Sara Butler (who nowadays blogs at the Family Scholars Blog) criticizes a Washington Post article about intimate violence:

Sara seems to be saying that in order to help “women avoid becoming victims of domestic violence,” we should publicize that “most domestic violence happens in households where the couple is not married.” That’s oversimplifying matters.

It’s true that live-in boyfriends are statistically more likely to abuse their partners than husbands are. However, the differences between the two are often exaggerated - many Christian websites claim that live-in boyfriends are 60 times as likely as husbands to commit intimate violence, which is ridiculous.

Responsible studies have found that live-in boyfriends are about twice as likely as husbands to commit intimate violence, and even this might be an overstatement. Most of the relevant studies in this area have a sample size of fewer than 50 cohabitating couples, which would make it easy for the frequency of abuse to be overestimated. Significantly, the one study I know of to use a solid sample size of over a thousand cohabiting couples (”Understanding Male Partner Violence Against Cohabiting and Married Women” in Journal of Family Violence Dec 2002 - pdf file) found that boyfriends are about 11% more likely to be abusers than husbands - a significant difference, but not as enormous a difference as some folks suggest.

It’s also important that we not mix up causation and correlation. Just because husbands are less likely to abuse, doesn’t mean that a woman is less likely to be abused if she marries Bob rather than just moving in with Bob. Marriage itself probably doesn’t provide any protection against abuse.

When the previously-mentioned study took into account non-marriage factors such as age (the average cohabitor is 32, the average married person 44), boyfriends were no longer more likely to be abusers than husbands.

One of the non-marriage factors that made a large difference is if either the woman or the man had a violent father. Women are apparently less likely to marry men who they believe had violent fathers; and also less likely to get married themselves if their own father was violent.

There are other factors to be considered. It’s possible, for example, that women who are married have more invested in the relationship than women who are cohabiting, and are therefore less willing to admit problems (such as abuse) to an interviewer. It also seems possible that abusive boyfriends are simply less likely to get married, because some proportion of women actively avoid marrying men they suspect might be abusive (but might be willing to do a “try-out” live-in relationship).

Perhaps the oddest finding is that it makes a difference - even after accounting for non-marriage factors like age and abusive fathers - if the woman has ever cohabited with a man other than her husband. Husbands of women who cohabited with other men before the marriage are more likely abusers than either live-in boyfriends or than the husbands of women who have never cohabited. (I suspect this could indicate some sort of jelousy or possessiveness.)

In any case, to help women “avoid becoming victims of domestic violence,” I don’t think it’s useful to tell them to avoid live-in boyfriends and shack up only with husbands. What seems more important, from the research I’ve read, is to look at how one’s potential partner managers anger; how egalitarian they are; if they drink to unhealthy extremes; if there’s a problematic age difference; if they (or you) have unresolved issues with an abusive father, if they’re controlling; and so forth. (Not living in or marrying until one is older is good advice, as well.) A wedding ring won’t make an abuser decent; and lack of a wedding ring won’t make a decent guy abusive.

(Thanks to Bean for suggestions she made regarding this post.)

UPDATE: Amanda at Mouse Words comments.
Read the rest of this entry »

I thought this was interesting enough to be worth quoting. From “Globalization and Violence Against Women,” by Lorraine Radford and Kaname Tsutsumi, in Women’s Studies International Forum (Jan 2004).

As an Illinois resident, I am having way too fun watching former Ambassador turned social conservative radio talk show host Alan Keyes run for Senate. First, he explained why it’s ok to run for Senate as an invited carpetbagger who is not nominated during a primary, while it’s not ok to runs as an uninvited carpetbagger who is nominated during a state primary. Next, he flipped on slave reparations (if you can call his change of view a real reversal.) Then, while at the very agriculturally oriented Illinois State Fair, Keyes announced “he no longer favors abolishing the U.S. Agriculture Department”. (See abc news. )

Now, for Keyes on gun control! Of course, every politician has a right to take a position, but let’s just say Keyes’s rhetoric cannot be called subtle. The Chicago Sun Times reports:

Well, Alan, I don’t know about the reporter, but, I have never been to Israel. I’ll take your word that I wouldn’t feel less safe because of the Uzis.

But Alan is not content to raise the specter of Uzis when advocating machine gun ownership in the US. What we are we to think when Keyes says things like this:

True. Permitting people to carry machine guns is not like letting them carry atom bombs.

Evidently, Keyes volunteered the “machine guns are not atom bombs” argument at a press conference he called to attack Obama as an extremist.

It must be rhetoric like this that garnered him enthusiastic words from Illinois State GOP Chairwoman Judy Barr Topinka. When questioned whether she would vote for Obama or Keyes, The Chicago Sun Times reported she answered:

But, I’m forgetting; Barr Topinka said that five days before the atom bomb reference.

With rhetoric like this, I suspect we can all understand why I hope Keyes will continue to focus on gun control . There is evidence he will begin to discuss same sex marriage.

