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That’s Entertainment?

Posted June 12th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

Does this television sequence sound familiar?

Night time. A woman brushing her teeth in the bathroom. A dark shadow appears behind her. A gloved hand clamps over her mouth. A struggle. A knife. Cut to morning. Bloodied body on the floor. Enter detective, with dumb ‘witticism’ along the lines of “Had a hard night.” Cut to commercials.

Pcriminal mindsrime-time television makes a fortune out of women being stalked, beaten, raped, tortured, and murdered.   All in high-def detail, of course. Programs such as Law and Order’s sleazy ‘Special Victims Unit’ spinoff and the even sleazier Criminal Minds are huge money-making franchises, every episode sold on first to cable and then throughout the world.

patinkinMandy Patinkin, one of my favorite actors, walked out on Criminal Minds after its first two years, calling it a huge mistake to have ever accepted a starring role on it. “I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year,” he said. “It was very destructive to my soul and my personality.”

It is very destructive to all our souls and personalities.

So why don‘t all the other actors walk out? (I know — money makes their world go round). Why in fact does anyone watch these programs? (I may not really want the answer to that.) Why do advertisers pay to be in those commercial breaks? (oh yes: because people watch.) And what exactly is going on in the minds of those who write and produce and air such programs?  Doesn’t anyone in television-land realize that they‘re presenting violence against women as entertainment?

Or worse still, do they realize it very well?

No, I’m not saying that such programs create rapists and murderers, or that they present rape as okay.  Their ostensible focus is on the horror of rape, and at least on the surface, they seem to be raising consciousness of how brutal a violation it is.

Beneath the surface, though, there’s a deeply creepy fascination with rape, one that feels darkly voyeuristic.  So what I am saying is that such programs are a very visible part of a world-wide culture that still does not take rape with full seriousness — a culture that still doesn‘t register it for what it is:  not “sexual assault” nor “sex crime,” but brutality.  Rape is not about sex; it’s about brutalizing women.

There has to be someone out there who is as pissed as I am at this but with far better organizing skills.  Someone who can get at those who make such programs where it really hurts:  not in their balls, but in their pocketbooks.  Someone who can create a campaign to pressure advertisers to stop supporting programs that use violence against women as entertainment.

Imagine a boycott of the goods and services of all such advertisers.  Imagine stickers pasted on toilet paper and antacids and “feminine-care” products in supermarkets saying “This product pays for rape as entertainment.”  Imagine the publicity, the “bad PR,” the panic this would induce among directors of marketing.  They’d cave.

What Mandy Patinkin did, we all need to do. We all need to walk out on this sleaze.

 

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File under: ugliness, women | Tagged: Tags: advertising, boycott, Criminal Minds, Law and Order, Mandy Patinkin, murder, prime-time TV, rape, sex crimes, violence against women | 8 Comments
  1. charlotteoften says:
    June 12, 2014 at 2:39 pm

    In my inbox today, I received a Youtube video from the Campaign for Truth & Justice in Sri Lanka in support of their Stop Torture campaign, and I was very puzzled by their “public relations.”

    In Sri Lanka, women and girls are raped and tortured with impunity by members of the military police, and they have no legal recourse.

    Cara Delevingne, a very pretty, blond actress, performed a dramatic reading for the Campaign during which she read a Tamil woman’s actual account of her own torture and gang rape. There was a warning on the video stating it may be very upsetting to watch.

    That she’s pale and blond while Tamil women are dark was a little disconcerting at first, but I figured this is about human rights, after all. Why discriminate against blonds?

    But did she really have to be NUDE to make this reading persuasive?

    No doubt, Levingne was sincerely trying to help Tamil women. But again, where do we draw the line between censorship and titillation?
    http://youtu.be/IFWkciRKPYc

  2. Nuzhat says:
    June 12, 2014 at 8:26 pm

    Sad Lesley, that people like us who’d protest against the media projection of this atrocity, are termed ‘prudes’, here in India. As I mentioned in your previous post on this topic, respect to women is not being ingrained in our society at all.
    I thought my country tops the list in this sphere, but it’s sad to see this atrocity being almost ‘glorified’ for public view all around the world.
    A minister in our Parliament was ridiculed for asking to put a stop to such television serials, or films which can in a sense aggravate, rather than curb this spreading menace.
    The most stringent of action is to be taken at all levels. And yes, the first step is to ban this ridiculous exposure of violence through visuals.
    Nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 13, 2014 at 9:32 am

      Two things about censorship, Nuzhat: first, it doesn’t work — it just drives things underground — and second, whoever does the censoring is liable to start censoring many other things.
      Plus, I find the phrase “respect for women” problematic. It’s been co-opted by religious fundamentalists and conservative politicians, who take it for granted that women are somehow lesser and therefore need to be set apart as a matter of ‘honor,’ of men protecting “their” women. In other words, such professed respect is not respect at all. It still sees half the world’s population as a lesser class of humanity, and implies that respect is a gift instead of a basic human right. Try turning it around and advocating “respect for men” and you’ll see what I mean.

  3. Nuzhat says:
    June 13, 2014 at 8:53 pm

    Sure, respect should come naturally, but it is eluding the warped and complicated Indian family system. Barring a few so called ‘literate’ of the society, the family ‘honour’ is the most protected of virtues here. Hence the differentiation between the male and female values, esp.in bringing up the girl child, is ingrained in the mindset. And the debased female sex remains so. There are so many aspects of it, that it can only leave you disillusioned.
    Yes, there’s no defining the boundary of censorship, but at least our senses can be saved from the very explicit, to which these visuals resort to.
    Nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 14, 2014 at 11:57 am

      I hear you, Nuzhat. It’s a long battle that in many ways and many places has still only just begun. What encourages me is that fact: that it has indeed begun, however long it takes.

  4. Fatma Kalkan says:
    June 15, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    Hollywood uses women in every abusive way possible in my opinion Lesley. They show women as a sexual object to play with, beet up, sexually abused, tortured etc. this way they brain wash women that they are not valuable! They are powerless! Not to be respected since young age. Girls lose self respect as a result they become victim of predator style man. They accept the role Hollywood gives them in their life. Do you think after all this pre-conditioning there will be many women will be on the same page with you? I doubt it ! I feel that in this country girls are been wasted by this society.

  5. Tea-mahm says:
    June 16, 2014 at 8:27 am

    Yes, Lesley — This abuse is under so many layers as we turn to the criminal shows as a way of relaxing. Hardly notice the reality that is being offered over and over. Thanks for bringing this glitzy darkness to the surface! Tamam

  6. thecausticsoda says:
    July 29, 2014 at 6:11 am

    I think so many of these disturbing trends seen in our society come from how sexually repressed we are all made to feel. The more we silence natural human inclinations for contact with others, the more these same inclinations will begin to manifest themselves in darker ways, be that a fascination with rape and sexual abuse on television or with the increasingly extreme forms of pornography being made readily available online.

The Antidote

Posted June 9th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

The video is chaotic.  It shows a woman being stripped, tossed around, hit, kicked, held down, penetrated, beaten into unconsciousness by a mob in Cairo.  It’s described in this New York Times report, which avoids any link to the video itself.  In fact the original YouTube upload has been deleted.  Deleting it, however, is just another way of trying to cover it up.  As I write, this one is still active.  And yes, you are warned, it’s brutal.  As all rape is.

I know that those who read this blog, men and women alike, will be incapable of watching these couple of minutes with anything but horror.  But I also know that part of the reason it went viral when first posted is that there are men out there who are turned on by it.

Just the thought of that makes me want to gag.  As does the boys-will-be-boys response to it from an Egyptian TV host, who said, with a stupid giggle:  “They are happy.  The people are having fun.”

This isn’t “just” an Egyptian problem.  Or a Nigerian or Somali or Brazilian or Turkish or Italian or Swedish or Indian or Pakistani one.  My first association was with last year’s photo of an unconscious near-naked girl being lugged around by wrists and ankles, like a carcass, by high-school rapists in apple-pie Steubenville, Ohio.

This sickness infects some men, but affects every woman.  Yes, all women.  The Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen took off in response to the misogynistic shooting rampage in Santa Barbara, California two weeks ago, and here’s the formidably intelligent Rebecca Solnit on what it means.

Solnit was in Seattle last week talking about her new book, Men Explain Things To Me, and when she mentioned her unease at finding herself alone on an elevator at night with a strange man, there was a lone weird laugh from a man behind me in the audience.  It wasn’t clear what he found so funny.  Perhaps he simply couldn’t understand this kind of unease.  But every woman can.  It’s the year 2014, and yet it’s still not “wise” for a woman to go down a dark street at night, or ride in an empty subway car, or walk in the woods.  What was most remarkable about Wild, Cheryl Strayed’s account of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, was not the length or the difficulty of the hike, but the fact that she was a woman walking alone.  If she had been male, there would have been no book to be written.

It’s absurd that the onus is still on women to avoid being subjected to violence.  One way and another, we are told to avoid this, avoid that, take care, take karate classes, be on the alert, be afraid.  Don’t go out at night, say some.  Stay home, lock yourselves in, adopt the behavioral equivalent of a chador.  (Don’t go out at night?  An equally rational ‘solution’ would instead be to tell men not to go out at night.)

But there’s an antidote.  And it comes from men — men who really do respect women, and who know that to remain silent in the face of woman-hatred is only to give it free rein.  As former president Jimmy Carter put it in A Call to Action, violence against women is not only a woman’s issue;  it affects us all, and the only way to win this battle is to work together.  I take heart from this photo that artist D.K.Pan posted on his Facebook page after the Santa Barbara massacre.  Women are finally speaking out;  we need more men like Jimmy Carter and D.K.Pan to speak out with us.

dkpan-yesallmen

 

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File under: ugliness, war, women | Tagged: Tags: #YesAllMen, #YesAllWomen, Cairo, Cheryl Strayed, D.K.Pan, Jimmy Carter, rape, Rebecca Solnit, USBC, YouTube | 6 Comments
  1. lavrans123 says:
    June 9, 2014 at 7:13 pm

    I don’t know where to go with this sort of behavior. I see it celebrated in so many ways- our entire sport culture (anti-culture?) promotes it with the objects. Music videos.

    I stopped to get coffee and was taken aback to find the barrista wearing nothing but lingerie.

    All the power structures in the world celebrate their ascension to the rank of power as being elevated to a place where others are objects.

    And that’s what it comes down to, that’s where the trickle winds up- at the point where that is no longer a person, but an object. That’s the same method that we use to teach our children to torture and kill people; make those people an “other” that isn’t human, or that one should do these things to. The “other” is central to all the religions, and is how they maintain their long-lasting violence.

    The mere existence of police forces creates violence. They promote rape as directly as the judges do; by taking the responsibility from people to act human, and making it a law and then placing anyone who breaks the law (or pushes it, or bends it) in an “other” category.

    So, we know that the rapes in Egypt have nothing to do with any collapse in police forces and everything to do with collapses in social cohesion. We know that religious fanaticism makes rape a victimless crime that has no accountable person but the woman.

    I just don’t see it happening without removing the governments and the police and the judges and religious certainty… But maybe I’m just upset.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 9, 2014 at 7:32 pm

      Thanks for the touch of irony at the end there, Lavrans! Appreciated. Yes indeed, women had enough of men telling us we’re “just upset.” Good to see some men have had enough of it too. — L.

  2. Nuzhat says:
    June 9, 2014 at 9:05 pm

    Here in India the onslaught of rape news is increasing with staggering regularity, making its acceptance with apathy, a chilling reality among the young. This has sadly become a case of “crying wolf” once too many a times.
    Outrage, protests, and then just ‘throwing up hands’ in an act of helplessness by authorities, has made these gruesome news items into momentary coverages in papers and television.
    Wonder if rapid capital punishment in such cases will deter the rest of the perpetrators. There has to be a stopping of this carnage with the help of males, whose actions against their fellow “evil” males should at least deter this unforgivable trait of disrespect towards women. Men should hold talks, men should garner support of their own, and yes! men can help in restoring the dignity of women throughout the world.
    Show your brawn and worth in the right place Man!!

    Nuzhat

  3. fatmakalkan says:
    June 10, 2014 at 9:17 am

    Dear Lesley, there are millions of women all over the world who are raped, beaten up, yet this horrible actions of man is not subject to capital punishment in man- made laws!
    Isn’t it?
    But if God made law of Torah or Quran was in effect in that countries this rapist would get capital punishment. There is a dark side of some evil man! It is a reality! And who created mankind knows how violent some evildoers can get towards women and girls. To prevent that God orders this evildoers to be punished maximum dose so other evil man that sold their soul to Satin ( Shaitan ) will be scared to harm women or children. God’s law looks harsh at first side but it discourage evildoers, prevents this violance get out of hand all over the world. One evil man gets killed because of his rape, murder yet millions of innocent women and girls, boys, being saved!

  4. Niloufer Gupta says:
    June 11, 2014 at 5:14 am

    Did you read about the two teenage girls who were raped ,after they were returning home from their local field ,in badaun ,U P , India , defecating- they did not have a loo in their village home-then lynched and tied upside down on the branches of a tree. The patriarchal repressed mindset has to be changed. But how ? Niloufer gupta india

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 11, 2014 at 8:09 am

      Yes, that was reported here, as was the building outrage that ensued. I hope it continues to build. And that many more men join women in expressing their outrage at it. After all, that perverse mindset is not only a danger to all women, but a deep insult to all good men.

‘Legitimate Rape’ – The Video

Posted August 30th, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

Remember how Todd Akin thinks you can’t get pregnant if you’re “legitimately raped“?  Best comment yet is this satire on TV pharmaceutical ads for “feminine products.”  Presented with a megawatt Republican smile.

(Do read the small print at the end.  This idiocy isn’t just Akin’s;  the whole Republican party has gone totally Neanderthal.)

[youtube=http://youtu.be/KtzqvqzBdUQ]

Worst comment yet:  Polls show Akin currently trailing in the Missouri senatorial race by 1%.  Yes, all of one percent.  Way to go, Missouri.

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File under: absurd, fundamentalism, sanity, women | Tagged: Tags: "legitimate rape", Paul Ryan, pregnancy, rape, Republican party, Todd Akin | 2 Comments
  1. Imraan says:
    September 4, 2012 at 4:59 am

    Goodness; isn’t it sad that the discourse is still overwhelmingly dominated by rich white men from the global north? Shocking. I cringed – but the satire above is excellent! About darned time that this issue was resurrected in the public eye.

