Awesome Religious Leader Alert!

The Reverend Welton Gaddy, Executive Director of the Interfaith Alliance, was on Rachel Maddow last night. They had a good discussion about religion and politics, and the degree that the two of those mix, and why that mix is a problem. Of course they talked about the C Street House, which is one of Rachel's pet issues, but they also began their chat with a little bit of Stupak. Rev. Gaddy said things I have never heard a male person say in my life:

MADDOW: What do you make of Congressman Stupak on this health reform issue of his, saying that he doesn‘t listen to nuns, he only listens to bishops when it comes to abortion rights?

GADDY: Well, it sounds very much like a male authoritarian point of view, doesn‘t it? I don‘t know whether this is all about politics or all about religion. Either way, it doesn‘t work. It‘s bad politics. It‘s bad religion. When a man takes up on himself the authority that lets him tell a woman how she can handle her own body, what she can do and do with it, I get very suspicious about the audacity of that man.

Thank you Dr. Gaddy. The fact that a male religious leader in a mainstream Christian denomination (he's a Baptist) can articulate that point of view gives me hope for the world.

Johnny, Shiloh, and Gender

I'm a couple weeks late to the party on this one, but can I just say that I LOVE JOHNNY WEIR? I mean seriously. That guy is amazing. And his response to two French-Canadian radio personalities really cemented that love. Here's what happened, (paraphrased):
Guys on the radio: A FAGGY FIGURE SKATER! NOT THAT ONE, THAT ONE! NO, THAT ONE! POINT AND LAUGH!
Johnny Weir: I'm here, I'm fabulous, get used to it.

So here we have a situation in which a male figure skater is derided for dressing/seeming too feminine, and two radio hosts take it upon themselves to try and shame Johnny Weir into apologizing for being...let me see if I have this right...a sparkly, flamboyant FIGURE SKATER.

But the best part is the last bit of his response:

I think masculinity is what you believe it to be. To me, masculinity is all my perception. And I think that masculinity and femininity is something that’s very old-fashioned.

Johnny rejects the oppositional model of gender. Here's the thing. Gender roles are positioned as both oppositional and hierarchical. Oppositional means that there is "masculine" stuff and "feminine" stuff, and the stuff doesn't overlap. This reduces the masculine and feminine to a binary, wherein someone can be one or the other, but not neither, and not both. Hierarchical means that one of these things is constructed as superior to the other. Things that are coded masculine are better in this culture (and across every other I can think of) than things coded feminine. Proof?
1) Doing something "like a girl" is an insult.
2) Working outside the home is "real work", but working inside the home isn't.
3) Jobs in cleaning, and caretaking of adults and children, require the same amount of education and experience as jobs in construction or sanitation, but they pay less.
4) The low level jobs in a given field are heavily populated by women (nurses, elementary and middle-school teachers), but the high level jobs in the same field are male-dominated (doctors, college professors).

The hierarchical aspects of the gender construction feed the oppositional forces, and vice versa. The more privileged masculine things are over feminine things, the more different the two seem from one another. Similarly, the more oppositional the genders seem, the less alike masculine and feminine are, the easier it is to position one above the other. Any blending would destroy the justification for the superior/inferior positioning.

Then we add in gender policing. Not only are the genders binary and opposite, not only is masculine better than feminine, but it is also IMPERATIVE that a given person stays in his or her box. To transcend one's gender is to invite criticism, as in Weir's case.

To fail to enforce these gender standards is also, apparently, to fail as a parent. Look at this article about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's daughter, Shiloh. The headline is "Why Is Angelina Turning Shiloh Into a Boy?". The vitriol aimed at Angelina Jolie for her toddler daughter wearing a short haircut and boys' clothes (that actually appear to be her brothers' hand-me-downs) is astounding. This article illustrates the double bind women are in: we're supposed to act like a girl, which means accepting all of the second-place stuff that marks femininity. Even if we personally value qualities in ourselves that are stereotypically feminine, the culture in which we live devalues them. It devalues us for doing them. And then it says we were born to do them.

