In which I eat crow...

I've caused a lot of anger and resentment about this post, and my responses to the criticisms people had about it. Blackamazon, in particular, had a lot of important things to say about it, over at Having Read the Fine Print, and irn had a really insightful response in the comments, too.

The criticism about my getting the pronoun wrong was something that I wanted to immediately fix, but I also wanted to step back and take some time to think about the rest. Because... honestly? It's really hard to read something like that and not feel ridiculously defensive and frustrated and angry and about two inches tall, and, and, and... well, basically, to try to justify why I'm Right and All Of My Critics Are Being Unfair and I Didn't Do Anything Wrong and I'm Doing My Best.

Which, obviously, doesn't actually do anything good for anyone but me and my bruised feelings.

I don't like pissing the people I respect off, and it's troubling to see people that I know are doing good work, and that I know are living and breathing this, and that I know are smart as hell about these issues looking over and thinking "What the fuck are you doing?" Because, well... it suggests that, you know, maybe I'm doing something really wrong.

So, I realized that what I really needed was to step back and think about the situation, and really think about what was being said to and about me and my post before I opened my mouth again. Because, yeah, my first instinct was to react- to respond. Instead, I turned off the computer and walked away. I think it was the right call.

Because, after obsessing over it for most of the weekend- running it around my head, going back and rereading Blackamazon's posts, rereading the comments on my and other sites, I have to admit that I was being an asshole. Ignoring, for a second, my failure to properly cite Blackamazon's site (which was also egregiously stupid and rightly criticized, and for which there is no excuse), I still really dropped the ball here, and I want to take a moment to apologize and recognize what is being said.

It's not remotely fair to expect other people to see the proposal with the same eyes that I do, or to have the same feelings that I do. And the fact is, Blackamazon is absolutely right, my stake in all of this is significantly different, and it does let me "blithely pullout resumes as predictors and say at worst were no better off." Because, yeah, I'm no worse off... that doesn't mean that nobody is. That I come to this from a place where the stakes are low if it's not handled properly doesn't mean that there aren't a whole lot of people who have very good reasons for being really concerned about what happens.

Which is to say that it's ridiculously shitty of me to accuse other people of coming in bad faith because they're coming to and looking at all of this from a place that I will never experience. It was a shit move, and did nothing to engage with the very real criticisms and concerns that a lot of people were having. It doesn't answer their concerns- it ignores them and, worse, silences them by distracting from what people are really trying to talk about.

And whether or not I agree with all of the criticisms of the proposal or not, I should be able to understand that it does come from a place of genuine concern, legitimate frustration, and a history of really fucked up shit. Not least of which: the open dismissing of critics out of hand, or the implying/outright stating that they're insane or unreasonable for having the concerns and criticisms that they have. Both of which I did, and which are... well... "disturbingly common shit".

I am sorry that I couldn't and didn't disagree without being ignorant and offensive about it, and without recognizing that my place of privilege was giving me a significantly different read on things, and blinding me to the really significant concerns of other people. I don't want to offer any excuses. As irn pointed out, intentions are secondary to consequences. Right now, I can admit that I was wrong, offer my apology, and acknowledging that I've got a long way to go, and a lot of work to do.

Regarding Criticism of Feminism...

There's a site called Feminist Critics that, a few months back, linked to an article I wrote. I found the discussion that followed really interesting. While the authors of the site and I disagree about some pretty major things, the conversation between myself, Bari, TS, and Infra was one of the few I've had with people who were openly critical of feminism that didn't devolve into name-calling (not that there wasn't any of that coming from other sources). Still, I found myself disinclined to return, for a variety of reasons. It's been a couple of months, though, and browsing through the archives has piqued my interest.

It's not infrequently said (including by me) that men shouldn't distract from or highjack threads on feminist spaces. This is usually said in response to someone who tries to divert a thread about FGM into a conversation about male circumcision, for example. Instead, we say, if men have issues about the ways that men are treated in our society, we men should create our own spaces to talk about those things. Feminist Critics would seem to be, in part, that kind of space. The primary authors are ballgame, Daran, HughRistik, RenegadeEvolution, and TS. They are "a single issue, narrow viewpoint blog. The issue is gender and gender politics. The viewpoint is what we call “Feminist Critical”, that is to say we look at feminism and other positions and belief systems about gender from a critical point of view."

You'll notice that one of their missions, stated explicitly, is:

We believe that ideas and belief-systems benefit from critical and in some cases adversarial discussion. That includes ours, so we want to encourage intelligent, courteous, evidence-based discussion and debate in the comments from a variety of viewpoint. In particular, we wish to attract feminists to defend their position. And if we’re unable to persuade each other of the error of our respective ways, we want to feel that we have gained from the experience anyway, and for them to feel that they have gained from it.

They also make it explicit that they will not tolerate or accept ignorant behavior, and that "this applies to all viewpoints including, in fact especially. to antifeminist and feminist critical viewpoints. We are not interested in opinions based on ignorance, faith, stupidity, or value systems which don’t respect human life. We want the discussions to be courteous and respectful."

I'm not one to shy away from debate or criticism, as long as it's made in good faith. It's clear that I disagree with a number of things that I've read there, but it's also true that I disagree with things that I read on feminist blogs sometimes, too. Despite my disagreement, my current impression is that the authors at FC appear to be genuinely interested in engaging with feminists about the issues they're having.

One of my last comments in that thread:

Regarding the interaction between feminists and feminist critics/men's rights activists, I think that part of the problem is that there's a lot of assumption of bad faith on both sides (again, speaking generally).

There are absolutely feminists who will decry your efforts to, for example, get better representation in court when it comes to custody battles, or whatever. That can't feel good. On the other hand, feminists have been dealing with people trying to reinforce inequality for a long time, too. They deal with men writing articles about how feminists and women are responsible for everything from educational problems, to divorce rates, to bad economy, to STDs, to... well, just about anything. I think that it makes sense (the lack of trust between the two sides), but it's not helpful. Both sides assume the worst going in- I mean, in this very thread, during which I think we've been mostly civil and I think we've been pretty honest about our feelings, there are comments to the effect of: feminists are a bunch of idiots who are best compared to cultists and conspiracy theorists, and all they care about is blaming men for stuff, not actually solving problems.

Afterwards, I was told that feminists are a group of bigots who hate and oppress men, and that we belong in jail.

I'm not sure if there's really a way to bridge the gap that exists. After all, I don't agree that feminists, as a group, engage in abject discrimination against men. If I believed that, I wouldn't consider myself a feminist. Of course, I don't believe that all men are out to oppress women, either.

A good point was raised, though; Feminism isn't monolith, and it's difficult- maybe impossible- to determine what the "average" feminist is, which does make a discussion like this difficult. It also means that any input I can give is limited in scope- I can tell you about my experiences as a male feminist, but that's not going to really be representative of feminism in general, for any number of reasons.

I stand by this. I'm not really sure how to overcome the assumption of bad faith on the parts of feminists and men who are doing advocacy for the issues that men face, except to be aware of it, and try to make sure that I'm engaging with what is actually being said, and not my assumptions of meaning. And just like I know that feminism isn't a monolith, and that the opinions of any particular feminist blogger may or may not line up with mine, I remind myself that the bloggers at Feminist Critics aren't part of a monolith, either- the fact that there are PUAs or MRAs that troll blogs I read doesn't mean that the criticisms at FC are without substance, or that the authors aren't interested in having real discussions.

