Author: Ophelia Benson

Aaron James has a theory of assholes. That sounds like a useful thing to have. I don’t really have one. I have a lot of fragments of theories, but I don’t think they add up to one theory; more like a box of scattered needles.

There’s an excerpt in Salon.

Assholes largely share a thick sense of moral entitlement…[T]he asshole in more recent modern life often requires little or no pretext of larger cause for the special privileges he feels entitled to enjoy. He will usually have some sort of rationalization ready at hand — he is not the psychopath who rejects moral concepts altogether — but the rationalizations are becoming ever thinner, ever more difficult to identify. This newer, purer style of asshole often just presumes he should enjoy special privileges in social life as a matter of course and so requires little by way of reason for taking them as the opportunity arises.

A Fox News guy called Neil Cavuto is a classic asshole. He asks a guest questions and then won’t let him answer.

This is at the very least an asshole move. One often can permissibly shift attention in a conversation, but here it is at best unclearly justified. Interrupting Blackwell several times and then accusing him of not answering his question does not count as even half-cooperative discourse, not even by the low standards of American politics. Even that would not have been so bad if Cavuto had meant to initiate something like a meta- conversation between the two speakers…Cavuto betrays no hint of metacooperation. He simply feels entitled not to wait his conversational turn. He does not have to actually listen to an opposing perspective, even from the person he is talking to. Cavuto could perhaps argue that the host must exert heavy control over the terms of debate, because polite terms will not do. Or maybe he feels justified in his bullying as long as he is scoring points in a kind of televised game show, with influence, profit, and fun as his justly deserved reward. Either rationale could constitute a sense of entitlement — something like the right to rule, or at least to shut the opposition out, while taking the moral high ground.

Does that sound familiar? Yes.

It is not just Fox News commentators but Fox News itself that has the appropriate, in-your-face, I’m-entitled-to-do-this, especially-because-you-dislike-it vibe.

And that sounds familiar squared – that sounds as familiar as the inside of your eyelids. If you dislike it, I will do it; thus spake the toddler.

Roger Ailes: another classic asshole.

If we ask why Ailes fought so long and so hard for all this, however, the answer is not simply the ample rewards. His victory lap comment also suggests fundamental contempt. It suggests contempt not just for his competitors but for a society of people who have always counted on news with a lot of information shaped by a good-faith attempt at impartial presentation. Our fundamental need in a democratic society, for each of us to make up our own mind, now goes unmet by the whole media environment. It reflects not the minds of equals deliberating together about what together to do but the tenor and voice of a single asshole’s mind.

There’s a lot of that going around – the single asshole’s mind poisoning a whole sector.

Justin Vacula wants us to pay attention to his new blog post. I skimmed it and don’t think I want to pay any more attention to it than that, but if you want to, knock yourselves out. (It seems to boil down to “if you’re not willing to be called a fucking cunt then don’t say anything that might prompt someone to call you a fucking cunt.” I think that’s a very stupid and retrograde approach.)

How about a spot of movie discussion? I’ve been meaning to see The Searchers again for years, having not seen it since childhood (several centuries ago, as we all know). I remember finding it quite haunting as a child. I’ve seen bits of it many times since then, of course, especially the famous closing scene, which I think fully deserves its famosity, or what people call its “iconic” status. Ok they can call it that, because it is sort of literally iconic. It’s visual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A

But the opening scene is pretty god damn iconic too – and of course it’s a bookend to the closing scene. Ethan rides in out of the vast empty landscape, and the members of the family collect on the porch. It’s stunningly beautiful.

I can’t find the whole thing on YouTube; no doubt copyright prevents. That’s too bad because this skips the ballet shot from the side of the porch where each character enters and takes up a particular spot, as if on a stage or…for a painting. Still, the first 52 seconds are nothing to sneeze at. The door that closes on Ethan at the end opens at the beginning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy2-abqR8B4

Having said all that – I dislike the sudden veers into comedy, and I dislike much of the comedy itself, especially (of course – so predictable) the hahaha Indians stuff. The worst bit is when the Indian woman who was sold to Martin (without his realizing it) is treated as a big joke, culminating in the scene where he lies down for sleep and then she lies down beside him and he turns over in outrage and violently kicks her away, and she rolls out of the frame. Then Ethan roars with laughter. Ew. Just not funny, dude.

