Feminism and Figure Skating

[callalily]

On a positive note, here are two heartwarming stories of people from different walks of life coming together to support each other and stand up for fairness.

http://torontoist.com/2010/08/let_us_prey/

I know that area of Toronto (just east of downtown, mixed socioeconomically, rapidly gentrifying). Good for the neighbours. Nicely handled; everyone was safe. "Please move along".

 

[Spun Silver]

Jcoates, I very much appreciate the anecdotes about your family's deep roots in the Church and Catholic schools and your own upbringing in that setting. If there were a history of your parish, your family would probably figure in it. Such people are the salt of the Catholic earth. I experienced that kind of Catholic life in several different parishes when I lived in New York City, but it's rather different here in the affluent suburbs. I'm sorry you've experienced a heartless side of the Church as well. I've heard very little of that from the pulpit, although I do recall one example. Most priests I've known avoid social and sexual issues that might divide, anger, or hurt their congregations. Similarly with regard to the Church's teaching on divorce. Even adultery is left alone for the most part!

As to the rest - I've been sitting here for over two hours thinking about your last post (also Doris's, Mathman's, and IP's) and beginning and discarding various efforts at a response. There are not enough hours in the night... or day.

I would like to note that I did not call you a monster or anything like that, jcoates, or attack your freedom of speech. It's really irritating to have words put in my mouth.

Sometime instead of trying to dictate the rules of public discourse, I wish you would ask yourself why people of a conservative bent keep expressing reluctance to dialogue with liberals here or elsewhere. It's because our opinions (and our churches) are routinely judged as hateful. Much as you've turned away from the Church, I turn away from the liberal bias in these political threads. All I can really do is say my piece, brandish my little conservative flag in case someone out there in cyberspace might be heartened by it, and slink away while I'm still alive to do it again another day.

 

[dorispulaski]

It's worth mentioning that if a gay couple wants to have a religious marriage as well as a secular marriage, some churches support that.

I have been a life long member of the United Church of Christ, as were my parents, grandparents, etc, etc, as are my sons, both the gay son and the straight son.

http://www.ucc.org/lgbt/

One group that joined to form the UCC was the Congregational Church. Congregational Churches are relatively independent as to what they believe, and the minister is called and hired by the individual church rather than sent out by the synod. Consequently, when the Open and Affirming covenant came up for a vote, our church voted to join, and it was a subject that caused significant discussion, but eventually our congregation followed the minister's lead that on the day of judgment, he would prefer to answer to God for being too inclusive rather than too restrictive in being an agent of dispensing His love.

Open and Affirming (ONA)
Open and Affirming is a journey of building inclusive churches and other ministry settings that welcome the full participation of LGBT people in the UCC's life and ministry.

•Find an Open and Affirming UCC church
Please note: Many UCC congregations which may not have adopted an ONA covenant for various reasons are nevertheless welcoming and safe communities for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians.

So a gay couple can get married in our church. And since CT has legalized gay marriage, they can, if they prefer, get married secularly as well.

It is the UCC position in any case that "God is still speaking."

 

[skatinginbc]

There is a long list of churches in the Greater Vancouver that perform same-sex weddings, for instance, Beacon Unitarian Church, North Shore Unitarian Church, the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Canadian Memorial United Church, Lakeview Multicultural United Church, Renaissance Christian Church, Christ Alive Community Church, Diocese of New Westminster (the Anglican Church of Canada), Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Mount Olivet Lutheran Church, Unity in Action, to name just a few. Dignity Vancouver (Roman Catholic) is very gay friendly, but I'm not sure if gay weddings are being performed there.

Who were the supporters of the same-sex marriage legislation in Canada? The United Church, the Muslim Canadian Congress, the World Sikh Organization...

When the same-sex marriage was a hot topic in Canada, the local Chinese newspaper was on the anti-gay wagon (Yes, I read the newspaper quite often and it irritated my eyes). "A few years back, there was a gigantic rally by some people against what they considered “anti-family” values. Things like homosexuality and the definition of the word Marriage. The rally appeared to have a very strong support from a lot of Chinese Christian groups. And a lot of these protesters seemed to have recently obtained their Canadian citizenships...as they were shouting slogans in Mandarin and Cantonese, not in English… " (http://www.uglychinesecanadian.com/?p=161).

