Fuck Sexism

[FaustWolf]

Holy cow, I was surprised at how candid that article was; it seems to me that the author is going out of his way to misrepresent modern marriage purely for the sake of undermining the concept of gay marriage. He's taking all the good stuff out of it (the stuff that gay marriage and heterosexual marriage have in common) to replace it with...control over female sexuality? For real?

To quote from the Newsweek Weekly Standard article, this is literally what he's saying:

Consider four of the most profound effects of marriage within the kinship system.

The first is the most important: It is that marriage is concerned above all with female sexuality. The very existence of kinship depends on the protection of females from rape, degradation, and concubinage. This is why marriage between men and women has been necessary in virtually every society ever known. Marriage, whatever its particular manifestation in a particular culture or epoch, is essentially about who may and who may not have sexual access to a woman when she becomes an adult, and is also about how her adulthood--and sexual accessibility--is defined.

Again, until quite recently, the woman herself had little or nothing to say about this, while her parents and the community to which they answered had total control. The guardians of a female child or young woman had a duty to protect her virginity until the time came when marriage was permitted or, more frequently, insisted upon. This may seem a grim thing for the young woman--if you think of how the teenaged Natalie Wood was not permitted to go too far with Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass. But the duty of virginity can seem like a privilege, even a luxury, if you contrast it with the fate of child-prostitutes in brothels around the world. No wonder that weddings tend to be regarded as religious ceremonies in almost every culture: They celebrate the completion of a difficult task for the community as a whole.

This most profound aspect of marriage--protecting and controlling the sexuality of the child-bearing sex--is its only true reason for being, and it has no equivalent in same-sex marriage. Virginity until marriage, arranged marriages, the special status of the sexuality of one partner but not the other (and her protection from the other sex)--these motivating forces for marriage do not apply to same-sex lovers.

Like organisms, social institutions can evolve to preserve themselves in the face of more modernized values. When they fail to evolve, then they're gone. If marriage is still about determining "...who may and who may not have sexual access to a woman when she becomes an adult," then screw it. Even a husband has no right to his wife's body -- she and she alone has a right to her body, and to control who she's going to have sex with, period. Rape is possible within the context of marriage, something the author skims over all too hastily. I'd recommend the movie Quills (but viewer discretion majorly advised) to anyone wondering what I'm talking about there. Maybe the movie Osama would be an even better choice -- that had the most horrific movie ending I'd ever seen.

Luckily, I imagine a lot of us disagree with the author's presentation of marriage. Marriage should be something founded on long-term trust and commitment between lovers. Since people may be married without procreating, it makes the most sense to extend it to gay couples. If marriage is solely for the promotion of the family (and I'm surprised the author of this article was arguing from a different viewpoint than this), then why extend marriage to childless heterosexual couples but exclude it from childless homosexual couples?


EDIT: Also, if you'll notice, the author specifically mentioned sodomy. He purposely glossed over it, to be sure, but it's still there, and it seems like a veiled appeal to the common man raised in a patriarchal society -- giving the author an automatically sympathetic audience.

If I may be blunt, might it not be possible to reject anal sex on health grounds (you can't tell me a perferated colon and a zillion times higher risk of contracting HIV is fun) but still embrace homosexuals? The author's thinking inside a box because he's programmed according to a phallocentric, penetrative sexual model. The brain, a few endorphin receptors, and a few square inches of any kind of flesh is all it takes to engage in sexual expression, but that depends on what the definition of sex is.

But I digress. That is the edgier side of my personal humanist theory. It arises when I get pissed, or when I've had a particularly good glass of beer. Both of which were the case when I was reading the article, hahaha.

[Lord J Esq]

It was published in the Weekly Standard, a conservative mag, not Newsweek. And, yes, I would imagine that none of us on the Compendium share the author's view.

The importance of the author's view is that, from a historical perspective, he's almost exactly right. Marriage exists to perpetuate the control of females and the sexual access to them. Judging this by modern ethical standards is pointless: The value of this column is that it points out just where our world's societies are coming from (which is useful in aiding our understanding of just how deeply sexism runs), and that it highlights the origin of right-wing opposition to all kinds of social justice issues.

[FaustWolf]

Oh, I'm awfully sorry for misrepresenting Newsweek, haha. I meant the Weekly Standard. This is the one Billy Kristol writes for, right?

What bothers me is that the author isn't even veiling his criticism of gay marriage in the cozy language of child promotion, which could have some logical merit if you restricted marriage only to heterosexual couples who have children. He's just using some kind of weird tenth century logic. It would be like promoting rape just because wild animals do it, and we're descended from wild animals.

[ZeaLitY]

We're "fortunate" that the West at least pays lip service to the idea of romance and love in marriage. Oh, it exists in other cultures—it pops up for a few seconds in Indian marriage rites as spoken by the person doing the union—but absent arranged marriages, and given oppressive but survivable chances for independent living, women in the West can "afford" (using that term in a minimalist sort of way) to discriminate their partners based on love and attraction, versus utility. Single women still have a much more difficult time making it in life than single men because of sexism, pay inequalities, etc. and economics forcing more women to work is setting the cause for female equality back a few years.