It is about Ethan’s racism, but it’s also racist itself. That’s pretty obvious.

I dislike the time-wasting stuff with Charlie’s courtship of Laurie, and I hate the dopy fight scene between Charlie and Martin. Argh. Suddenly it’s a Three Stooges movie. It doesn’t go with the rest. Knock it off, boys, get back to the damn search.

I knew how it ended but I’d forgotten just about all of what led up to how it ended. I’d forgotten what happened to Lucy. That’s quite a powerful scene – Ethan suddenly roaring, “You want me to draw a picture? You want me to spell it out for you? Don’t ask me! Never ask me as long as you live!” Oh. She was gangraped, and maybe mutilated. Got it.

Oh wait, here is a version with the opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcUWKxY4NXk

 

 

A woman I don’t know, called Lucy Wainwright*, just tweeted me a link to a blog post she wrote. Nothing else, no greeting or explanation, just the link. That always looks kind of Mabusy, from a stranger, or else more than kind of spammy. But anyway she sent it, so she must want me to draw attention it. Ok.

It’s titled Failing at Feminism: a how-to guide.

Right, can we get something straight here, do we think?

No one who insists that a woman should be protected from unpleasant messages, from invitations to coffee, or from criticism because she is a woman is any kind of feminist.

So, are we insisting that a woman should be protected from unpleasant messages, from invitations to coffee, or from criticism?

One at a time.

Protected from? No. That’s not the claim, and never has been.

From unpleasant messages? It depends what you mean by “unpleasant messages.” If you mean “I disagree with you and here’s why” then no, of course not. But then you can’t mean that, because that’s covered by the third item. So what do you mean? Messages like “you’re a fucking cunt” and “you’re too ugly to rape” and “you’re an old hag” and “you’re a whore” and “fuck you you ugly bitch”?

It makes a difference which you mean.

From invitations to coffee? That’s not a fair way of putting it. That’s the opposite of a fair way of putting it. From invitations to coffee, tout court, of course not. From “invitations to coffee” in a guy’s hotel room issued in an elevator at 4 a.m. in the absence of prior flirtation?

It makes a difference which you mean.

From criticism? Of course not.

So to sum up, the issue isn’t “protected from.” It’s that people shouldn’t do certain things to other people. The issue isn’t that people shouldn’t do those things to women because they are women, the issue is that people do do those things to women because they are women, and they shouldn’t. See the difference? Not “stop calling me a fucking cunt, because I’m a woman,” but “stop calling women fucking cunts.”

If you put your opinions out there in a public forum, those opinions are subject to dissent and mockery – ownership of a vagina doesn’t change that.

From dissent? Obviously. No kidding. No one is saying otherwise.

From mockery? You mean like photoshopping? Captions like “I hate you with my vagina”? Pictures of obese women vomiting?

That’s another matter. No: it is not the case that if you put your opinions out there in a public forum, you should just expect and put up with photoshopping and the rest of it.

More shockingly, I contend that even people who own [hushed whisper] penises are allowed to disagree with you. No, really. I know that sounds radical.

How quickly she loses track of what’s under discussion. It’s not disagreement that’s under discussion. It’s cunting and bitching; it’s non-stop monitoring; it’s photoshopping and captioning and otherwise jeering.

Rebecca Watson has appeared in Slate this week to bitch some more about how hard it is to be her – an educated, white, middle-class American woman whose rights are protected under law.

I’ll stop there. That’s enough. This Lucy Wainwright is unpleasant and callous and sloppy in her reasoning. She wanted me to draw attention to her post and I obliged, but that will do.

*I know her claim to fame is being retweeted by Dawkins, in case you were going to remind me.

There are first world problems and there are third world problems. Yes. I’ll tell you something though – they’re not discontinuous. There’s not a clean radical break between them. They’re rooted in the same human flaws.

But that’s an aside. Now for full attention to a third world problem. Dabra, India.

