This story is very sad. Details are still coming out, so it's hard to say what to think of everything, but one thing really strikes me as... well... odd. The story: A child, 8, shot and killed his father and his father's friend on Wednesday. The current report is that this was not a spur-of-the-moment thing, either, but that the child planned the attack out. There's speculation that he might have been abused, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that yet. The part that I'm currently bothered by is the fact that the police want to charge him as an adult.
An eight year old. Charged as an adult.
Now, maybe someone has some insight into this that I'm missing... but if we're at the point where we charge eight-year-olds as adults, what is the point of having a distinction? Why not just make all murder trials "as adult" then?
Because it seems to me that we, as a society, have agreed that there's an important emotional/intellectual difference between adults and children, and we've generally placed the transition at 18. Now, that's sort of arbitrary, and that's why we recognize that there's some leeway, and sometimes we see value in charging, say, a 17-year-old as an adult. But at eight, a child is less than half the age we consider an adult--still a decade away. If that's not firmly in the realm of "child", what is?
And if the argument is that we need to more harshly punish this kid for what he's done? If we don't have a serious enough punishment to fit the crime? The solution isn't to charge him as an adult, but to fix the laws that we think are broken and need to be fixed.
It seems profoundly screwed up to me that someone as young as eight is going to be charged as an adult.
Showing posts with label But think of the childrens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label But think of the childrens. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
Support Obama? No candy for you!
Okay, seriously?
What is wrong with people? It's Halloween. You're going to turn kids away from your door because their parents support the other guy? Really? That's some kind of ass-hattery. Little kids are little kids, and there's no way of knowing whether they'll swing towards or away from their parents politics as they grow. And I think it's pretty low to campaign through children, anyway--if you're giving out candy on Halloween, give it out. Don't try to push your politics on kids coming to your door. Disgusting.
What is wrong with people? It's Halloween. You're going to turn kids away from your door because their parents support the other guy? Really? That's some kind of ass-hattery. Little kids are little kids, and there's no way of knowing whether they'll swing towards or away from their parents politics as they grow. And I think it's pretty low to campaign through children, anyway--if you're giving out candy on Halloween, give it out. Don't try to push your politics on kids coming to your door. Disgusting.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Okay, but I don't want to pay for the war, either...
So, apparently, I lost or never created a new login for the updated Feministing site. Which means no leaving comments there for me for the time being.
Anyway, in the comments of their shout-out to This Is What Women Want, cheezwizard responds:
Universal childcare
This is one area where feel like I can sympathize with those “childfree” folks. Raise your own children, please, and I will raise mine (assuming I decide to have any, that is).
I'm going to sort of vent for a minute. To put it bluntly, I think that's a shortsighted and selfish perspective to have on something like childcare. We're a society. The key point to society is that it's social in nature. There are major benefits to being social creatures, and we reap those benefits all the time. This attitude of "Well, I don't have children so I shouldn't be responsible for contributing to your children's welfare" is almost offensive to me.
First of all, we all contribute to things that we don't gain immediate or direct benefit from. For that matter, we contribute to things that we don't even want to. People who don't drive contribute to roads they'll never even see. People who don't enjoy nature contribute to maintaining parks and rec areas. People who aren't sick contribute to the healthcare of those who are. People who've never had a fire in their house or who've never been the victim of a crime contribute to the expense of keeping a functioning fire and police department. The list goes on and on.
Second of all, we all benefit from these things, whether we directly use the service or not. You may not have a child in school, but you benefit from other people's children being in school. An educated population is important for progress and growth. As people get older and retire or die, you want the younger generations to be able to fill in the empty positions, and it's important that they be properly educated to do so. Ideally, you also want to see social and technological advancements- new and better treatments for sickness, cleaner energy sources, etc. Those things take an educated population.
As far as childcare goes, it's, again, in all of our interests to have accessible childcare. In an age of single parent or two working parent homes, childcare is a big deal. As it stands, childcare can quickly eat up a family's budget, particular with more than one child. At which point the family is forced to chose between job or childcare. Neither one is good for society at large- pushing people down into poverty because they can't afford to pay for childcare puts a drain on society and removes potentially good workers from positions where they contributed. Having children being poorly cared for or free to roam around and get into trouble because their parents can't afford proper childcare contributes to youth crime rates.
Nothing about the "I don't have kids so I shouldn't have to help with yours" is convincing, to me, and I think that it absolutely reeks of selfish entitlement most of the time.
Anyway, in the comments of their shout-out to This Is What Women Want, cheezwizard responds:
Universal childcare
This is one area where feel like I can sympathize with those “childfree” folks. Raise your own children, please, and I will raise mine (assuming I decide to have any, that is).
I'm going to sort of vent for a minute. To put it bluntly, I think that's a shortsighted and selfish perspective to have on something like childcare. We're a society. The key point to society is that it's social in nature. There are major benefits to being social creatures, and we reap those benefits all the time. This attitude of "Well, I don't have children so I shouldn't be responsible for contributing to your children's welfare" is almost offensive to me.
First of all, we all contribute to things that we don't gain immediate or direct benefit from. For that matter, we contribute to things that we don't even want to. People who don't drive contribute to roads they'll never even see. People who don't enjoy nature contribute to maintaining parks and rec areas. People who aren't sick contribute to the healthcare of those who are. People who've never had a fire in their house or who've never been the victim of a crime contribute to the expense of keeping a functioning fire and police department. The list goes on and on.
Second of all, we all benefit from these things, whether we directly use the service or not. You may not have a child in school, but you benefit from other people's children being in school. An educated population is important for progress and growth. As people get older and retire or die, you want the younger generations to be able to fill in the empty positions, and it's important that they be properly educated to do so. Ideally, you also want to see social and technological advancements- new and better treatments for sickness, cleaner energy sources, etc. Those things take an educated population.
As far as childcare goes, it's, again, in all of our interests to have accessible childcare. In an age of single parent or two working parent homes, childcare is a big deal. As it stands, childcare can quickly eat up a family's budget, particular with more than one child. At which point the family is forced to chose between job or childcare. Neither one is good for society at large- pushing people down into poverty because they can't afford to pay for childcare puts a drain on society and removes potentially good workers from positions where they contributed. Having children being poorly cared for or free to roam around and get into trouble because their parents can't afford proper childcare contributes to youth crime rates.
Nothing about the "I don't have kids so I shouldn't have to help with yours" is convincing, to me, and I think that it absolutely reeks of selfish entitlement most of the time.
Friday, February 29, 2008
On definitions and synonyms...
I know I stepped in this before, but my opinion hasn't changed.
According to dictionary.com:
Child - noun, plural chil·dren
1. a person between birth and full growth; a boy or girl: books for children.
According to American Heritage Dictionary:
n. pl. chil·dren
1. a. A person between birth and puberty.
b. A person who has not attained maturity or the age of legal majority.
According to WordNet 3.0
noun
1. a young person of either sex; "she writes books for children"
The defining trait of all children is age. Child does not, however, mean a loud, irrational, destructive person with poor communication skills.
If you use "child" as a synonym for the above, you're using it incorrectly. Just as a misogynist who uses "woman" to mean something other than "an adult female person" is wrong.
EG is a fucking champ in that thread, btw.
Exactly right.
According to dictionary.com:
Child - noun, plural chil·dren
1. a person between birth and full growth; a boy or girl: books for children.
According to American Heritage Dictionary:
n. pl. chil·dren
1. a. A person between birth and puberty.
b. A person who has not attained maturity or the age of legal majority.
