When an older man pursues a younger woman, it’s considered normal. When an older woman pursues a younger man, she’s a bit of a novelty. But that may not be the case for much longer: in the world of online dating, at least, women over 50 pursuing younger partners is par for the course. She said it here.

Purely anecdotal evidence digression: Some time last year, I think, I got curious about all those online dating sites and signed up for a bunch of them. Most of them were for pay, and even more were about straight-up find-a-life-partner match making, and I quickly let most of the trial accounts lapse. OkCupid, on the other hand, seems almost more like a social network site than a dating site (though plenty of people on the site date) and it's free so every now and then I check to see who their system thinks would be interesting to me or I to them.

I mention this because OkCupid gives you a little list of who's been interested enough in you to check out your page. And that's relevant because I'd say that roughly half the people who've been checking me out or otherwise indicating interest (via other contact features) have been older and half younger.

Various dominant narratives about gene-based or hormone-based gender interest would have it otherwise but I *still* think it's got a lot more to do with being human-based. In other words *humans* when given a chance have a broad array of interests, except when that array is carved away by expectation and/or indoctrination.

Another anecdote: While I enjoy generally enjoy being a reluctant but sincere monogamist, last weekend while browsing the street-fair style booths alongside Vancouver's Jericho Beach Park I was briefly but very nicely chatted up by an older woman, born some time in the 1940s or perhaps early 1950s, with beautiful, naturally turned-white hair.

At one point afterwards I felt a bit silly for thinking "Hmm, if I were younger, and still single..." Except that when I was younger and still single I was still blinded by ageism. And I shared the general opinion that men and women are "over the hill" between maybe age 25 and 35 where except for a couple of mostly male icons they generally stop getting romantic roles in movies and photographed for fashion magazines. And I might have been horrified by the idea of "people with wrinkles having sex," even if they happened to be cute wrinkles. But mostly when I was younger I was indoctrinated to believe "elderly ladies" "outgrew" interest in romance, let alone lust.

All of which leads me to question one bit of Alptraum's very nice post: is it really a novelty that older women are expressing interest in younger men, or is it that we just hadn't previously noticed? Or cared? Or *permitted* it?

Photo by Flickr user Gnarls Monkey. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Alexa Stanard of RHRealityCheck.org says

Michigan women with health insurance can find themselves paying up to $65 a month for a prescription to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Meanwhile, their insured male counterparts can pick up a free prescription for Viagra.
Read the quote in context here.

This is *so* not to single out the excellent Alexa Stanard but I'm going to go off the beaten path here and ask if we can all, all of us, just get over the idea that a) contraception and b) Viagra each benefit one but not both sexes?

Yes, we can maintain our respective "no-sex" class narratives: that only men but not sex-indifferent women are interested in erections; that women, but not obligate-sex-seeking men, are concerned only about pregnancy and/or contraception. We can even find plenty of instances where those stories play out. But do we want that to be *the* narrative? Really?

Because preferences for Mars/Venus story lines notwithstanding, there's *absolutely* no different policy response necessary, no less a "gotcha" frame for disparate attitudes towards bridled vs unbridled sex, no less flipping hypocrisy, nor betrayed failure grasp basics of health policy: the problem is just as large when framed in terms of availability of free Viagra for hetero** couples but very expensive hormonal contraceptives.

In fact, when you put it in couples terms the contrast is even more stark, and starkly regressive: Federal policies and insurance coverage encourages high-pregnancy-risk pharmaceuticals and discourages high-pregnancy-responsibility pharmaceuticals. Which is about right anyway.

Coverage should extend, at equivalent, levels to both contraception *and,* when necessary, erectile dysfunction not because, pill-wise, some people still think "pink is for girls, blue is for boys" but because for many couples the lack of both is an obstacle to their sexual lives together.

Question for women readers who's hetero partners are old and/or ill and/or prostate-surgery post-op enough to need Viagra: does it benefit only him? Question for men readers who's hetero partners are young enough to still need contraceptives: does it benefit only her?

[** And let's not even start with all the heteronormative assumptions. --fl]

The average age of entry into prostitution today in the United States is 13 years old. Source: Fledgling Fund promo page for "Very Young Girls" documentary.

