On Not Being a Prude or a Predator, and Instead Being a Humane Person: music videos, skirt-chasing, and Andrea Dworkin

 [this classic image of Marilyn Monroe, 

who paid the price called "her life" for trying to be 

what misogynistic men wanted her and paid her a great deal to be, 

is from here.]

This is a cross post from *here*. This post of mine consists of a white man's somewhat (but, relative to what I find online, actually refreshing) writing followed by my comment to him posted to his blog.

I'll add that I dislike the caption he chose to put with the image of Andrea Dworkin, but as I've seen so much worse done to her image, and in some ways he's making fun of himself there, I'll leave it in, as it does appear that way on his blog site. I did remove a video from his post, however.

Onward, A.R.P.-readers, onward...

JULY 12, 2010 3:51PM

Suppressing my inner prude

My name is Skeptic Turtle and I'm a prude. 

Click "Submit Abuse" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

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Everybody please say it together: "Hi, Skeptic."

Thanks. Hi. Yes. I admit it. Growing up Catholic must have been part of it. My folks were pretty open minded, but then again my mother would mutter about men with long hair needed to get hair cuts and about girls who dressed too provocatively.

 Starting with that upbringing, I added feminist theory in college. I read Mary Daly, Catharine MacKinnon, and Andrea Dworkin and took their theories to heart. How does a young heterosexual man with hormones reconcile Andrea Dworkin? Let's just say I didn't date much for a couple years.

^{Andrea Dworkin mocking me}

I was the campus radical who was also anti-drinking, anti-drugs, anti-sex.  Yeah, real fun at a party! Since those days when I had everything figured out, I've loosened up some. My inner prude still rules.

So when I hear a six year old singing Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back, I don't know how to respond. Initially, I find it troubling. Little kids. Sexuality. Body image problems. Entrenched gender norms. I find this confluence troubling.

[Here is where Skeptic posted that video. I'll spare you.]

I check myself. Is it really a big deal that a kid is singing about big butts? Does it do harm to her or others? Am I being a hypersensitive, humorless bore?

Sure that song encapuslates messages I don't wish to direct to my children. Is the solution to get offended and try to suppress? Kids are going to get all sorts of undesirable messages. Perhaps the focus should be on counterbalancing with other messages that deal with body image and sexual roles. Is it really a big deal that some guy likes to talk about how big butts get him hot and bothered?

This morning a friend brought to my attention a local event coming up called the Skirt Chaser 5K. It's a promotion for a sportswear company that makes sporty skirts. All women participants are required to wear the skirts and get a three minute head start. The men get to try to "catch" the women.  Get it?  Ha! Ha! Ha... Wuh?

  "The post-race Block Party includes happy-hour style food and drinks, dating games and a fashion show- all the way down to the skivvies!"

Nothing like finishing up being literally chased by dozens of sweaty men for half an hour and then engage in some cheesy dating games! Now that's icing on the cake!

Am I just being a humorless prude again? So what if someone wants to organize a consensual event that involves some light battle of the sexes meet a dating game show?

It's a question of degrees, but this run crosses the line. Violence in relationships and workplace sexual harrassment continue to be problems in our communities. How can a public event that celebrates "skirt chasing" not be a slap in the face of women in the community who have undergone unwelcome advances from skirt chasers or dealt with men who have figuratively or literally run them down? Didn't the phrase "skirt chasing" stop being funny about 30 years ago?

I get it. It's a clever idea to promote skirts sportswear, but that doesn't make it inoffensive. Maybe I'm a prude. But I wish the PR people for this sport skirt company had a few more scruples.

Oh, and kids under 13 can participate and it costs more for women to enter (because they get a skirt!)

Baby, you've come a long way!

---

Post Script

The Skirt Chaser 5K has already been held in 5 cities this year and will be held in 7 more. To see if your community is hosting one, check out the website.

A total of 3,174 people have participated in the first five races of this year.  Women have outnumbered men almost 2 to 1. In all but one race at least one woman has been able to outrun all the men.

I did a scientific poll of Facebook friends on the matter. People were split on whether it was offensive, but they overwhelmingly thought it was stupid.

Author tags:

sexism, feminism, running, exercise, dk, skirt chaser, skirt sports, prude, andrea dworkin, mary daly, catholic

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July 13, 2010 10:48 AM

Hi Skeptic.

I appreciate your post. What with women I know being harassed on the street and all--particularly and especially Black women by men of all colors--with a few white men being especially persistent with their assumptions that if they are attracted to a Black women that means she automatically must become "his" in some way; he feels entitled to follow her in his car; he feels entitled call out to her repeatedly--in overly sweet terms or overly bitter ones, even while she's talking (to me, one of her friends) on her cell phone; he feels entitled to yell at her for being "one angry b*tch" for ignoring him--and for having the audacity to continuing to talk to me on her cell phone (I can hear these what these guys are shouting out at my friends as they walk and talk); and he feels entitled to drive around the block so that after she's felt, out of safety, the need to duck into a shop to escape the guy, he emerges once again, sometimes leaning out of his car this time and getting much more hostile at that point, because she's now "overtly rejected" him--this total stranger to whom she owes nothing at all, except in his very entitled, racist-misogynistic mind.

This is a normal day for many women I know who work in the city and then make their way to their cars to drive out of the city.

And, add to that the reality that almost every women I know has been repeatedly harassed or "come on to" at work in ways she neither invited nor welcomed--both in racist and sexist ways, or groped on public transportation. And, add to that that most women I know, of any race or class, were abused sexually at their home of origin by a male family member, or in the home where their "beloved male spouse" also resided.

And, as you identify in your post, we add to all that the plethora of public advertisements, videos, and other media that reinforce an idea--a very dangerous one to be sure--that "women exist for men's pleasure", for men to visually or physically violate, or to just follow and call out to, and the less-than-funny aspects of both the video and the skirt-chasing race come into sharper focus.

It has nothing at all to do with "offence" to me. The women I know are not offended. They are irritated, angered, and too often frightened. There's no sensibility being crossed; there are, however, reasonable human boundaries being crossed.

For me and for the women I know, it has to do with women's human right to be free of harassment and violation from men.

That anti-misogynist message wasn't anything any Baptist preacher or Catholic priest I know ever sermoned about. They just reinforced old time religious ideas that women were evil, dirty, and that *their* power to lure men into sin should be avoided at all costs. And then they'd either abuse children, rape nuns, or pay for prostitutes. Go figure. So much for integrity.

So I'll only add that nothing about being concerned about women's human rights makes you a prude. Nor does wanting women to live without dudes' violating intrusions founded on men's mutually reinforcing entitlements--that they learn from male peers and from male-owned media, not from genes or hormones. You'd be a prude if you didn't want to talk about this subject at all because it had something to do with what these misogynistic men call "sex" (that they confuse with corporately produced and sponsored sexxxism).

Check out Byron Hurt's video, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, for one responsible man's attempt to engage the musical artists promoting those dangerous messages. It's a great film. Check out Sut Jhally's work in his series Dreamworlds (I, II, and III), on the themes in the videos on MTV. He tells it like it is.

And anyone who has read Andrea Dworkin and come away thinking she was a prude, better get new glasses! She was a very witty (often missed by the reader) and brilliant human rights activist, not a Puritan. I just read online a piece by a woman who would read Dworkin's book on pornography while her husband looked at pornography, and she finally realised what was going on, instead of blaming herself--and divorced him, realising the way he made her feel like a thing during sex didn't feel very loving--or arousing or fun--to her.

Many of Dworkin's socially conservative male detractors have even accused her of writing pornography in her book about the subject.

You can't win for losing.

Which perhaps ought to be the motto or caption to your post.

Again, thank you. I found it to be really well-written and refreshing to read from a fellow male. Let's make this the way to demonstrate our humanity as male human beings, not acting as if women are body parts, or by running after them as "a sport".

Men can put on skirts and run beside the women, if they want to support that particular cause. But why can't women wear trunks or loose-fitting shorts like men? Why does women's attire have to either be form-fitting or something some violator can "look up"? There's a reason men's sports wear isn't designed that way, after all.

Just look at what women and men each wear to play beach volleyball. I rest my case.

I look forward to supporting the company (let me know if there is one) that markets loose fitting and also supportive, comfortable sportswear to women of all sizes, and that promotes the idea that regardless of what women wear--whether tight-fitting or not--women don't exist for men's visual "entertainment", either to gawk at or to stalk.

Julian Real

Haiti: Six Months after the Earthquake, and Years After Western CRAPitalist Imperialism

What follows are several reports and sources for information about the current conditions in Haiti, and efforts at building a better society with less intervention by and need for the U.S. and other Western WHM supremacist colonial and corporate powers.

First up is this, from *here* @ Democracy Now. 

