Old Feminist

Tauromachie

oldfeminist — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:25:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It wasn't a super long visit, we didn't see everything. But I was struck by one piece, Tauromachie, by André Masson , from 1937. It's from the time of the Spanish Civil War, the same inspiration for Picasso's Guernica, and like much art of the time and place, is a comment on blood and death and war and cruelty:

The color, the movement, the sinuous cubist/surrealist style really got to me.

I just did a search on this painting and found a drawing that goes with it, that appeared in Miroir de la tauromachie (1938):

While still kind of horrific it's also frankly erotic.

The drawing features an open female crotch, breasts, or an only nominally covered penis of the matador, penis-shaped hooves, the male and female body parts in parallel, all the thrusting and blood on the sheets. The female pudenda seems to refer to Courbet's scandalous L'Origine du monde (1866).

Looking back, the shapes can be seen in the painting. The open female crotch shape is there under the bull's head, breasts hinted at under the head of the matador at the top, pudenda above the horse's mouth. Were they always sexual, or did Masson revisit his own work with an erotic eye?

it would be facile to say passionate sex or love and passionate killing are the same for Masson; I don't think they are. But the link between violence and eroticism isn't hard to see.

Masson was for a time associated with a review called Acéphale, where he contributed drawings of powerful headless men. In some sense this turns around the whole headless female nude trope -- the male figure is powerful without its head.

After looking at so many female body parts and essentially headless female figures in art, it's almost a relief to see neither the male nor the female face is really the point.

Masson was stepbrother to the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. I've been meaning to learn more about him, maybe I will.

Arizona immigrant statute

oldfeminist — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:14:00 GMT

I watch C*O*P*S on occasion. A common technique for them is to show the officer in a patrol car or other non-intervention situation, talking about the job and why they like it, how they got into it, and so on. Then they go on a call and you see them in action.

There's one where you see the officer talk about his history. Where he worked before, he was a dispatcher. He said he had trouble moving up, but then he moved to Arizona and here he was! He's one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies.

Now the action portions: The officers stopped a young man in a car and asked to look in his car trunk. There was marijuana. The kid was arrested.

The twist was that the kid was just a few doors down from his house. His mother and then his father came out to try to help. His mother wanted to get the car keys and take the car home but, no, it was going to be towed. The father came out and was obviously angry.

The officer told him to go home.

The guy turned around and went home.

The officer then followed him and arrested him.

You know, if this sheriff had actually had police training, I might have given him the benefit of the doubt in that he might have seen or heard something that made him think the father was doing something wrong. But come one. He was GOING HOME as instructed and you arrest him for it?

And these are the people who are supposed to make the judgment calls on whether someone's an undocumented alien? Based on their shoes? Stop putting me on, it's "arrest 'em all and let INS sort 'em out."

This law can't go away fast enough. It's being challenged on Constitutional grounds, and I think that's correct, but it's flawed all the way through, from concept to execution.

Inclusion

oldfeminist — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:17:00 GMT

My husband is a jazz musician. This means he plays with a variety of people. It also means that they are part of a culture that tends to be dominated by men, both among the musicians and in the audiences. As one spectator said to me at a recent gig, "this is a sausage fest."

The culture also tends to be insular. If you don't know the names and personalities, the conversations can get a little stifling.

I was, well, not surprised, but pleased, when a musician he knows recently came to town and invited him to play, and as we were hanging out before the gig, three musicians and me, I was treated like a part of the conversation all through dinner, my jokes were laughed at, and while the conversation was jazz-centric, it wasn't the kind of conversation you couldn't follow if you weren't in the game.

Not surprised. Because she's female. While the discussion was about jazz musicians, she kinda floated it in the direction of about things I could relate to, without talking down to me, noticing what I picked up on and what I didn't. The way women are socialized to carry on conversations with men.

You know, it's almost as simple as this -- when she spoke, she actually looked at me part of the time instead of focusing only on the other musicians. The number of male musicians who only look at you if you should happen to speak up, if ever, and when you do, look at you as if you're a bug who said something stupid or offensive, needing to be squashed, is way too high.

Luckily most of the musicians my husband works with are not like this. The younger ones especially are much better about it.

But God help you with some of the older ones, who seem to think you should just go sit with the other wives and talk about laundry or something!

Half in, half out

oldfeminist — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:34:00 GMT

I don't think I'm telling anyone anything they didn't know already by saying this: People who are developmentally or emotionally disabled have difficulty navigating in society. Sometimes they manage reasonably well, but they're rarely well accepted, and they are allowed "in" only so long as nothing goes wrong. When there's a problem, the hammer comes down.

www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=20332 is the story of such a person. Leroy stepped over the boundaries and now he's basically sentenced to a mental health facility. Maybe temporarily, maybe for life.

The article and the comments point out one of the toughest problems -- that people who know Leroy know how to deal with him, but strangers don't. He can't tolerate alcohol, and will react poorly to it and then have a seizure. People who know him would never give him a drink but strangers might, and he will drink it, with disastrous results. He's a big strong guy and he will get very close to you and tell you he loves you. Strangers take this as threatening, and I don't blame them for that. People who know him know he's just being Leroy.

