The Independent has an article defending Amnesty International’s plan to make sex work a human right, written by a man.

Can denying people the choice to decide what they do with their own bodies – or specifically when they consent to sex – ever be an advancement of their human rights?

That’s what a sensationalist campaign led by radical feminists is claiming.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This is from early June, but I missed it and it’s a beautiful idea.

Over several decades of political instability and strife, Karachi’s walls have become a battleground covered with bullet holes, slurs, threats, and various messages of hate.

There are photos of dirty grey walls covered in writing.

A group of Karachiites started a campaign called “I Am Karachi” to reclaim public spaces by promoting arts, sports, culture and dialogue. Their newest aim is to reclaim the city’s walls and bring back its positive general environment.

There are photos of bright colorful walls that will knock your socks off.

Faraz Fayaaz

Wajiha Naqvi, the leader and manager of this campaign, talked to BuzzFeed about their “Reimagining the Walls of Karachi” initiative. Young artists have come together to paint over the hate with beauty.

“The effort is to reclaim the walls of Karachi which are often covered with hate graffiti towards certain ethnic groups and political sloganeering,” Wajiha told us in an email.

…

“We want to replace them with images that illustrate/depict positive values,” she further said.

Look at all the photos – they’re amazing.

Azhar Ibrahim

One of the risks of the project is that Wajiha and her team are erasing politically and religiously charged graffiti, which have been sources of conflict and violence, and replacing them with the exact opposite – sources of beauty and unity.

A risky thing to do…

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

We’ve heard enough about TERFs for one while, let’s move on to the shouts about SWERFs by way of refreshment. Human rights lawyer Jessica Neuwirth in the Guardian explains:

Has Amnesty International been hijacked by proponents of the global sex trade? When the human rights nonprofit convenes its International Council Meeting next week in Dublin, delegates from around the world will be asked to vote on a proposal to recognize prostitution as a human right.

Amnesty is arguing that prostitution is a matter of free choice, a stance heavily promoted by the multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry. The group is putting forth the view that sex work is compatible with the principle of gender equality and nondiscrimination, as if it were a job like any other.

“By definition,” Amnesty’s proposal states, “sex work means that sex workers who are engaging in commercial sex have consented to do so.” This definition fails to take into account the dire economic need, the childhood sexual abuse, the brutal coercion employed by pimps, and the vast power differences of sex and race that drive the commercial sex industry.

And gender identity, too. Remember that Fresh Air interview I posted about recently? With the trans woman, Mya Taylor, who had to do sex work because she could not get another job because she was trans? She hated the work.

Amnesty contends that “such conditions do not inevitably render individuals incapable of exercising personal agency”. This argument ignores the reality for the vast majority of individuals exploited by the commercial sex industry. When United Nations personnel trade food for sex, these transactions – called “survival sex” – might technically be consensual, but can hardly be considered examples of free will. Almost all prostitution is some form of survival sex. There is no choice in the absence of the freedom to choose otherwise.

That’s a tricky argument, because it applies to most jobs…but still, we know very well that there are some jobs no one would do if they had any other choice at all. That’s why the South relied on slavery – the work in that climate was horrific.

Sweden has made a legal distinction between those driven into the sex industry by poverty and discrimination and those who buy sex as an exercise of power and privilege. Its model law criminalizes only the buying of sex and offers support services to those who are bought. This progressive feminist method aims to decriminalize prostituted women without legitimizing the men who buy them.

In the book Paid For, a compelling analysis of author Rachel Moran’s experience in the sex trade, she describes three types of men who patronize prostitution: those who assume the women they buy have no human feelings; those who are conscious of a woman’s humanity but choose to ignore it; and those who derive sexual pleasure from reducing the humanity of women they buy. Is Amnesty really going to defend the rights of such men to buy women?

It’s a heartbreaking moment for those of us who love Amnesty International. Former US president Jimmy Carter, who made human rights a centerpiece of US foreign policy, has started an online petition urging the group not to endorse commercial sexual exploitation as a right. The concept of human rights itself – not to mention sex equality – is at stake.

Signed.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A Republican Congressional representative from Iowa, Steve King, holds a strange belief.

Rep. Steve King, R-IA, told an audience while introducing GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee that the Supreme Court’s landmark marriage equality ruling means that now people can marry lawnmowers, journalist Matt Taibbi reported.

Iowa Rep. Steve King, introducing Huckabee, said gay marriage ruling now means “you can marry my lawnmower.”

