(Okay, only one of them is a model.)

First, Big Fat Blog has a “three quick questions” interview with Lindsay Hollister, a very cool American actress who has a size-acceptance mentality. From the interview:

[First,] I’m constantly torn between wanting to work and not wanting to perpetuate the myth of fat people. That we are lazy, sad, pathetic, etc. kind of people. Second, it affects me as a fat woman who has to watch these programs that portray fat people in a negative light. I am fat but also happen to be a successful, well dressed, outgoing woman who has been in a loving relationship for three years. Somehow, Hollywood fails to put that on screen and instead continues to write stereotypical roles for fat women. It’s an injustice to say the least, mostly due to the fact that the majority of Americans are overweight and deserve to see some real representation of their lives on the big (or small) screen.

Second, the Sydney Morning Herald’s “Entertainment Blog” has an interview with Paris-based model/actress Velvet d’Amour, who recently made a splash walking the runway wearing lingerie designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. What makes this interview interesting is that the blogger/interviewer keeps on asking mainstream anti-fat questions like “What do you think about TV programs such as ‘The Biggest Loser’? Do you think that they’re a good idea in encouraging people to lose weight?” Velvet does a great job answering these questions while (amazingly) keeping her cool. She also refuses to get drawn into dissing thin woman.

UPDATE: Akismet says that the bug causing the false positives has been fixed. Original (now, I hope, moot) post is below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

This one was printed in Dollars and Sense months ago… it’s already dated now, given the results of the elections earlier this month. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

For some reason it seems like racist incidents on college campuses have peaked during the fall semester this year. There have been several blackface incidents, and other random racist happenings. Here are a few:

1. American Indian students take on racism at Dartmouth.

2. NAACP issues statement about recent racist incidents on college campuses. I think they need to add Trinity College, Whitman, and now Dartmouth to the list of campuses mentioned in the article (Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, Univ. Texas, Austin).

3. Maybe the NAACP also needs to talk to the college republicans at Boston University, who feel the need to have a “Caucasian scholarship.”

4. Next we have the University of Cincinnati, where racist fliers were delievered to the campus. The UC administration seems to be taking the exact opposite of Whitman. When Whitman students showed up in blackface, the administration cancelled classes, according to some UC students the administration hasn’t said much at all about these fliers.

5. Black students at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis got fed up with racism on campus and issued a list of demands, to which white students and at least a few other racial minority students declared that they wanted their tuition money back. You can read the students grievances and demands here (PDF). It is also interesting to see that a South Asian woman is leading the charge against the black students grievances.

6. Racial slurs and religious bigotry found on Pace University campuses.

7. I already put up this story about a University of Michigan student who was attacked on line for his opposition to an anti-affirmative action ballot iniative.

8. Students in a multicultural dorm at Lehigh University find a dead animal’s head on their doorstep.

9. I also posted this incident earlier. The white University of Memphis fraternity members who called their fraternity brother’s black girlfriend a racial slur.

Nuku’alofa/Pangaimotu – The city centre of Nuku’alofa has been completely closed off after last Thursday’s riots. Military checkpoints have been set up on every intersection. Only people who work and/or live inside that part of town are let in. Journalists can get a special pass which gives them access to the part of town where most buildings are damaged but unfortunately we have not been able to get media accreditations yet. There are close to 20 of these roadblocks in town.

Checkpoints: To film or not to film?
We went for a walk to film and photograph the soldiers on Friday evening. While we were told not to film or take photos by a group of Tongan soldiers at one intersection, others were quite happy to be filmed and some were prepared to talk, too. A Tongan soldier said his gun is an M16. “We check all the vehicles because they go into the political centre. We scan every vehicle for weapons.”

At the next checkpoint two Australian soldiers were walking towards us while we were filming and taking photographs. They were both carrying big weapons (I’m not an expert, but they looked like machineguns to me – see photo). We were standing in the middle of the road on a roundabout and were filming. When they spotted us they yelled “Stop it, stop!” The sight of two heavily armed soldiers was rather scary. It turned out they were just on going to the diary to get some snacks (carrying huge weapons!).

”Maintaining the peace” – again and again and again
At the checkpoint outside the broken satellite dishes, an Australian soldier was keen to talk on camera. His grandparents are Tongan and he speaks the language. “I represent the Australian Defence Force (ADF). We’re just here to support and provide aid to the Tongan Defence Service (TDS) and also to restore peace. The army is going through some trouble in Tonga.” When I asked him what the reaction from ordinary Tongan’s has been like he said: “The public has been good. Every car that goes past, they wave, they’re happy. When they smile at us we smile at them. They always come past and give us food. I feel the spirit out the normal public is very positive. Not one single negative report at all.” Are you on the side of democracy? “No sides, we are just here to support the Tongan Defence Service.” He then started waving to people and talking to them as they drove past. By that time we hade been at that checkpoint for around five minutes and dozens of cars went past – none of them had waved. This soldier seemed to be unaware that the pro-democracy movement does not want the troops in Tonga. He said he has no opinion on democracy in Tonga. This is his very first trip to Tonga. He has “served for his country” overseas before – in Iraq.

On Saturday, a Tongan soldier told us we were not allowed to film and take photos, put his hand over our camera and told us to go away. Back at the Broadcasting checkpoint, we were offered food and we film an Australian soldier and a few Tongan soldiers watching rugby. Four Australian and three Tongan soldiers were hanging out at the next checkpoint. We wanted to take some photos and film a little. After waiting for a few minutes for a reply we were told we can film one ADF and one TDS “working together” (which constituted of standing next to each other doing nothing). We were not to take photos of ADF troops behind who were carrying machine guns. So can you tell me what you are doing here? (shakes his head) ”Sorry no” (The Australian soldier in charge said: ”Just give them your normal spin, what we were told to say”) What’s the normal spin? “Uhm, we are here to keeping the peace pretty much.” How is the peace going theses days? “Pretty peaceful.”

Pangaitapu: Team Blue goes for a swim
Just off Nuku’alofa lies Pangaitapu, a small island with amazing beaches. We jumped on a small boat in which a large group of white men were already sitting. They turned out to be NZ police officers who spent their Sunday drinking beer and getting a tan. They said 47 NZ cops are now in Nuku’alofa (which is a larger NZ police/civilian ratio than in Aotearoa!). They come from all across the country and many of them have previously been overseas (Solomon Islands, Thailand etc.). Some arrived with the airforce on Saturday while other caught a commercial plane a few days later. A new contingent of NZ police has just arrived and they were sent to church “to get the people onside”.

