Again: it doesn’t have to be unpleasant to be good for you

I mentioned this when talking about anger, and drew a connection to sex. But Fillyjonk at Shapely Prose points out quite concisely that we make the same mistake in thinking about that other totally natural thing people do that we all freak out about so much, eating.

It’s funny, I used to wonder why people demonize sex so much but not eating, and I’m just realizing that the question is based on a wrong assumption. We do demonize eating. And overanalyze it, and declare certain kinds ok and certain kinds immoral. We make it hold all kinds of symbolism, we regulate it, we fret over it. We do it for various reasons but are told there’s only one Proper Reason to eat, and that the Proper Reason is determined by mere survival as understood in the most simplistic terms, and that eating for reasons besides the Proper Reason is wrong and bound to have terrible horrible effects. Just like with sex. Funny.

Fillyjonk made that comparison too, as well as tie-ins to other types of oppression; it’s a really fantastic post. She got right to the point of what makes us think in this zero-sum game kind of way: the idea that “enjoyment is sinful.” I saw this idea when I wrote a paper for a class on birth control in the Catholic Church. (Here’s the big papal encyclical on that, Humanae vitae, in case you want to check it out yourself.) The Church Fathers and the Popes seemed to think that doing something because it felt good just didn’t sound holy enough, so, ok, you can have sex, but it has to be for some reason that is separate from sexual pleasure. Highest on the list is procreation, because a miracle from God sounds plenty holy, plus kids are a burden (besides being a joy; they’re both), so it doesn’t look too selfish. After a while they conceded that you could have sex for marital bonding, too, because God wants you to have a loving marriage and not get divorced. But they decided that marital bonding has to go with procreation, you can’t have sex for just one now and just the other later. Hence the stance against birth control. But here’s the best part: you can use the rhythm method, or natural family planning. Yes, that would mean having sex without the intention of procreating. So why is it ok? They don’t say this in so many words, and the few Catholics who agree with the Church’s stance have some different explanations for it that I find lacking, but I think it’s considered ok because that method requires abstaining from sex quite a bit, while other methods of birth control do not. It’s the denial of pleasure that they’re after, not the procreation really. It’s not that the Pope is sadistic. These people, and it’s not just Catholics by any means, are just real deep in the idea that doing something for physical pleasure is selfish and wrong. It seems to be an idea that a lot of people get; there are ascetics in lots of religions. It’s not one I agree with though.  A theologian commenter on FJ’s post says it’s not one that the Bible agrees with, either.  I have no opinion to offer on that, but it’s worth thinking about if what the Bible says matters to you.

There is, of course, a feminist reading of the birth control stance as well, that doesn’t conflict with this one, just adds to it, but I don’t want to go off on that tangent right now.

I do see reasons for limiting pleasurable activities, but since my morality is based more on minimization of harm than on purity nowadays, my reasons are different, and so are my conclusions. Here’s the article I got those labels from – it’s pretty interesting, even if I am still trying to figure out what I think about Steven Pinker.

Anyway, I’m happy. I just made chocolate fudge.

Shout outs to Googlers

High five to those who found my site by googling:

“tools to fight sexism”

“yes you are feminist”

“why are people ignorant about feminism”

To whoever searched for “ways to fend off gay thoughts,” you don’t have to change to hang out here.

To whoever searched for “christian homosexual,” (I’m going to write as if you were searching this for yourself for the benefit of whoever it may apply to in my vast and dedicated audience) you remind me of me a year ago, searching for “christian feminist.”  I hope you have better luck than I did (I found a website that had forums in which there was a conversation on being a Christian and a feminist, so I joined to post, but I never was able to post for some reason.  I didn’t find a reconciliation of Christianity and feminism that satisfied me, and left Christianity.  And then one day I couldn’t sign into my email account, and I found out that an anti-feminist had hacked into that long-forgotten feminist website, found our personal information, and used it to hijack my email).  Here’s a website (currently on the page to find a welcoming church) with information on being a homosexual Christian.  I’ve also specifically heard of the Metropolitan Community Church as being gay-friendly.  If Christianity doesn’t work out for you, there are a lot of people who know what it’s like to leave a religion, so yeah it’s a shock, but you can find support.  Wish I had a website handy (anyone?).  Worst case scenario, there’s me ; ).

For the religious: a guide to arguing with me

Here are arguments that are absolutely meaningless to people who don’t believe in your religion:

1. My sacred scriptures say this is that way, so it is.

Your sacred scriptures are not my sacred scriptures, and I have no reason to believe them any more than I should believe everything any other book says. The fact that they say they’re right isn’t enough; I could write you a letter right now saying “The following is totally correct: 2 + 2 = 5,” and it would be a lot less ambiguous than any sacred scriptures I know of in both its truth claim and its claimed-to-be-true content, but you still wouldn’t believe it. The fact that people you trust say it’s right doesn’t cut it either. The fact that some of what is contained in it is true isn’t enough, just like if I added “2 + 4 = 6″ into my letter above that still wouldn’t convince you that 2 + 2 = 5. None of this means that your sacred scriptures are wrong; it just means that I have no reason to accept them as right and therefore appealing to them will get you nowhere with me. But while we’re on the topic, if your scriptures of choice are the Bible, and if you think every dot and tittle of it is good and true, how about you go to my Stuff All Bible Believers Should Know page and explain to me why you trust a book that says those things.

2. If we do x, y will happen, and y is against my religion’s morality.

I don’t ascribe to your religion’s morality. I actually think your religion is wrong about multiple things, not just the one I’m arguing with you about.

3. We shouldn’t do x because we’re not meant to do it, and we’re not meant to do it because of the way God made us.

See, it’s pretty simple. I bet you’re catching onto the pattern already. If I don’t believe in your religion, appeals to the authority of your religion are going to strike me as logical fallacies, and thus any conclusions you come to on the basis of appeals to the authority of your religion, while totally convincing to you, are going to be completely unconvincing to me.

I told religious people this when I was a Christian and we were arguing against atheists together, and I’ll tell religious people this now. If you’re going to argue with someone who believes in a different religion or in none at all, you’re going to have to find arguments based on observable phenomena, logical relationships, and/or moral tenets that non-religious or differently religious people still hold.

