When the Slippery Slope Argument Has Merit

When you find yourself debating with someone that fundamentally disagrees with your reasoning, there are often many arguments one can use that will get you a lot of pushback. When it comes to logical fallacies this pushback is very well deserved, they are in fact fallacies and thus should not be used to bolster any claim one has. Barring those, however, one argument that I noticed which gets a disproportionate amount of heat is the "slippery slope" argument, to the point in which it too is often labelled a fallacy.

The slippery slope argument is a very simple one which I am sure we have all heard at some point. If we allow for gay marriage what's next?! Marriage between a child and a man?! Marriage between a horse and a woman?! It is MADNESS! It is a slippery slope which should not be ventured down to begin with! While I have chosen a very pedantic example which might lead you to consider it a fallacy, there is more nuance to the argument than that.

In online discussions I have noticed that there are two very large groups of people: the fans of the slippery slope, who will pull it out at any time if for a note of caution than for a real prediction of the future, and those who hate the slippery slope, who think that by simply labeling something as a slippery slope automatically invalidates the other person's objection to whatever topic is in discussion. While I tend to err on the side of not using the slippery slope argument, I do not think that it is entirely without merit.

In many cases, the argument is completely bogus. How does, for example, allowing two consenting adults of unspecified gender to enter into a contractual agreement in any way open the gate to a contract between an adult and someone, or something, which is unable to consent? It is absolutely ridiculous. There are also other, more insidious uses of the argument as well. For instance, there is the very popular opposition to changing the language of what it means to consent from "not saying no" to "agreeing (verbally or non-verbally) to engage in various acts, which can be withdrawn at any time". Many people (I'm looking at you too, Cenk) love to make sure that everyone knows that they would be totally against it if it somehow devolved into having to sign a legally binding contract, signed and witnessed, every time you want to touch a boob or make out. It is ludicrous, it is hyperbolic, and mentioning that you are against such an inflated and unrealistic potential scenario down the line every time consent and rape comes up in the discussion detracts from the point that rape culture is a serious societal problem. All of these cases lead me to want to reject the slippery slope argument whole-cloth as a logical fallacy, but certain events have made me hesitant to do so.

 

The slippery slope argument does hold merit under some circumstances, and that is when we talk about legal precedent. When a legal ruling is made, which does in fact open the door to taking things further to an absurd end, I feel that criticizing such a ruling on the grounds that it could lead to a slippery slope is fully justified.

Take, for example, the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision in favor of allowing the Hobby Lobby corporation to not cover certain contraceptives in their health insurance plan for their employees, based on the sincerely held religious belief on the part of its owners that these contraceptives are abortifacients. 

Never mind the fact that their religious belief is in conflict with reality, as there is no scientific evidence that, for example, Plan B blocks implantation, but rather prevents ovulation, therefore the fertilization of the egg never occurs.

Never mind the fact that Hobby Lobby's retirement plan holds 73 million dollars in mutual funds with investment companies which produce actual abortifacients, a detail that did not lead the Supreme Court to find that this was not, therefore a "sincerely held" religious belief of theirs.

Nope. This ruling sets a legal precedent allowing for corporations to subvert US law, so long as such a law comes in conflict with its owner's sincerely held religious belief, regardless of whether or not the belief fits in with reality. Regardless of whether or not the sincerity of their claimed belief could be legittimately called into question given an inherent hypocrisy in the corporation's finances. All you have to do is claim it, and the language of this ruling would allow it.

To point out this is a slippery slope is not a fallacy, it's a fact.

Could a Christian Scientist who employs thousands of people deny them health coverage other than faith healing, because their sincerely held religious belief is that faith healing is the only thing that works, and that any other form of medicine is sinful?

Could an old school Chinese Buddhist only cover acupuncture and alternative herbal Chinese medicine, on the sincerely held religious belief that modern medicine is harmful and wrong?

If there is any language in this ruling that would prevent other such nonsensical religious beliefs from infringing on the rights of the employees the way that Hobby Lobby was allowed to do, please feel free to correct me.

Just because wingnut anti-choicers have been allowed to dominate the airwaves and normalize their opinions on contraception, that doesn't mean that this ruling applies only to them. The law is designed to be blind to popularity, blind to public opinion. The law allows any behaviour that fits within the letter of the law, not based on how many people subscribe to that belief. If someone, a member of an obscure religion from another country, came to the US and started a business, which became a corporation, and then it turned out that this person's sincerely held religious beliefs considered any kind of preventative health care (colonoscopies, breast cancer screenings, pap tests, mole checks, etc) was a sin against their god, this law would permit them to deny that coverage to their employees.

And this, my friends, is a true slippery slope, and it is called legal precedent.

Hang On, What Was That?