Burning and looting
Back in Nuku’alofa we saw more destroyed buildings outside the city centre. ‘Lily’s Chinese Restaurant’ was completely destroyed and so was the ‘Chinatown Hotel’. A NZ firefighter, who spent his day off with the NZ cops, said that the fires were lit with petrol and that they spread to surrounding buildings. The main targets outside the city centre were dairies, hotels, banks and Tonfon. We talked to some people in the street who described last week’s looting. “People were trashing the shop and walking out with everything. Fanta, VB. The police was just standing here doing nothing. […] The government is full of lies. The King is a liar.”

”Everything is great!”
A SUV pulled over with two ADF soldiers sitting in it. One of them introduced himself as Al Green, the Public Affairs Officers (he has been to Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor, Bougainville and Cambodia – a well traveled chap). “Everything is great. It’s nice and quiet. So all we try to do is keep the peace.” What kind of jobs does the ADF do? “All our jobs are joint patrols with Tongans and helping them out at checkpoints. Our patrols are all about maintaining goodwill and relationships. Our objective is to make sure everything keeps peaceful. […] Basically, we have enough power to maintain peace on the streets.” Are your guns loaded? “Yeah, we’ve got live rounds. I mean, that’s just the standard. We have to able to protect ourselves.” What are your thoughts on politics? “Our view is not be involved in the politics but to make sure peace is maintained on the streets so that Tongans can solve their own problems.” What would you say to people who say that coming here in the first place is getting involved with politics? “That’s outside my scope. Our agenda is just to maintain peace.” He thought he was not educated enough on Tongan culture to have a view himself on democracy. But if we wanted to talk politics he will try and organise for us to interview Major Jim Hammett.

”Having consistent messages which are accurate”
“This is very good PR training for me, you know” said Al Green when talking to us. “Curly questions. You guys should come and work for our media awareness. (Laughs) Exercises.” So you are trained to give those answers? “Well, to be honest mate, we have talking points that allow us to give a consistent message right through defence. Because, uhm, that’s the accurate reason. Those reasons are set to why we are here so everyone is very clear of their purpose. And if you didn’t have that consistent communication you’d be just saying… You lose your entire sense of consistency within your organisation. I mean Greenpeace probably work exactly the same way.”

So, the ADF is in Tonga to keep the peace and support the TDS. Got that message?

text: smush
From indymedia

In the comments of an earlier post, Robert Hayes has been arguing that racial preferences in college admission are bad because they harm minority students through what Robert calls “the ratchet effect.” But “the ratchet effect,” as Robert describes it, is dependent on what social scientists have called the “fit hypothesis” or “the mismatch hypothesis.” If mismatch isn’t true, neither is ratchet.

So what is the mismatch hypothesis? Robert describes the mismatch hypothesis perfectly when he writes:

People who get racial preferences turn in dreadful statistics on completion and performance in academia. […] The cost of the policy isn’t paid by the institutions, it’s paid by the students. It’s paid by the really bright black kid who would do great at Cornell but fails out of Yale. It’s paid by the decently bright Hispanic kid who would do great at UT but fails out of Cornell. It’s paid by the adequate fill-in-the-blank kid who would have done fine at Oklahoma State but who can’t cut it at UT.

That’s an exact description of what the mismatch hypothesis claims. Asked to provide evidence for his argument, Robert linked to this Cato Institute report (pdf link).¹ But Cato’s discussion of drop out rates, written by Marie Gryphon, is shoddy at best. Empirical evidence shows that the mismatch hypothosis is fiction. The truth is, minority students in colleges that practice AA are more likely to graduate than minority students with identical academic “qualifications” (i.e., SAT scores, class rank, etc.) who attend less-highly-ranked colleges.

How can this be? Doesn’t common sense tell us that putting less-prepared students in a harder college is a recipe for creating drop-outs — that “the really bright black kid who would do great at Cornell… fails out of Yale,” as Rob said?

This is a case where “common sense” is mistaken. There are many reasons why that really bright black kid might be more likely to graduate from Yale. One strong possibility is that high-status schools have better support systems for students. Another is that the peer groups at high-status schools create a social evironment in which better academic habits are a norm. Higher-quality teachers and TAs could make a difference. As social scientists Alon and Tienda write, “empirical studies have repeatedly demonstrated the advantages of placing students in higher ability groups with better instruction, less distraction, more time spent on task, more academic role models, and more serious learning climates.”

Having more grants (rather than loans) available to undergraduates also makes a difference.²

The exact mechanisms will require further research to pin down, but it seems likely that all of the above factors contribute in some way to lower drop-out rates for minorities in higher-status schools, compared to similarly-qualified (i.e., SATs, class rank, etc) minority students in lower-status schools.

So what kind of evidence do right-wingers marshall to deny the facts? Let’s look at the Cato report Robert cited. Cato’s researcher, Marie Gryphon, begins by criticizing Bowen and Bok’s well-known study The Shape of The River,³ which examined outcomes for minority students at a group of top-tier colleges. In this article, Bowen summarized some of his and Bok’s findings:

First, there is no systemic evidence that race-sensitive admissions policies tend to “harm the beneficiaries” by putting them in settings in which they are overmatched intellectually or “stigmatized” to the point that they would have been better off attending a less selective institution. On the contrary, extensive analysis of data reported in The Shape of the River shows that minority students at selective schools have, overall, performed well. The more selective the school that they attended, the more likely they were to graduate and earn advanced degrees, the happier they were with their college experience, and the more successful they were in later life.

Second, the available evidence disposes of the argument that the substitution of “race-sensitive” for “race-neutral” admissions policies has led to admission of many minority students who are not well-suited to take advantage of the educational opportunities they are being offered. Examination of the later accomplishments of those students who would have been “retrospectively rejected” under race-neutral policies shows that they did just as well as a hypothetical reference group that might have been admitted if GPAs and test scores had been the primary criteria (which is, itself, a questionable assumption). There are no significant differences in graduation rates, advanced-degree attainment, earnings, civic contributions, or satisfactions with college.

Gryphon criticizes The Shape of the River by claiming “Bowen and Bok argued on the basis of SAT scores alone that equally qualified students are actually more likely to graduate if they attend more selective schools.” But that’s simply not true: Bowen and Bok also analyzed class rank (based on GPA) and SATs together, but still found that minority students are more likely to graduate when they attend high-status colleges. (Gryphon grudgingly acknowledges this in endnotes, where few readers will see it.)

Gryphon continues:

Economists did subsequently analyze the question of dropout rates in more detail and got very different results than Bowen and Bok. Economists Audrey Light and Wayne Strayer were able to better predict university completion patterns among students of different abilities. They did this by using methods that took into account unmeasured student qualities…. When student differences were held equal, Light and Strayer found that the likelihood of graduating from college depended on how close the “fit” was between a given student and his or her classmates in terms of academic preparedness. They write: “Our estimates reveal that the ‘match’ between student ability and college quality does have a causal effect on college completion.”

