Black Woman and self defense

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For women, part of the tension around this topic is that female gun owners are marginalized in a feminist culture that promotes unarmed resistance and “clean” fighting techniques. These send the message that as long as a woman does not have a lethal means of protecting herself, she is still feminine and worthy of “real” protection—either from a man, or from the police. I grew up with the notion that self-defense achieved via martial arts, pepper spray, and the biggest keys on the key ring are how women combat sexual assault. Movies, media, and college self-defense classes reinforced the emphasis on clean fighting as the feminist way. And as I got older, my reporting on public safety in Texas led me to stories about pink personal Tasers and women involved in restorative justice—but never to women (rape survivors or not) who had decided to use more assertive means to protect themselves. To be a gun-owning feminist, to prepare to protect oneself against two of the most frightening enemies of female-identified people—rape and/or domestic violence—still strikes at the heart of what could be described as a feminist identity crisis, wherein women oppress each other with our inability to make room for alternative models of self-protection."

In the mainstream of our society, Gun issues are generally portrayed as southern white gun totting conservatives (or even white crazy lone wolf maniacs) versus northern white liberals demanding restrictions and regulations on gun ownership. Most commonly, the conversation about gun ownership centers around the "right" to a gun granted by the constitution or the violence generated by guns. The later either comes down from conservative arguments that gun restrictions don't limit gun deaths, just keep people from being able to protect themselves from criminals while liberals argue that they do lessen violent gun crime. For both groups, the overriding desire for guns or gun control is the limitation of crime and especially the vulnerability of "law-abiding citizens". The class tension between those who do well in our current social structure and those who lose is just under the surface.

Violence between law, corporate security forces and workers attempting to unionize was rampant in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the most famous conflicts was dubbed " The Battle of Blair Mountain". where thousands of unionizing workers, cops and corporate private cops clashed. by the end of the conflict about one million round of bullets had been fired. Since the new deal , which was largely won by union (and communist) organizing, and the purging of radicals from the union movement clashes (and the need to arm oneself against your boss) has basically disappeared. In it's place, there is rashes of work place incidents that mainstream society interprets as random acts of crazy people (see Mark Ames's wonderful book "Going Postal"). The right to arm one's self was a very real need for workers in the past (and arguably is one people have neglected since the second half of the twentieth century)

There is yet another alternative history of gun issues. This one revolving around the history of race in america. One of the first post reconstruction laws banned the ownership of guns by minorities. Weapons have historically been used to terrorize black communities and people, but also to fight back. In places where the police may be the racists you need the most protection from, a right to a gun is of profound importance for self defense. For typical white liberals, police are an absolute protection. The idea that one may need to seek protection from someone that isn't the state is anathema. As a result the conflicts between minorities and the police become difficult to understand. The idea that cops may have an unambiguously negative effect on certain groups and unjustly harass them at an institutional level is uncomfortable or difficult to accept. Black woman have especially been left out of the limelight (historically exemplified by Sojourner Truth's speech "Ain't i a woman?") and their need of protection from men, whether white or not, has been ignored.

Works Cited

Ames, Mark. Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion : From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and beyond. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull, 2005. Print.

Ayers, H., Rothrock, Z. and King, K. (2006) Archaeological Investigations of the Battle of Blair Mountain: May 13 to November 19, 2006, on file (unpublished)

Sanders, J. Victoria. "Target Market." Bitch Media. Web. 01 May 2012. <http://bitchmagazine.org/article/target-market>.

The horror of HBO's "Girls"

 

"The backlash against the show has been mainly about the all-whiteness of the cast, the way there are no people in color in Lena Dunham’s NYC except bit-part, background workers here and there. Personally I think people of color have dodged a bullet, and should celebrate their own non-representation in this TV-mumblecore hellscape. While this show slimes along, I like to imagine the whole rest of mixed-race NYC having a terrific time everywhere that Lena Dunham and her friends are not, letting Dunhamites move around in a permanent bubble of privileged-white-girl malevolence, shunned by all decent people

In response to the criticism about the show’s blinding whiteness, one of the Girls writers, Lesley Arfin, tweeted sarcastically: “What really bothered me most about [the movie] Precious was that there was no representation of ME.”

HBO's Girls is the latest attempt to create a "realistic" world that upper crust white liberals can identify with. However, like most shows of this nature, it is not recreating what the "world" is like or "life" is like, but simply how these people perceive, or wish to perceive, it. One of the most glaring results of this has been the complete lack of non-white characters in the pilot episode except for, of course, a homeless man. This would be one thing if this was the community in which these characters lived in, but the brooklyn art scene is known for being quite racially mixed. It has been common among (wealthy) liberals in recent years to proclaim that they don't "see" race. Normally this is meant as some brave post-racial society declaration, but as incidents like these accumulate it might be better to view them as an admission of blindness.