First The Atheist Experience, then The Non-Prophets, and now the unfortunately defunct Godless Bitches are keeping me company as I spend 12 hours of my day slaving away in a lab. I'm properly tearing it up with the Atheist Community of Austin these days! I'm definitely donating to them for all of the entertainment they have provided.

 

Well anyway, the Godless Bitches Podcast shows began with snippits of various different songs. I don't usually pay much attention to songs I don't recognize, though I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that one of the songs was a rap song. Suddenly I started picking up the words... what was that? A rapper calling himself a feminist? Rapping about women's rights? Those are few and far between!

 

I immediately went online to try to find the name of the song and artist. Typing in various combinations of the lyrics I finally managed to track it down. Unfortunately it has been removed from YouTube, but once I managed to figure out the names of the rappers I found the song on their website. May I present:

 

"Personhood" by Johnny Hoax and Uncle Bungus

 

The guy doing the second verse isn't quite as good as the first one, but that isn't really the point of this story. The extremely ironic thing is that the only way I managed to find this site was through a blogpost of an anti-choice writer, defining her self an "abolitionist" who decided to dedicate an entire post to quoting bits of the song and bitching about it.

 

I was going to return the favor and quote bits of the post so that we could all have a good laugh about it, but it was such a mess of garbled idiocy that it was just too much effort and too much pain from the constant facepalming to unpack it all. Well, maybe just one little quote, so you get the idea:

 

 

"Why not just complain that no one should tell anyone else what they can do with any part of their body?
I'll tell you why - this would mean that proscribing rape and the Holocaust and might-makes-right "morality" is impossible."

 

If you think you have the stomach for it, you can find the whole post here.

 



 

 

This Gave Even Me Pause

The other day, I stumbled upon a quick graphic that PZ Myers had made and put up on Pharyngula. Now I consider myself to be fairly educated with regards to women's issues, I talk about it quite frequently and even have been accused of exaggeration, people telling me the situation is really not as bad as I make it out to me. And yet, even I was shocked at this one

That is unbelievable.

Now when I look at this graphic, my mind automatically goes to how my statistically impaired friends would attempt to tear this apart.

The first point of contention being: Yea well, there were women killed in 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan too! So the graphic is even more skewed than this! But that's not really the point, because they were not killed for simply being women. But then that's not fair either, because the women killed by their partners were not necessarily killed for being women, although the fact that they were women definitely was the largest indirect reason for their murder. 

The point of this graphic is the national conversation. 9/11 was a tragedy, and we are reminded of how tragic it was constantly, how many American lives were lost, how devastating it was. We are constantly talking about supporting the troops, and how it is insanity to be losing so many American lives overseas in such a pointless war.

And yet, when is women being killed by their partners ever made a big deal? When is the national day of remembering them? How many discussions about that are had on television? Where are the sorrowful television specials dedicated to so many more American lives lost? 

Another Awesome Lady

I'm back from my little holiday everyone, even though I didn't get to leave the country I still managed to have a fabulous time to make up for my incredibly shitty birthday, hooray for belated birthday celebrations! Since I am still in a good mood, I want to open up November with another female boss. Today we meet Tracey Spicer, an Australian newscaster, who had this awesome dose of snark to dole out to the oh-so-deserving. I'm sure you know that I am quite partial to snark myself, and this lady has just wiped the floor with the targets of her ire:


DEAR Mr Misogynist,

I'd like to thank you for everything you've taught me over the past 25 years.

Why, I had no idea I was so fat, ugly and stupid. I thought being a size 12 was perfectly acceptable.

But when you yelled across the newsroom, ''I want two inches off your hair and two inches off your arse'', suddenly, a light went on.

Of course! The size of my posterior is directly related to the content and credibility of the stories I'm reporting on for this network. Silly me. You're right. I'll never make it as a TV journalist.

Those wise words of yours from 1986 are still ringing in my ears: ''That's why you don't see blonde newsreaders,'' you explained patiently. ''People don't take them seriously.''

It reminded me of another sage piece of advice, from a radio boss during a job interview some years ago.

He put it simply yet eloquently: ''There's a reason why you don't hear women on commercial talkback radio,'' he said. ''No one wants to hear the whiny sound of a female voice. Us blokes get enough nagging at home!''

Really, in retrospect, it was foolish to think I was worthy of such a role.

Like all women, I only have two areas of specialisation: shoes and handbags. We all know high heels are a patriarchal construct to disempower us by constricting movement. (Oh dear. Must stop having thoughts like that. Sorry, I have no idea where that came from.)

Anyway, through some quirk of fate, I managed to land a newsreading job.
I know what you're thinking. I finally decided to speak into that flesh-coloured microphone you were always pointing in my direction.

Oddly enough, I was offered the job by a woman. Who would have thought? Initially, I was wary. You always said you'd never work for a female boss because, ''You can't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die''.

Hilarious! It's a good thing I was wearing a corset or my sides would have split.

