The Poisonous Politics of Food Production and Consumption and What We Can Do

The article below flows from the brilliant work of people like Vandana Shiva. Here is one of her speeches on this subject:


The source website for what follows may be linked back to here: 

EcoSalon / By Vanessa Barrington

5 Terrible Problems With the Way We Eat (And What You Can Do About Them)

Most of the problems in our food system stem from the concentration of power, land, wealth, and political influence in the hands of a few large players.

September 24, 2010  | 

If you ask food experts like Michael Pollan, Marian Nestle, Gary Nabhan, Vandana Shiva, and numerous other writers and scholars what the biggest problems in our global, industrialized food system are, you’ll end up with a lot to chew on.

It’s difficult to separate the problems into discrete categories because everything is connected. Big problems lead to seemingly smaller problems, that, when allowed to fester, become open wounds – much like the foul waste lagoons on industrial pig farms that dot our landscape, or the actual wounds on human flesh caused by antibiotic resistant staph infections, which are a direct result of the overuse of antibiotics in livestock operations.

Most of the problems in the system stem from one giant problem: Concentration of power, land, wealth, and political influence in the hands of a few large players who have gamed the system for their benefit. Here are the biggest issues, as we see them, followed by suggestions for what you can do about them.

1. Food Safety

Big players in the meat, dairy, eggs, and bagged greens industries are unsafe at any speed. Nobody paying attention to the news over the past few years could have missed the biggest food recall stories, nor the very real harm and deaths that have resulted from many of them. E-coli in beef has sickened many, killed some, and ruined lives. Recently, salmonella tainted pasteurized milk was pulled from shelves. Nobody could have missed the recent recall of about a half a billion eggs, and there have been numerous recalls of bagged greens – the most recent in June. These stories are becoming nearly every day occurrences, leaving us to wonder if our food system is DESIGNED to kill us. The problem is a direct result of lax food safety enforcement laws and lack of inspectors. This is at least partially because industry lobbies make sure that inconvenient regulations are not passed. Concentration in the industry also leads to over-crowded, sadistic farm operations requiring the use of massive doses of non-therapeutic antibiotics and grown hormones, and resulting in air and water pollution that contribute to a host of environmental and public health nightmares, and misery for the animals trapped in the system.

What can you do about it?
Know your farmers, ask about their practices and support what they are doing. You’ll eat better, you’ll worry less and you’ll support a better food system. When bagged spinach was first recalled a few years ago, I knew that the spinach in my CSA box was fine. Likewise, during the recent egg recall, I worried not a whit about the pastured eggs I buy at the farmers’ market.

2. Declining Wild Fish Stocks

As Taras Grescoe pointed out in Bottomfeeder and Paul Greenberg most recently outlined in Four Fish, we eat too many of a very few species of wild fish – mostly the ones that are higher on the food chain. Continuing in this vein will cause the eventual decimation of our oceans.

What can you do about it?
Branch out and try something new. Eat bait, or smaller fish, like anchovies, sardines, and small Spanish mackerel. These fish are more sustainable, more plentiful, more resilient, and healthier for you than the larger predators.

3. Poor Aquaculture Practices

Aquaculture may be an important food source in the future (see above) but much of it is practiced in ways that are unhealthy for eaters, native species and the environment. If GMO salmon is approved, (still pending at press time) it will only add to the list of everything that is wrong with farming carnivorous fish in the open ocean. Don’t replace that salmon on your plate with shrimp. Ever wonder why the shrimp is so cheap at restaurants like Red Lobster?

What can you do about it?
Educate yourself on sustainable aquaculture. In general, only eat farmed fish that are natural vegetarians and only buy from suppliers that are transparent about the origins of their fish.

4. Genetically Modified Crops

Besides being untested for their effects on human health, genetically modified seeds don’t necessarily produce greater yields, and can lead to over-application of pesticides that in turn can cause super weeds which have the potential to threaten overall biodiversity, and to contaminate non-gmo crops with their genetic material. The most recent case involving GMOS ended badly when the USDA issued permits allowing GMO sugar beets to be planted in defiance of a federal judge. The judge had issued a decision to stop the planting of GMO sugar beets on the grounds that they may cross-pollinate table beets and Swiss chard. Despite the fact that most other countries have laws outlawing or requiring the labeling of GMO foods, our government continues to bow down to industry.

What can you do about it?
Educate yourself about which crops are commonly genetically modified and only buy organic versions. Better yet, support the companies involved in the non-GMO project. These are the companies willing to go out on a limb and actually test their organic ingredients to make sure they are not contaminated. Also, raise your voice and let the USDA and our legislators know that you don’t want GMOS!

5. Exploitation of Workers

From actual documented slavery in Florida’s tomato fields, to daily pesticide exposure in farming communities, to the fact that America’s lowest paying jobs are in fast food restaurants – our food system crushes workers, ruins their health, and keeps them in poverty so that they need the cheap, processed, industrialized food to survive.

What can you do about it?
This is a tough one, because buying from local, organic farms isn’t necessarily the answer. Even the nicest local, organic farms don’t pay their workers much and require long hours of backbreaking work. The farmers often work just as hard and can’t even afford health insurance for themselves or their families, so even if they want to do better by their workers, they can’t. This is where raising your voice for a more fair government policy that benefits small farmers equally can help. The new USDA is doing a better job clamping down on the big guys and supporting small-scale farmers than ever before, but we’ve got a ways to go.

