This week blew open with Michelle Wolf excoriating the current administration in Washington from her podium at the WHCD. However that was quickly overtaken by something downright creepy:
In a 2009 post arguing that all children should be subject to a paternity test, he compared female infidelity to sexual assault, writing that, “Biologically, cuckoldry is a bigger reproductive harm than rape, so we should expect a similar intensity of inherited emotions about it.” When readers recoiled, and pointed out that “rape victims are more often diagnosed [with] ‘post traumatic stress’ ” and “rape victims they know seem more expressively upset,” than men who have been cheated on, he turned to casual misogyny. “We all know that women tend to be more expressive about their complaints—you can’t beat ’em for wailing and gnashing of teeth,” he wrote. “But the fact that men act more stoic and complain less doesn’t mean they hurt less.” Later, he updated the post to add: “I’d prefer to be raped rather than cuckolded; any other men have a preference?” LINK
That was a reference to things written by George Mason University economist Robin Hanson, who has again stepped on it. Evidently, he’s an internet thrill seeker who likes the spotlight.
What is an incel? The term “incel” stands for involuntary celibate. This is a group of men who are unhappy because they are lonely and have a hard time forming sexual relationships with women. So, of course, they hate women. The “of course” is ironic. Incels are a misogynistic hate group. Lonely men searching for a relationship are often the base of movies. The audience quite often cheers the lonely search and when the man on the screen finds a mate, we all go home happy. But that’s not the incel mythology. Theirs is a distorted fable, wherein their loneliness is expressed in hatred of women. Because in their corrupt fantasy, women alone are responsible for their oppression, their loneliness and their rage. In their version, being an alpha men — which is a personality characteristic which all incels strive to express on line — is to have sufficient disregard and contempt for women, as they rail against the alleged ‘feminization’ of society. They long for that dazzling past of their fevered imagination where “men built civilization and women built men.”
After the Toronto van massacre, there were tweets where people suggested that the state should implement a girlfriend program. Yes. Really. Incels, fulminating in those dank chat threads, don’t see women as human. That said, their desire that their sexual proclivities should be satisfied is an old one:
Fourier's scheme of things is sexual liberation: satisfaction of all sexual proclivities; fulfillment of erotic fantasies; abolition of sexual deprivation; erotic philanthropy that insures a sexual minimum for all, including the old, ugly, timid or infirm; a lot of jolly orgies, amorous and gastronomical. Even Fourier's cosmogony is sexual.
However, Fournier would never have sympathized with incel dehumanization of women. He believed in the emancipation of women.
So, lets just say:
You want to have a conversation about sexual agency for marginalized groups, I am there for it. Surrogacy, self-pleasure, community: awesome. We are all entitled to healthy, safe, consensual sexual expression. But (grudgingly hoists megaphone): YEAH, THESE GUYS DON'T WANT THAT.
And now, a libertarian economist from GMU — Robin Hanson — has decided that the way out for incels, and other lonely men, is indeed to think of a path whereby:
One might plausibly argue that those with much less access to sex suffer to a similar degree as those with low income, and might similarly hope to gain from organizing around this identity, to lobby for redistribution along this axis and to at least implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met. As with income inequality, most folks concerned about sex inequality might explicitly reject violence as a method, at least for now, and yet still be encouraged privately when the possibility of violence helps move others to support their policies. (Sex could be directly redistributed, or cash might be redistributed in compensation.)
However seemingly Hanson enjoys being a crank, perhaps he is considering the entirety of lonely men looking for a hookup. Nevertheless, if this is his way of saying incels can be happy if they could but only buy sex, he is wrong. Additionally, how does one directly redistribute sex? By more cash compensation, according to Hanson. Compensation based on what? Seriously, his claims that he is not arguing for rape gets buried by the argument that sex is a commodity, and women should accept their commodification. We women are not property or money! And yes, he does not say that in those exact words. But reading is an interrogative act. It is a relationship with a text. We can infer. It’s what we get from the whole piece.
Douthat took this up and iterated that sometimes the the extremist and the radical sees the world more clearly, which to him meant robots:
For those more curious than martial, one useful path through this thicket is to look at areas where extremists and eccentrics from very different worlds are talking about the same subject. Such overlap is no guarantee of wisdom, but it’s often a sign that there’s something interesting going on.
Which brings me to the sex robots.