That Leroy has gone for so long without institutionalization is probably thanks to the community support he enjoys. Not everyone with his problems is equipped with the kind of sunny personality that lends itself to getting that kind of support.

I don't have answers, but this just points out one of the ways in which many of us are one bad turn away from being invisible, one bad turn away from being outcast, one bad turn away from being discarded completely. People who are temporarily abled think it can't happen to them -- but a brain injury or stroke or chemical imbalance, while it wouldn't make them developmentally disabled, could make their lives equally challenging, and put them in Leroy's situation in an instant.

Fixing a hole

oldfeminist — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:34:00 GMT

I enjoy taking photos from nonstandard angles. My new cell phone takes some nice shots.

Here's two of some gas company men working outside of the garage where I park for work.

Here they are discussing the positioning of this stripey pole.

Bigger overview, they are digging a hole to fix something gas related.

Music they're probably not listening to, but is now stuck in my head:

Nice turn of phrase

oldfeminist — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:39:00 GMT

On PBS NewsHour, some guests were discussing Obama's reaction to the gulf oil spill and how much time he should spend working on it.

One of the participants was Kathleen Hall Jamieson , professor of communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the Universiy of Pennsylvania. She said, "When the President said the other day on an interview with Matt Lauer, that he wasn't holding academic seminars, he was meeting with experts for a purpose, and then went on to define the anatomical outcome of that discussion, it was nonetheless saying something very important about what presidents do."

At least one of the other participants laughed. I know I did.

Title IX, cheerleading, and feminism, or, Penn&Teller are idiots

oldfeminist — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:02:00 GMT

I run about 50/50 on the Penn&Teller "Bullshit" show. Sometimes they really hit the target squarely. Other times they seem determined to miss it.

Their recent episode on cheerleading was very much the latter.
www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=14033851001&bclid=89670588001

The way they tell it: Title IX made cheerleading not a sport, therefore cheerleading doesn't get proper supervision and status, therefore the participants (almost all girls) get hurt a lot more than sports participants. Blame the feminists!

The reality: Title IX could not qualify cheerleading as a sport for the simple reason that no one was competing in it. Duh.

Things have changed -- now there are cheerleading competitions, and it's a very athletic pursuit. Basically it's team gymnastics. So it probably should become a sport. That is, if its primary purpose is to compete, and not to cheer on some other (male) team. Even if it doesn't become a sport, there's no reason we couldn't be regulating cheerleading like we do sports. This would be a useful tack.

Not so useful? Focusing on this one unintended consequence as if it were maliciously intended, and pretending we either have to dismantle Title IX or keep injuring and killing cheerleaders.

Whom did they interview? One feminist, Dr. Bernice Sandler, called the godmother of title IX. She talks about the way cheerleading was in 1972 and how it was in no way a sport.

One thing I noticed in the interview, or rather, the voiceover by Penn, was mockery of her hairdo. I recall a P&T interview where Penn said they didn't want to be like other magic acts that made fun of people's looks (calling someone baldy, or commenting on someone's mohawk, for example) -- as a big guy with a ponytail and red-painted pinky, he felt he didn't have a right. In fact I kinda remember Penn saying he didn't like the practice of choosing magicians' assistants on the basis of their sexy bodies. Given the typical supporting cast for the show, I guess that principle is no longer relevant, either.

Another more useful bit of information is that pretty much all the cheerleading supply companies are one company -- Varsity Brands, Inc. As www.mrdustin.net/?p=758 notes,

It seems that Varsity has a major interest in keeping cheerleading frombeing classified as a sport. If cheerleading was regarded as the sportthat it is, then championships would be run on the state level with thepotential for real safety measures. In its current form, Varsity, Inc.operates as many as 60 “national championships” per year instead of theone that would be afforded to a typical high school or college sport. Without the numerous national championships, Varsity, Inc. is able tocollect a slew of participation (and other) fees in addition toadmission fees for parents that wish to watch their children perform.

So it's P&T's much-vaunted free market that's actually driving cheer teams away from safety! Who would have guessed?

I am glad they did this show, because I did some research on cheerleading, Title IX, and modern feminist cheerleaders. Here is a list of links I found interesting:

www.thesportjournal.org/article/cheerleading-context-title-ix-and-gendering-sport
An excellent but long article which disputes some of the claims in the show,notably the idea that cheerleading is more dangerous than football. I would take some of this with a grain of salt, however, given that their source for this information is ACCA, a wholly owned subsidiary of, you guessed it, Varsity Brands, Inc.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_cheerleading

Radical cheerleading is a form of cheerleading that originated in Florida, but has now spread across the United States as well as Canada, Europe and beyond. The idea is to ironically reappropriate the aesthetics of cheerleading, for example by changing the chants to promote feminism and left-wing causes.

www.tallladypictures.com/pirates.html

"We're punk rockers without instruments," says Marisa Lange, co-founderof the Pirate Cheerleaders. Part rock-n-roll, part activism, and allfun, the Pirate Cheerleaders are a feminist pep squad from Milwaukee;and they're out to start a revolution.