Via the New York Times (thanks to Alas reader NancyP for the link). The text in italics indicates a passage that was added at the last minute at the insistence of religious conservatives.

What I find most interesting is this sentence: “We further believe that legal recognition and the accompanying benefits afforded couples should be preserved for that unique and special union of one man and one woman which has historically been called marriage.” This seems to indicate that the Republican platform opposes not only same-sex marriage, but all legal recognitions of same-sex relationships, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. Yet somehow, I suspect few if any of the “I oppose gay marriage, but favor civil unions” people will say much in opposition to this platform.

UPDATE: The Log Cabin Republicans agree with my interpretation of the GOP platform. Via CultureWatch.

Feministing, quoting from the Ithaca Journal, reports that “the U.S. Department of Labor has recently ruled that programs which fall under Displaced Homemaker Services cannot use federal funds help unwed single moms.” From the Ithaca Journal:

This represents a significant change from how the federal government has defined “displaced homemaker” in the past. Typically, the government has defined the term like this (this particular example comes from a Federal Office of Technology Assessment report on displaced homemakers):

So what effect will this change have?

Well, in Ithaca, over 50% of current beneficiaries were cut out of receiving federal aid. According to Margaret King of the Everywoman Opportunity Center in New York (Buffalo News, February 12 2004), over 20,000 women in New York State were beneficiaries of displaced homemaker programs. If Ithaca is representative, then over 10,000 women have been harmed by the Bush Administration’s decision in New York State alone.

I suspect this is an example of what happens when ivy-tower “marriage movement” philosophies collides with real-world compassionless conservatism. The result is punitive measures taken towards women who were not “correctly” married - regardless of real need.

POSTSCRIPT: A cover-my-behind disclaimer: I haven’t seen this story reported anywhere but in the Ithaca Journal. Most likely that’s because the mainstream press doesn’t consider this sort of technical change news, but it’s possible the Journal’s story is off-base, and if it is then so is this post.

• New to the blogroll: The Secret of This Girl, an enjoyable blog by a british feminist.

• Speaking of the blogroll, I’ve cleaned it up a bit and made many changes in the past several days (deleting dead blogs, adding new blogs, reoganizing a bit). Also, check out the new “partial birth abortion” catagory, containing loads of “Alas” PBA-related posts in a single link.
• An interesting essay in “Brain, Child: The magazine for thinking mothers” asks if there is any common interest that all mothers can be said to share. Via Arts and Letters Daily.
• Biz Femmes Speak! review of “The Corporation” the movie, comparing the recent documentary film to the book it’s based on. According to Biz Femmes, the book argues that our legal system is structured in such a way that makes corporate evil-doing inevitable; the movie, which (according to the reviewer) takes a more simplistic “corporations do evil things” approach, sounds less interesting.
• Atrios points out that Sheri Drew, the women the Republcan party chose to deliver the opening invocation at their convention, has compared supporting same-sex marriage to supporting Hitler. No, really.
• Interesting New Yorker character study about someone who gave away millions of dollars to charity - and then, feeling he hadn’t done enough, decided to give away a kidney. Via wrongheaded.
• Ms Musings reports on MIT’s first female president - and on women, Title IX and sciences generally.
• Astarte of XX pulls a lot of US goverment data together for a fabulous post on Pay Equity and Social Constructs. Well worth reading for anyone interested in the pay gap issue.
• Also on XX, Trish Wilson points out that - contrary to what what marriage movement scholars like Elizabeth Marquardt often suggest - fatherlessness isn’t as horrifying as it’s been cracked up to be.
• Unfutz once again has a weekly report of what the electoral college prognostigators are saying. It’s a good week for Bush, who is still behind but is making solid gains in the polls. I predict he’ll pull ahead next week, courtesy of an adoring media and the post-convention bounce.

There are a large number of interesting stories related to SSM in the news pipeline this week, many of which might be characterized as pending or continuuing stories, rather than dramatic conclusions. I’m grouping the cases into three categories for convenience. Here they are:

Court cases challenging ballot initiatives.
Because state are currently certifying ballots, there are a large number of these cases.

Arkansas: Friday, the Arkansas Supreme Court agreed to hear a Arkansas American Civil Liberties Union challenge to a proposed anti-marriage equality amendment.

Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 23. For additional information, visit 365Gay.com.

Connecticut: The New York Times reports a gay rights group filed a suit to legalize same sex marriage in Connecticut.

Louisiana: The final decision on whether or not the anti-marriage amendment will appear on the Sept. 18 ballot is still pending. There are at least three cases. The two most widely reported cases relate to these issues: 1) Is Sept. 18 a statewide election? 2) Does the amendment have multiple objects. (That is, does it simply ban same sex marriage, or does it do other things as well?) Opponents of the amendment also wish to remove State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Victory from cases as they reach the Supreme Court; this judge is said to have campaigned for office based on opposition to same sex marriage. (See 365Gay.com.)

