Salman Rushdie has an op-ed today on the "shame" that is assigned to women who are raped. He's talking specifically about cases in Pakistan and India, but here in the States, we all know the statistics about the number of rapes that go unreported, and the shame that gets attached to rape here.

I want to try to tease out the source of this shame, and I think the first thing to sort out is the difference between "guilt," and "shame." Guilt is the internal barometer that tells us that our individual moral codes have been violated by something we have done. Shame is an external thing--it is given to us by our culture that tells us we should feel badly about something. Often, that manifests itself as guilt, even if we have done nothing wrong, and there, in that intersection, it gets confused. But shame begins as an imposition upon us.

There's a temptation to go off on a riff about Marx, Levi-Strauss, and Irigaray and the "fetish," but I want to leave that alone. Going there will take me into my head and away from my heart, and I'm trying to understand, on a visceral level, why men, apparently, feel such deep shame (or is it guilt?) when the women in their community are raped. And how, rather than taking on those feelings themselves, they project them on to the victim.

I'm about to engage in an essentialist argument, I think. I'm not an essentialist, but sometimes, going back to these archetypes helps me to try to understand seemingly unexplainable things. If you're up for a thought experiment, continue reading.

W.H. Auden
September 1, 1939

An excerpt:

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

My mother flew to England earlier this week to take care of my grandmother. They're north of Manchester, so this morning, I know they're safe. Nevertheless, I'm angrier than hell this morning, and I'm trying to sort out my feelings.

My grandmother was born during World War I, lost her father in the trenches of France when she was a babe, lost her mother when she was a child. She lived through World War II, with its food privations, with the bombings of the industrial North by the Luftwaffe. She lived through the Post-War depression, was left a widow when my grandfather died at the age of 50, leaving her with two children at home. She helped raise me when my parents, who were 17 and 21 when I was born, lived with her while my father went to school to earn his degree and my mother worked. She lived through the Thatcher years, which devastated the North. And now, she's 89, and Tony Blair, with his ill-considered support of George Bush, has brought the Iraq War home to England's shores. To the heart of its London Tube system. Bastard.

An initiative will be launched today to nudge policymakers away from seeing successful book lending and the encouragement of reading as the prime goals of Britain's public library service.

Instead the emphasis should shift to whether libraries help governments promote their wider health, educational and social objectives.

Huh?

When I was a kid, we moved 11 times in 10 years. Each year, we'd land, fresh in some town where I knew nobody, usually in the middle of summer, and those long summer months with nothing to do would stretch before me. Because we moved so often, my mother was the anti-packrat. I mean, she kept nothing if it could be helped. We were not a family that schlepped boxes and boxes of books from state to state.

But, my mother loved to read. So, one of the first things we would do in a new town is find the library. As soon as we had received our first piece of mail (proof of our home address), my brothers, mother, and I would walk (my mother didn't drive) to the library and sign up for cards. Once I had access to books, I could survive another summer by myself. Curled up on a couch, I would plough through several books a week, lost in worlds of others' making, and distracted from the distress of knowing that I faced another "first" day of school where I would be the "new kid."

I understand that libraries are not getting the usage they once did. But the plan in Great Britain to turn libraries into clearinghouses of government information, to turn the libraries themselves into places of indoctrination--well that gives me the creeps.

It's bad enough here in the U.S., where until recently, library records were the super-secret decoding ring of the Patriot Act. The USA has a proud history of censoring what can and cannot go into a library. From the Comstock Laws, which banned "obscene" material (and by obscene, we mean material that contained information about contraceptives) from the mails and thus, distribution, to the regular outbreaks of community hysteria about debauchery in the stacks, libraries have found themselves the battleground for the suppression of dangerous ideas.

But access to ideas is the first principle of education. Education includes exposure to things outside your ken. And I spent summers reading everything from Roald Dahl novels to biographies of queens to Judy Blume to the history of science and beyond. I didn't need to spend a lot of time in the real world. By the time I was 12, I had seen more of the United States than most adults. I needed books, not more hours in a moving van.

Libraries were my theme parks. And while we obsess that children no longer read because they're too busy playing video games, truth is, there are a lot of kids--and adults--out there for whom libraries are the Midway the Roller Coaster and the Tunnel of Love all rolled into one.

The answer to rejuvenating libraries is not to turn them into government promotion centers. Libraries will be relevant again when education is allowed to do what it does best. Not to breed career-track automatons, but to awaken the hunger for self. The library fed me. I grew fat on its riches. I would have starved to death in an indoctrination camp.

Cross posted at Menstruating She Devils

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote the following essay. It's more of a screed, or a confession, an examination of where my life was two years after my divorce. Some of it is self-indulgent, defensive, but I have chosen not to edit it because it was who I was at the time of the writing.