Now, most governments govern over people who ascribe to different religions, as well as people who aren’t religious at all. If you want to be fair to all those people, you’ll pass laws that can be argued for on the basis of observable phenomena, logical relationships, and/or moral tenets that are nearly universally held.

Now I’m shifting from the general to the specific. The general still holds for other stuff, but here’s what got me started on this.

Laws against gay marriage do not fit the criteria above for things that can be argued across religions. This guy has the audacity to consider arguments such as that marriage and sex are really about [insert Christian belief, but don't mention Christianity], and that it’s wrong to treat marriage and gender like [insert opposite of Christian belief, but don't mention Christianity], “valid secular arguments.” His reasons for being against legalizing gay marriage include that he doesn’t like homosexuality, he doesn’t like feminism, he doesn’t like transsexuality, and he doesn’t like casual sex. And I’m pretty sure his reason for not liking these things is that he’s Christian, seeing that I recognize all the Christian language in it and this is his advice to fellow Christians on how to convince the rest of us. (Hint: if your link to further explanation of the argument is a link to an overtly Christian document, the argument is probably not secular.) The great part about it all is that he has that annoying habit of some religious people of speaking as if their opinion is fact. This blogger, from whom I got the link to Mr. Valid Secular Argument, did that (“Contrary to what more doctrinally-liberal churches teach, homosexual relationships are not God-given, nor is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 and 19 merely an example of God’s wrath being poured out in response to the sin of inhospitality.”) and Mr. VSA does it by talking about things that he thinks are wrong – but that I think are perfectly fine – as if we all agree (or rather, acknowledge The Truth) that these things are negative effects.

He also throws in a bunch of arguments that are unsupported, like that acceptance of homosexuality will make more people gay, and arguments that are based on logical fallacies, like post hoc ergo propter hoc (“The introduction of same-sex registered partnerships in Scandinavia has coincided with a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births,” combined with the implication that the former caused the latter), appeal to belief (“Most people intuit…”), and the slippery slope (incest is next!). So the valid and the secular are pretty much gone. I’m kind of disappointed, actually. After reading that blog post and remembering that time that Huckabee said gay marriage would cause the end of our civilization, I was starting to think there were some real theories out there about unexpected ways that gay marriage would affect the gears of society. At least that would have been a different angle.

But no. It’s really just about wanting to control people. “I hate the idea of trying to legislate morality,” says blog guy, but, well, ok, you twisted my arm. (Actually, the way he ends that sentence is by saying that the consequences of not legislating morality are just too bad and hinting that they would destroy the US. All his arguments leading up to that sentence show is that the consequences of this would be that morality would not be legislated, because all he really tried to prove was that homosexuality is morally wrong – well, and that there aren’t many homosexuals, which doesn’t exactly bolster the argument that their marriages will effect our downfall.) They aren’t just trying to legislate morality on the level of “You want to get married, but [I think] it’s morally wrong, so I won’t let you [even though Christianity teaches that it's the will, not the completion of the action, that's the sin, so me barring you from getting married won't save your soul].” They’re trying to legislate everybody’s morality. They’re saying “You want to get married, but [I think] it’s morally wrong, and I don’t want other people to think that it and other related things are morally right, so I won’t let you, in hopes that by denying your right to get married, I can manipulate others’ opinions on it.”

Some anti-gay marriage people, like for instance a commenter on the blog I linked to and Mr. VSA, accuse pro-gay marriage people of being intolerant. The commenter, Travis, said that the pro-gay rights crowd was being intolerant of (read: writing comments in disagreement with) the blogger, who was himself not being intolerant but just expressing an opinion (an opinion that certain people should have less rights than others). Mr. VSA says that if we legalize homosexual marriage, not only will people start to consider it wrong to discriminate against homosexuals (which I think they should consider wrong), but people will also decide that now’s as good a time as any to abolish the 1st amendment and imprison anyone who speaks against homosexuality, “even in church.” He gives no reason why this law would make us throw away that amendment, when so many other controversial laws and changes in beliefs about the acceptability of discrimination have not, but hey, that’s why we call him Mr. Valid Secular Argument. But back to my point, they and others are calling people like me (not me personally, for the record) intolerant of others’ beliefs, when in fact their whole reason for opposing gay marriage is that they don’t want people, gay or otherwise, to have beliefs that are different from theirs regarding the purpose of sex, the appropriateness of gender roles, the proper way to have a relationship, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I want people to agree with me too, but I’m not going to throw someone’s rights under the bus in order to do it, and I’m not going to try to persuade people by passing laws (unless the laws are prescribing education based on ACTUAL valid, secular arguments that have been peer-reviewed and all that good stuff). Because you see, according to MY religion, winning someone over by force (be it the force of law, the force of a fist, or what have you) or by trying to circumvent their critical thinking is neither ethical nor likely to really work in the long run.

Since people like me are not going to take any religious arguments seriously, these people are, whether they realize it or not, only arguing to other Christians. I believe Paul wrote something about how you don’t have to police the morality of non-Christians, just try to convert them first. And so these people assuming that Christians are going to, en masse, start taking their ethical cues from the US government (I’m sure the same arguments are being made elsewhere, but these are our valid secular arguers), which as you all know is world renowned for its ethics, over the protests of their priests and pastors, and in spite of their Bibles (I’m speaking as if the Bible really does say it’s a sin because that’s implicit in any arguments made by these anti-gay activists). Seriously, they’re saying that if on one side you have a pastor preaching during church that homosexuality is a sin and it says so right here in the Bible, and on the other side you have a governmental body well known for corruption and supposedly separated from the church merely failing to disallow gay marriage, these people will conclude that homosexuality is A-OK. 1. I guess that explains why Christians don’t oppose abortion anymore. 2. Christians, is your intelligence not offended? Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin, tell your brethren and sistren that you’re smart enough to see the difference between your religious beliefs and the law. (And we can argue over whether homosexuality really IS wrong some other time.)

