Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Torture Scapegoats
Dick Cheney continues his media blitz, which according to him, is intended to protect military operatives and government employees from prosecution for their role in our little torture phase. Protecting those who carry out orders that turn out to be unlawful from being prosecuted is indeed a noble cause. But the way Cheney is going about this makes no sense.
For one thing, if Bush and Cheney knew all along that the methods being used on prisoners had 
been cleared by their lawyers, why did they allow the soldiers who were caught up in the Abu Ghraib scandal to be prosecuted and put away? Couldn't they have used the memos from their own administration to clear their names and save their military careers? And if Cheney is so concerned with protecting military operatives, why isn't he talking about these soldiers now? Whatever happened to people like Ivan Frederick, Charles Graner, and Lynndie England? It's somewhat understandable that Cheney wouldn't have spoken up during the scandal and the subsequent trials. To do so would probably have endangered the torture program to which he was so deeply committed. But now that the jig is up and it's clear that these people were not just some rogue group who were misbehaving, but instead simply acting according to the accepted standards and military prison culture of the time period, it seems deeply unfair that their plight is deemed irrelevant. If you 
think about it, they actually sacrificed a great deal for the Bush-Cheney crew. They gave up their careers and their honorable standing and years of their lives so that the Bush administration could portray the Abu Ghraib situation as an isolated incident rather than the norm. Cheney should not only be fighting to overturn their convictions, but should be nominating them for medals for outstanding service to and sacrifice for their country.
been cleared by their lawyers, why did they allow the soldiers who were caught up in the Abu Ghraib scandal to be prosecuted and put away? Couldn't they have used the memos from their own administration to clear their names and save their military careers? And if Cheney is so concerned with protecting military operatives, why isn't he talking about these soldiers now? Whatever happened to people like Ivan Frederick, Charles Graner, and Lynndie England? It's somewhat understandable that Cheney wouldn't have spoken up during the scandal and the subsequent trials. To do so would probably have endangered the torture program to which he was so deeply committed. But now that the jig is up and it's clear that these people were not just some rogue group who were misbehaving, but instead simply acting according to the accepted standards and military prison culture of the time period, it seems deeply unfair that their plight is deemed irrelevant. If you think about it, they actually sacrificed a great deal for the Bush-Cheney crew. They gave up their careers and their honorable standing and years of their lives so that the Bush administration could portray the Abu Ghraib situation as an isolated incident rather than the norm. Cheney should not only be fighting to overturn their convictions, but should be nominating them for medals for outstanding service to and sacrifice for their country.I suspect that Cheney views the Abu Ghraib folks as a lost cause in a way that he doesn't view torture in general as a lost cause. This has a lot to do with the info and images available to us. During the Abu Ghraib scandal we were inundated 
with offensive photos of guards posing with prisoners in humiliating and painful positions, and even with dead bodies. Once these kinds of images have worked their way into the public imagination, the chances of gaining approval for the practices involved are quite slim. Perhaps it's the wisdom of repugnance. If looking at a photo or hearing a detailed description of the treatment of prisoners makes you cringe, you're probably going to conclude that we ought not to be acting this way. And rightfully so. It often does seem like our deepest and strongest intuitions are a reliable moral guide. So Cheney is wise to let the ghost of Abu Ghraib rest. But if he wants us to believe in his integrity and the purity of his motives, clearing the names of the guards of Abu Ghraib ought to be his first concern.
with offensive photos of guards posing with prisoners in humiliating and painful positions, and even with dead bodies. Once these kinds of images have worked their way into the public imagination, the chances of gaining approval for the practices involved are quite slim. Perhaps it's the wisdom of repugnance. If looking at a photo or hearing a detailed description of the treatment of prisoners makes you cringe, you're probably going to conclude that we ought not to be acting this way. And rightfully so. It often does seem like our deepest and strongest intuitions are a reliable moral guide. So Cheney is wise to let the ghost of Abu Ghraib rest. But if he wants us to believe in his integrity and the purity of his motives, clearing the names of the guards of Abu Ghraib ought to be his first concern.Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Double Puke
Today I received an email from Slate magazine announcing the good news that Slate isn't just for men anymore. I totally didn't get that it was only for men before, hence my mistake in actually reading it occasionally. But I guess I should have known this, given that the default assumption in our culture is that anything that isn't specifically branded for women (i.e. dumbed down and pinkified) is for men. So now Slate is also for women, but only their Double X site, not the regular site. Because their regular sections cover things like politics and the economy and new books and art and science. But women aren't interested in these things. No, women are obsessed with fashion and parenting and feminism-bashing, apparently. In fact, we need a flashier layout and more pictures than teh menz, based on the look of Double X.
