Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.

• On Being a Woman, Not "a Female"

– “I also realized that one of the reasons it had stuck in my head was that using the word “females” to refer to women was absolutely not something my mother would normally have done. It was a deliberate choice; and yes, it was intended to dehumanize, and specifically to “dewomanize”. In my mother’s view, these two people did not deserve the appellation “woman” . They failed to qualify for it by being “large”, i.e. fat and disgusting.

All of which just brings home to me again that the stuff which is hardest to see is the stuff that gets carefully packed into your own self-image from the outset. “

• Ian: “Too Pretty To Do Math”

– “Ian (B.S., mathematics; future sociology graduate student) modeling a t-shirt bought for him by his girlfriend, who found it in the children’s section of the Goodwill in Glendale, CA:”

• What Is Affirmative Consent?

– “In short, there’s nothing inherently oppressive about the concept of affirmative consent. If sex was truly consensual from the perspectives of all involved then nothing changes under an effective system of affirmative consent. However, when people approach sex the way that mugger approaches other people for money then this concept will not be one they will want to embrace or want to see used in the enforcement of sex crimes statutes.”

• Teabaggers Losing Their Damned Minds

– “the teabaggers are now resorting to the T word to express their racist Republistoked anger at the passage of health care reform.

Terrorism.

Let’s call these people what they are and what Rep. Bart Stupak rightfully called them. Domestic terrorists.

I don’t like and have zero tolerance or respect for the Tea Klux Klan, especially after last weekend’s disgusting display protesting a bill that will prevent the insurance companies from denying them coverage due to a nebulous list of preexisting conditions.”

• Predator Theory

– “Predator Theory is the theory that acquaintance rape as we know it is overwhelmingly caused by a relatively narrow portion of recidivist undetected rapists in the population, each of whom will have several victims, and that these rapists select targets based on the likelihood that they can rape without meaningful consequence, and favor alcohol and avoid overt force as tools to defeat resistance for just this reason.”

• Seriously, why are they so obsessed with rape metaphors?

– “But what’s both fascinating and frustrating is that when conservatives aren’t apologizing for actual rapists, it seems their understanding of what rape is reflects reality pretty well. When they use rape metaphors when describing health care, they contextualize rape as a brutal crime, a display of power over the victim for the sheer pleasure of forcing her to submit. This cartoon reflects this understanding; there’s no question that the Obama-rapist in the cartoon was confused about his Liberty-victim’s unwillingness to have sex with him. In this cartoon, in fact, the Obama-rapist gets off on the sadistic pleasure of hurting her. Which is like real life rape, but completely opposite of what conservatives say happens in these rape situations.

So, they clearly know what rape is all about, when they’re casting themselves as the victims. But when real life women are real life victims of rape, suddenly they go stupid and think it’s all a matter of too much alcohol or mixed signals. And that level of full-of-shitness pisses me off. “

• The Arts as a Healing Balm for Mansplaining's Psychic Ills

– Zuska recommends some films, books and food. Oh yeah.

Categories: linkfest

Tags: blogging, Read-ems