Wisconsin state Rep. Don Pridemore hates women. Hates ‘em.

The background is that a couple of state legislators in Wisconsin are sponsoring a bill that would focus on single parents in educational campaigns about child abuse. It does not, as the headline says, “label single parenthood as child abuse,” but it does take a good idea (public awareness of child abuse) and turn it into an offensive waste of public funds by dragging the communication in a direction that will do nothing to decrease child abuse but quite a lot to increase demonization of single parents.

This is what we’re dealing with:

Section 1. 48.982 (2) (g) 2. of the statutes is amended to read:
48.982 (2) (g) 2. Promote statewide educational and public awareness campaigns and materials for the purpose of developing public awareness of the problems of child abuse and neglect. In promoting those campaigns and materials, the board shall emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.

 

Puah Institute, what is that I don’t even.

You may have heard about the medical conference in Israel that’s banning women from speaking at the event? Specifically, the gynecology-focused conference where women aren’t allowed to speak on stage?

The annual Innovations in Gynecology and Halacha conference of the Puah Institute for Medicine and Halacha is scheduled for Wednesday. Some 1,000 men and women are expected to attend the conference, which is geared to the Modern Orthodox and haredi Orthodox communities. Male and female participants are separated by dividers in the conference hall.

The conference has been held for the last 12 years, but this marks the first time that the absence of female speakers has become an issue. Women do not serve as speakers, according to the organization, in order to insure the participation of the haredi Orthodox, who are generally wary of medical advancements in fertility treatments.

Their rationale is this:

1. Haredi don’t like to see women speak to male audiences.

2. Haredi are ambivalent about fertility treatments.

3. The Puah Institute wants Haredi doctors to attend this conference and learn about advancements in fertility treatments, therefore,

4. Women must be strictly separated from men at the Gynecology & Halacha Conference.

Notice that no one is trying to keep women from seeing men speak on stage. It’s fine for female doctors to sit in the audience while men make presentations. It’s the question of male doctors watching presentations by female doctors on stage that’s a problem.

Am I missing something here? If letting women show themselves in public is such a problem for Haredi men, then…maybe, Haredi men should not be gynecologists? Think about this for a second: if it’s “immodest” for a man to see a woman speaking on stage about medical advancements, then how is it the least bit acceptable for a man to put his hands on the private parts of a woman whom he may have just met that day?

It occurs to me that if Haredi men followed through on their “modesty” requirements and just left gynecology to female doctors, this conference wouldn’t be an issue.

(Yes, I know: when they talk about “modesty,” they’re really talking about keeping women in the kitchen, which means female doctors are only tolerated because of secular pressures.)

All that said, though, the controversy is totally worth the trouble, owing to this hilarious fauxpology from Puah:

“We are sorry that instead of appreciating the great advances we have merited to see in women’s health in general, and in particular within the religious sector, as a result of our conferences, there are cynical, aggressive elements who try to block us by using the prevailing public ambience,” the organization said on its website. “These elements are riding on the back of the Puah Institute in order to advance their personal agenda.”

Shorter version: “You bitches are just JEALOUS! Waaaaah!”

 

Perhaps it’s because sex scenes are “feminine tosh.”

While it was fun to do a little yawn-and-snort at V.S. Naipaul for his “I’m so much better than all those stupid girls” posturing, today Douglas Barry points something out about the Literary Review’s nominees for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award: they’re a sausagefest.

Severely underrepresented in this year’s nominations? Women. Only Jean M. Auel and Dori Ostermiller made the illustrious list and if you’re thinking, “Well, the ladies can’t get all the best awards every year,” consider that, since the ‘Bad Sex’ award’s inaugural winner Melvyn Bragg, only two women — Wendy Perriam and Rachel Johnson — have ever taken home the top prize.