Let's just assume it's true for a minute, m'kay? Let's go ahead and take it as given that the number of children who become prostitutes at or *before* age 13 is so vast that it overwhelms the collective ages of everybody who ever becomes a prostitute after age 13 -- say ages 14 to 99 -- such that the *average* prostitute *becomes* a prostitute at 13. In other words that the *average* prostitute begins her career in approximately 7th Grade (U.S.), or three years before she can get a driver's license most places, five years before she can vote or sign contracts, and *eight* years before she can legally drink!

I gotta say that if that's a correct statistic, that 13 is the *average* age of entry for *all* prostitutes in America, then that's some kind of *seriously* fucked up situation.

So! Why stop with such frankly denial-inducing numbers? Why not magically translate the average age to, say 18? Would it change anything if a smaller fraction of people entered prostitution as children?

Why no! While it's fine for adults to engage in affirmatively consensual commercial sex it's not ok for children to. And *certainly* not for children to do so with the adults who make up the *pronounced* majority of customers. So it doesn't really matter how many children wind up in prostitution, it's just a bad idea for every reason you can imagine and a few maybe some people can't.

Oh, and as long as we're talking *averages,* a little Googling and a bit more Excel-ing indicates that a 13-year-old prostitute is also, based on an average of all states and territories, three and a half years shy of the age of consent.

Which in my mind should put offenders (i.e. customers and pimps) not only "John school" but also on sex-offender registries! (Because, seriously, "I didn't know" just doesn't cut it when you've gotten close enough to a barely-out-of-elementary-school-aged child to have sex with her.)

There's a fly in the ointment, though, for those who'd prefer to push a pedophile rap on those who traffic in school children. As the Fledgling Fund page puts it

A man who has sex with an underage girl should be prosecuted as a criminal rapist. But there is a loophole: if the child accepts money in exchange for sex, the rapist is now a "john" and rarely is subjected to greater punishment than a fine. For the very same act, the girl is often prosecuted as a prostitute and sent into detention.

Charming how that works. A city-commissioned report by cultural anthropologist Debra Boyer called "Who Pays the Price? Assessment of Youth Involvement in Prostitution in Seattle" (pdf) concurs:

The routine fine for those arrested for “patronizing” is $500 although the maximum that can be imposed is $1,000.

Just a fine for the hatful of customers who manage to get caught having sex with legal minors? Definitely not ok.

And not to be a stick about legalization or anything but, y'know, if

• prostitution was legal *for adults,* and
• (unlike the "Swedish" model) it wasn't illegal in the first place for customers to hire prostitutes, and
• *paying* for sex with minors didn't magically reduce pedophilia to philandering, and
• law enforcement officials and prosecutors credibly brought no-excuse sex-offender charges against those who have sex with underage prostitutes

Then I'm just guessing that prospective customers who didn't want to have to worry about their names showing up on fliers every time they moved into a new neighborhood might not just ask for but closely inspect sex-worker's documents before proceeding.

And just to break down my list a little, when prostitution is illegal under every circumstances and, especially, when being a customer is already illegal under every circumstance (as it is under the "Swedish" model that criminalizes *only* customers) then customers have no incentive to discriminate between services provided by adult or child, free or trafficked/pimped. To invert the already gruesome quip, "might as well be hung for a lamb as a sheep."

Meanwhile if prostitution was legal for both customers and providers *but* purchasing sex with minors remained illegal and (gasp!) was actually enforced *as the sex crimes it is* then, again, customers would have every incentive to make sure they verified not just identification but also age...

Which, just to repeat till everyone's as sick of me saying it, customers have no *current* incentive to do since a) there are currently penalties for hiring a prostitute no matter what their age but b) the penalties are identical regardless of age and c) they're not really enforced anyway and d) probably won't be because law enforcement doesn't seem to distinguish between illegal adult prostitution and illegal minor prostitution anyway either. Whereas e) if *only* child and trafficked prostitution was illegal law enforcement, social services, and *even legal prostitutes* might pay more attention. (If for no other reason than legal prostitutes would have no incentive to tolerate the competition.)

And finally? Does this have any bearing on whether people should be able to decide at age 18 that they want to become sex workers? Even if we'd prefer they, not to mention their "no-sex" class, sexual-scarcity-blinkered customers made other choices? No reason why it should. What adults choose to do and what children are impressed into are unrelated.

So! Any thoughts?

Photo by Flickr user (ö). Used under a Creative Commons license.

