Women are so sensitive!

•2 September, 2012 • Leave a Comment

You poke somebody with a stick enough times, and they’re eventually going to lash out at you. That’s kinda how human beings react to things, and it has nothing to do with gender.

The problem is, that it’s a vicious cycle. A lot of women, especially feminists, have their sexism-radar heightened due to our awareness of sexism around us in the first place, so things bother us that wouldn’t bother us if we weren’t aware of sexism. Round and round it goes!

Think about it. How many of the following would bother you if you had never heard them before, or any stereotypes or history related to them?

“Get back in the kitchen.”

“Women are so over-emotional.”

“Cover yourself up; you’re not treating yourself with respect.”

“You look like a slut.”

Frankly, if I had never heard those or any other generalizations about women before, my reaction would be more of amused shock, and I would possibly chuckle. After all, it’s obviously absurd, and not related to anything. Nobody would have ever told me that women are over-emotional before, so I would laugh it off and assume it was a joke. It would be like me saying, “Men wear socks too much.”

Now, imagine it’s all you hear. Or all you see on the internet. Sexism is much more prevalent here in cyberspace due to anonymity. Women were treated like domestic slaves for centuries, waiting on men hand and foot. The fact that this isn’t the norm in many places anymore is evidence of feminism’s strengths, of how hard women have fought for equality. But we are still told to keep our mouths shut, and that our opinions don’t matter. In fact, men on the internet who say feminist things are often mistaken for women, so they get the brunt of some of this sexism, too.

We are not allowed to object to sexist culture. Even if I want to point out sexism, it is best that I hold my tongue, because I will start a shit-storm that will no doubt eventually involve the words, “women are so sensitive!” Instead, a lot of women who wish to point out sexism resort to sarcasm and aggression, because we feel like it is hopeless and we are pissed off.

I have had the following things said to me, both on the internet and in real life, during conversations ranging from gender dynamics to evolution to buying sunglasses:

“STFU and get back in the kitchen. Make me a sandwich.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re a woman.”

“All women believe that.”

“Curvy women are better, cause you have something to grab onto.”

“Do you have PMS right now?”

“Wow, you’re smart for a woman.”

“Women are like delicate flowers.”

“Women are all so over-sensitive.”

“Women are too irrational for science.”

“Men have better spatial reasoning than women, so that’s why there are more men in science.”

“All men cheat on their partners. If you believe he hasn’t, he’s just a really good liar. Good for him! Women are just so naive.”

“Women can’t drive.”

“Women don’t have the same reasoning capacity as men, which is why there are so few women in philosophy.”

(The last two were said to me by an ex-partner). This has all been said to me during conversation, so I am not including the thousands of examples of full-blown sexual harassment that were random and done by a stranger or passerby.

Now, imagine that you’re bombarded by this kind of gendered thinking all the time. Now imagine that you also are aware of more general cultural problems regarding women, such as rape culture, body shaming, slut-shaming, income and job inequality, and the general tendency for women to be seen as inferior to men*, and for (white) men to be seen as the default for human. Perhaps, then, even the most mundane comments might make you want to punch a wall? How about this one:

“Women are so hopelessly imprecise.”

This was in response to me commenting on my partner’s picture. A picture…of coffee. I said that my partner was odd, and the person who responded wanted to know who I was referring to.

How absurd, right? I mean, there is no stereotype that I know of that says that women are imprecise. Obviously it was just a silly joke.

Except not. Why was it necessary to bring gender into it at all? A conversation about photographs of coffee? Why is it that the vast majority of the time, other equally absurd comments generalizing about a gender are about women? Because you cannot separate statements about gender from our culture. If you have heard negative generalizations about women all your life, you might be fed up with people who want to be “edgy” and “ironic” and who make up yet even MORE statements about women. What was he thinking? Probably that it was so silly that nobody would take it seriously. But I wonder if he had said the same thing about Black people or Jews, if it would have gone down that way.

Now imagine a couple of goyim** talking, and a Jewish person chimes in. One of the goyim says, “Wait, who were you talking to again? Jews are so imprecise.” In real life, I imagine he would look knowingly at the other goy. There are no stereotypes about Jews being imprecise – yet, it is still highly inappropriate. Why? Because he is – jokingly – generalizing about an entire group of people who have been oppressed on a regular basis, and – this is the important part – their oppression was legitimized by stereotypes. Generalizations. And if a goy said something like that, many Jews, and even goyim, would be able to feel it in their bones: That was not okay. So why is it okay to apply it to women?