So I foolishly clicked on the link in the email and proceeded to read a blog post entitled Whine,
Womyn, and Thongs by Christina Rosen. According to Rosen, feminism has been an epic failure. This is because the goal of second-wave feminists was to bring about profound social change, but women today are shallow, unhappy, and obsessed with their piercings. In spite of the fact that they seem to have it all, they're discontented and whiny. Rosen attributes this to a major fact that feminists overlooked: choice is bad. Very bad:
Second, the only thing that could possibly be causing the discontent and frivolity of today's women must be the increased range of choices available to them. It couldn't be the fact that women's lives have in fact changed while societal views and expectations of them have lagged behind shamefully. It couldn't be because having a career and children generally results in double the stress and workload for women but not men. It couldn't be because they experience
reciprocal pressure to both work outside the home and be a model parent, to be healthy and energetic while starving themselves to fit into the ridiculous beauty standard, to be wise, mature, and self-sacrificing while looking like an 18 y/o. Could it perhaps have to do with the fact that, while many women desire to be taken seriously, our culture in general and media outlets like Slate continue to portray them as interested only in fashion, celebrity gossip, and parenting? Could it have anything to do with the disparate parenting burden and associated guilt and shame that's placed on women but not men, as evidenced by the fact that the default male version of Slate is largely uninterested in parenting articles?
The myopic view of feminism - both today and in the 60s - that Rosen takes is both puzzling and reveals that she is either out of touch or intellectually lazy. In any case, it seems clear that Rosen missed the part where feminism is not monolithic. It wasn't in the 60s and it certainly isn't now. Who are these Facebook feminists to whom she refers? I know a lot of women who identify as feminists on Facebook, and also organize, march, blog, aggitate, raise awareness, research, teach, write letters to Congressional representatives, and live feminist principles and values every day. We're not whining and we're not wearing thongs. At least I'm not, being opposed to torture in any form.
If Rosen had been interested in really analysing the situation of women today and how feminism has impacted their lives, she could have explored the fact that
second wave thought pushed for a wider range of choices while largely overlooking the necessary changes in cultural attitudes that would need to accompany these choices. She could have looked at the underlying causes of the resentments that, according to her, women are always running around nurturing rather than shrugging it all off as a failure of feminism. But that would require a departure from intellectual laziness, which apparently is not required on a site like Double X. And that is profoundly depressing.
So I foolishly clicked on the link in the email and proceeded to read a blog post entitled Whine,
Womyn, and Thongs by Christina Rosen. According to Rosen, feminism has been an epic failure. This is because the goal of second-wave feminists was to bring about profound social change, but women today are shallow, unhappy, and obsessed with their piercings. In spite of the fact that they seem to have it all, they're discontented and whiny. Rosen attributes this to a major fact that feminists overlooked: choice is bad. Very bad:In fact, for women today, the challenge is not a problem with no name that can be solved with a few simple changes in public policy. It is a paradox: the paradox of choice. The more options we have, the more anxiety we experience about the choices we eventually make, as economists who study choice theory have shown but as the feminist movement never acknowledged.For one thing, this explains why all the men are so miserable. 'Cause choice itself is a terrible thing, and if second wave feminists had had more foresight, they would have realized this.
Second, the only thing that could possibly be causing the discontent and frivolity of today's women must be the increased range of choices available to them. It couldn't be the fact that women's lives have in fact changed while societal views and expectations of them have lagged behind shamefully. It couldn't be because having a career and children generally results in double the stress and workload for women but not men. It couldn't be because they experience
reciprocal pressure to both work outside the home and be a model parent, to be healthy and energetic while starving themselves to fit into the ridiculous beauty standard, to be wise, mature, and self-sacrificing while looking like an 18 y/o. Could it perhaps have to do with the fact that, while many women desire to be taken seriously, our culture in general and media outlets like Slate continue to portray them as interested only in fashion, celebrity gossip, and parenting? Could it have anything to do with the disparate parenting burden and associated guilt and shame that's placed on women but not men, as evidenced by the fact that the default male version of Slate is largely uninterested in parenting articles?The myopic view of feminism - both today and in the 60s - that Rosen takes is both puzzling and reveals that she is either out of touch or intellectually lazy. In any case, it seems clear that Rosen missed the part where feminism is not monolithic. It wasn't in the 60s and it certainly isn't now. Who are these Facebook feminists to whom she refers? I know a lot of women who identify as feminists on Facebook, and also organize, march, blog, aggitate, raise awareness, research, teach, write letters to Congressional representatives, and live feminist principles and values every day. We're not whining and we're not wearing thongs. At least I'm not, being opposed to torture in any form.
If Rosen had been interested in really analysing the situation of women today and how feminism has impacted their lives, she could have explored the fact that
second wave thought pushed for a wider range of choices while largely overlooking the necessary changes in cultural attitudes that would need to accompany these choices. She could have looked at the underlying causes of the resentments that, according to her, women are always running around nurturing rather than shrugging it all off as a failure of feminism. But that would require a departure from intellectual laziness, which apparently is not required on a site like Double X. And that is profoundly depressing.Friday, May 8, 2009
PMS is a Social Construction
A couple of people have questioned me about my comments suggesting that PMS is a social construction. So I'm reposting this. I posted this on Feministing a few months ago, so if you're interested in the responses, check out the comments there.
