kaninchenzero at Rabbit Lord of the Undead: Pollan v. Rabbit Lord of the Undead

What this is—what this always is, as Mr. Pollan has exactly one trick—is classism, naked and unashamed.

Some recommended reading, in light of my post last week which was not about Michael Pollan which people tried very hard to turn into a post about Michael Pollan.

Mitu Sengupta at rabble.ca: Altruism at the Oscars: Legitimizing racism, inequality and imperial design (via abby jean)

The denials of humanity and agency we see in Precious and Slumdog are not without consequence.

J. Adrian Stanley at the Colorado Springs Independent: Urban Jungle

Using this logic, Gallagher believes he can escape having to build to current codes, including those that might require buildings to be elevated in order to protect them from flooding.

Chally at Zero at the Bone: Without and within, part two

Ignoring what’s within each person means a feminism without relevance or rightness, a feminism that does not serve women.

Patrick Yeagle at the Illinois Times: Illinois Prisons: Standing room only

…the state’s prison system has about 50 percent more prisoners than the prisons were designed to hold, with 25 of the state’s 28 prisons operating over capacity.

Kevin McLean at Fast Forward Weekly: Red, white and green

Each bottle of wine can produce as much as a pound of waste and release 16 grams of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere.

Nashville Scene: Katherine Carroll The Battlefield Professor

This immersion in the culture of war, Iraq and the military was very stressful for the self-described “cocktail-drinking gal from a wildly leftist family” whose father was an English professor.

Site Note: My power is off today because my service panel is being replaced, so if you email me or comment and it takes a while to get a response, that is why!

Holly McKay at Fox News: Miss Beverly Hills Lauren Ashley Opposes Same Sex Marriage

“I feel like God himself created mankind and he loves everyone, and he has the best for everyone. If he says that having sex with someone of your same gender is going to bring death upon you, that’s a pretty stern warning, and he knows more than we do about life.”

This is not just “opposing same sex marriage,” this is wanting people like me to die.

Christine Negroni at the New York Times: Leaving the Trash Behind

Even before they board, air travelers throw away trash of all sorts — including paper, plastic and food waste — and airports and airlines recycle only a small portion of it.

Randy Serraglio at the Tucson Weekly: These desert rains? These record-breaking snow storms? They’re all signs of severe climate change

Scientists who measure the weather tell us that, with increasing frequency, things are happening that have never happened in 125 years.

Latoya Peterson at Jezebel: Our Avatars, Our Projected Selves

Secondly, I wonder if the reactions had to do with the gender of the avatar – or the race and gender presentation.

Amanda Hess at The Sexist: Your Decrepit Ovaries May Be Sabotaging Your Career

But first: What’s with these ovaries anyway, and why are they so darned stubborn?

Lisa Wade at Sociological Images: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Social Control of Mothers

This strategy replaces addressing all of the other problems that correlate with the appearance of FAS–poverty, stress, and other kinds of social deprivation–in favor of policing women.

Pediatric Supersite: Women researchers less likely to get major federal funding grants (h/t Vicki)

Results indicated that women were less likely than men to receive R01 wards (P<.001).

Zero at the Bone: The Thirteenth Carnival of Feminists

I’d offer you refreshments and to take your coat but, er, that’s not exactly possible in cyberspace, so the carnival itself will have to do.

It’s LONG. So plan to set aside some time to read it (seriously just reading the  post takes a long time and you haven’t even clicked any links yet).

The Sexist: Style Tips From Men’s Rights Activists

FOOTWEAR: Avoid stylish elevator shoes.

Guardian: Rush to war left troops in Iraq ‘without body armour’

“I think in part for both clothing and body armour, the issue was it was all done so rapidly at the last minute, no one was quite sure who had what.”

The Fat Nutritionist: Food isn’t poison.

When society has become so risk-averse that we can’t even enjoy food, you know something is terribly out of whack.

