Poor Abused White Straight Cismen

Over at Rod Dreher's blog, a comment from a white cis man claims that the man is being "lured" into white nationalism because of the "constant barrage" from the media which tells him he's the source of all evil in America.

Hold on, let me laugh hysterically.

But I am sure this gentleman believes what he is claiming -- that, for instance, the Gillette ad (which suggested being masculine doesn't have to mean being toxic), and the #metoo movement, and the affair of the MAGA teens is equal to a barrage accusing all white straight men of being evil.

I remember a study (which my google foo cannot now find) which showed that when ten percent of the women in class spoke up, the men in the class (30% of whom spoke in class) perceived the women as 'dominating' the classroom.

And when more than one woman wins an award -- so like two or three win awards, say -- men perceive that as women 'rigging' the awards, or getting special favors.

And we have seen the hysteria which is arise because slightly more women than men (and yes, it is just slightly more) are succeeding in the college classroom. My God, it is a national emergency that 56% of college graduates are women.

Is it true that the media is "attacking" white straight males?

Let me tell you a story. When I was a baby professor in my first job, out in Idaho, the men there complained to the dean that I was always "attacking" men in class, and that I "hated" men. When the dean asked for examples, the complaining men had nothing to say. "Well, she's always talking about feminism," they finally said.

I wasn't 'always' talking about feminism, of course. I had mentioned it maybe twice in class. But any discussion of women and women's rights was perceived as an "attack" on straight white men.

That's what is happening here, also. Trans people are speaking up about the rights of trans people. Immigrants are speaking up about the rights of immigrants. Occasionally someone suggests maybe women should have equal rights as well. Now and then someone mentions that rape is probably a bad thing, and that rapists aren't prosecuted as they should be.

And this is seen as an 'attack' on all white straight men. This is seen as a "constant barrage" of hate against white straight men in general.

Anything other than a media which constantly discusses the rights of white straight men equals a "constant barrage" of hate. Any suggestion that white straight males are treated better than other groups is the same as calling all white men evil.

And the slightest suggestion that white straight men might have it easier than other groups in our country? Well, that justifies those white men joining white nationalist groups.

I mean, who can blame them? Should they just sit back and wait to be treated like women? Like black people? Like they're trans?




ETA: See also this thread, where a well-meaning white guy objects to a writer mentioning her new book on twitter, because books about girls are an attack on  men and boys.

Monday Links

I overslept and missed a meeting this morning. I blame my insomnia.

Have some links!

Richard Wilbur died. Aside from Sharon Olds, he's my favorite modern poet, so I was sad, even if he was nearly 100 years old. Some of my favorites: Advice to a Prophet,  Boy at the Window, The Writer, The Beautiful Changes, Still, Citizen Sparrow, Year's End

Links

The weather has broken early here -- highs only in the mid-eighties this week, and less humidity. Here's hoping it last.

Have some links!

A post of mine from seven years ago explains why Trump got elected


Related: Spencer's Fallacy

But this article about  the men who vandalized one of our mosques here made me feel better about our country today (it's also one of the best articles about Fort Smith I've ever read: very accurate!)

Related, sort of, and also interesting

On the creation of gender

Socratic knowledge

Shadow syllabus

Socialism in America

My kid draws something:

Those are characters from her comic, Fragile


Also this:

Feels like a good time to repeat this one. pic.twitter.com/DMqLnIXNDZ

— Nathan Burgoine (@NathanBurgoine) August 15, 2017

And this:

Reviews of 1960's SF

I am currently reading -- I can't even remember why -- two SF novels published in the 1960s, both by men. One is Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, which I read I was (much) younger, and a big Heinlein fan.

The other is William Nolan's Logan's Run, which I had never read before.

One point I'm going to make up front is that, wow, science fiction is terrible at predicting the future.

The second is that these particular SF writers certainly have an interesting attitude toward women.

The third point I will only mention: LGBT issues. Yeah, wow.

Meeting the Men: The Stepford Wife Review Continued

A Continuing Review of The Stepford Wives: Part 3.

This section starts with a day-trip to NYC to see a musical, among other things. I'd say that Levin was signalling the upper-class nature of our main character and her husband, except I think Broadway Shows at one point were something middle-class people could afford to see.

This brings me to a perplexing question -- I am not at all sure what class Levin wants us to understand the class of the Eberhardts. They seem to have plenty of money: enough to buy the pricey house in Stepford, and to keep Joanna at home with the kids playing at a job (she has a "career" as a photographer, you'll remember, but it's clear she can't be making much from her sales). They have two cars. They can run off to NYC whenever they like.

