feminist blogs in english

My first question upon reading about how non-nutbar home schoolers are having trouble getting decent science books for their kids is this: Why are you giving a single dime to the Christian right?  How could you not know that when you buy a science textbook from a “Christian” publisher, it’s going to be a diatribe against the theory of evolution? 

That a whole market for home schooling textbooks exists isn’t surprising in the slightest, of course.  83% of home schoolers report that they pulled their kids out of school to give them “religious or moral” instruction, i.e. that they’re fanatical Christians who want to exert firm control over their children until they’re sure that they’re brainwashed enough that they won’t stray from the path.  (That this system ensures that wives have no interests or time outside of the family is just a bonus.) What’s going on with the other 17% is probably a grab bag of stuff---bad school districts (or the perception of that), resentment towards the training-you-to-be-compliant aspects of public education, general hippiness---but what I find interesting and sometimes amusing about the other home schoolers is that they seem, to outsiders, way too interested in looking at the religious wackos with a forgiving eye.  Is it just that fundies so dominate home schooling that the everyone else home schoolers feel they either create those alliances or languish in loneliness? 

I’m surprised they found a woman who was willing to go on the record with a story about how she bought a biology textbook from Bob Jones University, and was shocked and appalled that it denied the reality of evolution.  And in a proper twee flourish, gave her small child all the credit for catching the error, as if the child was somehow so brilliant she was born knowing the theory of evolution.  I’m surprised, because I’d be too humiliated by this mistake to talk about it, especially if I was interested in selling the idea that I was all my child needs in terms of pre-university instruction, since admitting to that kind of mistake really undermines your credibility.  Adding the detail that implies that you might have missed it if it weren’t for your child’s intervention doesn’t help matters.  I realize the woman is just participating in that common but annoying cultural trope of, “Me? I’m just a mom, nothing special.  Except that I produced these brilliant offspring!”, but still.  It’s a little over the top. 

Part of me wishes that fundie home schoolers found that raising children to deny basic reality will have a long-term detriment to those kids’ futures, but unfortunately, going to public school is no guard against believing that everything out of your limited understanding must be magic.  And so having one more magical belief doesn’t really make much difference in our society.  We are all swirling down the drain of ignorance about science.  Take for instance, the appallingly magical view a lot of young people have about contraception.  Honestly, estimating that the pill fails half the time is straight up magical thinking, assuming that the pill works like wishes and superstitions, which probably work out half the time on average because most wishes and superstitions are addressing a binary situation that involves chance.  (Like what team is going to win in tonight’s big game.) It may not feel like magical thinking---I’m sure there’s a haphazard line of made-up reasoning to explain where they got this idea---but that’s what it is.  Even a rudimentary understanding of human biology would go a long way to helping people understand things like how contraception works.  (I’m not trying to dog on anyone here; I know a lot of smart people who haven’t managed to get past the incorrect idea that the pill “tricks” your body into thinking it’s pregnant.  It actually just maintains your hormones at a level that isn’t the one required to ovulate.) Fundies are just pushing us further down the path we were already on, where scientific ignorance is normal and practically expected.

So I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on home schoolers who get duped by these textbooks.  I think a lot of people defend evolutionary theory for the wrong reasons---not because they understand it, but because they (correctly) perceive the pro-ignorance, patriarchal bent of fundamentalists who oppose evolutionary theory.  But you definitely see really smart people buy into incorrect tropes about science that are ones that the fundies are promoting.  For instance, the concept of “Darwinism”, as if Darwin created a religion or ideology that people “believe” in.  But that’s not how scientific theories work.  Darwin is an interesting historical figure, but the theory itself has morphed and expanded and diversified and dare I say evolved.  But most people struggle with understanding how a scientist criticizing one aspect of natural selection as an all-encompassing theory isn’t actually trying to bring down the whole thing like a house of cards.  As such, we’re in a poor position to defend ourselves and science, even if we mean well. 