And all of it's control. Dowries, inheritances, political unions, familial alliances...it's all sick, and it all needs to fuck off and die. That Yemeni girl who died a few days ago giving birth at age fucking 12 has thankfully brought the savagery of arranged marriages back into the public consciousness, if only for a day or so. I don't see any ethical upside or justification for arranged marriages, so to hell with it; all of it. Fucking slavery. It's no wonder that several countries on this earth also have laws permitting husbands to keep their women sequestered at home; they can only leave with permission. Karzai recently legalized this in Afghanistan to appease Islamic conservatives in that country. I don't know enough about Afghan politics to even choose who I'd like to win the election, but Karzai lost it for me with that.

Edit: It's depressing, but here's the Karzai link: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=8327666

[Lord J Esq]

On the healthcare reform front, here's a goodie: Domestic violence as a preexisting condition.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/health_care_reform_and_domestic_violence/

[Truthordeal]

I'm assuming that has something to do with Battered Wife Syndrome rather than the actual physical damage caused by domestic violence.

[Thought]

Hmm, so this article seems to want to take a historical approach to marriage? Well I suppose we can be a little more historical, indeed a little more scientific, than the article was. Specifically, let us look at evolution.

I’m currently reading a book that might be of some interest: Man the Hunted. It takes a look at predation on human evolution. One curious tidbit that (so far) they mentioned but didn’t spend a lot of time on is the possibility that male cohabitation with other males is a somewhat recent evolutionary trait (around the time we moved into grassy planes, it would seem, so still pretty old) that developed to protect females and children. That might seem, on the surface, to support the idea that men are supposed to be the protectors of women. The oddity comes in how; the men in a group of our ancestors seem to have probably acted as decoys for predators. Populations that suffer a high predation rate can stand to lose a male much more readily than a female. Monogamous pairings, then, are to an extent a luxury; a people group has become stable enough and secure enough that the men don’t have to be expendable for the group to survive.

There is also some research (but, to my understanding, it does not yet approach the status of being definitive) that indicates human males are unusually inept at detecting children that aren’t theirs. It has been suggested that the human reaction to young is so broadly defined that it can even encompass non-human children (that is, random cute fluffy puppies, kittens, cubs, etc). Such a reaction would be evolutionarily advantageous where monogamy is not; in societies suffering from a high predation rate.

Curiously, the idea of a single male with a harem would actually be a bit of an evolutionary throwback. We might still classify a harem of one as a harem, if we define the term fairly loosely. Thus, male control of a single woman as a sexual partner is likewise an evolutionary throwback to a simpler, more brutal and savage time.

If the past may be used to defend a sexist perspective on marriage, then it may also be used to promote a liberal perspective on sex. If because marriage has traditionally been used to control sexual access to women it can continue as such, then an older, more traditional look would argue that restricted sexual access is an anomaly counterproductive to the survival of the group.

The problem, of course, is that just because something is very old does not mean that it is very good, particularly in the present day (thus, the concept f the argumentum ad antiquitam). Though being old doesn’t make something bad, either (argumentum ad novitatem). One must be willing to recognize the past and use it as a foundation for perceiving the future, but we aren’t chained to it. For example, traditionally, no one was allowed to vote. Curiously, not many conservatives arguing from tradition argue for that.

As a side note: since that article attempted to address gay marriage from an ultra conservative POV, this webcomic offers a fairly hilarious commentary on that sort of thing: http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20090907.html

... you can't tell me a perferated colon and a zillion times higher risk of contracting HIV is fun...

Don't forget incontinence.

Though it is fair to point out that this is not a sexual perfectly restricted to homosexual male couples.

[FaustWolf]

I wonder just how much sexism is rooted in our evolution. The Neanderthals, a supposedly more egalitarian species than Cro Magnon man according to some researchers, didn't make it. But an alternative explanation is that the Neanderthals just weren't built right, period. Maybe if they engaged in the exact same practices but were a little more lithe on average, we'd really be coexisting with them like in the Geico commercials.

But if sexist behavior really is rooted in our species' earliest experiences, there may have been a number of archaic women's rights movements throughout prehistory as subsets of the population split off -- that had to have happened for several Native American tribes, African Pygmy tribes, and various other populations to develop either egalitarian or reverse-sexist societies by the time anthropologists from the developed world discovered them.

[Uboa]

I wonder just how much sexism is rooted in our evolution. The Neanderthals, a supposedly more egalitarian species than Cro Magnon man according to some researchers, didn't make it. But an alternative explanation is that the Neanderthals just weren't built right, period. Maybe if they engaged in the exact same practices but were a little more lithe on average, we'd really be coexisting with them like in the Geico commercials.

Another theory is that a shift in climate caused the forests in which they were used to hunting to slowly change into grasslands.  Since humans were more adept at hunting in grasslands we simply out-hunted them.

[Radical_Dreamer]

I'm assuming that has something to do with Battered Wife Syndrome rather than the actual physical damage caused by domestic violence.

