...and there’s more in that WashingtonPost article about how female bodies process “noxious” stimuli in ways that male bodies don’t. <small>UPDATE</small>: Note (chart at this link) that total levels of testosterone in the body
are 264 to 916 ng/dL in men age 19 to 39 years,[176] ... mean testosterone levels in adult men ... reported as 630 ng/dL.[177] Levels of testosterone in men decline with age.[176] In women, mean levels ... have been reported to be 32.6 ng/dL.[178][179] In women with hyperandrogenism, mean levels of total testosterone have been reported to be 62.1 ng/dL.[178][179]
Quoting from WaPo:
...Initial research focused on the role hormones play: Testosterone reduces sensitivity to distress, and individuals undergoing male-to-female transition who receive estrogen and testosterone blockers experience an increased frequency of migraines. More recent work ... appears to suggest that differences in the immune system mediate differences in how noxious signals travel across the bodies of males and females.
Some readers will have noticed me often saying say there are more differences between being male and being female, on average, than whether the reproductive gear shows on the inside or outside. That the differences are neurochemically fundamental in psychological and behavioral reactions and responses, even while behaving as the given society considers and socializes as ‘normal.’ Part of this is that what’s considered normal may still be heavily influenced by accepted or condone biologically-driven behavior.
Testosterone is [an androgen,] the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid* in males.[3] In male humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues … as well as promoting secondary sexual characteristics such as increased muscle and bone mass…
[Among other things, androgens function in libido and sexual arousal...{in both males and females}]
And as we also know:
*Anabolic steroids [more properly a.k.a.] anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS),[1] ... include natural androgens like testosterone as well as synthetic androgens that are structurally related and have similar effects … They increase protein within cells, especially in skeletal muscules, and also have varying degrees of <big>virilizing</big>** effects…
...Known possible side effects of AAS [that relate to and involve behavior] include:...[7][74][75][76][77]
...As their name suggests, AAS have two different, but overlapping, types of effects: anabolic, meaning that they promote anabolism (cell growth), and androgenic (or virilizing), meaning that they affect the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics…
Virility … refers to any of a wide range of masculine characteristics [socially] viewed positively. Virile means "marked by strength or force".[2] Virility is commonly associated with vigour, health, sturdiness, and constitution, especially in the fathering of children… virility is to men as fertility is to women...
As usual with me as diarist, this will run long. Hopefully, it’s a good read. But for those who prefer, scroll down past the colorboxes and women’s-movement symbol to reach news items and the comment thread.
Granting having edited the end of that last blockquote, I can’t recall offhand any term for women comparably signifying vigour, health, sturdiness, capability, etc. The masculine term references men’s capacity to function across the board, while the feminine term only references women’s capacity to breed. Readers by all means chime in if you have alternative vocabulary for women, but as it stands we seem to be seeing the power/force of language&history deferring to male in regard to which gender is considered The primary, normal, healthy, active, strong one in our culture, and which genders secondary, inadequate, weak, non-normal, valuable only for subordinate service, etc.
Diverting to other lexicographal insight about how what’s presumed medically normal in males goes “undetected” in terms of what might constitute adverse public health impacts (e.g., the shadow pandemic: violence against women and girls) in the daily life real world:
Merriam-Webster — subclinical — adjective … not detectable or producing effects that are not detectable by the usual clinical tests...[emph & wik link added] [which often involve Reference Ranges][ibid] … deemed normal in healthy persons [i.e,,] what is most prevalent in … the general/total population … Values within the reference range (WRR) are those within normal limits … In healthcare–related publishing, style sheets sometimes prefer the word reference over the word normal to prevent the nontechnical senses of normal from being conflated with the statistical sense…[ :D ]
Where do we in the “general (total) population” get our ideas of what’s normal? Here, hava homemade illustration:
Besides longterm cultural influences (such as language, and how history is portrayed) are also the influences of the moment or cultural era, and how persistent (if often varying) those factors are, positive as well as negative (well, pos or neg sometimes depending upon from whose perspective)...
Well, then, what are desirable and aimed-for “norms” and traits? We can scrutinize films and television and other entertainment (another thing readers notice I suggest a lot :D) —including sports, perhaps even politics— to see how our and other societies seem to answer that question, and what ours welcomes (including kosaks, if enthusiasms about popular culture products are any indication) as demonstrated by plunking down hardearned money to enjoy it.
