Is It Sexual Assault?

This train of thought came upon me when watching one of those famous TYT Supreme Court moments that I've blogged about before. This video involves the so-called "Alabama Teabagger", and while from that title I thought I was going to get a few laughs at the Tea Party's expense, what I actually saw was just kind of gross.

As usual, the person that I disagree with the most in this case is Jayar, whom as usual is the one that, in my opinion, has the most unreasonable perspective. I could rant on and on about how much I hate the argument that he makes, the close cousin to the "well I was beat up at school and I turned out alright, therefore I think that bullying should not be addressed because it builds character!" argument. However this is not about that. This is about a question that I immediately asked myself even before Ana brought it up: if it was a woman, would I have a different opinion as to how harshly he should be punished?

I appreciate the point that Cenk makes, that context matters and that it would be different if it was sexual in nature. If the guy did it to get off it's blatant sexual assault, whether he's doing it to a woman or a man. However I think it is pretty clear in the video that the act was intended as a prank, one which would humiliate the victim. However, even so, even if there was the exact same stupid-college-prank intent behind it, a part of me still feels like it's worse if the victim is a woman. Why is that? Is this another possible deep core of sexism hidden within me?

I realized that my feelings stemmed from the reaction that I imagined the victim, upon seeing that video, would have. When you see a burly college guy passed out at a football game getting pranked, you imagine that when he wakes up and discovers what happened he would be enormously pissed, and either beat up the prankster or devise an extremely elaborate and equally humiliating counter-prank. When you see the same thing happening to a woman, you imagine her being extremely humiliated, possibly depressed, possibly not having the guts to face her classmates for some time afterwards. Some of this is unfair stereotyping, some of it is from the cultural double-standard we have regarding men and women and embarrassing sexual-related things happening to them, but most of it is the imbalance of power. When you humiliate your peer it's a prank, when you humiliate someone who is weaker than you it is bullying. The fact that imagining the same thing happening to a young man that was weaker and picked on by the football team gave me the same gut reaction that imagining it happening to a woman did confirmed that this was the source of my double standard. 

Therefore the question becomes: is it fair to assume that a woman has less power? Is it fair to automatically jump to the conclusion that she would not be able to take it the same way and defend herself in the same way that another man could?

I think the answer is yes and no.

I know for a fact that there are women out there who would immediately try to devise the most complicated and terrifyingly humiliating counterprank imaginable. I know that there are women that would not be afraid to find that guy and kick the crap out of him in front of his friends, accomplishing both tasks. However, I do think that the football, frat-like and overall college culture would not be expecting that reaction, and I think that is the point.

Except for very special circumstances in which some girls may have been accepted into certain groups as "one of the guys", I think that the reaction that the "prankster" would expect from the woman would be the first that I described. All of a sudden, the prank moves away from being humiliating-but-harmless-fun into the realm of actively trying to make that person miserable. I think that a man who would do that would be trying to provoke that reaction from a woman, even if he does wind up getting a good kick in the balls for his troubles. That's where I think that the intent would be significantly different, and where it would not necessarily apply solely to women. 

It's not that women necessarily have less power than men in this circumstance, it's that more likely than not the man would be doing this because he expects her to have less power and not be able to defend herself.

This is why there are trials for this sort of thing, and why it shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all sentence. I think that, regardless of the victim being a man or a woman, if the person doing it has the intent that I last described, I could accept two years. If, on the other hand it was meant as simply a very stupid prank towards a peer, it's way way over the top.

In this case I have no idea where the victim stood in this regard. For all I know the prank could have been payback for something the passed-out person did previously. Because of this, I reserve judgement on the severity of the sentence in the absence of all the facts.

Judging What Is Real: Part II

A continuation, if I may.

It is interesting that while I was mulling around the contents of yesterday's post in my head, something happened that made me want to extend the topic of what constitutes as real.

This weekend I started my first Coursera course, and I was incredibly excited. It's given by Caltech, and is about Drugs and the Brain. I need a good refresher course in neuroscience, as I haven't even looked at it since my first year in college (when I was not a good student at all, thanks depression!), as I only did a very specific neurobiology course in my last year. It's all stuff that can be useful to me in my career and PhD, so I signed up, took my little notebook out and almost nostalgically started taking notes while watching one of the mini lectures during my lunch break. A colleague of mine saw me at in, right in the middle of copying down and trying to make sure I understood a physics equation (something I haven't studied since my second year in high school, so I really needed a refresher there), when she asked me astonishedly: you're taking notes?! For a coursera course??!! 