Right now, they've been having some discussions about why more feminists don't read and comment on the site. I think that there are a number of reasons why feminists aren't lining up to comment, and certainly part of it is probably, in some cases, related to the assumption of bad faith. And, part of it is probably related to not having the energy or inclination to get into debates about the fundamentals of feminism or in what, in some cases, will end up being a debate where neither side ever budges. Still, it occurs to me that part of it might be that some of you have no idea that the site even exists.

So, I'm posting this because I know a lot of really intelligent people, and I thought that some of you might find the discussions happening over there interesting. Given that all of the authors have been particularly respectful, even if some of the commenters have not, I'd like to request that anyone going there via my link extend them the same courtesy.

Questioning Words: "Blind" and Ableism...

This post, over at Feminist Philosophers, has me thinking. It's actually one of the comments that's prompting me to post. The eighth comment down, by Shelley, posits that using the term "blind" as in the phrase "a blind review" (a review where the person doing the review doesn't know anything about the person who wrote the paper being reviewed) is ableist.

The putative explanation generally given for this use of the term “blind” is that this is a form of refereeing in which the reviewers cannot “see” the name(s) of the author or authors. Not seeing is blindness. Right? Wrong. That is not what is really going on here. What is actually going on is that blindness is being metaphorically equated with not knowing, with not having knowledge, or not having knowledge of something: blindness is not knowing, blindness is ignorance, blind people cannot be knowers.

Having read this, I sat here at my desk pondering that. Ultimately, I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I can totally understand her frustration. On the other, though, that's what the word means. The problem, here, seems to be that the word, blind, has quite a few definitions, only one of which is "sightless". In fact, "sightless" is one of the most recent meanings. The word originally meant "difficult to discern" or "confused". The word was later applied to people who can't see with their eyes.

So, in a sense, Shelley is half right. A "blind study" is not just one in which sight is prevented- it's one in which the identity of the writer is "difficult to discern". It's not a metaphoric shift, though- it's from the original (and continued) use of the word. If anything, the metaphoric shift was made when the word was first applied to people.

Still, this leaves me unsure of what to think. I mean, what's the right course of action here? It's not like I'm unfamiliar with the idea that words have power- they have tremendous power. And, I'm familiar with the prejudices that she describes. I've witnessed the ways that people treat my blind aunt, and how offensive people can be to someone with visual impairment.

Even so, my initial feeling is that, while I understand with her analysis, I don't necessarily agree with it, because the word has never stopped meaning those things. There are plenty of words that have shifted over time- nobody would seriously use "gay" to mean "happy" anymore. At some point, the use of "gay" to mean "homosexual" became the norm, and the other definition faded from use, but that's not really the same thing that happened with "blind". It's not that the meaning shifted from "confused" or "difficult to discern" and started meaning "sightless"- it's meant both of those things for around four hundred years.

It got me thinking about the use of the term "right" to mean "opposite of left" as well as "correct." Couldn't someone who is left-handed reason that "left" equals "wrong"?

As it turns out, they could, and they wouldn't be far off, in terms of origins. Since we've been using "right" in the sense of "opposite of left" for almost nine hundred years, though, does that change things? Does the fact that the origin of the word was offensive change the fact that we've got nine centuries of usage?

I don't know.

I don't think that we're going to stop using "right" and "left" as points of directional reference any time soon, and I don't really think we need to. I'd bet that most people don't even know the origin of the word "left", so that's probably not a problem, anyway. Does the fact that "blind" didn't start off as a word describing people matter in regards to how we should view he word? Does the fact the it's still used in the original sense, as well as a word to describe people, matter?

As it stands, I'm inclined to try to be understanding of the critique, but respectfully disagree. I think I can understand where Shelley is coming from, and I understand her reasoning, but, right now, I'm not sure that I can agree with what she's saying. I have to admit, though, that this is leaving me feeling sort of guilty. I certainly don't like the idea of using words that might hurt someone or that might offend someone, but... well... eh, I don't know.

Any thoughts?

Monty: Feminism Meets Animal Rights -or- On Personal Criticism...

First: The thread that started it all...

Two interesting responses, from zuzu and Jill.

There's a lot of comments there, and even trying to do justice to the width and breadth of the comments would be a lesson in futility, so I'm going to leave it to you to really get into the meat of that argument, while I go all meta for a moment before returning to the point.

I think that arguments like this one are interesting in the frequency with which they seem to come up. In discussions about everything from clothes to makeup to sex to... well... just about anything you can come up with, the phrase "the personal is political" is probably applicable. Unfortunately, the inverse of that statement seems to be just as true- the political is, all too often, very personal.

Without weighing in on the issue of animal rights yet, I think it's worth noting how personally people in general take criticisms of potentially politically charged actions. Even when they're not directed specifically at them. When we have a personal investment in something, it can be easy to take criticism of that thing- whether it’s an object, an action, or a belief- personally, even if the criticism was intended more broadly.

This is hardly the first time this has happened, I just noticed that there was a pattern to it this time. Find a thread where someone is critical of just about any activity, and you’re bound to find at least a couple of comments along the lines of “But I do that, and I’m still a feminist!” or a comments defending the action in question because of who the person partaking is. There’s some general resistance to criticism being directed at the actions of the people we like, as SarahMC points out:

Yeah, it’s “the personal is political” where feminism is concerned, but not dog breeding because someone we like bought from a breeder and it’s not cool to criticize.
People on “our side” pass judgement on people’s behavior all the time. Usually sexist, misogynist behavior, on feminist blogs. There’s nothing wrong with that. Or is it only acceptable where feminism, specifically, in concerned?

And, ultimately, I have a hard time arguing against that- it’s a good point. Even still, it’s not like I don’t understand why people resist criticism. Sometimes people will clarify: “I’m not attacking your right to do X, or you, personally, I’m questioning something broader/bigger than that” but a lot of times, I think it’s hard not to take those comments a bit personally, even when you know it’s about a broader issue, and not just you. I know that I sometimes find myself feeling defensive when, say, video games are discussed, or when someone makes a comment about “what men do.” I think that’s natural.

Blogger Elaine's comments seem to have led to exactly this kind of result, though. Hers is the eighth one in on the thread:

Jessica,

Monty is adorable and I don't mind some puppy time on this blog, but as a feminist on a feminist blog, I think you owe your readers at least a cursory feminist analysis of your choice to treat another living being as a product of consumption.

I'm not familiar with most of the Monty posts- I might glance at the pictures (and, yeah, Monty is a cute puppy, no doubt!), but I don't usually read the comments, because... well... I figured they'd mostly be "Aw! He's so cute!" I gather that Elaine has apparently attempted to engage with Jessica about this in the past, but I haven't read those posts. Now, I'm sort of loathe to think that any blogger really owes any reader anything, unless a specific debt has been incurred, but, that quibble aside, I didn't think that Elaine's comment was really that outlandish or demanding. I gather that I'm actually sort of in the minority there, though.