We see quite often that for a fictional female character to be considered “strong” and a “hero”, she usually has to do the same virile kinds of things males usually are portrayed doing in that situation, and which the audience/market/population applauds: actions/behavior that are forceful, polarized/oppositional, overpowering, little negotiation, little cooperation, never give an inch, focused on the win.
...rarely going for a win-win-win; the “other side[s]” is/are always portrayed as enemy. Which —coincidentally? not.— facilitates and rationalizes the rightness of the masculine modus operandi, including to pit it against —ibid.— any less punishing and conflictful modus vivendi ...
...a Latin phrase that means "mode of living" or "way of life". It often is used to mean an arrangement or agreement that allows conflicting parties to coexist in peace...
...The phrase is often used to describe informal and temporary arrangements in political affairs. For example, if two sides reach a modus vivendi regarding disputed territories, despite political, historical or cultural incompatibilities, an accommodation of their respective differences is established...
Popular entertainment plays to the testosterone in all of us —women have it too, if much less— for TWO purposes that cycle around and around: [1] to get profit from us, and [2] in the process to stimulate enjoyment of vicariously triggered testosterone, so that [1] can be sustained as long as f###-all possible.
Returning to the medical perspective for culturally inherited notions of what’s most normal — since almost always, the human male body has been considered the normal one, and the female body inferior, weak, inadequate, deviant/deviating from the norm.
<big>Yet with all the conquering and bludgeoning and subjugating the testosterone-driven male body has done throughout history, perhaps more accurately it’s male biology that’s abnormal in terms of total societal good, even as Republicans might define it, since sometimes they quite vocally decry physical violence in society. Perhaps male biology —excessively driven to overpower others, innately under-sensitive about harm it does and harm it perceives, over-juiced by nature to react muscularly to stimuli of desires of all kinds, and to stimuli of opposition to those desires— is dominant, certainly, but under-equipped to behave better on individual and collective terms unless that body gets a lot of help TO behave better.</big>
Pretty much since the earliest beginnings of feminism, feminists of all genders have focused particularly on getting equal education and equal socialization for women. In this century, we actually have quite a lot of that, e.g., i.i.r.c., autumn 2019 was the first year women outnumbered men starting medical school in the Us. (Which is aside, of course, from how well or badly women still are treated in medicals schools…)
Yet gender-based aggression from males seems, if anything, to have grown in the Us and in the world generally across recent decades
There are potentially multiple causes, quite aside from male pushback on women’s progress, and even aside from econopolitical forces — the human species (led/commanded mostly by men) has always had econopolitical impetus and incentive to be aggressive about it’s aims, and rarely fails to act upon’em.
One cause under-examined: <big><big><big><big>HABIT</big></big></big></big>. This from a 2019 New Yorker book review (some links added):
In “Good Habits, Bad Habits” ... social psychologist Wendy Wood ... sees the task of sustaining positive behaviors and quelling negative ones as involving an interplay of decisions and unconscious factors. Our minds ... have “multiple separate but interconnected mechanisms that guide behavior.” But we are aware only of our decision-making ability … and that may be why we overestimate its power.…
..the crux of her book’s thesis [is that] the path to breaking bad habits lies not in resolve but in restructuring our environment in ways that sustain good behaviors. Wood cites the psychologist Kurt Lewin, who argued that behavior was influenced by “a constellation of forces” analogous to gravity [and the] fluid dynamics that make a river run faster or slower. Those forces [are at] work [wherever] you are, who’s around you, the time of day, [even your own] recent actions. We achieve situational control, paradoxically, not through will power but by finding ways to take will power out of the equation.
The central force for eliminating bad habits, according to Wood, is “friction”: if we can make bad habits more inconvenient, then inertia can carry us in the direction of virtue, without ever requiring us to be [morally] strong…
...The tendency of companies to act as our enablers was extensively examined in Charles Duhigg’s best-seller “The Power of Habit” (2012)… Examining corporate efforts to capitalize on habit formation… Duhigg, like Wood, sees habitual routines as being driven by cues and rewards [including industries that have] “created a craving...”