So I'd think upper class, except that their house seems like a standard house in the suburbs. Further, not just Joanna but every woman in Stepford seems expected to do her own housework -- all of it -- and to tend her own children with only rare use of teenage babysitters.

There's also the food they eat, which is distinctly middle class: potato chips, McDonalds, peanut butter.

The Town the MRA Dreams of: Stepford Wives review

As a reminder, in this series I'm reviewing The Stepford Wives, in 20-30 pages chunks.

This second installment is later than I meant it to be (first installment is here, from back in November 2015).  But better late than never!

PP 23-25

After a white space, we join Joanna and Walter Eberhadt, our protagonists, as they set out with their two adorable children to explore the town of Stepford -- which, you'll remember from the review of pages 1-22, they have just moved into.

But Someone On The Internet Was Wrong...

So like an idiot I got involved in an internet argument on some guy's blog over the Akin issue.

I'd link you, but fuck this guy and his internet jerk readers.

The gist of the argument they put up was that (a) Akin was right, not that many women did get pregnant through rape and (b) even if he was wrong, so what, a baby is still a baby, amirite? and (c) women should just stop whining, it's not like being pregnant is a big deal, as compared to, you know DYING, which is what happens to the baby when the woman kills it just to save herself the trouble of having to give birth to a rape-baby, the selfish slut.

I knew better, but I entered a couple of comments -- one saying Akin was wrong; one saying that the real issue wasn't over abortion/not abortion in this case anyway, but over his suggestion that there could be something called "illegitimate" rape; and finally that, listen, seriously, pregnancy is a big deal.

I mentioned that -- quite beyond the complications attendant to pregnancy, such as nerve damage, debilitating heartburn, sleeplessness, exhaustion, loss of income, some of which problems may end with the delivery of the child (or not -- I still have the debilitating heartburn and the sciatica) -- that carrying a child to term was risky (quite a bit more risky than having a legal abortion*).

I added that I happened to know how dangerous childbirth could be from personal experience, since I had nearly died myself, giving birth to my daughter.**

The response, from these Pro-Life gentlemen?

Mockery.

"Oh, I am so glad to discover just how dangerous it is to have babies. I guess my wife and myself just got lucky, when we had our four!"

"Heartburn and swollen feet? Wow, that does sound horrible! Better get an abortion quick!"

One day I will learn that Pro-Life actually means Keep The Bitches In Their Place.

One day.

*I added this part in because an earlier comment had gone on and on about how lethal abortions were --- about how the pro-choice people were the real misogynists, since they killed both women (via "botched" abortions) and "millions" of girl babies.

**I had severe pre-eclampsia, and hovered on the edge of eclampsia for three days. The Attending didn't want to induce labor, because I was only 38 weeks pregnant. He wanted to keep me at bed rest and "let nature take its course," which was lunatic, I don't need to tell you; but my wonderful PCP finally went over his and brought in the head of OBGYN, who was like WTF? Why are we messing with this?? and induced labor.

(38 weeks is close enough to full-term, and eclampsia can kill you.)

Not that I actually cared about any of this at the time: fun fact! When you're in labor, you're just sort of whacked on the pain and the job. I mean, I knew I was probably going to die. But so long as the baby wasn't -- I remember I kept asking that ("The baby's doing okay, right?") -- I just really couldn't seem to work up an interest in my survival.

Ruminations on Rape

So I know many of us are getting rape-fatigue, ever since Akin started educating us about what was real rape and what was just women trying to get over on the menfolk with their Monday-morning second-thoughts or whatever, but I find I just can't let this go.

Especially since whenever the subject comes up on the net or the blogosphere or even in meatspace, what I find happening, 8 times out of 10, is fellas telling the women how rape works.

Men, mansplaining to women, what rape is.

Guys, setting women straight, about the rape experience.

And you know, I ought to be used to this shit by now. I do live in this world. I did sit through six years as an undergraduate, and nine years of graduate school, with many, many seminars. I know what happens when men and women are in a room together. Guys talk, and women get shut up.

Even when it's a subject about which the women might know more than the men: guys talk, and women shut up.

If, by chance, the women speak up? And that has happened to me. When I was a senior graduate student, I was one of a group of three women, all of us feminists, all of us tough, all of us much smarter and working much harder than any of the men in the program -- so we did speak up, all the time, in classes and in seminars. What happened? We got mocked and teased, sometimes gently, and sometimes not so gently, by other students and by the professors. "The three harpies," one of the professors called us.