One after the other, the men raped her. They had dragged the girl into a darkened stone shelter at the edge of the fields, eight men, maybe more, reeking of pesticide and cheap whiskey. They assaulted her for nearly three hours. She was 16 years old.

When it was over, the men threatened to kill her if she told anyone, and for days the girl said nothing. Speaking out would have been difficult, anyway, given the hierarchy of caste. She was poor and a Dalit, the low-caste group once known as untouchables, while most of the attackers were from a higher caste that dominated land and power in the village.

Well, that’s nice. Not just a bunch of men attacking a girl. Not just a group of men attacking one girl. A group of higher caste men attacking one Dalit girl. That’s what I call intersecitionality. That’s what I call privilege along more than one axis. They’re older. They’re men. They’re a group instead of one. And they have status and power in the village. They have the upper hand in four distinct ways – and they take advantage of it to smash her and her family for the sake of a fuck.

It might have ended there, if not for the videos: her assailants had taken cellphone videos as trophies, and the images began circulating among village men until one was shown to the victim’s father, his family said. Distraught, the father committed suicide on Sept. 18 by drinking pesticide.

Rohinton Mistry could probably do that story justice. I don’t know if anyone else could.

As in many countries, silence often follows rape in India, especially in villages, where a rape victim is usually regarded as a shamed woman, unfit for marriage. But an outcry over a string of recent rapes, including this one, in the northern state of Haryana, has shattered that silence, focusing national attention on India’s rising number of sexual assaults while also exposing the conservative, male-dominated power structure in Haryana, where rape victims are often treated with callous disregard.

In a rapidly changing country, rape cases have increased at an alarming rate, roughly 25 percent in six years. To some degree, this reflects a rise in reporting by victims. But India’s changing gender dynamic is also a significant factor, as more females are attending school, entering the work force or choosing their own spouses — trends that some men regard as a threat.

And when men feel threatened by women, what’s the solution? Exemplary rape! That’ll show those bitches who’s boss.

Many Dalit girls drop out of school, but the victim was finishing high school. Even in the aftermath of the rape, she took her first-term exams in economics, history and Sanskrit. But she no longer wants to return to the village school and is uncertain about her future.

“Earlier, I had lots of dreams,” she said. “Now I’m not sure I’ll be able to fulfill them. My father wanted me to become a doctor. Now I don’t think I’ll be able to do it.”

She has much in common with Malala, but a vastly worse outcome.

The Texas Taliban says no to the FFRF.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation received word on Oct. 24 that Henderson County, Texas, is refusing to permit it to post an “equal time” display on courthouse grounds by the large Christian nativity display dominating an entire corner. The devotional display is lit at night.

…After Henderson County commissioners made public statements indicating there was a public forum, the county refused permission to FFRF or its local complainant to put up a winter solstice banner describing the freethought point of view.

The banner notes:

“At this Season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Why doesn’t Chris Stedman go after the FFRF?

A complaint by FFRF last month over bible-banner-toting cheerleaders at public high school games in Kountze, Texas, has kicked off another heated controversy. Attorney General Greg Abbott, who offered comfort and support to Henderson County last year, attacking FFRF by name, held a press conference with Gov. Rick Perry on Oct. 17, again singling out FFRF by name, and, said Gaylor, creating a climate of hostility toward Texas nonbelievers.

They’ll be doing angry videos about them next.

 

From the London School of Economics Student Union Atheist, Secularist, Humanist Society on Wednesday, requesting a name change.

The significant change is supplementary: we would like to include “ex-Muslim” in our name, resulting in our new name: The LSESU Atheist, Secularist, Humanist and Ex-Muslim Society (LSESU ASHES). We are very excited about this, since we believe it to be a highly positive change that has the potential to improve the lives of some of our peers in some small way, as we will explain below.

The status of ex-Muslims in Islam is particularly precarious, and the historical and present-day Islamic response to people who become ex-Muslims is one that justifies our inclusion of the term in our name. We do not ask our members for their beliefs, but we estimate that approximately 20% of our members are ex-Muslim or from a Muslim background and we want to be inclusive and welcoming toward them.

