Once again, no time to do a real post, so I’m giving you a few links.
Today in fundamentalism: a British woman teaching in Sudan has been charged with blasphemy and insulting Islam for allowing her class of 7-year-old students to name a teddy bear Mohammed.
Paul Krugman gives us yet another reason to be very, very nervous about the seemingly-bland-and-inoffensive Mike Huckabee:
Speaking before a gathering of Christian conservative voters, GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said legalized abortion in the United States was a holocaust.
“Sometimes we talk about why we’re importing so many people in our workforce,” the former Arkansas governor said. “It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973.”
Don’tcha just love synergy? Anti-choice propaganda, woman-hating*, paranoia about immigration and a Godwin’s violation, all in one seamless web! (Via). Hendrik Hertzberg at the New Yorker has more reasons to fear the guy.
Speaking of anti-choice Presidential candidates, Melissa has some disturbing news about Dennis Kucinich, who gives a new reason to suspect that his pro-choice stance — which is of recent vintage — is not exactly his highest priority:
You know, for a long time, I gave Dennis Kucinich the benefit of the doubt. When people accused him of just being a goofy, pointless, time-wasting vanity candidate, I defended him. He’s earnest, I said. Well, no more.
That he would seriously consider for one second sharing a ticket with Ron Paul—the same Ron Paul who isn’t even pro-choice and refused Medicaid and Medicare payments at his private practice because he’s so against government-sponsored healthcare—is laughable, and he’s lost me well and truly.
And I just have to quote Cara, who wrote in comments to Liss’s post:
I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I FUCKING KNEW IT!
I’ve spent the last several months being made to feel like some bad liberal because I can’t stand Kucinich. On paper, I agree with him but there was always something about him that I didn’t like and didn’t trust — probably his anti-choice past, or maybe the fact that he has a creepy demeanor — and even in a crazy world where he actually had a chance, I wouldn’t have wanted him to be the nominee. And I just got disapproving looks from all of the hardcore liberals and told how incredibly awesome Kucinich is . . . and now, I HAVE BEEN VINDICATED.
Sorry, those of you who are heartbroken. I’m really not trying to gloat, I’m just genuinely gleeful that I don’t have to feel guilty about my inability stand the guy! Hurrah!
BTW — if you show up because you’ve got some kind of bot running that picks up your boy Ron Paul’s name, save it. I don’t want to hear it, and if you’re just going to defend Paul, I probably won’t let your comment through. This is actually about Kucinich, after all.
In more abortion-related news, this time of the panty-sniffing variety, it seems that Phill Kline, everyone’s least favorite voyeuristic former Kansas AG, doesn’t actually reside in the county where he’s been serving as county attorney since getting booted from the AG job (and doing more pantysniffing via a massive lawsuit against Planned Parenthood). Which is kind of a problem.
You’ve come a long way, baby: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, once thought of as an old man’s disease (and caused by smoking) has become a major killer of women.
Despite the moral panic about obesity rates rising, they actually started leveling off in 1999 for women and have remained the same since then (men’s rates have been steady since 2003). Rates vary by age, and vary substantially by ethnicity among women (but not men). Of course, there’s always someone who wants to keep the panic going:
Dr. Claude Bouchard, an obesity researcher who directs of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., was not convinced that the obesity rates had leveled off for either men or women. The rates in both groups edged up by about 2 percent between the 2003-4 and 2005-6 surveys, he notes. And even though those increases were not statistically significant, they are, he said, a troubling trend.
“I’m worried,” he said. “We are talking about something that is still creeping up.” And regarding obesity rates among black women, he said, “Wow, through the roof.”
So it’s not statistically significant, but it’s cause for panic anyway. Oooo-kay.
Speaking of WTF moments, this time of the anxious masculinity variety: Jeff Fecke deconstructs one of those Men’s Health “mysteries of men” columns. Of course, the real mystery is why men don’t get more angry about these kinds of hateful portrayals of themselves.