Wood advises us to come up with new rewards as substitutes for the ones [that get us stuck]...
Backtracking to modus vivendi, equally as paradoxical, too, “In science, it is used to describe lifestyles.[1]“ which links to … Habit_(biology)#Behavior
In zoology, habit … usually refers to a specific behavior pattern, either adopted, learned, pathological, innate, or directly related to physiology. For example:
- ...the [cat] was in the habit of springing upon the [door knocker] in order to gain admission...[2]
- If these sensitive parrots are kept in cages, they quickly take up the habit of feather plucking.[3]
- The spider monkey has an arboreal habit and rarely ventures onto the forest floor.
- The brittlestar has the habit of breaking off arms as a means of defense.<tt><big>[you KNOW I HAD to emphasize that, since in English it takes context to know WHOSE arms get broke off.]</big></tt>
Mode of life (or lifestyle, modus vivendi) is a concept related to habit … <big>The habits of plants and animals often change in response to changes in their environment. For example: if a species develops a disease or there is a drastic change of habitat or local climate, or it is removed to a different region, then the normal habits may change. Such changes may be either pathological, or adaptive.[4]</big>
This means ENVIRONMENTAL change — the social environment :)
Back through time, many religions and philosophies have arisen that are very focused on designing rewards and building-in the “friction” that shapes individual habit, very attentive to “the task of sustaining positive behaviors and quelling negative ones” and about “-structuring [their] environment in ways that sustain good behaviors”, trying to
“achieve situational control paradoxically not through [individual in-the-moment decision or will power] but by finding ways to take [the prompts of the destabilized moment] out of the equation.”
Of course, there are two flaws women often point to, in how those religions and philosophies may pan out in daily real life:
[1] when men are in control, even if very benevolent and egalitarian ones originally designed these environmental constellations, the mass of men —including leaders — tend to default to testosterone-driven interpretation and behavior, regardless of philosophical details to the contrary; and
[b] the investment involved nearly always needs not only men but also women to relinquish things they enjoy —cheap thrills, mostly, I think, but quite often dearly loved indulgences that seem more substantial— but which operate to impair the philosophically intended gravity and fluid dynamics for building an environment that instills and sustains good behavior toward one another at the sturdy, deep habit level, so conscious thought/decision in the moment isn’t all there is to rely upon. Investment in that philosophy may involve embracing some societal austerity: a willing relinquishment of what people may consider rightful freedoms, anything from what entertainment we want to be spectators at to what possession and activities we want, e.g., gun sports. IOW, cherished pleasures and gratifications of individuals that may hold everyone back. It can require awfully tough self-restraint on everyone’s part, an awfully tough “exercise” program, in order for society to build some non-testosterone muscle :D for decreasing violence, dominance behavior, polarized/oppositional thinking, win-lose outlook. In order to gain win-win-win. And women as well as men may see as unfair and punitive what they’re called upon to give up for the common good.
Moderns across the sociopolitical spectrum tend to believe the philosophical ‘muscle’ training isn’t necessary — that good people choose behavior in the moment very well. …except, concepts of “good” vary. And we’ve NEVER actually had societies that behaved that well!
In an era of environmental and ecological crises and challenges of many other kinds, this one is not as metaphorical as it sounds, needing everyone environmentally minded to seriously contribute to, even sacrifice for. ...to give men constellations to inhabit that decrease testosterone’s power over them, for shaping their own behaviors into patterns better for everyone, including them too.
Discuss! :)
<tt>Members of w0w who can’t access the WaPo article please kosmail to me and we’ll see what we can arrange.</tt>
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Commenters, please post your shares, links, thoughts. Meanwhile, here are the past week’s news items so far:
MISOGYNY
Apple's hiring of Antonio Garcia Martinez was met with immediate pushback from female employees and others, who circulated a petition citing painfully misogynist quotes from his book "Chaos Monkeys." Apple backed down and fired him days later. Garcia Martinez griped that Apple was well aware of his book's contents before hiring him - which, sadly, is probably true. A sample:
"Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel."