Is James Franco.... you know.... (Straight?)

image of both Jameses--Franco and Dean, is from here

I know, I know: whether a man is straight is really no one's business. (Well, except dominant media's and Wikipedia's.) I mean that's "private" right? Coming into awareness that you might be "heterosexual" ought to be your own protected process. And often enough, thank GAWD, it does only prove to be "a stage" in one's development. Some might even say it's healthy to explore one's own heterosexual feelings! Only that person should decide if and when to reveal that very personal information to others, in places and times when they know their unsuspecting friends and obtuse family members won't freak out at the news and reject them or toss them out onto the street, being told "No child of mine will be STRAIGHT and live under MY roof!"

There have been many times that I've revealed to a friend or family member that someone (other than myself) is lesbian or gay. Usually, which is also to say "too often", whether they are conservative or liberal I'll get that the litany of "caring" or "concerned' comments as if I've told them a secret that (they believe) must be attached to some stigmatically and socially attached shame. You'd think I'd whispered, "So-and-so has GONORRHEA!" Nope. Just that they're lesbian or gay--not even if they're homoSEXUALLY ACTIVE. Just the 'being' lesbian or gay part. As if that's something to feel shame about. (It isn't.) Yes, it's made to be shameful by an anti-lesbian and anti-gay (not just "homophobic") society that incorrectly thinks being straight is natural and so not being straight... well, you can extrapolate from there.  -- Julian Real, gay male who has never been heterosexual, although there was a phase of "experimentation"

I'm not sure if it's been before or since he portrayed James Dean, but James Franco has been an actor I've kept an eye on--and to me he's not hard on the eyes. I watched Freaks and Geeks, but don't recall him from that time as "a name".... yet.

He's clearly gifted in a variety of arts arenas, from acting to filmmaking to painting to performance art. What can I say? I like the guy. A lot. He's intelligent, creatively open, and he's got a sense of humor. I don't ask for much from men; only those few qualities and that they don't hate women: so, as far as I know, he gets a passing grade. Speaking of grades, he's reportedly taken some unfathomably high number of course credits in college one semester. Crazy. And he's not done. He's working on his PhD.

As has been discussed here in the past, I don't find men attractive based on looks alone, or, even, primarily. I mean I can find men attractive, physically, instantly. But for me to find a man REALLY attractive, he has to be engaged in some interesting stuff--he's got to be engaged with the world in creative ways that are counter-hegemonic.

Without having seen it, I believe that the his film Feast of Stephen is about gay desire, longing, and the dangers of being young and gay in a tyrannically heteropatriarchal society where gross homophobic violence can become eroticised. As noted, I've not seen it and given the story, I'm not sure what I'd make of it. Eroticised violence against women and gay men just isn't "what I'm into" (being erotically and otherwise counter-hegemonic and all) so I expect I'll find the movie enraging more than engaging. But I'll try and see it and report back to you.

There's also new film in which he stars, Howl, he portrays Allen Ginsberg, a gay man I rather despise, as his proclivity for boys was anything but counter-hegemonic. Fortunately Andrea Dworkin took Ginsberg to task for his acted-upon desire for boys. She called his misopedic ass out good. I wish more people were like her. (For more on Howl, see this from NPR.)

People speaking honestly to one another is a rare thing indeed. With that as one of the most pathetic segues in the history of segues, I'll shift gears to an MTV interview with Mr. Franco, about the whole Twilight book and film series phenomena.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

You can tell he's actually given the matter some thought, and I am always struck with how little mass media interviewers want to know about anything below the surface, not about James exactly, but about the issues he raises. You can kind of tell they went to the "soundbite school of journalism", if that. Franco has studied at a variety of academic institutions from NYU's renowned film school to Yale. He's no slacker. And he's clearly interested in a lot about dominant society and dominant media, utilising some very non-dominant media to express himself.

As you may also know, James played one of Harvey Milk's lovers in the movie, Milk. Harvey is yet another gay man who was known for having sex with underage males. This will be the focus of some future blog posts. This post is primarily about Franco and film.

Gay cinema is rare enough. Not as rare as lesbian cinema, of course, because men remain dominant in every social sphere, including in the world of queer film, and so does whiteness.

If he were any other heterosexual, there could be problems, for me, with him making a film about the humiliations and degradations that can accompany gay sexual longing. But, I know he's been interested in how U.S. society exercises masculinity and as a not-out and/or non-gay actor, he has shown an admirable dedication to human portraits of gay and bi men. The fact that he's a genuine artist (as opposed to the corporate types, I suppose) exploring this terrain does cause me to cut him a bit of slack. I believe art should be neither politically (patriarchally) correct nor politically (patriarchally)  incorrect, only honest and if possible, truthful. The discussion ought to follow the viewing.

So, bravo, James, for putting this work out there, whether or not you are gay. I'll appreciate your work and accept you even if you are a heterosexual man. ;)

Here's one site that has a clip of Feast of Stephen, for now. And, quite possibly, here's that same clip:

Afghan Women Vote Against Patriarchal Fascism East and West

Most of what follows is from Shiraz Socialist. Please click on the title just below to link back.

