Getupgrrl at Chez Miscarriage has been doing an amazing series of posts on what she terms “mother drive-bys.”

It began with this post, a totally excellent, kick-ass feminist critique of Judith Warner’s are-we-mothering-too-much book Perfect Madness.

That post generated a lot of response. Getupgrrl observed:

So as I read through your voluminous tomes, my eyes riveted to the screen, I began to notice a pattern. A theme, if you will. A leitmotif, which was this: apparently, other mothers frequently say crappy things to you about your mothering. [...]

So here’s what I want to know from you folks: have you ever been the victim of a mother drive-by? And if so, what happened?

Please, no psychological theories, sociological analyses, or political opinions. I want personal anecdotes and factual stories only, the weirder the better.

351 reader comments later (and counting), Getupgrrl’s readers delivered. The stories are funny, infuriating, shocking, and numerous. Here’s a few samples, but I recommend looking through the whole thread:

I just had a baby two weeks ago. My (male) obgyn actually asked my husband if it was ok if he did an episiotomy! Like, it’s my husband’s vagina? I was too busy actually giving birth to respond but I wish I could have kicked him in the face.

* * *

I was out and about with my then two year old Sara, who has Down Syndrome. A complete stranger asked me about her “condition”. I told him she had Down’s. He made some “tsk, tsk” noise and told me that I should have had an abortion, and how she would be a drain on society, and then walked off. My jaw was completely on the ground by that point and the tears were not far behind.

* * *

We are sitting at the table of our close friends of 10 years, I think we had been playing cards. I had made a comment about nursing my 2 year old son and my friend says, “I think thats disgusting,” with this really evil mean face. But the weird part is when we were saying goodbye, her husband hugged me goodbye and whispered in my ear how he thought it was great and he wouldn’t mind nursing me either.

* * *

Her: Why are you not breastfeeding?

Me: I tried for 6 months, I pumped and fed her from an SNS, I tried to get her to latch every day for 6 months, I went to 5 different LCs. I finally gave up. She just won’t latch on.

Her: Well….. You just didn’t try hard enough.

And on, and on, and on. It’s amazing, how many people see someone else’s baby as a invitation to criticize. Breast feeding (both pro and con) and the stay at home mom/working mom conflict are particular hotspots.

In Getupgrrl’s next post, she highlighted some of the funnier snappy answers from the mother drive-by thread. My favorite (but read the whole thing, they’re all funny):

“I don’t know how you can put that baby in day care. Why did you even have a child if you weren’t going to raise her yourself?”

“We needed someone who could fetch the TV remote when we were too drunk to get off the couch and find it.”

And then there’s Getupgrrl’s most recent post, in which she reveals that “as hard as it is to believe, some women posted on the drive-by thread in order to make a drive-by.” The entire post is worth reading, but I particularly liked this bit, in response to a letter-writer infuriated at seeing some children (gasp!) mittenless in winter or (choke!) drinking apple juice (”which is not juice but sugar water - read the label”):

The empirical literature on childhood risk and resilience has now confirmed Winnicott’s original theory of “good enough” mothering: if a child is exposed to adequate parenting - not perfect parenting, not parenting that demands stewed organic peas for dinner every night, not parenting that requires a flurry of maternal solicitation at the first sign of whimpering discontent, just reasonably good parenting - the child’s development will not be impeded or hindered. Human beings are a resilient, hardy lot. If children needed an obsessed parent’s dilated pupils to be fixed on them all day in order to thrive, the human race would have died out long ago.

Just go to Chez Miscarriage and start reading from the top, is my advice.

Probably the rank sexist inequality lurking behind all this - that fathers aren’t expected to do equal childcare time (by and large), or put in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t position regarding staying at home or working - is too obvious to need mentioning. Right?

Via Belle at Crooked Timber, who in turn got it from Making Light.

In a comment on Family Scholars Blog, Narelle (who, I gather, was never given the opportunity to know who her biological father is) writes:

I am not saying that DC [Donor Conception] should be banned, but if it is to exist it should so via a model similar to open adoption, whereby the person born, after all this thinking and contractual agreement, is able to have the OPPORTUNITY to know their biological mum or dad. This should be a decision only the person born as a result can make, especially since their parents had a lot of time to think about what they were doing and the position they were bringing them child into.