By invoking a bullshit evo psych theory predicated on the ridiculous presumption that only men really enjoy and crave sex. T. Byram Karasu may bring all sorts of pedigrees to his argument, but that doesn’t matter.  It’s still choad science that has no relationship to real science.  It’s hard to even get a handle on how stupid Karasu is being.

Sex addiction is simply a new name for the old evolutionary concept—the innate urge to impregnate as many females as possible. In this sense, every man is a sex addict or was one at some point in his life.....

Unlike addictions to alcohol, cocaine, and cigarettes, in which the craving is induced by external elements, sexual craving, by its nature, is an innate and natural phenomenon. And sex addiction is a specific situation—the frequency of erection and the intensity of orgasm—dependent on the person’s blood-level of testosterone. Man deals with that according to his physical, social, and financial conditions......

At the least advantageous end of the spectrum, a man simply masturbates. In the best circumstances, women throw themselves at him. But in between these two extremes reside garden-variety marriages wherein the wife may complain about the husband’s sexual demand, and the man may seek lovers and/or prostitutes.

I don’t actually have a problem with denouncing the concept of “sex addiction”.  I’ve done it many times myself.  But nor do I think there’s a whole lot of reality in the idea that men and only men are these enormous victims of their outrageous desires that largely asexual women cannot even begin to understand.  Or that a woman’s expectation of monogamy from a man in exchange for monogamy from her is some sort of horrible oppression that stems from women’s inability to understand that men like sex.

Back when bullshit, evidence-free assertions about human sexuality from evo psych bullshitters began in the 60s or roundabout, there wasn’t any hesitation from these men in making wish fulfillment assertions about how men are naturally promiscuous and women are naturally monogamous, and therefore the only real relationship model that will work is one where men get to sleep around and women have to put up with it.  Nowadays, there’s a hesitation to come right out and say that women are naturally monogamous---probably because the immediate problem of who do “naturally” promiscuous men sleep with will come up---but that’s the insinuation of articles like this.  Feminists have forced evo psych bullshitters like Karasu to tacitly accept that women have a minimal, easily satisfied sex drive (he even painfully accepts that perhaps women might not want to castrate their husbands because we’d like to get laid oh so occasionally), but at the end of the day, they prefer to think of the world as one where men are just insatiable sexual creatures, and women put up with it because we are all prostitutes at heart, and we get paid off in actual cash or in wifely security.

I don’t like the framework around “sex addiction” not because I think that every man is a natural dog who will fuck every woman he sees if given the chance, and that women are fools to expect otherwise (or have the duty to milk our men 3-5 times a day to stop him---most men wouldn’t want that, either).  I don’t like it because the framework demonizes sex itself, even as those who push it deny that.  Do I think people act out with sex?  Sure, but it’s usually in service of some other neurotic need.  Call Tiger Woods a “sex addict” distracts from the more mundane reality.  His type isn’t actually that uncommon---ego monster plus a huge Madonna/whore complex. (Hard as it for the “all men are just dogs” crew to believe, but some men with serious Madonna/whore issues will even lose sexual desire for their wives or girlfriends, because they’ve been so conditioned to think fucking a woman is degrading her that they can’t bring themselves to degrade someone they genuinely love.) The cure for a Madonna/whore complex is a little feminism, to stop thinking of sex as something men do to women that’s degrading, and to think of it as a mutual sharing of pleasure between individuals, an understanding evo psych bullshit wards off.  In fact, while theories like Karasu’s tend to offer the belief that men will fuck anything that moves on the surface, they encourage Madonna/whore complexes by painting women as either wives or prostitutes, but always women who trade sex for goodies. 

The cure for ego monster behavior?  Beats me.  Really seeing the people around you as human beings---something that evo psych bullshit also wards off, by actively fighting off seeing the real complexity of human nature---is probably really hard to do when you’re a world famous celebrity and no one around you sees you as a real human being, either. 