Afghan elections: three million-plus defy the fascists

September 19, 2010 at 2:37 am 

Above: anti-fascist Afghan women: they know how to deal with the Taliban

“Although the “west” has all but given up on Afghan democracy – the agreed-upon euphemism for this betrayal appears to be “working to lower expectations” – it would seem that a few million Afghans have voted in today’s elections anyway, braving Taliban threats of dismemberment and death…”
Read  the rest of what Terry Glavin has to say, here.

Julian's note:
Afghan women need to be armed to deal with U.S. and NATO forces too, who are no less threatening and terroristic to women and girls in Afghanistan, despite what Western media proclaims as Truth.

Terry Glavin's blog post on  this contains anti-Semitic references allegedly used by Taliban forces to keep women from voting. Never mind the Jews, folks. The U.S. Christian White Right are funding the slaughter of Asian women in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Portland is "Pornland" and Strip Club-City and that requires Pimps Sexually Buying, Renting, and Trafficking Girls: A True Story of Prostitution and Pimping from Nightline

image above, from here, is part of another ABC news program, Primetime

Please keep in mind what you are about to see is a story that doesn't include the most poor and most marginalised girls and women globally or even in North America who are lured or captured by pimps and slavers. The story you're about to watch is "the nicer end" of the spectrum of how pimps and slavers operate. It's the end that pro-pimp, pro-procurement activists and advocates claim is liberating for women and ought to be legally considered "free speech" or a "civil liberty". Just one question: Speech and liberty for which groups of oppressed people?

The following true story of the purchase and pimping of girls for men is brought to you tonight, in part, by Craigslist whose business motto ought to be: Promoting and Profiting from the Sex Trafficking of Girls for Men Was a Third of Our Business Revenues--until we were "censored". (Note: They were never censored. Anti-sex/pro-sexxxism pornographers, procurers, and slavers love to throw that term around as if they've ever been made to shut up and as if they aren't in the business of silencing women and girls by any means necessary.)

All that follows is from *here*. A video follows just after the title and date below. Click on the center of the image to start it.

In Search of Love: Teens Lured Into Sex Trade

Police Say Portland, Ore., is a Hub for Child Sex Trafficking

By SHARYN ALFONSI and URSULA FAHY

Sept. 22, 2010

The first time "Katie" danced at a strip club, she was 13, and in the seventh grade.

Not long before, the Oregon girl had gone on an ordinary outing to a mall in downtown Portland. She met some boys there and they invited her to a party in the suburbs. At the party, Katie met an older boy she would begin to date.

"He bought me a lot of things, like shoes, outfits and purses and stuff like that," said Katie, of J, who she began to think of as her boyfriend.

Before long, J told her he was having financial trouble, and he asked her if she would she dance, "just once," at a strip club, she said. Katie, who had only ever worn high heels to church and on special occasions, soon was forced into working as a stripper and a street prostitute six days a week, she said.

Every year, at least 100,000 children are forced into prostitution in the United States, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And Portland, routinely voted one of the most livable cities in the country, hides a dark secret: It is a national hub for child sex trafficking, police and victims' advocates say. 

Children, young teens from all over the country, but mostly from the small towns of the Northwest, walk Portland's streets.

Katie's inauguration into the life was like that of countless other girls.

That first day at the strip club, she remembers looking out from the stage.

"It was gross," she told ABC News. "They're like older than my dad and grandpap and I just wanted to go home. "

She was told, "You can't go home, you have to finish your shift," she recalled. "And I was like, 'I don't work here,' and they were like, 'You do now.'"

"I realized I pretty much walked into a trap," she said.

Katie's is a classic case, said Sgt. Mike Geiger, who heads Portland's sexual assault detail. Cute young girls are being targeted by pimps.

"They look for them in the malls, the parks, on MySpace, Facebook," Geiger said. "(A)nd they look for them in the schools and walking downtown. They strike up a friendship with them."

Preying on Vulnerable Teens

Pimps fish for girls whose home lives are lacking in some way.

Every year, at least 100,000 children are forced into prostitution in the United States, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

(Getty Images)

If a girl indicates she's not getting enough attention or is having some other problems at home, "They will use the information and become their rescuer,'' said Geiger of the pimps' strategy. "'I can fix all that,' the pimps will say. 'I can give you a place to stay. You're way too mature to be treated like that.'"

The pimp will then give the girl clothes and other things, as well as affection, said Geiger. "And then the trap has sprung."

Ruth Roberts says that's what happened to her daughter.

"I was a single mom working really late ... making six figures,'' she said. "My daughter was getting A's and B's. Playing basketball. ... She had a good life, a good family, she didn't need anything."

But Roberts' daughter, then 16, met a guy on Portland's subway system. They "dated" and he convinced to her run away and live with him, Roberts said.

Soon, said Roberts, "She was walking the streets."

Forced to stroll Portland's notorious prostitution area around 82nd Avenue, referred to as "the track," even in the bitter cold.

Often, though, according to Roberts, her daughter was "rented" out on Craigslist.com.

Roberts said she spent her life savings trying to find her daughter and rescue her from the streets and from her pimp.

But her daughter, Roberts said, was afraid to leave. Her pimp once handcuffed her to a steering wheel of a car while he disappeared into a house, Roberts said her daughter told her. The pimp returned covered in blood, changed his shirt, and they went out to eat.

"She thinks he killed someone," Roberts said.

It is this fear that routinely keeps girls on the stroll.

Katie obediently worked the strip clubs by day and the track by night. At just 13 years old, she often would get picked up by johns within minutes of walking "the track."