    I must ask though – and this is just an observation from across the pond – do you think that this problem is endemic to the Republican demographic or was it merely articulated by a prominent Republican because he finds himself in the position, given his politics and background, where he is just that-far detached from reality and thus able to utter such tripe (no offence to vegetarians intended! Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)?

    Though the Democratic Party seems to have become – rather bizarrely, at least by European, South American or other standards – the ‘liberal’ party and a major policy issue seems to be reproductive rights – could the above comments be representative of deeper-seated beliefs held in what is still a very patriarchal (perhaps misogynistic even) society -only that they’re not articulated?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      October 20, 2012 at 11:46 am

      Yes, yes, and yes. And what’s even more bizarre is that any woman other than their wives will vote for them…

What’s Right About the DSK Rape Case

Posted July 5th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Since Joe Nocera in today’s NYT puts it better than I can right now, I’m running (below) part of his response to the egregious Bernard Henri-Levy‘s hysterical crowing about l’affaire DSK (Strauss-Kahn was dragged “lower than the gutter,” his treatment was “pornographic,” perfidious America etc).   Ironically, BHL’s screed was published the same day his dear, maligned, noble friend DSK was charged with another count of attempted rape in France, where his accuser, indisputably white and part of the same privileged upper-class elite, described his behavior as that of “a chimpanzee in rut.”

BHL is outraged — outraged! — that New York District Attorney Vance took the word of a mere hotel maid over that of an esteemed member of the French establishment.  He also blithely ignores the DNA evidence and the maid’s injuries, assuming that if she had lied in the past, on her asylum application, she must of necessity be lying now.

(Word of warning to all women:  never tell a lie in case you get raped, because we all know that it’s impossible for women who lie to be raped.)

Nocera rightly calls out BHL on his elitism.  And takes pride in the fact that the case is in jeopardy not because of DSK’s multi-millionaire lawyers, but because of  the hard work of DA Vance’s horribly underpaid team.

It’s just a pity Nocera’s piece didn’t run yesterday, Independence Day:

I can’t see what Vance did wrong. Quite the contrary. The woman alleged rape, for crying out loud, which was backed up by physical (and other) evidence. She had no criminal record. Her employer vouched for her. The quick decision to indict made a lot of sense, both for legal and practical reasons. Then, as the victim’s credibility crumbled, Vance didn’t try to pretend that he still had a slam dunk, something far too many prosecutors do. He acknowledged the problems.

Lévy, himself a member of the French elite, seems particularly incensed that Vance wouldn’t automatically give Strauss-Kahn a pass, given his extraordinary social status. Especially since his accuser had no status at all.

But that is exactly why Vance should be applauded: a woman with no power made a credible accusation against a man with enormous power. He acted without fear or favor. To have done otherwise would have been to violate everything we believe in this country about no one being above the law.

As for Strauss-Kahn’s humiliation, clearly something very bad happened in that hotel room. Quite possibly a crime was committed. Strauss-Kahn’s sordid sexual history makes it likely that he was the instigator. If the worst he suffers is a perp walk, a few days in Rikers Island and some nasty headlines, one’s heart ought not bleed. Ah, yes, and he had to resign as the chief of an institution where sexual harassment was allegedly rampant, thanks, in part, to a culture he helped perpetuate. Gee, isn’t that awful?

The point is this: We live in a country that professes to treat everyone equally under the law. So often we fall short. The poor may go unheard; the rich walk. Yet here is a case that actually lives up to our ideal of who we like to think we are. Even the way the case appears to be ending speaks to our more noble impulses. Vance didn’t dissemble or delay or hide the truth about the victim’s past. He did the right thing, painful though it surely must have been.

To judge by his recent writings, Bernard-Henri Lévy prefers to live in a country where the elites are rarely held to account, where crimes against women are routinely excused with a wink and a nod and where people without money or status are treated like the nonentities that the French moneyed class believe they are.

I’d rather live here.

————————

Making the same point:  Peter Beinart in today’s Daily Beast.

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File under: feminism, sanity, US politics | Tagged: Tags: "chimpanzee in rut", Bernard Henri-Levy, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, elitism, France, Joe Nocera, rape, Vance | 7 Comments
  1. Kitty says:
    July 5, 2011 at 10:06 am

    Exactly. I liked this so much I posted it on my FB wall.

  2. Bruno HANQUIER says:
    July 6, 2011 at 2:37 am

    BHL as we like to call him is a shame to our country, a man whose position as an elite intellectual I have never been able to understand. Maybe his clownesque figure is entertaining enough that media attention is drawn to him… For me his only worthy performance was when he was “entarté” by Noël Godin.
    I totally back Nocera’s analysis and your reaction. Shame on us indeed.

  3. Anonymous says:
    July 7, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    Dear Lesley,

    Apologies if this is off-topic, but a certain youngster called Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi- an Iraqi, Islamophobic bigot- has written a piece critical of you and your work at http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/06/lesley-hazleton-karen-armstrong-ii.html.

    Could you please write a response to this boy?

    Regards,
    Anonymous.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 7, 2011 at 3:38 pm

      I must be doing something right: Now I can say I’ve been called an apologist for Islam as well as a Zionist spy. I reckon these two idiocies cancel each other out. On the other hand, a second Karen Armstrong? Those Jihadwatchis really know how to insult a girl…
      Meanwhile over at richarddawkins.net, I’m apparently a wishy-washy spiritual seeker (those orthodox atheists can turn an insulting phrase too), unable to appreciate the literary brilliance of Christopher Hitchens.
      Am so glad I’m agnostic.

      • AJ says:
        August 25, 2011 at 6:45 am

        I hardly know who is Tamimi and what this blog jihadis watch stands for.
        After reading the blog and comments there I learn this is Islamophobic blog and Tamimi with Muslim name is another sneaky Muslim haters.

        Theres something very immoral about this blog.
        If Tamimi has to write about Lesley then he must write here, where she can respond.
        He is sneaky and sneakiest are the commenters there.
        Most of the comments were not focused on what Tamimi wrote instead they were focused on Lesley bashing and her other work which was not discussed.

        At some time after Ramadhan I will try to respond to his exploitation of 72 virgin and other Quranic interpretations.

  4. Anonymous says:
    July 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm

    Dear Lesley,

    ‘On the other hand, a second Karen Armstrong? Those Jihadwatchis really know how to insult a girl’

    Forgive the fact that typing on a computer often obscures nuances in tone, but what is your opinion of Ms. Armstrong and her work?

    ‘Meanwhile over at richarddawkins.net, I’m apparently a wishy-washy spiritual seeker’

    Tamimi refers to you in the same terms, does he not?

    I appreciate your response, but what would be really nice is a separate post to answer the specific arguments he makes in his claim that you are misleading the audience concerning interpretations of the Qur’an. Ammunition is needed when it comes to debating Islamophobic bigots.

    Regards,
    Anonymous.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 8, 2011 at 11:21 am

      Obscured nuance deliberate. I appreciate what KA is doing, but can’t help getting this tone of pious diligence, so that her biography of Muhammad, for example, adds nothing to my understanding of the man himself. If it had, I wouldn’t be writing a new biography of him right now. Which brings me to your second point: debating closed minds is time-consuming and frustrating, since the response will always be to simply shift the focus rather than respond to what you are actually saying. Imagine trying to debate with Sarah Palin, and you’ll see what I mean. If I weren’t in the middle of writing this book, I’d probably take them on with gusto nevertheless, and with a certain delight in the fray. But at least for me, a book demands sustained focus, which I’ve been grappling for. This is why though I’ll be honoring prior commitments, I’ve been refusing all new invitations to speak until I finish it, and why I’m considering taking a break from blogging, which is huge fun but not good for sustained concentration. I’ll decide in the next few days (and post on the decision, of course…). If I do take a break, there’ll be lots of pent-up blogging energy when I start up again.

“Fuck-You” Feminism

Posted June 21st, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

It’s a whole new generation of feminists.  They’re foul-mouthed (some of them), outrageously dressed (or undressed), with green and purple and orange hair (or just regular hair).  They’re straight and lesbian and both.  They’re young — in their early twenties mainly.  And dynamite — these are not women you want to mess with.

A cynical press was quick to label a “new wave” of feminists in the 1980s as “fuck-me feminists” (aka, with weird decorousness here in Wikipedia, “sex-positive feminists”).   Well, as the new generation of feminists would say, fuck that.

These are the fuck-you feminists.  The SlutWalk feminists.  There was lots of skin on display here in Seattle on Sunday, and great tattoos.  There were ripped fishnet stockings and day-glo pink platform boots and deliberately slutty thrift-store bras and teddies.  Five-year-olds with signs saying “Free to be me.”  A super-sexy Superwoman.  A woman in full Amish dress and bonnet carrying a sign saying “How I dress does not mean Yes.”  And lots of people with black teeshirts with “This is what a feminist looks like” in white lettering — many of them men.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The radical notion that no-one deserves to be raped,” read one ironic banner.   “Fuck shame,” read another.  And “Jesus loves sluts” (directed at the nutters from Westboro Baptist Church — the ones who picket military funerals — who gave up and took their “Jesus hates fags” signs to a gay picnic instead).

Shameless?  You bet.  These new feminists are taking all the old insults — slut, bitch, whore, dyke — and running with them, turning them inside out.

Rocking and shocking their feminist forebears?  Definitely.  Too many older feminists have criticized the SlutWalk movement for feeding into the over-sexualization of women — which makes them  sound alarmingly like their own mothers criticizing them when they first took to the streets in protest (“I didn’t raise my daughter so’s she could go parading around like this in public…”)

Hey, the founding generation of feminists — my generation — don’t “own” feminism.  That’s the whole point of founding a movement.  You hand it on.  Younger women take the reins.  They reshape it, fight sexism in their own ways, redefine what it is to be free and female.  They make the movement their own.

So what if most of the SlutWalkers haven’t read ‘Against Our Will,’ Susan Brownmiller’s classic on rape?   They get it.  Stop blaming the victim;  blame the rapist.  Stop shaming the victim;  shame the rapist.  You don’t get raped because of what you wear;  you get raped because a rapist attacks you.  It’s not a sex crime;  it’s a crime of violence.

“I’m just sorry we still have to be out here saying this,” said one of the dozen or so women over forty in the crowd of over a thousand.   I knew what she meant.  In a perfect world, we’d be rid of rape.  But it takes more than one generation.  And this one’s going about it with an in-your-face directness that I totally admire.

So me, I just stood there beaming, aware of am alarming sense of absurdly maternal pride whelming up in me.  I was so damn proud of this new feminist generation.  Happy just to stand there and be part of their protest.  And as ready as they were to stand up to any police officer who asks what a woman was wearing when she was raped and say “Fuck that.”

——————

Later the same day, for those with ethical reservations:

Was just in Elliott Bay Bookstore and came across this:

And smiled.

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File under: feminism | Tagged: Tags: "fuck-me" feminism, "fuck-you" feminism, Against Our Will, rape, Seattle, SlutWalk, The Ethical Slut | 23 Comments
  1. Kitty says:
    June 21, 2011 at 9:50 am

    bravo Lesley…I’ve posted this one to Facebook.

  2. Hossam says:
    June 21, 2011 at 9:52 am

    Do cops ask what a woman was wearing when she was raped??

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 21, 2011 at 10:30 am

      Yes, even if the woman was raped in the middle of the night by an intruder who held a knife to her neck.

    • Labrys says:
      June 22, 2011 at 11:15 am

      Yes. And when my daughter, at 14 1/2 was date-raped, they asked her what her grade point average was, too. At that point, I said we were “done” and took her from the room.

  3. kyo_9 says:
    June 21, 2011 at 10:25 am

    Nice post.. as always~

  4. Ali Zaidi says:
    June 21, 2011 at 11:13 am

    I say blame and punish the rapist but do not go slutty, also!!

    • Labrys says:
      June 22, 2011 at 11:16 am

      You miss the point. THe point is people say women get raped for being slutty.
      But the majority of women who are raped are not the least bit slutty at all.

      A grandmother in her 70’s for instance, not slutty! It is not what you wear, it is the idea that women are responsible for being raped that is being attacked.

      I say “Stay slutty and carry a BIG stick”

    • sarah says:
      July 17, 2011 at 4:15 pm

      it’s a woman’s right to dress ‘slutty’, whatever that means, if she chooses to. noone, however, has the right to rape. What I wear has nothing to do with wanting sex – it is not asking for it. If i want to wear a burqa, I will. if i want to wear a bikini, I will. None of that translates into what I want in terms of sex.

      The point is, women are often blamed for being raped due to what they wear, and this is not only ethically wrong, it is an example of an extremely fallacious argument – that choice of dress translates into consent, or something deserving of rape.

      how about we focus on society targeting rapists for their actions, which are ultimately much more harmful than anything a woman chooses to wear or not wear?

      that’d be nice.

  5. Godfrey Teirre says:
    June 22, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    Slut is a pejorative term applied to an individual who is considered to have loose sexual morals.

    It’s hard to rape a slut, they want it more than you do, goes the thinking.
    Dressing like a slut will most certainly create some interest from individuals, whose thinking goes along those lines.

    How does the Slutwalk effort lessen *anyone’s* chance of getting raped??
    Or will this show of “solidarity” somehow make them immune?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 22, 2011 at 6:08 pm

      The idea of the SlutWalks is to stop blaming and shaming the women who are raped. What they wear, how they behave, how much they drank, what grades they got in school, what jobs they do, etc is all irrelevant to the rapist. Time to wake up and start really thinking, Godfrey.

  6. Godfrey Tierre says:
    June 23, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    Mmm. The last 2 items you mention: grades, and jobs, have nothing to do with a rape scenario.
    Alas the first three very much do; they create vulnerability in the victim, and can send very much the wrong signals to the would-be rapist.
    And, what is commendable about dressing, behaving and drinking like a slut?
    Is this the role model you are advocating for the young women of tomorrow?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 23, 2011 at 6:38 pm

      I assure you that “the young women of tomorrow” are here today and am glad to say they have no need of my advocacy — and certainly not yours. Especially since you seem to have entirely missed the point. Just as a woman’s grades and jobs have nothing to do with rape, neither does her dress or behavior. Stop blaming women!

  7. Godfrey Tierre says:
    June 23, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    There’s no “blaming” involved.
    If someone gives you good advice not to step into a busy road without looking, do not cry Foul when run over by a truck.
    The truck was there first, and potentially dangerous.
    Putting yourself in harm’s way is just stupid.