One of the big problems with stereotypes is that it reduces individual people to their gender/race/etc. Suddenly, I wasn’t a person making a comment. I was a woman, a representative of all women, a homogeneous group of people who have a hive mind. I was being reminded that this is the way I am seen much of the time. When I speak, it’s a woman speaking, not an individual. When I have thoughts, they’re a woman’s thoughts. Never mind the fact that there is more variety between individual women than there is difference between men and women.

 

*All of these problems are even worse for Women of Colour

**Goy = Non-Jew; goyim is plural

Posted in Social Environmentalist
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Let’s talk about obesity

•12 August, 2012 • 14 Comments

****NOTE:****
I am no longer accepting comments along the lines of, “But being fat isn’t healthy…” You need to prove that you have not only read my post, but looked at the citations I have provided, or have an iota of critical thinking skills. That way, I’ll know that you aren’t making the same tired, ignorant counter argument over
and over
and over
and over
and over again.

****

I’ve written briefly on the subject before, but I would like to expand, especially to include some scientific research. I know that, ironically, studies show that people are not swayed by logical analysis as much as they are swayed by sensationalism, especially when said sensationalism re-enforces their current beliefs. But I would like to see if perhaps I could sway some people anyway.

I have been interested in the subjects of eating disorders and obesity for most of my life. This interest began due to my mother’s influence; she is an expert in the fields of eating disorders (especially binge-eating disorder), obesity, and early childhood trauma. I think it would be dishonest for anybody to claim that their interest in a scientific subject was not in some way influenced by personal experiences. However, I did my own research as well. My citations have all been sourced by me, aside from this one, which underlines some of my concerns much better than I have (I didn’t read it until after I wrote this post).

This post is mostly based on my response to a comment on the other post I liked to.

What does fat have to do with health?

Short version: Not very much at all.

Health scientists unfortunately use a way of measuring health (the Body Mass Index) that is so archaic and unreliable, that results are paradoxical. Many studies are concluding, based on the BMI, that overweight and obese people are healthier than normal weight people; that severely obese people have the same mortality as normal weight people; or that underweight people have the highest mortality overall, including when it comes to cardiovascular health. That is exactly what this meta-study, which comprised 40 studies on over 250,000 people, concluded. They also concluded that the BMI was unreliable.

So how does the fat stigma regarding health affect fat people? Some people, like my commenter, see no connection between insisting that fat people are unhealthy and treating them with respect. However, this is patently false, especially in healthcare. The fact is, fat people are treated horribly by doctors based on the asssumption that fat is unhealthy. There has also been at least one study on physicians’ treatment of fat people. When fat is equated with health, fat people are treated as inherently unhealthy. This is untrue. Simple as that.

I do not believe that unhealthy people should be treated with any less respect than healthy people. That’s known as ableism. Ableism is a horrible problem. You can see it in the healthcare debate in the US – so many people are saying that they don’t want their hard-earned tax dollars going towards helping obese people who “can’t help themselves.” Of course, their tax dollars aren’t actually involved, and as we now know, fat people aren’t necessarily unhealthy. But ableism is rampant in the US and other countries, and it needs to be stopped. I think this has a lot to do with the Social Darwinistic principles underlying industrial culture.

When it comes to doctors, they need to focus on health. They do not need to focus on fat at all. That’s where Health at Every Size  comes in. If a fat person has a poor diet that lacks essential nutrients, they need to be treated like a skinny person with the same problems. And we should all know that skinny people are equally likely to have poor diets (lord knows I have one).

Genetics

Part of the argument for fat-phobia is that fat is mostly an environmental factor. I think this is a ridiculous argument, since it shouldn’t matter if it’s environmental or not – first of all, fat is not a health concern, and second of all, “environmental” does not translate to “voluntary,” as so many poorly-informed people seem to think it does. However, when it comes to the genetic factor, you can look at many peer-reviewed studies, including ones cited in this editorial. Genetics are not a “slight” influence; they are very significant.

Respect

I think most decent human beings would agree that other human beings should be treated with respect, assuming that they haven’t harmed you. Yet I see so many people with this view treating fat people as sub-human. Words like “disgusting,” “gross,” “ugly,” “blob,” and many others are commonly used to describe other people who have done no harm. We need to be much more concerned about language than we are. It can affect people very strongly, and can even reinforce harmful, self-destructive habits. We are all responsible for how we treat people, and how those people respond to our treatment. What exactly is the purpose of shaming fat people? Does anybody honestly think that it will “encourage” them to get thinner? That kind of mindset lacks a very fundamental understanding of human psychology.