According to WordNet 3.0
noun
1. a young person of either sex; "she writes books for children"
The defining trait of all children is age. Child does not, however, mean a loud, irrational, destructive person with poor communication skills.
If you use "child" as a synonym for the above, you're using it incorrectly. Just as a misogynist who uses "woman" to mean something other than "an adult female person" is wrong.
EG is a fucking champ in that thread, btw.
You're uncomfortable around children? Fine. Own that. It's about you and whatever issues/perspectives you have. Making it about some supposedly "objective" assessment of children's behavior turns it into "children deserve my dislike--it's not me, it's them." And the assessments used are almost always assessments that can equally apply to adults.
Exactly right.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Shorter McCullough: I've never played video games and here's why we should ban them...
I don't read Townhall.com, and I don't really know that much about Kevin McCullough, but this story makes me glad that I'm not a regular reader, for sure.
To save you the pain of reading it- McCullough is outraged- Outraged, I say!- about Mass Effect. It's pretty obvious that he's never played the game. He's got a great list of claims about it, everything from claiming that game-players are universally male (fyi- the only people I personally know who've played the game are actually women), to claiming that it allows players to engage in "the most realistic sex acts ever conceived" and that they can "hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of." (Conceived! Get it? That's funny! And "hump"? Really?) *ahem* Anyway- It's got a very realistic relationship, but the most realistic sex ever conceived? It's less than a minute long, and less explicit than half the stuff you see on network television.
I also love that McCullough thinks that character creation is a "disgusting idea" that "tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships". Nevermind that the only customization you can do is in a limited area, and that the ability to create custom characters is actually a beneficial gameplay aspect that allows players from diverse backgrounds and physical types to create avatars that they can personally identify with. And ignore that the sex only happens as a result of multiple hours of relationship building. Showing people (and aliens, I suppose) as having complicated relationships- relationships that, yes, involve sex- isn't objectifying. The argument seems to be that any depiction of sex must necessarily be objectifying.
The criticisms just go downhill from there, ending up with the claim that Mass Effect:
It's worth noting, here, that Mass Effect isn't an online game.
I know I've talked about this before, but this is just another example of someone taking an issue that's important and should be discussed- the sexism that exists within games and gaming culture- and completely missing the mark by not knowing what sie is talking about. There are games that allow the player to, yes, rape with the push of a button. And there are games that go to great lengths to objectify women or that push unrealisitic and unhealthy attitudes about sex, or gender, or relationships. But, spreading lies or untruths about games and gaming culture doesn't do anything to address those problems. Instead, it makes the conversation harder to have. It obfuscates the real issues, and puts gamers into a defensive mindset. It destroys the credibility of your argument when you can't even be bothered to find out what level of customization you have over a game, or whether it has online play.
The silver lining here is that a lot of McCullough's readers have called him out on this article. The comments (over 500 of them right now), are filled with plenty of people pointing out "Wow, you've clearly never played this game."
To save you the pain of reading it- McCullough is outraged- Outraged, I say!- about Mass Effect. It's pretty obvious that he's never played the game. He's got a great list of claims about it, everything from claiming that game-players are universally male (fyi- the only people I personally know who've played the game are actually women), to claiming that it allows players to engage in "the most realistic sex acts ever conceived" and that they can "hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of." (Conceived! Get it? That's funny! And "hump"? Really?) *ahem* Anyway- It's got a very realistic relationship, but the most realistic sex ever conceived? It's less than a minute long, and less explicit than half the stuff you see on network television.
I also love that McCullough thinks that character creation is a "disgusting idea" that "tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships". Nevermind that the only customization you can do is in a limited area, and that the ability to create custom characters is actually a beneficial gameplay aspect that allows players from diverse backgrounds and physical types to create avatars that they can personally identify with. And ignore that the sex only happens as a result of multiple hours of relationship building. Showing people (and aliens, I suppose) as having complicated relationships- relationships that, yes, involve sex- isn't objectifying. The argument seems to be that any depiction of sex must necessarily be objectifying.
The criticisms just go downhill from there, ending up with the claim that Mass Effect:
can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the gameplayer wishes.
With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.
It's worth noting, here, that Mass Effect isn't an online game.
I know I've talked about this before, but this is just another example of someone taking an issue that's important and should be discussed- the sexism that exists within games and gaming culture- and completely missing the mark by not knowing what sie is talking about. There are games that allow the player to, yes, rape with the push of a button. And there are games that go to great lengths to objectify women or that push unrealisitic and unhealthy attitudes about sex, or gender, or relationships. But, spreading lies or untruths about games and gaming culture doesn't do anything to address those problems. Instead, it makes the conversation harder to have. It obfuscates the real issues, and puts gamers into a defensive mindset. It destroys the credibility of your argument when you can't even be bothered to find out what level of customization you have over a game, or whether it has online play.
The silver lining here is that a lot of McCullough's readers have called him out on this article. The comments (over 500 of them right now), are filled with plenty of people pointing out "Wow, you've clearly never played this game."
Friday, December 07, 2007
It's like Swift making an Irish roast...
I started to write a post on the article from Pyschology Today that Kevin wrote about here, but I just couldn't do it. His post is great, and I left a comment about the hair color thing, and if you want to annoy yourself, you can read the original article.
Instead, I want to talk about baby221's post about the unborn baby ornaments. You can see the original ad for the ornament on MissPoppy.com.
Baby221 originally didn't realize that the item was intended as satire when she wrote the first half of her post. Later, she updated once she realized the intent, but raised an interesting question about our readings of various texts. Basically, she wonders whether knowing that this was intended as satire excuses it:
I have a response there, too, but I'm going to expand on it, here.
My general feeling is that this item should be pretty easily read as satire, in the same way that "A Modest Proposal" is. If you're a reasonable person, the sight of a fetus carrying a submachinegun or a rifle ought to strike you as, at the very least, odd. I'd go a bit further, and say that it should probably creep you out, make you laugh, or disturb you, depending on the context that you're seeing it.
I think that baby221 raises a good point, though- as it currently stands, a lot of people "missed the joke" as it were. As much as it distresses me, a lot of people read this item as "real", in the sense that it was read as not being a "joke" item (as opposed to it being fictional, or not actually for sale, which would be untrue).
The distressing thing to me isn't the item itself, though, it's what the item says about the current state of our world. If you can see a fetus carrying a rifle and wearing a military backpack, trapped in a plastic bubble, and think that it's actually intended as a piece of pro-life "culture of life" pride, it says a lot about the state of the debate. If we can read that as serious, it suggests to me that some of the arguments that are actually intended as serious must be really outlandish.
In order for us to read this item as "real", it must have seemed plausible that pro-lifers would actually do something like this- that they'd see this as an appropriate way of expressing the "culture of life." If we can read the description- "Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship" and "If only a womb were this safe, attractive, and reasonably priced... ...show that you support the 'culture of life' by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans" without realizing that it's a joke/satire, then I think that maybe we need to consider how screwed up the actual arguments we're dealing with must be.
Baby221 goes so far as to point out that members of her mother's parish would probably display these proudly, stripped of the context of the joke. I think that is troubling. If we've reached the point where pro-lifers think that a fetus carrying a gun is anything but a joke or disturbing, then I think we're reaching a point of absurdity that I'm not sure what to do about.
It's tantamount to people nodding their heads and saying "You know, he's right. I bet an Irish kid would be pretty tasty with some gravy and mashed potatoes."