Matt Taibbi ✔@mtaibbi
Iowa Rep. Steve King, introducing Huckabee, said gay marriage ruling now means “you can marry my lawnmower.”
4:20 PM – 30 Jul 2015

King apparently made the comment at an Iowa campaign event for Huckabee on Thursday, according to Slate.

I don’t see it, myself. So many differences. Possessing sharp blades, is the difference that stands out. Plus being all-metal. Plus having an engine. Plus not having a brain.

King has been stuck on the idea of people marrying his lawnmower since at least July 1, when he first made the comment, which he reiterated Thursday, the Sioux City Journal reports.

“I had a strong, Christian lawyer tell me yesterday that, under this decision that he has read, what it brings about is: It only requires one human being in this relationship — that you could marry your lawnmower with this decision. I think he’s right,” he told the Journal.

Hm. So could you marry a car? Could you marry the Chrysler building? Could you marry Texas? Could you marry a distant planet?

Yes or no.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

It never hurts to remind ourselves of the fundamental attribution error.

Wotcha mean “attribution”?

In social psychology, attribution is the process of inferring the causes of events or behaviors. In real life, attribution is something we all do every day, usually without any awareness of the underlying processes and biases that lead to our inferences.

For example, over the course of a typical day you probably make numerous attributions about your own behavior as well as that of the people around you.

And the dogs around you.

If you do something crappy, it’s because that person over there did something crappy x2 to you.

If that person over there does something crappy, it’s because that person is a crap.

See? You have reasons, they have bad natures.

The Fundamental Attribution Error

When it comes to other people, we tend to attribute causes to internal factors such as personality characteristics and ignore or minimize external variables. This phenomenon tends to be very widespread, particularly among individualistic cultures.

Psychologists refer to this tendency as the fundamental attribution error; even though situational variables are very likely present, we automatically attribute the cause to internal characteristics.

The fundamental attribution error explains why people often blame other people for things over which they usually have no control. The term blaming the victim is often used by social psychologists to describe a phenomenon in which people blame innocent victims of crimes for their misfortune.

In such cases, people may accuse the victim of failing to protect themselves from the event by behaving in a certain manner or not taking specific precautionary steps to avoid or prevent the event.

Examples of this include accusing rape victims, domestic violence survivors and kidnap victims of behaving in a manner that somehow provoked their attackers. Researchers suggest that hindsight bias causes people to mistakenly believe that victims should have been able to predict future events and therefor take steps to avoid them.

Here’s an interesting fact. Being aware of this error doesn’t prevent you from making it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A friend remarked yesterday, in a conversation about the – what to call it – the Official Ostracism of Me, that we’re all learning and it might be quite a good idea to be patient and not-horrible while we’re learning. Not the exact words, but that’s the gist.

It made me realize that one of the things I like most about having a blog is that I can write about what I’m learning, as I’m learning it. I can think aloud about what I’m learning. It’s note-taking, and discussion, and sharing. That’s what I like in other people’s blogs, too.

But, weirdly, we’re not allowed to learn about this subject. We’re supposed to have accepted particular conclusions, which is quite different from learning something (even if your learning takes you to the same place). We’re supposed to utter particular formulas, and answer yes to abrupt simplistic yes-or-no questions. That’s antithetical to learning, and to thinking as well.

Mind you…as I spelled out last week, I am willing, and more than willing, to answer yes to moral and political questions, even some yes-or-no ones. “Will you treat people as they ask to be treated?” “Yes, of course.”

But questions about what we mean by identity, the self, experience, mental states, conformity, stereotypes, gender roles, gender expression, performance…those I want to discuss rather than affirm or deny.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I wrote a column for the Freethinker a couple of days ago about Shakespeare and undermotivated evil, via Hamlet and then Iago, with an observation on one way Shakespeare violated the conventions of his time.

There’s one Shakespeare character, though, who stands out for the flimsiness of his stated reasons compared to the malice and cruelty of what he does. He’s pissed off that he didn’t get a promotion, maybe possibly his wife has the hots for Othello. Othello is a good guy and that makes Iago look bad – blah blah. He claims all these at different times, so they cancel each other out, and seem like rationalizations instead of reasons. Really he just does it because he wants to, and he can. Desdemona and Othello are happy, so he’ll make them not happy, and not alive either.

It’s interesting how he goes about it, because it’s a classic literary theme, especially popular in Shakespeare’s time but still pervasive. It’s the theme that’s behind the phenomenon of “honour” killings. It’s all that, except that Shakespeare does what no one else does, and turns the theme on its head.

The theme is the happily married man who discovers that his wife is a whore. Remember the frame narrative of The 1001 Nights? It’s that. The Agamemnon? That. Most of Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedies? That.