Montreal Mirror: Global Warring

The implications—besides the incalculable loss to biodiversity, native habitats and cultures—don’t get any less alarming as they become more familiar: drought and floods, melting polar ice, increased frequency and severity of tropical storms and so on.

Blogeando: Latinos Are Blogging, Are You Engaging Them? (via Racialicious)

Depending on the source, there is anywhere from 5.4 percent to 7.5 percent more Hispanic bloggers than whites in the U.S.

In Cold Blog: “I’m Going to Kill Myself a Gay Tonight” (h/t to Vicki)

Ergo, Chavarria is not eligible for any compensation from the state board. If they were a straight couple, it would not be a problem.

Blogtown: Breaking: Does Whole Foods’ New “No Fatties” Employee Incentive Program Break the Law?

Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) has “serious concerns” about a new Whole Foods employee incentive program aimed at reducing the company’s health costs.

SF Weekly: City hounds the homeless for dog licenses

This is billed as a temporary fix to force the supposed hordes of drugged-out, smelly, jobless young bum-punks roaming Haight Street to move along and stop frightening tourists, neighbors, and shoppers.

L’Hôte: The “Apple Advantage” is class signaling and always has been (via Racialicious)

Being more expensive than another product of similar capability isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

Weekly Dig: Think Of the Bathrooms!

“It doesn’t make any sense. We’re already using those bathrooms. It’s not about using bathrooms. This is about people not being discriminated against,” he said.

C-Ville: UVA increases low-income student enrollment

The nation’s top public universities are cushioning the cost of college for those students who need it the least, according to a report by The Education Trust, a nonprofit organization.

East Bay Express: Plan B for Measure B

On a more basic level, argues City Attorney Teresa Highsmith, the document is “a little unfair to the community, because this development agreement was not negotiated with the city, and the community is being asked to vote on it.”

Guardian: Feminism shouldn’t be exclusive

Even though this book is a welcome addition to the contemporary feminist canon, it excludes so much that would be of interest or concern to those who aren’t British, middle-class or heterosexual.

Like a Whisper: Want Ad For Feminist Revolution Pt. I (via Lauredhel at FWD)

For all of my students of color, queer students, poor students, and especially my differently-abled ones  committed to social justice struggling with this same thing, and for every marginalized woman who has been reduced to begging so-called feminist for the right to work, let me say it again: I call Bullshit!

Geek Girls Guide: iPad Leakage

I just think it’s interesting that Apple picked a loaded (for women) term for their new product, and it’s strange that they couldn’t be bothered to show even ONE woman using it.

BBC News: Remembering the godfather of toilets

The company he founded still exists, being run from a country estate in Warwickshire.

The Age: Seaman ‘kicked asylum seeker off rescue boat’

”I saw him raise one of his feet … He kicked the asylum seekers. From what I saw it was the head,” she said.

The Independent: Shooting Haiti: A Photographer’s Story

Many of Barria’s photographs, particularly of the sporadic looting that broke out in Port-au-Prince’s downtown area within a couple of days of the quake, were taken within a few feet of violent confrontations.

New Haven Advocate: The God of Depression

When only spoiled fruit and pilfered potatoes kept your children nourished, it might have seemed as if everything cost more than you could afford.

Philadelphia City Paper: One Small Step for Robots

It is widely recognized that the United States has let its once-invigorated focus in science and technology slip from its fingers like that errant balloon.

wandering stars: Trust Women (my piece for Blog for Choice Day)

Nowhere is this more evident than the way in which women are disabilities are treated when it comes to making choices about their reproductive rights.

The Advocate: Gayest Cities in America

This admittedly subjective search reveals spots that are much more pink than you might think.

Shapely Prose: Meat and metaphors

What people in the PETA demographic fail to realize, or don’t want to realize, is that the WOMAN AS MEAT and POC AS ANIMAL and WOMAN AS PROPERTY and POC AS PROPERTY schema are still absolutely alive and well, absolutely entrenched in our current language and expression and understanding and visual rhetoric.