The really interesting thing here is how familiar the general form of this conversation is.

Here's how I break it down: Blogger posts some personal statement, x, of like/dislike. A responds with questions/criticisms about X. B responds in annoyance at A. C responds agreeing with A and dismissing/attacking B... ...G responds by calling A's (or B's, or Blogger's) feminist cred into question: "real feminists don't x"/"I thought that feminists were against x?"

The topic changes, but the conversation is the same, in a lot of cases. Whether you're talking about pornography, or children, or, apparently, pets. I haven't even been in the feminist blogosphere that long, and I'm seeing this- have others noticed this pattern, too? I have to admit, it's very frustrating to see in action.

From that thread, I get the impression that animal rights are a pretty major part of for Elaine, ngrey, SarahMC, et al's personal identity (apologies aplenty if I've misread any of you!). For some people, animal rights and human rights aren't different. Human beings, after all, are animals, so, the logic goes, how can we separate the two?

So, this makes sense, right? You're a person who cares deeply about animal rights. For you, animal rights can't necessarily be neatly separated from feminist issues. There's an overlap. You go to a site of a feminist author that you respect, and she's engaging in an activity that you find questionable.

Can we really, in good conscience, expect a person for whom animal rights are important to stay silent? Do we expect them to just shut up about it? I’m not sure, but I suspect not. I don’t expect people not to call me out on things just because I try to be good. If I say something sexist or racist or homophobic, I would hope to be called on it. The difference this time is that Elaine’s argument is that there some aspect of speciesism or human exceptionalism instead of some other ism.

There was a comment on the feministing thread that basically said: Aren't we allowed to just enjoy stuff, or do we always have to question people about their actions? Aren't we allowed to make our own choices?

I hate to bring up past kerfuffles, but, well... like I said, a lot of this sounds familiar. In particular, I'm thinking about posts regarding people of color, but I think it also applies to some of the posts about sex-work/pornography, and probably to other topics, too. In the end, I think that the answer is that, no, you can’t really just enjoy stuff, sometimes. Sometimes you have to accept that your actions may carry political weight beyond what you thought or wanted, and that sometimes you’re going to get taken to task over things that you didn’t think were political actions. You can choose to engage those questions, or you can choose to ignore them, but they’re still going to be there.

I think that the thing that bothers me about these conversations is the ways that another person's concerns and criticisms are sometimes casually dismissed and hand-waved away in ways that we wouldn't accept feminist concerns being dismissed. Every so often, we see MRAs or just anti-feminists coming into threads and dismissing feminist concerns. A particularly sexist ad might be getting critiqued, when some guy will come up and tell everyone to chill out or relax, or suggest that it's "all in good fun." That kind of comment (rightly) gets ripped apart.

Midway through the thread, SarahMC takes some people to task for the thread:

Why is it OK for feminists to protest stuff that harms women but not OK for animal lovers to protest behaviors that harm animals? Seriously. These, "But that's what I want to do and nobody can stop me!" arguments are the same types of arguments used by anti-feminists all the time!
"But I like porn so nobody should examine or criticize it!" etc.
How can anyone be offended by this discussion? None of us advocate outlawing buying from breeders (I don't think). So nobody's being "oppressed" here. Listening to our opinions/viewpoints is not hurting you.

Which struck me as a pretty fair point, and even though I don’t find myself agreeing with everything that the animal rights crowd on there is saying, I found myself rereading some of their comments, and trying to see things from their point of view. Unfortunately, the thread sort of degenerates rapidly from that point...

There are a lot of things going on in that thread, and some of them I'm still struggling to come to terms with. At one point Elaine compares animal ownership to slavery, which prompts a number of comments along the lines of "That's incredibly offensive." It inspired Zuzu’s post, and has been pretty generally torn apart. And while I understand and agree with much of what Zuzu says in her post, I’m not all the way there yet.

See, the problem I’m having is that there’s Slavery, and there’s slavery. I’ll totally grant that Jessica’s owning Monty is not on the level of “someone whose ancestors survived the Middle Passage only to be sold at auction and kept in bondage for the rest of their lives.” That would be Slavery. Of course, I don’t think that the guy working the counter at McDonald’s is really experiencing that kind of oppression either, but I don’t know that I’ve seen much outrage over the term “wage slave.”

I sort of take it because there’s a recognizable difference between slavery and Slavery. You can be a slave without having undergone the level of torment and torture that happened during Slavery, and I just can’t see the value is trying to suggest that any conversation about slavery as a form of oppression has to involve oppression on the level of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Nor do I think that there’s value in assuming that people on the animal rights side are arguing in bad faith or are racist jerks just because PETA has a bad track record, which is part of what I think might be happening. This, even after Elaine clarified: The definition of slavery is to treat another as property. Property is the essential concept of slavery. Property. The only way you can be offended is if you think it's OK to treat non-human animals as property.

Does an elephant in a circus that’s whipped and beaten, that’s forced to do strange tricks and perform at the whims of the ring-master suffer on the same level as that person who was kidnapped and brought across the Middle Passage? Maybe not. But is that elephant still being treated as a thing? As property? Is it being forced to do things that it would likely otherwise not want to do? Is it being kept in bondage for the rest of it’s life? Absolutely.

So, maybe not Slavery… but I have a hard time being overly critical of someone calling it slavery. After all, I think that people can and do torture animals, even if the torture never reaches the levels of the Spanish Inquisition. (And, I have to wonder, what happens if we discover, for example, that dolphins or chimps do meet the requirements for sapience? That they are “people” in a moral sense?). I’m still mulling this one over, though. Zuzu’s point about the history of racism and the ways that, in particular, POC have been Othered through the use of animal imagery isn’t lost on me… Like I say, I’m still mulling that over and running it around my brain.

I also found Jill’s take on the blow-up pretty interesting (and the comment thread looks to have been pretty good, too) although I can’t completely agree with her when she responds to Elaine’s comments with “I’d pick a human stranger over [an animal] simply because a human stranger is human, even though I think of my dogs as family and the closest thing there is to human.” I haven’t read all of Elaine’s comments on Animal Rights, but I think that there’s a difference between saying that it’s wrong to treat animals as property, and suggesting that every human being should regard every animal as being of exactly the same worth or value as, say, your own mother.

I don’t value all people the same. I’d pick my immediate family over most of my friends. I’d pick my friends over most of the bloggers I read. I’d pick most of the bloggers I read over a total stranger. I think that’s probably pretty normal- to have different levels of value for the different humans in our lives. For that matter, I value children and adult humans over fetal humans. It’s not that I don’t think that fetal humans have value- if you want a child, I think that your fetal offspring is probably pretty valuable to you- it’s that I think that born humans have greater value.

So, ultimately, suggesting that you’d pick any particular human or even any human over, say, a dog… well, it doesn’t seem to me to be much of a response against the claim that it’s wrong to treat animals like property. One doesn’t really have much to do with the other.

Maybe I sound like I’m being a little bit too critical? I don’t know… maybe I am being too critical. The thing is, animal rights are still a controversial issue, and there are a lot of people who are trying to raise awareness and do work on animal rights, and I just hate to see their issues being derided and ignored in ways that anti-feminists deride or ignore the issues that matter to me.