People in this world have very little clue how life works for the vast majority of the people around them, and because of that they are only able to frame what they do in terms of their innate talent, rather then their luck or privilege of being born to certain people at a certain place at a certain time. In addition, because they have the financial (read parental) resources to pursue unpaid internships and other such (initially) unprofitable activities (see Ross Perlin's recent excellent book "Intern Nation"), effort and "skill" is still tangentially connected to their success. It's easy to see from that myopic point of view why they are able to presume that those who don't have their success are simply not working hard enough. This point of view also white washes (in a very literal way) the world around them. A combination of their racial and class position allows them to ignore the issue of race and proclaim a strange kind of  "equality" between groups (hence the odd tweet above that equated the movie precious to the "black" experience, therefor justifying her portrayal of the "white woman" experience).

A major part of racial and class inequality (and it's visceral sting) is the ability of those who control our cultural institutions (like news media, television, movies etc) to paper over them and pretend they don't exist. Shows like Girls are especially harmful because they aim to create a "realistic" world, and in attempting to do so end up even further entrenching the ignorance of racial and class issues they don't (or even can't) understand.

Works Cited

Jones, Eileen. "The Horror of HBO's Girls." The EXiled. The EXiled. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://exiledonline.com/the-horror-of-hbos-girls/>.

 

Perlin, Ross. Intern Nation: Earning Nothing and Learning Little in the Brave New Economy. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2012. Print.

Vajazzles and other depressing forms of commodified patriarchy

"It's a sexist world. We just live in it. For women in this world, the choice not to convert our bodies into a tool for the beauty industry to exploit is the one that's seen as odd, different, and weird. For us, the simple choice not to invest the time, money, and concern into shaving our armpits is the one that marks us as somehow less of a real woman. But really, the choice not to shave is the one that requires more energy for women, because we stand to be dismissed as dirty, masculine, man-hating hippies if we abstain. When the "woman's choice!" advocates argue that deciding to Vajazzle or not Vajazzle—for that truly is the question—is just a matter of personal taste, they are putting their fingers in their ears and talking really, really loudly in an attempt to deny the culture in which these choices are made."

Sexuality has been an essential battling ground for human society. The definition and conception of gender (and it's relation to sexuality) is a prime way of deriving conflict and inequalities between large groups of people. The cultural and social evolution of gender and gender roles helps determine the balance of power between genders (or even if there is a conflict generating a struggle making the concept of a "balance of power" operative). This battle has taken different forms over different societies and different time periods. Since the origins of capitalism (which is controversial but can be placed to around the late 14th century), this battle hand entered a new battlefield: the area of commodities. Within this context, it is very logical for capitalists to generate products that are derived from and reinforce gender inequality.

From hair products, to salons, to beauty products and the differences between gendered clothing, gender is something that is sold and resold. It is also highly profitable. In addition, the people who make the business decisions surrounding the production of these products have an interest (besides economic) to reproduce these inequalities (or the process of moving through the hierarchy of a corporation has weeded out any desire to confront these issues). Products that directly relate to sex have been very popular since the sexual revolution of the second half of the twentieth century. One could almost view it as a reaction to feminism and the kind of sexual revolution feminists were originally discussing.Things like "waxing" one's genitalia is something that has gone from exotic, to something that is "expected" in many quarters of our society

A new product that threatens to go through this transformation is "vajazzling". a prerequisite of this product is "waxing". Essentially, this is simply adhesive attaching jewels to one's crotch (see the picture above from the vajazzling website). It only lasts a maximum of 5 days and may start causing irritation and such if your hair grows back quickly. As with the beginning of many of these products, it has gotten a huge reaction from woman and has been denounced widely (see the newspaper blog cited above for example). It is also, however popular with some people (and even has a celebrity endorsement). Notice how this product, like many feminine products, involves the performance of femininity rather then being masculine (which usually involves no action eg. growing body hair out). This product, like many products reinforcing gender inequalities threatens to become more ubiquitous, and thus more difficult for feminists and anti-sexists to deal with.

Works cited.

Hess, Amanda. "The Problem With Defending The Sacred Choice to Vajazzle." Washington City Paper. Web. 01 May 2012. <http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/03/15/the-problem-with-defending-the-sacred-choice-to-vajazzle/>.

"Digging for Dirt with Geraldo and Jenny—How talk shows pathologize female sexuality"

"Talk shows are the scariest thing on the planet today. You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you? Think about it: not only are they the lowest common denominator of American pop culture, but they’re also—because they’re in the form of “real” people talking about their “real” lives—taken to be some measure of truth. A talk show pretends to be a window opened by the host; the audience thinks that it’s seeing a clear, undistorted reality. But the view is anything but real—hosts, guest experts, and audience members all inject their own views of the truth into the words of the panelists, making the shows more like funhouse mirrors than windows. Talk shows are powerful propaganda, often masking a conservative, reactionary, restrictive worldview with an earnest desire to help, or a simple voyeurism. The host is always in control of the discourse, and she can run roughshod over what the guests are saying—by not listening, by twisting words to fit a preconceived notion of panelists’ behavior, by putting words into the panelists’ mouths.