Shakespeare used the theme in several of his plays, but in nearly all of his, the jealous husband is wrong. The later the play, the more wrong the jealous husband is. By the time we get to A Winter’s Tale, he’s such a jackass that he makes up the story that his wife is cheating on him out of thin air.

Have you ever noticed that? I was helped to realize it by reading a lot of Shakespeare’s contemporaries: with them the husband was never wrong, the wife was always a whore. Given what Shakespeare did with that theme, I have a feeling he found the theme annoying. That’s odd, isn’t it.

Othello is nudged into it by Iago, but he’s nearly as bad. He believes the poison Iago tells him, and he refuses to trust Desdemona – and that’s bad.

It’s so bad that Shakespeare gives the job of telling him off to a woman, Iago’s wife. It’s a violation of every possible Jacobean convention: she is officially Othello’s inferior in every way – married to his subordinate, and a woman. Yet she denounces him, and not only that, she addresses him as “thou” – the most insultingly outrageous thing a subordinate can do. She goes from “you” to “thou” in an instant, when he calls Desdemona a whore.

OTHELLO:  She’s, like a liar, gone to burning hell:
‘Twas I that kill’d her.
EMILIA: O, the more angel she,
And you the blacker devil!
OTHELLO: She turn’d to folly, and she was a whore.
EMILIA: Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
– Act 5, scene 2

See that? Phewwwww that’s some outrageous behavior. Thou is for intimates, but it’s also for subordinates. However intimate they may be, a subordinate mustn’t thou a superior. Falstaff does it to Hal, if I remember correctly, but that’s part of Falstaff’s transgressiveness. Horatio never thous Hamlet, despite their deep friendship. Falstaff is being a bad boy. Emilia’s not doing that, she’s doing something much fiercer.

Shakespeare liked the effect he did it all over again in The Winter’s Tale.

Act 3 scene 2:

Leontes, the king, has accused his wife Hermione of adultery in court, then news arrives that their young son has died of grief, then Hermione faints and is carried out (the guy rushes things in this scene, I have to say) – and her attendant, Paulina, goes with her, then in a few minutes (during which Leontes berates himself for being such a shithead) she comes back. She’s a high class servant – upper class, but a servant to the royals – and she lets the king have it:

[Re-enter PAULINA]

• Paulina. Woe the while!
  O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
  Break too.

• First Lord. What fit is this, good lady?

• Paulina. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
  What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling?
  In leads or oils? what old or newer torture
  Must I receive, whose every word deserves
  To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
  Together working with thy jealousies,
  Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
  For girls of nine, O, think what they have done
  And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all
  Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
  That thou betray’dst Polixenes,’twas nothing;
  That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant
  And damnable ingrateful: nor was’t much,
  Thou wouldst have poison’d good Camillo’s honour,
  To have him kill a king: poor trespasses,
  More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon
  The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter
  To be or none or little; though a devil
  Would have shed water out of fire ere done’t:
  Nor is’t directly laid to thee, the death
  Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts,
  Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart
  That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
  Blemish’d his gracious dam: this is not, no,
  Laid to thy answer: but the last,—O lords,
  When I have said, cry ‘woe!’ the queen, the queen,
  The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead,
  and vengeance for’t
  Not dropp’d down yet.

A torrent of thous, coupled to the harshest of insults – from a woman and a servant, to the king.

That dude Shakespeare was up to something.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

It’s Sayre’s law.

Sayre’s law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905–1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.

On 20 December 1973, the Wall Street Journal quoted Sayre as: “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.” Political scientist Herbert Kaufman, a colleague and coauthor of Sayre, has attested to Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, that Sayre usually stated his claim as “The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low”, and that Sayre originated the quip by the early 1950s.

There’s also the narcissism of small differences.

The narcissism of small differences (der Narzißmus der kleinen Differenzen) is “the phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other” – “such sensitiveness […] to just these details of differentiation”.^[1]

How, exactly, do you pronounce shibboleth, again?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I’ve just realized something very worrying – it’s possible that this laptop I’m typing on is a man’s laptop. I didn’t check when I bought it. It’s black and chrome, no pink anywhere – that’s not a good sign.

Also the coffee I drink. It could be Coffee for Men for all I know.

And my toothpaste. Oh gosh.

And my lightbulbs?

My books? I have a few thousand, so that’s scary.

I have some peaches though. They’re probably Girl Fruit.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There was a re-run of a Jon Stewart interview on Fresh Air yesterday. He said something that made me think “oh yes, I have that too.”

DAVIES: You grew up in, I guess, Lawrenceville, N.J.

STEWART: That is correct.