In part ii, things have changed considerably (and I'll post that tomorrow). As the United States celebrates its 229th anniversary of its divorce from Britain, I wonder what it would write? I fear it would be more than self-indulgent; it would be dangerously delusional and arrogant. Experience has changed me; I'd like to think it's made me wiser, more open, more willing to engage others on their terms and not impose my own. Will I live to see a more mature nation on one of its upcoming birthdays?

My Own Worst Nightmare

I am a few days past my 40th birthday, out of work, a writer who can't seem to get published recently, a mother who doesn't have custody of her children, a woman who frequently does not eat meals because she is completely out of money. May I mention my two advanced college degrees? May I mention my feminist faith in self-sufficiency? May I mention how difficult it is to maintain my dignity, let alone faith, in the face of failure?

Media Girl commented on macho and conservatives the other day; she has since added to that discussion, and has been joined by the great folks over at Pandagon. I have
commented a number of times as to my observations/fears that the evidence of creeping fascism in this country is evidenced in the general crisis of masculinity at work in the U.S.

I'm a fan of  Klaus Theweleit's two-volume study: Male Fantasies. Theweleit builds an argument that links fascism with a hatred of the body, its desires, and its weaknesses.

Fascism, then, waged its battle against human desires by encoding them with a particular set of attributes: with effeminacy, unhealthiness, criminality, Jewishness--all of which existed together under the umbrella of "Bolshevism."

If I re-write that particular sentence the following way:
Christo-Fascism, then, waged its battle against human desires by encoding them with a particular set of attributes: with effeminacy [as in lesbians/gays/feminists], unhealthiness [bogus claims about abortion causing breast cancer or condoms not preventing HIV or all STDs], criminality {street crime], Jewishness [I think Muslim is the new Jew for the time being]--all of which existed together under the umbrella of "Liberalism."

It's working for me. Does this analogy work for you?

Of course, not all women are evil: Christian women, who are subservient to their husbands, or else lunatics like Malkin or Coulter (doesn't that look like Annie on the back of that rocket?)--they're okay. But the rest of us are just fucked. So to speak.

This is Robert Raymond. He died in 1916, in the trenches of France. He was my great-grandfather. His daughter, Hilda, will be 89 this year. She was born after he died. My great-grandmother, Edith, Hilda's mother, died at the age of 37, leaving my grandmother an orphan.

I have this photo of Robert, and I stare at it, trying to imagine what his life was like. I can't ask my grandmother; she never met him. And I try to picture the day that Edith received the news that the man whose child she was carrying had died in the war.

World War I was a colossal waste of life. It was a war that had no purpose, no planning, no meaning. It was The Great War. It cost Europe a generation of young men.

As far as I know, Robert Raymond's story has not been told. He has vanished; I'm not even sure where he is buried. Three generations later, all I have is this tiny photograph. I search his face for clues. What made him laugh? Cry? What were his dreams? What was his childhood like? When he was in the trenches, did he have a chance to reflect on what he was doing, why he was there; did he know he'd never get home to England again?

I wish that someone would sit down with George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and make them look at the photographs of the 1700+ American dead in this war. I'd like them to have to talk to someone who loved each of those men and women, hear a story from his or her childhood, or what he or she liked to do, what he or she wanted to be, what made him or her laugh. I think the price for being Commander-in-Chief is to be haunted by the people you have sent to their deaths. I think the fact that you told lies in order to start this war should be the kind of black spot on your soul that all the invocation of God and country and Jesus cannot erase. I think you should have to wear a letter "M" for murderer, that in your wallet, when people ask to see photographs of your children, you should be forced to bring out a picture or two of soldiers you sent to their deaths. You should have to tell their stories.

"These are my children," you should have to say. "These are my kids, and I am responsible for their deaths."

Every soldier's death diminishes me. Every time a roadside bomb goes off, somewhere in America, parents, brothers, sisters, children, neighbors, classmates feel the sudden sting of death. We have now sent over 1700 families over the abyss into the grief of losing young people in their prime.

So, the news that the latest bomb attack killed a number of female soldiers is as tragic as every other bombing. But apparently, for certain members of our culture, woman's symbolic value makes this loss all the more tragic.

"Fierce debate" will greet the news that women were killed.

The role of women soldiers in Iraq has set off a fierce debate in Washington. Conservatives have charged that the military exposes female soldiers to excessive danger by assigning them to support units that commonly operate alongside male combat troops. They believe the Pentagon is violating the spirit of the law that prohibits women from serving in infantry, artillery, or armor units.

The Center for Military Readiness has made one of its prime missions to exempt women from combat. Fair enough. Personally, I don't want anyone in combat. Women. Men. Children. I don't want us involved in this war that the President started.

