The Happy Feminist

HAPPY FEMINIST DE-BANS GRUMPY OLD MAN

Although my original banning of old duffer David Duff was unquestionably justified, I am going to exercise my total power over this small realm by de-banning him.  They don't call me HF the Benevolent (or HF the Idiot) for nothing. 

Why would I do such a thing, you may ask?  First, I am not that into banning people.  Second, Duff and I exchanged some emails a few days ago that made me laugh.  Third, he has graciously given me permission to tell him (or any other snotty Englishman) he's a prick if he pulls the, "You Yanks don't understand irony" card.

I have no idea if he'll be back, and he'll probably get himself banned again if he does come back, but for now, what the hey.  Maybe we'll get him marching in a "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt along with Richard yet. 

ANECDOTE: ON BEING COMPARED TO LEWINSKY

This is just a random anecdote that I was reminded of as I was writing this post. I was reading through some of the Althouse comments comparing Jessica Valenti to Monica Lewinsky because they are both young, have brown hair, and have been in the same room with President Clinton.  It's kind of sticking in my craw so I might as well tell the story. 

Back in 1999, when I was a 27 year old prosecutor, I attended a week-long trial advocacy seminar for prosecutors from around the United States.  My group had about 10 young prosecutors and 3 instructors who were experienced trial lawyers.  We spent the week doing mock trial exercises and being videotaped and critiqued.  I learned a great deal and it was great to meet other professionals in my line of work.  At the end of the week, I got to take home the videotape of all my mock trial performances. I remember liking everyone involved in the project and feeling that we all got along well in a fun but professional setting.  There was no sexual banter during the course of the week.   

At the end, the three instructors gave out gag gifts for all the students, which we opened while being videotaped.  Most of the gifts were fairly innocuous as I recall.  One guy got a can of hair gel because his hair was always slicked back. As he opened it, I remember worrying that he might be hurt or offended that people were laughing at his hair.  My gift was last because it was, I was told, one of the funniest.   When it was my turn, I opened the gift in a kind of nervous but pleasurable flutter because I couldn't imagine what the instructors had noticed about me that they would link to a gag gift. 

I ripped open the wrapping to find . . . a beret and a cigar. 

As the class laughed uproariously, I found myself uncharacteristically taken aback.  My mind rewound through the week to try to remember if there had been any Lewinsky discussions I had been a part of.  But I drew a total blank. I was at a loss to make any connection between myself and Lewinsky.  I think I smiled weakly and somehow indicated that I thought I was missing something.  People laughed even more.  It was truly surreal.  Someone finally said: "Don't you know you're exactly like her?!?"

Huh.  I suppose I am the same height, around the same age, and I have shoulder length brown hair.  That's about all we have in common in terms of our appearance or otherwise.  I guess it's that "wholesome, ethnic" look.  While I have a fairly filthy sense of humor, it was really unnerving to be compared in a professional setting, even in jest, to a woman whose primary claim to fame was giving blowjobs.  It made me question myself and whether I had acted in some way that was flaky or sexual or inappropriate. 

The incident left me with a sour taste in my mouth.****  It wasn't the end of the world but I was never was quite able to look back on that week pleasurably.  And I never watched the videotape of my trial exercises.  I taped over it because I absolutely did not want ever to see the look on my own face during that final incident.   

I don't claim to know whether there is a larger meaning to the incident beyond just piss-poor judgment by the people involved.   But it comes back to me now that another young brunette woman is being randomly compared to Lewinsky.  Maybe they really think we all look alike. 

***** Frighteningly, the potential double meaning here was utterly unintended.  Didn't notice until I reread the post. 

IN PRAISE OF BREASTBLOGGING

I really am going to stop talking about the Althouse nonsense soon. I must however address another aspect of the whole debacle, summed up in Althouse's statement that Feministing uses sexuality for promotional purposes. 

Maybe this is obvious to most readers of this blog, but: talk about missing the whole point.  Sure, everyone knows that Althouse missed the boat when she claimed that Feministing's ironic mudflap girls are an attempt to draw in male viewers with cheesecake sexuality. (Psssst, Ann, the mudflap girls are giving the finger.  They are protesting the whole concept of being reduced to only their sex parts. The mudflap girls are saying they are not just a set of boobs but  beings with agency and ideas.) 

