Post whatever you like, plug stuff you’ve done, or join me in posting pictures of any cats in your life.

Mine likes to hide:

He likes to hide in drawers.

He also likes to hide in shelves.

He likes to hide under desks.

He likes to hide in bed.

He likes to hide under tables.

What’s in the link bag this weekend?

• The Public Service Association has started advertising to promote a strong public service as something voters should be interested in when they go to the polls. Take a look- they’ve got excellent statistics, studies, and good interviews with all the major Parties. (except Act, which is not exactly shocking given as they’re right-libertarian and don’t care much for government services) The site also does a great job of being politically neutral while still making a point.
• Anna McM over at The Hand Mirror has a great post in which she details how she dealt proactively with a little girl who was bullying her daughter. It took hard work from both Anna and the school, but rather than offload the bullying behaviour onto someone else, they attacked it at its causes and helped out a lonely and struggling young girl. Awesome!
• The Standard points out that Labour has just slashed more waste than National has even identified thus far.
• I/S over at No Right Turn has two great posts: John Key actually did have a conflict of interest, and potentially more importantly, New South Wales is attacking free speech by potentially making it a criminal offense to protest in favour of things our favourite socially regressive church opposes, such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality, or atheism. Yet another example of Australia going to idiotic lengths to be “proactive” about protests, especially given that this one goes as far as forcing protestors to get their messages pre-approved- whether on sign, t-shirt, banner, or whatever. I/S misses a real gem though: You’re likely to get fined five times as much for doing this than for public nudity.
• Speaking of rape perpetrated by women: The awesometastic Jeff Fecke over at Shakesville has a piece about how the media and courts treat boys who are victims of statutory rape just as badly.
• In a story that deserves to be filed in “would be funny if it weren’t so stupid”, the tireless Melissa McEwan, also of Shakesville, points out that people spend their tax cuts on the darndest things. Anyone want to take bets on how much National’s tax cuts will stimulate¹ the porn industry?

¹Yeah, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

There’s a very interesting view in New Zealand that seems to permeate through certain sections of the population.

Namely, it’s the view that children are born innocent and that society corrupts them as they go along. The view that we should all aspire to be like children.

While I agree that there is much to be liked about children- their enthusiasm, their openness, their caring nature, their carefree competition, and desire to learn and explore, for instance- I also know that children are far from innocent. Children will happily repeat racist and sexist slurs they hear from their parents or from other children with no idea what they mean- because they are naive and in many cases sheltered from the harm done by words. As discussed elsewhere, children will beat and bully each other into submission, and stand by or enable bullies. Children don’t care about being objective, they are highly partisan and before they become teenagers, they tend to be devoted largely to what they’ve been taught by their parents.

So you’ll have to excuse me when I reject the notion that children having sex is corrupting their innocence or some larger failure of society. Nope. It’s because puberty is accelerated in modern society with more plentiful and sometimes more nutritious food available. (and also partly due to lax farming standards that include hormones and other “goodies” in our meat, but fortunately we don’t do as badly on that sort of practice with locally grown food) It’s because we have a society where children have small amounts of independence at school and afterwards and parents are generally only accepted as authoritarian lords over their families when they panic¹ and decide to hurt or abuse their children. Oh, and it’s also because we don’t try to stop them finding out about sex, say, by never talking about it among ourselves in public.

Now, while our conservative friends may realise that children that bully aren’t necessarily to be emulated by adults, they don’t seem to extend this logic to children who are sexually ignorant. Apparently they would like us to believe that a ring and a promise will arbitrarily heal everyone’s relationship issues, that sex before then is less than ideal, that teenagers having sex will inevitably result not only in teen pregnancy, (not if you educate them and make sure they have condoms and other birth control if they have girlfriends/boyfriends) but also abortions. (see before, see their opposition to emergency contraceptives despite the ones being sold or given away in New Zealand not even being physically capable of performing an abortion) Even worse than that, our friends to the right railed against a policy that made sure that girls would be protected from cervical cancer through the HPV should they ever choose to have sex. (yes, family first again linked to this article. Aren’t they lovely?)

It strikes me as an inherent contradiction to maintain that kids that don’t have sex (well, at least until they’re old enough and independent enough to get married without your consent) are “innocent” and somehow more morally pure for their virginity even when they are bullying each other, and even when you claim that this behaviour is so bad you’re prepared to hit them for it.