I know from previous posts that this is a sensitive issue, so I want to clarify a couple of things right up front. To say that PMS is a social construction does not mean that women don’t experience it. It does not mean that “it’s all in your head.” It does not mean that your experience doesn’t exist, or is invalid in some way. Rather, the claim is that the explanatory framework surrounding this set of experiences is faulty, and that it would be more constructive to look for and attempt to address the true causes behind this phenomenon.
So, what does it mean to say that PMS is a social construction? A social construction is any contingent phenomenon that is created by a society. Social constructs exist only because the members of a society implicitly agree to behave as if they do. Generally speaking, there are conventions around social constructs that guide our behavior regarding them. The most common example used to illustrate this is paper money. Paper money would be worthless if it weren’t for our practices and conventions.
What evidence is there that PMS is a social construction? First, there’s a great deal of cultural mythology surrounding the concept of PMS that has no grounding in science. There is no identifiable hormonal cause for the symptoms of PMS. This is particularly significant when you consider how much research has been done. There is no consensus within the medical community on how to diagnose PMS, on which symptoms must be displayed, or on when in the menstrual cycle they should occur. Over 150 symptoms are attributed to PMS, many of which are experienced by men and post-menopausal women with the same frequency as menstruating women. In countries which don’t have a construct corresponding to the Western idea of PMS, women don’t report experiencing the symptoms in any pattern tied to menstruation.
Add to this the benefit a patriarchal culture derives from any mechanism which serves to marginalize women and explain away their behavior and cognition as merely the result of some bio-chemical event. When women voice legitimate complaints or concerns, it is common to suggest that they are “feeling hormonal.” This serves to delegitimize their claims and cast them as irrational, overemotional creatures. Further, PMS has historically been used as a mechanism to keep women out of the work force when jobs were scarce for men due to the Depression and the end of wars. Of course, in times when women were in demand in the workforce, research was used to demonstrate that PMS was not an issue and would not prevent women from being productive members of the workforce (for a fascinating history of this topic read Emily Martin, The woman in the body: A cultural analysis of reproduction ). In addition, the economic motives of the medical and pharmaceutical industries are solidly at play here. PMS and PMDD have been useful in allowing pharmaceutical companies to extend their patents and thus retain a monopoly on revenues. Although the underlying causes of the symptoms of PMS have not been identified, the pharmaceutical companies continue to offer remedies.
Finally, reports of PMS symptoms are far more severe in women who are in or have a history of abusive relationships , are experiencing high levels of stress, feel overwhelmed by their workload, or are unhappy with their lives in general. This correlation suggests that women who are unhappy with their lives subconsciously utilize the construct of PMS as a socially acceptable outlet for the suppressed frustration and rage they feel, since expression of these emotions is widely viewed as “unfeminine.”
All of these things suggest that PMS is a social construction. If PMS was a disease or a syndrome there would be some underlying bio-medical cause, as well as some consensus among women who are diagnosed as to what the symptoms are and when they are experienced in the menstrual cycle. But there isn’t. Retaining PMS as a medical and cultural fact does not benefit women. Researching PMS with an open mind regarding other possible causes and related phenomenon would benefit women far more than clinging to the notion that women are fundamentally flawed by the normal functions of their reproductive systems. Finally, simply prescribing antidepressants to help women deal with the hardships in their lives is one way to avoid addressing the more challenging and important issues regarding the societal causes of their depression and unhappiness.
I know from previous posts that this is a sensitive issue, so I want to clarify a couple of things right up front. To say that PMS is a social construction does not mean that women don’t experience it. It does not mean that “it’s all in your head.” It does not mean that your experience doesn’t exist, or is invalid in some way. Rather, the claim is that the explanatory framework surrounding this set of experiences is faulty, and that it would be more constructive to look for and attempt to address the true causes behind this phenomenon.
So, what does it mean to say that PMS is a social construction? A social construction is any contingent phenomenon that is created by a society. Social constructs exist only because the members of a society implicitly agree to behave as if they do. Generally speaking, there are conventions around social constructs that guide our behavior regarding them. The most common example used to illustrate this is paper money. Paper money would be worthless if it weren’t for our practices and conventions.
What evidence is there that PMS is a social construction? First, there’s a great deal of cultural mythology surrounding the concept of PMS that has no grounding in science. There is no identifiable hormonal cause for the symptoms of PMS. This is particularly significant when you consider how much research has been done. There is no consensus within the medical community on how to diagnose PMS, on which symptoms must be displayed, or on when in the menstrual cycle they should occur. Over 150 symptoms are attributed to PMS, many of which are experienced by men and post-menopausal women with the same frequency as menstruating women. In countries which don’t have a construct corresponding to the Western idea of PMS, women don’t report experiencing the symptoms in any pattern tied to menstruation.
