The Sadness/Madness of Groping

Sexual assault and sex work has long been considered linked to sexism against women, but part of the point of this blog is that all oppression of women is at the same time self-oppression. Groping (a.k.a. sexual assault) is one obvious example.

A woman who is sexually assaulted is ashamed by the attack and also deeply hurt, and we should not downplay that fact, but we should also consider how it is always true that men are the ones who are overwhelmingly the sexual assaulters. What is it about maleness and masculinity that leads men to such unhealthy sexual relationships with the people around them that they are driven to, or aroused by, forceful and violent interactions with strangers whom they are victimizing? While there are some who say that groping is inherently male, I disagree. Groping is inherently masculine, but not male. Men are not bad people somehow evolutionarily driven to sexual deviance any more than women are evolutionarily unable to handle themselves in the work place, or driven to "hysteria" by over-exercise. But men are trapped in the self-oppression of masculinity, and one of the rules of our self-confinement is that our relationships cannot be overly healthy or loving. We must remain aloof, the bread winner, the cowboy with no ties to our families or our lovers who inevitably make us weak or (horror of horrors) "pussies." But we are still sexual animals and have a need for affection. When healthy love and sex are not available to us, we will fulfill our needs through unhealthy desperate means. How better to remain aloof and unhealthy, while satisfying our sexual desires than to make our victims into the objects of our affections ? No movement for women's equality will be complete until men are free of their self-oppression, because as long as men need victims, women will have to be those victims.

Formal Equality= Global Warming Skeptics

For some reason, global warming skeptics seem to believe that a snow storm, or a cold snap disproves the basic and easily proven fact that the global temperature is, in fact, rising. No matter how many times reasonable people try to explain to them that warmer air means moister air and therefore large storms become more likely, or that single weather anomalies are not particularly relevant to the global climate, they will not believe any data unless it is easy and straight forward. What does this have to do with formal equality?
When people say that equality under the law is enough, they point to successful women and black men, rather than looking at the larger statistical picture which shows that schools are more segregated than before Brown v. Board, that neighborhoods are more segregated than before 1968, and that the unemployment gap continues to grow with almost 40% of black men in the District of Columbia unemployed. They would like to point to Barrack Obama and say, "see, there is no more racism because a black man is president."
Occum's razor applies to scientific theories, not the data being collected to prove those theories. Occum's razor does not support using only one datum. That's not how one simplifies a test. In order to be valid, we must collect as much data as possible and then find the most simple explanation for all of that data. When we collect all the data, we see that despite a cold winter here, or several big snowstorms there, the global temperature is actually rising, and despite a black man being president and a woman appointed to secretary of state, the senate is still mostly older white men. To ignore these facts is stupid, ignorant, or part of a deliberate attempt to undermine America and the world.

Man Up!

Although, the Super Bowl Ads last night did not have as many bimbos offering themselves to the male viewers, they were still laden with anti-man/ pro-masculinity content. While the typical anti-man ads are filled with beautiful women in a way that (obviously objectifies and dehumanizes women and) undermines the male viewers understanding of healthy sexual expectations, the ads last night offered an entirely different way of undermining men. One Dodge commercial spent a long time talking about what men give up everyday. What were these inexcusable slights to men? Things like listening to your spouse as she talked about her day. Atrocities like caring about what your spouse buys and wears. One commercial for a hand held television showed a man following around his bimbo girlfriend with a bright red bra draped across his shoulder and looking sad and emasculated. How were these men supposed to escape or excuse the shame that they feel by supporting their partners? CONSUME!!!
These ads are trying to shame men into buying products that can "save" their masculinity. But, at the same time, they are shaming us out of healthy relationships, and even good sex. There is something erotic and delicious about brazenly following around your girlfriend with a bright red bra draped across your shoulder as if saying, "that beautiful woman is sharing her sexuality with me, aren't you jealous?" These ads are trying to undermine the importance, the deliciousness, and the meaningfulness of our relationships with women. Don't let them succeed. Do not be a slave to shame. Masculinity is not worth being saved.

Daily Show Watchers are Stoned Slackers

Bill O'Reilly told Jon Stewart that Daily Show watchers were all stoned last week. Just a quick note, Bill. In my law school, if you hadn't watched the Daily Show that day, there was someone in the study group who could give you a play-by-play, and if none of us had watched it, we would stream it on our laptops during a study break. Perhaps some of us were stoned, but there were enough of us who passed the bar and have gone on to successful careers (and still watch the Daily Show everyday), that I'd be hard pressed to call us slackers. P.S.- as a response to the complaint that Fox News is pushing an agenda, not reporting the news, the critique rings hollow. It's most reminiscent of Pee-Wee Herman's famous "I know you are but what am I" rhetorical tactic.

Formal Equality

The new face of discrimination is formal equality. The Supreme Court can hide behind formal equality when they legalize the exclusion of persons of color from colleges, or the exclusion of women from higher ranking jobs. Most recently, the courts have fallen back on on formal equality to give the rights of citizenship to corporations. They use the argument that labor unions and trial lawyers will be able to spend as much money as they want on campaigns, so it's okay that corporations are able to spend as much money as they want on political campaigns. First of all, they are implying that there are only two possible points of view, that of the labor unions and trial lawyers (which somehow is the same) and that of corporations. Just because trial lawyers support democrats, and labor unions support democrats, doesn't meant they could get along if they had to wait in the same line at Dennys. This formal equality bigotry is pervasive and unstoppable, but worse, it is entirely ungrounded in facts or reality. This February, coming off a fantastic Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I have to think that MLK didn't see this coming, and he would have been upset that the country is using his name, and his most famous words, to promote formal equality at the expense of actual equality.