Update:

After getting enough sleep and getting the weight of exams off my mind, I realized I myself made a logical error here. Sophistry and I aren’t friends, so I want to rectify it. In that last paragraph, I conflated the people being argued to by anti-gay activists with the people being argued about. I think it’s likely that many anti-gay activists consider everyone except, you know, lost causes like myself, as both the people they’re pitching their arguments to and the people that their arguments are about. However, as I said, their arguments are based largely on Christian beliefs and will therefore only be considered by a mostly Christian audience (and if other religions have these beliefs too, then their followers too, which wouldn’t really change the dynamics that I’m talking about as long as their religious leaders preach these beliefs). Their arguments are, according to what I’ve found, that gay marriage itself is morally wrong and that allowing it will make people think it and related things are morally acceptable. The “people” in that sentence does not have to be limited to followers of religions with these moral beliefs. I still think Christians can get their intelligence a little offended, because they are certainly included in those “people,” and I think that it would make the most sense for them to be the only ones meant by “people” there, because it doesn’t make sense to try to get someone to act Christian if they aren’t Christian, since most forms of Christianity stress belief as one of the if not the most important factor(s). But facing reality, I think many of these anti-gay marriage activists do want to influence the way non-Christians think, which strengthens my argument that they’re trying to do some serious morality legislating, but weakens my argument, if only partially, that Christians’ intelligence should be offended by this tactic.

Now a question: do you think marriage is a right? Either way, as right or as privilege, I consider it a violation of human rights to deny homosexuals the right to marry the consenting person of their choice, just as I consider it a human rights violation to ban women from driving in Saudi Arabia, even though driving is a privilege rather than a right. In that case, it becomes about the discriminatory application of a privilege, about the right to equal treatment, about not denying someone a privilege for an irrelevant reason (and yes I do think sexual orientation is irrelevant to marriage). So this isn’t going to screw up any of the positions I’ve already laid out, but it’s worth considering, especially in view of arguments against the institution of marriage in general.

Update #2:

The comments on this Feministing post deal with the issue of whether or not queer people should fight for marriage rights, touching on what I mentioned just above about how some people argue against marriage altogether.  Great to think about.

Victims

A lot of people like to throw around phrases like “playing the victim” and even “victocrat” to criticize movements like feminism, anti-racism, and so on. The thing is, you’re not “playing the victim” if you are a victim.

Scenario A. You’re in a class and you don’t study enough and you fail a test.

Scenario B. You’re in a class and you study enough but your teacher hates you and gives you a failing grade.

In scenario A, you’re not a victim. You’re just lazy. If I convince someone in scenario A that they’re a victim, they’re likely to think it wasn’t really their fault. That would be unhealthy because it would make them think that there was nothing they could do to get better grades, which is false. If they believed that, they’d see no reason to try harder, when in fact trying harder would be exactly what they needed to do. Since no one is actually victimizing them, they’d never find the reason for their victimhood, so they’d resign themselves to their fate of getting bad grades, which is totally unnecessary.

If you’re in scenario B, you are a victim, of your teacher’s unfair bias. If I told someone in scenario B that they weren’t a victim, they’d have to assume that the bad grade was their own fault. They’d study harder and harder and harder and never see improvement in their grades, which would likely make them feel like no matter what they do, they’ll never be good enough. That would be untrue; they would be good enough the whole time, they would just be in an unfair situation. Trying harder isn’t the answer, fighting the injustice is. They’ll never get good grades until that teacher is either replaced or learns not to be biased. But if they’re convinced there’s no injustice, they’ll let the teacher get away with victimizing them and probably others, while they beat themselves up for something that’s not their fault. And since they won’t find the real cause of the problem, they won’t be able to fix it; they’ll keep getting bad grades.

People like to say that you can’t solve anything by dwelling on victimhood, but the real obstacle to solving problems is misdiagnosing them. If the cause is not victimhood, that’s totally accurate, but if the cause is victimhood, then ignoring victimhood is just as bad as making it up when it’s not really there. This is closely related to the way people choose interpretations of discrepancies in successes in life, like wage gaps and glass ceilings and so forth. Is it because women suck at science, or is it because people in the science field suck at being unsexist? Is it because black people suck at analogies, or is it because the makers of the SAT suck at not being culturally biased? In the victim talk and in the caused by biology/caused by sociology talk, people tend to go in with assumptions about the real causes of problems that fit with their politics. I’m in favor of checking for decent studies and I urge caution in attributing anything to the inherent deficiencies of a group, because that can be and often is used to justify racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, and clearly I think these oppressions are pretty bad.

But the victim talk can also go into things like (I know you didn’t see this coming) rape. Acknowledging that I could be a victim of rape tomorrow is not playing the victim, it’s facing facts. I can make better decisions and I can more effectively work against rape if I’m not in denial. Acknowledging that people who have been raped were victims of rape will help something; namely, it will help them not blame themselves, either for what happened or for being upset about it. That’s important in and of itself, but then, once they’ve accepted that they were a victim and not a perpetrator or someone who brought it on themselves or someone who’s overreacting, they can find the real cause of the problem and go fight it. (Obviously, non-victims of rape can fight it too.)

I know some people prefer to talk about people who have been raped as survivors rather than as victims. I use that sometimes, but often I find it to be suggestive of only certain kinds of rape (the nearly homicidal kinds) when I want to include any kind of rape. I respect the desire to take back agency and to not sound weak and pathetic, and this post is really not at all aimed at people who prefer the term survivor, those people are not the problem. But I do think it’s legitimate to call a rape survivor a rape victim. The word doesn’t have to have any implications for the character and attitude of the victim. In fact, if we really understand that a person is a victim of something, we won’t attribute their victimhood to their personal failings, but rather, to the crime of some perpetrator(s).

Being a victim doesn’t have to mean sitting at home feeling bad for yourself. It just means being on the receiving end of injustice. Yes, being a victim makes people feel like they don’t have control – because in that instance, they don’t. Yes, they have to take back control once the victimizing situation is over, and not feel like they are perpetually a victim in all areas of life. But that’s still just a matter of correctly diagnosing what is in our power and what is not. I think the people who refuse to see this and malign everyone who admits that some people are victims of certain injustices are just trying not to have to face the possibility that they’re supporting some of the victimizing, or that they’re benefiting from it, or that they’re better off relative to the victims through no credit of their own. We’d all be more comfortable if we lived in a meritocracy where you really could just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but we don’t. There are some things we can do, and I’m all for us doing them, but telling someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps while someone is forcibly holding them down is just setting them up for more failure and covering up for the crimes of the people who are victimizing them. If a victocrat is someone who’s on the side of real victims rather than on the side of people who victimize them, I’d be proud to be one.

