Gender Bender Shmender Lavender

Or: I simply don't understand it.
I admit, i grew up during a time when clothes were made for children. So, upon having them myself I still don't understand the girl-boy rules. Not really.
As you probably know, I do machine embroidery and happily make shirts not only for my kids, but also for my friend's three boys.
So, this is this year's christmas collection:

For the youngest one, age 4

And I admit I happily made one with purple kitties for the gender non-conforming middle child. That kid rocks. He doesn't give a shit about what other people say. He is a sparkling princess for carnival and loves Hello Kitty:

Isn't it cute?

Now, the oldest one is more "traditionally boyish", if by "traditional" you mean fashion that didn't exist 20 years ago. And I chose a combination of designs and colours that simply rocks:

Roaaaaar

I fell in love with it. Sometimes what you plan in your head doesn't quite turn out the way you thought it would. And sometimes it's better than you ever imagined. This one is the latter case. I was like "I want this soooo much. I would so much love to make it for my children, but probably they wouldn't wear it anyway and then those hours would be wasted".
There's nothing cute about this. It's fierce and bold. 
But I thought it would be worth asking.
Well, if the shirt wasn't blue. And with purple. And pink...
My daughter didn't even allow me to wash out the chalk and the hoop burn.

New favourite shirt. And baby rabbit.

 I still don't understand the rules, but I'm glad she has a new favourite shirt!

No, the important things about women ain't their looks....

Don't know how informed you are about German news, but you might have heard that we had a trio of murdering fascists roaming the country for more than 10 years who killed people of Turkish and Greek origin.
The trail against the one surviving member, Beate Zschäpe and some of their accomplices started last week after it had been postponed. Postponing was necessary because there is, of course, a big interest in the media about the trial and not enough space for all the journalists to sit. After all, this is said to be the most important trial in Germany in recent history.
So, what did the media tell us about that first day of trial?

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

Beate Zschäpe, die mit dem Rücken zu den Fotografen steht, ihren Kopf in den Nacken wirft und ihre langen rot-schwarzen Haare schüttelt und schüttelt, als wäre sie auf einer Strandpromenade und nicht in einem Gerichtssaal.

Beate Zschäpe, who has her back turned towards the fotographers, who throws her head back and who shakes and shakes her red-black hair as if she were o a beach promenande and not in a courtroom.

Süddeutsche Zeitung:

  Sie trägt einen schwarzen Hosenanzug und eine helle Bluse. Ihr Aussehen sorgt für Aufsehen. "Mit Ohrringen und Stöckelschuhen ist sie gekommen", schreibt die türkische Zeitung Hürriyet.

She's wearing a black suit and a light blouse. Her look draws attention: "She came with earrings and in high heels" writes the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet

And so on, and so on.
Rejoice ladies. Even when you're a murderous fascist terrorist still nothing will be as important as your looks...

Warum ich mich über Anne Wizoreks Hatemail freue

Anne Wizorek, Initiatorin des #Aufschreis auf Twitter hat nun damit begonnen das ein oder andere ihrer Hatemail zu tweeten.
Nur mal so zum "Einstieg"

"Die Welt ist nun mal so. Der Mann ist Hormongesteuert, der Sextrieb ist übermächtig und immer im Hintergrund parat." #aufschrei #hatemail
— anne wizorek (@marthadear) 13. Februar 2013

wie ich denn überhaupt sicherstellen könnte, dass die geschilderten erlebnisse mit alltagssexismus seriös waren. #hatemail #aufschrei
— anne wizorek (@marthadear) 13. Februar 2013

"Wenn ich so aussehen würde wie sie, währe ich froh wenn mich jemand sexuell belaestigeh würde" #hatemail #aufschrei
— anne wizorek (@marthadear) 13. Februar 2013

Erst mal: Nein, das ist ganz und gar nicht lustig. Das ist bitterer Ernst und Anne Wizorek hat meine volle Solidarität. So etwas auszuhalten kostet Kraft, ist bedrohlich und definitiv ein Grund warum viele Frauen schon im Voraus die Klappe halten weil sie sich das nicht zumuten wollen.

Und dennoch freue ich mich über sie und über all die obsessiven Trolle im Hashtag.
Warum?
Ganz einfach, weil jemand der so einen Scheiß schreibt weiß, dass ihm die Felle davonschwimmen.
Weil sie laut, laut schreien aber nichts zu sagen haben. Weil sie verzweifelt zum 5.000 Mal den Scheiß der Autorin der Neuen Rechten Birgit Kelle retweeten müssen weil sie hoffen, dass es dann mehr Sinn ergibt oder es wenigstens so scheint als hätten sie die Mehrheit auf ihrer Seite.

Weil in den letzte Wochen hundertausende Frauen gemerkt haben, dass sie mit ihren Erlebnissen nicht alleine sind. Dass sie nicht Versagerinnen sind während alle anderen das doch offensichtlich locker wegstecken.

Weil hunderttausende Gespräche stattgefunden haben. Ehepartner, Freunde, Mütter und Söhne, Väter und Töchter, Kolleginnen und Kollegen haben miteinander geredet.
Viele Männer hatten "Aha" Erlebnisse.
"Das passiert also meiner Freundin, wenn sie alleine unterwegs ist "
"So fühlt sich also meine Kollegin wenn ich über ihren Körper und ihr Sexleben lästere"
Und das lässt sich nicht mehr ändern.

Weil "divide et impera" nicht mehr zieht.
Wenn man der Frauenbewegung der 70ern vorwerfen kann, dass sie sich fast ausschließlich um die Probleme der weißen Mittelklassefrauen kümmerte so zieht das nicht mehr. Alle Frauen, alle Schichten, cis und Trans* Frauen haben sich beteiligt. Es war auch der #Aufschrei der "Alphamädchen", der jungen, attraktiven, gut ausgebildeten und meist noch kinderlosen Frauen, die wir bislang immer als "echte, starke Frauen" unter die Nase gerieben bekommen haben. Und weil Rassismus, Homophobie, Trans*phobie und Ableism nicht geduldet wurden.

Weil die Gesellschaft nicht drumrum kam sich damit zu befassen. Es wird kein prä-#Aufschrei Deutschland mehr geben. Niemand kann sich mehr rausreden, man(n) muss Farbe bekennen.

Es bleibt den Sexisten (und Sexistinnen) nur noch der klägliche Versuch eine einzelne Frau mundtot zu machen. Mein großer Respekt an Anne Wizorek für ihren Mut und ihr Durchhaltevermögen. Sie wird noch einen langen Atem haben um das durchzustehen, die Obsession der Hater ist ausdauernd. Deshalb auch meine Bitte an alle UnterstützerInnen: Auch nicht locker lassen.

Forward thinking: What would you tell teenagers about sex?

Inspired by Libby Anne of Love, Joy and Feminism.