-update-
The more I look at the picture of the ornament, the more I realize that I could probably make those. The "fetus" and the weapons are both available at the local dollar stores. The only thing would figuring out how to get them inside of the bubble. my guess is that the bubble is actually just a clamshell style bulb that you seal with transparent glue, but I don't see a seam in the picture, so I can't be sure.
Instead, I want to talk about baby221's post about the unborn baby ornaments. You can see the original ad for the ornament on MissPoppy.com.
Baby221 originally didn't realize that the item was intended as satire when she wrote the first half of her post. Later, she updated once she realized the intent, but raised an interesting question about our readings of various texts. Basically, she wonders whether knowing that this was intended as satire excuses it:
does “knowing” that it’s satire make it any better? I mean, it makes me feel loads better if a bit stupid, but what kind of interpretation can we be expected to make without context? i.e., if you went into someone’s house and saw it on the mantle, or on the tree?
And what kind of contribution does this make on the representation, the “life” of the fetus as we know it? Is it as subversive as it thinks it is, or does it play into the hands of pro-lifers by working within their frames?
I kinda get the idea that if I left these at my mother’s parish they’d be taken home and displayed quite proudly, without a hint of irony. Maybe this is just me trying to save face, but it seems too easy to strip them from their ironic intent; all you have to do is take it out of the box, away from its website and the rest of its context. And then all you’ve got left is this disturbing image of a little man in space (Petchesky’s Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction — read her, if you haven’t) … with a gun.
I have a response there, too, but I'm going to expand on it, here.
My general feeling is that this item should be pretty easily read as satire, in the same way that "A Modest Proposal" is. If you're a reasonable person, the sight of a fetus carrying a submachinegun or a rifle ought to strike you as, at the very least, odd. I'd go a bit further, and say that it should probably creep you out, make you laugh, or disturb you, depending on the context that you're seeing it.
I think that baby221 raises a good point, though- as it currently stands, a lot of people "missed the joke" as it were. As much as it distresses me, a lot of people read this item as "real", in the sense that it was read as not being a "joke" item (as opposed to it being fictional, or not actually for sale, which would be untrue).
The distressing thing to me isn't the item itself, though, it's what the item says about the current state of our world. If you can see a fetus carrying a rifle and wearing a military backpack, trapped in a plastic bubble, and think that it's actually intended as a piece of pro-life "culture of life" pride, it says a lot about the state of the debate. If we can read that as serious, it suggests to me that some of the arguments that are actually intended as serious must be really outlandish.
In order for us to read this item as "real", it must have seemed plausible that pro-lifers would actually do something like this- that they'd see this as an appropriate way of expressing the "culture of life." If we can read the description- "Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship" and "If only a womb were this safe, attractive, and reasonably priced... ...show that you support the 'culture of life' by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans" without realizing that it's a joke/satire, then I think that maybe we need to consider how screwed up the actual arguments we're dealing with must be.
Baby221 goes so far as to point out that members of her mother's parish would probably display these proudly, stripped of the context of the joke. I think that is troubling. If we've reached the point where pro-lifers think that a fetus carrying a gun is anything but a joke or disturbing, then I think we're reaching a point of absurdity that I'm not sure what to do about.
It's tantamount to people nodding their heads and saying "You know, he's right. I bet an Irish kid would be pretty tasty with some gravy and mashed potatoes."
-update-
The more I look at the picture of the ornament, the more I realize that I could probably make those. The "fetus" and the weapons are both available at the local dollar stores. The only thing would figuring out how to get them inside of the bubble. my guess is that the bubble is actually just a clamshell style bulb that you seal with transparent glue, but I don't see a seam in the picture, so I can't be sure.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Monday Quick Hits: Comics and Christmas...
Good morning readers! It's the Monday before Thanksgiving (in the United States), and I just got back from a great trip to Boston. The weather there was beautiful, and Walden Pond was peaceful and relaxing. Now, unlike the Pirates Who Can't Do Anything, I can't say that I've never been to Boston in the fall. (Yes, that was, in fact, a Veggie Tales reference. I can't help it- that particular song tickles my funny bone every time. I'd say that I'm sorry, but... well... I'm kinda not. It's funny stuff!)
Anyway, it's amazing how, after a perfectly lovely weekend,fate the internet can conspire to ruin a good mood. To wit: this comic (the Oct. 1st issue of They'll Do It Every Time). I shouldn't be surprised, really. This type of comic- the "take a stupid stereotype and reinforce it for laughs" type- is depressingly common. This isn't exactly brilliant material- it's the print equivalent of telling an "Airplane food, am I right?" joke. And yet, this thing has been running for eight decades, and is in distribution in 100 papers today?
The entire joke is "your wife is an annoying nag who'll dish out unwanted advice inappropriately, but won't take your advice when she should!" Hell, her name is Annoyia. I glanced through the other strips, and they're not much better in terms of humor (Why is it that the neighbor who can cook well brings over tiny bits to sample, but the one that can't cook at all always brings over gallons? Did you ever notice that grandparents bring over gifts that need to be assembled, and leave dad to put them together?), but this one took the cake in the sexism department. I guess I should consider myself lucky that this thing doesn't run in my local paper. Ugh.
(For more regular analysis of sexism and stereotypes in comics, check out Feminist Allies- it's a regular feature over there)
And, of course, nothing brings out the gender essentialism quite like Christmas, right? Girls want Barbie, but boys go high-tech? Really? Let's look at the number one toy on each list. Girls... Barbie. Boys... Transformers.
In other words, the top toy for each sex? Dolls.
Look, I love Transformers. I really do. I still have a bunch, sitting on a shelf at home. They're great. But, well, aside from the fact that they turn into cars, they're not that different from any other doll/action figure. They're just highly gendered dolls.
There are a number of things that I found annoying about this article (even beyond the failure to capitalize "Autobots"- it's a proper noun, Reuters! A proper noun!), but the main thing is how misleading it is. If all you read was page one and the headline, you get the impression that boys are going high-tech, while girls are just asking for dolls. And yet, when you look at the actual lists, you find that, shock of shocks, girls want video games too! Coming in at number 7, we find that girls want Nintendo Wii, and at 8, they want Webkinz- which are an online "pet". Also known as... *drum roll* a video game.
So, sure, there are more tech toys on the boys' lists than the girls', but it's not like all girls are asking for are Barbie dolls and My Little Pony or all the boys want are tech toys- hell, if you count remote control cars as "high tech", the boys' lists only include 4 tech toys to girls 2. Of course, besides the misleading headline, there are other problems. We don't know a damn thing about how the survey was done, or to what age group. Were people given limited choices? How old were the children in question? How many of each sex were polled?
And, really, some of the things listed are so generic that it's impossible to know what they're really asking for. The girls' list has "Hannah Montana" on it. The cd? The video? Are there dolls? The game? If they're asking for a game or a video, does that count as high-tech? Same thing with Dora the Explorer- there are dozens of video games and learning modules for computer systems out under the Dora brand. How do we know?
And, ultimately, there's absolutely no analysis here- Reuters just says "hey, boys like tech stuff, girls like dolls" as though that's the whole story. There's no attempt to understand why girls' lists include the things they do, or why it might be that the lists are so very gendered (the only cross-over are the Wii and Elmo). I guess I shouldn't expect much of that kind of analysis from Reuters, but, really, without any analysis, what's the point?
