No Means No, Obviously

That's how language based communication works, words have meanings, and when you say them you evoke that meaning. I read a very interesting article about "playing hard to get," but I disagree with a significant proportion of it. I have to admit I appreciate her extolling people, specifically women but I think it applies to men, not to play hard to get. Although I have yet to meet someone who even remotely seemed to be playing hard to get, that may be because when I am rebuffed romantically I almost always just let the issue lie, and in the couple of cases where I haven't I have more revisited the subject at a later date in hopes that her opinion has changed; in short, when it comes to romance, I try to convince people to change their minds by being awesome, because I am awesome, rather than trying to persuade them to change their minds verbally.

Anyway, while I have yet to meet someone who displays evidence of playing "hard to get," I have to agree that the trope widely exists through our cultural stories. Men are told that to "get the girl" one must put forth some romantic effort. While I disagree with the author that this is inherently undesirable, I do heartily concur with her that it seems to play into rape culture.

However, where I categorically disagree with the author is where she asserts that maybe means no. Of course, I am similarly opposed to the assumption that maybe means yes, for similar reasons, yes, no, and maybe are all separate words with wildly different meanings! Maybe means maybe! And here lies the refuge of people who want to play hard to get, maybe should clearly indicate that one is not acquiescing to the proposed activity, whether it be dancing, dating, or sex, but one is willing to consider it. If one does not wish to consider it further, there is a proper word for that, "no," and it is then the moral obligation of the rebuffed to accept that.

I am not often asked out, and people straight up ask me for sex even less frequently, but people often ask me if I will to go to dance activities. If I want to and am able to go I answer, "yes," because yes I will go. If I have a conflicting obligation or just don't want to go (the latter is rather uncommon) I answer, "no," because no I will not go. If I kind of want to go, but am feeling overwhelmed and kind of don't want to go, then I might answer, "maybe," or, "I don't know... [insert lame excuse here]." At these times I completely welcome people trying to convince me to go, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it helps me make up my mind. I don't think that I am "playing hard to get," per se, but if someone wants to play hard to get, let them use maybe! It is the correct word to use, "maybe" can mean, "maybe, if you work hard enough," which is what someone playing hard to get seems to implicitly mean.

Maybe shouldn't contribute to rape culture. Maybe leaves the door open to be convinced, but the door can still be closed. Maybe doesn't mean you cannot eventually say no (on a side note, that male friend she mentions complaining about people not being willing to agree with him eventually, creepy!!!). But that should be obvious, because you know what, yes doesn't even mean you cannot eventually say no! Let me expound on that, because it is of some importance, even if someone says yes to sex, if they change their mind, or you start hurting them, or they just get creeped out for some reason and change their mind to no, then that is a no! If you have sex with someone expressing a desire not to have sex with you, even if they explicitly expressed a desire to have sex with you at some earlier point, that is rape! If you decide not to have sex with someone who really did want to have sex with you, but felt they had to say "no" due to cultural considerations you missed having sex with someone who can't honestly express themselves and he/she missed out on having sex with an awesome person who is respectful of her/his desires. Guess which way I think you should err... Hint, which I don't think you should need, no means no!

While I don't think it is harmful to err on the side of no if you get a maybe, whereas it is definitely harmful to err on the side of yes, I don't think it is morally required to pretend that maybe doesn't have it's own, unique, and communicatively valuable, meaning. If you want to play hard to get, I invite you to use 'maybe's, or other such non-committal responses. And, most importantly, for this to work we have to realize that non-committal quite literally means without commitment, one way or the other, so if it becomes a no, then it is a no, end of discussion.

Party Balance Requires Diversity

Well, it looks like we hit 200 posts without any fanfare, which is probably a good sign, because it means I am less surprised to make it that far than I was at 100, but may be a bad thing, if it indicates this blog is an elaborate method for me to have long conversations with myself. Anyway, on to the 201st post!

I hope it comes as no surprise to you that the topic of women in nerd culture is one of some interest to me. One of the benefits of having this fact well known is that people sometimes send me relevant articles when they come across them. One such article about women "pretending" to be geeks in order to get male attention can be found here. The article, like most things, has some good points, and some flaws. Some of the flaws were pointed out in a counter-article, which can be found here, but I have enough of my own thoughts on the subject that I wanted to write my own post.

First off, let me complement some of the things I really did like from the article. The author calls out the misogyny that women who game experience and clearly chastises them. Furthermore, he reaffirms the idea that women can be nerds, are nerds, and should be welcome in nerd culture.

However, he does commit a few things that I would consider faux pas. I don't want to go to deeply into these, so I'll just list them. He makes the, "I cannot be a misogynist, I have a female friend," argument, he equivocates booth babes, who are explicitly at conventions to get paid as models, with women actually trying to participate in nerd culture, finally, and this is the point I want to expand upon, he judges that some women are just "not nerdy enough," for nerd culture.

While the linked rebuttal notes that there are problems with guys deciding which girls are nerdy enough to join, "the boys club," and there certainly are, I think that it is insufficient, but not unimportant, to focus on the gendered implications of this statement. First, let us take a moment to realize how much more mainstream "nerdity" has become. I am extremely fortunate that I can be fairly open about my enjoyment of playing Dungeons & Dragons without being ostracized by my friends, condemned by most churches, or suspected of going psychotic. Twenty or thirty years ago I would not have had that freedom. Also, is it just me or does this sound like a metaphor for being gay?