    And advocating sluttiness is just…sad, really.

    • Hossam says:
      June 24, 2011 at 3:26 am

      The point is that men (or any would be rapist i suppose) is not an animal, they are in any case humans, and should really be able to control themselves, the idea that how a woman dresses increases the risk of her getting raped shows that men or any would be rapist has no mind or self control, or reason, and acts more like an animal than a human. I am not advocating sluttiness, but the message we are suppose to be giving out is: If you rape someone because you think she dressed like a slut, it’s your fault, not hers. If not dressing like a slut would avoid getting raped, then this shows we have a problem in how we perceive women. I think things like the slutwalk are not saying that women should wear like a slut, but it is raising awareness that nothing should be taken as an excuse to rape someone, rape is rape, no is no, it’s that simple.

    • sarah says:
      July 17, 2011 at 4:17 pm

      did you just compare choice of dress and rape to stepping of a busy road, as though it’s the same thing?

      How about, instead of asking women to dress a certain way, you ask men to not rape? Could you try doing that? Maybe you’d do some actual good instead of subscribing to stereotypes about rape and doing a damn good job of adding to rape culture.

  8. Godfrey Tierre says:
    June 24, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    Possibly some room then, for better in-depth studies into the mind of the rapist.
    I suspect most of the present discussion is based on ignorance.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 24, 2011 at 2:14 pm

      On the contrary, we know a lot about rapists. The ignorance is yours.

      • sarah says:
        July 17, 2011 at 4:27 pm

        well said, lesley. dealing with ignorant people can be such a challenge – i try hard not to instantly yell, but I admit, I involuntarily raised an eyebrow at some of the stuff he was saying.

    • sarah says:
      July 17, 2011 at 4:34 pm

      Did you know that a woman has a higher chance of being raped on a college campus as compared to women who don’t attend college campuses? interesting, eh? Make syou wonder how much good we do by classifying rapists as people outside of society and deviant – maybe we should focus on rape culture as a whole.

      I suspect your discussions and viewpoints are based in ignorance.

      here are a few things you should look up on your own time, should you have the interest or inclination or ability to perceive arguments rooted in logic, theories with a strong intellectual backbone.

      1) rape culture
      2) slut/stud paradox

      that’s a good start. maybe it’ll lead you to other things such as
      3) oppositional sexism vs traditional sexism

      good luck godfrey – i hope you see what most of us mean on this site at some point in your life – if not, it’s a tragic thing for you and women in your life simply because of the way you perceive women.

      also, comparing a rapist to a truck is is like saying that wearing provocative clothing makes a rapist rape – this is simply not true. Women in burqas are raped, women in hijabs are raped, women in so called modest clothing are raped – it is not the women’s fault that she is raped. Do you understand? Dress. is not consent. It is never consent. This is the fundamental thing you need to understand and recognise that rapists RAPE because THEY CHOOSE TO regardless of their victim’s choices. Their victims are tall short skinny fat promiscuous modest mentally challenged queer straight disabled abled strong weak – it doesn’t matter.

      asking a woman what she was wearing while raped is the same thing as asking her “well why didn’t you just fight him off then?” – that is a much closer analogy than the one you were striving for, because it PLACES THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HAVING BEEN RAPED squarely on her shoulders.

      I don’t normally use capital letters when commenting, but then, normally, I’m speaking with people on an even intellectual plane. With some people, using such methods might make the message sink in better.

  9. Godfrey Tierre says:
    June 25, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    Well goodonya Lesley, always a pleasure to discover there is no other point of view.
    Hope y’all succeed in whatever it is you aim to succeed in, and that you achieve a degree of pleasure from it also…

    • sarah says:
      July 17, 2011 at 4:26 pm

      lol, we aim to succeed in getting rapists to stop raping, to stop this culture of shaming women, when we should be shaming rapists, that choice of dress is not remotely close to consent. We don’t care about women dress, we think men are not mindless creatures who think a particular dress means yes, and we think pejoratives like slut, which, in masculine culture translates to stud, is something worth reclaiming. Some of us would reclaim it, others not so readily – but all of us believe that CHOICE OF DRESS is not a reason or an excuse or a justification for rape. Do you understand that?

      The point of slutwalk is to highlight a few things:
      1) dressing like a ‘slut’ whatever that means is not an excuse for anyone to rape
      2) no matter what you wear, be it amish clothing, a burqa, a bikini, short shorts, fishnet stockings – whatever it is – none of that translates to consent
      3) the double standard of slut/stud – and that reclaiming the word slut in a positive context – why? because why is STUD such a compliment for describing the same actions that a woman labeled a slut is? ridiculous.

      What you don’t understand godfrey, is that we have analysed your point of view, know it very well, inside and out, and can probably intellectualise it and demolish it with very good logical arguments. What you have to back your argument are social mores that are outdated, oppressive, and illogical.

      there are many different points of view within feminist and queer theory – such as – is reclaiming the word slut really effective? some feminists would say yes, others no. There’s also classism to consider, and queer politics to consider – does slutwalk appeal to women from all socioeconomic classes and to those who do not identify as straight?

      we’ve moved on from your petty arguments after having given them considerable thought – dealing with logical fallacies is a cornerstone of any academic or intellectual feminist – and a practical aspect of dealing with ignorance in our lives.

      maybe you should read more, get out there, and actually learn why this is a movement. Go from a place of intellectual curiosity, and not defensiveness, and maybe you’ll learn things you didn’t expect to!

    • sarah says:
      July 17, 2011 at 4:37 pm

      hope you learn a thing or two from these discussions or spread your misogynistic, stereotype-based filth elsewhere, and that you achieve a degree of remorse eventually when you figure out how wrong and ignorant you’ve been all along.

  10. fozi says:
    January 2, 2012 at 5:30 am

    All those skanky men, dressed in their skanky underwear-showing baggy pants/ tight tops/ no tops with their bodies on show etc.

    They’re dressing like studs, studs being those perceived to have loose sexual morals, they’re practically asking to be raped, abused, violated, hit.

    They should choose what they wear with more thought! Watch what they drink, not drink like a skank! Otherwise they’re just inviting those dangerous evil women that are out there waiting to savagely attack, sexually assault and mutilate them…

    ..like walking in front of a lorry without looking.

    Yes, it wasn’t entirely her fault, she couldn’t help herself, you were sending her mixed messages with how you were dressed /behaving/drinking.

    How was she to know you didn’t want a gun butt smashed against your testicles or her long nailed fist shoved where the sun doesn’t shine? If you didn’t want it why didn’t you fight her off?

    #banbaggypants

The Virginity Test

Posted June 2nd, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Sometimes I wonder what year it is.  2011, or 1911?

Item:  former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s legal team is about to spend at least half a million dollars trying to discredit the immigrant chambermaid who accused him of rape and sexual assault.  Presumably, they’ll try to use her sexual history against her.  After all, she’s a widow with a 15-year-old child.  That is, she’s no virgin.

Item:  the so-called virginity tests forced on women protestors in Cairo by the military.  In fact these were officially sanctioned rape, even if no penetration was involved.  They were a deliberately chosen means of intimidating, humiliating, and attempting to control women.  To say that virginity has nothing to do with political activism is to belabor the point.  It’s not as though those who “passed” the publicly administered “test” were released with the military blessing to go demonstrate in freedom.  It was yet another means of repression.

For those who might think this is a peculiarly Islamic thing, consider that Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, with whom he lived monogamously for 19 years, was twice widowed by the time they married.  And that of the nine women he married after her death, only one was a virgin at marriage (the others were all divorced or widowed).  Since virginity was clearly a non-issue to Muhammad himself, any religious argument for it is hard to make.

As for those virgins in paradise, well, see my TEDx talk for that.

The same applies in Christianity.  Yes, of course I know about the Virgin Mary — I wrote a book about her.  But as I pointed out there, to reduce the concept of virginity to the existence of a biologically useless membrane called the hymen is worse than absurdly literal.  It totally misses out on the grand metaphor of virginity, which existed around the world at the time.  As with a virgin forest, it stood for incredible fecundity, for a surfeit of growth and reproduction, untamed and unfettered.  That is, virginity was the miracle of fertility, and in that respect, the Virgin Mary is the last in a long and once-powerful line of mother goddesses.

So let’s not blame religion.  That’s just the excuse.  Nor such a thing as a “Middle East mentality.”   Because…

Item: as late as the 1970s, British officials were administering virginity tests too.  And again, the purpose was to intimidate women — to deter them from entering the country as immigrant brides (if they weren’t virgins, it seemed, they had to be lying about their reasons for entering the U.K.).   And while we’re talking about Brits, by the way, how weird is it that at that same time, the early 1970s, Richard Branson chose the name Virgin for his enterprises?  Flying the friendly skies?

Perhaps all this means that in forty years’ time, the confusion of virginity with virtue will be as outmoded in Egypt as it now is (Branson excepted) in England.  But then of course it’s not about virtue, and never was.  It’s about the peculiar desire of some men (thank God not all) to control women — their sexuality, their behavior, their freedom of choice.  That is, it’s about not about women as people, but as possessions.

Item:  A commenter on this blog, fulminating against Islam with such blatant racism that I had to bar him as spam, summed up his argument this way:  “We know how to treat our women.”  That “we” evidently referred only to men, specifically to non-Muslim western men who think of women as possessions — “ours” — and as such, to be (mis)treated as “we” see fit.   He was, he made clear, a fundamentalist Christian.

So tell me, what year are we living in?  Scratch the years I gave at the top.  If you go see Werner Herzog’s new movie, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (about the prehistoric paintings on the walls of that cave), you might discover that even Neanderthals had more respect for women than this.  And they lived 35,000 years ago.

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File under: Christianity, feminism, Islam, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Cave of Forgotten Dreams, DSK, Egypt, fertility, Great Britain, Khadija, Muhammad, rape, sexuality, UK, virgin forest, Virgin Mary, virginity tests, Werner Herzog, women | 14 Comments
  1. Hossam says:
    June 2, 2011 at 2:49 pm

    As usual you wrote a very well article. It sometimes amazes me how some people quickly forget the past. It is something horrible if it really did happen, a disgrace. I think that guy’s ridiculous excuse “We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place,” shows how much lack we have in terms of understanding of human rights and what constitutes rape. So we are about 40 years behind, i just hope we start catching up soon.

  2. lavrans says:
    June 2, 2011 at 11:24 pm

    As usual, I wonder about how much all of this is the struggle of overcoming “civilization”.

    Of course the Neanderthals treated women better… women were still part of the family. To move into a city requires agriculture and religion. Both of those seem to require hierarchies, and the simplest one is that of sex, followed by color, and then all the other facades that mean so little.

    Of course that’s a bit simplistic. Plenty of bad behavior to go around, but I’m constantly surprised by how much people seem to require someone else to provide them with the rules of composure, of respect, even while the ideal can be pulled from every mouth with very little prompting.

    We all know the myth of respect and virtue. What is it that makes it so enticing to withhold that from as many people as possible and upon such capricious reasoning? Religion itself of course isn’t an excuse- even though many put extra conditions on women and “others”, all of the prophets spend their time treating everyone as equally as possible.

    What turns me from religion and religious people is the awesome ability of the organization of religion to be so consistent in its absolute rejection of the very simple idea that the priests, those who manage the religion, should be bound to act LIKE their phrophets. They don’t seem to have a problem claiming some special connection to their God, but I suppose it’s a lot easier to [i]CLAIM[/i] to be the closest thing to God’s Chosen One on Earth than it is to ACT like the prophet who brought God’s word here.

    BTW- I don’t know how to do italics in this

  3. lavrans says:
    June 2, 2011 at 11:25 pm

    Oops- didn’t mean to post yet- I don’t know how to do Italics, so the CAPITALS aren’t meant to be shouts, just emphasis…

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 3, 2011 at 9:25 am

      I know — WordPress seems to take sadistic delight in forcing commenters to capitalize by denying the use of italics. Awaagh….

  4. chefranden says:
    June 4, 2011 at 2:33 pm

    “So let’s not blame religion. That’s just the excuse. Nor such a thing as a “Middle East mentality.” Because…”

    Yes let’s do blame religion. Where do you suppose the British got the idea that a bride should be a virgin in the first place?

    • sirnassir says:
      June 7, 2011 at 9:06 pm

      Except that numerous societies with vastly different religions, from Buddhist Japan to Muslim Turkey, valued virginity amongst potential brides. This shows that religion isn’t at the root of the issue, since the problem (if that’s what you would like to designate it) crosses religious and cultural boundaries.

  5. Lamiaa says:
    June 10, 2011 at 2:17 am

    you made me cry … thank you

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 10, 2011 at 8:53 am

      Thank you, Lamiaa. Your tears, my privilege. You definitely earn the title Luminous Woman (http://luminouswoman.blogspot.com).

      • Lamiaa says:
        June 12, 2011 at 6:50 am

        🙂 Thanx Lesley..

  6. Ali Zaidi says:
    June 21, 2011 at 8:51 am

    “….consider that Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, with whom he lived monogamously for 19 years, was twice widowed by the time they married.”

    According to Shia Islamic literature Khadija never married before marrying the Prophet. So may be it is not justified to claim that Khadija was a two-time widow before she married the Prophet.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      June 21, 2011 at 9:08 am

      “… is not justified to claim that Khadija was a two-time widow….”

      Oops! Ofcourse you are justified to make this claim but what I meant to say was that it may not be entirely true that Khadija was a two-time widow before marrying the Prophet.

  7. Lamiaa says:
    June 21, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    khadija had kids before Muhamed PBUH we all know that and even if she didn’t we all know she was 25 years his senior and women didn’t stay unmarried that long in that community so it is highly probable she was…I wonder when will men de-sexualize their intellects and truly think out side the box. It is thought that ruined the lives of widows and divorced women denying them a second chance at a happy married life.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      June 22, 2011 at 10:43 am

      My only point is that when you say “..khadija had kids before Muhamed PBUH we all know that….”, it reflects only one version of the Islamic history. There is enough historical literature available on Khadija not being ever married before Muhammad PBUH.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        June 23, 2011 at 6:43 pm

        The earliest Islamic historians all agree that Khadija was twice widowed, but what interests me is this: why does it seem to be so important to you to believe that she was not?

Could You Pass the Slut Test?

Posted May 19th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

What happens now that IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (as of today, make that former director) has posted $1,000,000 bail while hiring the world’s most expensive defense lawyers for his rape trial?