Donor conception refers to sperm donation and egg donation (and perhaps some other procedures as well?).

I agree with Narelle; open arrangements should be the norm, and probably the legally-mandated situation. If someone can’t live with the possibility of his biological children contacting him someday, then he shouldn’t donate (or sell) sperm. (And the same for egg donation, of course.)

Narelle also asked several question intended to make readers understand her point of view as a person whose parents used DC technology. “How would you feel if the name of your biological father was sitting in a filing cabinet over the other side of the city, and only other people had access to that information, but not you? How would you feel when people ask you what nationality you are?” I’m afraid those and similar questions fell flat with me, because - insofar as anyone can predict how they’d react to hypothetical situations - my honest answer is: I wouldn’t care.

It reminds me of an “understanding transsexuals” questionnaire that was passed around a lot in the 1980s: “How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and your body was the other sex? Wouldn’t you feel horribly wrong and out of synch with yourself?” Well, truthfully, I don’t think I would; I’d be taken aback, of course, and it would be annoying to have to deal with sexism, but I don’t think being female would inherently bother me. Being male has never been a positive or important part of my self-identity. (I’ve often wished I could switch sex back and forth, actually, but without the huge sacrifices and effort that real transsexuals must deal with).

Narelle’s questions, like the transsexual flier, miss the point. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t care. The point is, obviously she cares; and obviously she has an important need to know where she comes from, biologically. My lack of caring doesn’t magically cancel out Narelle’s needs.

One thing I like about Narelle’s proposal is that it leaves choice with the donor conceived person herself; if if a D.C. child prefer not to know, or simply has no interest (a possibility that discussions at Family Scholars Blog tend to brush aside), Narelle’s proposal allows them that liberty, as well.

How about infertile couples (either infertile because of something wrong, or infertile because they’re same-sex, or any other reason) who use DC technology? Don’t they have a right to keep their child’s biological origins secret from their child? No. Children are in the temporary caretaking of their parents, but in the end they belong to themselves - and that includes information about where they came from. The child’s right to know herself should supercede the desire of her parents to keep her origins secret.

I do think that both children and parents are served by laws that make custodianship clear and immutable; parents who conceived a child via sperm donation shouldn’t have to worry that the bio-father will appear out-of-the-blue ten years down the line and claim custody. And children shouldn’t suddenly have their lifelong home made insecure by a lawsuit coming from a person who has never been their guardian.

On the other hand, I would like to see more flexible and varied laws about who can be a parent. There’s no good reason that a child being raised by two mothers and a father shouldn’t have her relationship to all three of her parents recognized legally.

This exchange was also noteworthy:

Dan: Not to appear unsympathetic, but I guess the ultimate question is whether the whole debate over artificial insemination should be defined by the perceived “victim” status of children who wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the technology.

Narelle: i do not feel that i have to condone donor conception because it is what bought me life. so saying things like “whether the whole debate over artificial insemination should be defined by the perceived “victim” status of children who wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the technology” is really just insulting. so many people say well you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for it. i know this, however that does not mean i have to think it is right. do people born from rape have to condone rape? they would not be here without it! (blunt but true).

I was leery of this analogy when I first read it; the differences between rape and DC are huge and significant, after all.

While the analogy may disturb me and others, logically it makes sense for the narrow point Narelle was making: No one is obliged to approve of the means by which they were conceived. (Many “Alas” readers made the same point, in a different context, on this thread.)

• Rox Populi says to bookmark this Obsidian Wings post for next year’s Koufaxes. I think the post - a critique of hatred in political thinking - is terrific. I understand why the author chose to make the post so partisan, but I wish she hadn’t; it would have been a more challenging post for left-wingers if it has been less one-sided.

• Also on Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy has a good post, set off by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to consider the issue, describing Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law.

• Meanwhile, in Florida, high school administrators consider it their job to maintain gender norms. A female student has been banned from the yearbook for wearing a tux in her yearbook photo. Thank goodness the principal isn’t wasting his time and energy worrying about, you know, grades and learning and trivialities like that. Feministing has the story.

• Ann Althouse argues that “road kill candy” is actually more P.C. than animal crackers.