Anyway, things like gadget mania, the widespread use of computers, an invasion of blockbuster movies based on comic book culture, and the incredible popularity of Nerdfighters among young adults signal that nerd is becoming mainstream. Unfortunately that is a somewhat jarring experience for people who found their nerdity an alienating, rather than accepted, trait. It makes sense for their to be a certain, Hipster-eqsue, tendency for some nerds to think, "I am a true nerd, I was a nerd before it was cool," or to view newcomers as disingenuous in some manner. This will, of course, do nothing to dispel the image of nerds as anti-social misanthropists.

Stereotypes within nerd culture that, "gamers aren't nerds," or that, "serious gamers are nerds, but not those belligerent frat-boy Halo-playing jerks," ultimately harm both people within nerd culture, by keeping it exclusive and preventing it from receiving the acceptance that it deserves and flourishing in the way that it can and should, and those attempting to join it, preventing them from receiving the acceptance that they deserve and joining the, often, fulfilling comradery of some of the weirdest hobbies that could ever be so much fun. I mean seriously, I write numbers down on paper and pretend I'm a wizard, that's weird, and awesome! Hopefully we can accept and validate, if not necessarily hang out with all the time, engineers, video gamers, english lit enthusiasts, ren fair participants and the SCA, board/pencil and paper gamers, people who love Joss Whedon (who doesn't love Joss Whedon), and yes, even people who became enthusiastic about A Game of Thrones because of the HBO series *sigh*.

Feminist Frequency and the Bechdel Test

I recently discovered Feminist Frequency, a series of YouTube videos on women and pop culture. They were brought to my attention through a Kickstarter campaign funding another group of videos that will be added to the collection examining women and video games. I am incredibly excited to see how these turn out, as this subject is continually of interest, both academic and personal, to me. However, while I wait in great anticipation for those additions, I want to talk about this video about the Bechdel Test.

In short, the Bechdel Test is an indicator of the presence of women in movies. To satisfy the criteria of the Bechdel Test a movie must have two named female characters, who talk with each other, about a topic other than a male. I think my favorite thing about this video is that it highlights that the Bechdel Test should not be used as something that a given movie passes or fails. Wonderful movies such as Wall-E and UP may not satisfy the Bechdel Test, while a movie that exploits or reinforces stereotypes about women may just happen to have two female characters chat with each other. Rather, the Bechdel Test is meant to be an indicator of the presence of women in the industry overall.

However, the one major point of disagreement I have with the video is where the creator says that there is no need for a Reverse Bechdel Test, or a Bechdel Test for male presence, because there isn't a problem with male presence in the media. Specifically she says, "the test is meant to indicate a problem, and there isn't a problem with a lack of men interacting with each other... and since there's no problem with men and men's stories being underrepresented in films the reverse test is useless and irrelevant." If the test is indeed meant to indicate a problem we ought not assume that there isn't a problem with men's representation in films and instead apply the test to determine if there truly isn't a problem; I imagine that there is not. However, I think the point that she is making is that if one applies the Reverse Bechdel Test to specific films there may be those that fail, such as Wall-E. However, the existence of some films that do not meet Reverse Bechdel standards does not imply that men are being "left out" or "oppressed."

The thing one would wish to do is gather a large selection of popular movies and then apply both Bechdel and Reverse Bechdel standards to all the movies. To get results look at the proportion that do not stand up under the Bechdel Test, then compare that to those that don't satisfy the Reverse Bechdel Test. The comparison of these percentages should provide insight into the relative presence of men and women in movies.

Another good point the video makes is that there are other situations in which Bechdel-like Tests can be useful. The creator suggests using the test for racial minorities. I would be interested to see how books fare under the Bechdel Test, although I would imagine they will do better, as their plots are not so condensed  I conclude with a quick look at the Star Wars movie series under the Bechdel Test.

A New Hope: I can't think of any named female characters other than Aunt Bereu and Princess Leia, and since one dies before the other enters the action (except for as a flickering blue hologram), not much chance of passing the Bechdel Test. Since Luke and Uncle Owen discuss evaporators and droids it certainly passes the Reverse Bechdel, and does so easily.

The Empire Strikes Back: Are there any female characters other than Princess Leia? ... ... ... The iconic confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader at the end certainly qualifies it to pass the Reverse Bechdel.

Return of the Jedi: No, Jabba does not count as a named female character. So, just Princess Leia again? I'm willing to disallow Jabba as a male character, but Luke's conversation with Obi-Wan about truth and perspective should satisfy the Reverse Bechdel.

Ok, the original trilogy was filmed quite a while ago, before women became widely established in the public sphere. Perhaps the prequel trilogy will do better, although if they do it will be the first time I think.

The Phantom Menace: Queen Amadala and Shmi Skywalker, at least we have two named female characters. Do they speak with each other... I don't know. The movie opens with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon bantering, a clear Reverse Bechdel pass.

Attack of the Clones: I think someone may have mentioned the name of the shape-changing assassin that goes after Senator Amadala, but that might just have been in the book. Either way, although she tries to kill Senator Amaala, they do not talk. I guess Shmi is back in this movie as well, but she only has a brief conversation with Anakin before dying to further his plot development, and path to the dark side. Plenty of Obi-Wan and Anakin banter in the assassin chase to satisfy the Reverse Bechdel.

Revenge of the Sith: I believe we are back to one named female character, how sad. Obi-Wan, Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine, and Count Dooku chat it up on General Grevious' flagship, but we actually pass the Reverse Bechdel even sooner, as Obi-Wan and Anakin banter their way through the rescue flight.