The gender binary sucks for guys, too. Heterosexual masculinity is culturally defined as bellicose, aggressive, terse, predatory, and solitary. We have the strong, silent type. We have an army of one. We have a cultural understanding of sex that is based around masculine release rather than mutual pleasure. Let's not even make it about the boys who like sparkles but never get to wear them. Let's talk about the boys with a wide emotional range. Where does a boy who is sensitive and empathetic, who gets lonely, or who cries sometimes, fit in? If you're thinking "what a pussy", good. That's my point.

Today in: things that have actual definitions

Many people find that words have definitions. No duh, you say. But I submit to you the word LITERALLY. Literally has a definition! It means actually, in a literal manner, without exaggeration or hyperbole. And yet it is often conflated with the word "virtually", such that people use literally in a hyperbolic fashion to mean "very nearly". This frustrates many nerds like myself.

So. A lot of other words have definitions. My favorite word with a definition lately is "terrorism" or variants thereof. Let's see what this means, shall we? I'm using a super-pinko commie dictionary, by the way.

The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological. See also antiterrorism; combating terrorism; counterterrorism; force protection condition; terrorist; terrorist groups. Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. US Department of Defense 2005.

The definition by DOD is especially interesting because we have to discuss what practical impact this definition has. Do we define terrorism this way descriptively or proactively? Is DOD describing acts we've seen and labeling them "terrorism"? Or is DOD defining certain features of acts that we will prosecute as "terrorism" because we think these aspects make acts particularly dangerous or hard to prosecute? It seems to me that defining "terrorism", in the DOD, is about assigning a certain protocol to prosecuting the perpetrators of that act. As in, if this is "terrorism", then we proceed by doing x,y,z, but if it is not terrorism, then we go this different route of prosecution.

So! Terrorist acts on US soil lately may/may not include:
1) Joseph Stack flying his plane into an IRS building, and identifying the IRS and taxation policies as his inspiration in his suicide note. Neapolitano has ruled this incident a terrorist tactic, but not an act of terrorism. Seems like splitting hairs, but I can dig it. Let's see.
Argument for defining this "terrorism": Stack flew a plane into a government building. He mentioned the IRS in his note and had a long-standing dispute with them.
Argument against: Stack was not part of an organization. Stack does not appear to have had a coercive intent, but instead a more fatalistic, "I give up" motivation. He acted alone and seems to have had no ties to any group with a coercive agenda. Here's the note.
Conclusion: In terms of how to prosecute this person's act and prevent it from happening again, this country is at a loss. Stack killed himself in the crash, and nobody else was involved in his action or supportive of it directly or specifically. There's basically nothing that defining this action as "terrorism" would do for us as a country to make us safer.

2) Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting spree at Fort Hood, which killed 13 and wounded 32. A profile of Hasan on CNN argues that Hasan was a disgruntled, angry loner who is Muslim and of Palestinian descent. In contrast, many others argue that Hasan was akin to a suicide bomber: someone whose radical Islamist views led him to try to sacrifice himself and take out as many U.S. servicemembers at Ft. Hood as possible. There's an interesting article that teases out some arguments about the intersection of radical religious ideology, mental illness, and the similarity of Hasan to other workplace shooters.
Arguments for calling the Ft. Hood attack terrorism: Perpetrated by someone who is arguably a radicalized Muslim, who possibly had ties to radical Muslim clerics. He might have been ideologically motivated: that is, he is a Muslim, and his faith inspired him to commit violence.
Arguments against: It appears Hasan acted alone. Hasan may have been a revenge-motivated shooter, or a phsychotic person whose delusions, rather than his ideology, motivated his violent acts.
Conclusion: How does the label change the way we prosecute Hasan? Does calling him a terrorist meaningfully alter our strategy as a nation against al-Quaeda and similar extremist groups? If it reflects a desire to make our institutions stronger, let's call it terrorism. If the result is that the military becomes more likely to monitor people who, like Hasan, worry their coworkers with violent or irrational rhetoric, I'm all for that. However, if calling this "terrorism" makes our institutions more anti-Islam without becoming more effective, we should worry. Every act of violence committed by every Muslim isn't terrorism, even if, like the Ft. Hood shooting, it is horrible and deplorable and must be avoided.