Gryphon’s footnotes credit these findings to a 2000 study published in The Journal of Human Resources.⁴ But when I looked the study up, I was surprised to find that far from using a deeper measure of student achievement, Light and Strayer did just what Gryphon falsely accused The Shape Of The River of: they used a single test score (the AFQT)⁵ as their sole measure of academic ability.

Furthermore, Light and Strayer’s Journal of Human Resources study isn’t well designed to address the question of affirmative action and “mismatched” minority students. The relevant question isn’t if students as a whole are more likely to graduate from high-status schools if they have high AFQT scores (which is what Light and Strayer’s study primarily addresses), but if students whose college placement might be affected by affirmative action - that is, black and hispanic students - are more likely to graduate from high-status schools than otherwise similarly “qualified” (i.e., identical SATs, class rank, etc) black and hispanic students at slightly lower-status schools. Although this study implies that affirmative action policies “may” lower the chances of graduation for some students, the question can’t really be answered without a more focused study design.

Interestingly, a later study by the same authors and using the same data source specifically addresses the question of affirmative action and college graduation.⁶ So why doesn’t Gryphon discuss this later, more relevant study (apart from one mention buried in endnotes)? It’s obvious why: In their later study, Light and Strayer conclude that the data is “consistent with the notion that racial preferences in college admissions boost minorities’ chances of attending college and that retention programs directed at minority students subsequently enhance their chances of earning a degree.”

Light and Strayer rightly caution readers not to take their work as conclusive evidence that affirmative action works (there could be unmeasured confounding factors). Nonetheless, Light and Strayer’s results are not consistant with Gryphon’s claim that affirmative action is hurting minorities by pushing them into harder universities.⁷

A third, more recent study, by Sigal Alon of Tel Aviv University and Marta Tienda of Princeton,⁸ uses a more thorough methodology than either Light and Strayer or The Shape of The River (among many technical improvements, their analysis includes asians and hispanic students as well as black and white students). Alon and Tienda conclude:

…Our results are consistent with claims that minority students thrive at selective postsecondary institutions, despite their disadvantaged starting lines (Bowen and Bok 1998; Massey et al. 2003). Minority students’ likelihood of graduation increases as the selectivity of the institution attended rises. Our findings, based on three data sets and several analytical methods, suggest that the mismatch hypothesis is empirically groundless for black and Hispanic (as well as for white and Asian) students who attended college during the 1980s and early 1990s. On the basis of the robust evidence we presented, we conclude that affirmative action practices both broaden educational opportunities for minority students and enable minority students to realize their full potential.

These findings clearly demonstrate the advantages that are associated with attending a more-selective institution and call for future research to identify the mechanisms that produce such an advantage.

The evidence is clear:There is no “mismatch” problem with affirmative action. Being able to attend better universities increases the odds that black and hispanic students will graduate. Right-wing proposals to eliminate affirmative action, far from helping hispanic and black students, would deprive some minority students of access to the best colleges while lowering their odds of graduating.

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

UPDATE: Robert responds to me here.

1. The Cato Institute is a right-wing think tank with a pro-market emphasis. (back)
2. Alon, Sigai. 2004, October 28-30. “The Influence of Financial Aid in Leveling Croup Differences in Persistence among Students Attending Selective Private Institutions.” Paper presented at the conference of the Association for Public Policy and Management, Atlanta, GA. Cited in Alon and Tienda, 2005. (back)
3. William G. Bowen and Derek Bok (1988), The Shape of the River, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (back)
4. Audrey Light and Wayne Strayer (2000), “Determinants of College Completion: School Quality or Student Ability?” Journal of Human Resources v35. (back)
5. AFQT stands for “Armed Forces Qualifying Test”; there are legitimate reasons for social scientists to use the AFQT, but it’s no better than the SATs as a measure of academic ability, and it’s ability to predict future college performance - like the SATs - is mediocre. (back)
6. Audrey Light and Wayne Strayer (2002), “From Bakke to Hopwood: Does Race Affect College Attendance and Completion?” Review of Economics and Statistics, p. 34. (back)
7. Gryphon dances around this in endnotes by falsely claiming that the second, more applicable Light and Strayer study is only about “the most highly selective schools,” but that’s not true; Light and Strayer specifically say their results are for “colleges of all selectivity levels,” and anyhow, both studies use the same database. (back)
8. Sigal Alon and Marta Tienda (2005), “Assessing the ‘Mismatch’ Hypothesis: Differences in College Graduation Rates by Institutional Selectivity,” Sociology of Education, Vol. 78 (October): 294-315. (back)

That’s what too many people still want before they accept that a rape happened. Some of those will be generous and forgive rape victims for not resisting if a weapon is involved and that weapon is being controlled by a stranger.

Many people won’t believe boys and men are rapists if they take sex without going through a stage where the victim shows stereotypical resistance such as scratching at the rapist’s eyes or screaming non-stop. That a victim was sexually violated doesn’t matter, the rape must happen in a way that the victim’s response traumatizes the rapist.

The premise is that if the rapist isn’t traumatized neither is the victim.

The excuse for this is a warped version of reasonable doubt. The doubt becomes not whether the person committed the crime, but whether the person who did the crime is a bad person who sets out to hurt others. Maybe it was nothing more than an honest mistake.

To use the consent defense, what is needed is not proof of lack of consent (stereotypical resistance) but proof that the alleged victim gave true, legal consent. If the alleged rapist says the alleged victim consented then proving that claim should be the defense team’s burden. Unfortunately, many legal statutes are written with the bias favoring men who exploit vulnerable girls and women. Being vulnerable becomes defacto consent.

The sexual violation just happened. A no-fault rape, at best. At worst, the victim had it coming or is delusional because she sees sexual violation where none existed.

To understand the warped view of rape where the defense says it was consensual, think about embezzlement cases. It doesn’t matter whether the embezzler acted from pure greed or to punish the person he embezzled from. What matters is the embezzlement itself. The person took funds he (or she) wasn’t authorized to take. Jurors don’t ignore the evidence simply because the embezzler seems like a nice guy or because the victim trusted him and gave him access to the funds he stole. If the defense claims that the money was taken legally, it is up to the defense to counter the prosecution’s evidence of embezzlement. And if the proof were: “She didn’t say I couldn’t take that money from her” no jury would give that claim any merit at all.

But that’s exactly the logic people buy when they insist on proof of resistance in rape cases.

In addition, this betrayal from within is understood to be a trauma added to the financial loss. But in rape cases when a boyfriend rapes his girlfriend people frequently assume that this relationship reduces the trauma of rape to the point where some people would call her a liar if she calls herself a rape victim — even when they believe her version of events. She may even be told that she has no right to compare herself to someone who experienced the real trauma of rape.