But Ann misses the point of the whole blog and the whole nature of feminism as well.  Feministing is a major collection of serious and not-so-serious news stories affecting women around the globe.  The bloggers there use a lot of ribald humor and discuss sexual issues with flair.  The whole point of their work is that women can and should be able to have and enjoy their sexuality without  being reduced to or wholly defined by it -- just as men do.   

This concept is apparently incomprehensible to Althouse and her readers.  In her world, your breasts ARE who you are.  If your breasts appear at an official function, then your whole reason for being there must be your breasts.  You see breasts on someone's blog, even in jest on ironic mudflap girls, then it must be a "breastblog" -- a blog only about breasts. 

That's exactly the kind of thinking to which real feminists and bloggers like Jessica Valenti are wholly opposed. But Althouse and her supporters can't see it because they don't seem to understand that there is an alternative to "women are their breasts."  The alternative of course is (and I can't believe  I have to spell this out) that women can let their breasts out of their binding, and be attractive, and be sexual, and even be openly sexual and AT THE SAME TIME be human beings worthy of respect with agency and ideas and dignity and legitimate concerns.  This really isn't that hard folks.

WE ALL KNOW WHAT THOSE WHOLESOME ETHNIC TYPES ARE UP TO

I was going to let it go, but I find myself still pondering this comment discovered by Amanda at Ann Althouse's place in the wake of boobgate:

"[Jessica's] blog [Feministing] uses sexuality for promotional purposes."---Althouse

Yes, but it's a certain kind of sexuality. I've looked at her Flickr photos....hers is a a kind of wholesome--nice-Jewish-girl-ethnic-Brunette-who-just-happens-to-have-breasts...---sort of a look.She has pictures of her cherub father interspliced between semi-wholesome, yet all-knowing, shots of her emphasizing breasts. Women know how NOT to expose body parts. I don't care if you are a 44 DD, there's a certain style of dressing, and body language, whereby you can turn it completely off.  Jessica hides behind this veil of the good-Jewish-wholesome-Italian-Ethnic-brunette facade, which probably makes her unassailable on the surface.  Yet, it's so obvious what she's intentionally contriving to put out there.  It's that wholesome/semi-ethnic look....you can't criticize her, she's got her father up there, for God's sake.

Very clever.

For all but those who can see through the act.

Peace, Maxine

This jaw-dropping comment was left by one Maxine Weiss, presumably a woman herself and possibly of an "ethnic" variety.  (Ever heard the term "self-loathing"???).  As a wholesome appearing female of both Jewish and Italian extraction (albeit with a small rack), I had no idea folks like me were so suspect.

But seriously, plenty of people out there really DO hate and despise women just for being.  Especially young women with young women's bodies.  If you doubt, comments like this are Exhibit A.

Belledame222  immediately rides into battle and nails it.  Here are her lengthy but oh so fab comments at Althouse (immediately below Maxine's):

Okay. I have to ask. "Wholesome, semi-ethnic look?" What on earth can this mean? As opposed to...what? The NON-wholesome look? which is...? more "ethnic?" Less ethnic? Some other KIND of semi-ethnic? Help me out, here.

anyway, very sinister of her, to pretend she's wholesome. of course she simply COULDN'T just be who she says she is: a feminist blogger who actually does quite a lot of work and who is rather down about all this gleeful shredding of her character. which she did NOTHING to deserve.

you want to exhume the creaky bones of Clinton's dreary scandal, six YEARS after he left office? just bloody do it, then; it's not like you could bore the rest of us any -more-; anyway you hardly need to fixate on some random woman's breasts to do that, do you? I mean, if you're so concerned about -his- BEHAVIOR, and all?

and as to her being unassailable, well, gee, apparently not. Yay you. I'm sure she'll be properly shamed, and...what is it, now? take down her blog? take down all the naughty scandalous language and her sarcastic mudflaps AND her own pictures? put big black X's over anyone with the audacity to have breasts in the picture? cover her head with sackcloth and ashes? write to Ann for advice on how to be a better feminist?? or just, what, next time she gets an invite to a luncheon with the ex-President, turn up her nose and say, "my feminist principles cannot allow it, SIR."

which is exactly what you, Ann, would've done, had you been invited yourself, riiiiight?

even though you voted for him twice, I believe you said?

well. good to meet someone with uh character I always say. yes indeedy.