It could be that at least some of them are too busy buying into those portrayals in order to excuse their own idiotic behavior — and, of course, blaming feminists for ruining all their fun. Women, for instance, are to blame for those guys who just can’t stop themselves from slobbering over the slightest glimpse of skin. Because they’re ruining men’s careers with their careless flashes of ankle and need to pay for it:
Booze-infused office Christmas parties can be threatening affairs, according to Fox News guest Marc Rudov. But men should be more concerned than their female coworkers.
“We live in an era when men have to rely on the sanity and the mood of a woman rather than the U.S. Constitution for his protection,” he told the host of Fox’s Your World. “Between the EEOC rules and the Violence Against Women Act, the workplace has become a dangerous place for men.”
Rudov says that when men look at women “showing their thighs” at the workplace, “they can lose their job.”
When asked what exactly he was afraid of, Rudov was hesitant to respond. But he did come up with a solution, although slightly draconian in nature. “For every inch of skin you reveal at work,” he suggests, “you give up a right.”
Be sure to watch the video. And read the comments at Raw Story, not only for the troll infestation (lots of guys whining that they can’t ogle anyone anymore without getting in trouble for it, and those sluts just bring it on themselves with their business attire), but for the disclaimer at the bottom.
Muslim girls are joining the Girl Scouts, and it’s helping some Americans see them as, well, the Americans they actually are rather than some exotic other species or a threat. Careful outreach has also been helpful in getting some of their traditionally-minded parents to let them join.
Could coverage of unmarried women’s participation in politics and voting actually be starting more than a few weeks before the election *and* largely avoiding condescending “Sex and the City” references in favor of actually, you know, discussing issues?
There’s a Pink Posse, but it’s not the lesbian gang that Bill O’Reilly fears. No, it’s a group of women (and some men) in India who fight corruption, child marriage and dowry deaths. While the coverage has largely been positive, Samhita notes that the story went out of its way to note that the Pink Posse isn’t just a bunch of male-bashers (not like those nasty male-bashing feminists!).
____________
* Because there’s always someone who needs this spelled out: blaming your current paranoia about Messcans smuggling terrists over the border to bomb our malls and take our jerbs on women for having abortions is woman-hating. ‘Kay? Now you don’t have to pop into comments and feign shock that I would accuse such a nice man of such a thing when he *never* actually *said* the word “hate.”
As I’ve mentioned in previous related posts, Kucinich reminds me too much of classmates with many ideals…but who don’t seem to have the willingness or the ability to argue them convincingly…or to explain how they plan to actually implement them if given the opportunity. His expedient switching of positions on abortion not only worsens my impression of him as this behavior is characteristic of a stereotypical pandering politician…but also that he may not be as concerned about individual liberties as I think our presidents should be.
But…but…what if I only blame disadvantaged, non-white, promiscuous women? Surely people with the gall not only to be female but also to be sexually active and poor deserve to be blamed for genocide. I mean, let’s be reasonable here.
…though, on a more serious note, you don’t need a penis to be an ignorant douchebag. (Having one just seems to help people get away with it more often.)
Because it’s a woman’s responsibility to produce more good (white) workers so we don’t need all these immigrants?
Just adding a link to the pile…while this is a very sad story, it’s good to hear about an Iranian lawyer (a woman, too) making inroads for human rights there: “Iranian child victim of prostitution” at the Beeb.
I knew there was something creepy about Kucinich when he went on his great wife hunt of the 2004 election.Now I don’t have to feel bad that even though he “appears” to support the same stuff I do, I don’t want to vote for him.
Also as someone who took care of a mom with COPD for years- a great big DUH to the medical community.
there is just something creepy about a man w/ a portal to a crazy pocket dimension
i knew it wasn’t just me…
and the kucinich/paul thing…anyone else up for canada?
Do I need to start packing yet? I was hopeful they’d just go away (or at least get trounced in the primaries…)
“For every inch of skin you reveal at work,” he suggests, “you give up a right.”
Because women who cover up *never* get ogled by men, ever! Don’t you also love the sexual harrassment / rape apologia too? (it depends on those fickle wimmenz’ moods! damn that ‘consent’ thing!)