Now the victim gets pilloried.

Her name has been published in France and on the web, where fantasies of her being a whore are rampant (apparently it’s okay to rape a prostitute).  The French gang of good ole boys (and, doubly shamefully, gals) have proclaimed themselves in shock — shock! — that a pillar of society like DSK could be treated by the NYPD like a common criminal.  So what if rape is criminal assault?   Handcuffs are fine for the lower classes, but for the privileged few?  How dare those Americans!  Can’t they see she’s just a maid?

Once again, as DSK’s lawyers dig up every detail of the victim’s life and twist it to make it appear slutty, it’ll be clear why rape is so drastically under-reported.  This woman has real courage.  Most victims simply can’t face the idea of being picked apart and violated again and again in the press and by the defense, who will do everything they can to “prove” that she is a lying, vengeful, publicity-seeking slut.  Like the mob that raped CBS reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square, they will do their best to pull her apart.

Could you pass the slut test?

Imagine it:  every detail of your personal and work life put on public view and twisted into leering ‘significance.’  Every date, every drink, every tittle and every tattle of gossip or innuendo, every misstep you ever made will be paraded as “proof.”  Only a hermit could pass this test.

You’ve had sex before — guilty.

You are poor — guilty.

You are black — guilty.

You are a single mother — guilty.

You have breasts and a vagina — guilty.

You are human — guilty.

How did you even dream of daring to bring such a charge against a wealthy, powerful, white man?  Who do you think you are?  You’re just a cleaning woman.  Just a nobody.  Just another lying slut.

This sentence really struck me in President Obama’s Middle East speech this morning:

We have a chance to show that the US values a street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of a dictator.

And now we have a chance to show that we value the dignity of an immigrant maid more than the assumed privilege and entitlement of wealth and power.  How dare they treat him like a common criminal?  Because if he is indeed found guilty — and for the NYPD to act with such alacrity in a rape case, you can be sure the evidence is very solid — then that is exactly what he is.  A criminal.  And all too common.

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File under: feminism, ugliness | Tagged: Tags: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, DSK, France, Lara Logan, NYPD, President Obama, rape | 7 Comments
  1. Jason says:
    May 19, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    Let’s wait and see what the courts say…. innocent until proven guilty I say.

  2. Homayun Zahidi says:
    May 20, 2011 at 1:38 am

    And this sentence of yours struck me:

    “we have a chance to show that we value the dignity of an immigrant maid more than the assumed privilege and entitlement of wealth and power.”

    Thank you Lesley for putting things in perspective.

  3. Moes says:
    May 20, 2011 at 2:11 pm

    I’m french and I can tell you that not all french are “shocked” about DSK’s treatment.
    Some very few so-called and arrogant “intellectuals” have say so. Instinct of defense of people from the same social class… Majority of our people are not shocked.
    It’s just that in our country you can’t publish an image of someone with handcuff until proven guilty. That’s the law. And the justice system is different. The Grand Jury doesn’t exist and accusation and defense have both the same power, from the very beginning of an investigation. And that is the same person, a judge, that lead the investigation and that has the duty to be impartial and investigate for accusation as well as for defense. In the US, the attorney has all the financial and technical support of the public authority, but only if you have money you can afford a good lawyer to be defended. How is that justice ? Poor people are always guilty. This is why most of people in France were surprised. But not shocked. Just because we have a complete other system (i’m not saying it’s better, even though it’s more respectful of the presumption of innocence). And not for the reason you evoke.

    But it’s true though that for example Bernard Henry Levy, a self proclaimed “philosopher”, said that DSK deserves a better treatment than a dealer. And to hear that was more shocking for french people than DSK’s treatment. But that’s not “all the french”, thank goodness. Just a few oligarchs who think they’re above the crowd and the laws.
    If DSK is proven guilty, we will be the first to think he deserves the maximum sentence.
    But you look so sure. How do you know he is guilty ?
    I won’t be surprised if he was, but I have no idea if he is. I wasn’t there and haven’t seen anything from he’s file. Did you ?

  4. Moes says:
    May 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    Me again, sorry. Please read “his file” in last sentence.

    Also just to say that the day the US will “value the dignity of an immigrant maid more than the assumed privilege and entitlement of wealth and power” is yet to come. But I don’t see it happening in the next few decades. It’s just a beautiful sentence, but it’s complete nonsens. The US is the country that values the most money and wealth in the whole world. The US is build on business and the power of money. Money IS the state and has the power in your country. All the power. You still consider socialism as evil and think you live in a democracy but it’s an oligarchy. The country is run by banks, weapon industry, health insurance companies, drug companies and oil companies. They make the laws and the system. Would the 2008’s crash have happen if not ? How can you value the dignity of an immigrant maid more than the assumed privilege and entitlement of wealth and power in these conditions?
    If only it was true…
    Imagine she was accused of something. Could she have the same lawyer than DSK ? No, she would be immediately declared guilty and sentenced. No money ? No justice. Your prisons are full of innocent but poor people. You kill people by injecting them veterinarian products, frying them or hanging them and a good proportion of them are innocent. They were just not rich enough to have a good lawyer. With all due respect, we don’t have lessons to receive from the USA (where money rules everything) in terms of justice or social equity or solidarity.

    • mary fracentese says:
      May 22, 2011 at 9:22 am

      Moes- Just like in France, not all are shocked at DSK’s treatment, NOT all AMERICANS are ruled by money.
      I might be one of those who would end up getting wrongly convicted (a.k.a. – not rich) …I see what is wrong in the US. While I can agree with many of your statements, remember, it is not the whole country and not the majority of the people……

  5. Kathy Kerr says:
    May 24, 2011 at 12:39 am

    now that parti quebequios is out of the picture we can get straight answers on these topics. men aren’t the only rapists and wome can beat men up the same as the other way around. Also,,it is way past time for us natural born CANADIANS to break free of the mold that UNITED STATES corruption has so earnestly tried to place on us. For the love of God can’t you sexually deviated freaks keep your own root chakras in your own diapers. Personally I am sick and tired of hearing about your disgusting sexual exploits and being forced to re-live my own horrors of sexual abuse. Why can’t you put it back in the closet where it belongs. I hope ALL sexual deviants get chemically sterilized so that the rest of us can live peacefully.

  6. Eddie says:
    June 14, 2011 at 4:00 pm

    Years ago the New York City Police Department decided that the Sex Crimes Unit needed to change its name. The name itself had a bad connotation and showed its lack of sensitivity towards those who had been victims of sexual assaults. As a result the Sex Crimes Unit transformed itself into the Special Victims Unit. Not only was the name changed but manner in which these crimes were investigated also changed. There was an emphasis on additional training for Detectives especially in regards towards sensitivity for the victims of these crimes. Now it’s time for our Courts to under go the same transformation. Victims need not have to pass the “Slut Test,” as you so eloquently describe in your piece, in order to receive justice. If the recent trial of the two NYPD officers acquitted of raping a young woman is any indication of the status quo in our Courts, let’s hope that this victim passes the test with flying colors. Unless of course there’s DNA evidence.

Asking For It?

Posted May 18th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Surprise!  Dominique Strauss-Kahn (the head of the International Monetary Fund, now sitting in a Rikers jail cell after assaulting a housekeeper at the Sofitel hotel in New York), has fallen back on the same old rapist’s excuse: “She was asking for it.”

In case you come across yet another of these dinosaurs who still have the gall to insist that they’re the innocent victims of slutty women provoke them to rape, here’s a quick checklist:

— a toddler in the Congo: provocatively dressed?
— a prisoner being tortured: provocatively dressed?
— a 90-year-old great grandmother: provocatively dressed?

— Abner Louima: provocatively dressed?
— the newest arrival in the penitentiary: provocatively dressed?
— a civilian in wartime: provocatively dressed?

— Ned Beatty in ‘Deliverance‘: provocatively dressed?
— Catholic nuns in El Salvador: provocatively dressed?

— a hotel housekeeper: provocatively dressed?

Excuse me while I go throw up.  More later.

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  1. Moes says:
    May 18, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    I agree with you in theory. Except you forgot one thing : This guy is presumed innocent until he’s being condemned. I’m not saying he is innocent, and that doesn’t minimized the crime that rape is. I’m just saying that that little nuance, makes the difference between civilization and barbary.
    I follow your blog and am always positively amazed by your judicious comments. But, with all due respect, not by this one.
    DSK is not “sitting in a Rikers jail cell after assaulting a housekeeper at the Sofitel hotel” like you write. He’s sitting in jail because he’s *accused* of that crime and is waiting a fair trail.

    I have to mention that I’m french and I always found that guy repulsive, arrogant and hypocrite, that I won’t be surprised if he was found guilty. But still, I’m also convinced that he has the right to a fair trial.
    And I don’t forget the victim of course.
    If you defend justice, you defend it in whatever case you’re speaking about. even the worse monster has the right to a fair trial. The presumption of innocence is what makes the difference between civilization and barbary, terrorism and state of right, fascism and democracy, radicalism and intelligence. Your country has a very long list of miscarriage of justice. Because american people often reacts with their emotions and not with their reason. I understand that, and I feel the same when the crime is so revolting. But Justice is not done through emotions.
    I think I read on this blog that even Ben Laden should have had a trial. Would you give that beast a trial and not to DSK ?
    I don’t feel any compassion or pity with this guy (I do with the victim though). It’s just a matter of civilization.

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    May 18, 2011 at 10:05 pm

    Moes — You underestimate what happens to rape victims in trials. They get raped all over again, and DSK’s lawyer has indicated he’s going to do just that. There’s nothing remotely ‘fair’ about such a trial.

    DSK has already conceded the assault, arguing only that it was ‘consensual.’ i.e. that there was no way a young, black, refugee, widowed, working-class woman could possibly have not wanted sex with a wealthy, powerful, ageing, white man such as himself.

    I think disgust, albeit an emotion, is the only logical reaction.

  3. Herman says:
    May 19, 2011 at 3:09 am

    Shall we execute him now?
    A trial might spoil the fun. H.

  4. AJ says:
    May 19, 2011 at 8:46 am

    Lesley why you think world is polarized between man and woman.
    Opposite sex are partner, not enemy of each other.
    Its a high profile case, so everything is possible.
    His political opponent Sarkozi is criminal minded.

    DSK is filthy rich, it was easy for him to invite a high class prostitute, with kind of money he has, she will even play rape fetish with him, if thats where he get his kicks.
    The guy has a history of abuse, so bright chances are he is guilty again but flip side could be , a poor lady was paid handsome money to incite and excite him sexually to exploit his inner weakness.

    If beneficiary is criminal Sarkozi and his political party then wait until facts are disclosed in full.

    Sarkozi is the same guy who used kick back money for his presidential campaigne, on the submarines sold to Pakistan Navy…11 French submarine technicians were also killed in this regard.

  5. Lesley Hazleton says:
    May 19, 2011 at 10:32 am

    Herman, AJ — I am amazed at the speed with which you turn this into men v. women. And at the ease with which you take the word of a wealthy, powerful man against the word — and injuries — of a working-class, immigrant woman. Now she’s a prostitute? Are you trying to be as sleazy as his lawyer?

    More re a fair trial later today.

  6. AJ says:
    May 19, 2011 at 11:06 am

    Lesley if I am accusing anyone then I am accusing another man(Sarkozi) against this man.
    But still I am not accusing anyone…I am waiting to see facts unfold…until then everything is possible.

    I think a poor vulnerable woman could be equally bought as poor vulnerable man.
    Women have a history to be used in high profile sex crimes and espionage, where they are played as a tool by wicked men.
    If I could agree with you anything you said in last post…that would be
    World is polarized between rich and poor.

Rape = Torture

Posted May 4th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Just five hours before President Obama announced Sunday night that Bin Laden was dead, instantly capturing the collective mind of the world, there was something else on American television that I wish would capture the world mind just as effectively.   CBS reporter Lara Logan spoke out on the news program ’60 Minutes’ about her extended mass rape in Tahrir Square in the middle of the celebrations on February 11, the night of Mubarak’s resignation.

I’m running the clip here partly in shame, because I was among those whose first reaction was to say “Oh, she’s exaggerating, she was just badly groped.”  That is, I didn’t want to know — not then, not there.  I didn’t want the jubilation of that evening spoiled by such ugly reality.  I was in denial.

Yes, this was rape.  Multiple rape.  Rape aimed at pulling her apart, inside and out.  So first, take 13 minutes and watch this video of her account:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/_g0S6UQem1k]

And if you still question the title of this post, consider these extracts from a New York Times story two days later on Iraqi victims of torture (by the Iraqi army, American forces, Saddam’s thugs, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and various militias):

He described… daily horrors like the suicide of a young prisoner who electrocuted himself with wires from a hot plate after being raped by soldiers.

An 11-year-old girl and her family revealed that she was raped by a group of men who then shaved her head and threw her on a trash heap.

A woman whose husband was an interpreter for the Americans had water and salt thrown on her and was then tied to electrified metal bars.  Then: “They raped her more than once in front of us,” R. said, looking down as he spoke. “She died two or three days later.  There were four guys who raped us….  I was destroyed.  It feels as if something is missing.  I don’t mingle at all with people.”

As Susan Brownmiller made crystal clear in Against Our Will (published in 1975 and, sadly, as essential reading today as it was then), rape has nothing to do with sexual attraction.  It’s brutalization:   the forced domination of another person through their genitalia, whether female or male, 5 years old or 90 years old, close relative or total stranger.  The means of this can be a hand or a penis, a gun or a knife or a broken bottle, a baton or a broomstick or a bathroom plunger (remember Abner Louima?).  Whatever the weapon, the aim is to violently, deliberately, and painfully invade and break another person’s physical and psychological autonomy, will, integrity, humanity.  That is:  torture.

Rape was recognized as a war crime in 1949 (the Fourth Geneva Conventions) and as a crime against humanity in 2001.  Amnesty International has consistently reported on rape as torture: “In every armed conflict investigated by Amnesty International… the torture of women was reported, most often in the form of sexual violence.”  But when rape happens in a dorm room or at a party — even one as large as Tahrir Square on February 11 — we seem less able to recognize it for what it is.  Which is why Amnesty International also reports that in peacetime Europe as elsewhere, victims of rape are consistently denied justice.

This is what we need to get straight in our minds, once and for all:

Whenever rape happens, wherever it happens, and whatever form it takes, it is a crime against humanity.

A crime, that is, against every one of us.