• In a post on The Paris Project, Jennelle describes a woman who led a prayer at her church wearing a thin white t-shirt and no bra. I was struck by a male comment-writer’s reaction (quoted by Hugo): “I don’t know any heterosexual man whose head doesn’t turn when they see [female] nipples. They are like kryptonite to men.” So nipples cause slow, painful death for heterosexual men? Damn. No wonder the law requires nipples to be covered.

• Regarding the same topic, Hugo writes (and I agree): “As I’ve written before, this myth of male weakness is misogynist and misandrist simultaneously (a neat trick). It assumes that men are simply incapable of self-control and focus in the face of sexual arousal, and it assumes that because of that weakness, women have to do the work of making public places ’safe’ for their brothers.”

• Mouse Words, Dr. B’s Blog and Feministing report on attempts in Texas and Kansas to take away the right to privacy from anyone with ovaries.

• Robert Hayes calls this picture “Escher Does Legos,” but I think “Legos Do Escher” would be more accurate. Anyhow, it’s really cool.

• Sexism-in-everyday-life department, from Trish Wilson: Dr. Eric Bressler polled 150 students about what they meant by a “sense of humour”. He found that “for a woman, a GSOH means someone who makes her laugh. For a man, it means someone who laughs at his jokes.”

• Over on Left2Right, Don Herzog documents how little conservative reactions to feminism have changed since 1792.

An interesting article in Ragged Edge about paratransit (public-transportion vans that provide taxi services for the disabled), and how it sucks. What got my attention is the article’s description of how structural factors create a strong incentive for public transport officials to keep paratransit as sucky as possible:

Anyone who met these criteria had to be allowed to ride paratransit, the law said. Paratransit now had to meet federal criteria as well, so bus companies could no longer legally restrict ridership as they had in decades past.

And ridership mushroomed.

Suddenly, what ADAPT had been saying during the 1980s began to sink in, as managers of the nation’s bus services began to realize that it was far more costly to provide paratransit, which was essentially a taxi service, than to run a lift-outfitted bus along a fixed route, with people getting on and off as they chose. A wheelchair lift was a onetime capital cost. Paratransit costs were ongoing, and rose whenever a new rider entered the system.

And so, in the 14 years since federal law required that disabled people be allowed paratransit, bus companies have worked to do all they can within the law — and quite often, outside the law — to “make it as unpleasant as possible to ride it, so you will crawl to the regular bus service.”

Although the article is focused on Louisville, I’ve heard similar complaints about the paratransit service here in Portland. The article suggests this is a nationwide problem.

I’m very fond of this passage, from a post by New Kid on the Hallway, about a class she’s teaching:

Perhaps my greatest concern, though, is that these responses are cementing in my students their sense that “I’m so glad I live in the modern world where we’ve solved all these problems.” It is a class all of women, who have self-selected to take this class, so they probably don’t consciously think that everything has been solved and women now have it completely hunky-dory. But unconsciously, I think that message surrounds them, and it’s hard for them to resist it. And reading about how a Calvinist consistory sought to excommunicate a woman and her whole household because the woman wore her hair in curls certainly, on the face of it, encourages them to think, “Wow, we have it SO much better now!” To which I want to say: Okay, in most (not all!) churches today, you are not going to be excommunicated for how you wear your hair. Does this mean that hairstyles don’t mean anything today? Do you think you’re really free to wear your hair however you like without consequences? What do you think would happen if you got a buzzcut, for instance? How do you think people would react? Do you think that on a job interview, employers would react to you differently if you had hair below your butt that hadn’t been cut in 10 years than if you had a nice little neat shining bob? Why was it courageous for Melissa Etheridge to get up at the Grammys and perform on stage without hair? I mean, yes, if you pressed me, I would say that women have greater freedom of expression (in terms of hair, at least!) now than in the 16th century and I’d much rather live now than then. But I want my students to have to think about it and decide that for themselves, consciously, rather than making assumptions.

As “Rana” wrote in the comments to New Kid’s post, it’s important to distinguish between “better” and “best.”