Fortunately, there were enough blokes around to keep me on the straight and narrow.

On my first night, the station manager came down and said, ''You need to stick your tits out more''. Once again, my brain wasn't working properly.

In between the raging bushfires, the political crises and savage cuts to welfare, I'd forgotten to flirt with the camera.

A couple of years later - I'm ashamed to say this - I ''porked up'', according to one of the producers.

My new boss quickly raced out and arranged sponsorship from the local gym.

Frankly, I was unsightly. I stood out like a bull in a china shop, around those fragile lollipop ladies with their skinny bodies and massive heads.

Speaking of heads, I got a nasty shock when I looked in the mirror one day. Wrinkles around my eyes and on my forehead. Too much thinking? Surely not.

I remember you reviewing a video tape of one of my colleagues - clever girl, Walkley Award winner as I recall - and saying, ''The problems seem to be here and here,'' pointing to her ghastly crow's feet.

As it turns out, wrinkles were the least of my worries. I'd gotten myself knocked up.

I wanted to go back to work when bubby was three months old but, once again, it took a man to show me the error of my ways.

''Women should be at home with their children,'' my news director said. ''Or the fabric of society will be rent asunder.

''Anyway Trace. You're getting a bit long in the tooth. Why don't you give some of the younger girls an opportunity?''

Suddenly, all the lights went on. And it was so bright - it made your light look like a limp insipid flicker.

This is difficult for me to put into words but if I had to, it would sound a bit like this: F--- you.

F--- you, you misogynist bully with your archaic beliefs, intellect of a pygmy, and tiny dick.

The reason I am writing this letter is to thank you.

Among others - too many to mention - you lit a fire in my belly that's become an inferno and these days, I don't cop shit from anyone. When I was sacked by email after the birth of my second baby, I fought the lot of them.

I do hope you receive this correspondence. I had trouble finding a forwarding address after you lost your house due to that unfortunate sexual harassment case.

(I'm sure the bitch was asking for it.)

Yours in emancipation,
Tracey.

What has gotten into Australian women these days? Whatever it is, I approve.

I Didn't Know Ellen Was Funny

Well, I had heard she was funny, but I guess the clothes and the extremely vanilla set-up of her show made me think she was one of those generic American talk-show hosts that I wouldn't enjoy very much. I mean people absolutely adored Oprah and still rave about the View but shmieh, not something that entertains me all that much. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Ellen is actually for realz funny!

Gotzta get me some of those woman pens. Well, I really type more than I write nowadays.... oh crap! Am I using a MAN keyboard??!!! Quick! Grab the pink paint and glitter!

And Today's Boss Is...

First it was the Irish Prime Minister, now it's the Australian Prime Minister.... I'm getting jealous! When are we going to get a politician that is half as cool?

Who said a boss can't be a woman? No one, this woman is a fucking badass. I tip my hat to you Madam Prime Minister, you rock.

Wait, WHAT?!

Ah good old Italian pessimism. I was sure that I had done my very best to purge you from my system, but alas a sliver of you seems always to lurk in my subconscience. Yes, I defend Italy a whole Hell of a lot, far far more than my fellow citizens do, and yet that ItalianPessimism^TM still caused me to entirely miss the point of this rather good article about gender inequality around the world, and how it is not related to the presence or absence of a democracy.

It details a very interesting study, and goes on to make some inferences relating to war and global violence based on those studies, but all I saw what this graphic representation of the physical security of women worldwide.

Wait, WHAT?! Can you spot what made my eyes pop out of my head?

Italy is amongst the highest scoring countries in the world? Really? REALLY?! I went back to the article, and it seems as though they also included things like women's political participation. Once again, WHAT? ITALY? Are you serious?! (One of?) The only country(ies?) in Europe that has never had a female President or Prime Minister? Where boys clubs are everywhere from politics to medicine to physics to, well, everywhere? Italy scored better than the US? Canada? Ireland? Fucking Finland??!!

Where the whole "maybe you shouldn't have dressed like a slut" is a counter-argument to rape that I hear often? Where I constantly hear that rape is underreported because that other boys club, the cops, are notorious for ridiculing vitctims? Really?! ITALY is one of the safest countries on the planet for women??!! Seriously, I have gone back to that graph ten times already, absolutely sure that I must have read it wrong.

Wow. Yet instead of being impressed, that makes me extremely depressed for the rest of the world. If what we got is some kind of golden standard, how bad is it elsewhere? And not only in countries scoring in the dark green, I am fully aware it is terrible in places like Saudi Arabia, Uganda and India. But Canada, Australia, Germany, what gives?! 

So you tell me, is it that Italian Pessimism that doesn't allow me to feel good about how safe women are in my country with respect to the world? Or is it really that, if this is the best there is, the global situation is far, far more dire than I could have imagined?