Anyway, it's amazing how, after a perfectly lovely weekend,
The entire joke is "your wife is an annoying nag who'll dish out unwanted advice inappropriately, but won't take your advice when she should!" Hell, her name is Annoyia. I glanced through the other strips, and they're not much better in terms of humor (Why is it that the neighbor who can cook well brings over tiny bits to sample, but the one that can't cook at all always brings over gallons? Did you ever notice that grandparents bring over gifts that need to be assembled, and leave dad to put them together?), but this one took the cake in the sexism department. I guess I should consider myself lucky that this thing doesn't run in my local paper. Ugh.
(For more regular analysis of sexism and stereotypes in comics, check out Feminist Allies- it's a regular feature over there)
And, of course, nothing brings out the gender essentialism quite like Christmas, right? Girls want Barbie, but boys go high-tech? Really? Let's look at the number one toy on each list. Girls... Barbie. Boys... Transformers.
In other words, the top toy for each sex? Dolls.
Look, I love Transformers. I really do. I still have a bunch, sitting on a shelf at home. They're great. But, well, aside from the fact that they turn into cars, they're not that different from any other doll/action figure. They're just highly gendered dolls.
There are a number of things that I found annoying about this article (even beyond the failure to capitalize "Autobots"- it's a proper noun, Reuters! A proper noun!), but the main thing is how misleading it is. If all you read was page one and the headline, you get the impression that boys are going high-tech, while girls are just asking for dolls. And yet, when you look at the actual lists, you find that, shock of shocks, girls want video games too! Coming in at number 7, we find that girls want Nintendo Wii, and at 8, they want Webkinz- which are an online "pet". Also known as... *drum roll* a video game.
So, sure, there are more tech toys on the boys' lists than the girls', but it's not like all girls are asking for are Barbie dolls and My Little Pony or all the boys want are tech toys- hell, if you count remote control cars as "high tech", the boys' lists only include 4 tech toys to girls 2. Of course, besides the misleading headline, there are other problems. We don't know a damn thing about how the survey was done, or to what age group. Were people given limited choices? How old were the children in question? How many of each sex were polled?
And, really, some of the things listed are so generic that it's impossible to know what they're really asking for. The girls' list has "Hannah Montana" on it. The cd? The video? Are there dolls? The game? If they're asking for a game or a video, does that count as high-tech? Same thing with Dora the Explorer- there are dozens of video games and learning modules for computer systems out under the Dora brand. How do we know?
And, ultimately, there's absolutely no analysis here- Reuters just says "hey, boys like tech stuff, girls like dolls" as though that's the whole story. There's no attempt to understand why girls' lists include the things they do, or why it might be that the lists are so very gendered (the only cross-over are the Wii and Elmo). I guess I shouldn't expect much of that kind of analysis from Reuters, but, really, without any analysis, what's the point?
Friday, November 09, 2007
Buying feminist (or feminist friendly) toys...
This post, and the comments in it, combined with the unusually large number of birthdays that I purchase gifts for in November and December have reminded me that it's about time to start my annual holiday buying. I imagine that there are others who, like me, have young children that they buy gifts for. Buying gifts for children can be really tough (even when you're not worried about lead paint and GBL!), especially if you want to provide a positive influence, or are trying to subvert, shall we say, stereotypical programming.
I have a young niece that I'm buying gifts for. Every time I purchase gifts for her, I have to weigh a bunch of conflicting issues. How cool do I think the toy is? How much does it oppose or reinforce traditional gender stereotypes? How likely are her parents to object to the gift? How much is she going to like it? How quickly will it break or will she get tired of it? How much does it cost?
Ideally, I want to be able to supply her with toys that her mother won't just throw away, that she'll find interesting and fun, that won't break right away, and that subvert (or at least don't reinforce) what I think are harmful gender stereotypes. I refuse to buy things like fake kitchen stuff, or toy vaccuum cleaners, etc. I refuse to buy princess themed stuff.
Instead of buying her traditionally "girl" things, I try to find toys that are as gender-neutral as possible, or that are traditionally "boy" toys. It can be surprisingly difficult to find gender-neutral toys, though. It used to be that most Lego sets were fairly neutral, but looking through the toy aisle recently, I was struck by how completely gendered they've become. Gone are most of the city themed sets that included both male and female figures. Instead, there are dozens of sets featuring huge robots and skeletons fighting dragons and Star Wars stuff. Almost every figure in the sets are men. Weird. Still, she's a little young for Lego right now, so that's not a problem yet.
Right now, she's on a kick where she loves robots. As a big robot fan myself, I'm okay with that. I think I did okay last year- I got her a log cabin building kit (Lincoln logs, basically) that came with a little train and some farm animals. I got her a Mr. Potatohead with extra themed pieces... a princess, a mermaid, and a fashion model (gender bending potatohead was a big hit), and a bunch of Winnie the Pooh figures, among other things.
Still, she's getting older and she's eventually going to start being interested in things like Bratz dolls and Barbie and pink stuff. So, here's where you, gentle reader, come in. What can I do when that happens? What kinds of things do other people get for their children, or their nieces/nephews, etc? What kinds of gifts do you give to the young people in your life? What kinds of positive role-models are there for young girls?
As it stands, I'm going to go look for some awesome robots forus her to play with.
I have a young niece that I'm buying gifts for. Every time I purchase gifts for her, I have to weigh a bunch of conflicting issues. How cool do I think the toy is? How much does it oppose or reinforce traditional gender stereotypes? How likely are her parents to object to the gift? How much is she going to like it? How quickly will it break or will she get tired of it? How much does it cost?
Ideally, I want to be able to supply her with toys that her mother won't just throw away, that she'll find interesting and fun, that won't break right away, and that subvert (or at least don't reinforce) what I think are harmful gender stereotypes. I refuse to buy things like fake kitchen stuff, or toy vaccuum cleaners, etc. I refuse to buy princess themed stuff.
Instead of buying her traditionally "girl" things, I try to find toys that are as gender-neutral as possible, or that are traditionally "boy" toys. It can be surprisingly difficult to find gender-neutral toys, though. It used to be that most Lego sets were fairly neutral, but looking through the toy aisle recently, I was struck by how completely gendered they've become. Gone are most of the city themed sets that included both male and female figures. Instead, there are dozens of sets featuring huge robots and skeletons fighting dragons and Star Wars stuff. Almost every figure in the sets are men. Weird. Still, she's a little young for Lego right now, so that's not a problem yet.
Right now, she's on a kick where she loves robots. As a big robot fan myself, I'm okay with that. I think I did okay last year- I got her a log cabin building kit (Lincoln logs, basically) that came with a little train and some farm animals. I got her a Mr. Potatohead with extra themed pieces... a princess, a mermaid, and a fashion model (gender bending potatohead was a big hit), and a bunch of Winnie the Pooh figures, among other things.
Still, she's getting older and she's eventually going to start being interested in things like Bratz dolls and Barbie and pink stuff. So, here's where you, gentle reader, come in. What can I do when that happens? What kinds of things do other people get for their children, or their nieces/nephews, etc? What kinds of gifts do you give to the young people in your life? What kinds of positive role-models are there for young girls?
As it stands, I'm going to go look for some awesome robots for
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Abortion <> Child Support
The Weekly Feminist Reader, over at Feministing, reminds me, once again, how difficult I think discussions about men's roles in pregnancy and childbirth can be. The bulk of the comments are about a post on MRAs from Shakespearessister. The conversation was more specifically about whether or not men ought to have the ability to "opt out" of parenthood/fatherhood.