Add to this the benefit a patriarchal culture derives from any mechanism which serves to marginalize women and explain away their behavior and cognition as merely the result of some bio-chemical event. When women voice legitimate complaints or concerns, it is common to suggest that they are “feeling hormonal.” This serves to delegitimize their claims and cast them as irrational, overemotional creatures. Further, PMS has historically been used as a mechanism to keep women out of the work force when jobs were scarce for men due to the Depression and the end of wars. Of course, in times when women were in demand in the workforce, research was used to demonstrate that PMS was not an issue and would not prevent women from being productive members of the workforce (for a fascinating history of this topic read Emily Martin, The woman in the body: A cultural analysis of reproduction ). In addition, the economic motives of the medical and pharmaceutical industries are solidly at play here. PMS and PMDD have been useful in allowing pharmaceutical companies to extend their patents and thus retain a monopoly on revenues. Although the underlying causes of the symptoms of PMS have not been identified, the pharmaceutical companies continue to offer remedies.
Finally, reports of PMS symptoms are far more severe in women who are in or have a history of abusive relationships , are experiencing high levels of stress, feel overwhelmed by their workload, or are unhappy with their lives in general. This correlation suggests that women who are unhappy with their lives subconsciously utilize the construct of PMS as a socially acceptable outlet for the suppressed frustration and rage they feel, since expression of these emotions is widely viewed as “unfeminine.”
All of these things suggest that PMS is a social construction. If PMS was a disease or a syndrome there would be some underlying bio-medical cause, as well as some consensus among women who are diagnosed as to what the symptoms are and when they are experienced in the menstrual cycle. But there isn’t. Retaining PMS as a medical and cultural fact does not benefit women. Researching PMS with an open mind regarding other possible causes and related phenomenon would benefit women far more than clinging to the notion that women are fundamentally flawed by the normal functions of their reproductive systems. Finally, simply prescribing antidepressants to help women deal with the hardships in their lives is one way to avoid addressing the more challenging and important issues regarding the societal causes of their depression and unhappiness.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
I Don't Get It
I have to admit I'm feeling a bit confused by all the hubbub surrounding the allegedly racy pics of anti-gay-marriage spokesperson and current Miss California Carrie Prejean. I guess there are a number of issues at play here:
This story is cut from the same fabric as the Britney-Spears-is-a-virgin shtick. Or the Miley-
Cyrus-took-a-purity-pledge shtick. I can't comprehend why it would matter that these creatures who are sexualized from their heads to their toes actually have teh sexx or not. When every ounce of your physical being is sexualized, what's the function of virginity? In fact, I don't understand the concept of taking a purity pledge at all if you're going to make your living by flinging your flesh around the stage in as sexual a manner as possible. If the implicit message of everything you do is "I am a highly desireable being whose sole purpose and value is sexual," then why would you refrain from sexual activity and from nude photos? It doesn't make any sense. The only people for whom a purity pledge actually makes sense is for the uber-humble, uber-modest, long-skirt-wearing daughters of the Duggar family and their ilk. I mean, I might disagree with all of the most fundamental aspects of their worldview and their values, but at least they're consistent. You wouldn't catch one of them extolling the virtues of Christianity and modesty and virginity while arching her back in order to shove her tits and ass out for the camera.
Just sayin'
- It's unclear to me why women like this are expected to parade around in teeny tiny bikinis on stage during pageants, but posing in a bikini bottom with no top is thought to be morally unacceptable. Seriously? What's the real difference between being photographed in a bikini and being photographed topless? That (maybe) 4 square inches of fabric contained in her bikini top is really that important? Like you can't already see every feature of her body when she's strutting around on stage in a bikini? Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
- We're told that according to pageant rules, Miss California could lose her crown for being "photographed in a state of partial or total nudity," which is deeply ironic, given the fact that she earned her crown by being photographed in a state of partial or total nudity. Perplexing.
- And I don't get this whole "I'm a Christian and they're persecuting me because of it" shtick. I guess the story goes like this: Good conservative Christians oppose same-sex marriage on the basis of biblical teachings; I'm a good conservative Christian so I oppose same-sex marriage; My oppressors don't like my view on same-sex marriage, so they're trying to call my Christian credentials into question." The problem with this is that the conservative Christians I know (my entire extended family, and it's a big family...) believe it's immoral and "worldly" for a woman to parade around on stage in a bikini. Good Christian girls are demure and modest. They wear simple one-piece suits when swimming, and only when swimming. They are not supposed to flaunt their bodies or their sexuality. They're not supposed to get plastic surgery in order to conform to the beauty standards of the world, as their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And in this worldview, we as a culture have a responsibility not to sexualize girls and women, but to value them for the creatures that God made them to be: self-sacrificing helpmeet, mother, cook, maid...