Welcome To October!

Interesting that the photo for October, the month of my birthday, from the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar also happens to be my favorite. FEMEN activists are pretty awesome in themselves, and this photo definitely lives up to their fame.

So as I stare a quarter of a century dead in the face, instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for myself that I was brought up to care about birthdays and that I moved to a part of the world where they mean next to nothing for anyone above the age of 12, I'll draw inspiration from this calendar, and I'll know that there are far more important things to care about in this world.

I hope they make another one next year, the photography is excellent and the cause is almost as worth it as the message it sends.

Says It All

I'm thinking of making "Says It All" a recurring theme here, especially if I'm going to be coming across any more of this awesomness

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The Danger Of Legislating On What Ifs

This is a fairly common argument that I hear against abortion. It usually goes something like this: A girl is walking along the street/in a dark room alone with her uncle/drunk and underage at a party and is raped, and as a result she gets pregnant. Well, would you allow her to get an abortion in such circumstances? Even some pro-life people falter and say yes, in such a case I would not prohibit her from getting an abortion. Punchline: well, if that girl had gotten that abortion, I would not be here today. OH MY GOD cheers all round what a twist how fascinating what if she had really had that abortion?! 

Let me counter that with a what if of my own. I know someone whose mother not only wanted to ternimate her pregnancy while pregant with him, she actually had an (albeit illegal and makeshift) abortion, and yet he survived. She took it as a sign and had him, and did not regret it. That person is my boyfriend. The man I believe to be the love of my life, someone that I don't know how I would live without, would not be here if that abortion had been successful. I should be the first to decry it and say it should never be allowed, right? Ehm no. Wrong.

While making for good rhetoric and appealing to human emotion, there are dangers to using a "what if" mentality when passing laws. What if I had crossed the street without looking five minutes earlier when that car came tearing around the corner? It is illegal to cross the street without looking! While we're at it, no more corners on roads!

What if my boyfriend's mother and father had not had sex in that exact instant to make up the unique genetic combination that is my boyfriend? What if, at that moment, his mother decided she was too tired or just didn't feel like it, and therefore he ceased to be? OH NOES that's it, it is illegal for a woman to sexually refuse her husband, because how many other lives that am I emotionally attached to would not be here if women could choose when to have sex?

Living in the past with a what if mentality is not healthy, and using it in rhetoric to tug people's heartstrings is just plain dishonest. Life is made up of endless little decisions to make and directions to take, you can never know how many infinite number of ulterior possibile realities could have come about by taking any one of those different paths, nor can you know if any of them would have been better or worse. The smugness of hindsight is not something I want to use when restricting a person's freedom.

So if you ever hear this line of reasoning in the abortion debate call it out for what it really is, an emotional appeal to cover up the utter lack of logic it possesses as an argument

Adieu Poor Laptop

I tried to turn on my computer the other day, and it decided to take an unauthorized vacation on me. The screen turns on, tries for about 5-10 minutes to load, and then the blue screen of death comes up and says "Me cant doez it! Restart or try uninstalling new software!" I haven't installed anything for the last 6 months, so I'm screwed.

I'm now taking it home to leave it with someone that might be able to breathe new life into my poor old computer, but until then my ability to update will be patchy at best, since I don't always have time to do so at work.

So, don't miss me too much! and here, have a video

The Fear of Street Harassment

I just got home from a very late night in the lab, after having myself quite a scare. 

At around 10pm I finally managed to finish up my work, after a stupid experiment was refusing to go as planned, and exited the main building of the Biology Department into the fenced area where my bike was locked up. Through the chicken wire fence a group of six men on bikes spot me, and one of them comes closer to the fence to whistle at me. The first and only thought to enter my head: Shit

Something you have to understand about where I work is that it is in an area that is only populated during the day, surrounded on three sides by office buildings and banks, on the fourth by a canal and pedestrian walkway. It is because of this that it is a notorious area for drug dealers at night, which in this part of Italy consist largely of North Africans, infamous for their distaste of women. There has been more than one woman beaten, raped or violently mugged on these streets immediately surrounding this building either at night or on Sunday, when no one is around.

My brain immediately went into survival mode. I can't go back inside, like hell I'm sleeping in the lab tonight. I can't call anyone, everyone I know well enough to have their number is on holiday. I stand no chance if they intend to chase me and catch me, I might have a shot if there was just one or two of them, but six? My chances plummet to zero. I can loop around the back, exiting the side gate, which would give me enough of a head start to either (a) not be seen by them or (b) having a good enough chance to out-bike them to the nearest street with the highest possibility of traffic and make my way home from there. So that's what I decide to do, and as I leave I see in the distance a few people walking back up along the canal. Phew, people! And that's when I remember: the kiosks. There's kiosks set up along the canal for the summer that are open all night. They must be full of people, I'm safe. Those men that freaked me out were probably just pumped about going out for a night on the town, not spotting and pointing a possible target. Crisis averted. And then I started to get angry.