radcheers.tripod.com/
Has several cheers listed on the site and a list of squads across the country, e.g.:

riot dont diet by Mary Xmas
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
hey girl (clap clap clap)
get yer face out of that magazine
you are more than a beauty machine
you've got anger soul and more
take to the street and let it roar
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
uh-HUH (clap clap clap)
If cosmo makes you sick and pale
you know what you need to do
MOLOTOV COKTAIL!
liberate the beauty queen
burn the bibles of the fashion scene
LET'S (CLAP) GET (CLAP) MEAN!!!!!!

www.williamsportguardian.com/?article=200703011101&PHPSESSID=cea225cf3ef30869ffac9a1cef861cf0

The real problem with cheerleading is that society has not been able tokeep up with it. High school cheerleaders are stuck on the sidelines andtreated as secondary. Isn’t their hard work just as valuable as that inany other athletic endeavor? Why shouldn’t all high schools worktowards eliminating these inequalities by sponsoring solely competitivecheerleading teams?

The whole radical cheerleading idea sounds pretty amazing to me -- I would love to see some squads performing.

Me, pissing all over the World Cup

oldfeminist — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:13:00 GMT

[The following is largely copied from comments I made on a post on World Cup at Pandagon , which were met with protest and dismay.]

I played soccer as a kid, so I actually do know what offsides is, but in general, it’s like any other sport. While I can appreciate the physical grace and hard work of the participants, I don’t care much about it. Plus, I have soccer to thank for my two-different-sizes feet (I got to the ball first, the opposing player kicked my foot instead, like, REALLY HARD).

I don’t think liking it is a sign of anything really special *or* horrible about a person.

But I would disagree with those who claim that following World Cup makes you part of the “world community.” It makes you part of the sports-watching world community, which is largely male and definitely male-centric. Comparing it favorably to American Football seems, to me, a bit of a dick size war, like it really matters which sport is “best”. And the game as industry has the same problems any other large, male-centric sport does:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/09/world-cup-2010-women-ads
Much like the Super Bowl, UK World Cup advertising focuses on men even though many watchers in the UK will be women.

http://fromaleftwing.blogspot.com/2010/05/for-nike-women-seem-to-be-good-just-for.html
Nike 2010 WC ad typical in its sexism.

http://www.undomesticgoddess.com/2010/04/world-cup-runneth-over-with-sexism.html
South Africa has poor controls over sex trafficking and rape. This means that loads of visitors to SA will be using women for sex who aren’t sex workers by choice, and women who go to the games have to be very careful not to go anywhere alone.

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/anti-rape-condom-ready-sa-world-cup
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/62758,news-comment,news-politics,world-cup-fans-to-get-30000-rape-axe-barbed-condoms
A doctor has developed an anti-rape condom which she wants to distribute in SA during the World Cup. Doesn’t look like it’s available, though.

http://blog.taragana.com/sports/2010/06/09/uk-police-warn-of-world-cup-domestic-violence-109570/
The usual, unsubstantiated story of “domestic violence follows favored team’s loss” which gets trotted out every Super Bowl? According to this story, “[England’s] Home Office says that during the last World Cup, on England match days, the number of domestic violence cases rose by around 25 percent, and when England was eliminated from the competition, that figure rose to more than 30 percent.” I will try to find more information on this.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2918868/Bid-to-ban-England-tops-in-World-Cup-pubs.html
“Killjoy cops have urged landlords to bar anyone wearing a Three Lions top. They want to avoid a repeat of violence which has marred previous events, particularly if England lose.”

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGNAU2010061117037&lang=e
“There has been an increase in police harassment of informal traders (hawkers), homeless South Africans, and refugees and migrants who are living in shelters or high density inner city accommodation. This harassment has included police raids, arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment and extortion, as well as destruction of informal housing. The tearing down of informal housing has taken place without prior notice, provision of adequate alternative housing or compensation and in violation of domestic law prohibiting forced evictions.”

You might think this is just me complaining about something I don't care about anyway, and that it's all multicultural and shit and why am I pissing all over it? Surely I'm just being America-centric?

Well. Women in non-US cultures aren’t uniformly “wooah World Cup”. Plenty of them find it an exercise in male privilege and glorification:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/06/world-cup-football-england

Liberal alarm bells can’t help but start ringing when a bunch of overpaid PE teachers get together to orchestrate a month of corporate-sponsored quasi-xenophobia; however, as soon as World Cup fever rolls around, members of the otherwise uninterested bourgeois left feel obliged to muster at least a sniffle of enthusiasm, sensing that not to do so is somehow elitist.

This is a misplaced notion: football is no longer the people’s sport. Just look at the brutal contempt that the police reserve for fans, or count the number of working-class Britons who can afford to attend home matches, much less the festivities in South Africa. Then there’s the uncomfortable fact that the World Cup is only and always about men.

http://florycalavera.blogspot.com/2010/06/of-soccer-and-sexism.html

There’s one thing I’m not thrilled about, however: the fact that the World Cup craze, in addition to fueling enthusiasm for soccer, has also intensified the Chilean media’s already pervasive objectification of women.

http://bradmillershero.blogspot.com/2010/06/bebe-world-cup-ad.html

World Cup. What are the men doing? They are the stars, playing the game, receiving the accolades, partying, murdering important political figures’ great granddaughters, etc. And the women? Oh, they get to play football, too- well, play play football. In stupid dresses. While wearing high heels. And a metric fuck ton of makeup.