Mostly, I guess I’m just starting to notice this trend, and I’m not really sure if there’s a way to break out of it, or if we’re sort of doomed to repeat these sorts of arguments. Is there some way that we can try to raise questions about each others behaviors, and respond to those criticisms in a way that doesn’t feel quite as… I don’t know… antagonistic? Maybe there’s not, but I sort of hope that there is.

Beauty Standards and Shaming...

Ren, of Renegade Evolution (not so much safe for work. Unless you work in a place that's totally cool with blogs about sex and sex work. In which case, I guess that it is safe for work.) is guest blogging over at feministe, and has a post up called Something I Never Really Understood..., wherein she discusses body acceptance. In particular, she's wondering what it really means, and if many feminists are only willing to accept women's bodies if they meet some kind of particular feminist ideal- not shaving, not wearing makeup, not dressing in certain ways.

Often times being thin, via nature or diet or time in a gym is thought of something horrible. The intelligence of women who wear make up or get any sort of cosmetic surgery is guestioned, and often they are made fun of. Women who enage in any sort of “Patriarchy Approved” grooming or body ritual, well, when they admit it, they appologize for it. They are appologetic or ashamed of being thin, or wearing eyeliner, or having blonde hair...

... It seems like an odd sort of backlash to what was supposed to be a mode of thought that would make women more comfortable in their own skins, no matter their shape, size, mode of dress, or alterations. One can read feminist lit of all types, from books to blogs, and see this odd backlash, feminist people calling women bimbos, porno barbies, sticks; women disdaining their own natural attributes that fall within the realms of conventional beauty, things such as being tall, or thin, or curvy or blonde…

I don't know how common this is, in general, but I know that I've noticed it on occasion. I've seen threads about lipstick, makeup, high-heels, etc. end up becoming quite heated, as some people take hard-line stances about them. I've seen people essentially say "You're not really a feminist if you wear heels/lipstick" or whatever the topic of choice is. And, let's be honest, there are big taboos against breast enlargement in a some feminist circles. I'd have guessed that this was a minority position- the way that I generally think people being criticized for working out or being thin tends to be a minority situation- but I also realize that, as a guy, I'm not in the best position to notice these sorts of criticisms.

Still, Ren's question is an interesting one to me, because I don't think that there's a good response, necessarily. The problem is between dealing with individual choices, and the social implications that those choices can have.

Here's what I mean: I'm a huge supporter of people exercising their personal autonomy. I think that you should have the right to do just about whatever you want to your own body. If you want to be thin, be thin. If you want to be fat, be fat. If you want to dye your hair purple and wear nothing but yellow polka dots, I say go for it.

Some people want to be as "natural" as they can be- they don't want to shave or get cosmetic surgery. They want to leave their body as it developed. I think that's great, and I don't think that they should be judged poorly for it. On the other hand, some people take great pleasure in having total control over their bodies. They like to be able to sculpt themselves and know that their physical presentation is exactly as they want it to be. I think that's great, too. And, of course, a lot of people fall somewhere in the middle.

So, when it comes to any particular individual, I think that body modification is totally fine. I get the impression that this is a minority view. In abstract, I don't see anything wrong with breast enlargement over any other form of elective, cosmetic surgery. Sure, not necessary, but, then, neither are lots of the other forms of body modification people get. In abstract, what's the difference between a boob job and, say, getting lots of piercings, or tattoos, or teeth bleaching, or hair dying, or braces, or, or, or...

All of those things are surgeries or alterations people get to change their physical appearance in ways that they control. Don't like that bump on your nose from when you broke it when you were twelve? Get a nose job and fix it. Don't like that you have to wear glasses? Get lasered. Get a navel piercing. It's a way of exhibiting control over your body, which, I think, can be a perfectly healthy and understandable desire to have. We don't think twice when someone wants to get her teeth straightened.

Ultimately, I think that all of those things should be left up to the individual to decide. It's not my place to tell another person that she should or shouldn't alter her body in some way that doesn't effect me.

Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal or abstract world. We live in a very real world where we don't make our choices in a vacuum, and that's where I think the disagreement/trouble comes in, and where I think Ren is finding people's comments troubling and/or confusing. In a world where women are constantly bombarded with images and messages telling them that they're not good enough, and that they'd be more attractive if they shed a few pounds and had bigger, perkier breasts, and if they wore the right foundation, and had longer lashes... well... I can see why some people start to have concerns.

And I understand that and think it's totally fair, too. If you've got a system that really pushes women to feel like shit about how they look naturally, then you're going to have a system that pushes women get bodily alterations done. Socialization is powerful, and it's hard to know how much it effects women's choices when it comes to these things. How many women would cover their faces in makeup if it weren't for the social pressure to do so?

So, of course, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you don't shave or wear makeup, you get criticized for it. You're breaking a social taboo, and people will look and question and prod and poke. If you do, you're capitulating to harmful social pressures that demand women look a certain way.

So, how do we come to a place where women who want to modify their bodies or wear makeup or wear certain clothing get the respect that they deserve, but where other women can feel free to criticize the system that reinforces the notion that real women dress or act or look a certain way? How do we avoid criticizing any particular woman for getting a breast enlargement while still fighting the system that tries to tell women that their breasts aren't good enough?

I think that's precisely how, though. I think it's entirely possible to say that the system is screwed, without attacking any particular woman. If a woman says that she did X, Y, or Z because she wanted to, I think that's fair. If a woman says she's considered the implications of an action, and has decided to go ahead with it, that's good enough for me. I don't think it's my place to question any particular person's feminist credentials based on whether she's wearing red lipstick or high-heels.

So: to answer Ren's post: I think that it comes from being troubled and concerned with the systemic problems, and attacking the women that are seen as perpetuating them. I think that it's very easy, when you're trying to fight a systemic problem, to end up hitting individuals sometimes. I'm not suggesting that it's nice or right to do so, but I think that it's understandable that it happens. If you're trying to fight a big problem, and you see someone that is reinforcing that very problem, frustration or imprecise language can create a situation where you end up lashing out at an individual.

Still, like I said, I don't know how pervasive this problem is, though. For my money, I'd have guessed that it was more likely that feminists feel guilty or troubled by their own wearing of makeup or concern with beauty than for them to be criticized by other feminists for it. I'd love to hear other people's experiences wit this though.

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...

Nurse Rapes Patients...

While I was reading about the Gulf News report about the sleep rapist, I stumbled upon this lovely story. One of the head nurses at the Peter Dally Clinic for Eating Disorders has spent the last gods know how many years raping and molesting patients at the center. Police aren't sure how many women this scumbag raped, and they've sent out letters to all of the patients that he came into contact with since 1999. They don't have contact information for the patients he would have been in contact with in the 80s.

So far, 8 women have have won compensation from the trust, but I don't see anything about criminal proceedings in the article.

I'm not really clear on why the article put scare-quotes around "molested" in the article headline, either.