Because Douthat is always like that. Despite Douthat thinking that sex robots are the endpoint, it still is a misogynistic trope in which women are reified as a commodity, gearing capitalism to be even more toxic. Incels don’t want to buy sex from a robot.They want to be given sex.There is a difference. Has there ever been a lonely woman who went out on a mass murderous spree?
Sex is not something bestowed by women and demanded by men.
I’m calling on Ms. Solnit to say it for me:
But if you assume that sex with a female body is a right that heterosexual men have, then women are just these crazy illegitimate gatekeepers always trying to get in between you and your rights. Which means you have failed to recognize that women are people, and perhaps that comes from the books and movies you have—and haven’t—been exposed to, as well as the direct inculcation of the people and systems around you.
And yes, sex is a political arena. It has always been so.
That said, women don’t owe anyone sex. Full stop.
Now, on to the rest of the program.
-----------“She was the victim of a man who picked her up when she was 16.”
We all know that human trafficking is a blight. It wrecks the lives of those trafficked. Cyntoia Brown ran away from home when she was 16 and ended up living in a motel with her pimp who went by the name “Kut Throat.” He raped and abused her and forced her into prostitution. The week preceding that fateful day when she shot and killed Johnny Allen, age 43, she had been strung out on drugs and had been repeatedly raped. She saw Johnny Allen reach under the bed and thought her life was in danger. She was tried as an adult, convicted and sentenced for 51 years with no parole. The jury rejected her claim that she felt that her life was in danger. Her case has attracted the support of many celebrities. The prosecutor from that case (now an assistant district attorney in Madison, Ga.), is not swayed because he maintains that she “should not be considered a victim of trafficking” because her motive was robbery and contends that the victim was in fact, asleep, when he was killed. Never taking into account her experience up to then, and the fact that she was indeed trafficked, and serially raped.
State Representative Jeremy Faison, a Republican from Nashville who has been pushing for Ms. Brown’s release, said Thursday that it would have been more difficult for her to be tried as an adult under the trafficking laws and laws governing juvenile offenders that are now in place in Tennessee.
Mr. Faison, who introduced a failed bill in 2016 that would have required reviews of life sentences for juveniles after they serve 15 years in prison, said he regularly speaks with Ms. Brown.
“Did she kill the guy? Absolutely. Did we have proof of why she killed him? No, we don’t,” he said. “She was the victim of a man who picked her up when she was 16.”
-----------“They go from prescription painkillers to heroin to prostitution,”
The opioid crisis could occupy a whole series of diaries dealing with that subject. The pathos generated by it, the catastrophe it wreaks on a locality, can never be fully described. Words really do fail. It is a horrifying experience for the people trapped in the throes of it. It consumes lives and adds more calamity, affliction and wreckage into an already suffering community.
One state which is at the epicenter of the crisis is West Virginia.
No other state has been hit harder.
West Virginia was already in the midst of dealing with the loss of coal mining. Their communities were already in the midst of dealing with loss, as many of their young were leaving, seeking life and employment elsewhere. Along with all that, West Virginians were facing the statewide influx of prescription pain killers.
It has been, and continues to be, a ghastly and ruinous trifecta.
The burden of this dire social, and communal desolation is being borne by the people who still remain in those communities. As a result of this crisis, West Virginia stands to lose a generation to human trafficking.
Let me reiterate for emphasis — West Virginia stands to lose a generation to human trafficking.
The bolding in the following excerpt is mine.
While some women in West Virginia choose sex work, others are victims of sex trafficking, forced into prostitution against their will. Sex trafficking “is a crime of opportunity, and the pivot point for that opportunity is opioid addiction,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Cogar.
“Pimps often hold out [the] promise of drugs in return for women engaging in prostitution,” he said. “We think that’s fueling a lot of the demand and supply.”
SNIP
The West Virginia Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes social workers and concerned lawmakers, is trying to figure out how big the problem has become. The group aims to raise awareness about sex trafficking and fight it by developing a network of service providers, victim advocates, agencies and religious organizations to support trafficking victims — and their children, who are straining the state’s foster care system.
“I don’t want to lose any women to human trafficking at all, but we stand to lose a generation if we don’t act more forcefully,” warned Barbara Fleischauer, a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates who sits on the task force.
----------Our neighbor to the north:
Colonialism continues to have current and real time ramifications. Governments are slow moving beasts and even a heartfelt feminist and ally, like Justin Trudeau, has had to struggle against existing but erroneous and entrenched policies, whereby things continue as they always have.