6 ways how sex is like food and one way how it totally isn't

1.) Not all food is your favourite food

Not all sexual activities will be your favourite ones. Some will make you overdo, some will put you off quickly, many will be really OK. And once we grow up, we understand that tastes are different and that just because you find eggplant to be dull, and celery to be vomit-inducing, it doesn't mean that people who eat eggplant with celery are bad people. It especially doesn't mean that you have to like something because apparently everybody does. Know your own tastes. You don't let people tell you that you actually like eggplant though you know you don't, so don't let anybody tell you that you really like or need sexual activity X.

2.) It's unfair that we always go to your favourite restaurant

Remember that people have different tastes and that when something is shared there will be compromises. So, you could die for Chinese while your partner thinks it OK but really, really loves the Steakhouse? Well, you can visit those places alternately, or agree on the Pizzeria, or even decide that while you go and have Chinese they go to the Steakhouse.

3.) Making children eat their Brussel sprouts is horrible

Above I talked about compromise. Here I talk about boundaries. No caring person would make you eat something that you really dislike. No caring lover would make you do some sex-act that you don't like. You are totally entitled to no like something and enforce that boundary.

4.) Trying new food is amazing

Or horrible. You never know until you try. Maybe you find out that it's aweful (but remember #1). It's totally OK to leave it on your plate. Maybe it even makes you sick. Stop whatever you're doing then.
Maybe you're not sure if you like it. Some things are an acquired taste. Maybe you want to try them again. You're still allowed to dislike them. And maybe it's awesome and the best thing since sliced bread. Cool. But remember your partner might totally disagree. Don't be an asshole then, remember #3.

5.) Taste changes

I couldn't stand olives as a child, now I love them. I still hate dill, though. And I really can't understand that I once loved Smurf-blue icecream. There's nothing wrong with that and it's totally OK to say "look, I know, I used to like it, but I really don't  do so anymore".

6.) Unsafe food can give you food poisoning, salmonella and Hepatitis A.

Safety first. That means use a condom. Nobody who cares about you would try to trick you into eating unsafe food, nobody who cares about you would try to bully, trick or coerce you into having unsafe sex.

And one way how sex totally isn't like food:

Everybody needs food. Nobody exactly needs sex. If you don't want any, you can simply go without it and there's nothing wrong with that. That can be for days, weeks, months, ever. And your partner really won't die if you don't want to fuck tonight and is an ass if they claim so. Remember #3

Fragen über Fragen. Nochmal zum Aufschrei.

First of all, sorry for my regular readers that this is in German. It's related to the current German debate about sexism. But you're well-read people, you know that stuff anyway.

Soo, und jetzt zum eigentlichen Thema.
Im Zuge der "Aufschrei-Debatte" gab es da doch ein paar Fragen und Argumente, die immer wieder auftauchen. Hier also das Wichtigste nochmal zum ausmalen, ausschneiden und einkleben.

"Ist doch nicht so schlimm was der Brüderle gesagt hat"
Stimmt, im kosmischen Vergleich. Aber nun stelle man sich mal vor was passiert wäre, wenn Westerwelle den Füllstand einer Journalistenunterhose kommentiert hätte. Absolut inakzeptabel? Stimmt, ist nämlich auch nicht in Ordnung. Aber es ist nicht deshalb schlimmer, weil es einem Mann passiert. Ungewollte und unerwünschte sexuelle Anmache ist immer daneben.
Und für die, die jetzt immer noch laut schreien dass das ja was ganz anderes ist:
Homophobie ist die Angst von Männern so behandelt zu werden, wie man sich Frauen gegenüber benimmt.
Denk mal drüber nach.

"Meiner Freundin ist das noch nie passiert / die stört das nicht"
Schön, freut mich für sie. Aber als Gesellschaft setzen wir die Grenzen eigentlich nicht bei dem der die höchste Toleranzschwelle hat. Stell dir vor deine Nachbarn machen Party. Die ganze Nacht. Und du musst morgen früh raus. Wenn du klingelst um ganz freundlich zu fragen ob das auch leiser geht kriegst du zu hören "der Nachbar auf der anderen Seite findet's nicht schlimm".

"Ihr sagt Männer wären schwanzgesteuert!"
Nein, eigentlich nicht. Eigentlich sagen wir das Gegenteil. Wir gehen davon aus, dass Männer ihren Sexualtrieb, ihre Finger und ihr Mundwerk unter Kontrolle haben und dass sie darüber hinaus lernfähig sind. Würden wir tatsächlich glauben ihr wäret schwanzgesteuert würden wir uns die Mühe sparen. Ich diskutiere ja auch nicht mit einem Baby dass es nicht in die Windel kacken soll.
Die die das wirklich denken sind die, von denen ihr glaubt sie wären auf eurer Seite. Die die sagen "Männer sind so!" "Das ist natürlich" "Kühe! Stiere! Ochsen!", DIE glauben ihr könntet euch nicht ändern oder hättet euer Verhalten nicht unter Kontrolle.

"Dann knöpf doch die Bluse zu!"
Siehe "schwanzgesteuert". Das Argument willst du nicht machen, oder?
Aber einfach mal unter uns: Wenn ich mich morgens anziehe denke ich an viele Dinge. An das Wetter, was ich so vorhabe, was eigentlich sauber ist. An Männer allgemein denke ich dabei nicht, and dich im Besonderen schon gar nicht, ich kenn dich ja gar nicht. Ich geh ja auch nicht davon aus, dass du dich morgens für mich rasierst, oder dass du dir extra wegen mir diese schicke Brille gekauft hast. Vermutlich rasierst du dich weil es dir so besser gefällt und die Brille hast du auch für dich gekauft.
Du bist ein großer Junge, du kommst mit meinem Ausschnitt klar.

"Darf ich jetzt Titten etwa nicht mehr gut finden?"
Doch, darfst du. Aber gaz ehrlich, ich bin an deiner Meinung zu dem Thema "meine Titten" nicht interessiert. Siehe oben. Du darfst auch schauen. Aber das ist etwas anderes als starren. Ich bin keine Fleischauslage beim Metzger, kein Objekt, keine käufliche Ware.

"Und Türen aufhalten? Darf ich das auch nicht mehr?"
Doch, unbedingt! Ich bin ein großer Fan von Türen aufhalten. Ich finde es ist der ultimative Weg sich gegenseitig das Leben etwas leichter zu machen. Wer freut sich nicht, wenn er  mit vollgepackten Armen ankommt und jemand die Tür aufhält? Und wer ärgert sich nicht maßlos, wenn einem jemand die Tür vor der Nase zufallen lässt? Sei freundlich zu deinen Mitmenschen, egal welchen Geschlechts. Aber mach nicht so als könne Frau das in der Regel nicht selber. Und bleib vor allem nicht in der Tür stehen so dass sich frau an dir vorbeidrängen muss. Creepy!