Lots and lots of cops in front of our house right now. They’re not after us; there’s a stand-off in the house across the street. They’ve got someone trapped in there who shot a cop earlier this week. Earlier, they were telling him through a megaphone to come out and he won’t be hurt.

They’ve got cars parked blocking access to our block from every direction; when Kim got home, she had to park a block away, and then a cop with a big black police dog walked her to the door. They also arrested a woman - we saw them lead her in handcuffs to one of the five parked police cars we can see from our window. Her coat was slipping down, and she was trying to shrug it back onto her shoulders, but couldn’t with her hands cuffed behind her.

A few minutes ago, a cop came to our door with the six-year-old girl who lives across the street - apparently they have her and her father sitting in one of the cars. They asked if she could use our bathroom. We let her use it, of course. We offered to let her stay here and watch TV, but they didn’t even bother saying “no” to that, it was so clearly not something they were going to do. Poor girl.

I think we’re perfectly safe - there are cops crawling all over the neighborhood, and we’re white, so they’ll probably protect us rather than shoot us. Even if there’s gunfire - and there probably won’t be - the odds of a stray bullet hitting one of us is incredibly low.

Morbid thought: If a stray bullet does by a billion-to-one chance hit and kill me, that plus the fact that I wrote this blog entry probably means that I’ll get into the newspaper. It might even get “Alas” more traffic than that time Neil Gaiman linked to me.

Morbid thought the second: Once - just once - I’d like to live in a house where the next door neighbors aren’t arrested or put under seige by the cops. This house, cop shooter; previous house, drug dealer in basement (moved out just before we moved in); previous house, bank robber; previous house, drug dealer (the cops sat outside our house shining a spotlight at us until they figured out they had the wrong address and moved one house over). Also at previous house, a shooting on the bus. If we include down the street stuff, we can include an insane man shot by the police at the previous house, and a man killed by a bouncer at the bar down the street from our current house.

Hey, folks. I’m taking a red-eye to visit my family in soggy Florida tonight. I’ll probably have only limited access to the internet for the next week or so (and none at all while I’m traveling, of course).

What that means, unfortunately, is that if the software decides that your post might be spam, and therefore places your comment into the “needs approval” list, it could be many hours before I see and approve it. But eventually I will see and approve it, so please be patient!

By the way, I still have gmail invites left, so email me if you’d like one. (It may take me a few days to respond.)

This Women’s Enews article suggests that women were more likely than men to be killed by a Tsunami because many aspects of women’s traditional gender roles made it more difficult for women to flee or swim.

While official statistics are not yet available, grass-root organizations helping with relief operations in Sri Lanka, say women and children were the majority of the 30,000 total deaths currently tied to the tsunami.

Many of the losses are being tied to gender roles and styles–such as women’s long hair, confining saris, extreme sense of modesty and selfless commitment to husbands and children–that hindered their ability to escape. [...]

Fernando, who has worked for years with rural women, says that most of the village women who drowned in the huge wave were wearing traditional saris that restricted them from running and also weighed them down when they became water logged after the sea swept into their homes.

Saris Are Rural Dress Code

While the majority of women in the cities have adopted Western dress styles–pants and dresses with hemlines around the knee and higher–90 percent of poor and rural women wear saris on a daily basis, says Saganka Perera, a professor of sociology at Colombo University. Others may wear long dresses with sleeves. [...]

An even more important distinctions, she says, is that, in order to preserve their modesty, few rural women have been taught to swim. Rural women, Perera says, even bathe–usually at wells–while covered in long cloth.

More.

What distinguishes each form of feminism from the other?

This isn’t quite the same as asking how different forms of feminism are defined. Many feminisms, for instance, rightly include questioning gender roles as part of their definition; but because this is true of most forms of feminism, it doesn’t help much when trying to tell the difference between (for example) liberal feminism and socialist feminism.

Disclaimer: My purpose here isn’t to “define” feminism, or to tell people what this or that feminism is as if I were an authority. On the contrary, I’m assuming that people will disagree with me and feel free to tell me where I’m wrong.

Socialist feminism is the form of feminism with which I most identify (this week, at least). Socialist feminism is distinguished from all other feminisms (except Marxist feminism) by its emphasis on material and economic inequality. Socialist feminists, like other socialists, look at culture as a whole and ask, “who controls the resources?” and “which institutions are keeping those people in control of the resources?” But unlike non-feminist socialists, socfems answer those questions by talking not only about class but also about patriarchy.