"Surely, I thought, someone out there who claimed to simultaneously hold Clinton in high esteem and embrace feminist ideals would explain why there's not a gaping dichotomy there... explain how Clinton doesn't personify the very misogynistic attitudes that the feminist movement sought to rightfully bring to public scorn and shame."

You know why people aren't doing this? Because it -isn't the bloody point.- There IS no principle here; this is an ass-cover. Y'all were being sniggery seventh graders over the brunette with the big tits (huh, huh, guess what THIS reminds me of, huh huh CLINTON huh huh); woman herself stops by and says, "please don't do this." What does Ann do? Not only -not- apologize or at least let the thread die a natural death, but ESCALATES. and escalates, and escalates, and escalates, and you know what? That is what bullies do. That is what HARASSERS do. Yeah, you got it. I'm not Clinton's number one fan; I don't in fact give a rat's ass about Clinton. I do give a rat's ass that a bunch of you flying monkeys are laying all your own fucked-up sexual shit on this woman who has done nothing, repeat, NOTHING to deserve this. There IS no justification for this; twist all you like.

You, Ann, are a bully.

And a coward.

And a liar.

And you could stop this any time you like.

But keep on digging if you must; hey, anything just so you can maybe splatter even MORE shit on the young woman who had the audacity to, well, have breasts, pretty much. At this rate maybe you'll get all the way to China. Where they'll -also- probably find you completely horrible; but, hey, change of scenery!

And you are completely talking out of your ass wrt her blog, as you well know.

Jessica is the serious writer here. I'm not even going to dignify your claims of "feminist" with a response. Tell it to Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin: they're GREAT feminists.

The creepy breast-fixated airhead, dear Ann, is you.

Sorry. I know reality is really painful. But really, dear, I'm only hurting you for your own good.

"Why don't you defend yourself?"

Isn't that what you said to her, -Ann-? When that was pretty much what she WAS doing--oh, except not in a self-abasing way, that's true; she didn't concede you had any right to be talking smack about her. How strange. But no; now suddenly it's about her BLOG and her FEMINISM; not you making fun of her TITS.

This isn't Project Runway, Ann. And -you- are the Weakest Link, here, unfortunately; clearly it's been an unpleasant awakening. Rotten of the young girl to not lie down and accept that role for you, I know.

"Why don't you defend yourself?"

Why should she freaking have to defend herself? Why do YOU have the right to ATTACK her? You realize that's what you said there, don't you?

"I want to hit you! I WANT TO HIT YOUUUU!!! Fight back! ooh, but not like THAT, that HURTS ME!! fight back the way I TELL YOU, that's only reasonable."

Do you have -any- idea how -completely- screwed-up you are?

And yes, that was a rhetorical question. It just amuses me to watch you decompensate as the cognitive dissonance goes to overload. See, I have a sadistic streak, too; it's just that unlike you, I do my best to reserve it for people who dish it out first. So! Wanna go for the cookie? C'mon, Ann! Let's see your next trick! I can't wait for it! How much creepier and more bizarre can you and your sycophants possibly get? seriously, it's like Kraft-Ebbing come to life up in here.

Ann's response?

Belledame: Your head seems clouded by anger and hate... and dissonance about feminism. The breasts I wrote about were the images on Jessica's blog, which she uses to get attention to her blog. I did not begin by writing about her. She showed up in my comments to draw attention to herself, which motivated me to laugh at the way her blog looks. Since then, a horde of people have been insulting me, distorting what I said, and plainly lying as well. They've also been resorting to some of the lowest sexist and ageist hate speech. Why don't you address that?

Translation:  I am now going to ignore the fact that most of the comments thread below my original post focused on Jessica's hotness, apparently in response to my sniggering statement about Jessica's placement in the picture. I will then blame Jessica for "drawing attention to herself," even though she was just minding her own business until people started making sexualized and derogatory comments about her on my blog.  And even though I immediately responded by criticizing Jessica for having breasts, I will now pretend this is about feminism.   

It's a disgusting spectacle, but I can't seem to avert my eyes.  Althouse supporters themselves are too dim to let it die -- as evidenced in Charlotte Allen's moronic post.

Hat tip: Pandagon and Feministe.