"Und Mäntel? Und Stühle? Und...?"
Welche Frau, welcher Mantel, welcher Stuhl? Ich kann jetzt wirklich kein Handbuch für alle Gelegenheiten schreiben. Wie wär's damit: frag einfach die Frau um die es geht. Aber nicht während du ihr gerade den Mantel hinhälst und sie nicht anderes kann als "nein" sagen oder ein Arschloch sein. Die meisten Menschen sind ganz gut in der Lage Situationen einzuschätzen. Und vielleicht lernst du auch die Vorzüge kennen wenn jemand dir deinen schweren Mantel mal hält?

"Ich will keine amerikanischen Verhältnisse wo Männer Angst haben müssen wenn sie mit ner Frau Fahrstuhl fahren!"
Hmmm, ich weiß nicht mit wievielen Amerikanern Herr Niebel so geredet hat.Ich kenn ne ganze Menge und Fahrstuhl fahren scheint dort nach wie vor zu funktionieren. Aber ehrlich gesagt, ich würde auch ganz gerne in Ruhe Fahrstuhl fahren können, ohne mir Gedanken machen zu müssen, oder freundlich sein zu müssen weil aggressives Verhalten nach Ablehnung leider erstens keine Seltenheit ist und ich zweitens nicht wissen kann zu welcher Gruppe du gehörst.

"Darf ich jetzt keine Komplimente mehr machen?"
Erst mal, es gibt Komplimente und Nonplimente.
"Wow, super wie schnell du das geschafft hast" ist ein Kompliment. "Super, ich hätte nie gedacht dass du das so schnell schaffst" sieht nur aus wie ein Kompliment, ist aber keins. Komplimente können schnell Grenzen überschreiten, denn sie können ein Urteil sein über Dinge die dich nichts angehen. Was unter Freunden OK ist kann unter Kollegen mal ganz schnell zu weit gehen, insbesondere wenn auch noch einEr von beiden Macht über den/die andere hat.
Generell: Hör bitte damit auf Frauen unentwegt auf ihr Äußeres zu reduzieren. Wenn du an deiner Kollegin immer nur bemerkst wie sie aussieht heißt das, dass ihre Arbeit nicht erwähnenswert ist. Überleg mal welche Komplimente du deinen Kollegen machst. Wie wär's mal mit "Hey, das neue iPhone? Cool, ist es wirklich besser als das alte?"
Nochmal, du bist ein großer Junge, du kannst das.

"Frauen sind auch sexistisch!"
Stimmt. Entgegen der weitläufigen Meinung ist Sexismus nichts was sich bösartige Menschen im Hinterzimmer ausdenken. Sexismus ist im Grunde nur die Idee dass Männer so sind  und Frauen so, dass man vom Geschlecht einer Person auch ihren Character schließen kann. Und dass das Ganze auch noch in unserer Natur liegt, ganz egal was uns die Geschichte dazu sagt. Wusstest du, dass pink noch vor 100 Jahren die Jungsfarbe war?
Aber traditionell stellen sexistische Ideen Männer über Frauen. Grob gesagt schaden Klischees über Männer den Männern, die sich nicht in das alte Rollenverhalten zwängen lassen wollen, während die Klischees über Frauen allen Frauen schaden. Nehmen wir das über Männer und Frauen und Babies. Frauen sind von Natur aus besser sich um Babies zu kümmern, sie haben "Mutterinstinkte". Das schadet kinderfreien Frauen, die irgendwann behandelt werden als wären sie abnormal. Es schadet Frauen mit Kindern, die in die Mama-Rolle gedrängt werden und damit beruflich benachteiligt werden. Es schadet den ganzen tollen Papas deren Kompetenz in Frage gestellt wird. Aber der Vater, der sagt Stinkewindeln wechseln ist die Arbeit seiner Frau (dafür ist er nämlich zu gut)? Kein Problem.

"Frauen können einfach so das Leben von Männern ruinieren. Kachelmann! Strauss-Kahn! Brüderle!"
Um es nochmal ganz klar festzuhalten, Jörg Kachelmann wurde aus Mangel an Beweisen freigesprochen. "Der Vorsitzende Richter Michael Seidling sagte, das Urteil beruhe nicht darauf, dass die Kammer von der Unschuld Kachelmanns oder einer Falschbeschuldigung der Nebenklägerin überzeugt sei." Unser Rechtssystem setzt hohe Maßstäbe für eine Verurteilung. Dafür hat die Beweislage nicht gereicht. Das heißt nicht, dass eine Frau sein Leben mit einer Lüge ruiniert hat.
Über den ganzen Dreck, den Strauss-Kahn am Stecken hat lass ich mich jetzt nicht aus. Die Anschuldigungen des Zimmermädchens waren nicht die ersten und nicht die einzigen gegen ihn. Brüderle hat meines Wissens nach bislang die Vorwürfe nicht bestritten.
Hier kann man sich auch einmal den Stand der wissenschaftlichen Forschung zum Thema "falsche Beschuldigung bei Vergewaltigung" anschauen (Englisch). Das sieht nicht nach "Frauen schreien einfach mal Vergewaltigung und haben gewonnen" aus.
Aber nun schaue man sich auf der anderen Seite einmal an was die Frauen in diesen Situationen durchmachen müssen, nicht zuletzt Laura Himmelreich deren Vorwürfe gar nicht bestritten werden.
Wir leben in einem Land in dem Lehrer 14 jährige Kinder vögeln dürfen. In der ein Mann freigesprochen wird weil sein 15jähriges Opfer sich nicht genug gewehrt hat (Vielleicht sollte die Richterin mal nachlesen dass die Polizei stets empfiehlt sich nicht zu wehren). In der katholische Kliniken Vergewaltigungsopfer abweisen.
Das alles wissen Frauen. Sie überlegen sich 20 mal bevor sie Anzeige erstatten.
Als ein Mann versuchte mich auf einem Parkplatz zu überfallen erklärte mir meine beste Freundin dass es meine Schuld wäre, weil ich da geparkt hätte. Von der Polizei wollte ich mir das nicht auch nochmal anhören, und dann von meiner ganzen Familie, und all meinen Freunden...

So, noch weitere Fragen?

Your daily dose of sexism #8

OK, it's not daily, I lied.
Sue me.
Today: Manly man's edition
Sitting in a lecture hall waiting for the lecture to start I heard the people behind me chatting.
Guy A had made some not terribly bad but slightly embarassing mistake so guy B said:
"How did you manage to do that?"
Guy A: "I was doing two things at the same time and since I'm a man I can't do that"
Guy B: "I can do that"
Guy A: "You're not a MAN!"

Sorry, guys, apparently not fucking up makes your dicks fall off.