Echidne of Echidne of the Snakes, while applauding inquiries by Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray** into exactly how the Bush administration might be lumping contraception and abortion in federal rules, reminds us of a joke that dates back to the introduction of the first hormonal contraceptives in pill form: the only "morally" acceptable birth control pill is an aspirin firmly held between the knees.

Which, I gotta tell ya, speaks volumes about the grievous limitations of the conventional 24/7 "missionary" fetish lifestyle wherein intercourse can only occur when the woman lies on her back with her partner lying between her open legs.

I've even heard that in *some* parts of the world (for instance the Americas, Eurasia, Australia, Antarctica, and myriad islands) lovers often have intercourse while spooned together. In which position *both* partners could hypothetically entertain themselves by trying to keep an aspirin between their knees during intercourse. (The unspoken assumption to all that aspirin talk, of course, being that not only is closed-leg intercourse impossible, but also that it's the woman and not the man who has to use it.)

Anyway, the point being that not only is the abstinence-only/aspirin-between-the-knees theory of contraception barkingly inadequate health policy, it's not even credible *anatomy!*

[** Speaking of which, as Dana Goldstein asks at TAPPED why the sphinx act from Senator Obama's campaign? Even if it's busy (he's traveling in Iraq and Afghanistan) he's got enough Stateside advisors and spokespeople, not to mention, y'know, actual Senate staff that someone ought to be able to handle this. --fl]

First, this cool NYT article, "Contra-Contraception" by Russell Shorto back in 2006. Shorto begins with a quote by Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe to the effect that sex with contraception makes women, even married women, "whores." He then quotes a number of Bush administration appointees and backers who couldn't agree more with Defoe.

Oh, why not just restate the comment I left there?

While support for birth control among people of deep faith is far higher overall there’s a strong (and heavily recruited by control-women types) contingent that’s uncomfortable with non-barrier, non-”rhythm” types. For instance while the Christian Medical and Dental Association pretty clearly endorses combined estrogen/progesterone contraceptives they object to IUDs, progesterone-only contraceptives such as the “mini pill,” and emergency contraceptives might somehow have what they call a “post-fertilization effect.”

And on *that* side of the debate they're actually the good guys! There are others who believe, passionately (as “Robinson Crusoe” author Daniel Defoe did) that unless it’s strictly for reproduction then even sex in marriage is "Conjugal Lewdness: or, Matrimonial Whoredom!"

This nearly 300-year-old opinion wouldn’t be at all relevant except that President Bush keeps appointing adherents to that view like Eric Keroack (deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services) or Joseph Stanford (F.D.A.’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee) who both insist that contraception is “disrespectful” of women. Stanford’s concern was that men might begin to see their wives as “objects of sexual pleasure.” Oh, he also appointed the passionately conservative Leon Kass to a bioethics panel on reproduction. This would be the Leon Kass who’s written “when we are sexually active we are voting with our genitalia for our own demise” so you can imagine how he feels about contraception!

Again, this wouldn’t be an issue if, you know, people like George Bush, his backers, and his appointees weren’t persistently trying to make that position federal policy.

The upshot? If Djinn at fMh overstated her case she merely overstated it, she isn’t just crying “wolf.” The wolves are real.

Just a quick note: My partner and I spent the weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada this weekend. Had a lovely time. I brought my laptop but never really got it out. Sorry for dropping off the map like that but... did I mention we had a lovely time? The Vancouver Folk Music Festival is just such a great reason to go, and once you're there there are maybe eight million other great reasons to hang out from delightful parks to elegant hotels to astonishingly varied international cuisine to shockingly (for a Yankee) tolerant and diverse and yet... gorgeously healthy, open, welcoming, and generally prosperous. With enough clear downsides (homelessness, a currently hot Mob war, Mob interference with sex work that includes trafficking and coerced workers) that you don't mistake what's good about the place for magic.

Quick conversation I was part of yesterday when our group of parents were joined by another parent while our children were swimming in the lake in a nearby park. We were joking about swimwear and someone mentioned men in loincloths. I jokingly said "don't say 'loincloth,' we're still getting used to kilts." She said "Don't even say that word! I'm reading a novel about Scotland and all the talk about kilts! Now every time I see a guy in a kilt..." and she mimed fanning overheated self.

