46. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

This is the reason why I recommend the list as a must read for every men!

“….The Stepford Wife image that drove previous generations of women crazy with their sparkling floors and perfectly orchestrated meals has all but disappeared, and in its place we now have the Stepford Slut; a hypersexualized, young, thin, toned, hairless, technologically, and in many cases surgically-enhanced, woman with a come-hither look on her face”

says Gail Dine in her new book Pornland: How porn has hijacked our sexuality.

I have not read the book, but only one chapter published here.

Like any other man, I like my porn, though I do not have a stash of porn magazines (or mpegs) that my best friend will come and delete in case of my demise (means, my stash is not a secret, not that I do not have a stash :)) But, as a person who tries to live a fair life, there are many things that bugs me about the porn industry. So, I make it a point to read anything that comes through my feed that talks about this subject. Recently, while reading about the issue of Sexigate, I stumbled up on quite a few feminist blogs and aggregators, and in the last few days, porn has become the issue of discussion of at least 3 posts.

The fact of exploitation of women in porn industry is a major issue, especially in less developed countries (or women trafficked from poor countries). I have recently read some articles that discusses another angle of the porn industry that is not necessarily exploitative, at least not to the females participants in its production. There has been some studies that struggle to prove that exposure to porn increases sexual violence.

What Gale Dine discusses in this article is a much more widespread effect of porn in our culture. This is not just from the traditional porn media (playboy, internet porn…). The “hypersexualized” image is crowding our media space as a constant stream of soft-core porn!

There was a time, especially in India, when the left was arguing for the recognition of female sexuality, as different from the traditional view of a tool for male comfort and convenience and progeny. It is interesting to see how this has morphed into yet another way of keeping the status quo.

Curious are the ways of the world…

I am waiting for the book to come out in some form of E-version.

A few days ago, a self proclaimed atheist writing a self professed atheist blog (whose link is purposefully excluded from this post) came out with a list of 15 sexiest scientists.

He probably wanted to have a fleeting fame. Apparently he actively sought opinions from the people on the list, asking them, are you offended!

Since I am an uptight nerd, i will not be using nor repeating any of the right adjectives given to this person. However, I will list a bunch of posts that looks at it from a larger perspective of feminism.

I want to comment on two specific things. Over at rambling perfectionist, this guy laments that according to the “feminists” there is no way one can escape the sexist label. My answer to that kind of argument is that, men are by default, sexists and it takes a lot of effort to be not one.

The other is about feeling sexual desirability at the sight of a woman.

There are several occasions when I felt uneasy because the person I am professionally interacting with is perceived by me as sexually attractive. I do not know if female professionals feel that way or feel it as frequently as I do.

Someone in these posts talk about silencing as an intentional failure to recognize the communicators intent. It is very natural for men to do. The history and the reinforcement of status quo by media constantly works to reinforce this tendency. The result, most men cannot imagine why a woman should refuse sexual advances!

One of the aspects discussed in these posts is about how female scientists should dress. It was funny that we have to discuss “how to dress properly to work” at scienceblogs! I was surprised to see many women have a “practical” approach in the sense that, they chose casual, mostly gender neutral (jeans and shirt, jacket) attire so as not to cause an additional issue to handle at work. Which sadly is true, as I stated above, I might find someone sexually attractive if they come in enhancing their sexual desirability. So, it is easier for me to support the idea of “dressing properly” for work and dress to your fill during weekend days away from work. But, that is just reinforcing the patterns.

As a man, I have absolutely no say in this regard. But, there is something I can do about it. That is to reinforce the fact that, all women are sexually uninterested in me unless otherwise they explicitly states it in no unclear terms! Most of the time I will require signed documentation, but during the lean days, just a polite “would you like to have intercourse with me?” would suffice.

Here are the posts I found interesting in this debate.

1. Sheril Kirshenbaum
2. SeXy Science- You’re Doing It Wrong by rocketscientista
3. Because You Think Being A Girl Is Degrading by Nerdista
4. Sexism and Objectification by ramblingperfectionist 
5. I have been objectified! by PZ Myers
6. If You Think I’m Sexy And You Like My Data by SheThought.com
7. Hot Scientist Babes Gate by Physioprof
8. Save us from the armchair philosopher with a blog. by Janet D. Stemwedel
9. Top 15 science hotties and labia-punching by Evil Monkey
10. Sex(ism) in Science by AmoebaMike

There is still a long way to go in achieving equitable social justice and rights for Women. But the advances made in the last century on women’s right is phenomenal.

I proudly stand with all the women of the world in their historic efforts to end discrimination, social and economic freedom and to remake the world into a better place.

Salim

A wonderfully moving performance. I am speechless, and teary eyed.

Today is the Carl Sagan day. Monday is his birthday. He is one of my all time heroes. Here is the last interview, thanks to YouTube.

In three parts.