New York Times: French Groups Criticize Handling of Relief Flights

…the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said at a briefing: “I had nothing to contribute on the ground other than taking up valuable space when planes were unable to land because of the state of the airfield. I am not a doctor, nor a firefighter.”

Seven Days Vermont: Fighting the Bite

Using these precise tools, Bomblies discovered that the causal connections among rainfall, mosquito proliferation and malaria aren’t as simple or cut-and-dried as one might assume.

FWD/Forward: Disability in Rwanda

When nine of every ten adults are subsistence farmers in rural areas, those incoming dollars are extremely unlikely to reach the hands of most of the country’s inhabitants.

Guardian: Xinran: China’s lost girls

Since then, I have met many groups of Chinese girls and I can never help myself: Little Snow’s features seem to be stamped on every one of their innocent, happy faces.

Gender Across Borders: Mobile Phones Report Rapes in Guinea (via abby jean) (Trigger warning for graphic descriptions of rape and violence.)

…this is not the first time mobile phones have been used to disseminate news of violence and repression.

The Fat Nutritionist: The Regent.

This fear manages to overshadow and spoil a lot of my natural curiosity and passion for school, because it feels like a manipulation: in order to be loved, you must do X, Y, and Z.

Los Angeles Times: Haiti’s elite hold nation’s future in their hands

The rich are never hurt the same way the poor are. Their capacity for revival, thanks to resources, private planes and visas, vastly outdistances that of the poor and middle class.

Indyweek: Diversity takes a backseat in Wake schools

An almost inevitable consequence of the plan, given the economic segregation of Wake’s neighborhoods and communities, would be the creation of a two- or three-tiered school system.

New York Press: Canal Change

It was clear that no one—shoppers or vendors—was welcome.

Minneapolis City Pages: The 10 most influential lobbyists in Minnesota

To shed light on this shadowy lot, we polled dozens of lawmakers, staffers, and state officials.

Last week’s Dear Prudence featured this letter:

I’m a happily married man in my 20s with a gorgeous wife, whom I adore. We live in a big city in an apartment building. In order to let in light, we keep the curtains open in our bedroom (sans naughty time). I’ve recently noticed that the female who lives in the apartment directly across from ours and the female in the apartment one floor below also leave their curtains open as they walk around half-naked. I’m not sidling up to the window for hours upon end, but on occasion I catch a glimpse of skin, and I’ll admit that I don’t turn away. I don’t know whether my wife has noticed the neighbors, but I haven’t told her that I have. I feel as if I’m hiding a secret from her and even committing a form of adultery by not walking away when I see them. Should I tell my wife so we can make a decision about what to do together (and hope she doesn’t divorce me)? Or should I unilaterally reach out to the neighbors, telling them that my whole building has probably been getting a show for several months and they should be more aware of their actions?

—In the Window

Now, how do you think that you might respond to this? Imagine it’s a friend telling you this. When you’re done rolling your eyes at “female,” what do you say?

Personally, I would be inclined to say “yes, you should tell your neighbors.” And here’s why: Watching women while naked or half-naked when they are not aware that you are watching is creepy. Indeed, one might argue that it’s a pretty profound violation. I know that I would be upset to learn, for example, that my blinds aren’t as good as I think they are and my neighbors have been watching me naked for months.

Indeed, the writer seems to recognize this on some level, because he feels like his actions are bordering on adultery, which implies that he feels a sexual component. If you’re watching women naked without their express consent and you are deriving sexual pleasure from it, that is pretty skeezy. In fact, I’ll go a step further: It is straight up wrong and not OK to do. Period.

Now, if these women are aware and they’re choosing to be a bit exhibitionist, that’s a bit different, although I am honestly uncomfortable with people forcing their naked bodies on people who may or may not want to see them. (I have a neighbor who does this, and is well aware of it, and it is upsetting.) If the entire neighborhood would like to work out a fully consensual agreement in which everyone is ok with seeing the naked people and the naked people are ok with being seen, by all means, go ahead.