She said she lived with J and lived by his rules. Other girls would come and go, she said. She remembers one in particular who was about the same age as she was.

"He bought her," she told ABC News.

Pimp Tells Teen, 'There is No God Where You Live'

That girl would find a way to escape, and Katie said she dreamed of doing the same.

"I just prayed," she said. "I was, like, crying and then he came out and he was like, 'What are you doing?' and I said, 'Praying.' And he said, 'Didn't I tell you there is no God where you live?'"

Michelle Alston knows that desperation first hand. She said her mother was prostitute, and at age 13, she decided to follow in her footsteps.

"When you go out there you risk getting robbed, raped, beat,'' she said. "You're getting in a car with someone you don't know. You risk that. ... Do I think it's worth it? No, but at the time it's all I knew."

Even though she was only 13 when she started, Alston said that sometimes she would have to lie about her age, when the john wanted someone younger.

"That's what they liked,'' she said.

When she was 14, Alston was introduced to the Internet and decided to go into business for herself.

"I would post online, Craigslist, City Vibe, Arrows Guide,'' she said. More than a dozen girls worked for her, she said, and she would post pictures of other girls, along with information about them, their fee and a phone number.

At 17, she was arrested and charged with "compelling and promoting prostitution."

She was a teenaged female pimp.

"I don't like that term,'' she told ABC, saying that she preferred to think of herself as a "financial advisor."
"I'd advise them to put their finances in my hands," she said.

Alston served three years in prison. She was pregnant when she began her sentence and gave birth in prison to a baby girl.

Helping women and girls to escape prostitution is fraught with challenges, experts say. For one, they are often treated as criminals, though they are just children and many have been forced into sex work.

"They might say to you, 'I've lived through more than most 40 year olds,' but then they say 'Oh, and I really love Justin Bieber,'" said Esther Nelson, a victims' advocate in Portland.

Nelson said she now sees girls forced into prostitution who are coming from and going to all parts of the country -- Atlanta, Hawaii, Chicago, New Orleans.

The city of Portland is home to more than 100 strip clubs and massage parlors, making it, per capita, the largest legal commercial sex industry in the nation.

"We have a very vibrant sex industry that is considered legitimate," she said. "And when you have that, you find the exploitation of children, because the sex industry is built on the exploitation of innocent people."

Police say Nelson is witnessing the results of sophisticated human trafficking now run by gangs who've realized it's often easier and more profitable to move girls than it is to move drugs.

Girls Branded With their Pimps' Logos

Authorities have many troubling stories to tell of the ways in which the girls are abused and victimized.
"People have been gang raped, tied up in Saran Wrap," Nelson said. "We're talking about 13-year-old girls left for dead in their hotel rooms without water or food for days. Pimps put logos on their bodies and they're treated like animals."

Geiger said Portland is badly in need of more shelters to help give the teen prostitutes a safe gateway off the streets.

"Often they end up in a juvenile detention center with less resources than they deserve," he said.

More often than not, Nelson said, the girls return to the street.

Escaping the Life
Katie was able to escape her pimp after waiting weeks for a bed in a shelter.

Roberts' daughter is no longer working as a prostitute, she said. But the young woman remains fearful that her pimp will find her.

Alston, who now works at a restaurant, said she hopes the family profession stops with her. She plans to shelter her curly-haired daughter, who she said has her hazel eyes, as much as possible.

"I want her to be successful and happy,'' she said. "I just want her to have everything I didn't."

Who's Hating Who? The logical phallusy of men's claims of endemic "misandry"

image of preposterous t-shirt saying is from here

In case you can't easily read it, the writing on the white t-shirt above says this:

 MISANDRY IS THE #1 HATE CRIME IN AMERICA

Now exactly how stupid does someone have to be to believe THAT? Exactly how out of touch with reality? Exactly how delusional? How egocentric? How self-absorbed? How clueless?

The reason that mostly WHITE non-poor [North] American (and UK and Australian and European) men can actually think what's on that t-shirt is accurate is because of something called "logical phallusy". Below I'll identify how that works.

Anyone who refuses to figuratively, metaphorically, or otherwise suck the dicks of men are often considered to be man-haters, or, in the newest parlance, "misandrists". (We must ignore, for the moment, that men who get their dicks sucked in any way often enjoy this act because it degrades the person doing the sucking, or, at least, makes the man feel in control, or like he's the master and the other person is the slave, in their sexual if not also emotional relationship.) So too are people regarded as "misandrist" if they refuse to defer to men on all matters "intellectual". So too are people considered to be "man-haters" if they value the perspectives, analyses, and political projects of feminists over those of anti-feminists. So too are people assessed and labeled as "practitioners of misandry" if they value the perspectives, analysis, and political projects of women in the Global South over men in the Global North.

I will tell you what I see: because I call some men some not-nice names when those men are not nice in the ways they speak about feminists, I am regarded as a man-hater. This determination is made unequivocally by many anti-feminist men who claim they aren't anti-feminist (well, some of them claim that; some own it right up front that they are anti-feminists. What they don't like to say out loud is the degree to which they are also misogynists, as this lessens their "victim status" in their claim to be the oppressed gender).