I will say this to evo psych bullshitters: Generalizing your experience (women not wanting to have sex with you unless you compensate them somehow) to all men and women tells people more about you than about all men and women. 

Via Pharyngula comes this story of the persecution of an 8th grade science teacher in North Carolina, persecution based on the students’ and their parents’ belief that the teacher isn’t a Christian.  Here are the facts: Melissa Hussain was suspended from her job teaching 8th grade science after she complained on her Facebook page about being the victim of persecution from a bunch of ignorant rednecks, which she called a “hate crime”.  This was basically the summation of the complaint that got her in trouble, apparently because that sort of venting from school teachers isn’t allowed.  I’m not sure how I feel about that rule---in general, I think the censorship of employees in our country has gotten way out of hand, so I’m on her side---but I can sort of see why there is such a rule.  But let’s be clear---that this Facebook posting was discovered probably has a lot to do with the general levels of harassment that the citizens of Wake County felt was appropriate to subject Hussain to, because they believe she’s not a Christian. 

The reports I could find on this don’t explain why they think Hussain isn’t a Christian.  It could be her last name---I’d be shocked if that wasn’t a factor---or the fact that she’s a science teacher.  Or maybe she isn’t a Christian and didn’t take pains to hide that fact.  So what?  This country supposedly respects religious freedom, and that counts even for school teachers and even for women and even in North Carolina.  The levels of harassment this woman was subject to are shocking, even for a bunch of ignorant rednecks.  The harassers are admitting that they were provoked by the fact that Hussain taught real world biology that included the theory of evolution.

On her Facebook page, Hussain wrote about students spreading rumors that she was a Jesus hater. She complained about her students wearing Jesus T-shirts and singing “Jesus Loves Me.” She objected to students reading the Bible instead of doing class work.

But Annette Balint, whose daughter is in Hussain’s class, said the students have the right to wear those shirts and sing “Jesus Loves Me,” a long-time Sunday School staple. She said the students were reading the Bible during free time in class.

So, what appears to be happening is that the parents are encouraging their children to disrupt class to harass a woman they believe deserves no respect by refusing to do their schoolwork, and loudly singing hymns.  And when called out on it, they play innocent, acting like open disruption of the classroom is just a legitimate, harmless expression of belief.  This is not all that Hussain was subject to.  Students got into the habit of leaving religious materials on her desk to taunt her.  Postcards with pictures of Jesus were left on her desk so that students could act all butt hurt when she did what you always do when junk mail is left for you, which is throw it away.  Bibles were left on her desk, presumably to create the same kind of faux outrage if she treated them like anything short of magical objects.  After the evolution dust-up, when kids tried to stop the lesson by squawking about Jesus and no doubt freaking out on the teacher, a student left a Christmas card on Hussain’s desk with the word “Christ” underlined.

This behavior, of course, is bullying, and it appears to be encouraged by parents.  Bullying is the absolute favorite tactic of the religious right, from women’s clinic blockades to calling the cops on women who dare admit while pregnant to being anything but as blissed out as a dog suckling her pups.  Men are subject to this kind of bullying, but generally, wingnuts prefer to set their sights on female targets, because they believe women are weak, and like all bullies, they prefer to pick on someone they perceive as weak.

Since I can smell the victim-blaming coming a mile away, I will say that it’s obvious that Hussain didn’t handle this situation with the utmost maturity.  Very young schoolteachers often take students’ misbehavior personally, and then the students smell blood in the water and go nuts.  I definitely saw this happen to teachers when I was a kid, especially in junior high school, when a lot of students turn into complete monsters and enjoy torturing teachers, fellow students, anyone they can act out their angst on.  Maybe some people just aren’t cut out for teaching, if they really can’t control a classroom full of evil little shitheads. 

