Justice for a rape survivor, 20 years later.

This article by Liz Seccuro is deeply disturbing. Unsurprisingly I suppose when rape is being discussed but it isn't just the terrifying nature of a rape itself that disturbs. Just as bad is the college administration's seemingly deliberate obstruction of justice. Why would they for instance lie to her about police jurisdiction? Did they not want bad publicity or was one of the rapist's parents a major donor. When a woman is brave enough to pursue justice and the strains that will put upon her and is still prevented from doing so I think we are forced to take a long hard look at our assumptions about this society being egalitarian.

Man this fucking sucks.

http://www.rainn.org/statistics seems like a useful if depressing website but they only have one supporter (Rachel Bilson) in the entire fucking world? Never have I been so ashamed to be human!

Unhelpful advice.

A Labour Party allied think tank, the Fabian Society, has offered advice to the Lib Dems regarding equality. Shockingly this advice could cause internal discord in for them.

You know how people say Feminism has already won and those ladies should shut up?

Turns out they don't know jack. The same old 50s style women hating beliefs that the woman should feel bad for being raped live on. They live on with the support of the lower federal courts too! Still this particular story is almost surreal with the whole being required to cheer for your rapist thing. Attractive women really are public property it would seem.

I'm pretty glad I have external genitalia all things considered.

Men Against Pornography

Ok, we've been here before, another article pointing out the range of deeply questionable aspects of pornography and specifically focusing on male feminist objections and reservations about the sex industry. However a couple of things that hadn't occured to me before needs highlighting:

Kimmel remains open-minded about pornography – what's needed is a much broader conversation about it, he says – but the picture he paints in Guyland is nonetheless troubling. "Pornotopia is the place where [young men] can get even," he writes, "where women get what they 'deserve' and the guys never have to be tested, or face rejection. And so the pornographic universe becomes a place of homosocial solace, a refuge from the harsh reality of a more gender equitable world than has ever existed. It's about anger at the loss of privilege – and an effort to restore men's unchallenged authority. And, it turns out, that anger is worse among younger men."

Which is, in hindsight really obvious but for some reason just hadn't clicked. Privilege is hella addictive and as women slowly gain more rights young men who exist in a culture largely shaped by total male dominance are feeling deeply short changed by the deficit between the extremely easy and privileged life society leads them to expect and the merely quite easy and privileged life they receive. They're angry and want to see those awful bitches punished.

Secondly:

The anti-sexist educator and activist Jackson Katz, author of the 2006 book The Macho Paradox, suggests the porn industry has an obvious interest in undermining intimacy between men and women – if couples were to find sexual fulfillment together, the market would plummet. And this opposition to intimacy, says Jensen, helps explain why porn has become so cruel, degrading and humiliating – why, to quote Martin Amis, it has become "a parody of love" addressing itself "to love's opposites, which are hate and death".

Which pretty mind blowing and hard to deny. Pornographers do not want their audience to be happy or content in any way or they'll stop buying. So as with all Patriarchy while women suffer most men suffer too with the exception of the tiny elite who actually benefit from the deeply unfair system we exist in.

Does this mean pornography in all cases is unacceptable? Maybe I'm not sure but as long as porn exists both in the mainstream and and unquestioned and simultaneously a "dirty" but glamorised production process that not nearly enough attention is paid to and not enough scepticism is used against it will have no hope to be anything other than a bad thing.

Then again in a world where chocolate is made from cocoa picked by child slaves and fashionable clothes are made in 3rd world sweatshops focusing on the negative aspects of one specific capitalist product is probably myopic. Pornography is a deeply unpleasant business but it is a business and not that different from many others in its' methods.

Guess who's going to get raped and murdered!

This person:

That person right there is going to get raped and murdered. She didn't have much of a chance to start with lets be honest but with this being the main Americas story out there today. The chances this attractive young woman seeing out the year dropped to pretty much zero. Not only will she present an exceptionally alluring target for the cartels but she's unlikely to see much support from the more veteran officers either.

Pretty good news RealID didn't come in really.

So yeah I play computer games, you know this but people who don't know me that well don't know this because computer gaming is a mark of shame to some extent. Now while I would say some of people's dislike for gamers is a problem on their part there is good reason not to hold the hobby in high esteem.

RealID was Blizzard's (maker of the ever popular World of Warcraft) bully idea to make WoW and their other games more like Facebook. For a range of reasons users reacted very strongly against the plan and Blizzard backed down from the plan albeit without acknowledging any of the actual concerns of their customers. Instead they chose to pat themselves on the back for listening to the community. But anyway corporations exist to be hypocritical and evil so this isn't news.

However Kieron Gillen in his final Sunday Papers for RPS (he will be missed) linked a good example of why gaming isn't as culturally acceptable as some people would like and also just how horrible RealID would've been for women (and likely minorities, homosexuals and anyone else prejudiced people might not like).

Starcraft II is another game made by Blizzard and it widely agreed to be a very good game. It came out twelve years after Starcraft and to live up to the massive expectations highlights Blizzard's talent for game development. So with the myth that the majority of computer games players are teenage males is being dispelled one would expect women to play such a popular game. One of the biggest Starcraft fansites, team liquid however did not share this view.