How did Dear Prudence respond?

Dear In the Window,
Virtually any heterosexual man finding himself in your situation would conclude he’s got a Donald Trump-like gift for picking real estate. Since we’re making comparisons with The Donald, who is also an expert on adultery, let’s narrow the definition of it to actually having sexual contact with a woman other than your wife. As for your plans of attack, let’s take the second option first. If you secretly make the rounds of the Victoria’s Secret models across the way and explain to them the distress their dishabille causes you, that will surely be the day your wife does glance out the bedroom window at the neighborhood lovelies and wonders what in the world you’re up to. So forget the friendly lecture. But since your voyeuristic impulse and subsequent guilt are bothering you, go ahead and mention the peep show to your wife. She may surprise you and suggest the two of you discreetly catch a Saturday matinee. If, however, she (ridiculously) gets all huffy that you didn’t run in horror when you realized the neighbors were scantily clad, you should point out that while you two draw the curtain for your own “naughty time,” that leaves a lot of your own half-dressed lives on display. It’s possible your entire neighborhood is engaged in an endless round-robin of Rear Window. You could suggest that you get some sheer bedroom curtains so you continue to get light but don’t put yourselves on view. And if it happens that when you’re alone in the bedroom, the sheers somehow get nudged open a crack, and you see that next door the show goes on, consider it a freebie.

—Prudie

Uhm. Yeah.

No mention, at all, of how problematic it is to derive sexual pleasure from watching nearly naked women without their consent. No, it’s all about how this guy should maintain his relationship with his wife, and not only that, Prudence goes a step further. She suggests that this man’s wife might enjoy joining him in the sexual exploitation of their neighbors.

SERIOUSLY?!

That’s the best advice you’ve got, Prudie? “It’s quite all right that you are violating the bodily autonomy of your neighbors! In fact, go ahead and bring in the wifey! It will be fun for the whole family!”

Prudence is referring to women walking around in the presumed privacy of their homes as “a show,” as though these women are knowingly doing this. She might be mirroring the language this sleezebucket used in his letter, but that doesn’t make it ok. Isn’t it equally possible that they are walking around in dishabille because they are assuming that, since they are at home, no one is going to be violating them by watching them from across a courtyard or street?

In my opinion, this is one of the crappier advice columns I’ve seen lately, and I make a bit of a hobby out of seeking out crappy advice columns. This isn’t quite as bad as Dear Amy’s recent “advice” to a rape victim, but it reinforces rape culture and the idea that women’s bodies are public property just as effectively.

Zero At the Bone: Call for Submissions: The 13th Carnival of Feminists

The posts must be of feminist interest, feminism widely defined (that is, submit your disability/queer/whatever posts!).

She Speculates: Of Teachers and Tests

Indeed, I find it convenient that before the results of testing are released the government has already framed the blame so to speak.

Los Angeles Times: Outside Haiti’s capital, help trickles in

In a city of 130,000, only one well is pumping water — no faster than the flow of a garden hose.

Colorado Springs Independent: Step inside

In 2006, a group of photographers lent women in South Africa professional cameras and, after a two-week training course, set them out to document their lives.

Feministe: Workers With Disabilities Frequently Paid Less Than Minimum Wage

What makes this most shocking to me isn’t the fact that people with disabilities are being exploited by unscrupulous employers — that much, I was aware of — but that it’s entirely legal under federal law.

Philadelphia CityPaper: Afterburn

In the arsonists’ wake, however, a number of Coatesville residents are trying to reclaim, and in some cases remake, their city.

Hoyden About Town: At long last…

But what do some people think, right now, is a more important use of space in a plane going there?

Shaming and blaming are, of course, practically American pastimes, and they play right into each other in a tangled morass of “morals” which are wrapped around women’s bodies and minds from a very early age. Indeed, so deeply embedded are these things that even women who think of themselves as progressive buy into them on occasion. We may live in a society in which women are theoretically allowed to dress as they please, but let’s not forget that every woman is wrapped in a tight web of social attitudes, even when she’s stark naked.