[

Forwarded crap emails

oldfeminist — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:45:00 GMT

I guess everyone who's of a certain age and has a wide enough array of friends who know how to email has this problem. Crap emails that get forwarded to you.

You know the kind. Emails that explain how the president isn't a citizen, or is a bad citizen (won't salute the flag), or his wife is mean. Emails that complain loudly about immigrants not speaking English and stealing things. Emails that say that our service men and women put their lives on the line for our freedom of speech so shut up. Emails with weepy stories and pictures of miracles.

I had one guy at work send me an extremely unfunny, hostile joke about Arabs. ONE OF OUR CO-WORKERS WAS AN ARAB, BORN IN SUDAN. And the joke-sender didn't even dislike that co-worker, they got along fine.

I have to wonder what the thought process is, if that's what you can even call it. Do they read it, get some kind of "fuck yeah" feeling, and then forward it on?

When I've responded, some people seem surprised. I've sometimes done the "reply to all" with the results of a little Googling, and I've actually gotten people mad at me for "embarrassing" the sender that way, as if the sender wrote it.

The usual resonse is that investigating claims made in an email is "taking it too seriously." At first that surprised me -- why would the supposed investigation the original author did be okay, but someone else looking into it be wrong?

I think it's that they believe the written word is something that comes from some outside authority. Such authority isn't given to mere mortals like you and I. It's as if they pulled a page out of a textbook and are waving it around.

There are two consequences to this:

The person believes they've got authority now, conferred upon them by the email. They are empowered, smart, and right.
The person has an out, because they didn't actually write the email. So if it's wrong, it's not their fault. "If you don't like it, delete it."

All the benefits of having written it, but none of the downside.

Posting more about more

oldfeminist — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:41:00 GMT

I've decided that there's no reason not to post about stuff that isn't based primarily on feminist analysis. I'm an old feminist, sure, and I'll be posting from that point of view. And I hope I don't miss opportunities to analyze something on a feminist (or liberal) basis. But more posting will be good for me, and I hope good for my readers (helloooo! readers).

Dream Mall -- Blog Against Disablism Day, May 1 2010

oldfeminist — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:03:00 GMT

As my mother got old, and less and less able, I saw how hard it was for her to get around, even in supposedly handicap accessible facilities. For example, a visit to the mall is a ubiquitous American experience. It's part of a lot of people's social lives.

But if you're disabled, it's not so easy. You probably have to navigate a ramp that takes you dozens of yards out of your way, after parking in a spot that's really not very close to the entrance anyway. The one door that is handicap-accessible might work. Or it might not. The others are heavy.

If your walking isn't very stable, the masses of people pushing, running, and just not watching where they are going make it actively dangerous to go there any time but very off hours.

Clerks are often not very helpful, managers don't see the problem, other patrons are blissfully unaware of their privilege.

I know the profit motive isn't answer to everything, but I keep wondering if there might be some actual profit to be made by dealing with these issues rather than avoiding them. The people who make the Jitterbug cell phone saw a need and filled it, for example.

Why not have high-accessibility malls? People take bus trips to malls all the time, so you wouldn't have to have one right in your neighborhood to benefit. It seems like an obvious solution.

The people who work there would have to understand that seniors and disabled people aren't inferior, they are in fact the source of their income (yeah, I know, some retail workers feel that customers are insects anyway, but this would be explicit in the training). I sometimes think that "Speak clearly and make eye contact" and "Listen when someone's talking to you" would solve a lot of problems right off the bat.

Get rid of all the architectural level changing that makes negotiating these spaces so difficult. Automatic doors everywhere. Attention to trip-ups like bunched-up rugs, doorjambs, changes in floor texture, slope, ridges, bumps.

Wider aisles in all shops. Reachable racks.

Encourage stores with stylish clothing for all ages, that fits different shaped bodies.

Food court counters that are low enough for wheelchair users to negotiate effectively.

Plentiful seating everywhere, including anywhere there might be a line. Many pleasant, convenient places to just sit and rest.

Carts for in-mall use. Home delivery easily available from every store.

Or maybe a "forward for pickup" mechanism where you get a ticket when you arrive, have it scanned when you make a purchase so that purchase can be put with your others at that location, and pick them up all together when you leave? I can see the possibilities for theft here, and confusion, like with your airport luggage, so maybe not...but think of how much personal energy this would save!

Many elevators instead of one, sometimes hard to find elevator. I regularly visit a store that has a cart escalator -- I wonder, could something like that be developed for wheelchairs and small personal vehicles?

Helpful, ubiquitous security. Concierge service. Valet parking. Aware management.

And of course, there must be hiring and entrepreneurial opportunities for disabled people, because they're not only consumers, they are full participants in the economy.

Now that I think of it, most of this would help not only disabled people, but people with children in strollers or children in arms.

And now that I think of it, a lot of these techniques are already used...in gambling casinos.