Harmful policies of long duration continue to profane and violate family ties of the indigenous in Canada, as a disproportionate number of the children of First Nations end up in the state’s welfare system. It has been characterized as a humanitarian crisis. Not only is that culturally destructive distortion rampant, but also the fact that Canadian indigenous women continue to be victims of human trafficking at unconscionable rates.
Much of her preliminary findings focused on indigenous women in Canada, who, she said, “face marginalisation, exclusion and poverty because of institutional, systemic, multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination that have not been addressed by the state”.
She added: “Such deep-rooted discrimination stems from the long-standing intergenerational trauma resulting from colonialism, and discriminatory legal provision and practices.”
SNIP
Indigenous women are also overrepresented in prison – a grim trend that shows little sign of abating, she noted. Between 2001 and 2012, the number of incarcerated indigenous women increased by 109%. Indigenous women now make up 33% of the country’s inmates, despite the fact that indigenous peoples account for less than 4% of the Canadian population.
She urged Canada to tackle this discrimination, drawing a direct line between violence against women and government legislation that has for 150 years made it harder for First Nations women to hold status and pass it to their descendants.
----------The status of rape in America:
For a while now, we have been taking in the many accusations against powerful men in the entertainment industry. There have also been accusations against politicians. Moreover, people have continued to step up and expose more abusers. Moreover, as we have seen, the entire #MeToo moment has raised — globally — the profile of sexual violence and harassment as a phenomenon. What has been underlined for all to see is it’s pervasive nature. Rape and harassment permeates global societies. One of the unexpected drawbacks of surveying for rape is the language by which the NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) can apprehend and categorize it. The survey uses words like “rape” and “sexual attack” when assessing respondents. These words are triggering and people have a tendency to shy away from them, along with the fact that those words trigger emotions and a way of relating experiences which don’t take into account different definitions of rape which may not fit the “legal definition.”
Measuring the true prevalence of rape and sexual assault is tricky. In addition to the notorious problem of underreporting, many surveys use different methodologies for counting victims and different definitions of what constitutes sexual violence, which can make it impossible to compare results.
SNIP
Researchers say adding questions about behavior would help respondents identify their experiences with sexual violence. Lynn Langton, chief of the Victimization Statistics Unit at BJS, said the department is planning to launch a redesign of the survey in the next few years, which may include changes in how interviewers ask about sexual violence. But researchers and advocates say that until society encourages more women and men to come forward, reported numbers of these crimes will likely always be incomplete.
----------“Because justice is still patriarchal...” -
Thousands of people protest in Madrid after a Spanish court cleared five men of gang raping an 18-year-old woman at the 2016 San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona. The court convicted the men of the lesser crime of sexual abuse. The decision drew immediate criticism and outrage. Video of the protest, with interviews
----------“Fear of ostracism and retaliation remains a barrier…”
The annual Pentagon report discloses that the department saw an increased filing in the numbers of sexual assaults and harassment in 2017. The rise in reporting is a reflection of confidence in the larger system and a positive trend, given that sexual assault and harassment have generally been underreported crimes. However, retribution still remains a major problem.
Retribution is a key element in sexual assault cases.
“Fear of ostracism and retaliation remains a barrier to reporting sexual assault or filing a sexual harassment complaint,” the report said, adding that many women fear it will damage their reputations and haunt them for the length of their careers.
The bulk of the retaliation cases involved women who had filed sexual assault complaints, while less than 20 percent involved service members who filed sexual harassment complaints. In their complaints, many said they felt ostracized and faced cruelty or mistreatment.
----------School administrators misbehaving:
We’ve hears quite a bit about schools this week. While teachers were out making a case for their school budget and their salaries, some school administrations were focused on the banalities of dress codes, and appallingly depriving students of bathroom breaks. What’s up with these limited bathroom breaks? Doesn’t that have health implications? In Florida, the ACLU had to warn a school that their dress code policies were unconstitutional.
----------“Wolf exposed the obscenity of the fictions” -
In the era of Trump, it took a female comedian to blow the door open.
The WHCD is a strange arena where the fourth estate comes together with government employees, politicians, their handlers, all the while pretending that they can still do their jobs, capably, while simultaneously maintaining the required distance. Ms. Wolf’s jokes quite ripped apart that facade:
The same fiction continues to dominate our public sphere. In this story, Trump performs the role of President, albeit poorly, and those in the media maintain a strained civility in their coverage of him. In this story, the statement that the President is a racist is still controversial. In this story, the media can discuss his affair with a porn star, and even the question of whether he used a condom, without undermining respect for the office. This is an essential pretense, because respect for the office of the President is indeed a value that should transcend the current Presidency. But it is this pretense, and these fictions, that cast a pall of unreality over most media coverage and make late-night comedy shows the better news outlets. And then there is the pretense that the late-night comedians exist in a parallel universe, separate even from the television channels that broadcast them.
