Pharyngula links to a documentary on circumcision. I have not actually seen it, so I don’t know if it’s problematic or not, but I figured it would be relevant to some of our commenters’ interests. Anyway, Papa Zed wouldn’t post it if it were seriously problematic.
Adorable poem about trans sex. Seriously. This poem is the CUTEST. I just want to say “d’awwwww” a lot.
Lemony Snicket on Occupy Wall Street. My girlfriend plans on getting a Lemony-Snicket-related tattoo as part of her children’s novel sleeve, just so you know how seriously we take the Series of Unfortunate Events around here. I am somewhat annoyed he got through the entire thing without a reference to the sugar bowl.
LabRat talks about tribalism. Relevant to my series on kyriarchy, and also because LabRat is awesome and sciencey and makes me think about things a lot. We are some fucking weird apes, yo.
Nobby from Manboobz pointed me to Fuck Yeah Menfolk, a very cool feministy Tumblr for all kinds of male-type people. Check ’em out. It covers homophobia, transphobia, gender role enforcement, femmephobia and random pictures of dudes with awesome beards.
A genderqueer person talks about gender as a social construct. Seriously interesting gender theory here! He argues that gender is primarily social and that we can adopt gender norms as a means of communicating our genders to others. Something interesting to read while you await the next post in the long-delayed kyriarchy series. (There is a next post. I promise.)
Halloween is also time for All Hallow’s Read, a great time to give someone a scary book or story to read. I recommend Paul Krugman.
@PsyConomics It seems to be a rehash of The End of Men. “Good men”, meaning richer, more educated men (than a woman with a university degree, possibly a PhD), willing to marry and have children are getting rarer as women get higher up, and men feel less pressure to be the sole earner, or to “die trying to reach the top of the rat race” like salaryman in Japan still do. So you have less traditional gender role men, and given that this woman is richer and more educated than her parents and grandparents, to her it’s a big decline.… Read more »
I’m not sure exactly where this fits so I figured I would add it to the Open Thread and see what happens.
The Atlantic recently published this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/?single_page=true
I guess… Well… I feel uneasy reading this article though it is difficult to place exactly why. It is entirely likely that it hits some residual bias in myself, and I don’t want to discount that. Are there any ideas by any of the peoples here as to why this might seem so off-putting?
I see. I don’t see much about it these days but there was alot of discussion a year ago in the US blogosphere and media, as I recall. The question of giving girls asylum for fear of FGM seems settled at last. People are getting past the hyper-sensitivity to cultural sensitivities, and if we can change opinion here on circumcision, the issue where cultural sensitivity goes really deep, FGM will be a slam dunk – not just making it illegal, but everything incident to it. “It’s a bit of a sensitive subject,” No “bit” about it. Anything to do with… Read more »
@Ginkgo: “Well what is there to say beyond it’s gross violation of human rights, it’s unacceptable anywhere and illegal in this country and don’t come peddling excuses about your culture or religion? It should be grounds for loss of parental rights. And that’s all been said.” I’m talking more about how to handle it, especially if parents travel to a place where they can get it done. It’s a bit of a sensitive subject, because taking action against a family from a culture likely to perform it could be seen as racial profiling. On the other hand, waiting until it’s… Read more »
“Homologous does not equal equivalent. For example, the innervation of the glans clitoris and glans penis are quite dissimilar, both in number and types of nerve-endings. The same is true, for example, of the foreskin vs the clitoral hood. So there are indeed distinct differences between the clitoris and the penis. Although there are important structural similarities as well.” This is something that happens due to testosterone, not a genetic difference. Both of the possible results of the fetal genital tubercule are there, in every single fetus. Mullerian and Wolfian structures develop mostly depending on a few things, which can’t… Read more »
“Wow! Granted, I’m not from the US and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circumcised penis (except perhaps in porn), but don’t you guys ever just discuss female genital cutting?” Well what is there to say beyond it’s gross violation of human rights, it’s unacceptable anywhere and illegal in this country and don’t come peddling excuses about your culture or religion? It should be grounds for loss of parental rights. And that’s all been said. What’s to discuss? It’s like talking about the sun coming up in the east. In the US. And remember, this country is stupidly susceptible… Read more »
@Xakudo: “Yes, we do that too. But, unfortunately, most of the times I’ve seen female genital cutting brought up in real life has been in response to circ discussions, in which case it has a very “shift the topic away” kind of vibe.” Hmm, I’ve only experienced it the other way around (or alternatively, people who’ve brought up FGC as an argument for why circumcision is wrong). Even in Denmark, where extremely few people circumcise, a debate about Somali immigrants travelling back to their home country to get their daughters genitals cut was taken over by men complaining about circumcision.… Read more »
@Schala: The clitoris gland and the penis gland are analogous structures, coming from the same tubercule in a fetus. It’s shape and function does not depend, at all, on the presence or absence of a Y chromosome (as shown with CAIS women, who do have a Y chromosome). The difference between the two structures, at birth, is small, and mainly decided by doctors based on (non-erect) length. Homologous does not equal equivalent. For example, the innervation of the glans clitoris and glans penis are quite dissimilar, both in number and types of nerve-endings. The same is true, for example, of… Read more »
@AB: Wow! Granted, I’m not from the US and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circumcised penis (except perhaps in porn), but don’t you guys ever just discuss female genital cutting? Yes, we do that too. But, unfortunately, most of the times I’ve seen female genital cutting brought up in real life has been in response to circ discussions, in which case it has a very “shift the topic away” kind of vibe. Like if you bring up sexism in your own culture and people respond with “Hey, it’s not important, it’s not like we stone women to death… Read more »
I meant glans above, for both.