Relatively speaking a lot of men in the Seattle area wear kilts, but only relatively speaking. Most don't. I have one but rarely wear it. Want a clue why? Before the lake-side conversation spun on to other things a consensus was quickly reached that kilts should be worn with appropriate footwear -- preferably heavy lace-up boots -- and that Tiva tech sandals (another Northwest favorite) or running shoes were right out. So there you go: big heavy boots hurt my feet -- in a perfect world I'd wear either very well-designed light-weight shoes or go barefoot. Doc Martens and other brogues are heavy, inconvenient to put on and take off, uncomfortable, expensive, and activity-restricting. Oh, and of course very stylish under a kilt.

Which I think it a perfect setup for this post by Habladora, guest-blogging at Feministe, inspired by her experience sitting a friend's daughter.

My good friend recently confessed that she wished her eight-year-old daughter were more interested in ‘fashionable’ shoes, lamenting that little Maria always insists on wearing sneakers- even with skirts. “Some day soon,” my friend comforted herself, “Maria will want to be more like a girl - she’ll want to wear make-up, and shoes that compliment her outfits. I guess she’s still just a little young for all that.”

In light of that remark, I should have known when I agreed to babysit that Maria would show-up wearing shoes that limited her mobility. Had I been thinking of that conversation with her mother while arranging our day together, I could have saved the kid some pain. Instead, I thought of my own sneakered childhood, and planned to tour the neighborhood playgrounds, gardens, libraries, and ice-cream parlors with her - on foot. Since I don’t usually think of eight-year-olds wearing high-heels (although it seems to be a growing phenomenon), I didn’t even notice Maria’s ‘fashionable’ shoes until the poor kid started complaining of blisters and aching feet. Her mom had bought her the ‘pretty grown-up shoes’ the day before, and told her that big girls don’t wear tennis shoes with skirts.

Little Maria’s feet had fallen victim to gender-policing, the imposing of perceived ‘typical’ gender behaviors on another person.
She said it here.

Sorry mom, bad parenting. Seriously! She obviously wants what she believes is best for her daughter but...

...while there's *some* chance she, or a corresponding dad, would have wedged a be-kilted eight-year-old son into blistery matching brogues chances sound even greater she'd have suggested her boy wear shorts and sneakers because that's... just more practical for children. Meaning in this case, I guess, boys. Because for girls, I guess, the idea is that "Someday [they'll] ... want to be more like a girl - she’ll want to wear make-up, and shoes that compliment her outfits..." that give her fucking blisters and keep her from being able to play or run or be, you know, a human child, a.k.a. an actual "girl."

Aside: In a post excoriating those stupid high-heels for infants Twisty Faster also excoriates women who think it's ok to rush girls into constructed gender and, especially, sexualized femininity before, you know, they're interested in or ready for or even particularly conscious of sex. I gotta say that whether or not it is, as Twisty thinks... or maybe even wishes... that the motivation is an indoctrination imperative imposed on adult women by capital-P patriarchy, the tendency for women to tie approval of girls to their femininity and/or fashion unambiguously prepares girls to transfer that seeking of fashion-based approval to the men in their lives. Although notice also how many (clunky, heavy, impractical) Dr. Martens for children and, especially, infants are *also* pitched towards girls (or, I should say, their custodial adults) with feminized colors and styles. But I digress...

Habladora has what might be a more nuanced explanation than Twisty or I

Yet, even for kids who identify strongly with their birth sex, gender policing can cause lasting problems. Girls run a constant risk of being taught to associating femininity with frivolousness, and we might be teaching boys a form of subtle misogyny as well. As Sociological Images notes, “unlike men, who are supposed to reject all things feminine, women are encouraged to balance masculine and feminine characteristics.” NPR’s article “Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences” seems to give credibility to this assertion. While the boys who name their animals girl’s names, identify with female characters in movies, and want to wear skirts might get taken to a psychiatrist; girls are expected to identify with male characters in movies (there might not be any female ones), can wear only slacks (I refused skirts and dresses for years), and are free to name their stuffed bears whatever they’d like (mine was Tom). The implication that girls can aspire to be male, but that boys shouldn’t condescend to act like girls is disturbing.