In addition, Hussain seems to have not really understood what she was up against, in terms of right wing nuttery.  But you have to cut people a break on this---even those of us who’ve been deep in the political shit for a long time now can still have our breath taken away by how vicious wingnuts are, how sadistic, and how much they absolutely love ruining the lives of people guilty of disagreeing with them.  A fight between a decent human being and someone who would kick little old ladies that have fallen down isn’t going to be a fair fight, since the latter is practically begging to fight dirty.  For Hussain, I can’t imagine how frustrating it was to have students act this way with the full support of their parents and the tacit support of the school district.  And she made ill-advised choices that indicate that she didn’t understand the full extent of the problem.  Now that she’s been punished but the harassers have not, perhaps she’ll wrap her head around this. 

The good news is it looks like legal avenues are opening up to people railroaded like Hussain was.  Meanwhile, the rest of us have to really be willing to face up to this---the Christianist right wing teabagger freak out has gotten to the point where these idiots are telling their kids that it’s a good thing to harass their science teachers until they crack. 

Very good news from the world of medicine---The Lancet has completely retracted the article they published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield that links autism to vaccines.  As Phil Plait notes, the link between vaccines and autism has been discredited for a long time, but this is basically the end of even the slimmest scientific argument against vaccines.  The single reputable publication that has ever had anything to do with the anti-vax movement has cut all ties.  This is a moment to celebrate.

And to mourn.  Because despite this remarkable good news, anti-vaxxers won’t lay off, even more a moment.  In fact, I suspect they’ll redouble their efforts.  Like their fellows in the art of science denialism---global warming deniers and evolutionary theory deniers---the very existence of scientists who understand this stuff is considered an affront they’ve been put on earth to correct.  And so when the scientists are right, with their science and their evidence and their understanding, they just piss the denialists off even more. They may adjust their arguments around scientific evidence, but they don’t give up or admit they’re wrong.  Adjusting what you think based on solid evidence is what scientists do, and scientists are the enemy.  Scientists think they know better because they actually know better.  Experts think learning provides wisdom.  And anti-vaxxers are on the side of “mommy instinct” and quite a bit of hostility towards experts.

I don’t want to be this harsh, because I think a lot of people in the anti-vaccination movement got there because they’ve been traumatized by having an autistic child, and they’re looking for answers.  And the anti-vaxxers give them a very flattering answer, which is that the fault doesn’t lie with their genetics, but with the choices made by experts, who can be easily villainized.  The narrative established is hard for some parents of autistic children to resist---that they are 100% blameless, that this disease was caused by doing the right thing in vaccinating your children.  But at this point, the anti-vaccination movement is a lot bigger than a few well-meaning parents of autistic children who’ve been misled by people telling tantalizing lies.  I’d argue most of the true believers at this point are yuppie parents of mentally normal children who are refusing to vaccinate for a bundle of reasons, the two big ones being the hyper-parenting culture that leads you to believe you can control everything with nutrition and good parenting, and probably a dose of exceptionalism that comes with their class status.  Those folks really have no excuse. 

The anti-vaccination movement has edged away from the autism stuff anyway, and like all good denialist movements, it has changed its claims.  Now it’s less panicking over autism, and a lot more demands for “green” vaccines and vague panics about “toxins”.  It’s perfectly pitched to the crowd that’s interested in the “organic” label because they think it has health benefits (instead of on the more scientific grounds that it’s less environmentally damaging).  This claim about “green” vaccines is scary, because it allows anti-vaxxers both to claim they have a standard for vaccines that can be reached, while actually not having such a standard.  Just as creationists won’t give up an inch, but just refine their pitch, anti-vaxxers who fling the word “toxic” around have a perfect word to make sure they never have to concede the argument.  “Toxic” is one of those words that can mean just about anything.  And most importantly, since vaccines are there to provoke your immune system, the dead virus itself could be called “toxic”, making this a no-win argument on those terms. 

None of this is to say we should give up and let the anti-vaxxers win, of course.  But just know that it’s far from over.  In a lot of ways, the emptying out of any real scientific claims means the battle’s probably just begun.