From the overwhelming preponderance of male authors in the ranks of Worst Sex Writers as designated by Literary Review, Barry derives the premise of his article, which is that male authors are overwhelmingly less adept than female authors at putting sexytimes in prose form. To explain the disparity, Barry offers the following hypotheses:

A clue to the dearth of women winners might have something to do with the fact that men still outnumber women at both commercial and academic publishing houses, according to The New Republic’s Ruth Franklin. In 2010, of the 13 large houses that TNR examined, Penguin’s Riverhead imprint came the closest to closing the gender gap between male authors, who accounted for 55% of books published, and female authors (45 %). And the house with the lowest percentage of female authors? That would be Harvard University Press, with a paltry 15%.

This is the first thing that came to my mind, but perhaps the publishing gap isn’t wide enough to explain the percentage of male authors on the Bad Sex list. It could be argued that male authors dominate the Bad Sex list to a degree that far exceeds their industry presence, and I think this is the theory that Barry really wanted to articulate when he wrote the piece:

I’d like to think that the overwhelming presence of male authors on the lists of winners and nominees has more to do with the fact that, since women had (and often still have) to actively wrest control of their own sexuality away from a patriarchy that often determines how the female body is used and represented, they are able to speak with greater comfort and authority about sex when they achieve sexual autonomy.

I don’t dismiss this idea, but as much as I love to see a male writer who can theorize in those terms, I think there are other, less ambitious factors that may explain the gulf between male authors getting attention for bad sex scenes and female authors escaping scrutiny.

It takes a brave man to put on a veil.

My first thought about this is that it’s not that much of a leap. It’s no accident that the veil is such a gendered custom. The idea that women must be covered up while men’s bodies are allowed free rein is a feature, not a bug, of cultures that expect women to cover their heads. It’s rooted in the idea that men see, while women are seen, and therefore need to conceal themselves ostensibly to control the terms on which men see them.

So, it doesn’t take a very radical mind to look at that asymmetry and say, “well, guys, if the veil is not a problem for women to wear, why don’t you try it on?” It’s not as unhealthy as four-inch heels or as uncomfortable as a push-up bra or as tedious as eyeliner—although one of the guys pictured is also wearing eyeliner!—but it is nonetheless sexist. It doesn’t take a Master’s Degree in Gender Studies to notice the double standard.

What really gets my attention, though, is that the guys who are posting their pictures here must have some serious guts. They’re not covering their faces in those photos. They’re easily identifiable, and that could make them extremely vulnerable.

Personhood USA insecure about America’s manhood

Anna North at Jezebel shares with us this charming quote from Gualberto Garcia Jones, director of Personhood USA:

Increasingly, the American people are being treated paternalistically by a government, media and public sector elite that stands in direct opposition to our traditional American values.

Using the courts as its instrument, this American elite has emasculated a once independent America.

The “American people” here apparently does not include women who are or may become pregnant, or pro-choicers of any description. “Traditional American values” means women must live and die at the mercy of sperm-meets-egg. The distinction between “the American people,” meaning those who oppose reproductive freedom, and the “American elite,” referring to those who trust women to plan their own families, is useful in parsing the “emasculated” bit.

If masculinity is defined as having a certain relationship to women, specifically as being in control of them, them it makes perfect sense to view reproductive rights as emasculation. The right to effective contraceptives and safe abortion gives women a degree of control over their lives that allows them to approach their relationships with men on their own terms. It helps women finish their education, travel, work as many hours as they need, advance their careers, and put money in savings. It gives women the autonomy to make plans for the future, which may or may not include any particular partner. It means a woman can date, or not, sleep around, or not, and enter a committed relationship, or not. While leaving an abusive relationship tends to be complicated no matter what, it is far more feasible for a woman who isn’t pregnant or caring for a small child. It won’t protect her from rape, but it prevents a rapist from forcing her into motherhood.

Ergo, yes, contraceptives and abortion do reduce men’s ability to keep women under control. If “manhood” means the females are at your mercy and “independence” means you can force them to bear your children, then, yes, birth control is emasculation.

What a harsh, joyless view of life that is, to say a man isn’t really a man unless he gets to push a woman around.