None of this is a plea for 70's-style unisex styles, or even necessarily Fabulous Baby X style (although as an allegory about how gender is socially constructed, and *constricting,* that story's just so cool. Especially for 1972!) And, by the way, I'm not even saying it's there's some kind of creeping momism out there (it's not just women dressing up their girls -- watch how often men nervously masculinize even very young boys so there should be a corresponding creeping dad-ism!) Instead I'm saying what's the rush? Girls *don't need our help* being girls. Boys don't need our help being boys either. And when they *get* to puberty? Yeah, then a) they'll be ready to decide, possibly in no uncertain terms, what they want to do about their gender and b) if, like a lot of people they *aren't* certain, well, they might have more latitude, and wider models, to pick their own paths.

Rule of thumb though? No child needs blistered feet *they* insist. (As did our young friend who insisted on wearing my daughter's too-small cow galoshes, *in July,* under her skirt.) M'kay?

Click for more photos like these.

Happy HNT (or Half-nekkid Thursday!)

Photo by Flickr user Travis S. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Heather Corinna, who's got a new weekly column at RHRealityCheck.org effortlessly clarifies at least three misconceptions in response to a young man's question

novastar asks:

"I'm not gay, but I like my butt and anus played with. Can someone tell me why?"

Heather replies:
I sure can, and I'm glad you asked.

Know what? Some gay men do NOT like having any sort of anal sex. Enjoyment of anal sex does not define or determine homosexuality, and lack of enjoyment of anal sex does not define or determine heterosexuality. So, a guy can be gay and yet not be all that interested in or even enjoy anal play. You can also be gay without engaging in anal sex: being gay is about being attracted to the same-sex, not about having a certain kind of sex, so even a gay guy who never has sex with anyone is still gay, just like a hetero person who has never had sex can still know they're heterosexual and be heterosexual. A guy can be straight and enjoy anal sex great big bunches: if you only desire anal play with men, then we're dealing with an orientation issue, but if you desire and enjoy anal play full-stop, it's just not about sexual orientation. Men of all orientations may or may not enjoy sexual anal stimulation, and the same goes for women of all stripes.
She says all that and more here.

Funny when you think about it, really. I mean even going by the most generous percentages for LGBT populations there are *substantially* more straight people into anal play than LGBT people, or, dialing in closer, substantially more straight men into it than gay men.

Which raises an interesting corollary: Sadly for the "ex-gay" conversion community even though there are more straight people like it than gay, not only doesn't ass play make you gay, it won't make you straight either!

Photo by Flickr user edwardoneill. Used under a Creative Commons license.

In my post about the perversity of sex as a chore a while back I mentioned what a joyless hassle sex can be for couples that are actively *trying* to get pregnant, especially when they're having a hard time. About halfway through writing that post I started an aside about the MRA/anti-feminist relationship model where men are obliged to providing economic security and in return men are obliged to provide sex.

Very conveniently for me, in comments L recounted her experience with voluntary obligatory sex. It didn't sound fun.

My husband and I tried for roughly 6 years to have a child. THis included different combinations of temperature-taking, intercourse-timing, medications both oral and injectable, invasive testing, twilight anaesthesia, tears, frustration, and failure.

It included very little joy, between the aforementioned failure and tears, as well as the mechanization of sex. Reading this post made me remember the online cycle-plotting software I used, wherein you marked every day you had sex. with (your choice) a heart or a smiley face.

That heart or smiley face was pretty much the only choice we were given (in day-to-day terms) in the progression of impregnation attempts. Whe we should or could do it, or when I got to go under anaesthetic for an "egg harvest" or how many days of bedrest was required post-embryo transfer was determined by number-- dates on the calendar, blood tests.

Ah, you've provided a convenient (at least for me, I'm not sure how YOU feel about it, figleaf) forum for me to exorcise a little of the anger I still hold, 3 years on. I guess it's implicit in my rant that I find what Ellie called "statistics-driven sex" to be pretty much repellent. For us, it WAS product-oriented. The fact that we were ultimately cheated out of the desired product isn't really even germane to my reaction... at least I don't think it is.

Anyway, I guess I'm skeptical as to whether numbers-driven sex can ever, in any way, make the numbers-cruncher happy. To me, the delight, the joy of being able to have sex when and only when we want to is something I could never throw away, because I've been on the other side and it sucks.

She said it here.

Hmm. "Anger?" "Repellent?" "Product-oriented?" "Cheated?" Sound familiar? Of course! It sounds like the terms used by both sides in the aftermath of so many "traditional" anti-feminist marriages. (Where "aftermath," sadly, doesn't always mean "divorce." *Especially* in "traditional" marriages.)