In other words: skip the victim talk with me. Instead, you’ll either have to argue that the issue (the threat of violence, the difference in rates of success, etc) isn’t real, or that it isn’t caused by injustice.

Why rape is wrong

This post is inspired by notawhisper’s post pointing out that medical rape is wrong even if the doctor committing it isn’t getting off on it or thinking “now I’m going to rape her.”  Great comment in there about what mens rea really means as opposed to how some interpret it.  Regarding medical rape, does anyone know the status of the giving knocked-out women pelvic exams without their consent thing?  I’d be all for a campaign to ask hospitals if they do that and publicize the results to put pressure on them to make official rules (or hey, an actual law) against it.

* * *

Sometimes, when people are raped, they are also physically hurt.  That’s wrong.  But it’s not why rape is wrong.  Even if there are no physical injuries, even if there’s no physical pain, rape is still wrong.

Sometimes, when someone rapes, he or she wants to hurt and traumatize the victim.  That’s wrong.  But it’s not why rape is wrong.  Even when the rapist doesn’t mean any harm, rape is still wrong.

Most times, when someone is raped, they are emotionally traumatized.  They have a hard time trusting people, they’re scared, they’re ashamed, sex becomes even more complex, they have flashbacks.  It’s wrong to do this to a person.  But even that isn’t why rape is wrong.  Even if the survivor gets up the next day and never thinks about it again, rape is still wrong.

Sometimes, when someone is raped, they “lose” their “virginity.”  That’s not why rape is wrong.  Even if the person has had sex a million times, rape is still wrong.

Rape is wrong because it violates the right of a person to control what others do to his or her body.  People compare rape to theft a lot, but I don’t like that comparison.  Rape is more like breaking and entering, except into your body (or onto your body – I personally think the line between rape and sexual assault is not that important, but that’s another topic) instead of into your house.  Since your body is even more personal, this is even more of a violation.  Even if your house has been broken into before, even if the person breaking in didn’t actually mess anything up or steal anything, even if the person turns out to be kind of nice and you have a little chat, they still broke the law, they still violated your rights, they still don’t have the right to break and enter.  (No, not even if your house has really sexy shutters and you can see all the expensive stuff through the windows.  No, not even if your house is alone at night in a bad neighborhood.  No, not even if the alarm is off so your house doesn’t yell at the person to go away when they break in.  Funny how no one ever says “well they didn’t set their alarm, so obviously they were asking for it.”)

Feminists and anti-feminists start arguing past each other when we talk about the importance of intent and issues of consent.  Here’s how I see it.  Let’s use names for simplicity, I’ll pick gender neutral ones.  Imagine Alex and Taylor.  Alex starts doing something sexual with Taylor without checking for consent first, because Alex doesn’t know that affirmative consent matters.  Is it rape?  Yes.  Alex starts a sex act with Taylor after getting consent, and then Taylor says stop and Alex doesn’t stop.  Is it rape?  Yes.  Taylor gives Alex consent one day but not the next day, and Alex has sex with Taylor again anyway.  Rape?  Yes.  Alex starts a sex act and Taylor doesn’t say anything but tries to stop Alex, and Alex doesn’t stop.  Rape?  Yes.  If you apply these situations to houses, it’s pretty clear that Alex is always in the wrong.  Poor little Alex may not realize this, but that doesn’t change the wrongness.  That just means we have to make sure everybody knows what consent means.  Alex doesn’t have to mean any harm to violate Taylor’s right to bodily autonomy.  He/she just has to violate the right, that’s all.  Alex’s guilt-the-emotion is Alex’s issue, but Alex’s guilt-the-state is society’s issue, because it affects Taylor and potentially others.

Meanwhile, a similar principle applies to Taylor.  Here’s where people misunderstand each other a lot.  Let’s say Alex asks for consent, Taylor gives consent, but secretly doesn’t want to.  They have sex.  Is it rape? No.  If Alex can tell Taylor doesn’t want to, Alex would be an asshole to keep going, and this is an area where I think there can be legitimate debate.  On one hand, we could say maybe Taylor wanted to do it even though he/she didn’t appear to be enjoying it, we can’t read Taylor’s mind and as long as Taylor gave affirmative consent without any force and never attempted, verbally or non-verbally, to withdraw consent, then it’s ok.  On the other hand, we could say that consent should be enthusiastic because people too often feel that they have to have sex because of sexist or otherwise bad cultural expectations, so settling for less than enthusiasm is taking advantage.  There’s a similar argument regarding sex work: is consenting out of want of money enough, or does consent have to come from a genuine desire to have sex for the sake of sex?  It’s complicated, and real feminists debate these things in good faith.  So that’s another post.  But if you’d like to be a decent human being, I suggest you ask your partner how they feel if they seem unenthusiastic.  Sometimes sex isn’t quite working but you want to keep going so it’ll get better; other times you just feel like you’re supposed to, and you shouldn’t feel like you’re supposed to.  Sometimes people have different standards for what they consider affirmative consent, and it’s incredibly important that you be sure you have received what your partner considers real consent before you continue.  That’s why we’re for affirmative consent rather than a lack of no, because silence can mean totally different things to different people.

So, see, I’m not requiring people to read any minds, neither of rapists nor of rape victims.  Rape is a sexual act without consent.  Consent is something real.  It’s more complicated than some think – it’s not just the absence “AHHHHH NOOOOOO!”  But it’s not so complex that it’s beyond comprehension by a reasonable person: It’s the absence of coercion + the presence of verbal and/or nonverbal yes + the absence of verbal and nonverbal no/stop.  (Yes, you have to figure out what counts as “coercion”, “yes” and “no”, which is why I said a reasonable person.) Sex acts committed under conditions that do not fit this definition are sexual assault or rape.  They are rape because they are committed without consent.  They are wrong because they are committed without consent.  Rape is wrong because it is committed without consent.  This isn’t rocket science.