Sex and Sleeping... At the Same Time?

h/t feministing

A 26 year old RAF mechanic was cleared of rape charges because he suffers from a disorder called sexsomnia. Basically, this guy falls asleep and then goes into a state where he'll try to initiate sex during sleep. In this case, he claims to have fallen asleep, and while sleeping, raped a 15 year-old girl. When she awoke to find him on top of her, she screamed, and he got off of her, and wandered out into the yard. He doesn't deny that penetration took place. And yet... he's walking free.

This particular case seems to have been poorly handled, I think. This was a guy who knew he had this problem. He was aware of it, because he'd done similar things before to his girlfriend. He'd groped her and tried to initiate sex with her while he was asleep before. In one instance, he punched her while he was asleep. So, he knows that this is a possibility. That means that it's his responsibility to make sure that he doesn't hurt other people. Knowing that he has this problem, he shouldn't allow himself in a position where he's going to hurt other people. He knew he was sleep deprived, and that he'd been drinking too much, so he shouldn't have slept in a place where there were people that he could harm.

This also raises bigger questions, though. What if this were the first time that it happened? What if he were really truly in a deep sleep trance and did something to hurt someone else without realizing it? What's the appropriate way to handle a case like that? On the one hand, the victim of a crime deserves justice. On the other, we try not to punish people for things that they don't have control over. I'm not sure how a case like that should be handled. And, to throw a wrench further into this: What if the person who suffers from sexsomnia initiates sex with someone who wants to have sex? In the case of this guy, it was a 15 year-old girl, and she didn't want to have sex... but what if it had been a 25 year-old woman who did? What if he woke up and realized what was happening, and he didn't want to have sex? Or if it was a woman initiating sex and a man had sex with her and she woke up?

There's an interesting conversation happening in that feministing thread, now, between Kimmy and activistgradgal, about this very thing. Ultimately, what role and responsibility do sleeping people have if they do things while they're asleep?

If a man tries to have sex with a sleeping woman, that's rape. A sleeping person is not in a condition to give active informed consent to anything, let alone sex. That some sleeping people give the impression of intiating or wanting sex shouldn't really change that, because it's not about the body consenting, but the mind. In this particular case, I think his responsibility comes not from his being asleep, but from his knowing that he has this condition, and not having taken precautions. Had he not known, or had he taken reasonable precautions but something still happened... I'm not really sure what should be done.

Last Thing About RE5. (for today, at least)

Air, over on a thread about RE5 at Shrub, made an excellent point, and I just wanted to share:

But I wonder if I can add one more possible reason for the lack of discussion, perhaps related to the valid "games aren't taken seriously yet" point. The demographics of the average gamer. I confess I don't have the statistics, but considering just how much these new systems cost (I certainly can't afford them), I'm willing to hazard an educated guess that it's largely middle-class children and adults who have, in addition to disposable income, disposable time. That demographic, I think, is not the one most inclined to think about issues such as racism, sexism, and heterosexism in their daily entertainment.

This is one of those times when someone says something that makes total sense to me, and makes me go "Duh! How did I not realize that sooner?" Video gaming has been, since the start, a largely middle-class hobby. With systems that cost hundreds of dollars, and games that generally come in over $40 when they're released, it makes sense that there's going to be cultural lag. I've seen age breakdowns and sex breakdowns on who is playing games. I wonder if someone has done racial and economic breakdowns, too?

Anyway, I think air is on to something with this.

A Post About Video Games: Shocking, I Know...

Happy hump-day everyone. I'm back from Boston and enjoying the wonderful hot and humid weather that is such a trademark of Michigan in August. It was already over 80 by 8:00 this morning, and it's huuuumid. Lovely.

So, last week, in my post about Resident Evil 5, there were some pretty interesting comments. I started to respond to them when I realized that what I was typing really deserved a new post, so here it is.

Tom said:

If you accept that video games are valid expression and you accept that they can be, but often are not, art then you should treat them with at least the same respect you treat feature films. If a zombie film from a creative team with a decades-long pedigree was going to be released would you similarly be calling on them to explain themselves without stretching your intellect in an attempt to understand the why? Would you similarly demand that their justifications be given to you on a silver platter?

My view is that there are very valid reasons to set a piece of expressive zombie fiction in Africa and I don't feel that the scenario presented is ipso facto wrong. I am very aware that, mishandled, the scenario presented could be incredibly offensive however there isn't enough evidence yet available to validly make that claim.

There are a few things there, and I wanted to take a moment to address them. Tom's second point first. I'm not going to deny that there might be a reason why Capcom chose the setting they did, but I don't see why I should assume that there is. I want to know what the very valid reasons might be, because I haven't seen anyone say why it might be so important to set a game with a white guy killing lots of people in a nation full of black people, and in a nation with a long history of racialized violence and genocide. What are those very valid reasons? None of us have played the game yet, but apparently there are very valid stories that involve a white military figure killing lots of black people in an African nation so much so that we shouldn't even be expressing concerns? If we accept that it could be very offensive, why shouldn't we be asking "Why did you choose this setting? Did you realize what you were doing here?"

Let's step back for a second and clarify: The game might have a really great story and it might somehow take the troubling racial dynamic into account in some way. I'm not sure what story it could tell that's going to make the image of a white guy in military get-up killing lots of black people... um... not bad... but, I understand that I haven't played it yet, and that there's still that possibility. But the suggestion here is obviously that we shouldn't complain. Nobody seems willing to say what the very valid reasons are, but they're there, and we shouldn't complain.

I don't see why that should be the case, though. First of all, games are expensive, and if Capcom expects people like me to drop $50+ on a game, I think that I have every right to ask the sorts of questions that are going to determine if I want a part of that game or not. Second of all, I feel like I should reiterate the difference between "this trailer has some really troubling racial things happening" and "Capcom are a bunch of racists!" Most people I've seen are saying the former, and that's very different than the later.

A lot of this is, I think, an objection to Tom's first point: Video games are a valid form of expression, and may even reach the level of art. Because of that, we should treat them with the same respect that we do film. Tom suggests that we shouldn't be demanding explanation of the trailer, and that we wouldn't from a film-maker.

While I agree with Tom that video games can absolutely be artistic expression, I disagree with his conclusion. (I also disagree with his comparison, but more on that in a moment.) Being a form of artistic expression does not remove any obligation for explanation. One problem here is that Tom ignores that troubling history of race in video games. Capcom has a long history of making great games, sure. Nobody that I've seen has been particularly critical of how great the gameplay might be. It's generally accepted that Capcom have handled the play mechanics of the RE series with a capable hand, and that this game will probably be high quality in that regards. That says nothing about how well they handle issues of race, though.

So, ultimately, yeah, if I saw a movie trailer like this, I would have serious reservations about it. Even if it came form someone like George Romero, I'd be concerned. Would I be curious? Sure. But I'd absolutely expect a director to say something about race when talking about the movie. Does anyone think for a minute that he wouldn't mention race and the history of oppression and violence inflicted by whites on the black community if that were his movie trailer? He'd be insane not to mention it. And if he didn't, I'd be really concerned, and I'd be asking a lot of the same questions I'm asking now- why was that location chosen? What messages are being presented? Were you even aware of racial depictions, or was this an oversight? When you make a game or a film that involves certain types of images, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask "Why did you make it that way?"

