The big issue for me here is that "slutty" is used to describe an enormous range of women's choices. It's not as if there are "normal" women's clothes and then "slutty" clothes. I was criticized in college by a male professor for giving a presentation in class with my hair down. He announced in front of the 35-person class that someone like me has to learn to pin up her hair because otherwise it looks like I'm trying to seduce everyone, rather than teach them anything, and no one can concentrate on what I'm saying. This is fucking absurd, and he had some kind of hair fetish, but this is the kind of comment that the SlutWalk was about--a woman in public, in her own body, is going around being a fucking slut who deserves to get raped, or ignored, or treated like a child.
Likewise, the criticism I received at my first teaching observation--the female professor told me that I was obviously far too busy trying to get 18-year-old boys to look up my skirt to be a real teacher. I wasn't wearing a skirt. I was wearing very androgynous brown pants and jacket. I wasn't flirting. I was just funny and paid attention to what students said instead of ignoring them and infantilizing them like she did.
It's funny; I feel like I get shit for dressing slutty or acting slutty almost constantly when I (a) dress more conservatively than any woman my age I know outside of orthodox Judaism, and (b) have sex like twice a year if I'm lucky. I'm not particularly pretty--not ugly either, but I'm not a model. I don't wear strappy tank tops or short skirts or fuck-me pumps or much jewelry, and yet men and women feel completely comfortable telling me that they know my type; I just go around sticking my cleavage in people's noses instead of being smart. I don't even have cleavage.
So when I have a student who comes to me and says her other English professor, a wiccan woman with ankle-length goth skirts, yelled at her for wearing a tank top and shorts in the summer because she's just buying into some patriarchal thing about sex being power when really no one can take a woman in shorts seriously, yeah, I get fucking outraged.
And it doesn't help that the response from a lot of women I know to my argument about this--that ALL WOMEN ARE SLUTS, no matter what we do or how we live--is that, yeah, but those girls over there, tut tut, they think porn actresses are like so empowered.
Well, some of them *are*! Maybe you should watch more porn before you make blanket statements about human beings and their world views! Maybe you should talk to that young woman and ask her what she's going through, or what she's been through, or why she likes the clothes she likes. I promise very few of them are actually so stupid that they think showing three inches of ass-crack above Juicy Couture sweatpants is feminism.
If this doesn't bring back Ogged (PBUH), nothing will.
...this sweet little slut who could only get out of the labyrinth if she asked the right question.
My favorite bastardized reference to game theory ever.
Also: of course we should be focusing on stopping rapists from raping. #1 project.
But the visibility of women who don't apologize for being in public having bodies, and who don't want sexist old dudes, or young horny catcallers, or fabric-swathed feminists saying that well, it sure would be a lot easier to stop raping if you girls would just cover those ta-tas, is totally infuriating.
It's especially infuriating that that NYT article chose an obese girl to show as their sad, sad example of the kind of pathetic loser who thinks wearing a tank top will save women. Overweight and obese women are *especially* visible in public. I promise that if my roommate, who is super-thin and yoga-bodied, walked past you in one of her barely-there sundresses, you'd think, "What a nice-looking and probably totally professional young woman!" If I wore that same dress, or if an obese woman wore it, with straps that show all the shoulders, cut down between the boobs, and ending just below the butt, we would be spectacles for everyone to comment on.
Imagine what that article's photo would look like if the woman with "proud slut" on her face weighed 110 pounds. Same haircut, same tank top, same expression. Tut tut at her? Who would dare?
2: We've already established that nothing will.
I'm defending today, so I'm just going to drop my annoying comments all at the beginning and then disappear. Hooray!
I think Choire Sicha is a little unfair to Rebecca Traister. Traister is ambivalent and recognizes many of the problems with her ambivalence that Sicha points out. Ultimately, she comes down on the same side as Sicha:
Which, I guess, is enough to make SlutWalkers of us all.
I'm generally uncomfortable with hot women showing off their hotness in ways other women can't. It becomes more annoying when it's supposed to be some sort of pro-women-in-general statement. But I can't explain that any further.
Did you need us to tell you what to wear, AWB?
Good luck! Although as somebody else said, I'm sure you won't need it!
Traister is ambivalent
I guess I'm a bit sick of people being ambivalent about whose side they're on in this shit. Do you trust women or not? Do you think women are human or not? Do you assume every time a fat woman does something that it's so so sad? Do you think young people are idiots who should not be allowed freedom of conscience, or to work through issues at their own pace? Do you think it would be better if everyone just stopped having casual sex because it's so damaging to precious young people? Do you love feeling bad for people who don't have what you have, despite the fact that they don't wish they had what you have?
I promise that if my roommate, who is super-thin and yoga-bodied, walked past you in one of her barely-there sundresses, you'd think, "What a nice-looking and probably totally professional young woman!"
Unless I've changed in the 90 minutes since I walked into the office, I'm thinking you're wrong there.
I'm on board with 9. I'd be a liar if I pretended that I didn't think hot women are hot. But I don't think that attribute is political.
9: I guess I'm not. Maybe it's a city thing. But skinny girls have to slut it up SO HARD to get the kind of attention fat women get. And it's definitely not because we're more attractive. Fat women are just more obvious in public. It's not that I can't get catcalled; it's that I've learned to cover my body almost entirely to stop hearing all about my tits when I walk around, or how I need to get fucked to death to teach me a lesson. If skinny girls want a piece of that, they're welcome to it.
Of course, in NYC you also get the insanely, mind-meltingly beautiful women, and I begrudge them nothing. While being crazy-pretty surely has some advantages, I wouldn't trade places with them. I think it's really, really hard to be taken seriously or to know if people respect you when you're that pretty. That's true for men too.
I'm generally uncomfortable with hot women showing off their hotness in ways other women can't.
I think this may put you in a minority among members of the male gender.
12: You might perv on her, because she's super-cute, but I don't think she reports the kind of slut-shaming that I get if I wear skirts above my knees. Guys will introduce themselves to her, or try to talk to her at a party, because she's the kind of pretty you actually want to date. I'm the kind of pretty guys want to date-rape.
I'm long married, so I'm just looking.