Joe Stack, translated

oldfeminist — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:42:00 GMT

BELOW IS THE LETTER FOUND ON THE INTERNET, SUPPOSEDLY FROM THE PILOT IN THURSDAY'S CRASH

If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, "Why did this have to happen?" The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn't enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless& especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I'm not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Nobody listens to me.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was "no taxation without representation". I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a "crackpot", traitor and worse.

No one can see how special I am.

While very few working people would say they haven't had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Are you listening? Nobody listens to me.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country's leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political "representatives" (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the "terrible health care problem". It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

Government is unresponsive.

And justice? You've got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly "holds accountable" its victims, claiming that they're responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law "requires" a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that's not "duress" than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

Taxes are so complicated that I can't figure out a way to not pay them. There's something wrong here. I can overcome the law of gravity (yay planes!), why do I still have to pay taxes?

How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early '80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having 'tax code' readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful "exemptions" that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the "best", high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the "big boys" were doing (except that we weren't steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

I hooked up with some people who think they are better at interpreting tax law than the lawyers who wrote them. "We" came up with a much more favorable interpretation of tax law and acted accordingly. We were sure they'd realize they'd screwed themselves and not sue us.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two "interpretations" for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us& Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

The lawyers won.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their "freedom"& and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

We lost. This cost me money.

This means lawyers and government are evil, and anyone who thinks they are not is deluded.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of "paying my dues"), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I'm sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

Since I was a child, I have been rewarded for finding reductive, almost simplistic solutions to problems. I am naturally talented at this. Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I can move the world.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

I once knew an old lady who was cheated by corrupt people but fortunately the government safety net was there to provide some support.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be "healthier" eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn't quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn't trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early '80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a 'wet-behind-the-ears' contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report
(http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL. (a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
"another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship. "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop. "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you. Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it's not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can't believe my eyes.

I found out that a piece of legislation made the job I studied for not make quite as much money for me as I had hoped. This is exactly the same as slavery! And you can't tell me they weren't thinking of me personally when they wrote it.

It's just too obvious. They knew they had to hit me, and hit me hard, to get me down, even temporarily.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my 'pocket change', and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their "freedom". Oh, and don't forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn't bill clients.

I spent a lot of time fighting this piece of legislature.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren't going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

I got nowhere. But the government said they wouldn't target ME ME ME. But then they did.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle.
I had spent all my retirement money on this fight and no one wanted to hire me because I wouldn't stop jabbering about how unfairly I was being treated as a newbie engineer making almost double the current average income for a four-person family.
If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

The problem wasn't me, it was the entire profession. And the government. I can see that now.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn't need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to "shore up" their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.

There was a depression. Government, like everyone else, had to spend less money. Many people lost jobs. Especially the YOUNG MEN WITH FAMILIES LIKE ME WHO GOT USED TO A CERTAIN LEVEL OF INCOME FROM BILLING 100 HOURS A WEEK. I was unwilling to pick up stakes and move because dammit.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed.
After 13 years I was finally back on my feet. My wife left me for unknown reasons.
Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, 'special' facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars & as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

I like to fly my own plane to jobs and for a couple of months I couldn't do that because they were afraid unhappy people might fly planes into government buildings. That's silly, isn't it? Then they wanted me to wait around for hours at the airport in San Francisco for "security" reasons, costing me huge amounts of money by making those hours unbillable.

They refused to pay me for my time, the cheap cheapskates. I couldn't let that happen, so I refused to go wait and flew back home.

I don't like letting anyone else fly the plane so I stayed home and used up almost all of the money in savings and what I had saved up for retirement.

By this time, I'm thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I'll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I've never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages& and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn't give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

I moved to Austin. The people here are stupid, but smart enough to be aware of and therefore jealous of my ability. So they insulted me by lowballing my salary and refused to hire me at my true rate. They are stealing their customers blind by charging one-third of the rate I used to charge. My potential customers stupidly thought they were getting a good deal, didn't believe me when I explained it to them, and refused to hire me as an independent to work on projects with the idiots who hate me.

See, I could have watched what those corrupt cheating companies were doing and blown the whistle on them. Halting a project in mid-completion would be well worth it in terms of truth, justice, and the American way.

But those shortsighted potential customers couldn't see that. They are probably in bed with the contract companies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn't have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn't notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

I couldn't get a job so I took money out of my IRA prematurely. I refused to pay taxes on this income because NOT FAIR. The government disagreed. Also, they didn't warn me ahead of time other than by putting out IRS memos explaining that you have to pay taxes when you cash in tax-deferred investments before retirement age. They asked me for the taxes and when I didn't pay, added fines and interest. This eventually added up to $10,000, what I normally would make in a week or less in my imaginary highly paid job of king software engineer had the Austin software engineers and the contract agencies just recognized my genius.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I'd never enter another accountant's office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle.

As a child, I hated piano lessons.

After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake. When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl's unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn't have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

Bill Ross, A BIG MEANIE, asked me for a number for my wife's undocumented income in the middle of a tax preparation interview and when it turned out that meant I wasn't going to get a big refund, I freaked out and left his office.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is& well, just look around.