People of a Muslim background face unique difficulties in abandoning their religion, both in predominantly Muslim countries and in Europe. A name that openly represents them will provide a visible support option: a society populated by like-minded people who have survived similar experiences, from whom they can draw support. We feel this is no different to, say, a society for students of a certain country, of which there are dozens. A German student may well find comfort or in the German Society by virtue of the fact that it will count many Germans among its ranks. A society with “ex-Muslims” in the name would attract former Muslims in much the same way.

While it is true that someone may leave Islam for another religion, and that such people may face many of the same difficulties as someone who turns away from organised religion altogether, most Muslims who turn away from Islam do not then join a different religion. Accordingly, we feel that combining outlooks such as atheism, humanism and secularism with ex-Muslim is complementary. Practically speaking, the number of members in an independent ex-Muslim society may prove too low for it to maintain a significant presence on campus. Further, there is a significant overlap of interests and concerns for atheists, humanists, secularists and ex-Muslims. In fact, our scepticism brings us all together into a loosely shared identity. This is underlined by the fact that the name change was approved after a discussion and free vote by our members.

Read the rest.

Yesterday the LSE Student Union told the Student Union Atheist, Secularist, Humanist Society that the name change would not be allowed.

The Activities Committee have decided not to grant the name change that you have requested.

We decided not to grant the name change because given the email that you sent us as why you would like to change the name, we feel that by adding ‘ex-Muslim’ to the society name it will no longer become a safe space for ex-Muslims; in the sense that it may be an indication as to where ex-Muslims can affiliate to. For this reason would you please consider replacing the ‘ex-Muslim’ part of the proposed name change to either ‘Atheist, Secularist, Humanist and ex-religious’ or ‘Atheist, Secularist, Humanist and ex-religion. This will be in order provide the safe space for all students who join your society and potentially increase your society membership.

Alex Gabriel comments at the Heresy Club. Hemant also has a post.

Ha! Soraya pointed this out to me, from the New Yorker: GOP split over whether to emphasize misogyny or racism.

NEW HAMPSHIRE (The Borowitz  Report)—With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, there is a deep  divide among Republican leaders over whether to emphasize misogyny or racism as  the campaign’s closing theme.

In one camp is the Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who says that  his view that God is sometimes O.K. with rape is “gaining real traction with a  key demographic: men who don’t like women very much.”

“I can’t tell you how many misogynists have come up to me at my rallies and  said, ‘Thank you for saying what you said,’ ” he told reporters today. “I  think they’re like, finally, someone’s taking a more nuanced position on  rape.”

Ahahahahahahaha – ain’t it the truth.

But in the other camp is the former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, who  worries that the Republican Party’s emphasis on misogyny is threatening to drown  out its “winning message of racism.”

“I understand the appeal of Mourdock’s anti-woman theme, but I worry that  it’s going to overshadow our core value of racism, which is still our best shot  at winning this thing,” he said. “In politics, you’ve got to dance with the one  who brung you.”

Don’t forget homophobia.

I found some very excellent misogyny on Twitter just now.

 That’s the drill, you know. That’s why we talk about the threats and harassment – they are an opportunity and we are exploiting them. For what? Money! Fame!! Blog hits!!!

No actually that’s not why. We talk about them because they’re there, and they’re continuing. We think they’re bad, and should stop. That’s a normal, understood, accepted reason to talk about bad things.

 

Boy, that Mourdock fella is a real prize. He’s got his career plans wrong though. He wants to be a bishop, not a legislator.

He had a chat with some newspaper people in southern Indiana Wednesday, and there he elaborated on his thoughts about god and rape.

The wide ranging interview covered all topics, but the highlight came when a reporter asked if he believed God intended women to be raped:

“Personally I think that the closer you are to God, the less likely you are to run into something like that,” Mourdock responded, “Some of these women – if they had been more faithful to the Lord, if they had just prayed a little harder – then they wouldn’t have found themselves in that situation.”

So………in other words, “God” allowed them to be raped because they hadn’t been “faithful” enough and hadn’t prayed hard enough. They were slutting around on God and neglecting to tell him how great he is.

“I’ve seen marriages break up and friendships drift apart because someone wasn’t right with the Lord. I think the same is true in any situation. With Jesus Christ on your side, only good things will come.”