GOD TRULY IS MADE IN OUR IMAGE

Check out this fascinating article about a Baylor University survey into Americans' perceptions of God. 91.8% of us believe in some kind of a God or higher power.  But the Gods we believe in are quite different, falling into four broad categories which also predict the political tendencies of believers:

Authoritarian God  This one has some issues with anger.  He is very judgmental and will definitely punish us for our sins.  He is also very engaged in our lives and in world affairs. 

31.4% of Americans believe in this kind of God (and 43.3% of southerners).

32.1% of these believers think that God is on America's side in world affairs.  These are the people who want an active, Christian-values based government.

The Benevolent God sets absolute standards for humanity but is primarily a forgiving God, more like the father who embraces his repentant prodigal son in the Bible.

23% of Americans believe in this kind of a God. 

Although there are Jews in this category, more than half of these believers want the government to advocate Christian values.  They are also most likely (68.1%) to say that caring for the sick and needy ranks highest on the list of what it means to be a good person.

The Critical God:  The Critical God has his judgmental eye on the world, but he's not going to intervene, either to punish or to comfort.

16% of believers believe in this guy.

"This group is more paradoxical," Bader says. "They have very traditional beliefs, picturing God as the classic bearded old man on high. Yet they're less inclined to go to church or affiliate seriously with religious groups. They are less inclined to see God as active in the world. Their politics are definitely not liberal, but they're not quite conservative, either."

Those who picture a critical God are significantly less likely to draw absolute moral lines on hot-button issues such as abortion, gay marriage or embryonic stem cell research.

The Distant God:  This God created the world but does not especially care about it or intervene in its affairs.

24.4% of believers believe in this God. 

This group tends towards so-called moral relativism.

********************************************

I have always thought that if I were to believe in a personal creator God that he or she would definitely have certain characteristics that probably reflect my own predilections and personality.  My God would either be benevolent or possibly a distant spectator, watching us with curiosity but detachment, kind of like the way I watched my sea monkeys when I was a kid.

What I can't wrap my mind around is the authoritarian Jack Chick kind of God.  After all, if I have no desire to have my enemies be tortured eternally in a lake of fire, surely GOD isn't so petty or pathological that he would consign people to hell for telling a lie in 5th grade or for having honest doubts about his existence? 

Also, it never fails to amaze me that people (at least in this day and age) never posit an evil or malevolent God. With all the suffering in the world, why do we assume that God is a good guy rather than a sadist?  I wouldn't go that route, because I tend to think that anyone who created corgis and daffodils must be a good sort.  But still.

Another possibility no one ever seems to think about is that maybe God is powerful but fallible.  Maybe he has had to figure things out by trial-and-error (natural selection anyone?) and maybe he wants the best for us but doesn't have full control over all the forces he unleashed in the world from death to natural disasters to our tendency to kill each other.  In short, maybe he is doing his best.

I am actually exhausted, which is why this post is a bit fanciful.  If you think I am going off the deep end, just go read the article about the Baylor study. It has lots of other great statistics about religious belief in the U.S.  (Note that it has been criticized for possibly posing questions in terms that make more sense to Jews and Christians than to other types of believers.)

WHY CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN CAN BE SO MADDENING

My husband and I bickered a lot more a decade ago than we do now.  Over time, we have learned each other's quirks and have adjusted accordingly.  But here is a classic example of the kind of thing that used to occur all the time.  In this example, we were driving home after a day out and about:

ME:  Do you mind if we stop in the grocery store on the way home? 

HUSBAND: Yes.

I get pissed.  Fight ensues.  Husband is puzzled as to why I even "asked his permission" in the first place.  I get even more pissed.  (As in: "I did not (&#(*!#*(! ask your #*(!*)! permission!")

Of course, I WASN'T asking his permission.  I was doing two things: (a) politely acknowledging that my desire to stop at the grocery store would affect him too; and (b) starting a negotiation in the event that stopping at the grocery store would be inconvenient for him.  To me an appropriate response would have been: "I am worried that if we stop at the grocery store, we won't get home in time to watch the football game.  Is it okay if we  go tomorrow, or is there something you really need to get tonight?"  In my view, just saying, "Yes, I mind," was not a negotiation and failed to consider or acknowledge my stated wishes.  But in my husband's view, I hadn't stated any wishes; I had merely asked a question, which he had answered.