 

[let`s talk]

It's tricky. A democracy must do two things: provide for rule of the majority and vigorously protect the rights of minorities. The situation is not symmetric. The powerful majority does not require special protections, but vulnerable minorities do.

I was lost in Paris during one of my first visits there, at around lunch time. I took the wrong station and found myself at the place where the top of Sacre Coeur was seen somewhere down. I saw no whites around me, only africans and arabs who spoke their languages. I walked for a while and surprisingly found a bar with a white middle-aged barman. I entered and asked where I was and where the nearest taxi stand or subway station was. He looked at me, said in some English that I shouldn't walk here alone, he closed the shop and took me to the station. It was only about 100 meteres but even this distance he accompanied me at the broad daylight. I took the train and came back to the city centre. I was a white powerful majority in Paris who have to be escorted to the subway station in the district of vulnerable minorities by a white male stranger for my own safety. I am sure there are districts like that in some cities in the US too, where whites are not welcomed. Actually, seems like white women shouldn't feel safe at their home places too. Go figure.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_rHFKRwv5Y
Everything has its own beginning. Giving some special juridical treatment to minorities, either based on race, nationalities or sexual orientations, can sooner or later end up in the unbalancing the situation, where minorities become powerful. Also, the whole concept of the law is equality, while the principile of hate crimed itself is based on non-equal attitutude. It becomes more like a matter of politics and rhythorics than the actual criminal law.

 

[skatinginbc]

I saw no whites around me, only africans and arabs who spoke their languages...I was a white powerful majority in Paris who have to be escorted to the subway station in the district of vulnerable minorities by a white male stranger for my own safety.

The picture I got from your story is a segregated minority that might seek revenge on a white powerful majority--a classical case of hatred generating hatred, one of the justifications that hate crime legislation is necessary to prevent a social cost like this.
This is a real story that happened to me in Oklahoma: I approached my car alone and was cornered by four rugged Black folks. They asked me for a ride and I let them in. "Why are you not afraid of us?" asked they in a menacing voice. In response, I gave a long speech about how unfair Blacks were feared and discriminated against and how good the majority of Black people actually were. There was a moment of silence before one of them reluctantly demanded money from me. I firmly said no and asked them to get out of my car. One was about to say something but was pulled back by his companions. So they all left the car. Yes, they intended to rob me but turned shy after hearing my speech. Of course, luck served me there. They were bad, fortunately not bad enough.

Everything has its own beginning

It seems to me that your youtube story was a byproduct of war-on-terrorism--retaliation. At least, it was part of the rapist's self-justification for his pathological need.

 

[gkelly]

Sometime instead of trying to dictate the rules of public discourse, I wish you would ask yourself why people of a conservative bent keep expressing reluctance to dialogue with liberals here or elsewhere. It's because our opinions (and our churches) are routinely judged as hateful. Much as you've turned away from the Church, I turn away from the liberal bias in these political threads. All I can really do is say my piece, brandish my little conservative flag in case someone out there in cyberspace might be heartened by it, and slink away while I'm still alive to do it again another day.

I think there is a problem when proponents of any belief system (among which I include "feminism" in the broadest sense -- the belief that women are full human beings with full human rights) support that belief by dismissing or even attacking other groups as a whole. Most belief systems are not monolithic and the same umbrella word can apply to individuals and subgroups with very different emphases.

In this thread, the relatively trivial question of the names of figure skating disciplines turned confrontational because early on a couple of posters seized on the word "feminism" and dismissed it out of concerns with a couple of bad experiences with actions by individual professed feminists or because of generalizing dislike of the values of some subsets of feminism to end up opposing anything that calls itself by that name. There were several posts saying, essentially (paraphrase) "The only things I associate with feminism are bad things."

And so all the other posters who identify with all the good things that have been done in the name of feminism felt attacked and responded defensively.

On other occasions, "Christianity" (or evangelical Christianity, or Catholicism) may be the belief system dismissed/attacked as a whole. Or Islam. Or "conservatives." And that isn't fair or accurate or conducive to dialogue either.

There are many points of agreement between people who label themselves with those terms and people who do not and may identify with a diametrically opposed term (e.g., liberal vs. conservative). There are plenty of points of disagreements among people who label themselves with the same term.

We can probably have a more productive conversation if we focus on specific issues and the facts surrounding them rather than on broader labels. We may still have disagreements based on our differing individual values or experiences. But better for the discussion to be focused on a specific topic at hand rather than making assumptions about each other based on which labels we embrace or reject.