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File under: feminism, ugliness, war | Tagged: Tags: Abner Louima, Amnesty International, Darfur, Geneva Conventions, Iraq, Lara Logan, rape, Rwanda, Tahrir Square, torture, Yugoslavia | 6 Comments
  1. jdenari says:
    May 4, 2011 at 1:36 pm

    Thanks for posting this. I’m planning to watch this video soon.

  2. Meg says:
    May 4, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    Let us be thankful for her, that she was blessed with the not-so-small reprieve that her rape was “by hands,” not by things more horrific and damaging … and that she was rescued by women in ‘burqa,’ who covered her and held her safe until military forces could get her to full safety.
    (for those who may wonder, yes, rape by hands is rape:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape)

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 4, 2011 at 5:57 pm

      Just to be clear: manual penetration.

  3. mary fracentese says:
    May 5, 2011 at 4:37 am

    Awesome..and so very true. She is a very brave woman to speak where so many remain silent.
    I cannot imagine the horror for her and her team who watched her get dragged away….

  4. AJ says:
    May 6, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    What a brave lady
    She was subject to worst a woman can face, still recomposing and not ready to give up what she stands for.
    She is not cursing men neither the crowd which should have given her the red carpet treatment for the job she was doing for them, instead they rape her and large portion just stood there to watch and listen to her screams without moving a muscle to leash the unleashed beasts.
    Now Lesley could be a prouder woman because in the end women came to her rescue amongst the thousands men standing and watching or participating.
    May God bless her

  5. THE Banana says:
    July 17, 2011 at 6:05 pm

    Its a horrible story she is telling, however it has been challenged by no less than 8 eye-witness encounters – foreign reporters and domestic activists:

    http://temorisblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/rape-women-stripped-what-really-happened-to-lara-logan/

    http://temorisblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/lara-logan-and-cbs-dont-care-about-racism-theyre-not-helping-the-womens-cause-either/

    What is your opinion on it?

Sluts and Veils

Posted April 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

What does the right to dress slutty have to do with the right to wear hijab?

(No, this is not a trick question.)

Answer:  they’re two aspects of the same thing — women’s right to assert themselves in whatever manner they choose.  And that is a feminist issue.  A political issue, that is.

Because sluts and veils are about the same thing — choice.

That’s why I insist equally on a woman’s right to wear hijab and on her right to dress as sexily as she likes.  And it’s why I’ll be in downtown Seattle at noon on June 19 for SlutWalkSeattle.

The first SlutWalk was in Toronto last month after a police officer told a college safety forum (at a law school, no less) that women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.  No prize for guessing that he’d never heard of Susan Brownmiller’s classic analysis “Against Our Will,” which made it horribly clear that rape has nothing to do with sexual attraction and everything to do with power and aggression, whether the victim is five years old or ninety-five.

Thousands of women demonstrated in Toronto, and now there’s a whole wave of SlutWalks coming up, because as the Seattle site puts it:  “From an 11-year-old in Texas being blamed for being gang-raped to a teenager in Seattle not being able to file rape charges because witnesses portrayed the act as consensual,” that police officer’s line of thought pervades our culture.

That is, men commit crimes against women, and women are made to take the blame.

Does this never end?  It’s 2011 and women are still expected to modify their appearance, behavior, speech, even ideas in order to placate men?  It’s bad enough what this says about what men think of women.  But even worse is what it says about what men think about themselves.  Are they really so hopeless that a flash of bare female flesh can turn them into instant criminals?

Which is where the veil comes in.  Specifically, the hijab (which is actually a headscarf, not a veil, but reason prevails no more on nomenclature than it does on anything else to do with this issue).   Because the veil too is a matter of choice:  the woman’s choice, officer, not yours.

This isn’t about whether to cover up or to reveal.  It’s about every woman’s right to choose.  Whether you want to be slutty or modest, bare lots of flesh or none, that’s your decision, and nobody — not policemen, not clerics, not judges, not fundamentalists, not juries, not extremists, not husbands or boyfriends or fathers or brothers or sons — has the right to tell you otherwise.  Or to force you to do otherwise.

For me, this is a rock-bottom matter of principle, not practice.  Slutty was never my thing (except perhaps for a fancy-dress party), and the closest I’ve ever come to a hijab or full-face niqab was a keffiya wrapped around my head against a sandstorm in the northern Sinai.  But if someone wants to hide her beauty, that’s her right.  Just as if she wants to show it off, that’s also her right.

So you want to dress slutty on a Saturday night?  Go ahead.  You want to cover your head for prayer but not the rest of the time?  Go ahead.  How women dress can be a matter of political or cultural or religious identity or it can simply be playful fantasy;  it can be utterly serious or slyly subversive.  But because it’s still a question in the conventionally ‘male’ mind, it remains political — a fact well expressed in an excellent recent NPR report (“Lifting the Veil:  Muslim Women Explain Their Choice”) on the personal politics of when and where Muslim women choose to veil.

I know the chances are slim, but really, I’d love to see hijab-wearing Muslim women among the Seattle SlutWalk participants on June 19.  As the open invitation puts it,

People of all orientations, gender identities, races, ages, abilities, walks of life, and levels of sluttiness are invited to join us. All we ask is that you stand with us for what is right. We’re sick of being shamed for our sex choices and being told that survivors of sexual assault brought it on themselves. If you’re sick of it too, come walk with us!

I’ll be there of course, wearing my “Ride the SLUT’ tee-shirt (the SLUT in question being the one-and-a-half-mile-long boondoggle originally dubbed the South Lake Union Trolley until some official belatedly realized what the acronym was and ungraciously changed Trolley to Streetcar).  And I think I’ll wear the teeshirt with some kind of veil over my face.  Maybe an antique hat with a lacy scrim over the eyes, or a keffiyah, or a Halloween mask, or one of those costume-party eye masks with ostrich feathers.  Or maybe, even, a niqab…


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File under: feminism, Islam, US politics | Tagged: Tags: Against Our Will, choice, hijab, niqab, rape, Seattle, slut, SlutWalk, Susan Brownmiller, Toronto | 83 Comments
  1. Linda Williams says:
    April 24, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    YOU GO! Leslie. Sorry I won’t be in your part of the world to walk with you.

  2. Meg says:
    April 24, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    Good intentions can often have less than desirable ripple effects. Please rethink the idea you state at the end of your blog – that you will wear a “ride the SLUT” t-shirt in SlutWalk with a nijab or hijab. Exterior cover is not something to be half played with. Nijab and hijab in the U.S. communicate that one is Muslim. It matters, the way one behaves and dresses while clearly identifiable as Muslim. While a Muslim woman may choose the freedom of expression to wear the clothing you suggest, a non-Muslim woman doing so is taking things a bit too far, and the negative ripple effects would outweigh the positive. Equally, only Muslim women should have the right to choose to participate in SlutWalk in Islamic cover.

    • Meg says:
      April 24, 2011 at 4:16 pm

      Oops – niqab, that is. 🙂

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        April 24, 2011 at 8:43 pm

        Meg — point taken.

    • Heba says:
      January 23, 2016 at 2:51 pm

      Meg

      I dont agree with your sentiment. If a non-Muslim female wears the headscarf its “taking Things a bit too far”? Excuse me but you are not in the position to tell others what they can or can not wear or how it in your opinion can be misunderstood or result in “negative” effects.

      A non-muslim wearing it is no different than a muslim female with sexy bright headscar combined with thight clothing, high heels and heaps of makeup piled on her face. And yes while the headscarf may denote to today to the common Westerner or American that that someone is a Muslim, I assure you the headscarf is an Arab traditional clothing.Only in recent 10-15 years has it spread to other non-Arab countries. The headscarf was absolutely unknown, unheard of just 10 years ago in many countries. So associations with a garb can change with time and agenda. Also worth knowing is that many Muslim girls wear the headscarf not due to religion but political/soeictal statement, fashion, peer pressure, identifying oneself as different from others etc. Also worth nothing is forced headgear as practised in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

      The author of the blog is entitled to wear the headscarf and a t shirt saying slut if thats what she pleases. Its ok you disagree but lets not pretend the World is black and white or that Muslims are one big homogenous group. We are not. Non-Muslims have worn the headscarf in solidarity with Muslims females before. No complaints from anybody. Only priase. But the minute it becomes part of the slutwalk or a sexual context we need to be careful? No. To many the headscarf is a feminist movement so why should the slutwalk be exempted.

  3. Labrys says:
    April 26, 2011 at 9:28 am

    The idea that the “proper” world is controlled by men who cannot possibly be expected to control their own sexual urges unless women dress like medieval nuns has always left me stunned into confusion.

    As for veils? I am not Muslim, but I often wish I could choose the privacy of covering both head and face because I simply do not desire to show that much of the personal “me” to a world that increasingly angers and dismays me. My veil would not be to control men’s urges, but to say “YOU do not have the right to cast your eyes upon me, you ASS!”

    • Nur Saeedah says:
      April 26, 2011 at 6:09 pm

      As a reader, I respect Labrys comments.

      • Meg says:
        April 27, 2011 at 9:08 am

        Ditto, on respecting Labrys’ comments. 🙂

  4. Lesley Hazleton says:
    April 26, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    Labrys, Nur — I understand (I suspect that’s why I prefer glasses to contact lenses: I can kind of hide behind them). But isn’t being seen part of being in the world?

    • Nur Saeedah says:
      April 26, 2011 at 7:34 pm

      As Lesley Hazleton say, “she is sick of….”, well I tell u, I’m sick, looking at the world today,…of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, …murders, killings, bloodshed,…I borrow your word “sick” for the chaos in the world.

  5. hossam says:
    April 26, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    I am so glad you brought up that comparison, it haunted me for a few days. I totally agree of course that what women choose to wear is their choice and their choice only. I remember contemplating before on the comparison of wearing Hijab versus wearing slutty as two opposites, then i thought to myself perhaps the full Niqab is the opposite of wearing a thong with the smallest of the bikini top (without getting into the identification issue). I stopped and couldn’t answer my own question, which is: should a woman be able to walk in the streets of Saudi Arabia for example wearing a bikini in the same way that a woman can walk in the streets of San Francisco for example wearing a Niqab? Is the comparison valid or am i going crazy? Another question is, usually women when coming to Islamic countries (or Muslim majority countries) they are asked to be modest in what they wear to be closer to this countries culture and tradition, is it valid to ask women when going to western countries to be less modest to match that country’s culture and tradition. Is the question valid in both directions? I hope i am making sense, sometimes i have problems expressing myself.

    I agree with Meg’s point about the SLUT T-shirt with the hijab. Here is a video of protest in France after the Nikab law. It’s old but i don’t know if you saw it.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8036686/French-women-cause-a-stir-in-niqab-and-hot-pants-in-anti-burka-ban-protest.html

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 27, 2011 at 8:48 am

      Hossam — this video is brilliant! Hadn’t seen it, so many thanks. Best of all: the black rectangles over the eyes of oglers, echoing the white rectangle of the two women’s eyes.
      NB viewers: as Hossam points out, it was done as a protest against the French ban-the-burqa law.
      And hey, relax everyone — it’d take a lot more than a SlutWalk to get me into niqab. Right now I’m favoring a little red 1950s hat with a veil much torn by time…

      • hossam says:
        April 27, 2011 at 10:59 am

        you’re welcome Lesley, i knew you would appreciate it. Btw i wasn’t trying to give any ideas for a protest, but this video just came to my mind when i read the article and thought i’d share it.

  6. sarahk says:
    April 27, 2011 at 11:11 am

    Lesley, I am a hijab wearing woman and I completely agree with the principle you made in your post. It is about choice. I cannot expect to be able to choose a hijab if I restrict other women from their choices – that would be hypocrisy.

    But – all choices come with consequences and repercussions. Someone can choose to drink alcohol – in itself that is not necessarily significant but there are consequences to when, where and how much you choose to drink. Similarly, wearing a bikini on a beach or park in the middle of the day is relatively safe for a woman but to do so at night alone, in a bad neighbourhood is not as safe. I do think a woman should protect herself by taking thinking about these issues.

    I also agree with Hosam that how expats are expected to behave in the middle East is not equal to how expats can behave/dress when they come to the West. But then because the issue of dress is public it is easily spotted. There are plenty of other cultural differences between countries. You can’t have chewing gum in Singapore but there isn’t a spare bit of pavement in London without some!

    Hope the walk goes well. On the principle of choice I – as a hijab wearing woman – would be happy to support the cause.

  7. AJ says:
    April 28, 2011 at 3:22 am

    Lez …..like everyone you also have shared your share of extremism and I think its perfectly normal.
    None of us is perfectly normal.
    I strongly disagree at comparison of two extremes.
    One should be matter of choice other is not.
    There has to be a limit to woman’s choice.
    This thing can go from slut walk to nude walk and there will be no stopping because its matter of choice and specially woman’s choice.
    What would you say if Men ask for Men’s choice and public masterbation on sight of public display of women’s flesh.

    Everything which goes against nature need to have a disceplined choice.
    Women by nature are more shy and more modest than men thats why its a universal practice that man approach woman not vice versa…though exceptions are there and many societies are built on these exceptions but still it does not change the law of nature.

    “Are they really so hopeless that a flash of bare female flesh can turn them into (anything).”

    As a psychologist you know it but keep it a secret…if all the women know this weakness of men, mankind will be in deep trouble.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 28, 2011 at 10:55 am

      AJ — I assure you, as a bona fide woman, that being a woman does not “go against nature.” And while it may in certain instances mean deep trouble for “mankind” — by which you presumably mean some but most definitely not all men — it does seem to be rather an integral part of humankind.
      The problem here may be language, but it sounds as though you assume women are “other,” that they exist only in men’s eyes, and that they should adapt their behavior, thinking, and existence accordingly. Please tell me I’m wrong in assuming that you assume this!

  8. AJ says:
    April 28, 2011 at 11:24 am

    Lez

    I think you are wrong in assuming what I allegedly assume.

    “but it sounds as though you assume women are “other,” that they exist only in men’s eyes”

    Actually I did not assume…I simply comment on one aspect of women which was under discussion and that discussion was women fla(e)shing in man’s eyes.
    Unfortunately discussion was not why women exist.
    I can tell you why men exist.
    Men like to be Macho and Heroic and this all heroism is naught if there were no woman in Universe to appreciate.
    All this pumping of muscles and body grooming for none other than women.
    So now I can say woman exist in man’s eye ONLY and man exist in woman’s eyes ONLY.
    Its not fair to use only one “ONLY”
    I hate to be critical of a loving creature like yourself.
    Love u
    AJ

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 28, 2011 at 11:47 am

      Hey AJ, not taken as criticism (and I do like that play on fle(a)shing), but let’s hash it out a bit more:

      I don’t really believe you really believe this — that men only exist for women and women only exist for men? As though existence is nothing but sex? What about mind, spirit, heart, soul, everything that makes us human?