Helping people the christian way

Today while munching something outside the library I checked the notes on the blackboard mainly for given my head something to munch on, too.
So my eyes fell on a small booklet with the picture of a woman behind a window in a heavy rain, out of focus. So I picked it up to see what it was about and my worst fears were confirmed when I saw it was indeed a christian pamphlet for some bible-circle or other*.
What was sickening was that it clearly adressed women suffering from depression and other mental health problems, claiming that their fictional identification figure tried everything, from sex over drugs to Eastern spirituality but she was still unhappy and alone and also addicted.
But you know, then a friend mentioned that she had to pray to god and believe in Jesus and everything would be happy.
Fuck you.
I make no secret of the fact that I have mental health problems. And so have many others. I also have a thyroid problem and so have others. And I know how vulnerable and anxious and easy to manipulate you are when you are depressive and locked into your own head and I also know how much good therapy can do just like those little pills of Thyroxine are doing me a lot of good.
The idea of those people fishing for lost and lonely women who most likely have already experience emotional abuse and then telling them that they just have to accept that they're bad and broken anyway makes me sick.
That's why I'm allergic to people telling me about the good religion and religious institutions do. They would probably even count this as "good", because look, they want to help the poor women!
Fuck you, too 

*This kind of thing is relatively rare in Germany

The Strong Woman Fallacy

By now many people have handed Paula Kirby her ass wrapped and with ribbons over her "open letter" that it's really not necessary to do so again.
But there's a point that comes up in her letter and in many comments, by both men and women that go along these arguments from Paula:

I simply do not accept that any reasonably mature, rational adult does not know exactly how to avoid getting into this kind of situation [she talks about being propositioned at bars after conferences] if he or she would prefer not to,or how to deal with it if it occurs...

So there is an alternative, and it is this alternative that I would urge women to seize with both hands – whether we’re talking about how we interact in our jobs, in our social lives or in the atheist movement. And that alternative is to take responsibility for ourselves and our own success. To view ourselves as mature, capable adults who can take things in our stride, and can speak up appropriately. To really start believing that we can do whatever men can do. To stop seizing on excuses for staying quiet and submissive, stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or, silliest of all, “privilege”, and start simply practising being more assertive....

In almost any fieldyou care to consider, the women who have made it to the topare generally not sympathetic to the view that men or the system were desperately trying to hold them back. They havesimply adopted the tactics I am describing here, and have refused to let anything stop them.

I'll call it the Strong Woman Fallacy: Strong women deal with things. Strong women don't need silly harassment policies. Strong women kick ass without any help. It's infantilizing to suggest that women need protection. It's a particularly attractive and dangerous fallacy for many reasons:

1) It pushes people under the bus. Actually not all women are able to deal with harrassment. Because some women have been through extreme shit, have been hurt, raped, beaten, broken. But Paula, and many others, dismiss them as hysterical, immature, unreasonable, irrational. It's like telling somebody in a wheelchair that they should get the fuck up and climb the stairs instead of telling people to build ramps so they can participate in life.

2) It completely dismisses the fact that women have to deal with a shitload of things men usually never face. There's an old saying that homophobia is the fear of gay men treating a guy the way he treats women and there's more than a grain of truth to this. It's not about women being not as good as men, it's about the fact that women have to run an additional 100m to make it to the starting line.

3) It leaves the women who buy into this very vulnerable. It's attractive at first sight. It gives a sense of empowerment. I don't need help, no training wheels. I kick ass, I won't be held back, I can deal with all the jerks all by myself. And it leaves them completely without any protection or mechanisms come the day they can't do it alone anymore. By internalizing everything and denying external factors, all failing becomes their personal failing (and before that they're simply assholes because they'll tell everybody else that their failing is just their own fault) and since their sense of self and their self-worth is so closely tied to being "the strong one", they fall deep and they hit hard.

4) They dismiss the fact that it's simply wearing people out and, let's say it frankly, spoils their fun. Sure, most of us are able to tell the occasional asshole off (but, see point #1, there are those who can't even deal with that and it's not because they're immature or weak), but to put it bluntly: I refuse to spend my money on having my evening ruined (probably I'm not cheerful enough. Cheerful people don't let assholes spoil their fun). For many women, the way to deal with it is to stay at home. People like Paula will then tell us that we're hitting ourselves. Well, better me than you.

The day I was not raped

Following long and many dicussions over at Freethoughtblogs (read Pharyngula, Almost Diamonds, Lousy Canuck, The Atheist Experience, The Uncredible Hallq, Butterflies and Wheels, The X-Blog. Each blog usually has more than one post but I think you're famliar with all of them) and Skepchick, I decided to write this down as a testimony.
Many comments revolved about the actual level of harassment/ danger women face, victim blaming, and reporting. So here's my story.

Thankfully, so far in my life every day was a day I was not raped. I'm fortunate, I'm lucky. It's not because I do/ don't do X. One day stands clearly out amongst all those days and it is the day when rape suddenly became something that could have happened.

That day I'd gone to the cinema to watch The Lord of the Rings. Although we started in the afternoon it meant that by the time the movie was over and we'd said goodbye it was kind of late. Not middle of the night late, but between 10/11 pm. I walked back to my car which I'd parked in a Park and Ride a bit outside the city centre.
I walked back the main road and that's when I noticed the guy. Actually I noticed him because he cat-called me while walking in the opposite direction. Now, to get to my car I had to turn right from the main road uphill into a street that isn't "highstreet". About 250 m up that road I had to turn left into the carpark which isn't more than a bit of gravel and two light-bulbs, set back from the road and surrounded by buildings that are mostly used for comercial purposes and mostly uninhabited.
When I crossed the road I noticed that the guy was now walking in my direction. And since he was taller than me he walked faster than me. He was gaining on me, but he was not yet "officially" following me. When I turned left into the car-park he did so, too, still shortening the distance while I was moving further and further away from the main street, from the well lit side-street, from other people. That was what was obviously his intention: To get me as far away from any possible help before he attacked.
Thankfully my brain helped me out. I acted as if I was reaching for a car further back and just made a dash for mine when I was actually there. How I wished for a car with a remote control. But I made it. The distance was still big enough for me to open the lock, get in, close the door and lock it again while he tried to get after me.
I left the car park pretty shaken and upset. I told a female friend about it. Her reaction was to ask whether I was stupid to park my car there, she's so glad nothing happened but I mustn't ever park there again because it would be irresponsible of me.
Of course I did not report that. All this would have meant would have been that a great many more people would have criticised me, blamed me, lectured me while no wannabe rapist would ever be caught or prosecuted. (remember, you must take my story skeptically. Maybe his car was just parked there as well. Maybe he thought that this was his car and I was trying to steal it. Maybe he just wanted to ask me the time and now I'm painting a poor innocent guy as a rapist.)
No, I did not report.
Who would?