““What might be a “clitoris” on one man might be a “penis” (or something else) on another without any objective difference in physiology.” Ummm, no. Language CANNOT work that way. A propeller is not an oar. A gas is not a solid. A proton is not an electron nor is it a neutron. A penis is a penis and a clitoris is a clitoris, they are distinct parts of human anatomy and carry with them very specific definitions. Why is this important?” Wrong. The clitoris gland and the penis gland are analogous structures, coming from the same tubercule in a… Read more »
@Ginkgo:
“when someone in the US does it, male or female, it is a dishonest ploy to shift the discussion from the matter at hand ion thier own society, to which they are in some degree complicit, to some other topic where they can put on their moral pose.”
Wow! Granted, I’m not from the US and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circumcised penis (except perhaps in porn), but don’t you guys ever just discuss female genital cutting?
“Why? There are many trials in our society that have elements of them hidden on national security grounds.” And each and every one of them is a dangerous threat to a free society. When the process of law is non-transparent, we have a problem. By hiding the name of the accused and the name of the accuser, the process of law is shrouded. It’s also not a matter of basic fairness. It’s a matter of the Government not revealing the names of people involved in a trial in a well-meaning attempt to protect them from public opinion. In other words:… Read more »
Monkey: She has a tattoo of a teacup on her neck from the Frank Turner song. She doesn’t have any other tats. Yet. 🙂
Xakudo, the whole FGM versus MGM discussion is classic What About the Wimminz and basically just pedestalizes women and women’s bodies. Chivalrous as shit. And when someone in the US does it, male or female, it is a dishonest ploy to shift the discussion from the matter at hand ion thier own society, to which they are in some degree complicit, to some other topic where they can put on their moral pose. You get the same invocation to chivlary as some kind of divine right of women right here in this thread with LAvenger’s comment, drive by though it… Read more »
“Private and hidden trials have no place in a free society.” Why? There are many trials in our society that have elements of them hidden on national security grounds. It’s also a matter of basic fairness. Policies exist to protect the identity of the accuser, thereby creating an unfair situation for the presumption of guilt in the public sphere, as only one of the parties is known, which will inherently draw a greater perception of guilt. Mutual anonymity for serious criminal offenses has a variety of social benefits, too. It allows accusers to bring forth claims with true anonymity, as… Read more »
Private and hidden trials have no place in a free society.
I’ll say the same thing I do on any of these tired rape discussions. Israeli law keeps the names of both the accuser and the accused anonymous in a rape trial. The shield works both ways. I’d like to see that here in the States. You’d see less false reports because the accuser’s ability to ruin the accused’s name would be less likely. All the people who inflate false-rape-claim statistics would be short some ammo because the “she accused him just to trash him, that’s what they do” (my language is gendered but that’s the language these type of people… Read more »
@Jim (linking to a comment from the circ article): Hellooooooo…. MRAs who always gripe that we don’t talk about circumcision and try to derail the FGM threads to talk about circumcision instead, and who always manage to do it within the first five comments? I wonder how many of those people actually identify as MRA. There are a lot of anti-circ people that have nothing to do with the MRM. That aside, I also recall several threads on IIRC feministing about male circumcision that instantly got derailed into being about fgm, and I’ve seen many other similar threads about circ… Read more »
Gotta also put on my science cap here and disagree with that Tumblr a bit: “What might be a “clitoris” on one man might be a “penis” (or something else) on another without any objective difference in physiology.” Ummm, no. Language CANNOT work that way. A propeller is not an oar. A gas is not a solid. A proton is not an electron nor is it a neutron. A penis is a penis and a clitoris is a clitoris, they are distinct parts of human anatomy and carry with them very specific definitions. Why is this important? Because one must… Read more »
“@ Typhon….
The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because her body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted. The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid.”
This is hands down the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
EVERYONE NEEDS KINDNESS AND AID. Reach out and act in kindness to EVERYONE YOU MEET regardles of whether they’re a victim or a criminal, whether they’re accusing or accused, or whether they’re male or female. Everyone NEEDS it equally, it’s just sometimes more obvious.
@ LAvenger,
“The victim NEEDS personal kindness and aid because her body was just used as public property, by someone she deeply trusted. The accused….does not need any special degree of kindness and aid.”
Tell it to some of these guys:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7265307.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202080/Vile-lies-woman-jailed-making-ex-boyfriends-life-hell-accusing-rape.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280926/Student-cleared-rape-emerges-second-man-committed-suicide-falsely-accused-woman.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266454/Man-falsely-accused-sex-attack-hangs-police-fail-tell-case-dropped.html
http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/local/corby/father_s_living_hell_over_rape_lie_1_730586
Admittedly, giving the ones who actually killed themselves the good news about how little kindness and aid they needed might be sort of tricky.
Also over 30 here. 🙂
Speaking of screen names, I am officially changing mine. There are more and more Jims around and today I finally saw the last wing nut using the name that can stand. So from now on I am Ginkgo.
So when it comes to age, I have you all beat. 270 million years yo. I smile at mass extinctions.
Here’s the Marine group daisy mentioned:
http://occupymarines.org/