Of the three of us? I was the only one to finish my Ph.D. That kind of shit will take its toll on you.

But my point! And I do have one.

Women are instructed, from their earliest childhood, that they should not speak unless they are certain they have something brilliant to say. And even when they speak up and say something brilliant, what they say is often discounted -- it goes unheard. And if what they say is about men, if it is derogatory in any aspect? They can count on being attacked for it.

In fact, what they say doesn't even have to be derogatory. A woman talking about men, unless she praises men lavishly, is automatically going to be seen as a harpy. Even when what she says is neutral, she is a harpy. If what she says criticizes a man -- any man, even a rapist -- then she is in the wrong.

So. A friend of mine, on FB, posts about her experience as a rape survivor.

She immediately gets not one but several men explaining to her that she is wrong, that men aren't all rapists. She gets accused of treating men like criminals. She gets explained to her that she is not allowed to make men feel bad by talking about rape as though it were something men did.

Wow, I feel like a victim after reading these comments. Maybe I am not that well of a reader, but after reading this, I know I am a man and I am a republican so that makes me a rapist. That is how I felt.

One gentleman suggests, in fact, that women are responsible for rape -- after all, they give out "mixed signals" -- and expecting men to interpret those mixed signals is unfair.

... a woman sending mixed signals (which does happen) must be treated like a very confused child, i.e. gently and dispassionately. This implies higher expectations of behavior for men and women.

Another claims that the solution for rape is that men should be put in charge.

Let me propose a solution, to be worked out among men: substantiated claims of rape are punished with a good beating. If men are inherently violent, then let a norm in favor of women's dignity prevail, and let men police men. Will it ever happen? I don't know. Would women thank men? Yes

But the real problem -- always -- is women talking about men.

Now I know not all guys are like these guys. (Thank God.) But.

But here's the thing.

It is so exhausting.

Hard as we try, women, to remember all the guys that are not like these guys, and there are a lot of guys that are not like these guys, and are not like that professor who sneered at my friends and me in graduate school -- who hated us because we were good students, hard-working students, smart students, all of that and women, and that was wrong, in his worldview, you just can't have that, the best students in his seminar could not be women, so he had to do something to grind us down and make us quit --

Not all guys are like that.

I try hard to remember that.

All the guys not like that professor and the idiots who post comments about fat bitches and ugly sluts and how obviously I'm not getting enough sex or I wouldn't be so angry.

I try hard to remember the great students I have who are guys and the fact that Dr. Skull is a guy and he's not like that, and the feminist male bloggers I know who aren't like that.

I try to forget the professor my colleague who made the comment about how tits like that didn't hurt when it came to getting hired, huh; I try to think instead of every instructor and colleague and student who has treated me like a human.

And you know it's all right until some twenty year old shit yells at me out of his pick-up, roaring down Grand Avenue, "Hey, bitch, want to get fucked?"

Because they can always do that: men can always, always remind us that we only have the illusion of being equal citizens. That any time they want to, they can take it away. That any time they want to, they can roar up in their pickups, drag us down, and fuck us.

You know, legitimately or otherwise.

And Todd Akin and all his horde of male jurors will get to decide whether it is rape or whether we were asking for it. Not us. Because we're just women. We don't have a voice here. Not in America. Not yet. And maybe never.

No Grils ALlowed

Over on Fansci, Barbara links us to this charmingly portentuous bit of work, published (oh where else) in the NYTimes.

Robert Lipsyte, who apparently writes books for boys about boy-stuff like football, is of the opinion that literature is being ruined by (you guessed it) the infiltration of girls.

See, back in the good old days, when those rotten girls kept off his lawn, I guess, it was men who wrote the books: men like Hemingway and Steinbeck.

And when YA fiction got invented, well. Men were still writing it: Paul Zindel, Robert Cormier, John Donovan. If an occasional girl did slip it, she had the decency to pretend she was a man: S. E. Hinton, M. E. Kerr. And she wrote about men, and about manly manly things.

Now! All these "young female novelists fresh from MFA programs" are writing books with "overwhelmingly female" imprints! (Whatever that means. Mr. Lipsyte is a writer, but half the time I can't tell what he's talking about, except that he doesn't like girls. That comes across clearly. For instance, he claims all the books he loves from those "good old days" which are entirely about "men," written by "men" about "male" problems are "not gender specific." However, books being written today, by "young female novelists" which contain girl characters -- not even entirely girls, mind you, they just have girls in them -- are "simplistic" girl's books.)

