- Terrific article in The Scotsman: “Blame women – it’s easier than thinking.” Here’s a sample:
The difficulty with this mood of reaction, though, as with many “backlash” phenomena, it that it seems doomed to sow widespread feelings of fear and self-loathing – and to provoke plenty of recrimination among women about the different choices they make – without actually recommending any real course of action. If we had anything resembling a full consensus that gender equality is a good thing, we could simply get on with the task of compensating for the inevitable impact of motherhood on women’s working lives in all sorts of imaginative ways. But in practice, we still seem stuck in an endless, debilitating, backward-looking debate about whether the whole idea of equality between men and women is somehow unnatural and expensive, and ought to be replaced by a stoical acceptance that women will always face tougher choices than men, because nature decrees it so.
- My favorite protestors are always those who seem to be more concerned with funny street theatre than with actually making a point. So this group of right-wing counter-protestors, from “Communists for Kerry,” gave me a giggle. Via Little Miss Attila.
- Pinko Feminist Hellcat has a fabulous post on “The False Hope of First Ladies.”
- Political Animal discusses the real agenda behind “no child left behind” – labeling as many public schools as possible, even ones that are by fair standards great schools, “failures.”
- Sheelzebub at XX has a good post asking why free market advocates won’t let Americans import cheaper drugs from abroad.
- “Every time you pick up your fork, ask yourself, ‘is this the best bite I could possibly give my baby?'” Respectful of Otters has my favorite post I’ve read today (or way up there, anyhow), discussing how the pregnancy industry leaps at the chance to control and moralize every aspect of a pregnant woman’s life.
- The Memory Hole has a frightening example of the sort of thing the Justice Department tries to censor from public records in the name of national security.
- It’s another new round-up of electoral college prognostications from Ed Fitzgerald’s Unfutz. This week’s bottom line: Bush takes the lead for the first time in months. 20 sites show Bush winning, versus 15 showing Kerry winning. But clearly, it’s still a close race.
- Echidne posts some revealing anti-Bush statistics focusing on terrorism and security. Here’s an example, but she’s got tons more:
1 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa’ida.
104 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein.
- Mary Garth rebuts a Washington Post piece predicting that the right-wingers are going to ride their larger breeding rates to victory.
- Two days ago I posted a critique of Hugo Schwyzer’s pro-life, pro-feminism position. Hugo has responded to me and to folks who left comments here in two posts, here and here. (I’ll be responding to Hugo later this week.)
- Lauryn at Feministing discusses, and provides links related to, the real harms caused by Bush’s “global gag” rule.
- Mouse Words argues persuasively that the problem with “hate crimes” is that “hate” is way too broad and easily misconstrued a word in this context. She suggests “domestic terrorism,” which I think is right on target.
- A new British investigation, reported on in The Guardian, finds that women accused of a crime are 4 times as likely as men to be held in jail while awaiting trial – even though fewer than 1 in 10 women are accused of violent offenses.
The majority are vulnerable women, many have mental health or drug problems and 71% have never received a prison sentence before. Detention results in many being separated from their children, often when they are the sole carer. Frequently they find themselves with financial problems and increased psychological stress as a result of their prison experience. Many harm themselves while inside and 11 have killed themselves this year.
- Facinating post by Timothy Burke examines why an ignorant crank like Michelle “the Japanese deserved to be put in camps” Malkin nonetheless gets so much respectful attention in the (so-called liberal) media. Eric Muller also has some comments.
- I should read Cathy Young more often; she’s without a doubt the smartest of all the major anti-feminist writers. She also goes against anti-feminist dogma now and then, as in this short article critiquing “conservative dogma about sex roles” in the book Taking Sex Differences Seriously.
- Scott Moss examines one of the most prominent affirmative-action programs taking place today, and asks what it can teach us about how such programs should be run in general: Lessons in Republican Affirmative Action.
- Yet another study finds that dieting can lead to gaining weight. “…of 149 women surveyed, all of whom are considered clinically obese, two-thirds had been on their first diet by the age of 14. This dispels the myth that the condition of overweight people is caused by laziness and inattention to their health and appearance. In fact, those who had gone on more diets tended to have higher body mass indexes.” Meanwhile, another new study finds that being active matters more than being thin.” To quote Big Fat Blog’s summary, “The study followed 906 women. By the end of the study, heart disease and its ilk were lower in active women no matter what their size. As noted by the study’s head researcher, this means that activity may be a bigger influence on health than weight.”
Barry’s BlueSky- Untitled May 5, 2024Flash forward to 2094, when people who are ten now will be like "the internet was different back then! We were all friendlier... there were hardly ever trolls... Now it's all gone to shit."
- Untitled May 4, 2024This is either incredible stupidity or incredible dishonesty from the cops, and I honestly can't tell which.