I will say it again: The “obesity epidemic” isn’t a real thing. It is a combination of poor research, unreliable indices, horrible statistics, and scare tactics. Weight-loss diets do not work.

Posted in Bullshit Review, Social Environmentalist
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The complexities of privilege and language

•20 March, 2012 • Leave a Comment

There has always been a bit of a stir about the idea of privilege. People do not like to acknowledge when they have it. Perhaps it’s because then they have to admit that they don’t deserve it anymore than anybody else. Or maybe it’s because then they have to accept that they shouldn’t have as much power as they do over others. It always takes a bit of personal growth to admit you have privilege. It’s like when a parent told you that you should not hit other children. First, you tried to defend yourself and your actions. It’s hard to admit when we’re wrong. But eventually you acknowledged that some behaviours are unacceptable. It’s the same with recognizing privilege.

Privilege is not synonymous with evil. Almost everybody has a form of privilege, whether it’s able-bodied privilege (you have power and privilege over disabled people), heterosexual privilege, white privilege, male privilege, cis* privilege, etc. Anybody who is not part of a marginalized class of people can have privilege.

A marginalized class is a class of people who are marginalized and oppressed on a societal scale. This doesn’t include white people who go to a primarily black school, or straight people at a Gay Pride parade. The societal scale is what makes all the difference. It has noted and observable effects on human psychology.

I am not upset when people tell me I have privilege. What upsets me is the fact that I have it. Not the fact that I have to ACKNOWLEDGE that I have it, but the fact that I have been born with undeserved advantages and power over other people, people who are just as good as me.

I am heterosexual, I am white, I am able-bodied, I am thin, I am middle-class, and I am cissexual and cisgender. Those are the areas where I have privilege. I am female, which is the main area where I am marginalized. I am also Jewish, which is a sticky subject which I tackle here. There are other things like mental health privilege, which is far more personal.

The power of language

This is where language comes in. Language is one of the most powerful tools that humans have. We use it to start wars, to start revolutions, to brainwash people, to fuel imagination, to break and mend hearts. Its psychological effects are also scientifically known. Cyber-bullying has become a recent epidemic, where kids are driven to suicide because of – you guessed it – language. But there are some things that at first may seem subtler than cyber-bullying that also have long-lasting effects. They are due to a lifelong accumulation of slurs, threats, and insults directed at marginalized people.

For example, the use of the term “gay” or “faggot,” to mean stupid or bad, is harmful. It is not harmful to straight people; if somebody called me a faggot, I wouldn’t bat an eye…at least not for myself. But I would be concerned about that person’s probable behaviour around gay people. In every country in the world, non-heterosexual people are treated like second-class citizens (to varying degrees, depending on the country). They are bullied, abused, and tortured even in so-called First World nations. People who choose to be open about their sexuality (or those who have been forcefully “outed”) sometimes get verbal abuse on a daily basis.

It is this accumulation of slurs that causes psychological harm. That is where the damage comes from. It is a socially ingrained belief that feminine men are disgusting or weak, that all gay men are feminine, that all gay women are either ugly and can’t get a man, or having sex with each other directly for men’s pleasure. They should stay in the closet; nobody should have to see that shit; they are unnatural, obscene, an abomination – that is what they are told every day by people, their governments, and the media. If heterosexuals can do anything to lessen that blow, then we should. We have no right to laugh off their objections; to silence their voices; or even to silence those who speak up for them.

The same goes with women. If I object to sexist language, do not mock me or shrug it off. Listen. Women are not listened to as much as men, and do not speak as much[pdf] (this goes against the pop-psych crap we’re fed about how women speak more than men and are more verbal; that simply isn’t true). In fact, even if we are made aware of our gender, our cognitive functions are decreased. This is a concept known as stereotype threat. It is a problem for people of colour as well, and probably all marginalized groups. So if, during a conversation, I become quieter and less able to think just because you casually mention my being female, imagine what telling rape jokes or calling me a “stupid bitch” would do. Imagine what seeing women objectified all over my environment would do.

I do not understand why people to this day still fail to see that, and cry “freedom of speech” every time somebody tells them that their language is unacceptable. Freedom of speech is a legal term. It does not protect you from criticism. It does not protect you from social pressures to behave decently.