I’m sorry, but I have to comment on the Raw Story link. I just don’t understand where this fear comes from, that just by looking at a woman’s legs or cleavage, a man can be fired. Has this ever actually happened? And the men who claim this always say that the woman just has to make the accusation, not provide any proof whatsoever, and the man will automatically be penalized. What planet do these people live on? (Just to clarify, I do understand that these men are really just complaining that they’ve lost the right to act like buffoons at work, but still.)
They really think the workplace is dangerous for men? Wow, I’d like to live in that world. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt once men are regularly harassed, abused and discriminated against in the workplace. Besides, it doesn’t matter what a woman wears to work, someone will find it distasteful and/or offensive. This is rarely true for men.
I love the way “danger” based upon rape and sexual harassment is focused in the MRA world.
Women facing constant fears of physical assault, losing their jobs for not sleeping with the boss, encroachments on their physical space affecting their job performance, spending tons of money to protect themselves from something that they really can’t protect against because it’s something being done by OTHER PEOPLE = Totally not in danger.
Men who rape and sexually harass women might, maybe, if there’s a fantastically large body of proof and you get the right jury/boss, might just possibly incur some punishment for treating other human beings like excrement = ZOMG THE MENZ THEY ARE IN DANGER!
I am curious as to how much of this is actual outrage from the naming of the teddy bear….and how much of this is Sudan’s government trying to play political hardball due to British and other Western nations’ criticisms about Darfur?
When I read this, this reminded me of how American undergraduates, especially White students would complain about the supposed strong accents of their foreign looking instructors.
I’ve always wondered whether this was really a genuine complaint…or a symptom of nativist anxieties at the realization that most of the international/immigrant students tended to be much more conscientious about their academics and work habits than the complaining American students. As hard as it is to believe, a small minority of supposedly progressive classmates at my alma mater did complain of instructors with strong hard to understand accents…even when most of their classmates and I never found that to be an issue in or out of class. Moreover, the fact some of those complainers were placed on academic suspension further undermined the credibility of their complaints.
Bringing this back to the post’s point, could the fears of immigration among racist nativist Americans could also have something to do with the fact they do not want to have to compete with harder working conscientious immigrants for jobs and promotions?
really is very similar to saying something like “fat” or “ugly” or “crippled” or “bitchy”..
It’s a slur based on the fact that he’s different. It has absolutely no relevance to a discussion of politics. Seeing the term “creepy” in relation to whether or not someone is qualified to be president is underhanded and wrong.
Feministe should rise higher. You could have posted the quote without using the “creepy” slur.
Exholt: I know what your’e talking about. Many closeted racist people i know have a hard time being willing to listen to a person with an accent and just shut down that part of their brain.
That said, I had a Korean TA for a linguistics class, and her accent was thick enough that every class she’d have 2 or 3 people asking her to clarify or spell out a word she just said because we couldn’t make it out. That was a particularly bad example, but the only one I had in my college career.
I’m always extremely uncomfortable with that, but on the other hand, I work closely one-on-one with a large number international graduate instructors (I myself am a grad instructor), and often there are people whose accents are *extremely* difficult to get through. And it’s not just non-white instructors, either. We have a significant Russian population here, as well as a number of white Australian instructors, and both get accent complaints from time to time.
However, that said, I do think it is much, much less of a problem than the whiny undergrads make it out to be.
Hmm. I think there’s also the point to be made that university administrations are careless and uncaring. I had lots of professors with heavy accents for lecture classes, and was just fine. However, when an English prof got tenure elsewhere, she was replaced for freshman World Lit with a prof from East Asian Languages and Literature who had never taught a class on a text in English and whose English skills were…questionable. Nothing kills a discussion class like having the prof completely misunderstand and yet run with everything any student says. Dumb administration and their teachers-are-cogs approach.
ugh! can anyone tell me why my comments keep getting eaten? did i get banned?
finally! i have tried like five times!