Alternatively, you could actually read the article, find out that your preconceived notion is incorrect, and then have a potentially meaningful contribution to the topic.

[Truthordeal]

RD, I said that because these psychological disorders are typically the ones that last longer, read: end up starting the cycle of abuse.

For example, if abuse occurs before the insurance plan is bought, and BWS is a result of that, and physical abuse occurs after that, then yes, BWS and the subsequent injuries are a preexisting condition by the definition of the term. I don't condone the fact that health care companies treat it this way; I'm merely pointing out a point of the matter that everyone else surely will and has passed up.

[Thought]

Faust, have you read the Newsweek article on racism? http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989

Basically, research indicates that children naturally classify people in an "us" and "them" mentality. This leads to racism, but it isn't limited to race either (as demonstrated by the fact that children can become biased based on T-Shirt color). Thus, if children can see a difference between the "us" (males) and "them" (females), this same behavior could reasonably come into play.

If this is a valid interpretation, then it would seem quite reasonably to say that sexism may have had an evolutionary cause. However, this article also noted that simply directly talking to one's children about sexism and racism significantly changes a child's outlook (we just have to be intentional and direct about it).

Another theory is that a shift in climate caused the forests in which they were used to hunting to slowly change into grasslands.  Since humans were more adept at hunting in grasslands we simply out-hunted them.

Interestingly enough, it may be incorrect to suppose that early humans were much in the way of hunters. At least, depending on what one calls early humans. The ancestors that moved out of the forests and into the grasslands weren't very well adapted to being prime predators. Or in other words, our influence on other branches of early humans (which weren't even in the same genus, at the time) would have been minimal.

But as I said, that depends on what you call early humans. I believe  Australopithecine is usually credited with the species that made the move from the forest to the plains, which is a few million years before Cro Magnon and Neanderthals.

[Lord J Esq]

I'm assuming that has something to do with Battered Wife Syndrome rather than the actual physical damage caused by domestic violence.

RD, I said that because these psychological disorders are typically the ones that last longer, read: end up starting the cycle of abuse.

For example, if abuse occurs before the insurance plan is bought, and BWS is a result of that, and physical abuse occurs after that, then yes, BWS and the subsequent injuries are a preexisting condition by the definition of the term. I don't condone the fact that health care companies treat it this way; I'm merely pointing out a point of the matter that everyone else surely will and has passed up.

He's right; you didn't read the article. Either that or you completely failed to comprehend it. The fact that you're proceeding with a diversionary tactic suggests that you're not interested in the discussion.

[Truthordeal]

No, J, I read the article, and the source material. The SEIU report is extremely vague, probably purposefully so, so that bloggers can derive whatever meaning suits them from it.

It could mean that X hits Y once and then the insurance companies refuse to cover Y for physical damage, but it probably means that X has a history of smacking Y around and refuses to cover Y because Y has Battered Persons Syndrome.

The only part of this release that is factual rather than editorial is:

But, in DC and eight other states, including Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, insurance companies have gone too far, claiming that "domestic violence victim" is also a pre-existing condition.

After reading this article and source material, I made the conclusion that they were probably referring to long term spousal abuse with Battered Persons Syndrome rather than a one-time ordeal. I made it a point to communicate this because I was sure that everyone would instantly say "Oh, a woman gets stuck with the bill if she gets hit, sexism," when the cause might just be because BPS is a long-term psychological ailment.

Now, my response to the article: Is it right to do this? No.

Your response?

[FaustWolf]

Thought, that's a fantastic article (Newsweek this time -- this is the one Billy Kristol doesn't write for, right? ). I think it speaks to some of the pitfalls to purposely creating a "colorblind" society. How can we translate this lesson to sexism? Unlike race, "gender" is a social construct separate from the natural distinguishing factor that is sex (which is closer to race in that regard). Gender seems to be something that the feminist movement seeks to ultimately destroy, or at least dull severely -- giving some "masculine" traits (competitiveness, industriousness, leadership) to women, and some "feminine" traits (willingness to discuss emotion, caring for social relations, being nurturing) to men.

I believe creating a "colorblind" society is still a noble goal, but that in the cases of the parents who refused to discuss race for fear of generating racial bias, other factors were "raising" the children in their stead. Perhaps evolutionary adaptations peeking through is a part of this. I'd tend to place the greater weight on pop cultural impressions, but that's simply my theoretical bias.

Regardless of the exact source of the factors influencing the children's attitudes when they're not discussing something with their parents, the studies mentioned strongly suggest parental discussion is capable of overriding those factors. Thus, a big lesson we can draw from the Newsweek article is that parents need to discuss sexism with their kids.

Anyone here ever remember having a talk about sexism with their parents when they were kids? My parents talked to me about race, how to recognize sexual abuse, and how to not get kidnapped and that sort of thing (this kid is in real danger), but I don't recall a sexism talk. On the other hand, I was also raised in a household where James Cameron flicks were playing half the time, and where the amount of housework was shared pretty evenly. Maybe it's the subliminal messages that speak loudest.