The limits of imagination

I'm the first to admit that I'm a fantasy-chick.
LotR, His Dark Materials, Pratchett, Harry Potter, I love them.
Imagination, fantasy, they're important to me, they're wonderful, they're creative.
And quite often, they're settled in a mythical past of our own world.
Obviously, when we're talking about pirates, we're not talking about actual pirates, mostly desperate people who led short violent lives always threatened with execution should they be caught. We're talking about Pirates, like adorable "adopt me" Johnny Depp, kick-ass Keira Knightly and eye-candy Orlando Bloom.
And that's what trickles down to our children. They don't play "die slowly of syphillis" or "drown while simultaneously bleeding to death". They play Sea-fight! Major Treassure Found! Ghost-ship Sighted!
But there's a limit to imagination and I'll show you what it is:

The picture below is out of one of my children's books. It's one of these "search and count books" pretty popular with most kids and this is even better because of Pirates!
Everything is better with Pirates, even Ninjas.
Let's see, what can you spot?
Can you see the sea-serpent?
Can you find Aladin?
Can you see dwarves?
Can you see ghosts?
Can you find the lightbulb?
Can you find Matti, the little boy with a wooden sword who's the protagonist of the book?
Can you spot a woman?
Let me guess, you got the first 6 alright because they are actually there. A woman? Tssss, this is Pirates! There are actually women in the book, a total 8 of them.
A mother with her son
A mermaid chatting with a sailor
A barmaid
A damsel in distress
Four prostitutes
Well, I'm pretty sure that children don't notice that those are prostitutes, but they are definetly depicted as "women who make men happy".
But that's the places reduced for women:
Mothers, barmaids, fantasy creatures and pleasure-givers to men.  That's what our children, sons and daughters alike learn about the world: It's much more likely that there be sea-serpents than women making their place in the world.
And that's neither a bad book, nor a single example. I swear there were more known (not to mention the unknown) female pirates in the actual history of piracy than there are in all the children's books and toy-sets combined.

Cinderella ate my Gender Delusions - a double book review

When I was pregnant with our second daughter, I expected many things, first of all, lots more of pink (it's incredible how much pink stuff turned up after the birth of #1, and that was with all close friends and family being well aware of how much I loathe it. But everybody else obviously  thought a pink cute onesie would be such an original present for a baby girl).
The one thing I was not prepared for was pity.
In Germany.
In Twothousandandnine.
Because I was expecting a second girl.
"Oh, but  #3 will sure be a boy"
"Ah, we need them too."
"Ehm, congratulations!"
What the fuck were those people thinking?
Let me make it clear, they were not trying to insult or hurt me. None of them was a devout muslim or christian, No ultra-orthodox jew who thanks god for not having him made a woman.
Just ordinary, not very religious in a happy go lucky way people, quite some of them women.
That wasn't the start of my renewed feminist interests, nor was it the end. It was a snapshot, one of a million.
And on my journeys through debates and debacles two books were recommended to me: Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine and Cinderella Ate my Daughter by Peggy Orenstein.
First of all, both books are well-written and entertaining to read. They both made me laugh out loud, although it was sometimes one of those bitter laughs you give off when somebody relates a gruesome tale in a funny way.
But it is pretty obvious that one of them is written by a scientist (Cordelia Fine) and the other one by a journalist (Peggy Orenstein), so if you have read neither of them and want to read both of them (and I really recommend both of them, especially if you have a little daughter or granddaughter), I suggest going from Fine to Orenstein, because the knowledge of the scientific background will add much more to Orenstein's vivisection of  the girlie-girl culture than the other way round.
So let me start that way, too:

If you're anyway like me, your copy of Delusions of Gender will become littered with post-its. There's the Ha! I knew it (or at least expected it)- notes, there's the Holy shit, that's even worse than I thought -notes, there's the The next idiot to make that argument will get a thrashing with added bibliography -notes. It really isn't only an educating and entertaining book for one's own enjoyment, it's a weapon. There's somebody with the scientific background who did the work for you AND properly sourced her work. Just what you wanted for christmas for being such a man-hating evil feminazi.
What I really liked was how she didn't only present the science, but also the pitfalls of science. There's probably no other area of science where ideology and biases infiltrate the scientific process as much as the area of sex- and gender-studies. She embeds the current scientific discussions in the centuries of Science proving that women just aren't really people or at least not rational ones.
How come that in this one area scientists often go looking for confirmation of a cultural bias and then take any results they get as evidence without actually showing not only that A exists, but also that it leads to B?
Why are they so eager to put all those actual differences they find down to nature as if their subjects were grown in a sterile lab until the very moment they engaged in that particular study?
Well, Cordelia Fine can't answer those questions either (except with, it's patriarchy, duh, remember, that confirmation bias thingy), but it's good to keep an eye on them.
It helps to understand why all that "sciency" stuff  bothered you when you first read and heard about it (like, why on earth men can't seem to find the milk in the fridge. It's because of mamoths, duh*), not so much because of the conclusions (woman, just get off your ass, get over to that fridge and get that milk, the poor guy is genetically hardwired not to see anything smaller than at least a big deer), but because the argument made no sense. I would have thought that a successfull hunter needed skills like being able to spot and read traces on the ground and remember where he put the fucking spear. Let alone to communicate with his fellow hunters about the best strategy.
So, if you need ammunition, this book is for you. After this, you cannot only point out that this scientism is wrong (no, it's not because the conclusions disagree with our "feminist dogma"), but you can also provide a handy reference as to why that is (because their science is crap).
Cordelia Fine demonstrates brilliantly why affirmative action is still needed because especially people who think themselves to be "unbiased" and "rational" will still base their decisions on those very biases they deny having and then rationalize their biased decisions with seemingly sensible arguments.
But I'm not going to spoil your fun reading anymore. Go get it!