3) Scott Roeder shot and killed late-term abortion provider George Tiller in his church. With a few exceptions, pro-choice people consider this terrorism, and all but the most extreme anti-choicers call this a disturbed guy acting alone.
Arguments for calling this terrorism: Scott Roeder was, despite their objections, a member of Operation Rescue. Operation Rescue is one of several far-right anti-choice organizations that assists people like Roeder in physical intimidation and coercion of abortion providers. They intimidate providers in order to "save babies" a.k.a. to decrease the number of abortions by eliminating access to abortions. This amounts to a calculated effort to obstruct women from exercising their constitutional rights.
Argument against: Roeder was a lone wolf acting without the knowledge or support of any particular group. Easily debunked by the previous McClatchy link, as well as this article identifying Roeder as a familiar presence in far-right circles.
Conclusion: How does it change the way we react to situations like the murder of Dr. Tiller to call Roeder a terrorist? First, it removes the possibility that we would change national policy to appease the Roeders of the world. Instead, we would defiantly defend a woman's right over her body as an American value that will not be stripped away by intimidation or coercion. We might also monitor or prosecute members of militant right-wing groups that incite violence with their rhetoric, in order to paralyze the structure that keeps producing murderers. These are far better outcomes than treating Scott Roeder and his ilk as lone wolves, since they are supplied and inspired by networks of radicals who believe murder is justified for doctors who help women end crisis pregnancies that might kill the woman, the fetus, or both if brought to term. Terrorism is the definition, because anti-terrorism should be the strategy.

Your agenda is showing

The pro-life agenda is dedicated to controlling women by means of allocating all the costs of sex onto women's bodies. It is not about babies, or rights, or fully informing women of their choices.

How do I know?

Part I:If your argument is "if you don't like it, don't have sex" then you need to check your privilege.
In Utah, it is a criminal offense to induce your own miscarriage. The article says this law comes from the case of a woman who, pregnant at 7 months, paid someone $150 to beat her until she miscarried. And in Utah, the SOLUTION to this problem, is to PUT GIRLS LIKE HER IN JAIL. Do you see how punishment follows punishment here? In a state where they won't teach comprehensive sex education, where they allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control, where none of the 8 Planned Parenthood clinics offers abortion, they want to jail a girl who would not submit to being forced to give birth.

If this were about controlling birth and keeping fetuses from dying, this girl would have been taught to USE BIRTH CONTROL. Birth control would have been MADE AVAILABLE TO HER. Instead, it's about sex, and the argument is that if she didn't have sex, she wouldn't have gotten pregnant and run so far out of options that having a friend beat her until she miscarried seemed like a legitimate plan.

News flash, assholes in the Utah legislature: this girl has a fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed right to her bodily autonomy. She has a legal right to have sex if she is over the age of consent. She, an unmarried person, has a legal right to use birth control. See Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972). She has a legal right to an abortion! Now you want to put her in jail for doing something that, to anyone with a shred of empathy, was an obvious last-ditch effort to keep herself from having a baby she didn't want. You've made any chance that this girl could have sex responsibly highly unlikely. You've made her options for terminating her pregnancy virtually unattainable. And now you want to JAIL HER because she found herself pregnant and desparate. When you erode the availability of her rights, such that she cannot access them, you are violating those rights. Stop thinking about how you can stop people from having the kind of sex you don't approve of and give women like her their RIGHTS BACK.

Part II: Data tells you how to avoid abortions. Hint: does not include criminalizing miscarriages.
Anyone who respects anything resembling data can tell you that investing in family planning SAVES WOMEN'S and BABIES' LIVES. Check out this study from The Guttmacher Institute. The whole thing is worth reading, but here's the short of it:

The report found that doubling the world's current annual spending of $12 billion on family planning and maternal and newborn health programs in developing nations would radically cut the number of mothers and babies that die each year—maternal deaths would drop by 70%, and newborn deaths would be reduced by 44%. A host of other health, societal and economic benefits would follow.

Significantly, these dramatic improvements can only be achieved by simultaneously investing in family planning and maternal and newborn health care. As the report documents, every dollar invested in family planning boosts the overall effectiveness of each dollar spent on maternal and newborn health care. A combined investment achieves the same dramatic results—for $1.5 billion less than investing in maternal and newborn health care services alone.