In her Dictionary of Feminist Theory, Maggie Hume says “Unlike radical feminism, socialist feminists refuse to treat economic oppression as secondary; unlike Marxist feminists they refuse to treat sexist oppression as secondary.”

Marxist feminism, unsurprisingly, shares a lot of ground with socialist feminism. Marxfems, however, tend to see class oppression ““ the ongoing battle over who does the producing and who reaps the rewards of production ““ as the “root” oppression on which all other oppressions are modeled. Sexist oppression is a form of class oppression. Marxfems have thus done a lot of useful analysis on how production is gendered, and how women’s larger share of domestic labor means that women do more producing while getting fewer rewards.

Marxist feminists, like radical feminists (and unlike socfems), tend to be skeptical about the chances of achieving substantive change by working within “the system.”

Radical feminism is distinguished, first of all, by the belief that male supremacy is the root or model for all other oppressions. While most radical feminists would not argue that (for example) racist oppression is necessarily less harmful to its victims than sexist oppression, they would argue that fighting male supremacy is necessary to get at the root of both problems. So while fighting racism doesn’t necessarily do anything to fight male supremacy, fighting male supremacy does, by definition, help to reduce racist oppression.

Radfems are also distinguished by their emphasis on sexual violence and exploitation as the lynchpin of male supremacy. While other feminists care about sexual violence and exploitation, of course, no other feminism makes SVAX as central a point in its analysis of patriarchy. This had led radfems to help women in many concrete ways: rape victim services, battered women’s shelters, sexual harassment laws, and so on.

Radfems are skeptical of the long-term viability of seeking change within the system, but that hasn’t prevented them from working within the system, as in the case of sexual harassment laws, or from trying to work within the system, as in the case of the MacKinnon/Dworkin antipornography ordinance. Arguably, radfems see working in the system less as a route for seeking social reform than as band-aid measures; laws against stalking or sexual harassment are needed because they provide some protection to women, but laws can’t really do much to fight male supremacy in the long run.

Finally, radfems are generally more skeptical about men’s ability to be feminists than other feminists are; in this view, supportive men should therefore be called something else, like “pro-feminist men.”

Liberal feminism is politically more individualist than other forms of feminism (except for libertarian feminism); from a liberal feminist point of view, the primary purpose of feminism is to create a world in which people are judged for their individual characteristics without regard to sex. Liberal feminists do tend to work through the system more than radfems or marxfems; liberal feminists believe that many social problems can be meaningfully addressed through the government, which will gradually bring about social change. Hence, libfems are the most likely feminists to form groups like NOW and the Feminist Majority, groups which try to advance a wide range of feminist issues through legislative and lawsuit strategies.

While libfems agree with radfems that sexual violence and exploitation are serious problems, libfems are less likely to put SVAX at the center of their analysis of patriarchy. Instead, libfems point to barriers of prejudice and discrimination keeping women from taking an equal place in the power structures of society. Some libfems see strong connections between male dominance and other oppressions; such as racism and classism; other libfems believe that these issues can be seen separately, and feminism is stronger when it focuses on issues of sexism.

Liberal feminism is distinguished from libertarian feminism (aka individualist feminism) by its belief in government solutions for social problems; it is, for example, rare to find a liberal feminist who does not support welfare policies to help the poor.

* * *

I think that’s enough from me, for now. I’m hoping that people will contribute distinguishing traits of other sorts of feminism as well: obviously there are lots of feminisms I didn’t mention, plus I’m sure many people will disagree with how I distinguished the four I did mention. I’d be especially eager to see if someone could explain what distinguishes third wave feminism from other kinds of feminism, as I’ve always felt deficient in understanding what that was about.

This is of interest to folks who have been following the Terri Schiavo case: unless a court intervenes, Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube will be removed today. (So far - as of 10am Florida time - there has not been a court intervention - although there was a false report of a court intervention, so that’s created some confusion.)