The problem is that there is an assumption that girls and women have a rapist radar. She has to know what’s about to happen before her options run out. If she’s so careless that she doesn’t see trouble coming she’s the irresponsible one. Yet we don’t excuse or decriminalize embezzlement because the victim trusted the embezzler.

This expectation in rape cases is based on the very dangerous myth where people believe that all real rapists are total and obvious monsters and that some women have it coming to them.

Sometimes people attempt to erase proof of resistance to rape by recharacterizing what happened in a way that changes the underlying actions. “He asked her several times and she eventually agreed” sounds innocent while, “he wouldn’t let her out of the room until he got the sex he felt entitled to” shows premeditation and actions meant to overwhelm resistance.

The reason the first statement sounds innocent is that all signs of guilt have been purged. People will often claim they are properly summarizing the truth in their characterizations when in fact they are attempting to obscure the truth.

The same goes when people say a man was unfairly charged with rape after drunk sex. The characterization implies that both parties were equal participants.

This same deception by recharacterization is done toward those who advocate for rape victims. Calling non-violent rape real rape becomes calling all less than perfect sex real rape. Calling the exploitation of women too intoxicated to fight off unwanted sex real rape becomes calling all sex under the influence real rape.

Distort and then make a point about the distortion as if it isn’t a distortion.

When people who say they oppose all types of rape do this sort of distorting at the expense of rape victims what message does that send to rapists?

(crossposted at my blog, Abyss2hope)

Note: Comments are limited to feminists or those who can be respectful of feminists’ efforts to fight sexual exploitation. If you only want to excuse or minimize the behavior of those who harm others, make the person exploited responsible for their own exploitation, call those who label their experiences rape liars, or tell us that we should be focusing on more important issues, please do so elsewhere.

There was one discordant note to the Reclaim the Night march I went to last Thursday. The organisers had done a really good job of planning the after party. There was food, and a space for a debrief, as well as performers and a party.

My problem was that the bar was on two levels, and the food and debrief part of the after-party was up a steep flight of stairs.

I say ‘my problem’ of course it wasn’t actually my problem. My legs take me up and downstairs with relative ease - and I jumped straight in to help set-up the food. It wasn’t even really a problem for my friend Betsy, although stairs are an obstacle for her.

The women for whom that flight of stairs would have been a problem weren’t there in the first place.

I’ve been struggling with accessibility in activist movements, and where my limits are, for as long as I’ve been an activist. Most groups I know aren’t in a financial position where they can pay to hire space, so we meet wherever we can get a free room. Sometimes, but not always, that’s been accessible. Sometimes, but not always, I’ve objected.

But I’m limited when arguing for accessible spaces, because I know it’s not arguments that convinced me, it’s experience. It’s because for years my friend Betsy couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs. Where we went for coffee, where we went for a drink, where we went to the movies, where we bought CDs, whose flat we met up at - these decisions were all influenced by the number of steps in front of the building. I see a set of steps and part of me notices it as an obstacle.

There’s a fallacy that abuse is about individual acts, and that you can measure the abusiveness of a relationship by tallying what people did to each other.

This ignores a basic truth about abuse, which is that you can’t abuse someone unless you have power over them.

The academic version of this fallacy has been doing the rounds in New Zealand. It’s being promoted by men who are terribly upset that there’s even one day a year where men are expected to take a stand against Violence Against Women. This coverage from the New Zealand Herald is fairly typical:

Professor David Fergusson and Associate Professor Richie Poulton said their respective long-term studies of people born in Christchurch and Dunedin in the 1970s showed that most domestic violence was mutual.

“In a high proportion of these couples, we are seeing mutual fighting. It’s brawling,” said Professor Fergusson.

In contrast, the commission is backing White Ribbon Day on November 25, which asks men to wear a white ribbon to show that they do not condone “men’s violence towards women”.

These men’s views of domestic violence and abuse are limited by the tool they used to measure it. Both studies used the Conflict Tactic Scale (CTS), a scale that measures individual ‘hits’, and the people who designed the scale have specifically rejected its use to compare men’s and women’s violence. I’m not going to argue the academics of the CTS; Ampersand did a very good job of this and Trish Wilson has a page of links. I want to make my point in a more basic way and I’m going to start with a really obvious example.

One of the questions the interviewees are asked is if a partner had ever: “Called you fat, ugly, or unattractive.” They seem to believe that statement is ungendered - it is equally abusive if a man says it to a woman as it would be if a woman said it to a man. To me, that is so unrealistic to be almost surreal.

I have known several couples where a woman does make comments about her male partner’s size (usually in the context of them both getting more exercise or eating differently). I have a problem with those conversations, and would rather not be around them, but the women are not being abusive, psychologically aggressive, or exercising any form of power (in fact it’s usually tied to the idea that women are responsible for their partner’s health). Whereas, I was at a pub six years ago with a couple I didn’t really know, and I can still work up rage at the man for telling his partner not to eat particular fries, because they were ‘fat sticks’.

Women are not set up to be the judges of men’s appearance and self-worth, so most women who comment about their male partner’s appearance are usually not exercising power. Whereas, men are given that power, and so such comments are far more likely to be abusive.

Obviously, there are many factors that could change this dynamic. Non-heterosexual relationships would obviously have a completely different dynamic, and the power related to appearance would likely to be much more varied. But that doesn’t stop that question being a really useless way of measuring psychological aggression.

I’d go further, I’d say other acts on the CTS list take different meaning depending on the power within the relationship. Let’s imagine a couple in a heterosexual relationship who are having an argument and in the course of this argument the man hits the woman. He doesn’t hurt her, but he’s stronger than her. This could be an assertion of power: “I could have hurt you, but I didn’t. No-one would believe that I hit you, no one would care if they did. Everyone knows that it’s wrong to hit your girlfriend, but I can hit you.”

Now let us reverse the situation: this time the woman hits the man. In this context hitting him could be a statement of powerlessness: “I can’t stop you, I can’t hurt you, I can’t do anything to make this stop.”

I’m not saying that everytime a man hits a woman it means something similar to my first example, and every time a woman hits a man it means something similar to my second example. What I am saying is that the meaning (and abusiveness) of individual actions is found within the power dynamic of that relationship, and in our society power dynamics within heterosexual relationships are going to be gendered.

Unfortunately it’s not just researchers who believe that you measure abuse by examining individual actions. I’ve found the idea all too common in people who are confronted with abusive relationships among their friends. Rather than looking at the power dynamic involved in an abusive relationship, I’ve seen people too easily slip into the classification of ‘mutually abusive relationship’ or ‘fucked-up situation.’