. But skinny girls have to slut it up SO HARD to get the kind of attention fat women get.
I think this is really true. We direct an amazing amount of violence at fat women.
This angle - skinny vs fat women - has been roundly ignored in the Slutwalk conversations, though.
This angle - skinny vs fat women - has been roundly ignored in the Slutwalk conversations, though.
UNTIL NOW!
... IIRC, the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by relatively few sexual predators who serially assault lots of people. ...
What is the evidence for this? Perhaps it is true for stranger rape cases but I have doubts for aquaintance rape cases.
Do you think young people are idiots who should not be allowed freedom of conscience
All the rest of them except this one are rhetorical questions, right?
9
I'm generally uncomfortable with hot women showing off their hotness in ways other women can't. It becomes more annoying when it's supposed to be some sort of pro-women-in-general statement. But I can't explain that any further.
Is there a difference between flaunting your hotness and flaunting your wealth?
No, my memory is that it is the case with acquaintance rapes. Specifically, on college campuses one predator on a college campus knows many, many women from classes and general life, and so regularly sexually assaulting women via ordinary college nightlife ends up being the bulk of sexual assault.
... And they are detectable because they believe all men have the same beliefs they do. ...
And if lots of people don't have the same (or similar) beliefs why are convictions so difficult in date rape cases in which the woman could be said to be "asking for it"?
Is there a difference between flaunting your hotness and flaunting your wealth?
not at the Mineshaft!
I think that the attention on skimpy clothing kind of misses the point. My impression is that folks wear all kinds of outfits ranging from teh hawt to totally average to conservative.
The point (I believe) is that it doesn't matter how you dress. No matter how strictly you follow every last patriarchal norm, you're potentially a slut, and thus "asking for it" & etc., the moment some man (or woman for that matter) decides you are. After getting assaulted or harassed there's always some narrative that makes it retroactively your fault.
Something that's been missing in the rush to say U're Doin It Wrong is an examination of why this particular protest caught on and spread so spontaneously. It's not as though there haven't been anti-sexual assault marches before this.
And if lots of people don't have the same (or similar) beliefs why are convictions so difficult in date rape cases in which the woman could be said to be "asking for it"?
Isn't it frustrating when the world doesn't obey clean logical rules? Both statements are true, even though I didn't put effort into phrasing them sufficiently precisely to prevent a technical contradiction.
23
No, my memory is that it is the case with acquaintance rapes. Specifically, on college campuses one predator on a college campus knows many, many women from classes and general life, and so regularly sexually assaulting women via ordinary college nightlife ends up being the bulk of sexual assault.
This is just an unsupported assertion which feels unlikely to me. I would expect relatively minor offenders to be more common.
"Is there a difference between flaunting your hotness and flaunting your wealth?"
Hot people tend not to support political parties whose avowed objective is to make OK-looking people look ugly, and to make homely-looking people look hideous.
This is just an unsupported assertion which feels unlikely to me. to 30.
Something that's been missing in the rush to say U're Doin It Wrong is an examination of why this particular protest caught on and spread so spontaneously. It's not as though there haven't been anti-sexual assault marches before this.
Just a guess, but is it because it got a lot of media attention?
31: They do make and promote clothing that makes OK-looking people look ugly.
Like Uggs. Somebody cute thought of that, I just know it.
hot women showing off their hotness in ways other women can't.
What with this "can't"? In my stretch of Brooklyn, women of every shape and size are wearing tube dresses right about now.
I've heard the same thing that Heebie has about sexual assaults on campus, but I can't remember where, and it may have well been from Heebie.
I also saw a fascinating Australian government report on sex offenders which compared the recidivism rate for various kinds of offenders. One interesting point was that when sex offenders re-offend, it is just as likely to be for a non-sex crime as a sex crime. This led the researchers to conclude that sex offenders aren't really a special class of criminal. They are generalist, opportunist criminals who at one point saw an opportunity for a sex crime.
36: That's possibly because in your stretch of Brooklyn, and in mine, there is a wide variety of cultural beauty norms. Black girls who are skinny are seen as sad losers if they dress provocatively but don't have a butt and thighs. Puerto Rican girls are shamed for not being a bit thick in the middle. It's bourgeois white people who have a lock on hating fatties.
... The issue is not raising awareness that dressing sexy is ok; the issue is that we need strategies to identify and deal with these few monstrous rapists. ...
Again this seems wrong. Surveys show the incidence of rape has dropped sharply over the last fifty years. Is this because a few monsters have been identified and locked up or because general attitudes about how sexually aggressive men should be have changed?
@33
I might be wrong, but my impression was that the media attention came after the adoption of slutwalk type protests in the wake of the original Toronto one.
34: ah, and here we're heading back towards my "The Couture Industry Is Intrinsically Fascist" rant.
34: I thought it was the opposite -- that ugly fashion was a trick that ugly girls were playing on pretty girls. They used to say that about punk, anyway.
It might explain why I haven't gotten many catcalls in Brooklyn: too skinny. When I was seriously underfed and still working the crap job that made me so, one of my young coworkers remarked that I kinda looked like the sort of white people who would wander into the neighborhood to buy drugs. Not like I think looking like a junky really ups one's chances of safety, mind.
I'm generally uncomfortable with hot women showing off their hotness in ways other women can't.
Perhaps they should be veiled, like Joelle in Infinite Jest.
39: if you keep saying things like that, someone is going to have to track down some actual data, which I really don't feel like doing.
32
This is just an unsupported assertion which feels unlikely to me. to 30.
You don't think there are more unwanted gropers than rapists? More date rapists than stranger rapists?
Many men are as aggressive towards women as they think can get away with. So the more reckless and daring are more likely date rapists but they are from the edge of the distribution not disconnected from it in some special monster category. And if you shift the distribution to the cautious side you will reduce the incidence of date rape.
45: He is right about rape reports being down. It seems unlikely that reporting rates have gotten worse.
In my stretch of Brooklyn, women of every shape and size are wearing tube dresses right about now.
This is true in my neck of the worlds, too, but that doesn't mean the reaction from men is uniform. (I have no idea what the reactions they get from men are like.)
