Apr 17 2014
“If you’re feminine, I gathered, you enjoy things that are fundamentally unenjoyable, take plesaure in actions that are intrinsically painful, and derive most satisfaction from the gratification of someone else’s desires, anyone else’s.” Class Porn, Molly Hite
Apr 13 2014
“Yes, well, that’s a philosophical question, isn’t it.” So, what, the question’s unimportant? Because it can’t be answered with quantitative certainty? But philosophical questions can be answered with more or less strength, more or less adequacy.
Also, since there’s no absolutely right or wrong answer to most philosophical questions, the consensus seems to be that anyone can ‘do’ philosophy. In one sense, that’s true. Anyone can do philosophy. Anyone can do physics too. It’s just that incompetence, inadequacy, will be more apparent in the latter case. Because there are right and wrong answers. Most of the time. At least at the lower levels.
But that’s true of much philosophy too. It’s just that we haven’t trained people to see mistakes in reasoning as much as we’ve trained them to see mistakes in arithmetic. (Which is, partly, why people mistakenly think all opinions are equally valid.)
Not only are philosophical questions dismissed, philosophers too are dismissed. After all, they’re no better than the rest of us. Their opinions are no more valid. I’m starting to see the dismissal of scientists in the same way: it occurs when the person doesn’t understand science – after all, if you don’t understand the scientific process of hypothesis formulation and testing, if you don’t understand how scientists arrive at their opinions, you won’t consider scientific opinions any more valid. Similarly with philosophers: if you don’t understand the relationship of premise and conclusion, the necessity of relevance…
Apr 12 2014
[This was written quite a while ago, and I think I might add this: that “‘No’ means ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’ means ‘Anal'” is actually chanted out loud by men should be considered part of ‘circumstantial evidence’, describing as it does the circumstances under which rape occurs–i.e. our disgustingly sexist society…]
Sexual assault, like many other crimes, usually occurs when no one’s watching. Given the absence of a third party witness, how are we to decide guilt/innocence?
Circumstantial evidence is often not helpful because consent, that which differentiates between legal and illegal sex among adults, is essentially a mental event, and of this there can be no evidence: a brain scan won’t show us whether or not a person consented.
Considering consent as a behavioural event, a gesture or a word expressive of consent, is not much better: evidence is possible, but unlikely – even if an audio or video tape of the event exists, one must establish the absence of coercion for any consensual gestures and words.
In a way, things were better when force and resistance differentiated between legal and illegal sex: evidence of this is easily available – torn clothing, bruised body parts, etc. However, we recognize that force and resistance, and perhaps more often torn clothing and bruised body parts, may be part of consensual sex; we also recognize that force may not be physical and resistance may not be wise.
Left without such circumstantial evidence, we must therefore base our decision of guilt/innocence on credibility – specifically (1) which person is more likely to be telling the truth, and (2) which story is more likely to be true. In both cases, the rape shield law hinders rather than helps our decision. Questioning the accuser about her/his sexual history, as well as about her/his character and motive, may indeed provide relevant information. Questioning the accused about his/her sexual history, character, and motive may also provide relevant information. Both lines of questioning should be common in cases that must be decided without circumstantial evidence.
Consider Woman A: she is sexually active and often goes to bars to pick up men; she cruises, chooses, and queries – if he consents, they drive to her place. Suppose she changes her mind on one occasion, and the man persists. She may, quite reasonably, decide not to lay charges of rape; she would not expect anyone to believe her. Given her past practice (her sexual history), it would, in fact, not be reasonable to believe her.
Consider Woman B: she is celibate and solitary. Suppose a man were to enter her residence and rape her. She, reasonably enough, would lay charges; she would expect to be believed. Given her past practice (her sexual history, or rather the lack thereof), it would be very reasonable to do so. It is crucial, therefore, for that past practice, the fact of her long-term celibacy and solitude, to be admissible.
Likewise, the past practice of the man should be admissible: a history of habitually raping women, for example, is relevant; a history completely devoid of aggression is also relevant.
Such information is relevant, however, only insofar as we are creatures of habit, people with tendencies. To say past practice is relevant is to assume that people by and large are consistent in their behaviour. This may not, in fact, be the case: people are inconsistent, people change, people do things for the first time, people do things out of character – all of this is true. Just because a woman consented to sex with twenty strangers before this one doesn’t mean she consented to this one. And just because a man raped twenty women before her doesn’t mean he raped her. Just because the sun has risen every day until now doesn’t mean I can know with certainty that it will rise tomorrow; but probably it will. And probabilities are all we have, especially when there are no witnesses. If a person typically gets drunk on Saturday night and becomes very generous, lending cash and car keys, then his/her charge of theft some Sunday morning is going to be a tough one to make stick; people will reasonably conclude that probably s/he consented to the transaction.