Now to Peggy Orenstein (I'm German, that name is hilarious!). Her book is a very different book, not so much about the science, but about the culture. Not about the whole of women's lives, but about that slice of childhood and adolescence. And it's written not by a scientist, but by a journalist and, of all things, the mother of a little girl. Her writings convey the anger, worries, desperation and helplessness of a mother who, just like me, saw her daughter washed away in a wave of pink princess glitter.
The one feeling I got while reading her book (apart from being thankfull that things are still less extreme here in Europe) was that Cordelia Fine's science somewhat was the easy part, while the parenting is hard.
She deals honestly with the conflicts of a mother who wants to raise her daughter a strong, brave, daring woman, who disapproves of the pink princess-bullshit but who also has to walk the fine line not to disapprove of her daughter as a girl.
Those conflicts aren't easy. How do you teach her that those Disney Princesses are crap and that, you know, those fancy geometrical magnets the boys in kindergarten always play with are actually cool without falling into the old misogynistic trap of painting girl things as inferior and boy things as superior (those magnets ARE cool! I wished I'd had a box of these as a kid)? And on top of all of that, how will that affect your daughter socially if you manage in preserving all the colours of the rainbow instead of limiting it to pink?
I like how she tied it all back to mostly toy manufacturers, Disney and such, how they created that pink princess market that constantly drives a wedge betweens our boys and girls, not out of malice or bad patriarchal inclinations, but just out of the general laws of the greedy, all-devouring market.
It helps remembering Cordelia Fine's chapters about how easily children are manipulated into thinking a toy is for boys/girls (hint, paint it pink/blue), how easily they can be influenced to try out more options and it is incredible how little it is done, falling back on the naturalistic fallacy of Boys/girls are different.
What I found quite enlightening was the fact that up to a certain age children actually think that gender is determined by what you wear/do. It made me wondering if that was partly due to the body-hate we instill into our children from birth on. Sure, first they are wrapped into their diapers, but I remember kids up to school-age running around naked in summer. They don't do anymore, swimming-pools prescribe at least pants. Dolls don't have genitalia and I know that my husband was asked if he was wearing swimming trunks when he takes a bath with the kids.**
So, yes, it makes total sense that children are confused about what makes you male/female apart from haircut and colour codes. It makes sense that they guard the boundaries closely. If we think about how deeply the sense of one's gender is ingrained into us, it must be frightening to believe that you could lose it by accidentially wearing the wrong shirt.
Another part that struck me was that about children and make-up. I mean, sure I would never sign the kids up for a toddler pageant, would I? Or give them lipstick while in kindergarten, right?
Only, thinking about it, the amount of beauty-products they own is frightening. Kiddie soap, bathtub-colour, sparkling purple princess-shampoo, sparkling purple princess spray-on conditioner (disclaimer: that stuff's great, I use it myself), extra-soft kiddie facial cream (OK, I use that, too) and the pink cherry lip-balm (the only way I could get her to use some in winter on cracked, bleeding lips). See, I have good explenations why they have them. And so does the mother who adds a whole cosmetics store for a beauty pageant.
Peggy Orenstein doesn't have the perfect answer. Where draw the line? Was the pink lip-balm too much, setting her onto the path of objectification, making her think that how she looks, her performance are more important than how she feels and what she does?
But she raises your conscience. I'll think twice before buying any "kiddie-cosmetics" again.
She makes you think again. The only advice she can offer is to talk to your daughter, to talk about girls and women in media, about what exactly you dislike about those princesses***. There's a multi-billion dollar industry out there trying to teach your daughter some things, you're absolutely allowed to do so, too.
Having said all this, there's one thing I missed about her book and that was more a matter of style than content. I often had the impression that I was indeed reading a series of newspaper articles. Her red thread, the fact that all those things set out our girls early for a path of self-objectification, alienating them form their own feelings, bodies and sensations, is sometimes getting lost. She wraps it up from time to time, but in between she lost me reading highly entertaining passages about Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.
So, to sum it up, if you have a (grand)daughter or two especially in the toddler/tween age, go read her book. If you don't, it's still good read. If it doesn't do anything else, at least it will take away your feeling of being the only person on planet earth who hates Cinderella.
My own path? We try to be break up those gender-roles in our own life, although circumstances limit this somewhat. It's become paramount for Mr. to wear yellow, orange, purple T-shirts, the tool box is mummy's toy box and it's important to keep those up when the other one is around. My habit to get into the passenger's seat when Mr. is also at home out of laziness (isn't it nice that he can do the driving sometimes, I have to do it all week so, shared responsibilities it's his job now) made the little one believe that I was only allowed to drive the car when he wasn't around. Which wasn't what was going on in our minds, but in that of our daughter.
*Sigh*
More driving for me then.

P.S. What did I write about this morning? make-up for children? This afternoon they were given sparkly lipgloss. For a 2yo. Seriously. 


*Yes, that's Why men don't listen and women can't read maps.
The very bok that also told me that I am probably lesbian and my husband is gay. At least the ratio of people doing men vs people doing women in our relationship didn't change, so we decided to just stick with each other.
**No, he doesn't. It is one of our principles that there's nothing shamefull about the human body. I want them to know how men and women look, I want them to be comfortable with their bodies and bodies in general and I really, really don't want shame to stop them from telling me if one they the horrible thing of sexual assault should happen to them.
*** Not that easy either, as she notices. How do you explain your preschooler that you think that a doll is inappropriate for her age because she's way too sexualized to be some kind of model for her without explaining "sexualized" in the first place?

Rape, statistics, criteria and probability

Since this has come up again and again in discussions about Schrödinger's rapist, I thought I'd put together something about statistics and probabilities, which is something most people don't really understand.
Not that I was a mathematician or something, so, it's a layperson's explication for laypeople.
If I make factual errors please correct me.
The latest example of this is in The Crommunist's excellent post on Racism and Schrödinger's Rapist.
Here are the facts people can mostly agree on (I'm too lazy to link the sources right now. Ask me and I'll do so):

• Between 1 in 6 and 1 in 4 women are raped during their lifetime.
• They are alsmost exclusively raped by men (98%)
• Between 1 in 15 and 1 in 20 men are rapists.
• Most women are raped by someone they know, only about 3% of women are raped by a stranger.

Those are pretty scary statistics, but they look a lot better once you turn them around:

• 75-86% of women are never raped
• 93-95% of men are not rapists
• The stranger on the street is safer than the acquaintance who's giving you a ride home.

Therefore, people argue, it is unfair to contemplate the idea that a random stranger you meet at night in a dark area might be a rapist. The chances of being raped there and then are very small. It's also unfair to make this decision due to the sex of the person. After all, they also all have 2 eyes and I don't treat 2-eyed people as potential rapists.

There are several problems with this which I'll try to show.

1) Probability never hits the individual with 3%. Any risk/chance is calculated on a large number of data. When the actual event happens, there's only 1 or 0: you don't win the lottery 1:480.000.000. You either win it, or you don't. While it is a fact that the chances of winning the lottery are extremely small, people do indeed win the lottery.
Smaller example: When you throw a dice, the chance of rolling a 6 is 1 in 6. And the average number you roll is 3.5. The moment you throw it, the chances break down. The number is cast and you'll never roll a 3.5.

2) 3% isn't a small number. 5% isn't a small number. If you get that much interest, or have to pay it, you notice 3% quickly.
Walk along highstreet and count the women. Statiscally, number 6, 12, 18, 24 have been raped by somebody they know, number 30 by a stranger.
Count the men. Number 20 is a rapist (statistically. Don't do this with a group of people you know, it might drive you nuts). He has raped an average 6 times.
How many times can you repeat that exercise until you reach your office/the supermarket/etc?

3) Those numbers are people. The example above should have demonstrated that we're talking indeed about a lot of people. Above, we just assigned the value rape survivor / rapist by statistics. You have no clue who they actually are. Probably the first man you met was the rapist, maybe none in the first 20 was a rapist, but 16, 17 and 18 in the second set of 20. As long as there are no additional criteria/information, you cannot tell. And you ignore the peril at your own risk.