 

[Olympia]

You've made some great points about how we see one another. Thanks for saying them so cogently.

I think, paradoxically, that there's an advantage to our more intense exchanges. As I've said before, forums like this, with their wide geographical and cultural diversity, are among the few opportunities where people can actually encounter Those Others Out There and see what makes them tick. For one thing, it's enlightening to find out what other people's hot button issues and words are, so that we can move beyond them and learn how to phrase our arguments so that we can really communicate and be heard. If people who disagree can learn to work together, we all benefit. We're a small arena here, true, but one never knows what the effect can be in the larger world when a small good deed is done.

 

[dorispulaski]

ITA.

I've got to say that the branching out of this conversation has been very educational for me; if were run by Robert's Rules of Order, I would not have had the opportunity to learn more about the ins and outs of hate crime enforcement.

 

[Mathman]

I was lost in Paris during one of my first visits there, at around lunch time. I took the wrong station and found myself at the place where the top of Sacre Coeur was seen somewhere down. I saw no whites around me, only africans and arabs who spoke their languages....

Your frightening experience underscores what I am trying to say.

You were a person of minority race and culture in a neighborhood where the majority were African and Arab. Because you were not a member of the majority culture, you were especially vulnerable and at risk. If you had been African or Arab you would not have required any extraordinary protection, just the normal protection of the law that every citizen expects.

But because you were of a minority race, you not only faced the same dangers that any young women would in such a situation, but on top of that you faced the additional danger that someone would attack you just because of your race.

In addition to being at risk for the same type of crime that might also overtake a member of the majority, you faced the extra risk of being a victim of a hate crime based on race.

 

[Mathman]

It's because our opinions (and our churches) are routinely judged as hateful. Much as you've turned away from the Church, I turn away from the liberal bias in these political threads.

I understand where you are coming from. But I also think that, like it or not, religious people and religious organizations have an especially haevy cross to bear, in comparison with political parties, advocacy groups and the like. Unfair it may be, but religion is held to a higher standard.

When someone does something terrible, that's terrible. When someone does something terrible in the name of God, I don't know exactly why I feel this way, but to me that makes it a hundred times worse.

Osama bin Laden blows up the World Trade Center, killing thousands of people. My reaction is, I want to grab bin Laden and hang him from the nearest tree.

Osama bin Laden blows up the World Trade Center in the name of God. My reaction is, I want to nuke Mecca and Medina.

Religious leaders big and small, sane and otherwise, arrogate to themselves the power to speak for God. I just want to get a hold of some of these self-annointed prophets and tell them, "Your God is great! Your God is good! You blaspheme against your God by putting your own small and hurtful words in His mouth."

 

[skatinginbc]

Mathman, what you said in your last two posts was so logically correct and convincing that I don't know what to add or respond to them.

 

[let`s talk]

You were a person of minority race and culture in a neighborhood where the majority were African and Arab. Because you were not a member of the majority culture, you were especially vulnerable and at risk.

I know that. The question is how did it happened that I found myself in Paris, not in Africa and not in the Middle East, where I turned out to be at risk because I am not african and not arab. As I said:

Everything has its own beginning. Giving some special juridical treatment to minorities, either based on race, nationalities or sexual orientations, can sooner or later end up in the unbalancing the situation, where minorities become powerful. Also, the whole concept of the law is equality, while the principile of hate crimed itself is based on non-equal attitutude. It becomes more like a matter of politics and rhythorics than the actual criminal law.

 

[Olympia]

There's certainly an irony to the situation as you present it. I think the fact that this was in Paris adds an extra layer of difficulty to it—one would almost say karma is involved—because the situation in those neighborhoods is one of the byproducts of colonialism.

One other thing that stands out in your story is the generosity and chivalry of the barman, who closed his establishment in order to escort you personally. He never saw you before, had no ties to you, and would receive no reward for his actions. And you weren't even French. Yet without hesitation he took action. That's pretty impressive.

 

[Mathman]

Why do the killers of Matthew Shepard deserve a bigger punishment than, say, the killers of a woman in my church who was bludgeoned to death in her apartment by a stranger? Or to put it differently, why is the life of a (murdered) gay white man worth more than the life of a (murdered) straight white man?