ABORTION
The governor of Texas just signed an incredibly extreme "heartbeat bill." It bans abortion after 6 weeks (when a woman may not even know she's pregnant), with no exceptions for rape or incest. Then it goes further:
"... it allows any private citizen the extraordinary authority to sue an abortion provider – they do not need to be connected to the patient or even reside in the same state, opening up the floodgates to harassing and frivolous civil lawsuits that could shut down clinics statewide.
In fact, any individual can sue anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care or someone who “intends” to help an abortion patient, a breathtakingly wide range of possible people and groups. While those who sue can collect a minimum of $10,000 if they are successful, those unjustly sued cannot recover legal fees."
Pro-choice Texans to march Capitol over latest abortion law — Several pro-choice organizations
like Deeds Action Funds and Texas Freedom Network, are asking Texans to join its rally called <big>"Don't Mess with Texans' Abortions!</big>" at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May, 29 on the South Steps of the Texas Capitol.
Louisville, Kentucky — Abortion clinic buffer zone bill passed by Louisville Metro Council
[Anti-abortion a]ctivists will no longer be able to protest directly in front of health facilities in Louisville, namely the EMW Women’s Surgical Center. The clinic is one of the state’s two operating abortion clinics.
[During a meeting Thursday night] Metro Council voted[14-11] in favor of implementing a 10-foot buffer zone outside of clinics … which will keep protesters and activists from standing in front of doors at healthcare facilities as patients enter and exit.
Erin Smith, the Kentucky Health Justice Network executive director, explained the measure comes down to people having the ability to walk into a clinic and get medical attention peacefully. She said the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in downtown Louisville has been ground zero for anti-abortion protests for years...
GOOD NEWS: Twenty attorneys general have been filing and continue to file MULTI-STATE amicus briefs against restrictive abortion laws as these make their way through the court. See, for example, NY's AG Letitia James.
<big>ACTION ITEM: The Center for Reproductive Rights fights for legislation from the state to federal level to protect the right to abortion, and to repeal the Hyde Amendment to protect abortion rights worldwide. Their tracking tool is here. They also have "donate" information for those interested.</big>
RAPE & VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & GIRLS
Quoted content, more than 3 paragraphs is covered by the CCBY
license from The Conversation
Over at The Conversation: While the article makes a specific case study of Senegal, the findings and presentation, many elements discussed are equally valid elsewhere. Why few women in Senegal speak out about their rapists
Senegal has a robust history of women’s activism against sexual violence, which led to landmark legislation making rape a criminal offence last year. However, survivors of alleged sexual assault rarely denounce men by name.
This pattern was broken recently by a young woman, Adji Sarr who publicly accused opposition leader Ousmane Sonko of raping her. He was arrested and accused of the rape.
But, in a political twist to events, many people turned against Sarr and defended Sonko. This was partly on the grounds that Sonko claimed President Macky Sall had a hand in fabricating the charges against him in a bid to eliminate his competition and run for an unconstitutional third term.
For her part Sarr was ridiculed as a liar on social media and national television. Some women’s organisations have spoken out against stigmatising Sarr. But several prominent organisations have not yet made public statements.
Rape remains a social problem that is widely recognised but rarely discussed explicitly. Our research on sexuality, media, and communication practices in Senegal explains the prevalence of a Senegalese culture of discretion, called “sutura”. This often inhibits survivors from publicly denouncing perpetrators and can be an obstacle to fighting gender-based violence.
WaPo May 19 … Child Kidnap Attempt - “This could have ended terribly” Surveillance video: A blue-jeaned Pensacola, Florida 11-year-old girl waiting for the schoolbus was kneeling on the grass of a traffic circle working with her backpack. A white SUV stopped at the far roadside, and a man leaped out, running at her with a knife. Instantly, she grabbed her backpack and ran. He caught up and tried to drag her to his vehicle. She punched, kicked and squirmed until the man tripped and lost his grip. She sprinted home as he ran for his SUV and took off after her, but she made it to safety!
The disturbing incident set off a full-force, hours-long manhunt by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office to identify and locate the man responsible. [That] evening, deputies arrested Jared Paul Stanga, 30, and charged him with attempted kidnapping of a child under 13 and aggravated assault and battery. Stanga’s extensive criminal history [includes] past sexual crimes against children...