Whenever there is a catastrophe, there are vultures. On the grand scale like that, there are grandscale vultures. Talking about the likes of—Dyncorp, Blackwater, Halliburton—I am sure they are already laying down their plans to take as much of the loot as they can, not caring about what ever they do, what impact it will have on Haiti’s future. And whether or not we take into account whether the Haitian people themselves want. And I don’t know, if Haitians and their friend’s at the international level, can match your lobbying power of these large vultures, who are very well connected, as you know, not only in Washington but I would say internationally. -- Patrick Elie, a longtime Haitian democracy activist and Haiti’s former Secretary of State for Public Security

Democracy Now! in Port-Au-Prince: Patrick Elie on Haiti Six Months After the Earthquake

Haiti remains a nation in ruins, six months after one of the world’s worst natural disasters killed more than 300,000 people. Thousands of bodies still lay under rubble. We begin today’s show in Port-Au-Prince outside what remains of the Montana Hotel where some 200 people died in the earthquake. We speak to Patrick Elie, a longtime Haitian democracy activist and Haiti’s former Secretary of State for Public Security.
"We are a people who can fend for ourselves," Elie said. "We have a vision of where we want to go so we do need friends but we don’t need people to think for us or to pity us and that is probably this attitude that is playing a part in the aid not being forthcoming."[includes rush transcript]

• Displaced Haitians: "We Can’t Continue In This Situation Anymore"
• Beverly Bell: There is No Plan For Permanently Housing the 1.9 Million Haitians Who Lost Their Homes in the Quake
• Dr. Paul Farmer, UN Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti, on Haiti’s Challenges Following Catastrophic Earthquake and Years of Western Domination
• As Donors Pledge $9.9B for Post-Earthquake Reconstruction, Haitians Call for Inclusivity, Justice in Rebuilding Effort
• Seismologist Roger Bilham: “In Recent Earthquakes, Buildings Have Acted as Weapons of Mass Destruction"

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Rosemond. We were with him six months ago, considered the American Idol of Haiti. Six months ago was just days after the earthquake, January 12, 2010. One of the worst natural disasters in history. Over 300,000 people have died. Yet, since we saw Rosemond after the earthquake in Creole, known as Terre Tremble, the earth trembled, not much has changed. Thousands of people remain under the rubble. The rubble has hardly been moved. 1.7 million people are homeless. There are more than 1300 official refugee camps. Hundreds more dotting the country. People under tarps, under tents, outside their homes on baking plateaus, waiting, waiting for something to change here in Haiti. Today we will be speaking with a human rights attorney. We will go to one of those camps. But first, we are going to speak with the former Secretary of State for Public Affairs, a longtime pro-democracy activist. We are standing in the ruins of the Montana Hotel. Just behind me, one part of that hotel that was the site of international press for many years. 111 guests died, more than 200 people were killed in the earthquake, people who worked at the hotel. Today it continues to lie in ruins. Our guest is Patrick Elie We welcome you to Democracy Now!

PATRICK ELIE: Thank you for the invitation.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you first talk about your country?

PATRICK ELIE: Yes. As you know, maybe a lot of the American public don’t know, Haiti has had a very difficult history, having emerged from slavery and colonialism through a war against the most powerful countries at the time. And since then, for a lot of its history, Haiti has been almost blockaded, or at least isolated and faced the hostility of the powerful countries of the time. On top of that, Haitian revolution after independence did not actually bring what the people of Haiti expected from it. What happened is that a minority seized most of the riches and as a consequence, the development of the country has been a very unequal. I believe Haiti is now one of the countries where you have the most social divide, is the widest, and probably as a consequence of that, the Haitian state is very weak, has always been after independence and has mostly, for the majority of Haitians, the power of [inaduible]. Haitians have never had a chance to collaborate with their state. And even though dictatorship after dictatorship took power in Haiti, what they brought was not order, but chaos. It seems like a paradox, but the Haitian system had only one objective, was for the strong man at the time and the classes that were his allies, to hold power. They didn’t care what happened on the periphery of power. And we are actually in the reconstruction, and even before that, you could say that the horrible toll of the earthquake, even though its magnitude was serious, but that toll is the result of the behavior of the Haitian state, often allied with foreign power, to disenfranchise the majority of the Haitian people and, if you want, impoverish the peasants who had no choice but to either migrate toward the DR and the Cuban cane fields when these belonged to U.S. interests, or to migrate to Port-au-Prince. And there, there was no plan to accommodate them, and the result is what you have seen, shantytown upon shantytown, no standards for building, very high population density, and that’s why when the earthquake struck we had so much damage and more than the damage, so much loss of life.

AMY GOODMAN: It wasn’t long after the Haitian earthquake there was an earthquake in Chile. It was hundreds of times stronger than the Haitian earthquake and yet hundreds of times fewer people died, less than 300 people died. In Haiti it was close to 300,000. Now I want to ask you about the aid. There has been close to $11 billion promised. Haiti hasn’t seen even 10% of that. Why is that?

PATRICK ELIE: Well, you might point to the bureaucracy of, you know, the international donors; but also I think that the weakness of the Haitian state also explains that. You see, it is a vicious circle. The powers that be—and I mean by that, the U.S., France, and Canada—but mostly the U.S., have worked over decades to weaken the Haitian state. And then now they are using this weakness as a pretense, not to free the aid or have it go through Haitian authorities. So, that 10% of aid that has been released actually, most of it did not go through the Haitian state. And I can say, even though I am not a specialist, that a lot of it went into things that were not indispensable for reconstruction. As you know, in the beginning we have 82nd Airborne being deployed around Haiti and in Haiti. These cost a lot of money and all this money, if you want to count it, is money that went to help Haiti. So, it gives you a false sense that, you know, already a lot had been done and we are not seeing the result on the ground.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re saying, less than 10% of the money was released and much of that was actually to the U.S. military?

PATRICK ELIE: A lot to the U.S. military and to the NGO’s. And this is not to disparage what the NGO’s have done here. But the lack of coordination explains a lot of the slowness of the process. Mind you, I don’t want to be too severe in my judgment, and especially I have been reading the U.S. press and as always, they’re clobbering the Haitian authorities. I am not at all saying that we have the best government. I have always said we have a state that is not only weak but apart with the nation. But on top of that, the government—or the State was weakened more by the earthquake itself because the earthquake hit not a remote part of Haiti but right smack in the middle of the administrative, political, and economic center of the country. As a result, about 17% of public servants died, ministries collapsed with all of their memory, their archives, their computers, etc. So, we are facing a pharaonic task of rebuilding. Besides, everybody in Haiti seems to agree we cannot actually rebuild Port-au-Prince as it was. So, aside from building, you have to plan again differently. This involves some heart wrenching decisions that have to be made.

AMY GOODMAN: Like?

PATRICK ELIE: Like, you know, are you going to displace people? Are you going to, for example, using eminent domain, expropriate people so they don’t live on terrain that is inherently weak. Or, are you going to, as I say, expropriate people and already, you know, the troubles are starting. Land tenure in Haiti is total chaos. This is also the result of the behavior of the Haitian elites over centuries. They appropriated land which was, especially after independence and the end of slavery which would have been common property, and they appropriated vast tract of land, pushing the peasants—the newly freed slaved who did not want to work on the plantation system anymore—to the mountains, you know, which would also help to explain the frustration. And now, of course, there is a lot of discussion about who owns what piece of land. And it is almost intractable to resolve that through the law. I don’t know if the Haitian state is going to be forceful enough given the size of the problem, to actually by decree, decide what is going to be done.

AMY GOODMAN: We are going to break and we will come back to this discussion. We are speaking to Patrick Elie. He is the former Minister of Public Safety here in Haiti. He is a long time pro-democracy activist. A country here, Haiti, that is still in ruins, six months after the earthquake, one of the worst natural disasters in history, killed close to three hundred thousands of people, many thousands still lie under the rubble. Most of it has not been moved. 1.7 million people are displaced. There are well over 1,300 official refugee camps, hundreds of unofficial ones. We’ll be back with Patrick Elie in a minute.

[music break]

AMY GOODMAN: We are broadcasting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from ground zero, the center of the earthquake six months ago, January 12, 2010. One of the worst natural catastrophes in human history. Close to 300,000 died, 1.7 million people are displaced in the refugee camps, and where is the money? People everywhere, as we go from camp to camp is asking, where is the support? There are many NGO’s, the American Red Cross collected more than a billion dollars and people continue to ask where is the support, where is the aide, why don’t we have better homes vendees tarps and tents. They are and able population, wanting to work and move rubble. But there is no coordination, they say. We are joined by Patrick Elie, former secretary for public security here in Haiti, a longtime pro-democracy activists. In fact, Patrick Elie, where you six months ago today?

PATRICK ELIE: I was having a drink with some friends. Fortunately under a very light structure. So, the house collapsed, but the structure did not because it was simply, you know, kind of like a tart, especially made of tin roof—kind of like a tarp, a tin roof and four posts. The house collapsed in not this, and that is the reason why we were not crushed because the House totally collapse.