Yes, information about one’s past may be misused; but this isn’t a good reason to prohibit its use: baseball bats can be misused too, but we don’t therefore make them illegal. Rather, it’s up to the court officials to say ‘Wait a minute, that’s a non sequitur, that’s irrelevant’. And if the case in question involves consent, sex, and a stranger, probability based on past practice with regard to consent, sex, and strangers is what’s most relevant; information about such past practice should, therefore, be admissible.
It may, however, be the only information that’s relevant: arguments to character are of questionable validity – ‘She’s sexually active, therefore she’s a slut, and sluts lie’; ‘She’s a teacher, therefore she must be morally upright, therefore she would not lie’; ‘She’s an atheist, therefore she’s immoral, therefore she would lie’; etc. Arguments to motive are also questionable, if only because this takes us back to the unknowable mental event.
Most of the items mentioned in discussions about the rape shield would also be irrelevant – medical records, adoption files, child welfare records, and abortion files. A personal diary, however, may be relevant: if the woman had written in her diary the night before the alleged rape, “I intend to get laid tomorrow night and it doesn’t matter by who – and the more it hurts and the more afraid I am, the better – and I’ll lie about consenting just to make my life a little more interesting”, then that entry should be admissible; likewise, if the man had written in his diary “Tomorrow is Victim Number Ten – I’ve got my knife sharpened and ready to go – I get hard just thinking about raping whoever it’ll happen to be”, then that should be admissible.
However, hearsay has always been inadmissible, so entries such as “He said he was going to rape me” or “She said she wanted me” would not be admissible.
If judges do order such irrelevant records to be turned over, then that’s the problem – and the solution is not a restriction on the admissibility of all personal records/history but mandatory Logic 101 for court officials. (To use one example, drug use does not show general disregard for the law.)
To summarize, (1) we can’t have certainty, we can have only probability; (2) past practice can be (not is) relevant to probability; therefore, (3) information about relevant past practice, of both the accuser and the accused, should be admissible in court.
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Apr 07 2014
And even though you don’t know any other guys who want to be nurseladies, you persist. Because quite simply, you think you’ll like nursing, as a career, a job, an endeavour. So you take your high school maths and sciences, you do quite well, and you get accepted into nursing school.
Where almost all the students are women. You feel like you don’t really belong, you feel odd, you stand out. There are a few other men in the class and at first you hang around with them, but you don’t really like them. Part of you thinks you should like them, but, well, you just don’t. You try hanging around with some of the women, and they’re pleasant enough and they talk to you, but you never get included in their group things outside of class. So you become a loner, part of nothing, sort of invisible. But you persist, you keep coming to class.
All the profs are women and they keep saying things like “Well, ladies…” as if you weren’t there. There’s one who makes a point of adding, as a cute afterthought, “and gentlemen”, but something in her tone bugs you and you’d rather she just stick to “Well, ladies”. And there’s another one who asked once why, with your build, you weren’t playing football instead. You were speechless. But you persist, you don’t drop out. (Even though you wonder sometimes at the average marks you get for work you think is above average.)
There’s only one men’s washroom in the whole building. On particularly bad days, it annoys you when you have to go to a different floor just to go to the washroom.
And it seems that some knowledge is assumed as background. Things like how to hold a baby. How are you supposed to know what they haven’t taught you yet?
And there are no nursing uniforms for you in the campus shop. Something special has to be ordered. It’s different, of course, and makes you stand out even more, as someone who doesn’t really belong with the group. This is especially bad in the training hospital – people keep thinking you’re security or something. Sometimes it seems you have to spend so much time and effort just getting accepted as a nurse, you don’t have anything left to actually do any nursing.
But you persist. Even though you probably won’t get a job when you graduate – men are thought to be not as emotionally sensitive, you’ve already been criticized for being gruff (you swear you were just speaking normally). And if you do get a job, it’ll probably be in some no-name hospital god-knows-where with no chance for advancement. None of the headnurses in any of the hospitals you’ve been in were men. But you persist.
