I’m not looking for it. It falls in my effin lap. (pt1)

I’m often told I “look for things to get angry about.” And I admit I look where some of these thing are highlighted, like feminist blogs, non-feminist blogs, twitter, google-reader feed, newspapers, television (well I don’t watch that, but it is where these things are), conversations with “liberal” friends, conversations with academics, conversation with fellow students, oh, and the rest of the world.

So today I have examples from twitter/liberal friends and my google reader.

First, recently on twitter one of the trending topics was #IHateWomenWho. I tweeted my dismay (with spaces and no hash mark describing the misogyny. ok, so far so good. But that is not what made my blood boil. I get a reply saying that if there were a similar post about men it would my misandry, and that wouldn’t be better, but it would be equal.

Because feminism is about equality even if it degrades all humans?  bah. also note there isn’t a similar trend. I’m sure people have applied the hash-mark to I hate men who. but would it have the vitriol as the remarks policing how much women should wear, what sluts they are, women who pretend not to be sluts? yeah. I think not. And there were not enough of them to be highlighted as the top 6 trends or what have you. and I know the reply is nothing new, but it came from someone I know. I don’t think I said anything controversial. its not like he responded to one of my more politically charged tweets. Really?

Plus it looks like one of my (other) friends is a junior MRA. I thought, at first, he was just coming to terms with coming out as a transvestite, but it is so full of bitterness. And he’s framing it as if he is a feminist. as if he is fighting against sexism. It’s NOT fair, he will(read has already) decry, that the dress code at a club does not allow men to wear sandals, but it allows women to.  So he HATES that sexism.  He also Hates that women get to look “pretty” (read policed every day about how fat they are, how much make-up they wear, clothing is to prudish, clothing is to revealing, just smile honey etc…)  Yeah, those poor men. I agree men should wear what they want, but saying you hate sexism, or a feminist is ridiculous if that is the only time you hate sexism. Just like sarah palin is a “feminist” because she likes title 9. (Nevermind that she is for forced pregnancy, and made women pay for their own rape kits, is against comprehensive sex ed…).

Never once has he commented on the sexism of advertising objectifying women, never once has he commented on the fact that a third of college women are sexually assaulted, never once has he commented about rape as a weapon of war in the Congo, never once has he picked up the torch for racism, or gay rights, or domestic abuse, the sexual salvery of undocumented women, or how men have been found not guilty of rape when they say, sure I kept going when she said no, but I stopped when she kicked me really hard.  He might agree these things are bad, but he only gets angry when he can’t be involved in a conversation with girls at a party, because they want to talk amongst themselves (he told me about this because I am a feminist and I would understand). this is the same thing as not letting women into conversations about healthcare, or letting them work in male fields, or into the philosophy department at college.  A conversation at a party.  Give me a break.  the whole point is that sexism is an opression that is institutionalized and systemic.  individual predjudice does not oppresion make.  Plus, the opressed class wanting to have a space where their voices are heard, and they can feel safe, is NOT the same at the opresser keeping others from participation as full citizens in society.

Anyhoo. Onto item three. It appeared in my google reader. The top item when I hit “explore.” It showed a blog which listed funny pie charts. some were more funny than others. the last one:

A pie chart in shades of pink. about 10% for "happiness" about 10% for "sadness" and 80% for "????"

(screen shot instead of link.  I’m not driving more traffic there) Um.  Yeah.  because women are emotional and cry for no reason.  Again.  see post title.  I was not looking for pie charts that reify stereotypes of irrational women or ask google to make my blood boil.  But don’t worry, I know, I’m sure it is a strange coincidence that I saw it and not indicative of culture at large.  I’m sure that the fact it was even made was not indicative of culture at large.

Bull effin shit.

One more thing. I’m not “not laughing” because I’m a humorless feminist. I’m “not laughing” because you are a douche.

monkey’s, porn and consent

Yesterday a(nother) liberal dood I know wanted to share how science totally rocks.  his evidence is that a study was done that shows monkey’s like porn and he read about it on the internet. now I don’t know if he read about it at ABC, but I figured if I was going to rant about it, I should look up an article about it.

Then he got really upset that i thought it was horrible. Later he even sent me an email along the lines of, “but I’m a nice guy why do you think I’m a horrible person?” Which makes the issue, not about my reaction to porn, not about rape culture, not about animal captivity, but about poor him and his feelings. Because my feelings hurt his feelings and that is so mean.

This means that I now I have to spend my time letting him know I don’t think he is a horrible person. Well I have to do this if i want to keep the peace. And I do want to keep the peace since I work with him, and we rely on each other to help each other out when studying, and things like that. GRRRR.

But on to the monkeys. First, the article is about how “The study is the first to show that monkeys appraise visual information for its social value and can then use this data to spontaneously discriminate between images of their fellow monkeys.”

but just like with humans the scientists understood “monkeys” to mean MALE BODIED monkeys.

Twelve adult male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) participated in the study

so already there was bias. that female bodied monkey’s don’t count and we don’t need to see how they think since they are the “other sex” anyway.

The monkey’s were given headshots of both males and females, and hindquarters of females to look at. The article does not discuss how the monkeys responded to headshots of the females. but high social ranking males and female hindquarters were “paid for” more often.

Did they pay for headshots of the women too? would they pay for hindquarter shots of the socially high ranking males? how do we know that “sexiness” of the picture had anything to do with it? Maybe social desirability of the subject was important regardless of the position of the monkey in the camera frame. (not to mention that heteronormative assumptions are made about all subjects in the test).  So again, bias about how humans (i.e. heterosexual male humans) view naked pictures comes into how the experiment was organised, and how the data is interpreted:

Camerer says it is “no surprise” that male monkeys “really like looking at female posteriors”. But he is puzzled that males would pay with juice to see high-status males, but would not look at them for very long.

so already we can see this is a problematic study, immersed in patriarchal structure. feminsiting has a post today about science being used to objectify (human) women.

But what about the monkeys? they were “housed in captivity”.  And someone tells me about this study and expects me to be thrilled because no monkey’s were “physically harmed”(quote from self proclaimed nice guy)? Um… vegan here, I’m for autonomy of creatures. that means I’m against captive animals as a slave class for experimentation, regardless of the nature of the experiment.

And onto the issue of consent. This is the biggest issue involved. I don’t know about you, but If I was hanging around and people took pictures of my genitals and butt, and then sold it as porn to someone else, I’d feel angry and violated. But we can do that to monkeys, and its no big deal. More specifically, we can do that to FEMALE BODIED monkeys and it is  SCIENCE.

But you know what? People do this to FEMALE BODIED PEOPLE too. and there is no recourse. If I’m at a nude beach, and someone takes a picture to use as porn, that’s sick right? but shit like this happens, and it is legal, since I’m in a public place. CREEPY. Even if it were illegal, I can’t go to the cops. That could close down the beach, and everyone would “know” its my own fault, and really I wanted it anyway because otherwise I wouldn’t have been naked and teasing men with my nudity.

so this whole taking pornographic pictures without consent issue is both personal and political.

Just more evidence that female bodies are the bodies of the sex class. To be used by men, for sex and porn whenever they want to.  Whether it is male scientists using female monkey bodies to observe monkey objectification, or male monkeys paying to view female bodies as a commodity. Or if it is male humans jerking off in public at a female body who is minding her business and just wants to enjoy the beach. Female bodies are only good for sexual gratification of men and to hell with what women think about it.  Guess what that looks like to me: rape culture.

but you know, getting upset about this hurts the feelings of all those liberal nice guys who really do respect women “both as a group and as individuals”, but who still find this study awesome. /snark.