I’m hearing on Twitter right now that the Personhood Initiative is losing in Mississippi. I guess a whole lot of MS men are more secure in their masculinity than the dudes at Personhood USA.

 

Sperm from stem cells! The sky is falling!

I am telling you, this story is just…asking for the fertility-controls-you crowd to start losing their shit. More than usual, I mean.

Caroline Parkinson at BBC reports that Japanese scientists have successfully bred mice using sperm made from embryonic stem cells:

Japanese researchers successfully implanted early sperm cells, made from the stem cells, into infertile mice.

The working sperm which they made was then used to father healthy, and crucially fertile, pups, Cell journal reports.

A UK expert said it was a significant step forward in infertility research.

If you’re now thinking, “this is just begging for jumping to conclusions,” you’d be right.

But he said the Kyoto paper was “quite a large step forward” in developing a process by which sperm could be made for infertile men, perhaps by taking as a starting point a cell from their skin or from something like bone marrow.

He added: “Clearly more work needs to be done to refine this process, but it’s hugely exciting.”

That much is fine, but somehow, the comments on the Jezebel story are all about how this means men are about to become obsolete.

The etiquette of respecting boundaries

There is a shitstorm going on, and it might be sort of winding down, but there’s no time like the present. The sheer willful ignorance and hostility is so pervasive, and so repetitive that I almost don’t have the energy to wade in. Since pretty much every possible angle of the matter has already been discussed and explained, at length, hundreds of times, and some people still don’t see what the problem is, I can’t very well expect them to listen to me. If they didn’t hear it the first 3000 times, I’d be frankly the most arrogant piece of work on the Internet to think they’ll finally get it the 3001st time if it happens to be coming from my keyboard.

In truth, though, I do have something to add to the discussion, which I’m not sure has already been addressed in the extant arguments. It has to do with a general point of good manners which has been sorely neglected on more than one level.

Since the purpose of good manners is essentially to make everyone feel comfortable to the greatest extent possible, personal boundaries should be respected in terms of unnecessary, consciously decided behavior towards other individuals. This sounds awfully generalized and unhelpful, does it? I’ll be more specific.

If you’re unsure of how to act towards a person, and that person establishes a boundary, the polite thing to do—in fact, the only decent thing to do—is to respect that boundary, and not make decisions on that individual that would violate the stated boundary. See what I’m getting at? You want to know how a given person likes to be treated, and that person gives you an example of a boundary which she holds, by telling you about a recent experience in which that boundary was violated, and concludes with the advice of, “and it made me really uncomfortable, so please don’t do that”?

Racism * (male insecurity + womb control) = Dennis Prager

There is just so, incredibly much stupid here that I can’t even hope to take it all on at once. Truthticker listened to Dennis Prager say this so that we don’t have to:

The welfare state corrupts family life. Even many democrats have acknowledged the horrific consequences of the welfare state on the black community. It has rendered vast numbers of black males unnecessary to black females who have looked to the state to support them and their children (and the more children, the more state support) rather than to their husbands. In effect, these women took the state as their husband. Whereas in the past, women sought out men for financial support, the welfare state enables women to stay single and get support from the government.

It’s like a whole pack of little Stupid goblins are all trying to jump into my brain at once, but they don’t all fit through the door so they’re stuck and I don’t know which one to let in first.

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon has already dealt with at least a couple of the little beasties:

It’s a painful phenomenon, this glut of well-employed men yearning to take care of their children but barred by the overwhelming appeal of several hundred dollars a month in temporary benefits.

So, there’s that. There’s also the little goblin of Welfare Dependency Doesn’t Happen to White Folks (its alter ego is But It’s Different When Black Folks Do It), its snot-nosed little brother They’re Having More Kids to Get More Welfare, their cousin It’s Black Women’s Fault When Black Men Don’t Stick Around, and their Pied Piper of Stupid figure, Everything Would Be Fine If Men Controlled the Family.