Power within a relationship isn’t a zero sum game - both parties can have, and misuse, lots of power against each other. I’m not arguing that mutually abusive relationships don’t exist, but that no-one should come to the conclusion that an individual relationship is mutually abusive without thinking about the power involved first.

‘Mutually abusive relationship’ as the default setting creates the idea of a perfect victim. If anyone who fights back is in a ‘mutually abusive relationship,’ then the only way you are entitled to support is if you don’t fight back. But if you react to the abuse, physically defend yourself, act jealous or fucked up by what’s happened to you, then you don’t deserve support, and people around can wash their hands and walks away from what they term a mutually abusive relationship.

As a feminist, as a human being, it is my duty and my desire, to support the powerless against the powerful, and to not wash my hands of women who fight back.

Two friends of mine have gone to Tonga for Indymedia. I’m going to be posting their reports. Smush wrote the words and Sln took the pictures.

Nuku’alofa (Tonga) – We, two indymedia (www.indymedia.org.nz) activists, arrived at Fua’amato International Airport early on Friday morning from Aotearoa. After leaving the plane we had to walk to the arrival hall past three Tongan soldiers, two of which were carrying large rifles and the other a hand gun. A police officer walked around with his dog while people where waiting at the immigration desks. More members of the Tongan Defense Force (TDF), armed and in camouflage gear, stood around in the arrival hall. On our way into town we past a military checkpoint at the turn-off to the airport. They didn’t pull us over and we drove the 20kms into the city.

Tonfön destroyed
In the morning we made contact with members of the Friendly Island Human Rights and Democracy Movement (FIHRDM) and arranged to meet up later. In the interim we went for a two hour walk through Nuku’alofa. On our way towards the city we came across a building which was completely destroyed from Thursday’s fires. It was the headquarters of Tonfön, a telecommunication company owned by the royal family.

Checkpoints
Just before entering the city centre, across from the Royal Tombs, a military checkpoint is set up. In fact, the whole city centre is cordoned off by roadblocks on every street. Only people who work or live inside the area can enter. You have to be on a list in order to pass. Each checkpoint constitutes off a set of barricades to stop cars with spikes on the ground. There are between two and eight soldiers on guard at each checkpoint. The bigger checkpoints have Tongan and Australian soldiers. The Australian soldiers moved into town on Saturday for guard duty. We counted approximately 12 roadblocks in central Nuku’alofa. The Tongan TV station, which is out of the city centre, is also closed by army personnel of which two are from Australia. “We do what the Tongan government tells us” said one of them.

NZ is investigating
We came across two NZ police officers and one NZ firefighter who were busy investigating ‘arson crimes’. They told us that there are two teams, made up of one firefighter, one police photographer and two investigators (all from New Zealand) along with Tongan police, operating at the moment. “We are here to help to assist the Tongan police” said a NZ police officer.

Interviews
We then had the opportunity to interview five people who are involved in the democracy movement: Finau Tutone, an organiser with the Friendly Island Teachers Association; Akenete T. Lauti, the director of FIHRDM; ‘Akilisi Pohiva and Leopolo Taonesila, both Members of Parliament (two of the nine representatives elected by the people – in a parliament of 30); and Tevita Tui Uata of the National Tongan Business Association.

Very quick summary:
Finau talked about last year’s strike and the connection between the trade union movement and the pro-democracy movement. He said the system needs to change in Tonga. Akenete informed us about the FIHRDM’s activities. They organise workshops and meeting to educate people on human rights issues. While she advocates for non-violence, she does not blame the people but the Government for Thursday’s riots. ‘Akilisi put the movement into a historical context and talked about the progress, or lack of, made inside parliament. Leopolo is one of only two women in parliament (the other one being the Minister of Justice – appointed by the King). She only started to get involved in politics last year when she was elected to parliament as a people’s representative from an outer island. Tevita, who has been blamed for the riots, thinks that representative democracy will get Tonga out of a system that only works for 1% of the population. He was strongly opposed to Tonga joining the World Trade Organisation and says that the wealth needs to be shared more equally among the people.

NZ/OZ soldiers – get out (or “enjoy your holiday”)!
With the exception of Tevita, all of the people we spoke to either do not see the point of the New Zealand and Australian troops’ presence or see them as supporters of the autocratic system. Either way, they want them out of Tonga. The NZ soldiers are not to be seen in Nuku’alofa (they are still somewhere at the airport) and the Australian troops do not seem to do much at all except for sitting around at checkpoints with big guns. Pro-democracy advocates are very critical of NZ support for the government. They say the NZ government should be neutral and not send soldiers to support the system.

Revolutionary not Evolutionary
Many shops have slogans painted on them. Across from the market, someone wrote “THE NU FACE OF YOUTH REBELLION” and “REVOLUTIONARY NOT EVOLUTIONARY” on a burnt-out shop. Other slogans are “Freedomfighter”, “Fight the Power”, “Democracy not Hypocrisy”, “You had it coming” and “Fuck Prime Minister”. Many of them are signed by ‘Ezekiel’.

Police checkpoints
The police have set up two checkpoints on both sides of town. They pull most cars over and search the boot. We were told they are looking for weapons and stolen goods. They say it is illegal for people to carry weapons and they claim to have confiscated eight .22 riffles over the last few days.

Army guards the King’s residence
We walked to the King’s mansion which is guarded by four Tongan soldiers. The huge house is around 300 meters off the road. While taking photos a black SUV left the premises and the gate was opened for a few seconds. One of the soldiers was prepared to say a few words on camera. He said he does not want democracy in Tonga, he wants peace.

Marching band practice
On our way back into town we stopped at a high-school where a marching band was practicing. Over 50 young men were playing in the band which includes tubas, trombones, trumpets and a percussion section. Everybody is incredibly welcoming and keen to talk about politics. Everybody we talk to wants change here in Tonga. People are sick and tired of living in this system where 1% of the population lives in luxury on the expense of everybody else.

We had a Reclaim the Night March last night. It was a truly awesome experience, and just so powerful to have so many women working together at dusk. We were doing some really great chanting. It was wonderful to see so many women I knew there, and so many women I didn’t. Reclaim the Night is the only regular feminist action in Wellington, and there were several generations of women together that night.

Too many women I knew were survivors of rape and violence, it was amazing to stand there and honour their strength in speaking about their experiences. I know there were women there who do not have the support that would allow them to speak about their experiences, and that is our failure..

As I’ve written I do have real problems with the ‘reclaim the night’ concept:

I can understand the power of a reclaim the night march. If you’ve never felt safe walking the streets of the city that you live in after dark, that fundamentally limits the way you can live your life. To come together with a group of women and challenge that idea, does show the strength we have when come together. I’ve always felt that power on a reclaim the night march, even if I’ve never felt particularly afraid walking the streets at night.