Those men probably have no idea the sheer panic that they put me through. They were at best blissfully oblivious at worst wholly indifferent, and all for what exactly? What do men expect women to do when they whistle, make kissing noises or vulgar gestures? Am I supposed to swoon in delight, run after your car or bicycle and beg you to take me home with you? Am I supposed to be impressed or flattered by this cowardly gesture of vulgarity after which you run away lest you have to confront the inevitable rejection? Are you just trying to make me uncomfortable in my own skin as a way of dealing with your own sense of inadequacy? For what fucking reason do you justify putting women in this position day after day after day?

I used to get a little annoyed with the direction the conversation of street harassment inevitably took: that women never know if the person harassing them means them harm and having to live with the insecurity of their physical inferiority. I thought and still think that it is justifiable in such a small portion of cases of harassment to be condescending that it is constantly brought up. No, I don't think that the construction worker that whistles and licks his lips at me as I walk to work is going to hop over the rail and rape me in broad daylight in front of all his coworkers, and if there are women who are afraid every single time a man makes a rude gesture their way they have their own problems and do not represent the majority. Street harassment is annoying and represents a cultural acceptance of the lack of respect and value that women still have in our society, first and foremost, the "fear factor" is a very distant runner up.

However, after what happened tonight (as well as what happened to me once in college, walking the far more dangerous streets of Dublin one night, having to defuse a potentially devastating situation in which a car full of five obviously high guys were aggressively trying to convince me to get in the car with them to go to a party), I realize that the fear that street harassment can inspire in women, while not being the central problem, is still one that is important to discuss.

The end point is this: at best, harassing a stranger in the street will make them feel annoyed and angry, as well as a little uncomfortable. At worst, it can cause them to panic and fear for their safety or lives. Considering all of this, what reasons do you have for harassing people on the street? Do you think it's just harmless fun, a dare amongst your friends? Are your reasons for doing this worth what you are putting them through?

Or perhaps are your reasons for doing these things precisely to passive aggressively cause these emotions in women? If so I have to ask, why?

What the fuck is your problem?

Says It All

A little cartoon that perfectly describes my sentiments on the matter.

 

In Italy it is most certainly not illegal to sunbathe topless (quit drooling boys, it's mostly old women who do it) but regardless there is of course still a huge difference in how areolas are perceived, depending on the person's gender.

People, grow up and get over it.

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?

We Need To Add Some Extra Humanity

I'm still in the throes of those crazy deadlines I was telling you about, but I managed to squeeze in a little time to watch this video and felt I needed to share it.

While it specifically addresses a case of extreme misogyny in the online gaming community, it is more widely applicable as good advice to all men on how to respond when encountered with extreme sexism.

I know many guys that may see it and may even acknowledge it, but they'll never actually say anything about it. It's a "that's not really my problem" attitude, overlying a more deeply engrained sometimes unconscious "bros before hos" mentality. Grow up friends, time to overcompensate with your humanity

Ill Doctrine: All These Sexist Gamer Dudes Are Some Shook Ones from ANIMALNewYork.com on Vimeo.

Tough Questions: Would You Be OK With Your Child In Porn?

Don’t even ask me how this topic happened to pop into my head, it is a (fun? defective?) part of my personality to run with a topic in my head and not let it go until I follow it to its logical conclusion, and is one of the main reasons that I started this blog. It happens when there is an apparent conflict in my head, and as soon as I spot one it needs to be resolved.

The premise is this: I am one of those feminists that believes women should not be demonized because they want to take naked pictures or go into porn. Some women are exhibitionists by nature, they love it and their thoughts and opinions should not be judged differently because of it, any more than you should judge a woman stupid just because she’s blonde or a black man uneducated because of his accent. Yes it is true that there is some very misogynistic, violent and disgusting porn out there done by actresses that are drugged or have serious emotional problems, but that is an entirely different issue and certainly does not represent the entire sex industry. You can fight exploitative porn without thinking that porn itself is harmful or misogynistic in itself, and I am one of those people. When I hear stories of women getting fired because they did porn once or enjoy burlesque dancing

it sickens me.

This position being firmly held in my mind, I realized that the contradiction came up when I realized that if a close family member like my mother or my daughter came to me and told me that they were thinking of doing porn, I would have a problem with it. Well why is that? If I truly believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with doing porn, why would I not want someone I care about to do it? I should support them, not try to convince them not to, unless there is still a part of me that is actually not OK with the sex industry. So, where does the problem lie?