I think that there's a big difference between a film and a game, though. Resident Evil 5 isn't a film. It's a game, and any comparison between it and a film misses a very important element- interactivity. Video games are the most interactive form of entertainment media I can think of. You don't just watch a game, you play it, and that's a powerful and important distinction. I don't hold games to the same standards as film, because they're not the same. Video games have different strengths and weaknesses than movies do. And, ultimately, I think that something that makes a powerful film might not necessarily work as a game.

SCotUS and Bush: "Don't bother complaining if you don't notice that missing quarter for more than six months."

Lauren, over at Unsprung, has a great bit about Ledbetter v. Goodyear. For those who aren't familiar with the case, it was basically a case of serious wage discrimination. Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire for over two decades. Near the end of her employment there, information came to her attention that led her to believe she was being unfairly discriminated against- it turned out that she was being paid significantly less than men who were doing less work than she was in the same positions. When the case reached the SCotUS, the court found against Ledbetter. According to Title VII, discriminatory intent has to occur within 180 days of the charge. That is, Ledbetter would have to have been denied a raise within 180 days prior to her claim of discrimination. Being issued a paycheck that reflects the discrimination is not, the court says, an act of discrimination itself.

Ginsberg dissented, rightly noting that pay discrimination is an ongoing and often subtle form of discrimination, and that it's often the case that pay is kept secret from other employees and that employers are keen to keep employees from discussing and knowing how much each other make.

The House (or, more accurately, the House Dems), have been critical of the ruling, and are looking to pass legislation that would reset the statute of limitations every time a discriminatory paycheck was issued, as each paycheck that reflects discriminatory raises constitutes a new act of discrimination. Unfortunately, the president has made it very clear that any such legislation would be vetoed on his watch.

Which is, to put it lightly, bullshit.

If I start to embezzle money from my employer, when do you think that the statute of limitations starts to run out? The first time I do it? When I come up with the scheme?

Hell no! Every time I take money from them, the clock is reset. It's worth noting, as well, that the statute of limitations for embezzlement is measured in years, not months.

This is completely about protecting corporate interests, and it's disgusting. By refusing to hear cases of discrimination that are more than six months old, the court ensures that workers who've discovered that they've been cheated don't have legal recourse, which, given the very nature of pay discrimination, protects coroporations from costly lawsuits. If they can keep pay discrimination quiet for six months- not a difficult task in a day and age when many employers have official policies prohibiting employees from discussing wages- they free themselves from having to pay out discrimination awards or back wages or costly settlements. Meanwhile, embezzlement, a crime that costs corporations, can be charged, from what I can see, up to seven years after the last instance of embezzlement.

Proving discrimination is pretty hard, and the deck is stacked against you from the get-go. It's bad enough that you only have six months to file discrimination charges given how difficult it is to gather evidence and prove in the first place, but to be told that the six months start from the first moment of discrimination, even in a case like this, where the discrimination is ongoing and has lasting effect? Downright offensive. And when the president of the United States makes it clear that he's going to shoot down efforts to help workers see that they're treated in a fair and equitable manner?

I'm almost speechless.

Race in Resident Evil: A Missed Opportunity For Understanding...

Might Ponygirl mentioned the rising controversy surrounding Resident Evil 5. Apparently, the game trailer is... raising some issues on race. I don't think it should be surprising, when you have a trailer that features a white guy (and, at least in earlier games, a cop) shooting and killing large groups of blacks, that some people are going to stand up and say Hey, this is pretty problematic from a racial standpoint.

Now, I readily believe that Capcom probably didn't intend for this to be controversial. I'd guess that they never even considered the racial implications (at least, I hope). But, ignorance isn't an excuse. I think it's perfectly fair to criticize the content of a game, and all of the social implications of that content. In this case, I think that it's completely fair to point to the game and say "Look, there's nothing wrong with having blacks be zombies in a game, but when you have a game where all of the zombies are black, and the hero is a white guy with a gun killing them, it starts to look a little ugly."

One of the really disappointing, though not surprising, things about all of this controversy, is the way that people have reacted. Rather than taking the words to heart and considering the racial implications and how the game might make people feel, a lot of gamers have gotten really angry about the criticisms and are on the attack. Read through some of the comments in Black Looks post, or at Villiage article. Immediately, people start making accusations of "playing the race card" or how there were "no problems when the 'inhumane savages' are white."

The reaction is just like I desribed before: There's a sense that these people are afraid we're trying to take away their toys, and they're reacting with anger and resentment, instead of engaging the conversation.

A lot of us are gamers. While I prefered Silent Hill to Resident Evil, I love blowing zombies away as much as anyone. I think that Resident Evil did a great job of capturing a sort of action-movie/zombie kind of feel, and I don't really have that many complaints about the games. I don't think that makes them immune from criticism, though.

These criticisms were an excellent opportunity for gamers to engage in some serious dialogue about how race is portrayed in gaming. Video games have a pretty shitty record when it comes to portrayals of race and ethnicity. The only way to improve that is through dialogue, and this was a perfect opportunity. I don't think that there's anything wrong with questioning why most of the heroes in video games are white men, and what that says about gaming culture. I think that it's important to try to move beyond what games have always done. One commenter asked (I'm paraphrasing) "Why should the hero be black?" That's a flawed question: The hero is almost always white. Given that, the real question ought to be, "Why shouldn't the hero ever be black?"

And, ultimately, this is directly related to conversations about privilege. I'd wager that most of the people getting outraged about this as being a non-issue or leveling accusations of this being more politically correct race baiting are white. It's easy to get offended and say things like "Well, why should he be black? Why should this bother you? Why can't zombies be black?" when you don't have to worry about seeing a hero like you, and when the history of violence and oppression that exists wasn't directed against your race.

I love video games, and I really, really want to see them thrive. Video games are a unique form of entertainment media in that they're interactive in ways that no other mass-market media is. As the player, you're directly controlling the way the story unfolds, and that creates potential for really powerful experiences. Unfortunately, video games are facing serious social stigma, precisely because of the ways that people like the commenters in those threads act. It's easy to dismiss games as violent bullshit when people respond to criticism with the kind of disgusting bile that they're spewing there.

It's only when gamers are willing to have serious discussions about the philosophical and social implications of games and gaming that video games are really going to be able to be taken as a serious art form. When the popular voices of gaming and gamers respond to criticism by throwing out racist and sexist insults and refusing to engage in a conversation about the very real, very serious social issues that games bring up, it only serves to further marginalize gaming as a hobby.

Nobody (Well, almost nobody- Jack Thompson be damned) is trying to take away people's right to play video games- what's happening is that people are trying to raise some social awareness about the reality that games reflect. Games don't exist in a void, and there's nothing wrong with raising questions about the situations that they present, or saying "You know, that game has some problematic things happening." These sorts of criticisms are an opportunity to raise your own level of awareness about the lives of other people, and to understand the different realities that people live in. Instead, a lot of people are becoming reactionary and offensive. Someone has said "Wow, there's a troubling racial dynamic happening here, and I don't like it" and people are reacting as though that person said "All video games are evil and should be banned." That comment could have been taken as a chance to engage Kym with why the trailer bothered her, and how the game- indeed, all games- could have been made better. Instead, people got hung up on their personal feelings, and they've ultimately missed the point.