Please do not misunderstand me, I absolutely love the Star Wars movies, and the franchise as a whole played a large role in my childhood. But women did not play a huge role in the movies... or in my childhood for that matter ;-)

We Shall Overcome, Someday

Michigan recently passed a bill to prevent public institutions from providing benefits to couples who are not legally married; here is an article on the topic. Although the bill is being challenged and I hope it is overturned, I am not interested, or able, to discuss its legality. I did not study to be a lawyer, I studied to be a philosopher, so what I want to talk about is how very wrong this bill is!

It seems clear that some of the support for this bill originates from an antipathy toward same sex couples; insofar as this antipathy wells out of some sort of Christian sentiment, this makes me sick. There is an incredible hypocrisy within the American "Christian" political movement when it comes to sexual mores. Although premarital sex and adultery are condemned from the pulpit they are ignored when Christians go political, in fact, I have noticed a surprisingly widespread sentiment among Christians that premarital sex "isn't that bad" or "is a fact of life." Perhaps premarital sex and adultery are easier to accept as facts of life because they are things that heterosexuals might desire, making this a classic case of trying to remove the splinter from the eye of the homosexual community whilst ignoring the plank in our own. To make it absolutely clear, I am NOT advocating that anybody attempt to legislate against premarital sex or adultery, simply that people who have somehow accepted that these things should be dealt with in the realm of morality, not legality, extend that understanding to same sex couples. Finally, I must admit that comparing homosexuality, premarital sex, and adultery is not the fairest of comparisons. Adultery seems, by fair, the most harmful and disrespectful of the three, so why are we taking benefits away from same sex couples and blithely permitting them to adulterers?

At best this bill might be described as a way for the state to save a little bit of money, which is something states always seem to need to do. However, even in this more charitable interpretation the bills supporters do not end up looking terribly moral. Now, instead of passing the bill in order to hurt a group of people with which they have a difference of opinion, they are simply looking for a group they perceive as unpopular enough that they can summarily divest them of benefits without office threatening repercussions. Less disgusting, perhaps, but still disgusting.

This bill also highlights why marriage for heterosexuals and domestic partnerships for homosexuals is not an adequate, effective, or moral solution. As long as different couples have different commitments binding them it will be easy and, therefore, tempting to set different standards and benefits for them. Perhaps we will simply have to abolish marriage as a civil institution and issue all couples domestic licenses to reach a compromise with the hard line religious movements, which, insofar as marriage is a religious ceremony, ought to be done anyway according to the Constitution. In the end, two different types of "marriage" for two "different" types of couples is morally untenable, separate but equal is still inherently unequal.

In my last sentence there is an implicit comparison between the Gay Rights movement and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's, which is why I am writing this post on Martin Luther King Jr. Day specifically. I think that such comparisons are quite warranted, in fact I would be willing to call the struggle for Gay Rights the Civil Rights movement of our era, since it is, at heart, just that, a struggle for civil rights. By making this assertion I do not mean to imply that we have accomplished our struggle for racial equality and now we can move on. ("But we have a black president now, we must be done!" "No, BAD reductionist! The fact that we consider Obama black is itself something worthy of unpacking.") I simply mean that Gay Rights have been the focus of much public attention and legal action recently.

Although the struggle for racial equality may still be ongoing, I think it is entirely appropriate highlight another struggle on MLKJ Day, so long as one does not try to diminish the importance of racial equality, or any other form of equality. To borrow a concept that I have heard attributed to the Third Wave Feminist movement, in order for any of us to be free from oppression, we must all be free from oppression. I can think of two worthwhile ways to interpret that off the top of my head. As long as anyone is oppressed we must still accept the idea that oppression can be justified, which opens everyone up to the risk of becoming included in an underclass. Or, as long as anyone is oppressed, we must find ourselves entangled in the system of oppression, even if as unwilling oppressors, and systems of oppression hurt all moral beings, be they "oppressed" or "oppressor." I rather favor the second interpretation, but both are interesting.

So, today let us dare to dream of a future free of oppression, then do what we can to move toward such a bright future. We shall overcome, someday.

You Go Gamer Girl!

I just read a very interesting article about male privilege within the nerd community. In fact, if you only have time to read one article, go read that one, it is much more interesting than this one. I agree with the post wholeheartedly for the most part, so, as is my practice, I'm not going to talk about what I agree with, because I believe the original author presents them well enough without my meddling. This is, of course, yet another reason to read that article.

The first place I started to truly disagree with the author was in the section entitled, "How Male Privilege Affects Geek Girls in Real Life," in the seventh paragraph, which is the first paragraph that is decently long. The author says, "A man, for example, who gets a job isn't going to... be shrugged off as a quota hire'." I think what we have here is an interesting intersection of male privilege with white privilege. While I agree that a man who gets a job is unlikely to be considered a "quota hire" qua his manliness, but there are other reasons, such as race, that a man could be considered a quota hire. So, I think this could be worded a bit better to avoid the implication that racism is no longer a problem. However, the author did, toward the beginning, note that, "men – most often straight, white men – as a whole, get certain privileges and status because of their gender," so the issues of racism and sexual orientationism are at least acknowledged.

