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Why I love Ursula K. Le Guin

Not only did she create a world where white is the minority and allows the darkness of the predominate skin type to be implied as the norm instead of mentioned constantly but this quote today thrilled me:

“What’s wrong with men?” Tenar inquired caughtiously.

As cautiously, lowering her voice, Moss replied, “I don’t know, my dearie. I’ve thought on it. Often I’ve thought on it. The best I can say it is like this. A man’s in his skin, see, like a nut in it’s shell.” She held up her long, bent, wet fingers as if holding a walnut. “It’s hard and strong, that shell, and it’s all full of him. Full of grand man-meat, manself. And that’s all. That’s all there is. It’s all him and nothing else, inside.” -
Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin

YAY! MAN DOES RIGHT THING!

“Guys, males, men: you are in an incredible position to prevent violence against women, especially sexual violence. Date-rape is more common than you probably think, and oftentimes women do not come forward regarding their experiences with it. Why?”
…
“Rapists aren’t monsters in dark alleyways, true; they are the person walking across the street, that guy in Spanish class, the man you saw fist-pumping at a party last week. And these men aren’t born rapists, monsters within waiting to pounce out. No, they are created by the notion that it is okay to view women as nothing more than an achievement, a challenge, or an object to be used during a one-night stand. Rape is the logical conclusion of this mode of thinking. When a man begins to view sex simply as an arena in which to attain power – to get pats-on-the-back or a personal feeling of accomplishment – the proverbial seed has already sprouted. Rape is a showing of power, a grasping for control over somebody. When a man dehumanizes a woman in his own mind, he is already crossing the line.”

via An apology and response – Opinion.

New Scholarly Thing on Sexual Coercion in Primates

Despicable, Yes, but Not Inexplicable » American Scientist .

“The science that allows us to understand sexual coercion by males is drawn directly from Darwin’s own work on sexual selection. There is, however, another layer here, because of course one cannot talk about the evolution of sexual aggression in male primates without pondering the social consequences of the same behavior in our own species. Are domestic violence and sexual assault simply human homologues of the same conduct seen in chimpanzees and baboons? Many social scientists bristle at this suggestion, with its invocation of biological determinism. This volume’s authors, many of them female researchers, do an excellent job of sensitively exploring the boundary between phenotype and environment that is the stuff of which human behavior is made.”
The small amount I’ve skimmed on the article about it has me drooling to read it.  I’m not scientist enough to judge the factual or inferred ramifications of this paper but I do think that the only way to stop rape and abuse is to understand the basis for it in our human nature.

…
And as I kept reading I got this quote from further down –
“The most compelling contribution in this section is a paper by Melissa Emery Thompson, who argues persuasively that most rapes are not committed by lonely, socially maladjusted men, as Thornhill and Palmer imagined. Instead, rape is a crime most often carried out by men who are sexually experienced and connected to the victim in some way. This changing view of rape is no doubt a reflection of better reporting of crime statistics. That in turn is a result of society having begun to take a more expansive view of such criminal acts, which women of earlier generations might not have been willing to report due to fear of social stigmatization. It should not surprise us that acquaintance rapists far outnumber stranger rapists, nor that the modus operandi of sexual assaults differs in the two different contexts. Acquaintance rapists are not necessarily pathological in other social contexts; they rarely resort to the levels of physical force or violence that stranger rapists employ. All this, Thompson argues, should contribute to a view that acquaintance rape accords with evolutionary perspectives about the rationales for male dominance over and control of female sexuality. And as Thompson puts it, even if an evolutionary perspective does not help us understand how to prevent sexually coercive behavior, “it may give us a clearer picture of the enormity of the problem we are dealing with.”

Exactly

Whitey on the moon – gil scott-heron

via YouTube - Whitey on the moon – gil scott-heron .

Justice Ginsburg Is One Smart Person

From New York Times Magazine The Place of Women on the Court – NYTimes.com.: “JUSTICE GINSBURG: The Legislature can make the change, can facilitate the change, as laws like the Family Medical Leave Act do. But it’s not something a court can decree. A court can’t tell the man, You’ve got to do more than carry out the garbage.”
read more via The Place of Women on the Court – NYTimes.com.

Trying to look at myself first

Been Reading Renee for a while.  I don’t feel expert enough on anything to weigh in on the actual real life events going on but feel this woman is right on here…

Womanist Musings
“Who the hell elected these women to speak on behalf of women like me?  How is it that despite the clear acknowledgement that the monolithic woman does not exist, heterosexual, cisgendered, able bodied , white women continue to not only represent feminism but are understood to embody all of its core values and ambitions? The answer simply put is privilege.

It is privilege that maintains the hegemony of white women in feminist discourse and it is privilege that causes the failure to acknowledge how damaging this is.  I began my womans activism as a feminist and it is only because of the continued erasure of several types of women that it became clear to me that feminism is not about justice or equality but the elevation of white women in relation to white men.  Feminism is no more relevant to a marginalized body than training wheels on a bike would be to a fly.  When these feminists demand vagina based solidarity, they need look no further than their own actions to understand why marginalized women increasingly say thanks but no thanks.  How’s that for a quick hit?”

via Womanist Musings.

Sojourner Truth: the first African-American woman to have a memorial bust in the U.S. Capitol.

“One could only imagine what Sojourner Truth, an outspoken, tell-it-like-it-is kind of woman … what she would have to say about this incredible gathering,” first lady Michelle Obama said at the Celebration of Truth ceremony. “We are all here because, as my husband says time and time again, we stand on the shoulders of giants like Sojourner Truth.”

“And as just Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott would be pleased to know that we have a woman serving as the speaker of the House of Representatives, I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of slaves, serving as the first lady of the United States of America,” she said.

Truth comes to the U.S. Capitol – CNN.com

Melissa McEwen Is one of the smartest out there…

From Shakesville: Rank (and File) Bigotry ”

The Republican Party has traded again and again on the conjured idea of an American golden era, circa 1945 to 1960, after boys who were ripped from the arms of their virginal sweethearts and sent to another continent to fight a great war against tyranny and despair, had returned home as men, as heroes, and set to work, every last one of them, making babies with doting wives and grabbing the American Dream with both hands in the dawn of suburbia. Scientists in white lab coats and square, black-framed glasses toiled away to make American astronauts the first on the moon, and to fill all the pretty new homes behind perfect white picket fences with fancy, new-fangled household gadgets to make life easier and more fun. Teenagers hung out at sock hops and neon-lit diners, girls longing for lavaliers and boys wondering how to get laid. Elvis’ pelvis was considered a scandal, and Marilyn Monroe a bombshell. Dad had a pension and the promise of a gold watch at the end of a long career with a single firm, and Mom had a Frigidaire. And everyone was happy.

Vote for us—and we’ll give you that.”

Shakesville: Rank (and File) Bigotry.

I never feel i have anything to add to posts like these, they are simply sublime.  But I like to share.

Dr. Phil Please Don’t

This is a repeat of Ask Dr. Phil. A 43 year old father of adult daughter is dating daughter’s friends. Dr. Phil gets to explain how the father is getting older and may want to look at some who are a “little bit longer in the tooth.”

Not experienced. Not intelligent. Not be open to them blowing your shit up cause they’ve seen your dumbass musicians act before but if you could get over it you probably would create a caring supportive relationship for yourself with a woman who has some life under her belt and is more attractive for it.

Nope.

“long in the tooth” because we are horses?

Dr. Phil. Please watch yourself. You have just fostered the attitude that has this jackass out there fucking 20 year olds and somehow believing it makes him a man because young are the more wanted ones.