The problem was that we were both playing by very different rules and interpreting each other's statements according to a very different set of assumptions.  To my husband, it would have made more sense if I had just said, "I am stopping at the grocery store." Then he would have known unequivocally my desire and it would have been up to him to state his wishes if he disagreed.  He used to think that my communication style was indirect and deferential.   I used to think his was abrasive and inconsiderate.  But really they are just two different communications styles-- styles that happen to correspond in general to one's gender, styles that clash when used in the same conversation.

While  I am generally skeptical of popular books about gender differences, I really loved two books on this topic by Georgetown University linguist Deborah Tannen:You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation and Talking from 9 to 5: Men and Women at Work.  My example above is stikingly similar to some of the examples in her books, and she has numerous other examples of maddening communication gaps between men and women that will surely seem familiar to all of you.  Her thesis is that misunderstandings arise most frequently when we speak to people with an opposite communications style, usually someone of the opposite sex.

As you can imagine, women's communication style can have devastating consequences in the male-dominated workplace where it can lead to women being erroneously perceived as less confident, less knowledgeable, less decisive, and more deferential.  Tannen insists however that neither style is superior to the other -- it's just a matter of learning the rules  by which your conversational partner is operating and adjusting accordingly.  Both men and women can benefit by understanding and adopting aspects of the opposite communications style. 

Of course, there are political ramifications too (which Tannen doesn't generally address).  Many public spheres of society remain male-dominated.  Therefore, misunderstandings tend to inure to the detriment of women in the workplace and in public settings.  There are also expectations, not always consciously realized, that women should or will act a certain way.  If we break out of that mold, our actions may also be construed against us.  The classic example is when the men and women in a group talk for an equal amount of time, but people perceive the women as being overly talkative because the expectation is for women to be quiet.  That maddening prejudice is touched on in posts here and here, in light of a recent stupid David Brooks column about how gabby women are.  There is also the point that women tend to be perceived as more gabby because our words are considered silly or insignificant by definition.  (I am reminded of that ghastly "wingman" commercial in which the guy gets to dance with the hot girl because his "wingman" sacrifices himself by listening to the hot girl's friend endlessly gabbing away.)

 

IN PRAISE OF BANNED BOOKS -- UPDATED

Redneck Mother, and Pandagon (twice), and Feministe all write in honor of Banned Books week.  Most book banning in America takes place in public school libraries.  It never fails to amaze me that people want to control what their children read rather than encouraging them to read everything they can get their hands on.  I wrote in gratitude for my own unsheltered childhood here.

UPDATED: Joel Monka critiques the concept of Banned Books Week.  Joel comes out in defense of the right of parents to decide what books are carried in their local public school library.  I agree with much of what he says.  It is beyond question that parents should have the right to control and monitor their children's reading.  Of course, that is not to say that parents SHOULD prevent their children from reading certain books or prevent school libraries from carrying certain books.  Parents should have every right to forbid their children from reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" or Harry Potter - but I have the right to pity those children for what they are missing and to urge parents to let their children's minds have free reign.

To me, the beauty of Banned Books Week is that it clearly illustrates the power of the written word and informs us what topics and ideas scare or threaten American parents.  "To Kill a Mockingbird" is considered inapproriate, and "Huck Finn," too! Who knew?

Joel's post is also worth reading (and commenting on) because it touches on what I think is a crucial issue that I haven't quite figured out yet.  On the one hand, I sympathize with parents who feel at odds with the values their public schools are teaching.  Some parents believe that homosexuality is a sin, so isn't a public school overstepping the line if it teaches that homosexuality is not a sin?  What if it were the other way around and the public school were teaching kids that being gay is bad -- I certainly wouldn't like that.  So where do we draw the line as to what values are appropriately taught in public school and what teaching interferes with the parents' freedom to pass on their own values? 

On the other hand, aren't their certain values, civic values, that Americans all should share, and that should be taught in public education?  Is it worrisome that a significant minority of the population is now home schooled and therefore possibly learning a very different version of civics than the conventional?  (such as beliefs that Biblical law should enjoy equal precedence with the Constitution in governing the country or that judges should disregard precedent -- I don't know how many people actually believe this bu I know for a fact that such people are out there.)  Is it ever appropriate for the government to say, "There are certain principles regarding what it means to be American that all schoolkids should learn even if their parents disagree."