  9. AJ says:
    April 28, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    Lez again you don’t believe something you don’t wana believe.
    Sex is a big part but love is far more than just sex.
    Women are color of this universe.
    All this pumping and grooming is to feel good when appreciated and this appreciation is more in the feelings than physical contact i.e. sex.
    When you look good you feel good and you are appreciated by thousands of eyes but you do not have sex with thousands of appreciaters.
    So wrong to equate grooming ourselves for each other WITH sex…its all about feelings and feelings covers all the aspects you ask me i.e. mind,spirit,heart,soul etc.
    What I am missing in your response is “MOTHER” which is the heart of nature if FATHER could be mind of nature.
    Mother who nurture is the focus of universe…without mother universe would be dry of its habitants.
    I am glad you are trying to know me more than I know myself.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 28, 2011 at 2:26 pm

      Hey, what’s the matter with mothers being minds and fathers being hearts? Or both being both?
      The point: why insist on this male/female dichotomy?

  10. AJ says:
    April 28, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    Heart is mature and in one central place.
    Mind is wandering in need to be attached and reined in.
    Heart is the focal point of body…mind is not even attached to body.
    Heart is serene and graceful.. all the commotions are caused by mind but still it gets back to normal rhythm.
    Heart is sign of stability and life…mind thinking of new ways of destruction.
    Heart is MOTHER(control) of body mind is mostly step Dad…always roaming looking for new Moms.
    A woman is hard to appease but I have a trump card.
    Mind is as stupid as AJ and Heart is as graceful & loving as Lesley

  11. Ali Zaidi says:
    June 21, 2011 at 6:57 am

    Well, to put it plainly,it is not just a matter of choice but rather a matter of right and wrong. You can choose to live a life of a thief or an honest hardworking person, but few would disagree that the former is a wrong choice. There are so many examples which can be given to emphasize that making the right CHOICE is very important (or even morally right).

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 21, 2011 at 7:40 am

      Precisely: your concept of right and wrong is your choice. Is death-with-dignity an act of love and kindness, or a cover for murder? Is giving birth to an unwanted child who will be abused and horribly neglected better than an early abortion? Is killing someone in war an act of heroism or of murder? Is keeping your head down, working hard, and minding your own business a cover for ignoring and thus assenting to social and political abuse and injustice?

  12. Ali Zaidi says:
    June 21, 2011 at 8:20 am

    “..Is keeping your head down, working hard, and minding your own business a cover for ignoring and thus assenting to social and political abuse and injustice?” and I might add “bad moral practices”.

    Yes, I agree that the concept of right and wrong is a personal choice, but then everything else is also right even the social and political abuse and injustice acoording to someone. Where to draw the line or rather who is anybody to draw lines between anything? Nothing is wrong; not even stealing, fraud ….

    Personally, it is wrong to wear slutty dresses (man or woman; it just so happens that generally women wear slutty dresses). So, I cannot support the slutwalk even as a gesture towards supporting human rights. However, I do support the spirit of the walk i.e., curb the criminals (i.e., rapist MEN) not the victim (which is clearly the slutty woman). To me being slutty is a much lesser evil than being a rapist, but nevertheless, a BAD choice.

  13. AJ says:
    June 22, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    With due respect I tend to disagree with both of you

    “Yes, I agree that the concept of right and wrong is a personal choice”

    Good and bad is personal choice…not right and wrong
    Right and wrong are universal
    Good and bad are relevant
    Right and wrong are absolute

    I will elaborate with just one example

    If whole society becomes deviant…it probably good for them but still is deviation.
    The same sex marriage good for San Francisco but bad for Texans.
    Same sex marriage is not wrong because its bad for Texans.
    Its wrong because its not right and its against nature
    and thats absolute truth.

    If all Texans join SFO in same sex marriage…it will be good for all of them but still its absolute wrong.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 22, 2011 at 2:03 pm

      Oh AJ, you are such an absolutist. And still stuck on the idea of deviance. I rather like the bumper sticker that says “If God didn’t want gays, he wouldn’t have created them.” Same applies to any group of people you consider “deviant.”

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      October 27, 2011 at 8:38 am

      Good and bad is another way of saying right and wrong, really.

      • AJ says:
        October 27, 2011 at 10:10 am

        Right and wrong are universal…good and bad are not.

        Sometimes lying may be good but still it does not make it right.

        • Ali Zaidi says:
          October 27, 2011 at 12:49 pm

          But when lying is divinely good (there are many cases where it is Islamically permitted to lie), it is right also. So I look at Good and Bad from Islamic context.

      • Ali Zaidi says:
        October 27, 2011 at 12:48 pm

        When lying is divinely good, it is right also.

      • AJ says:
        October 27, 2011 at 11:11 pm

        Hypothetically in Divine terms lying may be good to save a life but then onus on God’s Justice, still lying is not right to set as a precedent.

        • Ali Zaidi says:
          October 28, 2011 at 7:47 am

          For every act (good or bad, right or wrong) the onus is always on God’s justice. Moreover, it is not hypothetical that lying may sometimes be right, it is sometimes practical and right/good. I think you are over complicating the issue. I know what you mean when you draw a line between good and right, and bad and wrong but I was equating them at a very (or may be at its most) fundamental level.

      • AJ says:
        October 28, 2011 at 11:12 pm

        I think we distract ourselves by a less clear example.
        At what point do you think same gender sex is RIGHT.

        Though its always good for participants because they like and enjoy it.
        If whole world get into this disease still it would be un-natural and wrong.

        Nature does not change because of majority.
        Nature is standard and every pole has it logical attraction.

        On an agnostic forum its difficult to talk about Divine intervention, perhaps you made it complicated by bringing in Divine aspect of right and wrong…I was restricting myself to laws of nature.

        Going back to “Lying”
        Its natural to feel guilty when you lie but some people do not that foes not make it right.
        Its natural to respect human life…when you kill you feel guilty but some people kill and not feel guilty…does it make it “RIGHT”

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          October 29, 2011 at 9:09 am

          Being gay is a “disease”? AJ, that’s Neanderthal. Not to mention bigoted. And you have some very strange ideas about “nature.” The Quran says “To you your religion, to me mine.” In that same spirit, you might try this approach: “To you your sexuality, to me mine.”

          • Ali Zaidi says:
            October 30, 2011 at 4:53 pm

            Being gay is wrong/right, I donot know. But to say that gayism is right so is homosexuality, that is careless over-generalization. I believe there is a fundamental difference between gayism and homosexuality. The difference between the two may be is the difference between having sex with your partner and having sex with someone other than your partner (that is interpretted by almost all as infidelity). I am sorry for not coming up with a more articulate analogy. Gayism could be by design (which may be ok then), but homosexuality is by choice (which is then a wrong choice).

            As for your Quranic quote “To you your religion, to me mine.”, it is probably the most misunderstood line on Quran. This quote does not mean that Quran sanctions all religions or whatever religion one chooses. Quran,atleast, makes it very clear in the context of this quote that one and only TRUE religion is Islam. I am not defending it, rather only clarifying the context of this Quranic quote.

      • AJ says:
        October 29, 2011 at 11:39 am

        Lesley abnormality is disease.
        Pl don’t tell me same gender sex is normal.
        It may not be as bad as I think but it needs intellectual audacity to call it normal.
        You are taking my stand as religious fervor.

        I am great fan of Freddie Mercury…it does not make me accept gay as normal.
        Heres his last song…none knows except him that he is dying with aids…That makes this song more inspirational…my heart goes out to him.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd9GBtsq-54&feature=related

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          October 29, 2011 at 5:13 pm

          What exactly is wrong with something that is not the norm? Brilliance is not the norm. Honesty is not the norm. Integrity is not the norm. Are you saying that the norm — i.e. what the majority are or do or think — is what everyone should be or do or think? Should everyone in the US be Christian (and all non-Christians, per your definition, be considered diseased)? Should everyone in Israel be Jewish (and all non-Jews, per your definition, be considered diseased)? Do you not realize the implications of what you are saying, AJ? Wake up! At least figure out why homosexuality is so threatening to you that you need to label it a disease.

      • AJ says:
        October 29, 2011 at 10:20 pm

        Lez , actually “Normal” was not the subject..”Disease” was.
        One of predominant definition of disease is “abnormality”
        You took offence on my calling them “disease”

        To learn that human being is born on nature…one does not need to get Phd..one just need to born and soon find out which pole is repelling and which pole is attracting

        Brilliance is goal achieved…not abnormality….lacking common intelligence to live daily affairs is abnormality…scarcity is not abnormality either.

        Homosexuality is not a threat to me…its threat to its victims

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          October 30, 2011 at 8:20 am

          Enough, AJ. I really can’t imagine why you even read this blog if this is the way you think. I have asked you before to put a lid on your homophobic bigotry. Yes, it’s offensive to everything this blog stands for. Do it again and you will leave me no option but to shut you out of the comments. — L.

      • AJ says:
        October 30, 2011 at 1:02 pm

        Lesley I was sharing my genuine feelings
        At least I was not playing with words.

      • Ali Zaidi says:
        October 31, 2011 at 11:07 am

        AJ – if you talk of right and wrong based on how nature intends it to be, then it is totally speculative. One can take the concept of right and wrong in any direction one is satisfied with without having to feel a need for its general approval by others. Something different in nature does not have to be wrong; it can be evolution, which will survive, and spread and count as among the ‘normals’ after some passage of time. Nature-wise was the emergence of human species Right when the majority was not human species? According to your suggested definition of right/normal, the human species only became right/normal after it survived to a size-able population. So if true, then even nature gave the wrong (human species) a chance to survive and prosper.

        The point is the you cannot be absolute as how the nature intends right and wrong to be, unless, probably, if you use some divine measures to judge it. The nature of human sociology changes with time and so will the definition of right/wrong (from nature’s perspective).

      • Ali Zaidi says:
        October 31, 2011 at 11:22 am

        AJ – …. more examples on un-natural is not wrong (always). The nature probably intended that a human be born through its naturally prescribed process of male-female sexual intercourse. However, the modern science has enabled the birth of a child through test-tube medical procedure, thus circumventing the natural intercourse process. Is the new medical procedure normal? No. But is it wrong? Again no. Even many Islamic scholars have clearly sanctioned this way of conception of a human embryo.

        The natural ways of doing things is probably the most un-complicated ways, thus, facilitating the human life to survive/prosper in any environment, how basic it may be, but does not stop us from exploring/adopting other more complicated ways of doing the same things, which may be suitable in other not-so basic environments.

      • AJ says:
        November 1, 2011 at 6:03 am

        Ali Zaidi

        I see synonymity in yours and Lesley’s argument.
        I never said majority will make the nature, on the contrary I disagreed with this notion all along my arguments.
        What I meant “nature is built in” thats why it survives and become majority….things against nature usually have short life and perish.

        Whatever with nature is “Right” and whatever against nature is “Wrong”.

        Lesley gave “Brilliance” as scarce so un-natural but good and now you are giving examples of tube babies and human embryo as un-natural but good for human exploration and scientific evuloution.

        Theres nothing wrong with scientific research but its full of if,may.but…do you think by 2060 there will be less intercourse and to many tes tube babies…so far we haven’t seen any test tube survived to full growth…its good as scientific endeavors but to make it parctice need a fight againt nature….making it practice is wrong thats un-natural and not normal.

        Respecting the human life is in nature of human beings thats why its right and its natural and its normal.
        Killing human being is sanctioned in religions and in a Godless country but to defend…This right and wrong is nature related not religion related.

        Religion is not about nature…Religion is nature.

        • Ali Zaidi says:
          November 1, 2011 at 7:46 am

          You contradict yourself by bringing the religion into your arguments. I am afraid all your arguments are abstract without hard evidence. As I said earlier that ‘what is nature’ can be defined probably in infinite ways. So, no one including you can claim absoluteness of one definition of nature. You seem to base you religion on it being nature. So, if nature can be defined in many ways so can your religion be defined in as many ways.

        • Ali Zaidi says:
          November 1, 2011 at 7:51 am

          “….but to make it parctice need a fight againt nature….making it practice is wrong thats un-natural and not normal.”

          It reminds me of the Mollahs of my teen times who declared the first landing on the moon as meddling with the nature and hence wrong. But now no one in their sane mind can say moon ventures are wrong. I am afraid your claims are baseless, you have not given any evidence or logical arguments to prove your claims. Basically you are just making claims without telling us how you prove them.

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          November 1, 2011 at 9:25 am

          I think you need a course in basic statistics. I did not say that scarce means unnatural. It simply means toward the ends of the bell curve, i.e. the minority. And normal, once more, simply means the center of the bell curve. There is no judgment implied. You might need to study some science too: you have the most peculiar idea of ‘nature,’ and are apparently totally unaware that the natural world contains more than you dream of.

  14. AJ says:
    June 22, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    Lez
    I am sorry to say
    most of the gays are not by design but by practice
    A gay by design is not deviant…its deficient

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 22, 2011 at 6:05 pm

      AJ — you really have to stop this kind of homophobic stuff if you want to continue commenting here. Consider it akin to Islamophobia or antisemitism — irrational fear and prejudice. So please, stop, since I’d hate to lose your point of view on other subjects.

      • AJ says:
        June 22, 2011 at 8:34 pm

        OK Lez
        good n thanks

      • Ali Zaidi says:
        October 7, 2011 at 9:05 am

        Whatever happened to freedom of speech?! What happened to debating on issues with civility?! Paradoxes, paradoxes……

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          October 7, 2011 at 10:01 am

          No paradox here. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. It is not freedom of civil speech and non-freedom of uncivil speech.

      • Ali Zaidi says:
        October 7, 2011 at 10:41 am

        … then why warning AJ for expressing himself? It sounds paradoxical..

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          October 7, 2011 at 11:52 am

          Ah, sorry, thought you were commenting on another post. Good point in principle, but in practice, my tolerance does not extend to homophobia, any more than it does to Islamophobia or antisemitism. Mea culpa, perhaps, but I stand by it.