It's a conversation that I don't know if I've ever seen go well (and yet, here I am, putting my foot in the water, too). I think that one of the biggest problems with the conversation is that it conflates two very different issues. Despite the best attempts by some commenters, abortion is not comparable to opting out. Abortion is about the right to personal autonomy regarding the use of one's body as an incubator for an unwanted fetus. Opting out is about the desire not to be held financially responsible for your offspring.
There are a lot of problems with conflating the two things. The arguments in support or against them simply aren't the same, and, I think, men's rights groups shoot themselves in the foot when they try to pretend that they are. The suggestion that your right to control your wallet is the same as a woman's right to control her body is... well... it's sort of offensive. It treats a woman's body like a piece of property, and I think that women are rightly annoyed and disturbed by that kind of reasoning.
So, what I propose to do in this post is talk about child support as child support- not as an issue somehow comparable to abortion. The question here is simple: should a parent have a right to opt out of child support?
Honestly, I think it'd be great if we had a system that would allow for people who don't want to be parents to not have to bear any of the unwanted burdens associated with childcare. Right now, if neither parent wants the child, they have options that let them avoid those burdens, but if the child is born and either parent decides to keep it, we run into the problem of child support payments.
The problem is that children have needs and the needs of those children must be taken into consideration. Having and caring for children isn't cheap- there are doctor visits, and food, and clothes, and supplies for school, babysitters or childcare, etc. I don't think it's reasonable to expect most single parents have the resources to care for a child just lying around. I suspect that most single parents need all the help they can get. Hell, most coupled parents need help from time to time.
As it stands, I don't see any way to abolish child support that doesn't do more harm than good, and I don't blame feminists for not jumping on the issue with full force. Why should they? Child support is something that goes to the child, not the parent, and either parent can collect it. I don't think that child support is unfair, given the purpose and the beneficiary. I don't doubt that some people can point out cases of abuse wherein the money didn't go where it should have, but if those cases are punished, and they represent a tiny minority of the problems with the system (people not paying representing a much bigger problem), I'm not going to get too down on people over it.
Now, personally, I think it'd be great if there was a social net for single parents who were raising a child alone. If there were circumstances where either parent had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with being a parent, all rights and obligations could be severed and some kind of public fund would help defer the costs of childcare.
I think that there are several very real advantages to a system like this. The first advantage is that it allows people who don't want to be parents to opt out of that, with the stipulation being that, by giving up all of the burdens of being a parent, they also give up on all of the rights, as well. For the people who feel frustrated by being compelled to pay child support for a child they neither wanted nor want anything to do with, that's a very real benefit.
Another benefit is that, by spreading the burden out over a larger number of people, we can (theoretically, at least) better provide for those children. Child support barely scratches the surface when it comes to the actual costs of raising children. A public fund that would help pay for the cost of raising children, or that would, for example, provide some of the things children require, the needs of a child might better be met. According to USDA research, an average full child support payment for a middle income household in 1996 only covered about 33% of the estimated expenditure on that child. Ideally, we want each parent to contribute half of the cost of raising the child, since they contributed equally to the creation of the child- but the custodial parent caries the bulk of the burden.
And that's assuming that the payments are actually made. In many cases, the non-custodial parent does not make the payments, or pays less than the full ammount, which only increases the burden on the custodial parent.
A system where child support was paid for through public funding might actually let us increase the standard of living for those children living in single parent homes.
Of course, I recognize that such a system would be ripe for abuse, and that drives some people up the wall. The notion that someone would exploit such a system- and, I have no doubts that some people might- is enough to reduce support for such a plan. The other side of that is that there are plenty of people who think that such a system would further negate men's involvement in their children's lives, by creating a system where there were no consequences to fathering many children.
Which leads me to a bit of criticism with regards to the feministing thread. As much as I can understand where the frustration comes from, I don't think that all of the responses are helpful or fair. The only real justification that I see for child support (and I really don't see how any other is needed) is that the welfare of the child must be taken into consideration, and, barring support for an alternative plan, the burden has to be shared by the people who created the child. But, there are a number of comments in that thread that ammount to "Well, men need to face consequences for sex."
That kind of argument strikes me as being sort of weird. One of the things that we've often talked about around the feminist blogosphere is that pregnancy is not a punishment. We shouldn't be using children as a means of punishing people for having sex, either. If we could find a way to reasonably provide for the child without forcing either parent (who doesn't want children) to bear the burden, we should consider it. The notion that child support should be used as a means of creating consequences for men is a bit problematic to me.
Consider this:
Another major benefit of a system like this would be the providing of care in the cases where one parent is absent due to death. As it stands, the death of one parent can be a serious financial burden on a family, and, if life insurance isn't something that the family could reasonable afford, or if the family spent a lot of money or racked up a lot of bills paying for medical care prior to the death, it could substantially reduce the quality of a child's life.
The problem I have is that, ultimately, I want everyone to be able to have sex that is as free of consequences as possible. I sort of think that most of us would like that. The only people I want to have children are, well, people who want to have children. I want people who just want to have sex for recreational purposes to find partners who want the same, and to be able to have safe, healthy, fun sex, without unwanted pregnancy or disease.
So, yeah, I do, in fact, want men and women to be able to have consequence free sex. And it's true, the way things are right now, that rarely, if ever, happens. I don't, however, think that we should be doing things to reinforce that, or that reinforce the idea that children should be used as a means of punishing people for poor choices, which is how some of the comments read to me.
The fact that women, as the party that becomes pregnant, can never fully escape the risk of consequences is no more a justification for forcing men to pay child support than it is a justification for suggesting that women must act as walking incubators for children if men want them. The biological aspects of creation are beyond our control, but that doesn't excuse or justify treating either party unfairly.
Right now, I think that child support coming from the non-custodial biological parent is necessary, because I think that the needs of the child have to be taken into consideration, and there's simply not support for any alternative right now. That doesn't, though, mean that we shouldn't consider the possibility of a system wherein the needs of the child are met in some other way. The current system is better than no system- but that doesn't make a great system, or beyond improvement.
Right now it's sort of a "least bad" situation. It's certainly not a particularly good one, given that almost nobody is happy with it: the custodial parents still bear a substantially large piece of the financial burden, children still aren't getting the money that's required for their care, non-custodial parents don't always pay or pay less than they're supposed to, and some non-custodial parents resent being forced to pay for a child that they never wanted and made clear that they never wanted.
Of course, I've got a vested interest in this conversation, as someone who is considering donating sperm to a woman so that she can have a child with her partner. Since our state does not recognize same-sex adoptions or marriages, I could be help legally responsible for child support, even though none of us involved want me to be held responsible. Is this a normal situation? Of course not- it's a tiny fraction of all child support cases- but it's still a concern for me.
It's a conversation that I don't know if I've ever seen go well (and yet, here I am, putting my foot in the water, too). I think that one of the biggest problems with the conversation is that it conflates two very different issues. Despite the best attempts by some commenters, abortion is not comparable to opting out. Abortion is about the right to personal autonomy regarding the use of one's body as an incubator for an unwanted fetus. Opting out is about the desire not to be held financially responsible for your offspring.
There are a lot of problems with conflating the two things. The arguments in support or against them simply aren't the same, and, I think, men's rights groups shoot themselves in the foot when they try to pretend that they are. The suggestion that your right to control your wallet is the same as a woman's right to control her body is... well... it's sort of offensive. It treats a woman's body like a piece of property, and I think that women are rightly annoyed and disturbed by that kind of reasoning.