AMY GOODMAN: Here where we are now, the Hotel Montana, the former Hotel Montana, the site of the elite hotel where the elite gathered, international press. 111 people died, who knows how many are still in the rubble. More than 200 people died all together with the workers who are here, and we are standing in its remains. Patrick Elie, you have referred to the vultures. Who do you mean?

PATRICK ELIE: Well, I mean both the local who are trying to—if you want to take advantage of the situation to make money, but mostly also to the usual vultures. Whenever there is a catastrophe, there are vultures. On the grand scale like that, there are grandscale vultures. Talking about the likes of—Dyncorp, Blackwater, Halliburton—I am sure they are already laying down their plans to take as much of the loot as they can, not caring about what ever they do, what impact it will have on Haiti’s future. And whether or not we take into account whether the Haitian people themselves want. And I don’t know, if Haitians and their friend’s at the international level, can match your lobbying power of these large vultures, who are very well connected, as you know, not only in Washington but I would say internationally.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see signs of who you call these vultures, the mercenary companies that you mentioned, Dyncorp, Blackwater, Halliburton, here now?

PATRICK ELIE: I am not saying I am seeing them now. But as you know, the reconstruction hasn’t started yet. That is when you will see the grabbing. But, in the first weeks after the earthquake—I almost said the coup—we saw mercenaries accompanying some NGO’s and even some journalists and carrying war weapons without any kind of license from the Haitian government. It was like we were in a no-man’s land, in a open country. So, this I saw as a sign of what might come if Haitians and Haiti’s friends are not vigilant, are not watchful.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, you mentioned the coup. The interim commission to reconstruct Haiti, known as the C-I-R-H, many people have raised concerns about, a little more than two dozen people, half Haitian but half not Haitian. It is headed by the Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean-Max Bellerive, and former President Bill Clinton. The only one with the veto power is the president, Preval.

PATRICK ELIE: Preval, at the moment. But if that structure is kept, it will be the next president.

AMY GOODMAN: But the shock of people that there are—and it was originally proposed to have more foreigners than Haitians—and among those who are on the commission are people like Gary Lissad, who was the attorney for the coup leaders in the first crew against Aristide when he was deposed in 1991 to 1994 and Reginald Boulos who helped finance the coup. These are the people in the interim so-called reconstruction commission.

PATRICK ELIE: Yes, this gives me pause. But you have to see in what conditions these were picked. President Preval has tried always during his second presidency to arrive at a decision with consensus. Time will tell whether this was the right approach. But of course, this worries me personally because, as you know, I have been involved with Haitian politics for many years now and I’ve met some of these people. By the way, in the name of truth, I should say that Mr. Lissad, after being the lawyer of the first coup makers, then became President Aristide’s Justice Minister, which is something which always shocked me.

AMY GOODMAN: And you also worked for President Aristide and now are advising presidents Preval after the earthquake?

PATRICK ELIE: After the earthquake, even though I tried before to keep strictly my autonomy, but after the earthquake I thought that it was imperative that I help as much as I can.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is most important for people to understand right now? People who are watching and listening to and reading this broadcast all over the world?

PATRICK ELIE: I think the most important thing is the resilience, the courage, and the discipline of the Haitian people. I would have given up after the earthquake given the size of the destruction, if not for the behavior of the Haitian people. And that’s what people have to understand: We are a people who can fend for ourselves. We have a vision of where we want to go. So we do need friends but we don’t need people to think for us, or to pity us. That is probably the attitude that’s playing a part in the aid not being forthcoming. Our friends, if they are friends, should trust us.

You know, people say nothing has changed. Not enough has changed after the earthquake, but some things have changed. The first days, people were living out in the streets without anything, without any type of shelter. And completely in chaos and disorder. Now camps have been organized very often by the people themselves. A lot is mentioned about the breakdown of security. After a tragedy like that, you always have some form a breakdown of security and a camp environment is not conducive to the best type of security. But, things are a lot less bad that is being described, not because of the Haitian police or because of the UNPOL or the minister, but because people have started organizing themselves and taking care of their security themselves. Since the earthquake, one thing that has given me some hope is that the movement of neighborhood committee has sprung up again, and I have been to numerous meetings, the last one Saturday, with a federation of neighborhood committee. And they are talking about precisely that, how they are going to take care of their community.

AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Elie, we are going to have to leave it there. When we come back, we will be in camp Corail. You will be hearing from the refugees themselves. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. We are in Haiti, a country still in ruins.

*          *          *

Please also visit the Haiti Justice website: *here*.

Next, from Haiti Action Network *here*:

June 18, 2010

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund supports local food production in Port au Prince

Mange Lakay Selavi – Haitian Food for Haitian Lives

The January 12 earthquake brought the already urgent need for investment and prioritizing of local food production in Haiti into intense focus. The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (HERF) is now funding an exciting project developed by The Aristide Foundation for Democracy in cooperation with Men Ansanm (Hands Together), and an association of 150 farmers in La Plaine, in the Port-au-Prince area.

This region was once a productive agricultural area, but has been rapidly urbanizing. Since the quake, even larger numbers of people have moved there. This project meets a critical need – not only to produce food that can directly supply local markets and support families growing food, but also to increase the amount of productive land.

Using the Mandalla agricultural structure (formed by nine concentric circles in which cultivation areas are set up around a circular reservoir), farmers are creating an integrated agricultural system on the grounds of the UniFA (University of the Aristide Foundation). In addition to feeding their own families, farmers will be selling fish and agricultural projects in local markets.

Everyday Male Chauvinism: Intimate Partner Violence Which Is Not Called Violence, by Luis Bonino and Péter Szil

[image used in the text, linked to below, is from here]

Before this document disappears online, I am putting it here, with the hopes that the authors will welcome me doing so. -- Julian Real

21 Julu 2010 ECD UPDATE: I did not get permission to publish the document here. So I have put in a link to where the authors and publisher would like you to go to read it, in full.

Everyday Male Chauvinism
Intimate Partner Violence Which Is Not Called Violence

by Luis Bonino and Péter Szil
with contribution from Gábor Kuszing

is available to be viewed as a PDF document in the form and format in which it was originally published at this website:

http://stop-ferfieroszak.hu/en/everyday-male-chauvinism

I encourage you to click on that link, download or open the file, and read it thoroughly. And please note Jennifer Drew's comment about the text below.

Gwendolyn Albert on Anti-Roma Violence in Europe

 

[image of three Roma young women is from here]

This is a cross post. Please click on the title below to link back.

Anti-Roma Violence in Europe: A Q&A With Gwendolyn Albert

Posted in Anti-Roma, Europe by Alexander Zaitchik on July 6, 2010

On Friday, 26 June, CNN International broadcast a documentary called “Scars of Racism” (videos here, here and here). It told the story of a young Czech Roma (commonly known in the U.S. as a “gypsy”) named Natálka Kudriková and the neo-Nazis who almost burned her to death in an arson attack committed last year in the Czech town of Vitkov. It was a rare look by the international media into the anti-Roma violence that has plagued Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of communism two decades ago.

Violence against Roma has emerged as a leading human rights issue not just in the former Soviet bloc, but also across Europe. The perpetrators are often ideologically driven neo-Nazis, sometimes with ties to established political parties. Other times, they are local vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. In the past five years fatal attacks have been reported from Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia and Turkey. In Italy, six arsons over the last three years have resulted in multiple fatalities, including children.

Gwendolyn Albert is an American living in Prague who consulted with CNN on “Scars of Racism.” A resident of the Czech Republic since 1990, Albert has been reporting on the human rights situation of the Roma minority in Central and Eastern Europe for the past 15 years. She is currently consulting on research in this area for the Council of Europe’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner and the European Roma Rights Centre. Hatewatch recently spoke with Albert about the rise in far-right violence against Roma, and whether international media attention like CNN’s recent documentary is making a difference.


Anti-Roma violence and racism has been a defining feature of post-communist societies since the early 1990s. Are governments finally getting more serious about tackling it?

No government is doing enough, not in Central and Eastern Europe, and certainly not in Western Europe. This violence is not limited to the former communist bloc. France and Italy are probably the worst places in Western Europe to be Roma right now. Italy has been the most publicized and most discussed case, but France has a number of discriminatory institutions in place that disproportionately impact Roma.


What are the most obnoxious elements of Italian policy?

Starting in 2006, cities across Italy have been adopting “Security Pacts” which give local officials the legal powers to target Roma for removal. These forced evictions of Roma have increased during 2010. The Italian police have been using disproportionate force during their evictions of Roma camps for at least five years. This has all been in response to Bulgaria and Romania acceding to the EU [European Union] in 2007 and the large outflow of Roma from both those countries to the West [migration within the EU is unrestricted].

