Today's quote ...

. . . people with privilege treat everyone else as their personal jokes.

-- Disability and feminism: one person's experience by katemoore at feministing.com

When logic doesn't convince ...

Habladora at The Feminist Underground posted this:

1. Antonin Scalia sounded like a complete ass on Monday as the Supreme Court heard arguments on a federal gun ban that bars those convicted of domestic violence from owning guns.

I won't dispute Scalia's ass-ness but in this case his argument is rather logical. And as much as I hate defending Scalia, his job is judging constitutionality of US laws. Too bad he doesn't do that more often ... then one might give him credit for something other than siding with domestic abusers.

Facts, perspective, objectivity, truth and lies ...

Excerpt from The myth of objectivity by Suzie at ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Before the 20th century, many newspapers trumpeted biases to attract readers who shared their views or wanted another opinion. Now, when few cities have more than one daily newspaper, and a few corporations monopolize the media, it makes sense to claim objectivity. Media owners want readers, viewers and listeners to think they can get all sides, all viewpoints, from just one source. And they do not want to offend advertisers. This translates into a lowest-common-denominator journalism that supports the status quo.

Perspective ...

I don't know, there may have been a post or two at Worry Wart that I didn't find instructive and informative. There may have been, but I don't recall one. However, on a scale of one to 10, Worry Wart's post The Heart of Feminism is a definite 10. Here's a excerpt:

Feminists complain about a persistent, insular, and dysfunctional patriarchy. It plagues politics and corporate governments causing the same kind of pain and difficulty in good reasoning that a perpetual migrain headache might cause.

It’s an accurate observation in many cases. The problem with men arises from the fact that in agricultural and post agricutural societies the culture is almost completely derived from principles of individual property ownership. And property ownership is one of the primary distinguishing characteristics of mating priviledges for males.

In this context it is nearly always (assumed to be) in the male’s best (evolutionary) interest to magnify the power difference between himself and the next male lower on the economic scale. Thus, males tend to build highly vertical heirarchical societies with great inequality. And they tend to be cruel to those of lower status. It’s a tendency that is deeply embeddeed in the psyche; it is one that we inherit from other primates such as the ancestors common to us and baboons. It is one we share with most social mammals including most pack and herd animals.

The grave problem with this culture is that it tends to produce a small number of very rich people and a large number of very poor ones. This leads to social unrest and ferment. And this, in turn, leads to violence. That this is almost entirely absent from North America’s history is an artifact of the huge bounty of natural resources its European settlers have enjoyed by virtue of settling a huge almost empty continent. But when that bounty becomes sufficiently depleted, the process will be observed here, too.

Read the entire post.

Prejudice from male scientists ...

Female Fickleness May Split a Species by Matt Kaplan

Selection or choice or decision are not usually considered derogatory terms, but fickleness is definitely derogatory. Fickle comes from ficol (Old English) which means deceitful.

So why choose a derogatory term for a decision or choice being made by a female bird when so many other non-derogatory, and more scientific, terms are available?

Who writes these headings ...

Bilingual woman to become CEO of Hispanic Chamber

It's not just the heading. Sheryl Kornman, who I will assume is female, wrote the article which included this sentence:

She becomes a rare female commodity as a chamber president.

Commodity? Maricela Solis de Kester's name isn't mentioned until the second paragraph. After all she's just a woman and women are objects who have gender and language skills. It's not like she's the subject of the article or anything!

Bilingual? So original to have a bilingual person heading a 'Hispanic' Chamber in the US, isn't it? So it must be Kester's gender that zoomed into the writer's lizard brain. Yes, it's not just men who fail to use their higher reasoning capabilities at times. Can you imagine anyone writing the heading 'Bilingual man to become CEO of Hispanic Chamber?' Sounds idiotic, yes?

At the time of this post there was one comment to the article posted by someone who identifies himself as 'fernando s. (mando1).' Fernado's cryptic comment is 'who cares!!!'

And so goes the US and the world ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

No one's happy but the Department of Homeland (in)Security ... "The precedent is basically set that if there's a use that is incompatible with a refuge, then we'll just hand over our land to the Department of Homeland Security," Clark said. "I don't think that's any better precedent than waiving laws."
[Near-done border fence stirs critics, defenders --Land swap: best deal possible or bad precedent? by Brady McCombs, Arizona Daily Star] ... but then, nothing matters anymore than using threats and fear to scam the entire country.
The Beltway obsession with Social Security is a classic case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. People have picked up a few facts about demography, and think they understand the long run budget problem. They don’t. ... and neither does Obama, sorry to say.
The Bush/Cheney Legacy ... With the confirmation hearings for Michael Mukasey as Attorney General, one cannot but fear that we are descending into the hell that was the destination of those human societies that did not give sufficient weight to moral and ethical standards and the rule of law. Rather we have squandered morality and ethics in expedient actions that returned less than nothing: no security, no safety and no honor. That is the legacy of Bush and Cheney.

By the way: no one knows where al-Libi is today. He has been "disappeared" by Bush. Perhaps because his very testimony is such an indictment of Bush and his embrace of the Torture Regime.

I wonder if Chris Matthews realizes that every time he or one of his fellow gasbags blithely reveal their sexist lizard brains like this, another little feminist gets her (or his) wings.

Too bad Markos at DailyKos wont read this ...

Please send Markos to PacificViews to do some much needed homework.

Newsflash: Rape And Death Threats Not Funny

What is feminism?

Sympathy and empathy are wonderful qualities but they will work as well in the harem as in the workplace if comiseration is all that women want.

Why Feminism Is Still Necessary

The above link describes the situation where a woman was attacked on the web with threats of death, rape and mutilation. Under this stress she backed out of a speaking engagement.

The gains in women's rights that started in the 60's and continued through the 80's are definitely under attack. Not that resistance to those rights ever really stopped, but attempts to turn back the clock on women's rights are on the rise.

The women of the new century are not going to keep these rights 'for free.' They will have to insist. And that can be dangerous. Almost as dangerous as being chattel.

In all societies, poverty, discrimination, ignorance and social unrest are common predictors of violence against women. Yet the most enduring enemies of a woman’s dignity and security are cultural forces aimed at preserving male dominance and female subjugation—often defended in the name of venerable tradition.

In industrialized societies like the US, where institutions formally frown on gender violence, behaviour belies official pronouncements: rap music insulting women as ‘whores’; a popular men's magazine that celebrates gang rape and depicts female bodies being fed into meat grinders; sexual harassment of women trying to integrate into the armed forces; and societal pressures that induce young women to starve themselves or use technology to create ‘ideal’ bodies, often destroying their health in the process.

In developing countries, violent practices against women are often recognized and defended as strands of the cultural weave. Wife-beating, for example, is considered part of the natural order in many countries—a masculine prerogative celebrated in songs, proverbs and wedding ceremonies.

Are today's women under the impression that women who fought for women's rights in the 1800's and 1900's were not in physical danger, did not receive threats and that death and rape were not part of those threats?