I think it's pretty obvious to most people who have had casual sex with a number of people that there is a big difference between having sex with someone who is turned on by sober, conscious consent and someone who is not. Frankly, I don't think the latter group is small at ALL. I think it would be really neat if the group of people who are turned on by sober consent were bigger. Let's work on that!
the more reckless and daring are more likely date rapists
Not true! Date rapists are often people who have enormous shame and ignorance about sex and don't believe that women are ever capable of giving consent, or that if they do, they're disgusting sluts. More sex ed = less date rape.
Classic date rape scenario, IME, is that dude I went on a blind date with who had just gotten out of a culty church and lost his virginity within the previous two years. We spend three hours talking and drinking, and I can't even tell if this guy is attracted to me; we're just having pleasant conversation. But once he realizes I'm slurring my speech a bit, he starts groping me in the bar. I say I want to go home. He says he wants to walk me home. I say I'm not ready to have sex with him. From his reaction, you'd think I'd said the opposite. He's suddenly wrestling with me in the middle of the street. I get away, and he implies that I'm ugly enough I ought to be grateful, and then he picks me up and throws me against a fence and shoves his hand in my crotch. I start crying and telling him to fucking get off me, and manage to get inside.
It was terrifying, but this is how date-rape happens. This guy can't have non-ironic sex. He's turned on by rejection, because it means I'm a "good girl." He's sexually attracted to me being drunk and helpless, and his sense that I'm not good enough for him. I honestly think this is what a lifetime of sexual ignorance and church-training will do to you. It fucks up the pathways by which you decide you're in a sexual scenario or not. This guy had given up the freaky church and had been an atheist grad student for years, but that rapist's attitude toward sex is going to follow him for a long time.
The pictures in the link are nice to see and it seems that in general these marches are intentionally far from titillating. I was expecting a series of BoobQuakes, but in fact hardly anyone in any of the pictures is wearing anything revealing. It really is emphasizing AWB's point that what one wears is not relevant to one's real or imagined sluttiness.
More sex ed = less date rape.
This is exactly right. I was woken up one night in the first few weeks of my freshman year of college by one of my new classmates lying on top of me, shoving his tongue down my throat and his hand down my knickers. He'd walked into my dorm room and jumped on me asleep in my bed and he thought this was seduction, not predation. (I fought him off and he left. He's now friends with all my friends on Facebook. I confess to snarling whenever I see his name.)
On the one hand, I prefer an androgynous society where the importance of being sexy is diminished.
I knew it! Every progressive hides the heart of Magellan Pico della Mirandola Dario Fo Savonarola. You hippies claim to love Mad Men and all that rubbish, but you can't wait to force everybody into Mao suits and British-miners's-strike-era haircuts under the New Order, can you?
I think a big reason why this protest has caught on is that it gives people the opportunity to use the "s" word in a context where they can't be called out on it. Personally, I deprecate using the "s" word in any context, as I do the "b" word, and the other "b" word, and I don't really like hearing the "t" word used either, although since I don't spend a lot of time in the gay bar scene, that comes up much less frequently.
Here's the thing, with all due respect to a sometime commenter here, I really don't believe in this reclaiming epithets stuff. I use "queer", because I think that what's going on there is useful in terms of altering people's political consciousness around homosexuality. I don't see any similar utility in the "s" and "b" words. (Also, I have too many friends and children of friends who were born outside of state-sanctioned marriage to be comfortable with the other "b" word.)
The other issue I have with these s-walks is that I think there's a degree of unreciprocated solidarity being demanded here. Based on what I've seen on FB, and in articles describing the phenomenon, I'm concerned that a lot of the people who are jumping on this bandwagon are basically good time Charlies when it comes to activism. That perception is, I think, widely shared by other people who have devoted a lot of time to feminist, anti-racist and queer liberation causes.
There's a class angle too here. I've known a number of middle-class women who recoil in horror at the suggestion that they might try taking the bus occasionally, instead of driving everywhere, due to their perception that riding the bus=non-stop sexual harassment. Yet, there are lots and lots of women who aren't privileged enough to have that choice. The solution would seem to be working to stop harassment on the bus, rather than turning your back on the problem. But that's not a middle-class thing to do.
I dunno, I mean, for the most part, I think this is all a bit of a tempest in a teacup. Either it will fade out like Pet Rocks and Jazzercise, or we'll see it totally commercialized and coopted back into the safe confines of capitalism.
Based on what I've seen on FB, and in articles describing the phenomenon, I'm concerned that a lot of the people who are jumping on this bandwagon are basically good time Charlies when it comes to activism.
If you're trying to create a successful movement, you need to attract people that don't normally participate.
On the other hand, if you just like hanging out with fellow activists, the newbies might ruin it for you.
I wonder sometimes if my different perception of young women participating in things like this comes from the fact that I was a churchy, sexually ignorant young woman who needed years of trying out different things before I came to a somewhat more mature relationship to what I do with my body. At 19, I had desires and didn't know what to do with them, what was safe, what I could ask for, what I had to put up with.
One of the reasons I am an advocate for more open-minded attitudes toward porn is that the women I hear most clearly articulating what they will and won't do sexually, and with whom, are certain porn actresses (Bobbi Starr, Stoya, Belladonna, and Kayden Kross come to mind). They openly state what their policies are about knowing when their partners have been tested, that they have contracts that list the people they will and won't have sex with, what they will and won't do, how they like and dislike interacting with fans, and what they actively want to do. Sure, there is pressure on them to do more, and fans do harass them. But the ones I like tend to be those who are really knowledgeable about sex, and are crystal-clear about their expectations, desires, and limits. I'm not that clear with my partners, and I certainly have let things happen that I wasn't comfortable with. I aspire to have that kind of clarity and confidence.
Of course not all porn is like that, but I don't like all porn. I don't like all movies or novels either.
57 sounds kind of nasty to me.
I understand and share the cynicism and despair (?)of 56's conclusion.
More sex ed = less date rape.