In 2008, the Italian government declared a “state of emergency with regard to nomad community settlements”—this was a legal action unprecedented in post-WWII Europe, the declaration of a state of emergency with respect to a particular ethnic group. Their presence alone is defined as constituting the emergency and local authorities are empowered to fingerprint and photograph all residents of any “nomad community settlement,” including minors, to expel whom they choose, and to open up new camps and order people to live in them. Freedom of movement — of citizens, human beings, not just money and goods — between EU member states is one of the founding principles of the EU, but not where the Roma are concerned, at least not in Italy or France.

Are there societal shifts occurring with regards to anti-Roma sentiment?

It depends. Here in the Czech Republic, for example, there has been a shift in society recently. The fact that an infant almost died a horrible death in the Vitkov attack generated unprecedented empathy for her and her family. This doesn’t mean the Molotov cocktails have stopped flying, quite the contrary. In one of those attacks, a full-scale criminal investigation apprehended several suspects relatively quickly and there will be a trial. Again, this is an advance; usually law enforcement takes a “no harm, no foul” approach when these attempts are unsuccessful (no larger fire, no injuries) and classifies them as misdemeanors, which means homicide investigators never get involved — and they are the ones with the resources to really track perpetrators down.


Historically, how ingrained is the tolerance for anti-Roma violence?

Anti-Gypsyism is a deeply engrained European cultural touchstone, from Ireland to Russia, from Greece to Norway. It has persisted for centuries. It comes from the same place all prejudice comes from, and that is fear. For those who understand how to perpetuate and exploit fear, the Roma have always been the scapegoats par excellence in Europe.

Tolerance of violence per se in Europe is quite high — you have only to look at domestic violence statistics for any country there to see the degree to which violence remains culturally sanctioned in Europe (irrespective of strict handgun laws). As for racist skinheads and neo-Nazis, some people consider them super-patriots and openly cheer them on, but most people probably consider them a pathetic, irrelevant counter-culture group. Much of Europe has pretty strict laws (which are under-enforced) regarding defamation and racism. Because of these laws, many European neo-Nazis actually house their organizations’ websites on U.S.-based servers. That’s something I wish would change.

How does anti-Roma violence track with the rise in anti-Semitic violence?

Anti-Semitic violence has been on the rise all across Europe as well, specifically violence against Holocaust sites and memorials and against synagogues and [Jewish] cemeteries. Holocaust denial websites have mushroomed on the Web — Facebook had to deal with it last year. This violence has nothing to do with the size of the Jewish population in any country. It’s part of the ideology of Holocaust denial, which becomes more and more open and prevalent the further east you go. You would be surprised how little is actually taught about the Holocaust in most of the former Soviet satellites.

What needs to be done?

Generally speaking, Europe first needs to take all forms of violence very seriously and devote resources to reducing its incidence. As for the perpetrators of neo-Nazi violence, the media have a huge role to play. They should investigate and report on who these people are and why they make the choices they do. They should investigate the ties between the various groups and who funds them, and they should investigate whether they are linked to established political parties.

What is up with the White Dudes-in-Denial about being SEXIST and RACIST. Case # 1,635,758: John Madriarczyk, the libertarian leftist

 

[image of libertarian "leftist", "anti-racist" 
blogger John Madriarczyk is from here]

[There is an update here, which may be taking a more constructive turn. I've posted the latest batch of comments, exchanged between John and me, below. This was updated on 12 July 2010.]

Background:
I wish that the few libertarians who aren't sexist-racist jerks would hold accountable those who are.

I remain convinced that libertarianism is in service to the PPP and WHM supremacy. And I've seen so many examples of it reinforcing white and male supremacy, and ignoring Indigenist philosophies and politics, that I've got the same reaction now to someone saying "that isn't what libertarianism really stands for" that I do to hearing about someone proclaiming there is such a thing as feminist pornography. Which is: nothing about your version of libertarianism/pornography, in the context of WHM supremacist libertarianism/pornography, convinces me that what you stand for isn't in alliance with the WHM supremacist libertarians/pornographers.

And, if you oppose them, why do you use the same terms they use to describe what you do, when what they do has academic and industrial strength and power--when what you stand for, according to you, does not? Reclaiming libertarianism and pornography as possibly radical or even liberatory in social contexts in which, even if it were progressive or radical, will only be a drop in the toxic ocean of oppressive libertarian and pornographic gross hostility to women of all races. So isn't detoxifying the ocean more important that adding drops of something that merges with that ocean as soon as it makes contact? And isn't "libertarianism" and "pornography", because of the alliances you make by using the same terms, a form of irresponsible ideological assault against the Global South by the Global North? That makes no emotional or political sense to me. But call me "fucking insane". Oh, wait: the MRArsenals already have, so check that off the "to do" list.

And the same holds true for white het men on the Left. [<--Warning: that link goes to a site with some very triggering bigoted imagery.] U.S. Leftist white men, based on their political objectives and acted out values, are intellectually thugtastic gang of anti-Indigenist misogynist-racists, with a couple of notable exceptions. But even the exceptions don't centralise women of color from the Global South, or Indigenous women globally, in their analysis of "what's wrong" and "what the solutions are". Here's one part of the solution, whiteboys: CAREFULLY LISTENING TO RADICAL ACTIVIST WOMEN OF COLOR!!

So a couple of days ago I post to my blog the video and transcript from Democracy Now--the exchange between Dr. Vandana Shiva and some white dude with the last name Dyer who is all about geoengineering as the solution to our problem of running out of time--it is his solution to "buy time". HIS time, mind you. White men's time. Because women--particularly poor women of color--ran out of time a long goddamned time ago! And their dead bodies are proof of it. So when white dudes get nervous about THEIR lives, then it's an emergency. And this is partly what I hear Dr. Shiva addressing, but white dudes can't fucking listen their way out of a paper bag. What isn't evident, is that Democracy Now ALREADY gave him a whole segment of their hour to speak his mind and argue his views. And then they invite her on to debate him, or leave him there to debate her. Because, even in progressive and alternative media, the woman of color, especially if she is Indigenous or from the Global South, is rarely allowed to speak without some white fool cutting in. Seriously. Why isn't Dr. Vandana Shiva the primary guest? SHE'S the expert, not Gwynne Dyer. (See this for more proof.)

I heard the tension in the debate, with the white dude doing his condescending and patronising best to appear cool, calm, and collected. He's got to come off as the more "rational" one, the more "objective" one, the more "logical" one, after all, because we can't have things like passion and emotional investment--because we know who is dying and where, get in the way of our "objectively stated views". No. We can't have that. Truth is, white dudes get emotional and "irrational" all the damned time. It's called being condescending. It's called rape. It's called battery. And it's called using women and girls as "sexual service stations". What do men call those behaviors? "Logical"??? I'd argue that in the discussion/debate on Democracy Now, there's nothing more irrational that what this dude is proposing as a solution to buy white men more time.

I wondered how this debate would get framed up by fellow bloggers. And I checked. And below is what I found. I offer to the court this piece of sexist-racist "political analysis". It was recently written, two days ago, by a white dude named:

John Madziarczyk

• Age: 30
• Gender: Male
• Astrological Sign: Pisces
• Zodiac Year: Monkey
• Industry: Communications or Media

About [John]

From the Michigan to the Northwest via Florida. Contact me at J dot Madziarczyk at gmail dot com.

[John's blog is called:]
___________________________________

Lost Highway Times...Paths in Oblivion

Working for something new, a radical left which reflects reality, which is democratic yet authentic. Anti-Racist. "You're a disease"--reporter for ABC news New Jersey. Libertarian Socialist. 2nd Series 
___________________________________

John doesn't get that a blog post he wrote, titled "Vandana Shiva is f*cking insane..." is sexist and racist because he's got the most LIBERAL-ASS view of what being racist and sexist means. (So much for his radical politics.) And he's gonna be all defensive about it--of course, and say stupid shit like "Wow, so I can't say that someone was acting insane if they're female?" He does say this. AND he's not able to hear WHAT THE WOMAN--THE EXPERT--WAS SAYING. Because he can't conceive of her as "the expert" and include in her expertise her ways of being and communicating--when given about one quarter of the time to speak that he was given. And I contend that if it were a white man arguing as she does, ol' whiteboy John wouldn't title his blog post the same way. I stand by that. And, if it were a white man he were critiquing, the criticism wouldn't participate in the same fucked up dynamics it does when it IS a white man from the Global North calling an woman of color from the Global South "f*cking insane". His white boy-brain can't grasp that simple fact.

Dr. Shiva was annoyed with the some of what the white dude says. I was annoyed with him too, as I listened to him call her views--or is it her?--"ridiculous".

Julian's spontaneous joke of the moment:
Question:
When are WHM being "ridiculous" or "fucking insane"?
Answer: According to WHM? NEVER.

White dudes, not only white dudes, but plenty of white dudes, are annoying as hell, waaaaay too often. And they've got the power that men of color do not have, so they ARE, structurally and institutionally, if not interpersonally, way more dangerous to women globally. Read on, people. Fortunately it's not long...