This story is cut from the same fabric as the Britney-Spears-is-a-virgin shtick. Or the Miley-
Cyrus-took-a-purity-pledge shtick. I can't comprehend why it would matter that these creatures who are sexualized from their heads to their toes actually have teh sexx or not. When every ounce of your physical being is sexualized, what's the function of virginity? In fact, I don't understand the concept of taking a purity pledge at all if you're going to make your living by flinging your flesh around the stage in as sexual a manner as possible. If the implicit message of everything you do is "I am a highly desireable being whose sole purpose and value is sexual," then why would you refrain from sexual activity and from nude photos? It doesn't make any sense. The only people for whom a purity pledge actually makes sense is for the uber-humble, uber-modest, long-skirt-wearing daughters of the Duggar family and their ilk. I mean, I might disagree with all of the most fundamental aspects of their worldview and their values, but at least they're consistent. You wouldn't catch one of them extolling the virtues of Christianity and modesty and virginity while arching her back in order to shove her tits and ass out for the camera.Just sayin'
Every Day Should be International No Diet Day
Happy International No Diet Day!According to Wikipedia, the goals of INDD are to:
- Doubt the idea of one "right" body shape.
- Raise awareness to weight discrimination, size bias and fatphobia.
- Declare a free day from diets and obsessions to body weight.
- Present the facts about the diet industry, emphasizing the inefficacy of commercial diets.
- Show how diets perpetuates violence against women.
- Honor the victims of eating disorders and weight-loss surgeries.
And these are all great goals. But it's depressing to me that we need a day for this. And it's depressing that a lot of women see this as a day to take a break from their diets. Some of the ways we're encouraged to celebrate INDD include:
- Enjoy a food that you typically deny yourself
- Eat at least three healthy meals and two snacks today
- Give away clothes you've been waiting to be thin enough to wear
- Don't compare your body to anyone else's. Remind yourself that you are unique
- Pay someone a compliment based on something other than weight-related qualities
- Do something you've been putting off until you're 'thin' enough to do it
- Make a top ten list of things you love about your body
I think you should eat three healthy meals and a couple of healthy snacks every day. I think you should find things to appreciate about yourself every day. And I try to avoid complimenting people on weight-related qualities every day. There are so many way more important characteristics to a person than their weight.
When I was a personal trainer, clients would come in and tell me their goals and ask for a exercise and diet regime that would help them accomplish these goals. Often, toward the end of
the first consultation they would ask "what would you do if you were me?" At the risk of them never taking me seriously as a trainer again, I would reply "I would avoid dieting." I would go on to explain that changing your eating habits to be healthy, moderate, and balanced should be a lifetime thing, and shouldn't require starving yourself or refusing to allow yourself an occasional treat in moderation. If the goal is fueling and nourishing your body in a healthy way, weight loss often happens as a secondary effect. For one thing, getting your 5-9 daily servings of fruits and veggies and drinking a reasonable amount of water doesn't leave that much room for giant portions of fatty foods full of simple carbs and refined sugars. But also, telling yourself that you can have any reasonably healthy food in moderation as long as it's balanced by other healthy foods takes off the pressure and allows you to nurture your body instead of punishing it. And the fact is, when you stick to a healthy balanced diet and get a moderate amount of exercise, your body will return to the weight it wants to be (which may not be the weight you want it to be, or the weight our culture tells you it should be), and you'll sleep great, have tons of energy, and have strong and glowing hair, skin, and nails. In other words, health is beautiful at any size, and valuing and caring for your body rather than punishing it gives you a sort of confidence and centeredness that are visible and very appealing to others.
So regarding the first recommendation for celebrating INDD, I think the only foods you should be denying yourself on a daily basis are foods that are inherently unhealthy to begin with. I avoid foods with ingredients like hydrogenated oils (trans fats) and high fructose corn syrup everyday, but I don't deny myself a little bit of chocolate (real chocolate) or the baked goods I crave all the time or any other foods that are thought to be off limits because of their calorie content. I do eat them in moderation, but I don't deny myself althogether. But avoiding the trans fats and HFCS means that you can't eat the cookies and muffins from the bakery or the grocery store. It generally means if you want a cookie or muffin or piece of carrot cake, you're going to make it at home. And that means you can control the ingredients, tweak the recipe to be healthier, and control the portion size. It also means that you'll find yourself baking a batch of healthy cookies and muffins on the weekend and putting them into baggies in individual servings
and freezing them so that your family can dole them out all week. But having access to healthy treats in reasonable portions is a huge benefit for someone like me who craves the baked goods but shuns the unhealthy crap used in industrial baking. And it changes your approach to food and to your body. Instead of shaming yourself for wanting treats and denying yourself constantly, you took the time to care for yourself at the beginning of the week and provide a healthy treat for yourself each day. And it makes the giant muffins at the coffee shop lose their charm when you know you have a healthy, reasonably-sized muffin or cookie tucked in your lunch just waiting to be savored with your afternoon coffee. So I intend to celebrate INDD not by allowing myself to eat some pre-packaged snack that's full of unhealthy crap (since these are the only foods I typically deny myself), but by eating the same way I eat every day. Happy International No Diet Day!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw for the Supreme Court!