Also, at what point (if ever) should children be considered to have their own separate rights to educational opportunities?  I suppose most states require that children be taught the basics (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic), but should there be any recognized right for children to be taught contraceptive and safe-sex practices essential to their health?  Or to be exposed to the theory of evolution and the scientific method?  Or to have access to certain literary classics? 

As a private matter and as a potential parent, I think children should have the opportunity to explore far and wide.  Your mind should be considered your own, even when you are eight. 

MAD, BAD, AND DANGEROUS FEMINASTIES

When I was a deputy district attorney, the sex offenders and other criminals generally tipped their hats to me and called me "Mrs. Prosecutor" even when I was throwing the book at them.  While I liked to think that they appreciated my fair-mindedness, the truth is that I don't have a very intimidating persona.  I used to envy the other prosecutors who had shackled prisoners screaming, "BITCH!" at them, because it seemed those prosecutors must be doing something right to arouse such ire in batterers and rapists. 

The same goes for my blog persona.  I have been called an "unthreatening" feminist, which is fair enough.  After all, my blogging interests involve trying to foster discussion among people with disparate views about feminism and you have to be somewhat unthreatening in order to accomplish that goal.  Still, there is part of me that regrets that I haven't managed to piss anyone off or inspire any ad hominem attacks.

Until now!  Thanks to banned troll David Duff, I now feel as though I have really arrived as a feminist blogger!!!!  It took me nearly an entire year of blogging to finally get a blog post dedicated in large part to criticizing my psyche, but it's finally happened and I can now rest easy in the knowledge that I must be doing something right to inspire someone to characterize me as one of the "mad, bad and dangerous to know ones who I call 'feminasties'." I share this honor with British feminist bloggers Stroppybird and Louise Feminista at Stroppyblog, which will definitely go on the old blogroll here. Here are the excerpts of what Duff has to say about this place and your humble blogger: 

. . . I indulged in some frolicking which, alas, at my age only means pestering some wretched women on their blog-sites . . .  The first, an American, posts under the name The Happy Feminist which, were she British, would make her actionable under the Trade Descriptions Act!  At first glance she appears quite normal in a breezy, bossy, humourless sort of way (well, she's an American woman and a lawyer, to boot!) but closer reading reveals that she is totally and unutterably miserable.  She has self-obsession the way some people have bad breath, it is all-enveloping.  She recently wrote a long, long post on her father which constituted the most virulent, personal attack I have ever had the pleasure of reading and in which she accused the poor sap of suffering with 'narcissistic personality disorder'.  In her next post this frantic woman who has raised 'me, me, me' to the level of an ideology proudly boasted that she had placed herself in therapy.  When I pointed out gently that in view of the fact, apparent to any disinterested outsider, that she was already pathologically self-obsessed, and that spending several hours on a couch talking about herself to some charlatan was hardly likely to help, I was banned!  Needless to say, the Sisterhood rushed to congratulate her on her 'courage'(?) for taking this bold step into the mumbo-jumbo-land of psychiatry.  Mind you, with very few exceptions all of her commenters, including the men, were 'an ego short of an id'! . . .

Well, you might say that it is grossly unfair to judge an entire movement by just a few of its adherents.  True, but the feminist commenters seem to be in total agreement with all this nonsense.  Anyway, it leads to a more important question: what is feminism for?  What, in the western world in the 21st century is its purpose?  You might suppose that it is to take the fight to foreign lands and free the women there.  Going abroad and bossing the natives around used to be called 'imperialism' and was rather frowned upon in Left-wing circles.  Perhaps it still is because apart from one or two desultory references, a sort of Sapphic lip-service one might call it, it never seems very high on the priorities of western feminists as exampled in 'Blogdom'.   Quite the opposite, they seem totally immersed in their own perceived grievances which in this day and age are petty beyond belief.  The Great Feminist War was won long ago.  Of course, there might be the odd outpost of male chauvinism hiding out (and if they've got any sense they'll make sure they're well hidden) here and there but nothing to get worked up about.  Modern feminists are like victorious soldiers crossing the battle field and kicking the corpses!