Michigan: Yesterday, The Detroit Free Press reported the Michigan state board of elections was deadlocked over the wording of the anti-marriage equality ballot measure.

Ohio: The Toledo Blade reports Don McTigue, and attorney representing Ohioans Protecting the Constitution has filed a suit to protest signatures collected Fulton, Sandusky, Marion, Morrow, and Logan counties.

Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Civil Liberties Union filed a motion requesting the Oklahoma Supreme Court declare an anti-marriage ballot initiative illegal. They argue the amendment violates the rights of gays and lesbians, and also argue the amendment is poorly worded. As usual, the dispute revolves around how different people might interpret the precise meaning of “legal incidents of marriage”. For more, see 365Gay.com’s August 27 article.

Court cases unrelated to upcoming elections.
There are many cases arising as a result of previous state and federal legislation.

Florida: The Herald Tribune reports John Ashcroft requests a Miami judge dismiss a lawsuit challenging the legality of DOMA. He argues the four couples who filed that particular suit do not have standing because they have not married in any state. According to Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller this is the first time the federal government has directly defended the legality of DOMA in court.

Meanwhile, there are other suits in the pipeline. The
Starbanner reports Attorney Ellis Rubin has filed lawsuits in a variety of Florida jurisdictions. One suit has been filed on behalf of a lesbian couple from Bradenton who married in Massachusetts.

New Mexico: The Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap appears to have lost a round to resume issuing licenses to same sex couples. Dunlop will appeal. More at 365Gay.com.

Oregon: Today, the SeattlePI.com reports the Benton County Board of Commissioners in Washington state will resume issuing marriage licenses, but evidently not to same sex couples. Benton County had stopped issuing marriage licenses to altogether after a judge ordered them to stop issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.

Virginia: A Frederic County, Virginia judge has ruled a Vermont marriage is irrelevant in a custody suit filed in Virginia. This ruling is criticized in a Washington Post opinion column carried at the DailyCamera, which states:

They also suggest this “decision ought to be reversed on appeal.”

Legislation
The California Legislature has approved three pro-LGBT bills and two resolutions. Governor Schwarzenegger is expected to sign at the three of the bills; the resolutions do not require signatures. To read some details about the bills and resolutions visit 365gay.com.

For a more general round up, including both older and newer stories, see StatelineOrg.com’s August 26, 2004 article.

===
I posted and later updated to add Conn. and Ohio news.

The current New Yorker has an interesting - but rather depressing - article on how most Americans decide who to vote for. Here’s a sample, but I recommend reading the whole thing:

• Marriage Equality: State by State has a link to Support Equality, a terrific service which allows you to donate money to help pro-gay-marriage candidates to the Massachusetts state congress. This is a great way to help prevent anti-equality forces in Massachusetts from overturning same-sex marriage there; they’re hoping to turn thousands of folks from all over who can afford to give only $5 or $10 into a significant force. (My household donated $25). And 100% of the money goes to the candidates.

• Mom jailed for smoking near her kids.
• Pacific News reports that the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act is keeping a lesbian from the Bankrupcy protections that any straight married couple would automatically get. “The couple was legally married in British Columbia, but a federal bankruptcy judge has ruled that DOMA is constitutional, and that the two women cannot file for bankruptcy as a married couple. That bankruptcy, incidentally, was the result of both partners being diagnosed with cancer. One of the women recently died.” Nice way to protect families, homophobes.
• Ms Musings has an as-usual-excellent post analysing the corporate push behind the “Princess” trend. (Christine also points out that my favorite Disney protagonist, Mulan, is being repackaged by Disney to fit their “Princess” marketing line. Blech.)
• Israel is deporting a British journalist because they don’t like her “her political and ideological beliefs.” The judge admitted that she’s not a “security threat,” but deported her because her reporting might, in an unspecified way, “be used by others.”
• Echidne of the Snakes, in a post I somehow missed, discusses Martha Nussbaum’s views (Martha Nussbaum is also the focus of a recent “Alas” post on Disgust and Prejudice). Here’s a sample:
  Nussbaum points out that women have almost always carried some aspects of the disgusting and the shameful by just being born female. This is because women are more closely associated (in some minds at least) to the earthly via the processes of menstruation and giving birth, and because to some men the bodies of women are seen as the depositories of their own bodily wastes, the ever-present reminders of death. If one then combines the repugnance of the female body to such men with the idea of its sexual attractiveness, a base for misogyny may be created.

  I am not sure if I find this theory an adequate one, but it is certainly true that many so-called primitive tribes attribute the reason for women’s lower social standing to their ability to menstruate. This ability seems to be viewed as both disgusting and frightening at the same time, which supports Nussbaum’s arguments.

  Echidne also discusses Nussbaum’s concept of “dignity,” which according to Nussbaum is the opposite of disgust. Read the whole thing.