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Democracy Now! today. Vandana Shiva is fucking insane...

Democracy Now! just broadcast and you had Vandana Shiva ranting and raving about science and the narrowness of science, in the context of Geoengineering, and saying that global warming and the immediate threat of global warming doesn't matter, in the face of someone who has actual proposals to make the world better. Not that they're necessarily the right proposals, but they're based on empirical facts nonetheless. All this might sound strange coming from someone who just recently criticized scientistic thinking and advocated going back to a more holistic viewpoint such as that believed in by the people of the Renaissance. But the problem isn't the scientific method or science as an abstract pursuit, the problem is the cultural context in which science exists, which draws on philosophy from the 18th century that doesn't necessarily have real validity. When you talk about 'science' in the United States there's a lot of cultural baggage that comes with it that doesn't have to be there, in other words. What Vandana Shiva was doing was using the cultural context that science exists in to shoot down the actual objective work that people have been engaged in, suggesting that no science whatsoever is valid if it appears to violate Shiva's pet ideology. [JR's note: Never mind that Dyer has a "pet ideology" that he doesn't wish to have "violated".]

The last interchange between Gwynne Dyer and Vandana Shiva was interesting. In the face of an immediate threat to human life caused by climate change, that will intensify over a tipping point in the next decades if something isn't done about it, Shiva questioned the ideology of immediacy, just as she questioned the importance of global warming because mother earth would adapt, and suggested that if all farming worldwide changed to organic farming it could be done in three years. Yeah. If all the farming in the entire world changed to organic farming. Think about that for a second. Here you have objective proposals about how to stop global warming versus pie in the sky thinking about how something that would likely require a social revolution, or several social revolutions globally, in order to take place. And Dyer ended by suggesting that if Vandana Shiva was the dictator of the world and could change land ownership in a second she could do it, which Shiva responded to by sputtering about "The Young! The young people!" that they'll do it.

I don't particularly have any feelings about Geoengineering, but there's nothing in Shiva's critique of it that couldn't be applied to almost any large scale science based attempt to stop climate change, no matter how well considered, and I think that that's pretty unreasonable to say the least. In fact, I'm restraining myself from saying what I really think about it. [JR's note: the emphasis by enlarging the text size was done by me. The meaning of his enlarged statement is something I'd like to hear more about from him. Or not.]

To go on, there's quite a difference between science as a pursuit, what might be part of the culture of doing science, and the effect of classical scientific ideology on society as a whole. Science itself can go against the sort of deterministic mindset that came out of the 18th century. The culture that science exists in can similarly change to be more accommodating of critical views of the deterministic model. What's the most hard to change is the effect of this cultural ideology on the greater society at large. It appears, though, that in some circles of science, particularly those dealing with the environment, the critique of deterministic thinking is gradually getting more of a hearing, which demonstrates that not all science and large scale projects dependent on science are therefore by definition bad.

Posted by John Madziarczyk at 9:22 AM

18 comments:

Julian Real said...

You really go out of your way to inaccurately misrepresent, in rather sexist ways, what Dr. Shiva, a scientist, philosopher, and author of a book you obviously haven't even read the back cover of, said on Democracy Now. What you recall her saying vs. what she says tells me a whole lot more about you than it tells me about what she said. It's sexist of you to only refer to her as raving, ranting, and sputtering. Your misogyny is showing. To actually deal with what she did say, which isn't anti-science at all, and offers many solutions, not one very culturally biased one that is pie in the sky like Dyer's, see here: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/8/a_debate_on_geoengineering_vandana_shiva

Next, you might try posting in response to her actual words, but please read her book first. Your commentary here demonstrates a glaringly Western patriarchal bias in favor of subjective and highly problematic concepts like "objectivity" and being "reasonable". You might want to learn more about that bias of yours, so you know when its operative in your written work.  

8:48 PM 

John Madziarczyk said...

Wow, so I can't say that someone was acting insane if they're female? Have you listened to the interview? She was shouting at him, going at a mile a minute, wouldn't let him get a word in edge wise. She was literally screaming at him. Yes, she was acting insane. Western patriarchal bias doesn't exactly cut it when someone is fucking up so bad that it's apparent to anyone but the most dedicated believer that there's a problem. I don't need to read her book to react to the interview she gave. That should be able to stand on its own. Otherwise, you're just engaged in special pleading for her. Please save your comments about my bias unless you have something to say besides things based on your own ideology and not on objective facts.

8:30 AM

Julian Real said...

And when do we get to the part where you quote her and respond to her words? Or do you just want to skip over that part, so you can come across as a sexist jerk, calling a woman ranting, raving, and sputtering? What do you HEAR in her upset? What do you hear it in? When a woman is angry with a man, what do you HEAR in that anger? That's partly what I'm asking you. And, I'm asking you to write responsibly, in response to what someone says, not in reaction to how they sound to you. Why can't you respond to what she says by quoting her directly? Would that be so difficult to do? Wouldn't your case be made stronger by you doing that?  

10:08 AM

John Madziarczyk said...

Yeah, okay, I did quote some of what Vandana Shiva said. The guy said that we need action for climate change now and that we can't wait, Vandana Shiva said that we could potentially switch the entire world to organic agriculture in three years, after which, when the guy tried to object that while this was maybe nice theoretically it was absurdly unlikely to happen she started screaming at him again, and quite frankly not making much sense since she started talking about how the kids, the kids would do it. This doesn't make much sense because the kids that are doing organic agriculture are unlikely to switch the entire world's agricultural system to organic in three years, to say the least.

The guy, Gwynne Dyer, was pointing to a time frame with 2040 being it, at which point there's nothing we can do to change it. He made the point that if Vandana Shiva was the dictator of the world she could do it, to which Shiva said very loudly "But I wouldn't be the dictator!", which kind of misses the point. Unless we can organize a world wide revolution in thirty years, that totally and completely alters land distribution and the power structures associated with it the scenario of moving to totally organic agriculture is sort of distant. A lot was made about the hubris of science, and that he was promoting disruption of the natural world, but, from a public speaking standpoint, she clearly failed and failed severely, which casts doubt on the arguments that she uses, even though in another context and in another presentation they might seem less completely out of the box impossible to live up to. But, then, I'm being objective, which I shouldn't be.
10:51 PM

Julian Real said...

And what ELSE did she say, John? You've summarised about one minute (or less)--the last moment of the rushed-to-end show. I'm curious why you don't quote the REST of what she said, which was far more sophisticated, complex, radically critical, grounded in REALITY, than the geoengineering nonsense he was talking about. She called him on it and he had no good rebuttal--at all. Why don't you quote THE REST of her statements. Why not post the whole transcript, also found here, and let the readers make up their own minds, rather than seeing things through your ignorant eyes? Because you leave out the BULK of what she says--why is that??

Take, for example, this:

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, three thoughts. The first is, it is the idea of being able to engineer our lives on this very fragile and complex and interrelated and interconnected planet that’s created the mess we are in. It’s an engineering paradigm that created the fossil fuel age that gave us climate change. And Einstein warned us and said you can’t solve problems with the same mindset that created them. Geo-engineering is trying to solve the problems of the same, old mindset of controlling nature. And the phrase that was used, of cheating, let’s cheat—you can’t cheat nature. That’s something people should recognize by now. There is no cheating possible. Eventually the laws of Gaia determine the final outcome. But I think the second thing about geo-engineering is, we’ve just had the volcano in Iceland, yes it was Iceland. And look at the collapse of the economy. And here are scientists thinking that’s a solution? Because they are thinking in a one dimensional way. Linear issue of global warming, anything to do with global cooling. I work on ecological agriculture. We need that sun light for photosynthesis. The geoengineers don’t realize sunshine is not a curse on the planet. The sun is not the problem, the problem is the mess of pollution we are creating. So again we can’t cheat. 7:30 AM

[Julian Real posted...]

And the final issue is, that these shortcuts that are attempted from places of power, and I would add places of ignorance, of the ecological web of life, are then creating the war solution because geo-engineering becomes war on a planetary scale with ignorance and blind spots, instead of taking the real path, which is helping communities adapt and become resilient. That’s the work we do in India. We save the seeds that will be able to deal with sea level rise or cyclones so that we have soil tolerant varieties; we distributed them after the tsunami. Last year we had a monsoon failure. But instead of sending armies out, we distributed seeds. And the farmers who had seeds of millets had a crop. The farmers who were waiting for the green revolution chemical cultivation had a crop failure. So building resilience and building adaptation is the human response, it’s the ecological response. And we don’t have to panic. The panic and fear is coming out of ignorance.