Despite this, I’ve come to feel that Reclaim the Night marches fundamentally reinforce the very notions of rape that we’re supposedly fighting against. I may know women who have been attacked by strangers when they were walking alone at night, I’ve never talked to anyone about that experience. I do know women who have been beaten and raped by men they know, in their homes, in the man’s home, or at a friend’s.

It’s not the night we need to reclaim, it’s our bedrooms.

I’m sure that almost everyone on that march would have agreed with me. But everything about the march fed the idea that it was stranger danger that we had to be afraid of. It took quite a considerable effort for us to change the chant “What do we want” “Safe Streets” to “What do we want” “Safe streets and homes”. Nothing about that march would have challenged or expanded anyone’s idea of what rape was and where it happened.

The best bit was that my friend Rowan felt strong enough to carry her “Pro-feminist and Gender Queer” placard. She didn’t want to carry it herself, so a bunch of people carried it with her - I was really happy that she got to say her thing.

I have been using the “Who’s White Exercise?” for years in my classes (I also did a “Who’s Black?” version once in my African American sociology class.) There are several points to the assignment, but I would like to highlight a few of them. One of the primary points of the exercise is to point out that race is a social construction. The exercise demonstrates this because the answers vary and the reasons given are often unrelated to biology, and in many cases unrelated to phenotypical appearance. I always tell the students to look around and see what others say, so they can get a sense of the level of agreement. What also inevitably happens is that debates break out for some of the groups (as you can see in the comments section of the thread.) This lets us know that race is also contested. We don’t agree, and the definition is influx. Most of my students take race for granted. They think it is biological, and they think it is fairly straight forward. My other goal is to get them to understand that race is not so simple or straight forward.

I also wanted to use this exercise to create a “whiteness scale.” I don’t typically do this in class, but this exercise is a little harder to do on line. I compiled all of the answers on this site and Rachel’s Tavern (Total of 27 answers.) If people said that a group was not white I gave the group a zero. If people gave ambiguous answers or “sort of” answers I gave the group a 1, and if they said white, I gave the group a two. I tallied the results. If people said, they do not know I didn’t fill in any answers. After this I tabulated a “whiteness score.” On this scale score could range from 0 to 2, with zero indicating that no one thought the group was white and 2 indicating that everyone thought the group was white. Of course, the two sites I posted on will not generate a random sample, but I still think it is instructive to think about “whiteness” as a sort of continuum rather than a rigid box. Here is how the groups ranked based on your answers (from least white to most white):

Iranians, Chileans, and Israelis drew very diverse answers. Many people labeled them white, many labeled them not white, and others thought they were somewhere in between. Other groups like Cameroonians, Chinese and Nigerians we mostly considered not white, and on the other end of the spectrum English, Germans, and Irish were almost always considered white. What do you think about this chart? Why do you think each groups falls where it does? Does any group surprise you?

Many people thought that there was a “hidden trick” to the exercise. This happens in class too, and the students usually think they have figured it out when we get to “Americans” (which is why I put this last on the original list). They believe that I am trying to get them to say Americans are white. Changeseeker also brought up another point about the term Americans, which occasionally leads people to think they are being tricked, sometimes people will say “North Americans or South Americans?” What I have generally found is that my students only worry about this with the American category, not other countries most of whom also have a somewhat mixed population. This generally provides an opportunity to talk about the US’s image here and abroad. Are we viewed as a white country? Do we view ourselves that way? Do others view us that way? Nevertheless, this really isn’t the main point.

The main point is to get people to think about race, and not take it for granted. Race is generated out of collective knowledge. In other words it’s sociological, and the best way to understand it is to see it debated and discussed. Because contemporary racial ideology tends to squash open discussions of race; many people never get the chance to see or discuss race in public company and in mixed race company. Once this is done, the unstable nature of race emerges.

In response to the post Alas, a blog: Isn’t it Good We Have Men To Tell Us What To Do several commenters have argued that certain scenarios aren’t rape because the person who claims to be a rape victim had the power to get away from the person trying to use them. They go even further and say that those of us who disagree with them are robbing girls and women of their power.

This approach to understanding what is and isn’t rape feeds into dangerous myths about rape and can lead to boys and men taking the attitude of “if she doesn’t leave when I know she could have, what I do to get sex from her cannot be rape as long as I don’t use overt physical violence.”

The intent may be to empower girls and women to get out of bad situations but by combining the discussion about how to escape wih discussions of the definition of rape the result is to blame the victim who didn’t respond to exploitive behavior properly and to let the rapist off the hook.

The denial of an exploiter’s control that doesn’t involve overt physical violence actually disempowers victims in those types of situations by making the victims responsible for the actions of those who victimize them.

The patient who doesn’t realize how her doctor can use the dynamics of the doctor/patient relationship to facilitate rape is likely to wonder what was wrong with her that she didn’t run screaming into the street when something first felt off kilter.

The ignorant response is to decide that she had low self-esteem or other problems which led her to consent to actions she didn’t want. But the truth is that she never consented to those actions. The problem which leads to unwanted sex does not belong to the person who didn’t initiate sex. The problem belongs to the person attempting to get sex.

The key to breaking abusive control is to acknowledge it, not to deny it.

This type of control is why states such as Minnesota make it a crime for counselors or pastors to have sex during counseling sessions and why “it was consensual” is not a valid defense. This doesn’t treat those counseled like they are infants, but protects them from a very real and systemic danger. It reduces the danger and reduces the number of attempts to coerce sex out of patients.

That’s good for patients and it is good for ethical counselors. It is only bad for unethical counselors who want to get away with sexual exploitation.

The same abusively controlling patterns can exist in personal relationships and the key to breaking those patterns is to acknowledge them and not to blame the victim for being controlled.

When we go to the doctor we need to drop our defenses and our normal boundaries and we expect the doctor to uphold his or her sworn duty not to abuse patients.

Often when it comes to rape we expect women to drop their defenses (don’t view all men as potential rapists) and to keep their defenses on high alert (if you don’t react as if your life depends on it, you consented) and be fully responsible when it comes to sex.

No wonder so many rape victims feel crazy even when people aren’t calling us liars or delusional.

That leads to nonsense like this:

A study which reveals many sexually assaulted women may have had too much to drink rather than been drugged has sparked a debate over how much the victims themselves are to blame. […] And it is argued that these women are behaving irresponsibly and putting themselves at risk of being sexually assaulted or raped.

Again while the intentions might be good (wanting fewer rapes), the message that comes across is that rapists of intoxicated women are not to blame for their decision to rape and that men who are around women who drink don’t need to act responsibly.