Hmm... *funny* about that, eh? And yet that he's-a-wallet/she's-a-receptacle model is the anti-feminist idea? How's *that* been working?

On the other hand, though, kicking yourself every time you forget that feminism for men isn't just helping to hold that pedestal steady for the women in your life? And remembering every time you go *there* you're not just setting life back for them you're setting yourself back as well? That? That helps.

The thing is that there's just not that much difference between holding someone up on high and holding them down instead. Either way they can't go anywhere because either way *you're holding them there.* And either way *you're there too,* wasting... maybe ruining their lives while wasting yours as well when everyone could be going around just... *living.* On ground uncluttered by pits and pedestals.

Making a big melodramatic display of tagging oneself with the “feminist” label seems like transparent male cookie-seeking at best, and cover for some seriously nefarious wackaloon shit at worst, as in the case of our male feminist sex criminal friend Payne. (Of course, maybe tagging myself with the “I don’t call myself a feminist” label is just more subtle cookie-seeking! HAHAHAH!) Read the quote in context here.

A couple of weeks ago Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon answered the question while tackling a post by anti-feminist Kathleen Parker

“But Amanda,” you might say, “How can you say Kathleen Parker hates men when she wrote a book called ‘Save the Males’?” I say that because Parker can only bring herself to defend rapists, gropers, and men that are too stupid to breathe.  If you don’t belong to one of those groups, I get the impression that Parker doesn’t think you’re a man at all.  If that definition of manhood---stupid and cruel---doesn’t seem anti-male to you, there’s not much I can do for you.

The article is basically an Americanized rehash of the Taliban’s arguments about how women’s presence needs to be controlled and covered up because men are animals who have to rape you if they see sideboob.
Read the quote in context here.

That about sums it up. If anti-feminists didn't manifestly hate men worse than poison, and if feminism asked more of men than that we live up to our potential instead of down to anti-feminist expectations, then sure, men calling themselves feminists would be a little odd. Instead, though, for men the choice between what Marcotte wants for men and what Parker does is or really *really* ought to be pretty clear.

Likewise if gender relations was a zero-sum game where gains by feminism could come *only* at the expense of men then sure, it would be peculiar for men to imagine themselves feminists. Instead feminism is *not* a zero-sum game. By almost any metric men with feminist partners are better off -- we live longer, we have more fulfilling lives, we get to enjoy our families more, and (in the face of yet another anti-feminist canard) we even enjoy our sex lives more.

And let me just expand on one of the biggest quibbles with men in feminism: that it's as peculiar, contradictory, or wrong for a man to say he's a feminist as it would be for an Anglo-American, no matter how opposed to racism, to say he was African-American.

That assumes, again, that men can have no *intrinsic* shared interests with feminism any more than Anglo-Americans could have *intrinsic* shared interests with African-Americans. But check it out: in Virginia before the American Civil War the fear of slave insurrection was so high that a third of all able-bodied men were required to take part in a standing militia! (This, by the way, throws the recent Supreme Court ruling about militias into an even more peculiar light but I digress....) Another quirk? As in much of the South during the Civil War, actual *slave owners* were exempt from service in the militia (because slave owners were, you know, supposed to be home keeping their slaves "in order") so basically by definition the militia was comprised of semi-conscripted Anglo-American men with no direct economic interest in slavery. So! Is it correct to say that vast numbers of Anglo-American men, women, and their children were economically and socially as well off in a racist, slave-owning militarized society as they might have been in an egalitarian/freeholder/entrepreneurial society?

Were Anglo-Americans better off than African-Americans? Darn right. But were they as well off as they would have been if the entirety of society hadn't been warped to support slavery? As well off as, say, now? For all but a handful of a handful absolutely not, and even the handful of nominal beneficiaries would have been objectively better off in some other line of work.

Add in the part where the majority of non-slave-owning-class Anglo-American were constrained by law and custom, by instilled fear, by manifestly false assurances of superiority on the one hand and surprisingly harsh regulation on the other (remember, for instance, that originally only *land-owning* white American males could vote) and the ugly bones of the racist system begin to peak out. (As the stalwartly nationalist/racist, Kathleen-Parker-of-his-day Rudyard Kipling bald-facedly put it in a nominally sympathetic poem, "For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute! / But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot")

In other words the *expectation* placed on Anglo-Americans *as a class* in order to maintain the status-quo imposed a gigantic, and unnecessary, and soul-selling / damnation-seeking burden that benefited a minority inside that class was such that a *typical* class member could in good faith agitate against slavery and/or racism not merely out of altruism or decency but out of his or her own considered and considerable self-interest.