OR THIS:

VANDANA SHIVA: You know my last book, “Soil, Not Oil” I talk about the fact that, you know, the oil culture has given us climate change. And if we continue in that same paradigm, the only next step is eco-imperialism. Grab what remains of the resources of the poor and take it to create insularity, and a false defense of security. Because the planet is interconnected, our lives are interconnected. The rich cannot isolate themselves in islands of defense against a planetary instability. The other option is earth democracy, as I talk about it. Now those who have power and money and those who are driven by greed and injustice are now seeking to grab the land of the poor. It’s happening on a very large scale in Africa, it’s happening in India. The World Bank is promoting it because this is a very false idea, that large-scale farms will help us with food security with all the details showing smaller farms produce more food. So if you have to be food secure, you’d better be small. Diversified farms can deal with climate change much better because if one crop doesn’t do well, some other crop will do fine. And the monoculture of large farms will be more vulnerable to climate collapse. And, of course the biggest issue is half the world farms, you can’t rob them of their livelihoods.  

7:30 AM  

[Julian Real posted...]

Forget the running out of water and climate wars related to water wars, you’re going to have, you’re already having in India, as a result of the land grab, in this case more for mining and industry, what we’re seeing is a war within. And Operation Green Hunt has been launched by the government in order to clean out the lands to be able to grab the lands on behalf of corporations. We talked about the Kashmir crisis and the shootouts. But those scenes are taking place in every remote tribal area today. And that issue of war for resources, that as long as you’re powerful you have the right to grab anyone’s resources and you have a right to use all kinds of illegitimate violence, that militarized mindset that I say comes from capitalist patriarchy, is really at the root of so many of our problems which is why we need to feel at home with nature and we need to recognize that the resources of the earth belong to all, have to be shared. In the land rights of the poor defenseless indigenous person is the biggest peace initiative of today and it’s the biggest climate issue of today. 

And this: 

VANDANA SHIVA: [T]he problem is that geoengineering is an experiment. It is not a solution. And you cannot experiment in such a violent way without full assessment of the impact. And as I said, just a simple thing a blocking the sun’s rays is a problem for the planet. Its a problem for humanity… 

GWYNNE DYER:—You’re talking 1% I mean you are talking one percent-– 

VANDANA SHIVA: But iron filings— 

GWYNNE DYER:—I don’t like iron filings-–…that is ridiculous. 

VANDANA SHIVA: But iron filings in the ocean-– 

GWYNNE DYER:—that is ridiculous. 

VANDANA SHIVA:—Reflectors in the sky? Or Artificial Volcanoes.. But thats [inaduble]. Everyone of them, if the solution is looked at, all its spinoffs, in a full ecological way, and a full social impact, what does it mean? And the most important thing is its undemocratic. I think the crisis of the climate is so serious that people need to be involved. The problem of geoengineering or genetic engineering is a bunch of experts sitting with a bunch of corporations saying we’ll decide on behalf of the people. That is part of the problem. That is why I really respect Evo Morales, he called the people of the world after the collapse of Copenhagen, and said the people will decide the solution. 

And this: 

GWYNNE DYER: The people of the world will not decide you know that and I know that. This is not.. 

VANDANA SHIVA:—But they are deciding. 

GWYNNE DYER: I havn’t noticed yet—–. 

VANDANA SHIVA: Well there’s a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth that came out of that amazing gathering that we need to shift to an earth centered paradigm—rather than an arrogant, narrow, reductionist, mechanistic science, expert-based paradigm.  

*          *          * 

And, John, you fail to note how much he interrupts her constantly, even though he's already had a whole segment to sputter out his "experimental" nonsense. 

Source: here and here. Why don't you note what an obnoxious fool Gwynne Dyer is and what a jerk he looks like and sounds like? Is it because you think he "makes sense" with all his experimental nonsense?  

7:32 AM  

John Madziarczyk said...

Wow, thanks for posting the transcript. She sounds more rational when the person who had to wade through her talk puts it in order. [Note to my readers: there was no putting it in order, only transcribing it as it appears in the video/as it was spoken live. -- JR]

But the thing is, that besides this: "[T]he problem is that geoengineering is an experiment. It is not a solution. And you cannot experiment in such a violent way without full assessment of the impact. And as I said, just a simple thing a blocking the sun’s rays is a problem for the planet. Its a problem for humanity… "Reflectors in the sky? Or Artificial Volcanoes.. But thats [inaduble]. Everyone of them, if the solution is looked at, all its spinoffs, in a full ecological way, and a full social impact, what does it mean? And the most important thing is its undemocratic. I think the crisis of the climate is so serious that people need to be involved. The problem of geoengineering or genetic engineering is a bunch of experts sitting with a bunch of corporations saying we’ll decide on behalf of the people. That is part of the problem. That is why I really respect Evo Morales, he called the people of the world after the collapse of Copenhagen, and said the people will decide the solution."

All of it besides this and a few other short sentences is rhetoric so general that it could be used to defeat any proposal coming out of the scientific community whatsoever. 

Aren't electric cars the product of a reductionist, mechanistic, science, expert-based paradigm? Isn't the EPA, the thing regulating pollution in the United States, as well as the equivalents in Europe and in the United Nations, then subject to "arrogant, narrow, reductionist, mechanistic science, expert-based paradigm", even though there are people in there who are doing their best to try to come up with solutions to the whole thing based on objective, experimentally verified, science, that shows results---and that doesn't just make us feel good about ourselves by being nice and holistic. Unless you can separate the honest efforts on behalf of the environment being done by people who want to change things from folks who want to do stuff that might have bad unanticipated consequences, you, in my opinion at least, don't have much of a leg to stand on. And you undercut your thesis by then relying (presumably) on the very scientists that you're condemning for data on global warming, pollution, etc..  

7:14 PM

John Madziarczyk said...

The irony here is that to a certain extent I believe in what Vandana Shiva is saying. I believe that science, not in the sense of honest inquiry but as an ideology that's a product of the 18th century, has in fact had bad consequences both for the world as a whole, with both the cultures of the third world and the cultures that created it both being negatively effected, although in drastically different ways.

The difference seems to be that I myself am careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And I can see how a way of relating to nature that just sees it as a tool that can be exploited could be seen as male or patriarchal, but without wanting to start another front of a fight, I take issue with the idea that simple instrumentalism and domination is necessarily a male characteristic. It's neutral, in my opinion, not having any gender, but men have been the ones in charge and so have been the biggest ones to use it.  

8:41 PM  

Julian Real said...

Hi John, 

The irony here is that to a certain extent I believe in what Vandana Shiva is saying. I believe that science, not in the sense of honest inquiry but as an ideology that's a product of the 18th century, has in fact had bad consequences both for the world as a whole, with both the cultures of the third world and the cultures that created it both being negatively effected, although in drastically different ways. 

I know that you do agree probably with more she has to say than what he has to say, given your other posts. So that's partly what seemed problematic to me about your post. That, in some sense, you were letting how "upset" someone was get in the way of listening more deeply to what they were saying, not just in one interview--and judging them based on that--but learning where they are coming from, reading their work, and determining a point of view that is based on knowledge of what they are doing--what they've been doing in the world, not "how they act in an interview". 

And, I was challenging you to check your sexism when it comes to being so quick to react to a woman challenging a man's "rationality" as her being "fucking insane". Given her level of intelligence and knowledge on these issues "fucking insane" is not a very rational conclusion to reach, in my opinion. She's not someone who ought to be categorised as "sputtering", ranting, and raving, and she's not fucking insane. And I honestly believe you owe her more respect than that, regardless of her race and gender. Does that make sense? If anyone is doing the kind of pro-sustainability and community empowering work she is doing, so responsibly and respectfully, why don't you show her more respect, John, than by heading up a post about her calling her "fucking insane"?  

9:03 AM  

Julian Real said...

The difference seems to be that I myself am careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

I think that's intellectually dishonest of you, as your blog post title does exactly that, effectively, by making anyone who comes upon it begin to read with a huge bias against Dr. Shiva, that she DOES, according to you, fit with all manner of misogynistic stereotypes of being an out of control, crazy lunatic of a person who isn't even capable of arguing "rationally", when, in fact, what she has to say is far more rational and grounded in applied science than what Dyer has to say. And you don't call him anything close to "fucking insane". 

That's what I'm saying is sexist and white male supremacist in what you did with that title and some of your other descriptions--you mislead your visitors, with loaded up bias against, in this case, an Indian woman who is a philosopher and scientist and activist and someone who does very responsible community empowerment work--all in keeping with your professed values. And I can see how a way of relating to nature that just sees it as a tool that can be exploited could be seen as male or patriarchal, There's so much written about this, John. From Susan Griffin's Woman and Nature, to Dr. Marimba Ani's Yurugu. 

The understanding of the Earth and non-human animals and other life as being "for" men is not, in any way, a transnational, cross-era belief or practice. It is unique to Western Civilisation, in its destructive force, and there are ideological reasons for that based in the philosophies, political interestes, and religious views of the dominating culture. This isn't an abstract matter at all. The amount of murder of life on Earth accomplished by European men, and men of European descent, based on very specific ways of viewing the world and "its uses", is responsible for this destruction. 