      • Ali Zaidi says:
        October 7, 2011 at 1:08 pm

        That is the point I wanted to make. I may digress from the topic, but mankind, including the so-called liberals, modernists etc., is a mix of paradoxes, and the biggest paradox, probably, is that the mankind does not know it lives in paradoxes (a.k.a., hypocrisy).
        One of the paradox is freedom of speech. People who deem themselves tolerant do not realize how intolerant they actually are. While they choose to be offending to others, in the name of freedom of speech,and freedom of choice, they cry foul when someone offends them with his/her freedom of speech.

      • AJ says:
        October 10, 2011 at 2:29 am

        Freedom of speech and freedom of choice etc etc all kind of freedoms, all are relevant and circumstancial and almost hypocritical.

        A Canadian friend of mine was surprized…whats wrong with Pork…why can’t we eat it….I ask him..can you eat Dog…answer was big “NO”

        The toughest job is getting into one’s shoes to know him…

        Lesley may not like a talk against gay sex but I am confident she will be appalled at the idea of bestiality or at a man meting a cow.

        She understand the shoe size of a gay but she is not familiar with bestial man.

        regardless, her standards should be accepted because its her forum.

        • Ali Zaidi says:
          October 10, 2011 at 11:07 am

          I just wanted to expose the weaknesses/gaps in her arguments. Ideally what people like to believe is that one can be either tolerant or intolerant, not both at the same time. But in reality people are both.

  15. AJ says:
    June 28, 2011 at 10:31 pm

    Lez you understand me right but label me wrong.
    I am not absolutist.
    I believe in guilt ridden life.

    The story of Adam and Iblees(Satan) in Quran is not just fantasy reading…it has a message and reflect human psychology on two different paths.
    One is emotional, weeping and under burdon of guilt.
    Other is calm cool and calculated and seeking time to implement his plan.

    One is humiliated other is arrogant
    Guilt ridden lifestyle cut the roots of arrogance.
    In other words
    I would rather be hurt than hurt someone

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 29, 2011 at 10:14 am

      I understand, but think that there are many other possibilities. Perhaps that is my arrogance…

  16. irtezaa says:
    October 7, 2011 at 9:01 am

    I do not understand what is with this slut walks? To me it is an over-reaction. Well then women almost always make a deal out of nothing:).
    The cop basically advised the potential victims of the precautions they should take to keep them out of harms way. This is perfectly logical and acceptable. I live in a busy campus in Atlanta and the police keep floating around flyers to us young people to avoid walking on dark streets, staying up late, moving around alone when out in late nights so that we could be safe from muggings, sexual assaults and any such similar untoward incidents. It is just a plain accepted fact that the police just cannot physically control all these crimes and thus we find it perfectly alright, prudent, and natural to curb our certain lifestyles to minimize the harm against us!
    The police are not implying that the crimes are perfectly alright to go on, it is just that they cannot be everywhere to control it, so ask us to take precautions. And guess what, the residents, the liberals, and the slutties do not mind these take these precautions.
    The slut walks have trivialized the issue of sexual harassment and assaults against women. One can certainly take exception of what (insensitive) words the cop used, but to march in streets to defiantly express that we won’t take any precautions and you, the police, do whatever you have to stop the crime against us is childish, paradoxical.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      October 7, 2011 at 10:04 am

      You seem to have missed the point here, which is the practice of blaming the victim instead of the perpetrator. The Slutwalks are a dramatic way of underlining this point. And the majority of rapes are committed not in dark streets by strangers, but indoors by acquaintances.

      • Irtezaa says:
        October 7, 2011 at 10:28 am

        Would you not think that if a person roams around on street on NY with bundles of cash sticking of this pockets and gets robbed, you would not apportion some blame on him for getting robbed. I know that robbery is wrong and must be stopped but this behavior by the person is also reckless.

  17. Irtezaa says:
    October 7, 2011 at 10:19 am

    And walking out as sexual objects is the answer? I maintain that the spirit of this event is entirely correct. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that blaming the victim is totally wrong. But was the cop blaming the victim? No, basically he was asking them to take precautions and admitting his helplessness to protect the victims. I agree he did say it insensitively. But what the women do? They march out half naked; wow, women demeaning themselves by insisting to be seen as a sexual object. Ok, if this what women want, I am sorry for them. You cannot change the nature of things.

  18. AJ says:
    November 1, 2011 at 9:43 am

    Ali Zaidi
    I failed to see how I brought religion into arguments…
    When I say religion is not about nature…religion is nature..which part you did not understand.
    Heres how you brought in religion..
    AZ says
    “So I look at Good and Bad from Islamic context”

    This is bringing religion into arguments.
    Religion is all about God…when I say religion is nature…I excatly meant theres no nature without God.
    How Godly scriptures explain nature is bringing religion into discussion….To understand nature you don’t need Divine scriptures.
    Let me quote here religious scripture to elaborate understanding the nature without Divine scripture.
    Abrahim(as) witnessed the day and night…sunrising and sunset then without Divine revelations understood the nature though Prophet but understood God without Divine help…his story is story of a common man how he is bestowed with sense of right and wrong.
    Hopefully you will take it as hard evidence..

    Then you come up with this absurd statement

    “It reminds me of the Mollahs of my teen times who declared the first landing on the moon as meddling with the nature and hence wrong.”

    How in the name of sanity you can come up with such ludicrous comparison of moon landing and motherless test tube baby.
    Moon landing is achievement as Brilliance is excellence…trying to give birth to a motherless baby is meddling with nature if its not just a scientific experiment but meant to adopt as practice.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 1, 2011 at 11:55 am

      “I failed to see how I brought religion into arguments…When I say religion is not about nature…religion is nature..which part you did not understand.”

      when you said “religion is nature”, that is when you brought religion into your arguments. It is ok to make a claim but to prove it is the real task. And on top of that you do not only not prove it, but also make it sound as if it is the only truth. My friend trust me on it, such attitude borders arrogance.

      As for motherless test tube babies, you seem not to know the complete context. All test tube babies are not mother and father less. It is just another way to conceive a legitimate child. I can almost see that many years from now people like you will be calling the test tube babies as another great achievement just like the moon landings which were not many years ago were considered ‘meddling with nature’.

      Interpretation of right and wrong requires well rounded observation and education. You are not doing any justice to the interpretation of TRUTH due the lack of appropriate knowledge and experience.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 1, 2011 at 12:03 pm

      “Abrahim(as) witnessed the day and night…sunrising and sunset then without Divine revelations understood the nature though Prophet but understood God without Divine help…his story is story of a common man how he is bestowed with sense of right and wrong.
      Hopefully you will take it as hard evidence..”

      AJ this is not hard evidence as you proclaim it to be. If it was really so hard, then most of the scientists would have been religious. Moreover, how can you claim that Abrahim(as) understood God without Divine help. One could say that Abrahim(as) was divinely guided to draw the right conclusions from his observations of the skies.

      Again I emphasize that please do not be so absolute but rather be flexible and open to ideas. This way it more likely that you will understand the true meanings of the TRUTH.

  19. AJ says:
    November 1, 2011 at 9:57 am

    Lesley
    You know a lot more than I do
    That air you carry is your disadvantage

  20. AJ says:
    November 1, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    Ali Zaidi

    I think you are not focused
    “Religion is nature” was not my claim…it was not even subject of discussion….I said it when you bring in religion as a source to explain right and wrong(nature).

    Test Tube Babies are achievement to treat infertility…I never said anything wrong with this treatment….yes to conceive an egg outside mother’s body and then not putting it back in mother womb is un-natural and WILL not survive.
    A baby which is just conceived outside medically but formed a full grown birthable size in mother womb is perfectly a natural birth.

    AZ I will give you friendly advice pl refrain from making such name calling like “border line arrogance” which is your own ignorance for not being focused.
    When I say right and wrong is human restricted not as you said, religion restricted.
    Who is making his argument narrower than the other.
    Argument arise from difference of opinion…one is yours other is mine…when you said it…its just your argument…when I said it…its labelled as “arrogance” and accused as speaking all the absolute truth and for some weird reason equated with mulla.

    Show some tolerance for difference of opinion and prove you are civilized…blaming mulla or accusing mulla does not make you civilized.

    I give everyone just one chance to show attitude..your one chance is expired..hopefully you will behave.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 2, 2011 at 4:45 am

      Ok, I think I have had enough. As far as I am concerned you have been exposed, your lack of knowledge, understanding have been exposed. All you can do is beat about the bush with no reasoning. Your reasoning so far has been an air filled balloon. You make claims and are unable to support them. Humility demands you realize the holes in your arguments and work towards plugging them. Agreement and disagreement is part of a debate, but the problem is you are not debating, rather, you are asserting yourself without much reasoning (and that is arrogance borne out of ignorance). You have a definition of nature that you think is the only definition. Since your knowledge seems very limited and narrow, so are your conclusions. You have not remained consistent in your arguments.

      The examples of the few very-past scientists you gave shows that you live in the past. For you info Newton, and the other you mentioned were religious before then scientists. They were not scientists turned religious.

      Philosophy does not hang in the air, rather, it is based on critical thinking and needs to be explained through logic, not through day-dreaming and baseless claims (as you seem to be making all along). It shows that your ideas of philosophy,in particular, and nature, in general, are based on lack of understanding. I suggest you broaden your knowledge (as I will do too) and re-think your ideas. Rigidity is killing whereas flexibility/humility will enable you to understand TRUTH.

      I have nothing personal against you. Moreover, my exchanges with you were on a one-to-one basis, so there is no chance that I am making you a bad example in front of others. What you do not realize is that your shallow arguments are making you a bad example. So, I will reiterate that you keep your mind, eyes and ears open and absorb knowledge. The more dimensions you add to your knowledge the more you will find about the TRUTH. Take care and good luck (to you and me in the quest of TRUTH). I learned a lot through these exchanges with you. Thank you.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 2, 2011 at 4:51 am

      My sincere advice to you is read, read and read with an open mind. Doing so might get you somewhere close to TRUTH. Bye bye.

  21. AJ says:
    November 2, 2011 at 12:12 am

    Ali Zaidi

    Where you learn most of the scientists were not religious.
    Father of Algebra, Chemistry and Medicine all were graduate of Imam Baqir(as) religious University.
    Recently if we can call any scientist Father of all the scientists was Newton, a hardcore religious.

    Abrahim(as) guidance was not by means of revelations…power to judge right and wrong bestowed in human being.

    We are discussing philosophy…what kind of hard evidence you are looking for.

    Scientists may fell apple towards sky probably in 3080..you won’t be here and I won’t be here to witness the nature changes by science.
    At least you are here now…you can champion future potential developments right here right now with minimum of your contribution i.e. curse mulla and label me of arrongance because I dare disagree with your stand.
    Set me as a bad example so in future no one try to disagree with you….This would be your todays future achievement.

  22. AJ says:
    November 2, 2011 at 9:00 am

    I have been exposed…really !!!!!!
    When did I say “I hereby declare myself scholar”
    Suppose I have all the defects you mentioned…how does it make me arrogant.
    We were arguing because we have difference of opinion…had we had same opinion we won’t be arguing.
    At the begining of the discussion you should had set the conditions that after few discourse I had to agree with you otherwise I would be labelled as “Borderline Arrogant”…this condition was not set and agreed so I felt like hit below the belt.
    Heres the summary of discussion.
    I said sense of right and wrong is builtin by nature…thats why its universal and absolute…I never said my argument is absolute i.e. arrogance…I could have been wrong in my position which you had to point out with counter argument but you failed.

    You said right and wrong is religion related otherwise its same as good and bad.
    An atheist would respect the human life same way as should be done by Muslim Christians and Jews.
    For atheist no element of God…where did he learn to respect human life i.e. sense of right and wrong built in nature..that was the hard evidence I gave you in the begining you failed to notice…perhaps when you say “Hard” you meant something made of solid like steel,wood, stone etc.

    For the love of Ali(AS) I have a zeal for justice…which made me never be unjust to anyone and never let anyone be unjust to me.

    Perhaps between two of us you had more knowledge of all the subjects we discussed.
    Thanks for a nice discussion.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 2, 2011 at 10:52 am

      “I said sense of right and wrong is builtin by nature”. That is where your arguments break down! Nature can be defined in as many ways as there are humans on Earth! You base all your arguments and claims on this word ‘nature’ which can have infinite interpretations and meanings. But you stick to this stance that nature is what you are defining it to be, disregarding any other definitions of nature. This, my friend, is arrogance which is so prevalent in us, the commons muslims. People like you think that whatever you know is the only right, and everything else is wrong. this act of yours is misrepresentation of Islam and i take a very strong exception to it, so I make it a point to tell you this.

      Your premise all along has been as follows: Everything that is against nature is wrong. The biggest failure in all your subsequent arguments is failure to prove that your definition of nature is the only correct one. Probably you were so blinded by rigidity that you failed to read and understand one simple counter-argument that ‘nature’ can be defined in so many different ways. This weakness of yours clearly indicates to me that you need to educate yourself more to open your mind to new and more relevant ideas. A discussion is not just about making arguments, rather, it is about making sound arguments.

      “For atheist no element of God…where did he learn to respect human life i.e. sense of right and wrong built in nature..that was the hard evidence I gave you…”. You give me one vague example and call it hard evidence!? The same atheist also says that if a thing or behavior or an attitude exists it is part of nature, it does not matter if it exists in abundance or scarcity. People still kill each other in the name of their countries, so it means it is also a nature of men to kill each other. Right and wrong is relative and so (by your arguments) is nature, also relative.
      Again, I insist that instead of arguing with me, read, read and read and broaden you mind

  23. AJ says:
    November 3, 2011 at 3:40 am

    “Nature can be defined in as many ways as there are humans on Earth!”

    So the phenomena controlling material world also known as laws of nature…no more laws because this genius thinks every individual is free to define and interperet on his own…first step is to define anything then laws are made…once something has as many definitions as many human then laws should be as many human…this argument is hillariously absurd.

    Genius btw what are your expertese.
    Political philosophy
    existence philosophy
    philosophy of cultures
    philosophy of science
    philosophy of religions
    philosophy of non civilized discussion
    philosophy of no tolerance
    philosophy of bullshit.

    You have been preaching me like Jibrael, read read read in the name of az but you never mentioned what should I read, james hadley chase, lesley hazelton, Ali shariyati, ismat chughtai, minto etc etc.