Then, in the next paragraph, the author states that, "Men will also not be told that they're being 'too sensitive' or that 'they need to toughen up' when they complain about said sexual threats," referring to the content of trash talk in some video games. I would argue that men are "told" not to be sensitive or to toughen up, explicitly or implicitly, fairly often, and assuming that one wouldn't in this situation seems insupportable. This is not to say that men have it tough to so maybe we shouldn't worry about women so much, or to distract from the very valid main point of the article, I just want to reemphasize a point I have made before, that gender essentialism ends up hurting people of both genders and is probably responsible for much homophobia.

I think it is also worth considering the eleventh paragraph in its entirety:

Men are also not going to be automatically assigned into a particular niche just based on their gender. A girl in a comic store or a video game store is far more likely to be dismissed as another customer's girlfriend/sister/cousin rather than being someone who might actually be interested in making a purchase herself. And when they are seen as customers, they're often automatically assumed to be buying one of the designated "girl" properties… regardless of whether they were just reading Ultimate Spider-Man or looking for a copy of Saint's Row 3.

There are a couple of interesting things going on here. The first is some more gender essentialism, girls are expected to buy "'girl' properties," which maybe should be products, and, by logical extension, guys are expected to buy guy products. However the author does not note that guys are buying designated guy products, and this, I believe, is because male is the "default gender," similarly to how white is the "default race" in my first complaint. Things marketed to girls need an explanatory adjective, "'girl' properties" and are a "niche," whereas things marketed to guys are just treated as the normal fare for the shop.

That is everything critical that I can think of to say about the article. I thought that most of it was right on, and I thought all of it was an interesting read. Compare to this news post from Penny Arcade, about how the female version of the main character from the Mass Effect series was going to be portrayed be default. I link to the news post, but mainly because it serves as a repository for interesting links to other articles an the topic.

I am unsure that the Kotaku and Penny Arcade posts are at odds, because the latter seems to be saying that just because FemShep is given a specific appearance should not imply that we write her off as a "bimbo." However, insofar as it can be read as a defense for portraying women in video games as idealized objects of attraction, the Penny Arcade post may be part of the problem, rather than the solution.

In Defense of Man

While I am usually in the habit of observing how our society is structured in ways that disadvantages women and the negative consequences, to individuals and society itself, that they cause, today I thought I'd take a break to talk about how tough men have it. As I have noted before, part of my own personal brand of feminism is realizing the problems current gender norms cause for people of both sexes, so this is entirely in keeping with me overall philosophy. Furthermore, just as my post on issues that disproportionately hurt women are in no way intended to imply that men have lives of wine and roses, this post is explicitly not asserting that men's problems are in some way "bigger" (whatever that means) or "more important" (whatever that means) than women's are.

What I would like to focus on today is the tendency for men to be somewhat overbearing. Although I have been kicking this idea around in my head for a month or two, I found an appropriate Questionable Content strip for the topic last weekend, as I cruised through my obsessive re-reading of their archive. Notice the line in panel two about, "persistence gets the girl no matter how big an ass you make of yourself." I would imagine that this works somewhat less frequently in real life than it does in romantic comedies, especially to people who do not possess Jon Cusack's boyish good looks (actually, I just looked him up to see what he looks like, and his wikipedia picture is kind of creepy). The point is, however, that males experience societal pressures to be the actors and do things to influence the behavior of women.

From the ostensibly harmless, although somewhat invasive and stalker-ish if you think about it, boombox outside the bedroom window, to the much less innocent seduction, to the entirely reprehensible acts of rape, inter-sexual relations are fraught with many examples of males asserting themselves upon females in order to influence their decisions. Of course, we all act at times in a manner intended to increase the probability that someone else will act in a desired manner, I think it is important to consider what is appropriate when attempting to influence people (or to win friends, for that matter). The concept I think is central to the male problem is that of "assertion."

For relevant contrast, consider the stereotypical methods of to romantically influence males. These tend to be less on the assertive side (boombox outside the window) and more on the passive side, such as alteration of appearance through the use of wardrobe and cosmetics (or so I am told) and the like. This is not to say that males cannot utilize wardrobe, and maybe even cosmetics, just that the masculine goal is acceptability, while the feminine goal is approachablity.

This is not to excuse stalkers, rapists, and Blutos, but rather to posit that their behavior may be a manifestation of a common, underlying dysfunction in our societal structure, and hopefully spark a discussion on whether this seems reasonable, and, if so, what might be done to alleviate this problem.

Switch Off Your Targeting Computer

This topic has been brewing for much longer than yesterday's post. More specifically, I think it was late January, because that was when I was having a tough time caring enough to keep my blood sugar high enough. One evening, feeling a little loopy, I decided that maybe I should check my blood sugar to make sure it wasn't even lower than usual. Since the reading I got was within the desirable range, I didn't do anything about it, but when I rechecked it later that hour, since getting dizzy standing up is not all that common for me, I found that the reading was about 30 mg/dl lower than it had been the first time I checked, and I probably should eat something starchy.

What I am getting at, in my roundabout anecdotal manner, is the relatively high trust we place in technological readings compared to our own experiences. True, our own experiences are highly subjective and open to interpretation, in a way that quantitative readings usually are not. However, as I have mentioned quite a bit recently, no one, and no gadget, knows us as well as we know ourselves.

One could connect this phenomenon with the Feminist complaint, most prominently voiced in "Our Bodies, Ourselves," that women's health was being enshrined in the knowledge of "experts," ie doctors, rather than the experiences of women. Here too personal qualitative information is being replaced by external, "objective," evaluation. Don't get me wrong, I am very much in favor of doctors, and also blood glucose monitors, MRI's, and the many gadgets that help us ascertain what is going on with our bodies. But we shouldn't neglect to value the information about our bodies that is provided by ourselves, our experiences.