Oppressive language within marginalized groups

I do not believe it is acceptable to police marginalized people’s language about themselves. This is not the same as saying I don’t think it can be problematic.

For example, if a gay person (or anybody not on the heterosexual end of the spectrm) makes a “faggot” joke, other gay people can deal with it. It is not my place, as a heterosexual who has rarely ever had to personally deal with homophobia, to tell that person what words they can use regarding his own sexuality.

It is not a double-standard to say that privileged people cannot use oppressive language but marginalized people can use and reclaim it. They are two entirely different things. Marginalized people need to feel safe to let off steam, joke about and reclaim oppressive language. They do not need their discussions to be nit-picked and berated for every time they use a word that the poor, helpless privileged folk aren’t allowed to use.

And it is not oppressive to tell, or even pressure people into using non-oppressive language. The n-word is finally being accepted by a majority as being too horrible for a white person to use. Now let’s treat other words the same way.

*The asterisk after trans includes both transsexual and transgender people. Cis* refers to people who are both cissexual and cisgender – the opposite of trans*.

More resources:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

“Differences of Opinion”

Microaggression and the role it plays in oppression

Posted in Bullshit Review, Social Environmentalist, Uncategorized
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Freedom and tyranny in Cuba and the USA

•23 February, 2012 • 2 Comments

Ah, yes. The United States of America. The Greatest Country on Earth. Bastion of Freedom and Liberty (both); Great Land of Freedom of Speech™.

And Cuba. One of the most horrible, wretched countries in the world. All citizens are trapped, and are in poverty. The Evil Devil Dictator (AKA Fidel Castro) stole the wealth from the Productive Class to redistribute to the Lazy Class.

Let’s see what the differences really are.

Complaint #1: Medicine is in short supply in Cuba due to the embargo.

Yes it is. But if you have an emergency, you can still go to the emergency room without having your house foreclosed on you. You can get life-saving surgery without paying a cent. You get free therapy and mental health care, preventing many psychology-related health problems (like problems caused by stress).

The free health care, combined with the highest doctor-patient ratio in the world, means that Cuba has

1. A lower infant mortality rate than the US

2. Fewer overall deaths (per 1000 people per year), even though it has a higher median age

3. The life expectancy is lower in Cuba by 0.62 years (still having trouble wrapping my head around how this makes sense statistically)

So even though the average person in Cuba is slightly older than the average person in the US, a higher percentage of people still die in the US, and people are expected to live a similar lifespan. And Cuba doesn’t have access to nearly as many drugs as the US. So something must be seriously wrong with the US health system, no?

Also, if you look at the fact that Cuba rations food, so people are more likely to be malnourished, yet life expectancy is still not much lower than the US, and deaths are lower – it makes you wonder what the US is doing so wrong again.

Complaint #2: There is no freedom of speech or of the press in Cuba, and you are more likely to be put in prison.

The first part is true. People do speak against the government in conversation, but I do not believe they are allowed to publish their opinions.

The second part is pure rubbish. The US has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. It jails 743 people per every 100,000. Cuba is at number 7, with 487. Poor minorities are much, much more likely to be jailed in the US than wealthy white people. So how free is a country really when it puts more people in jail than any other country?

Also, considering the fact that university education isn’t an obstacle for anybody in Cuba (while it’s a huge obstacle for the poor in the US), knowledge is in some ways more free in Cuba than in the US.

The poor in the US are worse off than the poor in Cuba. Poor people in Cuba rarely get evicted from their houses or end up on the street, and they never die simply because they can’t afford health care or food. They are less likely to be incarcerated. The poor in Cuba can even get a free university education. I always measure a culture or society by how it treats its most powerless. Whether you are kept from leaving the country due to threat of prison, or insufficient funds, the result is the same: You’re trapped.

Cuba is not a great country (though I honestly can’t think of one that is), and I would never claim that it is socialist. But considering how much flack it’s gotten over the years, and how little criticism the US has gotten comparatively, I think it’s time to rethink what freedom and power really mean, where our priorities lie, and what we really need to fear.

 

Sources: CIA World Factbook, International Centre for Prison Studies, ICPS (pdf)

Posted in Bullshit Review, Social Environmentalist
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“I don’t want to be a feminist anymore”

•21 February, 2012 • 4 Comments

“Most of all, I am tired of knowing.

Knowing that my eyes have been opened, and that what has been seen cannot be unseen. I am tired of knowing it, when I see something that is wrong. I am tired of knowing that only speaking out can change it. I am tired of knowing exactly how hard and scary it can be to do so.  I am tired of knowing that if I am not careful, the fight will eat up my hope and strength, and leave me only with bitterness. I am tired of knowing that I can never turn back to not knowing.