I replied well... yes! Of course I am! how else am I going to learn enough and pass the exam! To which she replied but.... it's all fake! What are you doing that for?!

Here I was befuddled and quite a bit miffed. Never mind that she knows exactly what coursera is, what it's about and at least said that she thought was absolutely brilliant. Never mind that she knows full well that these courses are offered by some of the most prestigious universtities in the world. And yes, this specific course is relatively brief and might not earn us an unofficial certificate of completion, but what about all of this makes the course "fake"?

What is so "fake" about knowledge?

Is it because the course is not one that carries university credit, and therefore cannot be used towards getting an official degree from Caltech? But then does that make any class that someone audits "fake"?

Is it because it is not a course that is directly improving my career chances? But does that make her own pursuit of her second degree in archaeology, despite being a biologist, "fake"?

What is so fake about learning?

It really comes down to what your priorities are, when it comes to deciding what you think is "real" and "fake". She obviously gives far more importance to officiality, and what others will officially recognize as something that you have done. I understand that coursera is new and relatively open in structure, there has been no standardization of course structure or examination, there is no way of comparing how strict or lax the grading method is, and therefore as of now is not as "offical" as it could be. Nevertheless, it is still education, it is still knowledge and it is still something I want to learn. I may not get an unofficial certificate of completion, but the knowledge that I gain from this course could really help me explore other avenues of research, or make me be able to hold my own in an interview in which knowledge of these things is required. To me, that makes this course very real indeed.

Officiality is, in my opinion, extremely limited. There are diploma mills out there that have not yet been discovered, where you can buy a degree without putting in a day's work. Less obivous are universities (and some high schools) which are exceedlingly expensive but also pathetically easy, which require next to no work to complete so long as there is a healthy influx of cash. Some may officially recognize certificates from these institutions, but to me they are the real "fakes" here. 

Where do your priorities lie when it comes to deciding what is real, and what is fake?

I May Have Gotten A Little Overexcited...

Pharyngula has done it again, and led me to a truly fantastic discovery. Despite the weird decision on Minnesota's part to ban this site, I think they may have just Streisand-ed Coursera, at least I for one would never have found out about it if it weren't for this story.

It is, in my opinion, one of the coolest initiatives that I have come across so far. It is based on the principle that everyone should have access to education, regardless of background. Thus, Professors from top Universities all over the world are offering free online courses for a variety of different subjects, complete with exams and a certificate of completion. That just might be the best idea ever.

So I may have gotten a little overexcited. I signed up for 5, at least two of which overlap significantly, while being a PhD student with deadlines, an English tutor, a regular gym-goer, a by myself-liver, a twice a month Rome-traveller and a would-be writer. Yeesh, like I'm not busy enough!

My first course hasn't started yet, but I will let you know if they are as awesome as I think they're going to be. In the meantime, do check out the Biology section, I actually had to be very very conservative with myself or I would have signed up for three times as many courses by now!

Agh if only my boyfriend spoke better English, the Science of Gastronomy course has his name written all over it...

Repost: Charles Negy Is A Boss

Thank you TYTUniversity for bringing this highly amusing and inspiring story to my attention

For too long I've been reading stories about the rapid decline of the quality of higher education in the United States, so I was very grateful that for once I got to see a story that doesn't make me lose hope in colleges in the US.

I tracked down the full letter from reddit, and if you also can only see a truncated version of it posted there, here it is:

Hello, Cross-Cultural students, I am writing to express my views on how some of you have conducted yourself in this university course you are taking with me. It is not uncommon for some-to-many American students, who typically, are first-generation college students, to not fully understand, and maybe not even appreciate the purpose of a university. Some students erroneously believe a university is just an extension of high school, where students are spoon-fed “soft” topics and dilemmas to confront, regurgitate the “right” answers on exams (right answers as deemed by the instructor or a textbook), and then move on to the next course.