While all those little demons fight to be the first one though the door, I’m going to focus on this yearning for the good old days when women sought out men for financial support. Prager seems awfully invested in the idea that women should be financially dependent on men, first and foremost. The idea that maybe some women would like to be able to provide for themselves and their kids on their own power, or that they might like to pursue and develop relationships with men because they love the men as individuals, just doesn’t come into the picture. Either women need men to pay the bills, or we just shun them altogether. Running through all this yearning for the good old days when single mothers and their kids were left to starve, of course, is the assumption that it’s not a valid family unless there’s a man in charge. It all adds up to this idea that “the black community” (because they all march in perfect lockstep) would be so much better off if the government would just let those uppity bitches and their bastard spawn starve.

“Girls suck, dur dur dur”

Apparently some asshat asked another jackass by the name of V.S. Naipaul about which women writers could beat him at arm-wrestling were equal to him, and the jackass took the opportunity to say he was better than all women writers including Jane Austen. Wow, V.S., you propped yourself up against a woman who’s been dead for decades! So courageous!

Over at She Writes, Kamy Wicoff is about as impressed with this display of cock-measuring as I am:

To be sure, I believe that literature can be judged.  Like porn, good writing is one of those things that is difficult to define, but relatively easy to distinguish from the other kind (writing that is bad).  The range of writing that people like, however, is as broad as humanity, and once certain things have been established — good sentence structure, good story-telling, good fact-checking, and so on — what appeals to one reader or another is anybody’s guess, and everybody’s right to decide for themselves.  Informed decisions are preferable, and to that end I am grateful for the critics and scholars who devote themselves to the study of the craft; but only so long as education, not declaration, is their aim. Writing is not a contest, and by definition can never be.  There are too many variables, far too much subjectivity, and the work itself defies definable metrics or binary judgments.  It is this defiance of clearcut “answers” that makes writing, and reading, such deeply pleasurable activities and such individual joys; our tastes are something each of us can own and define.

I’m all like, look, fuckhead, I am not going to stress myself out trying to come up with a list of women writers that I can “prove” are at least as good as you. To do that, I would first have to read a novel or two of yours, and I’m a mite busy with writing my own, and besides, after that display of dumbassery, I just can’t be bothered.

Instead, I merely remarked on Twitter,

*pats head* Don’t worry, V.S.; in 10 years, bitches like me will rule the bookshelves, and you’ll be dead.

 

Natural Selection Shows Sympathy for Vaginas

Neil Bowdler at BBC tells us of penile spines that Homo sapiens lost in the shuffle of evolution:

The researchers then focused on two deletions, linking one to penile spines and another to the growth of specific areas of the brain.

They then tested the effects of the deleted sequences in human skin and neural tissue, and found further evidence to support their claims.

So now they’re trying to figure out a theory for why the human penis no longer has spines.

Penile spines are barb-like structures found in many mammals. Their role remains under debate, and they may play different roles in different species.

They may increase stimulation for the male during mating. They might also play a part in inducing female ovulation in a small number of species, but there is evidence that they can cause damage to the female too.

Then there is the suggestion that they might have evolved to remove “mating plugs” – material that some male species deposit in the female genital tract to block other males’ attempts to fertilise the same female.

I am not a biologist, but I would like to suggest that “they can cause damage to the female too” may have been motivator enough for our species to shed this feature. Having enormous brains also means the babies present with especially large heads, which (along with our relatively small hips due to upright posture) means that childbirth for humans is difficult, painful and dangerous in ways that it isn’t for most other mammals. Ergo, could it be possible that giving birth to increasingly large-headed infants made human females predisposed to copulate with males with more pleasure-inducing and less injury-inflicting genitalia? Since the commitment of pregnancy makes females the “bottleneck” of reproduction, we don’t need all men—just a small fraction of them, really—to be available for copulation. I can just picture primitive hominid females looking at their options and saying, “If it’s gonna hurt that much coming out, then dammit, I want it to feel good going in.”