The Marxists have it partly right (in this and other things) in saying that the 'personal is political'.  They are right, I think, in the psychological sense, that those women who nurse personal grievances probably from childhood, like the 'The Un-Happy Feminist above', are likely to take up daft ideas and take them to extremes.  There are, it seems to me, two types of feminists.  There are the mad, bad and dangerous to know ones who I call 'feminasties'; and there are the sensible, humorous, confident women, comfortable in their feminine skins who I call 'feminicelies'.

Hee hee.  This post is to be savored, not only because it is about one of my favorite topics (meeeeee), but because it is such a textbook example of the kind of ad hominem criticisms I addressed in this post and this one.  And being called a mad, bad, and dangerous feminasty is such lovely validation.   

THE GIMP-O-SPHERE

Alas has been doing a bang-up job publishing nuanced posts about disabilities issues, primarily written by one of its newest bloggers, Blue.  Blue has her own blog called The Gimp Parade.  I am looking forward to exploring her blogroll which looks to be a great way of getting to know the Gimp-o-Sphere.

I bring all this up because I have been meaning to rectify one of the many deficiencies of this blog, namely the paucity of posts about disabilities issues.  In honor of my husband (the Happy Gimp), I ought to be writing about this stuff more. Part of the problem is that my husband makes his gimpiness look so easy to handle (and he is fortunate that his disability, paraplegia, allows him near-total independence and integration into society in ways that many other disabilities would not).  Thus, I am very shielded from many disabilities issues.  But if I probe my husband's thoughts, I find that, as a person with a disability and as a disabilities-rights attorney, he has pondered this stuff every bit as deeply as I have my life-long commitment to feminism.  Really, he ought to start his own Happy Gimp blog, but until he does, I should take up the slack a little  bit even though my thinking on these issues is not as deep or as nuanced as his. 

Meanwhile though, do make sure Alas and/or The Gimp Parade are on your list of regular reads.  And check out this very simple and informative video called Ten Small Business Mistakes by the U.S. Department of Justice, which addresses many misconceptions small business owners often have about the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Even if you don't own a small business or don't reside in the U.S., this video is helpful in terms of becoming more conscious of things that can be done to make it easier for people with disabilities to function in society. 

WHY PHILOSOPHY EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT FOR ALL OF US TODAY

Who do you suppose spends more time considering the history and the concepts of western philosophy and their modern-day relevance -- fancy-pants liberals in New York and California or the so-called "values voters" who subscribe to the ideas of the conservative religious right?

If you guessed the latter, you'd be on target.  If you spend a lot of time listening to your local politically and religiously conservative Christian radio station, as I do, you will hear a lot of criticism of modern Western philosophy from the Enlightenment onward.  The following are some chestnuts I have heard repeatedly from radio preachers and in conservative blogs and articles around the internet:

-- Liberals (supposedly) believe that there is no absolute truth.  But the statement "there is no absolute truth" makes no logical sense: 

Is the statement, "There is no absolute truth" absolutely true? If it is, then there is something that is absolutely true - that statement itself. If it isn't absolutely true, then why insist that we should all believe it?

Silly liberals. 

-- Or how about this one (from the same article linked above):

Based on the falsehood that "All is relative", many people say, "It is alright to believe what you want, as long as you don't try to impose it on others". But this statement itself is a belief about what is right and wrong. Those who speak out this belief most definitely want to impose it on others.

Of course, these arguments assumes that all liberals are extreme relativists.  This argument erroneously assumes that those of us who believe in choice in such matters as abortion and sexual preference do so from a position of relativism.  (In fact, I believe in absolutes but I don't think there are absolutes in the sphere of sexual preference any more than there is an absolute moral law determining whether I should drive a green car versus a blue car.) This argument also ignores the fact that there is such a thing as degrees of relativism. These arguments are in fact aimed at a straw-relativism stripped of nuance. 

-- Another classic one I heard was from a guest on James Dobson's radio show.  He told an anecdote about the time his elementary-school aged son asked him what to say to people who claim there is no way to know whether Jesus was resurrected.  He pointed out to his son that if there is no way to know whether Jesus was resurrected, there is also no way to know whether George Washington really lived, yet the people who question the miracles of Jesus's life surely don't question the existence of George Washington.  The guy's son nodded in awe at his father's wisdom.  (Of course, this guy's little boy is not familiar with the fact that historians do not take the historical record as gospel truth but instead are trained to read primary historical texts critically and skeptically with an eye towards the possible biases, cultural milieu and other motivations of the historical author to possibly write less than accurately or even to fabricate events.  There is also the issue that there is less reason for skepticism regarding someone's existence as opposed to a claim that somebody literally rose from the dead.)