Meaning? When you spend money on comprehensive, science based sex education and subsidize birth control, you gain huge momentum in the fight against problems as far-ranging as overpopulation, HIV infection, illiteracy and lack of education, preventable disabilities, high-cost health care problems like fistula, and most importantly, maternal and infant mortality rates. The Guttmacher Institute study applies mostly to the developing world, but its findings are as applicable to the U.S. as to poorer countries. Meanwhile, in the U.S. federal funds were spent on abstinence-only sex education for years, and Nancy Pelosi was pilloried for suggesting that birth control subsidies would help our struggling economy.

Birth control and sex education are so, so important that I find it difficult to believe that we in the U.S. are still fighting about whether making these available will hurt our "don't have sex" message. People, the "don't have sex" message doesn't work. It's paternalistic and creepy: why are you worried about what other people do with their bodies? The data is clear. Spend a little, save a lot. That's a hugely understandable win in the cost-benefit world. If the powers that be in the U.S. could just get over the "no sex is the best sex, unless I say it's ok" message, women would be WAY better off.

I'm jealous of your ignorance.

Amanda Hess at The Sexist writes today about some studies that show a large gap between women's and men's knowledge about how birth control works. This gap is pervasive across different forms of birth control, including condoms. Meaning fewer women self-identify as clueless. About condoms. Things that go on penises. Really.

I argue that this ignorance comes from a widespread lack of knowledge about women's bodies, in both hetero men and hetero women. Sidenote: the lesbians I know have better info about women's bodies than any straight woman I know, nevermind straight men. This narrative that a woman's body is a mystery and impossible to comprehend has got to stop. First of all, women are half the population, so things like birth control and menstruation are daily-life realities for roughly 3 billion people. That means they aren't weird or abnormal. Every time a woman's normal bodily functions are portrayed as singular and strange, it's because we consider the default of humanity to be a man, like women are the exception to the rule somehow. Check out the confusion and agony of this young swain, quoted in the article:

“I dated a girl with a NuvaRing, while I didn’t know she had one,” says a 22-year-old Arlington resident who didn’t discover how the couple was preventing baby-making until his penis was already well inside her vagina. “I found out the physical way, when I felt the alien object. I immediately recoiled in fear, asking what was wrong. It was frightening. Then she told me her birth control was a ring in her vagina, which I had never heard of.” He demanded the evidence. “She retrieved it—which is a sight to see—and showed it to me, put it back, and we continued,” he says. “I feel like girls should tell people.”

What a winner. Here we have: 1) fear that a vagina is a scary place with alien objects that are frightening, 2) COMPLETE LACK OF COMMUNICATION between hetero partners about birth control before they started fucking, and 3) no realization that this situation happened because the girl believed she was responsible for her own birth control, a belief the guy shares by depending on "girls" to teach him about methods of birth control.

This belief that women are exceptions to normal humanity has major implications for women's health. The National Institutes of Health didn't encourage including women into clinical studies until the 80's, and it didn't become law until 1993! That same 1993 law, NIH Revitalization Act of 1993, also mandated including minorities in clinical trials. How did white men become the default representative of humanity? Further, when reading about healthcare savings accounts (HSAs), I stumbled on this argument by Ezra Klein about the misogyny inherent in HSAs. Inequality arises because women and men seek health care in different ways, and women's health care costs more. Why does it cost more? Oh because that's the market! It should cost more! Because women use it more! Because the burden of sex and reproduction falls on women. Women have to know all about birth control and buy it. Nearly all birth control for women has to be accessed through a doctor: diaphragms and cervical caps, IUDs, and hormonal birth control of any kind. In order to get a doctor to perscribe her some birth control, a woman needs to have regular pap smears, STI screenings, and sometimes blood tests. If a woman needs an abortion, her health insurance may not cover it at all and the government certainly won't, so she pays for it if she can. In exchange, hetero women and men together can benefit from planning and spacing births, and from decreased instances of maternal and infant mortality. And men aren't just spared from paying for the birth control, they also have the LUXURY of remaining ignorant about it if they choose.