This seems plausible. The bare fact of teaching kids that girls may say no could be enough to bend the curve of their future behavior towards consent, but what is enormously distressing (to me, at least) is that the rarity of such education seems to render the ordinary anticrime solutions -- i.e., those that one can imagine applying to a wave of bank robberies or insurance fraud: more enforcement, more prosecutions, harsher penalties -- ineffective, or, perhaps more accurately, inapplicable, because too few people perceive the need for such measures.
Well, it's always a tension, isn't it? I mean, yes, of course, I want to see activist projects that attract new people. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of projects that, like this one, appear to grab people's attention for 15 minutes, and then leave them worse off than they were before in terms of personal empowerment and political engagement.
I'd like to be proved wrong about this particular action, but I've been fooled before.
Here's the thing, with all due respect to a sometime commenter here, I really don't believe in this reclaiming epithets stuff. I use "queer", because I think that what's going on there is useful in terms of altering people's political consciousness around homosexuality.
These two sentences seem contradictory to me, and make your objections to the other words seem to be merely matters of personal taste.
Also: Are there people out there trying to use "bastard" this way? I didn't know that.
teaching kids that girls may say no
Some might argue that everyone knows girls may say no. They don't know that some girls may say yes, and they shouldn't be treated like disgusting tramps for it. As I tell my students all the time, any culture in which a woman can't plausibly say yes is also a culture in which she can't meaningfully say no.
59: No, it's spot-on. The revolutionary vanguard types accomplish nothing without participation by people whose commitment to the cause is tenuous because those are the overwhelming majority of people. The Slutwalkers are making the news and will change the minds of some small fraction of the people who hear about them, which translates into hundreds of thousands of people. Social change is slow.
re 62.last
What? Reclaiming 'bastard' how? For children born out of wedlock? In the UK at least that'd be the majority of them and I don't the US is massively far behind that, no?
Does anyone actually use bastard to refer to children of unmarried parents? Really?
More and better sex ed=less rape.
I benefited from sex ed classes in the most liberal school district in a liberal state (back then it was at least). But I know a lot of people who grew up in other cities or out in the sticks who were materially harmed by their sex ed classes. Forget about 'abstinence-only', I'm not convinced there's a good reason to teach abstinence at all. Everybody already knows what not having sex is like. Given that the vast majority of people who come through a sex ed classroom (as it were) are going to have sex at some point (if they haven't already), it seems to me the focus should shift entirely towards having the sex you want. If that means no babies, great. If it means babies, also great. If it means queer sex or fetish sex or religiously-ritualized sex -- hey, whatever floats your boat.
This comment brought to you by Unachievable Utopian Projects, Ltd. An Erewhon Company.
65: In the "Who is Cartman's father?" episode of South Park,* one of Mr. Mackey's office posters says "If you don't have a dad, you're a BASTARD."
* "Mr. Mackey! There's something really wrong with Cartman!"
"Oh, well, there's a newsflash, mmmkay."
65: Well, that one is less subject to reclaiming, admittedly. It's more on the level of casual insertion into conversations.
62: Sure, of course there's a contradiction. My point is that I am turning to a specific ideological perspective to resolve the contradiction.
@56
Here's the thing, with all due respect to a sometime commenter here, I really don't believe in this reclaiming epithets stuff.
My impression is that these protests are definitely not about reclaiming the word "slut" in some late 90s Girl Power sense. The point was more that no amount of "correct" behavior will ever render you immune from the charge. Especially if you have the poor taste to get catcalled/groped/assaulted.
Maybe some people are completely missing this, but I think we'd have to hear from actual participants. I wouldn't particularly trust the New York Times interpretation.
Forget about 'abstinence-only', I'm not convinced there's a good reason to teach abstinence at all. Everybody already knows what not having sex is like.
I didn't need anybody to teach me abstinence in high school! I should have been teaching the class!
I don't think it makes women safer from rape if we send the message that all women hate sex with men all the time and the only women who bother fucking men for non-procreative reasons are Bad Girls who hate themselves and love patriarchy. I think, at its basis, the SlutWalk is about sending the message that there has to be a space and respect for female desire. It is not self-loathing to say I want to have sex, and these are the things I'm comfortable with, and these are the people I'm comfortable with, and these are the conditions that would make it enjoyable and safe for me.
If we want to live in that world, we have to stop telling women that they don't want what they want, even if we think we know better. Sometimes maybe it's a phase, but they'll grow out of it. Sometimes they're on their way to developing more coherent ideas in the future. Sometimes maybe they just enjoy things you don't enjoy, so it's hard for you to relate. But we don't get to a place where men learn to be attracted to women who soberly consent to--or even initiate!--sex unless we stop shaming those who want to. Instead, let's teach young people that healthy sex happens between people who know what they want and can articulate their boundaries.
With that, seriously, I have to prep. Thanks for distracting me! I'm nervous as shit!
I really hope AWB is at her defense typing these comments on a Blackberry. Preferably one handed, while holding up the index finger of the other hand in the universal "just a sec" gesture.
I now believe that Natilo and I can agree on nothing. The "s" word is the greatest word of all. We should use it for any slightly transgressive act, like putting three lumps of sugar in your coffee. "You slut."
70: This. The image of the woman carrying a sign that states "This is what I wore when I was RAPED. I STILL DID NOT ASK FOR IT" says it all.
On the one hand, women are naive to think they they'll be safe wearing skimpy clothing, getting drunk and walking home alone because it makes them vulnerable. On the other hand, once we start making these judgments about what women should be doing it leads to victim blaming.
The fact is that rapists are predators that are looking for the opportunity to rape women. They rely on the fact that society allows for these ambiguities because it allows them to commit more rapes without getting caught.
OH FUCK. I just saw a reference in one of my chapters to a chapter I didn't have time to write. FUCK FUCK FUCK.
77: You did write the chapter. You just wrote it in orange. Don't worry about it.
77 - the only person who read the whole thing is your adviser. Everyone else skimmed enough to get the gist. No worries.
This is just an unsupported assertion which feels unlikely to me. I would expect relatively minor offenders to be more common.
Heebie's statement (backed up by Lisak's research) about a limited number of repeat predators feels right to me. I think that both sides have an ideological interest in exaggerating how frequent the "borderline" cases are. Some anti-feminists want to say that innocent fumblers who haven't secured a signed sex contract frequently get accused of rape, while some feminists want to claim that all/most men are barely restrained rapists.