    Theres always danger when I read something you may disallow as old fashioned or not upto your weird standard.
    Quoting three father of sciences from Imam Baqir(as) University deeply disappointed you as stone age thinking.
    And quote of Newton was also not to your weird taste…you entertained the readers with following gems

    “For you info Newton, and the other you mentioned were religious before then scientists. They were not scientists turned religious”

    Did you ever ponder why I never responded to this stupendouly stupid statement of yours…this is childish and not worth responding..I am doing it now because you are stubborn and literally arrogant in your high claim ignorance.
    I have never seen a child scientist at the age of 5 then later on when he grew he chose his religious/non religious path.
    Another reason I never responded to this silly argument was the subject of discussion…which is not about exposing each other and making personal attacks.

    You have not shown any humility so far…so its the time to call a spade a spade…you are under no circumstances my mental equal…so I must set a rule before we continue to engage.
    You keep touching different topics in between the lines and every topic need truckload of arguments…why people kill each other etc…this forum has no space for such lengthy discussions.

    I will throw a line here and you dare not expand the subject…just stick to it.

    How justice system work in Russia….are they allowed to kill every now and then…how their courts work…what basis they have for their justice system.

    Good Luck

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 3, 2011 at 4:32 am

      I see no point in engaging with you. My advice to you is read,absorb knowledge, and broaden your mind. This will help you better make your arguments. Your rants are indication of your weak knowledge base, that is all. You are hell-bent to prove your point, but obviously are unable to do so because of the lack of general knowledge and analysis skills. This is perceived as arrogance: if you do not have a good point, admit it instead of just rambling on and on and on. Moreover, if in the beginning of all your arguments you add ‘I think/believe’, your arguments will become more amiable, and the attitude of others towards you will also become amiable. People like humility.

      Ok, let us agree to disagree. I am sure if ever I come across you face-to-face, I will extend my hand to you in friendship. So no hard feelings; It happens in a course of discussions that things get heated up. I feel we have no common grounds to continue from here on.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 3, 2011 at 4:40 am

      “….what should I read, james hadley chase, lesley hazelton, Ali shariyati, ismat chughtai, minto etc etc.”

      Since you need to learn how to make sound arguments (I see this as your main weakness [it is very common in most Muslims]), you need to acquire knowledge of ‘logic’. Analytical sciences are relevant in this regard. Ever wondered why we Muslims are lagging behind? We lack the knowledge of reasoning. At present, we cannot even interpret correctly our own books! It will teach you the rules of how to prove your point. It is a very generic tool and can be applied in any kind of arguments.

  24. AJ says:
    November 3, 2011 at 5:26 am

    I am still trying to digest what are common people(Muslims) 99% and where you descend from…Mars ???
    Don’t you feel any shame in keep repeating the word “Humility”
    Condescending against common people and with contempt is your idea of humiity…do you know the meanings of humility.

    I never said what kind of group I am representing here…I am just myself and you should be just yourself in this exclusive discussion…subject of disscussion should be our faocus not who we are.
    You are such a genius you learn from my writing that I am representing common Muslims and for some weird reason mulla also.
    In civilized discussion we usually catch the weak arguments of opponent not his allegience…accusing the allegience means your logic is exhausted.
    In a losing argument against a Jew you may stoop to say “I know you will never agree because you are Jew and I know your type”.

    In this discussion you diagnozed me not as a Jew but common Muslim and then you got audacity to use word “Humilty” at least 5 times.
    What are your litrary skills…theres big question mark ????
    Do you know the potency and weight of every word you used.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 3, 2011 at 7:03 am

      Thanks for correcting me that you are a Jew. I have nothing against Jews or any other religions. So now I stand corrected. Sorry for this. It is just that since you mentioned Ali with (AS), I wrongly assumed you a Muslim. I have had such discussions with people from other religions also and they seem not to have much clue on such issues as we discussed.

      Your weak and baseless arguments, along with your mention Ali(AS) led me to believe that you were a common Muslim. I am a Muslim and so know how we argue. Your arguments followed very typical pattern of ours.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 3, 2011 at 7:06 am

      …. and then you mentioned Islamic sholars and a Shia Imam Baqir(AS), it further strengthened my assumption of you being a Muslim.

  25. AJ says:
    November 3, 2011 at 7:33 am

    Still you are rotating around Jews and Muslims.
    We are people…we are human being.
    We can not be bad for who we are
    we are bad for what we are.

    Slandering is another word to add in your vocabulary.

    Common are people and masses…
    You are neither a King nor a celebrity nor a sceintist…assumptions that you are from Mars is only way making you un-common.
    Your attitude full of humility also make you un-common.
    You are full of everything

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 3, 2011 at 8:19 am

      Your rants confirm my impression of you: you are at least illogical, unfocused, verbose, rigid, confused, and distracted. (these are typical symptoms of a man with very limited knowledge but who thinks he has the most knowledge).

      It is not who you are that made me judge you this way, rather it is what you have been saying so far. i do not care even if you were from Mars (this is hilarious). You seem incapable (due to your rigidness) to even comprehend this simple thing.

  26. AJ says:
    November 3, 2011 at 8:56 am

    “It is not who you are that made me judge you this way, rather it is what you have been saying so far”

    are you on acids?

    What I have been saying so far …
    I am common Muslim ???
    I am mulla ?????

    All this belong to allegedly who I am not what I am.

    I am illogical and you with 7 billion natures is very logical.

    I am not interested in name calling…you are no match.
    You yourself say you are judging me…I laready have said your litrary skills sucks…you can not measure and weigh the words before printing them.

    • Ali Zaidi says:
      November 3, 2011 at 10:05 am

      “What I have been saying so far …”. Let me remind you what you have been saying so far. If you focused I did not need to remind you.
      You basically said everything against nature is wrong. I said that you cannot define nature absolutely. That is it. From there on you have been trying desperately to assert that your definition of nature is the only right definition without an ounce of logic (which is arrogance). But you get latched on during the discussions are non-issues. That means you are distracted and do not know how to identify and address issues and organize your arguments accordingly. Please learn some education on how to make arguments.

  27. AJ says:
    November 4, 2011 at 12:17 am

    OK great
    Thanks for sound advice

Weep, and Smile

Posted December 14th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

This is from JR, the activist photographer and now film-maker, who has an amazing way of witnessing ugliness and transforming it.

Take a deep breath.  Then let it out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vNPT7ZQZqQ]

For more on the project, click here.

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File under: art, ugliness, war | Tagged: Tags: Africa, JR, photography, rape, Women Are Heroes | 4 Comments
  1. Imaduddin Khawaja says:
    December 14, 2010 at 10:59 pm

    ugliness is subjective. i wouldnt use it for a human.

    Thank you.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      December 15, 2010 at 11:16 am

      My fault: bad wording. The ugliness of course is the ugliness of war and the depravity it entails. I ran this because JR is at least trying to go beyond that ugliness. And what he’s saying is that these women are beautiful.

  2. Lynn Rosen says:
    December 14, 2010 at 11:13 pm

    Whew! Deep breath and then some.

  3. Abdullah says:
    December 17, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    You are right. These women are beautiful.

    Women rock.

The Church Goes to Battle — Against Nuns

Posted May 26th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Even as the Catholic Church shields and panders to child rapists masquerading as priests (I use the word “panders” advisedly, since so many of the children are altar boys),  it’s gone to battle against its own nuns.

The Apostolic Visitation currently in progress is not a new take on the Annunciation.   It’s an investigation of convents and women’s orders in the U.S. inspired by the well-founded suspicion that they’re not all Vatican-kosher.   Essentially, it’s a form of Inquisition.   And yet another sign of how firmly the Church has its finger on the self-destruct button.

Not so long ago, outrage was restricted to feminist Catholics like Mary Hunt, whose article here pulls no punches.   A brief extract:

God knows Catholicism has a gender problem. But the structures of power are so perverse as to be dangerous. More than mandatory celibacy, homosexuality, all-male priesthood, and other reasons floated to explain why so many priests abuse children and why so many bishops cover up for them, the monarchical model of power is, to my mind, the major reason why crimes went unchecked and criminals remained in ministry. In a monarchy, there are no checks and balances against power at the highest levels. There is no way to vote the bums out or force them with threats of removal to run institutions in a transparent, indeed legal, way.

Now the outrage is spreading within the Church itself.  Earlier this year, the bishop bums created a ton more of it by censuring the dozens of leaders of women’s Catholic orders (representing tens of thousands of nuns) who signed a letter to Congress supporting the health-care bill.   And then news broke of a critically ill pregnant mother of four told by her doctors in a Catholic hospital in Phoenix  that the only way to save her life was to terminate her 11-week pregnancy.   Sister Margaret McBride, the hospital administrator on duty, convened the Ethics Committee and with the patient’s agreement, approved the procedure.  By doing so, she ensured that the woman lived, that four children still had a mother, and that her Church dug itself still deeper into an apparently bottomless moral cesspool.

It excommunicated her.

So here are two faces of Catholicism:   on the left, the nun who faced what for her was an agonizing choice (reportedly a strong right-to-life advocate, she indeed opted, though not in any way she expected,  for life over death):

And on the right,  the bishop, Thomas Olmsted, who ordered both Sister McBride and her patient to be excommunicated, and threatened to remove recognition (and thus funding) of the hospital as a Catholic institution.

The excommunication seems to be up in the air since it was publicized, though Sister McBride has been “reassigned” within the hospital.   Maybe she’s swabbing floors as punishment.  But what’s needed, as Mary Hunt so cogently advocates, is far more than a clean-up of the Church by women, “as though, being women, they will flap their white veils and make all things new.”   What’s needed isn’t women as bishops, or even, as Maureen Dowd argued in the New York Times, a woman as Pope.  What’s needed is “a new model of church without a pope or anyone else on top…  A democratic, participatory, egalitarian church.”

The irony is that that’s exactly how the church began in the first and second centuries, before power, wealth, and hierarchy took over.   Before it incorporated.   That’s when the Jesus movement was still about liberation and social justice, Mary Magdalene was still the apostle to the apostles, and the least relevant thing about Jesus’ mother was whether she had an intact hymen.

(Postscript:  the day after I posted this, Nick Kristof wrote an op-ed in the NYT with a title I wish I’d thought of:  “Sister Margaret’s Choice.“)

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File under: Christianity, feminism | Tagged: Tags: abortion, Apostolic Visitation, Bishop Thomas Olmsted, child abuse, excommunication, Mary Hunt, nuns, Pope, rape, Roman Catholic Church, Sister Margaret McBride | 3 Comments
  1. Bruce Saunders says:
    May 26, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    Let me add a few morsels to the plates of the lions and lambs on either side of this issue.

    For the lions, I would add to Lesley’s and Mary Hunt’s killing bites these documented facts: Bishop Olmsted did refuse Communion to a ten year old child because the child was autistic and could not swallow.

    Bishop Olmsted did try to shield his diocese from clerical sex-abuse suits by incorporating local parishes individually (thereby significantly reducing the diocese’s assets).

    Bishop Olmsted did send no Roman Catholic Clergy to a recent ecumenical gathering in support of meaningful and humane immigration reform… even though half his diocese is Hispanic and presumably many of these Catholics are illegals.

    And Bishop Olmsted has neither publicly criticized nor made any public effort to change the behavior of Maricopa Sheriff Arpaio, a blunt and brutal office holder, who is Roman Catholic.

    Now for the lambs’ plate, I put these morsels:

    The majority of facts about the event in question are deliberately kept private — for the privacy of the patient, whose identity is unknown.

    We do know that the mother was eleven weeks pregnant, was diagnosed with acute pulmonary hypertension and was at risk of dying.

    We also know that hospital policy, in accordance with Canon Law, forbade abortion — even to save the mother’s life, but did not disallow orthodox treatment of a potentially fatal condition for the mother even if that treatment risked the fetus’s life or well-being.

    We know the hospital ethics committee voted to approve the procedure … but we don’t know what the approved procedure was. D&C? Suction? Drugs? Another procedure?

    We know also that Sister McBride voted with the committee majority to proceed.

    We know that Sister McBride was informed privately, by letter, that she had incurred automatic excommunication for voting as she had, per canon 1398 of the Code of Canon Law. Presumably others involved also received the same letter or a similar letter citing a different canon.

    We know if a direct abortion occurred and Sister McBride is implicated as merely an accomplice, for failing to vote against the procedure in the ethics meeting, by canon 1329 she is automatically excommunicated.

    However, if she ‘procured a completed abortion,’ she is automatically excommunicated per canon 1398. For further explanation, see Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae (BV 62).

    Either way, she is automatically excommunicated by canon law.

    We know by his appointment, training and administrative experience Bishop Omsted is a canonist … a person who accepts responsibility for upholding canon law.

    We know too that Bishop Olmsted’s public statement was prompted by an incendiary newspaper report that ignited the controversy and the Bishop’s public statement did not mention Sister McBride directly — or any person.

    We know that at least one knowledgeable commentator has written that the Bishop wanted to deal with the matter privately, with a desire to protect the reputations and privacy of those involved. His public statement was meant only to acknowledge than an abortion contrary to Canon Law had in fact taken place in a Catholic hospital.

    (It is not inconceivable that the sent letter(s) were matters of form and could have been allowed to disappear into files if the situation had not been made public and escalated.)

    We know too, if we have read Bishop Olmsted’s ‘columns,’ that he deeply agrees with the Church’s position on the essentiality of all human life. In his piece, “Why We Won’t Remain Silent,” he wrote that when it is lawful to destroy human life, “Those who don’t oppose a culture of deaths may find themselves resorting to death as a solution.” As a church leader who believes in The Gospel of Life,’ Olmsted is willing to stand up every time life is threatened. {words from John Paul II’s encyclical are borrowed here)

    What about the Bishop as a person? What about his other beliefs? A person interested in this topic might do well to look into the beliefs of the Jesus Caritas Frtaternity of Priests to which he belongs, and to the writings and morality exhibited in the life of the fraternity’s hero and founder, Charles de Foucauld. A Nazi-minded lot this isn’t.

    Whose right then? The lambs or the lions at this table?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 26, 2010 at 7:01 pm

      You mean the bishop’s complaining that they left him no choice? That’s rich. In fact he should be down on his knees in gratitude to McBride. If the hospital had ingored medical advice and let the patient die, they’d be facing a murder charge now.

  2. Nancy McClelland says:
    May 27, 2010 at 7:42 pm

    “Before it incorporated…. when the Jesus movement was still about liberation and social justice, Mary Magdalene was still the apostle to the apostles,” — I love reading your blog!

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