Why Authors Should Sometimes Just Shut the Eff Up...

As if Bradbury didn't make it manifestly clear, let me: Authors would be well advised not to talk about The Meaning of their books.

Now, Sara quotes an interview with Rowling that illustrates exactly why many authors would be well advised to just shut the hell up about what they meant by various things.

In this case:

Su: How did neville get the gryfindor sword, is there a link to the hat

J.K. Rowling: Yes, there is very definitely a link to the hat!

J.K. Rowling: Neville, most worthy Gryffindor, asked for help just as Harry did in the Chamber of secrets, and Gryffindor’s sword was transported into Gryffindor’s old hat

J.K. Rowling: – the Sorting Hat was Gryffindor’s initially, as you know.

J.K. Rowling: Griphook was wrong – Gryffindor did not ‘steal’ the sword, not unless you are a goblin fanatic and believe that all goblin-made objects really belong to the maker.

Thanks for clearing that little mystery up, J.K. Can I call you that? I'm going to. You have to be a goblin fanatic to think that all goblin-made objects really belong to the maker? Really? Now, I don't have the book in front of me, but didn't Bill make it sound like... well... most if not all goblins hold that belief. So... all goblins are fanatics?

It was bad enough when I thought she just dropped the ball on the whole species as race aspect of the books, but it turns out that I was wrong. She didn't just drop the ball, she threw the damn thing away.

Your Daughters are Hot... Can I Have One?

Amanda posted about the whole purity movement, and linked to a Marie Claire article called "Father Knows Best".

I started reading the article before I read Amanda's post, and, as it turns out, both of us were gobsmacked by the same part:

For the next seven years, Lauren avoided boys altogether. Then, in February of 2006, the Wilsons paid a visit to the Air Force Academy, which Lauren's brother Colten was considering attending. Accompanying the family on the tour was 23-year-old Brett Black, a blondehaired cadet. Lauren had met him before through church, but "from that moment on," Lauren sighs, "I was just, like, head over heels."

She returned home that evening and asked God if Brett was the one for her. "I set aside 40 days to really pray hard and ask for direction," she remembers. Meanwhile Brett also decided that Lauren and her two teenage sisters were "gorgeous." The idea of a permanent commitment entered his mind.

"I thought, Am I crazy? I'm graduating in three months and possibly moving away," he says. "But I could see myself marrying one of those girls!"

Uh-huh.

I had to let that sink in for a minute or two, because I was just so completely floored. I thought "I can't possibly have read that correctly." But, no... She's completely gaga over this guy, and he's thinking "Man, those girls are hot! I could marry a girl like that!" Now, I'm sorry, but if you're looking at a girl and her two sisters and you're thinking that they're gorgeous and you'd love to marry one of them... any of them... well, I have serious doubts about how much you're really invested in them as people. They might very well be beautiful, but that's not really the best basis for a lasting relationship.

I love that, when he asks her father if he can court his daughters, he's not even sure he mentioned which one. "'I'd like to start a relationship with one of your daughters.' He thinks he specified Lauren." He thinks. Lovely.

So, they start to court. Seven weeks later, Brett asks Lauren's father if they can get married. Seven weeks. That's less than two months, for those of you keeping track. Lauren's father, who gave his permission, says "Brett doesn't know anything about Lauren. So I can help them be a success."

Call me old fashioned or crazy or whatever, but, my general feeling is this: If you don't know anything about someone... you damn well shouldn't get married. And when your idea of "emotionally hot" and "intense" questions are things like "What's the saddest thing that's ever happened to you" or "what's the hardest thing you've been through" I think you've got a seriously stunted conception of what constitutes "intense." Hell, I've seen more emotionally involved questions on a job interview, and these are the questions she's asking to decide if she wants to marry the guy?

The whole thing is just horrifying. From the way that Randy clearly sees his daughter as a posession to be given to a man, to the way that Lauren sees her major worth as being a piece of someone else... Oh, and the part where, on their wedding night, she washes his feet because her "spiritual gift is serving" and she "wanted to show Brett, 'I'm here to love you, follow you, and serve you.'" Yeah, it's horrifying... and sad.

It's definitely worth reading the original article (it'll probably have your jaw dropping in utter disbelief), and some of the author's reactions are pretty awesome.

Feminism and Me: My Role as a Man...

Kevin: aka Thin Black Duke, of Slant Truth had a guest post up at Thinking Girl's site that I thought was pretty interesting. The topic was 10 things that men can do to end men's violence against women, but it's also a good jumping point to discuss things that men can do to help end sexism and misogyny.

As a man, my role in feminism is something that I often think about it. It occurs to me that I don't think I've actually talked about that on here, which... well... is weird. You'd think it would come up.

One thing that I think feminist men should absolutely be doing is taking other men to task for the sexism that we exhibit. When we, as men, "get it" it's important that we work to help other men get it, too. This isn't always easy, but it's necessary. This sort of goes back to the question that cme asked me about here: It's not women's jobs to be a tourguide for men.

I think that's absolutely true, as I mentioned in response to that. I do, however, think that I, as a feminist man, do have an obligation in that area. I'm under no illusion that my voice will always find a willing ear or that I'll always get things right, but I absolutely believe it can make a difference, sometimes. I think that being vocal about supporting women's rights, and helping other men see that these are important issues is one of the most important things we, as feminist men, can do. I think of it as my responsibility as a man who supports an end to sexism to step up and help other men see what I see: a world where sexism is still all to common.

We also have an obligation to examine and challange our individual sexism and the roles we play in supporting sexist systems, and to work to understand how patriarchical systems benefit us- to see how male privilege benefits us, even when we don't mean for it to. It's not enough to fight against the systemic sexism that exists outside in the world around us if we don't also take the time to examine the ways that we exhibit sexism in our personal lives, as well. Even the most well intentioned among us are likely to harbor sexist beliefs sometimes, or unconciously benefit from privileges as a result of our sex. Part of being a feminist male, to me, is working to understand and be aware of the areas that I need to improve on, and to work on noticing instances of sexism that benefit me.

It's only after we've taken the steps to recognize how sexism and privilege play into our personal lives that I think we can really begin to help educate other men about our responsibility in ending sexism. This goes back to what I was talking about in the begining of this post- it's not enough to recognize sexism and say "Yeah, sexism sucks!" That's a start, but real action takes action. We have to be willing to move from recognizing sexism, to taking action against it, and that means being vocal, and it means being willing to address sexism when we see it, and it means working to educate other men about sexism.

Speaking of Guys That Don't Get It...

Fortune smiles upon me once again: The perfect illustration of a guy who doesn't quite get it.

Dustin Seibert- and his lovely little collumn here called "Game on the train? I'll take a pass"- is, I suspect, the sort of guy that many feminist blogs are talking about when they're call someone a Nice Guy™. He gives lip service to "getting it," but his attitude, and a lot of his comments, suggest to me that he doesn't really get it.

A casual glance might give you the impression that he's most of the way there. After all, he's writing about how he doesn't approach random women on the train. That's good, right? Of course. He also mentions that one of the reasons he doesn't approach random women on the train is "I know too many women who get freaked out by such advances." He's making progress, yeah? Well... maybe not so much.