Women soldiers dying in combat is a horror. But so is the horror of our sons dying there, too. So, before this debate even starts, can we stop? Please? Because quite frankly, as a woman, I find it incredibly offensive that conservatives can shed crocodile tears over women soldiers, but won't give civilian women the time of day. They seem to have no problem denying us birth control so that some of us will die in childbirth. They seem to have no problem with the millions of women infected with the AIDS virus. They have no problem throwing women off the Welfare rolls. They have no problem denying women the rights and benefits that men enjoy.

I'm sick and tired of my symbolic value being more than my real value. I am a person. A whole person. I'm not your Barbie Doll, your Virgin Mary, your Holy Mother. My life is not of worth only when I am reproducing the next generation or serving the brethren by making men's lives easier. And I'll be goddamned if you get to make political hay out of the fact that soldiers died in Iraq. When those bombs went off, they were not men or women, they were scared kids who were about to be blown off the face of the earth, leaving behind holes the size of the universe in their loved ones' lives.

Cross-posted at CultureKitchen

My energy is flagging. (Oh crap. I just noticed the pun. I'll let it fly.) The flag amendment, the Durbin apology, the general level of bullshit, deceit, and apathy that is in the atmosphere and which I'm picking up as if I was a tuning fork, is exhausting me. Add to it the general stresses of everyday life, including some extraordinary things that are going on in my world, and I'm feeling a bit burnt.

Being part of this community helps. When my energy is low, I read your diaries, what you are doing, your declarations of faith and outrage, and I tap into that.

I don't have anything profound to say. I'm very tired. I went looking for something to pick me up this morning, and lo and behold, wound up back on Emma Goldman's doorstep. She was commissioned to write the following piece, and the piece was killed when the newspaper in question decided that it was too radical for its readers. But she published it anyway.

So, here it is. "A New Declaration of Independence," written in 1909. Emma rocks.

In Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning wrote of everyday German citizens, members of a police unit in Berlin, who were sent to Poland and there, practiced the messy slaughter of whole villages of Jewish children, women, and men. There are no all-encompassing explanations of anti-Semitism that Browning uses to distinguish these men from you and me: the commanders of the group found a way to tap into the basest of human emotions to make these men forget they were basic human beings. And so they killed.

Today, I read two articles back-to-back, and I was struck by the juxtaposition of ideas in them. I want to play with the arguments being presented, although ultimately, this thought experiment may be a failure.

In this morning's NYT,
Anthony Lewis makes a point that is blindingly obvious to those of us who think about these things, but for which apparently, far too many Americans, including the squawkboxes on the Right, are oblivious. Namely, that people who live in glass houses don't get to throw stones. (Or as their favourite moral exemplar said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.")

Since the widespread outrage over the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Americans have seemingly ceased to care. It was reported yesterday that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal, is being considered for promotion. Many people would say the mistreatment of Mohamed al-Kahtani, or of suspects who might well be innocent, is justified in a war with terrorists. Morality is outweighed by necessity.

The moral cost is not so easily put aside. We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.

Beyond morality, there is the essential role of law in a democracy, especially in American democracy. This country has no ancient mythology to hold it together, no kings or queens. We have had the law to revere. No government, we tell ourselves, is above the law.

Over many years the United States has worked to persuade and compel governments around the world to abide by the rules. By spurning our own rules, we put that effort at risk. What Justice Louis Brandeis said about law at home applies internationally as well: "If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law."

I intend no disrespect to Mr. Lewis, but my first reaction to reading this was a resounding "duh." American foreign policy has never been one of consistency. Reagan's lecturing the Soviets about their human rights violations in the 1980's while financing death squads in Central America was the example I remember plainly from my college years, and even now, the sight of Elliot Abrams causes hideous gastric reflux. In those days, I took to the streets, attended demonstrations, wrote letters, picketed outside various defense facilities: in essence, spit into the wind.  

Wisconsin is apparently determined to move ahead in the Stupid State Olympics. While previous contenders for the podium have included Florida for its ban on adoptions by gay parents, Alabama for its ban on sex toys, and Kansas for fighting over the teaching of evolution, Wisconsin legislators now want to make it illegal for University of Wisconsin students to purchase Plan B contraception.

The legislation would prohibit University of Wisconsin System health centers from advertising, prescribing or dispensing emergency contraception -- drugs that can block a pregnancy in the days after sex. The state university system has 161,000 students on 26 campuses.

Republican Rep. Daniel LeMahieu introduced the bill after a health clinic serving UW-Madison students published ads in campus newspapers inviting students to call for prescriptions for the drug to use on spring break.

"Are we going to change the lifestyle of every UW student? No," LeMahieu said. "But we can tell the university that you are not going to condone it, you are not going to participate in it, and you are not going to use our tax dollars to do it."