It is the potential victims who are at fault if they are raped. This is flat out victim blaming and also ignores all of the rapes committed when the victims are not intoxicated. This shows apathy at best toward men’s treatment of women under the influence. The responsibility for rape does not belong to the men willing to exploit women as it should and the implication is that men who exploit drunk women are never rapists.

Abstaining from alcohol is no guarantee of safety from sexual assault as the polygamist Warren Jeffs case shows:

In court documents, prosecutors say the bride, identified as Jane Doe No. 4, objected to the marriage and later begged to be released. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault.

The ceremony at a Nevada motel in 2001 was “one of the most painful things I’ve ever been through. I just want to move on with my life and forget it happened,” the woman testified.

She said she refused to say “I do,” take her groom’s hand or kiss him. Finally, she relented, submitting to a “peck” and then locking herself in the bathroom. “I felt completely trapped and defeated,” she said.

If we truly want to empower women we must stop making them responsible for other people’s actions directed at them and we must stop blaming them when their exploiters succeed at reaching their goal.

The full responsibility for rape must always be put on the rapist whether he uses a knife or manipulation to control the person he wants sex from. To call a rapist who uses tools other than brute force anything but a rapist is to disregard the harm done to that person’s victim.

(crossposted at my blog, Abyss2hope)

Note: Comments are limited to feminists or those who can be respectful of feminists’ efforts to fight sexual exploitation. If you only want to excuse or minimize the behavior of those who harm others, make the person exploited responsible for their own exploitation, call those who label their experiences rape liars, or tell us that we should be focusing on more important issues, please do so elsewhere.

I love Studio 60, but I have to admit, this is spot-on. Curtsy: Lawyers Guns and Moolah.

I’m happy to announce that Marcella, who blogs at the excellent Abyss2Hope, will be returning to “Alas” for guest-blogging from now through the end of the year. Yay!

Ever get the feeling that being in the US means we’re stuck in the boonies, while the real earth-shaking events are going on elsewhere? Which brings me to Oaxaca.

In Oaxaca, Mexico, there’s a full-fledged uprising against government corruption, and against corporate globalization. And this is a non-violent uprising relatively non-violent uprising.¹ From CounterPunch:

Squarely positioned in the “south of the south,” Oaxaca has kept its head up proudly through period after failed period in the great big Mexican globalization laboratory. In a state where 76% of the population lives in abject poverty, the only thing that seems to have “trickled down” is a broad consensus that neoliberalism has grossly failed the region. It’s no surprise, then, that last June’s teacher’s strike drew widespread support from indigenous groups, students, unions and civil society organizations. When you’re working yourself into poverty and your kids are hungry, it’s not hard to find common ground with your neighbors-something’s got to change.

That change came together in a demand to oust the notoriously corrupt Oaxacan governor Ulises Ruiz, a bastion of elite power in the region. The APPO² has been occupying strategic parts of Oaxaca since, establishing a parallel people’s government and rendering Ruiz’s administration ineffectual. Last week the Secretary of the Interior and both houses of the Mexican Congress called for Ruiz to step down. It seemed APPO was on the verge of victory.

Yet APPO’s clear commitment to non-violence and a negotiated solution has been met with fierce military escalation on the part of the Mexican government. As the number of troops, tanks and helicopters began to rise, so too has the tally of ilegal detentions, murders, forced disappearances, torture and police misconduct.

I frankly don’t have much to say about the situation. I’m watching it with excitement and fear, hoping they can make it work, hoping that the government’s brutality will not escalate. I might eventually think of something more intelligent to say, but in the meanwhile, some links:

From another article in CounterPunch:

They will also be the seeds of popular rebellions in other places. The Oaxacan rebellion is a reminder that an evaluation of the consequences of free trade and globalization is indeed overdue - and that the World Bank has no right to be the evaluator. The people who have suffered the consequences should evaluate the system. Too often in the North, the reports of protest and rebellion around the world are seen as disparate battles or isolated complaints and not as part of a growing consensus that something is gravely wrong. Those who have benefited from free trade rules, especially those living in countries that designed these rules, have a responsibility to get the message.

No Sweat (an anti-sweatshop group) has a recent events in Oaxaca timeline. Wikipedia’s page on Oaxaca protests is also a useful backgrounder (for now, at least).

Tomas Cruz, born in Oaxaca but currently living in the US, has a much less dry backgrounder here.

The Narco News “Other Campaign” page — the best radical English-language news source about Oaxaca.

A collection of essays and sketches by Peter Kuper, an excellent American cartoonist currently living in Oaxaca. (The drawing at the bottom of the post is by Kuper - click on it to see a larger version).

Barucha Peller reports on how women’s issues have (and have not) been incorporated into APPA. Although Peller clearly supports the Oaxaca barricadistas, she writes with more skepticism and more acknowledgment of the conflicts within APPA than I’ve seen elsewhere.

Letter-writing campaign to the Mexican government.

Letter-writing campaign to the US Congress.

If you’d like to donate money to help. And then, another place to donate.

1. Compare this to Iraq, for example, in which thousands or tens of thousands have been killed by insurgents. As far as I know, the “insurgents” in this case have so far not killed anyone. (back)
2. APPO stands for Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, which translates as “Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca.” From Wikipedia: “The APPO was created and convened for the first time on June 17, 2006. It declared itself the de facto governing body of Oaxaca. Its body included representatives of Oaxaca’s state regions and municipalities, unions, non-governmental organizations, social organizations, and cooperatives. It encouraged all Oaxacans to organize popular assemblies at every level: neighborhoods, street blocks, unions, and towns. Its leaders empasized that “No leader is going to solve our problems,” and asserted the need for common civilians to organize and work beyond the scope of elected officials. While the primary demand of the APPO has been the removal of the governor of Oaxaca, they have also called for broader economic, social and political transformations, as well as changes in the state’s political constitution.” (back)

As usual, feel free to post whatever you like, including links to your own posts, in the comments. Here’s some of what I’ve read lately:

Mind The Gap!: Excellent link farm of posts and articles regarding Veiling

Republic of T: Return of QueerlyKos
Another excellent link farm, this one focused on lesbian and gay issues.

Brownfemipower: Awesome Photographs of Demonstrations In Support of the People of Oaxaca

Obsidian Wings: Poverty, The Minimum Wage, And The Resources to Survive Bad Luck
This post is kind of “poverty 101,” but that can be useful — and I don’t think the progressive policy blogosphere has a better writer than Hilzoy. Go read.

Feministe: NY Allows Transsexuals - Including Non-Operative Transsexuals - To Change Sex Listed On Their Birth Certificates.
“Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.” This makes me happy.