Dr. Shiva wants that exposed, the whole paradigm exposed of "the Earth being manipulatable, "for" men to tinker with, and something to exploit for "man"'s benefit. She understands humanity as living with the Earth, not existing to dominate and control it, through all kinds of means, including those of Dyers. That's a philosophical/political stance with integrity. Dyer's problem-solving has no such integrity. He doesn't even know how to discuss or critique the worldview it operates out of.  

9:03 AM  

Julian Real said...

but without wanting to start another front of a fight, I take issue with the idea that simple instrumentalism and domination is necessarily a male characteristic. 

Domination exists on several fronts, which Dr. Shiva experiences personally, socially, culturally and politically: through Western domination, white supremacy, male supremacy, and Eurocentrism. I think you'll find that analysis in her work, not Dyer's. 

Again, I take issue with the ways you disrespect her here. Why do you do that with someone who has such valuable things to offer humanity? 

It's neutral, in my opinion, not having any gender, but men have been the ones in charge and so have been the biggest ones to use it. 

John, men are in charge not at all accidentally. Men have forced their way into being in charge and white men use great force to maintain it. We are, after all, waging two and a half wars right now to maintain that power: Afghanistan--another Vietnam in terms of waste of lives, committing mass murder, mass rape, and not achieving anything at all of value. Iraq--an illegally and dishonestly started war, again, with the purpose of imposing Western Christian white male supremacist ways of behaving on lands where people of color who, in large part, are not Christian and Western, live--or once lived, until a million or so were killed over the last eight years. And Pakistan. And, the white men's wealthy elite in this country still wages war against the poor, who are disproportionately of color and women, not at all by accident, but by use of institutional and interpersonal force. Such as forced sterilisation, forced destruction of communities, genocide, slavery, forced removal of children, mass rape and battery of women by their husbands, forced trafficking and sexual slavery. You can read all about it, if you haven't yet. This isn't a perspective that I'm making up. This is historically verifiable stuff.  

9:18 AM 

Julian Real said...

To obfuscate the fact that there is a verifiable racist and sexist dimension (a willfully organised plan and practice--just look at the Roman Catholic Church or the U.S. military as two such institutions) to what's going down is, in my view, to be guilty of being willfully ignorant, and I see you as someone who is determined, for many good reasons, not to be. It is not an unreasonable position to note that those who don't know what philosophies, ideologies, worldviews, paradigms, and political frameworks they are operating out of--that govern some, if not all, of their actions--ought not be in charge of creating solutions to world problems, especially if done undemocratically.

I'm asking you to be more thoughtful and less reactive in coming up with your assessments of someone who is, rightfully, upset with someone who is demonstrating a kind of ignorance that Dr. Shiva knows kills people--disproportionately people from the Global South, where she lives, where people do not have the same access to Western media that Dyer has--he got that whole other segment on "Democracy Now and Then", after all. And she sees people in peril now, not in a few decades. He has the regional, gender, and race privileges to not know what he's really saying, and those privileges allow him to determine what is an emergency, and who is best qualified to act when there is one.
9:20 AM

Julian Real said...

From an Indigenous point of view, John, the last 500 years have been an emergency of grotesquely dire proportions, of atrociously horrific genocidal and misogynistic proportions, including Witch Burning, during which time European men, most of whom have consolidated a multi-ethnic experience into a fake but powerful "white" identity and "culture" of destruction and domination, of a constructed race and gender-based ideology of supremacy and domination, during that time. Those "white" men have slaughtered, without mercy of regard for humanity, the lives of hundreds of millions of people globally. There's nothing accidental or "unraced" or "ungendered" about it. And the belief that the order of dominion goes from a white male sky-god, to white men, to other men, to animals, to plants and the Earth, is a very particular way of seeing things, and a very hazardous and disastrous one, not just in the next thirty to fifty years. Especially not in the future, unless you're so privileged that you can ignore what has gone down genocidally and in ways that are terrifying and destructive specifically to women, and continues to this very moment in this day. Dr. Shiva in a far better position, intellectually and experientially, to know what's happening around the world than is Dyer, or you, or me.
9:26 AM

Julian Real said...

She deserves more respect from you that what you initially showed her in your blog post. I am asking you to show her that regard and respect, in part by reading her book, Soil Not Oil. 

From Amazon.com: 

With Soil Not Oil, Vandana Shiva connects the dots between industrial agriculture and climate change. Shiva shows that a world beyond dependence on fossil fuels and globalization is both possible and necessary. 

Condemning industrial agriculture as a recipe for ecological and economic disaster, Shiva’s champion is the small, independent farm: their greater productivity, their greater potential for social justice as they put more resources into the hands of the poor, and the biodiversity that is inherent to the traditional farming practiced in small-scale agriculture. What we need most in a time of changing climates and millions hungry, she argues, is sustainable, biologically diverse farms that are more resistant to disease, drought, and flood. In her trademark style, she draws solutions to our world’s most pressing problems on the head of a pin: “The solution to climate change,” she observes, “and the solution to poverty are the same.” 

Using Shiva’s organization Navdanya—praised by Barbara Kingsolver as “a small, green Eden framed against the startling blue backdrop of the Himalayas”—as a model, Soil Not Oil lays out principles for feeding the planet that are socially just and environmentally sound. Shiva then expands her analysis to broader issues of globalization and climate change, arguing that a healthy environment and a just world go hand in hand. Unwavering and truly visionary, Soil Not Oil proposes a solution based on self-organization, sustainability, and community rather than corporate power and profits. 

Vandana Shiva is the author of Earth Democracy, Water Wars, and Staying Alive. She is the editor of Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed. [this sentence was edited due to duplication with what follows, by me, Julian] 

About the Author 

A world-renowned environmental leader and recipient of the 1993 Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award), Shiva has authored several bestselling books, most recently Earth Democracy. Activist and scientist, Shiva leads, with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin, the International Forum on Globalization. Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India's leading physicists.
9:27 AM

Hi. My name is Julian Real and I'm Intergender. Now, what the hell does THAT mean?

[image is from here]

(For part one of this discussion, please see *here*.)

I SOOOO feel like I didn't get the memo that there was such a thing as being intergender. Did you get that memo? (And, if so, why didn't you forward it to me??) I'm utterly amazed there was this graphic in the internet, above! And there's something else later on in this post that I found out about just a little while ago.

The whole of this post was written assuming I'd invented the term myself--that's how out of the loop I am!! (And I do like coming up with new terms but usually I DO check, to make sure anything I come up with hasn't already been invented!) I'm feeling kind of silly right now. Like seeing snow for the first time and calling everyone out of their houses and apartments to see it, and all of them saying to me, "Yes. That happens every year." Anyway, here's the post:

My problem with identifying as a "man" is that I just don't feel like one. I barely felt like a boy. Or, mostly I didn't. I didn't see boys as the same group as me. I felt more kinship with girls. But what I felt was something else, not like being a girl and not like being a woman, or a boy or a man, exactly. I didn't want my genitals to show and longed to have genitals that were different, but not explainably different. The best I can do now it to say that I've wanted to have intersex genitals. In my twenties I wanted to have breasts and to not have facial hair. I wanted very much to breastfeed, if I had children with someone. I didn't and still don't want facial hair and if I could magically make it go away, it would have been long gone years and years ago, with me never missing it one bit.

I'd also get rid of most of my body hair--and I'm not an especially hairy-bodied person. It would help if society didn't make women remove so much of theirs, I suppose, because then body hair wouldn't be so associated for me with "being a man". Many women are hairy, including facially hairy, but the codes on what is acceptable are very strict in this regard, and few women I know, including lesbian feminist women, escape the mandate to shave or tweeze some hair somewhere, usually and most often on the face.

In general, I think what testosterone seems to do to males is kind of unattractive, although I don't think it's unattractive if women have higher levels of testosterone. I don't like the effects it has on men but that's partly because of associations I have with other dimensions of being a man--political ones, not physical ones. I notice this as males grow from high school through to their forties and fifties, how much their bodies and psyches change. I'm assuming that's due to testosterone, and also diet and lifestyle of course, as well as increasing years of living with certain privileges and entitlements.

Physically, more or less, across the board, men seem to get more massive with age, and I'm not speaking here of getting fatter, which is a U.S. phenomenon more than anywhere else. I mean "beefy" or "muscular" but it includes how men's skeletons change shape too. Like rib cages seeming to getting larger or broader. I am not attracted to bulky men, and I don't desire to be bulky in those ways, because it is associated for me with being like a man.

Not too long ago, I got myself down to my lowest weight ever, as an adult. I have since gained some weight back, but I am trying to get back to that lower weight. I have eating "issues" which some might call an eating disorder, but as I know people with very serious eating disorders, I don't really feel like my struggles are similar enough to their own. For one thing, I can't die from mine. They can. I am capable of getting into an anorexic-like frame of thinking and behaving, for sure. When my weight drops to a certain point, that thinking moves in. And I have to be careful then, to not let that "anorexic mind" take over.