And that’s not the worst of it- this concept of sexual innocence is directly psychologically damaging. Not only does it disproportionately punish young girls for being sexually active, (as opposed to treating young boys equally) it treats teenage pregnancy as somehow making daughters and sisters “damaged goods” sexually and in their career life instead of merely viewing a symptom of bad social choices encouraged by our lacking support of young people being safe in their sexuality. And it’s not just teenagers who get damaged when women’s virginity is held up on a pillar- it hurts rape victims, it hurts women who decide to have casual sex and are then shamed for it if they speak about it, it hurts women who have had experiences in imperfect relationships and are viewed as threateningly independent by future partners or husbands.

Even beyond that, it hurts men too, implying that male sexuality is some sort of corruptive agent, that loving someone safely and with regard for their mind body and feelings is wrong, that sex is something dirty we inflict on people and we shouldn’t talk about it to learn how to do it better and with more care and respect. And even beyond that, it implies that homosexuality extends that corruption to other men, (and you begin to see part of why those influenced by conservative religious doctrine like this idea now) that anal sex is necessarily wrong, (despite the fact that women do it with men, too) and all these other ridiculous ideas around penetration being some sort of shame.

We’re also missing the effect it has on women who initiate sex- because the idea is that she’s to be shamed for wanting it, there’s this false implication (and it tends to be more an assumption than an issue of denial) that women simply do not, or should not, initiate sex, nor should they approach men to try and strike up a relationship- women are supposed to be subtle little wallflowers, after all.

And that has two more (fortunately the last I want to talk about here) flow-on effects: People raped by women are treated with additional skepticism because women “simply don’t do that”. I suspect this seems to be because of the perception that rape is exclusively a violent crime- yet all cases of women commiting rape I’ve ever heard of have involved abuses of power which involve the woman in question adding a sexual dynamic to an existing relationship that’s unbalanced in her favour. (Don’t get the impression that women are unique in this though- men commit almost all rapes, yet that element is present in most rapes overall anyway, as most rapists are trusted by their victim. Consider rape-incest or pedophilia.)

Finally, it also justifies rape and sexual misbehaviour committed by men, due to a perception that innocence must be guarded- what went wrong that “we let” this happen to young boys when charges are laid against priests for sexually abusing them. How women “need to keep themselves safe”, how “drinking is making young women vulnerable”, how men get away with saying disgusting things like how they “just couldn’t help themselves”- and get such statements covered without editorial criticism in the media. Innocence, at least in the sense of not being violated, is not maintained through vigilance. It’s taken without consent.

¹If you follow the link, please note how none of these people were charged except when someone who was suspected to be trustworthy was willing to testify. There’s apparently more than one way to beat something up.

note: Apologies I was late with this one, I’ve been writing all over the place today.

I just got this in my inbox regarding Firefox’s Download Day:

We set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours. With your help we reached 8,002,530 downloads.

You are now part of a World Record and the proud owner of the best version of Firefox yet!

Don’t forget to download your very own certificate for helping set a Guinness World Record.

Awesome.

So, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about the masculinities. One of the really awesome things you gain from teh feminisms is the ability to critique masculine culture.

Today I want to talk to you about what I like to think of as the other man. Or if you like, the Other man.

He’s your Dad. He’s your priest. He’s your counselor. He’s your community organiser, your social worker, your legal aid lawyer, your teacher or lecturer, and sometimes he even manages to be your MP. He might watch the rugby, but if so, he usually does it from home and he winces at the high tackles. He may drink, but he doesn’t get pissed. He may be the main earner, but if so he doesn’t stifle his partner, and he’ll make time for the family.

In short, he doesn’t buy into damaging stereotypes of masculinity. He can wear pink shirts. He can tell his partner he loves them in public. He can go to a gay bar¹. He can sew, he can cook more than just spag bol, he doesn’t get overprotective of his daughters², he can let his wife take charge, he can let his wife be the breadwinner, he can decide not to have sex right now³, and he can talk about feelings without bursting into laughter.

In short, he can do things that men who buy into the whole rugby bloke culture can’t. He’s no longer the same old man, cut from a template. He’s free from his own expectations for himself to be someone he may not like. He can do anything. He defines himself, and has broken free of any script that other men might want to write for him. Psychologically speaking, he’s stronger than they are. (Maybe physically speaking, too. Depends on the bloke)

The Other Man is a stand alone complex. You just need to know the idea exists and suddenly you can pick up the mantle yourself completely independently of any other person you know. And if you do, you’ll be surprised just how many of your friends and acquaintances are actually the Other Man.

And once we all realise just how many of us there are, it makes it easier to change things for the better, little by little.