It probably is relatively common that young guys step over a consent line accidentally and get pushed back, but if the man genuinely intends to respect consent I think the vast, vast majority of such cases are unlikely to be seen by the woman as rape.
81: "Few people have the capacity to pull off a master plot of this magnitude to exact revenge," Mr. Brown said.
I doubt the veracity of this claim. Frankly, this sounds like a pretty sloppy plot, but one which almost came to fruition because the police are not very creative and believe whatever people tell them. I'm sure anyone here could concoct something much more successful.
81: I see Natilo wrote my comment for me. It is, of course, in the interest of the police to claim that the person who used them is a diabolical mastermind.
I'm sure anyone here could concoct something much more successful
I disagree for myself. Maybe I could come up with a more clever plan, but to actually make it work? Not likely.
83: Further, I'll bet the scam was caught because the victim's socioeconomic status made her tough to frame. Her former lawyer, understandably, sought to play up that angle:
But Anthony Grandinette, Ms. Sumasar's former lawyer, said law enforcement was negligent.
"Why would a tiny woman with no criminal record, who worked 10 years on Wall Street, randomly hold up people at gunpoint at night dressed as a policewoman?" Mr. Grandinette asked.
85: He does seem to have gotten a lot of cooperation.
79: $100 says even her advisor didn't literally read the whole thing.
Plus the missing chapter shows that you still have good ideas for more research to do!
[I]nnocent fumblers who haven't secured a signed sex contract....
Innovative drafting is my core competency.
Ladies....
basically good time Charlies when it comes to activism
mate, when you reach this point of disillusionment and bitterness, it is usually time to step back and take a break. High up on the list of reasons for the continued lack of success of your movement is "burnout on the part of activists who reach a point of reflexively thinking that the solution to everything is for them to work harder".
Agree that the important thing is sex ed, teaching men to properly express desire, and women not to teach their dates that no means 'push harder'
90: I've burnt out and returned to the activism scene so many times now that I've literally lost count. Now it appears that I may have terminally pissed off one of my closer anarchist friends, based on a political dispute, which is of course ironic, as I'm sure we differ on something less that .01% of our positions.
I just don't know sometimes. Projects come and go. Best lack all conviction, etc. etc. Nobody remembers anything that happened more that 4 or 5 years ago. There's that part in Tales of the City where the suicide hotline guy is complaining about how there's no support for old radicals. I'm not suicidal, but I really feel that way a lot. Sigh.
there's no support for old radicals
I think I read somewhere that bra burning was a myth.
77: Don't worry about a stray reference. That's just minor housekeeping. Good luck, AWB!
62: There are adoptee rights groups/individuals who are trying to reclaim "bastard" or at least use it provocatively. Bastard Nation is probably the most prominent, but there are people who hate BN but also use the term as a self-definer.
95: People who think that children whose biological parents were not wed, or adopted children, have something to defend/apologize for, do not deserve even so much attention as such a reclamation project would accord them, even indirectly.
75: I'm with Walt, here. Slut can be a fun word in silly contexts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uoAJw9VFCk
the police are not very creative and believe whatever people tell them
The people reporting crimes maintain that we believe nothing we're told.
Further, I'll bet the scam was caught because the victim's socioeconomic status made her tough to frame.
It was another informant who tipped them off to the connection between the ex and the people reporting the crimes.
Multiple reports by seemingly unrelated parties is actually a good idea in terms of making the charge seem credible. But of course the more people that are involved the tougher it is to keep discipline and not have someone rat out the scheme. Now doubtless many here have seen every episode of Monk and totally would have known they were being played unlike those bumbling fools doing the investigation but just think for a moment what your reaction would be if you were among the victims of a serial robber and the police asked for access to your phone and social networking records so that they could ensure that you didn't know any of the other victims.
And ditto ttaM on the "bastard" thing. Maybe there's pockets of the country still regularly using the term in its literal sense but I've never been any of those places.
regularly using the term in its literal sense
I only hear it used that way on Game of Thrones.
"What is the evidence for this? Perhaps it is true for stranger rape cases but I have doubts for aquaintance rape cases."
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/campus_assault/assets/pdf/Document5_Lisak_study.pdf
"His publishers say of Mr George Reith, the author of 'The Art of Successful Bidding' that he, "by virtue of his new position as Chairman of the Card Committee of the Kinckerbocker Whist Club, is now the highest authority in the auction bridge world." So you see, there is something wrong. Obviously the publishers have never met a certain gentleman who shall be nameless - being already possessed of all the other characteristics of one born out of wedlock - who was my bridge partner last Saturday night."
As long as people are not ignoring Shearer, I would like to respond to this
I would expect relatively minor offenders to be more common.
with a hearty FUCK YOU.
I did 91. On the break room tv they are doing the 'not having sex is the strong woman ' thing. Female gaze maters.
That's not a very nice thing to say about your own fruit juice fruit punch drink.
Actually, now that I look at it, Hawaiian Punch is a bastard eigne, and Hokey Pokey is a mulier puisne.
Hawaiian Punch gets sent to the Wall.
96: I've also never heard "bastard" used in its literal sense (in the wild, at least) but was just answering the question of whether it's being reclaimed. The people involved in groups like Bastard Nation are trying to get all adoptees access to their original birth certificates, mostly, not trying to raise real bastard awareness.
110: A mulier puisne, mewling and puking.
I've mostly seen "bastard" being reclaimed by adoptees. viz. Bastard Nation (http://www.bastards.org/)
I am pro SlutWalk. So is Katha Pollit. I see there is one on D.C. on August 13. I suspect that one of the listed business sponsors for the D.C. march, NippleCharms.com, is attempting to profit from this rather than being motivated by sisterhood, but all in all I think it's a good thing.
Hawaiian Punch is a bastard!
I guess that's okay to say, but there's going to be hell to pay if somebody calls Hokey Pokey a son of a bitch.
||
Timothy Burke has a somewhat despairing post on the possibility that Obama is profoundly the wrong person for the current political moment.
|>
Via 109: "Muliebria". A new one for me (or possibly merely forgotten and rediscovered).