Do I want Schiavo to die? No, but to me the question is nonsensical, because I’m convinced she died 15 years ago. Not everyone agrees with me, of course. The pro-life blogs are making a final (or not?) push to try and save Terri’s “life” by placing an ad in the St. Petersburg Times.

As always, Abstract Appeal is the blog with the best information on this case (especially for legal matters). The medical blog RangelMD also has an excellent series on the medical and ethical issues involved.

Also of interest is this Ragged Edge point-counterpoint feature (it’s actually a couple of years old), debating whether or not Schiavo’s cause should be a concern of the disabled rights community.

Let me clarify some things.

Stephen Pinker and all his followers seem to be arguing that evolution has created some differences between male and female brains. I agree ““ there almost certainly are some evolved differences. What those differences are, and if they have any real-world significance, is what’s under debate. No one, so far as I know, is arguing that evolution didn’t occur.

However, what evolution means is another question altogether. Many Pinker-ites (and keep in mind, not all evolutionary biologists are Pinker-ites) tend to speak about evolution as if it leads to set-in-stone characteristics: “men evolved this way, so men will always use this reproductive strategy.”? But this is a simplistic and mistaken view of how evolution works: as if animals were simple machines, like toy trains, able to only move dumbly along one train track.

In fact, humans (like many other animals) have also evolved plasticity ““ the ability to alter our behavior in beneficial ways in response to new or changed environments. For example, look at bluebirds. In the wild, suitable spots for bluebird nesting are rare: the mating strategy used by bluebird males is to take a nesting spot and aggressively defend it from other males; the successful males will let a female use the nest in exchange for sex.

Most Pinkerites would look at bluebirds and say: “There, you see? Bluebird males have aggressive competitions, and the females will mate with the male who’s able to win these competitions. If you don’t believe that, then you’re an blank slater who doesn’t believe in evolution.”

But if you put bluebirds in a different environment ““ say, one with plenty of nesting sites, more than the bluebirds would ever need ““ what happens? Bluebird females nest wherever they please. Bluebird males react by trying to help females with their current batch of children ““ in the hope that he’ll be allowed to father her next batch. Same genes, same evolution, but very different mating behaviors.

And if bluebirds can exhibit that kind of plasticity in response to changes in environment, how much plasticity can humans ““ the all-time champions of plasticity in the animal kingdom ““ exhibit? We’re wired to adapt our behavior to our environment. Yet that basic fact of evolution is something that evolutionary psychology’s advocates routinely ignore.

No one’s saying that evolution or genes are entirely unrelated to behavior; plasticity itself is an evolved trait, after all. But although evolution and behavior are undeniably related, they are not related in the simplistic, predictive fashion that Stephen Pinker and his fans seem to believe.

• This terrific Findlaw essay argues against a Federal (anti-)Marriage Amendment, and along the way does a fine job trashing some of the most common arguments against same-sex marriage. Via MarriageDebate.com.

• Hate Spam? Blame MCI

• Bitch, PhD finds that the full transcript of Larry Summers’ remarks puts Summers even deeper in the rhetorical hole.

• Kieran at Crooked Timber comments on the same subject; I think this is my favorite of all the posts I’ve read about the Summers flap.

• Also via Crooked Timber, check out this excellent article on the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, “the single worst event in the history of American race relations.”

• Brian of the blog RebelDad has started a new podcast program. “It’s called Sex Talk, and it is residing now at www.sextalkpodcast.com. The first show went live today, and it has an interview with Kim Gandy and some snippets from a Gloria Steinem speech earlier this week.”

• Speaking of that Gloria Steinem speech, you can find a podcast of the entire thing here - it’s about what’s wrong with journalism, and it’s quite good. Thank to Brendan Watson for the hat-tip.

• Positive Liberty has an excellent post pointing out that “getting government out of the marriage business” is not nearly as simple as some folks seem to believe.

• Bruce Ackerman, in a not-especially-short article, describes the bad tidings that Bush appointments could bring with them to the Supreme Court. Via Balkanization.

Due to this and that (too much for me to bother explaining right now), our household has a tradition of exchanging presents a couple of months after Christmas. So we exchanged presents yesterday.

I don’t think Sydney understood what was going on, but she liked ripping presents open.