From YahooAnswers to many other social Q&A sites, to men's misogynistic blah-blah-blogs, to reddit-type websites that host topic-specific discussions, these men claim that feminists are "anti-misandrist". There is likely to be no end to them finding still more places on and offline for shoveling this CRAP out for everything to smell. The CRAP being that there is such a thing as a social-political problem called "woman being misandrists". I accept fully that some men--and please keep in mind here I don't identify as a man--do hate men. I accept that some women hate men, although their numbers have never been substantial, relative to "all women". Their numbers are not even significant when compared to the number of men who hate women. But, some men do hate men. Usually that hate goes this way: White men hate men of color, institutionally if not interpersonally; straight men hate gay men, in policy and law if not also in their own social circles. (But usually they express some forms of that hate in their social circles as well. Even if only in "jokes".)

What "anti-misandrists" keep forgetting, or never bothered to notice in the first place, was that the "hatred" that feminists are concerned about isn't only the form of hate that shows up as men being disrespectful or degrading to women. Or the form that shows up as men raping women. Or the form that shows up as multi-billion dollar a year industries called: sexual slavery, trafficking, pornography, advertising, cosmetics, plastic surgery, medical abuse and neglect, or denial of human rights. Or the form that manifests as men believing themselves superior to women, according to male supremacist assessments of what's valuable and what isn't, what's intelligence and what isn't, and what is "humane" and what isn't. What "anti-misandrists" can't quite comprehend, in any intelligible way, is that what feminists are addressing is all of the that and more: how religious institutions discriminate and dominate women, for example.

There are an overlapping, interlocking, systemic and systematic set of assaults against a whole class of people--women--by another whole class of people--men. Some of those misogynistic assaults are acted out against particular groups of women: by white men (or men of color) against women of color, for example. Or by rich men in the Global North (or Global South) against poor (or wealthy) women in the Global South. Or by het (or gay) men against lesbian (or heterosexual) women.

There's a tangled clustering of phenomena, called "hateful" that men perpetrate and perpetuate against women that is not only interpersonal and is not only institutional. Men cannot identify such a complex of "misandry". What they can do is pretend their is one. And they can do this by offering up as "proof" a dozen or two "quotes" by some white feminist women. Some of the quotes are misquotes. Some are from fiction. Some are written by women that were never considered "feminist activists" and lots of other quotes by those same women that demonstrate both regard for and respect of men are not added into that list, because that wouldn't really make the propagandistic and highly delusional point they wish to make.

"Anti-misandrist" men seem to truly, honestly believe that "misandrist women" exist en masse.  And they do, really, honestly, post four to fourteen quotes by like maybe six women as proof-positive that "misandry" is clearly THE SOCIAL-POLITICAL PROBLEM OF OUR AGE. Forget Global Warming. Forget U.S. wars in Asia. Forget famine and the problem of mass starvation and lack of access to basic health care. Forget genocide. And forget "misogyny" in the form of sexual, social, religious, and economic violence against women by men.

Some of these "anti-misandrists" even go so far as to claim that women "hit" men more than men "hit" women, never being very specific when it comes down to defining what "hit" means. Male students claim female students "shame" them in classrooms. Or they "threaten" and "silence" them by objecting to the stupid shit they say. Or they "bash" men in the media as if the media was ever owned by women. This is to say: if women DO "bash" men (verbally) in the media, why do those men who run the media allow that to happen? Is it because women are secretly the tyrants, the private dominators, and true oppressors of men across the West and elsewhere? Is it because the men who profit most from those industries can't help but let women in those industries spew "misandry"? I've yet to see much evidence of this "misandry" and when I "read all about it" all these guys point to are things like ads and TV shows that appear to not regard men as gods.

I hear this a lot: "Women are just as abusive to men  as men are to women." In what village, town, city, state, nation, hemisphere, world, solar system, universe, or multiverse?

I've seen one female relative APPEAR to be more disrespectful of her husband than her husband was of her. And any "anti-misandrist" man, if observing their dynamics, would have concludes that "she's more abusive to him than he is to her" because all they would have bothered to notice were some verbal and some non-verbal cues that she was "less than pleased" with him and sometimes felt genuine anger at him. The verbal "abuse" wasn't manifest in her calling him bad "misandrist" names, mind you. But he did call her very misogynistic terms, regularly. Her "misandry" showed up full blown in her rolling her eyes at stuff he said that she knew was full of shit. So her "eye rolling" is what would get checked off as signs of virulent man-hating/husband-hating, while his general disregard and lack of respect for her is seen as, well, as nothing to get one's pants in a twist about. See, there's really selective "seeing" going on here in assessing where the abuse is (most) in a relationship. So let's tease this out a little more, using the case of this female relative and her now ex-husband.

Who did most of the house cleaning? She did.
Who did most of the cooking? She did.
Who did most, well practically all of the child care? She did.
Who did almost all of the laundry? She did.
Who did almost all--practically every single bit--of the emotional caring of the family members? I mean who showed concern, regard, compassion, empathy, care, attention, and who regularly checked in with family members to find out how they were doing, how they were feeling, and what they might need or want to make their day or lives better? She did. He did almost none of that. Almost NONE. Sometimes he did grill stuff at family gatherings.

Yes, he did do that. So let's give credit where credit is due. But back to how things went most of the time:

Who wanted physical and emotional affection but didn't get it? Her, and each of their children. (I never once saw him hug them or praise them for anything other than athletic accomplishments. And he wouldn't debate this: he knows he was a shitty father in this regard especially.)

Who wanted some forms of "affection" but went outside the marriage to get it? HE did.