4) There are necessary conditions, sufficient conditions and red herrings.
The fact that all rapists have (more or less) two eyes is not in any way corelated with rape. It's a logical conclusion of them being humans. As a criterium to distinguish between potential rapists and harmless people, it's absolutely useless, since I cannot eliminate anybody by that.
If I want to be aware of poisonous snakes and be able to tell them from harmless snakes, "no legs" is a useless criterium.
Other criteria make more sense. The fact that most rapists are men is more usefull*. Now, as people rightly pointed out, viewing all men as potential rapists doesn't make much sense either, not any more than all grey snakes when, although all poisonous snakes were grey, only 5% of grey snakes are poisonous. But, honestly, which snake would you be more wary of if you found it on your terrace, the grey one or the green one?
So we add more criteria. Is he trying to isolate me? Is he getting uncomfortably close in a lone area? Does he follow me into confined spaces? Now, none of those criteria necessarily mean rapist. There are perfectly non-rapy reasons for doing so, maybe he doesn't notice that he's isolating me, or he really just wants to be helpfull and make sure that I get home safely. Maybe he's just heading home. Maybe he just confused the doors because he's a bit drunk himself.
Fact is, although those behaviours might be harmless, they are also the exact same behaviours a rapist would show. Those are, so to speak, necessary conditions for a rapist. But they are not sufficient conditions. The sufficient condition is the rape. That's when you cast the die and if it comes down as a six you're raped. So, is it reasonable to wait until that moment, or should you avoid rolling the die?
Maybe this grey, 2m long snake with the checkered pattern is completely harmless and just mimicking the looks of the poisonous 2m checkered grey snake, but since you can't tell until you're attacked, is it reasonable to be carefull with all 2m checkered grey snakes?


*What did I just say about numbers? 4 in 1000 women are raped by women. But I'm lacking data about how many women are raped by strange women. I don't think the numbers are the same, but just for the sake of the argument, let's use the same numbers as for men:
15% strangers: 6 in 10.000 women are raped by a strange woman.
Each rapist rapes about 4 new victims (they rape 6 times, the difference is due to women being victimized more than once), so 1 in 1000 women you meet is a rapist.

5) Schrödinger's anybody
In our daily lives, we engage in a lot of Schrödingers'.
-If you drive a car, you engage in Schrödinger's reckless driver. You monitor those around you for potential mistakes and outright violations. If you have right of way and a car approaches, you assess the situation, you watch it the other driver slows down to yield or not.
Does that mean you accuse the other driver unfairly of being an incompetent idiot who can't drive?

-If you engage in casual sex, you find it reasonable to use a condom for protection. Does that mean that you unfairly accuse the other person of having an STD?

-If you shield the panel while at the ATM, do you unfairly accuse the person behind you of being a criminal?

-If you don't open your door for a stranger while alone at home, are you unfairly accusing the other person of being a burglar?

If your answer is no to all the above, why are you upset at women being wary around strange men in a dark car-park.

Boy or girl?

,

If you know me, you probably know the answer.
If you don't, so what?
Please, don't pressure the kids into some stereotypeor other.

Take the above as a picture of a kid.

The rational debate

Well, people engaging in the ongoing debate about sexism in atheist/skeptic communities have been throughly chastized by D.J. Grothe from the JREF:

I think as skeptics, it behooves us to be a bit more generous with others in disagreement, to be slower to vilify, and to engage in less scorched-earthing. I know it may be good for blog hits, but it is bad for skepticism and in my view, is antithetical to our values.

He also thinks that we are too much engaging in groupthink:

And I do believe that much atheist and skeptic blogging engages in far too much in-group/out-group categorizing, us vs. them thinking.

Basically, both sides are equally bad and should just stop. We also have to be nice to people who threaten women with violence that women calling them out are unfair.

So, let's see how actually both sides are equally bad and what the people engaged on the other side are actually making as arguments:

Note: This is intended to be an ongoing collection for handy reference. Please post your examples as comments with attribution.

Tube Worm on the CFI blog #166

It’s nice to see Watson, Myers, and their legions upon legions of  fem-zombies continuing their project to hijack the skeptical movement to push their radical leftist political agenda. Over the last year I’ve seen this movement devolve into a PC-whitewash fest in which dissenters are tarred and feathered as “sexists” and “mysoginists, vitriole has come to replace reasoned debate, and fuzzy PoMo critical-theory reasoning has become a stand-in for science and evidence. If this keeps on, the skeptical movement will have to abandon science altogether, lest we offend anyone with “sexed” equations like E=mc^2, which clearly “privileges” (*vomit*) light over energy.

And that's not the end of it.
Here's his characterization of the whole  debate (#175):

Hi David,
Welcome to the Skeptical Movement’s version of the Cultural Revolution!
I’m not sure what happened, but at some point over the  previous year, skepticism suddenly lost interest in science and critical thinking and suddenly began to resemble a freshman sociology class at a third-tier liberal arts college.  Skeptical discussion became less of a reasoned debate about facts and evidence and more about upholding a far-left PC worldview and purging and ostracizing those who don’t toe the line. As in certain religious movements and cults, those who poke the new Sacred Cows (I.e deviating from the party line on issues of gender, sexuality, and leftist politics in general) become victims of online lynch mobs and character assassination—not unlike the way the Athiest Movement attempted to silence atheists who were opposed to a militant approach to discussion with people of faith.
 At the heart of the shitstorm are certain personalities of questionable motives who are jockeying for leadership, control of the agenda and discourse, and who are attempting to purge the “old guard.” As usual, politics ruins everything and like you, I have lost all interest in participating or contributing to this movement. 

If he could just do as he says...

Liam is very disappointed with us:

Wow, reading the reactions have left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve always considered myself pro-feminist. But looking at the hysterical reactions in these blogs, the attempted character assassination, the extremely disappointing personal attacks in the blog post. And the extremely low level of discourse on a subject that really needs a rational consideration rather than succumbing to the heat of emotion that such subjects as these make it easy to fall into.
But it does seem that such a touchy and important subject like this in this self proclaimed skeptical community are not immune to these horrible non arguments and character attacks by community spokespeople and rank and file alike.
If these are the sort of tools we use in womens advocacy, then count me out.

 Wilt informs us that it's all Rebecca's fault:

Professional victim and blaming 50% of the population is not fair. Plus, it’s now “not my opinion, STFU”.
Rebecca has hurt more people. And turned off more women, that don’t want to associated or represented by the skepchicks, mainly Rebecca Watson. The quality of the posts and posters at Skepchick reflects this change. Yes, women need to be represented more and respected more. But not lectured and nagged… instead included and brought into the discussion.

 He also informs us that (comment #4):

Rebecca lives for the imagined sexist slant from anyone on her “hit list”.  She can’t NOT keep looking for it.  She can’t deal with it in a creative responsible way.  She deals with the slights to women the way the CHURCH deals with slights to their theology.  With GUILT and finger pointing.  Ben, has crossed the Rebeca line, and must pay.  I don’t know where she went to church but she learned her lessons well. 

 And Ben Radford explicitly demands a rational and respectful discussion like this:

...and it's clear Rebecca enjoys being outraged at various things. It's often the case that outrage and insults substitute for truth and accuracy; it's easier to call someone stupid than it is to engage them respectfully.

 Collection ongoing...

Misronen, outraged that somebody could like Rebecca Watson better than Rick Gervais beats the straw rapist:
After being asked by janine: whether

“Is it because I do not have a problem with a rad-fem like Rebecca Watson. (Does that make me a rad-fem?)”

the badly prosecuted misronen asnwers:

I honestly don’t know. Does the fact that I do make me a potential rapist / a rape apologist / full-fledged rapist (apparently on the loose)? I don’t know that either. Maybe I’m just confused.