Not only is this not the purpose of a university (although it may feel like it is in some of your other courses), it clearly is not the purpose of my upper-division course on Cross-Cultural Psychology. The purpose of a university, and my course in particular, is to struggle intellectually with some of life's most difficult topics that may not have one right answer, and try to come to some conclusion about what may be “the better answer” (It typically is not the case that all views are equally valid; some views are more defensible than others). Another purpose of a university, and my course in particular, is to engage in open discussion in order to critically examine beliefs, behaviors, and customs. Finally, another purpose of a university education is to help students who typically are not accustomed to thinking independently or applying a critical analysis to views or beliefs, to start learning how to do so. We are not in class to learn “facts” and simply regurgitate the facts in a mindless way to items on a test. Critical thinking is a skill that develops over time. Independent thinking does not occur overnight. Critical thinkers are open to having their cherished beliefs challenged, and must learn how to “defend” their views based on evidence or logic, rather than simply “pounding their chest” and merely proclaiming that their views are “valid.” One characteristic of the critical, independent thinker is being able to recognize fantasy versus reality; to recognize the difference between personal beliefs which are nothing more than personal beliefs, versus views that are grounded in evidence, or which have no evidence.

Last class meeting and for 15 minutes today, we addressed “religious bigotry.” Several points are worth contemplating:

1. Religion and culture go “hand in hand.” For some cultures, they are so intertwined that it is difficult to know with certainty if a specific belief or custom is “cultural” or “religious” in origin. The student in class tonight who proclaimed that my class was supposed to be about different cultures (and not religion) lacks an understanding about what constitutes “culture.” (of course, I think her real agenda was to stop my comments about religion).
2. Students in my class who openly proclaimed that Christianity is the most valid religion, as some of you did last class, portrayed precisely what religious bigotry is. Bigots—racial bigot or religious bigots—never question their prejudices and bigotry. They are convinced their beliefs are correct. For the Christians in my class who argued the validity of Christianity last week, I suppose I should thank you for demonstrating to the rest of the class what religious arrogance and bigotry looks like. It seems to have not even occurred to you (I'm directing this comment to those students who manifested such bigotry), as I tried to point out in class tonight, how such bigotry is perceived and experienced by the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the non-believers, and so on, in class, to have to sit and endure the tyranny of the masses (the dominant group, that is, which in this case, are Christians).
3. The male student who stood up in class and directed the rest of the class to “not participate” by not responding to my challenge, represented the worst of education. For starters, the idea that a person—student or instructor—would instruct other students on how to behave, is pretty arrogant and grossly disrespects the rights of other students who can and want to think for themselves and decide for themselves whether they want to engage in the exchange of ideas or not. Moreover, this “let's just put our fingers in our ears so we will not hear what we disagree with” is appallingly childish and exemplifies “anti-intellectualism.” The purpose of a university is to engage in dialogue, debate, and exchange ideas in order to try and come to some meaningful conclusion about an issue at hand. Not to shut ourselves off from ideas we find threatening.

Universities hold a special place in society where scholarly-minded folks can come together and discuss controversial, polemic, and often uncomfortable topics. Universities, including UCF, have special policies in place to protect our (both professors’ and students’) freedom to express ourselves. Neither students nor professors have a right to censor speech that makes us uncomfortable. We're adults. We're at a university. There is no topic that is “off-limits” for us to address in class, if even only remotely related to the course topic. I hope you will digest this message, and just as important, will take it to heart as it may apply to you.

Charles Negy

Charles Negy, you are a Boss. Keep fighting the good fight!

Hm, I'm Not Sure How I Feel About That...

Last week a good friend of mine from the US came to visit me, and since she is studying Sports Management I used the opportunity to first and foremost use it as an excuse to force her to watch a soccer match with me, and secondly to ask her a couple of questions regarding American sports in general. I know next to nothing about American football, so our Q&A brought us to a conversation about the state of women in sports. Italians live in a glass house on this issue, where apart from volleyball female sports leagues are virtually ignored. However I was aware of the existence of the WNBA, so I asked her if there was a similar league for women in American football. She said well… kind of. There is Lingerie Football, which is a serious league in that the women definitely play hard, by the rules and to win, just that they wear lingerie instead of a full uniform. My first response was

Hmm… I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I’ve had a few days to think it over, and I still find the source of ambiguity in my head. Why is that?