Wolf’s routine burst the bubbles of civility and performance, and of the separation of media and comedy. It plunged the attendees into the reality that is, in the Trump era, the stuff of comedy. Through her obscene humor, Wolf exposed the obscenity of the fictions—and the fundamental unfunniness of it all. Her last line, the most shocking of her entire monologue, bears repeating: Flint still doesn’t have clean water.
“If we’re going to change the culture we can’t be silenced” -
When women run for office, they face atypical obstacles, in that most men runing for and holding office do not have to contend with them. Sometimes they have to work in the legislature with one of their abusers. Sometimes they have face outright harassment. Quite regularly they are asked how they would balance their parental role with their legislative duties:
With women – including, or even especially, powerful women – speaking up about their hardships, some have raised concerns that emphasizing the barriers certain women have faced will do them a disservice by casting them as victims.
But some such as Higher Heights, an organization dedicated to electing more black women, believe talking about these difficulties can emphasize a candidate’s humanity and help them connect with voters.
Furthermore, female candidates are scrutinized for their appearance, and their voice. Many of these candidates are turning to a group which helps women deal with misogyny they encounter on the campaign trail.
-----------Online trolling and harassment:
On line harassment is ubiquitous and pervasive. It is destructive and has injured many. Women are the majority of writers on line who have been the recipients of harassment. PEN America has published a guide for writers and publications dealing with online abuse, trolling, and hate speech.
Writers and journalists are facing unprecedented levels of online hate and harassment. While there are no answers, that this digital Field Manual contains effective strategies and resources that writers and journalists, their allies, and their employers can use to defend against cyber hate and fight online abuse.
-----------It felt like the end of an era:
The extraordinary, inexhaustible and inimitable Cecile Richards.
----------And the fight continues —
In her statement about her decision to sign the law, Reynolds — who has a history of supporting anti-abortion legislation — cited her religious beliefs as the reason for signing a bill that is highly controversial.
“I understand that not everyone will agree with this decision,” the statement reads. “For me, it is immoral to stop an innocent beating heart. For me, it is sickening to sell fetal body parts. For me, my faith leads me to protect every Iowan, no matter how small.” LINK
-----------The first woman at the editorial helm of Nature
Nature, the journal, was first published in 1868. And while it has taken nearly 150 years for Nature to have it’s first female editor-in-chief in Dr. Magdalena Skipper, she is only it’s eighth editor-in-chief. And the first to come from a life science background.
Dean Sanderson, Managing Director, Nature Research, said:
"I'm delighted that for the first time a woman will be taking the helm at Nature – and equally delighted that our extensive search resulted in an appointment within the Nature Research family. As the world's most cited journal, Nature has an important role in not only publishing ground-breaking research, but also in providing scientists with analysis and commentary that help put that research in context. With her wealth of experience and commitment to excellence, Magdalena is ideally placed to guide Nature and the Nature journals into the future."
Yay Dr. Skipper!
----------In some additional positive news —
Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh said many possibilities were considered during lengthy and “incredibly fun” deliberations before the new name was chosen.
“We wanted to land on something that evokes the past but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward,” he said. “We’re trying to find the right way to say we’re here for both young men and young women.”
The parent organization will remain the Boy Scouts of America, and the Cub Scouts — its program serving children from kindergarten through fifth grade — will keep its title, as well.
But the Boy Scouts — the program for 11- to 17-year-olds — will now be Scouts BSA.
The organization already has started admitting girls into the Cub Scouts, and Scouts BSA begins accepting girls next year.
Surbaugh predicted that both boys and girls in Scouts BSA would refer to themselves simply as scouts, rather than adding “boy” or “girl.”
Uber has a rape problem and is burying it with forced arbitration.
The petition text states that “Over the last four years, 103 Uber drivers have been accused of sexual and other violent crimes”(!!) However, “when users sign up for Uber, they agree to its terms, which include resolving any claim ‘on an individual basis in arbitration.’” Thus this petition is calling on Uber to “remove the arbitration clause and allow women to tell their stories openly and have their day in court”.
I’d like to thank Besame, ramara, noweasels, thurayya, ksmoore777, SandraLLAP and Tara the Antisocial Social Worker for all their very generous help in getting this diary together. |