(1) Use rational actions and probability to target members of a group when the group members are statistically more likely to do something; and

(2) Avoid targeting people based on immutable characteristics; i.e. avoid discriminating and stereotyping? (Note that I am in no way complaining about targeting group membership based on MUTABLE characteristics; you can stereotype all you want against liberals, conservatives, etc.)

I frankly think that’s a discussion which is arguably best had in the general. The reason for my belief is that when the issue comes up, it’s inevitably in a context where someone is arguing, hard, for special pleading. So instead of following the general rule “don’t discriminate based on immutable characteristics!” we end up doing so most of the time, and focusing on the few areas where things presumably AREN’T appropriate to discriminate. That’s not an especially good model if the goal is “don’t discriminate.”

Anyway, still trying to figure out how to have the conversation, with men especially, without it getting immediately shutdown is pretty imporant. Which is why I’m not completely happy with Restating a Contentious Assertion: To a Woman, Any Man Could Potentially Be a Rapist, but feel like it’s a good start. My big realization there is that there’s a very strong, almost mechanical social reflex for rejecting assertions of the form “all X’s are Y’s” because it sounds like stereotyping. So that post is about trying to say the same thing without falling into stereotyping defenses, or defenses of stereotyping.

There’s another, more conventionally pernicious side to stereotype-style assertions like “all men are potential rapists:” the dominant paradigm conditions men to expect to be utterly mistrusted, with the result that we believe all sexual, romantic, or even non-initiate conversations with women must begin with attempts to demonstrate we’re worthy and “not like every other guy.” I talk about that paradox here: The Two Rules of Desire As a Problem With Not Restating “All Men Are Potential Rapists”

In the middle of all that I stumbled across a post by Amanda Hess about rapper Lil Wayne who disclosed that he was raped as a child and… had a hard time getting it through people’s thick skulls (cough Jimmy Kimmel cough) that no, it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t cool, and it was rape. I talk about that in the context of my own childhood experiences with sexual assault Lil Wayne and the Problem of Confusing Sexual Assault Victims With Male Sexual Role Models. One big realization that came out of that, by the way, is that thanks to the pressures of a highly-gendered society trauma of assault manifests, and is manifested up, girls and boys in very different, but no-less problematic ways.

And finally, I came across the anonymous blogger “Harriet Jacobs” of “Fugitivus.” Some of what she writes is harrowing but wow does what she have to say about bottom-out-of-sight dropout/stoner/petty-criminal/rapist/loser culture! Which I came so close to disappearing into myself. I talk about it in a couple of posts but most personally here: Harriet Jacobs at Fugitivus Writes Awesomely About Coping With Abuse in All It’s Permutations

One good thing about reading Harriet Jacobs is I finally got a link about privilege that had always eluded me. Because, of course, even though it’s obvious as a lemon-juice in a paper cut to people who don’t have it, privilege is invisible to the privileged. So now I’m thinking about ways to make it less invisible to those of us who need to see it the most.

figleaf

p.s. did anyone else get the impression that that pro-misinformation, anti-abortion ad in the Superbowl wasn’t anywhere near the most offensive one? I mean WTF is up with advertisers this year!?!?!

Another mansplaining rant

http://skeptifem.blogspot.com/2010/01/shit-stirring-at-scienceblogs-part-2.html

In Her Dreams

Pay the Piper

Tell Me a Story

Snow White

Blood Will Tell

Declutterers, Inc.

Firstly, , where I discussed a prominent vegan blogger’s refusal to cease using the word ‘lame’, and why this wasn’t okay.

And , where I gave an explanation of the term ‘kyriachy’, and discussed my position on newcomers and trolls in an attempt to construct a safe space.