He cheated on her, claimed to the women he "rented" or otherwise spent time with that he was in an unhappy marriage as if he couldn't get out of it and as if he couldn't express his issues with their marriage to his wife before deceit and degradation of her and other women began. (The children were grown and out of the house when the cheating really amped up.) He wanted his live-in maid, laundry attendant, cook, nurse, and life manager (that would be my female relative, aka his wife for decades) AND he wanted to (and did) fuck around on her with other women.

But, she did do that eye-roll and also the occasional sigh of disbelief or disgust at things that flowed out of his mouth--as he arrogantly pontificated and obnoxiously postured himself as "the expert" on anything he found himself talking about. Yes, he did that. (There were lots of witnesses.) He was and remains one of those guys who seems to think that if the shit leaves HIS ass it must be pure gold and also perfumed.

So, who here has the problem with being a "hater"? Me, the female relative, or her husband?

The "anti-misandrist" will conclude, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that she and I do, because we don't seem to worship him or even hold him in very high regard. We must remember that even though she "doesn't hold him in very high regard" that she took him to the hospital and all doctor's appointments. She made sure he had food to eat. She prepared foods he enjoyed eating. She made sure he had clean clothes to wear. She made sure their children were attended to emotionally and physically--which meant, of course, that he didn't have to, as if stating, "Well, if SHE'S doing it all just fine, why should I have to do it also??" And yet, let her take the scumbag to court and he'll plead that he ought to get at least 50-50 custody--as if he knows a goddamned thing about how to raise children or how to respect their mother.

He has shown her a lack of regard since soon after they were married and he knew he "had her". Then he felt rather fine about subscribing to Hustler and later to investing a lot of time looking at online pornography. He also later felt just fine about seeking out sex partners online--I'm not saying he didn't have periods of guilt. I'm only saying his guilt didn't override his disregard of his wife.

And, last but not least, after decades of physically and sexually neglecting her, he raped her. Yes, by any definition, he raped her. Because he was angry with her and angry that she wanted more affection from him. So he raped her, anally, and injured her body in the process in ways that could have been lethal had infection set in, somehow believing that by raping her, he'd get HER off HIS back. And guess what? After the rape, she filed for divorce. It was, as they say, "the last straw". She dumped his sorry no-good ass.

Now, who hates who in the above story? Do I hate her now ex-husband? No. Do I have much regard or respect for him? No. But that's not hate. I hate how he treated and mistreated her. I despise the fact that he was so grossly neglectful of her and so grotesquely abusive to her at the end of their marriage.

Does she hate him? No. She's even taken him to doctor's appointments since the divorce, and helped him with some projects--they cleared out and cleaned up their house together, before it got sold.

So this is the part in the "anti-misandry" narrative where the "anti-misandrist" blames HER for hanging around HIM for so long. "Why did she stay with him if he was such a jerk?!!" But they forget to ask, "Why did he stay with a woman who cleans his clothes, cooks his food, raise their children, and also rolls her eyes occasionally?"

If they assess her to be "just as abusive" as he was, then why the hell did he stay with her??!! It couldn't be because he was, in fact, cared for and cared about by her, could it?

And to those who think "she stayed with him for the money", she's also worked a lot outside the home as well as inside it, often being the one to bring in more money than he did as his employment was shaky and hers was steady.

So who hates who in this story? There's one clear answer: he hated her. If we're going to use "hate" to mean systematically abuses disrespects and shows no regard for. And insults. And harms. And oppresses.

If all that equals "hate" then I have not hated him ever, nor has she.

Regardless of what the evidence of sociology, literature, and history has to tell us, the "anti-misandrists" are there to remind us that rape and battery statistics are grossly over-exaggerated. They do this with a straight face while never quite saying that even if that were true, men beating up and raping women would still be a serious political problem. And no matter how low the stats anti-misandrists calculate while determining incidents of such violence against women by men, they are exponentially and socially significantly higher than the rates of women beating up and raping men. This is also to say that there is no social-political epidemic, pandemic, or even "semi-occasional occurrence" of women committing penetrative sexual violence regularly and routinely against men.

According to all historical information thus uncovered, discovered, and recovered (by "unbiased" men at that), women raping men has NOT EVER been a social-political problem. (And there are plenty of objects women could use, so don't blame the lack of incidents on "anatomy": men sure don't when they rape women with objects.) There is also no social-political problem of women intimately terrorising men, or socially terrorising men, or terrorising whole groups of men, such as men of a specific ethnic group, with the exception of Nazi women in Germany in the last century, but their terroristic acts weren't gender-specific, nor was the sex of the torturers gender-specific. Paraphrasing C. A. MacKinnon: Men terrorise women: subject verb object.

Where's Andrea Dworkin When We Need Her? by JMP

image of book cover is from here

What follows is a cross post from the M-L-M Mayhem! blog. With gratitude to JMP for permission to publish it here. Please click on the title just below to link back to her blog.

Where's Andrea Dworkin When We Need Her?

The recent and brutal gang rape in BC sadly demonstrates, once again, that the late and much-maligned Andrea Dworkin is not an outdated dinosaur. Her analysis of misogynist violence, the institutions and ideology connected to patriarchy, is not something we can easily dismiss. Her speech "I Want A Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape" is still tragically relevant: there was never any truce and this most recent example of misogynist warfare is another terrible instance, in a long list of patriarchal violence, of the ongoing oppression of women.