Lipsyte seems to believe it is the fault of the women and the girls that boys do not read; or, more specifically, that girls read more.

He reminds me of the conservative thinkers who are all in a knot because more women are enrolled at and graduating from universities now, and doing better at those universities, than are their male counterparts; and more young women are doing better at academics in high schools as well lately too. This, too, is the fault of women, I will have you know. (Or specifically, feminists!) We have, nefariously, corrupted the academic process...somehow...so that boys can't win anymore.

I suggest to you, rather, the fault lies elsewhere -- perhaps with the culture itself? The culture that tells boys (and girls, but to a lesser extent) that reading is a stupid activity, a sissy activity, not something a Real Man would waste his time on?

A culture that says reading isn't as important as video games and football and American Idol?

A culture that does not, in fact, seek out, pay, and publish decent writers or their books? So that it is only crap writers of either gender who end up in the bookstores? (No, I'm not entirely serious with this last one -- but yes, 98% of what is ending up on the shelves these days, you gotta wonder what they're thinking at the big publishing houses.)

A culture that thinks teaching students to score well on a ridiculous standardized test is much more important than teaching them to love books?

Students reach my freshman classroom never having read an entire book through in their entire academic career: in their entire life. That's got nothing to do with "young female novelists from MFA programs," Mr. Lipsyte. It's got to do with misplaced priorities in American culture.

Or maybe it just is American culture. Sports, guns, God, and NASCAR, yeah? What do books have to do with America, really?

Going Through the (Right) Channels

This, from over at Unfogged again, disturbs me for many reasons, not the least being that, a few semesters ago I had a situation, not nearly this serious, play out in a way that made me at the time uneasy.

It was a young woman in one of my classes who came to me for help -- a fellow student, male, in the same class, was sexually harassing her: he'd hit on her, and she had turned him down. Since then he had been sending her dozens of text messages (they had been in the same study group in another class, so he had her text address) every day, including all night long; and he was sending her photographs of himself, including nude photographs; plus he kept sitting behind her in class; she had gotten her friends to sit around her so he couldn't, and now he would sit across the room from her and made faces at her; and frankly, she wanted it to stop. "I'm thinking about dropping the class," she said, "but I need it to graduate."

I told her not to drop the class, that if necessary we would make him drop the class; that we would handle it. And I went to my chair.

Who told me that it was not an academic matter. That we would pass it on to the Dean of Students.

Who told us that the girl would have to talk to the university police about it. That he could do nothing.

The chair told me I could not talk to the kid about it. Because it wasn't an academic matter.

When I had to tell the girl that she had to go the police -- that the Dean of Students was not going to give her any help -- I remember feel like filth. I did offer to go to the police with her, but she said no, she would handle it. I told her she might go to the Dean of Students and talk to him (figuring he'd be less cavilier listening to the details in his office) but she just walked away.

Probably it wouldn't have made any difference anyway.

She didn't drop the class. And as far as I know nothing happened to him.

At the time I attributed the problem to just a jurisdictional problem -- we were caught in the bureaucracy. Now, though, I am not so sure.

How Cool Is This?

Athena got linked on Twisty!

Plus -- yowza! -- Twisty called Athena her new idol.

I think I'd rather get that than win the Nebula, maybe.  

Yeah, Now!

It's been a long time since I link to Twisty, but that's not b/c I've quit reading her.

And here she is again, with another brilliant post: how performing feminity impedes the revolution.

I loves me some Twisty.

Wanna Start A Revolution?

Over on FanSci on Monday, I posted about my experiences writing and publishing Science Fiction, many of which influenced my shift into feminism.

Anyway, here is an essay by Melissa Delorenzo on the latest publishing statistics, which show, no real shock here, that still fewer women are being published than men, in all fields.

It goes on to mention a few things editors and publishers might consider doing to amend that real difference -- because, like those professors that ran my program, back in the day, it's not just an immutable law of the universe that more men are getting published than women. These things don't just HAPPEN. Humans make the world. Humans can make it different.

New Blog Has Posts!

Over on FanSci, we're talking about SF Heroines today.

Go read!  You know you wanna!

Okay, Well...

I said I wouldn't have time to blog today, but...

Yesterday evening the kid approached me warily (she knows my, ah, strong feelings on this issue) and asked, "What would be an okay reason for a woman not to get an abortion?"