 

 

Dawn is determined to face CIGNA face to face to demand an explanation to why they denied her required care for her treatable brain tumor for 2 years. CIGNA changed their position recently after a huge movement by Moveon.org and other progressive organizations and people.

Dawn is driving down to CIGNA HQ in Philadelphia to face the CEO in person.

All the best wishes for her. She is a brave soul and is doing something that each one of us should do. Healthcare is not a privilege, it is a fundamental right.

Read about Dawns journey at her blog here. http://www.itcouldhappentoanyone.com/2009/10/05/hitting-the-road/

That is pathetic, for a person who considers myself as well versed in new web. Better late than never, as they say.

No, I am not going to put a link in here as it could lead to pretty NSFW pages. It is a very vibrant community. I will definitely make it a habit to visit them.

But coming to the core of the matter, It is absolutely crazy that ATT would try something like that. What a lot of people don’t understand is that freedom of speech cannot be optioned. It is either absolute or not at all. Being said that, 4Chan, on its front page, and most of its pages show a very interesting slice of humanity. There is absolutely no reason for this to be even considered offensive unless you are in the habit of going into totally strange cultures and finding them as offensive and carpet bombing them.. Oops, I forgot, we have done that.

Now there are lots of contradicting reports about the action. Truth, as always lies somewhere in between. But, it is important in once sense. ISPs, if they have to block a site or IP address for some security reasons, should be upfront about it. Blocking it without prior notification to the users or to the website is a breach of contract, which ATT is not very shy to do.

It was an interesting episode. And I found a good place to checkout from time to time or may be even hangout.

(This post was written in collaboration with Shobha (http://www.chaaya.com)

Last post was meant to be a comment and I was not really looking forward to write a follow up on that. But, it looks like I have to, as GK has posted a reply to it (which in itself could be a post) in the comments of the original post in question. (.(http://chespeak.blogspot.com/2008/12/barak-obama-and-skyscrapers-of.html. The comment is towards the end) As a good blogger, I should have left my reply in the comment section itself, but Blogger comments are very limited and I cannot put any formatting, links or pictures (ohh yes, I have one for this). So, I decided to make it into a post as well.

There are several parts in GK's reply that I have objections about.

[]one, as human hue, white is superior to black.
forced to make a choice, we would like to be white, not black.
which is not to say that to like to be white is necessarily to hate
those who have not been lucky to be white.

My friend FT told me that I should not be pedantic and should not show resentment (she had it in all CAPS) when I am having a discussion. So, I will be very civil.

So, this time, I will start with two stories.

One is a native American legend. (http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheWell-BakedMan-Pima.html. Here is a more literary retelling of the story http://www.ralphmag.org/CM/cave-god.html). The short version of it is, that the creator made man out of clay and baked it in the fire. But Coyote the trickster fooled creator into baking the first one too little thus having a pale color and the second one too long, with a black color. Creator got very angry, sent the trickster away and made the perfectly baked red skinned man.

The second story (I couldn't find a web reference to it), I think was "told" by our own VKN is about the dilemma of European missionaries in explaining the White God and Black Devil to African people.

But, we don't have to look far to figure out the connection between the assumption of white as a superior skin color and its relation to social power structure. All we have to remember that some of the prime symbols of female and male beauty in Indian mythology have dark skin.

I understand where GK is coming from and acknowledge that in Kerala, and probably in India as a whole, there is a tendency to consider white skinned people as more desirable than dark skinned. But, instead of realizing the social factors behind it, elevating it into a human reality is quite a stretch. I am sure the well known culture critics who have commented in this article could explain it in a more academic way than I could.

"fondness for white as a human complexion is a, shall we say,
psycho-social reality. if it is a curse for humankind, let us kick the god who made it so. lala har dayal once proposed that a chemical substance be made that can be injected into the skin to turn it white. that would have enlarged the scope of human choice, and solved colour problem in the flick of a finger, but that was not to be."

Now, we are going even further to attribute a regional social attitude as a divine reality. (By the way, it is quite possible to bleach one's skin off all melanin and become white.) I don't know if I am reading too much to these two paragraphs, it seems to me that GK is suggesting that the only way for races with dark skin to succeed is by procreating with white skinned people and turning their offspring to white!

two, diversity is all very good, we may even delight in diversity,
as desmond tutu put it, but it is not good to make everything equal to everything else.

I am a bit confused here. Diversity, by definition, is the opposite of making everything equal to everything else. It is the acknowledgement of the exact opposite, realization that everything is NOT equal to everything else.

(I have to say, I am quite disappointed that I didn't even make it to the Romantics... It is just pseudo-romantic.)

aborigines of nilambur forests, cholanaickens, live in caves
and on wild berries and locusts, [...] do we say it is their style, it is their choice, and that their style, their choice, is as good as ours? no. i do not rate those environmentalists [...],as significantly sane. we need to allow ourselves the human right to exercise comparative cultural judgement."