¹Or more specifically, he can go into a gay bar without trying to make sure his ass is covered at all times. And yes, walking stereotypes are hilarious.
²Apparently every woman is a slut except your daughter(s), and you need to keep it that way in both cases. Now you know.
³He can also decide not to rape women even if they’re “provocatively” dressed, or if he’s just really, really horny and angry. How cool is that?!

So, if you follow politics like I do, you probably know all about this whole Crosby Textor thing. (Original on stuff)

While I’m sure I could go on at length about the damage this sort of campaigning does to the political dialogue, (which is oh-so-precious) what I really want to talk about here is the subtle erosion of Helen Clark’s political position and achievements.

Every once in a while you come across something so insidiously harmful, but so marvelously brazen that you have to sit back to yourself and think: “Holy fuck! What a magnificent bastard¹.” And Mark Textor, who is largely behind National’s talking points with regards to Helen Clark, is surely among the most magnificent of bastards. Here’s the relevant quote:

Much of the effort went into attacking Clark. An April 2005 Crosby/Textor report described how the focus group questions probed for latent negative “hesitations or concerns” about her. “Regardless of your overall view of Helen Clark,” the moderator asked, “what would you acknowledge are her weaknesses at the moment, even if they are slight or begrudging weaknesses?” The report’s “strategic opportunities” section concluded that the research revealed “an emerging perception that Helen Clark is too busy with `minorities’ and `other people’ to worry about the concerns and the pressures on `working families’.” They developed a “mantra” about an arrogant and out-of-touch prime minister. “It must be stressed that this sentiment is embryonic and must be consistently demonstrated and leveraged if it is to be effective,” Textor wrote. “These perceptions will not exist and mature on their own.”

C/T took embryonic- perhaps even zygotic- gripes formerly restricted to core National supporters about perceptions of Helen Clark and has used them to define public sentiment against both her and Labour. There’s no doubt we have not seen this sort of professional spindoctoring in New Zealand before. Textor managed to turn a leader who was largely respected as strong, disciplined, principled, and intelligent… and frame her as elitist, cold, arrogant, and out of touch. And they did it through two very simple tactics: Repeatedly attacking her for arrogance and elitism, and letting the core supporters reinforce that by dogwhistling sexism into it, which only reinforces poor impressions from strong women. The most impressive thing about it was that nobody noticed it until it was already too late to turn it around. Yowch.

And of course, now they’re called on their performance, we end up with the accusations being deflected back at Labour and the Greens, despite squeaky clean campaigns completely open about their influence and with no spin doctoring.

¹Just FYI, this still works if the person responsible is a woman. Yay! My only distaste is with the implicit discrimination based on marital status… apparently I can only juggle so many fights at once.

So many times I’ve seen the line trumpeted so proudly in discussions related to feminism: “I’m a male feminist and…”

And so many times I’ve rolled my eyes and said/thought: “Here we go again.” Apparently my fellow dudes, some of us need some explaining of what a feminist is, and why men can never be perfect feminists (neither can women, for that matter, but for men it’s even harder) and therefore why those of us who are commited to the cause should avoid trumpeting it so loudly whenever we talk to someone about feminism. (If you’re going to bring out this line, please be self-effacing about it at the very least “I’m one of those mythical male feminists, and…”) Because some of you are letting the side down, making those of us who really buy into feminism appear to be, at best, anthropomorphic personifications. Here’s the checklist of the problems that are usually accompanied by this small statement:

1. That statement is usually followed by something along the lines of “…but the patriarchy is bovine scatology¹!” or “…but I have overly broad criticisms on the concept of privilege!” or “…but you’re taking away credibility from feminism by covering all these small issues!”.
2. Even when the person saying these words genuinely believes them, they often haven’t really considered just how huge a statement “I am a feminist” really is, let alone “I am a man and a feminist”. You need to be ready to back that sucker up. Being a feminist is about more than just thinking you believe in equal rights, but we’ll get to that soon.
3. The offender often uses their “but I’m a feminist!” excuse to attempt to drown out the contribution of the women (or potentially the male allies of said women) engaging in discussion. The irony is astounding, but not in the least surprising. Even actual male feminists do this now and then, but at least they usually realise it and apologise.
4. Introducing yourself into a group with a statement that essentially says “Hi, I belong in this group!”, without actually saying why, is actually quite rude.
5. Sometimes we get the tragically misleading “but I think X for men is just as bad”. This is not the oppression olympics- comparisons shouldn’t be competitions.