Alexes, people who rape without meaning to do anything wrong, exist.  They get their twisted ideas of sex and consent from their cultures, and they’ve just never stopped to think about how they respect one’s right to one’s house more than certain people’s rights to their bodies.  I personally would be less likely to press charges against an Alex, and I imagine I’m not the only one, not because I’d think it wasn’t rape, but because I’d have a hard time trying to get an Alex thrown in prison for years while I knew that he didn’t want to hurt me.  But we can’t let them rape any more people (no, not even if their victims are related to politicians we don’t like).  Then again, throwing them in prison isn’t at all guaranteed to stop rape, either.  We should have a way to deal with rapists that will keep them from doing it again and will address the root causes of rape, which, for these Alexes, is the parts of our cultures that make people think that some instances of rape aren’t really rape or aren’t really wrong.  Neither prison nor doing nothing are likely to accomplish those goals.  We need another option, one based on results rather than on the appearance of results, one that targets guilt-the-state rather than having a field day with guilt-the-emotion.  But any solution has to be firmly grounded in an understanding of what the problem really is, why rape is wrong in the first place.

Apologies to people with the name Alex ; ).  It was really just the first gender-neutral name that came to mind.

Self defense and victim-blaming

I first saw the Melissa Bruen story on Feministing, but Rad Geek just put up a good post about it and I decided to mention it in light of victim-blaming.  Both these sources already did this, but I figure I’m on such a roll with the victim-blaming thing, I’ll just keep tabs on stories that prove it wrong and maybe someday someone can make use of it.

Here’s the deal: a college woman acted in a reasonably safe way and it didn’t work.  She worked to make the event more safe and knew there were lots of people and police around when she walked on the path by herself.   And when she was assaulted, she fought back, just like one would assume people want her to do by the way they provide self-defense classes for women with the intent of helping them fend off rape.  Well, she did fend off any potential rapes, but because she beat off her original attacker and yelled that he had assaulted her, another guy, saying “You think that’s assault?” assaulted her again.  Other men watched and instead of helping her, cheered for the assault.

FIrst of all, I find the likelihood that all men involved in the assaulting and cheering are sociopaths.  I think probably they’re fairly normal guys, and that’s what makes this scary.  This didn’t happen because somebody had a screw loose.  Maybe that first guy did, but the whole crowd didn’t.  This happened because we have a culture that permits and fucking cheers for sexual assault.

But more specifically on victim-blaming, doing what she was supposed to do didn’t work.  In order to avoid this situation, she would have to sit at home and never go out like normal college students.  And don’t think no one has ever been raped while sitting at home, that’s actually a very common place for rapes to occur.  She fought back, but guess what?  That wasn’t what the rape culture kids actually wanted.  The second attacker’s words and actions show that self-defense, while helpful (and it did help her), is not enough.  What was missing from the equation was change on the part of the perpetrators. Putting the burden on the victim doesn’t work.  We have to change the culture that permits and even promotes rape.  We have to change the masculinity that leads men to cheer for sexual assault and to answer one assault with another instead of with aid.  They are the ones with a problem here, not Melissa Bruen.

Oh, and please dispense of any “victims were asking for it/wanted it” arguments forthwith.  Bruen showed clear opposition to being sexually assaulted after the first incident, but the second incident happened all the same.

But is it true?  Innocent until proven guilty!!: This isn’t a trial.  I don’t think she even knows who did it, so no specific people are being accused here.  I am inclined to believe people when they tell their stories of sexual assault, especially if they a) claim that it happened at a time when others could answer to whether it happened that way or not, b) admit to not know who did it and therefore couldn’t be just trying to slander a particular person, c) don’t have anything like pregnancy or being caught having affair to cover up for and don’t have a story that would even be able to cover up for those things, and d) give their real names to the press, opening themselves up to very painful critiques.

Anger

I’ve written a lot about how revenge is not a worthy goal, and more to the point, not an effective way to make positive change, and therefore, we shouldn’t dwell on it. Not in our criminal justice system, not in our personal mistakes as activists and privileged people. But I don’t want to give the impression that I think people who are oppressed or silenced or ignored or have crimes committed against them should not be angry.

We all have the right to be angry when we are wronged. We do not have the right to react to the wrongdoing, to the anger, in any way that pops into our heads, specifically not in any way that violates human rights, and we would be wise not to react in ways that are counterproductive to our goals. People think anger means violence, but it doesn’t have to. You can choose what to do with it. It can incite you to fight people or it can incite you to fight injustice.

Anger is not the most pleasant of emotions to feel or to see in others, but it is a real and critical part of movements for making the world better. Just look at how many blogs are about angry people. I’m angry, too, although less now than I was when I started, simply because I’ve gotten better at recovering quickly from the rush of anger that certain stories bring up in me. But it still comes.

Sometimes people say that anger is poison, and you have to let go of it to get anywhere. There’s some truth to that, but I’m wary of taking to to the extreme. Anger is often a healthy sign of something else, like pain. People who can’t feel pain and thus find the cause of the pain, the thing that’s harming them, are at risk of getting injured very badly. People who don’t acknowledge the anger of others and look for the cause of the anger instead of dwelling on the anger itself and/or blaming the anger on the psychology of those people are at risk of injuring society quite badly. Sometimes psychology is to blame, but not always.

This is personal for me, because although the oppression I have experienced is mild compared to what’s out there, I know how much it sucks to see a problem and react with horror and yes, anger, and be told by people I trust and rely on that they care about me and hope I feel better…and that’s it. They hope I feel better about the problem, they don’t hope the problem will go away. They’re sorry that there’s something wrong with me and unwilling to entertain the notion that there might be something wrong with our religion or with society. My anger was not and is not proof of a problem, because it was based on a belief and an understanding of events that may or may not have been accurate. (I continue to believe it was accurate, but again, can’t prove it.) That’s how I went from not being angry to being angry, by changing what I believed about the situation. But I think my anger warranted at least a glance at whether or not there was something worth being angry over by the people who were so concerned about me. Especially if they respected my opinions and considered me in any way intelligent. But they preferred to protect their beliefs from any risk of corrosion.