- Untitled May 2, 2024I love that Caterpillar boots were among the returned items, and in this photo an Amazon worker took, you can clearly see the "CAT" logo near the cat. Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away wapo.st/3JJ3vqT
- Untitled May 1, 2024A new cartoon for May Day! This has been an incredible year for unions in the USA - may next year be even better. Unions Have Always Done The Impossible! #PoliCartoon #Union #LaborDay2024 #MayDay2024 #May1st #UBI #LivingWage
- Untitled April 30, 2024People on reddit are fighting about a cartoon I did about why the US health care system sucks and I am enjoying this too too much. https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1ch0l0r/why_us_health_care_is_such_a_terrible_system/?sort=old
- Untitled April 30, 2024I just posted a new cartoon! It's patreon supporters only for now, but in a week or so I'll make it public. :-) https://www.patreon.com/posts/deus-ex-machina-103359912?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
- Untitled May 5, 2024
Cathy Young is more iconoclastic than the usual antifeminist, but she–along with Christina Hoff Sommers and others of that ilk–run around claiming that feminists make unsupported assertions, and then proceed to make totally wild unsubstantiated assertions themselves. That really irks me.
I like that rebuttal of the whole conservatives breed more thing. I would add that politics aren’t genetic, for god’s sake–a lot of liberals have conservative parents. Conservatives are scrambling against time; if college attendance rates keep rising, they will keep losing ground.
Wow, a lot of crap.
Anyone who is suprised that a candidate who was even in the polls before a convention is ahead after it should lay down and die somewhere. This was true of both conventions, and they will be back even in a week.
Hate crimes are very often terrorist acts. Not on the level of organized terrorist organizations (sometimes, as in the case of Aryan Nations of Christian ID groups they are, but it’s usually not) Hate crime laws are just common sense, and the right has branded every union in the country a terrorist organization now, so it’s all fair game.
Advocating improved standards for women’s prisons only isn’t going to get anyone to take you seriously as someone interested in equality.
And again on this wieght thing. You seem to have SEVERE trouble understanding the difference between being overweight and being obese. You also seem to have a near delusional view of a causal relationship between dieting and being fat. Diet’s don’t make people fat, people who are fat go on diets and very often fail them. Going on a diet doesn’t mean you STUCK to the diet. It means you tried. eating low fat food and excersizing will not make you fat.
Soul, if you are incapable of making your points without rude comments (i.e., “Wow, a lot of crap”) then you should get off my website. If you want to keep posting here, then keep it civil.
If Young is such a smart antifeminist writer, why on earth would she, in her very first sentence, attack “feminist denial of biological differences” as though it were an argument that anyone has made? As far as I know, feminists don’t argue that biological differences don’t exist. That would be absurd, and thus derision would be merited. But it seems to me that the actual argument is that what biological differences do exist don’t account for the social differences and inequalities that exist. Interestingly enough, this seems to be exactly what Young goes on to say in her article. Which actually does make her somewhat of a maverick in a sea of “different but equal” antifeminists.
On Cathy Young — “It is now widely recognized that feminists were wrong to denigrate the traditionally feminine choices made by many women. It is just as wrong and just as myopic for conservatives to denigrate freely chosen nontraditional ways of life.”
That is an excellent point. My wife routinely tells me that the fight is not about wanting power or a successful career, it is about the power to choose to stay home and raise the kids or have a successful career or choose to have both.
I can’t wait for the day that men will be able to be free of our perceived notion that we will never be, “powerful, strong, rich, or successful enough” (Quoting Michael Kimmel from “Hugoboy”) for our children and our wife. Unfortunately, men are such slaves to this notion that I don’t think, as a whole, we will ever be able to “give” ourselves the choice to do whatever we want — choose to support our family at home and let our wives provide financial support or be the one to financially support our family. I truely believe that women will be at the point of being able to have it all and be able to do whatever they want, before my daughters become of age.
Young and all the other women they turn out to attack feminism are all too willing to reap the benefits of feminism when it suits them while also reaping the praise and approval and accompanies a woman who publically disavows feminism. *harumph*
Look, folks, I’m not saying that I think Cathy Young is a great writer or that we should all agree with everything she says. Nor am I saying that she doesn’t say stupid, anti-feminist things. I am saying that, as anti-feminist writers go, she’s probably the best of the lot.
As far as I know, feminists don’t argue that biological differences don’t exist. That would be absurd,
Cardinal Ratzinger recently suggested some unnamed groupd is saying this. Most think he means feminists.
From:letter ” On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World”
A second tendency emerges in the wake of the first. In order to avoid the domination of one sex or the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex, is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary.
I agree with DanJ: The argument is not that differences don’t exist.