Somewhere in the counter-revolutionary late 80s the unrelenting feminism of the Dworkins was shunted aside for the so-called "sex-positive" feminism of the 3rd Wave. The sexist violence continued but it became taboo, in certain chic feminist circles, to ask about the normative grounds of this violence, the institutional and ideological props for the material reality of patriarchy. It was just not fun to imagine that Dworkin's critique of pornography and its connection to rape culture still possessed validity. If anything it was "anti free speech" and no one bothered to ask whether, regardless of the tactical problems connected to Dworkin and MacKinnon's attempt to legally associate pornography with hate speech, there was a contradiction between liberal notions of free speech and oppression.

The left in this country has always had a problem with liberalism. That whole "right against right but greater force decides" reality of liberal "equal rights", critiqued by Marx, has so often been ignored in the flurry to embrace some pseudo-radical notion of individual liberty. Suppression of dissidence has often devolved into saccharine "free speech" movements that empty the politics of the original dissident act, ignore the systemic situation of oppression, and never bother to ask "whose free speech and for whom?" And thus Dworkin is furiously denounced as an enemy of free speech while the misogynist corporate mogols, with their armies of lawyers and publishing connections, were allowed to prevent her free speech.

Dworkin makes us all feel a little uncomfortable, though it is somewhat odd that many feel uncomfortable without having read any of her work. Since we have the "sex-positive" feminists around to denounce her for us (a sad label since it assumes that Dworkin, without any real evidence besides hearsay, was "sex-negative" - a language slur like how the anti-abortion right calls itself "pro-life") we can feel good about our pornography and never once question how it is ideologically connected to instances of real world rape.

And yet the ugly world of misogynist violence continues, the patriarchal war persists, and we have not at all moved beyond that world of rape-celebration that Dworkin was trying to reveal, examine, and demystify. Ms. Marx, in a recent entry, examined the shocking pro-rape culture surrounding this recent act of oppression: not only was the gang rape posted on Facebook, but the comments under the posting were all the sort of comments one would find on a porn site: she wanted it, she was asking for it, women want to be gang-raped, she's a whore, she's a slut, it's funny...

The parallel between the consumption of real world rape and pornography, a connection analyzed by Dworkin, is not forced. In fact, counsellors and experts at rape crisis centres have been making the same parallel in their comments about this specific rape. One of these counsellors even pointed out that we live in a culture where rape is acceptable; the persistence of pornography (and here I do use the term in the way Dworkin would use it not in the way it's been watered down to include "feminist pornography", etc.) helps make it acceptable - just like the persistence of racist imagery in the media helps make racism acceptable. As Daisy Kier, spokesperson for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Womens Shelter, said:

"The whole mythology sold to men and the fantasy perpetuated through most pornography is how women are willing participants who really love sex and really want five men having sex with them. That is a predominant image and theory that's being put out by pornography."

Perhaps Kier's comment isn't "sex positive" but, as Dworkin would remind us if she was still alive, rape is not sex positive. And if pornography is ideologically connected to rape then maybe, just maybe, we should realize that it's not "sex positive" either. Dworkin understood and examined the "predominant image and theory" of pornography decades ago; the analysis is still relevant today.

But hold on there! Dworkin is just a little too "crazy" (or maybe the appropriate sexist term would be hysterical) isn't she? She wants to take away my porn and make me feel guilty! She's a "misanderist"! She said some things about sex that I never read but that I heard that she said that make me feel uncomfortable! I'd rather read some nice, safe, "sex positive" third wave feminism: they're real feminists because they make me feel good about myself.

There are times when I feel that Andrea Dworkin is the feminist equivalent of Frantz Fanon. Both are stylists as well as theorists and readers who do not take the time (or rely on bad readings rather than read the actual text) fall into the trap of focusing on the surface form rather than reading for content. The number of bad readings done on the first chapter of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth are rather significant, and it is quite common for someone to complain that Fanon is outdated now that we have the nice and safe post-colonialist theorists to replace him. Bhabha instead of Fanon because, hey, I really don't like what that Fanon guy is saying about violence. Like Fanon, Dworkin was interested in practice. Like Fanon, Dworkin was interested in engaging with the material reality of a specific oppression. Like Fanon, Dworkin makes us uncomfortable because she's talking about real world violence and demanding change, something that always makes readers uncomfortable - especially those readers whose privilege is contingent upon the oppression being critiqued. And like Fanon, as this recent instance of misogynist violence should demonstrate, Dworkin is still and sadly relevant.

Originally Posted by JMP

You Say Yes, I Say No: The Politics of Sexual Agreement and Sexist Aggression

image is from here

I have argued in the past and will continue to that the contemporary understanding of "consent" is woefully and dangerously inadequate to appreciate how a lot of male supremacist sex happens that doesn't involve anyone saying no, but also doesn't indicate an enthusiastic yes. I see a better social model in heterosexual contexts promoting females approaching males, and females controlling how and what happens sexually, including when kissing lbegins, whether it begins, and whatever else transpires: including fondling or more overt forms of genital-contact sex.

There's far too much assumption about people being sexual NOT being abuse survivors, and how being an abuse survivor can, but doesn't necessarily, create significant challenges for people to say "no" to something sexual when asked, approached, or aggressed against. I know there was a period for me when I assumed that if a man wanted something from me sexually, that meant I had to supply it. Thank gawd that period is long gone! What would have been better? A socially normalised and encouraged requirement that sex happen only when both or all partners express either an "enthusiastic yes" or overtly affirmative indications of will, interest, and welcome of another's sexual interest manifesting in intimate behavior.