Ok, that is enough critique of technology for now, at least as the main subject of the post. If I post a post tomorrow, it will likely be a return to my consideration of education, which may actually be my favorite topic, hurray!

Dancing Around Gender Roles

Those of you who happen to know me in the 3 dimensional space we call the real world probably are aware that I pretty much love social dancing. For those of you don't know this, or even what social dancing is, a social dance is a dance where a lead dances with a follow. It is the leads duty to, safely, determine what moves shall be done and indicate that to the follow through body motion. Then both people make the move happen, then much fun is had. While it is by no means a rule, for the most part males lead and females follow, so it would seem that some analysis of gender roles could be obtained by considering social dancing.

A while back I found myself taking regular car trips with a bunch of follows to various dances, and one topic of conversation turned to dance safety (not the safety dance) and dance etiquette (again, those who know me might not be surprised to find out I couldn't get "etiquette" close enough for spell checker to fix, I had to use a thesaurus and look up "manners"). One serious complaint was surprise aerials, an aerial is a move where one partner, usually the follow, spends a noticeable amount of time without any feet on the floor, and a surprise aerial is an aerial led by a lead whom the follow didn't know led aerials. Personally, I can only imagine that the experience of being suddenly thrown into the air is moderately disconcerting, to say the least.

In addition to the unpleasant surprise factor, there is also an issue of respect and safety to consider. Safety because the lead is doing what amounts to throwing of the follow into the air when they are unprepared, and dance floors tend to be quite hard. Respect because the fact that a lead feels competent to make this decision without consulting the follow seems to show some amount of disrespect.

Of course, because I am a philosopher in addition to a dancer, I see this as a metaphor for gender relations off of the dance floor. It is quite common in our culture for males to take the lead, so to speak, in inter-gender relations. While there are some things both parties can do to protect themselves, once males are leading a disproportionate amount of injury occurs to females. So, as a Feminist, I have to question the morality of the worldview implicitly contained in social dancing.

Because I love dancing so much, it is of some importance that I find some way to rehabilitate it from this portrayal of a barbaric institution normalizing male dominance. The most obvious tool with which to do so is to claim that, unlike the imperfect world off the dance floor, dancers are actually able to choose which role they choose to embody independently of their gender. Thus women are not forced into the submissive, and somewhat more dangerous, role of follow.

Of course, this assertion is not entirely unproblematic. At first glance one can easily see that dance role and gender are not independent, as one's gender strongly influences, if not determines, the dance role one adopts. Furthermore, the question of how free one actually is to choose exists.

When women outnumber men it is not uncommon for those who are both experienced dancers and quite brave to try to learn the lead moves, in order to get closer to a balanced number of leads and follows. However, it is quite uncommon for women to lead in situations where men and women are in balanced numbers or when more men are present. This suggests the rather disturbing notion that, if there are excess women there is a choice, but primarily women are there to dance with men as follows. On the other hand, when teaching a lesson which was sparsely attended by males, I pretty much told them they had better be leads due to the gender imbalance, so perhaps there is symmetry in the assumption that each gender should conform to their traditional role in times of scarcity, leaving only the problematic issue of inequality inherent in the roles.

Before moving off this topic, I would like to note an interesting asymmetry that I believe exists. As I noted, in lessons when women greatly outnumber men it is not uncommon for women to lead. Additionally, it is also not unheard of for women to choose the lead role and ask another women to dance. However, it seems much less common for a man to explore the follow role. I have followed a few times, both because I wanted to balance the lead/follow ratio of a lesson and also because I believe that familiarity with the follow role translates into increased ability in the lead role. While following when dancing with a friend is quite comfortable, aside from the difficulty I have with the actual following, swapping to follow in a lesson often feels uncomfortable as other men seem reluctant to dance with another man, and occasionally I have received an outright refusal, albeit a polite one. It seems like this reflects a reluctance on the part of men to closely collaborate with each other which is much less common in women.

Anyway, if the defense that each dancer chooses their role is in fact only an illusion of choice for the most part, one must once again attempt to reconcile one's self with the inequity in dance roles. To be sure, there are decided advantages to studying the follow role. Because leads need to initiate the moves, it seems much easier for follows to "learn" new moves, as, ideally, they can simply follow the lead's direction through most moves assuming a degree of experience for both the lead and the follow. On the other hand, since the lead bears responsibility for guiding the follow through the move, an increased amount of technical knowledge of a move is required for the lead to be able to dance it. Furthermore this extends to learning entirely new dance styles. A highly skilled follow can succeed in dancing an unfamiliar style of dance with a quick introduction to the basic idea and a moderately competent lead, this is much less true for a lead.

While there seem to be both advantages and disadvantages to the expectation that follows cede responsibility for move choice to the lead, the disparity between lead and follow roles remains troubling. Perhaps the last recourse is to assert that at least it is the follow's decision to dance with me, although once again it is usually the lead that initiates the interaction by asking a follow to dance. Of course, even the assumption that this decision on the part of the follow is being freely made could be assaulted by dance etiquette that encourages acceptance of dance requests in order to keep leads comfortable making said requests.

Slut Walk

Random thought: A young person is someone with the luxury of believing they know enough to form what is essentially an indisputably correct opinion. An old person is someone with the luxury of believing they know enough to form what is essentially an indisputably correct opinion and the young people have no idea how arrogant they are to believe the same.