I suppose that it comes from the idea that I would rather my daughter, my best friend or whatever would have more opportunities at her disposal. I would want my daughter to be educated, have a job in which her mind is valued, not her body. I would never want my daughter to have to “resort” to porn, or stripping, because she feels there are no other options. I don’t want my loved ones to be objectified, but most importantly I would not want them to have such low self-esteem that they would want to be considered an object, or less important. I would never want them to feel that they don’t deserve better, or (as would be the case for a daughter) to fall into something they don’t really want to do and have to suffer the consequences of those choices later in life.

However, really thinking about it, I realized that when you think of such a situation you automatically assume that those would be the reasons your daughter/mother/best friend would go into the sex industry, and there I am making a huge mistake which is not fair to many. If my daughter really loved the sex industry, if it is something that inspires her and truly makes her happy, I think I would support her. If she goes into it empowered, proud of herself and with no less self-esteem than she would going into any other job, I would be fine with her choice and defend it to anyone who dares tell her she can’t do it. I’m sure I would never actually be able to watch it, that goes a little too far for me, and of course I will have to have a daughter to put this theory to the test, but I hope to be a better person than to ever deny my child the right to choose her own path in life.

What are your thoughts on the subject, on porn itself? What would you think if you’re family wanted to get into porn?

Repost: The Right Not To Know

I've been quite cheery in my post about the Doonsebury comic strip, not touching on how horrific the laws that the comic mocks really are. I guess I didn't really want to think about it, how I would feel in that situation, what I would think if it happened to me. After reading this article I feel like I did it an injustice not to do so, and everyone should read what this woman went through. 

If you think that a group of cells, or a fetus, should have more protections and more rights under the law than a woman, you have a disgustingly offset moral compass. This is not a matter of benign agree-to-disagree opinion, it is a matter of human decency.

We Have No Choice': One Woman's Ordeal with Texas' New Sonogram Law

The painful decision to terminate a pregnancy is now—thanks to Texas' harsh new law—just the beginning of the torment.

by Carolyn Jones 

Published on: Thursday, March 15, 2012 
 
Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that my baby was ill. Profoundly so. My doctor gave us the news kindly, but still, my husband and I weren’t prepared. Just a few minutes earlier, we’d been smiling giddily at fellow expectant parents as we waited for the doctor to see us. In a sonography room smelling faintly of lemongrass, I’d just had gel rubbed on my stomach, just seen blots on the screen become tiny hands. For a brief, exultant moment, we’d seen our son—a brother for our 2-year-old girl.

Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. “I’m worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I want you to see a specialist—now.”
My husband looked angry, and maybe I did too, but it was astonishment more than anger. Ours was a profound disbelief that something so bad might happen to people who think themselves charmed. We already had one healthy child and had expected good fortune to give us two.

Instead, before I’d even known I was pregnant, a molecular flaw had determined that our son’s brain, spine and legs wouldn’t develop correctly. If he were to make it to term—something our doctor couldn’t guarantee—he’d need a lifetime of medical care. From the moment he was born, my doctor told us, our son would suffer greatly.

So, softly, haltingly, my husband asked about termination. The doctor shot me a glance that said: Are you okay to hear this now? I nodded, clenched my fists and focused on the cowboy boots beneath her scrubs.
She started with an apology, saying that despite being responsible for both my baby’s care and my own, she couldn’t take us to the final stop. The hospital with which she’s affiliated is Catholic and doesn’t allow abortion. It felt like a physical blow to hear that word, abortion, in the context of our much-wanted child. Abortion is a topic that never seemed relevant to me; it was something we read about in the news or talked about politically; it always remained at a safe distance. Yet now its ugly fist was hammering on my chest.
My doctor went on to tell us that, just two weeks prior, a new Texas law had come into effect requiring that women wait an extra 24 hours before having the procedure. Moreover, Austin has only one clinic providing second-trimester terminations, and that clinic might have a long wait. “Time is not on your side,” my doctor emphasized gently. For this reason, she urged us to seek a specialist’s second opinion the moment we left her office. “They’re ready for you,” she said, before ushering us out the back door to shield us from the smiling patients in the waiting room.

The specialist confirmed what our doctor had feared and sketched a few diagrams to explain. He hastily drew cells growing askew, quick pen-strokes to show when and where life becomes blighted. How simple, I thought, to just undraw those lines and restore my child to wholeness. But this businesslike man was no magician, and our bleak choices still lay ahead.

Next a genetic counselor explained our options and told us how abortions work. There was that word again, and how jarring and out-of-place it sounded. Weren’t we those practical types who got married in their 30s, bought a house, rescued a dog, then, with sensible timing, had one child followed by another? Weren’t we so predictable that friends forecast our milestones on Facebook? Suddenly something was wrong with our story, because something was wrong with our son. Something so wrong that any choice we made would unyoke us forever from our ordinary life.