See, while it's great that he's not bothering women on the train for their numbers, his attitude about the whole thing is depressingly angry and snide. Right after acknowleging that he knows too many women who are bothered by the unwelcome advances of strangers, he adds "The sneers that pop up on their faces a split-second before I even get a chance to smile say, 'I don't have a chance,' 'I'm not interested in what you're selling' or simply 'why the hell are you talking to me?!?'"

Ignoring for the moment that what he really means is "you don't stand a chance," think about that attitude for a second. His concern isn't about what the women are feeling about unwelcome advances- it's about how he feels about the rejection he gets from women who are bothered by unwelcome advances. He doesn't like feeling shut down, so he doesn't approach women.

On the one hand, the result is great- he's not bothering women and invading their personal space. On the other, the reason is a shitty one- he doesn't like feeling rejected, not because he respects their personal space. If there was any doubt about that, the stand-alone line "They're likely also thinking, 'Well, if he were really good-looking, then I might be more receptive." makes it quite clear. It's not that he thinks women don't like being bothered on the subway- it's that he thinks women want to be bothered by men more attractive than himself. He's taking a situation that ought to be about the woman's feelings and turning it back into something that's about his own.

In other words: Seibert? It's not about you. It's not about how attractive you are. It's not about how interesting or shallow you are. It's about respecting another person's right not to be pestered and hit on while they're taking the tram.

There are plenty of other cues about Seibert's mentality. He's unhappy that women might find him unattractive, but repeatedly discusses approaching attractive women: "that one very attractive women sitting by herself on your train", "Perhaps approaching a pretty young local in East Snackbite, Ill would be easier", "will the cutie standing on the corner..."

For an article talking about how Seibert doesn't hit on women on the train, he seems singularly invested in blaming women for his not hitting on them. He talks about the "inaccessibility" of women on the streets as though it's a bad thing that he can't hit on them. He refers to "lowe-culture" men who "ruin it for us good guys" as though, if only it weren't for all those classless losers, Seibert might have a chance to score some numbers on the street. After all, he's "no sketchy individual", and he's just trying to "offer substantive sonversations" that are "falling on deaf ears."

Shorter Seibert: "Poor Nice Guys! We have it so hard!"

The problem, of course, is that I think a lot of people probably read this kind of article and don't see a problem with it. They read it and they really do think "Wow, that sucks for him! Why are those women so mean to him! He's cute, and look at how nice he is!" Because he's paying lip-service to the desires of women, no matter how back-handedly, any criticism is likely to be met with resistence. After all, he respects women, so why are we so hard on him? That he spends the entire article blaming women for the situation and discussing how unfair and difficult it is that women are unreceptive to advances in public... well... never you mind that.

So, there you go, exactly the sort of subtle sexism that underlies a lot of what we've been talking about. I almost feel like I should send him a thank you note. But, somehow, "Thanks for being a sexist asshat who blames women for your problems" just doesn't seem like it'd go over well.

I'm *Not* Trying to Take Your Toys Away...

You know what I'm really tired of?

It seems like any time a feminist critiques some sexist potrayal of women in movies/books/comics/videogames, there's someone who feels personally slighted by that. They get very defensive about it, and say things like "Well, some women are like that!" or they talk about having rights.

The impression I get is that these people are confused about the nature of the criticism. There's this undercurrent of: You're trying to take away my toys.

It's like they're worried that failure to defend the sexist portrayal of women in Soul Calibur will result in Soul Calibur being banned. Which, I admit, would bum me out, too. I love Soul Calibur. The gameplay is awesome. The character designs blow.

So, just a generally announcement: Generally speaking, when feminists criticize something, we're not trying to take your toys away, we're trying to change the way you play with them. I don't want to ban videogames. I love videogames. What I'd like is for videogames to quite hypersexualizing women characters, and to see a more reasonable distribution of character types for female players.

Stop acting like we're trying to ruin your fun.

Frag Doll Responds: Reposted From 79 Soul...

Valkyrie FD, one of the Frag Dolls, took the time to address some of my concerns and questions from my musings about the Frag Dolls. I thought it was interesting, and, honestly, I certainly didn't expect them to respond directly. Still, she raises some interesting points, and I absolutely think her response is worth sharing. So, without further ado:

Actually a great read and I understand your concerns. I can't speak for all the frag dolls, but I know I specifically took this JOB from Ubisoft for not only a career move, but more importantly to do what I think is best for female gaming at the time: to push aside stereotypes about female gaming and bring about more awareness in the hopes that more girl gamers will come over and play. As bad as this sounds, when girl gamers aren't a minority, I will quit shoving my sex in the face of those that continue to make my life a living hell when I am gaming online. While I don't consider myself a feminst in most parts, when it comes to gaming you would probably be shocked to know I very much am.

Now, working for Ubisoft do I agree with everything they do with our brand and our team? Of course not, I am a gamer and as with typical gamers I fight many things about corporate ownership and dictation of my beliefs about gaming and the industry. But working for Ubisoft also allows me to have a voice for things I believe in and we do indeed have an impact to what they do with us and utilize us for.

Now of course I think I am decent looking, but I am also a 31 year old, married, slightly overweight Frag Doll. There are other married Frag Dolls as well, and I wasn't even the oldest frag doll until Katscratch left to follow her gaming career. Is this an excuse for the perception people have against the frag dolls that we are all young, single, hotties? By all means no, I am simply saying if their only motive was to sell sex, the could do a much better job then myself. Did looks count when Ubisoft picked us? Of course I think they factored in, they put us together to help market and promote their products, and it is safe to say that that any company that is going to put a face to their products would want one that is appealing and can present their company well. But it isnt like they went after models, and it most certainly was not the most important factor to say the least. In fact most of the frag dolls are simply cute or normal looking with a couple of exceptions, dont let professional photography or makeup fool you all that much.

Point of fact is if Ubisoft based their picks on looks we would not be able to carry the wins and placements of all the tournaments that we have competed in, period. No way in hell, becuase gaming with, and beating, the male gamers out there takes a natural love, skill and dedication and you can't make people have this on a whim. When they picked us, it was for the package in all things, but most important was true love and skill for the games themselves.

I like to think of it as baby steps to help change this industry and bring attention that hardcore gaming consumers arent only 13yr old males, and unfortunatly the only way the female voice seems to be heard is if we are in a group instead of lets say, a co-ed team (which is hopefully where the future will end). This is why I only play for female teams and the reason I helped found my clan and my heart, the PMS Clan as well. One day there will be no need for all-female teams, but until that day comes consider me a feminist for gaming to the extreme. And this is how I push my feminism-by showing that girls don't need guys to carry a win for them and can do it all on their own, and do it well.

I know this mentality usually riles some guys up, but it breaks my heart when I see female gamers out there think we don't do a good thing for all of us. If you look at the big picture of things, I know in my heart we are doing a GREAT thing for female gamers out there and as long as Ubisoft doesn't go against my morals or better judgement, I will continute to promote THEM to promote US.

Anyway, as I said I did enjoy your article and appreciate your interest and questioning. I hope I was able to clarify somethings but if you have any more questions, indeed let me know.