidency.

These are all serious and legitimate questions — and ones that deserve some examination and thought. It’s unfortunate that some of the first things out of the gate we’re hearing about from many so-called progressives on the choice of Palin are:

— VPILF.com
I hope I don’t need to explain why that’s sexist asshatery.

former beauty queen/McCain’s new girlfriend
Ditto.

— She has 5 kids! How will she care for them?!
Her husband and nanny are there to help with the kids, same as if she were a guy with five children. And asking the question in the first place is sexist asshatery.

She has a downs syndrome child! How will she care for it?!
Ditto.

Her daughter had the kid, and she’s pretending to be the mom!

OMFG. You’re kidding with this, right? Way to shit on her sixteen-year-old daughter. That’s just ugly, and mean-spirited.

And I know at least one family who handled a teen pregnancy this way. (No, a real family, not Bree Hodge.) I don’t
think it’s my place to pass judgment on a tough situation like that. When a kid needs to be taken care of an a young woman needs to be able to have a young-adulthood and prepare her for her adult life, I can see why some families might decide this is the best thing.

I’ve been breathing fire lately about all of the sexism thrown around in this election — If you’ve truly not seen it — the Shakesville blog has been running multi-part series about this subject throughout the election cycle that have provided more coverage than I ever could:

Hillary Sexism Watch (currently on part #109).

Michelle Obama Racism/Sexism Watch

Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Black Dude Watch

and now:

Sarah Palin Sexism Watch

Continue ReadingSarah Palin and John McCain’s Judgment and Health