I rarely find myself disagreeing with Melissa Harris-Lacewell, and this is no exception. This week she wrote a post on The Nation advocating for the 
nomination of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw to fill the Supreme Court spot vacated by Souter. Crenshaw is one of my all-time feminist heroes and a leading thinker in Critical Race Theory. Samples of Crenshaw's ass-kicking work on the intersection of the social constructions of race and gender and their role in judicial decisions can be found here and here. In the words of Harris-Lacewell:
Click here to join the Kimberle Crenshaw for the Supreme Court Facebook group!
nomination of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw to fill the Supreme Court spot vacated by Souter. Crenshaw is one of my all-time feminist heroes and a leading thinker in Critical Race Theory. Samples of Crenshaw's ass-kicking work on the intersection of the social constructions of race and gender and their role in judicial decisions can be found here and here. In the words of Harris-Lacewell:Kimberle Crenshaw is a field-defining critical race scholar who earned a law degree from Harvard. Her writings on race, gender, and the power of law dynamically altered the academic discourse in law schools throughout the world. Her work has been central to political movements here in the United States and to the development of emerging democracies globally. She is a prolific legal scholar and a respected public intellectual.
There is no one on the current court with the expansive, progressive, clarity of legal reasoning that Crenshaw has demonstrated for more than twenty years. As a justice Crenshaw would have the potential to substantially revise our understanding of American constitutional law by articulating elements of the American experience that have never before been integrated into our constitutional interpretation. She would open up the unique possibility of black feminist scholarship and practice challenging American jurisprudence from the inside out.
Pathologizing the Behavior of Victims
This may be a little disorganized and random, as I'm still processing my thoughts about it.
A close friend of mine recently accepted a job in Behavior Health Services (aka the psych ward) at a hospital. Obviously there are confidentiality concerns and employees are not supposed to talk about the patients outside of work. But the job is emotionally taxing at times, depressing, uplifting, sobering, etc. So people who work there do talk to their friends and families about it, withholding any names or details that would reveal the identity of the patients of course, because they need to "decompress" after work. So all of these fascinating and depressing stories of the individuals who find themselves there have been rolling around in my head, and here are some of the things I'm thinking.
It's disturbing to me that so much behavior that seems absolutely reasonable and normal to me, given the person's history, is pathologized. For example, most of the women who show up in BHS have been abused in one way or another. Some of them in extreme and disturbing
ways. When you're in your mid-twenties and have several children by your own father, you have a right to be messed up. But although the abuse is acknowledged and taken into account by the therapists involved, this person is still diagnosed with a mental illness according to her symptoms. And this strikes me as problematic. To say that she's bipolar or schizophrenic or borderline personality suggests that something is wrong with her. Like there's something broken in her head. And this seems all wrong to me. The symptoms and coping mechanisms she's developed are just absolutely right given the violent and skewed environment she emerged from. She's not broken, her world is. Of course now she needs a lot of assistance and compassion to learn how to cope and function in the world outside of the warped one she grew up in. But that's her abusers fault, not hers. He's the one who's fucked up, but she gets labeled and stigmatized because of it.
Similarly, many young women who suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts have been systematically excluded in our culture that values women based on the beauty and usefulness of
their bodies. These women are socially awkward and don't meet our strict beauty standard, so they've been cast aside and isolated by their peers. When they show up at BHS feeling lonely and sad, they're diagnosed as clinically depressed or borderline personality. Once again, the problem lies with them - they're broken; something's wrong in their heads. But I feel like this is deeply unjust. The culture they're submerged in, which can't see them and value them for who they are, is what's broken. Responding to isolation and neglect by feeling sad and lonely is not abnormal, it's not irrational, it doesn't make you sick. In fact, it's a more natural and healthy response than many other possible responses.
Men's behavior is often pathologized too. It seems like a lot of the men who show up at BHS have substance abuse issues and engage in inappropriate or violent behavior
while under the influence. No doubt many of them have been abused too, but there's more stigma attached to abuse for a man than a woman in our culture, so the liklihood that they would have gotten help dealing with their abuse or PTSD is lower than for women. But substance abuse and violence are among the ways men are taught to cope with trauma, so these are the behaviors they tend to exhibit. And because of this they're often criminalized in addition to being institutionalized for mental disorders.
And many of these types, both male and female, display a lot of drug-seeking behavior and have learned what to say and how to manipulate staff to get the narcotics they crave. Of course, drug-seeking behavior is frowned upon, stigmatized, and shamed. And these patients are aware of the attitudes toward drug-seeking behavior and have internalized the associated guilt and shame. While I agree that drug-seeking behavior shouldn't
be encouraged, I have real issues with the way we make it into this shameful and immoral thing. Using drugs to deal with the pain of abuse or other traumatic experiences is one coping mechanism among many. If I had experienced the kind of trauma they have, I don't doubt I would want to be drunk or high every day for the rest of my life too. It's a totally reasonable response. It's true that these people had the misfortune of seizing upon a particularly problematic coping mechanism, but we shouldn't shame them for it, but should rather see it as a simple coping mechanism and try to help them learn how to replace it with more healthy coping mechanisms. Because treating them for substance abuse and then returning them to their world without any more constructive ways of handling their pain and their issues is ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.