I know that for many people with class privilege, in the West, where there is plenty of food available to be eaten, some of us limit what we eat in order to take up less room, or to not appear as adult-like. I don't want the body I had when seventeen, or fourteen, or ten. I just want the secondary sex characteristics to go away, permanently, because they don't seem or feel like me. I can barely REALLY look at myself in a mirror, because I'm confronted with this fact: that how I look isn't how I feel and that has primarily to do with secondary male sex characteristics. With matters that having different levels of various hormones would have possibly taken care of. Maybe just less testosterone. If getting "fixed" would help me achieve the body I want, I'd do it. And this isn't about cosmetic changes to suit the public. I don't imagine showing off my body no matter what it looks like.

I just would like a body that fits with my sense of who I am. Right now, and for as long as I can remember, mine isn't it, but it's not so far off that I can't tolerate it. If it were, I might be more motivated to do something about it. But I really am frightened by taking hormones and even more so by surgery. I don't trust the dominant medical establishment, including around matters of gender re-assignment, in part because they really do try and make everyone look "male" or "female" and some of us would be just fine being intersex. And, I say that as someone who didn't grow up intersex and I don't know the struggles and hardships that can come with that journey from childhood into adulthood.

On the matter of degrees of inner distress or dissonance: I object to "being transgender" being determined by non-transgender people. I object to non-transgender people telling me, "You're not like what I understand transgender people to be, and so you're not transgender." I'm willing and eager to discuss my experiences with other transgender or intergender people, to compare notes, to discuss the stresses and the ways of coping.

Some might call me genderqueer, and for a time, for a few years, I called myself that. But now, for me, that term is too class, race, and era-specific. I associate it with a very particular white, middle or upper middle class, academically trained sub-culture, and I'm not actively part of that sub-culture. Maybe if I were, I'd be okay with that term.

I suspect I'm under the umbrella of being "transgender" but am not what dominant society tells me that means. "Transgender", according to dominant media, implies or assumes the desire in someone to move from one point to another along a supposedly linear spectrum of gendered being. This might go from being female-assigned at birth, raised as a girl and then being a woman. Or being male-assigned at birth, raised as a boy, then being a man, to becoming a woman. That's how it is presented, and the more the "finished" person appears to be their new gender, the more successful the process is understood to be, by talk show hosts, for example. Most people I know who are transgender who have had lots of hormone injections and many surgeries, do not really pass, to me. They appear "transgender" and I wish society were okay with people not fitting into what "men" and "women" are supposed to look like. I know some non-transgender people whose gender presentation--physically, not in terms of adornment or attire--is not what dominant society most welcomes and wants of its citizens. And that is a particular struggle that is not mine.

Once, though, a four year old girl looked up a me, as she stood near her mother who was selecting items off a shelf. She stared and then tugged on her mother's clothes and said, "Mommy, is he a boy or a girl?" The woman was embarrassed and seemed to want to apologise, or maybe she did. But it made my day. I felt like that little girl was the only one who has seen me as I want to be seen. Curiously, she used the term "he"--"Is HE a boy or a girl", so I think she registered my maleness on some level. But she also saw something else.

Most transgender-ignorant people assume that being transgender means one goes from being man to being a woman, or from being a woman to being a man. That's not true of most transgender people I know, and I question "transgender" as the term for what they are, but of course they are entitled to name themselves, and I am not entitled to name anyone else's subjective experience of genderedness and selfhood.

One female-bodied person I know, who is not intersex, identifies as transgender and prefers to go by male pronouns. Is it the fact of using male pronouns that makes them transgender? Because, basically, they are genderqueer, and may well be intergender, not transgender. But "intergender" hasn't been an option, and my experience is we make due with the categories that are available to us, that are enforced or generated against the weight of dominant society. This person has not been transitioning at all over the years I've known them. Not at all. Nor do they speak about "transitioning". To me, if there's no "transition", you're not transgender. You're possibly intergender or genderqueer, but I think there is currently a kind of internal peer pressure within some queer communities to identify as either queer or transgender, or both.

I see transgender reality as existing against the force of dominant society. I know some non-trans people believe transgender people are choosing to reinforce gender stereotypes, but I don't think this is the central matter in being transgender. I think the central matter is "feeling like oneself" both subjectively and when looking in the mirror, and possibly also when interacting socially. It's achieving a kind of internal-external, psychic-social harmony in basic being where before there was greater dissonance and dissociation. The degrees to which transgender folks assimilate is both a function of the pressures of dominant society to do so, and the desire to avoid a kind of scrutiny that is especially painful, as one has already invested a lot of energy in trying to pass relatively unnoticed in a world where one feels like one doesn't fit, psychologically and physically, and in other ways. So blaming transgender people for trying to pass is, to me, an expression of transphobia or, a term I prefer, transgender bigotry.

Another transgender person I know who is has lived life up until recently as a girl then a woman, is taking hormones, is experiencing voice changes and looks forward to the time when their voice isn't registered by others as "gender-nonspecific". And they are looking forward passing as a man. We have had some discussion about this: about this matter of wanting to be able to pass as one socially mandated and enforced gender or the other, in the gender hierarchy/binary that exists in the West. This should not be dismissed as insignificant to the decision to transition in ways media stereotypes transgender people transitioning. Without an enforced gender binary, someone might feel "done" transitioning" with less effort or procedures done, or they might not feel the same need to transition in the same ways.

Another myth about being transgender is that it is ONLY a subjective thing. That it is ONLY how one feels inside. Every transgender person I know is negotiating how they will be and be perceived in social spaces. This cannot "not matter" and it is influential as one deals with so many other issues that can accompany being transgender. And there are tons of issues to deal with, so many more than non-transgender people realise, in my experience. So many, in fact, that I've pushed away the whole matter away, on and off, for all of my adult life. I've reconciled being in the body I have, and then I notice that it's not the body I want.

Coming out as gay, for me, was not primarily a matter of figuring out how I felt, as a male-bodied person, about other males. I grew up knowing I was attracted to other male people. But I didn't exactly feel like I was attracted to "the same gender as me". I also didn't feel heterosexual at all. I've never understood heterosexuality. And, on some level, I've never understood anyone--male, female, intersex, or transgender, being attracted to men as a group. To individuals, yes. But not to men generally. Because so many men are so inhumane in fundamental ways. So I don't gets what's all that attractive about men.

I've always been more attracted to "androgynous" men or men who don't have lots of muscles, who are slight or thin, who are not terribly athletic, and who aren't "into" dominant male activities. Acceptable dominant male activities, such as working on cars, working out at the gym, homosocially bonding over putting down women, and being into comic books, sci-fi, or men's team sports, bore me.And, I know women can be into some or all of those things too. I once knew a lesbian-feminist who was into watching football. I didn't get it at all. I know het men who are into it: I don't get it. But I like the Olympics and I do like some sports, like beach volleyball and diving. And I like chess.

Does the degree to which my interests match up with some dominant standard of what men are supposed to enjoy help determine my own sense of myself? Of course. I am intergender because, in part, a lot of my interests, values, behaviors, and attitudes are NOT shared among men I know but they are shared among a whole lot of women I know. I find women infinitely more intelligent than men. The kind of intelligence I see men valuing is one that is dissociated from social reality or any understanding that the personal is political. And the intelligence I see in men, when it is there, is also terribly influenced by the many things Dr. Marimba Ani writes about in Yurugu. Things like "objectivity" and "rationality" and "logic". OMFG: the men that want to argue in those terms!!! I just want to give a copy of Yurugu to them and say, "Let's talk after you understand THIS book." Because if they can't understand that book, they aren't very intelligent. And if they can't understand what feminists are writing about, they aren't very intelligent. And if they are white but don't know what it means to be white, then they aren't very intelligent. That's how I see it.

Social, interpersonal, and emotional intelligence is very valued by me, but not so much by most men I know. So that's part of me feeling intergender. Residing somewhere between what society offers as the two genders is where I live, with a fair amount of male privilege and plenty of male entitlements. But the entitlements and privileges alone do not a gender make. That's something it has taken me a few years to work through, because my non-biological understanding of gender used to go like this: if you were raised with and maintain male privileges, you're a boy or a man. If you weren't, you're a girl or a woman. Or, if you were stigmatised negatively and seen as inferior and socially subordinated due to your gender, you were a girl or a woman. If not, you were a boy or a man.

I was seen and treated by many in my family of origin as an intergender child. I know they didn't have language for it, and it has taken me until last night for ME to have language for what I am that feels truest to my experiences, physical and emotional, internal and social, personal and political.

Wouldn't you know... I just Googled "intergender" to see if anything came up, and most of it had to do with being intersex, or with language issues. But, kind of excitingly, there was this:

What Is Intergendered?

By: Donna Lynn Matthews, October 1998

So I'll leave you, and me, with that to read. (Click on the title just above to link to the website with the whole discussion.)