 Huskvarna gets all upset because the readers of Blaghag gave Rebecca Watson an award. How could they, she did something stupid on the internet 3 years ago!

Here’s a critique for you:
Rebecca accidentally got moderator privileges on JREF following the rescindment of a suspension. She then immediately abused those privileges by banning a bunch of people she didn’t like, then got permabanned by the JREF staff who understandably didn’t want Comrade Commissar Watson running around deciding what opinions people are allowed to have:

 I'm not sure if Emil Karlson isn't a Poe:

It is sad to see that Heina has sunken to the level of pseudoskepticism by primarily using anecdotes in the justification that sexism is a significant problem in the skeptic community.
Just as we reject anecdotes when it comes to claimed “alternative” cures of cancer or the efficacy of psychics, so too must we reject anecdotes when it comes to this subject.
Your initial attitude may be one of disbelief, objecting to this “dismissal of women’s experiences”, but you must understand that we do this without any problems whatsoever in other areas. To be consistent skeptics, we must apply the same rational criticisms to our favorite positions. We cannot shield them from criticism just because they are dear to us.
Anecdotes are not scientific evidence as there is no independent confirmation of the truth of these anecdotes (some are labeled as “anonymous” so they could, hypothetically, have been made up on the spot), and it is not necessarily the case that these anecdotes are representative of the experience of women in the skeptic community overall.
Another shameful entry from people who know better.
A recommendation for the future is to discuss the actual scientific literature on the topic of sexism (using it to support and strengthen your positions), while making sure not to draw conclusions not warranted by the evidence and _only then_ talk about future prospects and directions (e. g. suggesting partial, evidence-based solutions).
That will be a much more persuasive strategy and will leave critics with no where to go.

SkepticAtheist is also very, very disappointed with us:

Freefromthoughts’ blogs never ceases to amaze me. This baboon board has hit a new low. Now there’s even more blogging about problems which Greta created, which her and her minions fueled, with no mention of their attacks on Ryan, how they goaded him, misquoted him, used him as their scapegoat to vent their hostility, and with no mention that Ryan sarcastically posted on his own wall [in his screenshots] about the attacks made against him.

 And then there's Ryan himself.
He became part of the debate when he posted this on Facebook (link goes to Greta Christina):

Fuck you Greta. You’re the troll. You posted for the sole reason of trying to bait a sexist into writing something threatening. You didn’t find one, but I dared to disagree with you, so you and your brainless followers thought ‘eh, fuck it, close enough. We’ll attack him instead.’ You’ve been capitalizing on this for months and perpetuating vicious stereotypes about both men and women, under the guise of ‘feminism’. I used to think you had something to contribute. Now I see you’re just a pathetic attention seeker who isn’t interested in anything other than stirring up shit.

 His excuse? Women made him do so!

I encountered the same hostile insults on Greta’s wall, and you’re actually wondering why I lost my temper? Figure it out

You can be what you want in your dreams, except a woman

I've been reading and thinking about gender and transgender a lot, lately (I'm sure I don't have to tell you that Skepchick has launched a sister-site called Queerika. What's a straight cis woman like me doing there? Well, shutting up and listening. Learning. I feel privileged to be able to do so.)
And so it came that a little remark made by a friend lately got me all going.
My kids love playing make-believe. We spend half the days as characters from their favourite books/ movies or animals. So, lately we were playing Winnie-the-Pooh and my oldest daughter handed out the roles. She was Tigger, her sister was Roo, I was Rabbit and then she told her dad that he was Mummy Heffalump.
To which she was chastized by a well-meaning, but absolutely clueless friend that "oh, but your dad can't be Mummy Heffalump, he's a boy, not a girl!".
Thankfully, my husband glossed over the awkward moment by saying that he'd love to be Mummy Heffalump, because he loves Heffalumps and because she's so strong .
BUt there were two things about our friend's remark thst struck me:
First, she never said a thing when the three women in the room turned into male characters*.
Secondly, it was absolutely possible that the dad got turned into a purple, giant, elephant-like creature that can tear up whole trees. It was not possible that he got turned into a woman.
Because that's truely unheard of.

*Most series don't even come with three female characters we could use

What does it matter to you?

I've been reading some of Natalie's fantastic articles on gender, transgender and privilege on Skepchick lately, and I've been wondering: Why do people care so much?
I don't mean on a personal, intimate, concrete level. I admit that I don't know what would happen if my husband came out as transgender, but somehow I doubt that I need to worry much about this possibility. And as a straight, cisgender, married woman, the whole business is pretty far removed from my personal life.
That's what makes me wonder:
Why do other people care so much? Even people who are not bigots, who consider themselves to be allies.
Why?
Why do people feel entitled to give a different asnwer to the question "Is somebody male/female " than the actual person it concerns?
I have no answer. Do you?

What would you tell your daughter?

In the recent shitstorm that came to be known as "Elevatorgate" (I surely don't need to put links here, you all know where to go), a lot of the arguments mostly men made went along the line of "for all we know he was perfectly benevolent. He accepted no as an answer. It's sexist to assume that just because he was a guy he wanted to rape her".
Well, apart from the fact that neither of us can know what would have happened in the room had Rebecca Watson accepted his proposition, I think you're getting this the wrong way.
You sympathise with the Elevator Guy (and after being dragged all over the internet I sure do, too), you identify with him.
After all you're a good guy. You'd never hurt a woman, you'd never drug her drink, you'd always accept her no. Therefore a woman would be perfectly safe with you in an elevator at 4 am, in a dark alley, in a hotel room.
Therefore you think it's totally ok for you to make such a proposition.
Therefore you're offended at the suggestion that she might think you to be anything else than a great good guy after you worked hard on becoming one. It's an allegation you take serious. I understand you, believe me I do*.
The problem is: we don't know you. We don't know all those wonderful things about you. We don't know that we'd be perfectly safe with you.
So let's try and shift the perspective a little.
Let's say the woman isn't Rebecca Watson or any other woman you might find interesting and want to get to know better. Let's say the woman is your 18 year old daughter who comes to you for advice.
The guy in question isn't you for whom you can vouchsafe, but a stranger of whom you have no more information than we do about EG.
Now, would you tell your daughter to accept the proposition or would you tell her to stay away because accepting might bring her into danger?
If your reaction would be the latter, you have reached the exact same conclusion you were offended by before.
If you wouldn't want your daughter to accept a proposition from a man she has no more information about than a woman has about you, don't make it.


*I'm German. I'm an anti-fascist, I come from a family who suffered greatly under Hitler. I work hard to fight racists and (neo-)fascists. Still, usually when being abroad, some people will treat me with caution, with a certain amount of dislike by default for my nationality. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it offends. But I understand why they do so. And I try to make them see that I really am one of the nice Germans.