Mixology

This would be a truly delightful piece on the current renaissance of cocktail culture if it didn't keep straying into smug misogyny. Perhaps the simplest way of explaining it is this:

The new cocktail lounges are all about preserving a comfortable atmosphere for drinks and conversation. (Milk & Honey in New York, one of the best spots in America for the classic cocktail drinker, has a famous set of rules, including the wonderful instruction to its female patrons, "If a man you don't know speaks to you, please lift your chin slightly and ignore him."...)

I don't need to be told how to handle strange men, thank you. Nor do I appreciate the extremely gendered way Messenger looks at different kinds of liquor and drinks (women splashing pink liquor [Cosmos] on their dates while men are "getting into" rye, since god knows women a) only drink when with men and b) can't handle their liquor). I happen to love very complex, fragrant, but strong cocktails that would probably defy strict gender assignment best (though not because of gender politics), but after that it's man-liquor all the way--whiskey and gin. We deal with enough gender difficulties in life as it is; is it so much to ask that I, as a lover of liquor and of cocktails, be allowed to enjoy the drinks I like without being perceived as manly or out of my depth? And why is it that men are apparently capable of enjoying Mai Tais while women couldn't possibly be interested in a Sidecar?

It's not frequent that the article actually says what it means in this regard, though I'd estimate it happened at least five times (in two pages). But something about the way it's written makes it very clear that this is one for the boys, as it were.

Brutal

I've seen pictures of women who have been disfigured with acid before. Even without pictures, this form of abusing women who transgress--by leaving their husbands, or refusing to marry a particular man, or daring to get a higher education--has always shaken me especially deeply. It's not the kind of thing you can call a crime of passion, and it has always seemed just so especially, vehemently, inherently vindictive (it's ridiculous to say "There are so many nicer ways to oppress the women in your life!" but that's sometimes how I feel) that I physically recoil when the topic comes up.

But I have seen pictures before, and physically recoiled--not in horror at a freakshow but in rejection, confusion, and pain at the men (it's always men) who could do such things. To anyone.

Today, Sullivan's Face of the Day is a woman who was blinded by a "spurned suitor" with acid.



Her assailant was sentenced to the same fate by the Iranian court that heard her case.


I don't have anything intelligent to say about this. On the one hand, more needlessly disabled and disfigured people in the world is not good. On the other, I was surprised when I read the verdict primarily not because of the sentence but because I was amazed the court cared at all. I had more or less assumed that justice would go unserved, as it usually does in cases of violence against women no matter where you are, let alone in Iran. I find myself taking a certain grim satisfaction that he has been sentenced to anything even as I recognize that this particular verdict might not be the most enlightened way to go about things.

But sometimes it's hard to be enlightened. Having gotten past the several minutes I spent physically recovering from my reaction to what was done to Ameneh Bahrami here, I'm not so much upset or angry as I am grim. I want to say something like "This has to stop" but I have no idea what to do to make that happen, and I'm not a fan of spouting Activisty Talk with nothing to back it up and no particular goal. I just wanted to put a reminder out there that this goes on, I guess. It happens fairly frequently in India, Pakistan, and the Middle East.

And that the methods of abuse are different in some other places does not make those places safer; it does not make the places where acid is used more depraved or less safe than the places where gang rape or setting women on fire are more common tools. It's all the same, bloody thing.


Some days I just don't know what to say.

I beg your pardon?

Once again, I am slack-jawed in awe at what ridiculous everloving poorly evolved jackasses inhabit the same universe as I do:

Wife-beaters.com, a Dallas-based business that sold wife-beater T-shirts, has been shut down after a San Antonio man complained to the company hosting the site.

The Web site sold white tank tops, commonly referred to as “wife-beaters,” and gave a discount to anyone who could prove they were convicted of wife beating.

No. Words.

Violence, domestic

The leading cause of death for African-American women aged 15-45 is partner abuse. Jesus H. Christ. Is the world listening yet? How bout the country? The men?

I don't really know what to say about this either. In both this case and the case of the Iraqi suicide bomberesses all I can say is that it's wrong. It's dehumanizing, it's weaponizing or panaceazing, it's using. It's awful. It makes me sick.