On the one hand, I am no ones morality police. I’m perfectly in favor of breastaurants, bikini Jell-O wrestling, strip clubs, porn and even prostitution. Women who want to work in the sex industry (or a merely sexualized one) know exactly what they are signing up for and I have absolutely zero problems with them doing so. There is no reason to believe that the women in the Lingerie league are coerced or somehow participating against their will, and I understand its commercial appeal to the many men who are into that sort of thing.

Also, looking more into it, I discovered a host of Wikipedia pages dedicated to previous female football leagues that were disbanded due to lack of interest and money. I do not think that it is an inherent right for women to be able to participate in any sporting event known to man, I understand that if people are not going to pay to watch it, it’s not going to happen. But still there is something that bugs me about the whole thing.

I suppose, after much thought, my issue lies in the fact that bikini Jell-O wrestling is not as analogous as it may initially seem. The difference is that, if a woman wants to box or wrestle professionally and not in their underwear for the sexual pleasure of men, they can. There is the option of stripping down and covering one’s self in Jell-O for the crowd, or there is the option not to do so. Instead, when it comes to football, if a woman wanted to play even semi-professionally she has no choice but to do so in Lingerie, and a quick look at the teams in the league will also tell you that physical attractiveness is (at best) as much of a deciding factor as skill when deciding who to accept onto the team.

The question thus becomes: are there many women that even want an athletic career in football? That is something that I cannot answer, I have no idea. What I can claim is that times are changing, we are moving away from the times when “girls” were not “supposed” to like football, demonstrated by the fact that more and more women are showing interest in the sport, as well as more and more men who are willing to admit that they don’t see the point in it. (This is something I also see here: at the European Cup finals last night I was in a crowd of at least 1000 people, and it was split 50:50 gender-wise).  Mere numbers aside, who would even be willing to invest a significant amount of money in creating a league that history has shown us to be a flop?

A brief search on the internet shows me that Women’s football in college does exist, kind of, in some places. Does anyone have better information about that? I would propose if colleges started to get serious about their female football teams, offering athletic scholarships to women for them and perhaps making it a slightly bigger deal in their sports departments, it might be the spark to generate some interest, being mixed in with “school spirit” and all that. Once again I am shooting from a dark corner of complete naïveté in this regard, so please do help me out if you know more about this.

Has it all been tried, and people just could not care less about seeing women in sports, especially football? Or have previous attempts failed because backers were just not putting enough effort into the idea?

Tough Questions: Are You Allowed To Be Insensitive?

I feel like weighing in on this Jesus and Mo debate, because I think that it is indicative of a larger question that I would like to discuss. While I've seen the cartoon and have decided that I don't think it's inflammatory, racist or insensitive at all, that is my personal opinion and I understand that there are some people that may disagree. I thought it was funny, others might think it was in poor taste, but whatever. Compounded with the fact that the cartoon itself was on the London School of Economics Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society's Facebook page, not even tacked up all around the university (so if you don't like it, don't go on their facebook page right?) it seems a little ridiculous that the Uni's Student Union would call an emergency meeting over it or have any case to call it "bullying".

But let's put all that aside. Let's say the cartoon was a little more insensitive and racist. Let's say the cartoon was tacked up on campus and not displayed on some Facebook page that many of the people it would be likely to offend would never visit anyway. The issue that is worth discussing is whether or not such things should be allowed. Are you allowed to offend people based on their race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion or political opinion? If the answer is no, where do you draw the line between good natured satire and banned offensive language?

I'll give you an example from my own college years. I started college in Dublin in 2005, and as I've told you before I was a bit of a stranger in a strange land, considered by most to be an annoying American girl and didn't really have that many friends. Also remember that Hurricane Katrina had hit only a month before, I had friends there for the cleanup efforts and what happened was just settling in. My first week in college I, along with all the other First Years, got a free copy of the student-run magazine. On the cover was a picture of the University, almost completely under water, and the title was "Fuck America. We're Fucked Here". Wow. Bad fucking taste, not to mention the fact that it made me feel even more self conscious about my accent, and it made me think that people were going to be even more hostile towards me because of it than they turned out to be. I thought it was insensitive, not to mention completely misdirected. If you're upset with the US government's actions why are you making jokes about the poor peoples lives that were lost in a natural disaster, people that were also foresaken by the US government? I thought it was stupid and they should have picked a better cover, especially for the very first issue given out free to the new students.