Weird: OED does not have "muliebria" but does have "muliebrial," "muliebrious," "muliebriousness," and "muliebrity," all sourced to Latin muliebris or muliebritas.
119, 120: While searching the term, a twitter account under that handle came up. Latest tweet: Between a fresh tattoo, bug bites, and my vagina, well, I can hardly decide which is driving me more mad.
118:Works for me, if you add the economic wisdom of Heinrich Bruening, and understand we won't be getting a Lincoln next year.
118 is a good read, but the second comment is an equally good question:
Lincoln avoided Buchanan's dithering compromises by forcefully taking one side in the conflict (the right side) and then fighting the bloodiest war in US history to uphold it. What would the contemporary analog of Lincoln do?
Make the south secede?
First thing, FDR moved (under a very general authority, with the opposition of his cabinet, including Perkins) about a thousand starving young men into each county around the country, gave them food, shelter, pickaxes and shovels, and military training and leadership.
Then he asked Congress to pass his agenda.
Everybody likes to say that FDR had 70 Senators. Well, 30 of them were from Dixie. You take a look at those guys sometimes. Not exactly Eugene Debs.
moved . . . about a thousand starving young men into each county
That number seems implausibly high. According to wikipedia, "the average number of counties per state is 62." That would mean you'd have to involve almost three million people to get a thousand per county.
||
Last one.
Everybody is so down on John Boehner.
Well, complete monster that he is, I still don't see how he raises the debt ceiling. The weak dishonest analysis is hilarious
What he is going to find 75 Repbs who will publicly join 150 House Democrats to vote with Pelosi, Reid, and Obama and against Cantor and the Tea Party? This may just not be possible, should the sky fall and earth quake.
Any bill that gets 200 Rethugs (and 30 Dems) in the house will be hated by Obama and the Senate but this is probably the only possible solution
Boehner should pass his horror and go home.
|>
I suppose that number isn't out of the question. Wikipedia also says that, "Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA provided almost eight million jobs."
But it isn't clear to me if that's eight million at the peak or eight million job years over the 8 year period (with, presumably, smaller numbers at the beginning and end of the program).
Still I hadn't realized it was quite that many people.
Some more numbers, in the hopes that writing them down will help me remember them next time this comes up. "The goal of the WPA was to employ most of the unemployed people on relief until the economy recovered. Harry Hopkins testified to Congress during January 1935 why he set the number at 3.5 million, using Federal Emergency Relief Administration data. Estimating costs at $1200 per worker per year, he asked for and received $4 billion."
So, actually, Bob's figure of ~1000/county is exactly right.
126:hyperbole, though several million, more than 5 did go thru CCC in 8 years.
Then in addition you had PWA, WPA etc.
But the more important point was the message it sent, especially in the context of what was going on overseas. These young men were FDR's, at his bidding.
We could survive a little lawless authoritarianism, most countries do. We may not survive surrender and slow decline.
Hey, while we're on the topic, everyone has called/e-mailed their senators and reps, right?
Brutal budget meeting this morning. We're cutting pay and laying off people. Incredibly stressful just from the state government's fiscal craziness. I can't even imagine what will happen if the feds default.
I know it won't happen, but I would love for Obama to gather the entire GOP congress in a room, show an ad produced by the DNC blaming Republican hypocrisy and intransigence for crashing the economy, then say "I'm vetoing anything other than a clean debt ceiling increase. This goes on the air in 48 hours. Good day, gentlemen."
I think it's too late for 133. I would have loved for him to have taken that appraoch, but he's lost the opportunity. He's made clear that he wants a deal; reversing course now would leave him with as much blame as the republicans. (Okay, maybe not "as much", but enough to make it messy.)
118 is a good read, but the second comment is an equally good question
I thought it was quite deep, myself. But I can't think of any answers better than yours.
133:Obama has no blame, right now the Senate has all the blame. Come to think, the House has already raised the debt ceiling, I think, in the horrowshow bill that capped spending and added a balanced budget amendment. (Is this so?) Boehner should just go home. On the Senate now.
Not that I am on his side, or that I want that bill to pass.
But the Senate and Obama have to start facing the truth.
The fucking country is broken. No compromise is possible. The comparison to Buchanan is very apt, one side wants everything or burn it all. There can be no deal. Just the burning. Of somebody.
As I was washing dishes and cooking, I cram up with several scenaries...for instance default, crash, Geithner decides to only fund Democratic interestsand constituencies...where the shooting could start up in just a couple months.
I have tried to tell ya, these Republicans are fucking crazy and evil, and absolutely nothing to make jokes about. Ever. Rabid fucking dogs.
The markets crashing could make it worse, make Republicans more intransigent.
1) They're paranoid, and know a crash could be arranged by Obama's Wall Street buddies.
2) 108 Republicans, in a more moderate Congress, finally voted for TARP. In this climate, I am not sure you can get 75 to vote with Dems.
3) If Obama thinks compromise is easy, let him whip the fucking Senate for what the House wants. Bullshit Buchanan motherfucker.
Why do we keep bob around, again?
137:My unfailing optimism about human nature?
Because he's made sure that there are at least 1000 dogs in every county in the USA.
Because he's made sure that there are at least 1000 rabid fucking dogs in every county in the USA.
131: I can't even imagine what will happen if the feds default.
Maryland is slated to lose anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 jobs, depending. That's chiefly due to our proximity to DC, of course.
I might have a bunch more time to post!
142: that sounds ominous. Is everything okay at work?
Oh, I see. That's what I get for not reading the thread.
Everything's locally fine, but shit flows downhill, and there are plans for the state to furlough employees if anything financially drastic happens as a result of a possible default. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism by which the state wouldn't be able to pay us, but I have been told that sending us all home for a bit is one contingency plan.
Just got my auto-response from Toomey. It is so hard for me to even imagine his view of the world. I honestly don't think I can conceptualize it.
It includes this little note:
In addition, you may be interested to know that I have introduced legislation that would protect Social Security beneficiaries, active duty military, and the full faith and credit of the United States should the President and Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner.