So, what I propose to do in this post is talk about child support as child support- not as an issue somehow comparable to abortion. The question here is simple: should a parent have a right to opt out of child support?
Honestly, I think it'd be great if we had a system that would allow for people who don't want to be parents to not have to bear any of the unwanted burdens associated with childcare. Right now, if neither parent wants the child, they have options that let them avoid those burdens, but if the child is born and either parent decides to keep it, we run into the problem of child support payments.
The problem is that children have needs and the needs of those children must be taken into consideration. Having and caring for children isn't cheap- there are doctor visits, and food, and clothes, and supplies for school, babysitters or childcare, etc. I don't think it's reasonable to expect most single parents have the resources to care for a child just lying around. I suspect that most single parents need all the help they can get. Hell, most coupled parents need help from time to time.
As it stands, I don't see any way to abolish child support that doesn't do more harm than good, and I don't blame feminists for not jumping on the issue with full force. Why should they? Child support is something that goes to the child, not the parent, and either parent can collect it. I don't think that child support is unfair, given the purpose and the beneficiary. I don't doubt that some people can point out cases of abuse wherein the money didn't go where it should have, but if those cases are punished, and they represent a tiny minority of the problems with the system (people not paying representing a much bigger problem), I'm not going to get too down on people over it.
Now, personally, I think it'd be great if there was a social net for single parents who were raising a child alone. If there were circumstances where either parent had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with being a parent, all rights and obligations could be severed and some kind of public fund would help defer the costs of childcare.
I think that there are several very real advantages to a system like this. The first advantage is that it allows people who don't want to be parents to opt out of that, with the stipulation being that, by giving up all of the burdens of being a parent, they also give up on all of the rights, as well. For the people who feel frustrated by being compelled to pay child support for a child they neither wanted nor want anything to do with, that's a very real benefit.
Another benefit is that, by spreading the burden out over a larger number of people, we can (theoretically, at least) better provide for those children. Child support barely scratches the surface when it comes to the actual costs of raising children. A public fund that would help pay for the cost of raising children, or that would, for example, provide some of the things children require, the needs of a child might better be met. According to USDA research, an average full child support payment for a middle income household in 1996 only covered about 33% of the estimated expenditure on that child. Ideally, we want each parent to contribute half of the cost of raising the child, since they contributed equally to the creation of the child- but the custodial parent caries the bulk of the burden.
And that's assuming that the payments are actually made. In many cases, the non-custodial parent does not make the payments, or pays less than the full ammount, which only increases the burden on the custodial parent.
A system where child support was paid for through public funding might actually let us increase the standard of living for those children living in single parent homes.
Of course, I recognize that such a system would be ripe for abuse, and that drives some people up the wall. The notion that someone would exploit such a system- and, I have no doubts that some people might- is enough to reduce support for such a plan. The other side of that is that there are plenty of people who think that such a system would further negate men's involvement in their children's lives, by creating a system where there were no consequences to fathering many children.
Which leads me to a bit of criticism with regards to the feministing thread. As much as I can understand where the frustration comes from, I don't think that all of the responses are helpful or fair. The only real justification that I see for child support (and I really don't see how any other is needed) is that the welfare of the child must be taken into consideration, and, barring support for an alternative plan, the burden has to be shared by the people who created the child. But, there are a number of comments in that thread that ammount to "Well, men need to face consequences for sex."
That kind of argument strikes me as being sort of weird. One of the things that we've often talked about around the feminist blogosphere is that pregnancy is not a punishment. We shouldn't be using children as a means of punishing people for having sex, either. If we could find a way to reasonably provide for the child without forcing either parent (who doesn't want children) to bear the burden, we should consider it. The notion that child support should be used as a means of creating consequences for men is a bit problematic to me.
Consider this:
Women do not have the right to have sex without coping with the consequences--that's impossible for us. One of the ways we cope is abortion. But MRAs want men to be able to have sex without coping with the consequences. Nope. We don't get to skip off, and neither do they.
Another major benefit of a system like this would be the providing of care in the cases where one parent is absent due to death. As it stands, the death of one parent can be a serious financial burden on a family, and, if life insurance isn't something that the family could reasonable afford, or if the family spent a lot of money or racked up a lot of bills paying for medical care prior to the death, it could substantially reduce the quality of a child's life.
The problem I have is that, ultimately, I want everyone to be able to have sex that is as free of consequences as possible. I sort of think that most of us would like that. The only people I want to have children are, well, people who want to have children. I want people who just want to have sex for recreational purposes to find partners who want the same, and to be able to have safe, healthy, fun sex, without unwanted pregnancy or disease.
So, yeah, I do, in fact, want men and women to be able to have consequence free sex. And it's true, the way things are right now, that rarely, if ever, happens. I don't, however, think that we should be doing things to reinforce that, or that reinforce the idea that children should be used as a means of punishing people for poor choices, which is how some of the comments read to me.
The fact that women, as the party that becomes pregnant, can never fully escape the risk of consequences is no more a justification for forcing men to pay child support than it is a justification for suggesting that women must act as walking incubators for children if men want them. The biological aspects of creation are beyond our control, but that doesn't excuse or justify treating either party unfairly.
Right now, I think that child support coming from the non-custodial biological parent is necessary, because I think that the needs of the child have to be taken into consideration, and there's simply not support for any alternative right now. That doesn't, though, mean that we shouldn't consider the possibility of a system wherein the needs of the child are met in some other way. The current system is better than no system- but that doesn't make a great system, or beyond improvement.
Right now it's sort of a "least bad" situation. It's certainly not a particularly good one, given that almost nobody is happy with it: the custodial parents still bear a substantially large piece of the financial burden, children still aren't getting the money that's required for their care, non-custodial parents don't always pay or pay less than they're supposed to, and some non-custodial parents resent being forced to pay for a child that they never wanted and made clear that they never wanted.
Of course, I've got a vested interest in this conversation, as someone who is considering donating sperm to a woman so that she can have a child with her partner. Since our state does not recognize same-sex adoptions or marriages, I could be help legally responsible for child support, even though none of us involved want me to be held responsible. Is this a normal situation? Of course not- it's a tiny fraction of all child support cases- but it's still a concern for me.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Good News... Games Are Good For You!
A few weeks ago, I read Everything Bad is Good For You, and I was pretty impressed with the argument that Johnson laid out. The book is essentially an argument against the people who claim that technology is dumbing us down, or that television is getting stupider with time, etc. There are several points to be made there, but his main point is that, if you do any kind of objective measure, programming today is more complicated and requires greater mental participation from audiences than programming ever did in the past. Shows have larger casts of characters, more complicated plots, more sub-plots, and stories are measured in seasons, not episodes.
Amanda started a nice discussion over at Pandagon, and Mighty Ponygirl talked about it as well.
The thread at Pandagon is growing nicely, and, not surprisingly, there are a number of people who are really dismissive about gaming and video games. A lot of the arguments levied against gaming and television are the same kinds of arguments that were levied against radio, or comic books, or whatever media type you want to bring up. There's always this reaction against it, and this doom-and-gloom forecasting about how X new media type is going to bring about the destruction of our children's minds.
Johnson never argues that gaming is the best new tool for education, and that we should abandon reading altogether, which seems to be lost on several of the posters. There's the usual criticism that games are all fast-twitch and that they must, therefore, contribute to a decline in attention span, and that the only thing they teach is how to process lots of simultaneously occuring pieces of information- such an air traffic controller might have to do.