I realize, of course, that the medical professionals who are dealing with these people on a daily basis have little control over the person's environment. Given this fact, it often makes sense to medicate them and make them as comfortable as possible. But this model is so limited and places so much of the problem and the stigma on victims' shoulders that it seems deeply unjust to me.
Rather than taking a critical look at our culture and the way it so casually disposes of bodies and lives, we pathologize the behavior of victims and medicated them and shame them for their desire to numb the pain using substances that have been arbitrarily criminalized by the government while treating them with substances that have the government's stamp of approval because the right rich white guys are getting rich off of them. Instead of looking at the systemic causes of abuse, trauma, and the resulting "mental illnesses," we label the victims and put them in a neat little box, hoping they won't cause too much trouble or be too disruptive. And maybe, just maybe, they'll return to the gold standard of being a productive worker/consumer in our capitalist society. Because in a capitalist, patriarchal culture, the norm is established by appealing to hierarchical roles and expectations and cultural conceptions of healthy functioning, i.e. going to work everyday and being a good, non-disruptive little sheep. But that is another story for another post on another day...
A close friend of mine recently accepted a job in Behavior Health Services (aka the psych ward) at a hospital. Obviously there are confidentiality concerns and employees are not supposed to talk about the patients outside of work. But the job is emotionally taxing at times, depressing, uplifting, sobering, etc. So people who work there do talk to their friends and families about it, withholding any names or details that would reveal the identity of the patients of course, because they need to "decompress" after work. So all of these fascinating and depressing stories of the individuals who find themselves there have been rolling around in my head, and here are some of the things I'm thinking.
It's disturbing to me that so much behavior that seems absolutely reasonable and normal to me, given the person's history, is pathologized. For example, most of the women who show up in BHS have been abused in one way or another. Some of them in extreme and disturbing
ways. When you're in your mid-twenties and have several children by your own father, you have a right to be messed up. But although the abuse is acknowledged and taken into account by the therapists involved, this person is still diagnosed with a mental illness according to her symptoms. And this strikes me as problematic. To say that she's bipolar or schizophrenic or borderline personality suggests that something is wrong with her. Like there's something broken in her head. And this seems all wrong to me. The symptoms and coping mechanisms she's developed are just absolutely right given the violent and skewed environment she emerged from. She's not broken, her world is. Of course now she needs a lot of assistance and compassion to learn how to cope and function in the world outside of the warped one she grew up in. But that's her abusers fault, not hers. He's the one who's fucked up, but she gets labeled and stigmatized because of it.
Similarly, many young women who suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts have been systematically excluded in our culture that values women based on the beauty and usefulness of
their bodies. These women are socially awkward and don't meet our strict beauty standard, so they've been cast aside and isolated by their peers. When they show up at BHS feeling lonely and sad, they're diagnosed as clinically depressed or borderline personality. Once again, the problem lies with them - they're broken; something's wrong in their heads. But I feel like this is deeply unjust. The culture they're submerged in, which can't see them and value them for who they are, is what's broken. Responding to isolation and neglect by feeling sad and lonely is not abnormal, it's not irrational, it doesn't make you sick. In fact, it's a more natural and healthy response than many other possible responses.Men's behavior is often pathologized too. It seems like a lot of the men who show up at BHS have substance abuse issues and engage in inappropriate or violent behavior
while under the influence. No doubt many of them have been abused too, but there's more stigma attached to abuse for a man than a woman in our culture, so the liklihood that they would have gotten help dealing with their abuse or PTSD is lower than for women. But substance abuse and violence are among the ways men are taught to cope with trauma, so these are the behaviors they tend to exhibit. And because of this they're often criminalized in addition to being institutionalized for mental disorders.And many of these types, both male and female, display a lot of drug-seeking behavior and have learned what to say and how to manipulate staff to get the narcotics they crave. Of course, drug-seeking behavior is frowned upon, stigmatized, and shamed. And these patients are aware of the attitudes toward drug-seeking behavior and have internalized the associated guilt and shame. While I agree that drug-seeking behavior shouldn't
be encouraged, I have real issues with the way we make it into this shameful and immoral thing. Using drugs to deal with the pain of abuse or other traumatic experiences is one coping mechanism among many. If I had experienced the kind of trauma they have, I don't doubt I would want to be drunk or high every day for the rest of my life too. It's a totally reasonable response. It's true that these people had the misfortune of seizing upon a particularly problematic coping mechanism, but we shouldn't shame them for it, but should rather see it as a simple coping mechanism and try to help them learn how to replace it with more healthy coping mechanisms. Because treating them for substance abuse and then returning them to their world without any more constructive ways of handling their pain and their issues is ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.I realize, of course, that the medical professionals who are dealing with these people on a daily basis have little control over the person's environment. Given this fact, it often makes sense to medicate them and make them as comfortable as possible. But this model is so limited and places so much of the problem and the stigma on victims' shoulders that it seems deeply unjust to me.