When the topic is young women and sex, this kind of moralizing cultural static gets louder and louder. Take, for example, a Geraldo episode called “Teen Sex for Status: These Girls Are Out of Control,” and Jenny Jones, “My Teen Daughter Is Too Promiscuous.” The shows come pre-packaged with titles and the hosts’ viewpoints; the experts come with agendas; audience members come with their own rigid ideas about acceptable behavior. In the parallel universe that is the talk show, like almost everywhere else, female sexual agency hides in plain sight. It can’t be acknowledged—even when it’s being spoken about and demonstrated. When panelists contradict preconceived notions—when they declare that they like the way sex feels, that they fuck just for the hell of it, when they are honest about their erotic lives—their words are willfully misinterpreted and ignored by an audience that must, for its own comfort, erase the reality of female pleasure. And because of the lack of a culturally understood language of female sexual pleasure, it’s even harder for the panelists to express or defend themselves. The problem is not simply that individual girls get insulted and ignored by these particular episodes of these particular shows, but that huge chunks of our entire culture are built on the repression of female sexuality, and these shows are a symptom and a demonstration of that sad fact—and a mode of perpetuating it."

Sexuality is something that have always been regulated by societies. What is unique about today is that people feel atomized and alone. People often don't really know their neighbors, and often people don't connect with their co-workers. As such, the development of their thoughts on gender and sexuality largely happens within their own homes, or in the context of the media presentation of these things. The mass (commodified) culture is the dominant institution in our thinking on these issues. In many ways mass culture is our version of the medieval catholic church. I mean that in the sense that our moral and non-moral beliefs get formed in the context of what this media tells us.

The "talk show" is a perfect example. In a talk show, a personality who is an charge (the show is often eponymously named after them eg "oprah", "ellen" or "maury") guides the audience (in the room and at home) through celebrities, general interest stories but most of all, the socially marginal. Especially shows like "Springer", "Maury" etc feed off of presenting an exaggerated and (explicitly deplorable) form of human behavior. For an audience member at these shows, one really doesn't have the option not to cheer and basically follow the personality's line (I once attended the  Steve Wilkos show). One of the biggest topics these shows thrive on is female sexuality.

Female sexuality is problematic and contradictory in our current society. The sexual revolution had an enormous impact on female sexuality. Talk shows can be seen as a reaction. Often times these shows express purpose is to denounce female sexuality and young female sexuality. These shows tend to be attached (artificially or "organically") to what is looked at in some circles as an "old fashioned" view of sexuality. Many of these shows claim to have a general critique of teenager sexuality, but most of the people they confront are female teenagers. Because these shows are framed around particular personalities, those personalities (and their hand selected "experts) is able to tell their "guest's" story, no matter how their guest tells their story.To repeat Jarvis's critique: "The problem is not simply that individual girls get insulted and ignored by these particular episodes of these particular shows, but that huge chunks of our entire culture are built on the repression of female sexuality, and these shows are a symptom and a demonstration of that sad fact—and a mode of perpetuating it."


Works cited

Jarvis, Lisa. "Talk Shows." Bitch Media. Web. 01 May 2012. <http://bitchmagazine.org/article/talkshows>.

the "volcker shock"

In 1979 President Carter appointed To the federal reserve Paul Volcker. At the time his appointment was seen as part and parcel with Carter's "austerity" program (austerity is generally seen as reducing spending, increasing taxes and being "less accommodating" to private enterprise. Increasing interest rates is what the third point generally means. I will return to this later). In the mainstream economics before the 1970's, a curve called the "Phillips curve" purported to explain that their was a determinate relationship between inflation and unemployment. That is, when the rate of inflation goes up, the rate of unemployment was supposed to go down a certain amount and vice versa. The "stagflation" (ie high levels of unemployment and inflation) of the 1970's completely exploded this view.

In it's place (whether merited or not) Milton Friedman came to prominence with "monetarism". His basic idea was that money is "neutral" in the long run ie it doesn't effect any real variables (like employment, distribution of output etc. see earlier post for a differing view). the basic equation monetarists use to explain this idea is MV=PQ. In this equation M is money (as in cash and bank deposits), V is velocity or how much money circulates in a given period of time, P is the level of prices and Q is the amount of output produced. Milton Friedman argued that velocity was basically constant and in the long run the economy tended towards full employment (the unemployment that did happen was caused by inefficient labor markets ie unemployment insurance and unions). Because of this, it was easy for him to draw the line of causation from money to prices. In other words growth in the "money supply" caused growth in the rate of price increases (look at this earlier post for a more detailed explanation and a reverse the causation argument).