What follows is an excellent cross post from Ms. Marx's blog. THANK YOU Ms. Marx, for allowing me to publish it here as well. You can click on the title just below to link back to her site.

Enthusiastic Consent and how "yes means yes" can replace "no means no"

I have seen a lot of news stories on consent in the past few week, and in light of the Take Back the Night march that took place here Thursday, I thought I should post about this issue now. And I should start with a trigger warning for discussion around consent and sexual assault.

The most recent news story about consent was with regards to a really terrible incident that happened in British Columbia last week. It is all over the news here, but for readers who haven't heard, a 16 year old girl was drugged and then raped by several boys and men at a party, and pictures of the incident have been spreading online, beginning on facebook. That isn't even the part that has me most outraged. The part that really makes me angry is the very public response to the photos online and even on the news. She is being called names like "whore" and "slut." Some are saying that she asked for it, or that she is exaggerating- it wasn't really rape. Some commenters have even made jokes about it, including "Cmon, whose not down for a gang bang." Someone went so far as to suggest that she is making up the rape accusation because she regrets having slept with all of these people. I can't even begin to imagine what this girl is going through right now (ok, maybe I can begin to imagine), but I am shocked at this response. Having a glass of champagne that happens to be laced with a drug of some sort does not mean that you are consenting to having sex. It also does not mean that you are asking for it. And just because women are often cautioned not to accept drinks from men does not mean that she should have known better. This is NOT her fault.

But I have some ideas about why it is happening. I can think of two reasons, one being the relative anonymity provided by the internet... I'm sure most of these commenters do not know her and do not expect to be identified, and many are just expanding on previous comments. But the more important reason- the reason we can do something about- is the fact that we live in a culture where violence against women is accepted and even celebrated.

Just look at this T-shirt (posted on socimages)

See, non-consensual sex is fine! As long as she doesn't actually have the ability to say no, right?

Here is another example, this time from the show Big Brother. The contestant who ended up coming in second place told a story about a game he likes to play. This game involves a man having his friends come into the room when he is having sex with a woman and forcibly restraining her for 8 seconds so everyone in the room can see her. When Enzo (the contestant who came in third place) asked if that was rape, Lane laughed it off. Even Britney, the only woman remaining in the competition at the time, after saying that she would kill herself if it happened to her, got involved in the description of the game and was joking around about it. As far as I am concerned, if he has done this, he should be in prison.

And there was another incident over the summer that keeps coming back to me as absolutely inexcusable. A young woman was dancing at a Girls Gone Wild party. The cameraman asked her to expose her breasts, and she refused. Another woman came up behind her and pulled down the first woman's shirt with the cameras rolling so that her breasts were captured on tape. When she found out that the incident made it onto one of the movies she decided to sue. Despite the fact that they have her on camera refusing to show her breasts, a jury decided that merely being at the party was a form of consent, and that she did not have the right to keep her shirt on in front of the cameras! Good girls don't go to these parties, and if you do, then I guess you are "asking for it."

There are so many other examples that it is absolutely ridiculous, but I'm not going to describe any more of them here because I believe I have made my point.

I have written at length about sexual harassment as well as the regulation of female bodies in previous posts, and I think this topic just adds to that discussion because it is all based on the same basic premise that women's bodies exist for men... and we need to make it clear that this is not acceptable. I think that the best way to help change this is with the notion of enthusiastic consent. Enthusiastic consent goes far beyond "No means No" and is often described as "Yes Means Yes." Having sex with someone who is not fully capable of consenting is rape. Having sex with someone who you reasonably believe would rather not be having sex at that moment is not following the standard of enthusiastic consent and should therefore be seen as rape as well.

The main difference between these two standards of consent is with regards to responsibility. In the first standard (no means no), the victim is responsible for making it clear that they are not consenting. If they do not yell, kick, fight, and scream, it can be hard to get a conviction. And it is often the case that victims of rape do not realize that what happened to them was in fact rape because they feel they did not make it clear enough that they did not want to participate or that they did something to mislead their rapist into thinking that they might have been "asking for it." If we switch to the standard of enthusiastically consenting, it then becomes the responsibility of both partners to ensure that the other is affirmatively expressing desire to engage in each act that takes place. This can get tricky from a legal perspective, but there is a great post here specifically pertaining to how this can work as a legal standard.

I'm not sure that it will stop every rape from occuring, but I do believe that enthusiastic consent would make victim blaming a thing of the past. I think that if it were adopted as the dominant standard of consent, the previously mentioned examples of rape culture would be different (if they even happened at all). The T-shirt would not be funny, the "8-second game" would end in an arrest and Girls Gone Wild would have lost the lawsuit. And if pictures existed of a girl being raped, they would be turned over to police, not posted on facebook and joked about.

It would also make sex seem less dangerous in many ways. The focus could be on pleasure and communication instead of sexuality being something that is feared and commodified at the same time. Maybe this is still too ideal of a way of thinking... maybe we are too far from that point to make the change right away, but if we start talking to our kids about enthusiastic or affirmative consent (which I plan to write about very soon), then we can hope that it is not that far off for the next generation... but I'm not sure they will get there if they are constantly being exposed to the various other aspects of rape culture.

Originally Posted by Ms.Marx