Enough with the heavy topics and the mopey introspection, let's talk about Sluts! After a Toronto police officer advised students to, "avoid dressing like sluts," in order to avoid being sexually assaulted, the social protest phenomena known as Slut Walk was born. Simply put, Slut Walks are organized in order to provide people who believe that what a woman is wearing has no bearing on her being sexually assaulted a public platform to share their opinion. Here's an article on the subject, if you are interested in further reading, it is simply the article I read most recently, not my choice of an exhaustive resource.

The Slut Walk immediately brings up two important and interesting topics, victim blaming, gendered double standards for sexuality, and activism. I'll address them in that order.

While some might argue that what you are wearing has no causal relationship to your likelihood of being raped, and I know that there is good anecdotal evidence for this claim, it seems even easier to argue that there is no reason wardrobe ought have any bearing on sexual assault. As long as one's garb is within the legal limits on decency, I see no reason for it to be mentioned in a court of law. What someone is wearing CERTAINLY does not justify sexually assaulting them. Furthermore, if we consider institutionalizing the message that dressing in a certain manner is likely to incur sexual assault, it seems as though we are perpetuating the domination of women through sexual violence, namely dictating to them the clothing that are safe to wear.

As someone possessed of a rather conservative personal, as opposed to political, morality, I cannot say that I unreservedly celebrate the label slut. However, I certainly do believe it should have the same normative value as the word "stud." If we glorify male sexuality and simultaneously vilify female sexuality, we set an unjust double standard. To be sure, I would prefer that both "stud" and "slut" referred to behavior not socially celebrated, but I definitely think they ought have the same normative content, and I don't particularly like vilifying anyone. Those loyal, long time readers (to whom I am very grateful) may recognize this thought structure from my post last October (ok, November) on Halloween costumes. Surprise, we have not achieved gender equity in the past six months!

Like I noted, I am not entirely copacetic with the message of a Slut Walk. Consequentially I might not choose to show up for such an event should one end up organized near my area. Let's be honest though, show up alone to voluntarily immerse myself in a crowd, doesn't sound like something I'd do even to get more Firefly episodes. However, the Slut Walks have an important core message with which I deeply believe, and furthermore provide people with an option for activism. It is good for there to be multiple venues for activism, from proud Sluts and Slut allies walking the streets, to nerdy bloggers hiding in their basements. Speaking of activism opportunities, Jamie Keiles over at Teenagerie is co-coordinating Chicago's Slut Walk (is it just me, or does "slattern look like it is spelled with a pi?), and her blog is a great resource for discussion on things of gender/activist interest.

Finally, I have a new follower, and since that made me very happy I thought I should mention it, so hello! Their profile picture is Dr Who, so it is even more fantastic!

To Hell With Hell: Or "Moral Bullying: Why Not"

"I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God." -Attributed to Rabia Basri

I was reading through a quite interesting article on how a strong undercurrent of anti-contraception politics runs behind a lot of the "anti-abortion" politics we see. For example, consider the recent fight over Planned Parenthood funding, although no federal funding goes to abortion, for some reason the anti-abortion lobby was quite keen to get rid of this funding. Although the article is well worth it, I've given enough extra work recently, if you don't want to read it here is the part that caught my attention.

"'Contraception helps reduce one’s sexual partner to just a sexual object since it renders sexual intercourse to be without any real commitments,' says Janet Smith, the author of 'Contraception: Why Not.'"

Now, as a hopeless and idiotic romantic, I am certainly against reducing "one's sexual partner to just a sexual object." I also must admit that just the other day I was thinking that acknowledging the consequences of one's actions is perhaps the foundation of a moral life. However, this quote seems to be encouraging us to manufacture consequences in order to reinforce a moral code, which I think is completely immoral!

This, of course, inspired me to remember the wonderful quote with which I began this article, if loving God is good, we ought not do it for fear of punishment or desire for reward. I think this extends to all our moral decisions. If we make what might be considered a moral decision out of concern for the repercussions it will have on our self, I don't think we have actually made a moral decision.

Let me once again emphasize that making a decision based on the consequences to others can still be moral, and, indeed, may be the highest form of morality, but insofar as our actions are simply to avoid bad or promote good outcomes for ourselves, they are not particularly moral. Consider, if God had simply wanted to minimize the bad things people do, it seems reasonable to theorize that a world in which deviation from God's will brought swift and messy retribution. However, it seems clear that the element of choice is somehow important, and for that to be the case, there must be multiple viable options from which to choose.

In conclusion, I think a world where sex was treated more reverently and treated as more important would be good, and those of you who know me KNOW how irreverent I am generally. However, celebrating unwanted pregnancies as undesirable outcomes of undesirable actions, or thinking that HIV/AIDS is a just-desserts for homosexual or promiscuous sex, is simply cruel, thuggish, moral bullying. This is another reason I am pro-choice, in the abortion context. I believe that not aborting a fetus is the less morally problematic choice, but in order for morality to come into play it first must be a choice!

Women are Worth It

I already have a post about Women in the Workplace, so I needed another title for this post. This is my second post inspired by TED talks, however, this time it is very much a direct response to the video in question. As such, I ask that you watch Sheryl Sandberg talk on "Why we have too few women leaders," at least if you want to understand this post. It is a nearly 15 minutes long talk, and I am sorry to ask for this much of a time commitment, but I think it is well worth watching. If it makes you feel better, I have watched it three times now, once two weeks ago which gave me the idea for this post, once this afternoon to remind what it was I wanted to address, then again right afterward as it became clear that I needed to make notes on specific points throughout the video. So, go watch it please, the next paragraph will still be here when you get back.

