Really, Rush?

When called out for a hateful, misogynistic tirade, please have a more original response than, "One of the greatest illustrations of [a double standard] is that rappers can practically say anything they want about women, and it's called art."

After Almost Four Decades...

...why are we still having to fight for this, and so many other aspects of reproductive freedom? From a statement by NOW President Terry O'Neill:

As we celebrate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade [which was January 22], the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized a woman's constitutional right to legal abortion, we can't forget how many times women's lives have been put at risk in the past year. Legislators in 24 states passed 92 anti-abortion provisions in 2011, shattering the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

These new restrictions included waiting-period requirements, onerous and unnecessary clinic regulations and cuts to family planning services and providers because of their connection with abortion. Thanks to a newly energized grassroots coalition, voters defeated the Mississippi Personhood Amendment, a measure that would have legally defined personhood as beginning at fertilization in the state's constitution. But that fight is far from over.

Far, far from over, unfortunately.

Breaking News!!!!!!

In a blog post at Psychology Today, Satoshi Kanazawa has come to the totally original conclusion that black women are "Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women." For some reason, Psychology Today pulled down this ultra-objective, ultra-scientific post! You can read it here.

Personally, I'm floored. This is such new, groundbreaking stuff. No one in our society has ever suggested that black women are less attractive than other women! I mean, this is not something you see every day in media outlets.

Oh, wait...

Okay, slightly turning off my sarcasm, I'm just going to post what I wrote to my BFF on when she asked me to find the article and talk about it:

**Yawn** same ol', same ol', Mrs. O. We as black women are too masculine/have too much testosterone AND his "objective evidence" of our lack of attractiveness [as far as I can tell] is based on the opinions of some interviewers who do the longitudinal study "ADD Health." These are the opinions of people who have **totally** not been influenced by a culture that is always positing black women are less attractive and less feminine than other women, I'm sure. Now, while their opinions are "objective" the opinions of black women, who rank themselves as more attractive than other women, are subjective. 'Cause we're not bona-fide experts or authorities or whatever. **Side-eye alert**

But, oh, thank goodness that our lack of attractiveness is not due to our lack of intelligence (yeah, he cites "racial differences" in intelligence, too).

He also pondered if it might be our "much heavier" bodies (surprise!) or our African genetic mutations.

What he didn't seem to consider is that beauty is a standard constructed by and within a sociocultural context. As Kanazawa's colleague explains:

Standards of beauty, like most other beliefs, are socialized and change not only from place to place but also over time. In both the United States and England, (where Kanazawa lives and works), standards of beauty are essentially "White" standards, because whites comprise the majority of the population and have disproportional control over both media and fashion.*

[snip]

As long as this is understood and framed accordingly, there is no problem with the data Kanazawa reports. What they show is that because Black faces and bodies don't fit mainstream White standards of physical attractiveness, both respondents and interviewers show an anti-Black bias. Unfortunately, Kanazawa fails to consider either sample bias or socializing effects. Even if he believes, as he apparently does, that human behavior is entirely "evolutionary", good science requires a careful analysis of sample bias and an explicit discussion regarding the study's generalizability. Without this kind of methodological analysis, Kanazawa's entire premise -- that there is such a thing as a single objective standard of attractiveness -- is fatally (and tragically) flawed.

What's tragic is that this shit keeps getting published.
____________________________________
*These aren't the only reasons, I'd argue

Chip, Chip, Chip

That's how I'd describe what the state legislature is doing to abortion access in Nebraska:

Nebraska lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to a first-of-its-kind measure requiring women to be screened for possible mental and physical problems before having abortions.
[snip]
The bill requires a doctor or other health professional to screen women to determine whether they were pressured into having abortions. The screenings also would assess whether women have risk factors that could lead to mental or physical problems after an abortion.

I read that article just before reading this one about Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's decision to again declare April "Abortion Recovery Month":

The proclamation... “encourages and promotes healing opportunities and raises awareness of the aftermath of abortion experienced by individuals and families,” according to the document signed by the Republican governor and Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

Despite claims to the contrary, the bill and the proclamation are not about caring for women and their mental and physical health. They are about politics.

I am convinced of that, especially in the aftermath of recent studies which found

There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women

and

Recent studies that have been used to assert a causal connection between abortion and subsequent mental disorders are marked by methodological problems [example here] that include, but not limited to: poor sample and comparison group selection; inadequate conceptualization and control of relevant variables; poor quality and lack of clinical significance of outcome measures; inappropriateness of statistical analyses; and errors of interpretation, including misattribution of causal effects. By way of contrast, we review some recent major studies that avoid these methodological errors. The most consistent predictor of mental disorders after abortion remains preexisting disorders

My point is not that no woman ever experiences depression or guilt after having an abortion, but that evidence points to co-occuring factors, not abortion, as causal. For example, in my case, any guilt I felt was about not feeling guilty as everyone had told me women who have abortions should. About the abortion itself, I felt relief, and I thought, "Wow, does that mean something is wrong with me?"

My case exemplifies what potential laws and proclamations like this do--they foster the notion that abortion has to be traumatic and guilt-inducing, even when studies and women themselves counter that idea.