• Wicked Thoughts has an excellent post on “the crisis of fat.”
• Does anyone know where I could find the text of the official GOP Platform (which, I think, is currently “in progress”?). This Washington Post article makes it sound as if the “protecting marriage” plank is not only anti-gay marriage, but also anti-Civil Unions. According to the Post, the plank “says same-sex couples should not receive legal benefits set aside for married couples” - which is what Civil Unions do, of course.
• A Washington Blade op-ed rightly criticizes Kerry for doing so much campaigning against same-sex marriage. Couldn’t he have just retreated into a cowardly silence on the issue?
• Wicked Muse, inspired by a post here on “Alas,” is asking for comments on the question “Can Men Be Feminists?”
• Bouncing off of the same discussion, Trish Wilson has a post on “White Guys and Privilege.” Trish’s site is slow loading today, so you may want to look for the same post on XX.
• “Over the Bridge,” a must-read post by an American soldier. Via Respectful of Otters.
• I don’t think anything done by any of the major candidates this close to the election is by accident, or represents emotion overcoming strategy. For instance, Cheney’s recent mild statement in favor of same-sex marriage seems like “compassionate conservative” positioning - not unlike the decision to have some the most liberal Republicans in the nation spotlighted at the Republican Convention, even though they don’t represent the policies Bush will pursue.

  Mouse Words has an excellent analysis of how Cheney’s statement was in all liklihood a calculated move to help the GOP.

• Ellen Goodman presents the 2004 Equal Rites Awards, “given annually to those who have done their most to set back the cause of equality.”
• An Ohio poll shows 56% of Ohio voters are in favor of amending their constitution to ban gay marriage and domestic partner benefits. That’s actually pretty good news - support for the amendment is much weaker than many folks expected. When more voters realize that it not only bans gay marriage but also any benefits at all to same-sex couples, it’s possible that support will go down even further. It’s also possible that lawsuits will keep this proposal off the November ballot.
• If you haven’t seen it before, this math puzzle - which appears to prove that 64 equals 65 - is lots of fun. Via Eugene Volokh, who provides an explanation of the trick.
• I just discovered Factcheck.org, an imporessively nonpartisan website which fact-checks ads and claims from both Democrats and Republicans.
• Unfutz has a new survey of all the electoral vote projections. The large majority - including some right-wing sites - find that Kerry is winning. But Bush is gaining in recent polls, and what with the Republican Convention and all, the next couple of weeks will be distressing for Kerryite poll-watchers.

  It’s fun looking at all the various electoral college projection sites, and seeing how they vary in design and presentation. My favorite right now is MyDD’s map, which lets you toggle each state’s preferred candidate so you can play “what if” games. Also, they’ve distorted the map so that state size reflects electoral vote total.

• USA Today has a decent article on the “marriage gap.” Some stats: Among all women who are registered voters, 45% favor Bush, 50% favor Kerry. Among married women, 54% favor Bush, 41% Kerry. Among unmarried women, it’s 35% Bush, 60% Kerry.

  Unsurprisingly, there’s been a lot of well-intentioned but sometimes off-target get-out-the-single-woman vote efforts. Wicked Thoughts has a good discussion of the issue, and of the ickiness.

• Doctors use man’s back to grow new jawbone. Cooooool.
• Excellent Mouse Words post puts what’s at stake in the Social Security fight into perspective: Greenspan wants your parents to move back in with you.
• Some very high-quality Supreme Court Blogging over at Balkinization. In a pair of posts, Jack Balkin describes how Roe v Wade just barely survived Rehnquist’s attempts to overturn it in the 1989 Webster case and then again in the 1992 Casey case.

  Meanwhile, Balkinization guest blogger Mark Tushnet (father of Eve) describes how the conservatives on the Court are divided among themselves, and how the liberals are not. I found this bit of the latter post particularly interesting:

  [Justice Stevens, the leader of the Court’s liberals, has benefited from] Rehnquist’s insistence that each justice end up with an equal number of majority opinions at the end of each Term. When the Court’s unanimous, or nearly so, Rehnquist will assign the “dogs” to some of the liberals. When the liberals manage to get a majority, Stevens can “use up” an opinion assignment, thereby restricting Rehnquist’s options as the Term goes on. (One effect, for example, is that Rehnquist is forced into giving more assignments to Scalia and Thomas than he would [probably] like — because those two justices are more likely to draft hard-edged conservative opinions that will lead O’Connor or Kennedy to have second thoughts.)
• Want more links? Check out the latest Pacific Views blog round-up.

Via Ms Musings, a Federal Judge in New York has stuck down congress’ “partial-birth” abortion ban. If you’d like a short, intelligent summary of the case, I recommend Kaisernetworks’s report.

This is the second of three lawsuits over the PBA ban to be decided (the first, in San Francisco, was also a pro-choice victory). The third lawsuit, in Nebraska, is also likely to find that the PBA ban is unconstitutional.