exholt: i find a huge part of that attitude comes from people who have never bothered to try to study a foreign language. when i was learning mandarin, i noticed my fellow students far more tolerant of the teachers thick accents when they had to drop into english to explain things to us. it has made me far more easy going w/ people w/ particularly thick accents, but part of that also comes from the understanding of asian languages for me, it’s usually not as hard for me to figure it out, and helps ease the problem…not the point. the point is, i wonder if it is so much the fear of immigrants and competing for jobs, or an aversion to anything they deem obviously “unamerican” that you notice there. (not a judgement on you, but rather on what you have observed)
did any of that make sense?
ok…weird that i can’t get a comment to publish…
exholt: i find that the most racist and nativist comments come from people who have never ever ever attempted to learn a foreign language. when you are stumbling around in a foreign tongue, trying to make someone understand you it brings a serious dose of reality…it’s not easy! learning mandarin has made it so much easier for me to understand the heaviest of asian accents, and given me a lot of tolerance where i used to get frustrated. i wonder if there is any connection in what i have noticed and what you have noticed…
What the hell is a jerb?
My fondest wish is that Marc Rudov will someday find himself sexually harassed by his boss.
“But you shouldn’t have worn those sexy argyle socks!”
This is one of the most astonishing things I have ever read.
I wonder how much of the Times readership knows enough to realise what a completely insane statement that is.
Brandann, we’re having serious server issues.
(I’m the lay tech person for Feministe once in a blue moon. *waves*)
lauren, thanks…i would go nuts w/o my feminist fix!
i so didn’t mean to post twice…i suck…
Can I just say how much it bugs me that he’s supposedly so countercultural and free-thinking and liberal, and his wife took his name?
I think it’s less fear than resentment that the world is no longer like the one in Mad Men, where women in the office could be ogled and harassed with impunity because there were no consequences for the men involved.
As for the automatic-firing thing — I actually did a trial not too long ago involving a director of HR who was fired after the two women in his department reported separate incidents of harassment. The issue was his firing and whether he was terminated for cause so that the company didn’t have to pay the severance specified in his contract. Basically, under New York law, a company *has* to immediately investigate any allegation of harassment and take corrective action in order not to be held liable itself. So in some cases, yes, men do get fired after an accusation, but no company is going to be so stupid as to not cover its ass and do a decent investigation. And if they are, they deserve the lawsuit from the fired guy.
Job. It’s from an episode of South Park in which people started coming from the future and getting jobs at McDonald’s and as gardeners. The townspeople kept saying stuff like, “They took our jerbs!”
Obesity is still an important health issue in the United States, even if the rates have leveled off… the point is still that the rate is too high, even if it’s not increasing.
I like this blog, and I pretty much agree with everything that’s said here except in regards to obesity. I’m always surprised at the reaction to any obesity-related news, because it seems so hostile to those who recognize it as a serious health threat. Can you maybe explain a little more about why you feel this way? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an explanation for why various bloggers here feel that way, and I’m really curious about it.
alsojill,
That has been my experience at my alma mater and in grad school.
YMMV, but nearly every classmate I’ve encountered who made this complaint in my presence tended to be mediocre or borderline failing students on the brink of academic probation/suspension who did this to excuse their poor academic work habits. The vast majority of more conscientious harder working classmates tended to find more constructive ways to deal with the few actual issues that do crop up on occasion.
brandann,
Completely agree with you here. Unless one is a polyglot, s(he) will encounter some difficulties along the way which usually will make them more sympathetic to others in similar situations.
I cannot speak to whether those classmates who complained took foreign language courses or not. However, it is possible they did not as taking a foreign language was strongly encouraged…but was surprisingly not a college graduation requirement when I attended (mid-late ’90′s).
Understand where you were coming from as that would be a factor on most American college campuses I’ve visited. However, I would be very surprised if aversion to anything deemed “unamerican” was a factor as the vast majority of the students at my school (Oberlin College) regularly protested against American foreign and domestic policies, actions, etc. Heck, some of us would joke that protesting against the U.S. was a popular extracurricular pastime at my school. If one is remotely against anything “unamerican” as I think most people would define it, they tended to avoid applying to my school in the first place.*
Also, several of those same complaining classmates were active participants in several “unamerican” campus activities such as rallies favoring more ethnic studies/multicultural programs and protests against the U.S. Military’s School of the Americas or the Embargo against Iraq in the 1990′s.
