The objectification and dehumanisation of women is such an inescapable part of popular culture that it necessarily plays a part in the daily interactions of men and women.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Tom Martin replies: men are too so the victims
“In a world which verbalises four times more sexism against men than it does against women, it’s high time gender studies set a better example.”
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Jonathan Dean defends LSE’s Gender Institute
If a gender studies scholar were to put forward a crude “women good, men bad” analysis, it would never stand up to peer scrutiny.
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Johann Hari offers a personal apology
Admits editing Wikipedia entries “of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious.”
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Men are being silenced
A guy is suing LSE for sexism.
The man, 39-year-old Tom Martin, based in London, began pursuing an MSc degree in gender, media and culture at the LSE’s Gender Institute in October 2009. He withdrew six weeks later, citing “anti-male discrimination” in the coursework.
“Its programs actively block men’s discourse and perpetuate the men-bad, women-good dialogue,” Martin told me by phone yesterday. “I want gender studies to be more inclusive for men.”
Its programs block men’s discourse?! Oh.my.god. That’s so terrible, when men have been silenced for so long. What’s that men-bad, women-good dialogue though? I’ve never heard of that. It sounds like a hell of a boring dialogue, as well as kind of stupid.
Martin, who calls himself a “feminist” and a “men’s rights activist,” said he did a line-by-line analysis of the core texts taught in the gender classes and decided they were “overwhelmingly negative on men, blamed men for women’s perceived inequalities, and complained about misogyny but never spoke about misandry [which is defined as the hatred of men].” Martin declined to provide me with a list of the texts.
Ohhhhh that. Right. Now I know where we are. (I spent a fair amount of time there myself recently. Funny what a malodorous place it turned out to be.) He calls himself a feminist MRA and he thinks women have gone past equality into privilege and that “misandry” is comparable to misogyny (and he keeps his list of texts a secret).
While Martin claims he’s after egalitarianism only, some of his views may raise eyebrows. “I don’t buy that women were oppressed by men historically,” he said. “There’s a perverse incentive in gender studies to preserve the inequalities that women face.” He also believes that men are the “victims” of prostitution, that women “volunteer” into sex trafficking and that women’s “hysterical” fear of rape damages equality.
Check check check. He’s learned his lines well.
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Man sues LSE for “sexism”
“Its programs actively block men’s discourse and perpetuate the men-bad, women-good dialogue.”
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You could tell the story in your sleep
Another familiar story. Religious men walk out of official ceremony in protest because women ___. Their bosses dismiss them. Clerics say it’s an outrage.
The details barely matter; they’re interchangeable. In this case the men were military cadets in Israel; their bosses are their superior officers; the women were singing; the clerics are rabbis.
At some point during the evening, two female soldiers got up to sing. When one
of them began singing solo, dozens of religious soldiers got up and turned to
leave the auditorium.Pointedly sending the message that the female soldier was a harlot. That should be good for morale.
H/t Ezra Resnick.
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Anointing the sick with oil
Familiar story. Couple belong to church that “preaches faith-healing and rejects modern medicine in favor of prayer and other spiritual practices such as anointing the sick with oil.” Couple lets infant die instead of getting medical help.
David Hickman, the couple’s infant son, died in 2009 from a bacterial infection in his lungs. Born two months premature, weighing only 3 pounds and 5 ounces, David only lived for an agonizing nine hours. David, slowly succumbing to the infection in the Hickman’s home, was surrounded by female church members who are considered midwives, although there is no evidence these unlicensed, supposed “midwives,” have any medical education.
Couple goes on trial. Defense is expected to argue that the infant’s death was unforeseeable and that the couple are the victims of religious persecution.
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Couple on trial for letting their baby die
The Oregon medical examiner’s office estimates that in the past 30 years, more than 20 children of church members have died of preventable or curable conditions.
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Israel: cadets protest women singing at ceremony
Four of the nine religious cadets who walked out of a military event as a female
soldier began singing solo will be dismissed from their officers’ course. -
Why is US TV losing women writers?
Women who hear that the television industry is not welcoming to them may be less
likely to become part of it in the first place. -
Sexism alive and well in TV land
Only 15% of the writers of broadcast network, prime-time programs were women in 2010-2011 season, less than half the number in 2006-2007.
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Bachmann’s breathtaking ignorance about HPV vaccine
“To have innocent little 12-year old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat-out wrong,” she proclaimed Monday.
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Training dominion-oriented daughters
Libby Anne spotted another deeply sinister picture of a female human being on a Vision Forum DVD.
Will you look at that?
It’s all the more sinister because it’s so effective – the colors and patterns are pretty, and they pull us in.
Libby Anne is scathing.
It appears from the cover of this DVD that daughters take dominion by doing laundry. Nice. I mean seriously, thought goes into cover images like these (we hope), and someone really truly honestly decided that the best image to represent dominion-oriented daughters is a little girl doing laundry. Because, you know, that’s how women take dominion. By doing laundry. Interesting.
This made me wonder. What pictures do they put on DVDs on raising sons?
And there’s something else. Take a good look at that picture. That little girl has no mouth – it’s been covered up by her stack of laundry. Vision Forum has given her a niqab made out of a pile of clean clothes. No wicked feminist back-talk coming out of her, you can be sure.
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Canada thinks about assisted suicide
The Globe and Mail has an editorial saying “Make the right to die legal, with protections.”
Time and again, opinion polls show a large majority of Canadians support the idea that the terminally ill should be able to decide when and how they die. They believe that competent adults in unbearable pain, suffering from an illness that will never improve, have the right to die with dignity.
And yet the Canadian government is no closer to resolving how – or if – to reform the law against euthanasia; no politician is brave enough to champion such a contentious cause, or even to launch a national debate probing public opinion.
But if that’s what the polls show, why does it take bravery? Why is the cause so contentious?
No doubt because it’s not a matter of majorities but of religion and religious influence. Religion, you may possibly have noticed from time to time, has power and influence that is out of proportion to its popularity. This is all very suitable, no doubt, because its power and influence Come From God, meaning, they are not Of This World, so naturally they get to trump measly stupid little humans.
Research shows that, in places where assisted suicide is legal, there is an initial spike in requests. However, the number then diminishes. “Many people, once they know that if all else fails, this is an option, they won’t make that call. The stress is gone,” says Udo Schuklenk, a Queen’s University professor who chairs the Royal Society’s committee on end-of-life decision-making in Canada. The committee will release a report this fall.
“Often when people talk about end-of-life decision-making, the assumption is, it’s about pain,” he adds. “But it’s not. The concern is more about losing control over the quality of their lives.”
Quite, and it’s a reasonable concern.
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Globe and Mail talks to Udo Schuklenk
“Often when people talk about end-of-life decision making, the assumption is it’s about pain. But it’s not. The concern is more about losing control over their lives, the quality of their lives.”
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Globe and Mail editorial: make right to die legal
“Many people, once they know that if all else fails, this is an option, they won’t make that call. The stress is gone,” says Udo Schuklenk.
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Mark your calendar
Speaking of Janet Heimlich – Think Atheist recorded an interview with her recently and will air it next Sunday September 18 at 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern. You can find all past and future shows here.