YouTube: Dove Commercial: From model to billboard in a minute and fourteen seconds
I’ve criticized Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign in the past, but this ad is terrific.

Abyss2Hope: Systematic Intimate Abuse Is Like The Stanford Prison Experiment

…it also reminded me of the 1971 Stanford prison experiment where half the students in the study were assigned to be guards and the other half were assigned to be inmates and then the situation was allowed to unfold from there. […] The power imbalance between the assigned roles, the isolation and the lack of ethical guidelines were a toxic mix at Stanford and they are a toxic mix in relationships.

TomPaine.com: Why Bill Cosby Is Wrong (Curtsy: Prometheus 6)

Black poverty fell 10.6 percentage points from 1993 to 2000 (from 33.1 to 22.5 percent) to reach its lowest level on record. Black child poverty fell an unprecedented 10.7 percentage points in five years (from 41.9 percent in 1995 to 31.2 percent in 2000).

The “culture of poverty” argument cannot explain these trends. Poor black people did not develop a “culture of success” in 1993 and then abandon it for a “culture of failure” in 2001.

Creative Destruction: Media Fails To Note Sex Of Victims When Men Are Massacred
The post is written by Daran, and so naturally contains needless feminist-bashing, which (as usual) boils down to Daran being angry that feminists are neglecting to pay enough attention to men. However, I think the point he makes in this and other posts - that men are being singled out for violence and slaughter in Iraq, and that this is unjustly ignored by the media - is true.

Brownfemipower: Response To Daran

Blac(k)ademic: Video of “Sienfeld” co-star Michael Richards’ Racist Diatribe
See also The Moderate Voice for a detailed summary of events, Blackprof.com on Richards’ bizarre denial that he could be a racist, and Prometheus 6 brief quote on free speech.

CBC: The Denial Machine
A Canadian-produced news documentary, documenting the scientists, corporations and politicians behind global warming denial. (You can view the entire 40 minute documentary online; look for the link on the right). Not only a good documentary on the arrogant, money-worshiping liars who have prevented action on global warming; but a documentary in which the voiceover pronounces “out” like “oot.” Always good for a giggle for provincial Americans like me. Curtsy: Deltoid.

Abyss2Hope: Principal Temporarily Suspends Girl From Taking Weightlifting Out Of Fear She’d Be Raped

MSM: Black Teacher Says She Was Fired For Her Hairstyle
Curtsy: Blackfeminism.org

The Well-Timed Period: “Parental Notification” Laws Don’t Reduce Abortion, But They Do Lay The Ground For Forced Abortion

The Gimp Parade: Yes, Disabled Accessibility Is Definitely A Feminist Issue

The Republic of T: Rights available were he to marry a random woman on the subway, versus those available to him and his husband of six years.

[Insert Witty Title]: Why Aren’t There More Women In Math And Science? (guest post by Thinking Girl)

Balkinization: Are Same-Sex Schools Constitutional?

The key issue, as I explain below, is whether single-sex education revives old stereotypes about women’s roles, whether single sex education sacrifices girls’ interests to benefit boys, and finally, whether single-sex education is a cheap fix that does little to solve longer term issues of quality education in inner-city schools. These are key questions to consider in assessing whether the new Bush Administration regulations are constitutional. Curtsy: A Bird And A Bottle.

Electric Boogaloo: 22 Reasons To Breastfeed
Warning: Satire. It totally cracked me up, but….

Word Munger: Is Blackface Always Offensive?
While agreeing that blackface in most cases is offensive, Dave argues that the Kate Moss cover is significantly different.

Article: Is Morbid Obesity a Disability?
Curtsy: The Gimp Parade.

PunkAssBlog: The hardcore anti-gay-marriage crowd is settin’ its sights on no fault divorce

Alternet: Good Summary Article Regarding the Lancet Study Of Iraqi Deaths

Abstract Nonsense: Are Religious Beliefs An Excuse For Homophobia?

It’s true that the average Christian homophobe doesn’t hate gays because of Leviticus 18:22 but rather looks up to that verse because of homophobia. But that homophobia developed in a society influenced by religious sermons; and the priests who gave them are sufficiently ideological that they would hate gays because of the Bible. That scripture alone makes hardly anyone a bigot is irrelevant when the people it does turn into bigots are religious leaders who’ll spread their hatred among average believers.

Mr. Sauerkraut’s Sour Blog: Borat Deceived And Exploited Poor Romanians (Curtsy: My Private Casbah).

Hugo Schwyzer: Why Hugo Hated Borat

Debitage: Why White Liberals Get So Defensive About Racism

My Private Casbah: What Kind Of Person Sees A Creature Over A Century Old And Thinks “I Know! I’ll Kill It And Eat It!”?

Pandagon: What a Funny Homophobe Lou Sheldon Is!
No, really, this post - full of “fear the homosexual agenda!” type quotes - cracked me up.

Balkinization: The South Dakota Abortion Ban Signaled A New Dominance Of “We’re Against Abortion Because Abortion Is Anti-Woman” Pro-Life Rhetoric

Mixing Memory: Gender, Math, Stereotype Threat, And Testosterone

As of yet, no one has a theory explaining how innate differences account for the fact that gender differences disappear in untimed tests, in numerical problems vs. word problems, and when stereotype threat is alleviated. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t innate differences, but it does mean that for now, the best evidence we have indicates that social factors play a strong role in gender differences in math, and it would be a mistake to overlook them, particularly in the search for innate differences that cannot explain the data.

Balkinization: First-Past-The-Post Versus Other Election Systems
How First-Past-The-Post made Rick Perry Governor of Texas with support from less than 40% of voters.

Thinking Girl: Infinity Is Quite Big (guest post by Craig)

Daily Kos: How The Same-Sex Marriage Ban Lost In Arizona

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

This past Thursday, Maia blogged about the labor struggle in Houston. It’s still tentative, but right now things look good:

What a difference a day makes! We have reached a tentative agreement for a 3 year contract for janitors.

Wages: $1.15 increase the first year, $1.00 the second year, and $.50 the third year.

Health Care: The third year is when single payer health insurance will kick in and janitors will pay $20 per month into that plan. It is a plan designed and managed by SEIU and we are hoping to get all of our members nationwide on this plan.

Vacation: Two weeks paid vacation per year

Holidays: 6 paid Holidays

Hours: 1st year everyone must work a minimum of 4 hours a day, 2nd year everyone must work a minimum of 5 hours per day, 3rd year everyone must work a minimum of 6 hours per day.

Protection: We have a grievance procedure in place. We have protection for all of the striking workers to get their jobs back with no discipline, We have a disciplinary proceedure in place so that no one can be illegally fired for no reason any more.

Curtsy: Ezra.