This is an issue for all oppressed groups, as the claim that they have no good reason to be angry is tantamount to justifying their oppression and therefore key to keeping the powerful in power. The issue is aggravated when women are the group being oppressed (comment if you see ways that this works for other groups). That’s because human emotions are divvied up between men and women, since we’re so totally opposite that we can’t share anything, and women got most of the emotions, but anger was given to men. So when women express anger, it’s seen as unacceptable because of their gender, in addition to the other reasons (oppression, beliefs about the unhealthiness of anger) that also apply to others. People mock female anger (“you’re cute when you’re angry” etc) because “real women” don’t have the capacity to get really angry. They mock women who leave no room for doubt that they really are angry for transgressing gender roles (“ball-busting bitch” etc). They act like real female anger is overwhelming even when it’s a level of anger that would be considered understandable coming from a man, just because women aren’t ever supposed to get that angry (“she’s scary!” etc). They advise women not to be angry or show anger because it will lose them popularity and influence. You’re right, some people tell me, but don’t sound so angry about it or no one will want to listen to you. Yeah, I’ll try to sound like sugar and spice when I talk about rape, good idea. These are all ways to focus attention on the anger itself rather than on the cause of the anger, which helps cover for the real cause, especially when the real cause is sexism.

But it’s a really special tool of the patriarchy to tell women and others that it’s a virtue to let yourself be walked over with a smile on your face. (Other “virtues” I reject: chastity, blind faith.) People love the turn the other cheek line in the Bible. That’s the kind of stuff that makes non-Christians admit that the Bible is a good guide for how to live even if they happen to think it’s fiction. But I disagree. I reject the idea that it’s a virtue to let someone take advantage of you, to be an enabler, to support a system of oppression. It’s not always a sin, because the oppressed don’t always have a lot of options. But a virtue? I don’t think so. And I defy you, people out there, to prove that you really do think it’s a virtue. Do you live that way? Do you want to? Would it make any sense? It’s really interesting to watch people do mental gymnastics to interpret that part in a way that doesn’t mean they have to give their car to the next person who tries to steal their car radio. Once I saw a priest say that when someone hits you, it makes your face look one way, and if you turn the other cheek, you have to pass through a position of looking the person in the eye (not necessarily true, but ok), which is a position of equality, and so the message of the turn the other cheek line was that you shouldn’t let people take advantage of you, take away your dignity. He failed to explain how that accounts for the rest of the passage:

38“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’^[a] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Not quite so up for that interpretation anymore, is it?

There may be a place for this kind of reaction, and in some cases it may have an emotional effect on the “evil person.”  But by and large, being an enabler is not virtuous. It doesn’t help any of us in any real way if a woman who is being abused by her husband turns the other cheek. The Civil Rights movement was more virtuous than it would have been for a black man to willingly submit to a lynching. Just because something hurts you doesn’t mean it will help someone else because life is not all about zero-sum games. (Keep this in mind when thinking about the morality of sex, please. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I know we all get that idea from the jokes about stuff that’s good for you tasting bad and vice versa, but just because people say it doesn’t make it true. Some veggies are tasty, some poisons are not.) But the belief that it’s a virtue to be so humble that you don’t even demand your RIGHTS, which is to demand that people live in a way that is fair to everyone and thus benefits everyone, this belief can and has been used to shut up uppity people. I’ve seen it in action in Christianity. A woman who I really do love and respect but who believes in things I do not once said that since being a priest is a form of service, there’s no reason to argue about letting women be priests; if you’re willing to be a servant, you shouldn’t care what kind of servant you’re going to be. That is a really difficult argument to face if you’re trying to be humble and obedient and selfless. And this ignores the fact that telling not just individuals but groups, like women, to relinquish their right to fairness, creates not just a little humble suffering for one person, but systemic inequalities that go deeper than just how important you feel as a priest or a nun. To keep with the priesthood example, the fact that women can’t be priests doesn’t just mean that sometimes they feel that their role is less important, it means that they can’t be in any part of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, which means they have no say in who is the Pope, and they have no say in the rules that the Church makes. Women still don’t have suffrage in the Catholic Church, so to speak. And so these things affect more than just you, and when you shut up about them because you think it’s virtuous never to be angry except when people try to sell stuff in the temple, you’re allowing other people to be oppressed. Tell me, is that the goal of selflessness?

Is racism a feminist issue?

Preface: I use the stories of Romona Moore and Sean Bell in here to make my points, and this post is really not about the content of those stories so I don’t go into them much besides talking about where they should be covered. I just wanted to say that I find their stories tragic and I hope we learn lessons from them, and that I don’t mean to come off as callous or make light of their stories by talking about them this way.

My post All or Nothing was my attempt at finding concrete ways to react to recent criticisms of the feminist movement, to figure out what we need to do to not be racist and to be inclusive. But I just came across a post by Cara on Feministe saying that the Romona Moore rape and murder case shows that racism is a feminist issue, and now I think I finally get what the argument is about. But I’m not sure I agree with her (on that topic – I’m with her on the good people doing nothing part). I have a lot of respect for Cara, and I’m a little concerned about disagreeing with her because I want to be on the anti-racist side, but I also don’t want to say I believe something just because it’s “popular” (I know, it’s not that popular, but where I read, it is). Before you react, just read the rest, and then if I’ve missed something huge – which is a real possibility given that I’ve never read the books on intersectionality and all that – let me know.

I see two reasons for naming racism a feminist issue:

1. Because if we don’t consider these things feminist issues, feminists will ignore them. From Cara:

There’s a big difference between saying “things that happen to women of color are not feminist issues” and “things that happen to women of color because of racism are not feminist issues.” I have never, in my life, seen anyone argue the former. I have seen them argue the latter. And I don’t think that they’re really all that far apart, regardless of how it’s intended.

But I believe all feminists should be believers in human rights for ALL first. That means I think all feminists should be anti-racists. I don’t think we have to label anti-racism A Feminist Issue in order to say that it matters and that feminists need to care about it.