The loss in New York is significant to pro-lifers because New York’s Judge Casey was clearly sympathetic to pro-life arguments, and made no effort to hide his disgust at the so-called PBA procedure. (According to the Times, Judge Casey earlier today referred to the procedure as “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.”). If the pro-lifers can’t defend a PBA ban successfully in Judge Casey’s courtroom, it’s unlikely they can defend it at all.

Judge Casey was, however, too honest to overlook the fact that the PBA ban clearly is unconstitutional according to the Supreme Court’s Stenberg v Carhart decision.

However, that could change if Bush wins the 2004 election and gets a chance to replace O’Connor, Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, or Souter on the Supreme Court. If that happens, the Court will probably overturn their Stenberg v Carhart decision and find PBA bans to be constitutional.

FederalAbortionBan.org has more information on all three cases. I haven’t yet found a link to the text of Judge Casey’s opinion, but when (if) I do, I’ll update this post with the link.

Last week, David Blankenhorn at the Family Scholars Blog took umbrage at this sentence in a Times op-ed:

David resents the implication “that opponents of SSM view any decision that they like as proper, and any decision that they don’t like as the work of ‘activist judges.’” Instead, David claims, “To get called an ‘activist judge,’ you have to try (for whatever reason) to substitute a court’s decision for a legislature’s decision.”

If David were correct - that judges who “for whatever reason” substitute their judgement for a legislature’s are called “activist” - then the same conservatives who called Goodridge (the Massachusetts decision in favor of gay marriage) “judicial activism” would also be criticizing decisions like Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (which substituted the Court’s decision for that of the New Jersey legislature’s), United States v. Morrison (which invalidated parts of the Violence Against Women Act), United States v. Lopez (which invalidated the Gun Free School Zones Act), Printz v. United States (which invalidated the Brady Gun Bill), Alabama v. Garrett (invalidating parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act), Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents (invalidating parts of the Age and Discrimination in Employment Act), and so on and so on.

All of these are examples of “substitut[ing] a court’s decision for a legislature’s decision.” All of them are decisions that favored Conservative political preferences. None of them have been derided by conservatives as “judicial activism.” Clearly, David is mistaken in his analysis of what “judcial activism” means. (For the record, I’m not saying David is writing in bad faith, just that he’s in error).

Personally, I think the definition that David inferred from the Times is more on the mark: a “judicial activist” decision is one that conservatives disagree with. And that’s all the term means.

RELATED: Lucia also posted a response to David’s post, although she took a very different approach than I did.

86 years ago today, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution gave women the formal right to vote.

I don’t have much to say about Women’s Equality Day that isn’t obvious, but here are some links about the history that I thought were interesting.

• A page of historic documents related to the 19th amendment.

• Some 1919 and 1920 New York Times articles about the amendment.
• Something kinda neat - lyrics to three songs sung by suffragettes. And a .pdf link to a song sung at meetings of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in the 1890s, as well.
• A webpage about the Susan B. Anthony trial of 1873 (Anthony was arrested for voting!).
• A collection of links to photos of the women’s suffrage movement.
• Who were the first women to vote in the USA?
• It can be hard to imagine what the arguments against suffrage were. So, anti-suffrage arguments: here, here and here.
• Ms. Musings also provides a lot of Women’s Equality Day links - hers are mostly current-events rather than historical.

Of course, there’s still a lot of equality yet to win - here in the US, and even more so worldwide. But let’s permit ourselves a day to bask in past victories. And as Vanessa at Feministing writes, ” take the day yourself to silently thank the ladies who fought so hard in the suffrage movement and loudly thank our ladies who are out there today still fighting for women’s rights!”

Martha Nussbaum has a short-and-excellent essay on disgust in the Chronicle of Higher Education. A sample:

Nussbaum also relates disgust to bigotry:

I highly recommend reading Jason of Positive Liberty’s post on Nussbaum’s essay:

Jason’s post expands on the analogy between historic prejudice against jews and current prejudice against gays, and he makes a very convincing case. Here’s just a sample, but you really should go read the whole thing:

I think Nussbaum is mistaken, however, to say that straight male prejudice against gay men is “the central locus of disgust in today’s United States.” I don’t want to play “let’s rank the oppressions.” Nonetheless, a huge portion of the moralizing disgust and shame (Nussbaum links the concepts of disgust and shame in her article) in the US today is directed at fat people. From an article in California Monthly (via Big Fat Blog):

In fact, although Nussbaum herself doesn’t say anything about anti-fat bigotry, I think her article may nonetheless be the best analysis of anti-fat bigotry I’ve read in years.

From StopTheWall.org’s FAQ, answering the question “why does the Israeli public support the building of the Wall?”

That’s probably true. But, y’know, it’s just barely possible that the idea of unilateral separation also appeals greatly to those in Israeli society who’d rather not be blown to fucking pieces on a bus by some anti-semitic moron with a martyr complex and an explosive belt!!!