These kinds of arguments treat every game as though it's Asteroids on speed. They imagine that the gamer is forced to make tons of split-second choices amid an ever increasing wave of hostile forces, while trying to rescue the princess, etc. And, sure, there are games that involve that kind of rapid-fire, fast-twitch gaming.
There are also lots of games that reward slow, methodical planning. Hell, there are entire genres devoted to rewarding careful gameplay. Turn-based strategy/tactics games and RPGs, for example, greatly encourage players to think about longterm goals, not just the immediate circumstances. Also, you know... being turn-based sort of negates the need for fast-twitch responses. Weird, that.
Ultimately, I find conversations like the one on Pandagon infinitely frustrating and annoying, though. The focus on "but games make kids stupid! They make them lazy! They give them ADHD!" ignores the very real concerns that we should be having about games.
Here's reality: Games aren't going anywhere.
That's the fact of the matter. Games aren't going away, and whining that you don't like them because you think that they're all fast-twitch and flashing lights isn't going to change that. It's mostly just going to make you look like you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and like you haven't picked up a video game since Space Invaders was king (and even then there were games like Utopia that were, you know, rewarding for people who wanted slow, methodical gameplay!). Games survived that big crash, and there's not likely to be another one. Gaming is a huge industry. Video games bring in more money than the film industry's box office draws.
That's big.
There are real problems with video games, and harping on about how you think that books are soooo much better than Bloodrayne is nothing but a distraction. As recent events have shown, there's a lot of work to be done in the gaming community. Homophobia, sexism, and racism are all still serious problems in the gaming community.
Ultimately, what these conversations seem to reveil to me is that there's a huge cultural divide between gamers and non-gamers. Gamers don't really take the comments from non-gamers seriously, precisely because there are so many non-gamers who clearly know very little about what gaming is actually like. If you think that gaming is nothing but flashing lights and sounds and that playing a game is just about processing tons of information all at once- ignoring chaos- why should a gamer listen? That's not, I suspect, what most gamers think of their experiences as being like. The other thing it does is reinforce the idea that non-gamers are trying to get rid of games or trying to take games away from gamers. This is, in fact, kind of true. There are a lot of people, like Gore, who think that games are a total waste of time. So, it's not surprising that gamers might not react kindly.
More on this, I'm sure, to come...
Amanda started a nice discussion over at Pandagon, and Mighty Ponygirl talked about it as well.
The thread at Pandagon is growing nicely, and, not surprisingly, there are a number of people who are really dismissive about gaming and video games. A lot of the arguments levied against gaming and television are the same kinds of arguments that were levied against radio, or comic books, or whatever media type you want to bring up. There's always this reaction against it, and this doom-and-gloom forecasting about how X new media type is going to bring about the destruction of our children's minds.
Johnson never argues that gaming is the best new tool for education, and that we should abandon reading altogether, which seems to be lost on several of the posters. There's the usual criticism that games are all fast-twitch and that they must, therefore, contribute to a decline in attention span, and that the only thing they teach is how to process lots of simultaneously occuring pieces of information- such an air traffic controller might have to do.
These kinds of arguments treat every game as though it's Asteroids on speed. They imagine that the gamer is forced to make tons of split-second choices amid an ever increasing wave of hostile forces, while trying to rescue the princess, etc. And, sure, there are games that involve that kind of rapid-fire, fast-twitch gaming.
There are also lots of games that reward slow, methodical planning. Hell, there are entire genres devoted to rewarding careful gameplay. Turn-based strategy/tactics games and RPGs, for example, greatly encourage players to think about longterm goals, not just the immediate circumstances. Also, you know... being turn-based sort of negates the need for fast-twitch responses. Weird, that.
Ultimately, I find conversations like the one on Pandagon infinitely frustrating and annoying, though. The focus on "but games make kids stupid! They make them lazy! They give them ADHD!" ignores the very real concerns that we should be having about games.
Here's reality: Games aren't going anywhere.
That's the fact of the matter. Games aren't going away, and whining that you don't like them because you think that they're all fast-twitch and flashing lights isn't going to change that. It's mostly just going to make you look like you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and like you haven't picked up a video game since Space Invaders was king (and even then there were games like Utopia that were, you know, rewarding for people who wanted slow, methodical gameplay!). Games survived that big crash, and there's not likely to be another one. Gaming is a huge industry. Video games bring in more money than the film industry's box office draws.
That's big.
There are real problems with video games, and harping on about how you think that books are soooo much better than Bloodrayne is nothing but a distraction. As recent events have shown, there's a lot of work to be done in the gaming community. Homophobia, sexism, and racism are all still serious problems in the gaming community.
Ultimately, what these conversations seem to reveil to me is that there's a huge cultural divide between gamers and non-gamers. Gamers don't really take the comments from non-gamers seriously, precisely because there are so many non-gamers who clearly know very little about what gaming is actually like. If you think that gaming is nothing but flashing lights and sounds and that playing a game is just about processing tons of information all at once- ignoring chaos- why should a gamer listen? That's not, I suspect, what most gamers think of their experiences as being like. The other thing it does is reinforce the idea that non-gamers are trying to get rid of games or trying to take games away from gamers. This is, in fact, kind of true. There are a lot of people, like Gore, who think that games are a total waste of time. So, it's not surprising that gamers might not react kindly.
More on this, I'm sure, to come...
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Woman Charged in Death of Stillborn...
Lindsay Beyerstein, over at Majikthise, reported on a really disturbing case yesterday. A woman in Ocean City, MD is being charged with murder after investigators discovered the remains of stillborn fetuses in her home. The information so far indicates that she had four stillbirths, and police think that she might have attempted to give herself abortions. MD law has a fetal protection law so that people who cause the death of a viable fetus can be charged, but the law has an exception for women who perform abortions on themselves.
All of which is to say that charging this woman with the murder of a stillborn fetus is insane.
Here's my area of concern: This woman has four fetuses stashed around her home- one under a sink, one hidden in her car, and two in a trunk in the living room. When she was taken in to court, she apparently looked confused by the charges and the evidence, and told the judge "This is all new to me."
I'm going to play armchair psych here for a moment, so bear with me. Without going too far out on a limb, I'd have to guess that this woman probably needs some help. She's keeping the remains of her stillbirths hidden around her home, and she seems to be confused about what is happening to her. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure as hell sounds to me like she's got some problems and probably needs to get some professional help.
It's really disgusting that, rather than looking into getting this woman some help and finding out why she's kept these stillbirths, they've decided that the appropriate course of action is to throw her in jail on first degree murder charges. She's being held without bond for having stillborn fetuses.
And it's really important to note, here, that nobody knows what caused them to be stillborn yet. In other words, she's being charged with first degree murder before they even know for sure that she killed them
So, to recap: We have a woman who probably needs professional help being charged with first degree murder for the death of a fetus that nobody knows how died because of a law that specifically would exempt this woman from being charged with murder if she did, in fact, kill the fetus.
Huh?
All of which is to say that charging this woman with the murder of a stillborn fetus is insane.
Here's my area of concern: This woman has four fetuses stashed around her home- one under a sink, one hidden in her car, and two in a trunk in the living room. When she was taken in to court, she apparently looked confused by the charges and the evidence, and told the judge "This is all new to me."