Ok that’s weird because I grew up very near there myself – in and near Princeton, N.J. My cousins went to Lawrenceville the school.

But that’s not it.

DAVIES: Were you a class clown? Did you have the sort of persona that made fun of everybody in a kind of playful and endearing way?

STEWART: (Laughter). Yes, I was very playful and endearing.

DAVIES: That was you.

STEWART: Yeah. People always say, you know, when did you realize you were funny? And I think it’s not that you realize you were funny. It’s that you’re brain works in a certain way.

That’s it. My brain works in that certain way too. I almost always have something facetious to say, even if I don’t say it every single time I have it. My brain works that way. The facetious thing just turns up.

And I don’t think that that’s – I think in some respects it’s uncontrollable, and you can either accept it and deal with it and hone it or you can try to fight it. And I was too weak to fight it. And so I just sort of went with it. And the big thing to learn was how to turn obnoxiousness into wit. And that was the hardest probably lesson. Obnoxiousness is what gets your butt kicked and wit is what makes people go oh, that’s endearing. And it’s trying not to get your butt kicked while still having your brain work in the way that you’re comfortable with.

Often I’m obnoxious rather than witty, and sometimes I get my butt kicked.

But I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t want my brain not to work this way. If it’s a choice between that and never getting my butt kicked? I go with the facetiously-oriented brain.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Salman Rushdie talked to L’Express the other day; the Guardian shares some highlights in translation.

Salman Rushdie believes that if The Satanic Verses had been published today, the members of the literary elite who rounded on Charlie Hebdo in the wake of the French satirical magazine winning a PEN prize for courage would not have defended him.

I think he’s quite right. Things have moved on since the fatwa, and not in a good way. The very awfulness of theocratic Islamism (that’s a tautology, but people get confused about what Islamism is) has helped to make it harder to resist theocratic Islamism. The thinking goes: Islamists do terrible things, and that makes people be horrible to Muslims in general, so we have to redouble our efforts to stand up for Muslims in general, which means we have to hide or deny or minimize or obfuscate the reality of theocratic Islamism.

You can understand the reasoning for each part, but where it ends up is a mess.

Speaking about the decision by PEN’s American branch to award Charlie Hebdo with a freedom of expression courage award in May, which led to more than 200 writers putting their names to a letter protesting the decision for valorising “material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the western world”, Rushdie said the conflict had left “deep divisions” in the literary world. He would never have imagined that writers such as Michael Ondaatje, Peter Carey and Junot Díaz “would have taken this attitude”, and he had written to one of the key dissenters, Teju Cole, about the situation, he revealed.

“[Cole] replied with a bizarre letter: ‘My dear Salman, dear big brother, everything I know I learned it at your feet,’” Rushdie said. “But his reply was mostly full of false claims: Teju assured me that he would never have taken this part against The Satanic Verses because, in my case, it was to do with an accusation of blasphemy, but in the case of Charlie Hebdo, it was about the alleged racism of the magazine against the Muslim minority.”

Rushdie told L’Express that he disagreed, saying that the 12 people murdered at Charlie Hebdo’s offices were killed because their words were seen as blasphemous. “It’s exactly the same thing,” he said. “I’ve since had the feeling that, if the attacks against The Satanic Verses had taken place today, these people would not have defended me, and would have used the same arguments against me, accusing me of insulting an ethnic and cultural minority.”

Quite; they would. They do, some of them. Remember the stink when Rushdie got his K? There were a lot of those accusations then.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Aw shucks, as so often happens, once you look it up it’s not quite as fatuous as it looked.

Stonemill explains:

Thank you to all of our customers who have provided feedback on the recently launched Men’s and Women’s Wellbeing breads. We’ve had many positive comments about these new breads, but have also had some customers express concern about the gender-specific labelling.

As background, our intention when creating the Wellbeing breads was to support the unique and different nutrient needs of men and women. We worked under the guidance of a registered dietitian to identify the specific nutrients men and women require on a daily basis and what they may fall short on. For example, Health Canada indicates that up to 50% percent of men fall short of magnesium, while 80% of women may not get enough calcium. Therefore the Wellbeing bread for women was enhanced with calcium and for men with magnesium. Since bread is a staple food in many diets, we felt it was a smart place to add more nutritional value.

We now fully understand that while our intention was focused on nutrition, we appreciate and respect our customer concerns over the marketing of the product and have therefore decided to remove any gender-specific labelling. These highly nutritious products will still be available to you, but with new labelling.

Ok. Honestly though, you’d think someone in their marketing department or their customer relations department or their what color shall we make the labels department would have realized how silly it looks to add gender to bread.