The StopTheWall website is actually pretty good, when it comes to showing how the Wall is an inhumane land-grab from the Palestinian point of view. But the total incomprehension as to why it’s perfectly reasonable for ordinary Israelis to want a Wall so they can stop being blown up quite so often is maddening. Morons.

Time for a post that only a geek could write. Well, not “could” so much as “would.”

So I’ve decided that I should convert my comic book collection away from 28-page pamphlets and towards bound books. I keep all my bound comics on one seven-foot bookcase. Lately (damn you Ebay!) I’ve run out of room, causing me to ask the question: Which comic books, or comic book creators, are taking up the most shelf space?

1. Doonesbury - 16.25 inches.

2. Cerebus - 15 inches.
3. Pogo - 13.75 inches.
4. Osamu Tezuka (mostly Adolph and Pheonix) - 7.75 inches
5. Usagi Yojimbo - 7.5 inches
6. Rumiko Takahashi (mostly Ranma) - 7.5 inches
7. Alan Moore (various) - 6.5 inches
8. Calvin and Hobbes - 6 inches
9. Neil Gaiman (mostly Sandman) - 6 inches
10. Peanuts - 4.5 inches
11. Will Eisner - 4.5 inches
12. Dykes to Watch Out For - 4 inches
13. Bone - 4 inches
14. Scott McCloud - 3.5 inches
15. For Better or For Worse - 3.5 inches

After that, it’s all a mish-mash.

For now, I’m going to shelve some of the Pogos and then some of the Doonesburys elsewhere. In the long run - perhaps a bigger bookcase.

As most “Alas” readers already know, last week I was a guest on Janeane Garofalo’s radio show “The Majority Report.” It was the first of their “blog wars” segments, in which left and right wing bloggers debate this or that issue. I debated the female-male wage gap with a libertarian blogger, Megan McArdle of janegalt.net.

Janeane Garofalo was smart, funny, charming and surprisingly teeny-weeny (not only thin but very short). People somehow seem bigger on screen. Size aside, she looked and sounded a lot like she looks and sounds in her movies. Megan was likewise (and as I expected) smart, funny, and charming.

Anyhow, about the debate. Megan and I had agreed ahead of time that we’d keep it civil, and we succeeded in that. There were a couple of points Megan made that I regret not addressing, and I should have been more aggressive about grabbing air time, but on the whole I think I did pretty well. It was too short, though - Megan and I barely scratched the surface of the wage gap issue, frankly. (Of course, I didn’t say anything that I haven’t said on my blog.)

If you’re interested, the entire show can be downloaded in .mpg format here (thanks to Alas reader Jimmy Ho for the link). My segment starts 13 minutes and 45 seconds into the recording, although I myself don’t start speaking until about 20:20.

* * *

That stuff aside, some feminists have criticized my decision to appear on Air America at all, and also what I did while on the air. Here is what’s being questioned, to the best of my understanding:

1. Should I, a male feminist, have agreed to appear on a radio show arguing for feminism? Should I have refused, asking them to find a female feminist blogger to appear instead of me?

2. Should I have used my time on the air to criticize The Majority Report for using a man as their sole “feminist blogger” in this series; or for not having more female bloggers in general?

There was also some question of how my invitation came about - did they invite me and then ask me to suggest topics I could talk on (in which case, they invited me as a blogger, not me as a feminist), or did they invite me specifically to talk about feminism?

I’ve been thinking seriously about these criticisms. As a male feminist, there are always questions of what it’s right for me to do as a feminist. I’ve never held a position in any feminist organization, and don’t plan to; the leadership of the formal feminist movement should always be female.

On the other hand, I don’t agree that men, as individual feminists, shouldn’t speak in public or in the media. On the contrary; I think we need more male feminists appearing in the media, to help move away from the false belief that feminist issues are issues of concern only to women.

For me, the problem with talk shows is that there are too few women speaking, period. I want to see women in the media discussing the war in Iraq, the economy, the upcoming election, Kerry’s record in Vietnam, and every other “non-feminist” issue under the sun; I have nothing against women being called upon by the media to discuss feminism, but that shouldn’t be all they’re called upon to discuss. But it seems to me that, although virtually all the feminists I see in the media are women, when you consider all issues (rather than just feminist issues) 85% of the sources interviewed are men.

So: Here’s what happened.

A producer of “Majority Report” emailed me out-of-the-blue, saying that Natasha of Pacific Views (who is a feminist) had recommended me as someone “good to talk about women’s rights or some other topic versus someone like Eve Tushnet or Sara of Diotoma.” He also asked me to suggest other right-wing bloggers who might be good for their show.

I made a big screw-up at this point, one I didn’t notice until I reread the producer’s email earlier today. My only excuse is that I’m a big fan of Janeane Garofalo’s, so in my excitement I focused on the thrilling part (e.g., “I’m gonna be on Janeane’s show!”) rather than reading the whole email carefully.