One day it occurs to you that it would help if they stopped calling it ‘nurselady’ and just called it ‘nurse’. When you suggest that, you get weird looks as if you’re obsessed with sex or over-reacting (or both). A few agree to use just ‘nurse’, but the way they say it defeats the purpose. The same sort of thing happened when you said something about the uniforms and the washrooms. You were criticized for making a fuss. But you persist. Because damn it you want to be a nurse!
Apr 06 2014
Several years ago, a local arts centre ran an ad for the position of General Manager. It caught my eye – for a second, I must’ve thought of applying. But then my conscious self must’ve recognized it as being out of my league and I read on.
But then I thought, wait a minute! I’m 37 years old, I’m a multidisciplinary artist who has published books, produced and marketed cassettes, and run music and dance studios, I’ve been Chief Negotiator for a union, I’m intelligent, I’m efficient – surely I’m capable! Even though I’ve had no experience specifically as a General Manager, surely I have the skills “to be a team leader, to balance the arts and business, to be sensitive to multiple art forms, to be a host at ease with the community and the industry….”
So why then was I reluctant to apply? Well, I thought, it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of responsibility (the ad said the centre was “a $1 million venue”) – and that daunted me.
But – and this is the point I want to examine – a man with half my background, and probably ten years less experience, wouldn’t think twice about applying. Why is that?
Perhaps it’s that women see responsibility where men see power. Women see burdens where men see benefits. Women see work where men see privilege.
Hm. And why is that? One, women haven’t had a lot of power – so they’re not used to looking for it, seeing it, using it. Two, women have had a lot of responsibility – so that’s what they’re used to noticing.
Wait a minute – men haven’t had a lot of responsibility? But they run the government, big business – Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it.
What I mean is, consider this. As girls, we got jobs as babysitters: that’s a lot of responsibility – what if the house catches fire, what if the baby starts choking? On the other hand, as boys, men got jobs as ‘paper boys’: they were responsible for getting a bunch of paper onto someone’s porch.
The trend continued in adolescence: the women became camp counsellors and recreation leaders, while the men worked on maintenance crews; the women were entrusted with the physical, social, emotional, and artistic development of children, while the men were entrusted with shrubbery.
Then, or later, in matters of sex, it’s the woman who has the responsibility – for deciding yes or no and for contraception. Men have the power – to rape.
It goes on. Which parent is primarily responsible for the child? The woman. Sure, the man is responsible too, but his responsibility is usually limited to financial matters (and even then, more to getting the money than to managing it). It’s the woman who is primarily responsible for emotional matters – for providing attention, affection, love; and for physical matters – for seeing that the child doesn’t get hit by a car, for seeing that it doesn’t put its finger in a socket; and for intellectual matters – for seeing that the homework gets done, for planning and making trips to the library. The men’s responsibility can be fulfilled in 8 hours each day; the women are responsible 24 hours each day. And yet, should he decide to make his car payment instead of his child support payment, he affects, in a big way, the quality of life for at least two others besides himself. That’s power.
So it’s no wonder we see responsibility where men see power.
And it’s no wonder we don’t apply for the positions higher up.
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Mar 22 2014
Since men commit 90% of the crime, they should pay 90% of the tax that supports the judicial system. Prisons are expensive to build and maintain. As are prisoners – they don’t work while they’re in prison, so we have to support them. Then there’s the expense of the police forces and courts that get them there. We already require that they pay the bulk of car insurance premiums because they’re the worse drivers. So what’s stopping us from going further, making the system even more fair?
And since a large percentage of their crime is violent, it follows that men are responsible for far more ER visits than women (assuming no gender differences with regard to illness and other injury) (actually, since men take more risks than women, there probably is a gender difference with regard to injury) (don’t forget the driving thing), so men should pay more of the tax that supports the healthcare system.
Oh and the military. Men are the ones who thrive on aggression, they get off on the excitement of fighting. They want to join the military. They want to go to war. So let them pay for it. Let them pay the $530 billion required by the military budget.
Then there’s all the environmental stuff. All those beer cans, empty cigarette packs, fast food cartons – most of the litter along the highways was put there by men. As they continue to drive their big gas-guzzlers with the high emissions. And the companies that dump toxic waste, and clear cut forests, and dam river systems? All run by men.
We could call it the Gender Responsibility Tax – a $5,000 surtax could be levied on each and every male. Payable annually, from birth to death. By the parents, of course, until the boy reached manhood.