Rather than taking a critical look at our culture and the way it so casually disposes of bodies and lives, we pathologize the behavior of victims and medicated them and shame them for their desire to numb the pain using substances that have been arbitrarily criminalized by the government while treating them with substances that have the government's stamp of approval because the right rich white guys are getting rich off of them. Instead of looking at the systemic causes of abuse, trauma, and the resulting "mental illnesses," we label the victims and put them in a neat little box, hoping they won't cause too much trouble or be too disruptive. And maybe, just maybe, they'll return to the gold standard of being a productive worker/consumer in our capitalist society. Because in a capitalist, patriarchal culture, the norm is established by appealing to hierarchical roles and expectations and cultural conceptions of healthy functioning, i.e. going to work everyday and being a good, non-disruptive little sheep. But that is another story for another post on another day...
Monday, May 4, 2009
Priceless
The Iron Hymen blog, featuring abstinence-only coolness for girls.
Their purity pledge:
Their purity pledge:
I, [MY NAME], hereby pledge:
1. To never let grubby boys touch me – unless it's just fun innocent stuff like tripping me and pulling my hair. (But only the hair on my head!)
2. To never wear trampy stuff like shorts or t-shirts or open-toed shoes, which basically tell horny perverts that I'm a major tramp who's just asking for it.
3. To never do rough stuff like ride horsies or bikes with hard seats, which could break my vagina's freshness seal and make me totally unlovable.
4. To never let tampons violate the sanctity of my hoo-hoo, because tampons are really nothing more than thirsty little albino penises.
5. To never have premarital sex, because Jesus doesn't want anyone messing around inside my girly hole until after His church makes some money off a wedding.
I understand that abstaining from sex protects me from:
Super-expensive dry cleaning bills for getting crusty sex goop off all my good silk and cashmere stuff.
Forcing my wonderful parents to use "tough love" and kick me out of the house for embarrassing them by being such a little whore.Having adoption-hungry homosexuals circle my pregnant belly like vultures, hell-bent on corrupting my unwanted bastard child with their sicko "love."
Systemic Oppression: Sexual Assault Edition
You've probably heard the stat that 1 in 3 Native American women (who live on Indian land in the U.S.) will be raped in her lifetime. I had heard this several times before, but never with an accompanying explanation of why American Indian women are vulnerable to sexual assault at such high rates. But this weekend on NPR Laura Sullivan had a great story on this which answered a lot of questions. You can listen to the podcast here or read the short article here.
According to Sullivan, there are three contributing factors to this epidemic of sexual assault. First, law enforcement agencies on Indian lands are chronically underfunded. This is changing some due to casino revenues. Second, based on a 1978 Supreme Court ruling, only federal prosecutors can prosecute crimes committed on Indian land by non-natives. Tribal law enforcement can only arrest and prosecute Native Americans. And here's the staggering statistic: according to the Justice Department, in 80% of rape cases on Indian land the assailant is non-native. When the assailant is non-native, tribal law enforcement must refer the case to federal prosecutors. So here's where the third factor comes in. Federal prosecutors routinely choose not to prosecute approximately 75% of these cases. One former tribal law enforcement officer claimed that prosecutors only took cases where there was a confession.
The fact that 80% of those who commit sexual assault on tribal lands are non-native suggests that critics are right in claiming that many predators see Indian women as fair game. It also suggests that our government, and our society in general, could give a shit about Native American women. The degree to which we value a person and the extent 
to which they're viewed as fair game by predators is always linked. Because the less we value a body, the less we protect it. And the less we protect it, the more vulnerable it is. Since brown female bodies just aren't that valuable to us as a society, they're very vulnerable. This is not a new phenomenon. These statistics have been floating around for years, but there's no public outcry to speak of, no effort on the part of Congress to change the status quo. And young girls growing up on the reservation see this. They understand that their physical and emotional well-being are the last things we care about as a society.
to which they're viewed as fair game by predators is always linked. Because the less we value a body, the less we protect it. And the less we protect it, the more vulnerable it is. Since brown female bodies just aren't that valuable to us as a society, they're very vulnerable. This is not a new phenomenon. These statistics have been floating around for years, but there's no public outcry to speak of, no effort on the part of Congress to change the status quo. And young girls growing up on the reservation see this. They understand that their physical and emotional well-being are the last things we care about as a society.So the good news is that Congress is finally paying attention to the problem and moving to change it. I'd like to think it's out of compassion, but it probably has more to do with the increased economic and legal resources available to Native Americans thanks to casino revenues and an increase in the number of Native Americans who have acquired a legal education. At any rate, when The Tribal law and Order Act comes back up for debate, urge your congressional representatives to support it. Passing this legislation will send the message that we care about Native American girls and women, and will restore a degree of Indian sovereignty.
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