I am tired of knowing that despite my fears and exhaustion, I am a feminist.”

—Line, from Feministing

Posted in Uncategorized

The unsustainability of sustainability politics

•17 February, 2012 • 2 Comments

Forty years after the onset of environmentalism, even the largest, most powerful corporations and governments cannot ignore the natural environment in which we live. By this, of course, I mean that they cannot ignore that most people care about the environment now. It is no longer logical to fight against mainstream environmentalism. So what do these powerful bodies do to address people’s concerns?

Do they change their business models to protect the environment?

Do they begin to focus more on ecological health than profit?

Do they even stop practices that are the most detrimental to the environment?

No, of course not. You wouldn’t expect them to, would you?

A corporation is an organization with a corporate charter – a contract that legally binds the organization to prioritize profit (or, more accurately, shareholder returns) over absolutely everything else. Corporations are legally obligated to do anything within their power to prevent decrease in profit – this includes lying to the public, destroying communities and ecosystems, and ultimately breaking the law.

A government is an organization of powerful people who were (in a democratic nation) s/elected from a slightly larger pool of powerful people. The populace is given a choice between several evils, and tries to choose the lesser. Governments obey the laws of neo-classical economics; a system that prioritizes economic growth over all else. In other words, governments are beholden to the corporations that keep the economy going. This is why corporations frequently get away with breaking the law.

So, in order to placate the general populace’s newfound concerns about the environment, corporations and governments must use something called greenwashing. Greenwashing involves advertising and empty promises about environmental sustainability.

This is all made possible by our ages-old unnatural anthropocentric view of the world. It is one thing to instinctively value humans over other creatures – for example, if I saw a human child and a kitten in the middle of the street about to be hit by a car, and I had to make a choice, I’d save the child (though some might not). That’s a concept that I like to call “natural” anthropocentrism. But then there’s “unnatural” anthropocentrism – the view that humans are mostly disconnected from the rest of the universe. That is where sustainability comes in.

Starting with the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 and Kyoto Protocol of 1997, nations around the world began to promise to fight for environmental sustainability – or, more oxymoronically, what they like to call “sustainable development.” This involves continued economic growth and use of resources, using slightly less resource-intense materials and technologies. The idea is that we can be sustainable and not have to change the basic tenets of our economic system. And while sustainable development policy proposals, most notably Agenda 21 (which came out of the Rio Earth Summit), call for support for sustainable farming systems, they don’t highlight the most important aspect of sustainable farming: a move away from neo-classical economics.

This is all based around a new model of economics, also known as sustainable economics or sustainability politics. It looks like this:

Basically, they took their original economic ideas and squished another thing into it: “Lets make another circle. And call it ‘environment.’ “

Without me telling you, what is wrong with this picture?

…..

Okay, if you must know, the problem is that it is not representative of reality. In reality, we are a single species that is strongly interconnected to the rest of the world. Our environment is all around us, whether we like it or not. Every molecule we breathe, every gram of iron, milliliter of petroleum we use, comes from our environment. Everything in our economy comes from the environment; even our thoughts and services, which wouldn’t exist without the resources we need to survive. We come from the environment. It is inescapable. So rather than having a tiny fraction of our economic system overlap with the environment, economics is a small part of our larger world.

This is what the diagram should look like:

But imagine if economists and world leaders actually took this view. Every action would have to come with consideration of the impacts to the environment first, before even profit. After all, if we don’t have a planet, then we don’t have humans, and if we don’t have humans, we don’t have an economy. Then would come the realization that we’re all interconnected. What effect could this possibly have? People would no longer be able to treat other people, or other creatures, like simply exploitable objects and labour. All effects would have to be considered. The path of least harm would be taken, after serious thought and consideration. In essence, our economic system as we know it would disappear.

Even deeper – we would realize that there is no reason to trust a bunch of powerful, wealthy elites more than anybody else. The elites would step down anyway, because they would understand the detrimental effects of their authoritarian leadership, and that they are no more worthy of leadership than anybody else. Our system would lose its hierarchy.

We would become anarchists.

Posted in Social Environmentalist
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Everything is ███ fine. ██ ███ trust your government.

•16 November, 2011 • Leave a Comment

In honour of the E-PARASITE Internet censorship act. Stop the act here.

Posted in Uncategorized

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