From DK’s Gabe Ortiz: WaPost reported that Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas announced on Thursday the Biden administration’s plans to end detention contracts at ICE facilities, one of the the notorious Georgia site in Irwin County that’s currently under federal investigation based on allegations detained women’s allegations of being subjected to destructive medical violence by the site’s chosen gynecologist.
Azadeh Shahshahani, one of the leading advocates fighting to close the privately operated facility, called the announcement a “momentous victory,” and “the result of years of organizing & exposing the human rights violations by orgs on the ground.”
In California legislature, on Thursday, for the 2nd year in a row, a bill in committee to require law enforcement agencies to process backlogged rape kits was among over 200 “suspended” indefinitely under varying pressures keeping them from reaching discussion on the assembly floor, far less a vote.
Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance made possible for state and local law enforcement to request & receive funding assistance for processing of BACKLOGGED sexual assault physical evidence, the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), But response nationwide was far from comprehensive. One nonprofit organization working on this issue is WWW.ENDTHEBACKLOG.ORG
Long running instability and civil war in Congo continues to disproportionately have an impact on women. Recently director of UNFPA went on a special UN visit to asses general security. UN News (19 May 2021) Sexual violence survivors in DR Congo caught in crisis of ‘catastrophic magnitude’
On a recent visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Dr. Natalie Kanem, the head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, bore witness to the horrific legacy of sexual violence in the country, which is undergoing one of the world’s longest-running humanitarian crises.
‘The men broke my body and shattered my soul’
“We waited for hours in the distribution point until they eventually told us to go home. Hungry and empty-handed, I walked with three other women and two little girls. It was dusk, and I heard the little girls scream.
“I turned around and, in the dim light, I saw men and boys coming towards us. They grabbed us and they were jeering when they distributed us among them, including the children. Five men took turns raping me and violating my body. My last thought before I lost consciousness, was how pure evil can exist in this world.”
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WOMEN IN GOVERNANCE & GOVERNMENT
NYT - May 21, 2021 After Weeks of Twists, Samoa Is Set to Have Its First Female Leader “A dead-heat election was followed by uncertainty and intrigue. But barring further surprises, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa will become prime minister on Monday.” (note: this is not American Samoa)
While its island neighbors in the Pacific weathered military coups and internal volatility, Samoa long followed a predictable political course, [with] the same [male] leader in power for more than two decades [but] that status quo has been dramatically upended [ — incoming PM] Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, represents a sharp break from what she describes as a worrying slide away from the rule of law, and she has vowed to scrap a major infrastructure project backed by China, her country’s largest creditor.
...her ascension [follows 7 weeks] of uncertainty and intrigue [after] the April 9 election … First ... Ms. Mata’afa’s upstart party won as many seats in Parliament as the [ruling] one [while an] independent candidate took the remaining seat, making him a kingmaker [feverishly courted] by both parties. [Then paradoxically citing a law requiring women hold at least 10 percent of the seats, with the election producing 9.8 percent], the election commission appointed another female to Parliament — a member of the ruling party].
The independent candidate ... threw his weight behind Ms. Mata’afa’s party ... Samoa’s judiciary ... tossed the additional female member out of Parliament, putting Ms. Mata’afa’s party in the majority. [The longtime “swaggering” PM has yet to concede, but] Ms. Mata’afa is scheduled to be sworn [into that office] on Monday.
🔴 <big>Look for diaries from Torilahure tomorrow onward about:
🌎 50% of Constitutional assembly in Chile is by design women <big> ➡️</big>
🌏 UN World Social Report.</big> A brief intro to this diary from Tori: The report
is focused around revamping rural development strategy and focus to achieve overall goals. A cursory first read of the report has made me think that the report and policy recommendations do not go far enough.
UN DESA report 174 page pdf document available for download at UN library UNDESA World Social Report 2021: Reconsidering Rural Developement. UN DESA goal, item 5 is specifically "Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls". Policy recommendations are interlaced in the report as generic development goals. Specific mention of women is only made in context of Rural women in page 149 of the report.
The report misses out mentioning or addressing Global policy influencers (US, UK, Germany, France,Poland, Spain) all have fascist and misogynistic political establishments and developments which in many cases are even being championed by women in leadership roles.
Please add your news items, links, and comments. Thanks for reading.