First off, while I disagree with this talk in some fundamental ways, I want to emphasize that, given Ms Sandberg's premises, I think this is a wonderful talk. She explicitly notes that the goal is limited to helping women stay in the workplace (2:47) through personal strategies rather than structural changes (3:04). Because her talk is aimed at helping women in our current power system, of course it will not address problems with that system, that is not her purpose. She wishes to help women within the current power system, a classic liberal goal, but I think the entire power system should be examined, and ultimately altered, a more progressive stance.

One problem with helping women succeed within our current system, is that women are penalized for succeeding within our system. Have you ever heard the saying, "can't win for losing." It refers to a Pyhrric victory, a success that ends up costing the winner a horrible price. As Ms. Sandberg notes, people tend not to like successful women (7:15). However, it is worse than that, as the story of Heidi Roizen demonstrates (7:46). It isn't that women have to act differently than men do in order to succeed because the system is somehow biased against women, apparently the means a women uses to succeed which make people dislike her are traits that people find admirable when performed by a man.

This is a problem that cannot be solved by the individual women seeking professional betterment, to whom Ms. Sandberg addresses her talk, because it is a problem that exists on a cultural level. We expect women to be nurturing and men to be successful, so a man who does what is necessary to attain high power will be viewed as normative, while a woman who implements the same strategies is much more likely to be criticized as being "out for herself," because of the context that women are not SUPPOSED to be out for themselves.

Because she is only trying to help women rise to the top in our current power system, Ms. Sandberg can only advise women to be out for themselves and ignore the backlash it creates. However, since I am criticizing the entire system I would like to both point out the fundamental injustice of expecting women to adhere to "traditional" but ineffective strategies, and to point out the utter dysfunction of a system in which self-aggrandization turns out to be a more successful strategy than communal nurturing.

Lest I be accused of being a gender essentialist, and in order to fully disclose my own stake in this, let me directly say that I do not by any means believe that "communal personalities" are restricted to women, and I tend to empathize with them. For example, the story about hand raising (9:07) hit home because the same thing has happened to me. If someone says that they are done taking questions, and you decide to keep your hand raised anyway, doesn't it seem like you are, in some sense, saying that your desire for recognition should take precedence over the speaker's stated desire to end questioning? Furthermore, I have almost always found that I can go and ask the question after the talk if it continues to irk me. So, while valuing communal personalities may have the happy result of increasing the number of women high up in our system of power, I think the valuing of communal personalities in itself would have beneficial effects on our system of power.

This is, probably, the biggest problem I have with Ms. Sandberg's talk. She is encouraging women to succeed by adopting a "masculine personality" strategy rather than questioning a system that is rigged to promote the "masculine personality." Since I have rather little use for the traditional "masculine personality," this seems like a particularly dysfunctional "solution." Made all the more so by the fact that the system is further rigged to favor "masculine personalities" in male bodies. Ms. Sandberg may, "think a world... where half of our countries and half of our companies were run by women, would be a better world," (14:17) but if they get there by acting like traditional alpha males, I fail to see how the world would be likely to change.

However, Ms. Sandberg does make some points that I consider very important. As I have noted, one of the reasons that feminism is most important to me is that it tends to reject gender essentialism. One of the ways that expresses itself is in the politics of housework, something Ms. Sandberg addresses. However, in order to share domestic labor more equally between sexes, not only do women need husbands willing to do their share, which already hints that structural reform is necessary, but also, "we have to make it as important a job... to work inside the home for people of both genders." (11:13) Here Ms. Sandberg is finally forced to abandon her call for women to reform themselves and blatantly call for true structural reform.

My final note on this topic is that, the idea that, "men are reaching for opportunities more than women," fundamentally undermines the notion that our society is a meritocracy, which weakens many of the justifications for our current power system. The last thing I wanted to address was the tendency for women to underestimate their competency. In the anecdote she provided (4:43), I wonder if the Dunning-Kruger effect might be explanatory. Furthermore, should it really be bad for people to acknowledge the help they had acquiring their skills and expertise (6:38)? While more women in places of power may eventually lead to a restructuring of our power system, I do not think it is inevitable if women are forced to "buy into" the power system in order to succeed. Consequentially, I think it is necessary that we remain vigilantly critical of the flaws in our overall system of power, and move to address them as we are able.

The Good Samaritan: Love the One You're With

Let me first disclaim that I have reservations about the song I use in the title. If you cannot be with the one you love, settling for the one you are with seems to do her (him) a disservice. On the other hand, if you are with someone, I should hope that they are the one that you love. Anyway, moving on.

You might note that this post is about neither Kant nor philosophy inspired by music videos. Since no one commented to affirm my choice for the next two posts, I felt fairly free to change them. I will get to those two posts, eventually, of course. Instead I wanted to take a moment to write a post related to one by my sister on Love, specifically the part about the story of the Good Samaritan, because posting my thoughts as a response to someone else's feels more personal, or relational, than simply broadcasting my own ramblings.