No one is questioning making personal judgments on comparative culture. It, as GK writes, is a human right. However, when that judgment goes further into making decisions (often autocratic) about the lives of the "other" culture, it becomes an infringement of human rights. Every societal group assumes their culture to be the right one, better than the "other". This, again, is a right of a people. I have the right to be a Nair and forage for fish and crabs in the streams when not fighting a fierce "war", and the Cholanaickans have their right to forage for wild berries.

It brings up yet another example from the not so far in the past. As the new worlds being found by the middle age travelers, there was a huge "concern" about the lack of culture and morality among these newfound worlds. It probably was a very earnest effort from the part of the Missionaries that flocked to these African and South American societies to convert the unbelievers and aborigines to "civilization". But, we now know that, many of these "uncivilized" cultures were, in reality, were technologically and otherwise as much or even more advanced than the European societies at that time. A fine example is the recent researches into El Dorado and the discovery of Dark Earth. (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Feb06/AAAS.terra.preta.ssl.html, http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/eldorado.shtml). One can, of course take the more colorful route of assuming all the achievement of these early civilizations are from visiting Aliens.

"[..]do we want to become black and dress our hair like some blacks? like cholanaickens? we mouth a lot of praise for theyyyam but do we like to train our children as theyyam artists?"

The question is never whether I want to braid my hair like "some blacks". (I would love a Bob Marley hairdo though. I am slowly getting there.) The question is about being me, and being part of my culture is the right thing to do.

That is a weird enough title I guess.

Last several months in the US were extremely exciting if you are a political junkie like me. My physical involvement in election was limited to a few days of volunteering with the Obama campaign. Intellectually though, I ended up reading not just things about current election, but also a lot of American political history. It was quite satisfying especially now that my side has won the election.

My days and especially evenings were filled with watching political TV shows and reading hundreds of political blog postings and except for a couple of times, I did not post anything in my blogs. This lack of activity would have continued further but for a very offending posting by someone I used to respect in my younger days.

Yesterday, Shobha forwarded a blog posting from Chekkutty's blog.(http://chespeak.blogspot.com/2008/12/barak-obama-and-skyscrapers-of.html). The specific post is by Govindankutty, a veteran journalist from Kerala.

What Govindankutty displays in his troubled lamenting about African-American hairdo is a total lack of understanding of the social reality in the US and an abundance of snobbery. I would have left it at a few private retorts between me and Shobha. But when I found that a whole bunch of other voices in the comments that mildly glosses over the blatant racism in his post, but praise him on his criticism on a rather outdated poem. (If the children's poem was taught in our schools, that must've been before I started going to school)

In his original post, Govindankutty has two issue with the African-American hairdo. First is that it is "revolting" to his "aesthetic sense" and the second is its unsophisticated tribal character. Then he wonders what would be the result of someone with this hairdo participating in a diplomatic meeting in the white house ("consider the prospect of someone with that kind of remote and ribald hair style sitting in the oval office..."), now that a black is in there! (Some of you might remember a New Yorker cover that, unsuccessfully address this hairdo issue http://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/michelle-obamas-afro/)

It surprises me that him and many of the commentators fail to see an utter lack of appreciation of diversity (or even xenophobia) in the above statement.

I have seen extreme bewilderment of many people in their early days in the US on seeing the overwhelming diversity of the population, especially if they are coming to any of the major urban centers. But, in most cases I have found this in people who come from relatively homogeneous societies. In every conversation about multiculturalism I boast about my inherent ability to absorb diversity since I come from India, Kerala. However, Govindankutty's statements makes me reconsider that statement. Are we as a society, incapable of appreciating diversity?

Reading further down, I see some pointers from his social interaction where he might have picked up his total "otherness" to afro-american culture. (It is not entirely correct to prefix it with afro. The black culture in the US is only partly African. There are so many other regions and cultures that contribute to the black cultural identity, and it is as diverse as any other subculture.)

He continues

"so i never ask anyone about the african-america hairdo. i avoided looking at them for more than a second. my son has warned me that it is not safe to have eye contact with any group of african-american" [lack of capitalization from original]

I am assuming that GK lives in northern Virginia. I would venture to guess that it is a gated community or an upper middle class development.

In his movie "Bowling for Columbine" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine) Michael Moore discusses at length the "white America's fear of the black man". Fear of natives and the "other" is one of the most prevalent aspect of American majority culture. Originally it was the un-sophisticated, unchristian native Americans who were a mortal threat. It later replaced by the threat from former slaves. Right now it has expanded to many others like the Gays, atheists, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims, etc. etc. In many places, we Indians are the "other", the Sand Niggers, Camel Jockeys!

Well, GK, it is ok to look at a black person. It is ok to look at a Latino or Gay. It is possible that there could be a similar feel of "otherness" from the other side too, but it is much less prevalent.

Many of the people who have commented in the original post are people I respect and have read with reverence in my formative years. It is so disappointing to see none of them realized this - I am using that word again - xenophobia even when continuing to discuss racial cultural insensitivities in early Malayalam poetry.