Our options were grim. We learned that we could bring our baby into the world, then work hard to palliate his pain, or we could alleviate that pain by choosing to “interrupt” my pregnancy. The surgical procedure our counselor described was horrific, but then so seemed our son’s prospects in life. In those dark moments we had to make a choice, so we picked the one that seemed slightly less cruel. Before that moment, I’d never known how viscerally one might feel dread.

That afternoon, my husband and I drove through a spaghetti of highways, one of which led us to a nondescript building between a Wendy’s and a Brake Check. This was Planned Parenthood’s surgical center, part of the organization constantly in the news thanks to America’s polarizing cultural debates. On that very day, Planned Parenthood’s name was on the cover of newspapers because of a funding controversy with the Susan G. Komen Foundation. These clinics, and the controversial services they provide, are always under scrutiny. The security cameras, the double-doors and the restricted walkways assured us of that fact.

While my husband filled out the paperwork, I sat on a hard chair in the spartan reception area and observed my fellow patients. I was the oldest woman in the waiting room, as well as the only one who was visibly pregnant. The other patients either sat with their mothers or, enigmatically, alone. Together we solemnly marked time, waiting for our turn behind the doors.

Eventually we were called back, not to a consulting room, but to another holding area. There, the staff asked my husband to wait while a counselor spoke to me in private. My husband sat down. Posters above him warned women about signs of domestic abuse.

Meanwhile, I was enclosed with a cheerful-looking counselor who had colored hair and a piercing in her nose. Feeling like someone who’d stumbled into the wrong room, I told her between choked sobs how we’d arrived at her clinic on the highway.

“I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.

My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.

“I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I confess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.
“We have no choice but to comply with the law,” she said, adding that these requirements were not what Planned Parenthood would choose. Then, with a warmth that belied the materials in her hand, she took me through the rules. First, she told me about my rights regarding child support and adoption. Then she gave me information about the state inspection of the clinic. She offered me a pamphlet called A Woman’s Right to Know, saying that it described my baby’s development as well as how the abortion procedure works. She gave me a list of agencies that offer free sonograms, and which, by law, have no affiliation with abortion providers. Finally, after having me sign reams of paper, she led me to the doctor who’d perform the sonography, and later the termination.

The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They too apologized for what they had to do next. For the third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultrasound machine, and we saw images of our sick child forming in blurred outlines on the screen.
“I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.

“Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart...”
I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.

When the description was finally over, the doctor held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read me information provided by the state. It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer. I was reminded that medical benefits may be available for my maternity care and that the baby’s father was liable to provide support, whether he’d agreed to pay for the abortion or not.

Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. That ugly word, to pepper that ugly statement, to embody the futility of all we’d just endured. Futile because we’d already made our heart-breaking decision about our child, and no incursion into our private world could change it.

Finally, my doctor folded the paper and put it away: “When you come back in 24 hours, the legal side is over. Then we’ll care for you and give you the information you need in the way we think is right.”
A day later, we returned to the clinic for the surgery that had us saying goodbye to our son. On top of their medical duties, the nurses also held my hand and wiped my eyes and let me cry like a child in their arms.
Later, in reviewing the state-mandated paperwork I'd signed, I found a statement about women who may opt out of the new sonogram edict. It seemed that minors, victims of rape or incest, and cases in which the baby has an irreversible abnormality might be spared the extra anguish. I asked the Planned Parenthood staff about this and, after conferring privately, they thought that my child’s condition might have exempted me from the new sonogram rules. They apologized for their uncertainty, explaining that the law was so new they’d not had a chance to understand what it means in practice. “Could I have skipped the 24-hour wait, too?” I asked, wondering whether that extra day of distress might have been avoided. “No,” a staffer replied, “the mandatory wait applies to everyone.”

A few weeks later, I decided to clarify this for myself. I asked the Department of State Health Services, the agency responsible for implementing the sonogram law, who exactly is exempt. The department responded by email: “A woman would still be subject to the sonogram but would not be required to hear an explanation of the sonogram images if she certifies in writing that her fetus has an irreversible medical condition as identified by a reliable diagnostic procedure and documented in her medical file.” Based on this reply, it seems that the torturous description I'd borne was just a clerical mistake.

However, in looking through the paperwork I signed for Planned Parenthood, I noticed that the Department of State Health Services had issued technical guidelines four days after I'd been at the clinic. So for three weeks, abortion providers in Texas had been required to follow the sonogram law but had not been given any official instructions on how to implement it. Again, I asked the agency about this, and a spokesman replied as follows: “No specific guidance was issued during that time, but clinics were welcome to ask questions or seek guidance from their legal counsel if there were concerns.”