Let's just parse that statement, shall we? are we going to change the lifestyle of every UW student?

No. Because, overwhelmingly, Plan B contraception is prescribed to and purchased by women. So, apparently, it's not going to have any effect on UW male students.

No. Because those who can't get Plan B contraception may find themselves pregnant. Some will decide to have an abortion. Some will decide to carry the child to term. And some will be lucky enough to find out that sperm and egg never met. But no doubt somebody's lifestyle is going to be affected.

No. Because the governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, has already announced he's going to veto the bill. Good on you, governor.

Representative LeMahieu has apparently  not gotten the word that we still have a right to privacy in this country, that prescriptions are between doctors and patients, and that, well, he needs to knock this shit off.

Drop him a line and let him know that, won't you?

In 1917, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were arrested for having organized anti-conscription activities. The U.S. government had just made the decision to entere World War I, and for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which being that it would be the poor and the working class who would be asked to go serve in an arisocratic fight that had turned into a disaster, Goldman, Berkman, and a whole host of progressive activists opposed entry into the war.

The details of how Emma came to be arrested can be found in her autobiography, Living My Life. The brief details is that there were a series of public meetings at which Emma spoke. There were also articles published in The Blast and Mother Earth Berkman and Goldman's publications respectively, which they were accused of having given to a man of "conscriptable age," thus they were seen as having handed someone advice on how to escape the draft.

The two were placed on trial. Goldman's speech to the jury is a masterpiece. The entire speech is well worth reading in its entirety. I would publish it here, except that I do not want to violate "fair use" laws.

In reading Goldman's words, I am stunned by the prescience of her words to our current situation. So little has changed in these 88 years. Rather than parse one of our greatest orators, I will simply quote her and admire her in silence.

Oh, and by the way, despite this speech, Goldman and Berkman were convicted and sentenced to two years in jail, essentially for exercising their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. Goldman was stripped of her American citizenship, and she, along with over 200 others, was exiled from the U.S. in 1919. That's right. She was kicked out of her own country.

Emma is buried in Chicago, close to the graves of the Haymarket martyrs. In death, she was able to return to this nation.  

(I apologize in advance for the profanity-laden rant. But this stuff makes me nuts.)
More from the department of making shit up:

In one of those moments when the NYT decided to provide free advertising to the Heritage Foundation, it prominently features the following from one of our favourite right-wing thinktanks:

Studies Rebut Earlier Report on Pledges of Virginity

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

Challenging earlier findings, two studies from the Heritage Foundation reported yesterday that young people who took virginity pledges had lower rates of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases and engaged in fewer risky sexual behaviors.

The new findings were based on the same national survey used by earlier studies and conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services. But the authors of the new study used different methods of statistical analysis from those in an earlier one that was widely publicized, making direct comparisons difficult.

Independent experts called the new findings provocative, but criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and lacking the statistical evidence to back its conclusions. The new findings have not been submitted to a journal for publication, an author said. The independent experts who reviewed the study said the findings were unlikely to be published in their present form.

Okay. Say this with me now. Manipulating the data to make it look like the truth is still considered LYING. (And I still believe that bearing false witness is a big no-no. But what do I know? I'm an unethical atheist.)

Now that certain people have decided that science can be interpreted any damn way you please, and thus, there is TOO scientific proof for Intelligent Design, apparently, you can take a survey and change the data just a little tiny bit and get whole different results. Who'd a thunk?

So, even though the original study was published in a vetted journal, and this one is not going to be published in a journal, doesn't make this one any less legitimate, right?

Those studies that came out of Texas that showed higher rates of pregnancy among the kids who'd taken abstinence-only education courses must have been bullshit, no?

The team needs to do "a lot of work" on its paper, said David Landry, a senior research associate at the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York. He said in an interview that it was "a glaring error" to use the result of a statistical test at a 0.10 level of significance when journals generally use a lower and more rigorous level of 0.05.

.10 or .05, what's the big diff? Sheesh.

I figure there's going to be lots of explaining to do soon. See, if these kids are not having sex, how are they going to explain those pregnancies? Hmmm. There is a Biblical precedent for such an explanation, but I think that was a one-time occurrence.

I'm deeply distressed that the Times ran with this story. Is there an obligation to report every piece of right-wing propaganda as if it has scientific merit? Where will this bullshit end?

Cross-posted at Stregoneria

Hey y'all. The incomparable  Tild designed this image for the informal and yet serious blog set up to chat about issues of gender. Named for one of the lovely epithets that was thrown about last weekend (and for which the hurler has apologized), we are celebrating our role in life as menstruating (and no longer menstruating) She Devils at Menstruating She Devils.
Who says feminists don't have a sense of humour?