I'm not sure of the exact mechanism by which the state wouldn't be able to pay us
I'm not sure either, but in Maryland there's a question of the state's credit rating being downgraded in the event; apparently the state government has heard from Moody's et al. in this regard. Inability to float bonds leads to ....
I might have a bunch more time to post!
You'd think that, but beware if my experience of the past week is any guide. It's not like I've been commenting up a storm.
Josh! Are you furloughed? I hope it hasn't been too awful.
I have an inkling that if I ever got furloughed I'd spend a fair bit of time working. There are worse things to do with your time. Maybe I'd do more of the fun projects and less of the balky ones.
(Which reminds me! I'm writing a quiz. I love quizzes.)
"[F]urloughed" implies that I'll be returning to the same job/workplace; that would, um, not be the case for me.
(It hasn't been awful. The job market's very good in my industry, and I've been catching up with people I haven't seen in a while. But I still remember the dotcom crash, and the existential dread creeps up from time to time.)
Well, being laid off sucks. Even if the job market is good in your industry.
Wait, what is your industry? You're not a software engineer, are you?
151,last: If this were a movie that would mean ...
151.last: I am (of a sort). This is actually a good opportunity to remove the "of a sort", so I'm looking at the whole situation in that light. We'll see what happens.
This is actually a good opportunity to remove the "of a sort"
Ahh, hee.
Good luck, and hang in there.
154: Self-delusion is the only thing that gets me through sometimes. Don't take that away from me.
(And thanks, Halford.)
||
Finally. Justice!
Tim DeChristopher was taken into custody Tuesday and will face prison time for disrupting a federal oil and gas lease auction -- a decision that prompted such outcry among supporters that two dozen were arrested.
DeChristopher, the 29-year-old climate activist turned environmental folk hero, was sentenced Tuesday to spend two years in prison. He also will face a $10,000 fine, a federal judge has ruled.|>
156: oh, I was just hee-ing because I've so been there. My strategy was to find people who wouldn't know a real software engineer if one recursively bit them in the ass.
I could hire you to edit my book, Josh. But since we've never met in person, I'm reluctant to do that. (Kidding aside, good luck with what comes next.)
If I were a real software engineer it would have been "recursively bites them in the tail".
60
... -- i.e., those that one can imagine applying to a wave of bank robberies or insurance fraud: more enforcement, more prosecutions, harsher penalties -- ineffective, or, perhaps more accurately, inapplicable, because too few people perceive the need for such measures.
According to USDOJ statistics rape rates are down a factor of 8 from 1973 (and even more from the 1979 peak). Crime in general is also down but not nearly as much. Some "wave".
158: Unfortunately I've become entirely too accustomed to the cushiness of the industry to make that terribly attractive right now. We'll see how well my pampered ass does on the job market, though.
159: Can I at least work on the index?
Bless you, James! and may God turn your heart, but I do have to wonder about your ongoing interest in rape statistics. It begins to look somewhat less than dispassionate and disinterested.
81: I read the story linked; it's refreshing, in a way, to see that the police are so ready to believe the testimony of victims, even when the victims are poor illegal immigrants. It would be nice if they could also discern when the victims were actually talking rubbish, but baby steps.
"Why would a tiny woman with no criminal record, who worked 10 years on Wall Street, randomly hold up people at gunpoint at night dressed as a policewoman?" Mr. Grandinette asked.
I dunno, maybe she's a Joss Whedon character.
Natilo, this quote struck me as well: "I'm concerned that a lot of the people who are jumping on this bandwagon are basically good time Charlies when it comes to activism."
Almost by definition, successful mass movements will be full of good time Charlies.
Except for the Race for the Cure with Robert Smith.
"a society which encourages it's women to dress sexy is different from a society where women are free to dress sexy if they choose."
I don't think this distinction exists. What if other women then perceive a pressure to dress sexy as well, when they don't want to? Women are rather vicious in policing the boundaries of other women's behavior - in this context, largely for this reason. There has always seemed to me to be an intra-women fight over the acceptability of using appearance to get things from men, with the different factions comprising (largely) the haves, the have-nots, and the don't-want-toos. To the extent that appearance has value in the competitive games women play with each other, flaunting your appearance and your ability to control male attention is a hostile act vs other women.
flaunting your appearance and your ability to control male attention
-adam
YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO LET ME FORGET THAT ONE TIME, ARE YOU?
@OPINIONATED EVE
Oh, I forgave you.
Lilith didn't though.
I age with 169. I think the problem arises in party by the anthropomorphication of society. And talking in terms of 'freedom'
169: But isn't the whole point of this argument that women dress in all sorts of different ways for all sorts of different reasons, and if someone wears something that you think is sexy, that doesn't mean they are trying to command male attention.
Sometimes, for instance, it's hot out. Alternately, they like the way the purple halter sets off their hair color. Or maybe they want to look sexy, but just for the person they are meeting for dinner that night. (Certainly, at my age I know that any sex signals I get from young women are not directed at me.) Maybe what they are wearing is not revealing at all, and only looks that way to you because you were raised by nuns.
"Bless you, James! and may God turn your heart, but I do have to wonder about your ongoing interest in rape statistics. It begins to look somewhat less than dispassionate and disinterested."
Neighbor please.
The decline of the rape statistics is a success of feminism. Those repeated rapists don't see themselves as rapists. Feminism has successfully adjusted the culture to get most men to understand the boundaries of rape and to police media representations of rape. Feminism has also moved to get women more freedom to operate in public space.
174: I really don't care what women wear.
I am pointing out that many women care intensely about, and are extremely judgmental about, what other women wear. Have you ever picked up a copy of US Weekly, or any other celebrity magazine? Half of US Weekly is "who wore it better." Don't you realize that women don't dress up for men, they dress up for other women?
Frankly, I'd guess that the impetus for these walks is mainly the thrill of transgression. Which is ironic.
There can be no deal. Just the burning. Of somebody.
When's the last time we changed the hovertext?
You're trolling me, but I'll bite anyway.
I am well aware that women criticize each other's clothing intensely, and in general, do just as much policing for the patriarchy as men do.
However, to my knowledge, no woman has ever used criticism of another woman's clothing to justify raping them.