Here's the thing though, should they have been allowed to publish it? I vote yes. Sure it affected me in some way or another, but I understand that while I reserve the right to be offended, others reserve the right to offend. I don't think that any club should not be allowed to display or say anything about anyone, even if it is racist or whatever. Let public opinion tear them down and let the racists declare themselves. I never bought a copy of that magazine throught my entire college career. If I was part of a club that displayed something that I thought was racist or homophobic I would no longer be a member, and neither would other students such as myself, until the club would only contain other racist people. If that number is large enough for the club to continue at least everyone knows that they are a racist bunch. If it is not the club is cancelled, but not because they were not allowed to express their racist thoughts.

What I am saying is that, even though I don't think the Jesus and Mo cartoon is racist, or bullying, or insensitive, or anything like that, even if it was I would tell the London School of Economics Student Union to grow the fuck up. You're in college now, get rid of the baby blanket and get ready to step into the real world. There are people that you're not going to agree with, and there are people that are going to be extremely vocal about what it is they are not agreeing with you on. Deal with it.

Free Speech and Criminal Speech: Where Do We Draw The Line?

This morning this video caught my eye, mainly because it made me think about something at 7am when I would have much rathered watch something mindless with my morning stay-awake-or-you'll-spill-it-and-burn-yourself tea. It involves the very fine line between protected free speech and criminal, dangerous speech.

It involves a young man whose car gets towed from the college that he attends, and in the process of towing his car someone found a note inside which read:

If this account doesn't reach 50,000 in the next seven days 
then a murderous rampage similar to the VT shootings 
will occur at another highly populated university 
This is no joke

He claims they are rap lyrics, authorities thought otherwise, compounded with the fact that he is in posession of a gun and is also in the process of buying other ones on the internet, and promptly arrested him. The question is, should he have been? Was his freedom of speech violated?

First of all I wrote the "lyrics" down in order to confirm my initial suspicion: they don't rhyme (except maybe "days" and "rampage", but it's a stretch). Rapping without rhyming is, well, talking. Also I resent Jayar saying that they look just like Eminem lyrics, you may not like his music but he happens to be a master at rhyming.

Anyway, I have to disagree with the hosts a bit more on their opinion of this. Of course the man's attorney is trying to get the case thrown out because the note was not directed at a specific target, it did not outline or detail a plan of any kind, therefore it still classifies as protected speech. After a little thought I think I agree with his lawyer.

Ana argues that they should continue to investigate this man because there is the possibility that the note was, as it stated, "not a joke". However, you do not need to keep someone under arrest in order to investigate them. I think that the police should have investigated further before arresting him, since if a good judge realizes that they had no grounds for arresting him in the first place they will throw the whole case out and it could hurt their chances of prosecuting him in the future, if he turns out to be a criminal (also I think that if anything should be illegal in this case it should be to buy numerous weapons online, but in the US it is not and so that is a story for another day).

Despite the fact that, when I first heard the story I thought ARREST HIM!, I realized later that upon further reflection I don't agree with that gut reaction at all. Sometimes the fine lines that are drawn in the law seem arbitrary, but they really help when it comes down to making borderline decisions such as this one. If he did not break any laws they have no right to keep him under arrest. They can investigate him and see if they can find something that would give them the right to do so, they could question him to see if he is obviously unstable, but they can't arrest him for not breaking the law (is it even legal for them to be going through his things in his car and reading his notes when they were just towing it? Do let me know).

Initially I thought it was probably something he was going to post on his youtube channel or social media page, as in if I don't get 50,000 subscribers or 50,000 likes or 50,000 hits or whatever then I will do blablabla. Whether or not he would ever follow through with such a threat I can't have the faintest idea. The point is that I don't think he should have been arrested for it, nor do I think they should even be considering bringing him to trial for writing some words on a sheet of paper.

What are your thoughts on the matter?