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Mar 16 2014
Originally written when cellphones first appeared. Don’t think I’d change a thing.
Has there been a more transparent advertisement of insecurity?
Look at me, I’m so popular! Everyone’s calling me! I have so many friends! Answer that thing one more time when I’m with you, you’ll have one less.
Look at me, I’m so busy! I have so many calls to make, so many calls to take! What you have is a total inability to actually enjoy life.
Look at me, I’m so important! Excuse me, I have to take this call! No. You don’t. You are not a doctor on call. You are not a top-level executive. Neither your presence nor your opinion is urgently required. Anywhere. By anyone.
Frankly, it’s frightening. Suddenly all these men are making calls on their cellphones while they’re driving. Just yesterday they couldn’t even dial a phone while sitting at a desk, they had to get their secretaries to do it for them.
And of course it’s annoying as hell. Just what makes people think the rest of the world wants to listen to every word of their unbearably inane conversations? “Hey, Jen. We’re at the Van Houtte on St. Laurent. Yeah. Just ordered. No. Not yet. We’re waiting. Coffee.”
Of course people have been having conversations in cafes and stores, and on sidewalks and buses, for quite some time. It’s not an invasion of public space. Unless the person TALKS LOUDLY ENOUGH EVERYONE CAN’T HELP BUT HEAR. Then it’s an advertisement of the immaturity of overriding self-importance.
But that doesn’t explain why a person talking loudly on a cellphone in public is even more annoying than two people having a loud conversation in public. Why is that? I think it’s because in the case of the cellphone conversation, we hear only half of the conversation. However annoying the whole conversation would be, half of it is even worse. It’s like hearing only every second work in a sentence. (Speaking of which, remember the early “ – ar ph – s”?) This occurred to me when I heard someone speaking on a cellphone in a language I didn’t understand. It wasn’t quite as bad. I wasn’t engaged against my will in a frustrating half-comprehensible experience.
But what’s most worrisome about the widespread use of cellphones is that it indicates not progress, but regress. We are, in fact, devolving. Imagine, for a moment, what it would’ve been like to have been the first one in your cave to discover thought, the first one to hear words, inside your head. It’s a neat and handy trick – not having to say out loud everything that occurs to you. And one of the more valuable side-effects of being able to think is being able to evaluate – to deliberate, to compare, to measure. (And to realize that not everything that occurs to you is worth saying out loud.) But we’ve gone backwards – from “I think, therefore I am” to “I talk, therefore I am.” (I wonder if cellphone users can read without moving their lips.)
Given the recent increase in attention deficit (what we used to call ‘a short attention span’) (usually in reference to children and other less advanced creatures), the cellphone phenomenon is not surprising: it takes a certain amount of attention or concentration to think – to focus on and follow that little voice inside your head. It used to be that doing two things at once meant your ability to concentrate was so good, you could divide your attention. Now it means that your ability to concentrate is so bad, you can’t pay attention to any one thing for more than ten seconds.
(Either that or you don’t care enough to pay attention to anything or anyone for more than ten seconds.)
And maybe cellphones wouldn’t have become the annoyance they are if everyone hadn’t ditched their landline phones. Because now the ONLY place you can have a phone conversation is OUTSIDE. Wherever the signal is good. Whether that happens to be outside someone’s bedroom window or one foot away from a stranger waiting for a bus, well, no matter. Your conversation takes priority. To everything and everyone. Apparently.
Mar 12 2014
Mar 05 2014
Check it out: http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/pointlessly-gendered-products
Be sure to read the comments/captions. They’re great.
Feb 24 2014
“A deep freeze continues to sweep through Europe, mudslides and avalanches caused by heavy rains and snowmelt in Oregon and Washington have prompted evacuation notices, prolonged drought continues to devastate much of the American Midwest, Texas, and Mexico, with many areas now being without rain for over 200 days, and flash fires continue to rage throughout those areas, a heat wave in Australia continues unabated with temperatures well over 100 degrees, there are tornado alerts for regions throughout Tennessee and Oklahoma, Hurricane Gordon has touched down in Florida, swift on the heels of Hurricane Florence, flash floods are rampant in southern parts of Africa, and torrential rains have Brazil still in a state of emergency.”
This weather brought to you by everyone who’s driven a gas-guzzling minivan, pick-up, or SUV in the last thirty years, everyone who still makes unnecessary trips, and everyone who still lets their vehicle idle while they’re somewhere else doing whatever the fuck they’re doing.
fiction