Women policing each other's clothing reminds me of a dreadful conversation I was subjected to while waiting for one of the kids to get out of their music lesson. Two moms were discussing the tween child of a third mom. The child had taken to only wearing boys' clothing. The other moms were a little concerned, but they decided that the child really wasn't, you know, anything we'd disapprove of. And in any case, they said, better to risk having your kid come out to be, you know, one of those, than to have your kid dress like most of the girls do these days. I mean, you'd think they were prostitutes. And did you hear was Mrs So and So lets her daughter wear.
It just went on like that while I was trying to read my book.
169 raises good points.
176's Don't you realize that women don't dress up for men, they dress up for other women? goes too far, though: women dress (up) for both men and other women, I'd say.
This thread and topic has *danger - potential explosive* written all over it, however.
||Confidential to helpy-chalk: CA is having a stroke trying to remember the name of a 80s hardcore band from somewhere midwestern (he thinks maybe St. Louis) composed of two women with mohawks and a reedy dude drummer, who were explicitly feminist (and maybe lesbian). Google serves up a bunch of porn if you search the obvious keywords. He thinks they were MRR darlings at the time. |>
180: It's me. I'll stop feeding the troll. An argument between two men about how women should dress can only lead to no good.
181: I'm drawing a complete blank. CA was always hipper than I was.
CA and Oliver were dancing in the living room to "Fuck the USA" by the Exploited. It's kind of adorable.
I think you might be thinking about the Welders, but the drummer was also a woman.
I really don't care what women wear.
Given your choice to participate in a thread on this topic, that seems like an odd thing to say.
Anyway, something can be hostile to women and nonetheless be supported by lots of women. Happens all the time.
Frankly, I'd guess that the impetus for these walks is mainly the thrill of transgression. Which is ironic.
I'll agree that deliberate transgression is an important part of the use of the word "slut," just as, in different contexts, is the use of the words "bitch" and "nigger" and "queer" and whatnot. I don't see any irony in this, though. The point, in each case, is to call attention to the shitty way in which this language is used.
169 raises good points.
No it doesn't.
Oh, by the way, I've been streetfighting again!
hot on the heels of my triumphs vs "Homeless Crackhead" and vs "Kosovan gypsies", I finally took on someone my own size! but crucially did it according to the Gary "War Nerd" Brecher self defence handbook, coming soon etc.
I had been out for a pre-dinner cocktail because the beloved sseT is at the seaside with the kids and I have to work this week and am bored. On my way homeward for dinner at a stylishly late 1130pm, I was walking down the high street when I heard shouting from the other side of the road. It appeared to be some fucker or other arguing with his girlfriend and appearing to push her.
Since I am not really one to let that sort of thing lie, but on the other hand I recall that when I and my lass were younger and drank more, we also used to occasionally have embarrassing shouting matches in the street, I did not intervene but simply walked up to a local bus stop and stood there, eyeballing the bloke in question and standing ready to steam in if necessary.
He realised this pretty soon and appeared to be distracted from his oratory (the general subject appeared to be "do you think I don't care", rather histrionically) by my clocking him. So he shouts at me, to the general effect of what I thought I might be looking at. So I replied, at slightly louder than conversational volume, to the effect that he was too loud, he was in my street and that he should leave his girlfriend alone if she didn't want to talk to him.
He starts walking towards me, I step back. He walks towards me, I walk away. He is now convinced I am bottling it, and really struts it up to confront me eyeball to eyeball ... and suddenly he realises that we are now standing right outside the local gay bar, in the bright spotlight and more importantly right directly in front of the large and somewhat steroid-positive bouncer of said bar, who I know to nod hello to, and who appears to be quite prepared to take time out of his busy evening telling hen parties to fuck off, to give someone a therapeutic thumping, and it does not look like his gaze is directed at me.
Then loverboy stalks off back to his girlfriend and within the minute they are sucking each other's faces off. And so it went.
As I mentioned in a previous thread, if Bas Rutten were to have a straight out stand up fight with me I would be stone dead within a minute. But if Bas Rutten or any of his poofy UFC mates *actually* wanted to have a fight with me, they would have to come to Camden and show up at the Constitution, the Crown & Goose or Zen Sai. In which milieu, I would quite fancy my chances. It's basically all about control of the terrain.
182.1: It's not you. I haven't seen Adam as trolling, in any case. 169 resonated for me quite a bit.
But I haven't actually read the Slutwalk articles, or any of the online debate about it; I'm assuming all of these things are addressed in one way or another.
I haven't seen Adam as trolling, in any case. 169 resonated for me quite a bit.
You've said that twice now. This seems like an odd thing to say, given the context.
But I haven't actually read the Slutwalk articles, or any of the online debate about it
Oh, well, yes, if you ignore the context of the conversation, then I guess what he said made some sense, and wasn't at all trolling. If you want to understand what people are talking about, though, you're going to have to make some effort to listen.
If I have this right, the streetfighting consists of running away and standing in front of a bouncer. And then no actual fighting. All provoked by a totally unecessary staredown with a guy who pretty clearly wasn't doing anything awful to his girlfriend. As a fellow coward, I congratulate you.
Your British Badass score is not exactly in the Jason Statham zone, perhaps more in the "Richard Hammond" category.
And just to be clear, my USA#1 Badass score is somewhere in the Seth Green zone.
it's called "counterinsurgency", look it up you ignorant Yank. And then stand around while I lecture you about Northern Ireland while conspicuously not achieving anything in my part of southern Iraq.
My method of assuming that overwhelming economic and technological superiority will automatically lead me to dominate guys who look at me funny in bars hasn't been very successful, to be sure.
If I have this right, the streetfighting consists of running away and standing in front of a bouncer.
Remember, he's in a profession in which, "managing risk" means transferring it to some other party more willing to accept the risk.
188.last: pf, I'm not going to fight. I noted that I haven't read the relevant discussions in order to acknowledge that what I say is uninformed by them.
I'm not going to fight
pf controls the terrain
For the record, I now see why 169 might seem problematic.
181, 182, 184: Anti Scrunti Faction, from Boulder, CO. The bassist went on to be a founding member of Tribe 8. (Robert, did we see Tribe 8 together?)