I say these actions are about politics, too, for at least two other reasons. First, the goal is to scare women into not having abortions. Having one's doctor say, "You can have this procedure, but you are at risk for serious difficulties if you do," is frightening and, as I'm sure anti-choice folk are hoping, quite the deterrent.

Second, I don't see as much concern for screening women who decide not to terminate their pregnancies. We know that women can have physical and mental health issues after spontaneous miscarriage and childbirth--why no push for intensive screening and "warning" or recovery proclamations for those cases?

The other major question circulating in my mind is, what do laws like the potential Nebraska one mean, with regards to the way we frame choice, for women who are determined by their doctors to have mental or physical health "risks?"

Yet Another Note on Tyler Perry...

... because a friend posted this link on my fb page.

What I said to another friend on twitter:

I'm very, very bothered by the messages he puts out, particularly b/c so much of his audience is black women. it's how i feel about some blk churches. we go show our loyalty, spend our precious time and give our hard earned $ to hear everything that's wrong with us.

When I think about it, for Perry and some churches, it's an almost-perfect set-up. If you disagree with the messages, it's because you're deeply entrenched in sin, your views are tainted by "worldly" philosophies like feminism (rather than "rooted in the Bible"), or you're just angry because the pastor has "stepped on your toes."

Never is the problem the sexism/misogyny/homophobia/internalized racism* so apparent in the message. Nor, in the case of Perry, as my friend noted, is it the "minstrel show (held up as 'real') and... transvestitism played for laughs."

Previously-published reasons Tyler Perry makes me roll my eyes sometimes.
___________________________________
*I've heard some sermons that leave me wondering, "Wow, how did he seamlessly combine the Bible and the Moynihan Report like that?"

Suffering for the Common Good

Gathering clips about eugenics for a fall class. Ran across this little tidbit:

Dr. Osborn could not even admit the claims of birth control advocates to a humanitarian consideration for the sufferings of women in childbirth. On this subject he said, in part: "The attempt to relieve womankind of what may be termed the prehistoric and historic burden of the female of the species naturally enlists the sympathy both of the individualists of our time, who are ready to support any measure to give women greater freedom of profession and of action, as well as of the sentimentalists, who do not realize that women's share in the hard struggle for the existence of the race is a very essential element in the advance of womankind."

Science News Letter, August 27, 1932

That Damned Eve Screwed All of Us!!!!

How Do They Do It? Pt 2

You might want to watch it for yourself to see if our impressions are similar. Most of the relevant stuff is in Part 3.

Anyway, the first episode of Meet the Browns I saw was "Meet the Ex" in which Will's old friend, a woman named Lynn, makes a pass at his wife, Sasha. Much homophobia/biphobia ensued--Sasha was suddenly scared of Lynn and didn't want to be near her. Lynn describes her feelings as, "I love men... women... everybody!" In other words, she's a slut. She's so low she'll come on to her best friend's wife.

Her bisexuality is explained as experimentation--no real attachment or attraction she just wants to "experience as much as I can," "live life to the fullest," "take a walk on the wild side," etc. Sasha is so repulsed and threatened, she is no longer even willing to go out to dinner with Lynn, and doesn't want Will to go, either. When Will speaks highly of Lynn the next night, Sasha must quickly point out that Lynn is not worthy of praise because she is bisexual--the exact words, "Lynn's not who you think she is." All of Lynn's work as a well-traveled, smart philanthropist was negated by her bisexuality.

Even after they confront Lynn, she still urges them to stop being uptight and "spice things up." She's also revealed to be immature--she says she just wants to have some fun like they did in college, at which point Will reminds her, "We're not in college." "Not everyone," Sasha tells her, "shares your lifestyle." Lynn admits that she doesn't like rules and the couple bid her a very definite goodbye.

So, Lynn as bisexual is promiscuous, mostly experimenting, a potential homewrecker, a rule breaker, trying to lure people into her lifestyle.

Yep, I think he covered all the bases. And this gets national coverage.

How Do They Do It? Pt 1

This post got so long, I'm going to have to put it up in parts!

One of the things I was determined to do during my brain break was engage in a little escapism, via the television. Now, I have a problem watching TV or movies outside the theater--I lose the thread of what's going on, I can't concentrate, I have an overwhelming urge to get up and do something else (I'm the same way about telephone conversations).*

Anyway, back on track--me--escapism--TV. Honestly, there's not a lot on. I found myself simultaneously craving the MJ coverage and being further saddened by it. Anyway, I thought there might be some comic relief in Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns on TBS.

Full disclosure--I didn't come to the series unbiased. I have my issues with Tyler Perry--most recently, I was so profoundly angry about the Sanaa Lathan character in The Family that Preys.

Which brings me to my first "How do they do it (and get away with it)?" question. The absolute aversion to educated, succesful black women in The Family that Preys and in T.D. Jakes's Not Easily Broken was breathtaking. I mean, I wondered who in the world had paged Sapphire!