I'm going to play armchair psych here for a moment, so bear with me. Without going too far out on a limb, I'd have to guess that this woman probably needs some help. She's keeping the remains of her stillbirths hidden around her home, and she seems to be confused about what is happening to her. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure as hell sounds to me like she's got some problems and probably needs to get some professional help.
It's really disgusting that, rather than looking into getting this woman some help and finding out why she's kept these stillbirths, they've decided that the appropriate course of action is to throw her in jail on first degree murder charges. She's being held without bond for having stillborn fetuses.
And it's really important to note, here, that nobody knows what caused them to be stillborn yet. In other words, she's being charged with first degree murder before they even know for sure that she killed them
So, to recap: We have a woman who probably needs professional help being charged with first degree murder for the death of a fetus that nobody knows how died because of a law that specifically would exempt this woman from being charged with murder if she did, in fact, kill the fetus.
Huh?
Friday, July 20, 2007
A Notice, and a Book Review...
Posting will probably be light (read: non-existent) until Tuesday- I'm attending some Harry Potter festivities today, and then I'll be visiting with family over the weekend, so I'm unlikely to get much by way of blogging done.
Thanks to Jaclyn for forwarding me to one of the funniest book reviews I've ever seen. It's pretty damned funny. Also, sort of true, and I'd never really looked at the book in that light.
Hope everyone has a great weekend- Oh, and Natalie: I haven't forgotten your request for my views on the candidates, by the way. I feel woefully underinformed on them right now, and I've been trying to study up... My general feeling is that none of them are liberal enough, or, at the very least, none of them seem willing to take strong stances on the issues that matter to me. I'm tired of candidates who pitch "to the middle" when what they really mean is that they're pitching to the people on the left side of the right. I want candidates who're going to take strong stances on women's rights, gay rights, and on liberal social policies, and, right now, I don't feel like they're doing it. I've generally been leaning towards Edwards, but it's not really a tremendously enthusiastic support on my part. More as I get a stronger sense of positions, though.
Thanks to Jaclyn for forwarding me to one of the funniest book reviews I've ever seen. It's pretty damned funny. Also, sort of true, and I'd never really looked at the book in that light.
Hope everyone has a great weekend- Oh, and Natalie: I haven't forgotten your request for my views on the candidates, by the way. I feel woefully underinformed on them right now, and I've been trying to study up... My general feeling is that none of them are liberal enough, or, at the very least, none of them seem willing to take strong stances on the issues that matter to me. I'm tired of candidates who pitch "to the middle" when what they really mean is that they're pitching to the people on the left side of the right. I want candidates who're going to take strong stances on women's rights, gay rights, and on liberal social policies, and, right now, I don't feel like they're doing it. I've generally been leaning towards Edwards, but it's not really a tremendously enthusiastic support on my part. More as I get a stronger sense of positions, though.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Another Post About Children: A Lesbian Couple, Sperm Donation, and Me...
(Cross posted at feministe as part of my guest blogging)
I was reading this article from the Washington Post earlier today, and thinking about the situation that this guy is in. It makes me wonder how common these sorts of situations are. I think that most of us, by now, realize how uncommon the Nuclear Family is. We have families with step-children and half-brothers and extended families that live in the same house and same-sex families and even families like this, where it's a same-sex couple and a "daddy" who isn't in a romantic relationship with either mommy. I think it's great that he's able to have this kind of relationship with his friends' children. His children.
On the other hand, I want to ask him how he feels about the situation in general. He answers the question "do you have children" really well, and I get that he's really proud and happy to be a part of these children's lives, but this is a guy who wanted children of his own, and while it's great that he was able to do this, part of me wants to ask him what it's like on a day-to-day basis. How hard is it to not be able to be there for them? How difficult is it to be in a situation like that, where you're the father, but they're not your children?
But, an even bigger part of me wants to know what it would have been like if he didn't want children of his own. How would he handle his role in the lives of children if he'd never wanted children of his own? How would that feel to see a child that is biologically yours, but that you don't have any fatherly claim to?
Because, as it turns out, I might find out for myself, and I've got questions, and for every question I have, I worry that there are at least six others I'm missing.
I was reading this article from the Washington Post earlier today, and thinking about the situation that this guy is in. It makes me wonder how common these sorts of situations are. I think that most of us, by now, realize how uncommon the Nuclear Family is. We have families with step-children and half-brothers and extended families that live in the same house and same-sex families and even families like this, where it's a same-sex couple and a "daddy" who isn't in a romantic relationship with either mommy. I think it's great that he's able to have this kind of relationship with his friends' children. His children.
On the other hand, I want to ask him how he feels about the situation in general. He answers the question "do you have children" really well, and I get that he's really proud and happy to be a part of these children's lives, but this is a guy who wanted children of his own, and while it's great that he was able to do this, part of me wants to ask him what it's like on a day-to-day basis. How hard is it to not be able to be there for them? How difficult is it to be in a situation like that, where you're the father, but they're not your children?
But, an even bigger part of me wants to know what it would have been like if he didn't want children of his own. How would he handle his role in the lives of children if he'd never wanted children of his own? How would that feel to see a child that is biologically yours, but that you don't have any fatherly claim to?
Because, as it turns out, I might find out for myself, and I've got questions, and for every question I have, I worry that there are at least six others I'm missing.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
My first cross post... posted second...
Note: This was my first post on feministe- I forgot to cross-post it here, but I thought I'd fix that mistake now. I had no idea, when I posted this there, that it would explode as big as it did. I actually thought I was coming out of the gate with a pretty harmless sort of post, just to get my feet wet. It's over 500 responses, and growing, now.
Hello everyone!
Roy here, starting my first day guest blogging. I thought I'd start my first guest-blog here by saying thanks to my gracious hosts for inviting me for the week, and by introducing myself to everyone. The bloggers here at feministe were awesome enough to extend me an invitation to guest-blog for the week, and I can't say how excited I am to be here. They set the bar pretty high, but I'm up to thechallange challenge (edited 9:05 pm- thanks Bracken), I think.
My first post is actually something that's been rolling around in my mind for about the last month. See, last month, in two seperate posts- one here at feministe and one over at feministing, people indulged in rants about how much they hate children. The complaints ranged from how annoying loud children are in movie theaters, to how children run through stores, to how obnoxious children are when they kick the seat on an airplane. The animosity towards children extended to their parents as well, but the bulk of the real venom was directed towards the children. This anger towards children is hardly reserved to these sites, but I was particularly surprised to see it on sites like these, given how much time we spend here discussing ways to end bigotry and fight things like sexism or homophobia.
Hello everyone!
Roy here, starting my first day guest blogging. I thought I'd start my first guest-blog here by saying thanks to my gracious hosts for inviting me for the week, and by introducing myself to everyone. The bloggers here at feministe were awesome enough to extend me an invitation to guest-blog for the week, and I can't say how excited I am to be here. They set the bar pretty high, but I'm up to the
My first post is actually something that's been rolling around in my mind for about the last month. See, last month, in two seperate posts- one here at feministe and one over at feministing, people indulged in rants about how much they hate children. The complaints ranged from how annoying loud children are in movie theaters, to how children run through stores, to how obnoxious children are when they kick the seat on an airplane. The animosity towards children extended to their parents as well, but the bulk of the real venom was directed towards the children. This anger towards children is hardly reserved to these sites, but I was particularly surprised to see it on sites like these, given how much time we spend here discussing ways to end bigotry and fight things like sexism or homophobia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