Exactly!!! Everything involved with gay people seemed to be elevated and highlighted. Why are gay people more important than straight people?

Also, the whole concept of the law is equality, while the principile of hate crimed itself is based on non-equal attitutude. It becomes more like a matter of politics and rhetoric than the actual criminal law.

In the actual criminal law, the intent of the criminal and the circumstances of the crime are very important when it comes to prescribing penalties.

It is not a matter of valuing the life of one victim more than another. If a criminally culpable reckless driver runs over me with his car he might get two years. If a homicidal maniac lies in wait in the bushes for a likely victim to walk by, and it happens to be you, that criminal might get life in prison or the death penalty. The law is not saying that my life is of less value than yours. In this example it is the intent of the criminal that is the distinguishing consideration.

Now consider the case of a gang of thugs who form the intent of tracking you down and murdering you, or of combing the city until they find someone like you, because you are black, because you are white, because you are gay, because you are Jewish, because you are left-handed. People who support hate crime laws believe that this is an example of especially evil criminal intent, and that this should be taken into account in the penal code.

The law should treat everyone equally. If a gang of African immigrants had a singled out Let'sTalk and murdered her because of her race, the hate-crime theory says this crime is even more reprehensible than if they had shot her in a routine robbery attempt. And the same would be true if the victim were heterosexual and set upon by a gang of roving gay people intent on finding a straight guy to murder. These homosexual criminals would be guilty of a hate crime under the statute, just like every one else would be in this situation.

(But in actual fact, this happens rarely. I have never heard of anyone who was murdered for the sole reason that he was straight.

(I can, however, give an example of "reverse discrimination" in hiring. My sister-in-law is very well qualified by talent, training and experience to get a job designing displays and dressing mannequins in department stores. In the greater Detroit market at least, this profession is dominated by gay males. Many difficulties were placed in her path before she was able to break into the exclusive club.

(The moral of the story? People are people.)

 

[skatinginbc]

Let's talk's Paris story reminds me of Vancouver's "Downtown Eastside" also known as "Canada's poorest postal code". Not many Middle-Class people dare to walk around there during the day, let alone the night. It is swarmed with drunkards, drug addicts, sick people (e.g., AIDS patients), lost people (e.g., runaway kids), and petty thieves. Some are war veterans still suffering from traumas and maladjustment; some are withered prostitutes who have lost their will after years of physical and psychological abuse. The North America's first legal injection site is there, and so are marijuana shops operating openly as any other retail stores. Many of those neglected, marginalized people have a sense of entitlement--they feel the society owes them a better life. If you look or dress like a "normal" people, some of them may approach you and ask you for spare change or solicit you to purchase their ill-gotten goods. Strangely, after having lived in Vancouver for over a decade, I cannot recall any incident where outsiders were physically attacked. On the other hand, there have been quite a few incidents where the "normal" people went to randomly beat up the residents to death. The notorious serial killer Robert Pickton picked up prostitutes there and skinned and dismembered them like pigs, and he thought he was doing them a service--to help them finish their suffering lives.

The key word--marginalization-is what I found in common between Paris' ethnic ghetto and Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

When there is an animal reserve, it implies animals are being hunted to extinction elsewhere. Where there is a ghetto, there is social marginalization that pushes and squeezes the disadvantaged into a segregated tiny corner. It is no coincidence that Canada's richest postal code (i.e., West Vancouver) and Canada's poorest postal code (i.e., Downtown Eastside) are in close proximity.

France is categorized as having "flawed democracy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index). Her press freedom is ranked 44th in the world, worse than Tanzania and Papua New Guinea. Her economic freedom is so bad that it is not even on the top 30th list (only moderately free, worse than "mostly free" and "free" categories) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indices_of_Freedom). I wonder if the racial segregation observed by Let's Talk in Paris has something to do with France's relative lack of economic freedom.

 

[let`s talk]

One other thing that stands out in your story is the generosity and chivalry of the barman

One of the things that feminism couldn't kill. At least somewhere, at least in some men.

 

[Olympia]

Let's talk's
The key word--marginalization-is what I found in common between Paris' ethnic ghetto and Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

When there is an animal reserve, it implies animals are being hunted to extinction elsewhere. Where there is a ghetto, there is social marginalization that pushes and squeezes the disadvantaged into a segregated tiny corner. It is no coincidence that Canada's richest postal code (i.e., West Vancouver) and Canada's poorest postal code (i.e., Downtown Eastside) are in close proximity.