Which struck me as an odd way to frame the question, but I answered it as carefully as she had framed it. "Listen, sweetie. The choice is entirely up to the woman. That's what pro-choice means. Whether or not to continue a preganancy, any pregnancy, is up to the woman. That's the end of the question. It's her body, it's her choice."

She gazed at me, obviously not satisfied by this answer.

"If you're asking under what circumstances I would get an abortion," I said, "I would abort a pregnancy if the fetus was so damaged it could not survive, or if its brain was so damaged it was not technically alive, or if my own life were at risk. But that's my--"

"What if she, what if the woman couldn't afford--"

"That's my point," I said. "Every woman has to make these decisions for herself. No one can make the decision for anyone else. Your body, your life, your choice."

She kept staring at me, thinking this over.

"That's how it has to be," I told her.

Well, except for Eric, over at RedState. He thinks he should get to decide, for me and for my kid. And if he doesn't get to decide? He's going to start a Civil War and start shooting people.

Because one massacre in Arizona? That's not enough.

The Kid Writes a Guest Post

Here is the first blog appearance ever from kiddelagar:

Gender Constrictions in Our Society; or: My Fear of Public Bathrooms

As you may or may not know, I have very short hair. Coupled with my wearing comfortable clothes (i.e. Boys clothes since girls must be put in tight, itchy clothes) this makes for awkward situations in places with public bathrooms.

Essentially, I stand outside the two bathrooms, a scene replaying in my where I walk into the girls bathroom and there’s some one there and they say ‘This is the girls bathroom’ and I say ‘I am a girl, I just have short hair’ but they insist I’m a boy and then I have a psychological breakdown and murder them with a switchblade.

That last bit with switchblade and the breakdown didn’t actually happen. 

However the rest of it happened once, leading me to want to shop for ‘girly’ clothes.

This led to the Shopping Trip Of Awkward Doom.

It can be summarized as:

My Grandma: We need to find some clothes for her.

Shopping Assistant Lady: You mean him?

Grandma: No, her.

The rest consisted of me follow SA Lady around the girls clothing section, all the while getting strange looks. Eventually I found a purple sweater that I liked. 

But when I tried it on a few weeks later because we are going to see a movie, the neck was way to low-cut, and it was tight and itchy. 

So the Shopping Trip Of Awkward Doom was for nothing.

Perhaps in the future we will have unisex bathrooms. Until then I will have to get over my fear of public bathrooms. 

Patriarchy? What Patriarchy?

Men are just better workers, that's all!

I occasionally talk about feminism in my classes; and generally my students (my male students nearly invariably, and nearly always also my female students) aren't interested.

Male students shut down, turn off, or respond with contempt. Female students will occasionally argue with me. "Of course women are equal, but someone has to be in charge, and God said it should be men, so--" "Well, maybe women just aren't interested in those jobs!" "Women don't either make less money than men!"

And hardly ever do they want to call themselves feminists. Feminists are evil.

Sometimes I will point out that they are only in that classroom at all because feminists put them there. That gets me blank stares. Whatever can I mean?

Even after I explain, they shrug it off. Well, that was years ago (yeah, right). Now they have equality. Why should they care about feminism now?

Why should they?

The Female Man

Here, go read an essay on the book that changed my life.

Joanna Russ, The Female Man.

Oh Noes! Bitches!

I don't know if you've heard about the latest Right-Wing Hissy Fit, but Amanda at Pandagon has an excellent analysis (and the comments are instructive too):  seems Obama appeared on the View.

Well, now, of course through the lens of the RW that is Evil, since anything Obama does is Evil is you are in their camp.

But why it is evil, that is what may flummox you, though only until you think it over.

It's evil not just because he's on a talk show, and that talk show is run by (ick) girls; but also, oh, also, because he could have gone to speak the Boy Scouts instead.

Well, see, that's just wrong.  Pick speaking to adult women over talking to male children?

Tsk.  Where are his priorities?

WTF Sparkly What Now?

Amanda over at Pandagon has found a clue as to why the Twilight series has captivated so many!

I think she’s on to something here---feminists look at the patriarchy that Twilight serves up and we wrinkle our noses in disdain.  But it’s still absolutely a more fun and exciting form of patriarchy than the one where you don’t have awesome sex and have to cook all the time, and there’s never any exciting adventures at all.  Being the passive victim of exciting adventures is better than being the passive victim of your boring ass ordinary life. 

Hmm!  I think she might be onto something.

Read the whole thing, as they say.