I had alienated the only CPA who would talk to me and I realized I still didn't understand the tax code the way an actual trained lawyer or CPA does. Which is silly because I'm way smarter and make a lot more money than they do, I just used them for convenience, but they're just pawns of the IRS who want to punish me for being superior.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the "great" depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn't it ironic how far we've come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn't have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it's "business-as-usual". Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes& isn't that a clever, tidy solution.

They don't have windows that open in skyscrapers any more.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

The FAA did or said something that pisses me off, but no one can stand to listen to me about it, much less generate any sympathy for a guy who pissed away several incomes tilting at ill-defined windmills. I'm invoking a reflexive TL;DR.

I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn't limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at "big brother" while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue; I have just had enough.

Black people and poor people don't know the pain of being a white male engineer whose income isn't being appropriately sheltered. If I make mistakes, I am responsible for them. This is unfair.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.

Gosh, I love alliteration. It took me most of a day to come up with these but aren't they pretty?

Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn't so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

It turns out the bullies who beat me up in school had it right. All that time I spent practicing the piano would have been better spent beating up other kids for their lunch money. There is no joy in anything but crushing your opponent. Don't believe your wife when she says different.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

I'm not gullible, but they got my money. So they must be extra-super-greedy! Or something. I can't explain where the money went, I'm just going to jump into my private plane and crash into something big and symbolic and who cares if a few "people" get hurt.

Joe Stack (1956-2010) 02/18/2010

No tag backs!

Why is Jenny McCarthy so effective?

oldfeminist — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:33:00 GMT

A recent discussion on the Skeptical Inquirer page on Facebook got me thinking. Why are celebrities so effective in leading people astray with anti-science and woo?

I think it's because they are good at presenting narrative. That is, after all, their job. So they create a particular narrative, that of the conspiracy-cracker, and everything falls into place for them.

The narrative requires that the conspiracy-breaker be reviled by "the establishment," so any evidence from the medical research community is cast as more conspiracy. It's proof the conspiracy-breaker is right, because otherwise why would the big bad establishment people be so upset?

The narrative requires that others who had that information might come forward but couldn't for some reason. The conspiracy-cracker is lucky enough to both see the conspiracy, and have the ability to tell others about it.

The narrative requires a scene where the big stuffy scientist says "that's impossible" and the scrappy guy who never got past fourth grade proves him wrong. This is very, VERY hard to overcome in the public imagination. Rooting for the underdog is what we do.

So how can we fight it?

I think we have to recast this narrative as something else. Reason is not an effective tool for everyone, never was, never will be.

The problem with creating a different narrative is that one where the conspiracy-cracker is wrong ends badly. It's not a feel-good, overcoming-adversity kind of story. Instead, someone used his or her power to mislead a bunch of people because he or she has been duped. Pain, suffering and even death were caused by this person's weakness. It's a tragedy. And American audiences don't care for tragedy.

ETA: Ooh, just found a nice article in Discover online: Hollywood's Offensive and Deeply Unoriginal "Skeptic Conversion" Narrative, which discusses the popular plotline of skeptic and believer interaction that always seems to end up with the skeptic becoming a believer.

Gifting, crafting, gender and the holidays

oldfeminist — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:13:00 GMT

This post on Skepchick got me thinking about gifting and how it relates to gender and the holidays (hence my cleverly-worded post title):

Do you get crafty with gifts? Did you receive anything this year that someone made specifically for you? Have you ever given a gift that you’re particularly proud of?

My impression from the comments is that most of those who take the time to handcraft presents for others are female. I can't be sure because not everyone uses a gendered name, and, of course, the gendered name may not match the person's gender orientation anyway.

There is a gendered-male comment about someone who went the extra mile to get individualized presents. He went about buying pens with the person's name on them, having a book made from the person's recipes, giving customized t-shirts and so on. So he didn't actually do the work.

The only one I see from a gendered-male nym about making a present for someone is mrthumbtack, who forged his parents a coat-rack. Oh, and one from a parent of a young woman whose boyfriend made her a pillow, amused at the boy "trying" to sew.

Davew doesn't think shopping is skilled work, and feels mandatory gift-giving is a guilt machine.

Searching the web isn't much better. I had to wade through several blog search pages on Google to find the first one where a man actually did some crafting -- this entry in the blog EmbellishYourself includes an account of the husband of a couple making individualized screen printed t-shirts.

Garrison Keillor, bigot?

oldfeminist — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:17:00 GMT

Garrison Keillor seems to have generated quite an outrage in his piece, Nonbelievers, please leave Christmas alone:

If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah? No, we didn't.

Christmas is a Christian holiday - if you're not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don't mess with the Messiah.

At first I thought Keillor was only mocking, by exaggeration, the "War On Christmas" hysteria by imitating it.

His piece brought out a lot of comments earnestly explaining things to him that he surely already knows, about the non-Christian origin and ecumenically broad nature of today's Christmas celebrations. Much of it seems to assume that he is the kind of "modern traditionalist" who loves "Frosty the Snowman" and only requires that we say Christmas rather than Holiday and that merriment and niceness and good will toward men is what Christmas is all about. For example:

In all the years I've listened to Prairie Home Companion, and enjoyed Garrison Keillor's folky tales of an almost mythical midwest that I, as a Californian, could only vaguely imagine, I never suspected this streak of mean-spiritedness.

and

Wow, what a diatribe. Doesn't he understand that the "non-religious" bonhomie that is created by the songs, the decorations, the shared sense of frenzy to make OTHERS happy at Christmas probably does more to promote "good will among men" then any church service has ever done.