My experience, it seems, was a byproduct of complex laws being thrown into the tangled world of abortion politics. If I'd been there two weeks earlier or even a week later, I might have avoided the full brunt of this new law’s effect. But not so for those other young women I saw in Planned Parenthood’s waiting room. Unless they fall into one of those exemption categories—the conditions under which the state has deemed that some women’s reasons for having an abortion are morally acceptable—then they'll have politicians muscling in on their private decisions. But what good is the view of someone who has never had to make your terrible choice? What good is a law that adds only pain and difficulty to perhaps the most painful and difficult decision a woman can make? Shouldn’t women have a right to protect themselves from strangers’ opinions on their most personal matters? Shouldn’t we have the right not to know?

The Streisand Effect Strikes Again

The Doonesbury cartoon this week hit the nail on the head when it comes to the all-out war on womens' reproductive rights that is being waged in the US at the moment, so of course there were many newspapers that refused to run it. Their various reasons (excuses? maybe some) can be found here, but all in all I think they did us all a favor. Honestly, how many of us would even be aware of a Doonesbury cartoon if it hadn't sparked so much controversy? Ah beloved internet, we love you so.

So here it is: the controversial newspaper comic strip

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

I will update this post as the new strips are released.

Wow, comic strips have gotten serious. What's next, will Garfield get diabetes? 

Me? A Woman? HOW DARE YOU?!

OK so it’s time for a little rant, as this has been bugging me for a while now and I figured Id get it out of my head as best I can. First, a little back story.

A few days ago I was chatting on fb with a friend of mine, whom I talk to on a regular basis despite the fact he lives in the US. Now we take little digs at each other, constantly, it’s just what we do, and so when he told me he was watching a tv show I had never heard of I automatically said that if he loves it, then it must be corny (the fact that he loves corny tv shows is a well known fact, two of his favourites being Gilmore girls and the OC). I thought he’d giggle and tell me what it was about, instead he got extremely defensive and very, very pissy with me. This being a completely unexpected reaction, I made a period joke, as the comparison to PMS seemed very applicable, i.e. the getting overly emotional and angry at something that is actually innocuous and realizing, a few days later, that you totally overreacted. I said

Jesus [friend] what are you manstruating today or something? (…)  in a couple of days you wont even know why you were this upset. hormones will do that to your head. i know its frustrating,  but it does stop

Wow, he got really, really mad. Before signing off, he said

trust me, when I have problems to fix the LAST thing I need is to be told I'm not a man

Well I let that go then, I figured it was the wrong time to tell him he was pissing me off ever so slightly when he was obviously actually mad about something else that I knew nothing about. So I didn’t bring it up, until he contacts me the other day, and I ask him if he’s over it. Apparently not, because he gets pissed at me again for bringing it up

if I'm not talking about it then its obviously not something that needs to be brought up

there's just certain things you cant touch. That’s all I’m saying

it wasnt necessarily the things you said, because I allow people to do it and my humor is so self deprecating, people never know that there's a point where they need to just not. So I really have to make it a point now. When im dealing with something the last thing I need is something of the immasculating variety.

Now I’m pissed.

Look, I get he was actually pissed about something else, and hence got overly defensive about something as asinine as his taste in TV shows, but what bothered me was how angry he got at being compared to a woman (when that was not the nature of the friendly insult at all, the nature was comparing his overly-sensitive behaviour to that of a person in the throes of fluctuating hormones). Being a woman is such a terrible fucking thing, isn’t it?! The LAST thing ANYONE needs when they’re worried about something is have someone suggest they were born without a penis! Can’t you see how that is the HEIGHT of self-deprecating humour?

I can hear the girls telling me that I’m exaggerating. Yes, it is common for men to feel that being called a “girl” is the absolute worst thing they could be called (except maybe being called “gay”), but my question is why? Why the fuck is it so acceptable?

Try, for just a second, to change up the roles for one second. Imagine you’re teasing me about my taste in music, and good-naturedly tell me that I might as well have been born in Compton because all of my favourite artists come from there. Say you take it further and say I should get big rims for my car or some other rapper-stereotype in your jibe my way. Then imagine I flip at you, and say

“trust me, when I have problems to fix the LAST thing I need is to be told that I’m not white”

Or

“I get my humour is self-deprecating and all that, and usually that’s fine, but when I’m dealing with something I just really don’t need that. You have to understand how telling me I’m black in that moment would get under my skin. It’s not what you said, I just didn’t need that right then”.

Wow, sounds unbelievably racist, offensive and all-round shitty when rephrased like that, doesn’t it? See how I took something about music and hip-hop, and turned it into something about race? 

Remember that fifty years ago being compared to a black person was a relatively acceptable insult to use. It was telling someone they’re lazy and uneducated, but nowadays public opinion has shifted enormously away from that mental image, and being insulted by someone suggesting you are black has definitely been restricted to a minority.

Now I hear the voices saying “but no, that’s different”. Well, is it? Why is it different? 

Why is being offended by the undertone of disgust with being compared to my gender different from being offended by the undertone of disgust with being compared to my race?