Charles pointed out to me an interesting debate about Women’s studies. If you’d like to read it, I’d suggest you begin with Dr. Crazy’s post Why Women’s Studies Sucks (I should mention that Dr. Crazy is a feminist professor). Then, read Sappho’s response to Dr. Crazy. Then, read Dr. Crazy’s follow up post and also her response to Sappho.

A reasonable critique of Dr. Crazy’s view - especially as expressed in her initial post - is that she seems to be to be critiquing a one-dimensional cartoon version of women’s studies, not the multi-dimensioned reality. (I’m paraphrasing something said in Dr. Crazy’s comments, and normally I’d credit the person being paraphrased. Alas, Dr. Crazy uses Haloscan, and right now Haloscan isn’t letting me see comments, for some mysterious Haloscan-esque reason).

Dr. Crazy’s later posts moderate this tendency, but as a result her critique sort of turns into mush, and it becomes difficult to tell what exactly she’s advocating. It reads to me as if her logic calls for eliminating women’s studies, but she’s not willing to actually go that far. Which is good! But it’s hard to understand how the halfway-measures she calls for address the problems she’s describing.

UPDATE: Check out this post as well, in which Dr. Crazy links to some other blogs discussing her posts.

Via Redneck Feminist, an amusing article in Reason considers the right-wing horror of Eve Ensler’s much-criticized play.

Meet the put-upon conservative coed, the prototype pushed by conservative feminists to demonstrate liberal bias on college campuses. We’ll call her Claire. Claire doesn’t want any part of this vulgar spectacle known as The Vagina Monologues, but her Feminine Mystique-touting, Germaine Greer-quoting friends are tying her to a chair and making her watch. She desperately wants to be chaste, but condom-peddling feminists are driving her to her knees at the frathouse next door. She really just wants to be a mom, but her mentors in the gender studies department say that’s just not acceptable.

Claire may or may not exist, but there is a whole movement dedicated to setting her free. I recently watched Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, give a speech on Eve Ensler’s Monologues to like-minded women. The play is performed on hundreds of campuses around Valentine’s Day ever year, and Sommers is annually appalled, most deeply by what she calls “a four-letter-word that begins in c, ends in t, and is not coat.” [...]

This is the frustrating irony of conservative feminism: As the movement rightly condemns modern feminism for being a paralyzing ideology of victimization, it leaves a bloody trail of victimhood in its wake. Whether they be Yale freshmen or Princeton professors, the weaker sex is apparently unable to withstand the excesses of Naomi Wolf. Claire doesn’t stand a chance.

At the close of Sommers’ dire warning about Ensler’s play, a concerned mother had a question: “Where can I send my child so she’s not exposed to this?” The audience obliged with suggestions of Ensler-banning, second-rate colleges; Sommers nodded gravely. When women who call themselves feminists see censorship as the way forward, we have bigger problems than bad playwriting.

What bothers me more than the censorship is that some parents would rather send their daughters to second-rate colleges than allow them to be “exposed” to a play they disapprove of at a first-rate college.

Redneck Feminist’s post also has an entertaining story of how she learned to relax and enjoy The Vagina Monologues.

P.S. By the way, I’m not particularly bothered by Reason Magazine’s cliched slamming of contemporary feminism as “a paralyzing ideology of victimization.” Reason is a magazine written by libertarians; libertarians call it an “ideology of victimization” whenever anyone suggests anything other than Evil Big Government is ever oppressive or problematic.

UPDATE: Check out Amanda’s take on this story.

This is utterly disgusting. From the LA Times:

A judge hearing child abuse and neglect cases in Tennessee has given an unusual instruction to some immigrant mothers who have come before him: Learn English, or else.

Most recently, it was an 18-year-old woman from Oaxaca, Mexico, who had been reported to the Department of Children’s Services for failing to immunize her toddler and show up for appointments. At a hearing last month to monitor the mother’s custody of the child, Wilson County Judge Barry Tatum instructed the woman to learn English and to use birth control, the Lebanon Democrat newspaper reported.

Last October, Tatum gave a similar order to a Mexican woman who had been cited for neglect of her 11-year-old daughter, said a lawyer who is representing the woman in her appeal. Setting a court date six months away, the judge told the woman she should be able to speak English at a fourth-grade level by that meeting. If she failed, he warned, he would begin the process of termination of parental rights.