And so to the extent men recognize the burden imposed on the majority of us in order to maintain a system that hampers women limits men as well. And to the extent that the only philosophy dedicated to overturning that system happens to be labeled "feminism." And if one is interested in starting a stampede for the exits of that system, then... what the heck else should we call ourselves?

Actually, technically, because for certain subsets of people the nomenclature is *so* contentious that if just plain nothing else is going to get done because some "dude" (in their parlance) says he's a feminist then the alternative would be to say one is an anti-anti-feminist. As long as the objective (equality of power and not just opportunity between sexes, dismantling of gender as constructed by the likes of Kathleen Parker types) is the same as feminism then anti-anti-feminism, if a little wordy, is good too... although if you cancel the double negative you get...

Photo "Projection" by Flickr user dcassaa. Used under a Creative Commons license.

What Jesse Taylor said. Because, yeah, because *feminism* is responsible for all that.

...when some bearded guy somewhere tells me “cover up, whore” or “repent, whore” or “be quiet and stir that borscht, whore,” I pity him most dreadfully. His God is indeed dead, and it was he who replaced his God with an embalmed version that rests in an ugly-ass Great Mausoleum in the Sky. ... Being a feminist and being religious is totally possible, if you just ignore people who tell you you’re going to hell/you’re a brainwashed idiot in need of re-education camp. Or so I’ve decided for myself. She spake thus here.

It's a great point! Antonova and Fatemeh point out that failure to engage further than "does not / does too" dismisses the belief systems of many feminists.

But most important as far as I'm concerned is that "does so / does not" dangerously cedes the debate in the event you can't talk your interlocutor out of the totality of his or her belief system. You're then left with, effectively, no leverage to argue from *within* the system of belief.

(That's why, by the way, the religious-right anchor Reverend James "Daddy" Dobson flipped out so thoroughly when Senator Obama advanced a Christian-influenced vision of liberalism. A simple recitation of the Sermon on the Mount utterly refutes Dobson's philosophy of government based on "Biblical Principles" just as even a cursory engagement with Matthew 6 illuminates his schism's philosophy of religious virtue.)

Anyway, two pretty cool posts on faith and feminism.

Oxfam and Kalayaan today reveal that abuse of migrant domestic workers is mind-bogglingly widespread. The majority of these workers are women from developing countries, living in conditions close to slavery:

Migrant domestic workers have the legal status of workers in the UK - and are entitled to rights such as the minimum wage, time off, etc. Yet, of more than 300 workers registered with Kalayaan in 2006, 43% of workers reported not being given their own bed, 41% were not given regular meals, 70% were given no time off, 61% were not allowed out of the house without their employer’s permission. In addition, 10% reported sexual abuse, 26% physical abuse and 72% psychological abuse at the hands of their employers. Many workers were paid as little as 50p an hour, were made to work up to 16 hours a day, and were on constant call to their employers.

Yes, 61% are not allowed out of the house without their employer's permission. 80% of the domestic workers registered with Kalayaan, an organisation which provides services for migrant domestic workers, are women.

Read the quote in context here.

A friend mentioned yesterday that "you should talk to my sister, her [politically conservative, fundamentalist/evangelical] church is really involved in trafficking." "Really," I said, because I've been trying to find anti-trafficking connections in the area (it really *really* matters to me.) We talked a bit more and, it turns out somewhat predictably, that it's a pulpit issue (i.e. a coordinated with conservative politics) and concerned exclusively with the anti-domestic-prostitution amendments to the Wilberforce/TVPA reauthorization bill.

That the same people are as virulently anti-immigrant, and as disinclined to doing "good works" as one can be and still even pretend to call one's self Christian suggests exactly where the congregation stands on actual, you know, human *trafficking.*

They are not likely to know, and even less likely to care, that the *Trafficking Victims Protection Act* they're seeking to amend does little or nothing to remedy the kind of abuse, including sexual abuse, of *legally* internationally-trafficked, effectively indentured migrants mentioned in Jess's article.