He then went on to propose a unique anti-rape measure:

“And in the case of rape Christ has a specific remedy. Studies have shown that if you pray for at least 20 minutes before any big date, your partner is 93% less likely to rape you.

“Scientists say prayer can create a ‘rape halo’ around a woman’s body which instantly renders a potential rapist impotent. I’m not sure how it works exactly. I think its pheromones.

“So I don’t think God wants a woman to get raped. He offers her a choice. The rape halo is only a prayer away. If she’s too lazy to get on her knees and ask for it, that’s her fault.”

Wait. Seriously?

No! It’s a satire. But it’s pretty convincing until you get to the halo.

 

Soraya Chemaly presents 50 facts about rape.

Republican Representative Richard Mourdock’s recen “misspeaking”  is unexceptional. Despite what he may have meant when he said “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that… is something God intended to happen,” he is unexceptional.  He’s not an outlier. Not a radical. In no substantive way different from his conservative peers in this regard (see below if you disagree).  Indeed, he and others, like Todd Akin and Paul Ryan, are part of an age-old tradition of men with power defining when women are raped.

Yes I see a lot of that, also men with or without power defining when women are threatened, when women are harassed, when women are cyberstalked…I see that a lot.

The 50 facts are interesting.

Some people are offended by frank conversation about violence, especially sexualized violence.  I’m offended by tolerance for these assaults, scientific denialism, entertainment at the expense of people’s safety and bodily integrity, and shame-infused legislation that hurts children and women and is based on the belief that all men are animals at heart.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has agreed to hear an appeal challenging a state law mandating the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

The plaintiffs claim daily classroom affirmation that the nation is “under God” violates state constitutional prohibitions against religious discrimination.

Which it is. It absolutely is. It’s revolting. It not only shouldn’t be mandated, it shouldn’t be allowed. Forcing children to make a daily god-assertion in public schools is outrageously coercive.

The plaintiffs brought the case through the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center. The SJC on Thursday approved the petition for direct appellate review of the case, which means a lower court will not have to first consider the appeal.

“Public schools are defining patriotism and loyalty on a daily basis by exalting one religious group and stigmatizing humanists and other non-theists. Of course that’s discrimination,” said American Humanist Association Executive Director Roy Speckhardt. “We feel confident that a fair hearing will result in a finding that the state law requiring this discriminatory practice violates the state’s equal rights amendment.”

Public schools are also telling students that the US is “under god,” which is a nonsensical, impertinent, intrusive thing for schools – especially but not exclusively public schools – to tell children. The US isn’t “under god.” There is no god for the US to be under, and if there were a god, who is to say we should agree to be under it? What if the god is evil?

And then, announcing that the US is “under god” risks implying that other countries are not. This is the “god is on our side” idea and it’s a bad, dangerous one.

Massachusetts law requires public school teachers to begin each day with a classroom recitation of the Pledge. The suit claims that daily affirmation that the nation is “under God” in the context of an exercise designed to promote national loyalty “directly contradicts the religious beliefs and principles of the plaintiffs” and effectively defines patriotism in terms of God-belief, thereby marginalizing plaintiffs and contributing to existing prejudices against nonbelievers.

Forcibly promoting national loyalty is a crappy idea anyway. The loyalty should be reasoned and freely adopted, not instilled via daily forced repetition.

Religious interest groups have intervened in the case to defend the daily “under God” recitation. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represents the Knights of Columbus and a family that supports the “under God” wording.

For religious liberty? How do they have the face? Liberty is the very opposite of what this is. It’s mandated. That’s not liberty. How can it be a matter of religious liberty to have the state forcing students to say “under God” every day?

It can’t.

 

Wow. I’ve been checking the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for updates on Malala every day, and the update has always said just that she continues to make progress. It now seems that they were understating it a little. She’s been able to talk since Wednesday, and they seem much more confident now that there’s no brain damage. All signs of infection are gone, she’s walking with very little help, and her short term memory is fine. Dr Dave Rosser talks to the press:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXppYiaYqnk

Her parents and brothers arrived in Birmingham today, and her father also talks to the press:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81td5xRv0s