Back to Volcker. He was largely seen as implementing Friedman's agenda. he was to lower, the rate of growth of prices by lowering the rate of growth of money. In practice, this meant a lot of volatility in interest rates (if you target interest rates, you have to accept the level of bank reserves and vice versa).Note also that Friedman declared that labor unions were making labor markets more inefficient and thus restricting output (and creating unemployment). Marxists (and other analysts) such as Doug Henwood argue that the “Volcker shock” was primarily aimed at breaking the power of labor. It's also notable that average people were not involved in this battle ideas. Workers were only a “problem” that needed to be solved.

“Humans are inherently Greedy”

The above statement says very little. It's implications depend on how the author defines “inherently” and the implications they claim come from this assertion. What is more interesting, and more telling, is how this statement is often used. It is commonly asserted in the context of thinking about a different (and possibly better society). For those who respond in this fashion, what they are implicitly saying (and often explicitly say later) is that human “nature” blocks us off from better alternatives then our current society. For those who make this four word statement though, all of that exposition is perfectly obvious.

In contrast, if I were to say “Humans are inherently loving”, it would take lots of exposition to get people to understand the ancillary ideas, let alone understand it as a defense of visions of alternative societies.Why is that? why is this particular propensity (passion in Adam Smith's framework) considered the dividing line between our society and any other better option? No one I know (Adam Smith doesn't count) has ever argued that a division of labor is unsustainable because Humans are inherently intelligent.

Greed doesn't justify or condemn any society. Neither does any other emotion or human propensity. Still, why do people think it does? Marx Gives us an interesting suggestion ( which i find compelling) in The German Ideology: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force". In this view, what the people who control society and regulate it's ability to reproduce itself, are able to shape the ideology of the entire society.

I find Marx's argument compelling, especially in light of the alphabet soup of corporate and wealthy funded "think tanks", corporate funded universities and programs. Not to mention Neoclassical economics itself.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress, 1976. Print.

Rationality as a justification of social inequality

Rational choice theory is a branch of thinking ever omnipresent in the social sciences. It is especially dominant in economics and many of the adherents in other disciplines have spilled over from economics (e.g Gary Becker, and Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt). As could be noted by the use of the term “choice” it a theory of human action. The theorists are not attempting to explain the thoughts, feelings and emotions of People. They purport to explain why they do what they do (at least in the “economic” realm). In addition, their conception of rationality is more specific and different then average person’s definition Duncan Foley explains it like this in his piece Rationality and ideology:

Economists, however, have come to define rationality in a much narrower sense. The economist’s rational decision maker optimizes, that is, pursues not just any action that promotes a goal, but the action that best promotes the goal. The economist’s rational decision maker processes information according to the procedures of Bayesian statistics. Furthermore, the goals the economist’s rational decision maker pursues have to be reducible to the direct consumption of material goods and services. This is a “rationality of the belly” (which some people might reasonably regard as being rather irrational).

This may seem absurd on it's face; on a moment's reflection it is easy to recognize that people don't behave like this. The defense however, is easy (but strangely brilliant) and was made over half a century ago by Milton Friedman:

Let the apparent immediate determinant of business behaviour be anything at all—habitual reaction, random chance, or whatnot. Whenever this determinant happens to lead to behaviour consistent with rational and informed maximization of returns, the business will prosper and acquire resources with which to expand; whenever it does not, the business will tend to lose resources and can be kept in existence only by the addition of resources from outside.

What he is essentially saying is that people have no agency. Actors may have differing motivations but as soon as they start to deal with the problems of “scarcity” and the “economy” they will encounter competition and behave “as if” they are rational “utility maximizing” people. The “natural” processes of economies (Duncan Foley suggests that in Neoclassical economics these processes are determined in a Hobbesian/Lockean/Rawlsian “veil of ignorance”). Even when leaving work and production and entering the world of “leisure”, agents have no agency since their preferences are predetermined. Note that since rational, utility maximizing individuals require perfect information, complete markets and definite measurements of all elements of life that provide “utility”, any move away from Capitalism is rejected as almost perverse. Further, redistribution downwards is considered “inefficient” and “supoptimal” because it may result in less total utility being available (this is called pareto optimality). In this view, it is less efficient for a poor person to have 1 dollar then for Donald Trump to have 3. All that matters is that the better off **could** compensate the worse off, even if they never do. In it's purest form, Rational Choice theory is a full throated defense of capitalism that argues against even the mildest forms of redistribution.

Foley, Duncan. "Rationality and Ideology in Economics." World Political Economy Graduate Class. New School For Social Research, New York City. 27 Mar. 2012. Lecture.

Friedman, Milton. "The Methodology of Positive Economics." Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1953. Print.