Women are human beings, goddammit.

Jaw-dropper

Here's the BBC with today's reason to curl up and cry (emphasis added):

In an apparent video confession, the middle-aged woman [Samira Jasseem, "Mother of Believers"] described how she identified potential bombers, helped supply them with explosives and led them to their targets.

She also explained, in a separate interview with the Associated Press, how insurgents used rape as a tool, with the "shamed" women persuaded to redeem themselves through suicide attacks.

Her apparent confession could help throw light on the recent increase in attacks in Iraq involving female bombers.

[...]

Insurgents use female bombers because they can hide explosives under their robes and are less likely to be searched by male guards at security checkpoints.

That last bit is fairly common knowledge, but I think it's important to include anyway in terms of understanding how central gender oppression is to this whole tactic.

I have a lot to say about this, but I can't right now. I'm too overwhelmed just now. I'm angry at the men who did these things, but even more so I can't think of anything but how profoundly sad I am for the women who have been used in this way. I can't find a word to describe it other than grief.

As for Samira Jasseem...I will have to think about her.

Randoms: this is what happens when I take a study break

I have slept something like twelve hours in the last 66; midterms are killer this quarter. I just finished a bear of a paper and I'm about to do my Arabic homework before class at 10:30, so this won't be much of a post, but I needed to take a second and just consume some information in between bouts of producing it.

The Rep. Armey/Joan Walsh ridiculousness is several days old, but I only just watched the video instead of reading a transcript, and it's truly heinous:

The impact of the video over and above the transcript is partly just the sheer disgusting condescension on his part, but it's also the way he dismisses her on at least vaguely relevant terms up until that misogynistic bolt from the blue. He went on not taking her seriously, viewing this segment as a conversation between him and his boy Chris Matthews plus some annoying girl, until he couldn't run from her logic anymore, and then bam.

I find the fact that she started addressing him as "sir" after that wifey comment fascinating. It's not that she's submitting to his ridiculousness, no, not at all. I'm trying to decide what it means. I can see it as one part distancing--"you're no friend of mine, sir" kind of deal--and one part heightening the contradictions--you just utterly deprived me of respect and so I am going to address you in terms of respect as a near-sarcastic marker of how completely despicable what you just did was. I feel like there's some third thing there that I'm not getting, but I don't know what it is.

Some other stuff:

Klein and Coates on centrism
Tannenhaus and Sullivan via Coates on conservatism
Hilzoy: The Market Case for Nationalizing the Banks
Hamas continues to fight for allegiance in Gaza--now by stealing from the U.N.!
Whaddaya know, Sadly, No! is still funny. “Americans are angry at Democrats” explained a liberal-leaning liberal. “Muuuuuh” added bipartisan analyst Zombie Ronald Reagan" cracked my shit up.

Okay, I'm going to finish my bibliography, make myself some food, and get cracking again. People actually miss student life?

How is it even possible?

How is it possible for people to live in such completely different realities? For example, I know for a fact that most domestic violence is perpetrated by men against women. Dov Charney, on the other hand, seems to think otherwise:

“Women initiate most domestic violence, yet out of a thousand cases of domestic violence, maybe one is involving a man. And this has made a victim of culture out of women.”

I'm not honestly sure what he's actually saying when you try to parse the grammar, but it's hard to imagine a way to get it back to a sentiment that reflects reality in any way. Renee has the rundown on statistics and I suggest you read her post on this generally. [H/t Feministe]

Dov Charney is the owner of American Apparel. He is also, for some reason, highly invested in denying women ownership of their reality. Women are battered by men in the vast majority of cases, and the ability to speak of, name, and share that pain is important both to recovery and to prevention. Charney, apparently, is so threatened by any notion that his gender might bear some responsibility for this--and it is sad that he can't separate himself from a generalized notion of maleness--that he must insist it's actually men who are victimized by a culture of victimhood. If he were less focused on gender wars he might be able to notice that things that some men do are not definitive of all men; if he liked women better he could, perhaps, hear their words as truth and not as threats and scolds.