I demand unisex bread for all. The bread’s preferred pronouns are they / fzzms.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

No, no, no, no…this can’t be real…

Sarah Nyberg ‏@srhbutts 21 hours ago
that tragic feeling when you’re at the grocery store but they’re all out of your gender’s bread

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Wow. A new low every day.

Marian Melby’s blog. Post by HJ Hornbeck.

I’m currently away, with only a scattered internet connection.

If you’re looking for M.A. Melby, you have the wrong extension. Please hang up and try again.

If you’re a blogger in the middle of a meltdown over accusations of transphobia, I spotted that post of yours thanks to a commenter. Nice troll, but I’m not biting.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t approved your comment or made one myself, technical reasons are conspiring to prevent it. About all I can do from here is write or edit blog posts, and only then when I catch a spare moment and/or build up sufficient outrage.

For all other inquiries, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

…. Oh wait. Hmmm. Maybe try carrier pigeon?

beeeeep

Seriously?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

StevoR left us some treats in the Withdrawing Room:

Rosetta and Philae awesomeness :

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Science_on_the_surface_of_a_comet

Stick with that first photo – its an animation with some pretty impressive reality in it.

Plus :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-31/philae-lander-photo-shows-there-is-more-to-comets-than-soft-dust/6662378

Also a good radio segment on Pluto, Kepler 452b ad more here as well :

http://www.abc.net.au/science/audio/2015/07/29/4282396.htm#.Vbr7rjD0D8U.facebook

Hope these are interesting & informative for folks here.

Thanks!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Guest post by Bruce Everett

CN: Talk of spousal murder. And Nazis.
…
You know what I’d do if I were compulsively obsessed to fine-parse the ideas and beliefs of a certain group of people in order to find them guilty-by-association? I’d start looking for links to the works of Louis Althusser – because while the work of Althusser may have been picked up and expanded upon by some feminists, the guy strangled his wife to death. (And let’s not forget debate over his supposed turn towards neo-conservatism in his later years).

Then I’d start looking for links to Heidegger… because, well… Godwin’s Law. The work of Heidegger, and its derivatives (i.e. a lot of Left Bank philosophy) do turn up in theory in the Humanities, and not at all infrequently. It’s also become increasingly clear in recent years that no, his work isn’t entirely disentangled from the the politics of his friends in the jack-booted Halloween costumes.

It’s really easy to play this game. I have no intention of playing it. It’s a puerile game for puerile minds with puerile wants.

It’s not that these things can’t be discussed, or that they’re not relevant. And it’s not that Anglophone philosophers don’t deserve criticism along similar lines to the mentioned Continentals (e.g. see Locke and slavery).

But the fact that you can draw associations between philosophers of dubious character, with not a few bad ideas, and some of the ideas of the person in the same conversation as you, at base tells you nothing at all about the character of the person you’re presently engaged with.

The selective application of this kind of fine-parsing risks making a person a hypocrite. Applying it universally to imply guilt results in absurd results – suddenly throngs of feminists become misogynists, and some of the most dedicated anti-racist academics become Nazi sympathisers. This is obviously silly.

It’s a lack of consideration of this kind of thing that increasingly has me wondering just how much of the theory being invoked by some people has actually been read and comprehended, and just how seriously it’s being taken.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

This is a comment that I deleted, by someone using the nym “Leum” who won’t be commenting here again.

I find it quite staggering.

And this time this stuff is coming from supposed allies. Progressives. People of the left.

This is what the people whipping up the hatred of me are fomenting:

Leum @58

Do you think Ophelia is not physically safe for a trans woman to be around?

Full disclosure: I am a cis male. I have the same reservations as Ophelia about a “yes” answer. I have spent some time in the company of a trans woman and felt no desire to attack her, physically or emotionally.

Since I’m a) not a trans woman and b) have not been able to follow how everything that’s been said by everyone in this discussion, I don’t really feel comfortable answering that question beyond saying that as an amab nonbinary person I would have no problem with, say, eating dinner with Ophelia. It’s also important to recognize that physical safety means more than “this person won’t directly attack me.” There are indirect forms of attack, primarily political in nature, that were actually initiated by cis feminists (a lot of the requirements for medical transition were first promulgated by cis radical feminists).

To my knowledge, Ophelia doesn’t support political violence against trans women, but since literally everyone in a transmisogynist society (including trans women) will manifest transmisogyny at times, it wouldn’t surprise me if she unknowingly supported (or failed to oppose) some policy that physically harms trans women.

In other words, yes, Leum does think I’m dangerous to trans women.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)