This is why I love this thread. Difficult as our exchanges sometimes are, they give rise to a statement like this, which has caused me to see a situation in an entirely new way. You're right, bc.

Of course there are arguments and exceptions that can be brought up, but keep in mind that bc isn't saying that everyone in Downtown Eastside is good and put-upon and therefore not responsible for his/her behavior. The point (and I can't say it as powerfully) is that the marginalized may have physical power over someone standing right there, but in most other aspects, given an otherwise stable state (not a place like Somalia or parts of Mexico), they have nowhere near the power or resources even to conduct their own lives, let alone to diminish the lives of others.

 

[dorispulaski]

ITA Olympia. When I read a thread like this, I feel I am standing on a hill, getter a wider view than I usually get, and understanding why things are a little better.

Even when several people see the same thing, and hear the same things, they interpret them through the lens of their own experiences.

It reminds me of something that happened to me long ago, in college, that I have still not wholly digested. It is a 3 part story, and I'm going to start in the middle

After I graduated from UVM in 1977 with a bachelor's in physics, I couldn't find a job, so I went on to work on a master's. The good thing about doing graduate work in physics is that there is an endless need for lab instructors, so my tuition was paid, and I got half an office and a stipend. I also became an unofficial advisor to undergraduate women in physics, because I was the only female lab instructor. One day a junior named Elise asked to talk to me. I chased my officemate out of the office, and Elise told me her story. She was taking a required math course. She had received A's in her calc courses, so it was a shock when she received her first quiz back, and had a D+ on it. When she reviewed the work, she felt it had been graded incorrectly, so she took it to her old calc professor, who reviewed it and said that he would have graded it no lower than a B or B+. She told me that the professor who gave her the D+ continually downgraded and humiliated all the women in her class, shaming them every time they asked a question. She said the professor was a male chauvinist pig, but she felt powerless about it all.

Then she asked me what she should do. Remember this is in 1978.

I told her that the best thing to do was to drop the course (since it was still inside the add/drop period), and take it again with a different professor. However, (and now we get to the first part of the story), I had taken a class with that professor when I was a sophomore, and had dropped the course.

When I took a course with that professor, I felt he was nasty & belittling to me in class. He graded my first quiz B when the answers were all correct, citing deductions for "lack of elegance" in my work. After the first class, he said that he would be going over the homework in separate study periods at 4:00 PM. I had to be home at 4:00 PM since my kids would be coming off the bus then. I felt that in no way would I be able to fix my lack of elegance without attending the extra study periods, and dropped the class. I also found out at this time that Differential Equations (required for a math major) and which I was going to take the following semester, was only offered at 4:00 PM, every semester, and that there were no women's bathrooms either in the mathematics office building, nor in the mathematics building where classes were held. Although I had planned to be a mathematics major, I decided that I would take up physics instead, as there was no place in mathematics for me. I would never be good enough, anyway.

I had seen the professor solely as he related to me, through the lens of my own rather fragile self image.

Consequently, I wondered whether the professor was really a male chauvinist pig, or not. As it happened Elise's office mate, Gary, was in the same class, and was a good kid. I asked Gary whether Elise was right. Gary said he was nasty to people, but he hadn't noticed him particularly being nasty to women. However, the next day Gary came to my office and told me, "I was wrong & Elise was right. He was nasty and belittling to all the women, and not to the men. I never noticed before, but once it was pointed out it was strikingly bad." He added, "I never noticed before because I'm not a woman."

So all 3 of us decided the professor was a male chauvinist pig.

There is a fourth part of the story. About 10 years afterwards, I was reading the Burlington Free Press and discovered that Professor Nasty & Belittling had been fired-not for male chauvinism though. He had been swapping grades for sex. His method was to belittle and downgrade the women in the class until they felt scared and vulnerable. Then he would schedule these homework help classes, where he would approach them and offer to swap more extra tutoring for sex.

So he wasn't a male chauvinist. He didn't hate women. He was a garden variety sexual predator.

The scary thing is that it took the math department and the college over 15 years to figure it out.

I'm still trying to sort out all the morals of that story.

 

[Mathman]

^ See? That's why we need militant feminism. If a gang of ladies had got together and beat the bejesus out of him, he might have changed his ways.