It boggles my mind. Women try to translate their pain into something constructive and Charney's response is, "but you're hurting our feelings!"

Thinking Man FAIL

Good lord. The Thinking Man's Top Ten Sex Symbols is, well, a travesty.

I applaud the concept. I really do. But they fail, clearly, at being thinking men. Or, at least, at being non-heteronormative (all women on this list, of course, no homo here), for starters. (If you want to make an all-girl list, cool, but say the thinking straight man's sex symbols and then you get to avoid implying that no gay men are thinking! Bonus!) For the sexism, just see this introductory language:

A man has two minds. The lower mind is a brainless whore excited by any woman with breasts, curves, and a thong. The upper mind, which works with actual grey matter, is more persnickety. The upper mind, when employed, is moved by intelligence, success, power, self-confidence, a smart sense of humor, and, of course, not having a castrating nature.

And that’s the challenge. Can a woman be independent, creative, sharp, witty, strong, and self-empowering without making me feel like she wants to be a man?

Men as brainless animals enslaved by their hormones? Check. Men, even when being totes sensible, needing to be protected (the poor dears) from those scary castrating women? Supercheck. I mean, damn. You're not sexy if you threaten my sense of power (which comes from where? Oh, right, the fact that I'm a dude) AT ALL, girls! I hope you're taking notes!

To wrap up, here's our friendly reminder that anyone who is independent, creative, sharp, strong, and self-empowering clearly is a man or a wannabe man. Because only men are like that, duh! Oh, you chicks are so silly sometimes.


And then you get the comments on each sex symbol. The one that jumped out at me the most was what they had to say about M.I.A.:

"M.I.A. is one of my favorite musicians right now. It would be so fun to travel the world with her, viewing life as one big art project."

For one thing, that's all they had to say. They waxed poetic about any number of other women, but that is the entirety of what they have to say about M.I.A., who to me is far more interesting (and sexy) than Katie Couric. Hell, they talk about Meredith Vieira's SHOES about as much.

For another, I think this gets it entirely wrong. M.I.A. makes art about very real-life issues. Her dad was sort of in the Tamil Tigers. "Paper Planes," as far as I can tell, is entirely about illegal migration and the forms of gangsterdom and black marketeering that pop up in poor and oppressed places and groups. She has sat on buses and watched people shoot each other. She's not just some quaint arty type who "travels the world" (because she's exotic, don't you know) and quirkily sees things as art. She makes interesting art about life. This is the difference between a trust-funded performance artist who sees the significance in EVERYTHING ("It's just so...spontaneous, you know? You never know when art will happen. When I was watching the Orange Revolution from my safe vantage point in the Ritz while smoking Gauloises, I was wishing I could be out there with them just experiencing--for my next piece, of course") and a serious person blessed with talent that allows them to translate complicated and difficult experience into consumable art. It's, you know, an important difference. It is arguably a big part of what makes M.I.A. sexy, but screw that, Thinking Men--she's so ARTY! She can tell you the crazy shit she sees while you stare at her tits!

Finally, for a hint of general all-around crappiness, note their explicit congratulation of Sarah Silverman for figuring out a way to say horribly racist and otherwise problematic shit while passing it off as a joke. They literally call it "having her cake and eating it too." Because clearly her motivation is to get to say horrible things without consequence, not to create biting and effective satire that forces people to examine their prejudices--and that's so awesome! Hipster racism and so on at its finest. ("It's not racist, it's ironic.")

What are they for again?

The 9 Most Misogynist Print Ads of All Time

Some of those are really incredible. "The Chef (TM) does everything but cook--that's what wives are for!" I mean, wow. Also, what exactly does The Chef (TM) do, then?

It is terrible to be a woman in Afghanistan.

57% of marriages are to brides under 16--sometimes as young as six.
87% of women complain of abuse, half of which is sexual.
The rate of women who die in childbirth in Afghanistan is the highest in the world, up with Sierra Leone.
88% of women are illiterate.
5% go to secondary school.
Over 60% of marriages are forced.

The thing that shocks me the most? So bad is it that the rate of self-immolation has doubled from before we invaded.

Just to be clear, self-immolation means burning yourself to death.