Here’s my screw-up: In describing the show, the producer wrote that “Every week, we have a segment with Bill Scher from Liberal Oasis. We also feature regular spots with Atrios and Kos.” I managed to overlook what should have been glaring: all three of the regularly appearing bloggers on Majority Report are men. (More on this below).

I emailed back that I’d be happy to discuss specific feminist issues (two I suggested were the wage gap and the defunding of the UN population fund), and I also suggested that I could discuss same-sex marriage. I suggested other right-wing bloggers (mostly women) I thought were well-informed on these sorts of topics.

Later on, I emailed asking who the other bloggers appearing in the week-long “blog wars” would be, but I didn’t get a response.

So why did I agree to appear on the show?

1. I think that there should be, if anything, more men speaking out in favor of feminism in the media. That’s the primary reason I didn’t (and don’t) refuse to appear in public as a male feminist.

2. In addition, the show itself is headlined by an eloquent woman who is open enough about her feminism to appear on the cover of Ms in a “this is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt. So it’s not like “Majority Report” is in danger of being a female-feminist-free zone.
3. In addition, my impression is Janeane has the power to reject guests she doesn’t want on her show. If she thinks a male feminist is an acceptable “Majority Report” guest, then I should assume that she’s capable, as a feminist, of making that decision.

Why didn’t I criticize the show while I was on the air? Two reasons. First, at the time, my criticisms of the show were not yet formed. Secondly, I was (and am) interested in keeping friendly lines of communication open, if possible. “Majority Report” is not the enemy; on the contrary, it’s one of the very few shows headed by a feminist on the airwaves. Criticizing them on the air might have felt to the producer and to Janeane that I was blindsiding them; I’d rather cooperate with the show and try to open a dialog backstage.

Of course, it’s easier for them to ignore my “backstage” criticisms than it would have been for them to ignore a live, on-air criticism. So maybe my decision was mistaken; still, I prefer to attempt to do things the nice way, especially when dealing with allies.

* * *

So now what? Earlier today, I finally figured out which bloggers appeared on “Majority Report’s” blog wars segment last week. Here’s the list:

August 16: Myself vs. Megan McArdle
August 17: Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos vs. John McIntyre of Real Clear Politics.
August 18: Atrios of Eschaton vs. James Joyner of Outside the Beltway
August 19: Mary of Pacific Views vs. Robert Garcia Tagorda of Priorities & Frivolities.
August 20: Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis vs. Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy.

Eight men, two women. Ouch.

So I sent the producer I’ve been dealing with an email suggesting that there could have been 50% female representation.

Then I reread his first email to me, and noticed that of the three regularly appearing bloggers on “Majority Report,” three are men. Again, ouch. I sent another email:

So that’s where it stands. I hope that the “Majority Report” will take what I’m saying seriously and find a way to include more female bloggers in their segments which include bloggers; but it’s also possible they’ll blow me off. We’ll see how it goes.

* * *

In retrospect, would I do anything differently, knowing what I know now?

• I should have pressed them about what female bloggers, aside from Megan, they were inviting. In light of how few women were included in the “blog wars,” I should have pressed them to choose a female blogger, instead of me.

• I still wouldn’t have criticized them on the air. They are allies, and allies shouldn’t blindside allies.
• I do wish I had used my precious few moments of off-air time with Janeane to ask her to use her position to champion putting more female bloggers on the air, though. That’s the thing I could have done that might have made the most real difference, and I blew it.

Thoughts?

When I first read this story at Fox News, I thought: What’s with the Mayor of Muncie, Indiana? Doesn’t he have anything better to do than forbid flying the US flag to prevent “visual clutter” at an RV park? Visual clutter?!

Then this question occurred to me: Did Fox News get the full story?

I dug a little deeper. (Thank goodness for Google). It turns out smaller fries provide greater depth.

IndyStar.com suggests the mayor acted because the park had become a “taxpayer-subsidized, semi-permanent trailer park nicknamed “Springerville” after the Jerry Springer television show.”

“Springerville” sounds bad, but surely, that problem could solved by limiting rental periods to one or two weeks. So, I dug even deeper.

Voila! Flags.net reports:

It seems Wallace, who says he is called “the mayor” of the campground, has been flying his 3 ft x 5 ft flag at the campground for over a decade.

I suspect few will be surprised to learn a suit has been filed against Dan Canan, the Mayor of Muncie. Not surprisingly, Tommy “the mayor” Wallace is involved. Flags.net quotes Indiana Civil Liberties Union Lawyer, Ken Falk:

Originally, the flag flying ban restricted all flags except the US flag and POW/MIA flags. After the suit was filed, the mayor of Muncie extended the ban to include all flags. That move is expected to strengthen the city’s case.

I tend to like my first amendment rights. I think people should be able to fly flags and express political opinions; restrictions should be strongly justified. On the other hand, I prefer that publicly owned and operated parks be kept relatively free of politics so all people can enjoy them in peace. Mr. Wallace is, to my mind, obnoxious. On the third hand, I suspect if Tommy “the mayor” Wallace does lose this suit against the real mayor or Muncie, he, or someone with similar views, will find a new way to express their views. Likely, they will paint an enormous Confederate flag on their RV and the drama will continue.