But if you listen to his show, you notice that he sticks with either the more-traditional Christmas songs, in the original languages, or modern songs that are doctrinally compatible with his beliefs. And it takes a particularly tin ear to think that Keillor's prose unquestioningly endorses the supposed homespun values of the parents and authority figures of his youth.

So "leave my religion alone" is, I think, at core intentional.

However, I'm not sure it should be taken as "don't sing those songs." It's more, "don't tell me what Christmas is to me." His piece actually tells people to go on and have Yule ceremonies or whatever they like; he doesn't seem upset that people with different views would celebrate at this time of year and "ruin" Christmas for anyone else.

He's invested in an internally-defined authenticity. And he's not alone. For many, religion is by its nature personal and irrational, not a social thing. In MBTI terms, think introverted Feeling.

To those people, I as an atheist have no more of a right to tell someone that Christmas is about being loving to others in a time of need than they have to tell me that this season is only about the gift of the Christ child by a loving God and His eventual living sacrifice for my sins. We have our own beliefs and hands off.

The "real spirit of Christmas" arguments can be used to obliterate a lot of what it means to people who really are very religious, just as the commercialization of Christmas can be used to obliterate a lot of what it means to people who aren't religious but are into the spirit of love and sharing, and the "Jesus is the reason for the season" bit can be used to obliterate what it means to people who aren't religious. It goes full circle.

It isn't just Christmas. Non-Christians telling Christians that they should read Matthew 6:5-6 on praying in public are just as annoying as Christians telling non-Christians to read Leviticus on homosexuality. Claiming there's no such thing as a sin or a sinner, just mistakes and people, is literally doctrinally incorrect for many religions.

In short, there is some of the same instinct to totalitarianism in the smiley face as there is in the jackboot.

As an atheist, it seems to me that saying, "Christmas is really about *this* and Jesus would approve," is arrogating the power of religion for one's own beliefs, putting your own words into Jesus' mouth, even if it's to get Jesus to endorse viewpoints I agree with.

I think it's much more honest to just say, "this act is morally bad/wrong because...," or "this act is morally good/right because...." All else is a bullshit wrapper.

(At least, according to my own internally-defined sense of authenticity. It's not restricted to religious people, you know!)

Hitchens' unrequited love for Sarah Palin

oldfeminist — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:24:00 GMT

Okay, not really, but it's gotta mean something that Chris Hitchens calls her a tease in his Newsweek article:

The Palin problem, then, might be that she cynically incites a crowdthat she has no real intention of pleasing. If she were ever to getherself to the nation's capital, the teabaggers would be just as muchon the outside as they are now, and would simply have been theinstruments that helped get her elected.

and then graduates to explicitly calling her a cock-tease on Slate:

At least Richard Nixon had the ill fortune to look like what he was: ahaunted scoundrel and repressed psychopath. Whereas the usefulness ofSarah Palin to the right-wing party managers is that she combines acertain knowingness with a feigned innocence and a still-palpable blushof sex. But she should take care to read her Alexander Pope: That bloomwill soon enough fade, and it will fade really quickly if she uses itto prostitute herself to the Nixonites on one day and then tocock-tease the rabble on the next.

I don't usually think of Hitchens as one of those entitled MRA gasbags who looks at women as holders of the pussy, though I should have seen it coming when he said women aren't funny because they don't have to be funny because, well, they're the holders of the pussy. But it's not looking good here.

Law & Order Abortion Episode

oldfeminist — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:20:00 GMT

I finally got around to seeing the Law&Order episode based on the Dr. Tiller abortion killer case. Rather than recap it, I've placed links to articles on other blogs describing it in detail at the end of this article, since it's been covered better already.

Suffice it to say, it didn't fare very well.

What I expected, and was not surprised to see, was the total erasure of the agency of the pregnant woman. It's as if the trial was whether the particular woman in question should have an abortion or not. Not whether the abortion doctor killer killed a man doing something totally legal.

This is common in discussing abortion, to evaluate each abortion as though we have a right to decide for the woman whether this is a "good" or "bad" abortion.

At the end of the trial, the prosecuting attorney says in his closing argument that the decision about where life begins is one we don't all agree upon. Yes. And that different people and religions have different ideas. Yes.

And yet he doesn't go the obvious next step to say, this is why we leave it up to the woman who is pregnant to make the decision. Not someone else. Not a judge, not a jury, not a church, not a government panel, but the woman who's pregnant, advised by her doctor.

A woman who is going to have a disabled fetus can choose to carry it to term. A woman who is going to have a healthy fetus can choose to abort it. A woman who is disabled or has medical issues still has the right to have a baby, or have an abortion. The choice belongs to her.

Not that any of that would be in any way relevant to the case anyway, since the doctor wasn't doing anything illegal.