Essentially, it’s as if you walked into a meeting of the Labour Party wearing a business suit over a t-shirt of Che Guevara and well-shined shoes and said “Hello esteemable comrades! I am a revolutionary communist!”. Of course you are going to get laughed at, and mercilessly deconstructed. That’s because you didn’t treat the people you’re claiming to belong with like, well, people. You treated them like stereotypes, and you didn’t take the time to get to know them. Let’s go through the counter-checklist of what you need to be aware of to avoid looking stupid if you’re going to be a guy and engage in feminist discourse:

1. Consider that the core concepts of feminism are already well-explained, well-accepted, and well-critiqued. If you come up with something blazingly original, please mention it with appropriate caution, but it’s not exactly being a feminist to throw the baby out with the bathwater- don’t dismiss the rest of the widely-accepted theory without a better reason than “because men have problems too.” You are probably speaking from your privilege if you think that the patriarchy is a concept that goes too far, or if you don’t believe in privilege, or if you don’t realise that dealing with a flood of minor sexist problems every day is as bad as dealing with big sexist problems, and that the little problems, if unchallenged, give misogynists and sexists the courage and validity to move on to making bigger problems.
2. Men as feminists are in a supporting role, even though we realise this is difficult and foreign to some of us. As men who realise that women are a positive force in society that is overall of equal value to men, if you were really a male feminist, you would take some time to merely back up a fellow feminist you were getting to know before trying to introduce your own ideas and critiques, so that you she had a real demonstration that you respect the independence of women and the value of their ideas. In addition to that, commiting to feminism is a huge step. You don’t just get to say “I believe in equal rights for women!” to people who already agree with you and then you’re done. You’ve not really proven yourself until you’ve gone out to bat for women in a difficult situation. You’ve not had it hard until your manliness is challenged repeatedly for what you believe in. Feminists have credentials, too.
3. Men as feminists acknowledge the many ways in which they are privileged, which means that we know that if we want to be taken seriously when viewing women as equals, we have to listen harder than we speak. This is because in non-feminist society, women who speak with men on equal terms are viewed as being rude, loud, and arrogant, if men even give them a chance to have their voice heard by being quiet long enough. If you want to call yourself a male feminist, you need to be ready to be a voice among many, instead of the voice.
4. Being used to being a minority report of sorts, feminists and their allies are largely familiar with labels and the problems they bring about. We know about this sort of thing. We’ve seen the “ex-gays”. We’ve seen the “I’m a woman and I think those feminazis are nuts” conservative frontwomen. Simply, we know all about people who’ll try to adopt a label to hurt us. You won’t be judged by your labels if you approach serious feminists. You’ll be judged by your actions and your words. And if they don’t agree with your identity, we’ll call you on that. You should come prepared to have your privilege pointed out, and if you venture into the deep end, they can be pretty merciless about that.
5. Unless you are pretty atypical for a man, (f.ex. you are gay, bisexual and unable to pass as straight, or noticably gender-nonconforming) you probably will not directly empathise with most women’s feminist concerns, making it really hard for you to judge how important they are in any objective way. It is best to let the person actually dealing with a problem decide how important it is, unless you have a good reason to mistrust them. Secondly, while men may have problems, we can attack the source of a lot of them by solving the systematic oppression of women, and the other problems that are not effected by protective and demeaning attitudes to women are either very small or have their own dedicated causes fighting against them already.

Finally, look, I know that many of the people saying this sort of thing really do think they’re commited to minority rights like feminism. But in their mind that doesn’t involve anything hard. They think it doesn’t involve being isolated every time they’re supposed to laugh at a joke that shows hatred to women. To them, it doesn’t involve trusting women to make decisions about their own life and body, it doesn’t involve fighting with women for their reproductive rights, for their freedom from religious oppression and for self-determination in otherwise less egalitarian countries, fighting for the assumption that rapists are to blame for rape, not “sluts who asked for it”, and it doesn’t involve any self-examination of their own attitudes, and whether they contribute to sexism. In short, the people bringing up these phrases that we’ve all heard before are armchair feminists.

Most of us don’t have the patience to deal with people who think this way- because feminism is a field deep enough to get lost in, even in fields that might sound very narrow to outsiders like say, native American lesbian feminism. So here’s part of why I started writing about gender issues here: Because although I’m a feminist, I am so patient that I practically belong in a hospital. Because although I’m angry about it, I’m also caring enough that I won’t be merciless. (and male enough to have a little distance from the impact of sexism) If you want to learn about hard feminisms², then stick around. But you better be ready to have what your father taught you challenged, because in the parts of the ‘net I frequent, we tend to stick to what mother taught us³. And even then, we’re often suspicious that she listened to father too often.

