I finally watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My reaction is mixed – between rejoicing at women fighting back against their abusers to being deeply disturbed and trying to avoid flashbacks. What would happen if all of us who have been deeply wounded through sexual abuse would fight back – maybe by withholding all sex in a twist on Lysistrata? Susan Brison has argued that rape and sexual abuse are not only crimes committed by individuals against individuals but they are group-based victimization (she presented this in a paper at the 2010 APA Pacific meeting). They reflect the general … Continue reading »
Aug 142010
As I research how to best raise conciseness about singlism, I inevitably started to look at consciousness raising groups of radical feminists in the 1970s. Their goal was to leverage personal sharing for theory building and to further political action. One of my frustrations with my current path is that academia seems to be stuck in theory. I seek practical applications of theory or theory-informed activism. So, I am looking for historical inspiration of approaches who had similar goals. I found three chapters in three books assigned in a women’s studies course that address similar concerns from several different angles. … Continue reading »
Jul 042010
It feels weird to write about celibacy as an atheist because the first celibate people who come to my mind are monks. Yet, there is something rather attractive to me in the notion of celibacy, so I’ve started to read about it. I am not exactly sure why – maybe it’s because my hypothyroidism is finally under control – but my hormones have been raging, which is challenging while single. At first, I tried to ignore it. But I finally gave in and decided that this would be an opportunity to explore and then share what I found. I find … Continue reading »
In “Five Faces of Oppression“, Iris Young argues that oppression is structural, part of the existing system. There might not be a clear oppressor anymore; no tyrant to point to. Instead the relations between groups are marred with oppression, even if that oppression is not administered consciously. Importantly, there are many groups in society that are oppressed. No group’s oppression has “causal or moral primacy” (42). (Page numbers refer to the text linked to above.) Young identifies five faces of oppression
Jun 222010
I read a couple of chapters today in a very interesting book on the Psychology of Legitimacy. Both chapters talked about ambivalent prejudice/stereotypes (unlike other scholars, the authors seemed not to distinguish between these two concepts). They mentioned a couple of inventories that I thought sounded interesting: The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory. The ASI can be taken online (just follow the link…). It is supposed to measure hostile and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is the good old sexism of negative feelings toward women. Benevolent sexism describes positive stereotypes toward women that still keep us “in … Continue reading »
Here we go again… The NYT is giving John Tierney room to lament why women are not represented equally in science. Maybe there is something biologically going on. Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke discussed this years ago. Pinker argued that there must be something biological. Spelke responded that as long as women are being discriminated from birth on (maybe even before then!), we don’t know what really is natural. To me, this is a great example of a misguided nature-nurture approach. Unless we take a systems approach, we cannot explain the low number of women in science – what appears … Continue reading »
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