-- And my final example is from the far, far right, an idea stemming from the work of R.J. Rushdoony, who is popularly understood to be the father of Christian Reconstructionism.  From what I understand from secondary sources (I have not actually read Rushdoony), Rushdoony runs with the widely accepted idea that true neutrality is impossible to achieve.  His conclusions are different from those of people like me who believe that neutrality and objectivity are worth striving for in areas like journalism, and science, and historical research, even while we should remain aware that perfect neutrality is never quite possible.  Rushdoony concludes that the concept of neutrality is a sham and therefore Christians should therefore impose their views on others all the way.  Rushdoony's followers would have the United States become a Christian theocracy under Biblical law.  And by Biblical law, I mean Old Testament stonings and the whole nine yards. While I don't suppose that more "liberal" types like Tony Perkins and Dr. Dobson necessarily believe that, kernels of Rushdoony's theocratic ideas are undoubtedly present in their thinking as well.   

I am not saying that the popular critiques of Enlightement and Post-modern philosophy in conservative religious circles are especially sophisticated.  Far from it.  The first two examples are basically a debate with a strawman.  But the believers in the views of the religious right do have one strength that the rest of us educated but average folks don't have -- they are TALKING about philosophy and they are TALKING about its relevance in politics and in our everyday lives.  They have, indeed, declared war on the very foundations of western epistemology (epistemology being the theories of how to seek the truth and of how we know what we believe we know). They want to replace rationalistic and humanistic thinking with the Bible as the only and infallible source of absolute truth.  Meanwhile, the rest of us, even those of us with a solid grounding in the liberal arts, are not thinking on a daily basis about Truth and Knowledge and Absolutes and Relativism.  So the far right is able, even with some of the silliest arguments, to gain a foothold in the minds of average people because the leaders of far right are the only ones engaging in popular discourse about these concepts.   

But these concepts are important.  Figuring out right versus wrong, what should be considered illegal and what should be a matter of choice, and the separation of church and state are all crucial to the future of the United States, and the future of other countries where fundamentalism may potentially hold sway.  Unfortunately, I have only a smattering of philosophy study under my belt.*  If I could go back and re-do my undergraduate years, I would probably major in philosophy with a concentration in epistemology.  Figuring out how we know what we think we know is the crucial ingredient for making intelligent decisions both in our individual personal lives and as a nation and in virtually every area of human endeavor. 

So come on liberals.  Let's start having a general, popular dialogue about this stuff.  And let's start encouraging greater philosophical literacy among the citizenry so that we don't allow the religious right to define rationalistic and humanistic ideas for us.  My goal for next year (once I finish this year's goal of reading the Bible) is to read and study Bertrand Russell's very useful, very readable, and very long primer A History of Western Philosophy.

Of course, we'll have our work cut out for us.  A point of view grounded in the incredibly nuanced history of western humanistic thought is often not going to be  black-and-white.  It is never going to offer the certainty of having all the answers to life's questions contained in one book.  It is a lot harder to communicate nuanced thinking in public sound bites but I think we have to try to communicate the philosophical underpinnings of our point of view or the religious right will do it for us.   Which, if they ever attain enough popular influence, could lead to some scary things. 

*NOTE:  As I said, I was never more than a dilettante in the study if philosophy. In college I took a survey course on Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, a course on Marx and Marxism, a course on the Philosophy of Aesthetics, and a seminar on Aristotle.  The only reason I took the seminar on Aristotle was to get away from my women's college and take a class at a nearby co-ed school.  But to my dismay, I learned belatedly that hot guys apparently don't take seminars on Aristotle.  I never took any kind of introductory survey course on western philosophy, although if I recall correctly, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance provided me with a fun overview. 

SECOND NOTE:  I don't mean to leave non-western philosophies out of the mix.  I haven't referred to non-western philosophy here, because on that score, I truly am uneducated. I do think that, for citizens for western countries, understanding western philosophy is of paramount importance because that is the basis of the societies we currently live in.   That is not to say that we don't have a lot to learn from comparative philosophy or that non-western philosophies don't have value or meaning.  Far from it!