On the fourth hand: Why did “Fair and Balanced”, “We report, you decide,” FoxNews drop the Confederate flag angle from this story?

• Catholics for Choice responds to the Pope’s recent thoughts on “the woman question.” Well worth reading.

• An article in the Times reports another cost of our absurb lack of decent single-payer care: higher unemployment. Faced with the fast-rising costs of healthcare, employers are choosing not to hire. Yet another way we’d be better off if health insurance was automatic, instead of being connected to employment.
• The New York Times provides an amazingly useless article on the new overtime regulations. It points out that critics claim that Bush’s new rules will cut off up to six million workers from overtime; the Bush administration claims that’s all lies; and the article provides the readers with absolutely no context to help decide which side is right.

  It reminds me of this cartoon I drew back in 2003.

  As Matthew Ygelsias points out, we can pretty safely assume that anything favored by the Chamber of Commerce and opposed by the AFL-CIO is going to have a net effect of cutting wages and increasing profits. But it would be nice to read a more substantial analysis of the competing claims about the new law.

• I can’t even describe Ken Layne’s post “The God of War, Death & Madness,” but I’ll provide a quote.
  “In Vietnam, Kerry is a death’s head of gruesome power, while your Bush hides in Alabama, a scared little girl. And what did little Bush do in Texas?”

  Blair grinned, foolishly thinking the ball was again in his court. “He killed many people in Texas. All those executions ….”

  “Ha! Your girly Bush killed nobody. He signed off on lethal injections. He’s a middle manager in a cubicle at the suburban branch of the Bank of Death, initialing memos he doesn’t even know how to read.”

  Do read the whole. Via Pendantry.

• If you don’t know about bugmenot.com you should. Never register to read free online news content again - just get a working password from this brilliant site.
• You must check out the winners of the 2004 Worst Manual Contest. Sample quote from the winning manual: “To apply the cold wind to the body for a longtime and so as to not exist about cooling too much.” Via - o, heck, I lost it.
• “He” and “him” are not gender-neutral pronouns. If you disagree, explain why the sentence “Was it your father or your mother who broke his leg on a ski trip?” doesn’t work.
• The Head Heeb reminds us that it’s less than three weeks until the 350th anniversary of the arrivial of the first Jews in North America.
• Kip discusses the book The Compleat Gentleman. Fave quote: “There is something rather perfectly disingenuous about writing a book that insists lording it over everyone else is within the reach of us all.” But the whole thing will repay your reading efforts.
• Via Kip, this brilliant little quicktime movie - Fuck New York - cracked me up completely. And while I’m stealing links from Kip, this quicktime movie of young men acrobatically jumping from building to building (among other things) is extremely cool.

Here’s the underreported story of the week: Thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons have been on hunger strike for a week, and thousands more outside of prison have been conducting non-violent demonstrations to support the prisoners. From today’s Haaretz:

(The Haaretz article goes on to suggest that Arafat is using the hunger strike to his advantage. That’s no doubt true, but given Arafat’s political skills, any large nonviolent resistance, at any time, would inevitably be used by Arafat to his advantage. That’s not a reason to oppose mass nonviolent action or find it less credible).

From an article in The Age:

Isn’t massive, peaceful protest by Palestinians exactly the sort of thing we should all be hoping for? (And remember, these protests have been going on both in and out of prison).

This is a general pattern I’ve noticed in press coverage of Palestine and Israel. If a single Palestinian terrorist murders a dozen Israelis, that gets press coverage all over (as it should). But when thousands protest peacefully, it’s ignored. The result is to spread the myth that the Palestinian resistance consists of nothing but terrorism.

(In related news: Ghandi’s grandson is currently in the occupied territories, preaching non-violence; and an editorial arguing that non-violence is the only effective tactic still open to the Palestinians.)

It appears that the prisoners have good reason to complain. From a report by Sumoud, a Canadian human rights group focusing on Palestinian prisoner rights:
Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent Blog, I mentioned that a bankruptcy judge upheld DOMA, ruling that Lee and Ann Kandu who were married in Canada could not file for bankruptcy as a married couple. At that time, I had not read any articles describing how the couple fell into debt. Although not pertinent to the legality of DOMA, their story is particularly heart wrenching. The Ledger.com reports:

When they married in August 2003, both women believed they were recovering. As is common, the couple combined their finances after their wedding. They filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in October when they learned Ann’s cancer had spread and doctors would be unable to save her. Ann Kandu died in April 2004.

The judge evidently sympathized with Lee Kandu’s plight, but ruled against the request to file bankruptcy as a married couple.

Kandu represented herself in the court case; she plans to appeal. I hope some generous soul steps forward to represent her.