These issues do intersect, because people have lots of characteristics and can be oppressed for any number of them, so feminists have to be aware of racism and all the other types of oppression to 1) avoid personally being oppressive, 2) avoid oppressing members of their own movement, 3) avoid advocating policies that would have unforeseen oppressive effects, 4) advocate policies that will help women of color (and others affected by other kinds of oppression) in cases where they are affected by sexism differently than white women are, 5) use feminism and anti-racism (and other kinds of activism) at the same time when dealing with the case of a person who is oppressed by both. And I tried to address all of these things in All or Nothing, without having to name racism a feminist issue. Instead, I named racism and feminism both human rights issues and said that that’s where we need to start, with a belief in human rights for all. It just seems feminism-centric in a world of lots of issues that matter equally to say that naming something “a feminist issue” is so important and to spend so much time arguing about how related to feminism something is.

From Cara’s quote, I think she’s concerned that if we relegate things that happened because of racism to anti-racist blogs, feminist blogs will, perhaps unintentionally, stop including the oppression of women of color and focus only on white women. But rest assured, women of color are oppressed by sexism. If we’re determined not to ignore the ways in which they are oppressed by sexism and not to silence them, we should be able to keep reporting on the sexism against them even if we’re not reporting on straight-up racism. In cases where both are present, we should report them on both feminist and anti-racist blogs rather than each disowning it. (And for the record, I am all for feminist blogs posting on issues that aren’t feminist issues. I just don’t think it’s necessary for a feminist blog to do so to be ethical.)

2. Because something is a feminist issue if it oppresses women. From Cara:

You know, I’m one of those feminists who thinks that racism is indeed a feminist issue, just like poverty, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and much more are feminist issues, simply because these are factors that oppress women on a daily basis and prevent them from living lives freely, safely and to their full potential.

In her defense, there is a difference between ‘bad things that happen to women’ (like, when you’re unlucky) and ‘the oppression of women’ (caused by systematic injustice), and this distinction means that some criticisms I’ve seen are straw arguments. But still, I don’t define my feminism as ‘fighting that which oppresses women.’ I define it as ‘fighting sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy.’ Often, that does mean ‘fighting that which oppresses women.’ But both definitions include things that are not included in the other, so although they overlap, they are different ways of approaching feminism. Here’s why I choose the definition I do:

a. It’s the injustice that makes it worth fighting, not who the victim happens to be. I’m not just out to help women. In my capacity as a feminist, I want to help all people oppressed by patriarchy, and sometimes that means men. Some men’s issues are, in my book, feminist issues. On the flip side, not all women’s issues are feminist issues to me.

b. I think the way to solve a problem is to figure out what’s causing it and fix that. This isn’t a radicals vs. liberals thing, it’s about whether you divide up movements based on their causes/origins or based on their victims. I think it makes more sense to do it based on their causes. Therefore, I could be persuaded to call LGBTQI issues feminist issues, and vice versa, because I think they’re all caused by patriarchy. But I am not currently aware of a root cause that is shared by sexism and racism that is not shared by all oppressions (eg, xenophobia, pursuit of power), so I see no reason to group them together any further than I already do in putting them both under the umbrella of human rights issues. They have some things in common, but they’re also different, which is why people tend to come to such messed up conclusions when they compare them too much.

Interestingly, I think looking at things this way allows us to undercut the arguments of MRAs that men are really the more oppressed gender, because we can say that regardless of who is more oppressed (and I personally am convinced that’s women, but whatever), the cause of the oppression of men is the same as the cause of the oppression of women: patriarchy. And patriarchy was set up by and continues to be run by men. So in this case, finding the root cause of the oppression of men and fighting it means feminism, whereas finding the people hurt by the issue at hand and standing by them no matter what means being an MRA (although I’ll grant that they add in a few illogical steps to get there, like assuming that if men are the victims, women must be the culprits). I think you can guess which one I think works better.

But to show you what I mean with my points a and b, consider the hypothetical situation that all sexism is eradicated but other oppressions are still around. Yes, there would still be plenty of women who would be oppressed. For the moment let’s just consider the women of color who would be oppressed by racism, although there would be lots of other problems, too. This situation wouldn’t convince me that racism really is a feminist issue because these women of color aren’t free yet. On the contrary, it would convince me that feminism isn’t enough to free all women. It would be offensive to the people of color who didn’t identify as women if I said I would fight the racism that was oppressing them for the sake of freeing women. It’s not being a woman that makes you worth freeing, it’s being an oppressed human being that does. It would be silly for me to say I would fight that racism under the banner of feminism. Why feminism? Just because I’m attached to that word? These people wouldn’t be oppressed for their femaleness, even if they were female; they’d be oppressed for being people of color. We need different tools to fight racism (although some are the same) than we do to fight sexism.

The way to free all women, and in fact all people, isn’t to make feminism include everything, but to include more than feminism in our own tactics.

The Apostate wrote a post on Sean Bell counter to the one linked in Cara’s quote. I don’t agree with the whole post, but I think this part is in line with what I’m saying:

If anything that affects women either 1) equally with men (such as rising gas prices) OR, 2) second-hand through men (such as Middle Eastern men being arrested for minor visa infractions and being imprisoned without charge – they have mothers and other female relatives, I suppose), is a feminist issue… then what, pray tell, is NOT a feminist issue?

Why must we call this “feminism” if it includes everything?

And as for Romona Moore’s story, it just seems forced to me to say that racism is part of sexism just because sometimes they happen to the same person and affect the same incident. We can’t, and shouldn’t, tell Moore’s story without mentioning both, but that doesn’t mean we have to present them both as one thing. Their interaction is important – for example, we have to be aware of racism to fight rape properly, thinking about the racism in the criminal justice system before advocating lots of prison time for rapists or advising women on what to do if they’re raped. But to me, that’s still an intersection of two different things, with different causes and different solutions, rather than one big Feminist Issue.