A week The Hathor Legacy did a post about a woman posting on the team liquid forums wanting advice on how to set up an all female clan (a group of people who compete against other clans for prestige and sometimes in proper competitions). The response was the depressingly common mix of sexual harassment and the whining of privileged white males because there is one little thing their privilege doesn't allow them to do. The kicker was though that a moderator of the forum came out in support for the sexists and admonished the woman. However a second post shows the staff of team liquid trying to entrap and then intimidate the author of the original post. Calling people out on their prejudices just isn't right and deserving of retaliation apparently.

The Hathor Legacy posts explain things far better than I could but I do want to repeat their assertions about RealID. This level of harassment was directed towards a woman for volunteering she was female. If every woman (and other potential targets for the unpleasant types the internet abounds with)'s name was out there for easy datamining, harassment and stalking it would've been terribly unpleasant and struck the acceptance of gaming a near deadly blow. Now the death of gaming thing might seem a little selfish, a little myopic but this potential death blow wouldn't be delivered by a hostile act but by the general population of male gamers being given enough power to show the world what they're actually like. The views and culture of gaming is rotten and needs to be seriously addressed by everyone who considers themselves a gamer.

There is something mucky about Katy Perry.

I dunno specifically what it is about Katy Perry that seems so dirty (and not in a good way) to me, we live in an age of porno-chic but she bothers me in a way even pornstars don't. Maybe it is the sheer crassness of the commercialisation of her sexuality or maybe it is the hollowness of her faux naivety but since seeing the video of California Girls seeing her has made me uncomfortable. Now the producers of Sesame Street have cut her appearance on the show. With good cause I think, I mean yeah objectification of women is everywhere but if there can be one island safe from it, one place where it is unacceptable for starlets to dress up as whores for their appearances then goddamn Sesame Street should be it.

Maybe I'm turning into a prude but Perry specifically is getting to me.

Turns out Porn is pretty bad.

Apparently using a capitalistic model to make women into a sexualised commodity has negative consequences for women and society as a whole. Of course the counterargument that comes to mind that pretty much every job out there uses people as an exploitable commodity that doesn't care about their health as long as they make money turns out to be a pretty damning indictment of modern society rather than any kind of justification. I do wonder somewhat about her dismissal of humans being able to tell fantasy from reality, its the same kind of argument used against computer games and unless I've missed roving bands of clockwork orange-esque nerds that has been shown to be false.

Oh also the article says Jenna Jameson made the porn industry work for her, that really wasn't the case.

Bitches, you want a raise? Clean your goddamn cunts!

Alternet covers this issue with the sarcasm it deserves but basically a full page ad in a woman's magazine claims the best way for a woman to get a raise is to make her special area extra special clean with their products.

Laugh or cry at the absurdity of it here

BBC is pretty sexist.

Yeah, shes really pretty so you'd probs be safe to assume she spends all her time thinking about shoes or handbags or something but shes actually capable of carrying out proper people stuff!

From here.

The rest of the article is standard panic mongering about why we should be terrified Russia is still conducting espionage in rival nations. Something we would never do.

Computer nerds privileged white manbabies???

Idly going around the bbc news website I happened upon a link to something interesting, a blog post detailing something really obvious that had never occured to me. Basically starting using computers at a young age is less a sign of deep interest in the field and more a sign your parents were rich enough to buy you a computer. Its quite short and very interesting do have a look

Of course just with anything else that suggest maybe affluent white males didn't succeed solely because of their amazing abilities but, ya know, benefited from entrenched privilege within society those white guys feel the need to point out that possibly poors, women and minorities have a little bit of a disadvantage they got to where they are based solely on merit so the crazy bitch who wrote this article should shut up. Theres few groups more right wing and self important than computer nerds so if you do so choose to read the comments you get to some truly hilarious levels of denial.

super secret note for tony: more proof YOSPOS is a terrible place populated by terrible people

A graph of female sexual attractiveness over time.

But yeah, feminism has won and those bulldykes should shut up or something.

Palin to be Religious Right's cheerleader, not their quarterback

Apologies for making a sports analogy but it seems apt. The thrust of the article is that given the nature of evangelical and charismatic sects Palin as a woman can get up on a stage and "inspire" people but she is very unlikely to be allowed to lead because fundamentalist Christians are really sexist. It also looks at how her superficial prominence and success in the movement is being wrongly interpreted as feminism. Go read it here.

A note of warning though, don't take too much comfort from the fact she can't personally lead the religious right if they have anything to do with it. Personally I see Palin's rise as quite similar to Hitler's (yes yes Godwin) in that she may not be the ideal candidate for all of the base (Hitler was after all Austrian) but she is good at giving speeches and is generally popular with said base. On top of this with likely increasing social and economic problems on the way the elite will want someone, anyone at all, that can engage populism and win a crisis election who isn't left wing. Obama was not ideal but still has generally seen as a sop to the proles, if situations keep encouraging the masses to get uppity more drastic measures may have to be taken. Hitler largely succeeded because he was seen as an ideal not communist candidate by the rich and had massive funding from them and most notably Alfred Hugenberg's massive media empire started backing him. Murdoch seems rather fond of Palin.

Food for thought.

Female Genital Mutilation occuring in America.

Surgical procedures to "correct" the shape of young girl's genitals are regularly carried out in the US¹, even by Ivy League Doctors. Oh and then later they test the young girl's responses to stimulation with vibrators.

Being aware of what's going on in the world certainly cures you of optimism.


¹Thats not to say it doesn't happen elsewhere but I have limited proof for that outside of the US, I do know some Muslims in the UK have their daughters mutilated but I have no idea if its a more widely practiced and mainstream "surgical" option.