* Michelle Malkin is a fluke and not a good representation of our student body.
We explain it all the time, Becca. First, the hysteria about obesity is largely a media-created thing, which started this decade. And curiously, the rates of obesity among women are the same as they were in 1999, before all the panic started.
There’s also the fact that no study has ever shown that obesity, as an independent variable, is the *cause* of any disease. Yes, even diabetes. That there are certain conditions which appear in obese people at higher rates than they do in thinner people and which often are relieved once the patient loses weight has more to do with lifestyle factors than the weight itself. Studies *have* shown that overweight people who are active and eat right are usually healthier than sedentary thin people — so that tells you that it’s a sedentary lifestyle, rather than weight itself, that affects health. But because thin people conform to the visual ideal, they’re considered healthy by default, and fat people are considered unhealthy by default.
The definition of obesity is based on BMI, which is nothing more than a height-weight chart and was designed to measure populations, not individuals. So you get someone like Brad Pitt in the obese category.
Incidentally, a lot of the supposed rise in obesity in the last decade came about because the government changed the definition of obesity — lowering the BMI at which people became obese. So of course a lot of people formerly classed as overweight got re-classed as obese, and the panicking started about how obesity rates are going up.
Then, of course, there is the moral issue all dressed up as health concern. There are a lot of people who find fat people disgusting, lazy, etc. But maybe they don’t want to outright admit that, so they talk about the “serious health threat” that obesity poses, and they pop into discussions of body issues and acceptance to freak out that fat people must always be advised that a) they’re fat, because they must not know somehow; and b) therefore, they must be very, very unhealthy because fat=unhealthy, and it’s just out of concern, you see, that we’re telling them this. It’s for their own good. That we’re disgusted by them really is the furthest thing from our minds.
Whoa. She must have *hated* her time at Oberlin.
Zuzu,
Deliberate misinformation from older male co-workers/relatives given as informal “advice” to younger male co-workers/relatives may be a contributing factor towards younger male fears of the workplace due to EEOC and VAWA rules and regulations along with the reasons you’ve cited above. I experienced this with a manager and several veteran co-workers at my first corporate summer job between school terms.
Fortunately, this was counteracted by advice from an otherwise Conservative uncle who felt these rules are long overdue as he had to deal with too many immature newly graduated males who felt they could continue their frathouse antics at work, working with female managers and co-workers for several years after graduation, and a strong disinclination to act like a buffoonish ass at work.
alsojill,
That would not surprise me at all, especially since several alums who attended in the 70′s and 80′s mentioned in passing that Oberlin was more liberal and had more active student body during the ’70s and ’80s.. If anything, those very alums were saddened at what they saw as “increasing political apathy” and “increasing pre-professionalism” among us ’90s students. While I will agree somewhat with the latter point….I don’t know what they meant by “political apathy” when campus protests and student activism on and off-campus were an ingrained…almost daily part of the campus life.
Then again…she could have been a “closet Republican/Conservative” who went through motions without revealing her true beliefs to avoid the torrent of criticisms that would inevitably follow from the majority of the students.
You know, Elaine, I wasn’t going to let this through just because it’s so idiotic, but since you’ve appealed to Jill directly (along with a pitch for your husband’s poker books), oh, *do* explain how “creepy” is just the same as “crippled.” And *do* explain just why Cara is not permitted to state that she finds Kucinich “creepy.”
Personally, I find the guy creepy because of his very recent pro-choice stance (which clearly he’s willing to throw away fast, given his eagerness to hook up with Ron Paul) and the Great Wife Hunt of 2004, in which he sought to properly accessorize his campaign. That tells me he’s not real committed to the issues that affectme and people like me.
[...] of ridiculous and misogynist “concerns” about women’s personal decisions, Zuzu wrote about professional panty-sniffer Phil Kline; Crooks & Liars has more. Thanks to Kristen [...]