It starts early. How many women were told as little girls that they needed to cover up better? That they couldn’t wear that shirt/skirt/dress/etc because it “showed too much”? How many parents have been told to cover up their little girls more “appropriately” because people might “get ideas”? How many little girls come home with notes pinned to their shirts that say “Dear Parent, please tell your little girl to wear underwear when she wears skirts, or to stop using the swings”? How many little girls are told from a very early age that their “private parts” are dirty and disgusting?

It’s not about educating little girls about the fact that they have bodily autonomy and they have the right to control what happens to their bodies and when. No, it’s about shaming and terrifying little girls. This is done “for their own good,” because obviously telling little girls “you have bodily autonomy and no one has the right to touch you anywhere without your consent” will not do the trick. Much better to say “there’s a monster in your underpants and it makes people do bad things,” because, “it,” your genitals, is at fault when people do bad things. The bad people are not responsible for their actions. “It” is.

How many young girls get their periods for the first time and have no idea what is happening? How many young girls find a streak of blood and panic and think that they are dying, and are met with mockery and shame when they ask for help? For those lucky enough to know what’s going on, to have been educated, to know what to do, how many are reminded that they need to control their gross, yucky dirtiness so that no one will know that they are “bleeding” and how many remember the time that those controls weren’t enough and there was a patch of blood smeared on a pair of pants or a skirt? How many adult women have been humiliated by having the audacity to fail to control their menstrual blood on airplanes? In college classrooms? At work? In restaurants?

How many young women have access to sex education at all, let alone comprehensive, non-judgmental sex education? How many are told that they should simply keep their legs shut, that the burdens of sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy rest solely on their shoulders? How many are so terrified of sex that they don’t even really understand how it works? How many get pregnant their first time because they don’t even know that they were having sex? How many young women understand that sex without consent is rape no matter who is doing it?

How many women have been told that they can assert their right to bodily autonomy? That they have the right to refuse medical examinations? That, if you are a virgin, a pelvic exam is an unnecessary brutality which serves no function? How many young women have been told that if they didn’t fight, it wasn’t rape?

How many women are reminded on a regular basis that their bodies are terrifying, frightening, disgusting, horrific? How many are told, repeatedly, that they should feel shame for their bodies? That their physical variations are gross, that the feelings they experience are invalid, that sexual excitement and the experience of pleasure are things which should be kept private and quiet, oh so quiet, because they are transgressive and wrong?

With all this shaming going around, is it any wonder that blaming follows right behind, the imprinted duckling which cannot help but attach itself because it has nowhere else to go? Because part of a culture of shaming involves trying to put yourself in the place where you cannot be shamed.

You’re not like those dirty, gross, ucky girls. You’re a clean nice girl. Bad things only happen to the gross girls, because if bad things happened to anyone, the world we live in would not be fair. That means that when you know that something bad has happened to someone, you need to figure out how she is to blame, and you need to make sure that she knows.

Shouldn’t have worn that. Shouldn’t have said that. Why’d you go to prom with him if you didn’t want to have sex. Maybe if you closed your legs you wouldn’t get pregnant. You must be a disease-ridden tramp because there’s no way he gave that to you. Can’t keep your hands to yourself, can you, you slut. You must have been coming on to him. There’s no way anyone gets pregnant while using birth control responsibly. You should have thought about that before you married him. You must have deserved that. You’re probably lying about what happened.

The blaming follows the shaming because the shaming is ingrained in us. All of us. When you’re shamed from an early age because of your body, you spend the rest of your life trying to get outside of your body and trying to draw lines between your body and other bodies. Who wants to be disgusting and gross and scary?

And thus, the cycle continues. The mother trying to do the right thing for her little girl unconsciously repeats the shaming and the girl learns the blaming and it

never

stops.