To make this more concrete:

If you want to post about Sean Bell and other racism-related stories on a feminist blog, I think that’s great. But I personally would rather you just say, “Here’s a story on racism, because feminism alone won’t save the world” instead of “I swear, it’s somehow related to feminism, so you should read it” or “So this dude was shot and stuff…and his female relatives are REALLY suffering! Stop racism so there will be less bereaved women!” (I made those up and am not accusing anyone of saying things like that, just trying to make my point. Also, the bereaved women certainly do deserve sympathy, they just wouldn’t deserve to be the center of attention in a story about a man who was murdered.) And if you don’t want to post about Sean Bell’s story on a feminist blog, I think that should be fine, as long as you take the stance that your readers should also learn about racism somewhere else. In fact, I think you should do that no matter what. I think it’s better to have people read a blog dedicated to racism than to let them rely on a few occasional posts about racism on a feminist blog, first because the anti-racist blog is more likely to go in depth and cover more things, second because the feminist blog is likely to spend half its time arguing over how related this is to feminism, which has nothing to do with how worthwhile it is, and third because for white women like me, it’s important to learn to put ourselves aside and read about racism because it’s unjust instead of because sometimes it’s related to MY oppression. And writing this has convinced me that I need to make much more of an effort on that front, so I don’t claim to have gotten it right yet. I let myself feel like I’m covering my bases by reading feminist blogs that mention racist issues, but when I go to sites that are just about racism, I can feel the difference.

There’s also an issue of efficiency here. I don’t have a problem with occasionally including other stories in a feminist blog, because I haven’t seen it really take away from or change the purpose of the blogs I read. But since we talk mainly about racism when we talk about making intersections into Feminist Issues, we overlook what that would really mean if we did it thoroughly. Since intersections apply to every kind of oppression, every blog that is about a kind of oppression would have to write on every other kind of oppression to follow this principle. The result would be that we would have a million general human rights blogs and no specialized blogs. There’s a place for general human rights blogs, absolutely, but I think there’s also something useful in having a place that is dedicated to one kind of thing. It’s more efficient in some ways, because it can focus on one issue in depth and the writer(s) can get deeply educated in that one issue, and then it can be your go-to point when you want to show a friend that such-and-such really is a problem.

I know, I know, you’re saying people just won’t do it, they won’t go and read other blogs, they won’t really acknowledge intersections in their own movements. Some won’t, that’s true. But look, that’s how it works in activism. We can’t make people do anything. We point out problems and offer solutions, and then it’s up to each person whether or not they’re going to follow through. But the least we can do is offer solutions that are solid in principle, and I think the principle I’m supporting makes more sense.

By the way, there’s a rare respectful conversation from different sides of the debate here.

And all that being said, I do think police brutality can be a feminist issue, when you’re talking about gender-based police brutality and how sexism and gender roles keep us from paying enough attention to police brutality against women.  It is also a racism issue and a trans issue, and you can find more information at INCITE!.

Why the vice-versa test isn’t enough

1. If an employer makes sexual advances towards an employee, is it the same, ethically speaking, as if an employee makes sexual advances towards his or her employer?

2. If one person hits another several times and then the second person hits the first back, are they equally guilty?

Question 1 shows how a power differential in a relationship means that things that go one way aren’t the same as things that go the other way. If the employer asks the employee out, the employee may feel pressured to say yes to avoid being fired. If the employee asks the employer out, there is no threat of firing. Therefore, it is more unethical for an employer to make advances on an employee than vice versa (although it may be unwise in both cases). In some situations, the employee may be irreplaceable and so may back up sexual advances with the threat of quitting, so this doesn’t necessarily apply to all employer-employee relationships, but the unbalanced power is still present in this second scenario, so the overall principle remains: if there is a difference in the amount of power people have over each other, their actions, even the same actions, may not have the same ethical quality.

Question 2 shows how the past can impact the ethics of situations in the same way: the same action may be worse in one case than in another due to what has happened in the past. Hitting out of self-defense is not as bad as hitting on the offensive. Hitting after being provoked over a period of time is not as bad as hitting unprovoked.

Power and the past are two parts of the context of these ethically charged actions. We have to keep in mind when discussing politics that the actions we discuss and the policies we debate do not exist in a vacuum, but rather in a context full of people with differing amounts and kinds of power, a context that includes a long past of different types of injustices.

That’s why when someone says “How come they can say n—– and I can’t? That’s racist!” or “You wouldn’t get so angry if a woman said that about a man instead of vice versa” and so on and so forth for a very, very long time, you have to stop and look at the context rather than just accepting the vice versa test as a universally valid tool of logic. They can say n- and you can’t because you (white people) have racial power and they don’t, and because the past of that word involves a lot of white people using it to hurt black people. I don’t condone any sexist remarks, any stereotypes based on gender, but I acknowledge that there’s more power behind sexist remarks from men to women, and a past of oppression of women that there isn’t for men. It’s unlikely that these remarks will make men suddenly start to be treated as property, but it’s not unlikely that they will reinforce long-standing beliefs that women should be treated as property. This principle applies to affirmative action, too – in the past, people of color were strategically kept poor and uneducated. Now, we’re trying to undo that. That’s more like self-defense than offense.

But people tend to get confused about where the line of scrimmage is, if you’ll let me take that defense/offense talk a little further. Because they don’t know the past, in which their “team” bullied its way far into the other team’s territory, or because they know that happened but think that the other team has already regained its lost territory, they assume that where they’re standing right now is the line where things are fair, the rightful border between their space (their rights) and the other team’s space (other team’s rights). So when the other team pushes back, the bully team thinks the bullied team is on the offense, when really they’re on defense. (For instance, Bully team: “I mean, fine, they’re gay, I can deal with that, but why do they have to be PROUD about it and shove it in my face?” Or, Bully Team: “They won’t let us have [teachers lead official] prayers in [public] schools! Christians are being persecuted in America!” Or, Bully Team: “They made me press 1 for English! Can you imagine?”) The bully team reacts with what it thinks is defense, but is actually even more offense. And since this isn’t an actual sports game (of some weird derivation of American football or something), offense is not a sign of being a good player, it’s a sign of limiting people’s rights. This is an illustration of how privileged people who are genuinely or willfully ignorant of their privilege play politics. (Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Ok, now I’m done with the p alliteration. And the extended metaphor. My English teacher would be almost proud. Actually, my English teacher who had us debate affirmative action and was in favor of it while I was against at the time, probably would be pleased. And it appears that I really do have a penchant for p’s.)

More on why we have to fix our criminal justice system

Women in Prison

Prison and Racism is part of the point of this article about racism in the feminist movement that I found on Feministe a while back.

What do you think would be an appropriate way to handle men who commit crimes of violence against women, besides prison?  This website has some suggestions.