¹Yeah, now and then, Winston Peters comes up with something funny.
²Unlike homers, you’re allowed more than one.
³Unless she was a conservative frontwoman or casual antifeminist. Then we pick an ersatz mother figure.

Laddies and gentlewomen, show me your… browser… extensions.

Yeah, that sounded dirty. Ewww. I’m going to go wash my hands while I wait for replies.

I know, I know right? Two sidetracks in a week. I’m getting bad at this. But this one is really important. It highlights why laws like the EFA are necessary.

Despite believing passionately in free speech rights, I’m a staunch supporter of the electoral finance act, which includes limits on the amount spent on advertising by political parties, and more importantly, limits the amount of parallel campaigning, (where say, rogue members of the exclusive brethren will launch attacks on another political party so that National doesn’t have to) whether positive or negative, that any third party groups can do during the election season. Some people see this as a contradiction. I don’t.

The really important part of this law is that it prevents third parties from spending very large amounts of money to attack or back a particular political party outside of the usual spending limits, thus effectively opening up a loophole and making the election less of a competition of beliefs and policies, and more of a matter of buying your way into power with as much advertising as possible.

National, the party that benefited from this sort of parallel campaigning last election, is calling the Electoral Finance Act an assault on free speech. Apparently, National don’t understand what free speech is. Free Speech is most fundamentally the right to air your political views without punishment, threats, or detainment by the government. We also understand it as the right not to be prevented from presenting those views in public. However, the type of speech being limited (not banned) is not political views. It is electioneering. Under the electoral finance act, you are perfectly welcome to say “we at the Business Roundtable think it is important that the government collect as little tax as possible”. You just can’t say “So vote for the National Party”, or even “so don’t vote for the Labour Party”¹. Given that those sorts of statements have no explicit political message in them, I think there’s little reason to protect them in the first place.

Interestingly, the Obama campaign has just made a very similar move in the USA. In the US, Presidential candidates are able to sign up for federal funding of their campaigns on the understanding that they will abide by federal spending limits. Not only has Obama’s opponent, John McCain, already broken the law by exceeding those limits for his primary campaign, but he is also very likely to benefit from nominally independent groups that will run attack advertising on Obama using money raised by the Republican Party.

So, Obama knows that he can make a lot more money than the federal funding will allow him to spend, even though he supports that funding system. He knows that playing within the rules just gives McCain the advantage, especially as he’s demonstrated that he’s prepared to break them outright, and not just bend them as the Republicans usually do. So Obama has opted out of the public financing scheme, saying that it needs to be improved so that it’s not vulnerable to exactly the sort of parallel campaigning that laws like the EFA prevent.

Typically, McCain is following a similar line to National’s attacks on this matter- he’s portraying it as a cynical attempt to have more campaign finance available. And while it’s true in both cases- Obama’s pullout and Labour’s support of the EFA- that there is some self-interest involved, the public still gets to benefit from a far more level playing field come the election, which is something we can all agree is worthwhile.

¹Edited to add: Well, you can’t say that without being subject to spending limits, registration as an official third party, submitting a known and inhabited residential address for verification, and a bunch of other things that basically just ensure you’re a real person/organisation and that you’re okay with not trying to saturate the country with advertising, but rather just want to show a small amount of support for your favoured Party or candidate. Even electioneering is technically protected like normal free speech, it’s just that you can’t spend too much money on it. You are however welcome to doorknock, attend debates, etc… which has the effect of making a good campaign involve really getting to know the voters a lot more personally than before. That can only be a good thing for the country as a whole.

Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. But Granny Herald does have an interesting story on the bioethics of sex selection. (h/t to The Standard, who promptly mocked them for an amusing grammatical mistake which implied parents should choose whether to have sex with babies)

At the moment, it is illegal to select your baby’s sex during in vitro fertilisation procedures unless you need to do so to prevent a genetic disorder.

The idea of freely allowing parents undergoing IVF to choose the sex of their baby is repugnant to me. It instantly conjures images of the consequences of China’s one child program, where young girls are abandoned by families that want boys to run their businesses and farms.

But… I have to concede that if we only allow parents to balance out the sex of their children rather than simply give them free reign to choose, this could have wonderful social benefits- for instance, families that want both a boy and a girl could go have IVF instead of having to roll the dice for every subsequent child, and potentially ending up with five all of the same sex.