Letters to the Editor
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OK, but back to the boob flashing
Thanks to Traister for not tossing softball practice, but respect is due to Valenti for handling, like, twenty questions about flashing. Would've been nice to hear an actual, articulated take on self-objectification, its perception by society at large, its purpose in forming an aware, complete female human being (perhaps Valenti is that desperate not to offend potential recruits, maybe she just honestly doesn't give a shit), but whatever. I loved her alternative: instead of hand-wringing over images/acts that aren't necessarily representative of society at large, let's focus on shit we can unequivocally get behind: honest-to-God activism and involvement. I read way too many rubbernecking articles (not just in Broadsheet, mind) frantically pondering whether a small segment of young, upper-middle white female culture is out of control/taking control/craving attention/reclaiming power/working out personal issues/re-hashing the same conversations. It's an important debate to have on a personal level, in my dumbass opinion, but it isn't going to effect transnational change.
Anyway. No idea what the book is like, but hopefully I'll find out soon.
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Women Don't Makes Less Than Men
This was disproved looooooooooooong ago. At minimum wage jobs, there is a set hourly wage (the minimum, duh). Salaried jobs vary from person to person and it is impossible to distinguish standards based on gender. Your salary has much more to do with your bargaining power than with you sex.
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How do you respond to young women that see your blog, see how you treat men there
and then ask why they should substitute your dogma for the "patriarch's dogma" when all they want to do is live the independent life those second wave feminists fought for and mostly won?
I mean really Jessica, in late January you got all offended that Wendy McElroy said that feministing wouldn't call the Duke Rape a rape any more. What you were upset about was that she confused a commenter's opinion with your own, but what you wouldn't say was whether you actually believed the Duke rape was still rape.
Then when the charges were dropped entirely, your coblogger Samhita wrote a post saying the Duke students were not innocent, that the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, that they deserved what they got, and even if they were innocent, well they were white, and so "they got a taste of how black men are treated EVERY DAY by the criminal justice system."
All they have to do is look at your blog, look at your behavior, look at Samhita's behavior, look at some of your favored commenters like Donna Darko and Ginmar and they can see for yourself the hate speech you spew and encourage.
They can see in your comments your authoritarian comment policy in which dissenters are mocked, called names, and banned. And they can wonder if that sort of bad-faith commenting policy is really the "safe environment" that women need.
I sure hope for the sake of feminism that none of those young would be feminists end up on your site.
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Christopher, just today, Broadsheet had a study saying the wage gap due to gender
was 5%.
Not the 23% that Jessica et. al., like to claim, but 5%.
5% is significant, but it's a whole lot let than the 23% that is widely claimed.
And 5% is awfully close to say, maybe 2% at which point we would all agree there is no gender based wage gap.
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The Patriarchy: Jessica is this a testable theory?
You blogroll "I blame the patriarchy" and indeed many of your posts do blame the patriarchy. Since you blogroll I blame the patriarchy (a pretty interesting and funny blog by the way) google is of little help telling us how many articles you have published that blame the patriarchy.
But is the patriarchy a testable theory?
I have never seen a single post anywhere that discusses what a world without the patriarchy looks like.
I can point to all sorts of blogs, short stories, movies, songs, articles, blooks, that discuss what a world looks like with racism, or without sexism,
But I've never seen a single anything that says what the world looks like without a patriarchy.
I am not saying the patriarchy is a good thing, or a bad thing, or something we need or don't need.
I am saying you folks have never defined it in a testable way. As something that can be measured. As something that we can determine has gone away, or been reduced, or been supplanted by... By what?
I have no idea what you feminists envision as the world without the patriarchy. What sort of culture or governance or economics or science or education or art or ... or we would have.
I just see posts that blame everything on men in general, and often on white men in particular.
Is "patriarchy theory" a useful theory for young women? Or is it a cult dead end? A scape goat? A whine? A power grab?
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I should add...
though I'm not remotely a feminist (Paglia cured me of that), Valenti impresses me.
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Hey, Symbol X6!
Um, you seriously need to work on your reading comprehension skills. That 5% disparity was found in graduates who studied education in college:
"Even so, one year after graduation, a pay gap turned up between women and men who studied the same fields.
In education, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn, while in math, women earn 76 percent as much as men earn, the study showed."
As you can plainly see, the 5% gap was limited strictly to education.
Cordially,
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Hey Symbol marktgarten!
All that being said, it isn't that the pay gap is entirely attributable to gender. "The evidence shows that even when the 'explanations' for the pay gap are included in a regression, they cannot fully explain the pay disparity," the report concludes. "The regressions for earnings one year after college indicate that when all variables are included, about one quarter of the pay gap is attributable to gender. That is, after controlling for all the factors known to affect earnings, college-educated women earn about 5 percent less than college-educated men earn."
That is, the gender based portion of the wage gap is five percent.
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Anyway symbol marktgarten, I am sure we both agree that
now that Jessica has seen the study that says teh gender based portion of the wage gap is only 5%, that she will never say it's 23% again at her blog.
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Too many softballs, Traister.
Valenti indicates that there's confusion about whether it's okay to rape some one because they're drunk. Wrong! Girlfriend needs a course in logical reasoning. Valenti takes the position that "yes" doesn't mean "yes" when a woman is drunk. That is, even if a woman willingly consents to sex, it's rape if the woman is drunk. That's bullshit. And that kind of message is harmful to women. The blame game (the male blame game, that is) needs to be tempered by personal responsibility. If a woman gets drunk, and she consents to sex, she's got to own that decision. Women have an obligation to not put themselves in compromising situations. It's dumb and irresponsible to suggest otherwise.
What she's saying is like: I'm going to get hammered tonight and go to a party, but if I should happen to have sex with some one I don't like, then that's rape and I'm not responsible. From the best I can tell, that's exactly what happened to Jaclyn Friedman, and Valenti seems to follow Friedman's rallying cry.
Anyway, Traister failed to call out Valenti on her bullshit. It's not just a personal safety issue. It's an issue of personal responsibility, and a continuation of the victim-centric philosophy that characterized the second wave. And, as a product of the second wave, I can tell you that victim-centrism gets women nowhere. But a courtroom. And even then, you're likely to lose.
That said, while I disagree with Valenti in a few material respects, she is very bright, I love her attitude, and I think feministing is a commendable effort. It brings more women into the fold. And she's using the medium the right way, ie putting the ideas on her blog, and letting them evolve through comments, etc.