There are many points in the argument. One is the physical differences do not explain the social outcomes. Another is that the physical differences should not be used to deny women rights. (As they have been to deny women, say… the right to vote Some things are still denied based on biological claims. )
I understand, Amp. It’s just that I get frustrated when people who would otherwise be feminists consider themselves to be antifeminist simply because they disagree with a myth about feminism.But even if it were true, does one person making one absurd argument render the entire movement absurd by association? Of course not.
Soul – “And again on this wieght thing. You seem to have SEVERE trouble understanding the difference between being overweight and being obese. You also seem to have a near delusional view of a causal relationship between dieting and being fat. Diet’s don’t make people fat, people who are fat go on diets and very often fail them. Going on a diet doesn’t mean you STUCK to the diet. It means you tried. eating low fat food and excersizing will not make you fat.”
Well, in spite of the fact that my own experience and the experiences of most fat people I know run counter to what you’re arguing (we started dieting as young women who were not overweight and each subsequent weight loss attempt resulted in a net weight GAIN), if the majority of people who, as you’re contending, are failing to stay on diets, doesn’t that at least indicate that diets might be at least *part* of the problem? If doctors were prescribing a treatment that involved a regimen that only 2-10% of their patients could maintain, even if they were highly motivated, don’t you think that they’d start looking for another treatment? Really, I’ve known people from all walks of life who are intelligent, have demonstrated perserverance and discipline in having successful careers and raising kids and earning advanced degrees who haven’t been able to lose weight and maintain that loss. At some point, doesn’t logic imply that these are not *all* lazy, shiftless people who spend their lives on the couch with a bag of doritos? Not to rehash this again but there is *plenty* of medical evidence to support the idea that repeated dieting causes long-term weight gain, and the evidence has been there for decades. Look up the Ancel Keyes 1944 starvation study.
Regarding the NCLB article, my greatest fear as the parent of a special needs child is the demise of the public school system. (Actually, that’s also my greatest fear as a person who believes that democracy can only survive when a majority of the population is at least literate, even better if they are able to employ critical thinking. One of the ramifications of “teaching to the test” is that a lot of the learning becomes memorize-and-regurgitate rather than learning to analyze and extract information, which may also be part of the intent of NCLB.)
Private education for special needs kids is spotty at best, totally unavailable at worst. Private schools do not have to meet certain criteria for teachers, nor do they have a mandate to provide needed services for these kids as the public schools do.
the idea that repeated dieting causes long-term weight gain, and the evidence has been there for decades. Look up the Ancel Keyes 1944 starvation study
I think that starvation study involved only one starvation cycle, not repeated dieting.
But, my understanding is that people’s metabolism is known to decrease when dieting is suffiiciently severe to result in significant weight loss. (I don’t know if hte low metabolism has been shown to persist.)
This lowered metabolism, and other factors, do make it difficult for people to intentionally lose weight. Other factors include the fact that once someone has been starving for a while, most find it very difficult to voluntarily avoid eating when presented with food.
I think what confuses those like Soul is this: Yes, if a person is deprived of food, as in a concentration camp, or during a famine, they will lose weight and die of starvation. Yes. If we actually lock people up in concentration camps, and deprive them off food, everyone will lose weight. Do it long enough, and they will starve to death But, what the starvation studies seem to show is that the minute the survivors leave the concentration camp, they will be very fixated on food, their metabolism is low, and they will gain weight.
The situation for the dieter is somewhat analogous to the concentration camp victim who, for some reason, wishes to keep their weight low.
It’s the body’s reaction to starvation that makes it more difficult to lose weight than one might otherwise think.
great article in The Scotsman. Nice to know that some UK doctors think that having women docs makes the medical profession go downhill. Pompous twits.
lucia – “I think that starvation study involved only one starvation cycle, not repeated dieting.”
Yes, that’s true, and even with just one cycle, the men participating lost lean body mass (muscle) along with fat, but weight regained was regained almost exclusively as fat. Also, many of the men became compulsive about food, which continued for months after the study had finished. Many also suffered depression, lethargy and anxiety. And IIRC, this was on 1600 calories a day, which is 400-600 calories more daily than on most commercial weight loss programs!
Thanks for the link, ampersand. And thanks for all the new blogs in the post above. It’s good and then it’s bad because now I have to read more…
es, that’s true, and even with just one cycle,….
I point this out because several cycles would likely be as bad or worse as one cycle. It seems unlikely that the second or third cycle would some how reverse the effect of the first.
I haven’t read studies that systematically studied the effects of starvation cycling in a similar way. (They would be awfully difficult to do. I’m sure large fractions of partcipants would drop out!)
I did some research on Steven E. Rhoads and his book Taking Sex Roles Seriously. It’s interesting what goes in the name of evidence in some circles. It’s also interesting what is regarded as adequate expertise for writing about a field. Not astonishingly, Rhoads concludes that women should be housewives.