Wednesday Link Roundup
John Scalzi posts about how his wife Krissy handles a guy at a club who thinks it’s okay to harass women until they give in to his naughty demands. Due to Krissy’s actions, he probably won’t do that again. (I’ve had a huge crush on Krissy since I met her at WisCon this year, but my crush is now full-blown love. That woman is awesome all around.) Instapundit picks up on the post, which leads to his wife, Dr. Helen, posting that Krissy’s response was A Bit of an Over-Reaction. Much kerfuffle in the comments, and also here and here. This all leads back to Scalzi’s blog where he posts further thoughts on the resulting conversations, Krissy’s reaction, and Internet craziness.
Scalzi missed a few: On Blackfolk and SeeLight.
There is a post about the difference between men physically assaulting women and women using physical force on men in there somewhere. Perhaps I will write it. Perhaps one of you will (and send me the link!).
ETA: Commenter Madeline F points us to her post where she brings up a very good point: “Notice how Dr. Helen says that only a man could possibly have learned when it was appropriate to apply violence to solve a problem?”
She also quotes LJer ginmar, who makes another excellent obseration:
“Are you sure?” is another way of invalidating a woman’s ideas, of questioning her judgement, of changing the subject. How much of this second-guessing is part of women’s daily lives, where they get people acting as if they’re too stupid to think things through?
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From Alas: Prison Sentencing Study: Whites, Women, Non-Poor, and U.S. Citizens Are Given Lighter Sentences
I’ve just been reading a 2001 study by David Mustard, of the University of Georgia, called “Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the US Federal Courts.” Mustard’s study appears better-designed than other sentencing studies I’ve read. His sample is large and comprehensive: he essentially includes every federal sentence handed down for three consecutive years (1991 through 1993) in his analysis. Rather than focusing only on sex or on race, he simultaneously controls for the effects of race, sex, U.S. citizenship, and class on federal sentencing. (Legally, none of those four factors are supposed to have an effect on what sentence a judge hands down.)
A study that shows what black men have known all along…
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On FeministSF blog Yonmei talks about the differences between tomboys and girlygirls in fiction:
It’s as if because Sansa likes to be clean and tidy, and likes to embroider, and is very definitely heterosexual (even if she’s only eleven when the series starts), that must make her stupid and cowardly and traitorous. … Arya gets dispensation from the evils of being a girl (or a woman) because she’s a tomboy: because she’s a tomboy, Martin can write her as brave and smart and resourceful – and revengeful. Whereas Sansa, the girl of the family, is none of these things…
…
I didn’t become a tomboy because I was brave and clever and resourceful: I became a tomboy because I believed – just as something that “of course” you know: that it was better to be a boy than a girl. I unpacked that belief sometime in my teens, when I figured out that I was a feminist (which happened when I was thirteen or fourteen) and while I was reading about feminism. But seeing how a male writer uses a tomboy character makes me think more about how, while baby feminists may be tomboys, identifying as a tomboy is not a feminist attribute.
Go discuss.
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Claire Light shows us what Almond Eyes really look like. Writers, take note. Take a very careful look.
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A link roundup pointing to a link roundup, how meta. But, this reading list is really worth reading, and there’s no point it me reposting all of those good links.
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This makes my head hurt and I have no useful response to it right now: Critique of Miscegenation and Interracial Marriage
People should only mate with members of their own race because that would be a helpful reproductive guideline considering the purpose of reproduction and sexual relationships. I briefly explain why in this essay.
Lookit the monkey! Lookit the silly monkey! *boom*
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New to the Blogroll
Blogs I Recently Discovered
Holla Back NYC (A genius idea. I wish I had a camera phone.)
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A Note from the Proprietor:
For those of you reading this via LJ, remember to click through to the WordPress blog to comment. Sometimes I see the comments on the LJ entries (due to my shameless friending of myself), but I don’t always.
Also, all link roundups are also Open Threads. Comment on anything.
I know John said please don’t bash Dr. Helen, but I think she’s kinda dumb and boring. And I think Krissy is teH awesome.
Mr. “Critique” there would clearly be dumber than a sack full of hammers even if he wasn’t flat stupid wrong. “People should do X because X would be a good thing for people to do” — no one who starts an essay with that kind of construction should be allowed to use the word “epistemological” anywhere in the essay. Or, for that matter, to graduate from the third grade.
No, I take it back. Saying the person who wrote this is dumber than a sack full of hammers is an insult to sacks full of hammers everywhere.
WTF??
What is the Philosophy? In short, the Philosophy is very important knowledge. It is something that you would want to know. It is knowledge that you would consider important if you were to know it. The more that you know the Philosophy, the more that you want to know the Philosophy. It’s like anything that you like in your life, such as a kind of food or a person or a place. At first you didn’t like it because you didn’t know it. But after you got to know it, you learned that you like it. That is exactly how the Philosophy is. It is knowledge that you would want to have if you were to have it. But if you don’t already know it, why would you want to? You can’t miss what you don’t know. So if I’m the only one who knows the Philosophy, why should you? What incentive do you have to learn it?
I only made it that far. Then the silly monkey showed up again. With Chewbacca.
Haddayr: I’m with you on that one. I realize that there’s no reason to jump on her like a pack of voles, but she does need to be corrected. A lot.
I posted a view on Dr. Helen’s sexism that I haven’t seen much elsewhere… That is, she denies women the brains to determine when violence is the best answer to a problem.
Dr. Helen is right that there’s a double standard between men and women. She just doesn’t understand that that’s the problem.
Another link to fan the flames of anger.
True – women hitting men are seen as hysterical, silly, out of control. Men are seen as taking a stand, doing what’s proper. I say the hitting should be a default if any man threatens you sexually. Call it swinging the pendulum the other way, but women everywhere should learn foremost not to accept that sort of behavior. To deal with it diplomatically is a “wisdom” and “brains” that is not called for in those sorts of situations. Fucking ridiculous.
Thanks for the Seelight link. Brilliant.