ETA: And notice at the end, Rubirosa, a prosecuting attorney who was sickened by all the "pro-abortion" posturing, says she wants to leave her position and be transferred to white collar crime. But her boss decides for her that she has to stay and work it out with the other prosecuting attorney. Because what women want to do isn't relevant. It's what is best for the system.

Good relevant articles:

Lauredhel on Hoyden About Town, "Dignity," Worth, and the Medical Model of Disability. Especially recommended as it goes into detail about disability and the just-as-much-not-choice assumption of some doctors that imperfect fetuses should be discarded. "Abortion is seen as a medical imperative, not a decision made by the person hosting the fetus at the time."
Feminist Law Professors, "Law and Order's Shameful Abortion Episode"
Kate Harding on Salon, "Law & Order's Anti-Choice Propaganda"

Feelings are information

oldfeminist — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:13:00 GMT

So there's this book that's been out for a while, you've probably seen it or even read it. You Just Don't Understand: Women And Men In Conversation, by Deborah Tannen. It is very popular and, like the Venus and Mars books, purports to explain how men and women differ in the way they talk and why.

A lot of people got as their takeaway from the book that men talk to convey information, women talk to share feelings.

I think she's almost right. The things women talk about are counted as feelings [1]. That doesn't mean they aren't information! Nor does it mean that a piece of information that is expressed with feeling is expressed for the sole purpose of getting feelings back.

Supposed "conveying information":

Man: Let's go swimming.
Woman: I don't know how to swim.
Man: I can teach you.
[Woman thinks, who asked you?]

Supposed "sharing emotions":

Man: Let's go swimming.
Woman: I don't know how to swim.
Man: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.
[Woman thinks, I better not look upset, he doesn't like that. Man thinks, better never talk about swimming again.]

Notice how #2 wasn't actually discussing what she said? It acknowledged she had an emotion but stopped there.

Actual discussion:

Man: Let's go swimming.
Woman: I don't know how to swim.
Man: How did that happen?
Woman: My father tried to drown me when I was six.

Which can go one of a few ways. First, when the man treats the communication of emotions as meaningful information:

Man: That's terrible, I'm sorry to bring it up.
Woman: I was always afraid of him after that.
Man: No wonder.
[further discussion about feelings where they get to know each other better, by, you know, exchanging information]

But if they both feel like discussing it in depth, they can also initiate action or gain understanding from the inclusion of emotion:

Man: That's terrible, I'm sorry to bring it up.
Woman: It really scared me. I would like to enjoy swimming but I don't know if I ever can.
Man: What have you tried?
Woman: I went to lessons but no one really addressed my fear, so I quit.
[further discussion about options, taking her emotions into consideration as valid reasons to do or not do something]

Or, the man could treat the communication as just emotion which is the enemy of truth which should be removed from the discussion:

Man: Are you sure?
Woman: Yes, he held me under until I choked and my mother stopped him.
Man: He was probably just trying to teach you how to swim.
[continued explanation of how she probably just overreacted]

Of course these discussions can happen between any two people of any gender. The fact is, though, Tannen treats "emotion-laden discourse" and "information-laden discourse" as separate, neatly severing emotions from the highly-revered category of information.

Sorta like how rotating 3-D images in space is considered the ultimate in intelligence, because it's one of the "intelligences" that males tend to do better at.

[1] I have to wonder, if we had just a male or female voice saying, "That's not fair!" how many people would count the male voice as saying something factual while the woman is thought to be saying something emotional.

Maria Shriver, where are you?

oldfeminist — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:13:00 GMT

Maria Shriver (in conjunction with hp) has created a report and set up a related website, A Woman's Nation. It's about the place of women at work, how the US needs to adjust to having so many kids with either a single parent or both parents working yet there's not enough child care, and other implications of women in the workplace that have been underrepresented in politics, social policy, and the media.

There are some good articles there. For example, a quote from "Where Have You Gone, Roseanne Barr?" by Susan J. Douglas:

"Women’s professional success and financial status are significantlyoverrepresented in the mainstream media, suggesting that women indeed“have it all.” Yet in real life, even as most women work, there are fartoo few women among the highest ranks of the professions and millionsof everyday women struggle to make ends meet and to juggle work andfamily....what much of the media give us today are little more than fantasies of power....representations of women as working-class or middle-class breadwinners,such as those we used to see in “Roseanne,” “Grace Under Fire,” “OneDay at a Time,” “Kate & Allie,” and “Cagney & Lacey,” havevirtually vanished from the small screen."

I recommend the website and this article in particular.

But -- look at the image they have at the top of every page!

How much is wrong here? Like, beauty standard much? All young? No one seems to have a disability?

Fixed that for you

oldfeminist — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:19:00 GMT

The comic xkcd.com put up a comic recently which has excited some discussion in the blogosphere. Here it is:

The comic seems to suggest that the man is worried about saying anything to the woman, when she'd gladly like to have him say something to her.

This is pretty much unrealistic. The average woman-on-the-train isn't hoping the guy next to her will talk to her. She's usually either passively ignoring him and the others on the train, or is hoping he or anyone else won't bother her.

So, xkcd.com, I fixed that for you:

You're welcome.