Her post seemed very relevant to what was on my mind, as my walk home was occupied with thoughts about the insufficiency of liberal "rights based" ethics, and universal ethics in general. To explain, what I mean by a universal ethic is a system of deciding what is good to do wherein all moral agents, which you can usually just think of as people but some try to sneak animals into the mix, are given the same consideration. The liberal tradition is certainly universal, as anyone familiar with the little phrase, "[w]e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal," will recognize. While we may all be, in some sense, created equal, and we may want society to endow us with uniform rights, any personal system of determining good actions which treats everyone as equals turns out to be fairly monstrous.

One quick example, suppose you want to buy your parents a gift for their birthday, because you are a better human being than I am. While you COULD spend your money on a gift, you could also spend it to feed a starving child in Africa, and if we are going to consider all people equally, it seems than preventing someone from starving is more important than purchasing a birthday gift. Thus, in a universal ethic, birthday gifts have to wait until all hunger, curable disease, and similar conditions are taken care of, unless your birthday gift happens to actually be Malaria medicine. Similarly, how could you justify conceiving a brand new baby when there are so many perfectly serviceable babies already languishing in orphanages waiting for adoption? While the world might seem like it would be better if we all subscribed to a universal ethic, I think we would actually end up with a world that was less humane, where the value of genuine care and human relationship was so deformed as to be a caricature of its intended appearance.

This is the problem addressed by relational ethics, sometimes called ethics of caring. Under systems of this form, one is allowed, even encouraged, to give special consideration to the people one encounters most immediately. The Jewish law expert's desire not to love absolutely everyone is a perfectly human response, which by no means makes it the one God would like us to have, but it does make it the one we have with which to work. Notice, however, that Jesus didn't say that the Samaritan was just cruising the desert roads looking for someone to assist. Since the Samaritan left the beaten man with an innkeeper, it seems reasonable to assume he was traveling in pursuit of his own business. However, when confronted with the immediacy of the beaten man, the Samaritan responded with an ethic of care, and cared for the man's injuries.

I am not arguing that we externalize suffering, by buying our fiancée an engagement ring with a blood diamond for example. Simply because we have a higher ethical duty to our loved ones does not excuse sociopathy towards strangers that we encounter, and when we make a choice that effects someone, we encounter them, if in a highly attenuated manner. The immediacy of our personal relationships will grant them higher ethical salience, but this does not entirely negate our ethical duty to the rest of the world.

Furthermore, when we directly encounter suffering, as in the case of the Samaritan and the robbed traveler, then our relationship is quite immediate, rather than attenuated. So I am not arguing against the validity of the parable of the Good Samaritan, just attempting to frame it within a context of immediate caring, rather than universal duty.

One argument against the humanity of current urban living conditions is that the abundance of stimuli overwhelms our ability to process it all. This leads to a dulling of the immediacy of encountered events, as we filter them through more relevance criterion to deal with the sheer weight of information. A dulling of immediacy quite naturally dulls the prospect of encountering a stranger as a fellow human being, which forms the basis of an ethic of caring. Simply put, if one steps over the beaten traveler on the sidewalk, without even noticing that they are there, one never has the opportunity to meet them and relate to them as a caring human being.

In conclusion, someone is born every day, but you really ought to make special effort to remember your parents' birthdays.

Why Feminism Matters To Me

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." -Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler

Although the above quote may be due to the cited sources, I was introduced to it by the wonderful Professor Lani Roberts of the Oregon State University philosophy department. Although it is not yet Feminist July, I want to take a post to discuss what Feminism means to me. I have recently read a series of wonderful posts by various bloggers about what Feminism means to them. You can find them here, here, and here. The first linked was prompted by the second, the second by the third, and mine, in turn, by the first.

In a post last year I wrote that, "[h]ere I am using Feminist in the sense of one who examines the interactions between one's gender and their lives, a more academic sense perhaps, rather than one who simply believes that they [women] are also people." As I note, this is a fairly academic definition of what Feminist, or Feminism, means. Here I hope to make a more personal account.

I want to begin by saying that the first post makes what I personally consider to be a very important point, so I link to it again. In liberating women from the necessity to reproduce traditionally feminine modes of personality and behavior, men too become liberated to more fully realize themselves, rather than attempting to replicate a traditional mold of masculinity. Thus, women's lib is also shy, caring men's lib, among many others' lib, which is of great personal importance to me. Because the first article addresses this issue at such length with great skill, I shall move on without devoting to it the length its importance deserves.

In addition to my own personal liberation, Feminism also means greater security for people that I love. According to the Domestic Violence Resource Center, 25% of women experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and 20% of high school women experience dating violence. The National Organization for Women reports 232,960 instances of rape or sexual assault in the US in the year 2006 alone. According to Wikipedia there were 155.6 females in the US in 2009, so the rapes and sexual assaults in the year 2006 ALONE represent 0.15% of the female population.

I present these statistics not to scare or dishearten, although they certainly do sadden me, but rather to explain the powerful need that anyone who cares about any women in their life ought feel for Feminism. Statistics such as these provide explanation for the traditional notions of machismo, wherein a male would provide security for a select group of HIS females. However, in addition to being demeaning to women's humanity, this model is clearly dysfunctional considering the rates of relationship violence. In order to make the world safer for the women that we, as either men or women, love, it only makes sense to promote a world wherein all women are safer.

In a final note, I would like to preempt any possible deflection toward the plight of men. I am a man, I recognize how full of suck life can be for men. However, unless you can connect increasing the safety of women directly to increasing the injustices occurring to men, bringing it up in this context seems like naught but a feint or distraction, because male suffering neither invalidates nor justifies female suffering.