To show how absolutely revolting Andrea (Sanaa Lathan's character) was, Perry went into overdrive. She was mean, selfish, derisive of her husband, and, the ultimate sin--a white man's whore!!! She cheated on her black husband with a white man and bore the white man's child. I don't think he could've made her any lower.

The real issue seemed to be that she had some sort of perceived power over her husband because she had a better job and more money**--but apparently, that would have been too easy to say. Andrea was totally out of her place as a woman and her world was corrupted by that.

Same thing with Clarice (Taraji Henson's character)in Not Easily Broken. There's actually a Dave (Morris Chestnut's character, Clarice's husband) monologue during which we find out that what's wrong with the world is that men have lost their place as protectors and providers, a position usurped by women who don't realize they need men. Clarice browbeats and scorns her husband; her mother is constantly there to affirm that Dave is not good enough for her daughter and they almost push him into the arms of a white woman, a mother--a role Clarice has resisted (evidence of her selfishness). It is not until Clarice's mom is revealed as a bitter meddler, Clarice meekly asks for her husband to come back, and Clarice changes her mind and becomes pregnant, that all is made right within the Dave and Clarice universe.

There was also the recurring theme in both films of irrevocably damaged black women--the women who are so hurt by one black man they can never again "appreciate" another one. Andrea was traumatized by the abandonment of her father, Clarice's mom had been abandoned by her husband. Because they didn't just get over it, their lives were ruined.

I've seen clips from Madea Goes to Jail, and Perry's insistence that women get over it was evident--one incarcerated woman was beginning to tell how she had been hurt by her stapfather and Madea interrupts to tell her, basically, that it didn't matter. Now, I think they were in a therapy session, the woman was trying to process something she had found traumatic, and she is told to get over it. So, there is this disconnect--being told to "get over it" but having the means by which one might "get over it" (therapy, talking, sharing, processing) dismissed.

I can't speak to anyone's church experience but my own, but this is part of the reason I had to distance myself from my attended-my-whole-life church. The Eve-and-Jezebel sermons, as my sister calls them, got wearying. It began to feel like an attack--pews filled with black women being told all that is wrong with us, with most of it rooted firmly in our efforts to survive and thrive. We transgressed by forgetting what our (subordinate) place should be. I don't know how Perry, Jakes, or my pastor get away with maligning so much of their audiences, ignoring criticism, and forging on in the same way--I guess because it works? I watched two episodes of Meet the Browns, didn't I?

Nothing about this critique is new, I know. I'm just working through these ideas as I try to explain, honestly, how I went into viewing "Meet the Browns" with some bias, while simultaneously admitting I have found the "Brown" character funny. Tomorrow, I really will get to the series, I promise.
________________________________________
*As a side note, at my doctor's office, I had to do this depression checklist and one of the things listed was the inability to pay attention to television, to concentrate, etc. And I burst out crying right then because I felt like, "Oh my God, it's not just me." It's been hard to read a book, write as much as I should, etc, for the longest time! After I explained that my tears were actually ones of relief, my doctor asked me about any past diagnoses of ADD, too, but she and I will have to explore that more.

**At the end of the movie, when that power thing is flipped and Andrea is living in a run-down apartment and having to accept money from her ex-husband, that is acceptable. She deserved it, after all.

Really, Steven?

Trigger warning

Dear Mr. Ward,

I will admit that I don’t watch your show, Tough Love. I think I am exceedingly glad that I don’t.


Still, I was quite nonplussed when I read that you opined that one of the women on the show, Arian, was going to end up “getting raped” if her present pattern of behavior—raunchy and inappropriate, I believe were your words?—continued. She enjoys taking risks, said you, putting herself “in that position,” and there are consequences! Arian should be more “classy!”

Hmmm, I thought, is Mr. Ward really suffering under the ildelusion that “classy” women don’t get raped? That rape occurs because “raunchy and inappropriate” women “ask for it?” Surely not!

But, in case you are, I’d like to point you here (or here or here) and here, where the entirety of the blog deconstructs and proves the fallacies of rape apologies like yours.

And I’d like to challenge you, Mr. Ward, to realize that “in that position” often means existing as a woman or anyone perceived as weaker or more vulnerable in a rape culture.

Yes, a rape culture.

How else would you describe a culture in which the logical consequence of acting a certain way or wearing a certain thing is understood to be the violation of one’s bodily autonomy?

xoxo,

elle

P.S. Oh, and expect more letters.

H/T Alessia via belledame on twitter

TAKE THOSE THINGS AWAY FROM THEM. NOW.

Trigger Warning

So said Nez when he tweeted about this story: Police chief fired for using taser on wife (News video there).

From the AP:

OAKWOOD, Texas (AP) — The chief of a small Central Texas town's police department has been fired and jailed for allegedly using a Taser gun on his wife.

Former Oakwood police chief Oly Ivy is in Leon County Jail in Centerville on Wednesday, charged with aggravated assault. Bond is $100,000.

I don't have a lot to add--we know that abusive police officers prey on vulnerable and marginalized people and communities. So it's no surprise that women who live with men who are abusive and who are trained how to restrain people and how to use deadly force, are at risk.

They might be, as this fact sheet describes, "uniquely vulnerable."

(Crossposted)