Full story.

UPDATE: Good for them! Peek has now added (that I noticed) seven excellent blogs written by women: Body and Soul, Feministing, Mouse Words, Sisyphus Shrugged, Pacific Views, Farai Chideye, and Rox Populi to their blogroll.

They’ve also added Afro-Netizen and possibly others that I haven’t noticed.

What’s below this is my original, now out-of-date post.

* * *

Here’s the text of the email I’ve sent to Peek, Alternet’s “blog of blogs.”

Hi! I’m Barry (aka Ampersand). I’m flattered that you include my blog, “Alas, a Blog,” on your blogroll. Thank you!

However, I’m disturbed that there’s only one blog written by a woman on your blogroll. There are many excellent blogs out there by women, both specifically feminist and not; “Wonkette” should not be the only one listed!

I’m also disturbed that there’s only one blog with a focus on feminism listed - mine - and it’s one that’s written primarily by a man. If you’re going to list only one blog paying attention to feminism, it would make sense to choose one written by a woman.

There are many excellent feminist blogs by women - if you visit “Alas” and look on the sidebar, there’s an entire section devoted to my most-recommended blogs about feminism, nearly all of which are written by women. I think “XX” and “Feministing” may be particularly suitable choices, for their broad coverage of feminist issues, but I strongly recommend all of the feminist blogs on my blogroll.

In addition, there many of the best-written lefty poliblogs are by women. Two that come immediately to mind are Body and Soul and Sisyphus Shrugged. I’m sure other bloggers are emailing you suggestions, as well. Visit whatshesaid.the-goddess.org and browse the blogroll there; you will find many blogs well worth your time and your blogroll.

I am not accusing you of being deliberately sexist or of deliberately slighting women. However, because the tendency to give primacy to male voices is so deeply embedded in our culture, even people of good will can unintentionally replicate and contribute to this sexism merely by following the path of least resistance.

Fortunately, there is a simple way to repair the problem with your blogroll - just add some excellent female bloggers!

If you don’t do that, however, then I must respectfully ask you to remove “Alas, a blog” from your blogroll.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thanks to Morgan and to Mouse Words for pointing this issue out to me.

UPDATE: Alternet editor Evan responds to these sorts of concerns in the comments at What She Said!. (Thanks to Sheelzebub - who has a good post on her own blog criticizing both “Alas” and “Peek” - for pointing this out to me). Here’s part of what Evan writes:

The intention was to begin by presenting our readers (many of whom are getting their very first taste of the blogosphere) with a more familiar landscape while integrating less familiar blogs as we proceed. Indeed, we hope PEEK will become the very place where the voices of less well-known blogs and bloggers are amplified!

Evan says that “quite a bit of fine-tuning and adjustment will no doubt take place over the next few months.” With all due respect, I’m not sure that saying it will take “a few months” demonstrates that you’re taking the feminist criticism of your blogroll seriously.

I’m not saying that your desire to build gradually, in an interactive process with readers, is wrong. And I agree with Lauren at Feministe that Alternet has earned some slack.

Why not compromise? Add several excellent female voices today, to show good intentions - and then work to improve things further over the next few months?

Bean has a blog of her own! Please go check it out. It’s full of the excellent Bean writing and analysis that “Alas” readers are used to. (And although content matters more than form, I additionally want to compliment Bean on the beautiful blog design.)

Perhaps of particular interest to some folks here, Bean’s most recent post comments on and continues the “civility” discussion that’s taken place here on “Alas.”

The final round of nominations for 2004 Koufax awards is out!

Major huzzahs are due everyone who got nominated this year, but I’d like to especially congratulate feminist bloggers Amanda, whose Mouse Words is a finalist for “Best New Blog”, and Trish Wilson, a finalist for “Best Single Issue Blog.” Yay for them! (If you’d like to help them or another favorite blog of yours out, follow the links and post a vote).

Hey, folks. I’m unusually heavily scheduled at my job this week, plus I’m working on a new Hereville page, so my posting will probably be sparse this week.

Also, I’ve got about 50 gmail invites, so if anyone reading “Alas” wants a gmail account just drop me an email.